Gastens watched the fight unfold and clenched his fists slightly. So far, the battle has been going well. The enemy was powerless in the face of a sudden burst of fire. The army guarding the steam cannons was quickly crushed, and their own soldiers were destroying the enemy's steam cannons one by one. If this trend continues, as long as the troops of Berranchel and Ivan complete the task of destroying the enemy's steam artillery and take advantage of their own mobility to withdraw from the engagement, today's operation will be considered a complete victory.

How will the enemy respond?

Gastens looked at the enemy who had realized what he was doing, and was making a detour from the outside, trying to outflank them, estimating the time it would take for them to arrive and block the gap they had opened, gauging the situation on the battlefield for his teammates.

For the first time, Elena's guerrillas had penetrated so deep into the enemy's army. In the past, guerrilla tactics were to hit and go, and rarely pierced the enemy's body as deeply as a long knife. If the enemy realizes the intention of encirclement, your own soldiers may have some trouble. However, judging from the current situation, it should not be a big problem.

Gastens visualized the enemy's movement and determined that his soldiers should have time to evacuate. After that, he began to observe the enemy ranks more carefully. The soldiers from the Republic of Negru wore blue uniforms, most of them armoured, and were still armed with Welsh II rifles, which were not fundamentally different from the enemies he had fought a year earlier. Because of the use of breech guns, when they encountered a surprise attack, they did not quickly enter the combat state, and were inserted into the Chinese army by their own troops in one fell swoop. However, as the battle dragged on, Gastens could see that the soldiers who had not been frontally affected by their own charge were beginning to line up, armor, and attempt to attack their own soldiers. Although their own soldiers returned fire fiercely, and destroyed several organized resistance of the enemy almost instantly, they were inevitably casualties. After all, in such a deep position inside the enemy's army, the range advantage of your own side has been greatly reduced, and the rifles used by the enemy, although backward, can still hit Elena's soldiers.

From the point of view of Gastens, it is not very good to see the progress of destroying the enemy's steam artillery. However, the cylinders and cylinders of the steam cannons were still very conspicuous in his field of vision, and as long as he continued to observe with a telescope, he could still see the results of his own soldiers.

"Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two......"

Because there is no gunpowder, the only way to destroy these steam cannons is to use the activated metallurgical pyroxene. It takes a certain amount of time for metallurgical pyroxene to be activated to release enough heat to destroy the cylinders of the steam cannon. During this time, Elena's soldiers had to defend the steam cannons that were thrown into metallurgical pyroxene to prevent the enemy from sending men to clear the metallurgical pyroxene. The enemy seemed to know what it meant to lose the steam cannon, and they frantically attacked the Elena soldiers who were guarding the steam cannon, even if they suffered heavy casualties, and took out the metallurgical pyroxene thrown into the cylinder. Although their efforts were mostly in vain, many of Elena's soldiers were wounded and killed by the enemy's frenzied attacks.

"Head, isn't it time to withdraw?" Kurt Warren whispered a proposal as he counted. He was a veteran brought out of the Sixth Legion by Gastens and had previously followed Ivan to protect Gastens to safety, and later Ivan became commander of the armed forces and handed over Gastens Guard's guard to Kurt. The lad was a fervent Gastens believer, and he believed in Gastens more than Communism. Both Ivan and Gastens felt that he should be able to do a good job as captain of the guard.

"How many?" , Gastens looked at the ranks of the enemy that had begun to gather from both sides, and was a little worried.

"Thirty-two, more than half," Kurt kept counting the number of steam cannons he had destroyed. According to the intelligence, the enemy can now use about sixty steam cannons, and if half of them are destroyed, the pressure on Elena's defense will be much lighter.

Just as Kurt and Gastens were discussing the timing of the retreat. The enemy, who was converging from both sides of the marching procession, suddenly increased his speed. As they retracted, they surrounded it diagonally inward, and the intention to cut off the back of Bellancheer and Ivan was very obvious.

"Blow the trumpet, I always feel a little risky. Although we have advanced weapons, it is still difficult to surround the enemy. ”

Gastens weighed it and felt that today's attack had achieved some results. The remaining two dozen or so steam cannons, even if they remain, will have limited deterrence against their own side. After all, trench tactics were born to deal with the roaring artillery on the battlefield. It is theoretically no problem to deal with the steam cannon that does not even have flowering shells here.

The trumpet sounded to indicate retreat, and a special bass horn could carry the sound far away. Ivan and Berranchier, who were fighting in the enemy's formations and destroying the steam cannon, heard the trumpet at the same time. The two hesitated, observed the situation, and made a decision in unison.

Keep fighting, destroy all the steam cannons, and then evacuate.

They had a basis for making this decision, the enemy's troops guarding the steam cannons had been destroyed by them, and the remaining twenty or so steam cannons were left undefended, standing in place like naked girls waiting for their luck. They just need to destroy the sporadic resistance of the enemy, throw metallurgical pyroxene into it, and leave, and that's it.

"Quick, throw the pyroxene in, and we'll get out !!!"

Berrancier ordered the machine-gun team of the team to turn their guns and prepare for a breakthrough. The team responsible for destroying the steam cannon is still desperately repeating the process of opening the cylinder, throwing in metallurgical pyroxene, closing the cylinder, and finding the next steam cannon. And behind them, the gap that was torn open when they rushed in before, I don't know when, was already gradually closing.

"Why haven't they withdrawn?"

Gastens was a little anxious, the enemy closed the encirclement a little faster than he expected, and in the face of such a strong and unstoppable attack, the enemy did not even show much panic, except for a little panic at the beginning of the attack, the enemy showed a calmer response than he expected.

"They definitely wanted to completely destroy the enemy's steam artillery."

Kurt guessed what Ivan and Berranchir were thinking, and Gastens was in line with him. However, judging by the speed of the enemy's response, there is not much time left for Ivan and Berlanchir.

"Report to the brigade commander, the enemy's encirclement is about to close!"

"Report to the brigade commander, we are about to be surrounded by the enemy!"

Ivan and Berlanchir's heralds reported the same information almost simultaneously. The two brigade commanders once again inquired about the progress of the soldiers in destroying the steam cannons, and found that there were less than ten steam cannons left for the Negru Republic, so they decisively gave the order to retreat. Their orders were given through the sound of flags and drums, and soon reached the ears of every soldier.

From Gastens's point of view, the two teams of his own team, which had already joined forces in the enemy's middle army, began to break through after destroying the last of the enemy's steam cannons and stopping for a while. Perhaps it was a tacit understanding, or perhaps it was a matter of intimacy, Belencil and Ivan did not leave from both directions as they did when they entered, but instead chose the south side of the team, which is where Gastens was located, and began to break through. With Berlanch's army in front and Ivan's army behind, the soldiers marched forward with their rifles, firing and beginning to roar at the enemy, who had basically formed an encirclement.

On the enemy's side, the Negro soldiers, who surrounded the production brigade and the combat brigade, were basically dressed in improvised armor. Maintaining a hastily formed gun formation, they began to fire at Elena's troops. Elena's troops, on the other hand, strictly followed Gastens's instructions and adopted the skirmish line of combat, kneeling or lying on their stomachs, raising their guns to counterattack.

Because Welsh rifles are smoothbore guns with limited accuracy, shots from a single rifle have a limited impact on Elena's soldiers. But the bullets fired by the soldiers in a volley of guns were also taking a toll on Elena's troops. Although the Thundering Type 1 and Luoshan Type 1 in the hands of the soldiers continued to roar, inflicting a lot of casualties on the enemy, more enemies were like sand, constantly squeezing the living space of Elena's team from both wings. From Gastens' point of view, his own soldiers were like bubbles surrounded by water, moving towards the edge as they grew smaller.

"How's it going, sir? Can you come out? ”

Kurt also felt a faint sense of unease. The enemy was too calm, whether it was in the face of their own surprise attack, or in the face of the reality of the destruction of the steam cannon, or in the face of the indiscriminate bombardment of advanced firepower, they did not panic too much. Although the casualties far exceeded their own, the enemy's soldiers were still arrayed, shot, and destroyed according to the instructions of the air whistle.

"We have too little space to move around, it's not good," Gastens frowned, "Skirmish tactics require a certain amount of space, and this kind of dense breakout is not suitable. Blow the trumpet again and tell them to come out as soon as possible. ”

When they heard the trumpet, Ivan and Bellanchier were also scolding their mothers. After the two teams met, they merged the command organs by the way. They also found the enemy's unusual composure. You know, in the face of such huge casualties, the average army would have collapsed long ago.

"The head said let's evacuate as quickly as possible."

Ivan listened for a moment, and understood what Gastens meant. He looked at Bellanchil and waited for his decision.

"Retreat, retreat, the enemy's encirclement is improvised, it shouldn't be too thick, let's rush!"

The order to charge was given, and Elena's team began to charge. At the same time, the Negru soldiers who surrounded them also launched an assault. Many of them even threw away the steam backpacks on their backs and began to charge with long knives held high. Because the distance between the two troops was deliberately compressed before, these soldiers who launched a hand-to-hand charge could slash the long knives in their hands on the body of Elena soldiers as long as they crossed a distance of less than two hundred meters. At this point, Elena's soldiers, after pouring all the bullets in their hands on the enemy, had to retreat, allowing the machine guns behind them to take over the task of sniping the enemy's advance.

"Oh no, it's a planned ambush!"

It wasn't until he saw the soldiers on the flanks and rear of the enemy encirclement begin to charge, that Gastens finally found the reason for his insidiousness. Today's ambush, it seems, every step has entered the enemy's script, the smooth advance of the attack, the enemy's retreat when destroying the steam artillery, and now the establishment of this encirclement, all mean that the enemy anticipated this attack on his side.

"What then?!"

Hearing Gastens say that it was an enemy ambush, Kurt was a little nervous. Elena has put the most powerful force in her hands in this battle, and if anything goes wrong, it can even be said to be a catastrophe for this base area with a small foundation.

"Forced breakthrough, that's the only way!"

What Gastens can think of, so can Berranchel and Ivan. However, the enemy, on the outer side of the weakest part of the encirclement, also took corresponding countermeasures. At some point, a large number of carriages equipped with steel plates were parked on the outside of the encirclement, right in front of the breakthrough of Elena's troops.

"How do they even know this?!"

The armored plate car was a tactic invented by Eliot to deal with Berranchel's guerrilla harassment, and although it still could not completely stop Berranchel's guerrilla tactics, it could also add trouble to Berranchel. Gastens had heard Bellanchier talk about Eliot's tactics, but he didn't expect to see them here.

"Is this Elliot's tactic?" Kurt had also heard of this tactic, and he was equally surprised by the well-informed Neglo Republic. The young captain of the guard looked at his leader with a slight helplessness in his eyes.

"Head, what should I do?"

"Wait, notify the guards to get ready to respond."

There were still a thousand more soldiers available to Gastens in his hands. This was given to him by Ivanse before he set out, saying that he wanted to ensure his safety. Gastens thought about it for a moment and didn't refuse. Now, if the breakthrough of their own soldiers is blocked, then these thousand people will become the last mobile force in Elena's hands.

"Our weapons are so powerful, even if the enemy doesn't want to die, he can't stop us, right?"

Kurt was still muttering to himself, but Gastens was already nervous. If he was not wrong, after such a long battle, the fatal shortcoming of his own weapons was being revealed.

How long can the ammunition of Ivan and Berlanchir last?