"The enemy is coming, everyone prepare."

"Is the machine gun crew ready?"

In the newly captured position on Plum Hill, an Italian officer was directing his soldiers to hurry up and prepare to hold their positions.

Li Zi Mountain is located in the northwest of Rongcheng County, although this mountain is only three or four hundred meters high, but it is a commanding height, as long as you occupy this mountain, you can rely on the terrain to form a sufficient threat to the county seat three or four thousand meters away.

When the time comes, not to mention other artillery, even the 75-mm mountain artillery of the Guards Division will be able to reach the county seat.

That's right, the Japanese troops who landed in Shandong have all retreated in Rongcheng County and its surroundings. Although this was also a place of death, in order to delay the footsteps of the Italian army and buy time for the Japanese troops on the Liaodong Peninsula and Korea, its commander, Major General Izawa Hachiro, gave a death order, requiring every Japanese soldier to fight to the last man. (In order to prevent the capture of high-ranking officers from shaking the morale of the army, high-ranking officers such as Yama Aritomo and Yamachi Motoji have been picked up in a dark night.) ）

Of course, this order was carried out very well at first, because the Japanese concealed the news of the naval defeat. Qinglong Bay was shelled, and it was said that the Italian fleet took advantage of the combined fleet's absence to sneak attack.

Therefore, the resistance of the Japanese army was very strong, even if the Italian artillery washed the floor, the remaining Japanese troops were very combative. However, after the artillery was suppressed, the Japanese could only rely on the Murata rifles in their hands to counter the offensive of the Italian soldiers. However, the Japanese army's Murata rifle has a very slow rate of fire, and its main armament, the Murata 13 and Murata 22, are both single-shot rifles, firing one bullet, and its latest Murata 22 magazine rifle is scarce in number and is not used at all.

As for the small number of Gatling six-barreled machine guns, they were too bulky and could easily attract Italian artillery attacks, making them perform poorly on the battlefield.

Moreover, the Gatling gun needs to be fired by hand, and there are too many shortcomings, compared with the Maxim of the Italian army, it is completely a gap of two generations.

So after being taken care of, the role of the Gatling gun in defense is not too obvious.

The influence of these various factors is also the main reason why the Japanese positions were broken through one after another.

In view of the fact that the Lizishan position was an important commanding height of the Japanese army, it was reasonable to attract a Japanese counterattack after it was captured by the Italian army.

A large group of Japanese troops launched a counter-offensive against Italian artillery fire.

"Fire!"

The officers of the defensive position, as soon as the Japanese entered a distance of four hundred meters, gave the order to open fire.

Following the officer's order, the soldiers on the position immediately pulled the trigger on the charging enemy with the weapons in their hands.

The crisp sound of the Carcano rifle sounded densely in the position, and the Japanese soldiers in the distance kept showing pictures of being knocked down. Of course, in defensive battles, the absolute protagonists are a few Maxim machine guns on the position.

As an absolute killing weapon, the performance of the Maxim machine gun in defensive warfare is unmatched. The continuous shooting was to sweep away the charging Japanese troops.

Rear Admiral Hachiro Izawa, who was watching the battle from a distance, breathed fire in his eyes.

"Yaga, the enemy's firepower is so strong, why does Honda Nakasa rush so hard, isn't this a waste of soldiers' lives."

Major General Izawa completely forgot about the appearance of his strict order to retake his position, and instead cared about the lives of his soldiers.

There was no way, when Yamaguchi Aritomo and Lieutenant General Yamachi Genji left, he was strictly ordered to defend as long as possible, and it was best to hold it for a month, leaving enough time for the Japanese troops elsewhere. Of course, if you can't do it, then half a month is acceptable.

Since Major General Izawa stayed, he naturally had the determination to die, so he basically adopted the method of defending to the death, after all, defense always has an advantage over offense.

Of course, he is not always defensive, for example, at key points, he also has reinforcements or counterattacks ready.

Honda Nakasa, as the commander of the unit to reinforce Li Zishan, was delayed by the enemy's artillery fire and delayed the reinforcements, so that Li Zishan was captured by the enemy, then he had an unshirkable responsibility, and it was understandable to let him recapture Li Zishan.

It's just that the firepower of the Italian troops who captured Li Zishan was too fierce, so that the Honda brigade could only be defeated.

In fact, the Japanese army itself knew that the Murata rifle in the hands of its own soldiers and the other side's Carcano rifle had formed a generation gap, and how could a single-loaded, single-shot rifle compare firepower with the opponent's magazine rifle.

But now it's too late to change it, so the soldiers can only grit their teeth and insist.

The Italians, on the other hand, did not give the Japanese a chance to hold out at all, and after repelling the Japanese attack, the Italian troops immediately dragged the artillery up the hill.

In the next two days, with the advantage of occupying the commanding heights, the Italian army successively took Dongzhao Mountain, Yujia Mountain, Yatouhe and other places, and semi-surrounded the Japanese army in Shandong in Rongcheng County.

Of course, the Japanese army has not stopped resisting in the past two days, and the Japanese army, which felt that it was about to be destroyed, went out one after another to stop the behavior of the coalition forces, but in the case that the weapons were not superior, the personnel were not superior, and the geography was not superior, it was difficult for the Japanese army to take advantage, and basically suffered most losses.

Seeing that the Yiqing coalition army was pushing the Japanese army into a desperate situation step by step, the morale of the Japanese army itself was also declining, and deserters had already appeared among its Japanese officers and soldiers.

This made Major General Pulev very satisfied, and it also made the Qing army overjoyed, and some people even acted without authorization to take the lead to show their talents. However, it is clear that some people thought too much, and the Japanese position was still solid, for which it lost thousands of soldiers.

This caused Pulev to be furious and demanded an explanation from the Qing army. In fact, there is no need for Plev to be angry, the Qing army itself is annoyed. This kind of blind guy, do you want to continue to keep it for bad things?

So he wanted to show his head but did it, under the pressure of Zhou Fu and Zhou Bu's political envoys, Ding Ruchang summoned everyone to sacrifice the head of a certain blind guy to the flag, this kind of guy who has not achieved enough things and has more than enough failures, dares to come to bad Li Zhongtang's affairs, regardless of who is standing in the background.

In the farcical dispute of the Qing army, the general attack on Rongcheng County began three days later.

This time, Major General Pulev waved his hand, and the two consecutive days of shelling honed the skills of the Italian artillery officers and men more proficiently, and the faces of the Japanese soldiers and Zhou Daren turned white.

The 30,000 shells raised by Lord Zhou were all in this shelling, but the effect was very good, the positions outside Rongcheng County were scorched, and the buildings in the city were basically destroyed.

Not to mention the city wall, it is a key target.

According to later statistics, in this shelling, the Japanese suffered nearly 2,000 casualties, and those who were not injured also suffered a great mental blow. In addition, the loss of weapons is even more staggering, with only 13 of its 47 cannons remaining usable, and 3 of the 11 Gatling hand-cranked machine guns. Then there is the loss of ammunition and other materials is also expensive, after all, this kind of indiscriminate attack of wealth and wealth is the first time that the Japanese army has seen it, and there is no defense.

Since the Japanese army was knocked out of spirit in the shelling, what are you waiting for, Major General Pulev finally let the Qing army attack this time. The Italian army was responsible for the main attack in the west, and the north and south sides were handed over to the Qing army (not far from the sea to the east).

This time there was no mistake, and it only took two days for the west of the Italian main attack to capture the city wall, and then the Qing troops on both sides also captured the city wall with the help of the Italian army.

At this time, in accordance with European practice, Major General Pulev sent an emissary demanding the surrender of the Japanese army. After all, it has now been shown that the surviving Japanese troops have fallen into the dead and there is no possibility of escape.

However, in the face of Pulev's persuasion, Major General Duan Ran refused.

Since the enemy insisted, there was nothing to say, and two more days of fighting followed, and the Japanese troops entrenched in Rongcheng County were completely wiped out.

At this point, the Japanese troops that landed in Shandong have been eliminated in formation, and there may be a few who escaped by chance, but they can no longer pose a threat.

In this battle, Italy lost 581 killed, 987 wounded, lost 17 artillery pieces and more than 50,000 shells, annihilated 14,200 Japanese troops, captured 5 artillery pieces, more than 2,900 guns, and captured more than 6,000 Japanese soldiers.

Of course, there is also the credit of the Qing army, which was not responsible for transporting supplies, detecting the enemy, and protecting the flanks, and other tasks, the Italian army would not have been able to achieve such a smooth victory.

But no matter what, this heavy battle report can somewhat relieve Li Zhongtang's pressure, of course, this is without looking at the consumption of ammunition.