In the following days, soldiers continued to gather in the Somme theater from all directions, and tens of thousands of British troops were gathered in a small area where Zhou Yu and his team were located.

Moreover, according to the information he heard, the French army also deployed 14 divisions on the right side of the Somme theater, which was a decisive word.

The Chinese workers of Task Force C13 were ordered to continue digging forward after finally digging a new trench.

The commander here wanted to use the criss-crossed trenches to advance into the enemy's hinterland, at least one meter shortened.

"Brother Zhou, this cannon has been fought for so many days, and so many people have come, this battle should be over soon, right?"

Lu Xiucai put down the shovel and looked at the enemy position in the distance, feeling that no one there should be survivors.

Zhou Yu sighed, and said with a gloomy face: "This kind of shelling seems to be earth-shattering, but in fact, the distribution is too evenly distributed, and the firepower is too scattered...... Even the attack was not focused, and most of the shells just turned over the dirt.

Everyone should have an idea with you by now, but they will soon be slapped in the face by reality...... Believe me, the real battle has not yet begun. ”

"A real battle?"

Lu Xiucai looked at the enemy position in confusion, and really couldn't imagine what kind of battle would happen under such an overwhelming artillery attack.

After the daytime trench digging was over, the Chinese laborers were re-herded into damp caves and were not allowed to go out.

However, this is exactly what Zhou Yu wants, he can teach his companions life-saving experience without being disturbed.

"Do you all remember? When encountering the enemy's artillery fire or heavy firepower, look at my gestures and hide and avoid it as soon as possible. Remember, there are trenches and craters that are preferred, and you really can't find cover to crawl in place. ”

Zhou Yu drew some simple images on the wall in the faint light of the oil lamp, teaching everyone some simple gestures and how to avoid the enemy's shelling.

"Mr. Zhou, why can't you lie on the ground as soon as the cannon comes? Wouldn't that be the safest? ”

Liu Banxian raised his hand to speak and asked everyone's doubts.

Zhou Yu had long known that they would ask this, so he said unhurriedly at the moment:

"It's actually a misconception to fall down at the first time in the face of shelling, you must know that when a shell explodes, it will produce a huge shock wave, and if it is a salvo, the impact will be even greater.

When the earth trembles, if there are still soldiers lying close to the ground, it is easy to be shocked by the shock wave and hurt the internal organs of the body, and in serious cases, the internal organs may be directly shattered. With our current medical conditions, the death penalty can basically be pronounced.

So if the enemy shells are coming, we try to find cover as much as possible, and if we can't find it, we can lie down, but remember not to stick to the ground to avoid impact damage, and to protect our heads with our hands. ”

"Oh~~"

Zhou Yu wrote and painted on the wall while explaining, so that the workers could intuitively understand what he wanted to express.

"Mr. Zhou, when will you teach us how to shoot?"

Mu Dezhu excitedly raised his hand to ask questions, but in exchange for Zhou Yu's wry smile.

He himself had never touched a real gun until now, and the British would never give them a firearm, so there was really no way to answer the question.

"I'll teach you this question when I have the chance, but not now. In any case, we don't have to face the enemy directly, just dig the trenches for now. ”

"Oh......"

Slightly disappointed, Mudzhu simply put his arms under his head and dozed off.

Zhou Yu found that after crossing over, he not only reacted faster, but also had a very clear memory, and the content of the books he read a long time ago could be clearly reflected, I don't know if this is the benefit of the traverser?

After finishing today's survival lesson, seeing that everyone was tired, Zhou Yu waved his hand to signal to turn off the lights and go to sleep.

He silently calculated the time, the British shelling should stop tomorrow, the hellish battle of the Somme was about to begin, and they had to get enough sleep to meet the coming human tragedy.

The Anglo-French bombardment had been going on for six days, and the workers had gone from being frightened and sleepless all night to becoming accustomed to it.

Especially Mu Tiezhu, this guy can fall asleep anytime and anywhere, and those overwhelming cannon sounds seem to have become his lullaby.

I don't know how long it took, but the earth-shattering snoring of the Mudzhu suddenly stopped, and he sat up from the Chase bunk.

Although his eyes were still a little confused, he scratched his head in a daze, and there was something wrong with the magic trick.

Soon, more and more laborers woke up from their beds, and everyone looked at each other in confusion and at the same time noticed the change in atmosphere.

At that moment, Williams, who was in charge of Task Force C13, rushed into the cave with an oil lamp, shouting and waving the rattan in his right hand.

"Get up, you pigs! The general assault is about to begin, and we have to follow behind the army to repair the trenches and transport the wounded! Hurry up, I'll give you a minute to assemble outside the cave, and those who arrive late will be dealt with by military law! ”

Zhou Yu, who had already opened his eyes, sighed softly in his heart, he knew that the reason why everyone woke up at the same time and noticed that something was missing was that the sound of --- shelling stopped.

"Hurry up, don't get stunned! The general assault is about to begin, and as I said before, ten people will gather at the entrance of the cave in a group! ”

Lu Xiucai, Mu Dezhu and others had nervous looks on their faces, and everyone scrambled to jump off the bed, put on their shoes and rushed out of the cave.

At this moment, outside the cave, almost all the soldiers had already moved, and more and more soldiers were gathering towards the front line of the Somme, and only a row of steel helmets could be seen moving rapidly in the trenches in the distance.

Although the artillery fire on the enemy position on the opposite side stopped, the smoke was still thick, and the no-man's land between the two armies was only cannon fodder, which accumulated half a man high, and then it became a man-made swamp with muddy water.

"Hurry, hurry! Task Force C13! Grab your equipment and come here~~Help deliver ammunition~~! ”

A captain shouted at Zhou Yu and them, and Williams was also nervous, turning around and shouting at Zhou Yu.

Under the command of Zhou Yu, the laborers lined up in a column and ran to the ammunition box, one picked up the box, and began to move behind the surging army.

Time: July 1, 7:30 a.m.

After seven days of non-stop artillery covering, the Anglo-French forces stationed at the Somme finally launched a full-scale ground offensive.

The laborers who had entered the trenches with ammunition boxes poked out half of their heads and looked far ahead, only to see a dense crowd of soldiers with equipment on their backs and rifles in their hands, one by one, struggling to move slowly through the cannon fodder mud in no man's land.

Zhou Yu slowly shook his head when he saw this scene, and whispered to himself: "Is this a dense attack formation?" These soldiers are like bowling balls lined up waiting to be hit, who the hell came up with this offensive formation? ”

True, confident that seven days of artillery bombardment had blasted the enemy's positions into a no-man's-land of the British top brass, ordered the infantry to advance in a dense formation, as if they had won the war and the enemy was waiting to be captured by them.

However, the poor terrain and the heavy load made the speed at which the British army could be summed up by the word "turtle speed".

When the shelling stopped, the British, who had been struggling for half an hour, advanced only a hundred meters.

Zhou Yu clenched his fists and silently calculated in his heart that the British troops should have already walked into the enemy's firepower coverage.

"It's coming......!"

As if to confirm Zhou Yu's guess, countless fires suddenly flashed from the front position!

The sound of gunfire was densely intertwined, like 10,000 firecrackers set off on the Chinese New Year's Eve.

The sudden and dense gunfire caused the British soldiers in front of them to fall in large numbers without even having time to react.

At this moment, the soldiers of the British army are no longer life, they are like the wheat stubble in the face of the harvester, one by one, turning into corpses one by one.

The horrific spectacle struck the nerves of the laborers, leaving them with their mouths wide open and their eyes wide open, unable to believe what was in front of them.

"This ...... Is this dead? Those are all living people, and they just died? ”

Liu Banxian's voice trembled a little, and he saw that the first batch of British soldiers who rushed to the front line were still struggling to move forward in the mud, and his head was dying.

In a short time, more and more British soldiers were killed, and the corpses lying in the mud turned into stepping stones for their advancing companions, providing them with the last help to pass through the unmanned belt.

But even so, the barrage of enemy gunfire was so dense that the sound of clattering was not at all like that of rifles and light machine guns.

It was a piano piece played by the Grim Reaper, its fingertips constantly beating on the keys, and with each beat, a soldier fell to the ground with a bullet, and was even torn to pieces by the dense bullets.

And the scene is probably only known to Zhou Yu, this is the big killer weapon of the German positional warfare, and it is also the "meat grinder" --- Makqin heavy machine gun that took the lives of many Allied soldiers.