Chen Tianhua ordered the camp to be set up and asked the logistics staff to start cooking.

At noon, in addition to white rice, there are also barbecues, braised pork, and pumpkin vegetables, which are very rich.

There was great joy in the camp.

This meal will take a whole day, and the battle will become more and more intense later on. There will not even be time to turn on the stove and eat, so I can only eat the dry food I brought with me.

After taking a short rest after dinner, Chen Tianhua issued the order to conquer the first pass of Dragon King Peak.

He wanted to work hard to clear this hurdle first.

Zhang Renkui set up such a pass on the mountainside of Longwang Peak, obviously to resist the attempts of foreign enemies to attack the mountain, because behind the pass is the only narrow road leading to Longwang Peak.

By guarding this pass, bandits can go down the mountain and move around freely, including intercepting roads and robbing, robbing homes and houses, etc.

The entire wall is made of stone strips and stones, with a lot of rough wood filling in the middle. It is very strong, like a fortress, and one man can block it and no one can open it.

Bombarding with 75mm field artillery also requires some effort and shells.

The people guarding the Guanzhai should be habitual bandits in the village. They haven't used swords and guns for a long time. The Qing army just arrived and wanted to show off. Unexpectedly, they didn't meet each other, but several big teeth were cracked.

More than 200 bandits had just died, and now there were only 130 bandits in the village. The black-faced bandit shamelessly sent a man to the Dragon King Peak to report to Zhang Renkui.

Before Zhang Renkui could decide whether to send reinforcements on Dragon King Peak, the First Assault Battalion of the New Army launched the attack first.

"Beep...beep...beep..."

The attack horn has sounded, the flags of each company are waving, and the yellow dragon flag of the Qing Dynasty is fluttering in the wind. The officers and soldiers wear willow hats, hold giant square shields in rows in front, and march forward in the shape of skirmishers.

When the bandits in the mountains saw that the officers and soldiers were coming to attack in the afternoon, they were all frightened, knowing that once the officers and soldiers broke through the pass, their lives would be at stake.

"Everyone, hold on, the boss will send reinforcements down soon. As long as you hold this pass, the boss has said that there will be heavy rewards, and those who escape will be killed without mercy." The black-faced gangster knows how to encourage at critical moments.

morale.

Sure enough, more than a hundred gangsters cheered up as if they had been given a shot of blood.

Each one of them was ready to fight to the death, with rolling stones, firecrackers, and rifles all aimed at them. The only three old light machine guns they had were also ready, ready to fire from the wall at any time.

Chen Tianhua already knew how to conquer the wall. He would have to bombard it with artillery to collapse the wall, then shoot with Gatling heavy machine guns, throw grenades, and finally the soldiers would charge.

The three cannons had not been put to use just now, but now they have been assembled and are undergoing aiming tests.

Although these gunners have received professional artillery training and operation, their accuracy is not estimated to be high. If they are asked to stand down on the city wall or aim and shoot on the ground, there may be only a few of them.

But in mountainous operations, basically all shots are fired from above. The relationship between the target distance calculation and the muzzle elevation angle is uncertain.

Only the German or Japanese troops had special training for mountain warfare, and the operation manuals included calculation formulas. But how could the artillerymen of the Qing Dynasty understand this?

They only learned how to fire, reload and simply aim.

This ballistics and parabola calculation formula can only be completed by Chen Tianhua, who has knowledge of modern physics.

Chen Tianhua had received special training in artillery operation in his previous life. Not only did he have real objects to try, but the artillery operation manual also contained ruler formulas and descriptions.

It's just that they are all in German, which would be difficult for ordinary artillerymen, but it won't be difficult for him.

Krupp artillery is equipped with optical binocular rangefinders, and Chen Tianhua was able to train the artillery commander on the spot.

Under Chen Tianhua's guidance, the artillery commander used a rangefinder to calculate the distance and launch angle.

The distance between the artillery position and the wall of the mountain village was about 520 meters, and the diagonal distance was measured at about 520 meters. Using the ruler formula for conversion, he personally adjusted the elevation angle of the muzzle, and then let each of the three guns fire one shot for the test.

"boom…"

"boom…"

"boom…"

The test results showed that the elevation angle was a bit too high, so he made slight adjustments.

"boom…"

"boom…"

"boom…"

These three cannons hit the Guan wall relatively accurately, blasting a big hole in the thick Guan wall.

"Oh, the Qing army's artillery is so powerful."

"I'm afraid we can't hold this pass."

"..."

The bandits guarding the gate were so frightened by this precise shooting that they all sought cover to hide. Just as they had regained their strength, they deflated again like a punctured skin.

"Get up, everyone. The Qing army's artillery is not accurate. Didn't the previous few shots miss the target? They are blind. Don't be afraid. Guard the pass to prevent them from climbing up."

The black-faced bandit leader screamed, and the bandits returned to the arrow stacks on the wall in fear.

"According to this elevation angle, each fires a base number quickly, and the rest of the troops are ready to capture the mountain gate."

"Yes..." the artillery commander accepted the order with his hands.

Then, three field mountain guns opened fire.

"boom…"

"Boom boom..."

"..."

A burst of artillery fire, and another twenty-four rounds of artillery shells, suddenly collapsed the front wall and blew it to pieces. The three light machine guns and ammunition mounted on it, as well as the wooden and rolling stones, were all blown up in the air.

Flying.

The bandits were so blown away that they ran away crying for their fathers and mothers.

Seeing that the artillery fire was almost done, Chen Tianhua choked and drew out his Yanling waist knife and said sternly: "Brothers, let me break into the pass and kill all the bandits!"

The morale of the more than 150 New Army soldiers who charged was greatly boosted. They did not forget to shout slogans as they charged, "Charge the Guanzhai, kill all the bandits, and capture Zhang Mazi alive!"

Chen Tianhua did not shrink back. He asked the soldiers to use giant shields stacked up as cover. He wore a willow hat and took the lead in rushing to the front of the team.

This kind of row of shields is three feet wide, six feet high and one foot thick. It is square in shape and can be placed side by side or overlapping for defense. It uses a hardwood frame on the surface, with tree rattan and nitrate cotton stuffed in the middle, and a thick layer of rawhide on the outside.

, it can not only protect against knives, guns and arrows, but also absorb bullets and grenade fragments.

The platoon of shields moved forward step by step. At the pass, arrows, firecrackers and bullets were shot down, and grenades with wooden handles were thrown towards them, but they could not penetrate the foot-thick platoon of shields.

As for the dozens of New Army gunners hidden behind the platoon shields, they stretched out their gun barrels from the gaps in the platoon shields and fired for a while.

On the mounds and high ground in the distance, there are three Gatling heavy machine guns for cover.

“Ta…ta da…ta da da…”

This kind of cross-fire attack caused several screams to be heard from time to time on the wall. The remaining bandits were like turtles, looking for bunkers to hide.

The superimposed rows of shields are like walking fortresses, advancing step by step, not fast but very effective.

After two hours of slowly advancing, the new army finally approached the Guanzhai Wall within sixty or seventy meters. Following an order, the formal team followed. Everyone jumped up one after another, howling and rushed towards the collapse of the front of the Guanzhai.
Chapter completed!