The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 361 Before the Ambush
The headquarters is located in this woods, but now there are sandbags as high as a person piled up around it, blocking the headquarters area from the north, east and south.

Sandbag shelters are mainly used to block stray bullets.

Originally, according to Wei Jinghai's opinion, Teng Yuzao's headquarters should be located in the village behind, but it was too far away. This was totally unacceptable to Teng Yuzao, who attached great importance to this battle which almost determined the fate of the vanguard army.

Of course, in the end, Wei Jinghai still moved the headquarters to this sparse forest as requested by Teng Yuzhao.

The inside of the bunker was also very simple, with only a dozen tables made of empty ammunition boxes, and chairs also stacked with ammunition boxes for people to rest.

Although more than a dozen staff officers were holding telephone receivers and guarding the table made of ammunition boxes, there was no movement.

Now, the telephone connection between the headquarters and the headquarters of various troops is always connected.

Since the headquarters of these troops were also located very close to the battlefield, they had to avoid making harsh ringing sounds on the telephones used to convey orders before the ambush began.

Teng Yuzhao walked to the back of the bunker and saw Wei Jinghai leaning over the table with a piece of written information in his hand, and constantly gesturing with his hands on a simple map.

On that simple map was a simple pencil sketch of the ambush area.

Pencils were introduced into China through Japan in the mid-Meiji period.

Seeing Teng Yuzhao coming back, Wei Jinghai hurriedly stood up, raised the information in his hand and said.

"Marshal, the personnel sent out by the reconnaissance post sent back the latest intelligence. The foreign devils had already set out from Langfang two hours ago, at four in the morning."

"Among them, about 10,000 British, French and American devils carrying 64 cannons led the way, and the marching column was more than five miles long."

"The more than 1,000 real American soldiers who originally accompanied the group should have stayed in Langfang. Only nearly 2,000 short, dark-skinned fake American soldiers from Southeast Asia followed."

"A Japanese baggage train corps, about 3,000 men, is following two miles away."

"This baggage train has about 3,000 pack horses and nearly 500 large carts collected from the public. The drivers are all our common people. The carts and pack horses are carrying a large amount of ammunition and supplies. Although the pack horse team and the large car team are marching in parallel, the marching column is still more than six miles long."

"The brigade of the Japanese Army's 4th Division was at the end, and the length of the marching column was about two miles. They had an artillery battalion with twelve guns."

It was normal that the American, British and French allied forces, which had the largest number of people and were not affiliated with the Japanese army, went first. However, it was the fact that more than a thousand American troops stayed in Langfang that puzzled Teng Yuzhao.

The U.S. military also suffered heavy losses in the battle in the capital. The 14th Regiment of the U.S. Army was completely wiped out by Teng Yuzhao in the outer city. Logically, they should also need to replenish their troops!

As for the twelve artillery pieces in the accompanying brigade of the Japanese Army's 4th Division, it was also normal. A normal Japanese brigade must have an artillery battalion, and there should be no surprises for the Japanese Army's 4th Division, a veteran division.

The practice of insisting on assigning an artillery regiment to each division, an artillery battalion to each brigade, and even an artillery squadron to each regiment has led to a sharp increase in military expenses for training a division. This is also the reason why the Japanese army has only twelve standing divisions to this day.

Fortunately, at this time, the Japanese army had not yet been equipped with artillery at the battalion level, otherwise, the poor Japanese would have been in even greater trouble. Artillery is very expensive, and even though most of the artillery used by the Japanese army today is bronze cannons made in their country, they are also very expensive, and they still cannot afford it.

Wei Jinghai continued, "Although the foreign devils have prepared a lot of supplies, their marching speed is not slow. It is estimated that they will be able to enter our ambush circle around nine o'clock in the morning at the latest."

Teng Yuzao nodded. "Not only are the more than 100,000 foreign devils who have been in the capital for a long time now short of ammunition, but even the more than 50,000 German and Russian troops who are rushing to the capital to reinforce it are also unlikely to carry too much ammunition. It would be strange if the foreign devils' transport team is not in a hurry."

Wei Jinghai continued, "General, please understand. Although the marching order of the foreign devils' transport troops is the same as we estimated, they are too close to each other. This is slightly different from our estimate. Do you think we need to adjust our deployment?"

Teng Yuzao let out a long sigh and said, "Although there are some mistakes, they are not very big. This will not have a big impact on our ambush. There is no need for large-scale adjustments to avoid revealing any flaws."

"Ningbo, are our shielding forces in place?"

In order to ensure that the news of the ambush on the coalition forces would not leak out, as soon as the troops arrived here last night, Teng Yuzhao asked several troops to be responsible for a certain area. The reconnaissance troops changed into plain clothes and blocked all the villages within a radius of ten miles to prevent anyone from informing the foreigners for money.

Even the villagers who got up early and went to the fields, as well as those who picked up livestock dung, might panic after discovering the ambush of the vanguard army, causing widespread panic and alerting the coalition's transport troops.

Wei Jinghai said hurriedly, "An hour ago, all the troops had reported that the people they sent out had already blocked the villages they were responsible for according to the order. Before our ambush started, no villager would break into our ambush circle."

"Commander."

"Captain Liu said that they thought the assault column was charging at a distance that was too far. By the time they rushed into the Japanese troops, they would have to withstand at least two rounds of shooting from the Japanese troops, and the casualties would be considerable."

"Although the Japanese's baggage regiment doesn't have a killer weapon like the Maxim heavy machine gun, according to what the Marshal said, a baggage regiment of the Japanese has three to four thousand people, all equipped with rifles and pistols. If the Japanese are really given the opportunity to fire two rounds of shots, or even three rounds of volleys, the assault column will indeed suffer heavy casualties."

According to the combat plan, the assault column was responsible for destroying the Japanese army's supply corps.

What Teng Yuzhao valued was the fierce charge of the assault column, especially once it entered hand-to-hand combat range, it would be almost invincible. Even if they were facing the Russians and the equally tall German, British, French and American troops, they would not suffer any loss.

Moreover, in order to avoid the detonation of weapons and ammunition transported by the Japanese army's supply corps, thus causing a chain reaction, Teng Yuzhao required the assault column to launch a simultaneous charge immediately from the beginning of the battle, to quickly break into the Japanese army's transport troops at the fastest speed and destroy the enemy in hand-to-hand combat.

The reason why Teng Yuzhao dared to do so was that the assault column's opponent was not the Japanese combat troops. Although the Japanese logistics troops also had to undergo training, and even had equipment that was almost the same as that of the synchronized soldiers except for artillery and machine guns, their combat effectiveness was still inferior to that of the Japanese infantry.

Moreover, since the assault column had suffered more than 4,000 casualties when it was encircling and annihilating the German army, now there are less than 8,000 people in the assault column, including those with minor injuries.

In order to strengthen the strength of the assault column, Teng Yuzhao also transferred two battalions of troops from the Guards Association to cooperate with the assault column.

They launched a desperate assault to seize weapons, ammunition and supplies.

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(End of this chapter)