The sun never sets

After finding all the horses and horsemen in the various troops, they only managed to gather about 2000 cavalrymen. These people were organized into a cavalry brigade led by German Colonel Karl. After the Allied Forces launched an attack to the south to attract the enemy's attention, they would find an opportunity to rush out and then seek help from the good friend of the great powers - Shandong Governor Yuan Shikai.

The Eight-Nation Alliance quickly launched an attack on the rebels in the south, and the rebels relied on trenches, houses, woods, ponds and other favorable terrain to resist. The two sides fought back and forth very fiercely, but the casualties were not great. While the guns and cannons were roaring, Major Karl led 2,000 cavalrymen to gallop westward for more than 30 miles, ignoring the harassing Tatar cavalry and galloping all the way to Shandong.

After confirming that Major Karl had left, the Eight-Nation Alliance, which was attacking southward, stopped the attack and retreated to their main camp. The Chinese took advantage of their formation to launch a round of attack, but were defeated by volley guns and artillery, losing thousands of people.

Lin Yongchang saw the movement of the enemy cavalry and thought that they were preparing to launch a flank attack or go around, but he didn't expect that they abandoned their large forces and fled. This move was beyond his expectations. Even if he had opened the map, he couldn't guess what the enemy was thinking. In his estimation, the Eight-Nation Alliance might abandon the property and run away, but he didn't expect that the enemy abandoned all the infantry, artillery, gold and silver treasures.

If the Eight-Nation Alliance was really decisive enough to abandon all the spoils and launch a desperate attack, Lin Yongchang could only let them break through or at most cut them off in the middle. The old man Waldersee was already old, so it didn't matter whether he was killed or not. The chances of his swearing being effective were as high as his winning the lottery.

Marshal Lin was born under the red flag and grew up under the red flag. He was a socialist successor who believed in materialism. How could he be a feudal superstitious person? It's fake, all fake, Fake News!

At this moment, Lin Yongchang was possessed by the Emperor of Sichuan, he was not alone!

It was getting dark, and both sides withdrew their troops. After observing for several hours, Lin Yongchang found that the enemy cavalry did not rush towards him, but continued to move away, so he dispatched troops to block the cavalry. If the enemy cavalry rushed all the way, it would be possible to break out. But since the enemy wanted to go around in circles, it gave Lin Yongchang room to mobilize troops calmly.

In front of Marshal Lin who had opened the entire map, the best way was to fight head-on. Sneak attacks, detours, and other small tricks would only run into the ambush circle set by Marshal Lin. Lin Yongchang saw that the Eight-Nation Alliance wanted to go to Shandong for help, but he was not very worried, just a little bit worried. He had more than 10,000 people on the bank of the Yellow River. Even if he couldn't beat the Beiyang Army, he could at least resist for a while.

When the Eight-Nation Alliance attacked Beijing, Yuan Shikai stayed in Shandong and waited to see the outcome. Now the situation has reversed and the Eight-Nation Alliance is at a disadvantage. In this situation, will Yuan Shikai send troops?

Lin Yongchang didn't know what choice Yuan Shikai would make, but it was always better to think of the worst. The troops left by the Yellow River could hold out for a while, but they couldn't stop the Beiyang Army. Starting tomorrow, we had to step up our efforts to deal with the enemy who had been surrounded like dumplings.

"Don't wake me up unless you have good news," he said before lying down.

In the middle of the night, gunfire occasionally rang out, but it soon died down. Both sides sent out small groups of troops to harass the enemy, but the effect was average. The next morning, Lin Yongchang woke up from his sleep, stretched his body, and then gave combat orders while eating breakfast.

The sentiment against foreigners was the highest in Hebei and Shandong. Shandong was suppressed by Yuan Shikai, but the Boxers were not all killed. Many of them fled to Hebei, which further expanded the military strength in Marshal Lin's hands.

There were more than 100,000 soldiers and horses on this side of the encirclement alone, which was four or five times the number of the Eight-Nation Alliance that was surrounded, not counting the civilians digging trenches. With so many soldiers, although many of them were miscellaneous soldiers equipped with cold weapons, with such a large advantage in manpower, they could crush the enemy to death!

It just so happens that those heavy howitzers have finally been pulled over, so let’s attack them together.

The rebels attacked from all directions, the sound of gunfire shook the sky, bullets and shells streaked across the sky, and everywhere

All of them were the sounds of explosions. After only half a day of fighting, the rebels had suffered tens of thousands of casualties. Except for the Eastern Route Army, which he led personally, they fought well, using infantry tactics and mediocre artillery to kill and capture more than 2,000 foreign devils and recapture several deserted villages. The other three routes fought very badly. There were some good performances in some places, but overall it was very bad, very bad.

Seeing this, Lin Yongchang was speechless and could only call a halt. After discovering that the Eight-Nation Alliance had also dug trenches, he immediately sent people to notify other units, but others only saw the opportunity to beat the drowning dog and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to gain more credit and grab more things. They did not take Marshal Lin's suggestion of "dig the ground and move forward" to heart.

Everyone had heard that there were many treasures in the encirclement, and they were so greedy that they didn't follow any rules when fighting and rushed in like a swarm of bees. In addition, they were blinded by hatred and wanted to kill the foreign devils so much that they didn't even care about their own casualties, otherwise there wouldn't be so many casualties.

Although there were many vassal troops like the Indians in the Eight-Nation Alliance, their firepower advantage was too great. It was a hard bone to bite off and it was not so easy to bite it off.

Chapter 114: Italians

"Fuck you! Is there anyone who fights like you guys?"

"It's time to talk about tactics, comrade!"

"The flesh can't stop bullets!"

"Do you really think that you are invulnerable to swords and guns because of your magical power? Ah? If anyone says that, take a bullet right now and let me see. If you are really invulnerable, I will give up my position as Grand Marshal!"

Lin Yongchang scolded the generals who were called to the scene. Those generals who were arrogant and unruly all hung their heads. No one dared to refute him, and no one even dared to look him in the eye. After fighting so many battles and winning every one of them, and even capturing Tianjin and capturing thousands of foreign devils, Marshal Lin's prestige was at its peak, completely overwhelming these generals.

In addition, the [The Sun Never Sets in the Celestial Empire] system gave him +80 "prestige", which made Marshal Lin even more respected in the hearts of the generals. Even the most unruly Liu Chengxiang was obedient after meeting Marshal Lin and did not dare to make any trouble.

"From now on, everyone must follow my command. If anyone fails to fight effectively and causes the foreign devils to escape, I will chop off his head! I have finished speaking. Who agrees? Who opposes?"

No one objected, which was good. Lin Yongchang clapped his hands and said, "The meeting is adjourned!"

Ten days had passed since the attack on Tianjin began, and the news had spread everywhere. He didn't have much time left. Yuan Shikai's Beiyang Army was only a small problem, and the biggest threat came from the 17 Russian troops in the Northeast and the Japanese troops in Japan.

If the Russian army rushed to Shanhaiguan regardless of everything, no one could stop it, even with the help of a hacker, and could only delay it for a while. If the Japanese army responded promptly after receiving the news, the reinforcements should have been loaded on the ship.

The scope of his "full map" has been slowly increasing, but now he can only see a few armies and areas hundreds of miles outside the occupied area, and he is not sure how quickly the Japanese and Russian armies will react. Based on the principle of predicting the enemy's strength, Lin Yongchang believes that he has at most six days. If he cannot annihilate the enemy in the encirclement within six days, he will have to start preparing for retreat. If it really comes to that, he will have no other choice but to fight guerrilla warfare in the Taihang Mountains.

After being beaten up by the Eight-Nation Alliance, the generals of the various armies calmed down and realized that the foreign devils were not soft persimmons. Without the command of Marshal Lin, they really couldn't defeat the enemy. Not only might the foreign devils escape, but if they were not careful, they might even suffer a great defeat, just like the previous battles.

Although they also had some guns and cannons, they were not systematic in their use and could not bring out much effect. The troops that were reorganized were better, but the troops that were not reorganized were really hard to describe. The troops were full of old people, women and children, and it was a miracle if they could have any combat effectiveness.

After clarifying the command, Lin Yongchang began to deploy his troops. The attack must be launched, and the enemy must not be given a chance to catch their breath and repair. Attack from all four sides at the same time, with one side being the main attack, and the other three sides should be kept at a low intensity, mainly to contain the attack and attack again when there is a chance.

First gradually compress the space of the Eight-Nation Alliance, and then eat them up in one bite!

Lin Yongchang first went to the Italians. It was not because Italy performed poorly in World War I and World War II, but because the Italians had the smallest number of soldiers, only 85, not even 100. Pick the soft persimmon first, concentrate troops and firepower on a local battlefield, this is the art of war.

Then there is a sense of resentment. Damn, these days, any cat or dog has become a great power. Forget Britain, France, Germany, and Russia, but what is Italy?

Not only two heavy howitzers were transported from Tianjin, but also a lot of field guns, and cannons brought from other units, totaling sixty or seventy. Lin Yongchang concentrated two-thirds of the artillery and first carried out overtaking shooting at the place where the Eight-Nation Alliance had the largest number of people, killing about a few hundred enemies. However, only Lin Yongchang could see that the artillerymen were all muttering in their hearts, why would the Marshal fire the artillery next season?

Regardless of what others thought, Lin Yongchang fired several times, causing the Eight-Nation Alliance soldiers to panic and then start firing randomly. However, without advanced sighting equipment and mature radio communication equipment, it is difficult to guide the artillery to fire. They are not like Lin Da

It's as handsome as cheating.

Later, when the Eight-Nation Alliance learned their lesson and found that the rebels were deceiving them and wasting their ammunition, they chose to swallow their anger and disperse their forces as much as possible. In the past, they used cannons to bully the indigenous people in various places, but now they finally experienced the pain of being beaten without being able to fight back.

When the sound of the Eight-Nation Alliance's artillery fire disappeared, Lin Yongchang sent out the Type A Regiment without hesitation.

Raising soldiers and training them is all for the purpose of fighting. Good steel should be used on the blade. If we don't fight in wars, should we keep it for having children?

The Italians were arranged in a trench near a pond, with 85 people stationed in a trench about meters long. Because of their small number, they had been placed in the middle of the team and had not participated in the battle. When the Eight-Nation Alliance was invincible, this arrangement was of course no problem, but the situation had come to this point, and there was no need to talk about the brotherhood between imperialists.

Besides, everyone suffered heavy casualties, so why should the Italians just sit there and watch? The troops sent by Austria-Hungary and Germany were not many, but they were also pushed to the front line. The situation was difficult, and everyone had to contribute!

Before the attack, Lin Yongchang also brought in several British prisoners who could speak Italian and asked them to shout at the Italians with wooden trumpets. "My Italian brothers, I am Corporal James of the British Army! I am living well in the Chinese army and have had a meal of Italian noodles. You should surrender too, and you can go home after you surrender..."

Inside the trench, the Italians squatting in the pit complained, "Oh! James, this guy still owes me 4 pounds!"

"Damn it, why is James speaking for the Chinese?"

"Well, Bond was caught by the barbarians, so naturally he had to say whatever he was told. If you were caught, you would say the same thing."

"You will be caught by the barbarians!"

In the trench dozens of meters away, across a pond, James held a wooden trumpet in his left hand and a manuscript in his right hand, and continued to shout. "Everyone will get a fair trial, and as long as they have not committed war crimes, they can go home after the battle. If we... the Chinese launch an attack, we will be imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp!"

He shouted until his voice was hoarse, but there was no movement in the trench opposite. James was a little tired and was about to pass the wooden trumpet to the next person, when he heard someone shouting from the other side, "Nonsense! James! How can the Chinese have pasta? This is nonsense!"

James was overjoyed. He grabbed the wooden trumpet and put it to his mouth, shouting hoarsely: "Contini, it's Contini, right? I admit that I lied to you about the pasta, but everything else is true! I'm not lying to you! Really, I swear in the name of God!"

Contini's voice came from afar, "Come on, James! You cheated me out of 4 pounds last time!"

Chapter 115 Gnashing of Teeth

The rebels shouted something, and after the other side responded, the two sides started chatting. Of course, this was not okay. Xu Wuji glared at them, "Are you reading from the script?"

Although he could not understand Italian or English, he had a good memory. The principal read the words on the note in English and Italian respectively, but he was listening beside him. It was definitely not read that way. Could it be that this foreign devil was informing the enemy?

This is for sure!

Lin Yongchang asked James to make the announcement in order to let him exaggerate the military might of his side. For this purpose, he even took these prisoners around the artillery position for several laps. When James and others saw the heavy howitzers and dozens of field guns, as well as the shells piled up like a hill, their eyes widened.

Xu Wuji also knew this, but since it was a show, he had to act it out more realistically. His eyes were wide open, and he even pulled out half of his saber. James was frightened and quickly handed the wooden trumpet to Private Huck.

Huck took the wooden trumpet and shouted to the other side: "I am Huck, a private of the Scottish Infantry Regiment. Do you know me?"

"I don't know! Is what James said true? Do the Chinese really have so many cannons?"

"Really! They still have tens of thousands of elite troops, all equipped with the latest rifles! We all saw it! We were all deceived! Those damn liars!"

Xu Wuji pushed the excited Private Hake into the trench, snatched the wooden trumpet, and put it into the hands of the next person. Then there was another round of chattering, which the people around couldn't understand anyway. Contini and others learned from the conversation that the Chinese were powerful and determined to destroy them.

Since these Italians were so few in number and came to China just for tourism, they didn't fire a single shot, so they couldn't be considered to have committed a war crime. They didn't get much good stuff, less than 300 million taels of silver. 300 million taels of silver is certainly a huge sum of money for ordinary people, but compared to what countries like Britain, France, Germany and Russia looted, it's nothing.

If they didn't surrender, they might be wiped out by the Chinese. But if they surrendered, wouldn't all the silver they had robbed be wasted? They were not too worried about the Chinese's food, after all, this was not a place where people looked up at the stars.

The Italians did not go to the battlefield, but they saw it more clearly than the other coalition forces. The attack of the Eight-Nation Alliance could not break the enemy's defense. Although the defense was still held, several villages were lost. Now everyone is trapped in this

When a person is in an unfamiliar place, it is a situation where he is doomed to die.

If they had encountered such a situation in Europe, they would have surrendered long ago. What if the Chinese did not keep their word? By then, they would have no weapons in their hands, and even if they wanted to die gloriously, they would not be able to do so.

What to do? Surrender or not surrender? This is the question.

Half an hour later, Alfred von Waldersee received news of the loss of another village amid the sound of gunfire. This made him frown involuntarily, "The Americans' fighting power is still so poor!"

Then he heard the news that the Italians had come out of the trenches and surrendered to the enemy.

Alfred von Waldersee shuddered, his eyes widened, "How is this possible? This is absolutely impossible!"

Xu Wuji also felt that this was not true. He had never thought that such a thing could happen. Asking a few prisoners to shout a few words would make the foreign devils surrender? Like all young people, he was full of blood and hatred for the foreign devils. He wanted to kill all foreigners. After rolling around in the military academy, he now had a sense of mission to "make China strong again."

But he never thought that the enemy would really surrender. How could this be possible? But soon he was no longer confused about this matter. The fierce battle did not allow him to be distracted and think about other things. Not everyone is as easy to talk to as the Italians. If you want to "make China strong again", it is not enough to rely on the advantage of words!

Lin Yongchang did not come up with the "three-three system" or promote the "one point and two sides". It was not that he did not want to, but he did not have the conditions. The time was too short to train so many military cadres. Fortunately, the enemy's tactics were outdated, and they were not equipped with many shovels. The trenches were not well built, the machine gun positions were unreasonable, the trenches were shallow and straight, and there were no communication trenches, which could not fully play the defensive effect of the trenches. Otherwise, they would not have lost several villages in half a day.

The battle became more and more intense, and the sound of gunfire almost never stopped. After persuading the Italians to surrender, Lin Yongchang's second target was Wang's division... The Japanese were not qualified to be a great power, and the Americans' fighting power was not even as good as that of the Japanese. Wang's division was really too weak!

The cowboys' fighting capacity had always been poor, with lax discipline, backward tactics, and outdated firearms. The second one was to attack them. When the rebels attacked the U.S. troops on the Longfeng River, they first spent a long time digging several trenches outside the U.S. positions, and then deployed them horizontally at a distance of more than 100 meters. The rebels relied on this method to get within 50 meters of the enemy, followed by a round of artillery fire, and then killed them with their large numbers.

During this process, the Eight-Nation Alliance could not just stand by and watch, so they used artillery bombardment, gunfire and bayonet charges to fight back. The two sides fought fiercely in the open space between the trenches, and both sides suffered heavy casualties. In general, the casualties of the rebels were greater, almost reaching a 2:1 ratio.

The artillery of the Eight-Nation Alliance was too strong, and the number of heavy machine guns was also greater than that of the rebels, which gave them an advantage in the battle. Even with the tactical advantage, it could not completely offset the gap in equipment. The day after the encirclement was formed, the rebels first fought with the US army, and then fought with the enemy's reinforcements.

After a whole day of fighting, the rebels suffered more than 6,000 casualties, and several regiments suffered heavy losses, one of which was a Type A regiment, and nearly two-thirds of the officers leading the charge were killed or wounded. Lin Yongchang felt like vomiting blood after hearing the news. After the regiment commander died in the battle, Xu Wuji continued the attack as the acting commander, and was shot in the chest. His life or death is still unknown.

Fortunately, the Americans were completely defeated, and the Indians who came to rescue were also repelled, so it was not a loss at all.

After Lin Yongchang visited the wounded soldiers, he thanked them for their efforts for the motherland and hoped that they could recover and return to the team as soon as possible. Even if they could not continue to stay in the army, the rebels would arrange a job for them. When he spoke, he always had a kind smile on his face, and his words seemed to have some mysterious power, and the wounded were moved to tears.

Xu Wuji was shot in the chest and woke up at this time. When Lin Yongchang held his hand, the boy said shamefully: "Principal, I will practice my skills and tactics well in the future!"

Lin Yongchang patted his hands and said, "We are all comrades, only with different positions, we are all equal. Now that I am no longer the principal of the military academy, you can call me Chairman Lin or Comrade Lin. If you are really sorry, you can call me mentor."

"Yes, students remember it!"

Lin Yongchang clapped his hands again, but when he returned to the tent, he immediately gritted his teeth and said, "Continue the attack tomorrow! Launch a fierce attack from four directions! The remaining Type A regiments will attack together! I don't believe that the Eight-Nation Alliance can hold on!"

Chapter 116 Commemoration

Lin Yongchang felt like he was about to vomit blood, while Alfred von Waldersee was stunned. After seeing the casualties, Marshal Waldersee did not expect the Americans to be so weak. They were on the defensive and dug trenches, but still could not hold out for a day.

"How could this happen? This is impossible..."

Alfred von Waldersee no longer had the strength to roar, and sighed, "How could this happen?"

"Marshal, the Americans didn't dig trenches, and the Gatling guns they used didn't fire fast enough.

Plus... you know, they're Americans."

Marshal Waldersee's spirits improved. "Why don't they dig trenches?"

“Because they don’t have shovels.”

".....Don't they even have bayonets?"

The general shrugged and repeated what he had said before, "You know, they're Americans."

Well, that was a strong reason. Alfred von Waldersee accepted that the Americans were screwed and asked, "What else?"

"We're running low on ammunition."

Alfred von Waldersee shuddered. "How could this happen?"

The general explained: "Our ammunition supplies were all shipped from Tianjin, and now Tianjin is occupied by the enemy... In fact, we have not received any supplies for ten days."

Alfred von Waldersee was speechless. He remembered that the Japanese dwarf had told him about this, but he didn't pay attention to it at the time. There were problems on the railway, at the port, at sea... There were no problems in the war. Marshal Waldersee thought that they were all minor problems and it would not be too late to deal with them after conquering the enemy's capital.

Now it seems that we should have withdrawn our troops at that time.

But think about it carefully, could he really withdraw his troops at that time? Even though he was the marshal of the Eight-Nation Alliance, he could only command less than a thousand German troops, and the mobilization of troops from other countries had to go through the generals of various countries. Even if he sensed the danger at that time, he could not make the coalition forces, which were dazzled by the city of Beijing, turn around and return to Tianjin.

He asked weakly, "How many are there?"

"There are still plenty of rifle bullets, and there are enough pistol bullets, but there are less than half a base number of artillery shells, and less than a base number of machine gun shells."

Alfred von Waldersee cried out again, "What? How could it be......"

He did not say more, because it was he who ordered the carriages to be emptied and filled with gold, silver and jewelry. Many years later, someone wrote a book called "The Lost Victory", which spent a lot of words describing why Marshal Waldersee made such a foolish decision, and asserted that if it were not for this, the Eight-Nation Alliance could have won a brilliant victory, just like Pizarro.

Pizarro was a Spaniard who led 1533 men to destroy the Inca Empire in 168, which was an important chapter in the history of Western colonialism. Someone once asked the aging Morrison about this question. Every time, Morrison smiled bitterly and shook his head, because he clearly remembered that when the coalition forces were defeated, there were still mountains of ammunition, including many machine gun bullets and artillery shells.

The two sides who were fighting desperately in Hebei could not know what would happen in the future. The Eight-Nation Alliance knew that they had committed the massacre and would inevitably be retaliated by the Chinese. Except for the Italians and Japanese, everyone else was involved. Moreover, the enemy started the war with the slogan of "destroying the foreigners". If they were caught, how could they have a good ending?

Therefore, after being surrounded, their morale became high, and many of them fought until the last moment.

After learning that the foreign devils' reinforcements would arrive soon, the rebels divided their army of more than 100,000 into two parts and attacked day and night. They had an irreconcilable hatred with the foreigners before, and dared to fight the foreign devils desperately when they didn't have foreign guns and cannons. Now that they have so many cannons, everyone's fighting enthusiasm is very high, and often too high, causing many unnecessary losses.

On the third day of the siege of the Eight-Nation Alliance, the battle became even more brutal. The Allied Forces and the Volunteer Army repeatedly fought over several villages and trenches. The shells destroyed the houses in the villages and all the trees were blown down. Lin Yongchang looked at the casualty figures displayed on the [The Sun Never Sets in the Celestial Empire] system and felt that blood was gushing out of his head.

At a certain moment, he doubted whether his judgment was wrong. Wouldn't it be a better choice to surround three sides and attack one side, defeat the enemy first, and then chase them from behind? That way, many enemies could be eliminated, and most of the baggage and money could be seized.