The rapid sound of war drums came from the forest.
All the attention of Huai Haijun on the position was attracted. The commandos who were resting picked up their weapons and ran towards the position without any instructions from the officers, filling the gaps in the position.
At the edge of the forest, Dmitri held a monocular in his hand and looked at the Huaihai Navy's position from a distance.
He could only see a long earth wall running along the hillside in front of the post, like a giant winding snake.
There is a vague trench behind the earthen wall. The soil of the earthen wall is very fresh, and it is obviously made of the earth dug out of the trench.
"These Qing people really lack the courage to fight. They only dare to hide and fight behind the city wall. Now that there is no protection from the city wall, they dug a hole for themselves to hide." Dmitri said, his tone full of sarcasm.
Makarov just laughed after hearing this. He knew that the Qing people's style of play was not chivalrous. But it could indeed effectively weaken the shooting effect of his own flintlock guns.
"Attack!" Dmitri ordered.
"Yes, Your Excellency Baron." Makarov accepted the order.
"Attack!" Makarov turned around and ordered loudly to the surrounding hunter team.
The hunter team, which was already ready to go, rushed out of the forest with a roar.
"Ula..." the voices kept coming and going.
These Russian hunters formed a vertical skirmish line according to Makarov's instructions. They gathered together in twos and threes and ran forward. There was a large distance between each team, and the farther they went forward, the sparser they became.
.
"Finally out!" Lin Wei breathed a long sigh of relief. But seeing the opponent's formation, Lin Wei frowned again.
This formation of skirmishers will indeed bring a lot of trouble to the Huai Navy. However, this trouble will only cause the Huai Navy to consume more ammunition.
The Huaihai Navy's position was unusually quiet, and there was no long-range strike as Makarov expected. This made Makarov even more worried. What was the reason? What were the Qing people on the opposite side waiting for?
In fact, the soldiers of the Huai Navy were waiting for the sound of artillery from the artillery camp, and the sound of cannon was the order to start firing.
However, now that the enemy has entered the range of the artillery, why hasn't the artillery fired yet?
This time, Lin Wei deliberately set the Huaihai Navy's artillery position five hundred meters behind the infantry position. In this way, the artillery's firing range can cover the range of one hundred to one thousand meters in front of the infantry position, and will not cause the enemy to be too close.
But it can't be hit.
Lin Wei was looking at the battlefield intently at this time, as were several staff officers, who were measuring the number of enemies.
Yes, they are just counting heads. According to the intelligence, there should be nearly 2,000 enemies at this time.
Since the opponent uses this vertical formation of skirmishers, there should be no reserve team. If such a small number of people are divided into several groups to attack, it will become a fueling tactic.
In fact, this is exactly the case. Makarov's plan is to use the sparse troops in the front to attract and consume the firepower of the Huai Navy.
This allowed the hunters following behind to get within the range of the flintlock guns, fire the first round of bullets, and then rush into the opponent's trenches, completely destroying the morale of the Qing people.
In Makarov's view, as long as he can rush into the opponent's trench, it means that the battle is basically over.
According to his judgment, it was impossible for the Qing people to withstand the close combat of the hunters. He knew very well that the hunters were very powerful in close combat.
Even when he was young, he dared to fight with brown bears. He once stabbed a bayonet into the chest of a brown bear at close range.
"Brigadier, the number of enemies is almost two thousand, and there are no follow-up people left." A staff officer said excitedly.
"Brigadier, it's the same here." Another staff officer reported.
They each counted each other just to verify each other. The results of Lin Wei's numbers were similar.
At this time, the leading Russian hunter was about to rush to a distance of 100 meters.
The Huaihai navy in the trench could already see the yellow teeth in their mouths when they yelled Ula, as well as the thick barrels of the large-caliber flintlock guns they held in their hands.
These flintlock guns are designed for hunting large beasts. They have a larger caliber and are much more powerful than ordinary flintlock guns.
"The artillery blocks the enemy's rear and fires, and the infantry fires freely." Lin Wei shouted.
Immediately, a messenger went to lay out the semaphore. The artillerymen who had been prepared for a long time fired their first salvo after seeing the semaphore.
Because it was a preset battlefield, the firing point had been calibrated, and the artillery did not even need to test fire. This allowed the Russians to be bombarded by artillery shells without even having time to react.
"Bang bang bang..." The rumbling sound of cannons sounded.
Explosions erupted one after another in the densest area behind the Russian hunters. The strong bodies of some hunters were thrown into the air by the shock wave of the explosion, and then fell heavily to the ground. The shrapnel generated by the explosion shuttled freely through the crowd and penetrated into the bodies of the Russians.
Or on the ground.
These strong bodies, capable of fighting brown bears and tigers, were now vulnerable to the bombardment.
The infantry in the trenches also fired a dense rain of bullets. The bullets rained down into the skirmish line formed by the hunters. Those sparse hunters running at the front were instantly cleared by the sharpshooters.
Driven by kinetic energy, more bullets continue to fly backward, either penetrating the body of an unlucky hunter, or burrowing into the soil after their kinetic energy is exhausted, completing their short journey.
Although Makarov had already imagined that the Qing army on the opposite side was powerful enough, he still underestimated the opponent.
First of all, there was the number of people. He didn't expect that the other party had so many reserve troops. What he saw in the woods before was only a small part of them.
The second is firepower. In addition to these small cannons, these Qing people also have larger artillery. Judging from the firepower, Makarov thinks these artillery must be at least 12 or more.
Moreover, these artillery can fire shrapnel shells. You must know that shrapnel shells are much more expensive than solid shells.
Where did these Qing people get so much money? This is not a war. This is simply throwing away money!
The battlefield response of the charging hunters was still very good. They quickly made adjustments and the people behind them also spread out their formations.
In this way, their mortality rate under artillery bombardment is greatly reduced. The hunters rushing in front will crawl forward after reaching a certain distance.
The Huai Navy soldiers on the battlefield would only look for enemies who were standing and charging to shoot.
The low walls on the trench blocked their view, preventing them from seeing clearly what was happening on the ground in front of them.
"Ula!" Suddenly a Tsarist Russian hunter crawled to the front of the position, shouted and threw himself into the trenches of the Huaihai Navy.
He picked up the flintlock gun in his hand and threw it at the surrounding Huai Navy soldiers.
This Russian hunter has a body shape like a giant bear and wears clothes made of animal fur.
This kind of fur is similar in color to the soil, so that when he was crawling on the ground just now, no one noticed it.
The sudden change caused the infantry in the trench to panic. Since they were surrounded by comrades, they did not dare to shoot, and some did not even attach bayonets.
In an instant, four or five Huai Haijun infantrymen were knocked to the ground by this hunter.
It was too late, but it was soon. Several more crawling Tsarist Russian hunters jumped into the trenches, and this section of the trenches was in chaos for a while.
In the chaos, a soldier panicked and fired a shotgun at a hunter. The shotgun used large-caliber lead bullets, but the range was short.
This is a close defense weapon equipped by the Huaihai Navy infantry. Each squad in the infantry is equipped with it, and the proportion of equipment is adjusted according to wartime needs.
The most common problem among the Huai Navy's junior officers is that they are generally young and lack combat experience.
Most of them came out of a crash course for military officers. They were not very good in theory and knew how to take advantage of the Huaihai Navy's weapons. However, once they encountered an accident on the battlefield, they were prone to panic and lacked the ability to react quickly to make prompt decisions.
"Kill them with shotguns!" a company commander shouted loudly. He took out his pistol and fired three shots at a hunter before he fell.
The vitality of these Russians is so strong that even though pistol bullets hit them, they are still fighting.
In just a short period of time, the company lost more than a dozen soldiers on the position it held.
Under close-range shotgun fire, the hunters who broke into the position were finally cleared away.
From the front of the position, the sound of grenade explosions could be heard one after another. This was the Huaihai Navy using grenades to clean up the prostrate Russians.
Huai Haijun's shotgun is an imitation of later anti-explosion guns. It can not only fire shotguns, but also large-caliber lead bullets. This special bullet has a slow initial velocity and weak penetration. Therefore, it is used in trenches.
Basically, you don’t need to worry about accidentally injuring your own people.
Lin Wei looked at everything on the battlefield and frowned. This battle exposed many problems of the Huai Navy.
First, the grassroots officers' ability to make decisive decisions on the battlefield is not strong, and they lack the ability to deal with emergencies. This is related to the Huai Navy's lack of background, which can only be slowly honed through combat.
Second, there are problems with the design of the trenches, such as the lack of crossfire and the lack of vision for targets on the ground. In future battles, it is impossible for all enemies to stand and rush towards the Huaihai Navy.
The Huai Navy had never encountered such a cunning enemy before, so these problems were not exposed.
Lin Wei decided that after this battle, he must submit a detailed battle report to the staff department and report these issues to the headquarters.
Here today, Lin Wei has paid hundreds of soldiers casualties for these problems.
It can be said that these problems were discovered with the lives of soldiers.
These hunters are not completely unafraid of death. When they lose hope, despair will spread in their hearts.
And this kind of despair will make them lose courage, become cowardly, and collapse will follow.
When the Huai Navy used grenades to build an impenetrable line of defense in front of the position, these hunters found that even their crawling movements were ineffective.
At this time, under the deployment of the officers, some sharpshooters had been arranged to prominent fire points to conduct cross-firing. In this way, there was no blind spot in front of the position.
The little bit of morale that the hunters had just gained from breaking into the position suddenly disappeared. It even made the hunters' morale even lower.
No one can predict when the collapse will occur on the battlefield. This is not a simple mathematical problem, but more like a random event.
Amidst the angry curses of Baron Oberon, the Russian hunter finally collapsed after suffering more than half of his casualties. They turned around and ran towards the woods, like frightened children rushing back to their mother's arms.
"Woo..." The cavalry's horn sounded.
The hunters felt that the ground was shaking. They used 1,500 cavalry to chase down more than 1,000 fleeing infantry with no morale, and the results were predictable.