Near the Donghe Bridge, Xiang Ziyu was lying in the trench, watching with some boredom as the Qi troops in front launched another attack.
They rushed forward in a black mass, and then were pushed back by machine guns. The sound of the cloth tearing machine was continuous, making it impossible for the Tang army to get close.
The Maxim heavy machine guns equipped with the Qi Army are not equipped with shields and wheels. They are improved lightweight versions. Although they are easier to transport and carry, they have also lost the ability to attack enemies head-on.
Without the cover of a defensive shield, it is a very difficult task to carry a heavy machine gun within the range of the enemy machine gun against a sniper and fire back.
Without the cover of heavy artillery, it is very difficult to seize a bunker, especially a thick and towering fortress like a bridgehead.
However, the Tang Army was not without pressure. They did not have much ammunition and it was difficult to replenish it, so they had to save ammunition.
The two sides fought fiercely until the afternoon, and then the Qi State's returning defense force, which had never seen the Tang State Air Force, witnessed a strategic bombing in the true sense.
The Tang State's Flying Fortress bombers bombarded the Qi army deployed along the railway in a dense formation, causing the Qi army's heavy weapons to get stuck halfway and unable to deploy towards the Donghe Bridge immediately.
The second prince also already knew the news that his way forward was blocked. He rushed to the front line in person, and soon realized that his troops were blocked on the way back to the royal city.
It would be easy if there were rebels from Qi in front, but it would be different if it was Tang troops blocking the Donghe Bridge.
He had to work hard to break through here, because this was his only chance to return to the royal city, ascend the throne as King of Qi, and master the legal orthodoxy.
So he personally returned to the bombed railway section, personally supervised the Qi army behind him, removed the cannons that were paralyzed on the railway, and tried his best to transport them to Donghe Bridge to join the battle.
Just as the second prince was trying to get his troops to retake the Donghe Bridge and open up the road ahead, another tank detachment from the 4th Armored Division rushed into the King's City of Qi.
Encountering almost no resistance, they captured the outer positions of the royal city. After only simple bargaining, the Qi troops stationed on the walls of the royal city surrendered their weapons.
Without the knowledge of the remaining ministers in the city, the dragon flag of the Tang Dynasty had been hung outside the city wall.
In the industrial zone on the outskirts, workers from Qi State who were working were surprised to see Tang Army trucks driving into their factory one after another.
The Tang soldiers wearing steel helmets are easy to identify, not to mention the red dragon flags painted on the engine hoods and roofs of these trucks.
Everything was business as usual. The Tang military officers who came to promote the policy assured everyone that the Tang army would not threaten the personal safety of any civilians.
At the same time, in the royal city, tanks of the Tang Army drove arrogantly on the streets, frightening the civilians of Qi State who were still in the dark.
They only vaguely knew that the Tang Army seemed to have captured Nanye, but they never expected that the Tang Army would have reached the core of Qi State so quickly.
It can also be seen from here that as the paratroopers killed the main decision-makers of Qi, the ability of the remaining Qi officials to control the entire country has collapsed.
Their structure was too small, and other than supporting the new King of Qi to divide the cake, they were unable to fight against powerful external forces.
Even these officials couldn't even control the royal city where they were, and they didn't even have the ability to let the soldiers hold on.
The officials who were still thinking about whether to let the eldest prince come back to inherit the throne or let the second prince come back to take charge of the overall situation did not realize that they were finished until they saw the tanks of the Tang Army parked at the gate of King Qi's Palace.
Not surprisingly, the officials of the royal city did not have the courage to sacrifice their lives for their kingdom. So they chose to surrender and cooperate with the new ruler.
They were even willing to take the keepsakes from the royal city and rush to the north of Nanye without stopping, announcing to the Imperial Guard troops besieged there that the royal city had been breached.
So, on the night when King Qi's city was breached, the besieged 10,000 elite Imperial Guards chose to lay down their weapons and surrender.
Half of the Qi State had been completely wiped out, and there was no longer any resistance from the Qi State. The Tang Army's logistics lines were completely safe, and even the railways had been built.
As if overnight, Qi's resistance collapsed. Qi's royal city chose to surrender without firing a shot. There was no longer a threat behind the paratroopers blocking the Donghe Bridge.
What's even more exaggerated is that the rotting corpse of Qi King Jiang Xian, which was finally transported back to the royal city, once again became a trophy of the Tang army.
When the Qi State's 2nd Army pulled its heavy artillery near the Donghe Bridge, the Tang State's 4th Armored Division also pulled the artillery captured near the Qi King's City to the vicinity of the Donghe Bridge to support the paratroopers.
The battle suddenly became magical. The Tang army used Qi's cannons to fight against Qi's cannons. Because it was backed by a military factory, the artillery shells were more abundant and more convenient to transport. The Tang army actually had more firepower than the Qi 2nd Army who came from afar.
More fierce.
The second prince was immediately confused. After confirming that the royal city had been lost, he led the 2nd Army to retreat in a panic and fled to the relatively safe Beiyuan City without hesitation.
Embarrassingly, the 4th Armored Division of the Tang Army, which was preparing to pursue the 2nd Army non-stop, had just crossed the Donghe Bridge and pursued eastwards before they found that the railway had been blown up by bombers. They really couldn't catch up and lost all their baggage.
Running Man of Qi State.
So the 4th Armored Division could only wait for the engineers to come to repair the railway, and the wait lasted three days.
Three days later, when the day lilies were cold, the Second Prince's main force had already fled, and the 4th Armored Division also received new orders, ordering them to wait near the Donghe Bridge.
After fighting at Donghe Bridge for seven or eight days, they performed their mission perfectly and killed the King of Qi. The Tang paratroopers were ordered to hand over their positions, and then went to the King's City of Qi to rest and recuperate.
This heroic team enjoyed a rare holiday: each of them received a large reward, and the bounty came from the Qi State treasury...
In the city of King Qi, which surrendered without firing a shot, all supplies were preserved. Including the treasury of Qi, the amount of things captured by the Tang army here was staggering.
This is the accumulation of a kingdom for hundreds of years. It is just a treasure in the palace warehouse, which is enough to be described as priceless.
…
The Qi troops near Luo Town no longer launched attacks. They built defenses on the spot, but their determination to hold on was long gone.
Because they can no longer obtain enough supplies from behind, and even... no one cares about their life or death.
When Qin Xiong retreated, he did not expect the Qi defenders who had been abandoned here to fight to the end, so he did not arrange for the logistics troops to continue to provide sufficient supplies for these troops.
He left in such a hurry, taking with him the remnants of the 1st Army and the 3rd Army, as well as some troops whose combat effectiveness remained relatively intact.
The remaining Qi armies were basically motley crews with incomplete structures, low combat effectiveness, and insufficient training.
The day after the eldest prince decided to retreat, the 1st Armored Division of the Tang Army launched an attack on the flank of the remaining Qi Army troops.
Liu Guozhu's troops rushed forward 60 kilometers in one breath, and had almost surrounded the Qi defenders near Luo Town on three sides.
At the same time, the eldest prince and Qin Xiong led their remaining defeated soldiers all the way east and attacked the second prince's original defense area.
Before leaving here, the Qi army robbed all the food they could find in the entire defense area, killed civilians who refused to cooperate, and committed all the bad things they could do.
They had no intention of coming back, or in other words, they never thought that they would be able to fight back one day - the southern part of Qi State, in the eyes of the eldest prince, could basically be regarded as the territory of Tang State.
War is often like this: at the beginning, the battle is evenly matched, but as one side runs out of supplies and the situation collapses, everything that follows suddenly becomes magical.
On the second day after the second prince retreated to Beiyuan City, in the southern region of Qi State, the eldest prince's troops integrated some of the Qi State's miscellaneous troops who had stayed behind in the former second prince's defense area, and then opened fire with some small forces loyal to the second prince.
fire.
The internal conflict in Qi State began when such a foreign enemy invaded, and it became out of control in just one day.
Both Qin Xiong and the eldest prince knew that what troubled them now was not that they had too few troops, but that they had insufficient supplies.
If they receive too many troops, it will become a huge drag on them. Therefore, they have no intention of recruiting the troops abandoned by the second prince, but are preparing to take away all the supplies of these troops.
Of course, the troops who stayed behind could not watch the eldest prince take away all their food and ammunition, so they took up arms.
It is a pity that there are not many Qi troops that can defeat the elite 1st and 3rd armies of the Qi army, not to mention that the commanders may not dare to take action seriously.
As a result, the eldest prince's troops fled, and instead exerted an overwhelming momentum, snatching away all the food and ammunition from the Qi troops remaining on the southern defense line.
The remaining troops had no food and no courage to continue to hold on. Some simply dispersed, and some simply went further south and surrendered to the remaining troops on the northern defense line of the Tang Army.
Their surrender requirements are also very simple: brother, we don’t want anything else, don’t count them as prisoners, just treat them as civilians and stutter!
As a result, after this magical operation, the Tang Army's northern troops inexplicably accepted a large number of prisoners and occupied part of Qi's southern defense line.
It is no exaggeration to say that in the past few days, the war situation in Qi has collapsed. If there is no strong support, they will probably be fully occupied by Tang within a month.