After another day of hard fighting, the Dahua army once again pushed the front one kilometer towards Fengjiang. They paid a price of 3,000 people for this, which is no longer a small number.
No one can easily bear the casualties of 3,000 people a day. The cumulative number of casualties is enough to collapse a country.
But in order to seize Fengjiang as soon as possible, Zhao Chen no longer has much to worry about: he must cut off the Tang Empire's support for Zhao Yu as soon as possible. This is now the only chance for the Great China Empire to win.
After finally advancing the position one kilometer further, the 250 mm caliber army heavy artillery in Zhao Chen's hand was finally able to fire his shells into Fengjiang City.
Since yesterday, Zhao Chen couldn't wait to push his artillery to the appropriate position, and today he recklessly started bombarding Fengjiang.
"Load the shells!" Standing next to a large enough cannon, the wheels of this cannon are even made of solid steel. Every move requires a lot of time and manpower.
In order to get this cannon into a suitable position, Dahua Empire even hired several tractors to help - in conjunction with the tractors, they worked together to barely achieve it.
Along the way, engineers had to fill countless craters, and guard companies were required to protect safety. Most operations had to be carried out at night because enemy planes harassed them during the day.
In short, using this level of heavy artillery is a big project and very time-consuming. In order to exert enough pressure on Fengjiang as soon as possible, Zhao Chen did not know how much effort he spent to complete this feat.
After using the corresponding equipment to push the shell into the gun bore, under the camouflage net, the loaders pushed the propellant into the gun one after another.
Because the caliber is too large, this kind of artillery can no longer use standard propellant. Its propellant is independent and needs to be increased or decreased according to the range requirements.
With one command after another, the gunners closed the breech and retreated to a safe position.
The gunner pulled the firing rope, and the muzzle of the artillery sprayed out an astonishing flame in the next second. White smoke rolled into the sky and swallowed up everything around it. The huge vibration caused the surrounding gravel and soil to dance fiercely.
A huge shell pierced the sky, with a sharp sound, spanning a distance of more than ten kilometers, and finally landed in a slum on the edge of Fengjiang City.
There is no way around it. The very edges of cities are often filled with slums like these, where the poorest people in the city live. These people make a living by working hard and relying on urban industry to live a poor life.
Because there is no money, the buildings in these places are actually very crude. The Dahua Empire itself has used wooden structures all year round, and reinforced concrete houses similar to those in the Tang Empire itself are in the minority.
Although a large number of buildings in the center of Toyue are made of reinforced concrete, there are still a large number of wooden houses in the periphery.
Now, it is the turn of these wooden houses to be unlucky: a huge 250 mm caliber artillery shell falls, even if it does not directly hit the wooden houses, the damage to such buildings will be huge.
There was a loud boom, and a black column of smoke rose into the sky, rising and rolling continuously. It could be seen clearly even in the center of Fengjiang.
All the surrounding buildings were collapsed at once, and some houses directly caught fire. There were not even many ruins and rubbles left in the house that was directly hit by the shell.
There was a scary big hole on the ground, and dozens of civilians living here died in an instant. You must know that it was a 250-caliber artillery shell, and it was very easy to kill the people around it.
The earth trembled with this loud noise, and this sudden explosion caused horrific damage, but this was just the beginning.
Another artillery shell fell immediately: The Great China Empire had prepared five 250-caliber heavy artillery pieces in order to bombard Fengjiang. This time the artillery attack was launched with these five heavy artillery pieces.
Following the second loud noise, a huge black smoke column once again rose up in Fengjiang City. The entire city could see it clearly, and even most of the city could hear the deafening sound.
Such things could not be concealed, and panic began to spread: many people began to flee to the east of the city, and refugees carrying baggage could be seen everywhere on the streets.
The weather is not that cold anymore, so even if they sleep on the streets, these people are willing to sleep on safer streets.
After all, the side closer to the Tang Empire is theoretically safer. If that doesn't work, risking a swim to the Tang Empire is another option.
…
Zhao Yu walked around nervously in his room. He had just heard the sound of cannons, and at the same time he also saw the plumes of smoke rising from the city.
At this moment, he was a little irritable, because the place where he was was about to become the front line: "The enemy has already reached Fengjiang City! Why don't you fight back? If this continues, isn't it over? Ah? Isn't it over?"
He didn't dare to question his adviser Xu Guo, and he didn't dare to go to Luo Xiao and yell at him, so the only ones he could curse at were his own housekeeper and a few of his confidants who no longer had any real power.
General Toyojiang.
He even didn't dare to trouble Zhao Zheng and Zhao Feng - in his opinion, these two people were "one of his own" worth winning over and could not be easily offended.
But he couldn't help but curse. After all, the Chinese army had already dropped artillery shells into the city of Fengjiang. If he didn't express his position, wouldn't it be no different from clay sculpture?
"Your Highness! Zhao Chen holds heavy troops and attacks at all costs. The soldiers have tried their best..." Zhao Zheng, who was relieved of his military power and has now become a totem, said: "If there is no air supremacy, there will be no pilots.
After a desperate bombing, I am afraid that the Chinese army has already entered the city."
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! As a general, Zhao Zheng still has a keen eye. He simply looked at the map and some documents left by the Tang Empire advisory group, and made a rough guess
Here comes part of the plan.
After all, the losses suffered by the dwarves and goblins will not be hidden from Zhao Yu. In these days, more than 1,000 dwarves have been killed, more than 1,300 goblins have been killed, and 1,000 orcs have died, which is not a small number.
Thousands of people were killed every day, which was a considerable loss for the defenders - this actually explains the problem, at least it can prove that these mercenaries are genuine.
Having said this, I have to mention the contribution of the Tang Empire in this matter: although it was nominally said that Fengjiang paid for the foreign legions to participate in the war, in fact it was the Datang Group that paid the money.
The payment for hiring these soldiers is all real money, which is even much higher according to the market price. The requirements of the Tang Empire are actually very simple - since I have given you enough money, you must contribute!
In this regard, various countries also gave the Datang Empire face: they knew very well whether they could reverse the trade deficit, whether they could have the money to pay the loans provided by the Datang Empire and the war reparations they owed... relying on this "employment"
"Soldiers" are active.
As a result, many of the troops heading to Fengjiang were elites drawn directly from the main forces of various countries for the purpose of training.
The Tang Empire, which is on the spending side, will also check the quality of these troops and use the Datang Empire's own standards for certain logistical supplies.
Therefore, the mercenaries from various countries who participated in the war in Fengjiang were very powerful. Even if they were not as good as the real Tang army, they were on par with the army of their opponent, the Dahua Empire.
This can be seen from the offensive and defensive battles between the two sides: the battle loss ratio of both sides is about 3 to 1. Basically, this loss ratio is the offensive and defensive battle loss ratio of equivalent strength.
"But, but..." Of course, Zhao Yu knew that his side had actually fought quite well. Let's not talk about anything else, let's just talk about the troops going south. Didn't they all occupy Jiange and achieve a great victory?
Zhao Feng on the side was also persuading: "Your Highness! Don't panic! Our troops going south have captured the Guiguang Sword Pavilion! Victory is already waving to us! As long as we hold Fengjiang, everything will be fine."
"Don't worry! Follow-up support will come in a steady stream!" Xu Guo, the counselor who was sitting there as steady as a mountain, comforted Zhao Yu calmly and said: "Your Highness's safety is not a problem! If the situation in Fengjiang worsens, we will not go to Shanping."
Is it the same?"
"Having said that..." What Zhao Yu really wanted to do was to go to Dongfeng River, to Datang. But he really couldn't say it. He also knew that he should stay in the Dahua Empire.
Looking at the fifth smoke column rising on the horizon in the distance outside the window, Zhao Yu felt that he was still very nervous - those shells seemed to fall in front of his face.
On the other side of the Fengjiang Bridge, more people were fleeing. In order to ensure that Fengjiang would not turn into an empty city overnight, the rate at which the Tang Empire accepted refugees was still controlled within a very reasonable range.
But civilians and local wealthy people don't care so much. For them, when can they run to the Tang Empire and when can they confirm their safety.
So they are still running towards the Tang Empire. Even though they know that the Tang Empire will not let them pass, they still have illusions: What if, what if the Tang Empire suddenly allows them to pass?
"Is there no other way? Let the bombardment stop?" Zhao Yu still refused to give up and asked as he looked at his two relatives.
"It's not impossible. Now that we know the enemy's artillery positions, use large-caliber coastal defense artillery to destroy them..." Zhao Zheng gave his own suggestion.
"Or dispatch the air force to find the enemy's artillery positions and bomb directly... to destroy these long-range artillery." Zhao Feng, who was standing by, also gave his own opinion.
"Then do it quickly!" Zhao Yu's tone was full of dissatisfaction, and he said to the two of them: "Go quickly! Hurry... I don't want to hear the sound of cannons anymore! I don't want to hear it anymore!"
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There is another one that will be finished faster and will be available around 12:20. If you don’t want to stay up late, you can watch it tomorrow morning.
