At this time, the convoy of the 1st Battalion had already driven more than ten miles to the west. Naturally, no gunshots could be heard, but the signal flares flying hundreds of meters into the air with brilliant tail flames could be observed.
In a truck full of soldiers at the end of the convoy, several soldiers held up flashlights and played cards, and accidentally saw bright yellow spots in the night sky in the distance.
"Huh? That's..."
"Is it a flare?"
"Oh! It's true!"
Several people turned to look, and then they saw another bright yellow light slowly rising into the sky, and they immediately shouted.
The squad leader sitting in the passenger seat took a look and immediately ordered the driver to blow the whistle continuously. At the same time, he also found a disposable signal tube, unpacked it, stretched it out the window and pointed it towards the sky, and pulled the tail puller. Ring, a signal flare went straight into the sky with a "pop" sound.
"If there is a situation in the rear team, stop the car!"
A few minutes later, Zhou Changfeng became alert when he learned that someone from the rear team had observed two signal flares being fired from the Nujiang Steel Cable Suspension Bridge.
"It's unlikely to be a joke. The third team will turn around immediately and the rest of the troops will be on standby." He immediately ordered.
It was obviously inconvenient to make a normal U-turn in such a place with bad road conditions, so the soldiers immediately got out of the truck, placed jacks under the truck, and lifted the entire vehicle into the air. Then more than a dozen people worked together to make it rotate half a circle on the spot.
Soon, more than a dozen trucks headed straight in the direction they came from, and Zhou Changfeng also changed his motorcycle and followed closely behind.
The captain of the third team is named Xue Can. Just by hearing his name, you would think that he is a sunny and tough boy, but in fact he is a medium-sized, smooth-tongued guy who is especially good at seducing women with his sweet talk. If it were not for his military qualities, almost all of them are A-grade. Wait, Zhou Changfeng must ask this guy to get out.
A distance of more than ten miles on a flat straight road could be reached by just pressing the accelerator twice, but here it took nearly a quarter of an hour.
The intensive gunshots were getting closer and closer. Xue Can, who was on the off-road vehicle, picked up his binoculars and took a look. Just in time, a flare was raised in the distance, giving a clear view of the firefight situation.
"There are only two machine gun fires and rifle fires, and there are only a dozen people in total." Xue Can guessed that the defenders there suffered the consequences of the night attack without even thinking.
The convoy stopped about two hundred paces behind the west bank defenders, and the soldiers jumped out of their vehicles one after another and lined up.
Zhou Changfeng walked up to Xue Can, exchanged a few words, and then directly gave the order: "The machine gun platoon will be deployed on the spot, firing flares continuously, and the heavy machine guns will be placed on the roof of the vehicle. The other platoons will set off in sequence!"
In recent years, the Ming Army has become increasingly dissatisfied with the Type 20 heavy machine gun equipped with bullet-plate ammunition. It believes that it has become outdated, so it has been openly bidding for air-cooled heavy machine guns fed by metal bullet belts. However, it has not yet Determine who will win in the end.
For example, the VZ.35 (ZB-53) heavy machine gun produced by the Brno Arsenal in the Czech Republic was highly valued by the Ming Army. The Ministry of War inspection team specially ordered 40 improved models for testing; Zhou Changfeng's first battalion was honored to receive eight of them. Yes, after all, doing it thousands of times on the test field is not as valuable as doing it once on the battlefield.
[ZB-53 is the serial number of the Brno Arsenal, and VZ.35 is the serial number given to it by the Czech Ministry of Defense, which is the predecessor of the slightly famous VZ.37 heavy machine gun. 】
The illumination flares fired by the two-inch, or 64mm, mortars are much brighter than the gadgets fired by rifle grenades or signal guns used by the suspension bridge defenders. The latter can only last seven or eight seconds, and the luminous intensity is no more than 10,000 candelas.
The platoon leader who led the team put on a helmet and waved a pistol, "Get ready to fight! Let's go!"
With a "bang" sound, a flare flew over the Nujiang Steel Cable Suspension Bridge. The luminous tube hung by the parachute was several times more dazzling than the bright moon. The bright white light it spread instantly made the surrounding area as bright as a full moon night.
Shuling and her men were engaged in fierce exchanges with the Ming army on the west bank. Empty bullet casings and empty bullet plates fell on the ground; while the Hoffmans and others were setting up explosives amidst the hail of bullets.
They were shocked when a battalion returned for reinforcements. Mrs. Hoffman said in panic: "They are back, we must retreat!"
"Relax, relax... It's okay." Mr. Hoffman said a few easy words in succession, and then took a detonating cord and hid behind the guard box that was riddled with holes.
He pressed the detonator, and the long detonating cord exploded instantly, and twenty-four one-pound bags of Balatto explosives arranged on the steel cable exploded.
Several packages of explosives arranged around the two steel pillars on both sides of the bridge were also successfully detonated.
[Barato dynamite is an explosive commonly used by the British army. It is a mixture of barium nitrate, TNT, aluminum powder, etc. 】
"Boom——"
After the smoke cleared, before the Hoffmans and their group had time to cheer, they were surprised to find that the suspension bridge was not broken? ? ?
The two steel columns were severely deformed, but they remained standing; most of the eighteen steel cables were broken by the explosion, but there were still a few broken wires left.
Mr. Hoffman called God damn, and began to take explosives from his backpack to conduct a secondary explosion.
"Are you crazy? They are coming!" someone exclaimed.
At this time, the muzzle fire of the convoy on the other side flickered, and a series of heavy machine gun bullets rained down, and the mixed tracer bullets pierced the darkest pre-dawn environment.
The ear-piercing whistle of artillery shells also followed, and several mortar shells accurately covered their location.
In an instant, everything was silent, and the dozen or so people who had been firing non-stop just now stopped making any movement.
"The target is silent, hurry! Get close to the bridge and maintain fire suppression to prevent the secondary explosion!" Zhou Changfeng shouted.
Before, when the flash and roar of the explosion came from the other side, he thought that the bridge must be broken, but unexpectedly it was not broken? Overjoyed.
More than thirty soldiers quickly jumped to the bridgehead, and then relied on bunkers to fight side by side with the defenders here. One of the classes rushed onto the bridge to try to see if they could cross smoothly.
They immediately discovered that there were only a few steel cables left on the suspension bridge deck, and the entire right half had collapsed. The steel plates used as the bridge deck were also tilted. Looking down, they saw the rushing Nu River below!
"Smoke! Smoke cigarettes on the opposite side!" the squad leader who led the team shouted back.
After saying that, they put their rifles on their backs, then stretched out their hands to tie the ropes on the side as a "guardrail", stepped on the dangling steel cables, and moved sideways like crabs toward the other side.
Under the fire net of the heavy machine gun, Shuling and her party, who had just been blown to pieces by the mortar, had no room to fight back. Through the pale light of the flare, she could see that most of her men were already corpses. Huo Mrs. Hoffman was seriously injured and dying, and Mr. Hoffman was also covered in bruises.
A few minutes later, a dozen soldiers who had finally crossed the bridge rushed out of the dissipating smoke. Mr. Hoffman, who tried to resist, was shot to death as soon as he drew his pistol.
Immediately afterwards, the dark muzzle of the gun was almost pressed against Shuling's forehead.
At this point, death was inevitable, and she felt that she could survive for one more day, so she resigned herself to holding her head and lying on the ground.
"There are quite a few gasping people here."
"You guys go rescue the wounded!"
The soldiers found several surviving wounded defenders at the messy east bank bridge station, and immediately began to bandage them; the few who were captured alive were also beaten and kicked and rushed to the bridge.
