Xiao Letian and Nightingale both made very pessimistic judgments about the Paris Civil War and began final rescue preparations.
Things turned out as expected, and the subsequent battle finally entered the most brutal street fighting.
The Paris Commune, who was stunned on the first day, began to organize the National Guard to counterattack. They already knew the strength of the enemy. Regarding these professional legions trained by the French Emperor, all the Commune members gave up their previous arrogance.
The battle situation suddenly became complicated, and the commune began to change its plan from a comprehensive offensive to focused defense and local counterattacks, while guerrilla street fighting took place in a wider area.
Strong fortresses, highlands, river bends, bridges...all these places that are easy to defend and difficult to attack are equipped with cannons and permanent fortifications.
People began to demolish the ruins of buildings and use stones and bricks to build permanent bunkers. Cannons were set up behind the positions and ready to fire at any time.
These fortresses absolutely cannot give up an inch of ground. They store a large amount of food, fresh water and ammunition inside, so they can continue to fight even if they are surrounded on all sides.
These are like iron nails, firmly nailed on the chessboard of Paris.
Between these fortresses that control key points is a huge street fighting area. The leaders of the commune unanimously decided not to confront these elite regiments, because the National Guards were no match for the quality and cooperation of individual soldiers.
Therefore, these huge blocks would rather be given over to the enemy, allowing the government forces to extend their front line, preventing them from forming an absolute strength advantage in a certain block.
As long as your strength relaxes, then I can fire unlimited cold shots and harass you for twenty-four hours!
Just defense is not enough. The commune also has more than a dozen small and elite assault troops, usually only 1,800 people gathered together. They specialize in looking for gaps on the battlefield, and then take advantage of them to fight a counterattack.
Or simply make a sneak attack at night and concentrate on fighting small annihilation battles!
These three axes were rounded, and it really caused the government troops to suffer a lot. For two consecutive days, the lines of fire between the two sides were constantly entangled, and you fought for it.
One street was captured by government troops in the morning, and was probably beaten back by the commune in the afternoon. In the evening, both sides carried out brutal night attacks.
The fighting in these 24 hours was so cruel, the entire crossfire line was crisscrossed and twisted together!
The government army's attack was frustrated, which made Thiers very angry. After discussing with McMahon, he immediately sent all the artillery in reserve to the front line.
The arsenal in the rear began to increase its power to produce ammunition. The railway tracks leading to Paris were full of trains pulling ammunition. In addition, France's railway dispatching efficiency was lagging behind compared to Germany, causing severe congestion on the few railway lines.
All the train stations surrounding Paris were full of soldiers and civilians unloading trucks. Ton after ton of artillery shells were transported into the city of Paris and began to bombard the neighborhoods controlled by the Commune.
Boom, boom, boom... the whole of Paris was trembling, the city was in flames, and the flames of hell were rising into the sky. The Commune had never seen such fierce bombardment, and it lost three buildings and six blocks in a row in one night.
The commune members who were shocked by the explosion yelled at the government troops, "Executioners... If you had so many artillery shells to fight the Prussians, you would have won long ago!"
"What's the point of killing your own compatriots..."
Boom boom...boom...the only answer for them was the continuous shells, flying past like locusts.
The commune was also completely blown to pieces. No one cared about life and death anymore. They organized waves of death squads and started a night counterattack under enemy fire.
After one group was killed, another group was killed. Those government troops who took advantage of the artillery to clear the way to seize positions often encountered desperate counterattacks by the death squads as soon as they planted their flags.
In the dark night, hand-to-hand fighting took place at almost every line of defense. Due to the cover of darkness, it was difficult for the government troops to form effective cooperation, which gave the workers an opportunity.
Armed with engineer shovels, iron wrenches, felling axes and bayonets, the suicide squads, led by the red flag, rushed upwards with shouts of killing. The passionate commune leaders, knowing that there was no way out, rushed to the front line to kill themselves. The blood of the soldiers was spilled together.
"Comrades... you have seen the cruelty of the enemy... what they want is to massacre the city..."
"Resistance is death, not resistance is death... We would rather die on the battlefield than on the way to charge..."
"My parents didn't bring me to this world to be a slave! To avenge my comrades..."
The night gave the commune the best cover. Those blocks that had been taken away were taken back one by one before dawn, leaving only endless corpses on the ground!
The frontline was fighting, and the rear was not idle either. Raoul Rigaud began to carry out brutal internal clarifications, and those spies wearing tricolor armbands were his focus.
Raoulli's subordinates are all a group of plainclothes and secret policemen. They are very experienced in doing underworld work for many years. Their first skill when casting a large net is the continuous sitting method.
They cleaned up one area after another, started searching according to the previous roster, and then rushed into the members' homes to look for possible clues.
As soon as you find that weird tricolor armband, arrest his whole family!
"Quick, quick, quick... block this street, no one can enter or exit, let me search door to door..."
"I'll give you another hour. If you expose the spy now, you can still be saved... If it is discovered that the spy was concealed and not reported, everyone in the entire block will be arrested..."
"Men are sent to death squads to charge into positions... women are sent to prisoner of war camps for permanent detention... Your children will also become the children of traitors, thereby depriving them of all rights..."
"Think it over, think it over...I'll give you one hour to surrender!"
Plainclothes policemen rushed into every house and threw the owners into the street to listen to Raoul Rigault's lectures, while the secret police began to search like they were combing their hair.
Raoul Rigault knew very well that this huge espionage operation must be network-like. As long as you grasp a point, you can pull out a line!
"Found it... Sir, I found a tricolor flag... the old flag used by the Empire..."
"Hahaha... Whose is this? Pull him out..."
"No... I'm not a spy, I really am not... I'm a tailor, this is the fabric I collected... I threw it all over the street before, I'm going to wash it and use it as rags..."
A lame tailor was kneeling on the ground and trembling with fear. Raoul Rigaud looked at him cruelly and sneered, "Haha... I don't want to hear your excuse. If you want to hear it, you have to listen with the sound of the whip!"
"Hang up! Give me a whip... If we don't dig out all these damn spies, none of us will survive..."
No one cared whether the tailor was innocent or not. He was hung up with his hands tied and whipped with a cowhide whip, even his clothes and skin flew off.
The screams frightened everyone in the street to turn pale, and some people in the crowd did have weird expressions!
Raoul Rigaud winked at his men, and several plainclothes men immediately rushed into the crowd to catch those with weird expressions!
