When the signal flare went up, the pocket watch in Lieutenant General Hugh Goff's hand read exactly four o'clock!
At this time, the sky will be bright and the morning breeze will blow. The humidity on the plains around Peshawar has slowly risen overnight, and a thin layer of mist seems to be covering the ground, making it look particularly peaceful, which is very consistent with the atmosphere before the war.
And countless bayonets condensed with morning dew flashed behind the two parapets that had just been built on the starting positions of the British and Indian troops on the east and south sides of Peshawar City!
The white-skinned officers leading the team were distributing "brave pills" to the Indian mercenaries under their command - Yapian sugar pills! Without some medicine, how could these "third brothers" have the courage to rush up despite the enemy's bullets?
In fact, those white-skinned officers themselves have to kowtow, and only after kowtow do they dare to take the lead! Otherwise, how can we fight a war in the era of queuing and shooting?
After watching the "Third Brother" below get the "Brave Medicine", he was already a little excited before he started taking it. The white-skinned officers also became more courageous, as if they had seen the dawn of victory.
In previous battles in India, as long as the battle formation was set up, the cannons blasted, and the "drug-addicted soldiers" rushed in, they basically won a complete victory.
And this time it was eighteen thousand against three to five thousand... The golden soldiers on the opposite side were probably three thousand, plus the former East India Company infantry who had rebelled and surrendered, plus some Pashtun tribal warriors, they could Five thousand would hold up to the sky.
It’s not just three people beating one!
The advantage lies with Great Britain, how could it not win?
So, you Indians, just kowtow a little more...so that you can be braver and win faster!
The artillery under Hugh Gough was also deployed at the front at this time. Twenty-four 12-pound Armstrong breech-loading cannons were divided into two artillery groups, which were placed on the east and south sides of Peshawar. Among them, the artillery group placed east of Peshawar City consists of eighteen cannons, and the artillery group placed south of Peshawar consists of six cannons.
Judging from the distribution of artillery, today's main attack direction is to the east of Peshawar.
Seeing the signal flares rising in the sky, the British and Indian artillery commanders who had been impatient for a long time jumped up from their bunkers one by one, climbed to a high place, waved the flags in their hands, and shouted orders :"put!"
Twenty-four Armstrongs showed their muzzles. The gunners who had just finished firing were all extremely powerful. They quickly removed the cover and pushed the bullets into the chambers fiercely. Match ropes were pulled, and tongues of fire spewed out from each muzzle!
The artillery position of the British and Indian troops was very close to the front line of the Jin soldiers, and the direct shooting distance was only two to three thousand meters. The rifles and machine guns of the Jin soldiers are no longer a threat at this distance, and the 12-pound Armstrong breech-loaded cannon can shoot very accurately. It is also equipped with shrapnel specifically designed to kill infantry. It is quite powerful at medium and close ranges. Remarkable.
One after another, shiny cannonballs were filled into the barrel, and then they were spit out with a "bang"! On the opposite front of the Jin soldiers' position, clouds of smoke suddenly rose up. At first glance, it looked as if flowers had suddenly bloomed on the ground.
The impact points of these artillery shells were very concentrated, and almost all of them hit the anti-horse gun array directly in front. As the shells continued to explode, several layers of anti-horse guns were blown to pieces and flew away. The fragments flew everywhere. , you can still vaguely see the human body being blown up into the sky! The British artillery fired very accurately, and the shells hit the target very concentratedly. After a while, an attack channel was gradually blasted out.
Subsequently, the British artillery fire began to extend again, and the artillery shells fell on the trench line of the Jin soldiers! After the fighting, gunpowder smoke and dust filled the battlefield, flowing slowly, choking people to the point where they could hardly breathe.
The bombardment lasted for a full hour, and the twenty-four cannons fired a total of 1,200 rounds. A quarter of the artillery shells that Hugh Gough's men had worked so hard to transport had been used up, and the artillery positions were covered with copper shells. At 4:30, the bombardment came to an abrupt end. The white-skinned officers of the British-Indian army and the Sikh turbaned officers who led the charge straightened up and raised their hands forward. The drugged infantrymen suddenly poured out from behind!
Behind the Golden Army Formation in the east of Peshawar City, Pingxi King Wu Zhenzhen, wearing a yellow mandarin jacket, carrying a waist knife, and a steel helmet imported from the Ming Dynasty, led a dozen Goshhars carrying shell guns, and flew along the traffic trench. Just came forward.
Although this Wu Zhenzhen is a prince, he is a master who likes to take the lead and charge into battle. He saw the firepower of the British army on the east side of the city from the tower of Peshawar Castle, and immediately knew that the British army's main attack direction was to the east of the city. Immediately, he handed over the command to his lieutenant, and went down to the city tower with his own soldiers. He first squinted behind the earthen wall outside the east gate. When the British bombardment ended, he immediately entered the communication trench and went straight to The main position in the east of the city left with the "Dui" position.
When Wu Zhenzhen rushed into the trench of the "Dui" position, the Jin soldiers in the trench had already gotten up, but most of the Peshawar militiamen were still squatting against the inner wall of the trench with their heads in their hands, their heads and faces covered with tears. It's soil.
Wu Zhenfa hurriedly shouted: "Is anyone breathing? Get him up and set up your rifles and machine guns. The British devils are going to come up and die!"
While shouting, he ran back and forth in the trenches. When he saw the Peshawar militiamen who were frightened by the British shelling and couldn't get up for a while, he would go up and kick them personally, and then use the Pashto skills he had just learned. Yu shouted twice: "The true God is great!"
Seeing him go to the front line as if they were risking their lives, the Jin soldiers and Peshawar militiamen in the positions also gained courage. One after another, the Bess breech-loading guns and Suvorov rifles were set up, and the black hole The muzzles of the guns were pointed forward.
At this time, Wu Zhenfa was also lying on the trench wall, holding up a telescope with his left hand and looking towards the opposite side. At first it was still full of smoke and nothing could be seen clearly. I only heard shouts coming from the other side. Suddenly, a gust of mountain wind blew away the smoke, and finally we could see clearly the formation on the opposite side. Everyone was surprised and happy.
The British-Indian-Sikh coalition officers and soldiers pressing over from the opposite side were so large that they were literally a sea of people! Soldiers wearing various turbans came like a tide, forming waves of dense skirmishers in the open position!
The officers of the British-Indian Army and the Sikh Army stood at the head of the team, holding up their command knives and leading the soldiers forward. Rows of rifles undulated forward. On their starting positions, there was a steady stream of British-Indian troops. The officers and soldiers of the Army and the Sikh Army climbed over the parapet. The entire battlefield was almost filled with soldiers wearing turbans! All kinds of heart-rending shouts mixed together, making it extremely noisy!
This intensive skirmish line tactic was actually the mainstream tactic in the Napoleonic Wars in this timeline. At that time, breech-loading guns and breech-loading cannons had just appeared, but the main equipment of various countries were still front-loading rifled guns and front-loading cannons, which were water-cooled. There are no conventional machine guns yet, but the unreliable revolving (Gatling) machine guns already exist, and barbed wire has not yet appeared.
In that case, relying on the concentrated use of artillery and dense skirmish lines, it is completely possible to break the enemy's trench defense line.
But now, times have changed!
Wu Zhenzhen was lying in the trench, staring at everything in front of him with his mouth open: "Damn it, if there were no barbed wire and machine guns, I would have become a loyal martyr today..."
Thinking of this, Wu Zhenzhen pulled out his waist knife and ran back and forth in the trench line with long strides: "Don't fire! Don't fire... wait until the enemy is blocked by the barbed wire fence before attacking!"
He also ran to each machine gun fort built with sandbags, and the shooters were nervously preparing to shoot. They heard Wu Zhenzhen yelling at them: "You can only open fire when the machine gun I control fires. Do you hear me?"
"yes!"
The machine gunners are all veterans. Although they have not seen today's big scene, they are all veterans who have been in battle and seen blood. They may be able to calm down!
As long as the machine guns on the front line can "hold on", it's not a big deal even if the rifles in the hands of the Peshawar militiamen fire indiscriminately.
Zhuge Weidao and the others also saw the British-Indian-Sikh coalition forces rushing in like a tide from the turret at the back. Zheng Guoxian and Mu Junen, two army officers with professional backgrounds, both took a deep breath.
Colonel Mu Junen put down his telescope and frowned: "This is a classic French attack... The French Republican Revolutionary Army relied on this tactic to repel the anti-French coalition forces!"
Zheng Guoxian over there also put down his telescope, frowned and said: "At least two regiments have been invested in the east, and there is about one regiment in the south... This is the first wave, and there will be at least two more waves after that, that is, Nine regiments take turns to attack! This is to use India’s human lives to compete with the firepower of the golden soldiers... As long as the density of human lives is high enough and the attack is resolute enough, a breakthrough can be achieved!”
"They can't break through!" Zhuge Weidao said in a firm tone, "The barbed wire fence will block them, and the machine guns will kill enough people! And they also have four six-foot howitzers..."
As soon as he said this, the four six-inch cannons placed on the square below the castle suddenly trembled, then spurted out fire and made a violent roar!
...
Among the dense ranks of British-Indian-Sikh coalition troops, clouds of smoke suddenly rose. The large turban of the British-Indian-Sikh coalition was like a big blue and green blanket covering the entire battlefield. The rising smoke dispersed, and there was an extra gap in the two-color blanket, which could still be faintly seen. I saw a swaying human body. But in the blink of an eye, more soldiers from the British-Indian-Sikh coalition will come in!
These "third brothers" who took drugs are indeed much braver than they were without drugs!
At the same time that the four six-inch guns began to roar, a dozen 60mm mortars also began to show off their power! The "natural enemies" of machine guns such as mortars are also found in the purely white British Army, but not in the British and Indian troops - mortars are also cannons, and a cannon must be mastered by a white man to make people feel at ease. But mortars are company-level support artillery. It seems too luxurious to have a white-skin artillery squad in a company...
With the support of more than a dozen mortars, the Jin soldiers' firepower became much more intense. The artillery fire plowed from the front of the team to the back, shrapnel whizzed and flew in all directions, and every time it exploded, it knocked down a group of "third brothers". But the drugged British-Indian-Sikh coalition is now on the rise and shows no signs of stagnating. In the blink of an eye, they were approaching the remaining resistance horses. The soldiers in the lead moved these resistance horses away one after another, and some impatient ones simply turned over from above, indicating that they were moving forward.
At this time, the vanguard of the British-Indian-Sikh coalition had already rushed to a place only three to four hundred meters away from the Jin Army's trench line, and it was easy to hit them with rifles. Wu Zhenzhen has "occupied" a machine gun fort located in the center of the trench line, and personally controls a Taiping First Year-style water machine gun manufactured by the Ming Dynasty - more than ten other machine guns arranged on the main position of the "Dui" brand will also Fire along. The machine guns on the "Qian" position and the "Kun" position on both sides of the main "Dui" position will fire together after the "Dui" position is fired!
These machine guns are held by the world's most elite naval airborne cavalry (they are actually cavalry), and of course they can enforce firing discipline. But those Peshawar militiamen with rifles did not have that quality.
The layers of overlapping horse-rejection lines deployed by the Jin soldiers in front of the three positions of "Dui", "Qian" and "Kun" were about 30 meters long. However, at the main breakthrough point (located in the center of the "Dui" position), the lines of resistance were The horses had already cleared a lot of ground for the British artillery, and the weakest part was even less than ten meters. The "drug-addicted third brother" came up in rows, and was about to break through the rejection line. There were already Peshawar militiamen in the trenches who could not keep their composure and began to fire with their Bass breech-loading guns. On the position held by the Jin soldiers, sparse fires appeared one after another!
The marksmanship skills of these Peshawar militiamen were actually quite good. From time to time, among the "third brothers" crowded in the Juma Line, blood would suddenly burst out from someone's body, and then they would tremble and fall down. The screams could not be suppressed, and the "Third Brothers" team suddenly fell into chaos. However, the white-skinned officers and Sikh officers who led the formation became even more excited when they saw the sparse firepower coming from the opposite side.
The enemy was clearly firing indiscriminately - this was a waste of precious bullets (the infantry of both sides fighting on the Indian battlefield usually only carried ten rounds of bullets), and their firepower was very sparse, indicating that the shelling just now was very effective!
As long as you charge one more time, you will win!
Victory... Not only did I have a lot of rupees, but I also had enough!
Under the urging of the officers, the "Third Brothers" became excited - their casualties were not large and within the tolerable range. They all rushed across the horse-rejection line and continued to move forward, screaming.
Their team has become chaotic and has become more dense. There are no longer waves of skirmishers, but have become a "charge group" of hedgehogs gathered together. Of course, the speed of advancement has also accelerated, and everyone They all roared and rushed forward with their heads covered.
Those "third brothers" who had not been able to cross the horse-rejecting line for a while picked up the bass breech guns in their hands and fired at the Jin soldiers' position in an attempt to suppress the opponent's firepower.
At this time, all the rifles on the Jin soldiers' position began to fire. The bullets were shot out in rows, mowing down the charging "Third Brother" one by one. But the "three brothers" who had already charged could not retreat. Their formation was too dense, and the comrades behind them almost had bayonets pressed into their backs. Moreover, these "third brothers" also knew that the white-skinned team had already set up their machine guns. As long as they dared to retreat, those white-skinned soldiers would not show mercy.
Seeing that more and more "Third Brothers" had rushed to the thin wire mesh line despite the firepower of the Jin soldiers, Hugh Gough, holding the telescope, said to himself: "Breakthrough... A breakthrough is coming!”
His chief of staff, Charlie Brown, also smiled slightly and said: "There is still one last barbed wire wire... rush through it, and India will still be ours, forever!"
The so-called "last barbed wire" line is actually not just one, but a defense line composed of three wooden stakes holding barbed wire. Hugh Gough had actually discovered these barbed wire fences, but he had no time to prepare vise for his men, so he had to get a lot of axes from the cooks and engineers who accompanied the army and gave them to the charging "Third Brother" to chop down the wooden piles... ..But those "Third Brother" axemen gasped and rushed to the barbed wire fence, only to find that the thick wooden piles inserted deeply into the ground were also wrapped with layers of wire. It was difficult for the ax to cut the wood.
However, this group of "Three Brother Axemen" still performed their duties very faithfully, using their axes in vain to chop down the wooden piles protected by the wires. Of course, this won't do anything. Even if it can be cut, it will take a long time. While they were cutting down the "barbed wire stakes," the following "Third Brother" soldiers had already surged up like a tide, and in the blink of an eye, a large crowd had gathered in front of the barbed wire fence. Some of them tried to climb over the barbed wire, but the barbed wire was full of spikes and they couldn't do anything. They wanted to knock down the barbed wire, but the wooden piles were buried too deep.
Just when they didn't know what to do, King Dajin Pingxi and Minister of the Navy Wu Zhenxian had already aimed their machine guns at them!
Only Wu Zhenfa shouted: "Fire!"
Then he pulled the trigger of the machine gun himself, and tongues of fire spit out!
The shooters in the other machine gun forts on the position saw that Wu Zhenfa was already firing, and they also pulled the triggers. Dozens of tongues of fire spurted out from each carefully disguised machine gun fort almost at the same time! The sound of bullet shells popping out and colliding was loud, and dozens of streams of fire, like the call of death, flew towards the extremely dense "Third Brother".
Blood mist suddenly spurted out from the crowd, flying into the crowd and filling the air. Looking through the telescope held by Zhuge Weidao, he saw in front of the barbed wire fence, the "third brothers" wrapped in various headscarves were twisting and falling down in rows, blood was spraying everywhere, death and dying Human bodies were piled on top of each other, and a large amount of blood flowed on the muddy ground, quickly dyeing a large area of land black and red!
"Win, win..." Mu Zhongjun's voice suddenly sounded, "So this is what winning a battle looks like!"
Zhuge Weidao looked at the scene of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and just said coldly: "It's begun! It's begun..."
Zheng Guoxian, who was also shocked by the killing scene in front of him, heard Zhuge Weidao's words, put down his telescope, looked at this former friend who "suddenly became stupid" and "suddenly became very scary", and asked curiously: "Daozi, you What did you say it started?”
"The beginning of a new era!" Zhuge Weidao said, "In future history books, the Battle of Peshawar will be the prelude to a new era!"
