Now that the garrison commander has shown his trump card, Nigri no longer hesitates. The French artillery will let him know what infantry and artillery combat is. "Let the frontline troops pay attention to the distance from the position, and let the artillery suppress the opponent immediately."
"
Following Nigri's order, the artillery fired again. It has to be said that France's artillery is excellent enough, and it deserves to be a country that always attaches great importance to artillery construction.
Their artillery basically controlled the impact point of the artillery shells within fifty meters of the long wall. Such precise artillery fire caused a lot of losses to the 1st Battalion of the Left Army behind the wall. Even Feng Xiangrong, who commanded them, had a tattoo on his forehead.
"Hold on and fight to the death without retreating."
The eldest son of General Feng had a ferocious look on his face, and with the blood pouring out of his forehead, he seemed to choose someone to devour. Since his own commander was unwilling to retreat, what could the other soldiers say? They could only grit their teeth.
persist in.
However, it is not known how long this attitude can last.
Feng Xianghua, who was worried about his brother, couldn't help but said, "Father, please send more reinforcements."
"No, it's not time yet."
The second son's request was flatly rejected by Feng Zicai. He thought it was not the right time yet. So when will the time be mature?
In Feng Zicai's opinion, the best time is when the left battalion is defeated. When the French think that after the defenders of the checkpoint are defeated, it is the time to relax and give them a violent blow, which is the most fatal. In order to obtain this
Not only did he use his life to paralyze the enemy, but his own son also had to bear the risks on the battlefield.
Since there were no reinforcements, the 1st Battalion of the Left Army, which relied solely on words, continued to resist for half an hour, but suffered too many casualties and was finally defeated.
Seeing the enemy retreating, the French officers and soldiers cheered sincerely. This battle was too difficult, but in the end they won.
As a qualified commander, after seeing the enemy's retreat, Nigri certainly knew what needed to be done and immediately issued an order. "The whole army goes out and pursues the enemy."
Following Nigri's order, other French soldiers who had been waiting for a long time immediately joined the attack sequence. Even the Vietnamese servants with low morale roared and happily began to chase and kill the fleeing enemies.
It's just that they didn't have clairvoyant eyes and couldn't see clearly what was going on behind the wall. The retreating soldiers were stopped, and the commander Feng Zicai led all the other Qing troops to press forward. What's even more terrible is that on the east and west sides,
On the side, the Maxim heavy machine gun was pushed up by Cosenz and others.
Cosenz witnessed the entire battle before, and he had to give a thumbs up to General Feng's strategy. Although many of the troops under his command were still using cold weapons that should have been eliminated long ago, his excellent command
, causing the French army to step into a trap unknowingly.
When the large group of French soldiers arrived less than 200 meters in front of the checkpoint, some French soldiers even had their hands on the long wall.
At this time, the sound of artillery suddenly sounded, which seemed to be a signal. Countless figures poured out from behind the long wall. Among them, General Feng drew his saber and was the first to rush towards the French army.
Seeing Feng Zicai, the commander-in-chief, taking the lead, other Qing officers and soldiers were unwilling to lag behind.
However, they soon discovered that compared to their own bravery, the Maxim's electric cannons from both wings were more ruthless.
"Thud, tug, tug..."
The Maxim machine guns arranged on both wings demonstrated for the first time its ability to harvest lives. The lives of French soldiers were ruthlessly harvested by it. Six Maxim machine guns sprayed French soldiers and soldiers with a speed of 500 rounds per minute.
Load ammunition.
At the same time, the artillery that had been hidden for a long time was firing shells at the French artillery position at a rate of three rounds per minute. Although only eight newly arrived Italian fast guns could hit the French artillery position, they still caused damage to them.
Huge irreparable losses.
"Boom" An artillery piece on the position was directly hit, and the French artillery nearby was blown into the sky.
"Boom, boom, boom" a shell hit the ammunition box, and the continuous explosions made the surrounding area a restricted area for life.
Due to carelessness and lack of intelligence, the French artillery position was only 3,500 meters away from the checkpoint, which was exactly within the range of the Italian 85mm artillery. The bombardment made it impossible for the French artillery position to respond. This is also
Allowing the Maxim machine gun to exert its maximum power unscrupulously.
"Retreat quickly."
Nigri, who was standing in front of the position, reacted immediately after seeing his soldiers being ruthlessly harvested, but since he was here, there was no need to retreat.
Not to mention the French troops who had already rushed to the long wall. These people were destined to be overwhelmed by the Qing army and either died in battle or were captured. The large French army that rushed to the front of the pass was already two to three hundred meters away from the long wall.
If you want to retreat to a safe distance, how can you escape without risking someone's life on a bloody road?
And at this time, the movements must be fast, faster than their teammates, so now the French officers and soldiers no longer care about military discipline, and it is polite to bump into their comrades. Some even directly kicked their comrades down, trying to use them to attract the Qing troops behind them
Pay attention and buy time for yourself to escape.
All the ugly behaviors of the French army were exposed in front of the Qing army, which boosted their morale even more. Everyone knew that they had won, and it was a big victory, so they pursued harder.
However, as the commander-in-chief, Feng Zicai was not dazzled by the victory. He still led his troops to follow the French army. Because the commander of the Maxim Electric Cannon kept telling him that at a distance of 600 meters, his army would be the last to win.
It's a good idea to keep some distance between you and the French army. Once you hear the electric cannon cease firing, you can rush forward.
In fact, they didn't need to be so serious at all, because the morale of the French army was on the verge of collapse at this time, and less than 600 French soldiers escaped from Maxim's range. There were fallen corpses of French soldiers along the way, which was simply horrible to watch.
These French troops, who were like frightened birds, did not stop for a moment when they saw the Qing troops pursuing them behind them. Many of them were already running empty-handed towards the way they came from.
Faced with this situation, Feng Zicai left some officers and soldiers to clean the battlefield and pick up some debris. Especially the cannons that were still intact on the French position had to be taken away.
As for the other officers and soldiers, they followed him and followed the defeated French army towards Lang Son.
In this battle before Zhennanguan, the Qing army invested more than 5,000 troops from Feng Zicai's men, while the French army invested 3,000 men. In the end, the French army was defeated miserably, with more than 2,300 casualties and more than 300 prisoners (some were injured).
Those captured were mainly French officers and soldiers. As for the Vietnamese servants, they were all captured without injury). Only more than 500 people followed Nigri and fled back to Lang Son.
Most of these people were empty-handed, but Nigri did not dare to stay in Lang Son. After spending a night gathering the soldiers, he immediately withdrew from Lang Son with more than a thousand defeated soldiers and continued to flee to Bac Ninh.
He didn't have time to collect many supplies in the city, so he ran away in despair.
Facts proved that Nigri was good at running away. The next day, Feng Zicai led his troops to Lang Son and regained the city.
Then Feng Zicai attacked from all sides and successively recovered Changqing, Haiyang, Taiyuan and other places. With Feng Zicai's victory at Zhennanguan, other Qing troops were ready to move. Moreover, the Vietnamese people also rioted. For a time, Beiqi
Everywhere in the region was in a state of chaos.
This gave French commander Miller an unusual headache. He could only carry out strategic contraction. A large number of newly occupied cities were abandoned, which made the resistance of the Vietnamese people even more vigorous.
For this reason, he specially sent a message to Paris, requesting domestic reinforcements to be sent for support. In addition, after investigating the tragic defeat of Zhennanguan, he even proposed to Paris that the Italians had intervened too much in this war with the Qing Dynasty. If they could not
If we block the Italian black hand behind it, it will be difficult for France to have a good outcome in this war.
