Liu Hai was sitting in the center of the tent. When he looked down, he saw more than twenty generals lined up below. They were all division commanders under Liu Hai.
These people are either generals promoted by Liu Hai from the grassroots level, or they are students from the martial arts hall. After so many years of training, each of them has grown up to be able to stand alone.
"Everyone, I am going north now, not for my family's wealth, but for the emperor's imprisonment. I have been favored by the emperor for generations, so I naturally want to repay the emperor. I have arrived at the gate of Tianjin. As soon as Tianjin is defeated, I can march to the capital immediately.
Save the emperor and the fire and water, and when the time comes to seal his wife and son, it is now. You must fight bravely to kill the enemy today, and don't be half-hearted."
After listening to Liu Hai's words, the generals below all knelt down on one knee and raised their hands, "I will wait for you, general, and I would like to follow the commander-in-chief."
Liu Hai nodded and asked these people to get up, and then began to issue orders, "Order the artillery division to build a heavy artillery position outside Tianjin and wait for my orders at any time."
Liang Lin, commander of the heavy artillery division, immediately came out to answer the order: "The last general respects your order."
After speaking, Liang Ling left the Chinese army's tent and began to lead the artillery division to build artillery positions.
Liu Hai then looked down again and said to Zhang Jin beside him: "You are the commander of the Fourth Army. Now I order you to be the forward army and arrive at the gate of Tianjin City and wait for the order to attack the city at any time."
After hearing this, Zhang Jin immediately accepted the order and stood aside.
Then Liu Hai looked at Song Hu and said: "I ordered your 5th Army to be in Tianjin City for 4 weeks, and to remove all the strongholds in Tianjin City for 4 weeks, and at the same time cut off the communication between Beijing and Tianjin."
"This is the last general who will obey the commander-in-chief's orders."
Liu Hai nodded, and then said to the other generals in Dazang: "You guys go down and prepare on your own. An hour later, the army will be arrayed in Tianjin City. Zhang Jin will lead the army to attack the south gate of Tianjin City. You and others will disperse their troops in Tianjin City."
We will use the other gates to conduct feint attacks to support Zhang Jin, and we must capture Tianjin City within three days."
As Liu Hai's order was conveyed, the entire camp became lively. People from all walks of life began to leave the military camp and formed their own offensive positions outside Tianjin.
Especially Zhang Jin, who is the main attacker, has tens of thousands of troops arriving at the south gate of Tianjin City.
As Liu Hai's direct descendant, the Fourth Army is naturally well-equipped. The Fourth Army now has an artillery brigade.
This artillery unit is equipped with 155mm caliber howitzers or 122mm caliber howitzers.
There are now a total of 48 large-caliber artillery pieces in this artillery force, and artillery positions have been set up behind the banned troops outside Tianjin.
The other armies have also been dispersed to all sides of Tianjin City, ready to attack at any time, sharing the pressure of Zhang Jin's main attack.
Liu Hai also left the military camp at this time and came to a high slope outside Tianjin City. Surrounded by guards and staff, he was watching Tianjin City from a distance with a telescope.
But when he saw it, he was immediately full of confidence in his entry into the palace this time.
Because the current Tianjin City appears to be impregnable on the surface, with high walls and thick walls, but these arrangements are based on the cold weapon era, and may not be of much use now in the face of our own huge artillery group.
After reading it, Liu Hai said to Liu Wei beside him: "It's time to start. Let's order the artillery to carry out artillery bombardment now."
Liu Wei nodded beside him and immediately issued orders to the staff officers nearby.
As the radio waves were transmitted from Liu Hai to the artillery division's position, the heavy artillery was slowly raised, and their muzzles were pointed in the direction of Tianjin City.
Following the order, hundreds of heavy artillery roared at once, and then heavy artillery pieces with a caliber of 155 mm and 202 mm flew out of the barrel and flew towards the city wall of Tianjin.
At this time, the soldiers on the city wall of Tianjin City saw balls of flames flying from the sky. Before they could react, these flames had already hit the city wall.
As the cannonball made contact with the city wall, there was an earth-shaking loud noise.
Liu Hai's heavy artillery now uses 155mm howitzers and 202mm howitzers.
These artillery shells not only have the large-scale lethality of howitzers, but also have the ability of cannons to attack important fortifications.
Therefore, although the walls of Tianjin City are very thick, they are all made of rammed earth. These walls cannot withstand heavy-caliber cannon attacks.
The first round of shelling caused large-scale cracks in the walls of Tianjin City, and even small-scale collapses in some places.
Zhang Peilun, who was on the city wall, almost had red eyes when he saw this situation. Regardless of anything else, he directly ordered his soldiers to drive the young men and carry baskets and other items to start filling up the collapsed city wall.
Although these young men in Tianjin were very reluctant, under the threat of the soldiers' guns, they had to fight desperately to repair the collapsed city wall.
But as soon as these people approached the breach in the city wall, the second round of shelling had already begun.
This time the bombardment not only involved Liu Hai's heavy artillery division, but also the artillery brigade of the Fourth Army, plus other large and small caliber artillery, a total of more than 1,000 cannons, firing together.
This has never happened before in this era.
Therefore, this round of continuous bombardment flattened all the buildings on the top of Tianjin City, and the Qing troops preparing to defend on the top of the city suffered heavy losses.
Even Zhang Peilun was hit by a stone, and his left shoulder is still bleeding.
However, Zhang Peilun didn't care about his own injury now. He roared loudly and ordered soldiers everywhere to start repairing the city wall.
In fact, Zhang Peilun is just a scholar, and he doesn't know much about this kind of thing on the battlefield. If he is an experienced general, he will only arrange some observers on the city wall.
The other main forces will take shelter under the city wall to prevent the enemy's heavy artillery from causing greater casualties to their side.
But Zhang Peilun did not have this experience. He just wanted to drive the soldiers to the top of the city, and then desperately repaired the collapsed city wall.
This caused huge casualties to the soldiers on the city wall, and also created huge psychological pressure on the reserve troops who had not yet matured.
After all, no one wants to die. The soldiers in the reserve team looked at the row of soldiers going up and the corpses coming down, and everyone was afraid.
The bombardment of Liu Hai Town did not stop after a few rounds, but continued continuously for nearly an hour.
After the bombardment ended, looking at the city walls on the south side of Tianjin City, almost all of them had been blown down.
The guards in the southern city have now suffered heavy losses. Even the reserve team behind the rear city wall has suffered a lot due to the collapse of the city wall.
However, Zhang Peilun is still very tough. During such a long period of shelling, although some bricks and tiles fell on him, no important parts were severely damaged.
Therefore, after the bombardment ended, Zhang Peilun was still able to vigorously command the soldiers to begin repairing the city wall, and at the same time ordered preparations to withstand the next attack.
Zhang Peilun was fine, but his soldiers were unlucky. Frightened by Zhang Peilun's pressure, these people had no choice but to rest and repair the city wall while holding rifles on the slope facing the outside of the city, ready to defend at any time.
At this time, Zhang Jin saw through the telescope that the Tianjin City Wall had almost been lost, and immediately ordered the 10th Division of his Fourth Army, as the vanguard, to begin charging towards the Tianjin City Wall.
As more than half of the troops on the ground formed a skirmish line and trotted closer to the city wall, Zhang Peilun on the wall also ordered the soldiers to start shooting.
Zhang Jin used his binoculars from behind to see resistance on the city wall. He shook his head and said to the man next to him: "The defenders of Tianjin City are really powerful. They are still persisting at this point. This is not like the generals of the Qing Dynasty."
consistent style.”
But his chief of staff Xu Jian frowned and said: "The current guard of Tianjin City is Zhang Peilun. I heard that this man is Li Hongzhang's son-in-law, and I heard that he is a very honest official and has some abilities."
While they were talking, the attacking 10th Division had quickly approached the city wall, and the artillery regiment of the 10th Division also began to suppress the city wall with 80mm mortars, 120mm mortars, and 122mm howitzers.
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The Qing troops on the city wall were already frightened and defending with gritted teeth. Now they were hit by this round of artillery and collapsed immediately. Now Zhang Peilun has no choice.
So the 10th Division successfully attacked the city wall in the south of Tianjin City.
With the attack of the soldiers of the 10th Division, the Qing troops had now given up resistance. As soon as they saw the Hunan troops, they dropped their weapons, knelt down and began to surrender.
The soldiers of the 10th Division did not make things difficult for them. They only sent a small group of troops to collect their weapons and drive these people together.
Zhang Jin, who was outside the city, was very surprised to see that the 10th Division had already breached the city wall with just one attack.
He originally thought that a siege like this would lead to a series of fierce confrontations, but he did not expect that the Qing army defending the opposite side would be so vulnerable. It seemed that Zhang Peilun was exaggerating.
In fact, this is not entirely Zhang Peilun's fault. Who are the soldiers under Zhang Peilun now? They are all old, weak, sick and disabled, or they are ordinary strong men without training.
These people couldn't even bear to bully the common people, let alone fight against the ferocious Hunan Army.
They were able to resist the artillery fire for such a long time, thanks to Zhang Peilun's command and strong suppression. If it were an ordinary person who was under the first round of artillery fire, they would have dispersed in a rush.
Seeing that the 10th Division's attack was going smoothly, Chief of Staff Xu Jian hurriedly suggested to Zhang Jin: "Military seat, now we should launch a general offensive. I think we don't even need reserves. We only need our Fourth Army to occupy Tianjin."
."
After hearing this, Zhang Jin nodded repeatedly, and then said to his chief of staff: "Now it's time for our Fourth Army to show its face. In the past, Ye Faguang and the others were in the front, and we were the reserve at the back. This time we can take our turn."
It’s time for our Fourth Army to eat meat.”
After Zhang Jing finished talking to his chief of staff, he immediately ordered the Fourth Army and other troops to start a full-line offensive and be sure to occupy the entire Tianjin before noon.