Iribu, who was watching from behind, saw how ferocious the enemy's firepower was. His soldiers who were driving forward were suppressed and unable to raise their heads after just advancing for a while.
Now Iribu is also a little anxious. If he doesn't stop this group of people from going down the river, he may not be able to resist when the enemy transports troops across the river again.
So this guy anxiously shouted to the soldiers beside him: "Where is our cannon? Why haven't we brought it up yet?"
The soldier next to him was holding down Iribu's head to prevent him from stretching too high and being hit by heavy artillery. He said at the same time: "Master, the cannon is too heavy. We were walking in a hurry just now, so these cannons are not used."
Keep up."
"Tmd, what do you want to eat? Send someone to bring the cannon up quickly."
After receiving the order, the soldier quickly lay down and retreated a certain distance, and then conveyed Iribu's order.
Soon a group of people retreated quietly to meet the artillery.
Although Iribu is a playboy, he also knows that he must not retreat now. If he gives the people on the opposite side a chance to breathe, with this firepower, those people they just died will be in vain.
Therefore, although he did not dare to move forward, he kept shouting from behind, approving officers and making wishes, cheering for the charging soldiers.
However, as the bullets from the opposite side hit like raindrops, these charging recruits were not fools, and no one took Iribu's instigation seriously.
The two sides persisted like this for about 10 minutes, and finally Iribu and his cannons were transported to the front.
However, the cannons on Yiribu's side are not like Liu Hai's. The Hunan Army is equipped with large-caliber howitzers.
These Qing troops were equipped with old-fashioned front-loading artillery, and the caliber of the muzzle was not large.
In fact, this cannot be blamed on the Qing army. Empress Dowager Cixi wanted to buy some advanced foreign guns and cannons.
However, with Liu Hai's victory in all directions on the battlefield and the brutal beating of the Rakshasa people, all their channels for purchasing weapons have now been cut off.
The weapons now in the hands of the Empress Dowager Cixi were all brought by Gili people from India through the Tibetan Plateau and through mountains and rivers, with great difficulty.
As for the advanced artillery, the Geely people do have it, but there are not many in India. It is impossible for them to support the Empress Dowager Cixi with this limited artillery fire.
When Iribu saw that the artillerymen on his side had finally arrived, he immediately became excited. He waved the pistol in his hand and shouted to the artillerymen who had just come up, "Hurry up and fire the artillery, and blow up all the rebels on the opposite side."
die."
The artillerymen who had just come up immediately began to build artillery positions without even doing any repairs.
This is not a simple task. It requires not only correcting the artillery correction position, but also setting up ammunition storage points. It is impossible to complete it without a few hours.
Ye Wencheng, who was on the opposite side, did not give them this effort. Before Iribu and his artillery positions were set up, seven or eight heavy artillery shells flew from the sky and quickly hit the half-finished artillery position.
Immediately, the front-loaded artillery that had just been deployed on this side was blown up into the sky, and then ignited the shells that had just been placed behind.
As a result, a chain reaction occurred. Huge roars kept coming from the artillery position. In the end, the entire artillery position, as well as the people who operated these cannons, were all destroyed in the sea of fire.
Iribu witnessed the entire process of his artillery being eliminated. Now the commander was kneeling there, a little dazed.
But his soldiers were not in a daze. Seeing this, they knew that the battle could not be fought.
So these soldiers came over, and a few of them started to retreat backwards while holding Iribu on their backs.
However, it is not that easy for them to retreat now, because Ye Wencheng on the opposite side does not know whether the artillery position has been completely eliminated, so he is still firing artillery shells to one side.
Therefore, they did not go far before another round of shelling came.
Although Iribu's soldiers were very brave, they almost used their own bodies to resist the cannonballs for Iribu.
But how can the human body withstand the attack of ammunition, so soon a piece of shrapnel sliced through the arm of a soldier, and then penetrated into Iribu's chest.
Only then did Iribu wake up from the pain. Although he woke up, it was too late. Blood was spurting out from his mouth and he couldn't even speak a complete sentence.
With the death of Iribu, the soldiers he led finally collapsed.
These people threw away all the weapons in their hands and ran away with all their might, wishing they could turn into four-legged horses and run faster.
However, these people also paid a heavy price for their escape, because they pointed their backs at the Hunan Army's rifles, so they would pay a heavy price for every step back.
After these people escaped the range of the bullets, only a few thousand of the original more than 20,000 troops were left.
Don't say anything else now, just run for your lives. So these people took off their officers and soldiers' clothes and fled to the countryside.
Liu Bing, who was the first to cross the river, finally breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the enemy's attack had been repelled.
Although they had just relied on their superior firepower to inflict heavy casualties on the Qing army, they were still under great psychological pressure in the face of the Qing army charging forward one by one.
Now that the Qing army had finally retreated, Liu Bing was finally able to take a breath and reported to Ye Wencheng behind him that the army could cross the river.
Seeing that the situation was settled, Ye Wencheng could finally order his soldiers to cross the river with confidence and boldness.
After half a day of operation, the First Division of more than 15,000 men was finally transported across the Yellow River and arrived at the west bank of the Yellow River.
Although they have crossed the river, the matter is not over yet. As a pioneer, it is natural to open a road through the mountains and build a bridge across the water.
For the Yellow River, it is so difficult to ferry 10,000 people. It is not an easy task to imagine that hundreds of thousands of troops can rely on these ferries.
Therefore, after Ye Wencheng's large troops crossed the Yellow River, he ordered the construction of simple pontoon bridges on both sides of the Yellow River.
These floating bridges are entirely based on ferries on the Yellow River, and are covered with wooden planks transported from various places.
However, these pontoons can be used by ordinary soldiers, but tanks and cannons are simply impossible.
Therefore, faced with this situation, Ye Wencheng hurriedly found nearby fellow villagers and asked these people which part of the Yellow River was shallower and easier to cross.
After asking fellow villagers, I finally learned that there is a gentle slope more than 100 miles south. Since the terrain is slightly higher here, the water of the Yellow River is not very deep, and the flow is relatively slow, which is just suitable for mechanized troops to cross the river.
.
Therefore, Ye Wencheng sent the news to Liu Zhi via telegram.
After Liu Zhi received Ye Wencheng's telegram, he did not dare to make any private decision.
Although Liu Zhi is now nominally the commander-in-chief of the army, there is still the Supreme Emperor Liu Hai in the camp. Therefore, if he encounters major problems, such as if the army needs to be diverted this time, he needs to report it to Liu Hai.
Liu Zhi ordered his car to turn around and soon arrived in the middle of the army.
There is a luxurious bulletproof car here. This car was specially customized by Liu Hai from modern times and brought to the Qing Dynasty.
It has always been Liu Hai's mount during the march.
At this time, Liu Hai saw Liu Zhi coming in the car and hurriedly rolled down the window and waved to him.
Liu Zhi hurriedly came in three steps and two steps. When he got to the car window, he gave Liu Hai a military salute and then reported it.
"Commander, there is news from Ye Wencheng ahead. The current of the Yellow River is relatively fast and heavy equipment cannot cross the river. There is only a gentle slope more than 100 miles below the Yellow River that can barely allow heavy equipment to cross the river."
"If that's the case, let's let the army change direction."
Liu Hai paused for a moment after saying this, and then said: "You don't have to ask me about this kind of thing in the future, you can make your own decision."
Liu Zhi agreed on the surface, but he didn't take Liu Hai's last words to heart.
The leader says so, but you can't really do what the leader says. If you really make the decision on your own, and the leader doesn't give you some shoes to wear, that would be weird.
Then things became simple. As Liu Zhi's life was determined, the large army began to change direction and moved closer to a place more than 100 kilometers downstream of the Yellow River.
Not to mention, when they arrived at the place, Liu Zhi personally took his staff to the river to observe, and found that the Yellow River fruit here was indeed very slow as Liu Bin said, and the water depth was not deep, only more than one meter.
But even so, Liu Zhi did not dare to order his army to cross the river. If anything happened to the water of the Yellow River, his army would be doomed.
So Liu Zhi ordered his men to find a nearby boatman who had been operating all year round. After asking around, he found out that in the early years, the water of the Yellow River here was also very turbulent, but he didn't know that in these years
What's wrong, the water volume of the Yellow River began to decrease, so now this gentle slope began to become calm.
After Liu Zhi found out the news, he hurriedly went back to report it to Liu Hai.
When Liu Hai heard the reason, he immediately understood that it was due to serious soil erosion on the high loess slopes, so the current Yellow River water is no longer as abundant as it was a hundred years ago.
Liu Hai seems to remember that in the following decades, the Yellow River even experienced dry flow once or twice. This shows the serious damage to nature during this period.
Since there were no problems, the army began to cross the river.
The hundreds of thousands of troops marching on this gentle slope first built several pontoon bridges with fishing boats so that the infantry could quickly cross the river. Then various vehicles and tanks pulled artillery and supplies and lined up in several rows along the way.
Cross the Yellow River at the highest point of the gentle slope.