Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 621 Cao Bianjiao's First Battle
“Boom~”
As time went on, the Ming army's artillerymen became more and more excited and skilled, and the speed at which the shells were fired became faster and faster, so that the Indian army's position could no longer hear the specific explosion point.
The commander of the Mughal Empire's Kanpur defense line, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince Shuko, was standing on the city wall of Kanpur at this time. Looking at the sea of fire on his own outer defense line, his heart was shaking violently.
He was Shah Jahan's eldest son, and he was 23 years old this year. Over the years, Shah Jahan had carefully trained him, and he himself was very motivated. He was widely recognized by the Mughal government and the public.
In the historical plane, once an elephant went crazy and rushed directly towards Shah Jahan's sedan chair. Aurangzeb, who was only 14 years old at the time, rushed forward without saying a word. He first escorted his father to evacuate, and then equipped himself with war horses, swords, bows and arrows before riding to rescue his third brother: From this point, it can be seen that he was a man who planned before taking action.
This time, the empire gathered 300,000 troops in Kanpur, of which 100,000 were "new troops" equipped with modern weapons. Then, starting from the end of last year, the Mughals directly transferred hundreds of thousands of civilians who built the Taj Mahal and a large amount of ready-made materials to build the Kanpur defense line here, so that the entire defense line was built extremely luxuriously: the most abundant material on the Taj Mahal construction site was marble!
In Shuko's opinion, this solid stone defense line can at least withstand the enemy's attack for three to five months. During this period, the outdoor temperature in the summer in South Asia will reach over 50°, and these Aurora people from the northeast will definitely suffer from acclimatization.
Even if the summer heat doesn't defeat these Zhendan people, what if the rainy season comes again in a few months? At that time, your supply will be cut off again, and then it will be time for the empire to counterattack.
But! Looking at the situation today, can this bomb-riddled defense line withstand a whole summer?
It’s so horrifying! It turns out this is what real artillery bombardment is like. It turns out that war can be fought this way!
"Your Highness, the city wall is still a bit dangerous. Two shells just landed in the city. I suggest you retreat some distance."
"No, Singh, at this moment, we must let the soldiers see their commander, otherwise we will collapse quickly. If I am right, the enemy's infantry will rush up after the shelling stops."
"I think so."
"My General, speaking of this, I would like to ask, at least an hour and a half has passed since the enemy's bombardment began. Where are our artillery?"
"Well, Your Highness, I am here to report this to you. After the enemy's bombardment began, I went to our artillery positions to take a look. Most of our artillery positions were directly destroyed by the enemy's bombardment. I have asked the few surviving artillerymen to retreat and gather them together. When the enemy's infantry began to charge..."
"Well, well, this arrangement is reasonable."
When Shu Ke and his minister were talking, it was eight o'clock in the morning. The sun had risen completely and the visibility became very good.
"Bang, bang, bang." Orange-yellow signal flares were raised at the same time on the Ming army's position. Then the Indian soldiers, who were dazed by the explosion, were pushed hard by a huge wave of sound coming from the opposite position.
Countless Ming army soldiers dressed in dark green uniforms, with the Yanhuang Sun and Moon flag held high and shouting "Victory!", poured out of their own trenches and began to charge towards the enemy positions amid the ticking sound of the charge bugle.
Although Kanpur is located in a place where many rivers flow in parallel, it has not been developed by the British in the original historical plane. So it is just a small town at the moment. Therefore, the town can only serve as the headquarters of the imperial army. The real defense measures are three lines of defense with the town as the center, two in front and one in the back, distributed in a fan shape. Of the 300,000 Indian troops, at least 200,000 are in these three lines of defense.
Among the infantry led by Huang Degong on the left side of the Ming army, Cao Bianjiao, who was wearing an ordinary dark green military uniform but with the rank of major with two bars and one star on his shoulder straps to distinguish him from other officers and soldiers, wore a steel helmet, held a Jiguang submachine gun, crouched down, and led more than a hundred brothers to charge to the front of the entire left wing.
After the huge roar of artillery fire, the sound of countless feet hitting the ground made the entire battlefield seem silent.
"Huff, huff, huff." The soldiers all trotted with their guns in hand. Apart from the sound of their footsteps, the only sound they could hear was the slightly nervous breathing of their comrades around them.
Cao Bianjiao, who was only 23 years old this year, served as the chief guard of the emperor's second prince for several years after graduating from the military academy. Then he joined the field army - this was also his first actual combat.
Before the war, he ignored Huang Degong's opposition and insisted on leading a company as a vanguard as a battalion commander. This was his heartfelt idea.
Now, charging towards the enemy's line with a gun in hand on the battlefield, he was nervous and afraid, and these were his true thoughts.
"Huff, huff." Cao Bianjiao, who had always been in first place in weighted cross-country training, also felt tired because of nervousness:
"Why haven't the enemy opened fire yet? Why is it so quiet on the other side? Will the heavy machine guns only start shooting at us when we are only a few dozen meters away from the enemy?"
"Why do I have to wear a helmet? This heavy thing severely limits my vision. What is waiting for us ahead? Is it a barbed wire? What if we are unlucky and there happens to be a heavy machine gun waiting for us behind the barbed wire during the assault?"
Although his mind was constantly full of random thoughts, the instinct formed by years of training still allowed him to move forward at a steady pace.
After jogging for more than ten minutes, the first line of the Indian army gradually became clear in his sight.
"Hmm? There is a barbed wire fence, but the stakes are obviously not strong enough, so not much of it was directly destroyed by the shells. But the ground vibration caused by the shells caused many stakes to fall down, and the barbed wire fence naturally collapsed. Excellent!"
"There are some broken limbs and enemy corpses on the opposite side of the battlefield. But the density is not right. Why are there so few people on the first line of defense?"
Countless thoughts flashed through his mind at a very fast speed, but his body was still mechanically jogging at a constant speed. Then, in just a few breaths, he jumped directly into the enemy's first trench.
"This, this is a trench? It's so shallow, what effect can it have?" Although he was complaining in his heart, he began to give orders in an orderly manner: "First row, follow me, sweep south, second row, north, third row, keep moving forward, walk slowly, and clear out the remaining enemies for the brothers behind."
"Yes, sir!"
According to what he learned in the military academy, Cao Bianjiao knew that when the infantry charged, one of the concerns was that the enemy's heavy machine gun firepower was too strong, and the other was that the enemy's defense system was dense. The most feared thing was that there was fierce firepower under a dense defense system. But now, he felt much more relaxed. After the soldiers below obeyed his orders and quickly divided into three teams, he bent over, still walked at the front of the team, and then began to sweep this section of the trench.
After walking just a dozen steps forward, he saw a sturdy man wearing a large turban, squatting in front of him, holding his head with both hands, his whole body trembling slightly, and muttering to himself. For such an enemy, he did not stop to capture the other party, and directly knocked him down with a volley of bullets.
Then they continued to move forward. In the process, they also encountered some Indian soldiers who were injured but still able to move. There were also some who were unharmed but completely unconscious. Of course, there were also some enemy soldiers who, after seeing them coming, rushed over with guns in hand and roared.
But no matter what type of enemy it is, Cao Bianjiao has only one way to deal with it: use his Jiguang submachine gun to knock them all down.
After sweeping about two or three hundred meters to the south, they encountered another Ming army.
"First Division, Third Regiment, Eighth Battalion, First Company, Cao Bianjiao."
"First Division, Second Regiment, Sixth Battalion, Third Company, Liu Xingzhi."
"We swept from the north, and this section of the trench is clear."
“It’s the same in the south.”
"good."
After both sides nodded in greeting, Cao Bianjiao straightened up slightly, took out a telescope and looked forward for a while before saying to his soldiers, "Jump out of the trench and head north to join the third row."
"yes."
He stretched out his right hand, pressed it against the wall, and jumped out of the shallow trench. But at this moment, a thunder suddenly sounded in his ears: not far from him, a shell fell to the ground and exploded violently. A considerable part of the splashed soil hit him.
"Hiss~" Cao Bianjiao suddenly felt a sharp pain in his lower abdomen, and his whole body fell down.
"Company commander!"
The soldiers behind him quickly jumped out of the trench and supported him.
"Go back quickly, go back to the trench and hide. Damn, the Indians are so cruel that they actually fired at their first line of defense. Are they going to kill their own people as well?"
However.
Behind the Indian Army's second line of defense, about two kilometers west of Cao Bianjiao, the Indian Army's artillery officers were frantically asking the soldiers to correct the shooting parameters: The last round you fired hit our position and it is very likely that you hit our own people!
And about two kilometers east of Cao Bianjiao, the artillery officers of the Ming army also jumped up: "Damn Indians, there are still artillerymen alive? Hurry up, calculate the trajectory, I want to name their exposed artillery positions one by one!"
