1890 King of Southeast Asia

"We are also Ottomans. I am from Ankara and belong to the 29th Division. Why are you pointing guns at us? We have also fought against the Chinese."

"We came all the way to Ain Tab and fought against the Chinese on the front line. You Ottomans are sitting in the back, but now you are pointing guns at us. Do you still have a conscience?"

"Where is your commander? I asked your commander to come out and see me. Why did you stop the warriors of the empire from outside? We need an explanation! My uncle is a marquis. If I die here, your commander cannot bear the responsibility!"

In front of the Ottoman position, more than 1,000 Ottomans gathered into a group and were stopped outside. Li Yunfei picked 3,000 people for the 9th Brigade. Hundreds of them fell behind along the way (shot), and many of those who ran over after being released in front of the position scattered. With dozens of people who were injured by mistake, there are now only 1,000 people.

Some of these people really don't understand why this is happening, and they are the majority. After all, people of this era have little culture, and before they have a certain amount of experience, their thoughts are all single-threaded.

Some people have either received education or are smarter, and they can probably guess why. Some of them have quieted down, and some have put pressure on the defenders in different ways, trying to pass through the position.

Do they not know the consequences of doing so? No! They know, but they want to survive.

They are now between the defenders and the attacking army. Once the two sides start fighting, they will be attacked from both directions, and the chance of survival is very small.

"Did you see their arrangement clearly?" Zheng Shangqing picked his teeth two kilometers away. The canned meat he ate at noon was a little old, and there was a lot of it in his teeth.

"Report, I have a rough idea. The first wave of firepower preparation can knock out at least half of the enemy's support points."

The battalion commanders of the two artillery battalions stood beside them, and a large number of artillery observers, gunners, and deputy gunners were spread out horizontally. Basically, everyone had a telescope and wrote and drew on the notebook in their hands while watching.

This batch of prisoners has many uses. They can not only attack the enemy's positions and hit the enemy's morale, but also expose their positions.

Just like now, as the prisoners began to make a fuss, groups of Ottoman soldiers appeared in more and more places on the positions, sticking their heads out to watch the excitement.

Obviously, in the Arab war zone where the intensity of the war was lower, the Allied soldiers here have not learned the importance of concealment.

If it was on the Western Front, the soldiers who stuck their heads out might expose their positions, attract artillery fire, and might also be noticed by precision shooters and snipers. This happened too much, and the soldiers there have learned to hide themselves.

"Go back and get ready. When the mortars start firing, follow the prisoners and drive them in. Seize this opportunity." Zheng Shangqing searched everywhere on the ground, hoping to find something hard and thin to use as a toothpick.

Grass doesn't work. He has tried it whether it is wet or dry. It is stuck and can't be poked by grass.

"Yes!"

The gunners and battalion commanders retreated and immediately adjusted the angle of the cannon according to the calculated parameters after returning to the position. Then they stuffed a 105mm or 152mm high-explosive bomb and waited quietly for the order to fire.

Bang bang bang...

Before the artillery battalion fired, dozens of mortars opened fire first. Whether it was a 120mm heavy mortar or a small and medium-caliber mortar, those that could reach the distance opened fire.

The shells fell dozens of seconds later. The dispersion was very large and the explosion points were very scattered. Some fell into the crowd, and some fell to the left and right of the crowd. The distance was very different, and even no one was hit.

…………

"Run, the Chinese are attacking!"

"Despicable Chinese, they said they wouldn't attack if we didn't go in!"

"Despicable Chinese lied to us!"

"Never mind whether they lied or not, what should we do now? Are we going to be blown to death here? Can the Chinese artillery hit accurately? Why are there people running from both sides?"

"No! I want to go over, let me go, my uncle is a marquis, you bunch of untouchables, I am a noble, get out of the way!"

"Go over, if you don't go over, you will die, put that noble in front, bet they dare not shoot!"

"We are soldiers of the empire, it's wrong for them to stop us, I don't believe they dare to shoot!"

"Fight! If you don't fight, you will die, go for it!"

Among the prisoners, more than 1,000 prisoners were forced by the increasingly close shells, and quickly formed a relatively unified opinion. Nearly a thousand people rushed to the passage between the two Ottoman positions in fear or anger.

"Stop them! Shoot! They must be organized!" The head of the regiment looked at the crowd angrily.

He didn't know if that was a child from a noble family, but he had already believed it because he couldn't disprove it.

But he still chose to shoot, and didn't even order to avoid that person, because if he offended a noble, someone would trouble him after returning to Istanbul. If he lost the position like this, the military court would sentence him to death tomorrow.

Besides, this was on the battlefield. As long as he could make meritorious contributions and make enough merits, he could not only become a noble, but also a powerful noble, a senior military official. After the Young Turks came to power, the power of those old nobles was greatly reduced, at least on the surface.

Bang bang bang...

The hills on both sides of the road were not high. The vertical height from the top of the left hill to the foot of the hill was about 60 meters, and the one on the right was even lower, a little more than 40 meters, and the slope was not large.

But it was quite large, spanning hundreds of meters. There were 3400 people on each of the two hills, divided into two positions, which did not seem crowded at all, but rather a bit empty.

There were not many people deployed on the positions on both sides of the road, with only more than 40 people on both sides combined. This was because the road was sandwiched between two mountains, and the attacking troops could not choose to pass through before removing the positions on both sides.

Just like unless the military situation was extremely urgent, the army would not tend to pass through dangerous places such as the 1-line sky in areas not controlled by its own side.

There was no dead angle for shooting when the cross-shooting was high above, and attacking from the bottom up was also at a disadvantage.

Therefore, the Ottomans did not put many people here, and even the fortifications were built perfunctorily.

As a result, the Ottoman soldiers who came to support from other positions could only squat in exposed positions on the mountains on both sides and shoot at the road with their eyes closed.

Although the soldiers on both sides tried not to aim or shoot at places where no one was, the crossfire formed by the bullets was terrifying. In a few minutes, less than 100 guns fired bullets randomly, knocking down nearly 100 people.

In total, less than 1,000 bullets were fired, and the hit rate was more than 1 in 10, because some were hit but did not fall, and the specific hit rate is still uncertain.

Ten bullets hit one, and it was still not aimed. In comparison, it took tens of thousands of bullets to kill one person on the Western Front.

There is a certain difference between hitting and killing, but few people are not dead after being shot 5 times. Even if it is calculated as 5 times, the difference is more than a thousand times.

However, this is a special terrain and a stubborn head, just like the beginning of the war between Britain and France, when they drove their soldiers to crash into the German machine guns.

Off topic: The famous machine guns behind the charging soldiers happened in France during this period. Unlike the British who used a large number of colonies, most of the French soldiers in the European war were French, and they really had the guts to do it.

However, in movies and TV shows, this method has become a Soviet method. In history, before the Iron Curtain fell, this kind of thing did happen on Russian soil. The White Army did it this way, learning from the French.

"No more defenders have escaped, but it's almost time. Order the artillery to start. There's no need to hesitate with the mortars. Aim at the enemy and fire." Zheng Shangqing was still struggling with the meat in his teeth. After he finished speaking, he accidentally found a thorny bush and broke off a thorn.

Boom boom boom~~

Bang bang bang~~

The artillery position was behind the front-line command post, about 1 kilometer away. When the shells passed over the command post, Zheng Shangqing could still hear the humming sound of breaking through the air.

boo! boo! boo!

Tall columns of smoke rose from the Ottoman positions. The semi-arid and semi-sandy soil was rolled up high by the shells. The dust immediately covered the Ottoman positions and blocked the field of vision of the artillery observers.

However, there are already preset parameters. Just follow the preset parameters to fire. The huge power of the heavy artillery will solve all of this.

Even if it cannot hit directly, the soil in the semi-arid area is easily collapsed by the shock wave generated by the explosion, destroying its fortifications, and soldiers with bad luck will be buried in the sand.

"Chief of Staff, it's almost time to send out the infantry." The artillery staff said after the bombardment lasted for 3 minutes and less than 100 heavy artillery shells were fired.

It's just a barrel artillery, and the mortar has fired an unknown number of times.

"Is it okay?" Zheng Shangqing was picking his teeth and asked in surprise.

The 3rd Division did not participate too much in the battle by the Euphrates River, but it also saw the scale of the bombardment, especially after the 59th Regiment broke through, the artillery group composed of artillery from each division joined the battle.

The whole sky was rumbling, not an exaggeration, but a fact.

"Based on the explosion, these hills should have been cultivated for a long time, and the soil is relatively soft. Their trenches cannot withstand this scale of bombardment."

"The main vegetation here is shrubs. They should not have enough wood to reinforce the trenches. We can send infantry to try. For safety, let the armored vehicles take the lead." The artillery staff said.

Just as they were saying these words, another round of bombardment fell

"Let the 16th Regiment send a company to make a tentative attack." Zheng Shangqing thought for a while and said.

The bombardment slowed down a lot. A few minutes later, more than a dozen armored vehicles drove along the shabby road towards the enemy's position, with a speed of about 20 kilometers per hour.

The armored vehicles drove to the enemy's position. The soldiers in the armored vehicles got off the vehicles under the cover of the vehicle-mounted machine guns and easily climbed the positions with only slight resistance.

"Let the 16th Regiment... It's done." Zheng Shangqing wanted to say that the 16th Regiment would attack, but before he said it, he saw more armored vehicles, motorcycles, etc. rushing forward at a rapid speed.

"Hiss~Pah! Great! I finally picked you out." At this moment, Zheng Shangqing used the thorns of the bush to pick out the flesh between his teeth. Although he accidentally pierced his gums, he felt much more relaxed without anything stuck in his teeth.

"The enemy should not have had time to build a position behind them, right? Let the artillery clean up and move forward to the enemy's position..."

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