After the New Year, the three-way army, which was fighting a bloody battle on the Indian front, intensified its offensive in order to send a New Year's gift to New China.Military reports from the front line came back one after another, and the fastest advance belonged to the Marines of the third front.Based on the island of Sri Lanka, they quickly attacked northwards with the assistance of the Tamils.South India has been completely plunged into turmoil, and Tamils everywhere have risen up one after another, wanting to grab a bowl of broth from the middle to drink after the Huaxing army occupies India.The British troops stationed on the west coast of India faced a desperate situation and marched south from the city of Bombay to destroy the rebels.After a long journey of running and resisting, the two armies finally encountered the city of Madras on the west coast of India.Madras City is the fourth largest city in India and the largest concentration of Tamils.In 1639, the British East India Company established a trading post on the north bank of the Guwom River, and the following year built Fort St.
George, with the city of Madras as its core.In 1652, after more than ten years of development, Madras was already the base of cotton textiles and handicrafts plundered by the British in South India, and with the continuous expansion of overseas trade, it began to establish a city and became the capital of the British province of Madras.After 1801, Madras expanded its territory to the west and north, dredging seaports, developing railways, roads and canals, and the city expanded to become the political, economic, trade and transportation center of southern India.India's railways have a much longer history than China's, with the construction of the first railway between Mumbai and Tana in 1853 and its opening to traffic.After landing in southern India, the Huaxing Army Marines also attacked north along the railway line on the east coast, and a steady stream of supplies was supplied to the army through the railway.The strategic location of Madras City as the gateway to southern India is obvious.Taking control of this place, the gate for the Huaxing army to go north was closed.The Huaxing Army can make a detour and go north, but the supply speed of strategic materials will also be greatly reduced, and it will definitely not be able to bypass.The British army and the Huaxing army rushed to the city at the same time, but the Huaxing army had to resist the resistance of the southern states along the way, and the speed of the march was naturally much slower, and finally the British army took control of Madras City.The British army also concentrated its defense along the river, building dozens of defensive bases on the north bank of the Guwum River, which were deployed in the shape of dogs' teeth.One side is attacked, and all sides come to the rescue, so that the enemy cannot concentrate his forces to break through.The British army also knew the strength of the Huaxing Army in southern India, and their more than 30,000 soldiers were more than 10,000 more than the Huaxing Army, and they were not afraid of the Huaxing Army's division of troops.At the beginning, the British army originally adopted the strategy of taking the initiative to attack, because they still commanded more than 100,000 Sikh Indian soldiers.However, due to the tense fighting in Calcutta, these more than 100,000 Indian soldiers have been transferred to the second line of defense in Calcutta.The commander of the British army, Thomson, was so depressed that he had to change his strategy and set up a defense on the north bank of the Guwum River.Thomson is the commander of these three armies, with the rank of colonel, graduated from the British Naval Academy, but he didn't expect to end up in the army.He also had a close relationship with the admirals, and knew about the total destruction of the navy, and did not expect the navy to provide any assistance.There were no batteries on the banks of the Guwum River, and Thomson knew that they were far from being able to stop the heavy artillery bombardment of the Huaxing Navy.He concentrated all of these guns in the rear of the defensive positions, providing long-range fire cover for the infantry.Thomson miscalculated, and although the Huaxing army landed in southern India with 20,000 men, it also armed more than 10,000 Tamils.Moreover, after the Huaxing Army's new artillery was properly developed, the Huaxing Army on the third front also received a battalion of artillery equipment.Pei Renkai, the commander of the third front, was so happy that he let people experiment with the power of a cannonball.After the construction of this new type of artillery, a regiment of artillery was also prepared, which had already been trained when they were in Nanjing, and they were very skilled and fast in operation.With the coordination of the artillery of a squad, a 27-kilogram shell burst out and sent out an earth-shattering roar on a hill three kilometers away.The flames rose into the sky, and when the smoke and dust cleared, a large hole was left in the top of the mountain.The generals of the Marine Corps who came to watch were all dumbfounded, but they did not expect that the artillery of this army would reach the level of rapid-fire guns of the naval fleet.Deputy Army Commander Pei Renkai raised his arms excitedly and roared, with this thing, it would be easy for him to take the British army's Guwum River defense line.Because the British did not set up batteries on the river bank, and the army's defensive positions were set up outside the range of the artillery in depth, Pei Renkai did not ask for assistance from the naval fleet.Thomson wanted to fortify along the river, but without sea supremacy, the defense line could easily be blown up by the naval ships of the Huaxing Army.He simply dug trenches more than ten miles away from the river bank and deployed them layer by layer, and he did not have to worry about the shelling of the Huaxing Navy fleet.Pei Renkai asked the Tamils to build a pontoon bridge over the river, and then ordered the vanguard to quickly cross the Guwum River, dig trenches on the north side of the riverbank, and set up defensive positions to prevent the British from sneak attacks and sieges.Indians are inherently lazy, and one does not top the other.The Tamils raised tens of thousands of people, but it took only half of the task to build five or six pontoon bridges in one day.At night, the pontoon bridge also encountered a sneak attack by the British army, but fortunately the Huaxing army was covered by artillery troops, otherwise it was burned down by the British army that night.Although the British army did not set up a fort, they knew that the Huaxing army had to rely on a pontoon bridge to cross the river.So a large number of small boats were prepared in advance, filled with gunpowder, and waited for the pontoon bridge to be blown up in the dead of night.If it succeeds, the vanguard of the Huaxing army will become a lone army, and it will soon be completely annihilated by the British army.Where would Pei Renkai allow this to happen, and strictly ordered the mortar artillery to keep an eye on the situation on the river.The longest width of the Guwum River is more than 200 meters, and mortar fire can block the entire river.The banks of the river were littered with scavenged planks and pyre, all of which were set on fire by the Huaxing Army after nightfall, and the entire Guwom River was illuminated by flames as if it were day.As soon as the small boats of the British army appeared, all the mortars of the Huaxing army opened fire intensively.Shells rained down on the British boats, and hundreds of boats exploded and caught fire in the river.The boat was already full of gunpowder, and when a shell exploded, the power was even more terrifying.Every small boat is shot, like a powder keg being ignited.The flames soared into the night sky like fireworks.After this incident, Pei Renkai was so angry that he killed a few Indian people in front of the battle, and let the Huaxing army whip them in the back, so that more than a dozen pontoon bridges were built on time in two days.In this way, the follow-up troops successfully crossed the river and joined the vanguard on the other side of the river, each assembling and standby.In order to curry favor with the Huaxing Army, the Tamil nobles didn't even dare to let out a fart, and they tried their best to meet all the requirements of the Huaxing Army.After the two armies faced each other, the 20,000 troops of the Huaxing Army and the 10,000 Tamil Army assembled on the other side of the river, Pei Renkai prepared to rely on the long-range strikes of the new artillery to force a breakthrough from the middle line of the British army.Then adopt the tactic of flowering in the center, take the center line, and then attack the two flanks of the British army.If the British army is stubbornly defending, the Huaxing army will attack.If the British army took the initiative to counterattack the center line from both flanks, then the Huaxing army would fight trench warfare on the position.The British army camped dozens of miles on the river bank, and the central line concentrated half of the soldiers and horses, set up five defensive positions, and about 15,000 people.After the offensive began, Pei Renkai asked more than 10,000 Tamils to attack the British army on two flanks, creating the illusion that the Huaxing army had broken through.On the central line, 20,000 Huaxing troops were concentrated, and they quickly broke through to five positions.He wants to fight a fight like he's never had before, and the key to this fight is speed.If not before the British flanks surround it, completely take the position on the center line.The Huaxing army is completely surrounded by the British army on three sides, and it will shed its skin if it does not die.He thought about it for a moment and named this tactic "blitzkrieg", which means as fast as lightning.The artillery battalion was equipped with a total of 30 new guns, and a total of six guns were allocated in front of each position on the center line, each of which was equipped with 100 rounds of bombs as standard.Before the battle began, the British commander Thomson almost jumped in a hurry.He couldn't understand the intentions of the Huaxing army, and a large number of troops were found in the left, center, and right directions of the defense line, but he didn't know which was the main attack direction of the Huaxing army.Of the three directions, only the middle line had the most enemy troops.He had the intention of transferring all the troops to the middle line, but he was afraid that the Huaxing army would attack from both flanks, and the middle line was just a trick for the Huaxing military envoys.In the end, after thinking about it, it was better to order the troops to defend according to the tactics formulated in advance.Once the main offensive line of the Qingxing Army is figured out, the troops will be quickly withdrawn to support each other.After the offensive began, dense gunfire rang out along the entire Guwom River line.The artillery of the Huaxing Army in the direction of the central line completed the observation of the position of the British artillery, and then launched an artillery bombardment of five positions in the direction of the central line.The new artillery fired six rounds per minute, with four guns in front of each of the five positions.Almost twenty-four shells per minute exploded on the positions of the British troops.The artillery units of the British army did not return fire at all, and in an instant they were covered by artillery fire and completely blown into slag.Occasionally, one or two guns were fired, but because the new guns of the Huaxing Army were located two thousand meters away, the breech-loading guns of the British army were far from reaching this range, and the bulky iron ball flew halfway down and fell.Thomson was distressed to death, this artillery unit was the most advanced British artillery in India.The breech artillery shells used are also expensive flowering shells, which are based on the original iron balls, and are equipped with fuses and explosives, and once they land, the fuses also just ignite the explosives inside, and the bombs immediately explode, splashing in the form of flowers.But he didn't expect that the artillery of the Huaxing Army was so advanced, almost unseen and unheard of, it could fire two thousand meters away, and it used flowering shells.Every time a shell exploded, the entire position shook.Dust was pouring and smoke was billowing out, and the sound of the explosion almost deafened my ears
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