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Text Chapter 136: Beat the British sorely

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    On April 10, 1892, Wang Yuze arrived in Mara, which was under heavy artillery fire.  At this time, the main force of the 8th Brigade of the Western Sichuan Army had been fighting hard with more than 30,000 British and Indian troops here for more than a week.  However, despite the fierce attack by the British and Indian troops, Mara was still under the control of the Eighth Brigade of the Western Sichuan Army.  However, the losses of the Eighth Brigade were also relatively large. In addition to the Fourth Battalion of the Eighth Brigade, which had lost more than half before, the Eighth Brigade had already lost thousands of people.  However, the losses of the British and Indian troops were even greater. They suffered at least 5,000 casualties.

    Mara is just a small village on the edge of the Carmen River. When the Kama River, which originates from the Himalayas, flows through here, its direction changes slightly, creating a small piece of flat land in the canyon with mountains on both sides.  .  The Fanba people living on the plateau have been living here for generations.  However, with the invasion of the British and Indian troops, this place has become a battlefield.  The Fanba people living here have already evacuated, and the only ones left in this small village are soldiers from the Western Sichuan Army.

    "Young Marshal! The Eighth Brigade Commander (Chief of Staff) Su Hongguang (Liao Jinpeng) reports to you!" In a simple command post outside Mara Village, Wang Yuze met the Eighth Brigade Commander Su Hongguang and  Chief of Staff Liao Jinpeng.

    "Thank you for your hard work!" Wang Yuze patted the two of them on the shoulders.  The continuous high-intensity battle made both of their faces look tired and dissatisfied.

    "You are incompetent in your humble position and have lost your country. Please ask the young marshal to punish you!" Su Hongguang said with red eyes.  Since its establishment, Western Sichuan has fought for every inch of land and has never lost any territory.  Unexpectedly, this precedent actually started with their eighth brigade.  This is a great shame for the entire Eighth Brigade.  As the brigade commander, Su Hongguang has even greater responsibilities.  After he arrived with reinforcements, he tried to launch a counterattack several times, but the enemy was too powerful and he never succeeded.

    "Commander Su, there is no need to blame yourself. Victory or defeat is a matter of military strategism. Besides, the 8th Brigade has performed very well. It is not easy for you to withstand the enemy's attack. On behalf of the entire Western Sichuan, I thank you.  ! Now. Reinforcements are coming soon. As long as we persist a little longer, we can launch a counterattack!" Wang Yuze comforted.

    Su Hongguang and Liao Jinpeng both nodded heavily.  The main force of the Eighth Brigade is more than 7,000 people.  During this period, we have been attacked in turn by more than 30,000 British and Indian troops, which has been very stressful.  If Mara hadn't been in a canyon, making it easy to defend but difficult to attack, their position might have been breached.  Now Wang Yuze has arrived with reinforcements.  They can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

    All the troops of the 8th Brigade have now been reorganized. Except for those who were killed and seriously injured, the remaining more than 7,000 people still have combat effectiveness.  The other 9th Brigade and 7th Brigade are also in the process of arriving.  The Ninth Brigade can arrive in two days, and the Seventh Brigade, which is farther away, will arrive in five days.  That is to say.  If the Western Sichuan Army wants to launch a counterattack, it will have to wait at least five days.  Moreover, we have to hold on for two more days, waiting for the arrival of reinforcements.  We cannot relax during this period. If the British and Indian troops seize the loophole and break through the defense line, it will be terrible.

    Wang Yuze, who had just arrived in Mara, could not afford to rest.  Take advantage of the fact that the British and Indian troops have not launched an attack.  Went directly to the front line to inspect the defenses.  The 8th Brigade's defense line was less than 500 meters long, extending from the entrance of Mara's village to the Carmen River.  There are mountains on one side and rapid rivers on the other. If the British and Indian troops want to continue to penetrate into the plateau, they can only break through from the front.  Or retreat and attack from other directions.

    On a defense line of less than 500 meters.  The Eighth Brigade mobilized half of the heavy machine guns and mortars of the entire brigade, forming a powerful firepower.  The British and Indian troops suffered a bloody blow.  Behind the two lines of defense is an artillery position consisting of a total of 34 Type 82 infantry guns from the artillery battalion of the 8th Brigade and other battalions.  The British and Indian forces had more artillery and howitzers with a longer range.  However, their cannons could not deploy in the canyon, and if they fired too far, they were blocked by the mountains.  In this regard, Western Sichuan has taken advantage of it.  They do not expect their own artillery to start an artillery battle with the British and Indian artillery. They only need to eliminate the opponent's effective forces to the maximum extent when the opponent's infantry launches an attack.

    "Boom!" When Wang Yuze was inspecting the position, an explosion sounded.  Wang Wei immediately pushed Wang Yuze to the ground.

    "Young Marshal, leave the position quickly, the British and Indian troops have begun to attack!" Su Hongguang, the commander of the 8th Brigade, shouted hurriedly.  Several guards even picked up Wang Yuze and ran back.  He was quickly sent to the second line of defense safely.

    At this moment, looking back, the first line of defense of the 8th Brigade has been plunged into smoke.  The British and Indian troops mobilized at least hundreds of cannons and launched a crazy bombardment on the first line of defense of the Western Sichuan Army.  However, the road conditions in the foothills of the Himalayas were very poor at this time, so the caliber of the British and Indian artillery was not large, with the largest being only 105 mm, and most of them were 75 mm field guns.

    &nbsp"Can the soldiers hold on to such a fierce shelling by the British and Indian troops?" Wang Yuze asked seriously.  Seeing his soldiers being ravaged by other people's artillery fire, he felt as if his heart had been stung hard.

    "At the beginning, the losses were relatively large. But now, we have built a solid defensive offensive. Except for a small number of observers, the rest of the soldiers have hid in the anti-gun holes, heavy machine guns and mortars.  The positions have also been reinforced, so as long as they are not directly hit by artillery shells, there won't be much of a problem!" said Su Hongguang, commander of the 8th Brigade.

    Wang Yuze nodded.  However, the scene before him still made him clenched his fists.  When fighting domestically, the Western Sichuan Army had always relied on its artillery superiority to ravage its opponents, but now it was fighting the armies of foreign powers or the colonial armies, but the reverse was true.  There is no way around this. The road conditions on the plateau are bad and it is very difficult to tow large-caliber artillery. Therefore, the troops on the plateau all use the lighter Type 82 infantry cannon.  In this case, when facing the British and Indian troops, they will inevitably be at a disadvantage.

    The artillery fire from the British and Indian troops raged for more than half an hour before it ended.  After the artillery fire stopped, thousands of Indian Asans with their heads wrapped in white cloth held rifles. Under the scolding of the British officers, they crouched and cautiously launched towards the Western Sichuan Army's position from two kilometers away.  attack.  However, these Indian Asans are not soldiers at all. If it were not driven by the British behind them, they would have fled long ago.  Even so, their attack speed was very slow.  It seems that the attack in the past few days has suffered a lot, and they have become afraid of the Western Sichuan Army.

    After half an hour, the British and Indian troops cautiously advanced to a place less than 700 meters away from the Western Sichuan Army's defense line.  However, after arriving here, the Indian Asans seemed to be aware of the danger, and no matter how hard the British officers drove them away, they stopped taking a step forward.  Although these Indian Asans are timid, they are not stupid. They know that if they go forward, they will be hit by the powerful firepower of the Western Sichuan Army.

    "Boom!" An explosion sounded, and the artillery of the Western Sichuan Army opened fire.  A shell exploded in the British and Indian troops, and several Indian Asans were blown away. The white cloth strips wrapped on their company heads were scattered on the ground.  As soon as the Western Sichuan Army's artillery fired, those Indian Asans immediately turned around and ran back.  No matter how the British officials tried to stop it, it had no effect at all.

    "Is this the combat effectiveness of the British and Indian troops? It seems not much better than the Manchu and Qing troops in China, right?" The performance of India's Asan left Wang Yuze stunned.

    "The Indians are good at fighting against the wind. At the beginning, they were quite brave. But after throwing thousands of corpses in front of our positions in the past few days, they were frightened. However, the British were  Very powerful. I always thought that the British only had a powerful navy, but I didn¡¯t expect to find out after the battle that their army is not bad either, but it is usually covered up under the light of the navy!" said Liao Jinpeng, chief of staff of the 8th Brigade.  .

    Wang Yuze nodded. Judging from known history, the British Army performed admirably in both World War I and World War II.  The German Army was so powerful that although it was able to defeat the British Army in the early stages, it was unable to achieve final victory.  In the end, it failed due to the depletion of national power.  It can be seen that the British Army still has a strong combat effectiveness, at least much stronger than the legendary Italian Army.

    When the Sino-British border conflict broke out this time, Wang Yuze did not want to expand the scale of the war.  However, if you want to curb the ambitions of the British and force them back to the negotiating table, the only way is to completely defeat them on the battlefield and beat them painfully.  Only in this way will the British surrender.  If they cannot gain an advantage on the battlefield, it is simply impossible to get the British to give up their ambitions in the Shannan region.

    Opposite the Western Sichuan Army, on the British-Indian Army position, a bearded British general saw the poor performance of the British-Indian Army and was so angry that he threw away the telescope in his hand.

    "Damn, these Indians, these cowards, I'm going to shoot them for desertion!" His name is Henry Wellesley, grandson of the famous Duke of Wellington, and also a British Army Lieutenant General, the third  The Duke of Wellington, commander of the British and Indian Army.  This time, he planned the march into Shannan together with Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, the Vice-King of India, Governor-General of India, and the fifth Marquess of Lansdowne.  Originally, they thought they could catch the Western Sichuan Army off guard, but now it seems that things are far more troublesome than he imagined.  His army was stopped after crossing the border less than five kilometers.

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