Chapter 332: Frontline (3rd update, please subscribe)

The military order was issued suddenly!

As soon as they received the order, the 6th Infantry Regiment where Si Dongjie was stationed crossed the trench. The engineers had built a simple wooden bridge over the trench, so both infantry and horse-drawn carriages could easily cross the trench.

The troops crossed the trench very smoothly and encountered no resistance at all.

"Everyone speed up and try to reach Trentlauken tomorrow. The ghosts are waiting for us there!"

Trentlauk was their target. According to the plan, they would reach their destination within two days and join forces with other troops.

It was not just the 6th Regiment that crossed the trench. There were a total of 20 infantry regiments, divided into three routes and heading straight for Trentlauken. If you look from the air, you can clearly see that the three armies are like three sharp arrows, pointing directly at the town that has become a fortress.

Along the way, Si Dongjie and his comrades saw many empty settlements. Those Argentines had either fled their homes or been drafted into the army.

"Platoon leader, I heard that the Bu Province has already launched a general mobilization."

"So what?"

Si Dongjie snorted.

Having just been promoted to platoon leader, he had an officer's leather shoulder bag hanging around his waist. Although a platoon leader was not an officer, becoming a platoon leader meant that he had the opportunity to become a deputy company commander. When that time came, he would be an officer!

May our ancestors bless you!

"It's nothing more than firing a few more shots."

As he spoke, he patted the Type 70 rifle on his shoulder.

"They are just a bunch of foreigners, no big deal."

Just a ghost!

"That's right, foreigners are also human beings. They will die if they are shot. Moreover, foreigners are afraid of death!"

"The more foreigners we mobilize, the more enemies we kill, and the more military merits we gain! When the time comes, we can also get a bronze medal to hang on our chests."

"What is that bronze medal? It's a military medal!"

"Yes, it's a military medal. Let's get one too!"

There was a burst of laughter for a moment, and they continued to move forward amid laughter.

The next morning, the vanguard arrived at Trentlauken, and what appeared before their eyes was a fortress surrounded by barbed wire and trenches.

Barbed wire, trenches, artillery batteries, and bunkers.

Rifles, Gatling guns, and mortars...

Whatever the South China Army had, the Argentine Army also had. During the Civil War, South China may have made huge profits through arms smuggling, but it also caused technology outflow, from central-fire copper cartridges to Type 62 Spencer rifles, from grenades to mortars, from Gatling machine guns to valve rifles.

These weapons were continuously shipped to the Confederate States of America, also known as the Southern Confederacy. After the Northern Federation seized these weapons, they directly copied them. After the war, both the North and the South chose to sell war surplus materials to foreign countries. Millions of light and heavy weapons used by infantry were sold to various countries. Argentina and Brazil imported a large number of weapons because they were at war with Uruguay. This directly led to the Argentine army facing South China, which was actually an army equipped with a large number of South China weapons.

Even when the vanguard troops arrived at the front line and had not yet started digging fortifications, they were bombarded. Although the accuracy of the bombardment was average, this show of force did scare Li Changchuan. With a steady character, he immediately ordered the troops to build fortifications and dig trenches two kilometers west of Trentlauken. By the afternoon of that day, three armies had gathered in Trentlauken and surrounded the city from three sides.

"boom!"

Once again, the explosion of hundreds of pounds of shells shook the earth and also raised huge columns of smoke near the trenches of the South China Army.

"It's the Dahlgren gun!"

Standing inside the observation post, Li Changchuan said.

"Captain Sun, the current Argentine army is not what it used to be. In the past few years, they have bought more than 300 Dahlgren guns from the United States. At least one-third of them are heavy guns between nine and ten inches, and they are all equipped with iron land gun mounts. There are at least sixty such heavy guns in front of us, and their artillery fire is quite fierce..."

When talking about the land-based artillery mount, Li Changchuan's expression was a little complicated. That gun mount was obviously invented by Nanhua - it was specially sold to the Taiping Army. The Taiping Army needed to use the nine-inch Dahlgren gun to attack the city, so Nanhua's arsenal designed that kind of heavy field artillery mount.

Unexpectedly, in just a few years, that type of gun mount spread to other countries. During the Paraguayan War, the Argentine and Brazilian armies used nine-inch or ten-inch field heavy artillery to bombard the Paraguayan army's defenses many times.

Now, retribution has fallen on their side - the Argentines welcomed the arrival of the South Chinese army with a bunch of cannons.

This is how things are in the world. Maybe this is what they call tit for tat.

"When it comes to artillery, no one can compare to us!"

Sun Hu laughed.

"We don't need things like Dahlgren guns anymore. If it weren't for the money they made from selling them to the Taiping rebels, the arsenal probably wouldn't bother producing those muzzle-loading cannons. They have cannons, and so do we, the 10-inch Krupp cannon... It's much more powerful than theirs!"

The ten-inch Krupp gun is still the trump card product of the Nanhua Arsenal!

Ten-inch Krupp guns can be seen from warships to fortresses, and even armored trains are equipped with this powerful cannon. This cannon not only has a long range, but also has extremely powerful power, with shells weighing more than 300 kilograms! Even the strongest fortresses are vulnerable to it, but its use is also greatly limited - railways!

The ten-inch Krupp gun was too heavy and almost impossible to use in field battles. The only way was to install it on an armored train and use it as a railway gun, and Nanhua did just that.

But the problem is, railways...are not available everywhere!

“The railway hasn’t been built to this point yet!”

When it comes to the 10-inch Krupp cannon, Li Changchuan naturally thinks of the few armored trains that Nanhua has. The armored trains are equipped with 10-inch Krupp cannons. But the railway has not yet been built to the front line, so how can the cannons reach the front line?

“It doesn’t have to be railroads!”

Sun Hu waved his hand and said.

"The 10-inch Krupp cannon has too many restrictions. It can't be used without railways. But don't forget that when we were in Shanxi, we used the Type 64 mortar. That thing was really powerful!"

Staring at the Argentine defense line through the telescope, Sun Hu sneered.

"The purpose of this battle is to completely annihilate the 40,000 Afghan troops here! The reason we have delayed until now is to allow them to mobilize as many troops as possible, and then annihilate them as completely as possible! Only dead white ghosts are good white ghosts!"

(End of this chapter)