Chapter 899: 900 Civil War

Chapter 899 900 Civil War

Fengjiang is very close to the border, which is not good for the Chinese Empire: the Tang Empire’s artillery and bombers can cover this city.

But now, Fengjiang, who established a separate branch with the Datang Empire on his back, has gained some advantages: fighter jets taking off from the Datang Empire can actually provide cover for Fengjiang.

Although the Butcher fighter jets of the Tang Empire are very easy to identify, it is still very maneuverable for the Tang Empire to take off fighter jets to help when necessary.

Another advantage is that the air defense warning radar deployed on the side of the Tang Empire can actually provide early radar warning for Fengjiang City.

This is equivalent to saying that Fengjiang City's air defense has been strengthened unprecedentedly. To a certain extent, Fengjiang's air defense is even stricter than that of the imperial capital of the Dahua Empire.

 Because they were not ready for an attack and had no intention of escalating the situation, the Dahua Empire had no intention of taking the initiative to attack for so many days.

They are waiting patiently for their troops to gather, and then end this farce directly with a crushing force.

  Unfortunately, Zhao Yu didn’t think so. He was even arrogantly preparing to attack Hezhe, so he had been waiting for the frontline commanders to report back that the battle had begun.

In order to seize the initiative and trigger this change in advance, the military advisors of the Tang Empire took the initiative to start the war after completing their own defenses.

Twelve old Dahua bombers deployed in Fengjiang were ordered to take off, wearing new identification paint, and bombed Hezhecheng Railway Station.

It's a pity that the performance of these aircraft was really poor. They were intercepted by Dahua 2 fighter jets that scrambled to take off in the direction of Hezhe. They were all shot down and no one survived.

Even before they were shot down, they were not able to drop a bomb, so the entire mission ended in failure, and the former air force commander of the Dahua Empire in Fengjiang was punished and removed from his post.

 The war had broken out, and of course Zhao Chen could no longer maintain restraint. He immediately ordered the artillery to open fire and bloodbathed the defensive positions outside Fengjiang.

The Fengjiang defenders, who were still eating and drinking happily in their bunkers, were suddenly stunned by more than 400 artillery pieces. For the first time, they discovered that their own country was also so powerful.

 The artillery shells fell like raindrops. The defense line, which had been built in less than a day, was almost destroyed by the dense artillery shells.

The concrete bunker, which had not yet completely dried, was hit by the artillery shell and was lifted into the air. As soon as the war broke out, it entered the most tragic stage in an instant.

Seeing the first-line defense positions being bombed beyond recognition, the advisory group of the Tang Empire did not feel distressed at all—the most important thing they lacked was probably cement and steel bars.

The Tang Empire did not provide arms to the Fengjiang defenders, but the amount of other materials was absolutely shocking—especially the reinforced concrete materials for building fortifications, which almost instantly filled all the warehouses in Fengjiang.

 In the original plan, part of the Fengjiang garrison was to be transferred south, so the frontal defense line could only rely on solid fortifications to support it. This was an established strategy and had been arranged long ago.

Since it was arranged, investing a large amount of cement to build a defense line became a plan that must be implemented: these days, the Fengjiang defenders have been building various reinforced concrete defense lines, almost filling the west side of Fengjiang City with fortifications.

 Thick cement was piled everywhere as if it was free. Trenches were reinforced, bunkers were reinforced, and many underground defenses were also reinforced with cement.

The Fengjiang defenders even built a large number of bunkers for the tanks and reinforced the fronts of the bunkers with cement, so that their tanks could continue to fight without being exposed.

What is interesting is that in order to deal with the tank troops of the Tang Empire, Fengjiang's defenders were equipped with a large number of anti-tank guns. These anti-tank guns were modified from the original unqualified anti-aircraft guns, and most of them were 76 mm in caliber.

This type of artillery may be too old to be used as an anti-aircraft gun, but it is still sufficient as an anti-tank gun.

They have good ballistic performance and sufficient armor-piercing capabilities. They can still face the Dahua 3 tanks equipped by the Dahua Empire with ease.

 The Type 3 tanks equipped by the Dahua Army are improved on the basis of the Dahua Type 2 tanks. The front armor is added, and the firepower is also upgraded to a medium-caliber 90mm gun, which is much more powerful.

The biggest improvement of this tank is the installation of a radio inside the tank so that the tanks can communicate with each other.

 Originally, the Type 3 tank was based on the No. 4 tank of the Tang Empire as the imaginary enemy. Unfortunately, it had not been manufactured yet. The war between the Dahua Empire and the Datang Empire had ended.

 The performance of the Leopard tanks of the Tang Empire that appeared during the war completely overwhelmed the Dahua Type 3 tanks that were still on the drawing board at that time, so the Dahua Empire immediately invested manpower and material resources to develop the Type 5 tanks. The reason why it is called the Type 5 tank is to distinguish it from the Type 4 tank of the Tang Empire and avoid confusion in the name.

  The Type 5 tank of the Dahua Empire is definitely a heavy tank. Like other countries’ approach to fighting Panther tanks, the Dahua Empire also relies on stacking heavy armor to increase the resistance of its own tanks.

However, the disadvantage of this is that the Type 5 tank of the Dahua Empire is very slow and has limited mobility in the field. It is not actually an easy-to-use tank.

Therefore, over the years, the most equipped type in the Dahua Empire is still the Type 3 medium tank with balanced performance - even if it is worse than the Leopard tank, it is still much better than the Type 5.

In the trench, the Fengjiang soldiers covering their ears could still hear the crackling sound of stones falling on their heads. He could feel the stones hitting his helmet, and he could also feel the ground beneath his feet trembling.

The Dahua Empire actually has a lot of artillery. In previous battles with the Tang Empire, the ammunition reserves were destroyed and the artillery positions were destroyed, so the original combat power could not be used at all.

 Now, with the air forces of both sides stretched, the artillerymen of the Great China Empire immediately became brave and began to sing cheerfully.

"Son of a bitch! Why didn't you work so hard when you supported us?" A veteran who had experienced the war between China and Tang Dynasty squatted in the trench and cursed loudly.

While he was cursing, a shell landed on the flat ground behind his position, kicking up a cloud of mud that covered the sky.

Countless pieces of gravel and gravel flew in the sky, and then fell down, landing on the soldiers in the trenches and bouncing off the edges of the concrete trenches.

 The crater on the ground is more than five meters in diameter, which is left by relatively small-caliber artillery shells. The Dahua Empire's artillery bombardment continued, but the losses of the Fengjiang defenders stationed on the position were not huge.

 On the one hand, they have solid fortifications to rely on, and on the other hand, their main forces are on the second line and are not covered by artillery fire at all.

 In fact, the artillery of Fengjiang defenders also launched a counterattack immediately, but because of insufficient numbers, it seemed a little weak.

Compared to the Chinese Army, which had 400 large-caliber artillery pieces, the Fengjiang Army only had 120 large-caliber artillery pieces, so it was more conservative in its counterattacks.

However, despite being relatively shy, the artillery of the Fengjiang Army still caused hardships to the soldiers of the Chinese Army: they did not have cement fortifications, so they were slightly inferior in terms of resistance to attack.

What makes them even more depressed is that because of the reinforced concrete fortifications and bunkers, the artillery of the Fengjiang Army cannot be suppressed for a while, and the Dahua Army can only endure the opponent's artillery fire and persevere.

 In this way, the battle quickly turned into an artillery battle. One side relied on the numerical superiority of artillery unscrupulously, and the other side relied on solid defenses to continuously counterattack. For a while, there was a real back-and-forth fight.

Zhao Chen did not order the infantry to attack because he was worried that the reinforcements would be late, so the two sides continued the artillery battle, from intensive artillery fire on the first day to short bursts of random fire coverage on the second day.

 The artillery of both sides fired sporadically on a front that was more than 60 kilometers wide. Two shots were fired there and two shots were fired here. The intensity of the conflict was suddenly reduced by several orders of magnitude.

 At first, everyone thought that Dahua would launch an attack soon, but then the artillery battle began to slow down, and it seemed that the attack would not proceed again.

The Fengjiang defenders who were stationed at the position that had been bombarded returned to a comfortable life, drinking tap water supplied directly to the position from the water pump, cooking delicious instant noodles transported directly from the Tang Empire, and feeding them. Write a peace letter at home.

 This is treatment they have never experienced before. They have never seen so many pieces of letter paper, and they have never met an officer willing to help write letters to their families.

The grassroots advisory group from the Tang Empire who came to the front line to support did not participate in the battle, but they would supervise the distribution of army supplies, chat with the soldiers in Fengjiang, help them write letters home, and help the soldiers send the chocolates and candies they saved together with their letters. Send it home.

Of course, they would also play cards with the soldiers, sing together to show off their talents, and even distribute their cigarettes to these Fengjiang soldiers.

Occasionally, they would squat in the trenches together and look up at the not so fierce air battles in the sky: sometimes a reconnaissance plane from the Dahua Empire flew over and was chased by the Dahua 3 fighter jets of the Fengjiang defenders. Then the same type of fighter jets from the Dahua Empire came back and the two sides fought together in the sky.

There will often be a plane dragging a long black smoke into the distance, and sometimes an air battle will end without any results.

 In short, with bursts of seemingly invisible gunfire, the civil war in the Great China Empire broke out across the board. And except for the roaring and tsunami-like artillery battle on the first day, it seemed... not as intense as imagined.

 Two updates today

 (End of this chapter)