Under the guidance of Charles, Elgarai and his adjutant walked into the village.

As the information before showed, the village between the river bank and the main road was not big, with about dozens of households. So after the indigenous mixed camp of the current guard entered the village, hundreds of soldiers immediately stuffed the small village slowly, so that some soldiers had to walk outside the village to wait.

There was a small attic about the center of the village where Lieutenant Belan's head and other missing soldiers were placed. Similarly, the bodies of these bodies that had lost their heads were stripped of their skin, which had begun to rot in the hotter weather in Vietnam. A pungent stench hit the face.

Du Ran, who had been stimulated by the four hundred heads the day before yesterday, was much calmer now. Now that things have come to this, all he needs to do is to avenge the dead French warriors and make those Chinese pay ten times the price. As for the corpse in front of him...

"Let the natives do their jobs, burn the soldiers' bodies and take them away, and they should be buried in their hometown instead of here."

Captain Charles hesitated: "But, in this way, our trip will be delayed..."

Du Ran shook his head, "The brigade asked the village to continue the march, leaving a company of indigenous infantry to deal with the bodies."

The weather is getting hotter and the corpses have begun to rot. This time, if it goes well, it will take two days to fight back. In a humid and hot area like Vietnam, the corpses have been decayed in two days.

Duran’s disposal is the most reasonable.

Charles said nothing, and reached out to signal the Vietnamese indigenous soldiers in the distance to start moving the bodies and preparing to burn them. Du Ran naturally would not wait to see the burning bodies. After making arrangements, he was ready to leave.

‘Flipping…’

The Vietnamese soldier who was moving the corpse might have encountered something. A few birds suddenly flew out of the bamboo building where the corpse was parked, and it looked particularly abrupt in the clear sky!

Duran was startled at first, but after seeing several birds, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and then instructed Captain Charles, "Leave a officer to stare at the natives, don't let them be lazy, burned ashes..."

Because the body had been stripped of all its body, and it had begun to rot and had no head, the ashes were really indistinguishable. Du Ran had no choice but to divide it. "Try to divide it evenly. After returning to SX, you can stick your life on each ashes according to the roster. The next time the supply is delivered, it will be sent back to Hanoi."

"Yes, Mr. Lieutenant Colonel."

Charles turned around and prepared to arrange the officers left behind. At this moment, an unnatural whistling sound came from the sky.

On the other side of the Honghe River, thousands of meters away from Anzhai Village, pairs of eyes stared at the sky without blinking.

"The signal is here!"

When the birds suddenly appeared in the sky, countless heads suddenly appeared on the originally quiet clearing.

"Hurry up! Get on the gun position, get on the gun position!"

"Cast!Cast!"

With loud shouts, shells were filled into the chamber, and then the shells were activated according to the direction and angle that had been arranged long ago.

At the same time, on the river bank opposite the cannon position, thousands of figures were lying densely on the side of the river. When the birds flew across the sky, at the same time, several Hatchkas machine guns and two Green machine guns were pushed up to the river bank with their manpower at the fastest speed.

The caliber of the legal 1.65-inch rapid-fire gun is actually 42mm, firing two-pound shells with a range of more than 3,000 meters; the range of the 65mm battalion gun reaches 5,000 meters; in addition, there are two German 75mm mountain cannons with a range of 5,000 meters.

Anzhai Village is close to the Honghe River, about six or seven hundred meters away from the river embankment. When you cross a river embankment, you will see the Honghe River, which is a thousand meters wide. When you cross a river embankment, you will be the artillery position arranged in advance by the Black Flag Army.

The Black Flag Army lacks soldiers who operate artillery, so Liu Shaoqing has no choice but to use this kind of local method to arrange artillery at the measured distance in advance. The only variable is whether the French army will enter the village.

The forest outside the village has been moved by the French army, and the birds have lost their hiding place and will not come back in the past few days. In addition, the French brigade of thousands of people roared, and the birds in the village have been scared away long ago. Therefore, Liu Shaoqing set up a small mechanism in the bamboo building where the corpses were placed in advance. As long as the French move the corpse, they will release the birds placed in the cage.

In the vast sky, a few birds will never attract attention, but are the best offensive signal.

Six 1.65-inch rapid-fire cannons and two 65mm battalion cannons, which were seized from the French army in previous battles by the Black Flag Army. The two 75mm mountain cannons were provided by the Qing court before. These are the most powerful long-range support firepower of the Black Flag Army.

On the river bank near the Anzhai side, four Hatchais machine guns and all two Green machine guns were also arranged. The target of these rapid firepower was the French infantry left on the main road outside the village.

In one minute, Elgaret had just told Charles how to deal with the ashes. The shells that broke through the air exploded in the village. Then, the Hatchcas and Green cannons suddenly appeared on the river bank and fired at the French brigade who were staying outside the village like crazy.

The Black Flag Army did not have many shells, and in the early stage, it consumed some more to train gunners, so the rest was even smaller, and Anzhai was a little bit bigger, so Liu Shaoqing arranged for the artillery to fire only three rounds of shells and would have to be transferred.

This is the second signal.

When the artillery fire at Anzhai stopped, the infantry ambushed outside Anzhai launched a charge.

The Black Flag Army ambushed two regiments outside Anzhai, one of which was ambushed in the riverbank that was 1,000 meters long, while the other regiment was ambushed in the woods that had been destroyed by French artillery fire.

There is a Chinese proverb called "dark under the lamp". It describes people who are not easy to detect things and events happening very close to each other.

The French army had razed the forest to the ground the day before yesterday, and almost all the trees were blown off. Therefore, when they passed by here again, they took it for granted that there would be no ambush here. But no one expected that the blown trees were just a wonderful disguise to block the ground. As long as a few trenches were dug on the ground, people hid them inside and covered them with branches, and they could not see them from the outside.

Chen Ergou was lying here.

He is now the captain. When the sound of cannons in the distance was instantly quiet, Chen Ergou led his thirty brothers to rush out of the hidden trench with the entire infantry regiment.

This time, they did not rely on fortifications to shoot. In order to prevent the enemy from discovering, the ambushing place should not be too close to Anzhai. At this time, the enemy was far away from the village a few hundred meters away. They needed to lean over as quickly as possible and launch an attack when the enemy was at a loss in the attack of artillery fire. In this way, they could reduce their losses as little as possible.

The French army dispatched a total of four infantry battalions and three artillery companies, and the entire marching queue stretched for more than one kilometer. The French army closest to Chen Ergou's regiment was the white infantry battalion and three artillery companies. Further forward were the black infantry battalion, Zuafu infantry battalion and the indigenous mixed infantry battalion in the village.

The three foreign infantry battalions left on the main road were the focus of the Hatchcais and Green machine guns on the river bank. However, even though the Black Flag Army soldiers on the river bank were already desperately shaking the handle of the machine gun, after all, the rapid-fire weapons they equipped were limited, and a large number of foreigners were still not killed in the first wave of attacks.

One minute later, the ambush of the Black Flag Army had completely unfolded. At this time, the four closest posts to the French army had begun to connect with the artillery company of the French rear corps, and the white infantry battalion was caught fire.

The mission of Chen Ergou's team's battalion was the French black barracks. At this time, they were still two hundred meters away from the enemy, but some soldiers had already started shooting.

Two hundred meters away, with the accuracy of the current rifle, it is difficult to hit the enemy. The average spread of every 20 bullets of the Glass 1874 rifle is 24 cm away from 20 meters, while the Remington rifle is as high as 32 cm. However, sporadic shooting can ease the tension of the charge soldiers, and at the same time delay the speed of the French army's assembly, bringing greater pressure on the enemy.

The training received by French soldiers was to shoot in queues, while the training received by Black Flag Army was to shoot in groups of stragglers alternately.

Under normal circumstances, the French army's combat methods can bring greater psychological pressure to the enemy, but unless they face a stubborn force that is rushing forward to death, or a force that holds its position and does not retreat, they usually cannot achieve annihilation war.

This is why almost every time an army like the British and French encounters the Qing army, it will achieve the result of "defeat" because the Qing army ran away when they see the situation of the Fan army, and the foreign infantry basically cannot catch up, so they can only be defeated.

However, once the French army was unable to form an effective platoon array, the free-firing French army faced the Black Flag Army, which was attacking alternately in groups, and the disadvantage became very obvious.

Chen Ergou's team was divided into 12 relatively independent combat squads. When one-third of the team stopped to shoot, the other teams rushed forward desperately to narrow the combat distance. Then the second third of the team stopped to shoot, and the first wave of shooting continued forward while loading. Then the last third of the team shot still.

The Black Flag Army fought and kept moving closer to the French army. The two armies were getting closer and closer, and the accuracy of shooting of soldiers on both sides was getting higher and higher. The number of casualties was also constantly climbing upwards.

When the French army had less than one-third of its troops left, the two armies were close to each other.

"Get the bayonet!"

With the command of the commander, the remaining thirty soldiers of Chen Ergou's team pulled out guns from their backs almost at the same time and inserted the gun head at the fastest speed. The most tragic hand-to-hand combat began.

While running, Chen Ergou did not forget to instruct his soldiers: "Niggies are more difficult to fight than white ghosts. Please be careful! The three of them alternately cover the enemy, and the other one should hurry up and get on the bullet! Don't use a bayonet if you can shoot!"

The Black Flag Army's four-man team combat mode is not only used in charge, but also has obvious effects in hand-to-hand combat. Three soldiers support each other and face one or two enemies together. When the enemy sprints, the soldiers on the front are responsible for blocking, while the soldiers on the flank are responsible for counterattacking.

In this way, even the frontal soldiers cannot stop the enemy's sprint, at least they can change to one to one, and they will not suffer any losses.

There is also the last soldier in the four-person group. This soldier is hidden behind the three-person group. His rifle does not contain bayonets. Its function is to sneak attack with bullets during hand-to-hand combat. Although the tactics are a little bit obscene, the effect of killing enemies is excellent.

After the Black Flag Army launched an attack, the rumbling cannon sound also reached SX City.

On the top of the city, Laguer looked at the direction where the sound of cannons came with some concern.

"Sir, don't worry. Listen to the sound of cannons, it should be our firepower. Most of the Chinese used bronze cannons, and their shell blasting power was insufficient, so they could not cause such a big noise. It may be that the Black Flag Army wanted to block Lieutenant Colonel Duran in Anzhai, so the two armies fought early."

Laguer also thought what the adjutant said made sense, but the haze in his heart could not be removed.

The Black Flag Army dared to abandon the city defense and block His Excellency Duran's army in the wilderness, which means they were very confident in their combat effectiveness. I am afraid that His Excellency Duran will face a tough battle. In addition, Laguer knew that the Black Flag Army had also obtained a small number of legal weapons in several battles with Li Weiye and Boslo. Such dense sounds of artillery in the distance may not only be the commander's troops attacking.

The dense gunfire sound in the direction of Anzhai lasted for about ten minutes, and then the gunfire sound became very sparse. Lagail judged that the infantry of the two armies might have begun hand-to-hand combat now. Because of the distance, gunfire was difficult to reach the city, and Lagail could not know the exact battle progress, which made him very uneasy.

Laguer was actually willing to send a force out of the city to support Duran, but he only had two battalions of soldiers in his hand, and he was still struggling to defend the city, let alone go out of the city to support him.

"I hope Your Excellency Duran can return triumphantly..." Laguel prayed silently in his heart.
Chapter completed!