.

The president of the Erren specially summoned Major General Zhao Shizhen, and Kruger said with a frustrated face.

"Zhao, I regret not listening to your opinion. Now the British army is concentrating its forces, and the situation in our army is very bad. I don't know what you can do to defeat the British army."

Zhao Shizhen knew this question. Seeing that Kruger had a great intention to surrender, Zhao Shizhen began to cheer up the president who was a war layman:

"Since the First Boer War, the British tactics and shooting techniques have not improved. Their dense formation charges have won many victories for the British army in more than 200 wars before the 18th and 19th centuries, but the new rifle determines that this formation has become obsolete. In front of our horse riding rifle soldiers with strong mobility, strange tactics, and intense firepower, British generals who still deploy their troops in accordance with the rules of military discipline will definitely suffer a great loss.

"Our army has a clear tactical advantage. We are good at using various effective defensive measures to minimize casualties. With the concealment of their trenches, we induce the British army to break into its range in dense formations, thereby fully exerting the lethality of their modern firearms. In addition, unlike British officers who received traditional military education, the Boers from civilians did not have strict boundaries between superiors and subordinates, and were good at summarizing lessons in combat, exchange experiences between militia members and commanders, making suggestions, and improving their tactics at any time."

"The British simply abide by the rules of infantry practice and implement them unchangedly. We can predict almost every action of the British army, so that the odds of victory are much greater with intentional calculations and unintentionality. The British army has many factions, and among the reinforcements are stationed in southern Africa, one faction in Asia, one faction in Europe, and another faction in northern Africa. These people are in harmony with each other and have poor cooperation. Once the war is unfavorable, it will collapse."

"Secondly, from the perspective of the military quality of the hostile sides, our army (military regiments) are mainly composed of farmers of all sizes, who fight to protect their land, homeland and country, and have high morale. Another old saying in our country, "Those who are on the same level win," means this situation. On the South African plateau far away from its homeland, the interests of Her Majesty the Queen and the British Empire cannot prompt British soldiers to take the initiative to make heroic sacrifices, and these soldiers are not used to the environment here, and their combat effectiveness will be greatly reduced.

"The British army mainly relies on railway and highway trunk operations to expose their movements to the enemy. Moreover, they are in the enemy country, surrounded by hostile Boers, so every move they make is immediately known to the other party. The Boers established an effective intelligence network to obtain information about the British army from their own countries and Dutch citizens in the Cape colony. In addition, the Burj Knights also had a flexible and effective communication system - the return signal, which allowed them to largely get rid of the constraints of wired telegraphs and be more flexible in tacticality. Our army has many opportunities to fight, so how could the British army be defeated?"

"Finally, because the farmers in your country often engage in horse riding and hunting activities, they have mastered excellent shooting skills since childhood and have almost perfect shots. They are also very familiar with the small hills, gullies and rocky terrain in the mainland of South Africa. They are good at finding favorable terrain and are good at using terrain to set ambush, encircle, hide or escape. The desolate, barren and arid South African grasslands have made the Boers who have been fighting against nature on the farm since childhood to endure hardships than the British. The British army mainly comes from local cities

Except for a few officers and cavalrymen who came from hereditary military families, most of them were children of workers and urban civilians. They were not used to the South African environment and were not adapted to the tactics of rapid field combat. At that time, the British army's training situation was generally poor, with only two months of training a year, and most of them were spent on queue training. They were not good at riding and shooting skills, were not good at concealing, and were slow to react. It can be seen that the British army's shooting skills were also surprisingly poor. From these issues, the British army not only had to lose, but also suffered a crushing defeat."

Zhao Shizhen's words were reasonable and polite, dispelled Kruger's idea of ​​surrender and began to boldly delegate power to Zhao Shizhen.

As Zhao Shizhen expected, the British army did not quickly defeat the Boer army, but drove slowly.

For more than half a month here, fortifications and artillery positions were built on the mountain with stones, sandbags and wood, and several crisscrossing infantry trenches were dug in the vast area from the bank of the north bank of the Tugela River to the rear mountain. The artillery positions and trenches of the Bu Army were carefully camouflaged and hidden in bushes and weeds. The soil excavated from the trenches was carefully transported to the distance and spread out. In addition, the Bu Army also built several fake turrets, with cannons made of corrugated iron sheets placed inside. The Boers, who were good at field battles and tricks, prepared a carefully constructed slaughterhouse for the British.

In the British army, the forces commanded by General Bouler include the Second, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Brigades of the British Army, totaling 16,000. In addition, there are four light cavalry regiments, three lancet squadrons composed of colonial cavalry. The artillery has 5 artillery and 50 artillery, and there are 16 12-pound artillery and 120mm naval artillery removed from the Royal Navy's "Terror" battleship, operated by naval personnel. Including cavalry and artillery, Bouler's total strength is 22,000, which is dominant in terms of both the number of people and the number of artillery. On the 1213th, the British army arrived in the southern suburbs of Corenso Town.

Bomb positions on the north bank of the river.

Boole's offensive plan was to divide the troops into three groups, with the British army in the middle as the main offensive forces, including the Second Brigade, the Fourth Brigade and the Sixth Brigade, commanded by Major General Hilgard, Littleton and Patton respectively. They advanced along a dirt road parallel to the Natal Railway toward the Colenso Station and the Highway Bridge. The Second Brigade mainly attacked Colenso, the Fourth Brigade covered on the left wing and the Sixth Brigade covered on the right wing. The East Road was a cavalry corps commanded by Duntonner.

Their mission is to protect the flanks of the Second Brigade. The West Road is the Fifth Brigade, commanded by Major General Hart. The mission is to cross the river in the shallows at the bend of the Tugela River, and then quickly "goes westward" to reach the confluence point between the Dolinkopugan River and the Tugela River, and then advance along the north bank of the Tugela River to protect Hilgard's left wing. However, the hand-drawn map of Bulle gave Hart completely mismarked the location of this confluence point. The real confluence point between the Dolinkopugan River and the Tugela River is on the east side of the Great Bell. From this map, we can see how rough and careless General Bulle's reconnaissance and intelligence work was before the battle. This attack plan was actually full of loopholes and was doomed to failure before execution.

On Friday, December 15, at 1:00 a.m., the British army reconnaissance post observed the light from the British camp. At five o'clock in the morning, under the cover of 120 meters of naval artillery, the British army began to move. The first to attack was the British army on the West. This route was the Fifth Brigade composed mainly of the Irish people, including the Second Flintlock Regiment of Dublin, the First Flintlock Regiment of Innischiron, the First Infantry Regiment of Royal Connaught and the Border Guard Regiment. They lined up in an orderly column, with about 2,000 yards of cannon behind them.

The soldiers covered the cover and advanced towards the big bend of the Tugela River, trying to cross the river. In front of it were the Swaziland police force and the Sotpensberg militia commanded by Chris Zhao Shizhen, and in front of the right was the extremely hidden cannon position of the Boers. The Boers remained motionless under the British gunfire and ambushed in the trenches, patiently waiting for the British army to walk into a distance of only 500 from them. At this time, the 75mm rapid-fire cannon hidden behind the bunker suddenly opened fire, and the rumbling cannon sound was mixed with the sound of Mauser guns.

The unfortunate British troops were attacked on three sides along the way. What's more unfortunate is that their commander General Hart's command skills were far lower than his courage. Hart tried several times to rearrange the formation and organize the charge, but every attempt was repelled by the fierce firepower of the Boers. The British army suffered heavy casualties and could not continue to advance. There was only one captain, two lieutenants and more than thirty soldiers braved the artillery fire and reached the river bank at the big bend, where they were shot by the infantry of the Buffalo army and were all wiped out. After firing artillery, the Buffalo army quickly moved the cannon to a reserve bunker in the nearby bushes to prevent the British artillery from fighting back. The British army was killed and injured between 500 and 600 people on the western route, while the Buffalo army was only one dead, one seriously injured, and three were slightly injured.

At six o'clock in the morning, when the Western Road was fighting, Zhao Shizhen noticed the movements of the British army in the middle. What surprised him was that the vanguard of the British army in the middle road was not infantry, but artillery. Colonel Lang led the 14th and 66th artillery companies to advance to the place C, unload the cannons from the ox cart, and began to install them. The British infantry closest to them was far a mile away. This action surprised Zhao Shizhen, and this article was not recorded in the British infantry Scripture.

Zhao Shizhen calmed down and ordered the British infantry to fire before entering the range of rifles. However, when Colonel Lang's men installed the cannons and began to fire at the Bundesliga positions, Zhao Shizhen felt that she could not wait any longer and ordered the artillery to fight back. The 120-meter Krupp howitzer exploded in 12 Armstrong cannons, and the Boers' machine guns and rapid-fire cannons also fired wildly. The British gunners were either dead or injured, and the artillery soldiers who survived jumped into the gullies near the artillery positions to hide.

British historians often emphasize that Colonel Lang's artillery stopped firing when the shells were exhausted, but Major Zhao Shizhen, who loves to hurt the face of the British, wrote in his memoirs that the Krugersdorp militia that cleaned the battlefield found 12 ammunition C shells in Colonel Lang's artillery group, and six discarded cannons had shells installed in the cannon chamber.

At this moment, Buller made the mistake of dispersing his troops again and ordered Major General Littleton's Fourth Brigade to turn northwest to cover the retreat of the Fifth Brigade, which was enduring hell. Seeing the movement of the Fourth Brigade, Zhao Shizhen ordered his right-wing Orange Free State troops and Middleburg militia to launch an attack on the marching Fourth Brigade. However, the Boer's characteristics were exposed again. When Zhao Shizhen gave the order, both troops left the position and took their own initiative to support the Emilo militia. Zhao Shizhen had to order the artillerymen who were bombing the Second Brigade to turn the gun mouth and attack Littleton's team with the Heidelberg militia in the south. Some of Colonel Lang's artillerymen used the gap between the Boers' firepower to escape back to the British position.

By this time (twelve o'clock noon), the discouraged Buller had given up his plan of attack and ordered the Sixth Brigade to regain Colonel Long's 12 cannons, and then the entire army retreated to the east. Duntonner's cavalry was advancing rapidly to the northeast, and they were

—Helanwan Mountain. The Tugela River turns north here, so once in i, their cannons can launch a fierce bombing on Zhao Shizhen's artillery position on the low ground on the other side. Originally, the Buer Farmer guarding here was the 650th trembling Bour Farmer of the Sotpensberg Militia.

The British army's daytime bombardment during the 13th scared them out of their courage. Most of them secretly withdrew from the mountain on the night of the 13th and moved the position at the bend of the river. Zhao Shizhen was extremely annoyed by this, but according to the tradition of the Boer People's Regiment Autonomy, he could not directly order the relevant person in charge. Zhao Shizhen convened a meeting of militia leaders overnight. At the meeting, someone proposed to give up Helanwan Mountain and retreat to the north bank of the Tugela River. However, this meant that the flanks of the Bundesliga army were completely exposed to the British firepower, so Zhao Shizhen rejected the proposal.

Finally, Joshua Jubert of the Vakstrom militia agreed to lead 1,000 guards of Heronwan Mountain. The next day, Duntonner's troops were blocked by them at the foot of the mountain. Duntonner asked Buhler for support and suggested sending the 6th Brigade to assist him in capturing Heronwan Mountain, so that a big hole could be tear apart the Bulgarian front. In fact, until then, if Buhler could concentrate his right-wing forces to capture Heronwan Mountain and then transport 120 meters of naval artillery here, he would still be possible.

Forced Zhao Shizhen and his troops to retreat, cross the Tugela River and head to Lady Smith. But not only did not seriously consider this suggestion, Buller was busy riding on the front line, anxiously watching the efforts of the Sixth Brigade to regain the cannons. After a morning of fierce fighting, the British army regained two cannons, but the remaining cannons and all ammunition trucks were still there. Just as Buller was wandering around, a shell fell near him, killing his staff. Buller himself was also injured in flesh.

At 2:30 p.m., the Freihead militia crossed the river from the highway bridge west of the town of Colenso, seized 10 cannons from the British, and brought back 150 British prisoners hiding in the nearby gullies. At this time, the exhausted Bühler finally ordered the entire army to retreat, and the Battle of Colenso ended. At 7:46 p.m., Zhao Shizhen sent a telegram to Kruger and Jubert, declaring the victory of Boer's army. In the telegram, Zhao Shizhen suggested to pursue the British army by taking advantage of the victory. Jubert, who was gentle and war-weary, called back and said, "When God gives you a finger, don't ask for the whole palm in greed."

On the British side, General Bulle called White, saying that it seemed that there was no hope of rescuing. Unless there was a long-term preparation for trapping, he suggested that he burn the password, blow up the ammunition, and "convene a decent surrender with the Boers." White was originally planning to give up Raddy Smith, but after receiving Buler's telegram, he decided to defend the Lone City with his subordinates.

As a result of the Battle of Colenso, the British army lost 1,139 soldiers and lost 10 cannons. The Boer army only killed 8 people and 50 people. The difference in comparison was shocking. In the battle, the 25-year-old Major Zhao Shizhen became famous in one fell swoop.

From 610 to 15, within a week, the British army lost all three fronts in the east, middle and west, losing more than 3,800 people. They were called "Black | defeat in the history of the British army. They resigned from their position as commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force and retained the title of British commander-in-chief of Natal. After that, the British army had to retreat on its entire line, and Zhao Shizhen, who became famous through this battle, unexpectedly received a notice of returning to the Northeast Republic.

Although the Boer War was defeated by Britain's failure, the European powers almost unanimously condemned Britain's policies in South Africa, believing that Britain bullied two small Boer countries in order to seek gold. They believed that the huge gold benefits Britain gained after defeating Boer would put them at a disadvantage. Therefore, France, Russia and Germany sought to unite and jointly fight against Britain. Taking advantage of the opportunity that Britain had no time to take care of the war, France and Russia bypassed Britain and prepared to secretly divide their sphere of influence in Turkey.

In response, Britain was panicked and hurriedly gave the two islands in the Samoan Islands in the Pacific to Germany, and signed a contract with the United States, the Northeast Republic, which was not a superpower at the time, to give the two United States convenience in exchange for support. Britain tried to win over Germany and the United States through these actions to compete with France and Russia.

On the other side of the earth, two people were shaking hands enthusiastically to celebrate the agreement reached - the Treaty of Friendship between the British and Eastern Republic. In this treaty, the Northeast Republic finally obtained a license to sell goods in the Qing Dynasty and was no longer subject to quota restrictions. Britain received the guarantee of the Northeast Republic - no longer providing any supplies to the Boers, and could choose two ports of North Korea as the British naval ports. As a corresponding measure, Britain is not allowed to provide important military supplies such as battleships to hostile countries in the Northeast Republic (those sold do not count. Considering the price of battleships, it is unlikely that Britain will sell battleships to various countries in the Far East in recent years, which can almost be considered an invalid clause.)

Faced with the incomprehensible eyes of his colleagues, the Foreign Minister of the Northeast Republic recalled a sentence, "There are only interests between countries, no other interests."
Chapter completed!