The anti-Qing movement began with the looting of the Eight-Nation Alliance.

Chapter 192 Blocking

"Leave all the heavy weapons for me!" Ida held up one finger.

“No problem!” Saburo Ogasawara nodded in agreement without hesitation.

"Secondly, take the belongings of the soldiers who were left behind back with you. We hope that after you return home, you can help take care of their families!"

"Don't worry, as long as we can return home safely, as long as I have food to eat, I will never let their loved ones go hungry! I promise!" Ogasawara Saburo nodded and assured him.

“Yes, and us too! We’ll definitely help take care of their families when we get back!” The other officers nodded in agreement.

"I hope you keep your word, or I'll haunt you even in death!" Jing Tian didn't know if their promises would be effective, but at least he could give the soldiers an explanation.

"Go and select soldiers immediately, entirely on a voluntary basis. For everyone's safety, we must have someone stay behind to hold off the enemy and tell the soldiers their promises!"

Without further ado, since he had already agreed to stay behind to hold off the enemy, he immediately began selecting soldiers.

Ogasawara, along with the other officers, hurriedly organized the weapons, ammunition, and supplies. They left behind all the heavy weapons and most of the ammunition.

"Take only the most essential supplies, food and weapons, and discard everything else! Be quick!" Everyone knew they didn't have much time, so they immediately sprang into action.

"Ida-kun, I'm counting on you!" Ogasawara Saburo finally walked up to Ida and bowed deeply.

"Let's go! We can't hold out for much longer!" Ida waved his hand.

"Let's go right away!" Ogasawara didn't say anything more and quickly got up with the others.

Having lost most of their supplies, the column moved much faster and soon disappeared from sight.

"Seize these two hills immediately and build fortifications!" Without further ado, Jing Tian led the remaining eight hundred soldiers to rush up the two hills, which were twenty or thirty meters high, on both sides of the road.

The two small hills were only two or three hundred meters apart, blocking the main road. If the Chinese cavalry wanted to pass through, they had to eliminate them first.

The soldiers who remained were all prepared to die, and they picked up various tools to start building fortifications.

Unfortunately, the Chinese cavalry arrived too quickly; they had only been climbing the hill for a dozen minutes when a large contingent of cavalry charged towards them from afar.

"Prepare for battle!" Ida drew his saber and shouted.

Japanese soldiers lay prone on the hastily constructed fortifications, where six heavy machine guns and four Type 75 mountain guns were already aimed at the road below.

With so many Japanese troops on the hills on both sides, the cavalry regiment certainly couldn't miss them.

Several scouts rode up on their warhorses at breakneck speed!

"Fire!" Ida knew he couldn't hide anymore. The hill was too small; with hundreds of them lying on top, anyone passing by could see them unless they were blind.

"Rat-a-tat-tat!" The Maxim heavy machine gun roared, firing bursts of bullets at several cavalrymen.

As soon as the Japanese machine guns opened fire, the scouts scattered and fled. But no matter how quickly they reacted, two soldiers were still hit and fell from their horses.

"Damn Japanese!" the squad leader cursed, leading the remaining four or five soldiers to turn around and run back.

The cavalry quickly stopped a few hundred meters away, and Zhang Shishou rode his warhorse to the head of the column. He raised his binoculars to examine the Japanese fortifications on the hillside!

"Hmph! They dare to block my way with this little bit of fortification!" Zhang Shishou sneered.

"Machine gun crews provide cover, artillery prepare!"

The cavalry regiment didn't have many heavy weapons, but it did bring general-purpose machine guns and mortars.

Soon, the artillerymen, who hadn't had a chance to fire yet, immediately took the disassembled mortars off their horses and reassembled them.

The machine gun team also began to build fortifications, mounting general-purpose machine guns on horse-drawn carts and slowly approaching the Japanese positions.

"Damn it!" Ida saw through his binoculars the twenty strange little cannons that the other side was starting to assemble. Although he had never handled a mortar before, he could guess what they were.

We can't let them assemble it so freely, or we'll definitely suffer the consequences.

"Fire! Bombard those enemy cannons!" Ida ran up to the artillerymen and shouted.

With a loud "boom," a mountain gun emitted a plume of white smoke and fired a shell at the cavalry regiment's artillery position.

The first shell went a little off course, only giving the mortar crew a scare. They didn't have time to be afraid; they quickly resumed assembly.

As soon as the Japanese artillery opened fire, more than a dozen machine gun teams quickly moved closer. Regardless of the fact that they were still hundreds of meters away, they immediately opened fire fiercely on the smoke rising from the hillside.

"Da da da..." More than a dozen bullet belts scattered across the Japanese position, sending weeds flying. Japanese soldiers were hit by stray bullets from time to time, screaming in pain.

"Fire with heavy machine guns to suppress the enemy's machine gun fire!" At this point, Ida no longer cared about concealing his firepower.

If the enemy machine guns continue to fire at them, it will not only affect the artillery's aiming, but also severely damage morale.

Six Japanese heavy machine guns on the hillside opened fire simultaneously on the approaching machine gun group below. A fierce battle ensued.

As the distance closed, the machine gun team, despite piling sandbags all over the wagon, could not avoid being hit by the enemy.

A machine gunner shuddered and slowly fell off his horse.

The assistant gunner had no time to grieve; he moved his comrade aside, sat in his firing position, and began firing fiercely.

The new army's general-purpose machine guns far surpassed the enemy's in both rate of fire and accuracy. Three or four machine guns suppressed one enemy machine gun, and as the distance closed, they quickly suppressed the Japanese army's several heavy machine guns.

The Japanese heavy machine guns quickly fell silent, and the machine gunners were killed one after another.

The Japanese artillery fire was also ineffective, even though the mountain guns were far more powerful and had a longer range than the mortars.

However, the Japanese army had only just pushed the mountain gun up the mountain and there was no suitable firing position at all. The makeshift gun position caused the gun to tilt after firing a single shot, forcing the Japanese army to right the mountain gun and re-aim it.

The Japanese artillery hadn't fired many shots yet, only managing to kill a few artillerymen from the new army. Meanwhile, some of the mortars on this side were already assembled.

"Fire immediately!" The artillery battalion commander couldn't wait for everyone to fire together and immediately ordered the shelling to begin.

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh..." Countless shells began to bombard the Japanese positions.

The hastily constructed fortifications by the Japanese army were rendered useless by mortar fire. Japanese soldiers were continuously killed.

With all the mortars firing at once, shells rained down, silencing the Japanese artillery.

The artillery battalion fired hundreds of shells in one go, causing widespread devastation on the Japanese positions.

"Advance the front line!" Zhang Shishou waved his hand, and hundreds of soldiers, armed with rifles, rushed towards the Japanese positions in skirmish formation.

The artillerymen also put away their mortars and began to advance!