Chapter 352 Miracle: We captured Paris before France surrendered!

Chapter 352 Miracle: We captured Paris before France surrendered!

Chapter 352 Miracle: We captured Paris before France surrendered!
November 1870, 11, Paris.

There were no big discount sales in Paris on Double Eleven. The whole day was the highlight moment for Zhou Shengchuan, Major General and Commander of the Huai Army Heavy Artillery Brigade.

Paris' fortresses, designed to defend against black powder shrapnel and solid bullets, were heavily bombarded by TNT high-explosive shells.

Along the way, the heavy artillery brigade's attack on the densely packed fortresses was unstoppable.

By evening, in just one day, the Prussian General Staff estimated that even if Prussia used all its heavy siege artillery, it would take at least twenty days to break through the so-called indestructible defenses of Paris. A gap had been torn, and an eighty-pound high-explosive bomb had accidentally fallen into a residential building in the city.

This resulted in more than a thousand casualties among Parisian civilians, but these were not innocent casualties, and the Parisians did not care about such casualties at all.

Even without artillery attacks, the number of people starving to death in Paris every day has exceeded 3,000, and not a single Parisian is an innocent civilian.

The regular French army had all surrendered in Sedan and Metz. The 40 elite troops recalled from abroad were annihilated by the Huai Army in the Battle of Tours. However, there were still defenders on the defensive line of Paris. Where did these troops come from?

Among them, there were 12,000 marines who had landed, more than 60,000 former Paris and surrounding police officers, and these 80,000 people had received military training. The remaining 320,000 were all temporary able-bodied men from the citizens.

Well, here in Paris they are not called able-bodied men, they are called the National Guard.

Paris had a total population of two million, and 400,000 soldiers were mobilized, almost all adult men participated in the defense of Paris.

The rest of the people were not idle either. Women, the elderly, and children, as long as they could move and had the strength, all participated in the logistical support of the National Self-Defense Force. From a military perspective, they were logistical soldiers and were military personnel.

Therefore, there was no so-called accidental casualties in the Huai Army's artillery fire.

This is a city where every citizen is a soldier. The rebellious and unyielding people of Paris are the people who love their country the most. This comes from France's self-confidence as a world power and its highly civilized patriotic education.

If we make a comparison, the Qing Dynasty would be ashamed to death for this.

The Chaoyong in the Opium War, the peasants and citizens who helped the Anglo-French forces, and the ruffians who took advantage of the fire to loot the Old Summer Palace may be exaggerated, but at least they exist and are not entirely smears by the reactionary forces.

The world belongs to the Qing Dynasty, to the Aisin-Gioro family. It has nothing to do with us ordinary people. No matter who is in charge, we have to pay taxes and grain...

Why do some people in the Qing Dynasty have no patriotic feelings? The people are not enlightened, the country is weak, the Qing government is a family-ruled country, and so on. There are many reasons.

But this is certainly not the mainstream. In times of national crisis, China, with its thousands of years of civilization, still produced common people like the Boxers who unyieldingly resisted the foreigners. That is the mainstream.

Although they are ignorant and backward, they think that Nezha was defeated by gods and was possessed by Guan Gong, and they are invulnerable to swords and guns. This is just due to the limitation of their vision.

But they did not surrender. They used their own flesh and blood to fight against the foreigners' guns and cannons. Although they failed, the foreigners were terrified and knew that this ancient nation was invincible.

When later generations read history, they often feel indignant about the term "semi-feudal and semi-colonial".

However, they did not expect that if the seemingly ignorant Boxers had not put up a heroic resistance that dispelled the ambitions of the great powers to divide up China, China would no longer be a "semi" colony, but would have been destroyed and the future generations would have no chance to laugh at the ignorance of their ancestors who sacrificed their lives for the country.

Salute to our ancestors who dared to rush towards foreign bullets with their flesh and blood to protect the continuation of our Chinese heritage!
Shao Quanzhong had experienced that period of history, so he hated foreigners deeply.

He welcomed his British big brother with a smile, and joined the Windsor royal family, the Romanov family, and the Bourbon family, hoping to have the opportunity to take over their place in the future. This was completely out of his natural cunning - ahem, no, it was wisdom.

Therefore, Shao Quanzhong had no psychological barriers to bombarding Paris, and told Zhou Shengchuan, "Bombard them and let them know that China cannot be bullied casually."

"Those who took advantage of China's weakness to bully us, eat my food, spit it out! Those who took my food, give it back to me! Since you have been a thief and went to China to eat meat and rob, you should be prepared to be caught and beaten one day."

"As I said, it's not that I don't want to take revenge, it's just that the time has not come yet!"

When they reached the city, it was already dark, but the artillery could not move forward. Paris was a city of soldiers, and if the artillery went deep into the city alone, they would be attacked by countless cold guns.

Therefore, the Anhui New Army engineers who guarded the artillery dug trenches, pulled barbed wire, and patrolled to protect the artillery positions well.

The heavy siege artillery continued to fire in the dark without the guidance of hot air balloons, constantly destroying buildings within range.

In fact, the number of people killed by the bombardment was only about 1,000 at the beginning, and then the citizens in the city quickly evacuated out of the range of the bombardment. The bombardment overnight only contributed to the GDP of Paris' reconstruction.

Anyway, this is basically the artillery's last battle. If the shells are not fired, are they going to be transported back thousands of miles away?

The next morning, everyone saw that the four-kilometer area of ​​Paris near the artillery positions had become a ruin.

At the same time, we also saw another architectural miracle. Overnight, countless barricades were built on the main road leading to the city. There were so many that there was no end in sight.

Paris has a well-developed municipal engineering system, with more than 10,000 "public carriages" used as public buses, and about 30,000 private carriages.

Therefore, during the siege, horse meat saved a large number of Parisians from starvation. This is also the origin of the sentence "At that time, we could only eat horse meat" in Daudet's "The Last Lesson".

The horses were out of food, so carriages were now useful. A dozen carriages loaded with stones were lined up to form a barricade, just like Qi Jiguang's idea of ​​a chariot city. Where did the stones come from? Shao Quanzhong once claimed that he had used loess to pave the roads and sprinkle clean water on the streets of Paris to welcome the arrival of the Huai Army, because he had never been to Paris. At this time, there were no dirt roads in the 525 miles of roads in Paris, but only neat gravel roads.

The rubble turned into stones when lifted up, and became barricades when loaded into carts...

All these favorable conditions are secondary. The most important thing is that Paris has unyielding citizens who are not intimidated by the terrible power of the cannon.

They sang the Marseillaise, bravely picked up their guns, rushed into the barricades, and were ready to fight for every inch of land, turning the Huai Army's path into the city into a road of blood.

Shao Quanzhong held a telescope and looked at the National Guard stationed in the barricade. He heard the passionate Marseillaise in the distance and sighed.

The French people, like the Chinese people, are unyielding. Shao Quanzhong saw the shadow of the Boxers in these passionate militia defenders of Paris, and now he was full of respect for the people of Paris.

Then, without hesitation, he ordered, "Fight!"

In the eyes of the Parisians, Shao Quanzhong was the invading foreign devil, and they were now trying to stop the powerful Huai Army with simple weapons like moths to a flame.

Because of the appearance of Shao Quanzhong, the historical roles of both parties were reversed.

"All the sins are my fault. If I don't fight them, their sons will fight us, and the ones who die will be our Boxers."

It is said that his wife Hu Liuniang is the leader of this generation of Plum Blossom Fist, and Plum Blossom Fist is the source of boxing people...
In preparation for the street fighting in Paris, the Huai Army had premeditatedly trained for a year, and the General Staff had already conducted repeated simulations on how to attack the city of Paris and deal with the barricades.

Two steam tanks led the way and drove into Paris side by side. The Gatling machine guns on the tanks sprayed flames and began to suppress the first barricade with fire.

From the moment the tanks drove into the main roads of Paris, the Huai Army created a miracle and entered Paris before France surrendered!
It is said that Napoleon III was discredited by Isabelle II and he was defeated and surrendered in the end, but in fact he did a lot of good things for France.

The mayor of Paris, Haussmann, whom he appointed, carried out a 17-year-long Paris reconstruction project, which was just completed this year, transforming Paris from a medieval city into a modern metropolis.

The streets of Paris were widened from 39 feet to 79 feet, which is approximately 24 meters.

The benefit to Shao Quanzhong was that the wider the street, the weaker the effect of the barricade, making it easier to break through. Moreover, there was enough space on the street for three steam tractors to run in parallel, and there was still plenty left, greatly increasing the attacking firepower.

The two tanks, under the barrage of bullets, pressed forward to the barricade, and the grenades behind the tanks rained down behind the barricade. The TNT grenades were more powerful than any black powder shrapnel shells and were basically equivalent to an artillery bombardment.

The Paris militia had never encountered this kind of attack. The cat was buried in the rubble behind the barricade. Before it could fight back, the shotguns of the soldiers who jumped onto the barricade opened fire, and all the militia behind the barricade were killed.

The wide streets of Paris could allow three steam tractors to run in parallel, but the tank division only sent out two tanks. A prepared steam bulldozer drove in from the deliberately empty space, easily pushing away the carriages and rubble and clearing the road.

The tanks and the soldiers continued forward, heading for the next barricade.

On both sides of the road, the Guangxi New Army commanded by Lin Bozai, with grenades hanging around their waists, TNT explosives and rappelling ropes in their backpacks, and shotguns in their arms, lagged slightly behind the tank division's assault troops, monitoring the tall buildings on both sides of the road.

If a sudden shot is fired, be ready to break into the building and fight.

Thanks to the Huai Army's thorough preparation, tanks, grenades, shotguns, and bulldozers completely restrained the Paris militia's street barricade tactics, and the Guangxi New Army's street fighting divisions on both sides of the road had no chance to attack.

Therefore, the team that broke into the city of Paris advanced rapidly all the way, quickly broke through more than a dozen barricades, and advanced more than 700 meters.

Shao Quanzhong took out his pocket watch and looked at the time. Only an hour had passed.

In fact, he did not intend to occupy the entire city of Paris, so he did not advance in multiple directions. He just moved forward along the road along the Seine. His target was very single - the Bank of France.

They advanced more than 700 meters so smoothly, and even the expected roadside sneak attacks did not appear.

The target is only five kilometers away from the city. It seems that if we are optimistic, we can achieve the main goal of entering Paris this afternoon...

"boom!"

Suddenly, a huge explosion sounded, and the leading steam tank was overturned by the blast wave, and the tracks were blown off. The driver, machine gunner, and eight soldiers behind him were all killed. The tank turned sideways and became a huge obstacle in the center of the street.

The other tank was still advancing when flames suddenly burst out from the window on the second floor of the building diagonally opposite. This was followed by the sound of dense small cannon shells, like the rapid beating of war drums.

The Huai Army soldiers, who were used to hearing about the Williams rapid-fire cannon in their own army, were shocked. The firing rate of this cannon far exceeded the Williams rapid-fire cannon's speed of 20 rounds per minute, and should have reached 60 rounds per minute.

Moreover, when the armor was designed, the tank steel plates were taken into consideration to withstand the attacks of Gatling machine guns and Williams rapid-fire cannons. But at this moment, they were like paper and were riddled with holes by the enemy's rapid-fire cannons.

All the tank crew members were killed within twenty seconds, and the tank, which was shot into pieces, immediately broke down.

(End of this chapter)