The French army, which had just crossed the ground, corrected in Wenyuan for another three days, and then in the early morning of a foggy morning, all of them marched to Zhennan Pass. The march was slow in the fog, and the movement of an army of nearly 30,000 men was even more difficult, but Negri could not help it, only this fog could make him ask those annoying airships, so that the French army would not be exposed to the eyes of the enemy too early.

At 8 o'clock in the morning, the French army arrived at the former site of Guancheng in the south of the town. A few months earlier, it had been Nigri himself who had blown it into ruins. The French army had reconnoitred the nearby terrain, and thought that the road behind would not be too difficult, but it was not expected that Feng Zicai had already given up attacking again, and the 31st Division had planted a large number of surprises on the way from Guancheng to Guanqian Pass. When the foreign regiment opened the way first, they quickly discovered the gifts given to them by the 31st Division, but when they found out, they had already been turned on their backs by the bombers.

Before the enemy could be seen, the powerful foreign legion suffered huge losses, and Nigri had to adjust his deployment. The distance between the two sides was already less than ten miles, and it was certainly impossible to clear mines, so Nigri could only let the worthless Vietnamese puppet army take the lead in opening the way. The human mine detectors are very resistant, if it weren't for the fear of death, they wouldn't have worked for the French! Now the French are sending them to death, and of course they don't want to. However, the guns of the French bosses are behind, and these puppet soldiers can't help but grit their teeth and move forward. While wading through the thunder, praying and scolding the street has become a helpless choice for the Vietnamese puppet army. The puppet army began to leave, but it was inevitable that the speed of the French army's march was greatly reduced. At the cost of hundreds of dead and wounded, the French finally reached the pass, but it was already half past nine by this time.

The fog had completely cleared, the French army was completely exposed to the Chinese army, and Nigri could clearly see the Qing army busy preparing for battle behind the long wall through the telescope. After carefully observing the nearby terrain, Nigri had to lament that his opponent had really picked a good place! The terrain of the pass was very dangerous, and if the French army attacked the long wall garrisoned by Feng Zicai from the front, it would inevitably be attacked by the Qing troops on the mountains on both sides and fall into the blow of fire from three sides.

"Feng Zicai is an experienced indigenous general, but unfortunately his understanding of war is really less, and his thinking is still stuck in the Middle Ages. He doesn't understand what the initiative is on the battlefield, and as the attacker, we have too many options! Nigri didn't particularly care about the disadvantages of the terrain, and he also commented on Feng Zicai with contempt for his deputy Hebenzhe.

"Shall we take a break and have lunch before attacking?" Heppen had experienced fewer wars and was more contemptuous of non-European armies, so he was even more disdainful of the Qing army.

"Don't be careless, our opponent is not only these indigenous Qing troops, but also the Manchurian army, they are not easy to deal with, we can't leave the opportunity to the Manchurians! Organize an attack now! I will order the Vietnamese army to launch a feint attack on the front, and you command the foreign mercenaries and the 2nd Brigade to launch the main attack on the mountains on the flank. As long as we occupy the commanding heights on the flanks and complete the deployment of artillery, the Qing army will all fall into our firepower, and the artillery bombardment can quickly disperse the Qing army behind the long wall! "Negri's tactical deployment is still very good, and with the terrain in front of the pass, it is indeed the most advantageous for him to attack like this.

Heppenzhe quickly put his troops in order, 3,000 foreign mercenaries plus a second brigade of 4,000 men, and the French army gathered a total of 7,000 elites. After careful analysis, Heppenzhe abandoned Phoenix Mountain on the west side, because the terrain was more rugged and he could get reinforcements from the Qing army in the direction of Kubo. This was one of his luckiest choices, because the main force of the 31st Division was not stationed in the area of the shogunate, as the French army believed, but on the top of the Phoenix Mountain. After Hebenzhe broke through the Qing fortress on Phoenix Mountain, he would find a very great fright.

The direction of attack chosen by Hebenzhe was the large and small green mountains on the east side of the Guanqian Pass, where the terrain was slightly better, and there was no strong support. At the same time, the large and small Qingshan are more suitable for the deployment of forts, and the Qing army's forts and fortresses are also more here, and if the French army occupies the large and small Qingshan, they can quickly establish artillery positions to launch artillery bombardment on the Qing army in the pass in front of the pass. Hepbenzhe led the 7,000 elites to set off with great bravery, and they seemed to see the victory in front of them.

"Let's start shelling!" Negri's greatest reliance was on his own artillery, the Qing army lacked artillery that could match the French army, and even more lacked the mathematical knowledge of using artillery, and the French army could have an absolute advantage in artillery battles.

"Prepare for shelling!" On the top of Phoenix Mountain, Zheng Yong also gave the same order as Nigri, and the opponent of Nigri's artillery battle was not the Qing army, but the 31st Division.

All artillery of caliber below 105 mm light retention guns need to move with the infantry, ready to attack and support the Qing army at any time, and Zheng Yong ordered that all the big guys who are ready are ready. Thirty-two 150 mm guns of 32 times 15 times, 24 122 mm domestic peasant guns, and 48 105 mm retained guns were lined up to form the core artillery group of the 31 st Division. Guo Xing'a, a phobia of insufficient firepower, was eager to equip each of his troops with an artillery, which gave every Manchurian division-level unit a heinous and terrifying firepower. Of course, in addition to these conventional artillery, Zheng Yong also arranged his portable can opener, the 202 mm heavy retaining gun, on the position.

The 202-mm heavy retained artillery gun, nicknamed the Little Black Dragon, is the most massive caliber artillery of the Manchurian Army except for the 240-mm caliber Black Dragon Cannon. The maximum firing range is 16,800 meters, the maximum rate of fire is one minute and one shot, and it is equipped with a variety of ammunition types, such as retained bombs, submunitions and chemical bombs. Although the lethality of this kind of artillery to attack soft targets is also very huge, most of the time it is used by the Manchurian army to deal with strong fortresses, and the black dragon that is difficult to move is a can opener, and the small black dragon that can keep up with the movement of the troops has become a portable can opener. Although the little black dragon is portable, it actually weighs thirteen and a half tons, and when it moves, it needs more than ten heavy horses to drag at the same time. In order to get these two treasures to Phoenix Mountain, Zheng Yong spent a lot of effort.

One shell of the little black dragon is about 200 catties, and even if there is a slide for feeding ammunition, it requires three sturdy soldiers to exert force at the same time to use the bullet stick to feed the cannon into the chamber. And because the caliber is too huge, it is impossible to achieve the integration of ammunition, so the little black dragon also needs to use a separate *, and the soldiers' push rods cannot be idle, and they have to push again. When the little black dragon was also prepared, the core artillery group of the 31st Division entered a state of imminent battle, and could send death to the enemy at any time.

Zheng Yong waited quietly, he watched Heppen Zhe attack Xiaoqingshan, watched the three artillery forts on the front line of the Qing army fall, watched Nigri urge the Vietnamese puppet army to start advancing, no matter how hard the Qing army fought, Zheng Yong was still waiting for the best opportunity. Zheng Yong could afford to wait, but Feng Zicai couldn't afford to wait. The French army had already erected artillery relying on the Qing army's artillery fortifications and began to bombard the Qing army's long wall fortifications, and the position of the Cui army holding the long wall was shaken for a while. Feng Zicai personally led the troops to suppress the formation, stopped the commotion of the troops, and pulled out his saber and chopped the heads of several deserters in a row, so that he could barely stabilize the position on the front line of the long wall.

The Huai army of Wang Xiaoqi on the second line hurriedly rushed to the long wall to reinforce, and the surrounding Su Yuanchun, Jiang Zonghan, Fang Youshen and other troops also moved closer to the long wall fortifications when they heard the news, but the long wall fortifications of the Qing army were still becoming more and more unstable. Wang Debang's troops in the oil pass had to use a killer move and began to counterattack the supply lines of the French army's rear road, and the French army's offensive was only blocked and not interrupted. It was not until the evening that Nigri ordered his troops to halt the offensive and prepare for another battle, after receiving reports of the lack of ammunition left.

The French army in front of the pass began to retreat slowly, and the French army in Xiaoqingshan also began to close the defensive line, and when the people who had been fighting fiercely for a day thought that they could rest, Zheng Yong waited for the best opportunity he wanted to wait.

"Aim at the French command center, cut off the retreating French troops, and open fire!" After watching the excitement all day like a stone statue, Zheng Yong finally gave the order to open fire.

"What did you do earlier? We ......" Feng Xiangrong and other young people complained about the belated shelling of the Manchurian army, but their words were all drowned out by the rumbling cannonball.

More than 100 heavy artillery pieces of the 31st Division opened fire at the same time, but the sound of the artillery was earth-shattering, and all the sounds were suppressed. When Nigri heard a loud noise, he subconsciously raised his telescope to see what was going on, but he lost consciousness in an instant. Two small black dragon cannons and thirty-two thirty-two times fifteen grenades, all aimed at his French command center, even if Negri was in a relatively hidden position, he was still vibrated by the huge shock wave of no less than four meters, and then fainted directly.

The French army, which was unprepared, was all exposed to artillery fire in the form of soft targets, and the spectacular scene of flying parts in the sky was immediately presented in front of the eyes of the Qing army. The French tried to hide, but they were either on the way to retreat, or they were stationed in a rudimentary camp, with no fortifications to rely on, and where could they hide. The French army wanted to escape, but the huge killing range of the large-caliber artillery almost covered the entire battlefield, how could the French army escape! The terrible shelling lasted for half an hour, and the artillery regiment of the 31st Division had exhausted a base of ammunition, and they still had many shells, but they had no target. In the telescope of the observation post, only scorched earth and severed limbs and severed arms could be seen, as well as some stragglers in confusion, where there were any worthy targets.

He Huan, who was supposed to be in Pingxiang's reserves, had already rushed to support Feng Zicai, but when he arrived, no one could hear him. It was easy to be hit by the end of the shelling, He Huan came to Feng Zicai's side, and let out a little frightened emotion: "The gods can't escape the smoke, it's really amazing!" ”。 He Huan himself was wondering how he survived under the fire of the 31st Division.