Jagged Warlord

After another 10 minutes, all the SS artillery stopped firing, and the empty suburbs suddenly calmed down.In the trenches, the survivors of the Beiyang Army emerged from the soil one by one like turtles.Cautiously, he poked his head slightly, wanting to see what was going on around him.

More than a dozen armored tanks of the SS formed a fan formation, and with the roar of their motors, they began to roll towards the Beiyang Army's position. Behind the tanks were groups of SS soldiers with high morale.At this time, the tactics of the chariot leading the way and the infantry following was probably the first time in the whole world, and Shen Liankai didn't know what to do.However, the number of artillery pieces of the Beiyang Army was small, and the number of machine guns did not pose a threat, so Shen Liankai boldly adopted this new Eastern tactic.

When tanks first appeared on the battlefield during the Battle of the Somme, well-trained and well-informed Germans were terrified.Not to mention these Beiyang Army soldiers who are mainly illiterate.The soldiers of the Beiyang Army in the trenches, faced with such a scene, their hearts had already been chilled for a long time, and the courage to resist naturally decreased a lot. Many soldiers began to consider whether to flee or surrender.A small number of Beiyang soldiers who were stubbornly resisting in the corner fired at the armored vehicles of the SS with heavy machine guns. As a result, they were shot to pieces by the 37mm machine guns on the armored vehicles before firing many bullets.

The chariot was getting closer and closer to the trench, and the SS soldiers following behind the chariot also walked forward stooping.Although there were stray bullets flying from the opponent's position from time to time and clanging on the chariot, the soldiers showed no fear at all.It is so reassuring to have such a thick-skinned and rough thing as a chariot as a shield.Many soldiers follow the tactical actions during training and use the moving chariots as cover to suppress the enemy's positions with firepower. They either use light machine guns to shoot, or use mortars and grenades to serve them. For machine gun positions or fortifications that cannot be suppressed, tanks are called to rush up and crush them.

In the process of mutual cover and gradual advancement, the Beiyang Army didn't even have the power to fight back, and the soldiers in the entire position surrendered or fled backwards, or they were run over by chariots because they didn't dodge in time. Died in the trenches.The division of labor between chariots and infantry is very clear. The former is an assault arrow, used to break through the opponent's defense and open the attack channel for the following infantry; the main mission of the latter is to eliminate the remnants of the enemy, occupy positions, and consolidate the front.

In less than 10 minutes, all the outer positions of Daxing Town were occupied by the SS, and the No. 30 Infantry Regiment of the Eighth Division guarding the middle line of defense was completely defeated.Since the line of defense guarded by Sun Zhenkai was the central line of defense, and it collapsed too quickly, Wu Changzhi and Tian Wangwang's troops on the two wings hadn't reacted yet, and Shen Liankai's armored troops had already penetrated into the depths of the Beiyang Army with the loess all over the sky and the sound of rumbling engines. .

The Eighth Division originally had two brigades and four regiments. Tao Yunhe defected and Tian Jinzhang was killed. The No. 20th and 30th infantry regiments were gone. The No. 30th infantry regiment and its leader Sun Zhenkai were killed by Shen Liankai's armored troops. Fleeing, now there is still the No.[-] Second Infantry Regiment.Originally, in Shen Liankai's plan, after breaking through the central position of the Beiyang Army, he planned to detour to the right wing to pinch Wu Changzhi's troops.However, suddenly the soldiers of the reconnaissance squad reported through radio communication that they had found a target similar to the enemy's headquarters in front, which made Shen Liankai excited.

The discovery of this headquarters is all thanks to Nikola Tesla in the United States.With the sponsorship of the big benefactor Li Mohan, Nikola Tesla can concentrate on scientific research, and his scientific research achievements will soon be transformed into sharp weapons in Li Mohan's hands.Not long ago, Nikola Tesla made another breakthrough in the radio field. He successfully developed a radio communicator and radio positioning equipment according to Li Mohan's requirements.The reconnaissance squad found a large number of enemy command posts receiving and sending radio signals through radio positioning equipment, and reported to Shen Liankai immediately.

Shen Liankai gave an order, and the armored troop continued to rush forward without stopping.Before rushing far, the sound of the rumbling engine alarmed the enemy.A group of Beiyang troops quickly approached Shen Liankai's armored troops, but as soon as they saw the tall armored chariots, these unseen Beiyang soldiers fired a few shots and fled.

"Follow me." Shen Liankai ordered all the armored vehicles and infantry to chase and fight through the car radio.Shen Liankai followed the deserters all the way to a small village.The Beiyang Army in the village set up machine guns on the earthen walls in an attempt to resist, but the SS armored soldiers ignored this. The front section of the SS armored vehicle was equipped with a shovel specially used to remove obstacles, and the driver of the armored vehicle drove directly. The car crashed into a dirt wall.

boom

The low earthen wall fell in response, and the poor Beiyang machine gunner was crushed to death before he could shoot.The other armored vehicles followed suit and made four or five gaps in the earthen wall of the village at once. The infantry following the armored vehicles quickly rushed into the village and started street fighting with the Beiyang soldiers.The Beiyang soldiers hid in the house one after another, shooting from the gaps in the windows and walls.

Most of these fighters were honest peasants or ordinary citizen families or shouted at the door to let the enemy go out and surrender.Or just honestly and helplessly blocking the door, without any next move.They have grown up in a law-abiding manner since they were young, and they seem to have an instinctive resistance to such methods as breaking in or setting fire to the house.In addition, the subject that the SS troops train more has always been field combat. They have not been specially trained in this kind of street combat, so there is no way to make it like this.

Fortunately, there are some veterans in the team. They don't reject breaking in or setting fire to the house, and after receiving SS training, they have another way to deal with the enemy hiding in the house.The way they usually take it is to throw a grenade directly into the house, and then rush in and shoot a burst of submachine guns.Those recruits from good boys learn quickly and start to follow suit, which makes the battle much easier.

In the end, many Beiyang troops retreated into a courtyard in the village, and Shen Liankai ordered the soldiers to shell the courtyard with grenades and mortars.As soon as the soldiers tried their best, they fired all the mortar shells, and directly blew up the farm courtyard.Several lives were extremely high, and the Beiyang soldiers who survived the shelling hurriedly shouted to surrender.

Shen Liankai ordered soldiers to pull them out of the rubble, and one of them seemed to be an officer from the way he was dressed.Shen Liankai asked him, "Report your unit number, name and position."

The dusty officer replied: "My name is Ying Zhenfu, and I am the Chief of Staff of Commander Li Changtai of the Army's Eighth Division."

Shen Liankai was taken aback, and asked, "Is this the headquarters of your Eighth Division?"

Ying Zhenfu nodded, and replied: "Yes. The headquarters of our division is located between the No. 30 32st Regiment and the [-]nd Regiment."

"What about your teachers?" Shen Liankai asked

Ying Zhenfu smiled wryly, and pointed to the pile of rubble behind him, "It's buried below, I don't know if it's dead or alive."

Shen Liankai thought for a while, and said to the soldiers beside him, "Dig for me, if you want to see people when you live, if you want to see corpses when you die."

Shen Liankai's adjutant staff reminded him, saying: "Since the headquarters of the Eighth Division is set between the No. The regiment took the opportunity to counterattack, which is not good for us."

Shen Liankai was right after thinking about it, so he said to Zhenfu: "What's the password for your telegram?"

Although China introduced the telegraph and the accompanying concept of ciphers in the late Qing Dynasty, they did not know how to do it. They just mechanically followed the instructions of foreigners and failed to pay attention to it in essence.On the contrary, Japan has set up telecommunications courses specializing in monitoring and deciphering early on to train relevant talents.

During the Sino-Japanese War, Wang Fengzao, the Qing government's minister in Japan, sent a long telegram to the Prime Minister's Office in a coded telegram in order to report the talks between him and the Japanese foreign minister Mutsu Munemitsu, which included Mutsu Munemitsu's message to the Chinese government. The full text of the severance letter.Little did he know that he had fallen into the trap of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

According to the usual practice, the letter of resignation should be in Japanese, translated into Chinese by the staff of the Qing embassy in Japan, encrypted, and sent back to China.But the letter of resignation that Wang Fengzao got was a Chinese manuscript that had already been translated, and the translation was very fluent, without missing a single word.

This translation was written by Noriyoshi Nakata, a talented person from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.He is a China hand, a talented student of the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, proficient in Mandarin, Shanghainese and Hokkien, and his Chinese level is so high that he can compose poems and sing with Chinese Confucians. He has also written a series of Chinese studies such as "China in the Early Meiji Period" masterpiece.In this Japan-China negotiation, he attended as one of the Japanese representatives.

At that time, diplomacy broke down and the situation was extremely urgent. Wang Fengzao saw that Nakata's translation was beautiful, and there was no danger of fraud, so he directly asked the confidential officer to translate it into a secret message and send it back to China.This telegram was sent on the Tokyo-Nagasaki-Shanghai line, and it had to transit twice in Japan.Through these two transfers, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs obtained a copy of the secret telegram.Sato Aima, the telecommunications section chief in charge of deciphering and analysis on the Japanese side, went to battle in person and cooperated with Nakata Keiyoshi to analyze the length of the telegram and compare it with the original text, and quickly figured out China's secret code.

Sadly, the Chinese did not know that the password had been cracked, and secondly, the password was not changed during the Sino-Japanese War.As a result, the mobilization of the Chinese army and navy, and the movement of the court have all been spread out in front of the Japanese since then.With such a serious intelligence asymmetry, coupled with the actual military gap, the Qing Dynasty eventually suffered a crushing defeat.

China's disastrous defeat in the Sino-Japanese War made many Chinese people—especially politicians—realize the value of telegraph ciphers.After the telegraph began to be popularized by civilians, governments, companies, and individuals all started using encrypted telegraphs.Therefore, in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, people with a little status and influence, in addition to having a plain code telegraph book, also carried a special telegram code book for themselves.

The most popular encryption method in China is called displacement in cryptography.This encryption method is simple to say, as long as the increase or decrease of the code numbers of Chinese characters is agreed in advance, confidential communication between individuals can be carried out at will, which greatly reduces the threshold of encryption, as long as you have the most basic computing ability, you can use it. And the secrecy effect is good.

For example, when Cai E was preparing to go to Yunnan in Beijing, he agreed with Liang Qichao in advance on a poem "I laugh at the sky", the code of "I" was reduced by 301, and the code of "自" was increased by 200, etc. .

When Cai E escaped from Beijing smoothly, he sent a telegram to Liang Qichao. The content of the telegram was "Self-secret Jie Zhuo E Yi Chang Chang", which was completely a heavenly book.In fact, the first two words are the clear code "Self-Secret".Liang Qichao flipped through the code list, oh, I see, this telegram was encrypted with the word "自".He found out the digital codes of the six characters "Ji Zhuo Er Wan Chang Chang" and subtracted 611302130618396905605951 from "200" to become "591300130418376903605751". ".

Ying Zhenfu shrugged his shoulders and said, "Impossible, the code book is kept by a special telegraph soldier, even if I have it, I won't give it to you."

"Really?" Shen Liankai winked at the soldier beside him, and the soldier decisively raised his hand and shot Ying Zhenfu in the back of the head, spraying blood and blood on the rubble.

"Okay." Shen Liankai said to his telegraph soldiers: "Then we will send a telegram to Duan Qirui in plain code, telling him that Li Changtai is dead and the Eighth Division is finished."