New Shun 1730

The soldiers who found the backbone were quickly organized. After reorganizing on the salient fort, they finally waited for the follow-up troops and officers.

After finding the officers familiar to each company, the soldiers on the salient fort finally came alive, as if they suddenly understood what they should do next.

This place is different from the slope. Fighting on the slope requires more personal courage. There is no organized command there. The combat conditions do not allow it.

The bodies on the slope were piled up in all directions, and some of them were not dead yet, wriggling in the trenches. The black mud inside made Zhao Lisheng think of the scene of looking down in the summer dry toilet, like a twisting maggot.

He didn't feel sick even though there was so much blood in the battle just now. Somehow, seeing this scene of wriggling like maggots in the mud made his stomach churn.

The sound of gunfire and artillery fire was still ringing intermittently, and the pungent smell of sulfur drifted from not far away, as if the sulfur prepared by the British was ignited in the battle just now.

As a specialized siege force trained for many years, Zhao Lisheng was very clear about the various routines of defending the city. Now these pungent smells of sulfur are used to prevent them from digging tunnels to approach. Once the sound of digging tunnels is discovered by the defenders, the defenders will choose to dig in the tunnels, and after digging through, fill them with burning sulfur to suffocate the attackers.

Smelling these pungent smells of sulfur, Zhao Lisheng's stomach gradually stopped churning. Looking at the injured soldiers squirming in the mud of the trenches, he thought that he would rather be a maggot in the trenches than dig tunnels and be filled with sulfur to death.

He was lucky to survive, and the wound on his leg was also shallow. The most disgusting slope battle was over. It seemed that he survived this battle.

The officers who rushed up did not disappoint his expectations. They did not command them to attack the city wall along the narrow troop transport corridor, or directly attack the east side of the city wall facing the coast.

Instead, they checked the gunpowder and re-distributed the grenades, and then asked them to control the salient corner fort and build breastworks on both sides to prevent the British army from counterattacking.

While they were building the breastworks here, the people in the company behind them were under their cover and under their position, following the officers' command to dig holes for burying explosives.

Zhao Lisheng spit into his palm, clenched the shovel, dug up the thick soil covering the salient corner fort to prevent artillery, and skillfully piled the soil in front of him to make a simple breastwork.

Ergou was beside him, swinging a shovel for a while, and shouted to the soldiers of the brother company who were digging holes for blasts in the trench below under the command of the officers: "Dig, dig, dig, dig hard. Anyway, we are responsible for killing, not burying, and bombing, not repairing. When the time comes, put new explosives in, and a pile of earth will be blown out with a bang. After the attack, we have to rely on those conscripted soldiers to dig it out."

The soldier holding the pickaxe below laughed: "Digging a hole is better than asking us to attack the fort. I would rather dig a hole or go back to fill the soil."

The officer next to him cursed: "Nonsense, if you want to fill the soil, go ahead. It depends on whether you want such a high salary. Dig quickly!"

Although they belong to grenadiers in a broad sense, they are formally called combat engineers after all. Throwing grenades and standing on the slope to fight the most disgusting battles are their profession; digging holes everywhere, using explosives, and digging tunnels are also their profession.

Since they rushed to the bulwark, they did not choose to continue along the scientific name "middle dike", which can also be understood as the wall between the gates, so that these combat engineers continued to launch attacks and seize the remaining bulwarks.

Then their mission as grenadiers was completed after rushing up the slope and dike.

The remaining mission was to drill gun holes, blast a passage through the dike, trench and bulwark, and pull up the cannon after leveling.

After years of training, these soldiers may be confused in battle, but once they calm down and the lead bullets and shells are not whizzing around their ears, they can easily understand what they are doing and what the purpose is.

Ergou's gloating is that it will be easy to blow up and difficult to dig. They, the combat engineers, are responsible for blowing up, waiting for the fortress to be used by themselves in the future, and then they will have to fill the blown-up place again.

Moreover, it is very likely that after the filling, they will have to continue to reinforce and continue to expand on the original basis.

After all, Fort St. George is only the best bastion of the British in South India. It is not a theoretical complete bastion.

Theoretically, a complete bastion is three-dimensional and layered. It is not hollow with open space inside, but a layered structure like a multi-layer cake.

In theory, there should be several main forts that are higher but not too high, behind the salient bastion, which is the center of the bastion.

Artillery and shooting holes should also be deployed on the main fort, so that the team that has taken the salient bastion with great difficulty will still be shot by high-altitude firepower, making it impossible to assemble the team.

Only a small number of troops can continue to attack along the middle embankment wall until the main fort is completely taken down, which can be regarded as truly destroying the entire defense system of the bastion.

But obviously, the cost of such a bastion is too high, and the previous investment of the British in India is not enough to support such a theoretical complete bastion.

This bastion, whose foundation was built when Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong were still fighting Hong Chengchou, obviously follows the concept of a "city" similar to the armed colonies before the Spring and Autumn Period, rather than a simple military fortress.

Internally, open space was needed for warehouses, colonial government, and accounting offices.

Compared with the concept of "city" in the Chinese sense, it is smaller and there are not many buildings inside.

Compared with the theoretical concept of "fort", it is a bit larger, so that there is no higher-level main fort structure inside, and it is too empty.

Therefore, the shortcomings of this kind of fortress are also obvious. Once one corner is breached, the entire defense system of the fortress will be collapsed.

And if it is not a "city" but a "fort" in a purely military sense, capturing a corner will not disintegrate the entire defense system.

When the Thirteenth Engineer Battalion boarded the southern corner of Fort St. George, the entire defense system on the south side of Fort St. George collapsed.

The only firepower that could now threaten the Thirteenth Battalion occupying the Horn Fort was a shooting area extending southward near the seaside, but that area had been suppressed and damaged by the fleet bombardment just now.

The British had low-intensity wars in India before, and Liu Yu said, "British capital will not be willing to invest too much money. Even if they know that Dashun's military power has risen, they are more inclined to assume that Dashun will definitely not participate in the war." The problem made the defense of Fort St. George very problematic.

This was also the basis for Du Feng's plan to defend the weakest point from the south, use unusual and long-lasting artillery cover, and use professional combat engineers to storm the corner.

Now, the 13th and 14th Engineer Battalions only need to hold the Fort, build artillery positions, build parapets, blow up the high slope from the trench to the Fort, and smooth out the road, so that the cannons behind can go to the Fort. That’s it.

Du Feng did not want the combat engineer battalion to suffer too many casualties, because he wanted to continue fighting. Once Fort St. George was captured, he would immediately go north to Calcutta and capture Fort William.

The sooner the better, not not to give the British time to prepare, but to reserve enough time for themselves to dodge and maneuver.

Moreover, with the order of the Privy Council here, it is impossible for him to resort to any method of "siege the city and rely on scurvy to defeat the city". This is directly related to the next phase of the battle next year.

The engineers on the Corner Fort didn't know the general idea, but they also knew very well that the more they sweat digging holes, the less they would bleed.

Before half past one, sweat dry and bring the cannon up. There is no need to worry about the British army's sneak attack and counterattack at night.

So, soon, several calculated blast holes were dug out.

It is still easy to dig, because the bastion is covered with thick soil, the purpose is to prevent cannons. If it is a masonry structure, then the defenders will definitely scold them during a fight. The gravel will fly and the shells will bounce, which will make the defenders cry for their fathers and mothers.

The soldiers above were ordered to retreat to the side, and several officers held some new explosives the size of large watermelons and placed them in the cannon holes.

Zhao Lisheng followed the officer's order and performed an action he had practiced many times in daily life. He covered his ears with his hands, opened his mouth, and squatted on the ground, with his head almost inserted into his crotch.

He didn't know how long he waited, but he felt that the ground shook suddenly, and a pile of gravel fell on his head like rain.

My chest felt as if someone had hit me with a hammer, and I almost vomited my heart out from my stomach.

Pulling the head out of his crotch, the officer motioned for them to return to their original positions and continue to defend. The soldiers of the 14th Battalion would be responsible for smoothing out the blasted area.

These new explosives were so powerful that the original trenches were covered with collapsed soil. Soldiers from the 14th Battalion holding shovels and shovels came running from a distance, waving their arms.

The planks, logs, and other things that could be used to pave the road were transported forward.

A proposed breastwork consisting of earthen baskets has been built from the Guwom River to the Fort of the Horn, which can block bullets or cannonballs that may fly from the east.

Professional engineers also quickly repaired a road that can easily transport cannons. On the pontoon bridge of the Guwumu River in the distance, several heavy cannons have been dragged across the river, clinging to the simple road under the parapet, heading towards the Corner Fort. This moves.

…………

In Fort St. George, the British commander was stunned by Dashun's rapid attack.

From the beginning, he did not think that Fort St. George could be defended because there was no navy and no reinforcements. He has a total of more than 600 people, including half of the Indian soldiers of the 101st Bangladesh Regiment.

Dashun's attack was not French. The number of cannons was several times greater than the last French siege. Moreover, the siege skills can be clearly felt to be much better than those of the previous French colonial army.

The heavy artillery on the north side followed the siege regulations step by step, and soon suppressed the fort on the north side.

But the British commander felt that he could hold on for at least another month. According to the rules of war at this time, the captured officer must be released. As for whether he will be shot after release, it depends on whether a scapegoat is needed and how long he can stay.

As long as they can hold on for a month before surrendering, as long as Dashun doesn't put them in a dark cell, and as long as they don't need to be used as a scapegoat, then at least they won't be sentenced to death by their own court if they hold on for so long.