Chapter Thirty-Two: Crisis (Seeking Bookmarks and Recommendations)

  "Hurry, bring all the explosives!" A Qing army officer shouted loudly, and they finally rushed to the bottom of the barracks wall. As long as they could blow up the wall, they would be able to rush in and slaughter at will.

  "Haha, great! I knew it, a small military station, how could it not be broken through?" Ma Qi exclaimed excitedly as he watched from the rear. In his view, the only thing the Sichuan Army inside the station could rely on was the solid defense of the station. Once the Qingma Army broke in, the Sichuan Army's advantage would be completely lost. The combat power of the Qingma Army was not something that the Sichuan Army, who had just put down their whips as herdsmen, could compare to. Of course, the Qingma Army also suffered significant losses, especially those bandits, who were almost all wounded or killed. But those bandits were nothing but cannon fodder anyway, and even if they all died, Ma Qi wouldn't care.

  "Damn it. Third row, prepare to block the gap!" Wang Ze shouted from the tower. Once these bandits rushed into the barracks, he knew what kind of consequences would follow. If they couldn't hold them back, then their third company would be in danger.

  "Yes, Company Commander. Third row, follow me!" The third row captain, Shi De You, immediately responded to the order. They had been waiting for the battle command since the beginning of the fight and were still full of energy. After receiving the combat order, they quickly accumulated a simple defensive position with sandbags 50 meters away from the wall. The heavy machine gun belonging to the third row was also set up directly opposite the wall. Once it was blown open, the bandits would face fierce firepower.

  There were five packages of gunpowder, each containing twenty kilograms of gunpowder, all piled up at the foot of the wall of the barracks. The long fuse was ignited, and with a hissing sound, the flame quickly spread to the packages of gunpowder.

  After the ignition, the Qingma Army gathered there quickly retreated. In this process, they were hit by the firepower of the third company again, suffering heavy losses. However, despite the heavy casualties, no one retreated. They knew that victory was just around the corner.

  "Boom!" A loud explosion shook the ground, as 100 kilograms of gunpowder detonated, creating a powerful shockwave. Wang Yuezhe, on top of the tower, felt as if the earth itself had trembled. After the smoke cleared, it was evident that a breach over 20 meters long had been blasted in the wall surrounding the barracks. Fortunately, the walls were made of hard stone slabs; if they had been made of inferior materials, the breach would have been even wider. Moreover, these bandits had only used gunpowder; if they had employed more powerful explosives, the destruction would have been even greater.

  "Kill! Charge in, the cattle, sheep, weapons and women inside are all ours!" Whether it was the horse bandits or the Green Horse Army, they all let out a loud and excited cheer. At this moment, they all burst forth with fierce combat strength. Whether on horseback or having dismounted, they quickly rushed towards the breach in the wall of the barracks. It seemed that as long as they charged in, victory would be theirs.

  "Alright! Charge in, we've won! Wipe out these damned Western Sichuan troops!" Ma Qi excitedly roared. In the years of confrontation between the Qinghai cavalry and the Western Sichuan army, the Qinghai cavalry had always been at a disadvantage. Although the Western Sichuan army only deployed two brigades, with a total number less than half that of the Qinghai cavalry, it was always the Qinghai cavalry who suffered losses. Now they could finally show the Western Sichuan army some strength, which made Ma Qi extremely happy.

  But neither Ma Qi nor the Green Horse Army, or those bandits, had ever thought that behind the gap in the wall, there was another death trap waiting for them. The Sichuan-Xikang army's garrison was not so easily breached.

  "Ready, fire!" The third row of soldiers, lying behind the sandbagged fortifications, gave the order to open fire. As the wall was blown open, all the soldiers in the third row were already in position. Whether it was a heavy machine gun or a rifle in the hands of the soldiers, they had all loaded their bullets and were ready to shoot at any time.

  "Rat-a-tat-tat!" As the first bandit crossed the breach in the wall and charged into the barracks, the heavy machine gun opened fire. Dense bullets shot towards the breach in the wall, and the bandits who had just charged into the barracks fell to the ground, dead as could be.

  "Bang! Bang! Bang!" The cavalrymen's guns also fired, forming a dense firepower network with the heavy machine gun, sealing off all the gaps in the wall and shooting down all the bandits and Qing soldiers who tried to rush into the barracks through the gaps.

  In a short while, the twenty-meter-long gap in the wall was piled up with corpses. The cavalrymen who charged into the station also advanced no more than ten meters before being shot dead.

  Soon, the bandits were shocked by the huge casualties and their hot blood slowly dissipated. The broken section of the wall was a monster that swallowed lives! When they saw the corpses piled up at the gap, the reddish-brown blood flowing on the ground, whether it was human or warhorse, it gave people a chilling feeling. The morale of those bandits collapsed instantly. No one rushed forward again, and they quickly escaped while crying out for their parents.

  The bandits were defeated, and the Green Horse Army was naturally unable to hold on its own. Without the bandits attracting firepower, they could not break through the dense firepower network of the Sichuan Western Army at all. Continuing to attack would only lead to death. Therefore, they also had to retreat.

  "Damn it, what's going on? Why didn't you charge in?" Ma Qi furiously grabbed the collar of a retreating horse bandit, bellowing with eyes that seemed to devour people.

  "Master, we can't charge in! Although the wall of the barracks was blown open, the Sichuan army set up heavy machine guns behind it and many soldiers formed a dense firepower network! We've charged several times but failed!" Ma Lao Da stepped forward, his face gloomy. This attack had been disastrous. Of their over 1,000 bandits, less than 400 were left now. Even Hei Zi and Lu Er were killed by the Sichuan army's bullets during the assault, leaving him with a sense of despair.

  "Bastard!" Ma Qi let go of Ma Fei, cursing in a huff. The victory that seemed within reach was still elusive, which made him extremely angry. However, after managing to get to the current situation with great difficulty, it would be a pity to give up now.

  "How many of us are left?" Ma Qi's face turned as black as a pot bottom.

  "Great Young Master, our cavalry still has 400 men left!" Ma Lao Da replied.

  "Great Young Master, we still have three hundred men!" an officer of the Green Horse Army replied.

  "Are you sure about rushing in?" Ma Qi asked.

  Neither Ma Lao Da nor the officer of the Green Horse Army dared to raise their heads, and no one replied. The result was obvious: the defense of the barracks far exceeded their imagination, and continuing the attack would only increase casualties.

  "Great Master, we can use war horses to charge forward and block the guns of the Kansai army with the horses. Our men will follow behind the horses!" suggested an officer from the Green Horse Army.

  Ma Ke thought for a moment and immediately agreed with his opinion. "Good, let's do it this way, you go and organize, once successful, after going back I will greatly reward you!" Ma Ke said loudly.

  "Yes, young master!" The officer excitedly accepted the order.

  Those ownerless war horses, as many as three to four hundred, whether it's the Green Army or the Horse Bandits, are all masters at controlling war horses. They can make the war horses charge in a certain direction very well. If they were to attack the breach on the wall of the barracks with a large number of war horses, they would undoubtedly be able to attract a lot of firepower from the Western Sichuan Army. And then they could take advantage of the situation and charge in.

  In the repulsion of the bandits' attack, the soldiers of the third company all cheered. Although they paid the price of three deaths and five injuries again, compared to the bandits' corpses that were piled up like a small mountain, it was undoubtedly a great victory.

  The herdsmen on the drill ground were scared to death after the wall was blown open, but later, seeing that the Sichuan troops had withstood the bandits' attack, they put their hearts back in their stomachs.

  PS: The second update is coming, please support me, book friends!