Chapter 182: Biting Down (Part 2)

Seeing this scene, the French troops cheered in unison once again and charged toward the positions held by the Black Flag Army. But after advancing only five or six meters, they were hit by several bullets from the flanks.
The bullets caused casualties among the troops, forcing some French soldiers to shift their fire and engage in a gunfight with the five-man rifle squad facing them. Meanwhile, the rest of the French soldiers continued to charge frantically forward.
People were getting shot at every moment. One of Li Zhen’s soldiers had already been hit by four bullets but still lay in position, firing desperately.
Everyone knew this was the critical battle. The French soldiers shouted, “Frenchmen, prepare to die here!”
“To die here in battle!”
Determined to the extreme, despite losing twenty or thirty men, nearly an entire company of soldiers rushed forward to bayonet range. They knew that once close combat began, it would be their best chance to win.
“Come on!”
Li Zhen had already prepared their final weapon—a four-kilogram explosive pack—which he threw at them. The French didn’t realize it at first, but moments later, a deafening explosion erupted among their ranks.
The massive shockwave knocked down several soldiers. Within a radius of about ten meters around the explosive pack, everything was torn to pieces; some bodies were completely shattered into fragments.
Nearly half of the nearly a hundred French soldiers who had charged were knocked down by this four-kilogram explosive pack, and they were finally forced to retreat.
But Li Zhen, who had been hit by three bullets, didn’t get a moment to catch his breath. He shouted at the approaching rifle squad, “I am the position commander, Li Zhen! Please follow my orders!”
“Okay!” The five-man rifle squad now had only three soldiers left after the fierce battle with the French. On Li Zhen’s side, only four people could still fight after the earlier clash. In other words, seven soldiers had to hold off the French’s final assault.
But he didn’t waste time thinking. “Gather ammunition immediately! We don’t have much left!”
In the previous battle, they had fired at nearly the theoretical maximum rate of their rifles. No fewer than two hundred enemies had died from their fire, but this was bound to be a battle that would drain their ammunition quickly.
Although each soldier carried over 120 rounds of ammunition, even those from the rifle squad who rushed over after hearing the gunshots only had thirty or forty rounds left.
Ignoring the corpses and blood on the battlefield, they breathed in the smoke of gunpowder as they made their final preparations.
“Artillery! Artillery!”
Despite several failed attacks, the French troops’ morale didn’t dip. They shouted to call in the artillery, “Send in the artillery! Fire all your shells! We refuse to believe we can’t take this platoon’s position!”
As for the wounded French soldiers, they also spontaneously formed new units. “Charge forward! This is our only chance to survive. If we can’t break through, we’ll die in humiliation at the hands of these Black Flag bandits!”
“Charge forward!”

Amid the loud shouts of French officers, several 40-mm mountain guns began to roar.
“Armengaud…”
At the same time, Liu Yu was also monitoring the battlefield from afar. He could only hear the deafening sounds of gunfire, but all his troops had been sent forward. Now, the only forces at his side were a guard company, so aside from advancing slowly, he had little to do.
He couldn’t help but think of his opponent’s name—Colonel Armengaud. In history, he had been a lieutenant colonel, yet he was a famous figure in modern Chinese history.
Just as in this timeline, when Armengaud arrived in Vietnam, everyone cheered for him. He was the top graduate of the Saint-Cyr Military Academy and an excellent commander of a light infantry battalion.
But his first battle was the Battle of Zhen Nan Pass. Under Nigri’s command, his almost idiotic tactics ruined the entire campaign—the French wouldn’t have lost, but they certainly wouldn’t have lost so foolishly.
After Nigri was wounded, Armengaud’s performance became even more disastrous. Any French commander would be speechless at his actions. Despite being in a clear advantage, he fled at the sight of a small Qing force.
A mere few hundred Qing soldiers forced Armengaud to order the destruction of all supplies and flee hundreds of kilometers from Qiongshan, abandoning all the French positions they had established earlier.
Just as in this timeline, he claimed he retreated due to a lack of ammunition, yet he left behind hundreds of thousands of bullets, an entire artillery company, and all their ammunition. He even abandoned all pay for his troops.
As he continued to retreat, he ordered that all supplies be discarded, and he didn’t even dare to burn them. The reason was simple: if the supplies were burned, the resulting fire would reveal their intention to flee. To escape more easily, he left everything behind for the Qing forces.
Among the French commanders in Vietnam, Gobat was the best fighter, while Li Weiyeh and Pohat were more brave but less strategic. Nigri and others had achieved some success, but they weren’t fit to be field marshals. Yet Armengaud combined all the weaknesses of these French generals—he was violent but extremely cowardly in battle.
In history, the expeditionary army’s headquarters, along with his superiors and subordinates, tried to correct his habit of fleeing at the first sign of trouble. But Armengaud resisted fiercely. He was a genius at fleeing, and every telegram from the expeditionary army’s headquarters was rejected by him. Yet that didn’t change the fact that he was fleeing.
Fortunately, the Qing forces he faced, led by people like Su Yuanchun and Feng Zicai, were not very experienced in battle, allowing the French to withdraw intact. But when such news reached France, it dealt a fatal blow to the Ferri cabinet.
In this timeline, Armengaud appeared on the scene earlier than in history. This “Zhao Kuo of France” reached a higher position than in history. But Liu Yu, who knew history well, understood that letting Armengaud go would be the biggest mistake of his life.
In this timeline, Armengaud performed even worse, and Liu Yu’s gamble succeeded perfectly. But what was more crucial was figuring out how to wrap things up.

“Our troops are brave!” Liu Suiyun said beside him, “I didn’t expect Erminga to be so vulnerable!”
“March forward amid the gunfire—this is our Black Flag Army’s old tradition!”
Liu Yu stared at the battlefield shrouded in smoke. Neither side could maintain a coherent front line; they fought fiercely together, with flags mixed together, and soldiers had to defend against enemies coming from all directions.
Yet Liu Yu’s mood improved significantly: “That’s right! That’s right! We’ve pinned them down!”
“Yes, we have!”
Liu Suiyun was equally delighted to see this. Though he didn’t know exactly what the outcome of this battle would be, he believed no other battle, aside from the one in Shanxi, could yield greater results than this one.
“We can achieve victory!”
“We… we…”
Erminga could no longer speak: “We need more courage!”
But his mind was in chaos; he felt all he needed was a bullet in his head.
The warhorses neighed and ran wildly in all directions. A few sergeants tried to hold them back, but the panicked horses dragged them forward: “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”
The soldiers could only move forward with the tide, unsure of their destination. Erminga glanced at the pistol at his waist and finally resolved to make a final decision.
He nervously pulled out the pistol, hesitating whether to load it. The crowd pushed him and his command post forward, while the rear troops were completely surrounded by the Black Flag Army, with no hope left.
“I…”
He didn’t even dare look at the area ahead where the guns were booming. The Black Flag Army and the French vanguard were fighting a deadly battle there, but the French were being overwhelmed.
He disengaged the safety on his revolver and took a deep breath.
“Colonel! Colonel!”
It was the messenger from Major General Niger: “Colonel!”
“Is it the major general’s suggestion? Under these circumstances, I can convey it to the troops on his behalf!”
Erminga’s world had collapsed, but the messenger brought the best news: “Our troops have opened a passage! Lieutenant Colonel Bissel’s forces have made contact with us!”
It was good news in despair. The numb Erminga spurred his horse forward urgently: “Let’s move fast!”
Yet he glanced back one last time. Behind him lay a battlefield filled with thick smoke and cries of battle.
At least 2,500 soldiers had been trapped there, including an entire French battalion. They were pinned down by the Black Flag Army with no hope of escaping.
“We retreat!”
Erminga was still clear about one thing: if his disorganized troops were to break free from the Black Flag Army’s encirclement, he would have to turn around and rescue them. But it was more likely that the entire force would be trapped there.
When the blocked crowd was released, their momentum was astonishing. Hundreds of soldiers surged across the former battlefield and joined forces with Bissel’s supporting troops.

Just today, they endured the greatest hardships this world has to offer. As they passed by the battlefield, they cast another glance at that bloody scene. Corpses were piled up everywhere—in some places, two or three layers high—leaving no space to stand. Blood flowed like rivers, turning the entire battlefield a purple-red hue mixed with darkness. Upon closer inspection, it became clear that almost all the dead were French soldiers; even among the few Asians present, they wore the uniforms of indigenous infantry. “Where did the enemy go? Did they flee?” Some asked. A few veterans who had fought there replied in panicked tones, “They’re all dead! All killed on the battlefield!” Yet only a dozen or so corpses of the Black Flag Army were found on the enemy’s side, while the French had left dozens of times more corpses: “All dead?” “All dead! The prime minister is truly an idiot. If I had known there were such Chinese troops in the Tokyo area, I would never have come to fight here, no matter how much pay he offered.” “That can’t be right,” said a French soldier while running, doubtfully. “We lost at least one battalion here!” Beside them, many soldiers wounded in the battle were left abandoned by the roadside, ignored by everyone. “Just one reinforced platoon held this position and repelled all our attacks!” said a soldier who had participated in the assault, glancing at the battlefield where both sides fought fiercely. “They fought desperately to stop us. We launched thirteen attacks with over twenty regiments, losing nearly two entire battalions in casualties. Thousands of shells were fired, but in the end, we only managed to drive them back by mounting mountain guns on bayonets!” The French soldiers also took a look but dared not look again—the battlefield was too bloody. “Just one reinforced platoon? We lost almost two battalions?” “If it weren’t for our superior artillery, we might not have even taken this position despite losing four battalions! They had at most one reinforced battalion, definitely not a full regiment!” Even this strength was exaggerated; although Li Zhen received support from two more infantry units during the battle, the total number of troops involved was barely over thirty. Yet they could proudly claim that they had inflicted heavy losses on a French battalion and a half of infantry. More importantly, their destruction forced the French to abandon their entire rear guard to the Black Flag Army. But every French soldier who passed by dared only take a quick glance, fearing that another look would make them vomit. They were seasoned veterans who had seen countless brutal battles, but the bloodshed on this battlefield made them lower their heads. They even wondered if looking any longer might strip them of all fighting will. Yet every French soldier knew they could no longer continue fighting in this war. “It’s unbelievable! Just one or two platoons killed and wounded so many of our officers and soldiers!” “God! That’s Major Peng Lin—he’s also dead!”

“The major was killed by a Chinese grenade while leading his troops in an assault!”
“We shouldn’t have come to Tokyo, we shouldn’t have come to Vietnam!”
A scene even the French couldn’t bear, let alone those indigenous soldiers—many of them truly felt the brutality of the battlefield at that moment.
They only felt a large area of their lower bodies become wet and couldn’t move forward, but soon they started screaming and fled again.
It wasn’t because they regained their senses, but because the rifle bullets from the Black Flag Army fell among their ranks again: “The Black Flag Army is here again!”
When a 60-mm cannon began firing, all the French soldiers fled helplessly: “Move aside! Move aside!”
If a reinforced platoon of the Black Flag Army, without mortars, could stop over twenty infantry companies in thirteen attacks and encircle two to three thousand troops in the rear, then what kind of combat power would the Black Flag Army have now with mortars?
The more they tried to move forward, the more stuck they became, and the entire crowd became chaotic, with many pushing those in front to move forward but failing to do so.
“Fire!”
This time, the Black Flag Army only sent a newly formed reinforced platoon, whose combat strength wasn’t high. But the French had no intention of attacking them—they simply sent dozens of volunteers from the officer corps to occupy a nearby small hill to prevent the Black Flag Army from advancing further.
As for the Black Flag Army using distant positions to launch fire attacks on the French troops on the road, that wasn’t even on the French’s mind.
A mere reinforced platoon of the Black Flag Army, about 400 meters away from the French, used all their firearms to shoot at the retreating French troops on the road.
Although not every shot hit, the accuracy was quite high. The French troops retreated over their own dead bodies, firing a few shots in response before fleeing even faster.
The Black Flag Army’s firepower advantage was fully utilized, and the French had no interest in getting entangled here—even though they only needed to send one or two companies to drive away this force.
The entire road turned into a bloodshed, with the French using corpses to create a long barrier, especially on the old battlefield road, which became a mountain of corpses.
“God!”
Apart from being relieved that his troops had managed to escape under such heavy fire, Erminga had no other thoughts: “This is the defeat of Waterloo…”
He didn’t even have the courage to take responsibility. He simply asked, “Where is Lieutenant Colonel Bissel? We need more reinforcements!”
He wasn’t even sure how many troops had retreated. He only knew that he had brought 7,000 soldiers on this mission, while Major Niger had brought nearly 6,000, and about 3,000 Vietnamese laborers had been mobilized for logistical support.
But now, including the few severely injured who couldn’t fight, the total number of troops who had retreated, including the Vietnamese laborers, was just over 2,000.

All the supplies were left on the battlefield, and most of the technical equipment was also lost. The artillery now had only twelve guns left. Although the battle was not over, troops continued to break through under the fire of the Black Flag Army. But everyone felt they had utterly failed; France had lost this war. “General Nigri has been captured! I saw with my own eyes the Chinese storming the medical unit and cutting them off!” This was the latest bad news. Although over a hundred remaining soldiers managed to break through, it came with the news that a French general had been captured—after all, no real French officer had been captured since the war began, yet now a French general had fallen into enemy hands. Dozens more bloodied soldiers ran over: “Colonel! Colonel!” “We’ve lost!” Ermingarde shook her head. “Lieutenant Colonel Bissel, we’ve lost this war.” But at this moment, fate played another cruel joke on him.