Chapter 1042: The Desperate Wesley

"What!"

Wesley could not care about the shock the machine guns brought him, and hurriedly looked toward the beach.

Sure enough, a vanguard of about five thousand men was heading toward their coastal trench fortifications.

"Stop the charge, move the troops to the flank," Wesley said hurriedly.

The officer heard this, his expression changed instantly, and he reminded, "General, they will suffer artillery fire again."

"Yes, they will indeed suffer artillery fire, and they will indeed pay a heavy price in casualties, but if we lose the flank, we will all die here. Now go and execute my order, damn it!" Wesley shouted.

He felt he was going crazy.

In the past, no matter how intense the battle was, he could always adopt appropriate tactics on the battlefield.

But now, he felt that everything he did was wrong, yet he had to do it.

Just like the current charge.

Once abandoned, the charging soldiers would have died in vain, and the soldiers still fighting the Da Song army in the trenches would also lose support.

They would effectively be abandoned.

Yet under his order, the officer still executed it.

Many Coalition soldiers were ordered to enter the coastal fortifications that had been riddled with holes by the Da Song fleet.

Including a portion of the Rifled Field Guns and howitzers that were also moved there.

While the Coalition was changing its deployment, it was just as Wesley had expected.

The Coalition soldiers who rushed into the Da Song trenches were constantly killed in action due to the loss of support.

Half an hour later, it was quiet in the trench fortifications.

The Azure Dragon Army soldiers counted more than two thousand corpses, if one included the soldiers who died on the way of the charge.

A single order from Wesley sent more than four thousand Coalition soldiers to their deaths.

In just over half a day, between artillery fire and the casualties from the charge, the Coalition lost over ten thousand men.

The battle on the main front ended, and both the Coalition and the Da Song army focused their attention on the flank battlefield.

However, compared to the nervousness of the Coalition officers, Qin Shan and Guan Tong appeared composed and at ease.

"I want to see how you choose," Qin Shan watched the vanguard of the Vermilion Bird Army, standing with his hands behind his back.

A flank attack was absolutely a lethal move against the Western Lands Allied Forces.

If they defended, they would contact the fleet and continue the artillery fire.

If they did not defend, the flank fortifications would fall into the hands of the Vermilion Bird Army, and they would then slaughter their way in from the flank trenches.

Therefore, no matter what decision the opponent made this time, it would be wrong.

At the same time, he was also prepared to make things worse for the Coalition.

Just now, they had charged, and it was time for their Azure Dragon Army to charge on the main front as well.

However, it was not yet time to charge; he wanted to wait until the Vermilion Bird Army launched its attack before ordering the charge, thereby making it impossible for the Coalition to attend to both sides.

Having decided this, he watched the actions of the Vermilion Bird Army with peace of mind.

At this moment.

The five thousand soldiers of the Vermilion Bird Army in a skirmish line were only five hundred meters away from the flank trench fortifications.

At the five-hundred-meter mark, the five thousand soldiers stopped again.

Before long, one thousand soldiers continued to advance in a three-by-three formation, while the soldiers behind continued to wait.

As the distance went from five hundred meters, to four hundred, then to three hundred.

At this moment, cannons suddenly sounded in the Coalition trenches, with Rifled Cannons and howitzers firing in unison.

Solid Shot and Explosive Shells fell one after another onto the beach.

At the same time, the Coalition soldiers in the trenches also pulled the triggers.

The Vermilion Bird Army soldiers had remained vigilant, and seeing the movement, they all lay flat.

Because the beach was a slope from bottom to top, the bullets did not hit them but flew over their heads.

However, the Coalition's Explosive Shells still caused some casualties to the Vermilion Bird Army soldiers.

These one thousand soldiers were originally there to probe the defenses of the Coalition's coastal fortifications.

Seeing that the Coalition had deployed a large number of soldiers and Artillery, the Vermilion Bird Army soldiers began to crawl back and withdraw.

Guan Tong had been watching the soldiers' actions.

Frowning, he ordered the signalman to stand by the sea and use Flag Language toward the warships to request artillery support.

"Take the flank and we win. Support the Vermilion Bird Army," Zhao Xu watched the flag signals given by the signalman.

Zhou Yi nodded and passed down the order.

Before long, a roar erupted, the warships seemed to shake, and more than two thousand cannonballs flew toward the coast again.

Instantly, the coastal fortifications of the Western Lands Allied Forces were covered by artillery fire once more.

After bombarding for ten rounds in succession, the warships stopped firing.

The cannon fire ceased, and the entire coastal fortification of the Coalition was basically in ruins.

The entire fortification was covered with dense craters, and many trenches had directly collapsed.

The Western Lands Allied Forces hiding in the trenches were even worse off.

Artillery and soldiers were destroyed simultaneously, and there were only the shrill screams of wounded soldiers on the entire position.

"General, should we continue to send troops to hold it?" Inside the fortification, an officer asked Wesley with difficulty.

Wesley did not speak; he hesitated.

The Coalition had already lost over ten thousand men, and in this round of shelling, it was estimated that another three or four thousand had died.

If he continued to send soldiers over, in just one day, their casualties would reach over twenty thousand.

As for the Coalition on the north side, the indigenous troops together with them numbered no more than 120,000.

In this way, they would not even be able to hold out for six days.

Thinking of this, he felt an unprecedented sense of despair.

"We cannot stay here any longer; withdraw to the second line of trench fortifications," Wesley suddenly said.

They had built a total of two lines of fortifications, separated by twenty li.

This second line of fortifications was built to protect the army's withdrawal in the worst-case scenario of the war.

Therefore, this line of fortifications was located near the port on the north side of the Malacca Strait.

Originally, they thought they would not need this line of fortifications, as their reinforcements would have arrived by then.

But they discovered they were dead wrong.

The Great Song army was truly no longer just a simple indigenous army, but a professional army even more formidable than their own.

Only by withdrawing to the second trench, relying on the fire support of their Warship, could they perhaps continue to resist for a period of time.

Furthermore, the second trench fortification was far from the east coast and would not be subjected to the shelling of the Great Song fleet.

Moreover, if the war situation continued to deteriorate, they would have no choice but to take the opportunity to withdraw from Malacca.

After all, while Malacca was certainly important.

But if the main force of the Coalition were lost for the sake of Malacca, then who would be left to protect Tianzhu?

Withdrawing to Tianzhu, relying on Tianzhu's abundant resources and vast territory, and coordinating with the indigenous troops of Tianzhu, perhaps they could still hold out for a while longer.

Once they could hold out until reinforcements arrived, perhaps they could still turn the tide.

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