Exercise (Continued)

Using this tactic, the attacking France troops quickly breached the minefield. At this point, the France artillery began to suppress the first trench of the defending side with shrapnel shells—as the France soldiers were getting close to the barbed wire. Of course, the defending side also began to fire continuously—with blank rounds, of course—and then France soldiers were randomly and proportionally forced to withdraw from the exercise by the Directorate.

The France soldiers who withdrew from the exercise took off their shirts, revealing clean white shirts, and swaggered away from the "battlefield." They found a patch of grass nearby, sat down, put their guns aside, and then took out sausages and small bottles of brandy from their leather pouches—used to store bandages, triangular bandages, and the like. As they ate, they laughed triumphantly at their comrades who were still "alive."

However, the comrades who hadn't yet been lucky enough to "die" paid no heed to these happy "dead men." They quickly approached the first barbed wire fence. Several soldiers Cissé looked like iron bars they were holding under the barbed wire, then pulled the fuse sharply and ran—the bullets on the exercise field were all virtual, and most of the shells were also virtual, but the barbed wire and the smoking demolition charge stuffed under it were real!

With a series of explosions, dozens of gaps were blasted in the barbed wire. At the same time, a series of training Grenade were launched from the trenches, and then another group of France soldiers joined the sausage-eating, spectator crowd.

The France returned fire with Grenade and quickly stormed into the trenches. Then, large numbers of Confederation of the Rhine soldiers happily went to sit down beside the fallen France soldiers, exchanging food, wine, and various tobacco products, and then watched a play together.

"That's not right. Why is the exchange ratio in the trenches so favorable to the France?" The Austria standing next to Bagration complained again. "Even if the France army was braver, the exchange ratio shouldn't be like this."

Bagration was also filled with doubt, but he felt that the France wouldn't make such a mistake during a publicly announced military exercise that had a demonstrative aspect. So he didn't immediately express his opinion, but continued to observe through his binoculars.

Bagration quickly discovered what made the France army different.

"Alyosha, quickly remember this for me," Bagration said to his adjutant, continuing to stare at the "battlefield" ahead through his binoculars.

"Yes, General." His adjutant produced a notebook and a pencil—both France- made.

"The French Army who broke into the trenches formed combat teams of five. Two of them carried rifles with bayonets, and the other three carried a shorter gun—possibly a weapon specifically designed for trench warfare," Bagration said.

Bagration's guess was entirely correct; the France soldiers were carrying pump-action shotguns specifically designed for close-quarters combat in trenches. Compared to a standard Minié Rifle, its range was a huge drop, but in trenches, that was no problem at all. It could hold eight rounds at a time, and each pull of the forend completed the ejection and reloading process, giving it a rate of fire almost comparable to a revolver. Furthermore, the nature of shotgun shells made their accuracy far surpass that of a revolver. In the trenches, this thing was practically a godsend.

In trench warfare, most of the riflemen had already fired their last bullets, so at this point, they could only rely on bayonets or France -made multi-purpose entrenching tools for hand-to-hand combat. Two soldiers with bayoneted rifles would briefly hold off the enemy, then shotguns would rain down from behind. The Fritz men on the other side would then happily strip off their shirts, jump out of the trenches, and go to the nearby grass to eat, chat, and watch the show.

Almost in the blink of an eye, before the picnicking spectators had even finished a bottle of beer, the first trench had changed hands, and the tricolor flag was already flying there.

"Long live France!" the surrounding roosters shouted.

Cheers to France!

"Anyone who doesn't drink is a woman!"

"What's wrong with you ladies? How about we have a contest? One cup to one cup, dare you?" Occasionally, girls from Montmartre Heights would shout like this.

"Marguerite, there has to be a wager in the competition, right? What is the wager?"

"How about this: if Marguerite loses, Marguerite do whatever Denis says tonight; if Denis loses, Denis can sleep with whoever Marguerite tells Denis to. What do you say?"

Amidst this laughter and commotion, the French Army artillery began to extend their firepower, and the France prepared to attack the two lines of defense behind them.

The subsequent battle unfolded much like the earlier engagements, much to the delight of the crowing roosters. However, the loudest roosters couldn't comprehend much of what was happening. The observers from various countries, however, were sweating bullets. The France army's transition from organizing the first attack to launching the second was remarkably brief. In that short time, they consolidated their existing positions, repositioned their artillery, and prepared for a new assault. Their organizational prowess was astonishing, even to those truly knowledgeable in the field.

"Putting everything else aside, in battle, can our troops keep up with the pace of the France? And this is in a defensive situation. In open field battle, how many divisions would we need to contend with a single French Army?"

By evening, the French Army had successfully broken through three lines of defense of an opponent with an equal force, and the day's exercise was essentially over. At least, the part that would have entertained the little roosters was basically over.

The remaining task was to invite the observers to visit the France army base. However, it was already late, so this had to be left for tomorrow.

As the sun set behind the mountains, the shadows of the people scattered. Having played all day, the happy little roosters all boarded their carriages and headed back to Paris, exchanging opinions about their day's experiences along the way. Of course, what they said was basically, "Our France is so awesome, hahaha..." or "War is so much fun, hahaha..."

The next day, during a visit to the French Army camp, the observers' various doubts gradually came to an end. First, the reason why the French Army artillery fired so quickly was because they used breech-loading guns, whose loading speed was much faster than that of muzzle-loading guns. Moreover, they had a specially designed sighting system that allowed the artillery to achieve quite good accuracy even when aiming indirectly.

In addition, Bagration noted that the wheels used by the France cannons were different from ordinary wheels; they were not made of wood, but of a black material with special elasticity.

"This might hold the secret to the French Army's ability to rapidly move artillery," Bagration thought to himself. Just then, he heard someone in Nanjing and Shanghai exclaim, "This gun! This gun can do that!"

Bagration quickly looked over and saw an Austria officer holding a much shorter, half-crimped rifle that he had noticed yesterday, and exclaimed in surprise.

Bagration quickly went over and asked, "What kind of gun is this?"

"Model 1801 Shotgun," a French Army captain replied, saluting him. "This gun can hold eight rounds at a time..."

As he spoke, the captain took the shotgun from the Austria and began demonstrating how to use the weapons.

"You see, this tube under the barrel is actually a magazine, which can hold seven bullets in total. In addition, one more bullet can be loaded into the chamber, so it can hold a maximum of eight bullets at once."

As he spoke, the captain loaded bullets into the gun, Bagration noticed that the bullets were paper tubes with a small metal plate at the bottom. It didn't take the captain long to stuff them one by one into the magazine.

Then he pulled the forend, and with a "click," the bullet was chambered. He then held the gun upright, pointing it to the sky, and said to the foreign generals watching nearby, "You see, it's loaded now. You can fire at the target. After each shot, pull this lever to fire again. Hmm, anyone want to try?"

"Me! I'll try!" Bagration shouted immediately, stepping forward to shield the other spectators with his broad frame.

The captain handed the gun to Bagration: "General, it's loaded."

Bagration took the gun, looked at the human-shaped target about forty meters away, nodded, aimed briefly, and fired. The target immediately fell. Bagration pulled back the handguard and fired again, hitting another target.

"How far can this gun shoot?" Bagration asked.

"It's still usable at 60 or 70 meters," the captain replied, "But it's not very effective beyond that."

"Hmm," Bagration nodded. He had already noticed that this French Army was mostly equipped with ordinary rifles, which was probably why.

"Are your cavalry now using this as their primary weapon?" Bagration suddenly asked again.

The French Army captain hesitated for a moment, then stammered, "General, regarding this question, well, I cannot answer that..."