"Lieutenant Colonel! The Austrians are moving!" The sun on the Apennine Peninsula had just risen for a few minutes, Lieutenant Colonel Neville had just washed his face, and before he had time to eat breakfast, soldiers came to report to him.

"Damn it! Give me my coat and my binoculars."

The orderly hurriedly handed him the lieutenant colonel's coat and handed him the lens tube containing the telescope. Neville put on his coat, opened the curtain of the military tent, and walked out with the binoculars in his hand.

At this time, Robson was already standing on the sentry post outside, holding up his binoculars to observe.

"How is it?" Neville asked while buttoning his jacket.

"The scale is not small, probably tens of thousands of people. It seems that although you escaped the battle yesterday, today, this battle is inevitable." Robson answered calmly, but from his voice, Neville could still hear a little tension.

"Mr. Robson, have you ever seen such a scene before?" said Neville.

"Honestly, no," Robson replied.

"Neither have I," said Neville. "Now we can only hope that your new defenses work. Are the soldiers in position?"

"Not yet." Robson said, "The enemy is still far away. It may take a while before they officially launch an attack. There is no need for soldiers to enter the position so early. It is not necessarily good to enter the position too early. Things. Well, at least, let everyone have a meal first. Oh, the medicine is controlled in the hands of the platoon leader, and the order is issued before it is issued. One pill at a time, don’t be like them, make too much at one time, and get tired I can't even walk."

Neville raised his binoculars to look at it and said: "Yes, they are still far away, and the cannons have not reached the battle position at all. It will take a while to attack. I am a little anxious." He then turned his head to the messenger. Said: "Let the battalions have breakfast as planned."

At this time, a messenger ran over, and Neville recognized this as the messenger of the division commander Massa.

"Costa, what did the teacher ask you to do?" It is extremely important to have a good relationship with the confidantes of the superiors. Anyone with a bit of savvy knows that these people have low positions, but they have a lot of energy. As you can see in Journey to the West, when Sun Dasheng made a big fuss in the Heavenly Palace, a hundred thousand heavenly soldiers and generals were nothing. When he went to learn Buddhist scriptures with Tang Seng, he would meet a driver (mountain) and life secretary (children) of a certain fairy at random. Son) or something, I can't beat it timidly. That fighting power is far worse than when it was in the Heavenly Palace. Why is the monkey still the same monkey, the stick still the same stick, and why is there such a big difference in combat power? The reason is very simple. In the past, the monkeys rebelled, and the Jade Emperor dared to pull him down. What are those gods? By the time it was time to learn the scriptures, the monkey had already been recruited, he was in the system, and he wanted to be a regular civil servant (Zhengguo). Damn, at this point, you still dare to offend the driver and secretary of the leader? Do you still want to do it? Although Costa is just a messenger, he has been with the division commander, Major General Materazzi, and is the division commander's confidant, so Nesta is also very affectionate to him.

"The division commander asked me to inform you that according to the previous arrangement, your regiment will continue to serve as the frontal defense mission. The division commander asked you to prepare and fight a good battle." Costa said.

"Don't worry, with Neville here, the position will be absolutely fine!" Neville said avowedly. Although he may not be that confident, he must show some confidence to the representatives of his superiors.

...

As Robson and Neville had predicted, the Austrian attack did not begin until the troops had finished their breakfast. Their artillery had just entered the firing position.

"Let the soldiers enter the position," Neville ordered after holding up the binoculars for a while.

...

"This time it's going to be serious, why didn't the higher-ups send out the 'Dali Pill'?" Tommy asked.

"I don't know. It's said that yesterday those recruits took the medicine that was supposed to be one in the morning, one in the noon, and one in the afternoon. When they retreated, they were too tired to walk, and they couldn't even beat them with a whip. So, Today it is all under the control of the officers, and they will only give it to us when they think it is needed." Rossi explained.

"I heard..."

Random chatter is also a common means of relieving stress before the war begins.

"Attention, the enemy is firing!" Someone shouted.

So the soldiers stopped talking and stuck their heads out of the trenches to look around—after several times of shelling training, they were quite used to being bombarded in the trenches, and they no longer felt too much fear. Moreover, the Yankee said that by looking at the shells, one can predict where they will fall, and if they are going to come towards him, they can hide for a while.

The Austrians fired a few shots, stopped, and after a while, fired a few more shots. The soldiers understood that the Austrians were test firing. Moreover, the goal of the Austrians does not seem to be themselves, but the tents far behind them.

"Didn't they find us?" Many soldiers thought so.

...

The Austrians failed to find the Sardinian soldiers staying in the trenches, because they only stuck their heads out of the trenches, and, these shrunken guys, actually put branches on their hats, what do people think to get it?

"There is a Sardinian army defending, why haven't the defenders come out to prepare for the battle? No matter how slow they are, they should be ready now?" Many Austrian officers have such questions in their heads.

"Will their tent artillery reach it?" asked General Gioulet.

"General, it is within reach. But the distance is too far, and it is impossible to shoot accurately. It may take many shots to hit one shot." An officer replied.

"Fire some shots and see," said the general. At the same time, a guess arose in his mind: "Isn't there no one in those military tents at all, and they have left long ago?"

After firing more than ten shots, only one shell hit a tent, and the tent was overturned, but there was still no response from the Sardinians.

"Send some cavalry over there to have a look and tell them to be careful," the general ordered.

...

"A few cavalrymen are coming."

"Don't fire, these guys are handed over to the Americans!"

At this time, the consultants of Blackwater had already prepared their Macdonald 1857 precision shooting rifles. When they quietly included these cavalrymen in the shooting scope, these Austrian cavalrymen were very concerned about their upcoming The fate to come remains unknown.

Other soldiers were not allowed to fire because they feared that their rifles would not have enough range, or that their marksmanship would not be good enough. No matter how bad the marksmanship of the Sardinians was, they would be able to bring them down with a volley of shots aimed at those cavalrymen. The real reason is that the rifle bullets used by Blackwater's consultants use smokeless powder based on nitrocellulose, while the ordinary version of 1857 in the hands of ordinary Sardinian soldiers still uses the black powder that will smoke. Shoot and the location of the trenches will be revealed.

This cavalry ran a little closer, then stopped, and raised their binoculars to look, completely unaware that they were under someone else's gunpoint.

"Bang, bang, bang..." With a burst of clear gunshots, several cavalrymen fell off their horses. But because the shooters were too far away to communicate with each other, there was a problem with assigning targets. Some cavalrymen were shot three or four times, and there was a lucky one who had no one aiming at him. So when the comrades around him fell one after another, he was still sitting safely on the horseback. The sudden change made him startled, but he reacted immediately, clamped the horse's stomach with both feet and at the same time turned the horse's head and ran away.

Dale quickly loaded his McDonnell 1857 precision shooting version, and then looked at the remaining target, then shook his head. At this distance, it is too difficult to hit a high-speed moving target.

...

"The cavalry was suddenly shot, and the shooter couldn't be found there? How is this possible? As long as the shot is fired, there must be white smoke?" Due to the outrageous price and very low output, not many people in Europe know that there is such a rifle in the world that has no obvious gunpowder smoke when shooting.

"General, what should we do?" The officers all looked at their commander-in-chief.

"Attack according to the original plan," ordered General Giule, and at the same time he thought to himself: "No matter what tricks the Sardinians are playing, they can't go underground, can they?"

...

Neville's 1,500 soldiers are guarding three front and rear trenches with a length of about 800 meters. There is a distance of about 80 meters between each trench. Now most of the people are staying in the second trench. They plan to fire from this position first. After giving the Austrians a hard blow, they quickly transfer to a trench through the traffic trench to fight. In this way, the enemy's firepower can be avoided after the position of the trench is exposed, and secondly, a salvo is suddenly fired from a closer distance, which not only has better accuracy but also makes it easier for the opponent to fall into chaos.

Now about a regiment of Austrians lined up in a neat line, getting closer and closer to their position. At this time, the two 12-pound Napoleon guns ambushed by the Sardinians on the side of the high ground also began to fire. A round of shells hit the Austrian formation accurately. Since the shells were fired from the side, the formation of the Austrians, which was horizontal relative to the high ground, became a column at the angle of these cannons. Shells are always the most lethal to this kind of column. If a 12-pounder shell hits such a column, it can even directly smash through a company's queue! In addition, the Sardinians had conducted test firing in advance, so the accuracy of the shooting was also guaranteed. As a result, the firing of only two artillery pieces caused huge casualties to the Austrians-one shell that passed through the entire line knocked down at least 20 people, and the other few shells also caused serious injuries. Small casualties. Although the power of this kind of artillery is not as magical as the legendary Ningyuan cannon that "corrupts miles with one cannon", the Austrians they hit were all mortals who were hit by shells and died immediately, not Nurhachi That kind of super wild boar skin that was hit by the Ningyuan cannon and could go to Mongolia to grab one, and then go to North Korea to grab one and then die. So with just a few shots, the Sardinians gave the Austrians a blow.

However, this is not the end. Along with the shelling, the soldiers under Neville's command also fired their first salvo.