Although when the negotiations broke down, the East China Government claimed that it would start the attack two hours later, the 21st Division and the 35th Division of the 11th Field Army immediately left Tianjin and headed towards Beijing along the Tianjin-Beijing Railway.

Since these two divisions did not carry heavy equipment troops and were lightly equipped, the march was very fast. After more than three hours of rapid marching, they arrived near Langfang almost at the same time as armored vehicles. Then the People's Army quickly began to arrange positions, and the armored trains also launched the support of vehicle-mounted artillery to prepare for battle.

Although the Qing army had been deploying the Langfang defense line for more than three months, we had just received news of the breakdown of the negotiations. We didn't expect that the People's Army would catch up so quickly. In the Qing army's perception, a distance of 60 kilometers would take at least 1-2 days of march. What's more serious is that at this time, the chief general of the Qing army was not in Langfang, but was commanded by the General Secretary Zhang Yongcheng, because Tieliang was generally stationed in Tongzhou, which was close to Beijing, and you could go to Beijing to face the king at any time. Even if there was something wrong in Langfang, it would only take 2 or 3 hours to get there by train.

Although Tieliang also received news of the breakdown of the negotiations in Tongzhou at this time, he believed that the People's Army's energy should be focused on capturing Tianjin New City and would not attack Langfang. Even if he wanted to attack Langfang, he would wait until tomorrow. The distance between the two sides of Bijing was more than 60 kilometers, so he didn't care and stayed in Tongzhou, intending to go to Langfang early tomorrow morning.

It was not until he received a telegram from Zhang Yongcheng, the commander of Langfang. He never expected that the People's Army would advance so quickly that it had arrived near Langfang. So Tieliang sent a telegram to Zhang Yongcheng, ordering him to guard Langfang no matter what. At the same time, he ordered the train to be prepared immediately and he would rush to Langfang to take charge of the command.

However, at this time, Tieliang was not too panicked, because he was quite confident in the defense line that had been built in Langfang for more than three months, and believed that even if he was not in Langfang, the Langfang army should be able to defend its position.

It should be said that Tieliang was not blindly confident at this time. His confidence was indeed somewhat reasonable. Langfang's defense line was built under the design guidance of French military consultants. A large number of various fortress facilities were built. Moreover, there were trenches between the fortresses and fortresses, which could support each other. The arrangement of the fortresses was also accurately calculated to ensure that all kinds of firepower assisted each other and there were no dead ends of firepower. Of course, due to the limited time, most of the fortresses were mainly sand bags and wooden fence structures. Only 12 major nodes fortresses were built with bricks and stones, which also constituted the core of the defense line. It can be said that although it cannot be considered impure, it is also extremely solid. Even the French military consultant who designed the defense line claimed that the People's Army had to pay at least 10,000 people to break through this line of defense, so Tieliang had the confidence.

When the Qing army was building the Langfang position, the East China Government was of course clear. Although no one was sent to stop the destruction, it had clearly reconnaissance of the Qing army's positions, firepower distribution, troop arrangement, etc. through air and ground reconnaissance. At the same time, the East China Government had long surveyed and mapped the map of this area in detail. Therefore, trains and cannons can only set parameters outside the visual range of the opponent's position, and only rely on the map coordinates to set parameters to strike the Qing army's positions, and first attacked the locations of the important firepower strongholds of the Qing army.

After the end of the Mongolian War, the East China Government built an airport in Tianjin and initially arranged 4 reconnaissance aircraft, which not only could reconnaissance the Qing army's positions from the air, but also could fly directly from Tianjin to Beijing to observe the dynamics of Beijing. Bijing was only about 120 kilometers from Tianjin to Beijing, completely within the current flight radius of the aircraft. A month before the Tianjin negotiations, the East China Government added 6 reconnaissance aircraft in Tianjin, 4 of which were two-seat, increasing the number of aircraft in Tianjin to 10, which was also to prepare for future wars and calibrate the People's Army's artillery shooting in the air.

After about an hour of preparation, a two-seater reconnaissance plane also flew over the battlefield, so at around 3 pm that day, it launched an attack on the Qing army's Langfang position.

First of all, the train cannons launched artillery bombardment, and 16 155mm cannons were divided into 4 groups to fire in turn, violently bombarding the Qing army's positions.

Although the People's Army's number of artillery is not large, it is quite powerful, stronger than the 155mm artillery of the general army. Therefore, although the important firepower strongholds of the Qing army are basically made of bricks and stone, they cannot withstand the violent strikes of 155mm artillery shells. Moreover, the People's Army's artillery is calibrated in the air, and the accuracy is correspondingly high. Therefore, the important firepower strongholds of the Qing army were destroyed one by one by one by one by artillery fire.

However, since the number of artillery carried by armored trains is limited after all, and in order to maintain a safe distance from the Qing army's positions, only 16 155mm artillery can be used at this time, and the shelling method can only be used to clear one by one point, and the firepower coverage attack cannot be formed. Before the important firepower strongholds of the Qing army were completely removed, they still had considerable counterattack power.

But what made the Qing army desperate was that they could not see the shells coming from there, so they could not judge the position of the People's Army's artillery position, and they could not fight back. In fact, it was useless to know, because the artillery equipped by the Qing army was basically below 100 mm, and there were only a few large-caliber artillery above 100 mm, and the range was no more than 10 kilometers. Therefore, the location of the armored train had far exceeded the range of the Qing army's artillery, and the Qing army could only be beaten passively.

The artillery bombardment took place for about 40 minutes, and 6 of the fortresses of the 12 major firepower strongholds of the Qing army had been destroyed by the People's Army. Of course, only 2-30% of the shells actually hit the stronghold, and the rest fell on the Qing army's positions near the stronghold. However, the trenches dug by the Qing army were still old-fashioned trenches with a depth of only about 2 meters. Although at the suggestion of French consultants, the trenches were dug into curved shapes, which was conducive to avoiding artillery fire, but there were no fortified artillery holes, and the defense of large-caliber artillery was still It is a lot worse. After all, the impact force generated by the explosion of large-caliber artillery is also extremely lethal. In addition, some simple stronghold fortresses will be mistaken for the fortresses. This kind of fortification with wooden and earth structure has extremely low defense effect on 155mm shells. As long as it is hit by the shells, it will inevitably be bombed. Therefore, a large number of Qing soldiers died in the positions, and the rest of the soldiers could only rush in the trenches and remain motionless, not to mention the stronghold fortresses that were bombed. The soldiers inside were almost dead for a lifetime.

Although at this time, the actual losses of the Qing army's positions were not large. Except for half of the main firepower fortresses, most of the other simple strongholds fortresses or trenches were basically unharmed. However, at this time the artillery bombardment caused a huge impact on the Qing army. First, the 155mm shell used by the People's Army was too powerful. Most of the Qing soldiers lacked practical experience and had almost no actual training in their daily training. I have seen such powerful artillery shells, and the carefully built defense line has almost no defensive effect on such artillery shells; secondly, the Qing army could only be passively beaten and had no room for fight back. If such a war is fought, anyone would feel unbalanced. What's more, the Qing army was not a strong army. Relatively speaking, the Beiyang New Army is a relatively affordable army. It is not easy for it to be able to withstand until now, but it's only this, and it's only a matter of time to collapse.

The Qing army finally collapsed in the entire line. After destroying the sixth main firepower stronghold fortress, the People's Army quickly adjusted its target and then attacked the seventh target. After two rounds of adjustment and shooting, one of the four shells fired in the third round finally hit the stronghold fortress. Of course, just one shell was not enough to explode the brick-built fortress. However, the subsequent 9 rounds of fire hit the stronghold fortress eight times, blew a gap in the fortress and destroyed one of the muzzles, killing and injuring more than 10 soldiers.

The gap in the fortress was blown up means that it was not far from being completely bombed. Therefore, other soldiers in the fortress did not dare to stay in the fortress and escaped from the fortress. In fact, these soldiers did not really intend to escape from the position, but just escaped from the fortress first and temporarily avoided the bombardment of artillery fire.

But just now, a total of 12 rounds of artillery attacks were hit by the fortress, and only nine times were hit by the fortress, but the remaining 39 shells all fell into positions around the fortress. The Qing soldiers guarding the positions were injured and killed countless Qing soldiers. When they saw the soldiers in the fortress escape, they thought they were going to escape from the positions. The soldiers' psychology was already on the verge of collapse, and they were only one step ahead. When they saw other soldiers running away, they found resonance in their hearts, so they also fled from the positions, and they couldn't even control the officers. Of course, the officers didn't really want to care, but the soldiers ran away, and they had reason to escape from the positions.

The quick escape from the position triggered a chain effect. At first, it was a small army, but in a short time, it became a complete escape of the entire position. Some positions that had not been attacked by the People's Army began to show unstable morale.

The changes in the Qing army's position were immediately discovered by Zhu Jinqi, the commander of the 21st Division. Although the firepower points of the Qing army's position were not eliminated at this time, this fighter jet was not to be missed, so Zhu Jinqi immediately ordered an attack.

At this time, the 21st Division had all completed its combat preparations. The nearest soldiers were less than 1,000 meters away from the Qing army's position. After receiving the order from Zhu Jinqi, they immediately began to attack. The first thing they had to attack the Qing army was the bombardment of mortars.
Chapter completed!