CHAPTER 312: CHAPTER 312 SHEN BILI

Hello everyone, let me explain:

Images with portraits often take longer to review, possibly due to issues related to portrait rights. Sometimes it can take more than ten hours and might be reviewed the next day. That was the case with the two images yesterday; it wasn’t that I missed posting them.

If you couldn’t see them at the time, you should check back the next day, and they would be available.

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The arrival of the Australian 5th Light Horse Regiment alleviated the pressure on the defensive line’s manpower.

To avoid issues of incompatible combat habits and tactics between the French and Australian forces, Tijani assigned the eastern trenches to the Australian Army for defense. He stayed with the French Army to defend the western trenches facing the encircled enemy.

This wasn’t because Tijani was assigning the more dangerous main attack direction of the enemy to the Australian Army for defense.

In fact, Tijani precisely believed that the encircled enemy facing west was more dangerous and important. The Australian Army couldn’t handle this responsibility, so he arranged it this way.

"If the enemy gives us two days’ deadline, it means we must organize a counterattack," Tijani said. "And the best direction for the attack is west. We should strive to force them to surrender, whether with the fleet’s coordination or by any means. We certainly can’t pin our hopes on the Australian Army for such battles."

Tijani still looked down on them, with an air of superiority in his words despite the Australian Army having performed well on the battlefield.

...

Early the next morning, the sky was dimly lit.

The artillery fire was still intermittently sounding, coming from the Allies Fleet bombarding the enemy.

Under General Winter’s command, the fleet adopted a rotation bombardment system: he divided the battleships into five groups, each with two to three ships, and each group bombarded for about four hours.

General Winter believed that continuous bombardment would keep the enemy under pressure without any respite, possibly causing them to collapse at any moment.

Shire originally thought this would be effective; after all, bombardment is better than no bombardment.

However, when Shire woke up in the early morning with binoculars and looked toward the enemy, he found it was all in vain: the Ottoman Army had taken advantage of the night to construct a trench close to the French trenches, only two to three hundred meters away in some places.

And the battleships, to avoid friendly fire, often concentrated the bombardment on the distant "A" corner.

When Tijani emerged from the tunnel, he also saw this and laughed self-deprecatingly, "They must be laughing at us in their trenches, we’ve been wasting ammunition all night."

Shire didn’t speak. He put away his binoculars and ran along the communication trench toward the other side, where the Australian Army was stationed.

As expected, the Ottoman Army on this side had also constructed trenches within two to three hundred meters.

Tijani followed and glanced at the enemy’s direction, surprised, "They are trying to shorten the charging distance!"

"Not just that, General," Shire replied, "They are compressing our living space."

Tijani "Oh"-ed and understood what Shire meant.

Then he felt a bit regretful, thinking he should have sent out troops last night to contest space with the enemy, digging trenches layer by layer to accommodate more reinforcements.

But last night, his mind was only focused on consolidating the defensive line and preparing for the enemy’s attack today.

Shire didn’t think of this either. He and Tijani were both trapped in their habitual thinking, assuming the enemy would act as they did yesterday.

But the truth was different, the enemy commander was clever, using defense to attack, compressing the French defensive line in the middle, preventing its development.

"The good news is, the enemy may not attack," Shire judged. "At least not in the next one or two days."

"Why?" Tijani asked.

As soon as he asked, he thought of the reason:

The French defensive line’s space was compressed to the extreme, the manpower couldn’t increase, and the Ottoman Army had no big reason to attack.

Otherwise, attacking during the day wouldn’t succeed, and at night the French would replenish their forces, changing nothing in the end.

It’s better to wait for two days, accumulating strength and waiting for grenades and mortars, then capturing the French defensive line in one go.

"Understood." Tijani sighed lightly and cursed fiercely, "Damn Germans!"

This must be the Germans’ idea, the Ottomans wouldn’t know to fight this way.

Colonel Richard ran over hastily, standing respectfully beside Tijani, with a tone of self-reproach, "Very sorry, General. This is my fault; the sound of artillery masked the enemy’s trench construction noise. We didn’t realize they were constructing defenses right in front of us."

Tijani didn’t speak; he couldn’t blame Colonel Richard because the same thing happened on the other side; he also didn’t notice the enemy’s movements.

Suddenly, Shire noticed a faint light flickering across from the trench; he realized it was sunlight reflecting off the enemy’s binocular lens.

Shire immediately put away his binoculars and grabbed his rifle, aiming at the location of the light.

Maybe it’s a big fish, Shire thought, it should be an officer, observing the French trenches.

Shire’s sight crossed the gun sight, finding the half head wearing a black round hat; it almost blended into the black background – without the light earlier, Shire wouldn’t have noticed him.

Tijani searched along Shire’s gun’s direction but saw nothing, self-deprecatingly thinking, am I old and have poor eyesight?

Just as Shire was about to pull the trigger, suddenly a gunshot rang out, "black round hat" burst out a red splash then disappeared.

Shire quickly put away the gun and retracted his head; the gunshot wasn’t his, incredibly accurate, hitting the small half head at three hundred meters.

Tijani didn’t even know the result, crouching in doubt, asking Shire, "Did you hit him?"

Shire nodded, "Hit him, should be an officer."

Shire turned to Richard, "Who fired?"

Richard was stunned and replied, "I’ll check."

He ran crouching towards the direction of the gunshot, soon bringing back a soldier.

It was a Junior Sergeant, about thirty years old, surprising Shire with his Huaxia face.

The Junior Sergeant stood calmly in front of Shire, reporting in English, "Colonel, I fired the shot!"

Shire curiously asked, "Were you a soldier before?"

"No, Colonel," the Junior Sergeant replied, "I joined the troops a month ago."

Shire looked at the Junior Sergeant in confusion, was the shot a coincidence?

The Junior Sergeant seemed to understand Shire’s meaning, he straightened his chest proudly, "Colonel, I’ve been hunting kangaroos in my hometown since I was a teenager, for over ten years. Such a target is not difficult for me."

Hunting kangaroos?

Huaxia-born?

Shire remembered someone, the famous sharpshooter during World War I.

"What’s your name?" Shire asked.

"Reporting to Colonel," the Junior Sergeant replied, "My name is Edward Shen!"

(Above is the famous sniper William Edward Shen (1886-1943) during the World War I Gallipoli campaign, also known as Shen Bili, a mixed-race of Chinese and English. His father was a vegetable farmer in Shanghai’s suburbs before immigrating to Australia, and his mother was a nurse, serving in the Australian 5th Light Horse Regiment.)