1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 282 Fancy Hanging
The South Vietnamese army mobilized much slower than expected by the headquarters. It was not until ten o'clock in the morning that the South Vietnamese army, which was finally ready for battle, opened the gate of the camp. Teams of soldiers drove out of the camp and marched towards the coalition positions in the east.Of course, when the South Vietnamese Army left the camp, the headquarters had already received a notification from the lookout post on the top of the mountain. For the coalition forces, the actions of the South Vietnamese Army had no secrets at all.

Wang Tom slowly slipped down from a big tree hugged by three people, and said to Qiao Zhiya who was guarding under the tree: "Our rest time is over, and it's our turn to move our bodies."

Qiao Zhiya stood up and smiled, "If you wait any longer, I'm going to be moldy!"

The South Vietnamese Army was able to defeat the North Vietnamese Army. In addition to the superiority in weapons, the generals in charge of commanding operations were also quite capable, and they did not forget to send reconnaissance troops to inquire about the opponent's military situation.Before the large troops were dispatched, a small number of infantry pounced on the two mountains on the north and south sides of the coalition position, and it seemed that they planned to follow the condescending terrain to observe the deployment of the coalition position.But it's a pity that they came a step late. The North American gang was divided into two groups, each with a platoon of Haihan militiamen, who had long been lurking on these two mountains, waiting for the other party's spies to deliver food.These South Vietnamese spies wanted to touch the mountain, but they basically ended up going there and never returning.

This group of troops from the South Vietnamese camp numbered more than 5000 people, but according to the situation observed by the lookout post, only about one-third of them were regular South Vietnamese troops, and the rest were peasants and soldiers with relatively low combat effectiveness.

Of course, after watching Feng Annan and Mu Xiabo's recording of the offensive and defensive battle of the mountain position, no one would take these peasant soldiers lightly.These ragged monkey soldiers, who didn't even have armor, fought unambiguously. If the opponent broke through the line of defense, there might not be enough people on the coalition's position for the opponent to slaughter.

However, to the slight disappointment of the headquarters, there is still no musket troops in the South Vietnamese camp this time. It seems that the generals of the South Vietnamese army still have a little bit of luck, hoping to use their superiority to overwhelm the coalition forces. Not a very solid line of defense.

In order to ensure the superiority in firepower, Mu Xiabo asked the remaining two Musketeers of the North Vietnamese Confederate Army to enter the fighting positions behind the defensive wall.At this time, the first batch of artillerymen also pushed the newly assembled artillery into the predetermined artillery positions.However, Yan Chujie believed that since the opponent was still using all infantry with cold weapons as the main force of the attack, the blow from the musket formation was enough to destroy their offensive, and there should be no need for heavy weapons such as artillery for the time being.

After the South Vietnamese army arrived at the offensive position, it did not linger for too long, and immediately launched an offensive of thousands of people to the coalition positions.This time the South Vietnamese infantry is no longer fighting alone, but with the cooperation of archers.According to the observation from the observation tower behind the position, behind the enemy infantry formation, there are about three or four hundred archers following.

However, the coalition forces are not very nervous about this. Not to mention that the effective range of the enemy's bows and arrows is not as good as that of their own muskets. The musketeers hiding behind the defensive wall will definitely not suffer from the enemy's bows and arrows, even if the opponent can break into the range. For long-distance projectiles, the wooden ceiling extending seven or eight meters behind the defensive wall is enough to cover the heads of the Musketeers, forming an effective protection.

After gaining the previous combat experience, the North Vietnamese Confederate Army also appeared relatively calm in the face of the new round of offensive.Soldiers are already very aware of the power of their weapons, and also know that their opponents do not have the strength to attack their own lines. They only need to follow the orders of the officers, keep raising their guns, shooting, and reloading, and repeat this process to defeat the opponent's offensive. .

After entering a distance of 200 meters, the South Vietnamese Army still launched a charge with sword and shield soldiers as the vanguard.It seems that they have not learned the lesson from the previous time, and still plan to use the most primitive and direct combat method to deal with the enemy's advanced arms.

Yan Chujie put down the binoculars, and said to Mu Xiabo who was watching the battle: "Although South Vietnam also has musketeers, it seems that they haven't carefully considered how cold weapons should deal with muskets."

Mu Xiabo said: "It is not unheard of in history that cold-armed infantry defeated musketeers, but in the current environment, I don't think no matter how fierce the infantry is, it is impossible to easily break through our line of defense."

The battle example Mu Xiabo mentioned refers to the counter-insurgency battle in the Scottish Highlands in the middle of the 18th century, when British lobster soldiers using muskets fought against Scottish soldiers with swords and shields as their main equipment. In 1745, in the northeast of Edinburgh, the two sides had equal strength. The British army with more than 200 musketeers and six cannons suffered nearly half of the casualties and over [-] prisoners. Less than [-] people successfully escaped from the battlefield. The weapon's opponent only had a hundred casualties, and the results were very different.

In 1746, in the southwest of Falkirk, the 7000 Scottish Highland Army led by Prince Charles once again defeated the [-] British Royal Army commanded by Hawley with cold weapons.However, in this battle, the Scottish army had cavalry to help out, so it is not possible to count all the results on the infantry.

In the two battles in which cold weapons defeated hot weapons, one common feature was that the cold weapon troops adopted the tactics of maneuvering in a large area on the battlefield, and then took advantage of the fact that the opponent's musket troops had not completed the array adjustment after turning around. After a short interval, they launched a charge and won the final victory.The battlefield chosen by the coalition forces is located at the angle between two mountains, and the terrain is narrow. The battlefield width of only 200 meters is almost completely covered by the range of muskets, and it is impossible to make any large-scale maneuvers. Therefore, Mu Xia Bo would say this.

Soon the South Vietnamese Army proved this theory with facts. Amidst crackling gunshots, South Vietnamese soldiers who were constantly charging fell into the dust.Whether it is a shield or armor, it becomes dispensable after entering the effective range of the Musketeers. Even if these charging soldiers are full of fighting courage, they are still not worth a small lead bullet after all. Lethality.

"A one-sided massacre!" Mu Xiabo also put down the binoculars.

Judging from the current battle process, the South Vietnamese army's attack this time is nothing more than a new round of killing people.Although these soldiers are not afraid of death, their charging effect is very unsatisfactory. The person who charged the farthest was still more than ten meters away from the outer obstacles of the defensive position when he fell down, which could not threaten the people behind the defensive wall at all. coalition forces.

As for the offensive launched by the South Vietnamese archers, it did not cause too much trouble to our own side, just as the command had expected in advance.A wave of projectile arrows rained down from the sky, and they were basically nailed to the wooden ceiling, crackling like hailstones hitting the roof.

In this chaotic situation, no one noticed that there were one or two gunshots from the mountains on the north and south sides from time to time. It was the troops lurking on the hilltops who were cleaning up the spies sent by South Vietnam.

The South Vietnamese army lost at least [-] lives in this wave of charges. Perhaps the commander saw that his own charge could not even reach the opponent's defense line at all, so he finally had to succumb to reality and chose to withdraw his troops resentfully.On the other hand, the morale of the coalition forces has been greatly boosted, and all the unease before the war has now been thrown into the sky.

"General Yan, Instructor Mu, are you doing well in this battle?" Seeing the retreat of the enemy army, Zheng Ting happily thanked the Haihan officers for their merits.

"It was a good fight." Yan Chujie nodded in affirmation of the North Vietnamese Army's performance, but then changed the subject: "But isn't it a matter of course? The opponents don't even have the chance to fight you head-on, they are just a group of live targets. Don't forget, they still have an army like yours!"

Zheng Ting's face turned serious, and he raised his head in response.As a senior officer in the North Vietnamese Army, Zheng Ting also knew very well what the purpose of this landing operation was.Killing and injuring hundreds of South Vietnamese infantry is indeed not an ideal record.

"If we don't pull out our nail, the South Vietnamese Army will not rest assured to continue attacking the north. So there are still fights to be made, so please perform well!" Mu Xiabo still chose to give full encouragement to his students.

Seeing that the infantry's attack failed, the generals leading the troops in South Vietnam obviously did not intend to continue giving away their heads in vain, and temporarily stopped their offensive.The coalition army also took advantage of this time to distribute lunch to the front-line combat troops.These soldiers still ate some dry food before they landed in the early morning. It has been six or seven hours since they tossed, and their spirits have been in a state of high tension.The engineers, on the other hand, ordered the civilians to quickly dispose of the arrows nailed to the defensive wall and ceiling, and began to lay a layer of floating soil on the ceiling to prevent opponents from using rocket attacks.

Taking advantage of this gap in the battle, hundreds of civilians went out to the outside of the defensive wall, and seized the time to continue digging trenches to strengthen the defensive position.Although the coalition forces have a great advantage in weapons, the headquarters would rather spend more manpower, and try to make the defense methods as tight as possible.

Qian Tiandun and Mu Xiabo each brought a platoon of troops and went up the mountain to replace the two teams that had been busy in the forest for half a day.The two mountains in the south and the north are completely primitive dense forests. This kind of environment is not suitable for large troops to fight, but it is suitable for the combat method of individual soldiers or small teams that the Heitugang Special Warfare Company is good at.

During the whole morning's battle, there were no large-scale casualties on the side of the coalition forces that were worried about beforehand. There were only less than ten casualties, and no one died in battle.The number of opponents who died in battle was at least 500, and more than [-] people were captured. The battle loss ratio is simply far from heaven.

After the news of victory reached the North Vietnamese barracks on the mountain defense line through the radio, Zheng Bai finally breathed a sigh of relief.The coalition position in the south has a firm foothold, which means that the South Vietnamese army will not have the energy to continue to desperately attack the mountain defense line in the north for the time being.The two positions in the south and the north echoed each other from a distance, finally temporarily stabilizing the battle situation.

To the surprise of the headquarters, the South Vietnamese army remained silent that afternoon and did not launch another attack on the coalition positions.The headquarters suspected that the opponent should be preparing for battle in secret, and perhaps new offensive methods will be put into the battle in the future—for example, the hidden musketeer unit.

On the one hand, the headquarters took the opportunity to strengthen the defense facilities of the coalition positions, and on the other hand, it sent more manpower to the two commanding heights in the north and south.If there were any loopholes in the coalition's position, it would probably be these two mountains.The coalition forces did not have enough manpower and resources to build two more mountain defense lines, so they could only rely on elite skirmishers to carry out simple defenses on the two mountains.But the good news is that the opponent obviously doesn't have enough energy to slowly clear these two mountains - it took them more than a month to deal with the mountain in the north alone. When it comes to attacking the middle pass, we don't want to repeat this arduous process again.

The only harvest that afternoon was that the "Discovery" captured a South Vietnamese reconnaissance ship in the waters south of the landing point.The reconnaissance ship was discovered a few nautical miles away from the landing point, and there were no civilian fishing boats and merchant ships in the sea area near the war zone. As soon as the "Explorer" approached, the ship immediately Then he fled to the open sea.However, it is obviously unwise to rely on speed to get rid of the pursuit of the "Discovery".

However, to the shame of the trainee gunners on board, none of the shells directly hit the small boat during the three rounds of shooting at a distance of 200 meters.In the end, it was the South Vietnamese soldiers on the ship who were frightened and jumped up and down to signal their surrender. Sun Changmi gave the order to stop the useless shelling and sent people to board the ship to take over the prisoners.

According to the results of the interrogation, the South Vietnamese Army has no more surface forces available from the current combat zone to the Zhengjiang River in the south.The small "naval division" stationed in Donghai is currently only undertaking the task of maintaining the supply line of the camp ahead.Even if the South Vietnamese Army wants to transfer the navy's ship to the front coast to scout the military situation of the coalition forces' positions, it will take at least a day or two to pass the news back and forth.

The headquarters obviously didn't intend to give the other party this chance, so they issued an order to Qian Tiandun that night to start the raid on the enemy's rear from now on.

In the early morning of the next day, the "Discovery" full of soldiers from the special warfare company sailed south from the sea.The main task of this force is to harass the South Vietnamese Army's logistics supply line, and strive to cut off the opponent's water transportation line on the Zhengjiang River.

And during the battle this morning, the South Vietnamese Army really offered a new magic weapon-several shield vehicles that were rushed out.The front of this shield car is a row of thick logs, enough to cover the infantry units behind.After seven or eight vehicles are lined up in parallel, the width of the shelter reaches 40 meters.Moreover, the thickness of these logs is at least five inches or more, and the lead bullets of muskets cannot penetrate them at all.The only more troublesome thing is that the weight of this shield vehicle is too large, and there is no road between the South Vietnamese camp and the coalition camp, and even soldiers need to keep cutting down various bushes in front of them. The speed of the car was extremely slow, but it took the South Vietnamese army more than an hour to push the shield array to the front of the coalition position.

It wasn't until the shield vehicle advanced to 6 meters that the coalition forces calmly opened the defensive wall in front of the gun emplacement, revealing the dark muzzle.Of course, to deal with such a small battle, the headquarters didn't plan to show its full strength, so it only exposed two [-]-pound cannons on the left and one right to attack.

At this distance, it is not difficult to aim at a shield car that is three to four meters wide and taller than a person, and there is no need to calculate any shooting angle, and it can hit the target directly with a flat shot.Yan Chujie personally aimed and ignited the first shot, which accurately hit the front of a shield car, pierced through a half-foot-diameter hole, and then plowed a bloody ditch among the South Vietnamese soldiers pushing the shield car.

The four cannons fired one after the other, instantly causing uncontrollable chaos among the South Vietnamese Army.The killing effect caused by the artillery was second to none, and the four-door shot down only killed or wounded 30 to [-] people. However, this huge noise made the already anxious South Vietnamese army lose its calm.Some people thought that the protective power of this wooden shield wall was not enough to cover themselves, so they simply rushed out.

Undoubtedly, what greeted these desperadoes was a row of hot lead bullets just out of the chamber.Of all the people who rushed out of the shield wall, almost no one survived for ten seconds before falling to the ground under the dense rain of bullets.When the South Vietnamese soldiers were beaten back to the shield wall and had to choose to push the shield car to move on, the second round of shelling began again.

Due to the limited width of the shielding surface of the shield wall, the infantry density behind it is quite high. At this distance, every shell can cause a lot of damage to the South Vietnamese army formation.Some unlucky ghosts whose hands and feet had been cut off by the shells did not die for a while, and fell to the ground rolling and screaming, which aggravated the fear in the hearts of others.The soldiers wanted to push their carts to the front of the opponent's formation quickly, but there were low bushes and uneven bumps everywhere, so they couldn't get up quickly.

During the fourth round of shelling, one of the shield vehicles was finally blown apart, revealing the naked South Vietnamese infantry behind them. Without exception, they also received hundreds of lead bullets from their opponents for free.At this time, the South Vietnamese army was still at least seven or eighty meters away from the defensive wall, which meant that they would probably have to withstand four to five rounds of shelling—provided that the shield wall in front of them had not completely fallen apart by then.

It is a pity that reality is often crueler than wishes. Less than ten meters away from the first barbed wire fence, the last shield car was completely disintegrated under the concentrated attack of four artillery pieces. Although the last two hundred South Vietnamese infantry still chose to Charged, but no one could escape under the intensive musket fire, and all were knocked down in front of the formation.

Compared with yesterday's offensive, the greatest progress made by the South Vietnamese Army today is probably that it has penetrated into the obstacle zone outside the coalition positions.About a dozen South Vietnamese soldiers were knocked down by bullets after rushing into the combined obstacle area of ​​the barbed wire fence and the Luzhai. This may give the generals of the South Vietnamese Army a glimmer of hope of victory.

(End of this chapter)