Chapter 51: The Return of the British Empire (Part 1)
Hainan Island, on the outskirts of Sanya Port, the frontline headquarters of the Qiongya Column of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army
Listening to the rumbling explosions in the distance and looking at the blazing fire that almost dyed the sky red, almost all the Red Army commanders and soldiers, led by Commander Feng Baiju, were dejected. Their faces were either as dark as the bottom of a pot, or they were almost worried about themselves. All the hair was pulled out.
"...Commander... just watching the British blow up the Sanya Port? It's not easy for us to save such a small fortune!"
A Red Army commander shouted reluctantly, "... so many machines and equipment, as well as heavy artillery and iron-hulled ships... it was all destroyed at once!"
"...What can be done? A main force group originally deployed there was blown apart at night before it had time to react. The few forts left by the Japanese were also destroyed by the British's powerful ships and cannons. After being plowed, our reinforcements can’t get up at all... This battle can’t be fought.”
Feng Baiju, the commander of the Qiongya Column, took a long puff of cigarette, then put out the butt of the cigarette, "... Just bear with it for now! They will leave eventually... As soon as the British warships withdraw, it's time It’s our turn to teach those white dogs who are in cahoots a lesson..."
To be honest, if you want to feel aggrieved, there is absolutely no one who can compare to Commander Feng Baiju at this moment - when he took over the Yaxian and Sanya military ports from the Japanese, he treated the prisoners of war at the Tiandu Iron Mine near the Sanya military port. The 50,000 American and British prisoners of war in the camp felt a little worried and vaguely felt that this might cause some trouble. Now, the burning beaches and exploding ports have proven that the previous worries were not groundless.
Unfortunately, it was too late.
——After confirming that there were actually 50,000 American and British prisoners of war in the Sanya prisoner-of-war camp, and that they were being held close to the coast, and that they had not been transferred by the Red Army, London immediately issued a strict order demanding that Frey, who had just led the Royal Eastern Fleet to Singapore, Admiral Ze weighed anchor and set sail again, rushing to China with a new Hong Kong Governor who arrived by seaplane with a letter of appointment to be responsible for rescuing these prisoners of war on Hainan Island.
Therefore, although he was very worried about such a lonely and in-depth adventure, as a soldier whose bounden duty is to obey orders, Admiral Fraser still brought his flagship battle cruiser Renown and three escort aircraft carriers converted from cruise ships. As well as a bunch of "small boats" such as light cruisers and destroyers, they passed through the Strait of Malacca and entered the South China Sea. Amid the warm welcome of the Hong Kong Maintenance Committee, they accepted the surrender of the Japanese troops in Hong Kong.
Next, despite their limited strength and unfavorable situation, the cunning British gentlemen still gave full play to their diplomatic skills as troublemakers for thousands of years. First, they used negotiations to paralyze the Qiongya Column of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, which had controlled the entire Hainan Island, and made them mistakenly believe that the British were prepared to pay a large sum of money and materials to redeem prisoners of war. At the same time, they secretly contacted the Kuomintang troops and managed to obtain a batch of cannon fodder for the landing battle.
Finally, the British fleet sneaked into Sanya at night and easily destroyed the coastal defenses left by the Japanese with an overwhelming barrage of artillery shells. A group of African black indigenous special forces took the opportunity to land and infiltrate, killing a small number of guards in the prisoner of war camp and rescuing the American and British prisoners inside.
After dawn, a so-called elite Kuomintang army also successfully landed under the cover of fierce artillery fire. They defeated the few remaining workers and peasants Red Army soldiers in the port area, took control of Sanya's port terminals, and released 50,000 white prisoners of war who had been rescued. , we were able to board ships and go to sea one after another from here.
The entire rescue plan was codenamed "Far East Lightning", which means fast in and fast out, without seeking to occupy, it flashes by like lightning.
To be honest, the Qiongya column did not care much about the fact that the 50,000 white prisoners of war left behind by the Japanese in the Tiandu Iron Mine were rescued by the British army in a sneak attack. On the contrary, they even felt relieved - -In fact, they have long wanted to get rid of such a large group of hot potatoes that cannot be killed or let go. Just to provide food for these 50,000 mouths has already made the base of Hainan Island, which has poor products, suffer a lot.
If the British army retreated immediately after rescuing the people, the Qiongya column might just hold their noses and admit it.
But the problem is that while arranging for the rescued prisoners of war to board ships and evacuate one after another, the British army also did not forget to blast and destroy various facilities in the Sanya military port - power plants, water plants, hospitals, ship repair yards, oil depots, coal bunkers, radios The transmitting station, coastal defense forts, and mining railways were all destroyed. The Kuomintang troops, who were deeply involved in "suppressing bandits", also invaded the nearby county town of Yaxian County, setting fire to and killing everywhere, and almost razing everything to the ground.
Such devastating damage made the entire Qiongya column really bleed. You must know that these industrial facilities left by the Japanese in Sanya, although they are only standard equipment in small remote towns in Western countries, are in poverty and stalemate. China, which is poor and weak, can already be called an extremely advanced industrial center! Before taking over Manchukuo, the entire Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army probably didn't have that much machinery and equipment!
Although after taking over Sanya, in order to spread the risk, the Qiongya Column has transported some machinery, equipment and ordnance supplies from Sanya and placed them in the hinterland of the base area. But after all, the time was short, and quite a lot of things were still left in the local area. And there are many big things such as ship repair yards, water plants, mining machinery, iron-making equipment, etc., which the Qiongya Column cannot dismantle and transport at present.
Therefore, in order to rescue these precious industrial equipment, Feng Baiju, the commander of the Qiongya Column, had to hurriedly summon some troops and hurried to Sanya... Then, these local guerrillas of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, who had not yet shed their mud-legged nature, were first attacked. He was subjected to an indiscriminate bombardment by the British naval aviation, and was blown away by the main gun of the battlecruiser HMS Reputation. Before he really came into contact with the enemy, he was already dead and injured!
It was truly a mind-blowing experience. Although as revolutionaries under the banner of anti-imperialism and patriotism, they often said that the foreigners' strong ships and guns were very powerful, they did not have a very intuitive and vivid understanding of how powerful they were. But at this moment on the battlefield in Sanya, they had experienced the real "punishment of imperialism" for themselves... As a result, they were almost beaten to the point of paralysis.
——Compared with the high-spirited Japanese Navy Combined Fleet and the large-scale U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet, today's British Royal Navy Eastern Fleet has indeed been called a phoenix with no feathers, worse than a chicken. Among the more reliable battleships, there is only one battlecruiser named Renown. There are no battleships or regular aircraft carriers. We can only use escort aircraft carriers to make up the numbers. The rest are a bunch of cruisers and thousands of tons. Destroyer.
But even so, in the eyes of the impoverished Qiongya Column of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, even such a "small fleet" that is no better than a phoenix is already a terrifying and powerful enemy that is as powerful as thunder and Mount Tai - even the main force of the destroyer Artillery is a real heavy artillery on land, and in the eyes of the Red Army, it can be regarded as a treasure to suppress the army! The main gun of the battlecruiser Renown is even more impressive. Each barrel is more than 20 meters long, and a person can fit into the barrel! When a cannonball hits, with the impact point as the center of the circle, there will be no chickens or dogs within half a football field! With just a few shells, a village can be razed to the ground! In addition, these naval guns have a range of up to twenty or thirty kilometers... In comparison, the mountain artillery bombardment of the Kuomintang army and the Japanese army is just like setting off fireworks. Not to mention that during the day, the three carrier-based bombers escorting the aircraft carrier also posed a huge threat to the Qiongya column trying to counterattack, and even forced the Red Army soldiers to march at night.
I have to admit that this situation of being beaten without fighting back really makes people feel extremely uncomfortable and desperate - all the maritime power in the hands of the Qiongya Column is only a few torpedo boats and a few torpedo boats left behind by the Japanese when they withdrew. gunboats, and they were all destroyed at the moment.
Not long ago, Commander Feng Baiju accidentally walked in the wrong direction while rushing in the dark, and entered the range of the British naval gun. He was also discovered by the enemy's reconnaissance sentry. So, he then personally experienced how earth-shattering the British fleet's bombardment was - in almost a moment, his eardrums were almost shattered, and his internal organs were pulled together in clusters. The shells were fired as densely as machine guns, burning the ground and making the sky red. The shells exploded right next to him, and the soil raised by the air waves almost buried him. He has never felt so close to death, and every second is so unbearable, like a lonely boat in the stormy sea, and like a chicken under the pouring hail...
When the British fleet's bombardment temporarily stopped, Commander Feng Baiju's guards and secretary had been blown to pieces, and he himself was buried in the void. He was groggy and almost dead. Thanks to a few brave Red Detachment soldiers who came during the interval between shellings and dug him out desperately, Commander Feng Baiju was saved from death... But it was clear that this battle could not be fought.
Although Red Army soldiers are never afraid of sacrifice, the power of spirit cannot beat steel after all.
As a result, the Red Army soldiers gathered from all over the island could only hide in the coconut grove far away from the port, watching helplessly as the British engineers and the Kuomintang reactionaries completely destroyed the industrial facilities left by the Japanese. The county seat was bombarded into a pile of rubble... In the end, not only the British troops and prisoners of war retreated calmly, but the landing Kuomintang troops also boarded the boats and retreated with the British troops, leaving no chance for Qiongya column to retaliate. The unwilling Red Army soldiers carefully cleaned the battlefield again, but except for a few stragglers, there was still no result at all.
Returning to the Sanya Military Port, everyone looked at the rubble and craters everywhere, as well as the burnt coconut trees with only their stumps left. Everyone felt very heavy.
"...Commander, we have just driven away the Japanese imperialist invaders, and now the British imperialist invaders have arrived. Do you think there will be U.S. imperialists coming to our door as unwelcome guests next? If they come again a few more times, I’m afraid all the pots and jars in the house will be smashed!”
A political commissar of the Red Army said with some frustration, "...I can't beat the foreign planes and armored ships, and I can't even reach them. If I can hide, I can't hide in a temple. How should I fight this battle? Is it necessary to do it again?" Is it possible to abandon the county seat once and go back to the mountains to fight guerrillas?”
"...What if we are forced to go back to the mountains to fight guerrillas? In the past, we had nothing, so why didn't we still hold up the red flag and make revolution?"
Although Commander Feng Baiju was also in a bad mood, he still tried to encourage him, "...don't be too pessimistic, everyone! The Central Red Army has now reached Guangxi, not far from us! The days when imperialism and reactionaries continue to be rampant in China have already It’s because the rabbit’s tail can’t grow...”
——Obviously, the British colonists who have just made a comeback and achieved miraculous success will definitely not agree with the above point of view...
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UK, London, Prime Minister's residence, No. 10 Downing Street
Amidst the classical music playing on the gramophone, a curl of green smoke slowly rose up, transforming into various shapes in mid-air.
Under the smoke, the current Prime Minister of the British Empire and the most famous fat man in the entire island of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, is sitting on the sofa with a cigar in his hand, his fat round face full of pride and a bright smile. . And on the seats or sofas around Prime Minister Churchill, the core figures of the British Empire's wartime decision-makers were all in a good mood at the moment - although the wartime British Empire had just gone through another period of lack of support. The country is full of complaints about the harsh winter of coal, food and electricity, but this still does not affect the good mood of everyone here.
At this moment, they were listening to the latest military situation in the Far East reported by Major General Stuart Menzies, the current director of MI6, nicknamed "Big C".
"...So, the 'Far East Lightning' operation of the Imperial Navy's Eastern Fleet has been a complete success?"
"...Yes, the entire operation went very smoothly. All the more than 52,000 Allied prisoners detained in the Sanya prisoner-of-war camp were successfully rescued. At the same time, our army also destroyed the Bolshevik rebels on Hainan Island. The industrial base of the army, but its own casualties were less than a hundred people..."
Rear Admiral Stuart Menzies replied, "...At present, the officers and soldiers of the Eastern Fleet and the rescued prisoners of war who have completed their missions have arrived in Hong Kong to rest and recuperate. The local government of Guangdong, China, has a very friendly attitude towards us and has taken the initiative to inform our military An abundant supply of food and alcohol was provided. The wife of China’s top leader even flew to Hong Kong to express condolences to the prisoners of war..."
——In short, after obtaining more than 50,000 prisoners of war to supplement the troops, the British Empire’s embarrassing situation of being stretched thin on the Eastern battlefield is expected to be greatly improved, and such a long-lost victory will be a relief for the long-lost It is also an excellent booster for people's morale.
However, compared to another greater victory, this small action in the South China Sea is nothing...
"...Okay, let's stop talking about China for now. Now let's talk about another more exciting good news!" Winston Churchill reached out to put out the butt of the cigar with only a small section left, and then turned around. Pointing to the map of India on the wall, he announced, "...Cheer! Everyone! God bless Britain! Let Hindustan, which was about to fall, return to our flag again!"