Chapter 1443 Breaking through the Defense Line
"Be careful when you carry it onto the ship!" Wang Tom gently patted the shoulder of the wounded soldier on the stretcher, and then motioned to the medical soldiers to send him away.
Although the wounded soldier's mood was relatively stable, Wang Tom's face was not relaxed at all. This time, the Marine Corps' landing and harassment operation behind enemy lines was not as easy as imagined. The first half of the landing was relatively smooth, and the initial confrontation with the Houjin Army did not give the opponent any chance at all. But today, after Yang Guli arrived with reinforcements, Wang Tom truly realized the power of the Hou Jin Army.
The enemy was able to break through Haihan's defenses on the frontal battlefield with relatively backward weapons and equipment, and even entered the Haihan position at one point. This was a rare situation in the past battle history of the Haihan Army. As for the main reason for this situation, Wang Tom believed that the Marines were not sufficiently prepared for war, and there were indeed certain loopholes in his command. He thought that the Hou Jin Army would retreat after being defeated after one or two attempts, or simply blockade the perimeter and not attack, but he did not expect that once the opponent made up its mind to fight, it would no longer have any scruples. The beachhead must be stormed even if casualties are heavy.
The Marine Corps, which was not fully prepared for this, was indeed caught off guard. The Haihan Artillery that was breached directly lost a squad in the fight. If Tom Wang hadn't taken the lead at the critical moment and withstood the wave of offensives, the casualties of the Marine Corps today might have been far more than what was seen in front of them.
Now thinking back to the previous battle scene, Wang Tom still felt a little scared. In recent years, he has rarely been on the front lines to command operations, let alone participated in battles in person. Although his usual shooting training had kept his skills from becoming too unfamiliar, if he had been really unlucky and had taken a stray arrow to a vital part, he might have died in the wilderness thousands of miles away from home.
Earlier, Qian Tiandun asked him to stay on the flagship and command the landing battle. He also retorted that it was rare to have such a combat opportunity where the strong attacked the weak, and the commander should go to the front line to increase confidence in his troops. Anyway, the Jin Army There is no way to break through the defense, so safety should be fine. But I didn't expect that this almost became a prophecy. If Qian Tiandun and others knew about it afterwards, they would definitely be laughed at.
According to post-war statistics, twenty-one people in Haihan were killed on the spot in this battle, and nearly a hundred others were injured. Among them, more than ten people were seriously injured. It is difficult to say whether they can survive. Although the damage in this battle was dozens of times less than that of his opponent, and Hou Jin's offensive was finally repelled, Wang Tom still felt ashamed. He did play a role in attracting firepower behind the enemy's rear, but the battle was so brutal that it was not what was expected when the battle plan was formulated, and it did not reach the expected level at all.
Fortunately, the cavalry battalion responsible for the other part of the operation went extremely smoothly. It carried out lightning attacks on multiple Houjin strongholds along the way to the west, and was finally able to escape unscathed and retreated from the Bohai Bay to the sea. In comparison, the cavalry battalion's task completion rate is obviously much higher than that of the Marine Corps.
However, the Marine Corps' mission was not over yet. Wang Tom decided to continue to pin the Marine Corps to this place according to the original plan. If all goes well, there will be a chance for the Marines to turn around the next day.
Yangguli returned to Jijiabao with his soldiers overnight to take charge. Although he left some soldiers and horses at the seaside to stare at Haihan's beachhead, he still felt uneasy. During the short time that he left Jijiabao for most of the day, Haihan's intermittent bombardment continued, but still no infantry was sent to launch a real offensive. He didn't know what the Haihan people were waiting for, but what he was sure of was that the offensive launched by the Haihan people was by no means a bluff. It was impossible to station troops here for several days, fire hundreds of artillery shells and then retreat on their own. In the end, they would inevitably have to Fight with real swords and guns.
When this time comes, Haihan's attack will definitely be thunderous. Although Yangu Li still has thousands of soldiers and horses in hand, he is not sure that he can resolve Haihan's offensive. This ominous intuition has been lingering in his heart since a day ago, but he has never found the real reason. Even the news about the active withdrawal of the Haihan Cavalry did not make him feel relieved at all. He wanted to know when and how the Haihan people would launch their final offensive, but Houjin's battlefield information collection work had almost come to a complete standstill, and he could only use naked eyes to observe the movements of the Haihan army as a reference for decision-making.
However, in the past few days, the deployment of the entire defense line was constantly involved and mobilized by Haihan's offensive, and the original defense system had been completely messed up. Moreover, Haihan seemed to have no real focus of attack, and was conducting tentative attacks everywhere, leaving Houjin's defense forces exhausted along the entire defense line, and even in the depths behind the defense line. Although the battle lasted only a short time, Yangu Li already felt vaguely physically and mentally exhausted, a phenomenon that had never occurred in his past combat career.
Yangu Li called a close aide to his tent, gave these instructions, and then sent the aide to the Jinzhou Camp to deliver a message to Azig. He felt that it was already difficult for him to take care of the areas within Haihan's attack range by himself, so he hoped that Azig could bring another group of troops to the defense line as soon as possible to support the defense line. However, he also knew that even if Azig received help tonight, he would have to start gathering troops to prepare supplies tomorrow morning at the earliest. It was estimated that even if they could set off at noon, they would move quickly. The leading troops might be able to arrive at the fortress before dark. This side of the defense line.
Azig is the commander-in-chief of this Liaodong battle, but Yangu Li is already related to him, so he will not worry about Azig refusing to save him or deliberately delaying the fight. Now that this message for help has been sent out , he believed that Azig would send reinforcements as soon as possible after receiving the news. As long as we persist for another day or so and wait for Azig's reinforcements to arrive, we will be much more confident in holding this line of defense.
Thinking of this section, Yangu Li's uneasy mood finally eased a little. He took his soldiers to inspect the already dilapidated city gate. Although the continuous bombardment by the Haihan Army prevented the defenders from completely blocking the city gate, after struggling for several days, they took advantage of the truce at night. There are a lot of building materials that have been brought into the city gate, and the messy piles inside have basically blocked most of the passage. Large groups of troops will definitely not be able to quickly pass through here and enter Jijiabao. But even so, Yangu Li carefully deployed five hundred infantry near the city gate to prevent Haihan from sending a small force to sneak in through this passage at night.
Of course, Yangu Li also tried to send a small group of troops to Haihan to camp at night, but the effect was not ideal. The troops sent out were like meat buns beating dogs and never returned. After losing two groups of men, Yanguli gave up the idea that this was too difficult to achieve.
But Yang Guli never expected that Haihan actually sent people out to do things secretly at night, and tonight was no exception. However, the target that Haihan sent these people was not here in Jijiabao, but under the relatively weakly defended city wall somewhere between Jijiabao and Sujiabao.
This group of engineers sent to the Liaodong battlefield to lay landmines were responsible for geotechnical blasting operations in the military before receiving relevant training. They were no strangers to explosives, so they received this assignment. And they lurked under the city wall at night. Their purpose was to dig out some explosive spots on the earth wall and bury detonators and explosives. In order to reduce the noise during the operation as much as possible, the excavation tools they used were also specially made and made only a very slight sound during the operation.
Morgan's sniper team was responsible for keeping watch for the engineers. These professionally trained snipers had excellent eyesight. Even at night, they could use the moonlight to see movement at a distance of a hundred meters. Of course, the most important equipment is the night vision device operated by Morgan himself. With this device, when the Houjin sentry appears in the nearby area, a warning signal can be sent to the engineers under the city wall in time, allowing them to temporarily stop Work so as not to be picked up by the sentry. After two full nights of operations, the engineers had buried hundreds of kilograms of explosives under this section of the city wall. According to calculations, the amount was enough to blow this section of the city wall into pieces. If the detonation goes smoothly, a gap of about ten meters wide can be opened in the defense line in just an instant, and the nearest large Houjin garrison is at least about a mile away. This time difference is enough to allow those who are prepared to The Haihan Army entered the other side of the defense line. If the Haihan Army moves quickly enough, they may even establish a temporary position based on the ruins of the city wall to resist the inevitable counterattack.
After confirming that all the explosives at the detonation locations had been laid and the fuses connected, the engineers silently began to retreat from under the city wall. Whether the results of the two of them working hard all night will be the final word will be seen after dawn.
At dawn, two Haihan troops from the Central Route Army and the West Route Army quietly appeared near the city wall that was about to be blasted. The two troops gathered and set out in the middle of the night without any lights. They reached their destination in one step and met Morgan and his sniper team here.
"I have transferred all the troops. There will be no problems with this plan, right?" Although Qian Tiandun did not doubt Morgan's ability, he still subconsciously asked him for confirmation again.
Morgan patted his chest and said, "Don't worry. I'm personally supervising the work here, so I'm sure of it. The amount of explosives planted has also been calculated repeatedly. If this wall doesn't blow up, you can do whatever you want with my people from now on." ?”
Qian Tiandun smiled and said: "When you said that, I suddenly looked forward to a misfire."
The snipers trained by Morgan are treasures in any army unit, and Qian Tiandun is no exception. However, the distribution and deployment of snipers are controlled by Morgan, so he wants to use these elite soldiers in battle, or bring them into the army. To incorporate it into your own army's establishment, you must have a good relationship with Morgan.
When the sky turned pale, the Houjin sentry who had just taken over the post in the morning patrolled near this section of the city wall. Suddenly, he discovered that a large number of enemy troops were silently stalking the wilderness to the south. He was suddenly startled and broke out in a cold sweat. The sentry knew that this place was not well defended. If the Haihan Army wanted to attack this place with peace of mind, it would take half a stick of incense to mobilize a large number of defenders. He immediately ran to the nearest beacon tower, intending to send out a warning immediately. . But before he could run a few steps, he felt a huge force spurting out from the soles of his feet, lifting him into the air, and then his vision went dark and he lost consciousness.
The Haihan Army who witnessed this scene standing in the distant field was also deeply shocked by this spectacular scene. The detonation points buried under the entire city wall exploded almost perfectly at the same time, and the dust and smoke raised were probably as high as 100 meters. high. The audience standing hundreds of meters away felt the vibrations coming from the ground beneath their feet. Everyone has no doubt that even if this is a real city wall in front of them, it will be wiped out in such an explosion.
The horses ridden by Qian Tiandun and Morgan also neighed loudly. They were obviously frightened. Fortunately, the grooms were always holding the reins, so they didn't make any big moves to knock the two big men off.
When the smoke and dust slowly dispersed, Qian Tiandun couldn't help but take a breath and said: "You are so sure... you are really sure!"
Not only that section of the city wall was blown away, a groove more than ten meters long appeared in its original position. The explosion cut off a layer of the land.
Morgan put down the telescope and said with a forced smile: "It's better to explode harder than not enough. Start it quickly!"
Qian Tiandun nodded and ordered the offensive. The charge sounded immediately, and nearly 2,000 troops rushed to the gap to seize the passage that was forcibly opened by explosives. They knew that Hou Jin's counterattack would come soon, so they had to control this critical area before then. Among the artillery units following closely behind the infantry were the four new artillery pieces that had shown their prowess in Jijiabao the day before yesterday. While Yangu Li was still worried in Jijiabao, these four guns had been quietly moved to the real attack point, and would assume the subsequent artillery cover and strike tasks.
The fortress defense line that Hou Jin had worked hard for a long time to block the Haihan army south of the Jinzhou Isthmus was defeated in one fell swoop by the huge explosion in the early morning. The Haihan army that attacked here was defeated without a single blow. The fortress defense line has been successfully broken through.
Jijiabao, who was several miles away, also heard the sound of the explosion, but no one understood what happened. The dull sound neither sounded like thunder nor the sound of artillery fire. Yangu Li, who came out of the tent, also had a confused look on his face, and for a moment he didn't realize the risk at all.
(End of chapter)