afterglow

Chapter 444 Chapter Crossing the insurmountable place; crushing their morale!

On the afternoon of December 12, 8km northeast of Kokoda Town.

The Kokoda trail is narrow and bumpy, barely allowing vehicles to pass, and the efficiency of transporting supplies by animal power is too low, so air transport is the most suitable method of supply here.

In fact, this trail is named after Kokoda, a small town in the valley, where there is the only small airstrip in the area, which is just suitable for DC-3 transport aircraft to take off and land.

【Picture】

The partial division led by Youzi Tao was all lightly armed, and the soldiers carried supplies for seven days of combat and two days of emergency rations.

Therefore, Kokoda Town is not only the only way to pass, but also the life station that maintains this partial division to continue fighting.

Now, after three days of regular march, more than a thousand officers and soldiers arrived at a small village called Gleri.

It is really rare to encounter a human settlement among the mountains. The soldiers who have trekked in the primeval forest for so long were delighted when they saw it - all they saw from morning to night every day were the same woods, shrubs and moss. Finally saw the fireworks!

Inexplicably, everyone felt a sense of intimacy. Maybe this is human instinct?

"Same as usual, let's go take a look at two groups, and the rest of us will stay where we are."

"Order."

After a while.

Two squads of Confederate soldiers trotted away from the team with rifles in hand, gradually transformed into a search formation and headed towards the forward sentry.

Because the dirt road here is extremely narrow, the conventional front triangle search formation used in plain areas is no longer suitable, so they are arranged in a long Z-shaped fold line, with a distance of five meters between two.

The remaining officers and soldiers found cover and stood by in place.

After marching continuously for a long time, fatigue was unavoidable. Many people sat casually on the ground and chatted quietly.

Suddenly, an exclamation came from the team, attracting everyone's attention.

"Ahhh! Damn it! There's a snake!"

A tall and thin pacesetter rolled and crawled to the side. Suddenly, a snake spitting out letters crawled out of the grass next to it.

"Good boy, got bitten?!"

For ordinary people, it is very unlucky to be bitten by a snake for no reason while passing through the forest shrubs, and most people cannot suppress their fear of this reptile.

After all, it is a fear ingrained in our genes.

"Hahahaha, what are you afraid of? I'll catch you with just a click."

A sergeant major from the 19th Division's Scout Team approached with a smile, and when he got close, he suddenly took action, and with lightning speed, he pinched seven inches of the snake, handling it easily.

This senior sergeant major looked like a veteran among veterans, and he didn't care at all that several officers came over.

He was holding the snake in his right hand and could not clasp his fist, so he made a hasty gesture of caressing his chest, then pulled out his bayonet and killed the snake in full view of the public.

Three strokes, five divisions and two divisions were done neatly. After finishing the work, he said with regret: "It's a pity that we only have iron knives. This snake, whether it is roasted or stewed, will not stick to the iron if it can be eaten. It is best if it is Use a bamboo knife.”

The pacesetter who was bitten by the snake was grabbed by the medics who rushed over.

The medical soldier found the snakebite first aid kit directly from the bag he carried with him, and first used a tourniquet to tie the upper limbs of the unlucky guy.

Then he took out a small aluminum cylinder that looked like only the back half of a syringe, placed it over the snake bite wound, and then pulled the piston head hard.

"Ah! Tap, tap!"

"Be gentle? If you can't suck out the snake venom, you will die!"

First suck out the venom, then wash the wound, and finally take Ji's snakebite tablets.

Generally speaking, if it is dealt with in time, it will be no big deal.

Due to the complicated environment, snake bites have been happening continuously in the past three days, and there have been more than a dozen cases.

The poisonous snakes and insects that seemed to be everywhere made the soldiers very uncomfortable. They could only be cautious in every move and had to look left and right before sitting down to rest.

At this moment, suddenly, a series of gunshots came from the front!

First there was the unique crisp sound of the Lee-Enfield rifle, then the "bang bang" sound of the Type 21 rifle, and then the sounds of the light machine guns on both sides blended together.

"Bang! Bang!"

The explosion of Mills' grenade also came soon after, and the Confederate soldiers who were attacked were shouting loudly.

At least five or six people were knocked down at the beginning, and the rest hurriedly lay down to find cover and fought back in the direction where the gunshots were heard nearby.

The reaction speed of the Ming army can be said to be quite fast. The 107th Regiment has had sporadic border conflicts with the British and Burmese troops in the southwest border area many times, and its tactical literacy is generally good.

Several rifle grenade smoke screens were fired immediately, and several light machine guns were also consciously set up on the left and right wings, firing long bursts at the thatched houses of the small village in the distance for suppression.

The officers were also analyzing the situation ahead and issuing orders sternly.

"Second Platoon! Expand battle formation!"

"Where are your team officers?! Call over and take orders!"

There was a loud sound of gunfire for a while, and stray bullets kept flying over the heads of the soldiers, so close that everyone heard a low "pop" sound.

The Ming army found that the enemy's firepower was very weak, and even mortars had not appeared until now.

Youzi Tao is a middle-aged officer with a well-proportioned figure, but he cannot be called a popular face because his sharp eyes and iconic aquiline nose are very recognizable.

His eyes jumped from one place to another, quickly observing the points and surfaces of the fighting area, and then ordered an immediate attack to crush the resistance.

The lightly armed and simple partial division is inconvenient to carry body-barreled suppression artillery. All the supporting firepower is the team-affiliated 64mm light mortar and the battalion-affiliated 80mm medium mortar.

But Youzi Tao's thoughts were so meticulous that when the troops departed from Dali Mansion, he specifically asked for instructions to move three sealed Type 38.4 mm infantry guns from the armory and brought them over with him.

This kind of light flat-fire cannon, which was designed to deal with heavy machine guns during the European War, has long been withdrawn from active service, and the Yi'an Army is still equipped with it.

Its total combat weight is only 85kg, and it is easy to carry after being broken down into its components. The disadvantage is that the power of the shell is very small - the anti-explosive bomb has a 29g charge, which is not as good as a hand grenade.

But so what? It is so light and can shoot directly at targets hundreds of meters away, so there is nothing more to ask for.

Youzi Tao heard that the Ming Dynasty's weapons research and development department was testing a new type of infantry cannon - it has no recoil, is powerful, is very lightweight, and can shoot directly at the enemy's exposed fire points.

It's a pity that it won't be used this time. I don't know when such an infantry weapon will be put into active service.

"Boom-boom--"

The Ming army, which had always been extravagant, had to save ammunition at this time, and only fired a total of more than twenty mortar shells.

Under the cover of continuous short-burst fire from the Type 37 heavy machine gun, the two infantry platoons alternately covered the leap forward in a sparse formation.

The enemy troops were completely suppressed, with only sporadic and random shooting.

Surprisingly, these enemy troops with unknown numbers were quite stubborn and did not choose to retreat even when they were completely suppressed.

It is obvious that the Ming army has a strength advantage - two infantry platoons of seven to eighty people are basically the upper limit of the battlefield width that can be deployed in this damn place.

The two sides engaged in a low-intensity battle at a close distance of tens to more than ten meters.

"Bang! Bang!"     "Over there...grenade?!"

"Lie down!"

"boom!"

The unknown made people vigilant, and the Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers who did not know the truth played very cautiously. It took more than twenty minutes to clear out the enemy troops in Glaray Village.

After evaluation, in addition to the twenty corpses that were shot, about a dozen people took advantage of the chaos to break out, and eight others were captured.

After the battlefield was cleaned, troops moved in one after another and began to dig temporary positions.

Under the protection of several soldiers, Youzi Tao came to the place where several captured enemy soldiers were.

He found that these Australian soldiers did not look like regular troops. Their shirts and trousers were all civilian clothes, and they were wearing a kind of wide-brimmed soft hat.

"Has the cross-examination come out?" he asked.

A lieutenant present nodded and then shook his head, then hesitated and said: "I only know that it is a militia unit, about a few hundred people."

The thoughtful Youzi Tao nodded, turned his head and asked, "What were these people talking about just now?"

"Sir, these are vulgar words. I can't listen to them. It's better not to dirty your ears, sir." A translator said with his hands in hand.

The Ming army cross-examined these prisoners. Some kept silent, some claimed that the number of soldiers was two thousand, and some said there were only five hundred.

After a comprehensive assessment, everyone concluded that the actual strength of the enemy in front of them was about 300 to 500 people.

"The first half went smoothly, but now I'm encountering obstacles."

After returning to the temporary headquarters, Youzi Tao tried to light a cigarette, but found that the damp cigarette could not be lit at all.

The captain who was opening the can said nonchalantly: "It doesn't matter, boss, these people are just militia training, just a ragtag group."

"Don't underestimate the enemy. The group of people held on for two quarters of an hour earlier. They fought quite tenaciously and their morale was good." The captain's staff officer on the side picked up the kerosene lamp, lit the wick with a match, and then covered it with a glass cover.

"Okay, okay. Foolishness and bravery are useless anyway. I also saw that the tactical moves are a mess. I guess they haven't been practiced seriously."

Youzi Tao threw a whole pack of cigarettes on the folding table in frustration, then stared at the people present with his hands on his hips and muttered: "This kind of stubborn but poorly trained opponent is usually easy to deal with, but now No, you have to be serious. Concentrate your firepower, in short bursts."

If you fight in a place with good supply, it is easy to attack such an untrained enemy force - it can be easily disintegrated with the power of artillery fire.

First, they cannot dig qualified field fortifications, and second, they cannot use fluent tactical movements. They can easily suffer a large number of casualties due to exposure to fire.

Unfortunately, we are now on the Kokoda Trail. This partial division of the Ming Army has limited ammunition and cannot adopt simple and crude superior firepower tactics.

As night fell, more than a thousand officers and soldiers had set up camp with the village of Glaray as the core.

The outer security positions are dotted with newly excavated foxholes, several anti-infantry directional mines are scattered here and there, and trip flares have also been set up.

Piles of bonfires were lit, and the smell of rice filled the air.

I've been sleeping in the open for the past few days, and I can finally have a good night's rest tonight.

The temperature in the mountains changes greatly, and it feels a bit chilly after the sun goes down.

The soldiers, who were all wet from head to toe, gathered in twos and threes around the campfire to roast their clothes. At the same time, they took off their clothes and pants and went shirtless to check each other for locusts.

This disgusting mollusk always clings to the body unknowingly and is very annoying.

Sometimes I just crawl through the bushes and inadvertently get a few leeches hanging on my body. These brown and gray molluscs are about the size of a finger, adhering to the skin and sucking blood.

Their mouthparts secrete a chemical called leechin to numb the skin, making people unable to feel pain or bleeding.

Several translators who grew up in the city were so frightened that they trembled and retched when they found such disgusting molluscs hanging on their arms, calves, and necks.

In contrast, those soldiers who were born from farmers in Yunnan, Guangxi, and Annan were accustomed to picking off the leech hanging from each other's bodies and throwing it into the bonfire. They only heard a "shoo" and then smelled it. Burnt smell.

The next day.

The officers and soldiers who had been well rested set off again and headed straight for Kokoda, a military town more than ten kilometers away.

The Australian troops ordered to block the Ming army were the advance detachment of the 25th Militia Battalion and the Papua Militia Battalion, with a total strength of only more than people.

【Picture】

Facing the menacing and powerful Ming army, the Australian militiamen were outnumbered, and their tenacious will was crushed by shells and bayonets!

On December 12, a short-term heavy rainfall occurred in the Papua Peninsula.

The downpour brought the fierce fighting on Moresby's frontal battlefield to a standstill. The Army's Thirteenth Infantry Division fought very cautiously in the past two days.

How cautious? Often, infantry squads immediately stand still after encountering an enemy bunker, dig foxholes and hide in place, waiting for their own artillery support, without even trying to solve the problem on their own.

This resulted in the 13th Division's advancement efficiency being extremely low. The results achieved in two days and two nights were not as many bunkers and fortifications cleared by the 1st Marine Brigade in one day.

"Really, Brother Zhou, I went over and took a look, and I couldn't see any positivity at all!"

Zhu Lizhuo jumped off the Xunlei off-road vehicle and complained while opening the tent curtain.

"Let them go and reduce the loss of troops."

Zhou Changfeng was also speechless about this, but he couldn't say much, so he simply let them grind it out slowly.

At the same time, the town of Kokoda in the high mountains...

The remnants of the advance detachment of the Australian militia battalion of less than 200 people retreated to Kokoda Airport, trying to buy time for the arrival of reinforcements.

In order to defeat the morale of the enemy in front of him, Youzi Tao specially organized a fierce bayonet charge.

The five infantry platoons formed a dense formation that did not meet the requirements of field doctrine. They fired submachine guns and automatic guns in a concentrated manner, and the rest all had their bayonets fixed.

The shelling suddenly started, and hundreds of 64mm and 80mm anti-explosive bombs fell like raindrops. The total amount was small but the frequency was extremely fast, which looked particularly violent.

"Beep beep beep-"

"Dudu-"

A sharp whistle sounded. The suona could not be used because the reed was damp, so the captured trumpet could only be used to blow the charge horn.

In the pouring rain, the Australian militiamen, who were splashed with mud and water, saw a scene they would never forget - countless figures shouting and rushing from the front, and dense bullets came towards their faces!

"Long live--"

"kill--"

The distance from the impact starting position to the front was only two hundred meters, and we were there in the blink of an eye.

Some people were so shocked that they froze in place, and then were knocked down by a hail of bullets, or stabbed through the body by a dripping bayonet!

(End of this chapter)