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Chapter 1643 Meishan Outpost Battle

No one expected that the Siamese army did not passively station troops in Chiang Mai and wait for the An Jia army to come to the door, but actively mobilized troops to the north, preparing to fight in Chiang Rai, which has advantageous terrain. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Chiang Rai is strategically located between the Khao River and a natural barrier of three small hills, especially the Mae Shan Mountains south of Mae Chan, which was historically the site of conquest between Siam and Burma.

At 8 o'clock in the morning of the 20th, the 4th Regiment of the 1st Mountain Division, as the vanguard of the whole army, destroyed several Siamese outposts set up along the road, captured the town of Mae Cham without much effort, and then advanced to the village of Ching Mae five kilometers to the south.

After capturing the village of Chiang Mae, you will enter Mae Mountain, where the first line of defense of the Siamese in Chiang Rai is located.

Chiang Rai's November to February is the cool dry season, March to May is the wet and hot rainy season, the average annual temperature is about 24 degrees Celsius, about 35 degrees in summer, and in winter, under the influence of the cold air from the south of the mainland, the temperature drops slightly, about 12 degrees, which can be said to be a fourth-class evergreen.

The weather in late August is cool in the morning, the fields are green and grassy, bright flowers bloom everywhere, the sky is a little dark due to fog, and the green woods are like emeralds across the mountains.

To the south of Mae Zhan Town, shallow water flooded the horses' hooves, and the creek gurgled and meandered long, flowing out of the mountains in the distance, carrying the yellow water muddled by the horses' hooves, flowing towards the dam behind them.

A tactical camouflage uniform and matching camouflage helmet, with an engineer shovel straddling the right waist, an automatic rifle hanging on the right shoulder, a cartridge belt tied around the belt around the waist, a raincoat and a quilt for changing clothes on the back, and a water bottle and dry food bag diagonally across the waist on the other side, this is the standard equipment of the mountain troops of the Anjia Army.

Heavy firepower and ammunition were carried by horses, and a mountain regiment was equipped with more than 300 horses, mainly carrying ammunition boxes, mortars of 50, 60 and 81 calibers, 75mm mountain guns and 70mm infantry guns. At the division level, the pack horse team was expanded to more than 1,500 horses, mainly responsible for transporting 105mm mountain howitzers and cannons, 107mm mountain rocket launchers, and accompanying artillery shells.

The troops kept moving forward, and more than 2,600 officers and men lined up in four columns, crossed a small river in front of the road, and disappeared behind a forest in a blink of an eye, leaving only the banks of the river trampled into mud and a line of muddy water.

Major An Shaohui, the commander of the Fourth Mountain Regiment, was born in the Boy Scout Academy, 24 years old this year, with a Chinese face, a wide forehead and high eyebrows, and a shrewd and shining eyes.

At this time, An Shaohui was riding on a horse, lightly raising the reins, and walking side by side with the political commissar Major An Ruoqi, and four or five hundred meters in front of them, a company of the first battalion was launching an evacuation column, searching and advancing.

An Shaohui and An Ruoqi were classmates of the Boy Scout Academy, and they were admitted to the Syrian Non-commissioned Officer School together, and after graduation, they were assigned to different units.

"Ruoqi, your old army is still being reorganized in Syria at this time, right?" An Shaohui looked at the team in front of him and said to An Ruoqi casually.

"Yes, I used to be the instructor of the 2nd Battalion of the 107th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Motorized Infantry Division of the Tenth Army under Commander Zong Xingzhen under the command of Chief Hu Jialin. Chief Hu is now serving as the commander of the theater in Central Asia, and is temporarily under the acting command of Deputy Commander General Yang Guan. I heard that Zong Xingzhen, Zhang Zuying, Chi Zongyuan, and other commanders were so suffocated that they asked for battle every day, but the General Staff held that the troops in all directions were sufficient at present, especially in Central Asia and Mongolia, and that they would not mobilize new troops to go north, so they told the commanders not to be impatient. ”

An Ruoqi said as she looked left and right, observing the surrounding terrain.

An Shaohui smiled slightly, and said ostentatiously: "I am lucky, assigned to the command of Commander Gu Changfeng, and now the 14th Infantry Regiment of the Third Motorized Infantry Division of the First Group Army under the command of Lieutenant General Wang Xulun is fighting fiercely on the front line of Shisufeng, I heard that after this battle, the five divisions of the Siamese are gone at once, and the next step they will follow the Aran Pass, go straight to the city of Bangkok, and occupy the most elite part of Siam." ”

An Ruoqi nodded, but there was some lamentation in her heart. When he graduated, he graduated third in the command major, and was assigned to the 10th Group Army, which was formed with an independent division as the backbone, and originally thought that he could show his ambitions, but he did not want to use this unit because most of the officers and other commanders were recovering from illness, but they frequently transferred manpower from the units they trained to supplement other fraternal units.

An Ruoqi was a platoon commander when he was assigned to the army, but later because of the continuous transfer of commanders, and his excellent training of soldiers, he was promoted based on his training results, and successively served as a company instructor, company commander, and battalion instructor.

A short burst of gunfire interrupted An Shaohui's words, An Ruoqi hurriedly raised his right hand and ordered: "All stop advancing!" ”

"All stop moving!"

A series of identical orders were spat out from the mouths of the battalion commanders and company commanders one after another, and the marching troops like a long snake froze one after another and froze in place.

The herald of the vanguard company rode his horse and saluted:

"Report to the head of the regiment, the political commissar! A battalion and a company encountered a group of more than 20 Siamese infantry, and after the enemy opened fire, they fled behind the forest to the east, and our company commander did not dare to make a decision for fear of any conspiracy and tricks of the enemy, and asked the regimental commander and political commissar for instructions. ”

"It's a Siamese scout." An Ruoqi didn't think twice and immediately made her own judgment.

An Shaohui nodded, and said to the herald: "Go back and tell your company commander that you must not attack without my order, let him send a small team of people to search in that forest, the main force of the company will continue to advance around the forest, and if it encounters a small group of enemies, it can be driven away by fire." ”

The herald rode away as ordered.

"After that forest, you should be able to see Qingmei Village...... Commander, do you want to spread out a company on each flank of the column as a flanker? ”

An Ruoqi took a binoculars and took a closer look at the surrounding environment, turned his head and suggested, he always felt that the nearby forests were too dense and suitable for hiding ambushes. Once the Siamese suddenly attacked, and when the time came, the troops would be very passive when they rushed to meet the enemy.

An Shaohui raised his hand: "No need, according to the air force reconnaissance, the main force of the Siamese army is assembled on the front line of Meishan, there are not many enemies nearby, if a small number of enemies dare to attack from the side, they must be good-looking." ”

An Ruoqi was stunned, and then nodded silently. An Shaohui's remarks are not unreasonable, the five battalions of the whole regiment (four mountain battalions + one artillery battalion) have a total of more than 2,600 people, and the heavy equipment includes 80 50 mortars, 40 60 mortars, 20 81 mortars, 8 75mm mountain guns, 8 70mm infantry guns, plus powerful general-purpose machine guns and rocket launchers that are popularized to the squad level, and its firepower is enough to effectively suppress the Siamese army of the same size.

When the troops marched in columns, if the enemy attacked from the flank, it only took a minute or two for the mortars to be put into use, coupled with the powerful general-purpose machine gun fire, the enemy attack would suffer heavy losses, if it was five minutes, by the time the field artillery and infantry guns were assembled, the Siamese army had no choice but to escape.

Sure enough, in the ensuing march, no Siamese troops tried to attack the 4th Mountain Regiment from the flank, not that the Siamese did know about the above situation, but that the Siamese troops stationed in the front of the Qingmei village only had two battalions, an artillery company, equipped with eight cannons, and four Makqin heavy machine guns, and the commander, Lieutenant Colonel Yangdala, was ordered to use these 1,000 troops to block the Anjia army in the Qingmei village for at least one day, so that the defenders on the Mae Mountain line could build fortifications, and at the same time create time for the main force of Chiang Mai to rush north to help.

In Lieutenant Colonel Yangdala's view, his 1,000-strong troops had no other way out except to rely on a few dirt slopes around Qingmei Village to dig trenches, and risky ideas such as taking the initiative to attack should be actively abandoned.

By the time the vanguard company of the 4th Mountain Regiment appeared at the foot of the hill two kilometers north of the village, Lieutenant Colonel Jandala's troops had dug three jagged trenches more than one meter deep on each of the two high slopes to the east and west of the north entrance of the village, and the cannons were erected at the highest points of the slopes on both sides, each of which was protected by sand bunkers.

The vanguard of the 4th Mountain Regiment 1st Battalion and 1st Company, after bypassing the dense pine and cypress northeast of the village, turned onto the main road from Mae Sai to Chiang Rai on the border, and the main road passed through the village of Chiang Mae, so this village had to be taken.

Rows of shells whizzed and exploded within twenty to fifty meters of the front of the company's sharp men, and the company, seeing the fierce fire of the defenders, had to retreat behind the woods, and the Siamese artillery blasted at their backs, but did not hurt anyone.

After receiving the report of the first company, the regiment commander An Shaohui rode along the edge of the forest with An Ruoqi to approach the main road, and under a tall and verdant South Asian pine, he carefully observed the position arranged by the Siamese with a telescope.

An Shaohui looked at it for a while and nodded slightly: "It looks like the fortifications are built decently, and if you break through from the front, it will not be difficult." ”

"Maybe you can reconnoiter the fire first, determine the enemy's defensive priorities, and wait for an opportunity to break through." After An Ruoqi finished reading it, he turned his head and suggested.

"Okay, that's it!" An Shaohui waved his hand and said loudly: "Herald!" ”

"Here!"

"Send the commanders of each battalion and the commanders of the artillery battalion and machine gun company to come."

"Yes!"

Ten minutes later, according to the plan, the first company bypassed the woods again, turned onto the main road due north, the Siamese artillery who had been paying attention to the movement on the main road immediately opened fire, the first company hurriedly retreated behind the woods, after a few minutes, the officers and men of the first company lined up in an evacuation column, rushed onto the main road, and once again led to a burst of artillery fire, of course, the mountain soldiers of the An Jia army were on the slope of more than 30 degrees, walking like flying, walking on the ground, obediently hiding behind the woods.

When the first company continued this action until the fifth time, the commander of the Siamese army finally could not hold it anymore and sent an infantry company, under the cover of artillery fire, to launch an attack on the "retreating" company, and the first company pretended to be panicked, and retreated "in disarray" along the edge of the forest, quickly disappearing from the sight of the Siamese gunners.

The Siamese infantry was condescending, and they were killed for a while, and they didn't care about 3721, and rushed down with a sigh of urgency.

When the Siamese soldiers turned around the corner of the forest and completely broke away from the defensive positions behind them, they were greeted by a dense row of cold muzzles.

Three companies of general-purpose machine guns, as well as mountain soldiers armed with automatic rifles, prostrate on the ground, aiming at the pursuing Siamese infantry, on the flanks of these mountain soldiers, a large number of mortars supported by brother battalions, and in the muzzles and muzzles, there was a faint darkness.

"Put!"

The arrogance on the faces of the Siamese soldiers disappeared suddenly, and they turned around and fled, but only then did they react, it was obviously too late, mortar shells fell like hail, dense bullets, forming a tight fire net, in just five minutes, a whole company of Siamese soldiers was almost all killed, the mountain soldiers stopped shooting, rushed forward with automatic rifles with bayonets, and captured more than a dozen wounded Siamese soldiers.

Two or three Siamese officers, who had fallen in the woods behind, fortunately escaped the blow, and returned to the main position out of breath to report the enemy situation to Lieutenant Colonel Yangdala.

Hearing that the opposing side did not have many troops, but the fire was fierce, he did not dare to send troops to fight at the moment, and strictly ordered all his troops to hold their positions, especially ordering the observation post to pay close attention to the movement near the woods in the northeast of the village.

After a while, a company of mountain soldiers of the Anjia Army came out from behind the forest, picked up the newly captured Siamese military caps with bayonets, and provoked the Siamese position above the hillside. Shoot at those cunning Chinese! Blow them up! ”

The eight field guns of the Siamese army quickly roared again, and the shells exploded in front of the provocative mountain soldiers, and the mountain soldiers did not continue to advance, and quickly disappeared behind the forest as before.

Lieutenant Colonel Jandala was thoroughly enraged by this repeated provocation, but he did not dare to send his troops again, he knew his mission, and he knew even more that with the meastic force at his disposal, he had to hold the place as much as possible, and not set out from here to attack an unknown number of enemy troops.

The attention of almost all the grassroots commanders under Lieutenant Colonel Yangdala was attracted by the mountain soldiers of the Anjia Army in that company, and everyone was gearing up to go out and teach the handful of "annoying little flies" a lesson, but Lieutenant Colonel Yangdala stopped them in time as a commander.

"You can't act rashly, they must be Chinese scouts, and there must be a large force behind."

Lieutenant Colonel Jandala said sternly, his judgment was undoubtedly correct, but he did not think further about the movement of those large troops, his eyes were only confused by the mountain soldiers of that company.

"Enemies, there are enemies northwest of the village!"

By the time Lieutenant Colonel Yangdala heard the report, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 4th Mountain Regiment had bypassed the woods northwest of the village, waded through a small river northwest of the village, and set up artillery firing positions along a string of small earthen bags along the river, eight 75mm mountain guns, eight 70mm infantry guns, and twenty Bayi mortars, all pointing at the Siamese defensive positions.

"It's not good, the enemy is in the northwest, quickly turn the muzzle ......"

Lieutenant Colonel Yangdala shouted at the artillery company next to him, at this time, a dense string of shells fell, and a piece of shrapnel happened to cut into his chest, and Lieutenant Colonel Yangdala fell forward, spitting out large pieces of blood foam from the corners of his mouth, struggling a few times on all fours, and passed away.

"Rush!"

Before the Siamese artillery completed its turn, a red signal flare flew into the sky, and as the trumpet sounded, the second battalion of the 4th Mountain Regiment took the lead in the charge, and the three companies of the 2nd battalion formed an evacuation column, holding automatic rifles with bayonets, and launched an assault on the western position of the Siamese.

Bright red battle flags flew, bullets flew wildly, blades flashed, and in a moment, the mountain soldiers were already approaching the main position in the northwest corner of the Siamese army.

Although the Siamese lost their supreme commander, at the instigation of the junior officers, they still acted quickly, organized rifle and machine gun fire, blocked them, and knocked down many of the mountain soldiers of the Anjia Army who were charging.

The Siamese gunners also turned their artillery to the northwest and loaded their shells to fire, but the more than 500 officers and men of the 2nd Battalion had already penetrated into the dead end of the artillery fire, and a few of them relied on the fire of automatic rifles to break through the enemy's defenses blocking the front and rushed towards the artillery position on the top of the western slope.

The battalion commander of the Siamese army, Major Phichai, led a platoon of the reserve and jumped into the third trench, and a dense rain of bullets was fired, and several mountain soldiers of the Anjia Army who rushed to the front fell in a pool of blood.

"Oh no, the enemy is coming from the north!"

When Major Phichai heard this report, he hurriedly looked north with a telescope, and sure enough, hundreds of ** people, under the guidance of a red military flag, regarded the bullets as nothing, and rushed up with a shout - this is the officers and soldiers of the first battalion of the fourth mountain regiment that annihilated an entire Siamese infantry company behind the woods, and there were forty 50 mortars behind them, and twenty 60 mortars were extending, which made the Siamese army in front of them miserable.

"It's over, another group of enemies is coming from the west!"

Phichai was surprised to look again, but it happened to collide with a machine gun bullet, which entered through the forehead and ran through the back of the head, and Major Phichai fell to the ground and died instantly.

The 2nd Battalion of the 4th Mountain Regiment took advantage of the situation to rush to the top of the western slope, where five 150mm field howitzers of the Meiji 38 type purchased by Siamese from Japan were arranged, and the gunners knew that the enemy was no more than the mountain soldiers rushing up, so they scattered in a hurry, but the Siamese infantry still refused to give up their positions, they drilled out of the trenches behind, and continued to shoot at the mountain soldiers of the Anjia Army, and the commander of the 5th Company of the 2nd Battalion, Captain Jin Hanchou, was killed in the melee.

The 3rd Battalion, which had been attacked to the west, quickly rushed forward and, together with the officers and men of the 2nd Battalion, cleared the Siamese soldiers on the top of the western slope.

At this time, the 1st Battalion had occupied the position due north and launched an attack directly on the top of the eastern slope, but was repulsed by the concentrated machine-gun, rifle and artillery fire of the Siamese, suffering more than 30 casualties, and then retreated to the rear of the western slope.

Major An Shaohui, commander of the 4th Mountain Regiment, led the 4th Battalion as a reserve, rushed to the top of the western slope, and the mortars also followed in time, and the gunners set up mortars on the top of the slope and fired continuously at the Siamese artillery positions on the top of the eastern slope, and at the same time, a platoon of the 2nd Battalion, under the command of Captain Li Changchuan, commander of the artillery battalion directly under the regiment, turned the captured five field howitzers around and fired fiercely at the top of the eastern slope until all the 150mm shells that could be found on the position were shot.

Eight 75mm mountain guns, eight 70mm infantry guns, and twenty Bayi mortars of the 4th Mountain Regiment were also assembled in the area north of the western slope, and these artillery pieces were combined with the general-purpose machine guns to easily suppress the Siamese Makqin machine guns on the eastern slope.

After the heavy shelling, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions simultaneously launched a fierce charge to the top of the eastern slope, and the Siamese army resisted stubbornly, and not a single one fled—perhaps because they realized that human legs could not match the speed of bullets.

After a fierce hand-to-hand engagement, a large number of corpses fell across the slope, and it was surprising that not a single Siamese surrendered from the beginning to the end.

A company and baggage troops of the Siamese Army stationed in Qingmei Village still maintained their high morale and did not choose to retreat on their own initiative, relying on houses and hastily constructed roadblocks as cover to repel an attack of the 2nd Battalion, and the commander of the 6th Company, Captain Chen Qingyu, was shot and killed.

"These Siamese people have some backbone, no matter how you look at it, they should know that this place can't be defended, right? Changed to the French, at this time they had already raised their hands and surrendered. ”

An Shaohui, who had participated in the war against French Annan, was stationed in Maxipo and sighed to An Ruoqi, the political commissar beside him.

An Ruoqi nodded: "Westerners are not educated the same, they allow surrender when the troops are inferior to the opponent and the troops are in a desperate situation, and they are not ashamed of it. In contrast, the Soviets and the Japanese were relatively tenacious, and it was not uncommon for them to fight to the last soldier. It is not surprising that the Soviets were faithful and Japan was a combination of bushido and Shintoism, and it is not surprising that the Siamese took Japan as a teacher. ”

An Shaohui frowned: "Speaking of which, we are enemies of Japan and the Soviet Union at the same time, and now we have added a Siam, each of which is a difficult bone to gnaw." ”

"Siamese people are not counted!"

An Ruoqi was relieved: "The Siamese people do not have their own industrial base, they cannot produce guns, ammunition and guns on their own, their equipment is backward, and their tactical literacy is poor. Commander, do you say that today's battle, with our men to defend, can we break through to the high ground so easily? ”

"That's true!"

An Shaohui smiled: "In other words, our Anjia Army, Little Japan or Siamese Army, without more than three regiments, don't want to gnaw at the position." Speaking of this, he pointed to the bottom of the slope: "The three trenches are not professionally built at all, although they are staggered, but the depth is not enough, there are no machine gun bunkers, and they are easily suppressed by artillery fire." There was no communication ditch between the trenches, so after the western slope was broken through, the eastern slope could not organize rescue in time, resulting in global passivity. ”

"That's the gap!"

An Ruoqi said: "Our firepower is stronger than that of the Siamese, our tactics are more advanced than the Siamese, coupled with the hard training of the officers and soldiers, the quality of individual soldiers is far above the enemy, and the Siamese are not our opponents at all." Also, commander, don't forget, we still have two army groups that have not been used, and if they are thrown into Siam together, it will be a matter of time before the Siamese people collapse. ”

An Shaohui's confidence increased, he held his head high, and called the artillery battalion commander Captain Li Changchuan: "Battalion Commander Li, I now want you to use artillery to flatten that village." ”

Li Changchuan hesitated a little, thought for a while, and said, "Regiment commander, the number of shells is limited...... Next, we may encounter the enemy at Mae Mountain, behind the village of Qingmei, and it is necessary to leave shells just in case......"

"In this way, we will finish the shells of the captured cannons on the eastern slope, and then attack with our artillery, and at least set every house on fire."

"That's easy!"

Li Changchuan saluted happily, immediately mounted his horse, and went to greet the gunners.

After five minutes, a dense rain of bullets covered the entire village of Qingmei, and every wooden house in the village was ablaze, and a Buddhist temple in the village was quickly collapsed after a volley of artillery fire because it blocked the view of the artillerymen.

After the shelling stopped, the 1st and 3rd Battalions attacked from the northwest and northeast directions, respectively, and engaged in a scuffle with the remnants of the Siamese army in the village, eventually capturing only 21 prisoners.

An Shaohui and An Ruoqi led the regimental staff into the village, and at noon, the cooks of the regimental headquarters set up a pot stove in a vacant lot in the south of the village and began to cook, and a squad of the regimental headquarters guard platoon was sent to collect firewood, and everyone naturally pulled out the broken wooden planks from the burning houses and came over.

One of the soldiers dragged a huge Buddhist shrine past Political Commissar An Ruoqi and was stopped by him.

"Where did this thing come from?" An Ruoqi asked solemnly.

"I picked up the ...... there," the soldier replied, pointing to the site of the temple where smoke was still rising.

An Ruoqi waved his hand: "Forget what our soldier guidelines say?" Be respectful of other people's beliefs and put this thing back right away. ”

The soldier hesitated slightly, but did as he was told.

An Shaohui happened to be next to him, and when he saw the soldier dragging a huge Buddhist shrine around, he came over and asked.

"That's something from the temple, according to the rules, we should put it back." An Ruoqi explained softly.

An Shaohui smiled slightly: "Where is the temple?" ”

"It's been destroyed, and now only this shrine remains." An Ruoqi was a little inexplicable.

"Then this Buddha shrine should be burned down so that the corpse can be destroyed." After An Shaohui finished speaking with a smile, he ordered the soldier to pull the Buddha shrine to the side of the stove.

"It's-"

An Ruoqi couldn't help but shake his head and smile bitterly.

An Shaohui said: "If you feel that you don't want to go, in the future, we will ask our superiors to build a Buddhist temple on the original site on the grounds of respecting national beliefs, but not now." Now that the whole village has been destroyed, if those villagers come back and see this shrine, they will not necessarily be stimulated and oppose us. On the contrary, if they come back and see that everything is ruined, they will definitely not think of anything else, and when the time comes, we will build a temple for them, and they will be grateful to our government, and it will be very quick to win the hearts of the people. ”

An Ruoqi couldn't help but realize that practical work experience was really important. Although he and An Shaohui both graduated from the non-commissioned officer school at the same time, due to the different troops they were assigned to, their visions were different, and unconsciously, they were too far behind An Shaohui. He couldn't help but secretly make up his mind, learn more from An Shaohui, and improve himself quickly.