"Kaori and another team have gone over there to find you, we have made an appointment at the meeting place, let's go over now." Shiori Mochizuki said simply, while vigilantly observing the surroundings, "Four of us were killed, and five of us were injured. ”

Hearing that four more members of the Odd Soldiers were killed, Lin Yiqing couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

Shiori Mochizuki walked a short distance with Lin Yiqing, and more than a dozen strange soldiers gathered over, and when they saw that Lin Yiqing was safe and sound, they all let out low cheers, and several young team members were so excited that they shed tears.

Lin Yiqing disappeared in the big explosion just now, they all thought that Lin Yiqing had no bones left, and they were all sad and sad, but now seeing that Lin Yiqing was safe and sound, how could they not be excited.

Seeing that Lin Yiqing did not have a long-range weapon, one of the odd soldiers gave Lin Yiqing his sniper rifle with a scope and ammunition, and Shiori Mochizuki also gave Lin Yiqing the remaining silencer from the same sniper rifle that he had lost, to help him rearm himself.

Lin Yiqing and the odd soldiers marched along the mountain path, and after walking for a quarter of an hour, they came to the place where they met Kaori Mochizuki and the others, and after a while, Kaori Mochizuki and another team of strange soldiers appeared.

Kaori Mochizuki was originally sad and depressed that she couldn't find Lin Yiqing, but when she saw Lin Yiqing appear, she was so excited that she almost fainted, and she almost couldn't believe the facts in front of her, so she then sobbed in a low voice because of her emotions out of control, and only stopped her grief under Lin Yiqing's kind words and persuasion.

"We found a hidden enemy barracks, which appears to be the headquarters." Kaori Mochizuki quickly calmed down her emotions and regained her usual composure as a female ninja. A new situation was reported to Lin Yiqing.

"How do you know it's from Command?" Lin Yiqing asked.

"I saw there the officers of the Duyizhi (German) state." Kaori Mochizuki replied.

"Let's go over and see. If it's the command. Then attack and destroy all the officers, especially the staff officers. When Lin Yiqing heard her answer, he decided to rush there immediately.

At this time, Lin Yiqing didn't know what kind of impact his decision would have on this war.

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

Major General Wolfgang, the white-haired head of the German Military Advisory Corps, was patrolling the position, and his eyes flashed with smugness as he looked at the busy but well-organized Japanese government soldiers around him.

Wait until the battle against Kumamoto Castle is over. He was able to return to Germany with a large bonus from the Japanese government and live out his old age in peace.

At his first meetings with his men, Major Meyer gave a visual introduction to the topography of Kumamoto Castle, saying that Kumamoto Castle was shaped like a horn. The analogy is quite apt. The main body of Kumamoto Castle near this area is roughly streamlined, with a series of large mountains running through the area along the central line, like a high raised backbone. A narrow valley stretches out from the mouth of a horn, almost perpendicular to the main body of the mountain.

It was at the tip of this streamlined strip that Major General Wolfgang and the Japanese government forces under his indirect command advanced nearly five miles within days of the curtain of battle. The vanguard assault force crossed the mountains and at once advanced to the edge of the jungle to build fortifications. The follow-up troops crossed their positions one after another. Follow the original trails in the mountains into the dense forest one after another. There was almost no resistance for the first two days, as the shelling of government troops began. The main force of the Satsuma army withdrew from here. Therefore, the offensive went smoothly at the beginning, even if there was a small blockage, it was nothing more than a small ambush, or a small number of enemy troops hastily built a position to resist it by virtue of the deep ditch and narrow road. The troops were cautious, advancing step by step, and when they had reached two or three hundred yards, they had to stop, and each squadron had to send many scouts to reconnoiter the front road first, and then the troops dared to go up. In short, for several days there was no front at all. Only small groups of soldiers continued to infiltrate the depths of the jungle, occasionally making small contact with smaller enemy troops, and then moving on. Together, it becomes a situation in which the entire army is moving forward, but individually, it is difficult for each department to say what direction it is moving at any time. They are like a swarm of ants gnawing on a pile of bread crumbs on the grass.

Government forces captured one of the Satsuma Army bunkers on the third day. The so-called bunker was actually pitifully small, but a quarter of a mile of relatively soft ground was carved out of the mountains and forests as a position, where trenches and underground tunnels were dug, and a small fortress was hidden in the woods, and several outbuildings had long since been self-destroyed by the Satsuma army. Although the Satsuma positions were small, they were built with great care and showed great skill as the Europeans, and although there were few Satsuma garrisons here, they used a total of two squadrons of troops to capture the bunker, and the infantry of the two squadrons surrounded the jungle outside the fort and annihilated all the defenders who remained in the bunker - a small combat force with a Gatling gun.

For the first time, Major General Wolfgang had no idea where his troops were to be stationed at night. Major General Wolfgang had finally built a front a few hundred yards outside the bunker, and that night he heard the Satsuma army bombarding it and knew that it was the bunker that was being bombarded. By the time the sun rose high in the eastern sky the next day, the troops had already advanced another half mile along the mountain road, and the battle line ahead had already fallen into small balls of mercury that could not be rolled quickly.

Fighting in such terrain was difficult for Major General Wolfgang to keep the Japanese government troops in a minimum battle formation. For example, the two squadrons were in close contact with each other when they set out early in the morning, but by the time it was dark to camp, the distance between the two sides would be a mile away. The resistance of the jungle was far greater than that of the Satsuma, and the troops always wanted to avoid the jungle as much as possible, and when there was a small river, they preferred to walk close to the river, and the natural woods were relatively not so hazelnut and muddy, and they were willing to go to the woods to make a way, and sometimes they came across a clearing with white thatch in the forest, and they were more willing to go. However, the Satsuma also had a way of dealing with it, and they often fired several shots into the open space by surprise. Therefore, when the troops saw the open space, they stayed away. They had to try to find the sparse jungle as much as possible. Whether it is safe or not. We can only wait and see. In the first week after the offensive began, the enemy that gave Wolfgang the most headache was undoubtedly the jungle. As early as when this force was mobilized to prepare for the attack, the Japanese had proposed that they should be aware that the mountains and forests around Kumamoto Castle were infested with terrible ninjas, and that they and the mountains and forests would be difficult to deal with, but this sentence alone would not make things easier. In some of the densest wooded areas, it can take a full hour to walk a few hundred feet. Deep in the old forest. Some of the towering trees grew nearly 100 yards tall, and the branches that stretched out were about 200 feet above the ground. The space of about two hundred feet under the branches was filled with other large trees, and the large trees sprouted small trees, and clusters of clusters made the trees invisible. In the little space left, all kinds of vines and sheep's teeth, artemisia grass and shrubs, strange flowers, and muddy bushes, all of them squeezed me, I squeezed you, and they couldn't breathe, and they all stretched their heavy leaves upward. so that they may catch the misty sunlight that sifted down; They are like snakes at the bottom of a hole, all vying to get out and suck in air and nutrients. Deep in the jungle, the sky was dark and dreary all day long, like a thunderstorm coming. But there was never a shadow of the wind. It was so damp, crowded, and stuffy everywhere, as if the jungle was a pile of torn tarpaulins, piled up under the dark and stuffy roof of the great warehouse, and the temperature was as high as day by day. The heat smoked to every corner, and the grass and trees grew correspondingly frighteningly large. But even in the depths of the jungle, in spite of the heat and humidity of the air, it was not silent. Cooing birds, squeaking small animals, and sometimes snakes. Not counting these, it was a thick silence, so thick that it seemed to be able to reach out and touch it, so quiet that even the sound of the grass and trees growing up with all their strength could be heard.

This environment is completely different from that of Europe, and in Wolfgang's view, no kind of troops can stay or go. Therefore, when the Japanese soldiers saw the reckless old forest, they bypassed from the side, and only the lower secondary forests and small woods could pass through. However, even in such a small forest, the distance of sight is not more than fifty to a hundred feet, so the initial combat operation is really not a command, but only a small group of soldiers. This section of the strip was no more than a few miles wide, and the headquarters had 5,000 men marching together, but there was little communication between the various departments. A squad of a few hundred people, the gap between the two squads, how many Satsuma soldiers can slip through. Even when the terrain is relatively open, each squad may not necessarily pay attention to establishing its own local battle line. Therefore, after touching the jungle for a week, it seems that the military concept of the so-called integrity of the battle line can only become a concept. Behind the front-line troops, there were Satsuma troops who had slipped through the net, and small ambushes and small contacts spread all over the jungle, and all the areas captured by the Japanese army in this area, so that the mouth of this horn seemed to be full of thorns, and it was never settled.

Wolfgang was no longer surprised by all this, and he even thought it was excusable. Two-thirds of the 6,000-strong troops had to remain in the rear, some transporting supplies and some patrolling the jungle. Long before he came here, he had learned from the intelligence that the Satsuma army in Kumamoto Castle numbered in the tens of thousands, but his men had encountered only one or two thousand defenders. The commander of the Satsuma army in the city obviously wanted to preserve his troops and prepare to hold out for a long time. As if to confirm his estimates, the Japanese army camp occasionally made several reconnaissances for him, and although it was a half-claw, it was shown from what was received that the Satsuma had indeed established a strong defensive line, which began at one end under the main mountain range on the outskirts of Kumamoto Castle and reached the other side of the city wall. Once Wolfgang's troops had advanced to the end of the mountains, they had to make a ninety-degree turn to the left, and as soon as they turned a corner, they had to run into this line of Satsuma lines. Therefore, Wolfgang did not care about such a slow pace of progress. Once the troops reached the front of the Satsuma defense line, it was important that the military supplies should be guaranteed and that there should be no shortages, so it was necessary to build a road to keep up with the troops. The day after the landing, Major General Wolfgang decided that there would be no major fight with the Satsuma army in this area, which he was quite right. He immediately sent 1,000 men to build the road. There was already a path from the rear to here, which had been leveled and filled, and the Satsuma people had already used it for horse-drawn carriages; Build on that now. It was widened by the Japanese army's engineering units. And brought sand from the beach to pave the pavement. But after the bunker. The trails were so primitive that after a week, the number of people building them had increased by another thousand.

It took three days to build a mile of Ruth, but the troops on the front line were advancing every day. By the end of the third week, the troops had advanced fifteen miles in the area, but the road was only halfway completed. The other half of the journey had to rely on pack horses to transport military supplies, and nearly a thousand men were mobilized for this purpose.

The war went on day after day, and the situation was always so dull. There were always dead and wounded in the troops, and the front line was finally more like a front. Every day, Wolfgang also saw people and cars coming out of various camps in the jungle nearby. With the current situation, he was satisfied for the time being: the remnants of the Satsuma Army in the rear had been cleared, the roads had been repaired, and the forward had been calmly advancing according to the deployment. He knew in his heart that in another week or two, at most another month, the real battle would begin.

There is a reason why such a cautious action is taken.

"General. Don't take a break? Major Meyer asked with concern when he saw Wolfgang's face, which was slightly haggard from exertion.

"Major Meyer. What do you think would have happened if our army had fought with the Satsuma? Wolfgang's mind was still on the war.

"If the troops of the German Empire had come to fight here, I think the course of the war would have been shortened, but ......," said Major Meyer, who muttered for a while, to Major General Wolfgang with the sincerity of a rustic German soldier, "our losses will certainly be quite heavy." ”

"I heard that the Russians have paid the price of nearly 100,000 casualties so far, do you mean that the German army will also pay such a heavy price? Like the fight with the French? Wolfgang asked.

"The combat effectiveness of the army of the German Empire is not comparable to that of the French and the Russians, but the Satsuma people in front of us are really a powerful army, and I think that if it is replaced by the army of the German Empire, the losses will reach at least 50,000 people!" Meyer said.

"Yes! I never thought that these little yellow people would have such powerful combat effectiveness, and their strategies and tactics are extremely superb! Wolfgang lamented, "Engineer warfare, in particular, can be regarded as a classic in the history of warfare!" ”

"I feel that even in the whole of Europe, there is no country whose sappers are so good at fighting." Major Meyer agreed with Wolfgang, "In addition, their detachments are also brilliant in raiding operations, and often attacking the rear with only a few small forces can collapse a large army." ”

"In addition, their artillery tactics are also very clever, their artillery is different from old and new, and the models are also very large, but they can concentrate different artillery pieces and use them together to maximize their firepower, which is always difficult for the Japanese army to do." Wolfgang's mind became excited, "Also, they are also very skilled in building fortresses, take this small bunker in front of them, it is not only hidden, but also extremely strong, and a small group of soldiers can be well defended against ten times the number of troops!" These are all worth learning from! ”

"Yes! In fact, I think that the biggest gain from coming here is not the training of an elite army by the Japanese government and the generous remuneration we were given, but everything we have seen here related to military affairs. Major Meyer clearly agreed.

"I've already written several reports one after another, and I've written down my experiences on them and sent them to Berlin." Major General Wolfgang said, "I am sure that these reports will be a great inspiration to the people in the War Department." ”

"You have done the right thing, General, and I think that these reports will be effective in improving the combat effectiveness of the German army." Major Meyer said.

While the two were talking, a Japanese soldier came running, saluted, and reported that General Aritomo Yamaguyama had come to inspect and invited two German advisers to come over.

Hearing the name of Yama County Youpeng, Wolfgang secretly despised him in his heart, but there was no contempt on his face, but he nodded and went to the barracks with Major Meyer.

In Wolfgang's view, Yamaguchi Aritomo was a typical politician, not a real soldier, but such a person was an important leader of the Japanese Army.

After coming to Japan, through a period of contact, Wolfgang found that this Japanese general, who was born in a lower-level samurai family, was actually very poor in command ability, and did not have much military knowledge, and he relied more on the efforts of his subordinates to complete Japan's military reform.

Wolfgang and Meyer followed the Japanese soldiers to a barracks, and from a distance, they saw Yamaguchi Youtomo, who was wearing a Japanese army general's dress with a medal on his chest.

But just then, Wolfgang suddenly heard a faint whistling sound in the air. (To be continued......)

PS: Ask for collection! Ask for recommendations! Ask for a subscription! Click! Ask for a commuter pass!