With the machine gun on his shoulder, Sergeant Hao Jun, a sergeant of the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the 1st Marine Division, loosened the military discipline button, and even though Saipan had been adapting to it for more than a month, his body was still not used to the damn weather. Hao Jun was a northern soldier who had never experienced this humid heat, but the powerful weapons made him feel a lot less resentful, and the soldiers were more willing to win than endure the weather, and live until the day the war ended.

Hao Jun and his three platoons formed the front of the landing force, responsible for scouting and searching for American soldiers, and according to intelligence and orders from their superiors, after passing through this jungle, they would arrive at the American military camp on Guam, which was also the only small town on Guam, with about a few hundred locals.

Suddenly, the platoon commander in front clenched his right hand into a fist, and Hao Jun immediately squatted on the ground and held the "chainsaw" machine gun in his arms. The official name of the chainsaw machine gun is "MG42", and I don't know why the official above gave it this foreign name, Hao Jun and most of the soldiers prefer to call it "chainsaw machine gun" because of its fast rate of fire, and the sound of continuous fire is like a chainsaw sawing wood.

"Whoosh!" A bullet flew over everyone's heads in the opposite woods, Hao Jun only heard the sound of bullets, and knew that he had encountered the enemy, and the comrades next to him cooperated tacitly, and immediately came over to set up the bipod, Hao Jun put up the MG42 in his arms, and the bullet chain was also closely integrated with the machine gun at the same time. This process lasted less than ten seconds, and as soon as the machine gun was installed, the platoon commander was heard giving the order to counterattack.

The opposite fire was sparse, machine-gun fire came out from three locations, and a comrade was hit and lay on the ground wailing. The three MG42s of the third platoon immediately opened fire, and the powerful fire immediately suppressed the American machine guns more than 300 meters away on the opposite side. Under the cover of machine guns, the comrades dragged the wounded soldier aside for treatment, but unfortunately another comrade was shot in the arm while dragging the wounded soldier.

"Machine gun cover! Hurry up and get ready for mortar fire suppression! One shift and two shifts assault from both sides! "The enemy on the opposite side was unable to raise his head due to the heavy firepower, the continuous machine-gun fire caused heavy losses to the Americans, and when the mortar shells flew past, the leaves mixed with the stumps of the human body flew and the enemy retreated.

Facing the third platoon were soldiers from an infantry company of the U.S. Army, who fell into tragedy after a successful sneak attack and hit two Chinese soldiers, and the long-range, high-precision Haruta rifles did not come in handy, and the soldiers were eager to bury their heads in the dirt. The machine guns of the Chinese army were ruthless and accurate, and more than a dozen soldiers were hit in a short period of time, and what was even more tragic was that when retreating, or called a rout, the Chinese army clenched and let go, and the bullets kept being released, and in the end only 7 soldiers escaped back, and 15 American soldiers were captured.

The battalion headquarters set up camp more than 3,000 meters behind the third platoon, and after the third platoon joined the company headquarters, the company commander briefly interrogated the prisoners, and then ordered someone to send them back to the battalion headquarters. Fifteen minutes later, the third platoon received a new order to march with the bulk of the army to the position of the American barracks.

The three reconnaissance teams sent by the US army suffered heavy losses, and the commander of the US army, which was advancing, immediately gathered his troops and retreated to the rear barracks. According to the report of the soldiers who escaped, the enemy was the Chinese army, which landed in the direction of the southeast coast, but encountered the enemy's advance, I don't know how many people are still in the direction of the coast, but it is obvious that there are quite a few people, and it is not possible for more than 200 people to resist. The most important thing is that the enemy has strong firepower and carries a large number of artillery, and there is no future in holding on to resistance, unless you escape into the jungle and become a savage!

Forty minutes later, when Hao Jun's third platoon arrived near the target, they found that the American troops had raised the white flag in the barracks, and hundreds of American soldiers walked out of the barracks, raised their hands high, and threw their weapons aside.

In the battle of Guam, the Chinese army lost one dead and one wounded, and in the following February, the Chinese Marines captured the Japanese-occupied Minami-Torishima Island, and the American-occupied Wake Island and Midway Island. The Marines were only lightly tested at Minami-Torishima, where the Japanese stationed more than 300 troops who held out to the last man despite the lack of artillery, supplies, and ammunition, inflicting a cost on the Chinese with ten dead and six wounded. On Wake Island, the Americans did not arrange defenders, and there was also an infantry battalion of American troops on Midway Island, but these American troops were even more unbearable than the American troops on Guam, and they chose to surrender in the face of the Chinese landing.

By February 25, 1910, the Chinese Marines had successfully occupied five key islands west of Hawaii in the North and Central Pacific, at the cost of 11 dead and 7 wounded, plus the consumption of fuel and ammunition. However, the Marine Triumvirate was not satisfied with this, and their previous expectation was that it would be best to have zero casualties.

However, Jiang Fangzhen and Zhang Runnong's dissatisfaction lasted for a short time, and as a transfer order reached Saipan, the two were about to leave the Marine Corps. By order of the General Staff, they will return home to serve as commanders of the newly formed 11th and 12th armies of the army. The Marine Corps was commanded by Cai Songpo, and all three were promoted to lieutenant generals.

There are many reasons for selecting generals from the Marine Corps to serve as commanders of army group armies, and senior generals who know some of the inside stories believe that this is President Lu Liang's preference for the three people, and the promotion of the three people in the past has been influenced by Lu Liang. Of course, Lu Liang did not hide his preference for the three people, and the military high-level generals composed of high-level genetic generals would certainly not have any objections to this, and the promotion speed of the army's middle and senior ordinary generals was not much worse than Jiang Fangzhen's three.

The reason for the rapid promotion of ordinary generals is simple, they are more flexible in thinking and more adaptable to the ever-changing battlefield than genetic people. Another important reason is that Jiang Fangzhen and the three have been staying in the Marine Corps and are very familiar with the battle for the islands, and the two newly formed armies will be mainly used for warfare in the Pacific region.

These two armies began to be formed in mid-1909 and were basically completed by the start of the war, but they could be called "new" compared to other army groups that were formed before September 1909.

Chiang Fangzhen and Zhang Runnong would not stay long after returning to China, because the Hawaiian offensive planned by the Chinese army would begin in April 1910. According to the overall strategy, the Navy will first defeat the US Pacific Fleet and gain sea supremacy in the western Pacific, and then the Marines will occupy a series of islands, such as Guam, Wake Island, and Midway Island, so as to create favorable conditions for the capture of the Hawaiian Islands. Immediately after that, relay bases, field airfields, and other facilities were built on the above-mentioned islands, and supplies were hoarded, with the Marine Corps as the main attack force, the Army sent certain troops to assist, and the Navy participated, and finally captured Hawaii. Chiang Fangzhen's 11th Army was to be the main force in the defense of the Hawaiian Islands, landing on the Hawaiian Islands with the 12th Army, responsible for defensive tasks and preparing for possible battles in other directions later.

After capturing the Hawaiian Islands, the Navy will take complete control of the western Pacific region, and then use the Hawaiian Islands as a base to build fortifications against the U.S. Navy and attack the U.S. West Coast from here. After taking control of the western Pacific, the Chinese army could solve the Japanese problem without distraction.

In other words, the direction of the Chinese army's operations is to first the islands, and then to Japan, and it is not suitable to land on the mainland of the United States until Japan is resolved. According to the calculations of the General Staff, in order to conquer North America, including Canada, China would need to invest more than three million troops in North America, which is still a relatively conservative figure. No matter how powerful the army is, it seems small scattered across the vast territory of North America, and the determination of the Americans to resist aggression cannot be ignored, and the cowboys can burst out with surprising power once threatened with death, and the strong industrial power in the central and eastern parts of the country makes the outcome unpredictable.

Now that the Pacific Ocean is in a favorable position, and Japan will be dealt with, this strategy has won the approval of the majority of the military. But there are still disagreements on how to resolve the Japanese issue, but for now they have been put on hold because of the imminent invasion of Hawaii.

On March 15, 1910, a month and a half after the outbreak of the Sino-American War, except for the initial gunfire on the islands, the two countries seemed to have entered a state of peace, and the Chinese army did not land on the west coast of the United States, nor attacked more American islands, let alone sent troops to the Japanese archipelago to attack this key ally. However, Raymond, the new commander of the US Pacific Fleet, knew that the next target of the Chinese army would be the Hawaiian Islands, and in order to command the operation more effectively, Vice Admiral Raymond ignored the opposition of his subordinates and friends and set up the fleet headquarters directly on Pearl Island, the front line of the war.

Raymond has no warships in his hands, and the so-called Pacific Fleet is still an empty shelf, and his mission is to hold the Hawaiian Islands. In peacetime, more work was to arrange for the Marine Corps of the Islands to assist the Army in building fortifications, to arrange for a large number of transport ships to sail from the mainland, to arrange for the storage of supplies, and to distribute war materials to the troops.

This was the only thing the Americans could do for more than a month after the start of the war, their new battleships were still parked on the slipway, and the aircraft carriers belonging to their own country were still on the engineers' drawings. In order to increase the Navy's military presence in the Pacific region, the US Atlantic Fleet dispatched a detachment with two battleships as the core to support the Pacific Fleet, but both of them were docked at the San Diego military base on the west coast, and the range of activities would never exceed 1,000 nautical miles -- a consensus was that once the existing fleet encountered the main force of the Chinese Navy, it would definitely be the result of total annihilation before there was no means to counter the Chinese planes. (To be continued.) )