At Haiwei, the beachhead of the Marine Landing Battle, a brigade of Marines has successfully landed, and the fleet is making the final preparations, and after bringing the supplies ashore on board, they will return to the sea, and will not arrive here again until the third day. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

However, the next time they appear, they will sail directly into the port of Kaohsiung, which will greatly reduce the loading and unloading time, and can transport troops or supplies with maximum efficiency.

In the small town not far from the shore, this place has been completely occupied by the marines at this moment, and a battalion of troops is guarding here, and the border headquarters of Lu Quan and Jiang Baili are set up in this town.

As for the rest of the troops, they sent two battalions to Kaohsiung, and one regiment and two battalions to Tainan. Judging from the current intelligence collection, the battle situation is progressing quite well, the troops have landed smoothly, the Tainan side has also caught up with the Japanese army, and successfully occupied the wharf, Kaohsiung side, Kaohsiung County has been taken, only the first battalion that went to occupy the wharf has not replied for the time being, but according to the report of the second battalion, the problem should not be big.

Jiang Baili was standing in front of the map with a serious face, looking at the nearby terrain and the deployment position of the enemy army, and then making a final plan.

It is actually very difficult for a brigade to defend two cities, and there is such a long distance in between, but the number of Japanese troops here is not large, and if it is only held for two days, it should not be a big problem. But the main problem facing the troops now is how to screen the Japanese army, and there is not much difference in the skin color and face of the East Asians, and if the Japanese army is allowed to blend in with the people and launch a surprise attack on the troops, the situation is still very bad.

In addition to military tasks, it is also necessary to pacify the people as soon as possible, so that they can resume agricultural production as soon as possible, the materials carried by the marines are not much, and with the more and more troops that land later, the sea transportation force is limited, and it is difficult for them to get supplies of living materials in a short time.

So according to the plan, they will requisition grain in the local area next, the war has made the Taiwanese panic, a large area of rice has matured, but because of the war and the harvest has been put on hold, the resumption of production, seems simple, in fact, it is not easy at all.

"Report, a battalion of telegrams!"

"Oh? Let's see if the guy from Jin Dadi has taken the port of Kaohsiung. After Jiang Baili heard the telegram from the first battalion, his frowning brows finally let go a little, and a slight smile appeared on his face.

"Chief of Staff, the first battalion did not take the dock." The communications soldier said with an embarrassed expression.

"Didn't take it?" Jiang Baili continued to frown, and immediately snatched the telegram, and after reading the content on it, his face became much more ugly.

"Is the loss of the first battalion too great?" Lu Quan, who was on the side, also rushed over and asked anxiously.

According to his understanding of the troops under his command, under normal circumstances, difficulties will not be easily reported, and once reported, then it means that the problem is already very serious.

"The losses are acceptable, the first battalion lost more than 100 people when hitting the dock, but the pier was not able to be defeated, and even breaking through the enemy's first line of defense is a problem." Jiang Baili handed the telegram to Lu Quan and said in a heavy tone.

"Oh? The little devil actually did such a complete fortification at the docks? After reading the telegram, Lu Quan couldn't help frowning.

The fortifications and firepower laid out by the Japanese army at the dock have even exceeded the firepower of the defenders during the previous landing, and there are strong fortifications as a support, if only one battalion is forced to break through, the loss will naturally not be small. The reason why Lu Quan was surprised was not because he saw the casualty data of the first battalion, but because of the Japanese fortifications at the pier.

If one battalion can't be defeated, then two battalions may not be able to fight, but the current situation is that they can only draw up three battalions of troops at most to attack the docks. The 1st Battalion is now a remnant, and the 2nd Battalion still needs to defend Kaohsiung County, and at most two companies can be transferred over, plus the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 2nd Regiment that have just been supported.

If it was just a matter of numbers, it would be easy to say, it can be said that the fortifications built by the Japanese army at the dock completely broke their deployment. Eight machine guns, which may not seem like much, but once these eight are allowed to form crossfire, it is difficult for the three battalions to break through their defensive line with the strength of strong fortifications, and even if they can break through, the casualties will be very heavy.

If it is infantry, then one battalion is enough to take this dock, because each infantry battalion has a 75mm infantry gun in its hand, and it is still no problem to attack such pillboxes, but the efficiency is slower.

However, they are marines, and their combat goal is not this kind of defense and fortification, so when they were formed, they focused on individual firepower and beach landing, while ignoring the army's ability to attack fortified positions.

In fact, it is not a matter of ignorance, if the Marine Corps encounters any hard bones, the naval guns behind will naturally help them solve it, therefore, the two main uses of the Marine Corps are, landing operations, urban street battles, this kind of combat that pays more attention to firepower is their strength, like this kind of tough battle, you just send a regiment up, and they play a role not as good as an infantry battalion.

It can be said that as long as the Marine Corps is out of the range of the navy, once it encounters such a tough battle, then it can only be blinded.

Because they don't have any artillery weapons at all except mortars, and they can only rely on infantry firepower alone.

What to do?

Jiang Baili was also thinking about this question tightly, what should I do? They must take the Kaohsiung wharf, and must not allow the Japanese to easily destroy the wharf, this is a matter of principle, but without artillery weapons, they cannot break the Japanese fortifications, and blindly attacking can only increase casualties in vain, and will not play its due role.

And the naval artillery could not be used at this time, because at the mouth of Kaohsiung Port, the Japanese army had arranged shore artillery positions, and according to the original plan, after taking the dock, a battalion of troops would be sent to bypass the rear to attack the shore artillery positions.

Because the narrowest part of the mouth of Kaohsiung Port is only more than 200 meters long, once the warship gets close, the shore guns will easily sink the warship, and the warship does not have any advantage against the shore guns from any point of view, even if a dreadnought fights against a 203-mm shore gun, the advantage of the dreadnought is not great.

This is the same as the Marine Corps' attack on the dock, which is a problem that cannot be solved at all.

"Order the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment to immediately turn around and attack the shore artillery positions, and immediately contact the navy after clearing the shore artillery positions, and ask them to send a warship into the harbor and use the naval guns to destroy the opponent's fortifications. Another battalion and regiment and battalion were to rest on the perimeter and attack as soon as the enemy fortifications were destroyed. As for how much the dock can get back, it can only be left to fate. Jiang Baili said with a melancholy face.

"That's the only way to do it, but you can't be so passive forever. The Third Mission should also be optimistic about Tainan Port, and there must be no more problems in Tainan Port. In addition, the first regiment and the second battalion were ordered to immediately collect materials for the construction of the wharf near Kaohsiung, and once the port of Kaohsiung was taken and the wharf was destroyed, it was determined that a simple wharf should be built within one day. Lu Quan added.

As senior commanders, they have far more information in their hands than others, Tainan Port is only a small port, subject to geographical factors, many large ships there cannot enter at all, and Kaohsiung is not far from Tainan, so there is no vigorous repair of Tainan Port.

Kaohsiung Port not only has an absolute advantage in terms of geographical location, but also has great advantages in terms of waterway, and it is also a natural haven, plus the shallowest 11 meters at the mouth of the sea, the deepest channel depth of 16 meters, even the battleships can enter, plus the narrowest point is only more than 200 meters wide, it can be described as easy to defend and difficult to attack. As long as the port of Kaohsiung is taken, there will be no problems with the supplies of the troops on the stage after that.

Because most of the domestic materials are transported to Guangzhou through the Pingguang line, and then from Guangzhou to the corresponding location by land, and once the Kaohsiung Port is opened, domestic materials can be directly loaded from Guangzhou to Kaohsiung, and the time and manpower saved in the middle are by no means a star and a half.

If they insist on finding a new port, then only Keelung Port can compete with Kaohsiung Port, but in the short term, Keelung Port is not within their scope of capture, their battle plan is to advance from south to north, and they can't take Kaohsiung Port, basically this strategic plan has already failed halfway.

"What if the Japanese find a way to block the waterway?" Jiang Baili was puzzled again, this is not impossible, if the Japanese dare to bomb the wharf, they will never forget to block the waterway, if the wharf is blown up, although the efficiency of building a temporary wharf is not good, but it can be used anyway, but if the channel is blocked, then not a single ship outside can enter.

The narrowest part is only about 200 meters wide, and a thousand-ton cargo ship can completely block the entire channel if it sinks horizontally there.

"Inform the Navy to immediately go to the mouth of Kaohsiung Port and stay there, if there is a ship going to pass there, it must be sunk in advance. In addition, the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment must take the shore artillery positions at the mouth of the sea outside Kaohsiung Harbor before 11 o'clock in the afternoon, which is a death order. Jiang Baili immediately ordered. Although the chief of staff can't give orders, he can't control so much at this time, and as long as Lu Quan doesn't object, the final order is still issued in Lu Quan's way.

Of course, if Lu Quan was not there, or if he didn't know, Jiang Baili wouldn't dare to give an order.

"In addition, inform the fleet that when you go back, immediately contact the infantry, and send an infantry regiment from the second landing force, I am afraid that our marines will not be able to get off the dock. Bring another army of frogmen over just in case. Jiang Baili continued to add. (To be continued.) )