Episode 105 Defeat the Battle of Haizhou

On the morning of 30 November, the Ming Marine Corps assault battalion occupied Liandao and Yuntai Mountain, and at noon, six 3,000-ton troop carriers sailed into the port and directly transported the 1st Marine Division ashore at the wharf. At the same time, 26 transport ships took turns to dock at the wharf to unload the division's logistical heavy materials, vehicles, tanks, artillery, and other heavy equipment.

However, this takes time. It's not as fast to get a shipload of heavy supplies to the dock as it is to get a boatload of people on the dock. And now the battle is fleeting, and every second counts, and not a second can be delayed. On the afternoon of the 30th, the 1st Marine Division established a division headquarters in the port area, and at the same time requisitioned all the locomotives and wagons in the port.

With only light weapons and light artillery, and a small number of vehicles, the officers and men of the 1st Marine Division rode on the train, played their flutes, waved to the citizens of the port area who welcomed them on both sides of the railway, and headed inland to the southeast.

……

The main urban area of Haizhou is divided into two large parts. One piece is the port area. The commanding heights of the port area are Yuntai Mountain, which has now been taken. The other urban area is Xinpu District. The commanding heights of Xinpu District are Huaguo Mountain. The height and area of Huaguo Mountain are equivalent to Yuntai Mountain, which are more than 100 square kilometers and hundreds of meters above sea level.

However, the defense of Huaguo Mountain is obviously far inferior to Yuntai Mountain and Liandao. Yuntai Mountain and Liandao originally had large-scale coastal defense permanent fortifications, but there were none on Huaguo Mountain. Huaguo Mountain has always been a place of scenic interest, and the Qing army has only recently built some temporary fortifications of civil sandbags on it. Just some machine guns and mortars, small mountain guns were arranged. It's not that the heavy equipment can't be transported, it's mainly that the defense is temporarily hastily grasped, and there is no time to build a place to place the heavy artillery. Unlike machine guns and mortars, you can place them anywhere.

A regiment of the vanguard took a train with about 20 wagons, first rushed southwest for about eight kilometers, drove to the foot of the mountain on the northwest side of Huaguo Mountain, stopped at Niangniang Temple, and did not dare to drive forward rashly. Although it was possible to bypass Huaguo Mountain, go straight to Xinpu City, and have a good chance of occupying Haizhou before the army, the commander of the 1st Marine Division still did not take this risk.

Before the commanding heights of Huaguo Mountain were controlled, more than 1,000 people took a train to detour more than ten kilometers from the foot of the mountain, which was too dangerous. If the Qing army planted ** in one place, detonated when the train passed by, and then ambushed, then the entire vanguard would not be wiped out.

The vanguard stopped at the Niangniang Temple in the northwest corner of Huaguo Mountain, and more than 1,000 people jumped off the train and began to go up the mountain to seize the commanding heights along the railway.

Just a few minutes up the hill, there was a dense burst of gunfire and whistling mortars at the front - sure enough, there was an ambush of the Qing army. The reconnaissance company exchanged fire with the opposing side.

A regiment of the Ming army immediately dispersed and touched the mountain from different directions. The reconnaissance company at the front was lying down in the woods while setting up machine guns and mortars and returning fire on the spot, also carrying out fire reconnaissance.

After an exchange of fire, the reconnaissance company roughly figured out the location of several major firing points on the hillside. On the opposite side should be just a small unit of the Qing army, about two companies or so, probably blowing up the train here. The opponent had only two machine-gun points, two mortars. With such a little strength, the Ming Marine Corps Regiment had not yet taken it into account, and felt that there was no need to call for air support, so they decided to eat it easily.

A marine battalion of the Ming army immediately launched a fierce attack, bringing in two 80mm mortars, three 60mm mortars, and six woodpecker machine guns, which immediately formed an overwhelming firepower, and the mortar shells kept whizzing past, and the slopes above were full of flowers, shrubs and small branches and leaves were constantly flying into the sky, and debris of earth and rocks flew everywhere like shrapnel.

Within a few minutes, the opponent's two heavy machine guns and two mortars were muted one after another. Hundreds of Marines were outflanked from all sides with cats and submachine guns. For a moment, the sound of rifles, submachine guns, grenade explosions, screams, and shouts mingled. Fifteen minutes later, the battle ended. More than 100 Qing prisoners raised their hands or carried the wounded, and descended the mountain in embarrassment. Counted. In this small battle, more than 50 Qing soldiers were killed and 21 Ming soldiers were killed.

……

With the first battle of Niangniang Temple, the battle to capture Huaguo Mountain began.

The Battle of Huaguo Mountain was made up of a series of similar small battles. The Ming army changed its tactics. In the past, when attacking similar targets, they were first surrounded on all sides, and then concentrated annihilation. At present, the Ming army adopted the tactic of "besieging the city", using the strength of one division to encircle Huaguo Mountain on three sides, and then gradually attack inward from the north, east, and south, and squeeze one hill after another.

Under this mentality of having both a way to retreat but a danger of being encircled at any time, the Qing army had no intention of holding on hard, and each hill was hit a few times, and then it retreated in a hurry, always wanting to retreat with the whole division to avoid being surrounded and annihilated. As a result, the Ming army gradually occupied Huaguo Mountain with the smallest casualties and the fastest speed.

By about seven o'clock in the evening of the 30th, the main force of the Qing army on Huaguo Mountain, about a brigade of troops, was basically driven to the southeast plain and joined the main force of the Central Plains Corps' defensive line.

By this time, the People's Guard had advanced to four kilometers southwest of the Xinpu urban area.

To the north, the 3rd Panzer Division is attacking Jinping Mountain. Jinping Mountain is a commanding height in the southwest of Xinpu City, with an area of about 10 square kilometers and an altitude of more than 400 meters. Once the Fifth Armored Division takes Jinping Mountain, it is equivalent to taking Xinpu and half of Haizhou.

To the east, the Fourth Panzer Division and the five Army Motorized Infantry Divisions were advancing in the direction of the sea, tearing and dividing a large section of the easternmost part of the Qing army's defense line, and there was a tendency to drive them into the sea.

……

At eight o'clock in the evening, the commanding heights of Jinping Mountain were overcome, and the commander of the 3rd Armored Division drove straight into the Xinpu urban area, and Xinpu was recovered. At the same time, the Ming army occupation area in the south and the Haizhou theater were connected together, completely encircling the 80,000 Qing troops east of Xinpu between Haizhou and Guanyun, and the south, north, and west directions were all occupied by the Ming army, while the east was only the sea.

From the evening of November 30 to the early morning of December 1, the Ming People's Guard, Army, and Marine Corps marched in three directions and completely occupied the entire Haizhou area. Haizhou was recovered.

At the same time, the southern encirclement was not idle all night. The continuous nighttime bombardment of Gassa's leaflets continued to advance and shrink the encirclement, and in the early morning of December 1, the remnants of more than 70,000 Qing troops in the encirclement finally surrendered.

At this point, the Battle of Haizhou came to an end. The Ming army completely gnawed the southeast corner of the Central Plains Corps, occupied the first port city since the start of the war, won a seaport that directly transported to the front, and at the same time, opened up a new situation of attacking Shandong in the north and Xuzhou in the west.

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(Looks like the old cat is really dying of exhaustion.) The day before yesterday, I fought a double change 6k until now, and I have a headache every day, and I really can't move today, and I want to vomit...... There is only so much to do, and the 2k right should be a break and strive to recover tomorrow...... ）