According to the observation of the lookout post on the top of the mountain, the South Vietnamese battalion sent about 1,500 people this time, and this is no longer a patrol formation, but a real combat unit. But judging from the scale, they probably still don't think that the enemy that appeared on the eastern coast is just another infiltration and harassment by a small force of North Vietnam.

On the defensive side, the command has arranged for the musket units of the North Vietnamese Association to enter the front-line positions. Against the unprepared South Vietnamese troops, the command considered the co-operatives, armed with muskets, to be adequate. Of course, just in case, the command still mobilized a full three companies of the Haihan militia in its rear as a reserve, and if the combat situation of the co-subordinate army was not good, then the reserve immediately stepped forward to take over the position. As for the artillery units, they are currently in the midst of an intense assembly of weapons and will not be able to enter service until later.

As for the more than 1,000 spearmen that the headquarters asked Zheng Bai for, they would not be of use in the positional battle for the time being, and Ha Lugong arranged these men to the rear, so that they could cut down trees nearby and prepare to build a more complete camp on the beachhead. There are more than 3,000 people from the coalition forces on both sides and the people in such a small area, and if the camp is not properly arranged, it will inevitably cause confusion in the subsequent operational command.

After the South Vietnamese troops entered the visual distance, they were also stunned by the line of defense that appeared here between the **. But this time, the South Vietnamese commander did not make another mistake, and immediately sent people back to the camp to report the news and ask for more reinforcements. Judging from their experience in many battles with North Vietnam, this defensive line, which is no more than 100 feet wide and no more than 5 feet high, may not be as easy to overcome as it seems.

What's more, behind the low wall, the banner of "Zheng" has been played, indicating that this army that seems to have fallen from the sky is an opponent from the north. Moreover, the other party has spent a lot of effort to build fortifications here, obviously not planning to withdraw after showing up, and the two sides will inevitably have a fight here.

"Calm down, don't panic, just do it according to your usual training!" Mu Sha Bai lectured them in the formation of the North Vietnamese Liaison Army: "You have received the best training and have the best weapons, and dealing with these primitive troops will be as easy as chopping melons and vegetables! My only request to you is to obey orders! No one is allowed to open fire at will until the commander gives the order!"

After Mu Sha Bai and Feng An Nan were transferred from the Cliff Office to the Tu Son training camp, they served as instructors in the battalion, and most of the officers in the North Vietnamese training units were brought out by them themselves. Although they have not been together for a long time and have not confirmed the status of master and apprentice, and the two sides also belong to different interest camps, they have lived in the same army for a few months, and there are still some comrades-in-arms. As for Mu Shabai, he also hopes that the North Vietnamese trained troops can show their own level in this battle and achieve better results, which is not only an affirmation of the work of the military advisers, but also will make the North Vietnamese regime have more trust and dependence on the military aid of the crossing group in the future.

After Mu Xiabai finished speaking, he called Zheng Ting to his side: "General Xiao Zheng, the next battle against the enemy will be handed over to you to command!"

Zheng Ting's face was a little uneasy, but he still straightened up and responded: "Instructor Mu, please plunder for our army!"

The South Vietnamese army did not stay on the periphery for long, nor did it intend to wait any longer for reinforcements from the large battalion, so its commander gave the order to attack. However, in the eyes of the Haihan side, this attack was probably more of a tentative nature, and the enemy troops marching towards the defensive line were only about 300 men, and it was obvious that they intended to weigh the opponent's strength first and then make plans.

"Array!" Zheng Ting cheered up and gave orders to the troops under his command.

The North Vietnamese trained troops totaled more than 1,000 people, of which the formation of musketeers was five phalanxes, each combat phalanx of 192 people, divided into eight platoons for rotational firing, maintaining a continuous fire output of 24 guns. At this time, three of the phalanxes were arranged on the position, and the salvo during the battle could reach the output of thousands of rounds per minute, and the command believed that with such a level of firepower, even if the South Vietnamese troops in front of them directly launched a full-army assault, they would only end up delivering food.

The vanguard of the South Vietnamese, which was dominated by sword and shield soldiers, did not rush to charge, but marched slowly, carefully guarding against possible bow and arrow attacks ahead. However, they marched from a distance of 500 meters to 200 meters, and they could almost see the dense heads behind the opposite wall, but they were never attacked by the other side, which made these South Vietnamese soldiers also a little uneasy, and they couldn't guess what tricks the other party was playing.

At this moment, a rapid drum beat came from the rear, which was a signal to urge them forward. These South Vietnamese soldiers had no choice but to grit their teeth and speed up their pace to rush to the defensive positions on the opposite side.

"Raise your gun!"

Zheng Dinh gave an order, and the barrels of the guns stretched out from the three directions of the defensive wall, pointing at the South Vietnamese soldiers who rushed over on the opposite side. Zheng Ting did not rush to give the order to fire, but did not wave the command knife in his hand until the other party ran within 100 meters: "Fire!"

With a crackling and loud bang, a cloud of smoke rose from the head of the defensive wall, and the North Vietnamese soldiers who had finished firing immediately raised their guns and retreated from the queue, giving up their positions to the people in the back row who had come up to replenish them.

The South Vietnamese soldiers who rushed to the front fell more than a dozen people almost instantly, but at this time, the vast majority of the South Vietnamese soldiers did not realize what was happening, and still did not stop the charge.

"Fire!"

The second platoon stepped forward to complete the shooting, knocking down several more South Vietnamese troops in the charge. Although the arquebus had a firing rate of only between 80 and 90 percent, it was enough to deal a heavy blow to the unprepared South Vietnamese soldiers. The wooden shields in their hands could not stop the musket projectiles from this distance, and the hapless lead officer was unfortunately shot and fell to the ground in the first round of shooting, leaving the stormtroopers headless flies.

At this time, it had already been discovered that the weapons used by the North Vietnamese troops on the opposite side were not the bows and arrows they were accustomed to seeing before, but the terrifying muskets, the sound of the guns, the smoke, was not the scene after the musketeers fired?

Before they could come to their senses, the bullets fired from the third row were already flying in the air. Although the muskets exported to North Vietnam by the Crossing Group were all castrated monkey versions, their accuracy and lethality within 100 meters were still quite strong, and as long as a certain firepower density and firing frequency were maintained, it was basically impossible for a small number of infantry to complete a successful 100-meter charge.

When the first round of eight-row firing was completed, it took only a little more than half a minute, and the stormtroopers on the opposite side were already in a state of rout at this time, and the South Vietnamese soldiers who were lucky enough to survive in the back had already changed from the rear to the front, and they didn't care about any military orders, and desperately fled back.

The North Vietnamese soldiers behind the defensive wall were also excited by this result, and fired another round of fire at the enemy's back. In the end, the number of people who managed to escape the effective range of the musketeers was probably just over half of the original number of men. During this tentative offensive, hundreds of South Vietnamese soldiers were laid down just a few dozen meters outside the defensive wall.

As the enemy retreated, more than thirty North Vietnamese infantry rushed out from behind the defensive wall. They did not go after the defeated enemy, but came out to mend the dead and wounded enemy troops in front of the position and cut off the heads. The North Vietnamese Army's method of remembering merit is still the traditional way of remembering merit at the first rank, and this time it only took a moment to cut down hundreds of heads in one go, which is definitely the best in the recent battles between the two sides.

With regard to this "barbaric" approach of the North Vietnamese Army, the command held an attitude of not supporting or opposing it. For practical reasons, the command did not intend to accept the wounded from South Vietnam, which was undoubtedly a "waste" for its limited medical strength. And maybe if the battle is in the back, the command also needs to ask the North Vietnamese side for some heads, and bring them back to Luo Shengdong, Wei Ping and others to fill up their military merits.

The first contact battle ended with a complete victory on the North Vietnamese side, and according to the counting of the infantry units that came out of the camp and cut off the heads, the first battle just now killed 125 enemies, and 17 others were captured. If it weren't for the fact that North Vietnam now needed a large number of people to pay the crossing group in exchange for military aid, most of these captives would probably not have a chance of surviving.

The only wounded soldier on the North Vietnamese side was because he was too nervous and repeatedly reloaded his ammunition to blow up his chest, directly blowing himself up all over the face, and one hand was also useless. However, such a small episode was quickly forgotten by the joy of winning the first battle, and the casualty rate of more than one to one hundred can be dissatisfied?

"Good play. Mu Shabai, who witnessed the whole process, affirmed both Zheng Ting's command and the North Vietnamese army's expression, but he still had some unspoken subtext in his heart, and fired 2,000 bullets within a hundred meters of the distance, and only put down more than 100 people when the other side was defenseless, and it seems that the combat effect of the musketeers is still relatively limited.

For the first time, the North Vietnamese used muskets in battle, and the shortcomings of the arquebuses they used in terms of firing rate, reloading speed and accuracy, as well as the timely retreat of the opponents, all played a certain role in the final results. If it is an army with more combat experience, this record will definitely be able to rise.

After suffering such a loss, the South Vietnamese Army did not challenge again, but immediately sent a second group of sergeants to return to the camp.

"Base, base, this is Lookout No. 2, good news for you, the hornet's nest has been punctured!" Roger lurked in a tree on the top of a small hill to the south, observing the situation in the South Vietnamese army camp with a telescope condescendingly, while reporting to the headquarters below the mountain via guò radio.

The news of the North Vietnamese Army's large-scale landing and fortification on the coast southeast of the camp and the appearance of an unknown number of musket units immediately caused a strong reaction when they reached the South Vietnamese Army camp.

According to the trend of the battle before this, the generals of the South Vietnamese Army believed that it was a sure thing to take the mountain defense line within five days, so they were already studying how to continue the march north after breaking through the mountain defense line. But I never thought that the North Vietnamese army, which seemed to have little ability to resist, actually made a move to secretly cross Tran Cang, landed behind its own flank, and also set up camp as if it was going to do a big job. What baffled them the most was how the North Vietnamese Army could suddenly have a musket unit?

The South Vietnamese had been secretly planning for two years to set up a musket unit, and it had been half a year for the army to be formed, and it was not until the counteroffensive in the first two months that the fangs were shown, and the North Vietnamese army was defeated and retreated one after another. Supposedly, if the North Vietnamese Army had similar troops, it should have been engaged in battle on the front line of the Yangtze River a long time ago, so why let the defenders here hold out for a month and not show up until now?

The South Vietnamese Army did not have spies in the north, but they had never heard of any firearms units in the North Vietnamese Army, and the only information they knew was that two or three thousand reinforcements seemed to have arrived from the north a few days ago. However, in the eyes of the South Vietnamese, such a small reinforcement could hardly affect the course of the war, and of course this view ruled out the possibility of musket troops.

And the location where this North Vietnamese army appeared was not remote, according to the South Vietnamese military reconnaissance, the beach area was not large, and it was impossible to accommodate a large number of troops to land, at best a few thousand people. But in any case, the South Vietnamese army must not sit idly by and watch a North Vietnamese armed force threaten it from behind, otherwise even if it has laid a mountain defense, it will not be able to continue its march to the north with peace of mind. After a brief weighing, the generals of the South Vietnamese army decided to pull out the nail in their backs first, and then consider attacking the mountain defense line.

Since there were musketeers in the North Vietnamese army, the South Vietnamese generals, who knew that the musket troops were powerful, decided that they could no longer make a small fuss, but had to make a big move to directly destroy this stronghold. As a result, the South Vietnamese military camp immediately began to mobilize troops, making a lot of chickens and dogs jump.

In addition to the camp that was being built in full swing in the rear, hundreds of civilians were cooperating with the artillery to assemble dozens of guns unloaded from the ship onto the gun mount.

This time, Yan Chujie personally commanded the artillery, but before the artillery was stationed in the position, it encountered a small trouble in assembling.

In order to facilitate transportation, the artillery used by the army adopts a detachable base, and the gun body and the carriage can be separated for easy loading and transportation. However, the North Vietnamese people who were in charge of unloading the ship at the time of landing obviously did not understand the cargo handling procedures of the Hai Han, and mixed and stacked the unloaded artillery parts and accessories together, and there were some small differences in specifications between the self-use version of the Hai Han militia and the monkey version exported to North Vietnam, so the artillerymen had to spend time to distinguish the artillery parts of different specifications from the mountains of materials piled up on the beachhead, and then assemble them.

This kind of delay of at least half an hour was an extra minute, which was an accident for the battle plan drawn up by the command. Yan Chujie scolded the officer in charge of commanding the Minfu on the North Vietnamese side, and finally had to take advantage of the gap between battles to bring several people from the command headquarters to personally go into battle and command the Minfu to assemble artillery.

Compared with the busyness of others, the special operations company, which had already been in the limelight before this, fell into a situation of idleness at this time. According to the original arrangement, the tasks undertaken by the special operations company were basically reconnaissance behind enemy lines and surprise attack operations, and as for such errands as positional offensive and defensive warfare, the command headquarters did not intend to hand it over to Qian Tiandun's company, because after all, array operations were not their specialty.

As a result, as soon as the official battle began, the special operations company was withdrawn from the line of fire by the command, and the latest order given to them was to "rest and be on standby."

"Company commander!"

"What's the matter?" Qian Tiandun looked at the map in his hand, and without looking up, he could hear that it was Takahashi Minami who was greeting him.

"The combat effectiveness of the Annamite people is far inferior to ours, so why did the command let them fight on the front line, but arranged for us to rest?" Gao Qiao Nan seemed to be a little dissatisfied with the arrangement of the command center: "Shouldn't we show the strength of Haihan? I think it is the best choice for us to fight the South Vietnamese Army! Doesn't the company commander have any other ideas about the arrangement of the command center?"

"Takahashi squad leader, as a soldier, it is my duty to obey orders, and the orders of the command headquarters must be obeyed by all Haihan soldiers, including you and me. Qian Tiandun said to Takahashi Minami very seriously: "Even if you don't understand, you must act according to orders! In our Haihan army, there will be no such thing as going down to the top, if you have similar ideas, it's best to put it away for me as soon as possible! Your current identity is a Haihan soldier, not a Japanese shogunate, and you know who you want to be loyal to!"

"Yes!" Takahashi Minami hurriedly responded: "I will be loyal to the Executive Committee for the rest of my life, please don't doubt my loyalty!"

Qian Tiandun saw that his attitude was quite correct, so he relaxed his tone a little and said: "In the battle plan arranged by the headquarters, our task is to fight behind enemy lines, and this is not our position. The areas where we went south by boat the other day to reconnoiter are the next targets. ”

Takahashi's eyes lit up and said, "That means we will have other combat missions?"

"Of course. Qian Tiandun nodded and said, "We didn't come out this time to catch a few tongues, and we were done by eliminating one or two patrols." The next combat mission we have to complete will directly affect the future trend of the battle. But we have to wait until we can stabilize our position here before we can get out and do something else. Don't be in a hurry, first look at the combat methods of the South Vietnamese Army, which will also be beneficial to our later operations. ”