May 24, 1883

In the morning

On the fourth day of the landing in Glorious Bay, the engineer battalion of the 2nd Kalimantan Division overcame difficulties and opened several roads in the tropical jungle leading to the port of Saimuda, where heavy wagons and tractors could pass, and prepared for a large-scale attack.

As the battle approached, the Dutch army in the harbor went into a frenzy.

They drove more natives armed with cold weapons such as spears and blades, axes and sickles into the tropical jungle, and launched a near-suicidal charge against the officers and men of the 2nd Division, causing a lot of trouble.

The jungle still smells of gunsmoke, and corpses are piled up.

In the sweltering heat, the corpses of the dead aborigines quickly decomposed and swelled, emitting an unpleasant smell of corpses, which made people smell sick.

Hu Dachuan and his soldiers each wrapped their faces in cloth, only their eyes were exposed, and the rifles in their hands were hot, they had just completed another senseless massacre, and were directing the surrendered natives to clean up the corpses.

The bodies would be loaded onto carts and taken to a nearby river to be thrown into the river, where they would be washed down the fast-flowing river into the sea.

"Damn, that's obsessive." The three rows of feldspar dogs cursed, and came over with their spears in their arms and asked; "Company commander, is there any smoke, this is the smell of corpses that makes people's heads hurt."

"No way, it's all over the jungle." Hu Dachuan put the riding rifle in his hand on his back, took out half a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, lit them one by one, and took two puffs greedily.

It feels much better to let the strong smell of tobacco dispel the stench of corpses in the jungle.

The lingering smell of corpses is not the natives who have just been killed, but the corpses killed a few days ago, and it is possible that they are hidden under the bushes, in the ditches, or somewhere else, and the smell of the whole jungle is terrible.

Shi Gouzi took two puffs of cigarette and said; "At least two or three hundred people were killed this time, if you add the natives killed by the brothers, the total number is at least thousands, and there are those who escaped plus those who were captured, the number of natives who entered the jungle this time will not be less than 3,000, the Dutch are really crazy, driving so many people in and sending them to death at one time."

"This is the last madness, these days the Dutch drive into the jungle natives are not 20,000 or the same, how many more people can fill in?" Hu Dachuan replied, and saw a native not far in front of him who had been stimulated by the corpses everywhere and rushed out.

Without hesitation, he picked up his rifle, took aim, and fired a shot that struck the native captive in the chest and killed him to the ground.

This little episode

Unable to affect the numb soldiers and captives, they simply turned their heads to look at them and went on their own way.

"The Dutch's move is ruthless enough, and the launch of the general attack has to be postponed by a day, otherwise we would have stepped out of the jungle long ago."

"It's almost ......" Hu Dachuan looked at the mechanical watch in his hand, the time was 8:50 in the morning, he took a hard puff of cigarette and threw away the cigarette butt and said; According to the division's notice, the general attack will be launched on time at 10:30 a.m., and there is still more than an hour to go. ”

"Okay, then I'll do something." The platoon leader Shi Gouzi took two puffs of his cigarette butt, threw away the cigarette butt casually, picked up his rifle and walked towards the jungle battlefield.

The soldiers shouted at the native captives to speed up, and the confiscated weapons were piled up like a hill, and the bloody corpses were carried out in the carts, and the blood was dripping all the way, staining the newly opened road red and black, and smelling pungent.

More than an hour later

Two green flares rose into the air, and the cannon fire hidden in the jungle roared, smashing the hot cannonballs into the Dutch defenders' positions, and the corpses were blasted into the sky with fireballs and earthworks flying into the sky.

Preparations for a massive shelling began, which would last a full fifteen minutes.

The artillery bombardment was dominated by two 95-mm artillery battalions, and the artillery shelled the enemy's position at a rate of 6~8 rounds per minute, blowing out a large gap like a dog's gnaw in the civil engineering breastwork, which brought disaster to the Dutch defenders.

Wrap around the perimeter of the port

The Dutch army urgently repaired two civil and engineering breastworks as improvised fortifications to resist the landing force, but unfortunately in the face of fierce artillery fire, it was like paper, and it was broken with a light stab, and the Dutch defenders behind the fortifications fell into bad luck and suffered heavy casualties from the bombing.

After 15 minutes of shelling

A tidal wave of attacking troops poured out of the jungle and, in the midst of the weak resistance of the Dutch, quickly occupied the improvised breastwork fortifications.

"The Dutch devils are really cunning, more than 80% of the front-line positions are indigenous servant troops, no wonder the resistance is so weak." Hu Dachuan rushed to the enemy position with the attacking troops, looking at the corpses all over the ground and the natives who surrendered with their guns raised, and had a feeling of being deceived and deceived.

The natives are also classified, and those cannon fodder collected from the manor do not even have a gun, and rush into the jungle with a spear and sickle, which is the lowest cannon fodder.

The Native Servants were better equipped, totaling about 5,000 men.

Some of them are equipped with breech-loading rifles eliminated by the Dutch, which are considered elite firearms troops, with a total of more than 1,500 people, and the rest are still equipped with spears and broadswords and cold weapons.

The Dutch defenders put about 3,000 troops on the front line, more than 90 percent of which were indigenous troops, restrained by more than 300 white soldiers, were crushed by a heavy artillery bombardment and a massive charge, and those who did not die surrendered on their knees, and a small number escaped.

"Why are there so many indigenous ...... What's going on? The battalion commander Lei Xiaopeng led the follow-up troops into the position, frowned and looked around, obviously quite dissatisfied with the situation.

According to the regulations of battlefield operations, subordinates are not allowed to salute in order to avoid being discovered by the enemy.

Hu Dachuan came over and said; "Battalion, the Dutch sang us an empty city plan, this line of defense of the breastwork is full of indigenous soldiers, the will to resist is not strong, and the position is easily won by us."

"Grass, we wasted so many shells."

"No way, camp, when scouting before the war, it was all white people hanging outside, who knew that most of the people hiding behind the breastwork were natives, these Dutch ghosts were too cunning."

"Order the troops to stop advancing, urgently rest and check their weapons and ammunition, and be ready to attack again at any time."

"Yes, sir."

Hu Dachuan immediately went to give the order, in addition to the enemy killed and wounded, there were also 1,700 or 800 prisoners on the position, and these prisoners must be properly evacuated, and they must not be attacked with them.

In this large-scale attack, the Kalimantan 2nd Division invested a whole regiment and a battalion of about 2,300 troops, and as a result, more than 1,800 natives were captured, and they had to stop the attack and wait for the follow-up troops to come up.

It didn't take long

Colonel Koch, the deputy commander of the 2nd Division, came up with the people of the regimental headquarters, and he was also the commander of the 2nd Regiment in charge of the main attack, so he had to command from the front.

After 15 minutes of artillery fire, more than 3,000 rounds of 95-mm shells were fired, but only some cannon fodder was blown up, which was not cost-effective by any means.

Colonel Koch raised his binoculars and took a closer look at the port of Saimuda.

In the elliptical field of view of the telescope, the port of Saimuda is clearly visible in front of you.

The port is a town that combines agriculture and fishing, and is dotted with more than 200 houses, including dozens of sturdy stone houses, as well as warehouses and timber yards.

Through the binoculars, you can see that the town has been erected with strong barricades, and the figures of white soldiers behind them are full of shadows, it seems that they are preparing to fight a fierce battle for the attack and defense of the town.

Behind the town, high in the hills, you can see concrete batteries with thick muzzles pointing towards the sea.

The situation was both simple and complicated, the Dutch defenders had no way to retreat, and must have concentrated in the town, ready to fight a barricade battle with the attacking troops, house by house.

There were also a small number of elite troops holding on to the Port Saimuda Fort, and with the solidity of the fort's concrete buildings, the attack was bound to be smooth sailing.

Pre-war reconnaissance intelligence showed;

The Dutch defenders had no artillery, but they were not weak, with a total of more than 1,700 white soldiers and armed militia, plus no less than 2,000 native servants (3,000 had been wiped out), and it was still more difficult to resist stubbornly.

The stretch from the jungle where the attack had been launched to the Dutch's breastwork position was rugged and without roads, and the heavy 95mm Miss Australia guns could not be dragged up to accompany the infantry in a precise attack.

But Colonel Koch had a trump card in his hand, and a battalion of 60-mm light artillery intercepted from the Shangri-La Division was assigned to the attacking troops, and the so-called fortified barricades seemed to him to be a joke.

"Pass my commands;

In front of the target, two battalions of 95-mm artillery carried out 8 minutes of covering fire and destroyed the enemy's fortified positions. ”

"Yes, Master."

The 2nd Kalimantan Division carried only 12,000 rounds of artillery shells for the landing, and 5,000 rounds for a port was already a luxury, so it was necessary to save some of them.

In the heavily defended city of Semuda, the attacking troops had to crack open the enemy's tortoise shells with cannonballs, and the remaining shells were to be used in more important battles.

A moment later

Two shells were fired from the 95-mm artillery position in the jungle, one in front of the other and one in the vicinity of the port complex, which was a school shell fired by the artillery, and after the artillery observers corrected the firing elements, the mode of full bombardment was turned on.

Shell after shell after shell, and after a few shells, one shell landed in the middle of the harbor complex, exploding a large cloud of fire, destroying half of a sturdy stone house, and black smoke rose high in smoke and dust, which looked extremely conspicuous.

Using this as a standard to adjust the firing of Zhu Yuan, the artillery groups of the two battalions roared in unison after a few minutes, and dozens of shells almost simultaneously slashed through the air and smashed into the Saimuda Port complex, cracking the earth and rocks, and shaking the ground.

The Dutch defenders, who were cowering in the town ready to resist, were blown up and howled, and corpses and rubble flew into the sky, and the town was on fire like a hell of death.