By the early morning of March 10, with the main forces of the 1st Marine Brigade and the 38th Division coming ashore one after another, the 6th Infantry Division of the Australian Army, which was defending the northern part of the island, was in danger.

The Royal 3rd Tank Regiment (Battalion) received an order to "cooperate with the infantry in a counteroffensive", and the tank crews sat down in the remaining dozen tanks while swearing.

It began to rain heavily that morning, and the rain was so heavy that it seemed to wash away the smoke of the war.

But by 11:32 p.m., on a frontline several kilometers long, nearly 1,000 Australian soldiers launched a futile counterattack against the Ming army, which had long stabilized the formation.

The shelling was continuous, and the falling high-explosive shells were mixed with some smoke bombs, but one in the east and one in the west were very sporadic.

Six A9 cruisers and thirteen A10s were at first overwhelmed, and after destroying two, they broke the positions of one squadron of the 38th Division, and then advanced in depth.

But the Australian troops who followed up were entangled with the remaining Ming officers and soldiers in the position, and they were in a dilemma for a while.

If you are in a hurry, you will definitely have to suffer a lot in this kind of close combat, and a few Thomson submachine guns are far less than the opponent's automatic weapons.

If the position is cleared steadily, the timeliness of the breakthrough will be lost, and the opponent can calmly send reserves to reinforce it.

This is also one of the more interesting phenomena in modern warfare - even if the defender suffers heavy casualties, the small number of remaining soldiers can still significantly delay the attacker's action if they are determined.

The amount of rain has decreased, but the heavy rain is still causing a lot of trouble for both sides.

The sound of gunfire and explosions pierced the rain line and reached the ears of everyone on the battlefield.

Reinforcements from your side arrived soon, and it didn't take long for these guys to run amok.

The soldiers of the Ming army knew this very well, so they were even more excited, even if they were fighting separately, they were not afraid at all.

The blood that flows will be diluted by the rain, but the rain will not dilute the blood in the chest!

The dozens of remaining officers and men of the 38th Division fought bravely in the heavy rain, and completely mixed up with the Australian troops of the two companies.

Zhou Changfeng observed the battle situation from a hill on the north bank, and then ordered: "Carry out blocking and shooting in the middle area, and don't let them increase their troops." ”

"Yes!"

"Are the reserves in place? The opposite tanks and infantry are disjointed, hurry up and launch a counterattack! ”

Yesterday overnight, the Army's 7th Engineering Brigade successfully repaired the Xinrou causeway, which had been blown up, erected eight steel frames at the breaches, and then laid steel plates and bolted them together, so that the large army could go to the island more quickly.

In the face of an opponent who did not know what to do and took the initiative to seek death, the field artillery group deployed on the other side of the Johor Strait showed no mercy, and after the measurement was completed, it began to bombard the area between the positions of the Australian and Ming troops with constant velocity fire.

Three companies of the 18th Australian Brigade were wiped out as they tried to reinforce them, and a succession of 112mm anti-personnel bombs blew them up.

The commander of Company D was killed instantly—he was hit in the left eye by a high-velocity fragment that eventually emerged from the back of his head and lodged on the inner lining of his helmet.

The rest of the Australian army was not much better, and several teams were blown apart by artillery fire.

After the chaotic forward position, the 3rd Royal Tank Battalion collided head-on with two teams of the 1st Tank Brigade of the Ming Army that came to reinforce them.

In this way, 22 Ming medium tanks and 17 British cruiser tanks engaged in a tank battle that had not been seen for many days in the heavy rain.

Due to poor visibility, the encounter broke out within a meagre distance of 500 metres.

In view of the fact that both sides can penetrate each other, the commander of the tank detachment of the Ming army does not intend to attack in a roundabout way - to occupy a numerical advantage, to fight more and fight less, and to concentrate firepower to fire more shells as soon as possible is the king!

Most of the Ming tank crews chose to use piercing shells instead of hood blunt armor-piercing shells, which were more effective at armor piercing.

Anyway, at this distance, the former can also ensure breakdown, so naturally give priority to the better after-effect.

"Piercing bombs, two shots!"

"It's good to pierce two rounds of explosive bombs!"

"Put!"

The platoon commanders of each platoon first used side-by-side machine guns to fire tracer rounds and mark their subordinates to designate a target for fire, and then slowly stopped and fired.

Several 48mm armor-piercing blasting shells hit an A10 cruiser tank in the middle, and it was not difficult to penetrate the 30mm thick frontal armor and successfully penetrate its interior.

The fuse at the bottom of the bomb was triggered, and the 21g TENTI mixed explosive charge was detonated. Exploding in a small space of the car body, a small amount of explosives can also work very well.

The driver was killed on the spot, and the rest of the people were also blown to a bloody and dying state.

The armor-piercing shells fired by the British tank's 2-pounder guns had no charge, although they shattered and heated up during the friction that penetrated the armor, producing a lot of red-hot metal debris and even the possibility of igniting gasoline.

But this depends on luck after all, at least the Ming tank crews who were shot today were lucky.

"Beautiful! Hit it in one shot! ”

"That car is scrapped, change it, aim at the one on the side!"

After a few minutes of fighting, the Ming tanks destroyed eleven British tanks one after another at the cost of three destroyed and five wounded.

Several of the wreckage became clusters of fire that still burned in the heavy rain, and wisps of black smoke rose up.

Four of the remaining eight tanks were destroyed during the retreat, and one broke down due to mechanical problems, leaving only three to survive.

The Australian soldiers, who were in a dilemma in their positions, were puzzled as to why the remnants of the Ming army were still resisting fiercely.

But when they saw their only three tanks fleeing in panic, they realized that everything was in vain.

The tragic and bloody close-quarters fierce battle made the Australian army unable to see a glimmer of hope for victory, and no one could say when it would be smashed into a sieve by a shuttle of bullets and die in no apparent terms; And the sight of the British tank troops returning home in defeat made them even more frightened.

The so-called "one deserter can sweep away a squad, and a squad of deserters can sweep away a company" could not be more correct.

From the initial escape of a few people to the rout of all the people, less than two minutes passed before and after.

There is still a strong smell of blood left in the fiercely contested position, but it is estimated that it will soon be diluted by the rain.

The bodies of some Australian soldiers were entangled with those of Ming soldiers, and many remained in their dying positions, with mud-stained damaged guns and bullet casings everywhere.

This wasted counterattack did not make any substantial progress, or even slow down the advance of the Ming army, and the Australian and British casualties were greater than the Ming army.

In the afternoon of the same day, the 6th Infantry Division of the Australian Army could no longer withstand the onslaught from three directions, and had to abandon its position and retreat south.

The 38th Division pursued the victory, while the 1st Marine Brigade turned east and headed straight for Changi Naval Base.

The defeat of the ground forces almost opened the door of the naval base to the Ming army, but the Royal Navy garrison guarding the naval base put up a brave resistance.

It's just that their tactical literacy is really not high, and their courage is commendable, but their skills are not perfect, and their firepower is chaotic.

In the face of the coordinated attack of the Marine infantry and tanks, they flattened the Vickers.50 anti-aircraft machine guns on board to attack the Ming tanks, but it was only a jingling ballad.

The only thing that worked was a temporary 120mm naval gun, which managed to destroy a Type 38 medium tank, but it was destroyed by concentrated fire as soon as it was exposed.

The officers and men of the 1st Marine Brigade quickly captured the port area, and only a few British troops who had taken refuge in Tibet were still putting up sporadic resistance.

It took more than a decade to build this large, well-equipped naval base before it was completed in the autumn of the previous year, and much of the equipment can be said to be brand new.

Someone else's thing is incense, if it's for nothing... That's even more fragrant.

That night, the stakes of the battle forced Admiral John Werrick, commander-in-chief of the BDA (British-Dutch-Australian) forces in Batavia, to take a risk.

He flew over the vast sea in a transport plane and landed at the civil airport in Kallang to personally inspect the current fighting situation.

However, Verrick's arrival was practically meaningless, and he did not bring a single soldier or ammunition, because the London side insisted that Singapore had sufficient weapons and ammunition, but only lacked the courage and courage to continue fighting.

In the spirit of the old men of Zhengmiziqi, John Verrick made a very high-sounding statement.

「…… We must hold our ground, the reputation of the British Imperial Army is in jeopardy...... The Chinese have no superiority in numbers, and if a fortress that was originally planned to be defended for three years falls within a week, it will be an eternal shame that the sun never sets!"

「…… The urgency of the war is so urgent that there is no need to worry about the strength and the civilian population, and no weakness of soldiers and officers can be tolerated, officers must stay with them, and the gendarmes should continue to catch deserters and drive them back to the battlefield."

Then, he hurriedly took a plane and left-because the air supremacy had almost fallen into the hands of the Ming army, and he might not be able to leave if he wanted to when it was dawn.

The moral kidnapping rhetoric of the BDA Commander-in-Chief is disgusting, but in fact it has a negative effect.

That night, in the headquarters of the General Army of the Third Army on the other side of the strait, a group of generals of the Ming Army were discussing the next offensive strategy.

"In my opinion, don't fight yet, cut off the water supply, let's delay it for two days, watch the play, and then persuade you to surrender."

"Yes, it's really troublesome to gnaw like this."

"It is okay to cut off the water, but not directly, and it is best to combine it with other measures to have a more significant effect." Zhou Changfeng proposed.

So everyone present listened with great interest to his explanation of a multi-pronged approach.

Qiu Peisheng couldn't help laughing after hearing this, stretched out his hand and pointed at him and said, "You kid is well versed in the principle of 'attacking the heart first'." That's it, that's it! ”

In Kuantan, a large number of leaflets were printed overnight and then loaded into propaganda bullets.

In the early morning of March 11, bombers loaded with these propaganda bombs were scattered over the city of Singapore.

The leaflet contained only a few short lines on the front to inform citizens that the Ming army was about to cut off the water supply and that it would receive as much water as it could by 7:30 — with about half an hour left.

So the citizens in a hurry turned on the faucets of each house, brought all the buckets, bottles, canned water, public faucets and even fountains lined up to receive water.

Civilians have enough water to store during this time, but the military apparently doesn't have that much tap.

Singapore's water supply was cut off when the Ming army blasted a pipeline to supply water to the island through the Malay Peninsula.

To add insult to injury, the remaining wells and some water sources were obviously not enough to meet the consumption of tens of thousands of troops, which was another heavy blow to the morale of the Commonwealth army.

During the day, the offensive on all fronts seemed to have stopped?

This made the Commonwealth troops who had been responding to the Ming army's attack for days breathe a sigh of relief, and barely had a chance to breathe.

However, the good times did not last long, and the Australian and British and Indian soldiers soon noticed that there seemed to be many large horn-shaped objects on the opposite position, which looked like anti-aircraft listeners.

The Anglo-Indian army retreated with a variety of equipment, including several anti-aircraft receivers mounted on wheeled chassis.

The Ming Army's ordnance repair institute and sappers worked overnight, using microphones and these loudspeakers, to temporarily put together a few large persuasion vehicles.

The loud sound was transmitted by the loudspeaker after amplification, and the British and Indian troops and Australian officers and soldiers on the position could hear it clearly.

"There is no point in continuing to resist, surrender is now the best option. Think of your loved ones, this is so far away from home, are you really willing to fight to defend it? How would they react when they received the death notice? ”

"You are not welcome here, the British brutality is very disgusting to the common people here, they only plunder resources, and you are accomplices in this evil act. The only result of stubborn resistance to the end is destruction, and we can only guarantee that those who surrender within 48 hours will be treated as prisoners of war. ”

After such words are repeated three times, they are exchanged for a captive Englishman or Australian or Indo, who is asked to "share" what happened to them after they were captured.

“…… There is no hard work, we just need to patch the craters on the road...... In addition to the normal food, we were also given rations of black tea and meat......"

An angry British lieutenant colonel ordered the artillerymen to fire at the horns, but the artillerymen struggled and finally fired four shots indiscriminately, but not a single shot hit.

The lieutenant colonel continued to give the order to open fire, but the artillerymen refused to fire on the grounds that "the maximum number of fires specified per day had been reached."

On this day, after sunset, the soldiers who were about to move saw the opportunity and began to flee, threw away their guns, and ran towards the Ming army position opposite.

Overnight, many companies fled nearly five adults.

The so-called difference between officers and soldiers, such a propaganda method is effective for ordinary soldiers, but for officers and senior generals, another trick has to be used.

The "Persuasion Post" writes very "sincerely": "...... The defeat of your army lies in the carelessness of the British politicians, as well as some pedantic and stubborn people in your military. You have shown enough courage that continuing to resist will only result in more casualties......

Zhou Changfeng knew that these "British gentlemen" wanted to save face, so he specially found a few steps for them.

Compared with the Japanese in history, the British in today's plane have a lower psychological threshold when surrendering to the Ming people - after all, they are not defeated by the newly civilized natives, and they can get by on face.

(End of chapter)