The "click" of several Type 33 light machine guns came and went, and the armed Marine infantry calmly knocked down the Philippine infantry charging with rifles in a short shot.

On the flank of this beachhead, the only Type 37 heavy machine gun was placed here, and the machine gunner only felt his heart pounding, and the enemy shells exploded not far away, and his skin could clearly feel the warm blast air blowing.

"Wow, blah, bh-"

The Type 37 heavy machine gun in high rate of fire mode spits out bullets at a rate of 700 rounds per minute, and the 7.36mm machine gun bullet of more than 3,000 joules left a bloody wound close to the size of a fist after penetrating the human body!

Despite the chaotic and fragmented structure, the well-trained and experienced officers and men of the 2nd Marine Brigade still resisted the Philippine army's counterattack.

One by one, the Filipino soldiers were killed and wounded by a network of machine guns and mortars, and fell to their deaths on the beachhead screaming.

"Someone touched it!!"

"See, in the pit ahead."

"Give Lao Tzu an empty bag of bombs and blow him up!"

Only a few approached the Ming positions, but they were quickly killed and wounded by grenades and grenades, and the remaining ones were huddled behind craters and bunkers, bewildered.

The 11th Infantry Division's attack was stalled, a situation that was completely unexpected by the Philippine army, and Brigadier General Wainwright frowned, muttered the word "unbelievable", and was interrupted by the rapid ringing of the telephone.

"Sir! Our offense didn't work, we ......"

At this moment, a dazzling flash of light suddenly appeared on the sea in the distance.

Everyone's confusion and confusion lasted less than two seconds, and then their expressions turned to horror.

Depend on! That's shelling from the Ming fleet!

The battleship Yuanfeng faced the coastline on the port side and fired a standard salvo with four twin 352mm guns.

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! ”

A thunderous roar came belatedly from the distant sea, as if penetrating heaven and earth, giving the officers a heavy hammer in their hearts.

Eight anti-explosive shells weighing 615 kg were accurately scattered in the depths of the beachhead, with the impact points on both sides about 100 meters apart, and the place in between them was undoubtedly a death zone.

Before the smoke and dust from the explosion dissipated, scattered stumps and severed arms and weapons and equipment fell one after another, followed by tattered military uniforms and canvas equipment......

The old and strong Yuan Fenghao played well when supporting the other side, proving that he can still find work even if he is not suitable for modern sea and air warfare.

Then, 128mm and 144mm anti-explosive bombs fired from destroyers and cruisers also rained down, and the vast depth of the beachhead was almost swept away by dense fire.

The deafening sound of artillery made the hearts of the people in the second-line command tremble, and some people had already collapsed uncontrollably on the ground.

"It's over, it's over......"

The two battalions and six infantry companies that had been engaged in the beachhead counterattack were probably wiped out.

It must be noted that although the shelling of the battleships was terrifying, in fact most of the results of the damage came from the destroyers and cruisers, who fired a large number of medium-caliber shells that more completely covered the target area.

However, the battleship has an irreplaceable morale buff when performing support for its own landing force.

"You still dare to come to the door to find death?!"

"I'm a good girl! Rejoice! ”

"Look, it's a blink of an eye."

Despite knowing that he had made the wrong decision and buried the reserves of the 11th Infantry Division, Brigadier General Wainwright remained serious and ordered his troops to hold their positions for at least forty-eight hours.

He then left in a hurry, intending to re-examine the explosives along the route from Lingayen Bay to Manila, and to blast bridges and roads as soon as the Ming army landed on the shore.

However, where is the current 11th Division capable of holding out? Not to mention two days, it's just a night of hanging.

The seaplanes that catapulted off the Ming warships flew back and forth along the coastline as if sightseeing, constantly giving feedback to the fleet and the landing force on the situation of the enemy in front of them.

"Report! The enemy counterattack suffered heavy casualties and had already retreated. The 2nd Battalion of the 4th Regiment called back and said that it was making every effort to gather the troops, and it was estimated that it would take half an hour to assemble them. ”

"Let them move faster. The troops that had already come ashore were quickly regrouped in order to strengthen the battalion and launch an attack on the enemy's front; Organize one or two more teams as partial divisions to flank the enemy from the east. ”

Yan Chenwu regarded the 11th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army in front of him as an invincible opponent, and he was unwilling to wait for the large army to come ashore slowly—it would take at least three days and two nights for the main force of tens of thousands of people to go ashore.

So the 2nd Marine Brigade quickly cobbled together an offensive force with the available forces at hand, not giving the enemy a chance to breathe!

They tore a gap in the corner of the enemy's position that day, and continued to infiltrate and surprise after nightfall.

The Philippine army was completely unable to withstand such an offensive, and barely organized three small counterattacks, but it did nothing except to lose a few hundred men. They were forced to retreat in the second half of the night, but by this time the sun was almost rising.

As a result, the retreating 11th Division of the Philippine Army was bombed twice in a row by the Ming Air Force, and the entire army fell into a more chaotic situation, with scattered formations. It didn't take long for the organized retreat to turn into a disorderly runaway, with thousands of people rushing south in a chaotic manner.

At the same time, to the surprise of the Manila command, intelligence showed that another Ming army was approaching the Batangas Strait to the south, and seemed to be about to land there.

This was the 43rd Infantry Division from Fushan Province, which, escorted by more than a dozen destroyers and light cruisers, rounded Manila Bay and reached Batangas further south.

Batangas, the capital of the region, is also a port city with ready-made marina facilities, and is only about 100 kilometers away from Manila by rail and road.

The main idea of Operation Stagnant is to quickly attack from the south and the north to inflict as much damage and annihilation as possible on the plains around Manila.

The Philippine troops stationed there immediately called for help, they were subjected to two rounds of air raids in a row, and they were suppressed by the dense fleet firepower and were in a dilemma, so they could only attack the Ming army that landed on a large scale with weak firepower, and I am afraid that they would not last long.

The people in the headquarters only felt a chill down their spines - the anti-landing operation ended in failure, so when the Ming army came ashore and was fully launched, could it still be stopped?

The surface ship forces of the Asian Fleet, despite the losses, were able to escape from the Philippines, which was a land of right and wrong, and they would withdraw to Papua and Australia in a southeastern direction.

The Far Eastern Air Force suffered heavy losses, with only a few dozen fighters left to take to the skies for combat, and most of the air supremacy had fallen into the hands of the Ming army; Although the remaining 20 or so bombers are not to be underestimated, because of the gradual loss of air supremacy, their room for play is also decreasing.

Therefore, now the only way to rely on ground forces is to resist the all-out attack of the Ming army.

However, only one day after the Ming army actually landed on Luzon, the Philippine troops in the north and south were already in a state of collapse and embarrassed retreat.

Fortunately, the explosives that had been pre-placed on the bridges and roads had an effect, and the booming explosions were repeated, and the collapsed bridges and destroyed roads forced the 2nd Marine Brigade to slow down its advance from Lingayen Bay.

Historically, Douglas was initially confident that the US-Filipino forces could resist a full-scale Japanese attack, so it was not until the situation was serious that the decision to withdraw the entire army to the Bataan Peninsula was made in a very hasty and urgent situation.

Douglas had a psychological expectation of the rapid progress of the Ming army, so he quickly ordered an orderly retreat to the Bataan fortress area as planned.

Bad news continued to come – Davao, an important port city in southern Mindanao, was also attacked by the Ming army.

The paratroopers who showed their skills and made outstanding achievements in the bloody paralysis operation were not only touted to the sky among the people of the Ming Dynasty, but also became more and more superstitious about the power of the paratroopers within the Ming army.

Therefore, when the stagnation operation was formulated, the task of seizing Davao was given to the 2nd Paratrooper Regiment.

Escorted by 24 fighter jets, 47 Type 35 transport planes towed gliders from Sulawesi and flew over the Sulawesi Sea before appearing over Davao.

[Picture]

According to the plan, one battalion carried out parachute landing in an open area on the north side of the airport, while the other battalion carried out a forced landing directly on the runway of the airport.

After the paratroopers take control of the airfield, the Philippine troops stationed in Davao will inevitably waver, and when the landing force approaches, they will definitely flee in the wind!

In fact, Zhou felt that this was a fancy operation of little significance, and the Philippine army was not an Australian army, so it was obvious that there was no need to risk an airborne operation to make it suffer from the enemy.

And he didn't think it was appropriate to conduct an airborne operation in Davao - the area was full of complex mountains and hills to the west, north and east, and the defenders had some armored vehicles.

However, the Ming Air Force's desire to perform was particularly strong, and the confident military bigwigs finally approved this superfluous action.

The operation was smooth sailing at the beginning, exactly as everyone expected - the Ming army descended from the sky, the Philippine army panicked, the airport was attacked, and the remnants of the wolves rushed to the ......

However, as the large forces of the Philippine army in the urban area organized a counterattack, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse.

The U.S.-Filipino coalition had followed and analyzed the Ming army's previous offensive against the British and Dutch colonies, so they learned lessons to a certain extent.

Because they knew that the Ming army was equipped with an unknown anti-tank weapon, the Philippine army that launched the counterattack did not stupidly use the armored vehicles for direct attacks, but arranged them at a distance of about 300 meters as mobile fire points.

The Philippine infantry, supported by artillery and these armored vehicles, attacked the airfield that had just been captured by the Ming paratroopers.

The maximum firing range of the Type 37 rocket launcher was only 100 meters, so it was useless, and the officers and men of the Second Paratrooper Regiment could only use a few Type 35 14.4mm anti-aircraft guns to return fire at the armored vehicles.

The two sides fell into a fierce battle, and the Philippine army, which had sufficient supplies and troops, did not stop from morning to afternoon.

With continuous artillery fire and continuous attacks, the Ming paratroopers were pinned down in a dilemma on the hastily constructed airfield positions.

The three battalions and regimental headquarters that came to reinforce them braved artillery fire and forced their landings on the potholed runway, and many transport planes were hit and caught fire as soon as they landed, dragging billowing black smoke to the end of the runway......

According to the plan, the participating units were to carry out the landing operation six hours after the start of the airborne operation.

When the paratroopers were in a bitter battle, the landing fleet finally appeared on the surface of the Davao Bay.

But it was at this time that the submarine SS-188, which was patrolling the waters of Davao Bay, spotted the fleet.

I saw a faint wisp of black smoke appear on the sea, and soon after, the shadows of ships appeared, and there were more than 30 troop carriers, freighters, destroyers, and light cruisers, and planes were constantly flying in formation in the sky.

"Captain, Captain, are we going to prepare for an attack?"

"Of course. Lieutenant Clark, we ambushed them from the 270 direction, calculated the firing data, prepared for a torpedo attack. ”

"Yes! Captain! ”

The Heavy Tooth Bream slowly moved to a suitable ambush position in a submersible state, and the large ocean-going submarine with an underwater displacement of 2,300 tons was immediately ready for battle.

The six 533mm torpedo tubes in the bow were all inspected, and a few minutes later, with the captain's order, six Mk14 torpedoes were pushed out of the launch tubes.

The submariners were excited, and everyone was waiting for the rumbling explosion a moment later.

This torpedo weighed 1400 kg, and the warhead charge carried 230 kg of high-explosive charge, which was enough to inflict fatal damage on the battleship.

In addition, it is equipped with a unique Mk6-Mod1 magnetic fuze, which can explode directly below the target and blow up its keel, which can be described as extremely powerful.

Unlike the United States, the Mk6-Mod1 fuze uses an induction coil to generate an electric current, which is amplified by a vacuum tube and then triggers the detonator, which is theoretically more sensitive and efficient.

America, master the core technology!

Because he was so excited, the captain did not even give the order to dive, but kept it at periscope depth.

However, the captain observed an anomaly that he could hardly believe - the 6 torpedoes were on clear tracks and headed straight for the target, and the freighter did not maneuver to evade, but nothing happened except for a few splashes?

When the submariners of the Heavy Tooth Snapper were still confused and shocked, the Ming fleet discovered this bold US submarine, and the destroyer Leling immediately broke away from the fleet, turned around and rushed over.

Seeing that the situation was not good, the heavy tooth snapper immediately dived away, using all his resources to avoid the pursuit.

But she failed to win the cat-and-mouse game, and was sunk by depth charges in Davao Bay in the middle of the night, killing everyone.

The fighting in Mindanao was relatively isolated, with the core of the battle remaining concentrated on Luzon.

As in history, Douglas openly declared Manila to be an undefended city, but this time it was much more unhurried.

「…… In order to avoid the destruction of the capital region by war, I declare Manila an undefended city with no military presence...... The city government and the police will continue to perform their duties to ensure that the safety and protection of life and property are maintained......

With the front on the verge of collapse, the U.S.-Filipino forces began an organized retreat toward the Bataan Peninsula.

The Pampanga River flows north of Manila, and there is a road-rail bridge and a road bridge built on the river, both of which became the route of the coalition forces, so the headquarters concentrated all its air defense units here.

Groups of soldiers, tanks, and artillery formed a strange scenery and marched northwest across the bridge.

(End of chapter)