Riau Province in the northeastern part of Sumatra

Upper Indragi County

Riau Province is located on the southern side of the Straits of Malacca, geographically opposite Singapore in the British Straits Settlements, and is a region with a long history of farming.

Before the Dutch colonists conquered this land with swords and guns, there were indigenous regimes such as the Sriwijaya Kingdom, the Srivijaya Kingdom, and the Sumudhu Kingdom.

In 1282 A.D., during the Yuan Dynasty, Su Mudu sent an envoy to the court. The Ming Dynasty set up the Old Port Xuanwei Division here, and the feudal kingdom at that time was already very prosperous, deducing a regional culture with unique South Asian characteristics.

Now

The old Dutch colonists and the newly invading colonists of the Tang Empire set up a battlefield to fight for this rich agricultural land by force, and the two sides fought fiercely.

For a time, war clouds were gathering over the area.

In the jungle by the creek

His Royal Highness Don Li Yi, who was dressed in the uniform of a brigadier general of the Royal Praetorian Guard, stood in the woods and carefully examined the front with a telescope, his expression extremely serious.

In an open hilly area in front of them, the Dutch army and the Tang Imperial army are gathering, the shining spears are like a forest, the war horses are neighing, and the artillery on both sides is nervously entering the position, unloading the field guns from the mules and horses pulling the artillery.

After a more than a month of rest, the war is about to start again.

In order to hold the vast plain in the middle of Sumatra, from Upper Indragi to Lower Indragili, the Dutch army gathered nearly 62,000 heavy troops here and set the battlefield for a decisive battle.

It can be seen from the color of the Dutch uniforms that the Dutch army in front of them is full of color, with no less than 27,000 officers and soldiers of the Royal Dutch Army and more than 220 artillery pieces, as well as about 35,000 elite indigenous servants.

In previous battles

The indigenous servant army was poorly equipped, with more than half of them using spears, broadswords, bows and arrows, and the proportion of smoothbore guns was no more than 30%, confirming the cannon fodder attribute.

However, from the binoculars, the indigenous servant army in front of me was armed with 70% of the smoothbore guns, and most of them were wearing the same military uniforms and tops as the Dutch army, which looked much neater, but that was all.

The soldiers of the Indigenous Servant Army were still dressed in a variety of trousers, with cheap and useful plastic slippers on their feet, and the queue was like a crooked snake.

On the other hand, the Tang Imperial Army was in a strict formation, with distinct armor and neat queues, and the soldiers were uniformly armed with cowhide belts and Type 95 bolt-action rifles, showing high morale.

Including the newly reinforced Second Division in Mindanao, the Tang Empire dispatched a total of 47,000 people in three divisions in this campaign, and an imperial armored division with the main assault mission.

The armored forces led by Brigadier General Don Li Yi have been reorganized into fully equipped Imperial armored divisions for several years.

And today, it's time for them to show what they can do.

The armored division was ambushed by a forest about 3.6 kilometers away from the main battlefield of the two sides, using the woods to cover the traces of the armored vehicles, and lurked yesterday evening, ready to surprise the Dutch.

Before the war

This area is the area that the cavalry regiment focuses on to cover, to ensure that not the slightest bit of information is leaked.

"Master Shizuo, all units of the Imperial Armored Division have been prepared before the battle, and they are ready to obey your orders at any time."

"Stand by now."

"Yes, sir, stay put." The combat officer quickly departed and carried out the order.

Brigadier General Tang-Li Yi put down the binoculars in his hand and turned around, looking at it with a satisfied expression.

In the woods, one after another ironclad cars were lined up in an orderly manner, and there was no end in sight at a long glance, and the dark gray ironclad exuded a chilling killing intent.

These armored vehicles, which were inspected and passed by him, were officially named the Type 96 T-1 armored vehicles by the military, nicknamed the "gray wolf", and are the first tracked armored vehicles equipped with the army in the real sense of the word in the world today.

The Gray Wolf armored vehicle is an open combat vehicle, surrounded by a ring of steel armor with a height of about 1 meter 1, a crew of four people, a total weight of 5.12 tons, an off-road speed of 23 kilometers per hour, a tracked chassis is light and flexible, good durability, and strong cross-country ability.

The Gray Wolf armored vehicle is divided into two types according to the different equipment and weapons, one type is the artillery vehicle, which is used to overcome difficulties during the assault and is the firepower of the armored division.

The Gray Wolf Gun Carriage is equipped with a 12-caliber 75mm Colt breech barrel gun, which has a small recoil and a high firing rate, which can provide fierce artillery fire in the shortest possible time, and has a fairly strong attack ability.

In particular, the 75 mm shotgun equipped with the vehicle is a large radial piece when it is shot, and it has a lethal killing ability against enemy infantry.

The corresponding disadvantage is that the firing range is greatly shortened, the range of the 12-pounder gun is less than 2 kilometers, and the armor-piercing ability is also seriously weakened, but this is completely sufficient.

Of the five regiments under the command of the Imperial Panzer Division, an armored regiment was equipped with a total of 36 Gray Wolf artillery vehicles, divided into two battalions of 18 vehicles each.

The other is the heavy machine gun vehicle, which is equipped with a 7-barreled Colt 1847 Storm hand-cranked heavy machine gun, which is a classic version of the 1847 type and has greatly improved shooting reliability.

The Imperial Armored Division was equipped with a total of 72 Gray Wolf heavy machine gun vehicles of two regiments, which served as the main force of the armored division and had a strong assault capability.

In addition, the Imperial Armored Division was also equipped with a regiment of automobiles, which was used to transport ammunition and supplies and accessories in peacetime, and carried armed soldiers to follow the armored vehicles to attack the enemy position and assist in the battle in wartime.

The last regiment is a logistics regiment, which includes the division headquarters guard battalion, engineer battalion, baggage battalion, mechanic company, cavalry reconnaissance company, communications company, medical company and other logistics units.

As a new thing in the field of the army, the establishment of the Imperial Armored Division was completely incapable of reference, and was completed by Brigadier General Tang Li Yi, which laid the basic pattern of the establishment of modern armored troops.

Therefore, later generations will call His Royal Highness Tang Li Yi the "father of armored troops" and "the founder of modern armored forces".

The "Theory of Army Armored Weapons Operations" published by his pseudonym Colonel Lei Xiao is a core textbook that must be read by armored forces academies around the world, and has a lofty position in the field of the world's armies.

9:00 a.m

The main forces of the Tang and Dutch armies arrived at the battlefield one after another, lined up the array of decisive battles, and the huge military formations that could not be seen at a glance were layered on top of each other, and the heavy shadow of war permeated the sky.

The Dutch commander-in-chief, General Mitchells, was an experienced commander who had presided over the Aceh War for more than seven years, nearly destroying the Aceh rebels by dividing the leaders of the indigenous sects from the local nobility.

If it weren't for the Tang Empire's brazen dispatch of troops to completely solve the Aceh problem, it would have been in the past two years.

He knew that the military force in his hand could not resist the Tang Empire army, which was armed to the teeth, so on the battlefield, he built a large number of dense defensive breastwalls and circular artillery positions, forming a relatively solid defensive posture.

The number of smoothbore guns of the Native Servant Army has been strengthened, and the number of heavy troops has been increased to the greatest extent possible, in an attempt to inflict maximum casualties on the invading enemy.

The Battle of Upper Indragi actually evolved into a battle of fortification, which posed a serious challenge to the army of the Tang Empire, which did not have an advantage in strength.

The equipment of the Royal Netherlands Army is not bad, and its white units are generally equipped with German Mauser M1888 Commission-action rifles, which are a little worse in technical performance than the Type 95, but not to the extent of intergeneration.

General Michels also invested heavily in the indigenous servant army, equipping some of the elite servant army with the Dutch Dreiser's pistols that had been replaced in the warehouse, greatly increasing its strength.

Coupled with a well-established line of defense against the breastwall and intensive artillery fire, he was confident that he would deal a heavy blow to the enemy.

At around 9:10, the Tang Imperial army took the lead in launching an artillery bombardment, and more than 350 artillery pieces roared angrily, and the rumbling cannons resounded through the heavens and the earth.

Not to be outdone, the Dutch artillery positions immediately returned fire.

In a split second

The flames rose from the wide battlefield, many barbed wire fences and breastworks erected by the Dutch army were blown to pieces, and the stumps and broken arms of the Dutch soldiers hiding behind flew into the sky with the debris of the earth that had exploded, and one defense after another was destroyed.

"Oh God, this is a one-sided slaughter." General Michels slammed his fist against the wall, and Tie Qing's face flashed with anger.

The Colt breech guns equipped by the Tang Imperial army were very advanced, and they were loaded with advanced yellow high-explosive gunpowder. The firing speed is fast, the firing range is long, the power is high, and it has an absolute advantage in artillery battles.

The Dutch defensive line was heavily bombarded by artillery fire, and the defensive breastwall and soldiers of the 1st line were heavily killed and wounded in the artillery fire, while the Dutch artillery that counterattacked did not have enough range to inflict damage on the Tang Empire soldiers who were far away.

The nearest shell also exploded more than 200 meters away.

"Your Excellency General, I'm afraid this is the price that must be borne by backward equipment." A Dutch major general officer next to him replied. He looked at the battlefield in front of him with a solemn expression, and said after estimating;

"Fortunately, the front-line breastwork position is filled with servant troops, and we can afford such a price."

General Michels did not answer, but ordered; "Artillery position No. 3 continues to shell, maintain the output of fire, other artillery positions stop shelling, we want to save some shells for the Queen's government."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

The Dutch breastwork defensive position has built a total of three lines of defense, about five or six hundred meters apart from the front and back, showing a heavy deployment in the front, and the first line is mainly composed of more than 12,000 indigenous servant soldiers.

More than 20,000 people, including more than 8,000 officers and soldiers of the Royal Netherlands, were deployed on the second line, and more breastwork lines and positions were set up, as well as a large number of barbed wire.

The 3rd line position, that is, the first-line position where General Michels's command post is located, has gathered more than 30,000 heavy troops, and has sufficient troops to reinforce the first and second lines at any time.

After the artillery bombardment of the Tang Imperial army outside the extreme range covered the first-line positions, it continued to attack and entered the range of the artillery positions of the Dutch army.

At the same time, the artillery of both sides also entered the firing range, but the Dutch artillery positions had semicircular earth-and-stone blast walls, which somewhat occupied some advantages in the artillery battle of both sides.

Think about it

General Michels had to suppress the anger in his heart, and watched as the Dutch officers and soldiers on the front-line positions were dying in the artillery fire, and then torn to pieces by the heavy artillery fire......

In the face of these, he has nothing to do.