On the second day of May in the eighth year of Yuanzhuo, a touch of golden-red sunlight pierced the faint sky, the rising sun slowly showed its face from the end of the sea, the early birds chirped and flew in the woods, the waves of the sea gently beat the cliffs by the sea, making a noise like applause, and a group of seagulls flew up and down in the golden red morning light, swooping down from time to time, occasionally picking up one or two unlucky fish and shrimp. The early morning in the South Pacific is always so charming, but the officers and men of the second battalion of the Daqing Marine Battalion guarding Johor Bahru do not have time to enjoy such beautiful scenery at this time, and the more than 800 people in the battalion are sweating and rushing to repair various fortifications at the moment, and there is a tension before the big war is coming.

Johor Bahru is not so much a seaside town, but rather a village built on a cliff, the seaside side of Johor Bahru is full of cliffs, only the northwest corner has a gentle slope, built a small pier that is not too big, in addition, there is a winding path artificially built at the Johor Bahru Fort that can lead to the sea, the whole terrain is easy to defend and difficult to attack, but as the supreme commander of the Johor Bahru garrison, Liu Chenghong did not dare to have the slightest carelessness, since he took Johor Bahru Town last night, Liu Chenghong commanded all the officers and men of the second battalion to build various fortifications non-stop.

Liu Chenghong, lieutenant colonel and battalion commander of the second battalion of the Marine Battalion, a banner man of the Han army, was Chinese New Year's Eve three years old at the time, participated in the Battle of Nagasaki, was not tall, but very strong, and never smiled on his dark face, always looking serious. The Marine Battalion is the most well-equipped unit in the Qing Army, each soldier is carefully selected, and after layers of assessment to stay in this unit, each soldier's individual weapons include: a rear-loading pistol, a revolver, multi-functional sabers, six long-handled grenades, flying claws, shovels, etc., each battalion has a special baggage company, responsible for logistics support tasks, whether it is individual combat ability, the number of troops or the combat ability of small units are far higher than the average level of the Qing Army. Of course, in terms of military ranks, it is also one or two levels higher than the corresponding structure of the ordinary army of the Qing Dynasty. In fact, no one in the whole army knew that Liu Chenghong was the grandson of Admiral Liu Shuangcheng, the current Minister of the Navy, and the nephew of Admiral Liu Yao, commander of the First Fleet.

"Report, the fortifications of the first company have been completed, please ask the battalion commander for instructions. Major Chen Yaowu, the commander of the first company of the second battalion of the Daqing Marine Battalion, walked into the front-line command post on a high cliff in front of Xinshan Town with a hippie smile, saluted, and said loudly.

"Hmm. Liu Chenghong raised his head from the combat map and looked at Chen Yaowu with a smile on his face. nodded and said: "That's good, the fort is the support point for our army to defend Johor Bahru, if you lose the fort, be careful of your dog's head." Leave a few sentry posts, so that the soldiers can rest well, the British are almost coming, pay attention to the deployment of troops in front and behind, and don't take the soldiers' lives to fill the guns of the British. As long as you can hold the fort, go ahead. ”

"Yes, the lower official obeyed. Chen Yaowu saluted, but he didn't leave immediately, but looked at Liu Chenghong with a grin and said, "Battalion commander." The fort must be the focus of the British attack, can you transfer the battalion headquarters to a company of 'five or six styles', hehe, or one can be done? ”

There were less than 80 'Type 56' semi-automatic rifles in the Qing army. Except for the more than 40 units held by the Beijing Military Region, most of the rest are in the hands of the Guangdong Marine Battalion, and because of the amount of ammunition consumed and the cost of ammunition, it cannot be popularized to the whole army at all, and can only be equipped with a few battalion headquarters and regiment headquarters as the final armament, and Liu Chenghong only has five in his hands, and the ammunition is not much, and that is Liu Chenghong's hole card. How could he just let it go out so casually, at this time, when he heard Chen Yaowu mention the "five or six styles", Liu Chenghong's face immediately stiffened, glared at Chen Yaowu, and scolded angrily: "Get out, there is no hair!" ”

Chen Yaowu is Liu Chenghong's favorite general, a Shandong Han, and he has long known Liu Chenghong's temper. On weekdays, I am used to laughing with Liu Chenghong. At this time, he saw Liu Chenghong pretending to have a seizure, but he was not annoyed. Hehe smiled, saluted, raised his feet and was about to go out, but he didn't expect two people to come out from behind, each grabbed one of Chen Yaowu's arms, and scolded with a smile: "I know that you kid is running fast and must not have any kind eyes, hey, dare to love is aimed at the baby of the battalion master, let's say it first, see that there is a share, the battalion commander can't always help a company." ”

The person who came was Wu Haoming, the commander of the second company, and Wu Chengwen, the commander of the third company, these two brothers were tall and short, but they were very strong, the former was from Shanxi, the latter was from Guangdong, the second company was responsible for guarding the wharf, and the third company was responsible for guarding the rear of Xinshan Town in addition to being a reserve.

The big war is coming, and it's a good thing not to be afraid of war! Liu Chenghong didn't stop the frolicking of the three company commanders under him, and only after a while did he speak: "It's all over, right?" ”

Wu Haoming and Wu Chengwen watched the battalion commander speak, so they let go of Chen Yaowu, saluted each other, and hurriedly replied: "Report to the battalion commander, all the scheduled fortifications have been completed, please ask the battalion commander to instruct." ”

"That's good, order the soldiers to rest quickly, this battle is not sure how long it will take, the reinforcements in the rear will not arrive in three days at the earliest, whether this battle can be successful, it depends on whether our battalion can hold Johor Bahru, remember, before the reinforcements arrived, our army did not have any ammunition replenishment, tell the soldiers to pay attention to saving ammunition, just go and rest first." Liu Chenghong glanced at the three company commanders under him, and gave a faint order.

"Yes!" The three company commanders saluted at the same time, turned around and walked out of the headquarters, and went off to work.

"Lao Lin, how much more grain and ammunition do we have?" After the three main company commanders walked away with laughter, Liu Chenghong calmly asked Lin Mingyu, the commander of the baggage company who had been sitting quietly in the corner, without saying a word.

Lin Mingyu, a native of Xi'an, Shaanxi, participated in the Battle of Nagasaki, is one of the veterans of the Marine Battalion, nearly forty years old, has always been silent, brave in battle, if it were not for illiteracy, he would have been an officer above the lieutenant colonel long ago, at this time he heard Liu Chenghong's question, and got up unhurriedly. He said smoothly: "Report to the battalion commander, in addition to the food and ammunition that have been distributed, our army also has 1,800 grenades, 13,000 copper-shelled bullets, 100 packs, 100 mixed mines, 30 sub-mother mines, and 123 captured Dutch-made flintlock guns. black gunpowder about thirty barrels, three thousand projectiles; Since the Dutch warehouses were seized, there was a lot of grain, which was enough for our army to last a year. ”

This point of ammunition is very pitiful, and it is not as good as the consumption of a large-scale exercise of the Marine Battalion, but this operation is almost a rear operation, whether it can rely on this ammunition to support the arrival of reinforcements, Liu Chenghong has no bottom in his heart. But now, you can only bite the bullet, right? Liu Chenghong silently paced around the headquarters, feeling a little uneasy in his heart.

At three o'clock, the sun had already risen high, and the sunlight was like a sharp sword to dispel the fog between the straits. Across this small strait, which is no more than 1,500 meters wide, the figure of Shan Maxi can already be seen, but the sea is still quiet, and the figure of the English fleet has never appeared. Liu Chenghong stood silently at the lookout of the headquarters. A pair of eyes were fixed on the southern entrance of the Channel, where the only place the English fleet could enter, when suddenly, a huge angle of attack shook out from the corner of Single Marcy Island, and then, the huge hull of a three-masted fast cruiser rushed out of the wind and waves, and the British finally arrived!

One, two, three. Four, a total of four fast cruisers, hung their sails and entered the narrow strait with the tide, and the three cruisers sailed four hundred meters in front of Johor Bahru Town, lined up to form a neat battle line, and then the two rows of gun portholes on the ship opened almost simultaneously, and rows of black holes of guns stretched out. The ground muzzles of the two cruisers faced the Johor Bahru battery. The other two were heading towards the small pier in Johor Bahru, but the first cruiser was seen waving the signal flag. The four cruisers opened fire almost simultaneously, and more than 100 shells roared and smashed into the shore, blowing up clusters of sparks, and the whole town of Johor Bahru trembled slightly in the roaring cannon.

One, two, three, four! A total of four rounds of salvo fire overturned the Johor Bahru Fort and the small pier, but the guns of the Qing army's counterattack were never heard. Perhaps thinking that the Qing army had left this place, the British troops on the battleship lowered more than a dozen small boats, loaded with army soldiers in red uniforms, divided into two routes, and began to march slowly towards the Johor Bahru Fort and the small pier.

On the hill of the Johor Bahru Fort, Chen Yaowu stared at the English warships that were showing off his might, and his lips almost bit out blood, the artillery bombardment just now was too fierce, if it weren't for Chen Yaowu placing most of the officers and soldiers in the trenches behind the mountain, I was afraid that under the shelling just now, a company with a full force of 220 people might not be much left. Even if Chen Yaowu had prepared in advance, the shelling just now inevitably caused some casualties, and what was even worse was that two of the ten guns on the fort were destroyed, and the fortifications built in advance were also damaged a lot.

"Get into positions and get ready for battle. Don't fire yet, wait until the British are ashore. Chen Yaowu watched the British army's small boat get closer and closer to the shore, and gave the battle order, and more than 200 Qing soldiers bowed down and ran along the communication trench to the preset position, loaded their bullets, and calmly waited for the arrival of the British army.

Preparedness? The British army did not have the slightest sense of defense, although the British army's upper generals were all worried, but those officers and soldiers below did not know the truth, and they were immersed in the illusion of the invincibility of the Great England Empire, in their opinion, the Qing army was just a group of yellow-skinned monkeys, and the Great England army was not at the same level at all, and besides, the four rounds of shelling just now had turned over the entire landing field, and there was no sign of counterattack on the shore, and this landing battle was like going to a tour. At most, it is just a senseless resistance made by local natives with broadswords and spears.

Soon, the British dinghy, which had been divided into two groups, came ashore, and groups of British soldiers slowly jumped from the dinghy and walked towards the shore as if they were walking in the knee-deep water, without even leveling their guns. At the foot of the Johor Bahru Battery, an English Army officer finally formed his gang of stragglers into a formation that looked a little decent, and walked side by side along the path built on the cliff, slowly climbing up to the fort on the top of the cliff.

"***, give Lao Tzu a hard beating!" Seeing that seventy or eighty British soldiers had already walked onto the mountain road, Chen Yaowu roared angrily, and in an instant, the Qing soldiers, who had been waiting impatiently in the preset position on the cliff, unceremoniously swept their angry bullets towards the unsuspecting British soldiers. In the sound of gunfire like fried beans, the British troops who were at the forefront were beaten into a hornet's nest in an instant, screaming and rolling down, knocking the British troops behind into a rolling gourd, before the British army could understand what was going on, a shower of grenades fell from the sky again, and exploded in the chaos of the British army, but a face-to-face work, the seventy or eighty British soldiers who attacked the Johor Bahru Fort except for a dozen or so people with fast legs, the rest were lying on the ground, not dead but seriously injured, and the whole road was full of blood and stumps, The wounded British soldiers who were not dead let out a terrible scream, hoping that their colleagues could turn back to help them, but unfortunately the British soldiers who were alive had already been frightened, let go of their legs, and rushed to the dinghy that had turned around and was about to flee at a speed countless times faster than when they came, and they still had the courage to look back.

"Haha, good fight, a platoon goes up to shoot artillery, and everyone else withdraws!" Chen Yaowu looked at the embarrassed appearance of the British army, smiled very happily, and hurriedly gave an order, except for a platoon of officers and soldiers rushing to the cannon on the battery, the rest of the officers and soldiers returned to the trench in the back mountain along the communication trench.

Although the artillery on this battery is an old-style breech gun, it is difficult for the soldiers of the Qing Marine Corps, a platoon of officers and soldiers carried their spears behind them, and according to the predetermined battle plan, several people rushed to the gun position, methodically adjusted the muzzle, lit the ignition stick, and fired a counterattack in the direction of the English fleet, and at the same time, a wonderful ambush battle was also launched at the Johor Bahru wharf......

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