At this moment, Mirage Sixteen was organizing an "orderly" retreat of the Mirage Army in his new water city. All the defense plans he had advocated to defend the coastline had failed. What is called order is actually a spectacular rout.
Almost all the main force was in a state of chaos. After one point was broken through, other troops scattered on the island could hardly assemble.
The damage to the roads was secondary. What was really fatal was the steady stream of air strikes. Operations during the day will be ruthlessly crushed, and maneuvers can only be carried out reluctantly at night.
But compared to the extremely fast Tang Army troops, the Mirage Army's slow assembly actions were simply seeking death. Most of them were wiped out during the assembly process, and it was as if they were choosing a cemetery for themselves.
After leaving the garrisoned fortifications, countless troops were in the field and were attacked and defeated by the Tang army.
Now there are broken troops everywhere on the island, telegrams for help are everywhere, and there are troops everywhere who have no time to gather. Mirage Sixteen felt that he had failed. He had never experienced such a chaotic scene.
No one can handle the current situation well, at least not him. For most troops, chaos is a recipe for disaster.
The small force had no way to obtain supplies, no understanding of the battlefield situation, and even no access to correct command information.
In other words, the company commanders or platoon commanders of Mirage had no idea what they were going to do. They had no way to re-obtain ammunition, and they also had no way of contacting their superiors.
This is the main reason why most troops cannot fight and surrender directly: they don't even know what they should do, so what else can they do?
Mirage Sixteen's previous orders accelerated the collapse of the Mirage Army. The Mirage Army that left its garrison and fortifications was as fragile as a piece of waste paper. A regiment had just been pulled out and started to move to the place requested by Mirage Sixteen. Half an hour later, they were bombed by planes and turned into a mess, and then were rushed to pieces by several Tang Army tanks.
Then no one could find their own troops: they lost the radio, no commander, and could not identify the direction. They could only wait stupidly for their own doom.
There may be soldiers or small-scale troops who insist on advancing to the previously agreed place, but they will soon become the main target of the Tang army and be annihilated first.
In other words, Mirage Shiliu found that it was better to let these troops stationed on the distant shore march towards his new water city than to let these troops stay where they were.
If these troops are allowed to stay where they are, they will at least still have supporting ammunition depots, some well-hidden heavy artillery cover, and trenches and bunkers to rely on.
Now they have nothing. The heavy artillery was pulled out and abandoned on the march, or was directly blown into parts by the Tang Air Force. The bullets and artillery shells in the ammunition depot cannot be taken away but can only be left behind. The ammunition and dry food carried by the soldiers are very limited, which is not enough to support their continuous operations.
The fragile logistics supplies, or the logistics supply troops that could not survive the military attack of the Tang Empire, could not take care of the Mirage troops at all.
Equipment such as trucks soon became paralyzed on the road: bombing by planes, missing parts, shortage of fuel... Vehicles quickly became a burden to the troops.
After discarding these cars, the moving speed of the Mirage Army can really be described as crawling. They simply couldn't gather themselves together, and the battalion and company couldn't even maintain such a unit.
As we walked, there were only 400 people left in the 500-man battalion. Some people fell behind, and some escaped - after all, many people in the mirage army were strong men who had just been captured a few months ago, and their actual fighting will was just like that.
What depresses Mirage the most is that Mirage troops generally only have access to regiment-level radio stations. Once battalion-level troops act alone, eighty percent of them cannot be contacted.
Normally, the march was okay, at least there were communication troops to communicate with each other, but as long as they were disrupted by the Tang army, the mirage armies themselves would not be able to find each other at all.
The 3rd Corps was assembled in advance and was in relatively complete condition. The problem was that Mirage Wu Erlang led his troops and ran into the main force of the Tang Army in the battle of Yasuda Village.
The famous 9th Armored Division among the Mirage Army is not a vegetarian. The 59 tanks were in an uninhabited territory and defeated the 3rd Mirage Corps in one charge.
The rout of tens of thousands of people was a very spectacular scene. Mirage Takejiro was killed in the chaos. It was said that the cause of death was that his vehicle was hit by an IL attack plane that strafed from low altitude.
The Mirage Army's 3rd Corps, which had lost its legion commander, was basically gone, and Mirage Sixteen knew that he could not count on them at all.
The remnants of the 2nd and 3rd Armored Divisions that retreated from the South Island were actually treated as treasures and transferred to the main island. All Mirage Shiliu could use were the garrison of Xinshui Port, the fort troops and some of the troops under his command. Part of the 4th Corps guarding the new island.
The total number is about 30,000... As long as you look at this number, you will know that the Mirage Army actually does not even have the most basic street fighting capabilities.
At that time, Xiang Wuzhong assembled hundreds of thousands of troops to defend Da Nanwan, but he only held on for more than ten days. Now he only has 30,000 troops, and he is afraid that he will lose Xinshui Port in one day.
Knowing that he was defeated by the Tang Army, Mirage Shiliu gritted his teeth and finally made up his mind to prepare to live or die with Xindao.
He summoned the commander of the fort and the commander of the port garrison, and gave them their respective orders: "The fort garrison, prepare to fight to the death...The troops are limited, and I have no reinforcements for you. I only give you one sentence, mirage How long the country can hold on depends on you."
After finishing speaking, he looked at the officers of the port garrison: "You personally lead people to plant explosives in the port dock! The port warehouse! The dock dock! Don't leave anything for the Tang army! Within an hour! Blow them all up!" Not a tile will be left behind!"
"Yes! I understand!" The two officers pressed the dagger-like command knives on their waists and nodded in agreement.
"After you blow up the port, arm everyone in the city! Give a grenade to the women and children... Give the men guns if they have them, and hand grenades if you don't have them! When the Tang army enters the city, they must all die together with the enemy!" Mirage Shiliu, who was already crazy, issued an order to the port guard officer that didn't sound so easy to operate.
In fact, few ordinary people had the courage to fight the Tang army with grenades. This order would only waste a large amount of reserve ammunition.
But in fact, everyone knows that with this small amount of troops, they really can't insist on consuming all the ammunition stored in the port.
Since it cannot be used up, it is not a problem to send it out: as for whether these civilians use it or not, it is not something they, the officers, can decide.
Because they had to concentrate on holding on to the main island, there were actually not a large number of mines deployed on the new island, and there were actually not as many mines as expected.
After knowing that there was no way to continue to persist, Mirage secretly transferred various aircraft stationed on the new island.
Two nights ago, the Mirage Navy launched a suicide attack that actually only dispatched 35 speedboats. Tang Jun Ye Heifeng made a statistical error, and some sailors double-counted the same target they sunk in confusion, so the data of 50 suicide speedboats was obtained.
Before the war, the Mirage Navy deployed a total of 60 suicide boats on the new island, and later added 10 temporary boats, so the north and south wings each had 35 suicide boats.
The night before yesterday, the Mirage Army only dispatched 35 speedboats hidden in the north. After confirming that the suicide attack method was effective, all 35 suicide speedboats stationed in Xinshui Port were mobilized: they will fight with other suicide speedboats on the main island. Used intensively.
This was also Mirage Haiping's decision: he finally found a weapon that could cause trouble for the Tang army, and it must be concentrated and used in the defense of the island.
The new island operation is just a delay in any case. The defense of the main island is the top priority of the Mirage Kingdom: According to the Mirage Emperor's decision, they will stock up at least 300 suicide boats on the main island to give the Tang Navy a surprise!
As the Tang army approached Xinshui Port, under the crazy orders of Mirage Wu Shiliu, the Mirage seaport garrison blew up their port.
However, due to lack of explosives, they only blew up the docks and docks, leaving only the warehouse area.
Seeing that the mirage troops were systematically destroying the seaport, the Tang army's blockade fleet did not stop them, but reported the situation.
Early the next morning, the main fleet of the Tang Navy arrived at the outskirts of Xinshui Port after evading a possible second night attack.
The two battleships Dongwan 1 and Dongwan 2 repeated their old tricks and used their 380mm-caliber main guns to bombard the Xinshuigang fort. The fort was completely destroyed by just five salvos.
Originally, this less important fort was only equipped with some 200 mm caliber coastal defense guns, and most of the artillery were only old-fashioned 150 mm caliber guns. When fighting against the Tang Army's fleet, they had no power to fight back.
However, as one of the few elite Mirage troops, the fort garrison did carry out Mirage Shiroku's orders and fought until the last minute.
The commander of the garrison was shot to death. As the ammunition depot exploded, the Tang army's warships entered the port and began to bombard Xinshuicheng unscrupulously.
The bombardment continued until the afternoon. Fearing the suicide speedboats of the Mirage Army, the Tang Army's warships left the relatively narrow port area before nightfall and returned to the sea.
The next morning, the 19th Infantry Division of the Tang Army approached Xinshuicheng along the railway. Mirage Wu Shiliu committed suicide by drinking a bomb, and the Mirage Army surrendered.
The entire New Island Battle was basically over, but there were broken troops everywhere on the New Island. The Tang Army was forced to clean up the New Island for another ten days before the New Island was barely "finished".
What surprised the Tang army was that, including the time to clear up the defeated troops, the Battle of New Island was actually five or six days slower than the Battle of South Island!
Feng Kezhi suddenly had a hunch that this island... wouldn't be as easy to fight as many people imagined.
(End of chapter)
