In order to perform meritorious service, Hu Baoguan worked hard to come to Malacca to participate in the war. Although he is injured now, he still insists on not leaving the firing line, because once he does, he will not leave the firing line.
All the subsequent military honors were gone, and at most they were consolation prizes like a Bronze Star Medal.
He, Hu Baoguan, went through all the trouble to come to Malacca City not just to obtain a Bronze Star Medal, a consolation medal specially designed for injured soldiers!
Even if I can't get a Double Sword Medal for myself during this trip, I can at least put something on my resume to prepare for subsequent promotions.
However, if you want to achieve meritorious service, you can't rely on it. As the chief of staff of the 57th Infantry Regiment, how much military merit can he achieve, and the performance of the 57th Infantry Regiment, or more simply, with Dong Qiankun?
The performance of the interim leader is closely related.
Looking at Dong Qiankun's appearance now, Hu Baoguan still feels that this person is relatively reliable!
After finishing the tactical discussion with Hu Baoguan, Dong Qiankun asked him to pay attention to his injuries, and then left with his adjutant and several other officers.
Now that the general offensive is about to begin, he needs to make final adjustments according to the battle plan!
The 57th Infantry Regiment is a main infantry regiment with four infantry battalions, an infantry and artillery team, a baggage team and several other auxiliary forces. The total strength reaches 4,000 people.
It is not an easy task to command more than 4,000 people to fight!
As the general offensive approaches, there are still many things waiting for Dong Qiankun to arrange one by one.
Time gradually passed, and soon it was after eight o'clock. At this time, the troops of the 57th Infantry Regiment, especially the elite troops who were preparing to serve as the first wave of attack, had already entered the transportation trenches dug in advance and were preparing to pass through.
These traffic trenches are deep and close together.
However, time is pressing, and the communication trenches are not dug enough. It is impossible for the entire 57th Infantry Regiment's offensive troops to advance through the communication trenches. In fact, most of the troops still use the most primitive method, running from the ground.
Approach quickly, then attack.
The vanguard unit that advanced through the communication trenches and prepared to approach the attack was naturally not an ordinary unit. This unit was a grenadier unit from the 57th Infantry Regiment.
The grenadiers have always been synonymous with the elite infantry in the Tang Army. Both in terms of physical fitness and combat experience, they are much better than ordinary soldiers.
The main force of this grenadier unit, which serves as the vanguard, is the 2nd Grenadier Unit of the 572nd Infantry Battalion. In addition to the 6th Grenadier Unit, the 3rd Grenadier Unit of the 573rd Infantry Battalion also
Two grenadier platoons were mobilized.
Therefore, this grenadier vanguard unit is an elite unit with five platoons and a total strength of more than 240 people. The unit is commanded by Captain Shi Enli, the captain of the 572nd Battalion's Second Grenadier Team.
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The establishment of grenadiers is generally limited to the team level. Each main infantry battalion will have one. Therefore, theoretically, a main infantry regiment will have four grenadiers, and a main infantry division will have twelve.
Grenadiers, these twelve grenadiers are arranged according to numbers from one to twelve.
Captain Shi Enli, hunched over at this time, led his more than two hundred grenadiers through the communication ditch. As he advanced, he did not forget to give instructions: "Everyone, be careful and don't raise your head!"
At this time, they were only 70 to 80 meters away from the northern city of Malacca. At this distance, they were already within the range of a large number of enemy light weapons, whether it was those Franco machine guns and other small weapons.
Caliber shotguns, or those matchlock guns, can cause effective damage to them at this distance.
After the troops advanced about dozens of meters and reached about fifty meters away from the city wall, they stopped because there were no communication trenches in front of them. When they attacked, they needed to jump out of the trenches and head toward the city wall.
Head forward to charge.
At this distance, it can be determined that when they jump out of the trench, they may be intercepted by intensive firepower from the Portuguese.
Thinking that he might be intercepted by intensive firepower later, Shi Enli also showed a serious expression.
Although these grenadiers all wear light breastplates, at this distance, these breastplates are vulnerable to shotgun shrapnel and matchlock bullets, especially the heavy muskets that the Portuguese are equipped with in large numbers.
The bullets are basically useless!
Even some grenadiers knew this. Before the war, they did not wear these dispensable breastplates at all, but directly went into battle wearing cloth military uniforms. Shi Enli did not express any opinions on this.
Life is his own, and the soldiers under his command believe that they can save their lives by not wearing breastplates, so naturally he will not stop him.
Besides, he didn’t wear a breastplate himself!
In recent years, when the Tang Dynasty Army was fighting, it usually only wore armor when the enemy used a large number of cold weapons, especially bows and arrows.
However, in some battles, if the enemy uses a large number of firearms, soldiers will often throw away their armor and fight. This kind of thing has become more and more frequent in recent years, and most of them are spontaneous actions of soldiers.
Low-level officers generally would not stop it, while senior generals would turn a blind eye to this.
However, even with this trend, the distribution of armor is still the same. Those are auxiliary troops, and they can all get a light breastplate.
In today's reinforced 2nd Grenadier Corps, at least half of the grenadiers are unarmored. It's not that they don't have armor, but they are unwilling to wear armor. This affects their mobility and consumes more money.
His physical strength, and more importantly, apart from his psychological comfort, was basically useless against the Portuguese guns.
Therefore, some veterans simply threw away their armor.
Lying in the trench, Shi Enli observed the city head not far away!
The Malacca City Wall in front is very different from the traditional Chinese city wall. First of all, its outer building is not actually made of solid masonry, but sand.
You say it is a city wall, it would be better to say it is a mound of earth.
Why?
Because the artillery these days is so powerful, if the outer walls of the bastion, especially the parts that will directly face a large number of shelling, are built with hard masonry, then the hard masonry will not be able to absorb the shelling.
Not to mention the kinetic energy of artillery shells and shrapnel, and because of the solidity of their surfaces, they will produce very terrifying ricochet bombs.
Thus causing more serious damage!
Therefore, for many bastions, in fact, the outer layer of the city wall, especially the parts where artillery is deployed and other parts that are easily bombarded by enemy artillery fire, is often made of soil.
Mud seems to have little defensive power, but it actually absorbs kinetic energy quite well!
The grenadiers led by Shi Enli wanted to conquer a city defense fort extending tens of meters from the city wall of Malacca. On the surface, this city defense fort was actually a large mound!
But don’t doubt the protective capabilities of this seemingly crude mound!
In fact, the soil is just the outer covering, and the core structure inside is also made of masonry!
During the bombardment a few days ago, the artillery of the Tang Army carried out intensive bombardment here, almost blowing up all the buildings on the surface. However, this morning, you can still see that there are people in this fort.
Portuguese artillery fired in counterattack.
The superiors concluded that in addition to the traditional open-air fort, this fort must also have artillery arranged in its internal buildings!
This kind of built-in artillery is very difficult to destroy. Even if the Portuguese cannot deploy any large-caliber artillery inside, the deployment of some shotguns is enough to cause great trouble to the siege troops.
Therefore, the top priority task of his grenadiers is to capture this prominent fort. It is best to follow the passage connecting the fort to the main city wall and directly enter the city wall after capturing this fort.
This place was also regarded by many staff officers of the 57th Infantry Regiment as a weak area in the city's defense of Malacca, and was prepared to be used as the main attack point.
After all, although this kind of fort has strong defensive power and can pose a great threat to Datang's offensive troops, if this fort can be captured, it will basically open a gap in Malacca's city defense.
Through this gap, the 57th Infantry Regiment was able to launch a tidal wave of attacks and completely open up the situation.
While Shi Enli was on the northern battlefield, waiting for the final general attack, at Malacca Port, the naval escort ships of the Joint Landing Fleet, including two huge battleships, once again appeared at the port and mobilized their numbers.
Numerous and large-caliber naval guns violently bombarded the dock.
At the same time, the Second Temporary Guards Regiment began to bypass the east city wall and quickly march along the coastline toward the port dock. Under the cover of naval guns, they would launch an attack from the port direction.
At this time, the Portuguese on the city had already noticed that the war was coming. After all, they were not blind and could see the large-scale maneuvers and preparations of the Tang siege troops before the war.
But even if they saw it, there was nothing they could do, because their artillery unit basically only had artillery left, but there were only a few artillery units left, and there was no way to conduct medium and long-distance interception operations.
They could only passively wait for Datang's siege troops to launch an attack before resisting!
The Tang people outside the city were about to launch a general attack, which made all the Portuguese officials and military officers panic!
Can it be defended?
Even the most optimistic Portuguese dare not answer this question easily: Yes!
In fact, most people are very pessimistic on this issue, and they do not think they can hold on.