novelaction Chapter 360 Night Attack, Liu Huaqiang Volunteers to Land
Chapter 360 Night Attack, Liu Huaqiang Volunteers to Land
Jiang Li certainly didn't know about these things. He was busy counting the ships and making final preparations before the attack.
Speaking of which, Jiang Li didn't find many ships these days, and the craftsmen didn't make enough ships due to the short time.
In desperation, he had to order his men to go down to the river at night to salvage some fishing boats. After repairing them, they were added with other boats, totaling about 500 small boats.
The number of troops transported each time was less than three thousand, so a forceful attack would be impossible.
Precisely because there were few ships, Jiang Li had already informed Han Yong by telegram five days ago, asking him to mobilize a batch of ships.
However, since the time was too short, their ships might not be able to arrive in a short time, so Jiang Li could only think of another way.
After careful consideration, Jiang Li finally finalized the battle plan.
Arriving at the headquarters, he issued an order to the officers below, "Everyone, you should know what has happened in the past few days. We have too few boats now and cannot send too many soldiers across the river, so we can only use night attacks!"
"Next, I need someone to be the main attacker. He will take our only 500 small boats and cross the river under the cover of feint attacks at other ferry crossings."
"Then build fortifications to resist the enemy's attack and provide landing conditions for follow-up troops. Who dares to take on this task now?"
Everyone looked at each other after hearing this, and no one expressed their opinion.
After all, they all knew that if these 3,000 people landed, they would most likely face death. Unless the enemies on the opposite side were fools, they would definitely try every possible means to eliminate this group of enemies that landed.
Otherwise, once Jiang Li and his men successfully cross the river, without the geographical advantage, they will inevitably be in a passive position.
So in this situation, no one stepped forward to take on this almost certain death task.
However, at this moment, a person suddenly stood up from the Liu Huaqiang group, who had been promoted two levels by Jiang Li because of his great contributions before.
This person was none other than Qiang Zhengde, who had been promoted to group leader.
"Commander, why don't I go? I dare not say anything else, but as long as I am alive, I will not take a step back!"
Listening to his sonorous words, Jiang Li gradually smiled, "Okay, you go to the barracks to select soldiers later. Just bring any weapons you want. As long as the ship can carry them, take as many as you can!"
Seeing their brothers taking on such a dangerous task, Liu Sheng and Hua Yong looked at each other and then stood up.
"Commander, I, Liu Sheng (Hua Yong), am also willing to cross the river together. I beg the commander to give me a chance to make meritorious service!"
Upon hearing this, Qiang Zhengde turned his head to look at his two brothers, and opened and closed his mouth several times, but did not utter a word.
Seeing him like this, Liu Sheng and Hua Yong didn't say much. They just smiled at him and waited quietly for Jiang Li's order.
Jiang Li took a look at the two of them and knew that they were standing up for their comrade-in-arms, so he stood up.
So he asked aloud, "What are you two going to do? If you want to defend an officer, it will be enough!"
Liu Sheng didn't say anything when he heard this. He just wanted to go out and have some fun with his brothers, and didn't think much about anything else.
However, Hua Yong is different.
"What the commander said is true. If we want to defend our position, we just need Zhengde. But if we just defend it, I'm afraid we will be very passive!"
"So I plan to lead people to attack the enemy's navy after crossing the river and see if we can capture a few boats. This way, we can cross the river faster!"
"If all else fails, we can also burn the ships to cause chaos to the enemy and help Zhengde share some of the pressure."
When Jiang Li heard what Hua Yong said, he thought about it and agreed. Then he discussed the details of the action with everyone, and then dismissed everyone and prepared to start the action.
...
After nine o'clock that night, the official operation began.
First, they went to several crossing points upstream and downstream and quietly pushed the bamboo rafts that had been prepared for a long time into the water. Then a large number of soldiers began to paddle the rafts, pretending to cross the river under the cover of artillery.
In addition, there were tens of thousands of troops, divided into small groups, paddling on bamboo rafts towards the other side.
Jiang Li’s complete plan was to feint at several large river crossing points under the cover of artillery fire to attract the enemy’s attention.
Then they sent a small force to take advantage of the opportunity to quietly cross the river, trying to fish in troubled waters and, by the way, cover Liu Huaqiang and three other people, the real landing force.
The sudden bombardment by the Anmin Army in the middle of the night made the enemy very confused, because in the past the Anmin Army's artillery fire had only been fired during the day.
It is basically not used at night, but the sound of the cannon immediately caused the enemy troops to flee in panic, and the camp was almost blown up.
However, the situation was stabilized thanks to the timely intervention of the supervision team, which killed some soldiers who had escaped in the chaos.
When Hu Duozong, He Chengjun and Xia Douyan learned about this, they immediately guessed that the enemy wanted to cross the Yangtze River at night.
So they immediately mobilized a large army to defend several river crossing points. Not only that, because they were afraid that this was a feint to the east and attack in the west, they also deliberately added a large number of soldiers to the coast for defense.
As for the supporting troops, when they arrived at the crossing point, they immediately saw the soldiers stationed on the shore exchanging fire with the enemy on the river. The intensity of the firefight was comparable to that of a frontal battlefield.
It turned out that in order to reduce casualties, Jiang Li specifically requested not to get too close, otherwise his side would be shooting at the enemy on the bamboo raft with no protection at all and would likely suffer a heavy loss.
Therefore, the Anmin Army used heavy machine guns, which led the support troops to have such a wrong view.
Upon seeing this, the officer in charge immediately led his men into the position to defend under the bombardment. With the addition of fresh troops, they quickly "suppressed" the Anmin Army.
Although the Anmin Army's offensive was thwarted, they did not retreat, but continued to fire at the enemy under the cover of artillery fire.
Back to Liu Huaqiang and his two companions, after they heard the sounds of gunfire upstream and downstream, they immediately set off with their troops on a small boat.
Because the enemy's attention had been attracted upstream and downstream, and there were a large number of small troops, the enemy misjudged their strength.
So their team of less than 3,000 people successfully reached the shore under not-so-intensive firepower and began to land.
After they landed, they immediately organized people to fight back. It was not until this time that the hundreds of people defending on the shore reacted.
It seemed that what they encountered was not a small force, but a main force of several thousand or even tens of thousands.
Seeing that the situation was not good, they immediately sent someone to notify their superiors, but it was too late.
It turned out that Jiang Li saw that the opposite side had already exchanged fire, so he immediately ordered the artillery to fire a round of salvos. Since the distance had been calculated early, the hit rate of this round of artillery fire was quite high.