Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 737: Coordination between Front and Rear
"Bang~"
"Headshot, next..."
“Woo——”
"I K!"
Hiding deep in the jungle, Wang Shunwen, who had just fired a bullet and ended the life of a Spanish officer, had no time to catch his breath when he heard a short but instantly disappearing whistling sound. As a veteran who had fought from Sarhu to South America and experienced countless fierce battles, he pushed his observer hard and immediately rolled on the ground. Just two seconds after he rolled out of the original ambush site, three consecutive mortar shells landed in the bush where he and his observer had hidden beforehand.
"Puh~" He continued rolling around, spitting out the dirt in his mouth. After he was about ten meters away from where he had been hiding, he finally had time to raise his head and look around, and whispered to his observer: "Sanwazi, Sanwazi."
There was no response, not to mention human voices, not even the sound of birds. All he could hear was a corpse lying motionless in front of him.
"Hey!" After pounding the ground hard, he lost his observer and sniper rifle, and was helpless in the face of the looming Spanish soldiers holding submachine guns approaching in the distance. He had no choice but to retreat alone.
It was December 9, 1642. Five days had passed since Cao Bianjiao's special forces had set Bogota on fire.
In the early morning of the 4th, seeing most of Bogota turned to ashes before his eyes, Raimondo quickly recovered after a brief collapse.
After all, he was a general who had experienced several desperate situations in Southeast Asia. Facing such a situation, he was not completely defeated. Although he was definitely affected emotionally, he knew that the more important thing now was how to bring more than 150,000 soldiers on the front line back to Mexico. If this army was also destroyed, the royal government would lose America forever.
Since the telegraph station in Bogota was destroyed, he sent some soldiers into the city, not to put out the fire, but to open a safe road in the north of the city. Then he returned to the Sibat defense line overnight with a group of staff.
After urgent consultations with Cromwell, the two men unanimously concluded that the enemy's force for the surprise attack on Bogota would not be too large - the enemy could have appeared in Bogota so quickly, so they must have come directly over the mountains. Although it is indeed admirable that an organized army could cross a mountain with an altitude of nearly 6,000 meters so quickly, in any case, the size of this army must not be large.
Therefore, there is no need to send too many troops back to Bogota. Two divisions are enough.
The two divisions will be led by Raimondo. Their mission is to chase down the enemy troops that attacked Bogota, and at the same time quickly move north to contact the navy in the north. Because of the large number of casualties in the front-line troops, our food, medicine and other supplies can still last for fifteen to twenty days. However, in terms of ammunition, if there are one or two more battles of the intensity at the beginning of this battle, at most two times, the existing ammunition will be used up. Therefore, if the navy cannot rescue us as soon as possible, the Sibat defense line will soon be in big trouble.
Spain initially deployed 13 divisions and 210,000 soldiers in the Battle of Bogota. After half a month of fierce fighting, more than 40,000 people died of injuries and wounds on the front battlefield of Sibat, and nearly 20,000 were injured and could not go to the battlefield for a short time. As for the 10,000 soldiers in Bogota, to be honest, the casualties that night were not too great, and the number of casualties would not exceed 2,000 at most. But you can't say that most of the casualties were officers at all levels. Therefore, in terms of combat effectiveness, these more than 8,000 soldiers really can't have too much hope.
In short, after Raimondo withdrew two divisions and 30,000 troops to the north, Cromwell still had about 110,000 soldiers left.
With such a force, facing the Ming-Indian coalition army, which had only 150,000 to 60,000 troops after deducting the casualties, the Spanish army could barely maintain the Sibat defense line for a while, relying on the defense line built in advance and the 150mm heavy artillery regiment transferred from Bogota earlier.
But it was just barely able to maintain it. If the navy could not deliver new ammunition and food within fifteen days, the scene of "chasing along the way" that Cromwell had mentioned before the war might really happen. It was just that the positions of the chaser and the hunted had changed.
Therefore, Raimondo's two divisions had a heavy task: they had to get to the village of Turbo on the southern coast of the Caribbean as quickly as possible and contact the navy there.
However, Cao Bianjiao, who led the team to withdraw from the city of Bogota, had no intention of letting Raimondo go so easily.
In five days, the Ming Special Forces relied on the dense vegetation in South America to carry out a high-density ambush operation against the two divisions of Raimondo. Especially the elusive snipers, the officers of the Western Army now dare not wear officer uniforms to command.
In five days, Raimondo sadly discovered that after his troops left Bogota, even if they insisted on advancing on the official road, facing the enemy's ambush and harassment, they usually drove them away instead of pursuing them thoroughly... They only traveled less than 200 kilometers, and it was still a long way from Medellin, northwest of Bogota. Not to mention Turbo...
In the end, he was furious at Cao Bianjiao's ambush, and he had to consider how to explain the death of Prince Louis when he returned to Europe. Raimondo adjusted his troop deployment: one division of troops advanced recklessly, while another division entered the dense forest in companies to fight Cao Bianjiao's troops at close range. It was not that he did not want to send out scouts to advance to Turbo alone, but the key was that with too few troops, they could not avoid being killed by Cao Bianjiao's scouts.
Ordinary army soldiers left the official road and entered the dense forest to fight with the special forces. There is no doubt that Cao Bianjiao had a great advantage in terms of casualties. However, Cao Bianjiao only had more than 3,000 people. Therefore, Raimondo's move still put great pressure on Cao Bianjiao's side.
"Damn! Another one of my observers died! This battle is getting harder and harder. Have the scouts you sent to the south returned? When will the main force from the south arrive?"
"Before setting Bogota on fire, I sent the scouts in my team south. Now if I calculate, they have been traveling south for at least four or five days. With such a long time, I think we should have found the main force by now."
"Although our soldiers and the Indians are both yellow people, there are still obvious differences in their appearance. Maybe they were all intercepted."
"The situation you described is indeed possible. But what can we do?" Cao Bianjiao spread his hands and said, "Before we set out this time, we specifically asked Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong to select thirty elite Indians from their troops to serve as messengers. Who knew that when we were climbing the mountain, all these guys fell behind."
Don't look at the two bars and three stars on Cao Bianjiao's shoulders. As long as he can struggle back alive this time, he will have at least one gold star as a major general. But facing Wang Shunwen, who has the shoulder straps of a first-class sergeant, he can only smile: There is no way, this guy is from Fangshan. Among his classmates back then, there were a lot of vice prime ministers, governors, and ministers. In other words, this guy only likes sniping and has no interest in promotion and wealth, otherwise, he would at least be a major general. However, even if the other party did not take the line of an officer, he still took countless heads with the sniper rifle in his hand and climbed to the position of the king of soldiers in the Ming Dynasty. With such a transcendent status, even if he did not have those Fangshan classmates, Cao Bianjiao still had to be polite to him.
"Old Wang, we can't contact the main force now, and our situation is getting worse day by day. You should take a break these few days. Haven't you noticed that the enemy's snipers and mortar gunners have started to target you? I'm afraid the Western bandits are blaming you for the sniper killing of their prince. Who made you the sniper instructor of our regiment?"
"...Uh, it is said that their prince was killed on the night of the siege. According to the confessions of the prisoners we captured afterwards, combined with the time, location and the crowds around...I should have been the one who knocked out Prince Louis. But so what? That guy was jumping up and down there, who else could I knock out if not him?"
"Just knock, it's no big deal. What I mean is that the enemy's main focus right now is on our snipers. Uh, as an instructor and the best sniper in the army, shouldn't you stop for a while at this time... If something unexpected happens, it will dampen the morale of our army."
"I don't like to hear that. At this moment, we must rise to the challenge. Not only me, but all the snipers in this regiment must take advantage of this rare opportunity to practice actual combat. Anyone who can survive such a cruel battlefield will be a great soldier in the future."
How come I don't know this is the best training opportunity? But if you, an old man, really have an accident, the emperor may not say anything when you return to the country. Your classmates... Cao Bianjiao looked at Wang Shunwen who didn't listen to his advice at all, and he really had no idea what to do.
Hey, I don't know if the scouts I sent out have contacted the main army. I really can't stop the enemy's fighting style.
…
"Greetings, Commander."
"Generals, please take a seat, thank you for your hard work."
Also on December 9, Sun Chuanting arrived at the Sibat front from Quito.
"Commander-in-Chief, judging from the enemy's recent performance, our special forces should have made some moves in Bogota."
"According to the time and the training results of Cao Bianjiao and his team on the Quito Plateau, the Special Forces should have arrived in Bogota. Um, haven't you contacted the mixed-race troops on the opposite side? As I recall, the mixed-race troops of the Western bandits are an intelligence sieve that can leak out any information."
"Commander-in-chief, this is exactly the basis for me and others to judge that Cao Bianjiao has begun to attack Bogota and has achieved success. In recent days, we have been unable to contact the two divisions of the Western Bandit Army that contain mixed-race people... If there were no changes in the rear of the Western Bandits, why didn't the Western Bandits send these two mixed-race divisions to the front line to consume them?"
"Yes." After listening to the various analyses of the frontline generals, Sun Chuanting nodded heavily, then stood up and said: "Everyone, this governor has confidence in Cao Bianjiao. Although I haven't seen the messenger sent by Cao Bianjiao yet, I am convinced that there is a big problem in the rear of the Western Bandits. Therefore, this governor orders that from tomorrow on, we will launch another fierce attack on the Western Bandits' defense line!"
