Lieutenant Colonel Harris is a very cautious officer.
Even though he was facing a group of natives now, he still continued his past marching habits.
He sent out some of the few cavalrymen in the Marine Corps. They spread out to look for the nearest road to the fort and possible enemies in the future.
This completely ruined Ding Li's ambush plan.
Originally, Ding Li thought that finding a good ambush point for his more than 7,000 soldiers and horses might not be enough to get twice the result with half the effort.
But I didn't expect that the other party's commander would be so cautious. This is not like the American style.
But there's nothing you can do about it, as long as you fight according to the original plan.
Ding Li simply looked for an open farmland on the road ahead of the Americans. There were no crops in the field and it was deserted. It was not yet the season for the Japanese to plant rice.
A battle formation of more than 7,000 people blocked the road ahead, and the sentry sent by Harris naturally discovered it quickly.
In the American camp, the battle drum beat sounded, and the columns quickly turned into horizontal columns.
Facing an enemy several times his own, Harris did not panic at all.
Back then, Spanish explorers could wipe out an indigenous South American country with a population of over a million with just a few hundred people.
White Americans who also grew up on the American continent have been influenced by heroic stories of killing indigenous people since childhood.
There is inherent discrimination in their hearts towards the indigenous people. Only white people are the masters of the civilized world.
They spread the glory of the Lord to the whole world. They are God's beloved race. Other pagans are the objects of purification and baptism.
The Americans changed their formations very quickly. Even if Ding Li sent people to harass them, it would not have any effect. Under the intensive rifle fire, the cavalry's attack was like a living target.
Since the target of the cavalry is large, a shooter holding a rifle can hit a war horse or a knight on a horse at a maximum effective shooting distance of four hundred yards.
Anyway, no matter where it hits, the effect will be the same.
Ding Li directed the musketeers to line up in three horizontal rows, with the soldiers of the Marine Corps placed in the last row.
During the battle, the Japanese infantry muskets were out of range and could not hit the enemy at all. So their role was to be human shields and to confuse the enemy.
Ding Li has already arranged it. During the battle, the musketeers in the first row will squat down, and the Japanese musketeers in the second row will be in a semi-crouching state, so that the Marines in the last row can put their guns on their shoulders, which can effectively improve the
The speed at which Marines fire.
Harris knew very well that if he wanted to get to the fort today, he had to defeat the enemy in front of him.
He was still thinking that this Japanese officer must be very incompetent. A decisive battle in a place like this would obviously be very beneficial to the US military.
If the opponent placed these 7,000 men on the fort, I was not sure that I would be able to attack them.
Seeing that the opponent did not move, Harris commanded the troops and stepped closer to the Japanese array step by step.
Four hundred yards, three hundred yards, Harris still didn't shoot. He saw that the Japanese formation on the opposite side had not moved at all.
This shows that the Japanese army's musket range is completely out of reach of them.
"Are the Japanese troops waiting for me to get within 100 yards to play shooting with them?" Harris sneered in his heart.
When we reached about 200 yards, Harris suddenly gave the order to stop advancing.
When Harris gave this order, he could even see the Japanese soldiers wearing red leather armor on the opposite side obviously moving, and even a row of infantrymen raised their muskets.
Many indigenous soldiers were unable to clearly grasp the range of their muskets, or would shoot in advance when they were panicked.
Harris encountered this situation before when he was exterminating an Indian tribe. The Indians didn't know where they got the muskets, but in most cases they fired them out of range.
In this way, when the enemy really rushes forward, they won't have time to reload.
His infantry had stopped completely. Just when Harris was about to give the order to raise his gun and shoot.
"Bang bang bang..." intensive gunshots rang out from the Japanese army's horizontal formation on the opposite side. A puff of white smoke rose from the last row of the Japanese army's horizontal formation.
Before Harris could take back the sarcastic look on his lips, it froze on his face.
The reason was that there were wailing sounds coming from our side's horizontal formation.
Then there was the dull sound of the soldier's body falling to the ground and hitting the soil.
"Shoot!" Harris ordered loudly with his eyes widened, his eyes filled with deep anger.
"The damn Japanese are so cunning. They actually hid the new rifles behind a phalanx of old rifles to confuse us. We must make these liars pay the price." Harris cursed in his heart.
The U.S. military, which was panicked by a round of shooting, finally launched a counterattack. They used three-stage shooting in alternating directions.
What surprised Harris was that the opponent did not fire in stages at all, and the rate of fire was actually faster than his own. However, under the smoke, Harris could not see their rifles clearly at all.
With the magazine loaded, the rate of fire of Huai Haijun's rifle is more than six times that of the US military's rifle.
In addition, the number of soldiers shooting on both sides is equal. The US military adopts a three-stage design, and the firepower density of shooting only accounts for one-third of the total number of soldiers.
Generally speaking, in the same period of time, the firepower poured out by the Japanese front was six times that of the US military.
As soon as the US military completed a round of shooting, the front row of the horizontal formation was already sparse.
This short period of time brought the casualties of the US military to close to a quarter. Under this casualty rate, it is already a miracle that the US military has not collapsed.
Perhaps it was because Harris was an excellent general, or perhaps the contempt for the natives in the hearts of the soldiers gave them vanity and forced them to hesitate to escape.
The Japanese army's horizontal formation also suffered a big blow. After all, at a distance of 200 yards, the US military could already shoot accurately.
However, most of those who fell were the Japanese soldiers in the first two rows.
Naturally, these Japanese soldiers were also very scared. They also felt panic because of the collapse of their companions around them.
But when they saw that the casualties of the American troops on the opposite side were much greater than their own, they could only pray silently to Amaterasu, praying that bullets would not fall on them and that the American troops on the opposite side would retreat quickly.
Of course, they were also worried that when they turned around, they would be stabbed to death by the Chinese soldiers behind them.
"Persevere, you must persist. As long as they can go back alive, there will be a lot of military honors waiting for them." Many Japanese soldiers thought in their hearts. Those Chinese people just use money to do things anyway, and they don't need these military honors at all.
But they are different. Only with military merit can their status be improved. There are even a lot of material rewards.
Masao Nakata, who had been leading the cavalry hiding on the flanks, saw the two sides start firing intensively at such a long distance.
I couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat. If I were to lead the cavalry to attack such a military formation, the two thousand cavalry would probably be wiped out before they could even get close.
"Hey...when did the musketeers become the nemesis of the cavalry?" Masao Tanaka sighed silently in his heart.
At this moment, the flag bearer on the other side of the formation gave the order for the cavalry to attack.
It turned out that the U.S. troops on the opposite side had begun to retreat. In fact, it could not be regarded as a retreat. Due to the heavy casualties, Harris was no longer able to effectively control his men.
As soon as the order to retreat was given, it turned into a rout. Fortunately, most of the soldiers knew how to escape in the direction of landing.
As long as they can get within the range of the naval gun, they have a chance to get to the ship.
Harris did not expect that this battle, which was supposed to be a win, would end in his own defeat. Moreover, the winner was decided within a few minutes of the battle.
"It's all because of the damn deception of the Japanese. Where did they get so many advanced rifles?" Harris was not convinced by such a failure at all.
But that’s how war is, we only care about victory or defeat, only about the result.
Harris sat on his horse, kicking his spurs vigorously.
At this time, there was a rumbling sound behind him, and the enemy actually had so many cavalry hidden on both sides.
Harris added a little more strength, and the horse ran faster.
Harris also looked back sympathetically at the infantrymen who were running hard. They were herded together by the Japanese cavalry like rabbits.
Then these American soldiers naturally raised their weapons.
There are language barriers in different countries, but the movements of surrender are similar.
Even Japanese cavalry can understand this surrender gesture.
In the past, Masao Nakata might have ordered that all these Americans be killed and their heads taken back to ask for credit. But that is not possible now, the order must be carried out.
In the eyes of Americans, surrendering is not a shameful thing at all, especially to someone stronger than yourself.
At this time, they had long forgotten that they had just despised these natives in their hearts!
Masao Tanaka took the lead and chased after the American troops.
From time to time, American soldiers fired back in panic. Occasionally, one or two Japanese cavalrymen were knocked off their horses.
At this time, Tanaka Masao saw the powerful combat power of Huai Haijun, and his original contempt for Ding Li had long since disappeared.
He has zeroed in on his prey - a U.S. military officer who was escaping on horseback.
Harris felt that someone was chasing him on horseback. When he turned around, he saw a Japanese general riding a horse chasing him. The Japanese's equestrian skills were very good.
Harris felt that the man was getting closer and closer to him.
He took out the Colt pistol stuck on his waist and fired two shots behind him, trying to scare the Japanese away.
However, what happened was counterproductive. The pistol missed the Japanese behind him, but instead provoked the other party to retaliate.
The Japanese took out the riding bow hanging on his back and prepared to shoot Harris's horse. However, the horse may have seen the obstacle and jumped, allowing the arrow to hit Harris's back.
The bow and arrow penetrated Harris's lungs through his back ribs.
With a "plop", Harris fell from his horse.
Before the emergence of positional warfare, the time for real fighting in the field was very short.
Especially this tactic of queuing to kill, from the moment the two sides engage in battle to the collapse of one side, it takes several or dozens of rounds of volley fire.
Most of the time is spent in pre-battle preparations and later in the process of chasing and annihilating the enemy.
After this battle, more than 2,000 U.S. landing troops were annihilated and more than 1,000 people were wiped out. Some soldiers were wiped out by Japanese cavalry while escaping.
Although the order to capture prisoners was issued, how could these Japanese cavalrymen, who were mostly samurai, be able to capture them?
When the Americans came from the sea last year, they frightened Japan so much that these samurai felt the same way. Now that they have the opportunity, why not vent it on these American soldiers?
However, nearly a thousand prisoners were still captured, and very few American troops successfully ran back to the warship. After all, how could their legs outrun the war horses?
In addition, U.S. Marine Corps Commander Harris was killed in action.
After this battle, the US military was no longer able to open Japan's door.
The signing negotiations were held as scheduled, and the Chinese participated as the mediator.
However, this negotiation was different from what Mailian had originally imagined. This was an armistice negotiation.
Yes, the United States is requesting an armistice from an indigenous country and even spending money to ransom its own captured soldiers.