Joseon Needs a Coup - Chapter 319
Only Noblemtl
#319. Serenade for the finale (3)
“Keep shooting! Concentrate so the enemy doesn’t get close to the forward line!”
“Grenade launchers! Now! Fire on the heads of the entrenched enemies!”
“Grenade launcher, distance 200, up 20, shoot!”
“firing!”
Although the sound of the machine gun’s firing was small, it was enough to bring death.
As the first enemies caught in the machine gun and rifle fire fell to the ground and the enemies following behind were entangled with them and pinned down, the grenade launchers began to fly in from the air as if they had been waiting for this.
Enemies who had aimed their guns at our troops were scattered everywhere, and those who had crouched down using corpses as cover also met a similar end.
In an instant, corpses began to pile up, and the battlefield that had been filled with darkness was now filled with the flashes of muzzles and the afterimages of explosions.
“Ugh!”
“The enemy is moving their brigades to the flank and closing in on our forces!”
As several soldiers were hit by sudden bullets and screams echoed through the trench lines, Lieutenant Kim Si-jin blew his whistle toward the Madsen machine gun team.
After three short bursts of fire, they immediately moved to their reserve positions and stopped the Japanese infantry formations attempting to maneuver on the flank.
Although it lacked the sustained firepower of the Maxim, the Madsen firepower, which could be quickly moved and repositioned, was enough to stop the enemy’s skirmishers from breaking through the friendly firepower.
Soon the Maximo Battalion on the hillside, having grasped the situation, opened fire on them, and once the threat from the flank was contained, most of the firepower began to fly forward again.
A fierce firefight ensued, and although the enemy seemed to have been subdued to some extent, they soon brought in new battalions without a moment’s rest.
Together they began to pour artillery fire onto the defensive lines.
Some disappeared screaming in the midst of the shelling, and those who survived were evacuated to the death camp, but most of them did not lose their fighting spirit and continued to fight with their weapons as before.
It was not an empty promise that assault infantry would never fall as long as they had weapons and ammunition in their hands.
“Yeah, you guys aren’t the type to end it like this. Bring everything you’ve got! We’ll never fall!”
Someone’s shout was heard between the trenches.
The battle that would burn through the long night and make the glory of the North Star shine even brighter was just beginning.
***
“Shoot! If we don’t break through this time, we all die!”
The artillery regiments of the Guards Division and the 2nd Reserve Infantry Division were pouring out artillery fire like crazy.
The fact that the cannons fired at a rate of only two rounds per minute and their barrels turned red hot shows how fierce the battle was.
But even this has now almost reached rock bottom.
Now, with less than 10 rounds left in each gun, Major General Umezawa personally led the 1st Guards Brigade and gave the order to sortie to deliver a final solution to the enemy lines.
It might be the last time, but he reported on the battlefield situation as if he didn’t care.
“Those damn bastards, they just won’t go down!”
“Their defense line seems stronger than I thought. Keep sending troops forward.”
As the night deepened and everyone began to get used to the darkness, a wide expanse of farmland could be seen to the right of the advance route.
If we crossed there and struck the enemy’s defenses on both wings, no matter how evil they were, they would not be able to break down and surrender.
“The machine gun fire is too intense! Our infantry is either getting torn apart as they approach, or they are lying face down on the ground, unable to move!”
“Our 1st Guards Brigade will handle it. If we cross the farmland on the right side of the road, we can disperse the enemy’s firepower concentrated on the left wing of the front line, making the attack a little easier!”
“Move quickly. There is not much time left. The 2nd Guards Brigade in the rear has encountered the enemy assault infantry battalion. They are somehow holding it back with numbers and high ground, but they won’t be able to hold out for long.”
It seemed that the tenacious enemies had finally begun to bite the rear and hang on. And they were the elite units of the enemies that I most hated to face.
“Behind them, there is a Korean Guards Division and a local army brigade, slowly approaching. If we continue like this, we will be crushed and killed. Before that happens, Umezawa, you need to break through the enemy’s defenses. Advance bravely and open the way to Wonsan.”
“Understood, Your Excellency the Division Commander.”
Umezawa saluted vigorously and then led the new recruits who were in name only the Guard Brigade, but in reality were far below the physical standards of the reserves and Guard Division, and advanced quickly toward the wide farmland.
If we advanced about 800 meters, we would be able to encounter the enemy’s advance line.
As they advanced, they heard a loud bang, a rather heavy sound of something exploding, but Umezawa, thinking it was just a common battlefield noise, ignored it and quickly moved the brigade to the front line.
If the Joseon guys were going to win through the maneuvers of platoons and companies, he planned to crush such tricks with the massive firepower of the brigade.
Since the battlefield was open at the time, it was clear that it would be even more advantageous in that respect.
As the vanguard finally finished entering the farmland and the follow-up units began to advance, Umezawa drew his sword.
Normally, this would have been the job of lieutenant colonels or majors, but with quite a few left-handed officers dead or injured and evacuated, there weren’t many people left who could lead the soldiers from the front.
Eventually, the situation became so bad that he had to draw his sword himself and step forward. Nevertheless, he was willing to shout in front of his soldiers.
“Advance! There is no time! Let’s bury them in the ground where they belong and return to Wonsan!”
Along with him, the chants of “Long live His Majesty the Emperor” and “Long live the Empire of Japan” that were always heard rang out, but that only lasted for a moment.
The lead units began to slow down and soon began to flounder.
“Why on earth can’t we advance?! Why!”
“There’s mud ahead! It’s all mud, so our advance is slowing down!”
“what?!”
It was clear that half of the farmland was abandoned and hardly any farming was done, so I kept checking that the ground was hard.
I had no idea what was going on, but it didn’t take long for the truth to be discovered.
“The canal, the canal is bursting! Those bastards burst the canal and turned this place into a cesspool!”
“what?!”
It was a disaster. Umezawa was so desperate that he completely ignored the enemy’s expected tactical moves.
At first, he was terrified and shouted to the soldiers of the Guards Brigade to get out of the mud immediately, but what they heard was not their commander’s order to retreat.
It was a barrage of gunfire pouring down from the firepower of the direct command of the Sunmuyeong platoon, which was overlooking the open area.
Umezawa knew that they were headed towards an irreversible outcome amidst the muzzle flashes, so he drew his sword and advanced toward the mud to face it as a warrior at least until the end.
And he too, like his comrades from the other Guards Divisions buried in Jinnampo and South Hamgyong Province, slowly cooled down while lying on the ground.
It was the moment when the 1st Guards Brigade and its commander, known as the Umezawa of Flowers, were destroyed.
***
“There are too many of them···!”
“Instead of talking like that, shoot and kill one of the bastards! Jong-sik, go over there and get a grenade, a grenade!”
“Kick the lead punks first! That way, the punks won’t be able to speed up!”
No matter how many times we killed them, the Japanese kept coming.
The Sunmuyeong direct unit had been blocking the enemy brigade’s offensive and holding back waves of hundreds and thousands of enemies all through the morning, but now they were reaching their limit.
This was not unexpected, but the intensity was much greater than expected.
The pressure was enormous: concentrated artillery fire on one defensive line, enemy breakthrough units rushing in on the area, and new units appearing on the front lines one after another as they were exhausted.
40:1, that was the power difference between the two sides.
It was a bloody battle, so much so that it would not be an exaggeration to say that it was a baptism of blood and fire.
They acted as if they were dead, trapped in the front and back, if they could not get through the road to Muncheon-gun anyway.
In this way, they ran towards the line of death where death was certain, like moths flying to a torch, and fell, staining the land of Joseon with blood.
“Attention Maximo shooters! A large number of enemies are approaching in the 12 o’clock direction! You must block their approach at all costs! Begin firing!”
“Eww, you little shits! Stop it!”
“Vice-Captain! Go to the branch office and get me some ammo! I’ve almost used up all the ammo I brought!”
“Oh, I understand, class president!”
What was decreasing were allies and ammunition, and what was increasing were corpses, shell casings that had just finished their work and bounced to the floor, and the ammunition boxes that contained them.
Among the piles of shell casings, the machine gunner hurriedly ran to the dead end located at the rear of the hill.
“Reload gun number 1!”
“Provide covering fire!”
As soon as the Maxim gun shouted to reload, the Madsen machine gun team in the nearby reserve opened fire.
I fired three or five shots at a time, aiming accurately, but unfortunately, the 30 or so rounds in the magazine were just small dust scattered across the huge flames.
“Change the magazine! Give it to me quickly!”
“Here it is!”
The assistant gunner crouched next to the gunner, constantly loading rounds into the magazine.
Then he would hand the fully loaded magazine back to the shooter, and then he would just focus on getting the empty magazine back and filling it up.
After taking out the bullets that were fully loaded into the cartridge case and putting them back into the magazine for a while, that too was now almost empty.
“Emergency! Enemy fire! Prepare for enemy fire!”
“Everyone bow your heads!”
Kukukukung! Bang!
The unpleasant flying sound of the shells turned into an explosion as they landed.
It was so sturdy when our allies were firing, but it was incredibly scary when the enemy was firing.
As those screaming between the artillery fire and those with eyes filled with fear and almost losing their minds hesitated, the veterans, officers, and instructors of the assault infantry shouted and made them focus on the front line again.
“If you stop, your commanders and comrades next to you will die! Fight like assault infantry, like elite soldiers carefully selected from the Korean army! Stand up and die, but don’t turn your back and die cowardly!”
···But the damn enemy artillery fire was now subsiding.
There was no concentrated bombardment on such a large scale as before. For the enemies whose supply lines were virtually cut off, this must have been the greatest mobilization of firepower.
But even that was fatal to the assault infantry without artillery support.
As the last of the concentrated fire began to hit the trench lines, the 3rd Company, consisting mainly of new recruits, began to waver.
Although their capabilities as an assault infantry battalion were recognized, their lack of combat experience was a major factor.
“The 3rd Platoon is being pushed back! The enemies, the enemies have completely destroyed the forward line and are heading towards the main left front line that the 3rd Platoon is in charge of!”
Lieutenant Kim Si-jin lifted the telescope and looked toward the 3rd Platoon.
As expected, as the troops on the vanguard were gradually overwhelmed, the company commander used his authority to retreat towards the main fishing boats.
‘We can’t retreat already…’
First, he ordered the 2nd company commander to personally command the two Maxim guns and the Madsen gunners and somehow stop the pouring enemy fire.
It was only with the firepower of machine guns, which could change the course of the battlefield and were the darlings of modern warfare and the main instrument of the most brutal symphony, that an equivalent exchange could be barely maintained.
Only then will we be able to defend so fiercely as we have now, and only then will we be able to maintain the current front line in the future.
For now, that was the only way to offset the overwhelming mass difference in quantity.
Besides, there was nowhere else to retreat.
To retreat any further would be no different from handing over this unknown hill to the enemy.