Joseon Needs a Coup - Chapter 360



Only Noblemtl

#2-17. As a Devil Dressed in Karki (3)

There was a moment of silence, but soon he and his men pulled the triggers of their assault rifles first at the enemies who were about to aim their rifles, literally slicing down anyone who wasn’t wearing their uniform. With a crunching sound, the bullets shattered the wall, and shrapnel flew everywhere, along with blood spray.

Because they had come down from such a narrow place, it seemed that all the enemies had been shot at a distance that they could not possibly miss. The sound of boiling blood could be heard, and the soldiers who had barely survived the life-or-death situation were breathing heavily.

“Go and take out the machine gun positions! Kill all those who resist!”

Sergeant Ji Cheong-cheon shouted as he stabbed the enemy’s chest, who had survived the storm of bullets and was struggling. Then, the soldiers following behind him strode up the stairs, aiming their assault rifles forward. Soon, several gunshots were heard, and the sound of a grenade hitting the ground was heard, followed by shrill screams and the voices of the platoon members.

“Machine gun position suppression complete!”

After pulling the trigger to confirm the kills on the fallen enemies and sending a hand signal to the friendly company in front, they began to slowly move forward.

“1st Platoon has suppressed the enemy machine gun emplacement! Forward, forward!”

“Kill them all!”

It seemed that the battle was nearing its end. With the machine gun suppressed, the remaining enemies were completely pushed back by the firepower and had no choice but to scatter in all directions, surrender, or be found dead on the street. However, the majority of them chose the easiest method, surrender.

“Aren’t we being punished for throwing grenades at the sacred church?”

“Oh, God is not that petty. If he were to punish us for something like that, he would be Satan or the devil, not God.”

Ji Cheong-cheon felt a little uncomfortable about shooting at a church with a cross hanging on it and killing enemies, but he stopped. He thought that God would forgive everything and send those who had been plundering and killing as if it were a meal to a place of judgment, making them irreversible, so he would be grateful.

“Those kids must have taken a beating.”

I don’t know how it felt to have a whole brigade unexpectedly flank the enemy, but it was clear that they would be impatient now. The twilight was beginning to fall on the ground, and the friendly forces across the river would also definitely begin to move.

***

“The battle broke out sooner than I thought.”

It seemed that the assault infantry brigade had advanced from Dandong faster than expected. The signal officer who was handling the telegraph station retrieved a pigeon that had flown in, and reported to me that Dandong had been recaptured.

It seemed that the elite companies of each battalion, armed with assault rifles, were giving them a real shock. After all, they were already human weapons, and even without assault rifles, they had already been able to inflict tremendous shock with their existing firepower, but now that they had light, rapid-fire weapons in their hands, their destructive power must have been doubled.

I was immersed in the thought that this would change the paradigm of infantry combat and that it would be useful in the countless wars that would inevitably occur in the future. Just thinking that the license fee alone would be enormous, the fatigue and the pressure of reality seemed to disappear for a very short time.

“Director, this is a report from our scouts.”

“Is it the same as the one you received earlier?”

“Yes.”

Meanwhile, the scouts who had been dispatched in advance also reported the same thing. The enemy troops remaining in Dandong were leaving in disorder and running towards their main force. They say that if an unlucky person falls backwards, his nose will break, so the enemy could not help but be flustered because this happened right when the night situation was about to begin.

Perhaps the enemy overestimates our intentions and force size, and is panicking, unable to properly assess the next situation.

“The enemy’s collapse is not ordinary. It seems that they are unable to handle the situation as it has become uncontrollable due to the nighttime situation.”

Along with this, the enemy’s front, which had been exchanging firepower for a long time, also seemed to have begun to shake greatly, and the enemy’s artillery firepower had clearly decreased compared to before. The enemy artillery, which still relied on old-fashioned direct fire, could not greatly threaten our batteries or infantry. It was a great thing that they bravely brought the field artillery to the front line, but the era when that bravery alone could break the firepower gap was long gone.

One by one, the batteries fell silent after being hit by shrapnel and high-explosive shells, and the few batteries that were still alive and performing their duties were no longer firing, indicating that panic had spread like an epidemic both forward and rear.

Of course, old-fashioned artillery would not be able to win against modern artillery doctrine. Field warfare, concentrated artillery operation, and indirect fire, as well as the doctrine of using range and terrain, were the true nature of our artillery. The enemy had to crawl out to fire directly to hit us 3 km away, but our forces could easily defeat the enemy 10 km away with indirect fire, so there was no way to do it. And here was another innovative, or perhaps even a method that anyone in that era could think of, being used.

“The wing is really good at flying.”

“The significance of reconnaissance aircraft to artillery is enormous.”

The staff on the side were looking up at the sky with quite a look of excitement. Judging from the noise they heard from the sky, it seemed that the aircraft of the reconnaissance squadron of the Army Aviation Bureau of the Artillery Command had circled over the Yalu River.

Well, it was time to go back now that night was approaching, which could greatly interfere with flight and observation. The soldiers waved their caps and cheered at the aircraft, and the pilots lowered their altitude and passed by, looking at the people on the ground.

Since the Russian army had already used balloons for aerial reconnaissance in the Battle of Fengtian in 1904, both the army and navy had a great interest in the concept of aviation. They believed that combining balloons and aircraft with artillery or ship operations would enable them to conduct much better firepower warfare.

In fact, French artillery doctrine had developed in that way, and such content could be found frequently in Foch’s letters. Accordingly, starting in 1909, the Artillery Command created a new organization called the Special Reconnaissance Air Bureau, and the Navy created a new organization called the Naval Reconnaissance Bureau, each importing six machines from Russia and operating them, accumulating know-how.

And in 1912, he began to show full-scale interest in aircraft. Accordingly, he purchased 12 Farman biplanes from France and established a reconnaissance squadron, and even changed its name to the Army Air Service, which is currently in good use.

The Navy, unlike the Army, was not in a position to purchase biplanes because of the unexpected purchase of battleships. Their aircraft purchase plans were postponed until after 1917, and so they had to lease aircraft from the Army.

“Where do they come from?”

“Pyongyang.”

I gave a brief answer to the staff’s question. The pilots who had received maintenance and pilot training from the French military were largely distributed in Hansung, Pyongyang, and the Jemulpo area where the main military port was located, and it seemed that two aircraft at Pyongyang Airport had been diverted here for this battle.

“The world has really become a better place. It flies across the sky and takes coordinates.”

“The world will change even more in the future.”

I said with a snicker. It seemed that the Japanese also saw that and hurriedly purchased the same type of aircraft in 1912, established the Naval Aeronautical Research Committee, and established their own doctrine.

“It’s a contact! Go quickly and retrieve it!”

A gunnery officer with a handsome Kaiser beard shouted from afar, and several gunners rushed over to carefully retrieve the fallen communication cable. It seemed that the one passing by at low altitude had been trying to throw the last observations into the communication cable.

It was probably dropped by a reconnaissance aircraft. Of course, there were no telephones on aircraft, and even if there were, there were many difficulties in connecting directly to the artillery unit, so they took the most primitive yet effective method.

This is a method of manually writing down coordinates confirmed while flying, putting them into a communication box, and throwing them from the sky toward the adjacent artillery unit. Surprisingly, this method was useful enough to be used even in the Korean War. When the radio was not connected properly or communication was difficult for other reasons, L-4 and L-5 reconnaissance planes would throw communication boxes to the ground forces to provide reconnaissance information.

And our reconnaissance plane flying in the sky was also providing coordinates in the same way. Perhaps he had a feeling that he would hit the jackpot this time, as the artillery lieutenant with the Kaiser beard handed the recovered communication cable to the battery commander, and immediately the entire 75mm battery opened fire.

At that sight, the expression of the 7th Brigade Commander, Lieutenant General Noh Baek-rin, seemed quite serious. Originally, even in history, they had put a lot of effort into the idea that air power would be important in future wars, and it seemed that it would be no different here. After listening to the roaring engine sound in the sky for a while, the sound of artillery fire soon covered the noise, and he licked his lips and looked forward again.

“Chief, shall we now order the units on standby to cross the river?”

“Wait a minute. We’re not done talking yet. The Operations and Firepower staff said that improved mobile barrage fire is possible here. What about the Quartermaster? Do you think we can supply enough ammunition to split those worms to pieces?”

I looked at the Quartermaster General, who was unfortunately in between the Operations and Firepower General Staffs and whose front line was in a major strategic retreat compared to the timeline.

The military chief of staff, who identified himself as Baek Bu-ryeong, seemed to be deep in thought for a moment. In the modern Korean military, there were many cases where the operations chief would just say, “Hey, military chief, is this okay? Oh, it’s okay? Then let’s proceed as planned?” and in reality, they would cause a mess.

This was because there were many instances where the allocated troops and equipment were less than the supplies to be dispatched, resulting in the estimated time being spent more than twice as long. There were also quite a few cases where people took this approach seriously and ended up actually seeing blood.

In addition, there were real cases where the Japanese army at the end of the Great War and the Korean army right before the Korean War undermined their combat power by saying, “The concept of logistics is a subject contaminated with materialism!” So I always demanded that the capabilities of logistics staff in the field be greatly emphasized. Moreover, thanks to the aftermath of the last war, the training of competent logistics, transportation, and weapons officers had to become essential conditions that had to be met.

This was because the development of transportation and communication inevitably required the ability to supply ammunition and materials in a timely manner in a war that was becoming much more complex than before. If we ignore this and think of a country that was trying to cut it for three days but ended up entering its third year of war, the answer is clear.

In any case, the rapid consumption of ammunition due to the development of firepower also had a great impact on this trend, and our military’s officer corps, which directly benefited from it, was quickly adapting to this in its own way.

“It’s tight, but it’s possible.”

Fortunately, the quartermaster nodded after looking at some data and said. It seemed that the shells deployed here were enough to carry out the operation. After all, compared to other heavy artillery, the 75mm ammunition was relatively easy to transport and store.

“Okay. Since the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces said it’s possible, I will issue the operational order immediately.”