Chapter 303 Blocking

"Boom", "Boom"...

"Boom boom boom..."

...

Colombia is both near the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. There are many important ports along the coast, especially on the Caribbean Sea, which plays an extremely important role in Colombia. Port cities such as Barranquilla, Cartagena, and Santa Marta are all like this.

The reason why Martinez Campos first captured Barranquilla was because Barranquilla was the most important port of Colombia along the Caribbean Sea, and this port was also connected to the Magdalena River, the most important inland river in Colombia. Once this port is occupied, not only his troops can obtain an important advance base, but the Spanish sailing fleet can also go up the Magdalena River and attack the inland Colombia. Therefore, in Campos, Colombia is not only the source of information.

At the beginning, Bia should focus on defending Barranquilla, and in this way, he can easily achieve the goal of attracting the opponent's main force. Later, the real Spanish main force will land in Santa Marta dozens of kilometers away, and then advance along the railway toward Bogota, the capital of Colombia, and conquer Bogota, which has no more troops, thereby destroying the Colombian will to resist, completing his entire battle plan, and returning Spain to South America...

The plan is perfect!

But Campos did not expect that Barranquilla, who had to be defeated after a battle in the plan, was occupied by his troops without any resistance. At first, he thought it was a trap, thinking that the other party wanted him to get off the ship, and then calmly arranged an encirclement to destroy him in the city. Although this was a bit dangerous, it was also in line with his plan to attract the opponent's main force. Therefore, he did not care too much, but just told the troops to be careful of defense and not be attacked by the enemy suddenly approached.

However, after waiting for two days, there was no movement. The Colombians seemed to care that they had lost an important port... And Campos received news in addition to being depressed that Colombian President Morideo forced a unit with a number of 7,000 people to stay in Bogota!

So Campos understood that the other party had already seen through his intentions.

But this is nothing extraordinary.

There has never been a clear idea in this world. Since the other party has already figured out his intentions, he will follow the second plan. He led his troops from Barranquilla, along the coast of the Caribbean coast, heading towards Cartagena, another city in Colombia, and threatened to occupy Cartagena first, and then follow the road between Cartagena and Medellin to occupy the second largest city in Colombia. In his opinion, Medellin is not only the second largest city in Colombia, but also produces gold and silver, and the distance between Bogota is more than 200 kilometers. There is no railway between the two cities. Moridedo should be able to send troops to block him with confidence.

However, the troops set out from Barranquilla and walked less than thirty kilometers before being furiously blocked by a mysterious force.

There is nothing worse than this.

Because, from the beginning, this mysterious unit had completely wiped out the artillery troops of Campos, and his logistics supplies, especially ammunition, suffered considerable losses.

Originally, it would have been fine if the enemy had just sneaked up and launched a raid to achieve such success, but what made Campos feel unspeakable was that the other party did not get close at all, but just used artillery to launch a long-range strike on him...

A terrible artillery was actually arranged by the opponent around his troops?

Campos almost pulled all his scouts out and shot them. During the march, these guys had clearly figured out the situation within twenty kilometers, but why did they miss this artillery? But no matter how he was angry or even threatened to shoot them, the scouts all decided to be a damn truth: it would be impossible for any artillery troops to ambush around, and even if there were, it would be impossible for them to be within twenty kilometers.

But it is not within twenty kilometers. Is it twenty kilometers away? If that is the case, what a huge cannon would it be? The caliber is at least 200mm. As long as the Colombians put a few cannons in the port of Barranquilla, the Spanish fleet would not even dare to get close, let alone land.

Campos did not believe what the scouts said, but after being bombarded, he quickly sent back the troops who searched for the enemy, but reported to him that after chasing for thirty kilometers, no artillery was found, and there was not even a trace of cannon.

This gave the Campo period a hell of a feeling.

That was an artillery, and it was destroyed in a short time that his entire artillery was not small, and it might even be the size of an entire artillery regiment... Such a group of enemies, with cannons, could not run fast or far, especially with his rapid reaction.

However, this enemy was gone.

Campo once suspected that his subordinates did not try their best to search and let the enemy hide. But if you think about it carefully, it was a cannon... Cannons are not that easy to hide. Those killing weapons will leave deep marks on the road. How could they hide when facing experienced scouts?

However, this mysterious artillery was literally gone.

Could it be that he is really a hell?

People are always full of fear of unknown things. Although Campos is a long-standing battle and has strong psychological qualities, his original confidence has become a little uneasy because of this "breathless disappearance" enemy artillery.

...

The troops continued to advance.

Although he lost artillery and a lot of arms, the Campo period could not let the entire military deployment come to a standstill because of his own problems. Because he knew that Spain could only win but not lose this time. Even if the Americans took action, they would have the capital to bargain. Maybe the Americans would hesitate because of the combat effectiveness they showed, and even no longer wanted to attack them to colonize the territory. But if they were defeated, not only the Americans and the Chinese would definitely quickly join the war with them, but even large-scale riots could occur in Cuba, and even the Spanish mainland would be affected...

However, the enemy appeared again.

On the night after the artillery was attacked, with the loud "boom" sound, the mysterious enemy launched an artillery attack on him again.

Campos was prepared for a long time. Under his order, a small number of cavalry teams quickly attacked and launched a counterattack at the place where the enemy was located. The infantry was immediately following the cavalry...

As a result, it became the saddest night in Campos.

More than 200 elite cavalry and nearly 1,000 elite infantry were almost wiped out in less than half an hour... What caused all this was the dense gunfire two kilometers away!

Those gunshots all came from a kind of gun that Campos was very familiar with: machine guns!

The enemy not only had a large number of artillery guns, but also carried at least dozens of machine guns!

"This is a huge enemy army with a population of about 5,000 to 10,000!"

This is Campos' final judgment.

Because, based on his years of combat experience, the team that can destroy a regiment in such a short time must be several times more than that. The other party carried a large number of artillery and machine guns... Although these artillery seem to be of little power, they are in large numbers. This situation is obviously in line with the national conditions of Colombia. Therefore, he guessed that he should have successfully attracted the main force of Colombia. Although according to previous information, Bogota still had about 7,000 elite Colombians, which is almost second only to the army of Chile, the South American powerhouse, considering that Colombia has had close contact with the Chinese in Tangzhou in recent years and has gained a lot of benefits from it, it is normal to have a regular force far exceeding other countries in South America.

However, Campos was not sure of it at all, so he decided to wait a little longer, and after he could determine the opponent's true strength, he would send a message to General Nikolau who was waiting to attack.

This was a decision that later made Campos regret extremely.

Since the second attack, the enemy has come every day. Moreover, the opponent never attacked him during the day, and every time he came, he was at night, and even rainy days. This made his troops exhausted, and the average distance he could advance was only about ten kilometers. Not to mention that he set up ambush many times, intending to attack the enemy in the reverse direction, but in the end he was all meat buns and beat dogs... In order to find out the origin and number of the enemy, he had to pay most of the scouts, but at this price, he only exchanged for an unclear report: the enemy had a scout with an extremely strange outfit and a face full of oil...

That's right, his scout just met the enemy scout, and then, except for some who escaped, they were all destroyed!

Campos had never experienced such a battle.

The enemy never confronted him head-on, but fired at him at night. In order to prevent his counterattack, and to protect the artillery, he also arranged a considerable number of machine guns around his camp to block his soldiers from the camp... If this was not the most unacceptable thing for Campos, then the enemy's performance would only make him dumbfounded: the artillery was dispersed.

That's now.

The enemy actually fired fire at his camp from four to six directions at the same time... and based on the intensity of the artillery fire in each direction, he was surprised to find that the opponent had no main attack direction and almost equally distributed firepower.

In which direction does this make him fight back?

Should we concentrate our efforts on one direction?

But who can guarantee that this is not a trap set by the enemy on purpose? The number of enemies may not be smaller than that of him, and they are also equipped with a large number of machine guns. Although he has this thing himself, he no longer has artillery weapons. Once used in a concentrated manner, the enemy's artillery will immediately transfer the artillery fire. At that time, the last powerful weapon he can use to defend will be lost.

"Boom boom boom..."

The enemy's shells continued to land in their camps, almost every minute.

The soldiers could only hide in temporary fortifications. It was late at night and they could not see the enemy at all, and... they were short of ammunition.

...

"General, you can't wait any longer. If you wait any longer, we will be wiped out." Campos' chief of staff Froncisco Ines was staying with Campos at this moment, listening to the sound of cannons and screaming from time to time, a hint of pain flashed across his face from time to time. When they first occupied Barranquilla, they thought it would be an easy war. After all, these South American countries are not strong. Even if they are as strong as the first-class Chile, they only have 10,000 to 20,000 mobile troops, but their expedition will reach 50,000 this time. In addition, they are still in

Cuba's 200,000 troops were used as reserve... No matter how you look at it, they were all Ying Ding. However, he never thought that he would encounter this situation... They were actually suppressed by the Colombians with artillery? Is this character a rebellion? But the question is, this is the fact. Moreover, after several days of continuous night harassment and artillery attacks, their soldiers were extremely tired. If this continues, it will not take long for the troops to lose their combat effectiveness. At that time, the Colombian army hiding around them will even need only one charge to capture them all.

"The enemy has never appeared, so I am a little suspicious of my judgment now." Campos's psychology was also suffering. The enemy attacked every night, which seemed to torture him and the Spanish soldiers he led. But logically, the enemy himself should be under considerable pressure and feeling tired. However, for a few days, the enemy's attacks were still orderly, and he didn't feel any trace of it at all.

The traces of fatigue. But this should be impossible... The number of enemies is not much smaller than him, and the quality of Colombian soldiers is absolutely impossible to compare with the Spanish soldiers under his command. How could he persist to this point? Moreover, he always felt it was difficult for him to understand that the number of enemies was not much smaller than him, but every time he launched a counterattack or sent a scout, he could never find the traces of the other party... Are those guys walking in trees?

Thousands of thousands of people, how could such a large group of people not even have traces left? He once suspected that the other party might not have so many people, but, without so many people, how could it have such crazy firepower? Since Jin Zhang and Guo pioneered the invention of the method of cluster combat in machine guns, and more and more machine guns have been used in centralized manner. However, this does not mean that the use of a large number of machine guns requires only a small number of people. All those who can afford the cluster of machine guns are large-scale troops. According to judgment, the enemy army around him may have hundreds of machine guns, which is obviously not a quantity that a small army can afford. In addition, the enemy has so many artillery... at least thirty, maybe fifty more. Such a number of artillery, and considering the national conditions of Colombia, it should be at least one army. However, why can't such a large army be discovered by his side?

"What else do you doubt? The main force of the enemy is right next to us, and they adopted the most rogue tactics... General, I am sure that those Colombians have received help from Americans or Chinese, so they have such a considerable number of artillery and shells... We must promptly notify General Nikolau and let him attack quickly, otherwise we will lose this best and perhaps the last chance." Inies called.

"Let me think about it..." Campos actually agreed with Ines's idea, but years of experience told him that the situation he encountered was very strange. If it was not good, it was possible that even Nikolaus would be involved... It must be very cautious.

"What else do you want to think? My general, look at the soldiers around you, they may be smashed into pieces by enemy artillery fire at any time... In two days, we may not even have the power of defense." Inies shouted.

"I know what you are thinking, but, Francisco, we don't know who our enemy is... Why are you sure that is the main force of the Colombians? What if this is just their trap, or we are facing Americans or Chinese?" Campos also shouted irritably.

"American? Chinese?" Ines was stunned. "General, weren't those guys coming at all? They ignored the war between us and Colombia."

"They just didn't make it publicly, but this does not mean that they cannot send troops to help the war secretly!" Campos shouted in a deep voice.

“You mean…”

"Although I believe that the enemy around us is likely to be the main force of the Colombians, I also doubt that this is the American or Chinese troops. If my guess is true, then you can imagine how the main force led by Nikolaou will be blocked... We are likely to face a new failure and a more disastrous failure." Campos sighed.

"But if we continue like this, we will never be able to go to Cartagena, and even Barranquilla will not be able to go back." Inies said.

"Wait a little longer, hold on... we can't take risks." Campos covered his face, his heart full of bitterness... The battle he expected was not like this, but the two sides should have set their sights and went back and forth... But the enemy was unpredictable. He just hoped that the enemy around him was the main force of the Colombians, otherwise, they had already failed half of the war at the beginning. But this was much better than a complete failure.

Campos has even made up his mind to sacrifice himself.

However, his determination did not last long... The next night, the enemy attacked. First a bombardment... just a few days ago. But neither he nor his subordinates expected that the enemy had used a stronger "weapon". The shells fell into the camp and immediately burst out with a large amount of smoke and pungent smell... He swore that he had never hated peppers and peppers like that moment, but it was useless to hate those seasonings, because, just after the smoke and sneezing sounds spread throughout the camp, the enemy suddenly launched an attack on his camp... because the opponent had been in a row for several days.

They were all fired from a distance, so he and his soldiers were not prepared for the enemy to launch a sudden attack. When the enemy rushed in front of them, the guys realized, but it was too late at this time... The fierce battle continued until dawn, but what he saw was the corpses of Spanish soldiers covered the camp, and there was no enemy's corpses... And the most hateful thing is that most of the dead Spanish soldiers were killed by their colleagues... In the smoke, they could not tell which one was the enemy and which one was a comrade-in-arms, and they would only shoot randomly. The consequences of this were the casualties of more than 3,000 people!

More than three thousand people.

With the artillery and baggage troops lost on the first day, and the soldiers lost in the artillery attack in a few days, his troops had lost more than one-third of their troops. Moreover, after a surprise attack by the enemy, the originally low morale fell to the bottom... The soldiers began to get tired of war and were unwilling to continue moving forward. Even many officers joined forces to put pressure on him, demanding to return to Barranquilla.

In desperation, Campos had to send a communications soldier back to Barranquilla and report his situation to the Cuban front-line base camp... Fortunately, the enemy did not stop his actions this time, and his report was soon received feedback, but the news from this feedback made him worried: General Nikolau, who had been waiting for an opportunity, would lead 50,000 troops across the Caribbean Sea and attack Santa Marta as planned!

...


Chapter completed!