Armed with weapons and two days’ dry food, Rommel’s 23rd Battalion marched quickly. At dusk, they arrived at a small hill located more than 5o kilometers west of Mexico City, a sandy road not far away. This is the northern blockade line of the American Expeditionary Force, which isolated the peasant army from the outside world in morelos. Therefore, if you want to enter and leave morelos from the north, this road is the only way.
"Let the troops hide in the Woods, and no one is allowed to go out. Take care of their weapons and don’t go off!" Rommel told Gerhardt a call and then took Sergeant Fred, the monitor of the mercenary class, to some places in front to observe the situation through a telescope.
When the sunset shines on both sides of the highway, you can see a small house at regular intervals, that is, the roof of a temporary checkpoint erected by the US military and a small watchtower with searchlights. Every watchtower has a soldier with a rifle on his back. A patrol is walking back and forth at the checkpoint with a distance of 4 or 500 meters. It is really difficult for Rommel to pass or attack such a blockade during the day. When a certain part of the highway is attacked, it will be around 3 minutes. Four checkpoints, American patrols can come to reinforce the scene of the accident in 10 minutes. The number of American troops should be about 200. No wonder that some time ago, when peasant guerrillas attacked American convoys at night, they were always driven and attacked by the superior forces of the other side. It is not surprising that the Americans have strengthened their blockade and deployed more than a dozen guerrillas.
"It really is heavily guarded!" Rommel said and handed the telescope to Fred "how did you come here? Is it dark? "
Fred looked at Rommel seriously. "No, let’s touch a checkpoint and kill the American Ministry of War inside and walk over!" "
Rommel was a little surprised and envious. If his former armored regiment was here, he could also parade through the American blockade and clean up the American post along the blockade instead of sneaking in while it was dark as before.
"What’s in the checkpoint?" Rommel asked
Fred wanted to think, "more than a dozen beds, boxes of ammunition, some food and … words! For a word! "
Rommel silently remember these in my mind.
"Look at a motorcade coming!" Fred woke up Rommel. "From the east, there are … a car and six trucks covered with canvas, which may be full of soldiers or ammunition!"
Just then Rommel heard a strange sound coming from a distance and listened carefully for a few seconds. He quickly pulled up Fred’s cat and walked to the small forest where the troops were hiding.
Half a minute later, an American-made two-wing reconnaissance plane flew over the forest, made a turn in a short time, and then slowly flew west along the highway.
"It was all our planes that flew from the day before yesterday!" Jahart said to himself at a side.
"Ask them if they know how often American planes appear in this area!" Rommel pointed to the Mexican soldiers sitting in the shade.
After looking for a few Mexicans to understand the situation, Gerhardt turned back. "They said that they didn’t agree for five minutes or half an hour!"
Rommel looked up at the scene outside. It was less than an hour before dark.
"No, we will wait until after dark!"
The night in winter is much longer than that in summer, and it will be dark outside before 6 o’clock.
After that, Rommel got the commanders of each company, who were usually the hardest trained and the most disciplined. After some exhortations, Rommel took the mercenary class and the 1 ST, 2 nd and 3 rd companies to touch the mountain and went to the 4 th company to stay where they were ready to meet.
After dark, the winding road did not fall into darkness. The searchlights of American sentry scanned the road back and forth, and the patrol with hand guns still patrolled back and forth along the road.
"Gerhardt let 1 company commander and 2 company commanders cut the roadside line as soon as they fight as I just ordered! And stop the attack and retreat to the mountain immediately when you hear the whistle! Fred took your class machine gun and four infantry to that hill and was responsible for suppressing the 400-meter American firepower after fighting! "
After that, Rommel called several soldiers who were in charge of burying mines and asked them to bury the rope-type mines on the highway while the searchlights were scanning, and then sound the mines when they saw the green flares.
"Igor, how many searchlights can you knock out from this position?" Rommel called the only sniper in the infantry squad. Here’s his rifle with a six-fold scope.
Igor looked around. "Three on the left and two on the right are hard to reach!"
"Well, after the battle, you will be responsible for those searchlights!"
After the order was reached, Rommel took out a small revolver from his pocket and put a flare in it with a little heart.
Soon all the companies completed the scheduled deployment according to the order, and now they are waiting for an American motorcade to arrive.
The winter night is long and cold. Mexican soldiers squatting in the grass and bushes by the roadside feel the cold. The only move they can do is to rub their hands gently.
Compared with those American soldiers who are responsible for patrolling, they are not so patient. As time goes by, they gradually reduce their patrol frequency. Most of them hide in some crude checkpoints that are strong enough to resist the cold. Soldiers in charge of searchlights are still scanning the road with thick beams of light, but they are somewhat absent-minded.
Rommel waited until the first night to pass the motorcade here, but he passed the headlights in the distance, and now there are 20 trucks on the other side, which is much bigger than other Americans preparing "fishing nets".
When American cars passed by one after another, Rommel was still a little uneasy with a signal gun in his hand. If the Mexican soldier couldn’t help but get angry, he immediately gave an attack signal. If the car was an American soldier, he might as well blow to the whistle and announce his retreat.
Fortunately, Mexican soldiers didn’t pull their trigger rashly until the last car disappeared at the end of the road. Three weeks of intensive scraping made them remember to obey orders.
More than half an hour later, another motorcade appeared, this time a truck covered with canvas. Rommel pulled the trigger at the right time when the fourth car was about to pass through the mine burial site.
After several explosions, two American trucks suddenly rolled over to one side, followed by the first truck trying to escape, which also lost its direction in a dense bomb, and finally stopped at the muzzle of the peasant army.
At the same time, the searchlights in the front and back of the motorcade went out one after another, and a large area fell into darkness. Taking this opportunity, 1 or 2 soldiers quickly broke the roadside telephone line.
Near the motorcade, a mine exploded, leaving a few small fires still burning. Dark red bullets flashed across the night from time to time and jumped from trucks. American soldiers were quickly knocked down and came out of the nearest checkpoint. A dozen American soldiers were left after being strafed by a machine gun.
Rommel patted Jahart on the shoulder at this moment, and this guy immediately riveted himself to a voice.
"3 companies attack!"
In a burst of shouting at the priests, more than 60 soldiers, mostly aged between 20 and 30, rushed to the highway. In this sudden and fierce attack, the last few soldiers immediately gave up their resistance.
The soldiers climbed the truck and shouted, "It’s food!"
"The general is food!" Gerhardt looked at Rommel excitedly.
Rommel’s expression was indifferent and he uttered a word "burn!"
After two seconds’ hesitation, Jahart was refreshed. At this time, the situation was not good. They moved the heavy grain back to the base area.
"Yes!"
In a short time, the guns on both sides of the east and west became dense, which seemed to be responsible for stopping the exchange of fire between the two companies and the US reinforcements.
Just then, the soldiers of Company 3 lit the fuel tanks of those trucks, and after a few muffled noises, they found that the trucks were full of food and turned into balls of fire, and they picked up guns scattered on the ground. The soldiers of Company 3 quickly evacuated from the road.
Shh … shh …
A minute later, Rommel sounded the retreat whistle, and the guns on both sides gradually subsided. At last, the wounded American soldiers could be heard still whining.
Rommel’s troops had retreated to an area to fight before the large-scale US military exhibition. Although the expected weapons and ammunition were not captured, the first victory after reorganization will bring great encouragement to these Mexican soldiers. What’s even more gratifying is that two soldiers of Company 3 took a bag of canned beef from the truck before leaving. Although Rommel was somewhat dissatisfied with this kind of business, he still let more than 200 people get together and enjoy an elegant meal. Although everyone was able to get half a can of beef, every face was so satisfied.
After counting the battle losses, Rommel was never happy. Such an ambush was very enjoyable, killing 50 American soldiers, but bombs, grenades and mines consumed a lot of ammunition left in the hands of the soldiers. Rommel estimated that they could cope with an ambush of the same scale at most.
After this, the troops will be caught in a situation of running out of ammunition and food.
After going west for about 5 kilometers, Rommel asked everyone to rest on the spot for a while. Most people except the sentry were sleepy and thought for a long time. Rommel decided to take his troops outside the US blockade, so that he would have the opportunity to seek assistance from German businessmen near the port.
As far as he knows, there are not a few weapons and ammunition that have been transported to Mexico but can’t be sent to the base area for the time being. A large number of brand-new rifles and ammunition have been there for several days in several private warehouses near tampico Port, and it is not difficult to get some food from there.
After a short nap at 4 am, Rommel beckoned the troops to move on. An hour later, they took advantage of the darkness to touch off an American checkpoint beside the highway and then sneaked to the north of the blockade before other American patrols were abnormal.
Tu Mei Chapter 39 The game of soldiers and bandits
As the morning sun rose slowly, a long and cold sleepless night finally ended. Pershing and his staff members were red-eyed and didn’t know what to eat, and no one spoke halfway through breakfast.
In the past night, the Zapata peasant uprising army changed to small-scale harassment tactics, and more than ten hundred troops were dispatched to attack the blockade line, transportation convoy and material supply point of the American Expeditionary Force. A total of four convoys were ambushed and the checkpoint was attacked. More than 300 officers and men were killed or seriously injured, and materials were looted and burned, which is even more difficult to estimate.
It was a sad night for Pershing and his expeditionary force, but it was the biggest challenge for the expeditionary force to enter Mexico, even though the strength of the two sides was still far from equal.
Pershing and his headquarters mobilized 34 infantry regiments and 57 cavalry patrols overnight to strengthen their vigilance and patrol, and exchanged fire between two peasant army units in southern morelos. Although the other side took the initiative to quit the fighting and fled into the mountains, the US military still achieved a "glorious result" in which more than 40 people were killed and injured.
After midnight, when the active peasant army was finally silent, the US military had to take this opportunity to readjust its deployment. However, just before dawn, a checkpoint on the cordon in northern morelos was removed, and 25 officers and men were lucky, which made General Pershing suddenly furious. He immediately ordered the nearby troops to conduct a close search in that area and vowed to kill the group of Mexicans who did not know how to live or die.
Rommel left the base area in the morning and his battalion left the area controlled by the peasant army before noon. After that, he put two platoons in charge of marching alert and ordered the soldiers not to talk during the March. Judging from the situation in one afternoon, the three-week training has achieved good results.
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