Spanish Grandeeship (Second Class)

  The commander of Britain's special forces 'Commando' assault team, Major Richard D, ordered his own Commando assault team to be divided into two teams.

  One team provides covering fire, while the other team quickly shifts its position under the cover of the intense fire from the first team. After the second team has established a firing position behind the first team, the latter begins to lay down smoke bombs to cover their own withdrawal.

  The German naval infantry amphibious reconnaissance troops saw the British special forces 'Commando' assault team throw out smoke bombs. They couldn't figure out the true intentions of their opponents, except for a few members who fired blindly at the smoke screen, and several others pulled out hand grenades and threw them to the edge of the smoke screen.

  After the grenade explosion, the shockwave dispersed the smoke screen, and German soldiers observed that there were no more muzzle flashes from the opposite side. From this, they could judge that their opponents had already left. However, the German naval amphibious reconnaissance troops still did not dare to be careless. A few of them jumped out of their positions, agilely rolling onto the road surface like a hunting leopard, and then several others rolled under the unburned truck chassis, using the truck as cover, aiming their guns at where their opponents had hidden earlier. Several others quickly crawled out of their positions after their companions had established a supporting position, carefully holding their guns as they crossed the road surface, entering the ambush position that the British special forces "Commando" assault team had previously occupied. After careful confirmation, they confirmed that their opponents had indeed withdrawn and left no traps waiting for these Germans. They then sent out a "safe" signal to the rear and advanced a distance to establish a firepower cover position.

  The German naval amphibious reconnaissance battalion behind them also followed cautiously. Captain Kittel stopped Zhou Tianlei, who wanted to follow the advance, and said: "General, the situation ahead is dangerous, I'd better send some men to escort you to Madrid, it should be safe there." Zhou Tianlei said: "How can you disobey my orders?" Captain Kittel let out a breath and said: "Your military rank is higher than mine, but I'm in command of this action, so I'm the highest commander here, please follow my orders." Zhou Tianlei had never seen a German officer dare to disobey the orders of a superior before, and couldn't help but smile. He continued: "Do you think I'll be safe on the way to Madrid? Will I be safe when I get to Madrid? Our enemies won't just ambush us once, they must have others waiting for me elsewhere. And as I told you, in Germany we only have generals who die with their soldiers, not those who abandon them and run away themselves. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: please don't make me that person."

  Captain Kittel saw Zhou Tianlei's determined attitude and had no better way, so he drew a few people to cover him in front of and behind Zhou Tianlei, and ordered them: as long as there is any movement, even if you sacrifice your own life, you must protect the general's life. The German Navy Amphibious Reconnaissance Unit sent out a vanguard group to act in front of the main force, and the main force kept a distance from the vanguard. The commander of the vanguard group was Hank, who had performed well in the Canary Islands campaign in Spain. After advancing a certain distance, they sent a signal "safe ahead" to the rear, and then the German Navy Amphibious Reconnaissance Unit slowly advanced. The vanguard stopped suddenly after advancing a certain distance, and Lance Corporal Lante sent a signal "abnormality ahead" to Hank. Hank rushed to Lante's side and asked: "What did you find?" Lante pointed to the grass in front and said: "Our opponent seems to have set up a tripwire mine there, and behind it is a regular minefield." Hank raised his binoculars and looked in the direction Lante had said. He found that there were many digging marks in the place he said, and the dug-out soil was thrown everywhere, some of which were not even concealed at all, but directly exposed on the ground. Hank sent a signal to the main force, asking the commander to come forward. Captain Kittel ran over with his waist bent and asked: "What's wrong?"

  Hank pointed to the minefield and briefly explained the situation. Lieutenant Kittel listened with a frown, not expecting the enemy to set up a minefield here to slow down their pursuit. He waved his hand and called over several grenadiers, ordering them to throw hand grenades into the minefield to test its size. After the grenadiers threw out the hand grenades, following several intense explosions, Lieutenant Kittel carefully observed the blast points of the hand grenades with binoculars. He found that their opponent was very cunning, setting up real and fake mines in the minefield. If they had gone to clear the mines instead of throwing hand grenades, it would have greatly affected their pursuit speed. However, although they had found the boundary of the minefield through the previous probe, their troops still had to make a big detour to bypass the minefield. Whether they could catch up with the enemy depended on whether the arrangements made under the general's instructions would take effect.

  Under the instructions of Zhou Tianlei, Captain Kite arranged a team to cross over from an enemy's blind spot on the highway, preparing to circle around to the rear of the enemy and launch a pincer attack with the main force while preventing the enemy from playing some tricks. After they crossed the road surface and were about to circle around to the rear of the enemy, they unexpectedly discovered that the enemy had already begun to retreat under the cover of smoke bombs. They didn't have time to ask for Captain Kite's instructions, so they chased after the enemy. When their opponents stopped in an open area to set up a minefield, they also saw it and decided not to stop but to rush to the front of their opponents to find an intercepting terrain. They rushed forward and found a castle that looked like it was abandoned. After a simple discussion, they decided to set up another minefield here to slow down their opponents' retreat speed. However, unlike their opponents, they didn't have professional anti-infantry mines, so they used M-24 long-handled grenades to make some simple tripwire mines and set them up in places where their opponents might pass through.

  Commander Richard D of the British Special Forces 'Gurkha' assault team, upon hearing a massive explosion from his rear, knew that the Germans had reached the minefield and were likely trapped. The Germans would now be busy rescuing their wounded and clearing their own mines. Richard D had set up the minefield with a mix of real and fake mines to confuse the enemy and slow down their pursuit. After seeing the desolate castle, he learned from his rear guard that the Germans had stopped chasing them. He ordered the team to slow down their march and instructed the rear guard to strengthen their vigilance in case the Germans came from another road.

  At this time, the vanguard suddenly issued an order to stop the whole team. Major Richard of the British Army immediately became tense and ran to the front line to find out what they had discovered. The soldiers at the forefront pointed to a grass thicket in front of them and said, "The grass inside is swaying abnormally. We may have encountered an ambush." The German naval infantry reconnaissance soldier responsible for intercepting saw that the British were not fooled and raised his camouflaged Mauser 98k sniper rifle, loading a incendiary bullet into the chamber. He took aim at the makeshift minefield and fired. The incendiary bullet ignited a hand grenade, engulfing the entire minefield in flames. Major Richard quickly pushed a soldier closest to the minefield to the ground. Then, the Germans opened fire, bullets whizzed overhead, and thudded into the mud around them.

  Major Richard Landau, upon hearing the gunfire, realized that he was being intercepted by a German army unit that had been ambushed by his own troops. He cursed, "The German pigs can still run pretty fast!" Major Richard Landau observed the German interception position and found that there were not many Germans, and they seemed to only want to pin him down until the follow-up German forces arrived. He prepared to lead his main force to outflank and defeat the Germans, but before he could give the order, the rear guard sent a signal indicating that the German pursuit battalion was approaching from behind.

  Major Richard knew that even if he could wipe out the Germans in front of him, if the pursuing Germans came up from behind, he would be caught in a pincer movement. He decided to leave his rearguard to continue monitoring the German pursuit group and open fire to slow them down when necessary. He also ordered a few more men to reinforce the vanguard to increase firepower and cover the retreat of the main force to the castle. He planned to take advantage of the night's cover to break through in different directions after dark. The British special forces 'Commando' assault team's vanguard increased their firepower, and the Germans who were trying to intercept them were immediately suppressed because their firepower was indeed not as strong as that of the British. Major Richard took the opportunity to order his troops to retreat to the castle. After entering the castle, snipers immediately established a sniper position on the castle walls. The vanguard and rearguard of the British special forces 'Commando' assault team also began to retreat into the castle one after another under cover. Lieutenant Kittel's German naval infantry reconnaissance unit saw the castle and heard the increasingly fierce gunfire in front of them, and followed the direction of the sound to find their opponents had already retreated into the castle.

  The ones who intercepted them in front were a small team sent by Lieutenant Kittel to prepare for the pincer movement against the enemy. After the two teams of German naval amphibious reconnaissance troops gathered together, they found that the British-occupied castle was higher than the surrounding area and was an easy-to-defend and hard-to-attack place, so the Germans only dispatched snipers to monitor the enemy's movements, while others retreated to a small hill. Lieutenant Brandi, who was in charge of commanding the pincer movement team, reported the interception situation to his superior, Lieutenant Kittel, and was injured along with two others during the exchange of fire with the enemy, but they were all lightly wounded and could continue to hold out for battle. The casualties of the enemy are not clear.

  Captain Kittel commended them for their combat agility. Turning around, he came to Zhou Tianlei's side and was shocked to see that the general hadn't run like a windbox in the previous urgent march (Zhou Tianlei's soul is a Chinese officer, naturally knowing the importance of physical ability, and would train himself according to the physical standards of the Chinese army during his free time). He looked at his superior with admiring eyes and said: "Sir, our opponents have escaped into that castle and are using the castle walls as cover to confront us."

  Here is the translation:

  Zhou Tianlei took over the binoculars, observing the situation in the castle while saying: "Have you contacted the other members of the negotiating team in Madrid?" Captain Kettel replied: "Already contacted." Zhou Tianlei said: "Then ask them to contact the Spanish military and tell them we've been attacked by armed bandits. Request that they send reinforcements." Zhou Tianlei added another sentence: "Just say the bandits might be separatists from their own country, and also ask them to bring someone familiar with this castle." Captain Kettel didn't go to execute the order, instead saying strangely: "Sir, we found this gun on the way while chasing after them. It's a British 'Sten' submachine gun. The ones who ambushed us should be British, not some Spanish separatists!" Zhou Tianlei said: "I have my own grasp of the situation, just execute the order." Captain Kettel saw that Zhou Tianlei had given an order, and although he still didn't understand, he went ahead and gave orders to the communications soldier.

  In the west of the ambush site of the British Special Forces 'Commando' assault team, the British agents led by Ian Fleming were not arranged to enter the battlefield due to the poor military quality of the agents before the battle. They were put on the other side. After hearing the sound of gunfire, Ian Fleming and his British agents knew that both sides had exchanged fire, but they did not dare to move their position without receiving a signal from Major Richard. However, the sound of gunfire gradually faded away after a while. Ian Fleming felt something was wrong, but he couldn't contact the British Special Forces 'Commando' assault team, so he and his agents cautiously approached the scene to observe. When they arrived at the scene, they found that the German vanguard car had been shot on fire, and several corpses wearing Spanish army uniforms were found on the German cars, but there was no sign of the British Special Forces 'Commando' assault team or the ambushed Germans.

  Ian Fleming knew the situation was not right, and asked the agents to carefully examine the scene in order to find more things. Suddenly an agent shouted: "Everyone come and see." Several agents and Ian Fleming came over and found that there were many shell casings in the ditch by the side of the road. At this time, another agent also discovered a large number of footprints on the other side of the road. Just as Ian Fleming was connecting these things together to think out a definite conclusion, he suddenly heard the sound of a car engine in the distance and hastily asked the agents to disperse and hide.

  More than 20 cars stopped at the scene, and groups of Spanish soldiers jumped out. They conducted a simple search of the area under the command of their officers. The Spanish officers, having found no living people, ordered the soldiers to get back in the cars. After the soldiers got back in the cars, they roared off to the east.

  A British agent emerged from hiding, Ian Fleming knew that the situation of the British Special Forces 'Commando' assault team must be very bad, and he quickly contacted his superiors by radio to request further action instructions.