Chapter Seventeen

  Squad leader Wang Shuren, from Hunan Province, with two years of military service, not very tall, and looks a bit sly. This kind of person may be able to get by in real life or in official circles, but in the army, especially in a combat unit...

  Sergeant Li Changbin, who is dark and thin, has only been in the army for half a year, but he is said to be the model soldier of our platoon's military quality. Our company participated in the whole army's joint martial arts competition, and he was one of them, and even won an award for shooting. However, his performance on the battlefield seems to be not very good, which also fully proves a saying that having good grades during training does not necessarily mean being able to kill enemies on the battlefield.

  I'm the second squad leader, and this squad leader is small but complete. How small is it? It's so small that even the officer uniform hasn't been issued yet. What's an officer uniform? In the words of the soldiers, it's a "four-pocket" uniform. During this era, the army emphasized equality between officers and soldiers and abolished military ranks, so from generals to squad leaders, everyone wore the same uniform, with four pockets on the chest and waist. The only difference between officers and soldiers was that soldiers only had two pockets on their waists...

  And I... a class leader, was in this ambiguous zone that is neither a cadre nor a warrior...

  But to be honest, this is the first time I've led troops and it feels kind of different. The squad leaders like Shi Dao and Xiao Shi Tuo always follow my orders, no matter what, even when we're on the march and they need to take a leak by the side of the road, they still have to ask me for permission, it really gives me a sense of having power in my hands.

  The soldiers under me may obey me, but the other two squad leaders don't have a good impression of me. I think this is probably because they are all old soldiers, so they don't look up to me, a new recruit.

  What are you pulling? I thought to myself: You look down on me, but I also look down on you! What's the big deal about being a soldier for a few more years? As the instructor said, whether it's a black cat or a white cat, as long as it can catch mice, it's a good cat. On the battlefield, it doesn't matter how many years you've been a soldier, if you can keep your life and fight against the enemy, that's what makes a good warrior!

  After the troops rested in the old street for half a day, our regiment received an order to advance southward for reconnaissance.

  。

  It was later proven that this order was inappropriate, as we had not yet secured the safety of the old street, and it could even be said that the old street had not been occupied by us at all, but rather we thought it had been occupied by us.

  In less than ten minutes, our camp set off.

  A team of over 300 people, and they're all carrying guns and cannons on their backs. If we could bring this to modern times to fight, it would be so cool! When I think about this, I feel like I'm a part of something awesome, but unfortunately, I also know that our troops aren't for fighting, but rather for dealing with those Vietnamese ghosts in front of us!

  As soon as I thought of dealing with the Viet Cong, my previous swagger was gone. Because I knew very well that our troops were no match for the Viet Cong in terms of either quality or equipment.

  The old man himself said that the weapons they got from the enemy were all Soviet and American. The Soviet weapons were supplied free of charge, including submachine guns (actually AK-47 assault rifles, which our soldiers commonly referred to as submachine guns due to the 56-style submachine gun), machine guns, and RPGs; the American weapons were left behind when the US withdrew from Vietnam, with all sorts of weapons available. So the enemy's weapons looked very mixed, sometimes even militiamen would be holding micro-UZIs, and old men in the village would have rocket launchers...

  In contrast, our army's infantry equipment is still using the Type 56 semi-automatic rifle. Although it doesn't require cocking like the old Type 38 Arisaka rifle, it still fires one shot at a time with each pull of the trigger. How can that compare to the AK-47, which fires a burst of bullets with just one pull of the trigger?

  Even if our military's 56-style assault rifle looks exactly the same as the AK-47, its quality just can't compare to the Soviet-made one. When you pull the trigger and fire a burst of bullets, either the shell gets stuck or the barrel gets too hot to handle, and in severe cases, it might even explode...

  So when it comes to a fight, the firepower of one platoon of devils is comparable to that of one of our battalions.

  Fortunately, this time it wasn't our turn to scout ahead, which was absolutely good news for me. Walking at the forefront of the troops to scout isn't a fun thing, the devils have ambushes or landmines everywhere, all of them are used on the scouting team... But this really can't be said for sure, I soon found out how wrong my thinking was.

  The troops marched along the highway for more than two hours when a sudden order came from the front: "Halt and wait in place!"

  It wasn't until later that I found out the company commander, who was walking ahead, had seen the treacherous terrain in front of us and was worried we would be ambushed by the Vietnamese army, so he ordered the troops to stop and planned to send a small team to scout ahead.

  It turned out that Lien Chan's worries were also justified. At the time, I also saw the terrain, the highway was like a long snake winding and twisting in a vast open area, with hundreds of meters wide rice fields on both sides, and the front of the highway was two unnamed highlands. If the Viet Minh army was ambushing there, it would be very likely to crush our entire regiment in the rice fields, and there was nothing that could provide cover.

  But the superiors did not think so. Later, according to Knife Scar, Lianzhang immediately reported the situation to the battalion commander at the first time, and the battalion commander contacted the superior through the walkie-talkie.

  "What about the reconnaissance squad in front?"

  "Everything is normal!" The camp commander replied truthfully.

  "That's no problem!" The superior was getting impatient: "I'm telling you, how are you doing this? Our marching speed is so slow? Our brother units have already surpassed us by more than ten kilometers... Afraid of this and that, how can we complete the task? I order: immediately gather the troops and advance at full speed, racing against time to reach the designated location!"

  The scar-faced man's evaluation of the superior's order was: "Superiors just sit in the office with a ruler measuring maps, how would they know what the actual situation is? They still think this battle is like fighting the Nationalists, our enemies will run away like fallen leaves in the autumn wind!"

  The troops could only continue advancing according to the orders of their superiors, still running in a long snake array without any defense.

  I followed the order to move forward, one reason is that military orders cannot be disobeyed, and another reason is that I don't remember the old man ever mentioning this battle. Afterwards, I thought that maybe I didn't hear the old man mention it because he simply didn't want to recall this painful past...

  Fighting always results in casualties, but sometimes such sacrifices can be completely avoided!

  As I followed the troops out of the mountains and into the rice paddies, I began to regret it. Although I don't understand much about military affairs, I discovered one thing - at this time, our army's troops were as exposed as lice on a bald head.

  The highway was very quiet, with only the sound of the soldiers' footsteps and the clanging of their equipment against each other. I mechanically followed the troops as they ran forward, my eyes fixed tensely on the two highlands several hundred meters ahead, afraid that a burst of gunfire would suddenly erupt from there and take my life away...

  I have to admit, at that time I was only thinking of myself, until a small stone beside me called out my name and I realized I was already the leader of the class, with seven or eight soldiers' eyes staring at me!

  Class Monitor

  "Hey, I think there's something wrong with this road," said a small stone beside him, "look..."

  The little stone pointed at the new soil that had been turned over on the side of the road and said, "This road seems to have been repaired recently, the soil hasn't even been trampled down yet!"

  At these words, I was taken aback, a newly repaired road?

  I raised my eyes to the side and soon understood that a few hundred meters to the right front, there was also a road along the edge of the rice field extending into the forest, with many trees and stones on the side of the road that could be used as cover, making it much safer to walk.

  So it's clear that this is the trick of the bandits, we should have taken that road, but I don't know what kind of trickery they used to block the entrance of that road and lead us into this Ghost Gate Pass!

  "Platoon leader! This is an enemy ambush!"

  The scar-faced man also felt that something was off, but because of the superior's order and uncertain reasons, he didn't speak up. At this moment, hearing me shout like this, he immediately gave an order: "Halt! Prepare for battle..."

  But it was too late, a loud explosion sounded as the soldiers in front stepped on a landmine. Machine gun fire and explosions quickly followed. Bullets poured down from the two high grounds like raindrops, the soldiers at the forefront fell down in batches with mournful cries, others ran back in swarms like ants but were soon blocked by the following soldiers who pushed them into a tight crowd, several cannonballs came over and threw more than ten soldiers high into the air...

  "Disperse! Disperse..." Knife Scar shouted loudly while waving his hand at the soldiers, and then lay down on the roadside with a submachine gun, firing a burst of bullets at the high ground.

  I didn't run back and forth, but instead flipped over and rolled into the rice field to hide on the inner side of the ridge.

  Because I know that running back and forth is useless, unless we huddle together to let the devils kill us quickly, there will be no other outcome. Moreover, the devils are not fools, they set up this trap with great effort, it's impossible for them to leave a way out for us.

  Turning back to the direction we came from, as I expected, the exit was already a mess of shells and machine gun bullets. The devils had apparently used long-range mortars and machine guns to seal off the exit.

  In other words, our battalion of soldiers has already been pinned down by the Viet Minh in this open space!