Volume 3 Chapter 38

  "Cover our sniper's retreat! We'll stay behind and hold them off!" Sun Yutian bellowed.

  "Company commander, let's go! We'll leave together!" Ma Liqiang tightly grabbed Sun Yutian, trying to pull him away.

  "Damn it! If we don't leave now, we'll all die here!" Sun Yutian pushed Ma Lisheng away. Then he picked up a Czech-style machine gun from the body of a sacrificed machine gunner and fired a burst at the back.

  Suddenly, Sun Yutian's eyes turned black and he lost consciousness. It was Ma Lijiang who took out a Mauser pistol from his waist and hit Sun Yutian on the head with the gun handle. After knocking Sun Yutian unconscious, he grabbed two Northeast Army soldiers: "Quickly carry your battalion commander onto the horse! We must ensure the safety of the battalion commander!"

  The warriors retreated while firing at the pursuing devils, the whistling bullets flying back and forth, with people falling on both sides. In comparison, the devils' marksmanship was generally better than that of the Northeast Army, and more of Sun Yutian's men fell down. However, Ma Lisheng and his sharpshooters inflicted heavy casualties on those devils, every burst of gunfire hitting several devils accurately.

  It wasn't until then that the devils discovered that among the blue-gray crowd in front, there were also a few white shadows. The devils who understood what was happening shouted loudly: "Chinese god of guns! Chinese god of guns!"

  "Hachoo! Let the cavalry squad charge quickly! We must annihilate those Chinese snipers!" A Japanese captain on the armored train roared wildly.

  Ma Liqiang and his sharpshooters retreated while taking cover behind trees, occasionally firing back at the enemy. Almost every shot they fired hit a Japanese soldier. However, the Japanese were also skilled marksmen, and Ma's team had already suffered casualties. Three of his sharpshooters were killed in action, and another five were seriously injured by 6.5mm bullets. Although being hit by 6.5mm bullets only required rest to recover, they still needed to be able to make it back.

  If it weren't for Sun Yu-tian's Northeast Army soldiers using their own flesh and blood to protect these snipers, Ma Li-qiang and his men would have suffered even greater losses!

  Ma Liqiang suddenly saw a huge fireball bursting out of the top of the armored train, and he anxiously shouted: "Watch out for heavy artillery!" Upon hearing his shout, everyone rushed to lie down.

  "Day" shells pierced the air, 150mm heavy artillery shells fell to the ground with a loud "boom", the entire forest seemed to have gone mad and shook violently, snowflakes melted into the air, several towering trees let out a mournful "squeak" as they crashed to the ground, more than ten Northeast Army soldiers at the center of the explosion were reduced to nothing but bones in an instant.

  Machine guns and grenade launchers in the hands of the devils poured down a hail of bullets on the Northeast Army soldiers, pinning Ma Liqiang and his men down so they couldn't lift their heads. At the same time, the sound of horseshoes grew louder as Japanese cavalry approached from the flank at full gallop.

  It was already possible to see the flash of the devils' cavalry sabers in the snowy ground, a godly shooter disregarding everything, raised his rifle "bang" and shot one of the devils' cavalrymen off his horse. However, a grenade fragment that exploded beside him also cut off half of his head, bright red blood splashing in the snowy ground.

  The Japanese army's tactics were still quite reasonable, they used infantry to charge forward, with heavy artillery and machine guns suppressing from behind, and cavalry flanking from the sides. As the Japanese cavalry got closer and closer, and the Northeastern Army soldiers who were suppressed found it difficult to counterattack, at this critical moment, suddenly a loud roar of engine sound came from the forest behind the soldiers, a truck wrapped in iron armor, with iron chains on its wheels, rushed out from behind the forest.

  Li Bin, sitting in the passenger seat, urged the driver to speed up. He stuck his MP18 submachine gun out of the shooting hole and aimed forward. Under Li Bin's urging, the driver had already floored it, using all his skills to dash across the snowy terrain, but the chains wrapped around the tires still limited the maximum speed.

  Inside the carriage, Hong Biao saw the Japanese cavalry and let out a loud roar from the bottom of his heart. He aimed the machine gun at the enemy. Hong Biao pressed down on the trigger, the yellow metal bullet chain quickly shortened, the shell casings were ejected from the other side of the gun, "ding ding dong" falling onto the carriage floor with a crisp sound.

  These bullets were naturally bought from Gu Zhe and Shao Bo, and the bullet chain was connected to the bullet chain by Hong Biao and several workers who did not rest for three days and three nights.

  A powerful machine gun spewed out a long tongue of flame, and the steel rain-like bullets swept towards the devils' cavalry, cutting them down like wheat in the snow. In an instant, two full-speed charging devil cavalry squads fell like they had been beheaded, crashing to the ground in a large area. The fallen men and horses were trampled by the hooves of those who followed, quickly turning into a bloody mess, staining the pristine white snow with filth.

  "The earth tank" charged towards the devils' cavalry, a powerful anti-aircraft machine gun mowed down the devils' cavalry along with their horses. When they got closer, the two Czech-style machine guns inside the carriage also spat out flames, knocking the devils off their horses. Li Bin, sitting in the co-pilot's seat, stretched out his submachine gun from the shooting hole and fired at a devilish cavalryman rushing towards him.

  "Rat-a-tat-tat" a string of bullets left several blood holes in the devil's chest, and the devil's head fell back off the horse. The frightened warhorse jumped up from beside the truck and ran over it, while the car drove straight over the devil's corpse, crushing it into a heap of minced meat.

  It wasn't until the other devils figured it out that they turned their guns around and fired a storm of bullets at Li Bin's "earth tank", but all they could see was a burst of sparks, with various 6.5mm bullets hitting the armor weakly, as if scratching this "earth tank".

  A truck made a sharp turn and sped past Maliqiang's side. Li Bin opened the car door and stuck his head out: "Hurry up and retreat! We've been cut off!"

  The Northeast Army soldiers and the sharpshooters saw the chief of staff coming to rescue, taking advantage of the enemy's firepower being attracted by the "earth tank", they crawled up from the ground one after another and retreated in the direction of Tiantai Village.

  The cavalry of the devils was blocked by the "earth tank", they couldn't care about chasing the withdrawing Chinese troops, and could only turn their horses around and run away.

  Li Bin suddenly saw the armored train's turret turning its black muzzle, and he shouted loudly: "Quickly turn left!"

  The driver spun the wheel, and the truck screeched around a sharp turn. Just as they had sped away for dozens of meters, a shell exploded behind the car more than ten meters away.

  "Fire! Fire and destroy that Chinese armored vehicle!" The Japanese captain yelled at the top of his lungs.

  Six 38-caliber cavalry guns and five 41-caliber field guns lowered their muzzles, firing fiercely into the forest, with shells bursting one after another in the woods. The 150mm heavy guns on the armored train were not good at hitting fast-moving targets, so those 75mm mountain guns also opened fire together.

  However, the fast and agile "earth tank" was dodging in and out of the forest, accelerating and decelerating suddenly, turning left and right unpredictably. The Japanese fired 50-60 rounds of artillery, all of which exploded harmlessly on the big trees. This "earth tank" was only afraid of howitzers, but at that time the Japanese Type 92 infantry gun had not yet been born, and this Japanese army did not carry any Type 38 or Type 45 howitzers. Unless the "earth tank" was to launch a suicidal charge towards them, it would be very difficult for them to hit Li Bin and his men.

  Under the cover of "mud tanks", the Northeast Army soldiers and the sharpshooter squad quickly retreated into Tiantai Gou. Seeing that the infantrymen were safe, Li Bin's "mud tank" also quickly disappeared into the forest, and from a distance, only snowflakes could be seen flying in the air, with no sign of the trucks.

  "What the...!" Lieutenant General Ishikawa, who had rushed to the scene, slapped each of the three captains standing before him with a loud smack on the ear. "The Chinese have escaped into town! Why didn't you pursue them?! Look at these good-for-nothings! So many fine warriors lost! Is their blood just going to be wasted like this?!"

  Three Japanese captains looked at each other, none of them dared to speak. After a long time, one of them stood up trembling and said: "Report to the Colonel, the Chinese have an armored vehicle assisting in the battle! We suffered heavy losses."

  "Eight blows!" The devil captain's face was slapped again, and only heard Ishikawa Taisho roaring, "Repair the railway immediately! Let the armored train enter Tiantai Village quickly!"

  He then turned to a staff officer and said, "Sakamoto, send a telegram to Fengtian immediately and request the dispatch of aircraft for support! We must destroy the Chinese armored vehicles!"

  "Colonel, but those Chinese laborers have all run away!" a captain said in a trembling voice. Before he had even finished speaking, his face was slapped again, and all that could be heard was Colonel Ishikawa bellowing: "Without those despicable Chinese, can't the Imperial Japanese Army fix the road ourselves? Bah! Get to work at once!"

  The Japanese soldiers on and under the train began to bustle, repairing the railway in front of the train. Some Japanese infantrymen stood guard around the armored train, while the Japanese who had just been frightened by that "armored car" did not dare to leave the protection range of the armored train, and could only move within 100 meters around the train.

  Two Type 88 reconnaissance bombers took off from Fengtian and soon arrived over Tiantaizhuang. After circling several times like flies, the pilots reported to the ground: "Sakura reports to the ground, we did not find any Chinese armored vehicles on the ground in Tiantaizhuang!"

  The ground immediately shouted like a pilot giving orders: "Go to Gou Bangzi and take a look, see where the Japanese armored vehicle is hiding!"

  Two Type 88 reconnaissance bombers flew to the Goubangzi area, and as soon as they arrived over Goubangzi, they were met with a barrage of gunfire from the ground. The two Japanese planes were frightened and hastily retreated, fleeing the range of the anti-aircraft guns on the ground.

  "Reporting to Major Ishikawa, no Chinese armored vehicles were found in Tiantai Village!" The staff officer walked into the armored train and reported to Major Ishikawa.

  After listening to the report, General Ishikawa put on his gloves and walked out of the car. He rode his own war horse and turned back to the three lieutenant colonels, saying: "The Chinese armored vehicle must have escaped back to Goubangzi! Now there is no armored vehicle in Tiantai Village, you must occupy Tiantai Village within two hours!"

  "Ah hai!" Three Japanese army captains bowed and nodded, "We guarantee that we will occupy Tiantai Village within two hours!"

  The railway has been repaired, and under the protection of an armored train, Japanese infantry, artillery, and cavalry slowly approached Tianzhuangtai.