Volume 1: Initial Entry into the Battlefield Chapter 30: Leaving the City
The war has developed to this point, and it's no longer a matter of just having more people!
Rushed out of the small Japanese blockade street, the battle seemed to have no suspense. The Japanese troops in the northern part of the city were mostly emptied by us, and the remaining Japanese troops in the northern part of Beiping City were at most a regiment of over 1,000 people. Beiping City is about 62 square kilometers, which means that the Japanese army of over 1,000 people must defend an area of 30 square kilometers... This is what kind of idea, that is, on average, each small team (equivalent to our reinforced company) must defend an area of about two square kilometers... Only the arrogance and madness of Little Japan would do such a thing.
But this is actually not the fault of Little Japan. The reason is simple: it was our Chinese army that made them arrogant and domineering!
Isn't it? When the Japanese army invaded the three northeastern provinces, only a few tens of thousands of people could sweep across the land in one day, defeating China's hundreds of thousands of Northeastern Army. The most extreme case was that just over a dozen Japanese cavalrymen could occupy a city... Even the Japanese were stunned by this result. With their pitifully small numbers facing endless fertile fields and countless treasures, they were at a loss for what to do. Just like thieves faced with piles of gold, silver, and jewels that had been easily obtained, they didn't know where to start...
It's precisely because of this that the Japanese army has always looked down on the Chinese military, they have always been arrogant and thought that wherever the "Imperial Army" goes, the Chinese military would retreat a thousand miles and collapse without a fight, but today they were wrong, and very badly so!
The reason is simple, because they met the 29th Army today, because they met us - China's real soldiers!
Because the troops were too sparse, the Japanese army could only distribute its limited forces on the main transportation routes leading to the city gate. In fact, such an arrangement was also useful. I don't know about other troops, but our military training team had more than 4,000 people... No, adding the civilians who followed us, there were at least 6,000 people.
Such a large team must walk on the main road, so the defensive line built by the Japanese army on the traffic artery can play a role.
And I have to admit, the Japanese defense was indeed very tight. This is not to say that their fortifications were particularly solid, in fact their fortifications were just sandbags and barbed wire, similar to ours. The difference seems to be that there were also landmines buried in front of and behind the barbed wire. What made their defense so tight was that their firepower was well-coordinated, with machine guns, rifles, and sometimes even an armored car or tank!
It wasn't until then that I knew the Japanese army had something called a "grenade launcher". What is a grenade launcher? It looks a bit like a mortar, but smaller than a mortar. Don't look at its small size, it can directly launch the hand grenades equipped by the little devils... I found it strange, how could the little devils throw their hand grenades so far (the range of the Type 10 Grenade Launcher is about 200 meters), and they were still far away from us, but their hand grenades kept exploding in front of us one after another.
In addition, the Japanese army arranged one or two tanks or armored vehicles behind the defense line. The front of the defense line was a hail of gunfire and explosions, so it's basically impossible for us to break through the devils' defense line with these light weapons in our hands.
The war has developed to this point, and it's no longer a matter of just having more people! It's like being at the intersection, we know that charging forward now would only result in more corpses on the ground.
However, what the little Japanese didn't expect was that inside the city of Beiping were alleys that led everywhere. The 29th Army had been stationed in Beiping for a long time and was as familiar with these alleys as their own backyard. This made the war interesting... Is it difficult to break through the front line? Just casually send out a company to wander around in the alleys, and before long they'll be behind the enemy's defense lines. Once close, just one hand grenade would solve the problem!
Even more exaggerated was the time when our company was responsible for breaking through the defense line and launching a surprise attack. It turned out that the little devils were not stupid, they had also taken precautions after we came several times, and would send out a few soldiers to guard the alley entrance. And it's true, this defense did cause some trouble, the alleys are narrow, and a few Japanese with one machine gun could block our entire company inside... But Captain He's method left me speechless...
"Fellow countryman, we are the national army fighting against Japan, may we borrow your house for a short stay?"
Xu Lianchang casually knocked open the door of a nearby civilian's house, and then took us to jump over walls and climb onto rooftops. Before long, when we pushed out from another door, what we saw were the backsides of those devils guarding the entrance of the alley...
The result is predictable, and relying on our familiarity with Beiping City and the help of the people, we broke out of the city in a mighty way. The Japanese army, which had been showing off its military prowess before us, didn't even have the chance to make us pause, even though they had tanks and armored vehicles, they couldn't escape this disaster.
This is probably what I mean by geographical advantage and human harmony. The little Japanese have only entered the city for a few days, how can they understand the complexity of Beiping City? How can they withstand the coordination between the entire Beiping City and us?
More than half an hour later, when we finally rushed out of the city gate and saw the sky outside the city, I couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. There were no Japanese troops blocking our army outside, which meant that the Japanese reinforcements had not been able to fill this gap in time...
"Sound the advance!" The order was quickly passed down.
We didn't dare to take a moment's rest, anyone knew that we were not out of danger yet, and it could be said that this was the most dangerous time for us. In the city of Beiping, at least we had houses and simple fortifications to rely on, but outside the city... if we were caught by the devils, a slight carelessness would lead to the annihilation of our entire army!
The warriors all understood this truth, so no one had any complaints about the order, and they stepped out to follow the team forward...
The troops marched forward along the highway, and during this time they also encountered a few small groups of devils. We naturally wouldn't be polite to them, it was a case of "encountering gods and killing gods, encountering Buddhas and killing Buddhas". Of course, this could only be done when encountering small groups of devils.
"Hey! We've really got them on the run!" Chen Dalie yelled excitedly as he ran: "Brothers! This time those little devils have been thoroughly defeated by us, not only did they suffer heavy casualties, but we also managed to escape completely intact..."
"Spare your energy!" The old squad leader responded with some concern: "We can only try to escape, the enemy's marching speed is much faster than ours!"
What the old squad leader said is indeed true, now we have come out, but the Japanese army has both cavalry and cars, plus they also have planes for reconnaissance... it seems that catching up with us is not a difficult task!
"Line up!" Li Wenxi hurriedly asked with some worry as he approached me, "Where are we headed? Is there a way to shake off the devils?"
At these words, I was taken aback. When we were making plans at first, I was only thinking about how to rush out of the city, but I really hadn't thought about what to do after rushing out of the city...
"Second row, stand up!"
I was thinking about what was ahead when Captain Hsu suddenly turned around and beckoned me over, so I hastily acknowledged him and ran to catch up.
"Are you the second company commander?" Before I could salute the company commander, another middle-aged officer who was fully armed asked me with great interest.
"Reporting for duty, sir! I am!" I hastily stood up straight and replied.
Xu Lianchang introduced me on the side: "This is our regiment commander Li Xiaojun!"
"Good day, sir!" I hastily gave another salute to Battalion Commander Zhang, it's also kind of funny, I seem to be quite familiar with Division Commander Zhang Zizhong, but this is the first time I've met my own battalion commander.
"Hmm!" Li Ying Chang nodded and glanced at me a few times before saying: "The Master has something to discuss with you, come with me!"
"Yes!" It was then that I understood the real reason why Li Yingzong had found me, this company commander.
Following Li Ying's back, running all the way, it didn't take long to see a jeep parked by the side of the road, with several officers discussing something in front of the map spread out on the hood. Among them were two familiar figures, one was the education director of the military training team, and the other was Zhang Zizhong.
"Attention!" Li Yinglong ran up and saluted: "First company second platoon leader reporting for duty!"
"Ah!" Upon hearing this, Zhang Zizhong couldn't help but raise his head. Seeing it was me, he warmly patted my shoulder and said to the other officers: "Come on... everyone, let me introduce you to this person. He is the one who designed the plan that allowed our army to lure the Japanese into an ambush and successfully retreat from Beiping!"
"Oh!" All the officers suddenly focused their eyes on me, making me feel a bit uneasy all over.
"Director of Education!" An officer smiled at the Director of Education and said: "Your military training team is indeed producing talented people, and there are still such talents!"
"We can't compare to the 39th Brigade!" replied the humble education officer. "Our military training team is no match for you! They are just student soldiers who haven't received much training... they're good at bragging, but if it were real combat, we'd have to see how the 39th Brigade does!"
It turned out that he was the newly appointed commander of the 39th Brigade. Upon hearing this, I couldn't help but take a closer look at him. His appearance wasn't particularly remarkable, except for the two wisps of mustache on his upper lip, which were long and curved like Yuan Shikai's, leaving a deep impression on me.
It's common for military officers to flatter each other, I haven't really seen it myself but have seen it many times in TV shows and movies, so I'm not surprised.
I thought Ba Zi Hu would be more modest, but to my surprise, he didn't do so. He seemed to agree with Jiao Yu Zhang's words and just smiled lightly without responding. This made Jiao Yu Zhang a bit embarrassed, not knowing what to say for a moment.
So I realized that this guy looked down on our team, which was made up of students, even though we had already won several beautiful battles along the way!
PS: The second chapter is being coded, as the soldier's coding speed is relatively slow, it may not be completed before 12 o'clock, so everyone can take a look tomorrow morning!
