Insufficient balance

  Everyone knows that one more person means one more strength, especially on this ruthless battlefield. When arranging personnel to send the wounded, as long as they could move, they insisted on walking by themselves. In order to let more people stay and continue fighting, many lightly wounded soldiers insisted on being responsible for carrying stretchers. After reorganizing the personnel, there were still 28 people left in one row. It was these 28 people who, less than half an hour after being attacked by landmines, resolutely stepped onto the path of continuing their mission.

  So, without a guide, with less than half of the combatants at the time of departure, relying on a not very detailed military map and compass, Bao Yulin and his row continued to advance.

  Fortunately, there was a small path to follow, and the speed of advancement increased significantly. Finally, near dawn, they arrived at the riverbank. When they heard the sound of the river flowing, everyone felt excited because this meant that after trekking for a day, they could finally rest, eat something, and then continue advancing towards what seemed like an imminent victory.

  "Second squad, search around for a crossing point. The rest of you, take a break and eat something quickly. Once we cross the river, it's our turn to shine, don't say you're not full and can't even fire your guns."

  Li Pai Chang was still somewhat level-headed, he knew that at this time he should let everyone relax a bit, after all they would soon be facing the enemy and engaging in a life-or-death battle. He tried to make his words as humorous as possible.

  Everyone was silent, carrying out the long command. After all, just a few hours ago, so many comrades who had eaten and lived together were killed or wounded, thinking of the impending battle, no one could relax at this time.

  Looking at everyone's expression, Li Paichang stopped talking and started eating dry rations.

  Just as they were about to finish eating their compressed dry rations, Second Squad Leader returned. He quietly reported to Li:

  "The river is shallow about 500 meters ahead, and there's a suspension bridge on the river. We can cross the river from there."

  "That's great, with the ferry, we'll save a lot of trouble." Li Pai-chang became excited. Not only him, but also other comrades who heard this news were excited, after all, with the ferry, they didn't have to make an armed crossing, which would save a lot of energy. No one expected that it was this ferry that led the squad into the enemy's ambush circle.

  There's good news, everyone's eating speed has increased a lot. Due to the fear of being discovered by the enemy, Li decided to cross the river immediately while it was still not fully bright.

  Some comrades who ate relatively slowly were nibbling biscuits while crossing the river.

  The river surface is not very wide, but near the middle of the river, the water is still quite deep. Bao Yulin, who grew up in the mountains since childhood, felt that something was wrong at the time, but he didn't understand it then. It wasn't until they were ambushed by the enemy that Bao Yulin suddenly realized that this ferry had been specially prepared for them, and the chosen location made it impossible for them to retreat.

  More than 20 people quickly crossed the river and went away. The last one to cross the river was Erban Zhang. Just as he reached the deepest part of the river, the battle broke out.

  At that time, everyone was watching the second squad leader crawl across the rope bridge. With less than 30 meters to go, he would have made it. Suddenly, a man wearing traditional Vietnamese clothing and carrying a machete charged out of the bushes on the opposite bank of the river towards the rope bridge.

  "There's someone opposite!!" Someone suddenly shouted loudly.

  Everyone realized at this time that something was wrong and everyone simultaneously opened fire, hoping to kill him before he cut off the rope.

  Just at this moment, a "bang bang" gunshot came from the woods by the river, and many comrades fell down in this burst of gunfire.

  "Take cover!" Li Pai-chang and many of the experienced old soldiers shouted out loud at the same time. Almost everyone instinctively dropped to the ground.

  The man who cut the rope should have been the first enemy to be shot, but he also completed his task and cut off the rattan woven rope. The second squad leader fell into the water, and the heavy load on his back dragged him underwater in an instant, without a shadow.

  The battle was extremely unfavorable for the first row. They were pinned down on the open ground by the river, and from the sound of gunfire, there weren't many enemies in the woods across the way, nor were there any machine guns. However, due to the trees blocking their view and the backlighting, it was impossible to spot them from the riverbank. Fortunately, the first row had all switched to 56-style automatic rifles before the battle. The hand grenades went off, followed by a burst of automatic rifle fire. Bao Yulin emptied three clips in one breath. Of course, without even thinking about it, they definitely didn't hit any of the enemy's hair.

  "Everyone take cover nearby and don't shoot indiscriminately, observe the enemy carefully!"

  After a chaotic fight for a while, Captain Li began to organize everyone to counterattack.

  The enemy's weapons should be semi-automatic rifles, and the only way to discover them is by utilizing the flash of fire from their muzzles when they shoot.

  Bao Yulin hid behind a large stone, and he also knew not to shoot randomly. After all, when they set out, they only brought 150 rounds of ammunition. If they continued shooting like before, the bullets would be used up in no time.

  A gunshot rang out with a loud "bang".

  As the next cry of pain came, Bao Yulin knew that another comrade who had not hidden well was hit, but he didn't have time to see who it was. Because the enemy's muzzle flash just now had told him the location of the enemy. He did not blindly open fire, and his experience of hunting in the mountains at ordinary times told him that opening fire without finding the prey would not bring any harvest.

  After careful observation for a while, he found that behind the tree where the shot was fired earlier, a man in black clothes was slowly moving towards another tree in a half-crouching position.

  "Damn it, he's quite cunning." Baoyulin cursed in his heart, the gun in his hand pointed at the enemy, and after a slight glance, when the enemy's figure fit into the sight, he decisively pulled the trigger. The enemy fell to the ground, and after struggling for a while, he no longer moved, Baoyulin knew that guy was done for.

  Bao Yulin picked up a stone from his side and engraved the first mark on the gun butt.

  By the time it was morning, a row of people had already rushed into the forest, and both sides opened up in a fierce battle. However, this battle was far from as intense as we imagined, but equally bloody.

  One side didn't know how many people the other side had, nor did they know where they were hiding, but one thing was for sure - they had retreated a bit. At this time, no one dared to fire randomly, everyone stared at each other's position, and the consequence of firing randomly was to expose oneself, making oneself the target of the other side.

  The battle was going on like this with guns and without guns, every move had to be extremely careful, once discovered by the opponent, it might become a corpse.

  When Bao Yulin engraved the fourth mark on his rifle, it was already the second day after crossing the river. At this time, there were not many people left in the squad, and similarly, there were not many people left on the other side either. The two-day consumption made both sides lose heavily, leaving only a few lucky ones or those who grew rapidly in battle, like Bao Yulin. He had learned how to hide himself as much as possible while trying every means to discover the enemy and take advantage of every opportunity to eliminate them.

  It should be the brothers of the second and third echelons who occupied the Changhong Bridge, and the main force began to prepare for the push. In the morning, artillery coverage began, every half hour, all targets considered valuable and places where enemies might hide would be covered by artillery fire, including this piece of woodland along the river.

  Although shells were constantly falling from above, neither side of the duel dared to move recklessly, and could only pray that the shells wouldn't land on themselves. Because everyone knew that generally speaking, as long as you weren't extremely unlucky and got hit by a shell, there wouldn't be any problems, but once you were discovered by your opponent, you would definitely die. The remaining people all had exceptional marksmanship, basically one shot one kill.

  Perhaps it was the blessing of heaven that after two bombardments, Bao Yulin discovered that there seemed to be only one person left on the other side. He found that when Liu Yonghua was injured by shrapnel and unable to move, he would have been an obvious target, but if several people had fired at him simultaneously as usual, he would have been killed earlier. However, when he did die, only one shot rang out, and it wasn't until after he had moved around for a while. This guess was something that Bao Yulin dared to confirm only after observing for a long time.

  Since discovering the target behind a small tree, Bao Yulin began to aim his gun at the small tree. He knew that the enemy in front of him would definitely hide in a foxhole to avoid artillery fire, and if he wanted to eliminate him, the opportunity was when he exposed himself again. Bao Yulin had already outlined the opponent's sniping method in his mind. Every time there was an artillery strike, he would retreat into the foxhole, and as soon as it ended, he would stretch out his rifle disguised with grass, hiding behind the small tree to observe until he found the target. Although Bao Yulin couldn't figure out how he observed him, one thing was certain: that guy must have used the small tree as cover, waiting for him to come out again, and if he just shot through the small tree, he would definitely be able to take him down, or at least injure him. Bao Yulin knew that within a distance of 20 meters, his Type 56 automatic rifle could easily shoot through a small tree with a trunk as thick as a bowl. Just yesterday, he was hiding behind a tree with a diameter of at least 30 centimeters when the enemy discovered him and shot over, the bullet passing directly through the large tree, then through a military canteen filled with water, and finally through his webbing belt before stopping against his skin. At that time, Bao Yulin was startled, thinking he had been injured, but after looking down, nothing happened to him. However, the guy who shot at him didn't have such good luck; as soon as he finished shooting, he was taken out by a single shot from Li, the platoon leader. Unfortunately, after firing that shot, Li was discovered by the enemy and was hit by several consecutive shots, and there was no more movement from his position.

  "If only I had a mouthful of water to drink." Bao Yulin stared at the small tree without blinking, thinking to himself. Now he could only think about it, his military canteen had been destroyed along with all the water after saving his life, and he hadn't had a drink for over a day. The sun had been scorching these past few days, and Bao Yulin had thought several times about trying to drink his own urine, but unfortunately, he couldn't urinate. Once he finished off the enemy, he must go to the riverbank and have a good drink. Bao Yulin told himself.

  The bombardment stopped after a while.

  "Hold steady, the guy in front is about to come out!" As the bombardment ended, Bao Yulin's heart was lifted up, he constantly reminded himself that he must seize this opportunity, or else the next one to get shot might be himself.

  After a while, the small grass behind the little tree slowly stretched out, and the enemy came out of the shell hole again!

  Looking at the small grass that was constantly stretching outwards, Bao Yulin took a deep breath and carefully confirmed whether his gun was aimed at the small tree. This made him not fire, he was waiting, when the grass stabilized, he was sure that it was definitely the enemy hiding behind the tree to observe.

  Before long, the grass stopped moving. After a while, it started swaying from side to side again. Bao Yulin knew that the enemy had begun to observe them.

  With a simple movement of his fingertips, the gun fired. Immediately afterwards, Bao Yulin saw the rifle disguised as small grass being flung upwards, and so he sprang up and rapidly rushed towards the direction of the small tree. This action was something he had thought out long ago. Not to mention the guy in front of him, even if there were other enemies, they would absolutely not think that he would take this action now. After all, over the past two days, everyone knew that the only way to eliminate the enemy was to hide oneself well, so everyone was extremely careful to conceal themselves. They wouldn't expect such a big commotion, let alone the fact that he had just fired a shot - if there were other enemies, they would definitely be staring at the foxhole where he was hiding, and as soon as he poked his head out, it would be a bullet to the head. Moreover, who knew whether the guy in front of him was dead or not? If he wasn't dead now, then he had to rush over before he could grab his gun - otherwise, who knows how much longer this would drag on?

  As he had expected, no shots were fired as Bao Yulin sprinted across the 20-meter distance. It seemed that all the enemies had been eliminated.

  When Bao Yulin rushed into the enemy's foxhole, he found that his luck was really good. The enemy was shot through a small tree by him and was directly stuck in the head, with half of his brain gone. The rifle was thrown two meters away. When he saw the enemy's gun, all the doubts were clear. It turned out that there was a sighting scope on the enemy's gun, no wonder he could shoot from behind the tree.

  Because he was afraid of the enemy, Bao Yulin lay in the original trench where the enemy had been hiding. The observation mirror was naturally useless now, and this way was better than exposing his head. At this time, he finally had the opportunity to carefully observe the enemy who had been fighting with him for two days. As soon as he looked, Bao Yulin was stunned - the enemy, who was clearly a militia member, was actually a woman, looking like she was only in her early 20s. This woman had already killed more than ten of his comrades over the past two days. The anger in his heart surged up, and Bao Yulin didn't think much, holding his gun and firing all eight remaining bullets at the corpse. But that wasn't enough - he walked out of the trench, searching for guns everywhere. Every time he found one, he would fire all the bullets inside at the female corpse. He didn't know how many guns' worth of bullets he had fired. Bao Yulin gradually calmed down, and the woman's corpse had been shot to pieces, if it weren't for the clothes wrapping around her, she would have fallen apart long ago.

  At this time, Bao Yulin realized that he had been walking in the forest for a long time. Now it seemed that there was no danger anymore. Thinking of the 20 or so brothers who had crossed the river together, and now only himself was left, Bao Yulin's tears almost fell, but he knew that this was not the time to cry. What he should do now was to find the bodies of his brothers, think of a way to find the troops, and transport the bodies of his brothers back to their country.

  Just as Bao Yulin was searching for his comrades' bodies in the forest, he did not realize that the shelling had started again.

  As the shell exploded after landing, Bao Yulin only felt a blackness in front of his eyes, and then he didn't know anything.

  。。。。。。