Chapter 65: Cavalry Ambush

  He Zhutong commanded 2 cavalry divisions, Xu Liang's 3rd Cavalry Brigade, Liu Guixian's 6th Cavalry Brigade and Bai Fengxiang's 10th Cavalry Brigade, totaling 10 cavalry regiments.

  At 1:20 on August 2, under the cover of night, dozens of small teams consisting of hundreds of soldiers from the Shaanxi Army, Northeastern Army, and Yunnan Army crossed the Dasaha River by swimming or wading. Some were discovered by Japanese sentries before they even reached the shore, triggering a small skirmish; but more killed the Japanese sentries and broke into the Japanese army's formation, slaughtering sleeping Japanese soldiers with hand grenades, submachine guns, and twenty rounds of ammunition everywhere. The Japanese army's elite standing troops quickly reacted, and in an instant, the empty river surface was swept by dense gunfire; while the Japanese army's formation became chaotic, experienced Japanese soldiers tried to minimize their movements, most blindly fired at anything suspicious, and a few even became targets while wildly shouting and running around. The night raiders' daredevil teams continued to advance in groups of several people, recklessly throwing bullets and hand grenades at the Japanese army, while the Japanese army's blind counterfire mostly hit their own men; chaos, absolute chaos.

  After listening to the sound of gunfire and explosions for 10 minutes, which not only did not stop but also showed signs of spreading, Kiyoshi Shōsuke, who was heavily guarded in the command center, seriously questioned: "Is this really just a small-scale attack by some Chinese troops?"

  "Ah, yes. The entire riverbank is under our control, and no Chinese military activities have been detected on the river surface."

  "So what methods do you have for clearing out these 'small troops'?"

  "No! We can only wait till dawn, or we..."

  "It's not even two o'clock yet! We can't wait!" Xiang Yue Qingci angrily shouted: "I order, turn on the lights! Launch a surprise attack! Use everything, electric batons, torches, and whatnot. We must annihilate these small units of the Chinese army within half an hour!"

  "Yes!"

  The bright light rose, followed by even more intense gunfire and explosions, which gradually subsided after more than half an hour, returning to the previous sporadic gunfire. Seeing the commander fall asleep, the officers below Lieutenant Colonel finally breathed a sigh of relief.

  At 2:30 in the morning, hundreds of Type 81 82mm mortars that had been pushed to the front line fired eight rounds of rapid bursts at the Japanese army positions, creating several hundred points of fire and quickly relocating before the Japanese could return fire with their rangefinders, throwing the Japanese into another state of chaos.

  At 3:50, another burst of mortar fire quickly woke up the Japanese army. This time, the Japanese field artillery counterattacked very quickly, but whether they could hit the artillerymen in the dark was only known to heaven.

  At 5:30, the dark sky finally brightened up. Okabe and others looked at the completely changed military camp with black eyes, where there were dead and wounded soldiers everywhere, as well as exploded equipment and supplies.

  At the same time, on the eastern side, the 20th Army's direct subordinate cavalry brigade, led by Brigade Commander Zhang Zhan Kui, had already swept over the enemy's flank and rear with over a thousand cavalrymen. The majority of the sleeping sentry troops were killed by hand grenades in their shelters, leaving only a few awake guards who caused some casualties for the 14th Cavalry Brigade; the cavalry rushed into the 14th Logistics Regiment's camp like a whirlwind, killing the logistics soldiers and making them cry out for their fathers and mothers. A row of hand grenades also blew up many logistical supplies, and with the thick smoke rising and the continuous explosions, the 14th Cavalry Brigade split into two routes: one battalion headed southwest towards the command post of the 14th Division, while Zhang Zhan Kui led the second battalion northwest to attack the rear of the 1st Army's direct troops. Just as a battalion of cavalry rushed past a group of scattered fleeing porters, and arrived within several hundred meters of the division headquarters, the prepared 4th Machine Gun Battalion opened fire, spewing out ten or more continuous lines of fire that swept down row after row of old northwest army cavalrymen along with their horses, as well as the mixed-in porters and logistics soldiers. The follow-up cavalry barely turned around to retreat, but were pursued by the newly arrived 14th Cavalry Regiment's search squadron from the flank, forcing the remaining cavalry to turn north in pursuit of the main force.

  At the same time as the battle on the east side, the main attack on the west side also started simultaneously. Although the 20th Division's flanking detachment was slightly stronger than the 14th Division's, and its scale was larger, the fatigue caused by the continuous combat actions of one day and a half could not be overcome. As a result, Xu Liang led the 3rd Cavalry Regiment's charge, which paid a price of over a hundred riders but still broke into the unprepared 20th Division, which was stationed on the west side of the 77th Brigade. Most of the soldiers did not even have time to put on their uniforms and were caught off guard by the sudden cavalry attack, armed with rifles and bayonets. In addition to the familiar slashing and thrusting, the Northeast Army's cavalry also threw hand grenades and even hand-held explosives while fighting, a tactic that caused severe psychological damage to the officers and soldiers of the 20th Division, who were accustomed to occupying Korea. The scene was chaotic for a time.

  To the north, Bai Fengxiang took out his old tricks as a bandit and covertly took down the unvigilant Japanese artillery reconnaissance team. At the same time as the southern battle began, he led 2,000 cavalrymen from the 10th Cavalry Division to charge into the 8th Field Heavy Artillery Regiment's position. After a small number of Imperial Guards with rifles and officers with pistols finished resisting, the artillery position became a slaughterhouse for the 10th Cavalry Division. Over a thousand Japanese soldiers were killed or blown up around the 150 heavy artillery pieces; even after using hand grenades and explosive packs to destroy the cannon barrels, the enraged 10th Cavalry Division soldiers still managed to wipe out an entire cavalry reconnaissance squadron from the arriving 20th Infantry Division.

  The only cavalry division that suffered a setback was the 6th Division of Liu Guiwu, which had traveled the farthest. Although they also wiped out the Japanese sentry and broke into the Japanese army's first military station, they were soon attacked by more than a dozen armored vehicles from the 1st Armored Vehicle Squadron near the First Army Command. The powerful heavy machine guns on the armored vehicles swept across the cavalry column, causing the 6th Division to fall into disarray. Liu Guiwu organized two consecutive charges, but both failed, resulting in hundreds of casualties. Just as the situation was becoming critical, He Zhuguo led a cavalry regiment and nearly a thousand cavalrymen to the rescue. The horse artillery unit fired several dozen shells from their launchers while on horseback, hitting the armored vehicles and causing smoke to fill the air, killing and wounding several machine gunners. Dozens of cavalrymen took advantage of the situation to charge forward, using hand grenades to destroy the three leading armored vehicles. The remaining armored vehicles retreated hastily. The Northeastern Army did not pursue them, instead continuing to wreak havoc on the Japanese army's rear logistics, setting off explosions and fires that sent smoke billowing into the air.

  At the same time that the 1st Tank Regiment's attack was repelled, Zhang Zhan Kui led several hundred cavalrymen in a miraculous charge through the gap between the Heavy Artillery Brigade and the Infantry Station, bursting into the headquarters of the 1st Army. The shocked personnel and guards at the headquarters put up a desperate resistance, while the 5th Tank Regiment came to reinforce from another direction. As gunfire and explosions erupted near the headquarters, nearby units such as the 1st Tank Regiment rushed to provide support. Several hundred cavalrymen quickly dispersed under the hail of bullets and shells from all directions but continued to advance! Finally, with only a few riders left, they broke into the courtyard where Xiang Yueqing's residence was located. Xiang Yueqing's staff officers, deputy officers, and guards rushed forward, and Zhang Zhan Kui, who had been wounded multiple times, was hit by several more bullets. As he lay dying in a pool of blood, he saw over a dozen officers blocking his path. With a smile, Zhang Zhan Kui used the last of his strength to throw one final grenade with the momentum of his warhorse, and with a deafening explosion, another hero who had been wrongly killed 54 years ago in Henan's Shangcai County fell! But at the cost of over 700 lives, the 14th Cavalry Regiment's 2nd Battalion and the regiment's direct cavalry company blew up the headquarters of the Japanese First Army!

  At 7 o'clock, most of the cavalry withdrew in succession, with only a negligible loss. The 10th Cavalry Regiment was ordered to go deep into the enemy's rear; A few Japanese cavalry search squads symbolically chased out for a while before being forced to withdraw back to the main force due to the disparity in strength.

  At noon, Koyasu Takeo, Tsuchiya Kaneji, and Kawabata Bunzaburō finally gathered in front of Shōji Kōsuke's bed to hear the Imperial Headquarters' order read by Gunki Taneshirō, whose left arm was still bleeding from being bandaged: "We hereby appoint General Nishio Toshiyuki as Commander-in-Chief of the First Army, unified command of the original...", At this point, Gunki Taneshirō's head hung even lower, "...the original First Army and subsequent units...General Shōji Kōsuke will be transferred to the reserve list."

  "General!?" The unfortunate Kiyoshi Kagetsu, who had been hit by several bullets, could no longer hear. "Medic! Medic! Come quickly and rescue the general!"

  In the evening, at the headquarters of the First War Zone in Shimen, they first mourned the martyrs including Zhang Zhan Kui, and then naturally held a grand banquet to celebrate the achievements of several cavalry generals. They drank wine, I continued drinking my soda water; later they had a drinking contest, while I sat in the corner opening my 'poker cards' to start calculating.

  "Zi'an, why aren't you drinking?" Zhang Xueliang walked over with a flushed face and a slight stagger, "I remember you can hold your liquor!"

  "Okay, for example, your treasured red wine, one bottle at a time is no problem." I smiled, "The rest please forget about it!"

  "Still thinking about my wine? Bring me the heads of Tsuchiya and Tsukamoto in exchange! One head for one box! The ones from Kawabata are also acceptable! As for Kōgetsu's head, I'm afraid it can't be obtained?" Looks like Zhang really got drunk! "What is this?"

  "It's the troop numbers, strength and commanders' names of both our enemy and us. I've got it all figured out!"

  "Ha! What did you figure out?"

  "It's just that because we defeated the enemy army, especially severely injuring Xiang Yueqing; I'm afraid both sides are preparing to 'raise the stakes' for this small battlefield! This place is going to become a major battlefield!!"

  "Why?"

  "Because the Japanese army likes to counterattack on the spot, and Old Chiang also likes to expand his 'victory'; I reckon the Japanese army will have 4-5 divisions attacking Shimen, while Old Chiang will also provide us with over 10 divisions of reinforcements in order to win again."