All have temper (3)
When Chen Zizhong returned home after retiring from the army, he felt like he had died once. When Xu Kai persuaded him to retire, although he didn't say a single "no", his heart was in agony. As an old soldier, he was used to considering the troops as his family, with superiors being his elder brothers and fellow soldiers being his younger brothers. Leaving the army made him feel like an orphan.
The night before leaving the army, Chen Zizhong squatted under a tree for a long time, sometimes pretending to be an ordinary soldier, crying and complaining, and other times acting as the leader of the sharp knife squad, comforting himself with reason and emotion.
When he left, tears streamed down his face. After returning home for a month or so, he finally got used to not hearing military bugles and not seeing military uniforms in daily life. Sighing, he comforted himself that from now on, he would focus on living an ordinary citizen's life, accompanying his blind mother through her old age.
Unexpectedly, the order to return to the army was issued, making Chen Zizhong feel like he had died and come back to life again.
Chen Zizhong's comrades were mostly native Northeasterners. When the troops left Henan for the Northeast, sitting on the rumbling train, after passing through the pass and seeing the towering high-voltage transmission towers, the densely packed chimneys, drinking cool water from the well again, tasting the Northeastern sorghum rice again, hearing the simple Northeastern dialect, their tears could no longer be held back.
On the way to reinforce the blocking position, Chen Zizhong, who was running in the front, found two bodies of martyred volunteer army soldiers. He first picked up a 38-type rifle with no bullets left, its bayonet twisted into a knot. The martyr lay tens of meters away, lying on his back in the snowy ground with chaotic footprints, eyes wide open in anger, mouth biting half an ear, body pierced by carbine bullets with seven or eight bloody holes, blood gushing out and freezing into chunks under him. Two hundred meters further away, another soldier's head was blown off by a bullet, jaw dropped, hanging on his chest, stiff fingers still holding the ring of a hand grenade.
Two warriors were the communication personnel sent out to ask for help from the blocking position, one was shot dead while covering his comrades, and the other fought hand-to-hand with the enemy after running out of ammunition, killing two South Korean soldiers before being killed by random gunfire.
The warriors slowed down their pace in the midst of the cow's heavy breathing, took off their military caps, and paid tribute to their fallen comrades. Chen Zizhong put his cap on the face of a dead warrior who refused to close his eyes, and wiped away the frost on his face with his hand. It seemed that the 2nd company had already held out until last night.
The 2nd Regiment also suffered heavy casualties, with less than half of the troops lost, and the formation was not dispersed, and they would never ask for reinforcements.
Before arriving at the blocking position, Chen Zizhong saw from a distance the Taeguk flag fluttering on the position, which had been occupied by South Korean troops, with about one platoon of soldiers on guard.
"Damn it! Take back our position! Get close and fire again, bayonets at the ready!"
Chen Zizhong let out a low growl, leading the charge up the highway and towards the position. The soldiers swarmed up the hill like a tide. A South Korean soldier on the position noticed them and fired a warning shot. Chen Zizhong's feet paused for a moment before he swung his arm and fired. Two shots rang out, and the South Korean soldier who had fired the warning shot clutched at his forehead as he fell, the Taegukgi flag beside him torn in two.
Gunfire and explosions instantly rang out across the sky, with box cannons, Soviet-made rifles, and light machine guns firing simultaneously at the position. The stumbling gunners, supported by ammunition handlers, fired shot after shot. The sun was barely visible, and the chilly morning mist was suddenly replaced by smoke and blood. The old soldiers displayed their rich experience in positional warfare and their powerful arms, shooting continuously as they charged forward, throwing hand grenades into the position one after another, pulling out smoke bombs that slid over a distance of nearly 100 meters, shaking the position and the fragile nerves of the South Korean soldiers.
Ten minutes later, Chen Zizhong stood on the windy and icy battlefield, gunning down the last two fleeing South Korean soldiers. He ordered his troops to enter the stone-piled stronghold while searching for the 2nd Company's soldiers. The South Korean army was no match, and the 2nd Company, infamous for fighting hard and dirty battles, would not tolerate even one of their own being trampled by the enemy.
The slope under the position was densely covered with star-like shell craters, severed limbs and incomplete corpses were scattered everywhere. Under two crippled tanks at the foot of the slope, several pancake-like bodies were pressed down, and the destroyed tracks stretched out for several meters like a long worm... The battlefield was shrouded in a thin layer of white frost, but the air still lingered with a strong smell of blood and gunpowder, telling the story of yesterday's extremely brutal battle.
