Chapter 42: Reinforcements Arrived

  When night began to fall, a company from the 211th Regiment, which was called in by Commander Zhou Guanglie of the 113th Division as reinforcements, finally arrived late, followed closely by more than thirty stretcher bearers.

  Company commander Zhang Daming, who was anxiously waiting for reinforcements that had yet to arrive, heard the report from his soldiers and sprang out of the trench, running over almost in flight.

  "Report to Commander Zhang Lianchang, 211 Regiment, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Company, has arrived to provide support." Just as Zhang Damao came before the reinforcement troops with an expression of seeing his long-lost father for the first time, a young lieutenant walked up to him and saluted, saying.

  "Ah, finally... you guys have arrived. Oh my,..." Zhang Daman said with a smile after returning a somewhat unstandard military salute to the lieutenant.

  "Brother, I don't even know what to call you yet? Ah, in the future, we'll still have to rely on brother for a lot of help!" Zhang Daman said after taking a glance at the young officer's rank.

  "Report to Commander Zhang, I am Dong Dajun, the platoon leader of the 1st Platoon, 2nd Company, 2nd Battalion, 211 Regiment. Our company commander has been promoted to deputy battalion commander... When we arrived, the regimental commander said that from now on, we will be under your command and absolutely obey your orders!" Dong Dajun said with another salute to Zhang.

  "Oh, thank you, Commander Liu! Come on, brothers, let's take a break and rest in the trenches for a while!" Zhang Daman knew that the commander of the 211th Regiment had pulled out the deputy regimental commander from the 2nd Company to support him, actually to make it easier for Zhang Daman to command. After all, he was just a company commander, and having one company commander command another would affect the commander's performance, even if the commanded company commander was willing to obey and follow the commands of his peer. As Zhang thought about this, his smile suddenly turned into a look of deep gratitude.

  Originally, the thirty-odd members of the battlefield rescue team were to rush overnight, but Zhang Daman considered that the sky was already late and kept them for a night. The next morning, they carried more than ten seriously injured soldiers down the line of fire. As he watched the backs of the soldiers retreating in the distance, Zhang Daman gave them a military salute that had never been so standard before. He knew that not many of these people would survive.

  It was later learned that these reinforcements should have arrived long ago. After receiving the division's order, the deputy commander of the 211th Regiment immediately selected a company with average combat effectiveness and ordered them to rush out of the position where Zhang Daming was located in Baimo Village. However, just as they were about to depart, they coincidentally ran into the regimental commander, Liu Mingzhi, and chief of staff, Yang Junyi, who had returned from outside. Upon learning that it was a division order to support Baimo Village, Liu Mingzhi severely reprimanded the deputy commander and ordered the soldiers who had already departed to stand by in their original position.

  He not only kept the original company commander Zeng Qiang of the 2nd Company, but also replaced all the new recruits in the 2nd Company with many veteran soldiers from the regiment who had rich combat experience. The team was led by Dong Dajun, the original platoon leader of the 1st Platoon of the 2nd Company, to rapidly support Zhang Dameng.

  Liu Mingzhi was a brave and daring soldier, but in the strict sense, he wasn't truly a Northeast Army soldier. He was actually one of the original Northwest Army soldiers who followed his superior Liu Ruming to join the Northeast Army from Feng Yuxiang's old unit. However, he was a true soldier with strong patriotism, having grown tired of the Chinese army's usual practice of holding back in battles. Although he wasn't close with Guo Jinan, he knew about the situation of Guo's regiment and the importance of Zhang Daman's position. Therefore, without hesitation, he dispatched his most experienced veterans, who although only a company in number, had the combat strength equivalent to an entire battalion.

  As expected, the more than 50 Japanese stragglers who were chased away with their tails between their legs did not come back to seek trouble. It seemed that the Japanese reinforcements had not arrived yet, while they had already replenished their combat strength and added a company of about one battalion. Although there were no heavy weapons, the three Czech-style machine guns brought by Dong Dajun, plus Zhang Mielong's one, made a total of four machine guns. In addition, the three "crooked" machine guns captured from the Japanese had limited ammunition, only a little more than three boxes, but such firepower was already comparable to that of an entire regiment. Therefore, he was full of confidence and even hoped that those so-called mountain warfare experts, the Japanese elite troops, would come quickly to compete with him.

  Of course, when there was no devil to fight, Zhang Damao didn't idle around either. He deeply knew his own disadvantage, and the casualties under the devils' artillery bombardment were often greater than the Japanese army's 'shooting'. So he ordered the soldiers to reinforce their fortifications time and again. He had a single-soldier trench dug next to Zhao Zhibang and put a light machine gun inside, while adding two layers of circular wood protection on top of the trenches every few meters apart. Zhang Menglou's machine gun position below also added one more, but those two machine guns were placed there, let alone a devil company, as his regimental commander Guo Jinan said, even if it was a brigade that charged up, it's likely that not many would be able to come back alive.

  Zhang Damao led Li Liansheng and Dong Dawei to inspect the formation twice, then satisfied, ordered his soldiers to rest and prepare for the upcoming battle.

  After a long time, Dong Dajun had already made himself a true subordinate of Zhang Dameng's, especially after seeing the fortifications built on the battlefield, he had surrendered in his heart. At this point, he had dropped the title "Zhang" when referring to him.

  "Uh, yeah..." Zhang Damao glanced at him and responded, Dong Dajun's loud voice made Zhang feel very comfortable, he also liked this young platoon leader who didn't talk much but had a lot of insight.

  "I've been tired all day, but I still haven't seen that godly shooter?" Dong Dajun said to Zhang Damang.

  "Oh, I completely forgot... Zhao Zhibang, Zhao Zhibang... It seems that Zhao Zhibang has really made a name for himself. Not only in their unit, but even in Liu Mingzhi's 211th unit, they know him as the godly shooter who can take out an enemy machine gunner with one shot. When reinforcing the position, Zhang Daman agreed to introduce him to Dong Dajun."

  Upon hearing Zhang Daman's shout, Zhao Zhibang put down his gun and jogged over.

  "Look, Zhao Zhibang, the foreign student who studied in Japan," Zhang Damao said to Dong Dawei, pointing at Zhao Zhibang in front of him.

  "Company Commander Dong,..." Zhao Zhibang knew that the one who had called him over was not Zhang Damao, but rather this young company commander who had just arrived yesterday and was about the same age as himself, so he hastily saluted.

  "Hey, on the battlefield, there's no need for this sort of thing between brothers," Zhang Daman said casually, glancing at Zhao Zhibang's raised right hand in a salute.

  "I don't know if we'll be alive tomorrow, so let's not bother with these rules... I'm Dong Dajun... Zhao brother, your marksmanship is renowned throughout the entire 113th division, even Commander Yu Jun knows about it..." Dong Dajun stood up and pulled Zhao Zhibang to sit beside him, then began to embellish the stories he had heard about Zhao Zhibang's legendary skills, and finally asked Zhao Zhibang to teach him the secrets of shooting.

  Zhao Zhibang looked at Dong Dajun with some embarrassment, who had been praising him non-stop. After all, this was their first conversation, although they were of similar age. He did not expect that this person he should call his superior would later become his subordinate, and also the most important, trusted, and inseparable brother.