Chapter 28: The Perfect Individual Trench

  "Whoosh... Boom..."

  "The devils are shelling, quick take cover!" Sure enough, after more than two hours, the screaming sound of shells whizzing by started up again. This is a common practice in battle: first use artillery to blast the enemy's position, both to destroy their fortifications and to wipe out some of the enemy's living forces. Even if you can't hit anyone, making a big racket can still scare people. More importantly, while the enemy is dodging the shelling, you can send infantry to get as close as possible to the enemy, making it easier for them to charge. This is the tactic that our troops call "the Japanese army's artillery blasts and then the infantry charges, the infantry charges and then the artillery blasts". Of course, this depends on your strength - not every army can use this tactic. In the early days of the War of Resistance, our troops basically couldn't use this tactic, mainly because of a lack of strength. Take even the most elite Central Army division: their artillery equipment was probably about equal to that of a Japanese first-class regiment.

  This was the second artillery attack by the 'Japanese' army, compared to the first time, the situation of the middle team had improved a lot. The new recruits were no longer covering their ears and trembling in the trenches like they did during the first artillery attack. In the past two hours, everyone had been busy digging individual 'holes' on the walls of the trenches, except for eating a few steamed buns that were sent over. Some people dug quickly and could hide their entire body inside, while others could at least get half of their body in. Therefore, unless the shells landed directly on their heads, they generally wouldn't be injured.

  The cannon fire finally stopped, and the soldiers hiding in the trenches began to brush off the dust on their bodies while muttering curses as they aimed their guns at the front. After the devils' cannons stopped, it was time for the infantry to come up next.

  "The devils are coming, give me your spirit... Zhao Zhibang, come over..." Li Liansheng stood up and looked at the soldiers in the trenches before shouting to Zhao Zhibang.

  "Queue up"

  "Go there and remember to listen to my orders, call you to hit who will hit who, let you withdraw and come back do you know? Taking advantage of the more than two hours of rest just now, Li Lian Sheng has ordered people to dig out two single-person trenches in the protruding part of the front trench, and then covered them with two layers of logs, and then covered a thick layer of soil on top. Between the two single-person trenches, which are about three or four meters apart, a narrow trench that can only allow one person to pass through was dug to connect with the main trench. Of course, the ones who completed such a large project were those more than 20 young soldiers from the Jingwei squad, they are good at this kind of thing, because once the battle starts, their officers' command post must withstand the bombardment of heavy artillery, and these tasks are usually completed by them and the workers together."

  If it were someone else, they would definitely be unwilling, at least with a grudge in their hearts. However, they knew that such a task was definitely left to Zhao Zhibang, the god of guns, so not only did they not have any complaints, but they also cleared away the obstacles in front of the single soldier's trench and conveniently dug out a fan-shaped surface with a depth of 20 cm and a length of 5 meters at the bottom.

  Zhao Zhibang nodded at Li Liansheng, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and picked up a steel helmet that Li had handed him. The helmet was filled with bullets. He walked along the trench to the frontmost foxhole, grabbed two handfuls of bullets from the helmet and placed them on the edge of the hole, then set up his Type 99 rifle and took aim for a while.

  At first, he didn't understand why the soldiers in front of him had dug out such a fan-shaped hole. It wasn't until he lay down to aim that he realized how perfect the design was. The 20-centimeter depth perfectly blocked his head when shooting, while the fan-shaped opening in front did not obstruct his line of sight at all. With the anti-artillery fortification on top of his head, even if devils came, they wouldn't be able to do anything to him.

  Li Lian Sheng

  "Platoon leader, why haven't the devils launched a charge yet? It seems something is off?" Although they had already seen the shadows of the Japanese soldiers in front of them, everyone was holding their breath waiting for the officer's order to open fire, but the command was slow in coming.

  "Yes, I just find it strange that the cannons have been quiet for so long and yet those little devils still haven't made a move. I don't know what kind of evil plan these turtles are cooking up again? Eh... That fortification is quite well done, haha... looks like the real deal..."

  "That's the work of the team's elite squad, it's really not bad. I'm afraid even if we took out anyone from our company, they wouldn't be able to produce something as good as this."

  "Heh heh... these few soldiers seem to be wasted as guards at the regimental headquarters. After this battle is over, I'll have to talk to the regimental commander and get them all to stay with me." Zhang Damao said with satisfaction, looking in the direction where Zhao Zhibang was hiding.

  "Then leave them for me, I have the most new soldiers here..."

  "Alright, then you hand over Zhao Zhibang to me..."

  "That won't do, those are the soldiers you personally brought to me, how can you still have the nerve to want them back?!" Li Liansheng heard that Zhang Damao wanted to exchange Zhao Zhibang for those Jingwei troops and immediately refused.

  "Not good, the little devil is going to use a 'hidden' move, hurry up and get into the trenches to avoid the artillery fire......" Zhang Damao did not respond to Li Liansheng's words, but instead picked up his binoculars and looked out at the Japanese army on the opposite side. He saw that they were flustered and pushing Li Liansheng away while running and shouting loudly."

  Li Liansheng stared at Zhang Damao's figure for a while, then began to urge the soldiers who were still dazed and aiming at the trench along with him to enter the 'cave' anti-tank gun. After seeing that everyone had come down from the trench and entered the 'cave', he raised his binoculars to take a look at the Japanese army's movements on the other side. Just as he raised them, a piercing shell whistled through the air, and he hastily retreated into the narrow trench leading to Zhao Zhibang's single soldier pit.

  The devils had just been deceived and lost, and then they called in 2 "door" 92 infantry mountain guns. Although the firepower of this thing is not comparable to that of a howitzer, it is much stronger than mortars and grenade launchers in terms of firepower, range, and accuracy. Moreover, because of its small size and light weight, two wheels were added, allowing it to move freely on mountains, so its mobility was also very strong. More importantly, the front of it was equipped with a bulletproof plate to protect the gunner, which made rifle and machine gun bullets useless against it. Therefore, compared to the powerful but long-range and large-scale howitzer, the Japanese army preferred to use this small mountain cannon for precise bombing on the front line.

  The shell landed on the slope ten meters in front of the position, but the dust flying up was more than the direct hit on the mortar in front. The "wave" of air pushed out from ten meters away made people feel suffocated. However, after one shot, the devils had no movement, and the entire position suddenly became quiet. Li Liansheng knew that the previous shot was just a trial shot by the devils, and there wouldn't be such good luck next time. He couldn't help but feel anxious in his heart.