Chapter 23: One Man Guards the Pass

  The Stormtroopers and the Blue Cloud Squad returned with a full load, especially the Blue Cloud Squad's performance from top to bottom was impressive, making everyone who participated in the night raid excited.

  On the way back to the county town, Wang Lie stuck to Sun Qingyun's side and asked to learn a few moves. Sun Qingyun resumed his usual wooden expression and smiled foolishly, saying he could only teach some basic moves, as Wang Lie was too old and his tendons were not flexible enough. Wang Lie regretted it all along the way.

  Back in the small school in the county town, Xu Zhiwei came out from inside and handed Yu Fei a thing: "Brother, this was made by skilled craftsmen. Take a look and see if it's okay?"

  "Brothers, this is the appointment letter of the 259th Brigade Commander Yu Fei. I've just taken over as regiment commander and now I'm going to be promoted again! But it's also a realistic need! After merging several groups of bandits, the original team structure is no longer sufficient. And in order to make so many people obey our orders, apart from winning battles, this thing can't be missing either. For now, let Xu Zhiyuan keep it first. After we've won a few more brilliant annihilating wars, we'll take it out and work together towards bigger goals."

  Sun Qingyun patted his thigh and said: "I knew it, Captain You, Director You, he's definitely a man who will do great things. Following him is the right choice."

  Xu Zhiwei said: "After we've eliminated the devils attacking our county town, big brother will promote all of us. We'll all become important then!"

  "Didn't expect it, you're still an official fanatic!"

  "Haha!" The crowd echoed with laughter.

  After putting down the flying troops, this side intensified the training of ordinary troops. Without mentioning the revenge of the devils, after learning that more than 60 people from two outposts were annihilated by the Chinese army on the little devil's side, Commander Tofu scolded his subordinates: "Baka! Idiots! You actually let the Chinese army come and go as they please. What use are you? Bastards! Baka!"

  Slap! Slap! Slap! The lieutenant colonel's palm struck the messenger soldier's face one after another. In the Japanese army, there was a strict hierarchy between officers and soldiers, superiors and subordinates. This unlucky devil of a soldier who brought bad news could only turn his slapped face back again and again, answering "Hai! Hai!"

  The bean sprout was beaten for more than a dozen times, and then he roared at the communication soldier who had become a pig head: "Let each squad leave the minimum number of soldiers to arrange defense, and all personnel will gather in three days! We must make those despicable Chinese pay the price!"

  "Ah-ha!"

  ……

  On the only road leading to the county town, the neat military boots gradually approached the soldiers of the first and second battalions who were ambushing. The devils' noses and eyes could be seen clearly. New recruit Fan Huozi's hands trembled slightly, slowly raising the muzzle, aiming at the devil's vanguard. One hand pressed his muzzle down, an old soldier shook his head extremely carefully against him.

  The place where the First Battalion was ambushing was on a small hillside that was still some distance away from the devils. The closest to the devils were the Qingyun squad hiding in the roadside grass. All actions of the First and Second Battalions had to wait until Qingyun started before they could begin.

  At this time, the members of the Qingyun squad could even hear the sound of the devils' heavy breathing.

  The leader of the Ghost Squad, Beanstalk, suddenly stopped in his tracks, twitching his nose as he sniffed the air around him, as if he had discovered something. At that moment, a gunshot rang out - zip! - and Beanstalk's head jerked back, his hat flying off.

  With the first shot, rifles, machine guns and pistols fired in unison. Although the Japanese soldiers were all knocked to the ground at the first moment, with no major casualties, an entire battalion of over 300 men was pinned down on the roadside, unable to lift their heads.

  The bean vine and all the devils were lying on the ground, anxiously thinking about what to do next. Suddenly, the gunfire stopped completely. This was also an unavoidable thing, as the devils had divided the four counties into a large area, they didn't dare to waste bullets recklessly. The bean vine felt a thrill of excitement, the Chinese army's ammunition was not rich, this was great! He was about to order the devils to charge and break through the Chinese army's ambush when an iron canister rolled to his feet with a gurgling sound. With just one glance, he immediately had a feeling of his soul flying away, it was a canister of toxic gas bombs. The bean vine became anxious, but his brain suddenly turned faster, this flat and windless place was fundamentally not suitable for using toxic gas. It seemed that the Chinese people still didn't understand the performance of toxic gas! Using it now would have little effect on attacking the Japanese army, and instead would hinder the pursuit.

  The bean vine rolled and crawled backwards in retreat, shouting orders as it went: "Retreat! Retreat! Beware of the poisonous gas. Release smoke bombs to block the enemy army."

  The devils heard that there was poisonous gas and hastily retreated, but the smoke bombs were still launched. When the devils escaped, a burst of dense fire, the effect was even better than the previous large-scale sweep. But soon, the smoke bombs falling around blocked the vision of the flying troops.

  "Haha! Hang back, pursue slowly." Yu Fei gave the order. It turned out that the toxic gas tank was just a used disposable item. What Yu Fei wanted was to chase after them, not to surround and annihilate them. With this team of mostly new recruits, Yu Fei didn't have such a big appetite yet.

  These days, the devils have turned the originally simple sentry posts into heavily guarded checkpoints. The section in charge of Tofu's squad has especially set up several mutually supportive firepower points to strictly prevent Chinese troops from launching a sneak attack. Although the main force of the squad is out and the number of personnel left behind has been reduced, Tofu still has confidence in defending the checkpoint. So he ordered a small team of Japanese soldiers to block the pursuing troops while he was already summarizing the mistakes made in this operation. "It seems that our decision to send one squad to attack the county town was an arrogant move. The situation here should be reported to the higher-ups. We should concentrate our superior forces and teach those Chinese a lesson."

  Just ahead was the Huang Jun's checkpoint, and Dou Teng felt that they were about to shake off the pursuing soldiers who had been harassing them from behind. He let out a sigh of relief and ordered the main force to enter the checkpoint.

  As the dense devils retreated slowly to the front of the pass, crossfire from machine guns and hand grenades rained down like hail. Immediately, dozens of devils were strafed, and the rest fled in disarray. At this time, Dou Teng found that the firepower of the pursuing troops behind him was also getting denser and denser.

  What's going on? Let me start from the day before yesterday.

  The Stormtroopers had not been in the county town since their last night raid. All members of the team dispersed to closely monitor the movements of the devils. The time of the devils' attack, the configuration of their forces and other information were all accurately transmitted back to You Fei.

  Given the strong survival ability of the Liefeng team in the wild, You Fei ordered them to hide near the Guizi checkpoint from last night and take it over after the Guizi middle team passed through. In the process of occupying the checkpoint, Wang Lie showed his limited progress in Japanese again. Fortunately, other Liefeng team members disguised as Guizi soldiers were agile, coordinated, and supported each other's firepower points, which were almost eliminated at the same time...

  The entire squadron of Tofu was crowded in the open area in front of the checkpoint. The pursuers were getting more and more, and their attack was getting fiercer and fiercer. Tofu gritted his teeth and made a decision to concentrate firepower to take down the checkpoint and clear the road back.

  At that time, the infantry company of the devils was organized in this way: the company had three infantry platoons, each platoon had a machine gun squad (two light machine guns), a grenade launcher squad (two grenade launchers) and two rifle squads. The bean vine company, due to combat needs, specially brought an infantry cannon and a mortar. At this time, the shells originally used to attack the low walls of the county town were first used to attack the devils' own fortifications.

  Several shells whizzed past, half of a bunker collapsed, and the Stormwind team buried themselves in sandbags inside the checkpoint to avoid the artillery fire.

  The bombardment had just stopped, and the wailing cries rose up again, a special sign of the devils' charge. The storm warriors set up their machine guns and continued to fire. After maiming one wave of attackers, the team members hastily moved to a new location. Sure enough, the second bombardment was more accurate, and half of a bunker had disappeared. Two machine gun positions also flew into the sky.

  You Fei saw the devils opening fire, he also didn't care about conserving ammunition, didn't care about the casualties of new soldiers, and ordered the first battalion to launch a charge.

  The devils who were surrounded by enemies became even more frantic. In over ten minutes, the members of the Liefeng squad were still clever, but three or four people were already injured. The checkpoint was almost completely destroyed, and the original fortifications had almost no significance. After Wang Lie laid down some trap mines with hand grenades, he ordered an immediate retreat.

  They all retreated from the battlefield, and Wang Lie only discovered that one person was missing. The one who was pulled down was Chen Zhizhong, an old soldier of the original Guangdong Army.

  "What's going on? Who is Chen Zhi Zhong's partner? What happened to him?"

  "Captain, Chen Zhi Zhong is injured in the abdomen. He said it's nothing serious. During the retreat, he wanted to stay behind and guard the rear. I didn't think much of it at the time. Now that I think about it, he hasn't moved since then, maybe his injury is more severe than I thought. I'll go rescue him right now."

  "Me too!" "I'm going with you!"

  At this time, the devil's cannon rang out again, and after finishing the cannon, it was followed by a wave of charging. In this situation, who can't get in? Wang Lie and his teammates were anxious and helpless.

  Rat-a-tat! The machine gun on the pass fired again, and more than a dozen devils were shot down. The remaining few rushed into the pass, triggered a landmine, and exploded with a loud bang.

  Wow! Another strange cry! The devils are charging again without stopping. We were beaten back once more.

  Several shells fell beside the machine gun position. The devils charged again, and from that dusty rubble, a rifle barrel protruded. Rat-a-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat!

  In the intense battle, it was already impossible to climb up again. Was Chen Zhongzhong to be left alone in the midst of artillery and gunfire?

  "Damn it! We can't move forward from here! I'm going to join the charge of the First Battalion. Those useless bastards in the First Battalion are moving too slowly!" Wang Lie and others shouted, running towards the front line of the First and Second Battalions.

  You Fei once again ordered a charge, this time the roar of one battalion was exceptionally loud. "Charge!"

  The devils' attack on the other side was again shattered by the machine gunner who refused to die. Of the more than 300 men in Tofu's squad, less than 100 were left. The cut-off troops could not withstand the pressure from behind and were about to be annihilated. Tofu let out a long sigh, drew his combat knife, drew a cross on his belly, and was about to commit seppuku.

  "Squad leader! There's an opening on the left! Let's charge out!"

  Tofu's hand holding the knife hesitated to put it down. His subordinate urged anxiously: "Squad leader! Please leave your useful body for the empire. You are most familiar with the situation here, and this defeat is not your responsibility."

  Tofu let out a long sigh and put down his war knife. He fled in disarray with over ten devils.

  Wang Lie led the charge up to the checkpoint, and a sharp-eyed soldier spotted Chen Zhongzhong. Chen Zhongzhong had built a small hollow with sandbags, hiding inside himself, with the front sandbag being movable, which was his machine gun's firing hole. His hiding place was covered with thick dust and gravel blown up by cannon fire.

  When Chen Zhong was found, he had a smile on his face and had stopped breathing. The soldiers followed the trail of blood that seeped from the trench and found his legs, which were more than twenty steps away from Chen Zhong's body.

  "Brother! You're seriously injured but still not retreating from the front line! Alone, you've made it impossible for hundreds of devils to break through. This broken stronghold has become the world's number one heroic fortress. Brother! One man guards the pass, and ten thousand ghosts cannot enter. I, Wang Lie, will remember you as a god, and this lifetime will never forget you."

  "We will never forget! Brother!" You Fei said behind Wang Lie's back.