The First Volume of National Humiliation: The Lonely City's Bloody Battle Chapter 13 'Inferno' Banquet

  "Look! The British have run away?" Several Chinese soldiers were pointing and whispering to each other, the Chinese soldiers were a bit puzzled, we came to help the British fight against the Japanese, but every time the British always ran away first?

  Looking at the fleeing British, Song Yuanhang took down a German-made Mauser rifle from the fort's weapon rack, loaded it with a loud click, and quickly fired! After pulling back the bolt handle, he reloaded and fired again, repeating this four times.

  Three British non-commissioned officers who were in charge of airport liaison and one captain all fell on the empty ground 100 meters away!

  Song Yuanhang's swift and accurate shooting of the four British soldiers had already shocked all the workers in the command post!

  Song Yuanhang immediately threw the gun to the guard with a expressionless face and ordered: "Pass on my order! Without my order, any troops or individual soldiers who retreat in the same direction as Tonggu will be shot on the spot. The troops will implement the sitting connection, the squad leader will run first and kill the whole class, the soldier will escape and kill the squad leader, all troops will implement the sitting connection and so on. The British just now is an example."

  Zhang Dafu's eyes had turned Song Yuanhang into a devil of death for his entire regiment. With his eyes blazing red, Zhang Dafu held a Czech-made light machine gun in one hand and had a pistol stuck in his waistband. He loudly lectured the several battalion commanders below him: "Did you all understand what Staff Officer Song meant? I've always treated you well! For the sake of national interests and killing enemies, whoever dares to put a dirty hat on my head will not be spared by me!"

  Everyone only then realized what it means to be in a desperate situation with no way out, if they die at the hands of the military police, not even their family will get any compensation!

  The Japanese artillery fire lasted only about three minutes and stopped without extension, the dense forest was quietly crawling like a bloodthirsty monster waiting for an opportunity.

  "Kill him! Board it!"

  As a heart-rending scream pierced the night sky, dozens of fire snakes emerged from the edge of the forest, and groups of Japanese soldiers rushed towards the airport runway along the firepower channel.

  Like a yellow wave, the figure flashed through the exploding flames and traversed more than half of the over 100-meter-wide open space from the forest to the runway in an instant!

  Zhang Dafa glanced at Song Yuanhang who was somewhat excited, and as the airport guard, he naturally knew that the fifty meters behind him was a dense minefield.

  With the explosion of the first landmine, the broken bodies of two Japanese soldiers instantly flew into the sky, and the shockwave mixed with shrapnel swept everything away. The densely planted mines that were detonated in an instant blew countless gaps in the dense charging formation of the Japanese army.

  The first wave of Japanese troops who lost their momentum immediately dispersed to the left and right, giving way to the second wave of Japanese assault troops.

  Song Yuanhang was constantly calculating the number of troops the Japanese army had invested, two waves of nearly a thousand people, which means that the 143rd regiment with more than three thousand infantrymen had not yet fully entered the range of "flame".

  At this moment, the commander of the 143rd Regiment of the Japanese Army, Yokota, was also paying attention to the development of the battle. According to the intelligence provided by the Burmese Independence Army, there were less than half a battalion of engineers defending the airport. In his view, two waves of assault could completely annihilate the Chinese troops, and after dawn, they could occupy the airport and complete the encirclement of Tonggu City.

  The dense minefield caused heavy casualties to the Japanese army, and the second wave of Japanese troops was suppressed by Chinese soldiers 50 meters away. The Japanese army's superior individual military skills then came into play.

  According to World War II statistics, 62% of soldiers died in close-range firefights within 50-100 meters. The shooting skills of Chinese laborers were naturally no match for Japanese infantrymen. In the front-line trenches, fallen and wounded Chinese soldiers lay crisscrossed on top of each other.

  In the continuous explosions, follow-up troops were constantly replenished through the traffic trenches, and the fierce firefight continued, with a trend of getting more and more intense. Everywhere was the miserable cry for medical soldiers! And the few medical soldiers all fell on the front line.

  "Commander! Launch the firecrackers! The brothers are almost out of ammo!"

  Song Yuanhang put down the telescope, he knew that now was the time to make a decision, sacrifice was inevitable, and shook his head helplessly: "It's not the right time yet!"

  Zhang Dafu was suddenly speechless, and after a brief pause, he picked up a steel helmet and put it on his head, shouldered a machine gun and rushed to the front-line trenches with his own guard squad.

  Ten minutes later, the third wave of Japanese troops advanced with the 92-style heavy machine gun firepower point forward! Song Yuanhang immediately ordered the tank to join the battle. The Japanese army, which lacked anti-tank firepower, was instantly suppressed by the machine gun fire on the tank. As the tank made a short and swift attack in front of the array, the Japanese were driven back into the woods.

  In the pale face of Lieutenant Colonel Yokota, tanks were literally devils that swallowed the lives of soldiers. Due to the suddenness of this surprise attack, his brigade only carried part of the mortar as supporting firepower, and the heavy artillery battalion and field artillery battalion were left behind.

  And those chariots that stopped on the circular fortifications to serve as firepower points did not have any intention of advancing forward, and after a brief pre-battle sortie, they immediately withdrew.

  Yokota watched as another of their firepower points was directly destroyed by a tank, the Type 92 heavy machine gun fell heavily tens of meters away with a severed arm in the flash of the explosion! Yokota cursed the damned intelligence agency and the damned Burmese who were unreliable.

  After going through the minefield and the fierce close-range shooting, the Japanese army's fighting will had been severely weakened. Yokota forced himself to calm down for a moment, he found that although the Chinese troops resisted very stubbornly, their forces seemed insufficient, and they could only rely on semi-circular fortifications and armored firepower. Seeing that this attack was unable to achieve the expected results, he immediately issued a withdrawal order, preparing to change the frontal assault to a containment, sending out a detachment to raid the weak flank of the Chinese army.

  As the Japanese army retreated like a tide, Song Yuanhang and others arrived to find Zhang Dafu's body. Zhang Dafu still maintained his posture and expression at the time of his death, with his eyes wide open and his abdomen and lower body covered in blood. After inquiry, it was learned that Zhang Dafu had been hit by a Japanese grenade launcher. The engineering battalion, which had more than 600 people before the battle, now had fewer than 200 survivors. Song Yuanhang's company also suffered casualties of one-third, but the exact number of casualties could not be counted for the time being.

  In a bloody and cruel battle, life is disregarded, and everything else becomes so insignificant in comparison!

  When the last Japanese army squad retreated into the jungle, Song Yuanhang handed over the switch of the general detonator to the only surviving company commander of the engineering battalion and said: "This is the honor and glory you have won for yourself. The flames of revenge will be ignited by your own hands. The brothers who sacrificed are now watching you from heaven!"

  The remaining soldiers of the Engineer Battalion broke their silence, and even many wounded soldiers gathered around Captain with rifles, all eyes focused on the detonator.

  The lieutenant, who was injured in the head, almost cried out loud as he picked up the detonator, gently stroked it a few times, and then gave Song Yuanhang a salute with a "crack" sound, saying loudly: "Thank you, sir!"

  The 143rd Regiment, which was busy arranging the wounded, was not reconciled to its defeat. The regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Yokota, was no fool and in order to capture the airfield at a minimum cost, he made simple tactical dispositions after which he requested the division through radio to have the Heavy Artillery Regiment cooperate and to bring up the artillery battalion and the ammunition column.

  Kuroshima Bune was a messenger of the combined fleet, tonight's bloody battle really scared this newcomer, the forest was filled with the smell of blood mixed with gunpowder everywhere, the painful cries and groans of the wounded were endless.

  "Ah!" The careless Hei Dao suddenly tripped and fell to the ground? With a hand stained with blood, Hei Dao cursed his bad luck while checking what had tripped him.

  Kuroshima was shocked to find that what had tripped him up was an electrical cable as thick as a finger. How did an electrical cable end up in the woods? After tracing the cable for several steps, Kuroshima brushed aside a layer of leaves and soil, and was suddenly frightened out of his wits! The ground was covered with a layer of explosives?!

  In the circular formation, Captain looked around at the surviving brothers and pressed his hand heavily!

  A blue arc of light flashed across the detonator, and after a loud rumble like thunder, the sky suddenly lit up. Four hundred explosive points threw five hundred barrels of gasoline into the air and ignited them! Real fire meteors, all the gasoline had been mixed with syrup and soap water by Song Yuanhang.

  Every oil drum's angle was carefully designed, and the dense jungle helped Song Yuanhang a lot!

  The sky was filled with fire and rain, turning the jungle into a sea of flames. The gasoline, which had an extremely strong adhesive force, turned the Japanese soldiers into moving sources of fire. Some Japanese soldiers who fell to the ground in an attempt to extinguish the flames on their bodies quickly became human torches, while those who were injured and unable to move could only be burned alive amidst their mournful cries.

  The hair-raising screams, the exploding ammunition, the suffocating smell of char and flames made Chinese soldiers feel as if they were standing naked in the snow even at a distance of over 100 meters. Some Chinese soldiers who couldn't bear it took aim at those Japanese soldiers who were on fire and struggling desperately, helping them end their suffering.

  Song Yuanhang was the only one who could hold up a telescope. Amidst the Japanese soldiers' heart-wrenching screams, he was still pained by those tens of tons of gasoline and hundreds of kilograms of white sugar. For his plan, the entire expeditionary force would not have any sweet drinks to quench their thirst for several months.

  The Japanese man's suffering is his pleasure, several officers on the side were stimulated by this miserable situation and couldn't bear to look at it, turning around and whispering cruel and inhumane words.

  Song Yuanhang showed no courtesy, and immediately shouted loudly: "You can't bear to burn the Japanese people to death? Don't dare to look? Inhumane? Go tell the tens of millions of compatriots who died in Nanjing that they are cruel, go tell the heroic souls who have sacrificed themselves since the war of resistance that they are righteous! A life for a life, a debt repaid! Heavenly justice!"

  Song Yun-hang gradually cast his eyes afar, his tone increasingly solemn: "Fighting the Japanese is different from any previous war, this is a great decisive battle between nations and ethnic groups! It concerns the integrity of the nation and the survival of the ethnicity. Our country has been weak for a long time, the ethnicity is in danger, we have no way to retreat! The only thing we can do is to fight the Japanese invaders to the end, fulfill our duty as soldiers to defend our land."

  Under the illumination of the raging fire, more and more soldiers cast their gaze towards the scene, yet no one fired a shot to give the Japanese a quick death, leaving those twisted bodies to struggle and roll in the flames unresponsive.

  On the surface, Song Yuanhang was extremely calm, but at this moment he was extremely excited in his heart. Before this, the most troops he had led were the class leaders of the instructional battalion, and now he could command over a thousand people to fight against the Japanese army's elite infantry brigade, and using his familiarity with history and mastery of technology, he gave the invading Japanese army a crushing blow? Apart from needing some luck, it required more blood and lives of soldiers to achieve.

  Although Yokota was seriously injured, he narrowly escaped with his life. It can only be said that the gasoline obtained by Song Yuanhang was not enough to cover the entire forest, and about four companies of Japanese soldiers managed to escape. Among the more than 4,000 Japanese troops who participated in the attack, more than 2,300 became sacrifices in Song Yuanhang's plan. The 143rd Regiment of the Japanese 55th Division can be said to have suffered a devastating blow.

  The annihilation of the 143rd Regiment can be said to have stimulated Takeru's fragile nerves, this small man with eagle eyes is now deeply thinking. Since the implementation of the Southern Advance plan, the Imperial Japanese Army has been invincible in battle, and all victories have been won without exception. The Philippines, Malaya, Singapore, etc. have all fallen into the hands of the Imperial Army. This is the first time that a regimental unit has suffered losses, and it happened within his own command. It seems that hiding casualty numbers as before will be very difficult now.

  Takeuchi Hiroshi knew that the Chongqing government would definitely make a big noise and propaganda, and what he could do now was to quickly take down Tonggu, using a bigger victory to make up for the loss of the 143rd Regiment.

  Thinking of this, Takeuchi Hiroshi seemed to have become optimistic again. He was very glad that Yokota was still alive. The officers and soldiers who died in the 143rd regiment could be replenished into the consumption of later battles, so it would be fine. For his own brilliant idea, Takeuchi Hiroshi picked up the clear tea in front of him and smelled it, then casually placed the teacup on the location of Kengyang Airport on the map.

  Adding 15% white sugar to the same weight of gasoline and shaking it evenly can increase the viscosity of the gasoline, enhance its adhesion and burning time. At the same time, the high temperature and heat generated by the gasoline during combustion cause the sugar to melt and solidify, making it difficult to extinguish the fire without using a professional foam fire extinguisher. Soap water is also the same principle, but its effect is not as ideal as white sugar.