Chapter Nineteenth: Night Raid on the Outpost
When Gao climbed to the top of the mountain, although his hands were wrapped in several layers of cloth strips, he was still cut with two gashes, and fresh blood stained the cloth strips. Before reaching the highest point, he already felt the tremors of the mountain body, and on the other side of the mountain, red lights flashed, and the thunderous cannon sounds shook his ears, much louder than the sound emitted by the enhanced artillery battalion of the devils yesterday.
On the top of the mountain, looking over there, Gao Quan was shocked. He was glad that the enemy's artillery position was indeed at the foot of this mountain, but he was shocked to find that the other side of the mountain was a cliff, and it was impossible to get down from the top of this mountain!
At the foot of the mountain is a flat ground like an elephant square, and the square is brightly lit. Dozens of large-caliber artillery are frequently bombarding, with loud cannon fire, shaking the rocks underfoot.
Mountain guns, field guns, and large-caliber howitzers, all kinds of heavy artillery, there were thirty or forty pieces, enough to form a regiment-level artillery unit. Gao Quan carefully counted them again, and there were thirty-six guns in total. Almost every second, the big guns roared, and the defenders at the mouth of the valley could see the pressure they were under. After seeing the number of enemy guns clearly, Gao Quan didn't dare to delay, and quickly took out his flashlight, covered it with a cloth, and flashed it four times towards the direction behind him, drawing a circle and turning twice.
A few seconds later, the distant mountain peak lit up with white lights, flashing three times. Qian Sihao received the signal!
This road is impassable, and Gao Quan must quickly find a way to the devils' artillery position. He grabs the wild grass and bushes growing out of the stone crevices and slides down, jumping over protruding rocks along the way. His cross-country skills are now coming in handy, and compared to the thrilling and frightening nature of war, his past training and missions seem like games from a peaceful era. However, without these exercises, Gao Quan wouldn't have today's extraordinary abilities either.
They soon arrived at the foot of the mountain and moved forward along the winding path, and had just walked out less than a kilometer when they discovered an enemy sentry post. Three devils were surrounding a fire pit, two were dozing off while sitting around it, and one was holding a rifle standing guard beside them. In early spring in the north, the cold air was still biting, and the nighttime temperature was still very low. The devils were roasting by the fire, sleeping soundly, and even the devil on sentry duty couldn't resist the drowsiness, lowering his head every now and then. Gao Quan crouched down low, slowly creeping closer until he was within three meters, but the devil on guard still hadn't discovered him.
He sprang up with a sudden movement, and the dagger in his right hand was thrust straight into the devil's throat! The devil seemed to have been suddenly awakened, and with a slight lift of its head, it exposed its neck, and the dagger went in without any obstruction until the handle. The devil's hand relaxed, and the rifle fell down. Gao Quan hooked the toe of his foot, and the 38-style rifle was blocked by his foot for a moment, reducing the sound of the fall to almost nothing, which couldn't be heard at all amidst the deafening cannon fire.
Slowly, he put the ghost down on the ground, and with a swift motion, High pulled out his dagger and wiped it twice on the ghost's clothes. He then crept quietly towards the two ghosts who were dozing off around the fire pit. Perhaps feeling a bit chilly, the ghost to the left of the fire pit shifted his body slightly, moving closer to the flames, and muttered something under his breath. Suddenly, he seemed to have heard an unusual sound, and turned his head towards his companion on duty. Unbeknownst to him, his eyes widened in an instant, his mouth agape, but no sound came out. A blood arrow shot out from his neck, flying all the way to the helmet of the other ghost. As the blood arrow flew over the fire pit, it brought up a wave of steam, and a foul smell of char wafted through the air.
The devil collapsed, and Gao Quan pounced on the other devil by the fire like a leopard. The devil who was dozing off was clearly stimulated by the strange smell in the air, opened his mouth to let out a loud sneeze, and immediately opened his eyes wide because a bloody knife tip was pointing at his neck.
"How many guards are there at the artillery position and where are they?" To this question, Gao Quan didn't really want the ghost to answer, but our army has always had a tradition of treating prisoners of war with kindness, and Gao Quan didn't want to violate his own military discipline principles.
The devil didn't disappoint him, after hearing this fluent Tokyo dialect question, his eyes flashed a hint of panic, then he dodged back, reached out to touch the gun. This devil was purely suicidal, the Type 38 rifle was so long, even if he could reach it, grab it, Gao Quan was now so close to him, and it was impossible for him to have the chance to raise the gun and fire. He was indeed a die-hard militarist!
Since they were so eager to die as a loyal martyr for the Emperor, Gao Quan naturally fulfilled their wish. The sharp dagger directly cut off the opponent's carotid artery, and in just a few seconds, the little devil lost consciousness without much suffering.
Gao Quan searched the body of the devil and found nothing valuable except for a few gold tickets and five silver dollars. It seemed that these devils were not wealthy either. These spoils of war, Gao Quan naturally put into his own pocket. Yesterday's battles came too suddenly at first, and later there were always people around, so Gao Quan couldn't bring himself to do it. Now he was alone, and killing and plundering were the law of survival. Even if one understood this era's warfare thoroughly, actually living through it for the first time was different. Having more guarantees of survival wasn't bad.
Gao Quan took out three Japanese sentry posts in a row, but encountered some unexpected situation at the last one. When he approached the third Japanese sentry post, there were five Japanese soldiers by the fire pit, but this didn't faze Gao Quan. After all, during the military's grand martial arts competition, Gao Quan had once achieved a glorious record of winning ten matches in a row. Dealing with these five Japanese who were completely off guard was no problem at all. With one dagger and half a minute, the battle was over, and he emerged unscathed, having annihilated all five enemies! On the fire pit, there were some Japanese rations that had been heated up - several cans of beef stew. Gao Quan naturally didn't hesitate to devour them. After rushing about for half the night, it turned out that he was actually a bit hungry. The Japanese really did think ahead.
Two hundred meters away was the enemy's artillery position, thirty-six guns, several hundred devils, this is not a good opponent, Gao Quan did not think of himself as an invincible Monkey King. After lying on the ground and observing for a while, Gao Quan found that there were several tents next to the enemy's artillery position, with devils coming in and out from time to time, it seemed that this was definitely an important place, maybe it was the command post of this artillery unit, or maybe it was a toilet.
After taking a rough look at the number of devils' cannons on the battlefield and the number of devils, Gao Quan turned around and left. Now Li's brigade is leading his troops to rush over here, it's better for him to go and meet them, so as not to get the troops lost.
The machine gun position is not far from here, just across two hills. Qian Sixi found the flashlight and climbed up to the old locust tree, his eyes wide open, searching everywhere, afraid that he would miss the signal. The temperature of less than 10 degrees at night made him sweat profusely. When he finally saw Gao Quan's signal coming from the front, Qian Sixi still didn't quite believe it, rubbed his eyes, and only after Gao Quan repeated the same signal did Qian Sixi hastily return the signal, hurriedly slid down the tree, and went to report to the brigade commander.
