Chapter 29: Conversation Flying Over the Internet

  When Liu Feng led Zhang Damao and Han Datou to attack the artillery tower, Lin Team Leader quietly told Chen Zhengwei that after Liu Feng took down the first artillery tower, he used bayonets to kill all the wounded puppet soldiers. When taking down the second artillery tower, he wanted to do the same thing again, but was stopped by himself.

  There are now only four seriously wounded pseudo-soldiers. However, since they were carrying captives, they couldn't bring back all the captured weapons and ammunition.

  Chen Zhengwei listened and said: "Liu Feng's actions are against the policy of our Eighth Route Army. As the chief of staff of our Eighth Route Army's assault team, he must abide by our army's discipline. I will have a good talk with him when we get back. You did the right thing. As for the spoils of war, this time is not small enough. If we continue to fight like this, our future spoils of war will not be small. Next time, I will mobilize the masses to transport the captured materials."

  Lin and Chen gave speeches, but Liu Feng still strictly arranged personnel according to the previous battle plan, not relaxing at all because of the smooth victory earlier.

  After everything was arranged, he shot down the searchlight and gave Zhang Damao the order to open fire.

  Zhang Damao's cannonball was slightly off target, landing beside the artillery tower. The tower didn't collapse, but all the gun ports spewed out flames, especially the machine gun on top of the tower which went crazy and started roaring wildly.

  Liu Feng and the sniper's rifles quickly sounded, and the firepower on the turret immediately fell silent. At this time, Zhang Damao had adjusted the recoilless gun, and the second shell directly hit the turret, causing it to begin collapsing. Next was the third shell, and the entire turret collapsed.

  However, this time something went wrong and an explosion suddenly occurred inside the gun tower, producing a huge fireball in the dark night. It was likely that the internal ammunition was hit by shells, triggering a sympathetic detonation. The entire gun tower was quickly blown to pieces, with debris flying everywhere.

  Liu Feng's assault team members all pressed themselves tightly to the ground to prevent being hit by flying shrapnel.

  The explosion finally ended. Liu Feng and others went forward to take a look, only to find that the place where the artillery tower was had been blasted into a big pit, with no trace of the devils' or puppet army's corpses left.

  Everyone quickly returned to Hanyi Village.

  ……

  "Director Liu, I'd like to have a talk with you. Are you available?" Back in Hanzixiang Village, after resting for a day, Chen Zhengwei found Liu Feng the next day to conduct ideological and political work on him.

  Liu Feng furrowed his brow, knowing that Chen Zhengwei was about to start lecturing him, and hastily said: "I still need to summarize for the soldiers, can you wait a bit?"

  Comrade Chen said: "It doesn't matter, I'll just take up a little of your time, and then you can summarize with the soldiers."

  Liu Feng had no choice but to stay, and followed Chen Zheng to the house. Chen Zheng's face was full of smiles as he said: "Director Liu, this battle is really satisfying! I didn't expect that you could actually train our district team's soldiers into godly artillerymen who hit their targets with one shot, and godly marksmen who take down an enemy with one bullet. It's truly admirable!"

  Liu Feng corrected Chen Zhengwei, who referred to snipers as "divine marksmen". He felt it was necessary to correct this and said: "I cultivate not divine marksmen but snipers. The role of an excellent sniper can be even greater than that of a thousand-man army. So, Comrade Chen Zhengwei, please don't treat snipers as divine marksmen and have them fight in positional warfare. That would be a waste of talent."

  "What? The role of a good sniper can be even greater than that of an army of thousands?" Chen's face was filled with incredulity, and he suddenly forgot the question he had prepared to ask Liu Feng about the Eighth Route Army's discipline. He hastily asked, "How is this possible?"

  Liu Feng said: "Comrade Chen Zheng, a sniper is completely different from a god gunner. A sniper can perform tasks that a large army cannot, such as assassination, sabotage, and intimidation. Especially in complex terrain, one sniper can suppress an enemy squad. My elimination of Sakata's squad, as well as those in Qiu County, Quzhou County, and Guangping County, were all examples of the use of snipers."

  "This involves the concept of special operations. Special operations are carried out to achieve specific strategic and tactical purposes, mainly by specially organized, trained and equipped special forces or elite units temporarily formed according to the needs of the task, using special methods and means. Their actions have the characteristics of being purposeful, carefully planned, unique in method, diverse in means, covert, sudden, swift and decisive. Such as airborne operations, amphibious operations, hostage rescue, raids on enemy headquarters, important military facilities and other key targets. And Qiu County, Quzhou County, and Guangping County are all special operations! In fact, last night's attack on the three artillery towers of the devils was also a special operation."

  "Special operations do not require too many personnel, but they need soldiers who have undergone special training, and our assault team is fully trained according to the special operations unit. Last night's operation was just a small test of the results of our previous training. The cannon tower that successfully pulled out the devils last night can be considered qualified for the previous training, but it is only qualified. Many problems were also exposed."

  "For example, first, during combat, due to tension, many actions that can be easily performed during training become distorted on the battlefield. Fortunately, this battle did not have any unexpected occurrences, otherwise we would definitely have casualties; second, Comrade Lin and Comrade Chen's tactic of dividing troops to block the enemy's reinforcements is incorrect. In fact, taking out a single artillery emplacement only requires a few people and one cannon, so all three locations can be attacked simultaneously. If used well, the enemy's grenade launchers can also destroy the artillery emplacements."

  "Third, since we are a special operations unit, we cannot demand discipline according to the usual standards of other troops. I know the discipline of the Eighth Route Army and also know the Three Main Rules of Discipline and Eight Points for Attention. However, we cannot rigidly execute these disciplines but should instead flexibly grasp them."

  "For example, the issue of pseudo-army prisoners of war. This issue you don't want to discuss with me, but I want to discuss it with you. We are special operations forces. Such troops often fight in the heart of the enemy, and many times the battlefield does not allow us to leave hidden dangers behind. Otherwise, it may expose us, even affect our mission, thus affecting the entire war situation. It is very likely that due to the failure of our mission, thousands or even tens of thousands of our soldiers will suffer losses."

  Seeing Chen Zhengwei's disbelieving expression, Liu Feng said seriously: "I'm not exaggerating. We may very likely be sent to carry out a decapitation mission to infiltrate the Japanese army's headquarters and take out their command center in the future. If we can complete the task, it will cause chaos among the Japanese army, which may create an opportunity for our main forces to win. But if because of your so-called rigid discipline, we are exposed without completing the task, won't it affect the battle situation?"