Chapter 24: The Appearance of the Devil's Sniper

  The pseudo-army rushed into the small path on the east side and immediately triggered the trap that Chen Shaoqin had arranged in advance. A loud explosion was heard, and those pseudo-soldiers were instantly blown into the sky. When they fell to the ground, there were not many people left alive. After this incident, the remaining pseudo-soldiers were so frightened that their legs became weak and they stood still on the spot, not daring to move. The guns in their hands also slipped to the ground at some point, and they didn't even bother to pick them up.

  Nomura and Suzuki were riding motorcycles onto the main road of Zhujiatun from the main highway of Qinxian, when they suddenly heard a huge explosion. Nomura instinctively raised his right hand to signal for everyone to stop, and he himself immediately got off the motorcycle and walked to a relatively high boulder on the side of the road, picked up the binoculars hanging around his neck, and looked in the direction of the strong light produced by the explosion.

  "Captain, what's going on with that explosion?" Suzuki apparently didn't understand what the blast meant earlier. When he saw his superior order the troops to stop and observe, he also got off the vehicle and immediately went to Nomura's side to ask what was happening.

  "Damn it, those Chinese must have found out we're supporting Zhu Jia Town, so they took a step ahead and escaped into the mountains!" Nomura didn't explain any further, just cursed and turned to get on the vehicle, shouting at the troops behind him. "Advance quickly!"

  The Kwantung Army troops arrived at the already heavily bombed artillery tower, surrounding the dead bodies of the puppet army in the middle. Nomura immediately examined the machine gunner's body and found that they had all been shot through the center of their eyebrows. He immediately understood what was going on: "Ah, it's our old adversary who did this!"

  "What? You're saying that all of this was done by the person who claims to be the War Eagle Sniper Group?" Suzuki couldn't believe this conjecture. In his view, although these fake soldiers weren't exactly elite, their weapons and equipment should have been at least mid-tier, so how could they have been taken out so easily? This was simply unthinkable.

  "Not only that, but also the death of Matsuda-kun. From all this, it can be seen that he is no longer fighting alone now, he has his own team!" Nomura connected the bodies of the pseudo-army and the sniping of Matsuda, and came to such a conclusion.

  "No, he can't possibly have his own team!" Suzuki immediately denied, "From the moment the Chinese gunman parachuted down to now, we've been constantly chasing him. Although we haven't caught or killed him, we also didn't give him any chance to breathe. In such a situation, I don't believe he could escape and at the same time develop and expand his own team!"

  "Following your logic, he certainly can't form his own team. But don't forget, when Takeda and the others were in charge of eliminating the bandits led by Liu, not only did they effectively block the Imperial Army's advance, but they also managed to escape from the encirclement unscathed. The only one who could achieve this is that Chinese gunman who received military training in Germany!" Nomura had a different view on Suzuki's denial, thinking that Suzuki was too superficial and didn't dare to make bold connections between many possibilities.

  "Is Mr. Nomura saying that Liu the kidnapper and the Chinese gunman have joined forces?" Suzuki seemed to understand something, but still didn't dare believe what Nomura was saying was true.

  "It's not a matter of combined forces, but rather the Liu gang unconditionally obeyed the command of the Japanese gunman, that's why they had such strong combat power, able to launch an annihilation battle outside the heavily guarded artillery tower of the Imperial Army, and even achieved almost complete victory!" Nomura continued, "Such an opponent is really too terrifying!"

  "What should we do next?" Suzuki heard Nomura's analysis and suddenly felt that the opponent was not like the Chinese army they had encountered before. The combat effectiveness of this army far exceeded his imagination, exceeding the imagination of all Japanese troops.

  Nomura was about to give orders for the next move when a messenger came running up to him and handed him a telegram, which he read himself.

  Nomura eagerly opened the telegram, read its contents, and in a fit of rage, he threw it into the air, then pulled out his command knife from his waist and slashed at the floating telegram with several heavy blows, cutting an intact telegram into pieces. As he was slashing, he loudly yelled: "Hachigatsu... Hachigatsu... Hakkōro!"

  "Nomura-kun, what on earth happened?!" Suzuki asked anxiously, probably startled by Nomura's appearance.

  "The Chinese bandits took advantage of our departure from the county to rush to Zhujiatun and launched a surprise attack on the Quyang County Warehouse, burning all military supplies to ashes!" Nomura gritted his teeth in anger, wishing he could immediately return and tear Chen Shaokan and others who burned down the warehouse into pieces.

  "Shouldn't we immediately return to reinforce the county town?" Although Suzuki knew that returning to the county town now would not change anything, he was clear that as long as there was a glimmer of hope, they would not give up. This was the only conviction that had supported them in battle since they set out.

  "No, it's too late to go back and support the county town. We'll intercept them on the road. I believe their raid on the county town's warehouse is not just about burning down all the Imperial Japanese Army's supplies, but also about taking them for themselves. So they must need vehicles to transport the supplies. As long as we set up an ambush at a strategic location, I don't think the Chinese War Hawks Sniper Unit can escape our clutches!" Nomura had no intention of wasting time going back and circling around, he wanted to use the terrain to his advantage and play a game of cat and mouse on the road.

  "Captain Eiichi!" Suzuki said with great admiration for Nomura.

  "Send a telegram to Lieutenant General Hamada immediately and have him bring Godo-san here for support!" Nomura seemed dissatisfied with the current arrangement, and he gave further orders to Suzuki, apparently intending to use his trump card this time.

  "Is that Yamamoto-san, the one who's known as Japan's greatest shooting god, the one who holds the record for taking down 521 Chinese snipers? Is he in Xing County?" Suzuki looked like he was over the moon with excitement, seemingly eager for this Yamamoto guy to arrive.

  "The day before yesterday, he had already arrived in Qu County and stayed at Bin Tian's official residence. As long as our telegram is sent out, Yamamoto will be able to come and support our ambush at the first time!" Nomura was very confident about this arrangement, with a look of victory in sight.

  "I'll go and arrange it now!" Suzuki didn't dare to delay, after giving a military salute to Nomura, he immediately went to find the signal soldier to pass on the contents of this telegram.

  Nomura didn't hesitate any longer and ordered all the devils under his command to turn around and rush towards the county town, without showing any intention of staying behind.