Chapter 65: Arrows Exhausted, Provisions Depleted

  Yang Jingyu, who had rested for a day, convened a party member meeting with his injured body. There were originally over 100 party members in Fengtian, but now only six remained, including himself, Zhao Shangzhi and Xiao Le.

  "The enemy has been quiet for a whole day, they definitely won't give up like this!" Xiao Le said.

  "How many of us are left?" This was what Yang Jingyu cared about most.

  "Four hundred and sixteen people!" Zhao Shangzhi said with a heavy heart: "This also includes more than 200 lightly wounded personnel!"

  "How many casualties?" Yang Jingyu asked anxiously.

  Zhao Shangzhi shook his head and said: "None of our seriously wounded men retreated, they...they refused to leave the battlefield! All...all sacrificed!"

  "What about the weapons and ammunition?" Yang Jingyu asked, taking a deep breath.

  "The mortar is gone, and there aren't many machine gun bullets left either, but there are still plenty of rifles and hand grenades!"

  "Send it down! Send everything down!" Yang Jingyu shouted: "Order the soldiers to hurry up and rest, have a good meal of instant noodles! And immediately send out several teams to clean up the battlefield, bring back anything that can be used, not a single piece can be left for the Japanese!"

  "Yes!"

  Upon learning of the failure to capture Mukden, a flustered Honjō Shigeru immediately led his troops to Mukden to direct the battle in person. The main attacking force was gradually shifted from Lieutenant General Lin Zeng's 39th Mixed Brigade to Lieutenant General Fujiwara's Imperial Japanese Army 3rd Division.

  The 3rd Division had three reinforced infantry brigades, two cavalry regiments, one mountain artillery regiment and one engineer brigade, with a total strength of over 15,000 men. Fujita Susumu, who had been watching from the outside, was very disdainful of Hayashi Tadasaburō, and as soon as he received the order to attack the North Gate, he immediately transferred Hayashi's more than 20,000 remaining troops to the rear army.

  After taking direct command of the Mukden battle, Lieutenant General Fujita ordered Major General Yamamoto's entire brigade to attack. Yamamoto was taken aback and hesitated for a moment before saying: "Your Excellency! Due to the restrictions of the northern city wall terrain, our army can only deploy up to two companies at most in each attack, it is impossible to deploy an entire regiment!"

  If it were in peacetime, Fujita Shin might have seriously considered and adopted Yamamoto's suggestion, but in order to gain merit in front of Honjō Shigeru, he no longer cared about the lives of soldiers, these unimportant things. The key was how to quickly take down this most difficult fortress, Tongzhou City, where his army had been blocked for nearly three months! As long as he used the war exploits of annihilating **'s "elite troops" as a shield, Fujita Shin was confident that he could seize the first achievement! Hum! He would absolutely not let Hayashi Kanjirō, this arrogant bastard, share in his own glory.

  "Slap, slap!" After two slaps in a row, Fujita Makoto yelled at Yamamoto: "You coward, are you afraid? How dare you serve the Emperor with loyalty? Launch an attack immediately!"

  After being stunned for a moment, Yamamoto immediately bowed and said: "Your Excellency General, I will definitely take down Mukden!"

  Fujiwara Jin'nosuke waved his hand towards the outside and sat down on a chair with a thud, coldly watching Yamamoto's figure disappear into the military department.

  Facing the hidden Chinese garrison stronghold in the city wall, Yamamoto slowly drew out his command sword, and he knew that this might be the last battle he would command, for he had already smelled the taste of defeat and death.

  The dense attacking formation of Yamamoto's troops left Yang Jingyu momentarily stunned.

  In the darkness, waves of Japanese infantry generally formed a charging formation under the flashing light of artillery fire, layer upon layer, densely and continuously surging towards the northern positions of Fengtian.

  Fujita Susumu gazed through the telescope at the dense infantry shock troops, his own troops had already approached the Chinese defenders' position to within a hundred meters, but the Chinese army still hadn't opened fire. Although their artillery was very fierce at this moment, Fujita knew that if the artillery were fierce enough to suppress all of the Chinese defenders' firepower, the solid north wall should have been breached long ago.

  As the enemy's cannon fire flashed by, Yang Jingyu immediately ordered "Fire!"

  In an instant, dozens of machine guns fired countless bullets like a stormy rain sweeping towards the Japanese assault formation. The northern city wall position in the dark night was everywhere with long flames spewing out from the machine guns. The Japanese attacking troops immediately stalled.

  Yamamoto and the soldiers beside him were all covered in a mist of blood, as the firepower net formed by nearly a hundred light and heavy machine guns was like a harvester of life, forming a "harvesting net" under the city wall! The Japanese soldiers who advanced to this net fell down one after another.

  Agonizing struggle, mournful moans! The Japanese army's overly dense formation was hit with heavy casualties in just a few dozen seconds. Due to the overly dense formation, the soldiers in the front row were shot down, and the following soldiers did not have time to react and dodge, also falling to their deaths.

  Yang Jingyu personally took up a captured submachine gun, ignoring the danger of his abdominal wound being torn open, and fired wildly, quickly suppressing the Japanese army's offensive momentum. However, the large number of Japanese corpses surprisingly formed a fortification, allowing the subsequent Japanese troops to rely on the wall of corpses to engage in a shootout with the Chinese defenders.

  "Second Brother!" Xiao Lei shouted: "The enemy has launched another attack from the direction of the Young Marshal's mansion! It's very dangerous there, requesting support!"

  "Good!" Yang Jingyu immediately threw the machine gun to the soldier and shouted: "Wang, take the lead and follow me to support the Shuai Fu immediately!"

  Xiao Lian immediately took over Yang Jingyu's position and continued to block the Japanese army under the city.

  In the shooting, Yamamoto's unit didn't gain much advantage and was forced to retreat back to its starting position after launching an attack for half an hour. As usual, the Japanese artillery began a routine bombardment of the outer fortifications and main towers of the city wall, while more than 300 people survived among the more than 2,000 people who launched the attack with Yamamoto's unit.

  The massive casualties severely shocked Fujita's fragile nerves, and after understanding, Fujita learned that the Chinese defenders' firepower points almost every time they attacked had to make major adjustments, and due to geographical constraints, the previous method of destroying individual positions with artillery was completely ineffective here. The lack of concrete-piercing shells also made the heavy artillery bombardment less effective! And the urgently needed special ammunition has not yet been transported from Tokyo.

  Fujiwara's fist heavily slammed onto the wooden window of the observation port, he was very clear that he had lost to a master who was good at defensive battles. He also understood why the Japanese elite troops had not taken down Mukden for such a long time.

  At this time, Itagaki Seishirō, who was in charge of attacking the Young Marshal's Mansion, led the First Regiment of the Kantō Army to attack and personally inspect the actual situation on the battlefield. Itagaki Seishirō was shocked and broke out in a cold sweat. What kind of madman was defending the Young Marshal's Mansion, this core fortification? Within 200 meters of the shooting range, everything had already been cleared, and the 100mm caliber mountain guns directly hit the main building of the Young Marshal's Mansion, but only left a hole the size of a helmet. Most of the Chinese firepower points were built underground, so when the Imperial soldiers attacked, the entire Qingyuanbao defense zone became like a porcupine, leaving them at a loss for what to do!

  After an hour of fierce battle, Itagaki Seishirō realized that it would be difficult to capture the Daqinglou defense zone in one fell swoop, and immediately issued a withdrawal order. At this time, Yang Jingyu, who had come to support him, had also arrived, and the artillery fire from the north gate direction had stopped.

  After hearing the report from Hiranuma Kiichirō and Fujita Tsukuba, Honjō Shigeru immediately became angry and said: "There must be weaknesses! There must be weaknesses! It's just that you fools can't see them!" In his view, there was absolutely no fortress in this world that could not be breached.

  After this battle, Yang Jingyu was left with only over 200 people around him, and most of them were wounded. Yang Jingyu immediately gave the order to retreat: all troops retreated to Daqing Building!

  In this way, facing the sporadic attacks of the Japanese, they defended themselves in the Dà Qīng Lóu for another three days.

  On January 8, Yang Jingyu looked at the only eleven comrades left beside him and said helplessly to Zhao Shangzhi and Xiao Lei who were seriously injured: "The ammunition is used up! We only have three hand grenades left, everyone gather around me!"

  In an instant, more than a dozen soldiers who were no longer human in shape immediately approached Yang Jingyu's surroundings. Their faces were filled with sorrow and unwillingness. Suddenly, Xiao Lei asked dazedly: "Second brother! Is there any news from the Party Central Committee?"

  "The radio has been broken for a long time!" Yang Jingyu said with a bitter smile.

  "Isn't Big Brother coming to save us?" Xiao Lei asked weakly.

  "No!" Yang Jingyu said resolutely: "Now none of us can afford to give up! We have been defending Shenyang for two whole months! We won!"

  Xiao Lei asked bewildered: "Have we really won? Why are we guarding this empty city?"

  In fact, Zhao Xiaofeng had already arrived outside the city of Fengtian, but the city was surrounded by Japanese troops and he couldn't get in. The ten scouts he sent out two days ago still hadn't returned with any news, which made Zhao anxious, but the German, Bao Er, was lounging on a simple kang, smoking a cigarette.

  "Commander!" Shi Li rushed in and shouted: "He's back! He's back!"

  "What's the panic!" Zhao Xiao Feng said calmly: "Tell them to come in!"

  "Yes!" Shi Li immediately summoned several scouts into Zhao Xiaofeng's temporary command post.

  "Japanese troops are now gathering towards the city, it seems that Mukden has already fallen, but intense gunfire can still be heard from time to time within the city!" - Scout Squad Leader Sun Junsheng reported.

  "Hmm!" Zhao Xiao Feng nodded and said: "They are still holding on! Have you found a way to get into the city?"

  "No!" Sun Junsheng immediately shook his head and said: "But we found that there were no Japanese troops near the East Gate! There were only a few thousand yellow dogs stationed there!"

  "What's with the yellow dog?" Zhao Xiaofeng asked in puzzlement.

  "That's what the Japanese call the Imperial Allied Army!" Ishi explained.

  "What number?" Zhao Xiaofeng asked urgently.

  Sun Junsheng rubbed his head and thought for a moment before saying affirmatively: "It's the First Manchurian Army!"

  "Good!" Zhao Xiaofeng almost jumped up, "Quick! Zhao Xiaofeng shouted: "Hold a meeting immediately! Assign tasks!"

  Bao immediately "hopped" down from the kang like a rabbit, not wanting to miss any opportunity for battle.