Chapter 37: Bloody Battle at Xiao Qing Lou

  "Report to the commander! I've found you!" Ah Lang ran over and said: "A battalion of Japanese troops has suddenly occupied our Chaoyang Street heights, threatening the safety of the Daqing Building. You must stay in the artillery camp!"

  "Why did they ask me to stay in the artillery camp?" Zhao Xiaofeng wondered.

  "Wait until the artillery shells are finished, and then command them to withdraw! We have Fenyang City, so don't worry!" Ah Lang urged.

  "Nonsense!" Zhao Xiao Feng shouted: "Do I still need you to arrange? Get out! Order Mountain Cat to bring people and take back Chaoyang Street Heights!"

  "It's no good, Commander! Mountain Cat has less than a hundred men under his command and still needs to defend the Grand Blue Building. He simply doesn't have the capability!" Ah Wolf exclaimed loudly.

  "Don't be so loud, do you want to shock me to death?! Then order the mountain cat to retreat and let the artillery fire at Chaoyang Street Heights! If not, send 50 mortars to support, and we must take back Chaoyang Street Heights before dawn!"

  "Yes!" Ah Lang immediately ran off.

  "What's going on? Why have you stopped fighting?" Zhao Xiaofeng immediately ordered the bespectacled man to come forward.

  "Why didn't you hit him?" Zhao Xiaofeng asked.

  "Reporting to the commander! The enemy hasn't started attacking yet and there aren't many shells, so I'm being frugal!" Glasses said with a smile.

  "How many shells are left?" Zhao Xiaofeng asked.

  "For each big gun... there's just a hundred rounds left!" Glasses whispered.

  "What? You're saying you've run out of ammunition? I think you bunch of bastards don't want to leave!" Zhao Xiaofeng shouted.

  "Yes! Commander, why are we retreating? We can still use our guns after we run out of artillery shells!" Eyeglasses said.

  "Preposterous!" Zhao Xiao Feng turned around and said, "Are we going to give these big guns to the Japanese? Let the Japanese use these big guns to attack us Chinese again? Your mission is to protect our big guns, so that in the future we can strike the enemy even more forcefully. Don't you understand?"

  "Yes! We'll fight after dawn today!" Glasses shouted.

  "No!" Zhao Xiao Feng looked into the darkness and said: "The enemy is now sneaking towards our position, you immediately open fire near the enemy's position, so that our snipers have a clear target. Also, be sure to support the Chaoyang Street Heights, and listen to Ah Lang and Mountain Cat's command!"

  "Yes!" The glasses immediately gritted their teeth and shouted: "All artillery, attention! Every three minutes, fire a shell at the enemy's position!"

  "Yes! Begin preparations!…… Fire!" With a single order, more than 90 shells whizzed into the enemy's position. The machine gunners and blockers who couldn't see anything in the dark night immediately started firing with the faint light of the explosion. Their hiding places were both solid and hidden, so after this round, the battlefield was filled with the bodies of Japanese soldiers.

  Pleasure is always short-lived. The deafening roar of the Japanese army's crazy attack immediately tightened everyone's nerves!

  On the 24th, in the early morning, Zhao Xiao Feng was startled by a burst of gunfire after being busy for half the night. He had just sent away the artillery troops with glasses, how did the vicinity of Shao Fu, which had just been taken back, start fighting again?

  "Report!" Ah Lang said anxiously: "Now the mountain cat is out of contact and there is no news at all! Could it be...?"

  Zhao Xiaofeng took a look at A Lang, who was somewhat frightened, and immediately scolded: "What's the panic? Immediately bring 50 machine gunners, 20 mortars, and two tanks, and follow me to take a look!"

  An A7V tank and a KV-2 tank burst out of the residential buildings, followed by fifty fully armed machine gunners, twenty mortar men and forty soldiers carrying shells.

  When Zhao Xiaofeng led the troops to arrive at Shao's Mansion, they found that two battalions of Japanese troops had completely occupied the high ground on Chaoyang Street, while Mountain Cat's troops were now squeezed into the Daqing Building on the side.

  This big Qinglou in Shuai Fu is now the only steel structure bunker in Fengtian City, which was rebuilt by Zhang Xueliang in the mansion to prevent his family from being affected by the war.

  The bottom of the dark cave under the Daqing Building has a layer of space, and the shooting holes on the top three floors can directly face the high ground of Chaoyang Street. If both places are defended at the same time, it will be very difficult for the enemy to attack, especially since the surroundings of the Daqing Building are now all built with the hardest granite, which is not enough to destroy the power of the Japanese infantry artillery and air force 100 kg aerial bomb.

  Zhao Xiaofeng saw that this place had not yet been lost and immediately let out a sigh of relief, "A Lang! Immediately take back the high ground on Chaoyang Street!"

  "Yes!" Ah Lang immediately commanded the two tanks to move towards the enemy, "Boom! Boom!......" The tanks launched an attack, but the Japanese had already seen that the Chinese army's tanks were approaching. Suddenly, dozens of infantry artillery shells fired at the two tanks simultaneously. Immediately following, two enemy engineer squads began charging towards the tanks from both flanks. Moreover, five Japanese Type 97 tanks emerged from the direction of Chaoyang Street, and the rumbling cannon fire also started heading towards the A7V and KV-2.

  Facing the Japanese attack, Zhao Xiaofeng immediately knew that he had fallen into the enemy's ambush. This place had been marked by the Japanese as a slaughterhouse, and this battlefield would sacrifice countless soldiers.

  "Retreat into the Grand Green Building!" Zhao Xiao Feng loudly shouted.

  Ah Wolf led the machine gunner and mortar soldiers to follow Zhao Xiaofeng into the bunker, but the people in the tank couldn't hear them, nor did they know that their own soldiers had retreated into the Daqing Building. The iron chain of the A7V had been broken by enemy fire, although the tank was unable to move, the artillery and machine guns on it were still usable. The 18 brave warriors inside the tank were making a final stand. "Boom!" A Japanese Type 97 tank was destroyed, "Boom!" A Japanese infantry gun flew into the sky, "Rat-a-tat..." Rows of Japanese soldiers fell under the machine gun fire...

  The KV-2, with its entire body made of steel, showed off its excellent performance, but it ran too fast and soon charged right into the enemy's face. The Japanese artillery fire all lost their effect. "Boom!" The KV-2 was blown up by the enemy's engineer, but it still didn't stop, immediately crushing three Japanese soldiers' bodies, "Clang!" It also flipped over an enemy tank, encountering this steel structure of the KV-2, the Japanese 97 tank became almost a toy.

  "Rat-a-tat-a-tat! ……" The five tank machine guns were like five flamethrowers, and wherever they swept, there was immediate wailing.

  But under the enemy's heavy ambush, KV-2 still fell into the trap, and the only machine gun that could shoot outwards was still spewing fire.

  "Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!" Four consecutive shells hit its body, the machine gun had stopped roaring, and the ten brave soldiers inside the tank were all fast asleep...

  A7V was now targeted by more than a dozen infantry guns, the Japanese commander waved his flag with a flourish, "Boom! Boom boom!......" All the shells landed on it, although it had been reduced to a heap of scrap iron, but it did not disappoint the Chinese, the Japanese officer holding the flag and a large cannon next to him were blown into the air.

  At this time, Zhao Xiaofeng had already retreated to the underground command post of the Daqing Building. Shanmao and Awolf were both inside. Shanmao said in a low voice: "Commander! Due to our repeated battles with the Japanese army for the high ground on Chaoyang Street, we have lost more than 200 soldiers!"

  "What?" Zhao Xiao Feng was startled, "How about the enemy's losses?"

  "About five hundred Japanese have died, but it seems that we can't take back the high ground of Chaoyang Street!" said Mountain Cat.

  "Hmm!" Zhao Xiao Feng thought for a moment and said: "I've got it! Since the Japanese want to turn this place into a battlefield for our duel, they must have many troops stationed here. The surrounding troops will be relatively dispersed, which gives us an opportunity!"

  "A Wolf!" Zhao Xiao Feng commanded: "You lead all the machine gunners with me to rush out from the backyard! We will go into the city and fight a guerrilla war against them!"

  "Mountain cat! You lead the remaining mortars and soldiers, I must hold on to the Grand Green Building, drag down the enemy's troops!" Zhao Xiao Feng commanded.

  "Yes! As long as I'm alive, the Green Mansion will never fall!" the mountain cat cried out.

  Zhao Xiaofeng led fifty riflemen to sneak into the backyard, he climbed up the wall, raised his binoculars, and had a good view of 180 degrees at the wide street corner, without finding any trace of the enemy.

  "Up!" Zhao Xiao Feng commanded.

  Ah Wolf immediately led ten machine gunners to jump under the wall, and eleven people immediately dispersed in three directions.

  "In the house at the front corner, we've set up two soldiers!" Ah Lang said.

  "Go! Let's take a look!" Zhao Xiao Feng led the way towards the house, but suddenly stopped in his tracks. The sixth sense of an assassin told him that there was danger ahead, but what kind of danger he didn't know.

  A Lang saw Zhao Xiaofeng stop in his tracks, and immediately went forward alone to investigate. At the corner, he peeked out and was startled to see that on the street at the corner, there were over a dozen corpses lying densely packed together, all of them Japanese soldiers.

  But inside the house was quiet, Ah Lang did not dare to make a move, and immediately retreated back to report the situation to Zhao Xiaofeng.

  Zhao Xiaofeng furrowed his brow, and he himself quietly went to the corner to take another look. "Our people have been sacrificed!" he said. "The enemy's corpses were arranged!"

  "How did the commander know?" Ah Lang asked curiously.

  "The bodies of the enemies on the ground have traces of being dragged, which means someone wants to move their bodies." Zhao Xiaofeng said.

  "It's also possible that it was done by our own people!" Ah Lang said in surprise.

  "Did you see the blast marks on the window? The blast was from inside to outside! So, I'm sure that nearby houses are now hiding Japanese soldiers. They're very sharp at seeing our troops' movements, so they want to lure us out. Therefore, their officers ordered the soldiers to stop moving their own dead bodies and instead hide and wait for our soldiers to come to them."

  "Ah!" Ah Lang suddenly realized: "So these houses nearby must be full of Japanese people!"

  "Right! Judging from the enemy's numbering, there must be a small team of Japanese people ambushing here!" Zhao Xiao Feng nodded and said.

  "Are we rushing in now?" Ah Lang asked, holding his shotgun.