Chapter Thirty-Three: The Japanese Army Advances

  The news of the attack on Dayu Town seemed to have not reached the ears of the devils around. For the next week, the Japanese troops in Dingyuan and Chuzhou did not take any action.

  Each company has sent messages that everyone has basically stood firm in their own defense zone, and the common people now regard "Divine Eagle" as their guardian god, with a feeling close to worship for "Divine Eagle". In addition, each company repeatedly emphasizes military discipline, so there is no phenomenon of violating discipline.

  Chen Jifan didn't dare to have any relaxed mood, with the usual mindset of the devils, a small team in Dayu Town was inexplicably annihilated, and the devils would definitely take some action. But this time it's a bit unusual, a whole week has passed, and intelligence from all sides shows that the devils have no signs of action, as if nothing had happened.

  In fact, the news of the attack on Dayu Town was transmitted to the Japanese army's combat troops in Dingyuan three days later. However, after the Japanese army's previous attack on the southern section of the Tianjin-Pukou Railway was strongly blocked by Chinese defenders, the Japanese army could not advance further south of the Huai River and was then counterattacked by Chinese forces from west to east, cutting off the Japanese army along the Tianjin-Pukou Railway into several segments, with some Japanese troops being surrounded and annihilated. Now, for the vanguard units of the Japanese army on the front lines, the severing of the Tianjin-Pukou Railway meant that their rear was cut off, so the main force of the Japanese army had to reopen the Tianjin-Pukou Railway. In short, the Japanese army could not spare any troops to attack the Chinese "Flying Eagle".

  However, the Japanese military did not forget about this armed force that continued to cause trouble in their own territory, especially the former Lieutenant Commander ōshima Hidetaka who had returned empty-handed.

  ōshima Eiki is now petitioning his superior, Lieutenant General Yamada of the 102nd Brigade, for battle. After Zhulong Town fell, ōshima was transferred out of Chuzhou and arrived in Dingyuan with the main force.

  "General, please trust my judgment. This is not an ordinary Chinese armed force, nor is it a mob. If we can't eliminate it in its infancy, it will certainly become a powerful enemy of the Imperial Army in the future."

  "Oshima, are you trying to make excuses for your failure? The true enemy of the Imperial Army is the Chinese government army, specifically the troops from the Fifth War Zone across the Huai River. A civilian militia with no stable logistical support, neither KMT nor Communist, at most just looting supplies and whatnot. Oshima, you're overthinking it." said Colonel Yamada dismissively.

  "Commander Ryota, I ask you to reconsider my request. This battalion has repeatedly defeated my elite Imperial Army troops, and its strength should not be underestimated." Daishima still refused to give up.

  "Oshima, what you've said, I already knew from the intelligence department. If it's true as you say, then Oshima, how many people do you think the Ryodanbu should send to be suitable? Sending too few won't effectively solve the security problem, sending too many... now the entire division can't spare that many troops, don't forget that the Chinese army in front of us will counterattack at any time and place."

  Oshima stood up straight and said, "Please give me two companies of troops. I will lead these brave warriors of the Empire to directly attack the 'Divine Eagle's' nest and wipe it off the map!"

  The leader of the expedition, Yamada Umeji, was not unaware of the harm caused by this Chinese civilian armed force behind the Imperial Army. However, he never thought that this armed force could do anything significant. Although he did not pretend to be a China expert like some of his colleagues in the Empire, he still had some understanding of the situation in China. Regarding this self-proclaimed "Divine Eagle" Chinese troop, he had also analyzed the information provided by the intelligence department. The reason why he thought that this troop would not do anything significant was that it was an armed force independent of the government. The Chinese government was very strange, and for the directly-controlled Central Army, the government spared no expense in arming them, while being very harsh on other warlord-organized government troops. No matter how powerful this "Divine Eagle" troop was, in the eyes of the Chinese government, it was just a bandit armed force. At that time, it was likely that without the Imperial Army taking action, the Chinese government army could make them disappear into thin air.

  More importantly, there is no sign that this unit has ever had any contact with the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party is very strange, their equipment and logistics are almost primitive, but they can survive in the repeated attacks of the government army, their soldiers' combat capabilities are strong, even comparable to the Imperial Army. They can absorb nutrients from the people, get enough troop reserves, logistical support and intelligence support. And none of these, "Divine Eagle" does not have, on the political stage of China, it can even be ignored.

  However, from a military perspective, any troops that threatened the Imperial Army's conquest of China should be annihilated without hesitation, even if it was just one person. So Lieutenant Commander Oshima's concerns were not unreasonable.

  "Considering this, Yamada Umejiro, the commander of the expeditionary force, said to Oshima Hideki standing in front of him: 'I'll give you two infantry companies and transfer a machine gun company from the 65th Brigade under your command. You have half a month to annihilate this armed force. Oshima, now that the Empire's military strength is tight, if you can't complete the task, you should know what the consequences will be.'"

  ōshima Eitarō stood up straight and said, "Thank you, Commander. If we cannot annihilate the Chinese 'Divine Eagle' within the time limit, I will commit seppuku to apologize to His Majesty the Emperor."

  "You are an excellent officer of the Great Japanese Empire. I hope you can bring us good news. Go and prepare!" Waved Yamada.

  Far away in Xiaowangzhuang, Chen Jifan had no idea that he was already being targeted. He was focused on the training of the assault team, and under the careful care of Dr. Wu Qing, the injuries of the assault team members had been fully recovered. Chen Jifan specially formulated a set of training standards based on their own equipment and personnel characteristics.

  The news of the special warfare squad easily annihilating a small team of devils made the assault team members envy, and also made them see the "God Eagle" strong fighting force. These people have participated in large-scale battles after all, and each one is an elite of the Taxation Police Corps, so there's no reason to lose to others. The special warfare squad had just triumphed, and the assault team members immediately requested to resume training from the battalion headquarters.

  Chen Jifang's slogan for the assault team was that very familiar "First battle use me, use me to win". And indeed, this sentence seems to be tailor-made for the assault team. Every time the 88 people shouted out this slogan, it would give people a feeling of boiling hot blood.

  The training for these veterans of the assault team is different from that of the ordinary troops, and even more so from the special warfare detachment. Since they have already experienced the cruel baptism of war, their techniques and psychology are far more mature than those of ordinary new recruits. Therefore, the training mainly focuses on the tactical characteristics of the assault team.

  "You have the best equipment, you've received regular training, and you've been through the most brutal battles. Therefore, you should be the finest warriors of my 'Divine Eagle', the vanguard is the sharpest talon of the 'Divine Eagle', always ready to deliver a fatal blow to the enemy." The battalion commander's words had long been deeply ingrained in everyone's bones.

  The tactical approach of the assault team is to attack. All members are required to have abundant physical strength, accurate marksmanship, tacit cooperation and quick reaction ability, more importantly, assault team members must hone a ferocious personality like that of wolves.

  The special warfare team was dispatched to Dingyuan direction for close surveillance of the Japanese army's movements after a brief rest. Although the Japanese army had not made any moves for the time being, neither Chen Jifang nor Zhong Dingcheng believed that the devils would give up easily. When Chen Jifang devoted himself wholeheartedly to the training of the assault team, Zhong Dingcheng began to formulate a contingency plan for the Japanese attack.

  After analyzing the enemy situation, the battalion headquarters judged that the devils might be brewing a large-scale attack. Due to the large-scale expansion of "Shenying", the Japanese army may have already known the activity range of "Shenying". Therefore, if the devils come, the target will definitely be the Xiaowangzhuang area.

  ōshima Eiki's goal was, of course, Xiao Wang Zhuang. After analyzing the "Divine Eagle" 's several battles, ōshima believed that the "Divine Eagle" had a maximum of around 300 troops, and each time it adopted night raids or harassment tactics, indicating that it did not dare to engage in direct combat with the Imperial Army. In other words, the overall combat effectiveness of the "Divine Eagle" was not strong at all, plus its unstable logistics support, so the best way to deal with the "Divine Eagle" was to directly destroy its nest.

  If the "Divine Eagle" organizes a defensive battle on the spot, it will be self-defeating. A 300-man troop wants to defend its two battalions and 12 heavy machine guns? Even the Chinese government army can't do that; If the "Divine Eagle" abandons Xiaowangzhuang, then we will first flatten the surrounding areas of Xiaowangzhuang, making it lose its foothold, and then advance to suppress. Without a fixed base, the "Divine Eagle" is just a bandit. As long as we keep pursuing, the "Divine Eagle" will thoroughly become a dead eagle.

  Thinking of this, Oshima smiled with relief, as if he saw the moment of victory.

  Dai Dashan embarked on the path to annihilate "Shenying" with a more optimistic mood, of course, optimism does not mean underestimating the enemy, he will not divide his troops into three routes like last time, giving the opponent an opportunity to take advantage. This battle action is very simple, eliminating all interference, and directly targeting Xiao Wangzhuang.

  Zhao Jun led his troops to station at the 5-kilometer point of Dingyuan City on the west side of Chuzhou-Dingyuan Highway, which is the closest place to the main force of the devils in Dingyuan. Of course, Zhao Jun did not forget to bury landmines on the highway. The battalion commander brought one-fifth of the landmines from Wuhan and took them away. As long as the devils in Dingyuan have any intention of advancing towards Chuzhou, no matter whether they are coming for the "Shenying" or not, even if the devils go to burn incense and worship Buddha, Zhao Jun will never let the devils walk smoothly on the highway.

  To ensure the suddenness of the action, Oshima Hideki decided that the troops would take 18 trucks along the highway directly to Dayu Town, and then march towards Xiaowangzhuang in an all-out attack. The 18 vehicles quickly stirred up a vast amount of dust on the highway, and Zhao Jun gradually saw the outline of the enemy's vehicle convoy through his binoculars.

  Zhao Jun thought, no, according to reason, the devils should be sending reinforcements from Chuzhou to Dingyuan, how come it's the other way around this time?

  It was Wen Chuanhao who remained calm and said to Zhao Jun: "These devils are rushing towards us."

  "Ah! Xuyang!" Zhao Jun exclaimed with a cold sweat.

  "Here!" Xu Yang ran up from behind and replied.

  "Hurry back to Xiaowang Village at the fastest speed, inform the battalion commander to get ready, say that 600 little devils have come out of Dingyuan, remember to be the fastest!"

  "Yes!" Xu Yang dropped his backpack and took off running.

  "You few," Zhao Jun pointed to several soldiers beside him, "split up and notify each company. Tell them to hurry back to Xiao Wang Zhuang quickly!"

  "Brother Wen, let's get started! You lead the sniper team to ambush in the woods by the side of the road. Once the enemy's car hits a mine, they'll send engineers to clear it, and you guys focus on taking out the engineers. Be careful!"

  After Wen Chuanhao left, Zhao Jun gathered the remaining 20 people and divided them into two groups. One group harassed the devils along the highway, while the other group buried a few landmines every two or three kilometers behind them.

  The enemy's car moved quickly, and in the blink of an eye, it arrived right under the eyes of the special warfare squad. Zhao Jun had buried over 10 landmines on the highway, and seeing the enemy approaching with abandon, every soldier in the special warfare squad was waiting in ambush.

  "Boom!" The first car had just entered the minefield when it detonated a landmine, and the explosion directly ignited the fuel tank. The car, which was carrying 30 soldiers, burst into flames instantly. Although the explosion did not cause any casualties among the Japanese soldiers, the burning car completely blocked the road ahead for the entire convoy.

  Sitting in the middle of the convoy, Major Oshima ordered the removal of the abandoned vehicle while searching for someone to start clearing the landmines. Major Oshima did not expect the "Divine Eagle" to have landmines, so he didn't bring specialized engineers. The clearance of landmines was very slow, and two soldiers spent a lot of effort carefully extracting the first landmine from the dusty road ahead, and when Major Oshima saw the iron lump in his subordinates' hands, a relieved expression appeared on his face.

  Just as the two soldiers were about to stand up with the hand grenades, the grenade in their hands suddenly exploded. The two soldiers were killed on the spot, and the fragments of the grenade also injured several soldiers not far away. Oshima watched his own soldiers fly into the sky in front of him, and even with his good temper, he couldn't help but curse "Baka".

  This landmine would not explode by itself, it was a masterpiece of Wen Chuanhao using the 88 sniper rifle from 500 meters away in the woods. Originally, Wen Chuanhao wanted to send these two devils to the heavens before they could set off the mine, but this would easily arouse the devil's vigilance, so he let the devils guess what kind of new-style weapon "Shenying" had used.

  Zhao Jun couldn't help but want to laugh when he saw Wen Chuanhao's masterpiece. This move was really creative, even more ruthless than jumping thunder.

  ōshima's three companies were thus stuck on the road at a loss, but ōshima did not let his men idle; he sent out twenty-odd soldiers to search the surrounding woods, while the rest dismounted and formed a defensive perimeter.

  "You have Zhang Liang's plan, I have Guo Jie's ladder." Zhao Jun let the sniper team continue to monitor the devils in their original position, while he led the remaining 20 special warfare soldiers to sneak deeper into the forest.

  About ten minutes after Zhao Jun left, Wen Chuanhao successfully "cooperated" with the devils to detonate three landmines. The three landmines exploded as soon as they came out, and four devils were blown to pieces. As soon as he walked out the door, he encountered such a bad luck, and even the stupid Oshima thought that there must be a small reconnaissance team of "Shenying" operating around him. In a state of desperation, Oshima immediately ordered the heavy machine gun company to conduct retaliatory sweeps around them. The 92-style heavy machine gun has a maximum range of 2700 meters, using caliber bullets, posing a great threat to the Chinese army in positional warfare.

  Under the threat of the Type 92 heavy machine gun, Wen Chuanhao and his sniper team ceased their activities. Anyway, as long as the devils don't come from the highway, let them do whatever they want.

  Several months of jungle training had filled the special warfare troops with confidence, especially this young captain who often "tortured" them in various ways. Facing the twenty or so devils who came to search for them, everyone was not afraid at all, and instead their eyes were full of longing.

  "What's wrong? Can't hold it in? Listen clearly, when the time comes to take action, no one is allowed to make a gunshot sound, otherwise you won't be allowed to eat on the way back." Zhao Jun commanded with a smile.

  The searching devils didn't know that their lives had already entered countdown, one by one aimlessly holding bayonets and stabbing randomly in the woods. The camouflage uniforms of the special warfare squad showed its great military value in the jungle, some special warfare soldiers were only a few meters away from the devils without being discovered. Watching the devils slowly dispersing in the woods, Zhao Jun lightly made an attacking gesture.

  The doomsday of the twenty-odd devils had finally arrived, some were strangled by ropes thrown from above, some were knocked down by the "dry grass" in front, some were stabbed into the heart from behind, and some had their necks twisted... In just a few minutes, the twenty-odd devils completely disappeared from this world.

  The bodies of the devils were stripped down to their underwear and then covered with branches and grass, Zhao said that these devils did things in Nanjing that were not as good as beasts, their bodies were only worthy of feeding jackals.

  Oshima Etsu, who was getting anxious and flustered due to the landmines, became even more disheartened as the soldiers he sent out to search didn't return. This was his first real encounter with China's "Divine Eagles", and the unfavorable start made a bad premonition creep up on him. Oshima paced back and forth on the ground, his hand gripping the military sword sweating cold sweat.

  It's no wonder that the war machine, nurtured by Bushido spirit, quickly came up with a solution when faced with landmine fields on the highway. Several drivers took off their uniforms, tied a white cloth around their heads and drove empty cars towards the highway, where the landmines exploded one after another under the wheels of the cars, which were also blown to pieces.

  Oshima's face was gloomy as he watched the cars in front of him explode and burn, coldly waving his hand to let the cars behind follow up.

  The enemy's movement was clearly seen by Wen Chuanhao from the sniper scope, Wen Chuanhao never thought that the enemy would come up with this move, it seems that the plan to trap the enemy with landmines is going to be ruined. He quickly put away his gun and retreated from the sniping position, calling over Jin Suo who was hiding not far away: "Quickly go tell the squad leader, the enemy is escaping." Jin Suo grew up in the mountains since childhood, after hearing the order he left as fast as a monkey.

  Zhao Junyi, who had just finished sweeping the battlefield, heard that the devils were going to escape and hastily shouted to his subordinates: "Throw away those broken toys of the little Japanese! Each of you quickly replenish your ammunition and follow me!"

  Zhao Jun ran all the way, thinking about how to use the few men in his hands to hold back these 600+ devils and gain more time for the regiment. The terrain from here is extremely flat, with no passes to defend, no canyons to ambush, and no bridges or tunnels that can be utilized.

  "My commander, are you ready? I can barely hold on." Zhao Jun muttered to himself as he gazed in the direction of Xiao Wang Zhuang.