Tenth Collect (Middle)

  Cheng Jiaji calmed down, this was not the time to think about Jiang Feng. Although the Japanese army had already been defeated, the remaining two groups of Japanese troops in the back of the temple still needed to be resolved as soon as possible. If it were normal times, it would be fine, but after a bloody battle, Cheng Jiaji did not want to let go of any Japanese devils. He had ordered Gao Shiying and Yu Juncai to lead the soldiers who could still move from the front village to encircle the small group of Japanese troops that were stuck with Wen Songyuan, while he led the guard platoon to join forces with the cavalry company to eliminate the remaining Japanese troops in the front village.

  "Set fire to the temple and burn out those little Japanese, if they don't come out, let them be roasted like whole pigs in this temple." After listening to Jiang Feng's brief report, Cheng Jiaji decisively gave the order for a fire attack.

  After indicating compliance, Jiang Feng put away the slight disdain he had for his superior, who was only one or two years older than him, due to Cheng Jiaji's earlier rebuke of Ji Minzhong. He immediately led half of his subordinates to quickly gather firewood on horseback.

  In less than twenty minutes, Jiang Feng brought back a bundle of dry firewood from the village of Dàwáng Zhuāng on horseback with one of his men. He also brought a bucket of kerosene from the Third Military Regiment in the village. Cheng Jiaji ordered the cavalry to pile up the firewood at the front and rear gates of the mountain god temple under the cover of the guard platoon's firepower, pour the kerosene on it, and set it on fire.

  As the raging fire ignited, Cheng Jiaji let out a sigh of relief in his heart, and also felt that the fate of this little devil had been sealed. As long as enough troops were left to prevent the Japanese from rushing out like mad dogs, it would be fine. The gunfire from the rear village was still sparse, but it hadn't stopped yet. It was better to withdraw some troops to end this battle that had lasted throughout the night earlier. After paying such a heavy price, any commander would want to achieve complete victory. If they dragged on until dawn when the 59th Army's reinforcements arrived, the merits of Cheng Zhi Detachment's battle would inevitably be discounted, which was something that all the officers and soldiers of Cheng Zhi Detachment did not want to see happen.

  "Leave half a squad of guards with me, take out a squad of cavalry and bring the guards to support Deputy Commander Yu and Wen Camp Commander. I'll leave this matter to you. If we complete this task successfully, I'll promote you. "Cheng Jiaji suddenly remembered that Xie Gao, the chief of staff at the war zone command headquarters, had mentioned a deal to him before, and added another sentence as Jiang Feng was about to turn around to execute Cheng Jiaji's previous order.

  "If the devils are smoked out by fire, those who resist will be killed on the spot. Those who have been dazed by smoke and fire will be captured alive as much as possible, of course, on the premise that our brothers cannot be hurt. Today, there are already many brothers who have made their parents worry in vain. At this time, we should try to minimize losses."

  After finishing this sentence, Cheng Jiaji jumped onto the war horse and rushed to Hou Zhuang with half of the guard squad and the brothers of the cavalry regiment's squad, where there were still sporadic gunshots.

  Daybreak, the 59th Army's reinforcements also arrived, a whole independent division of troops entered Dawangzhuang.

  At this time, the battle near Dawangzhuang had ended, and the Japanese army's Yamaki detachment was almost completely annihilated, with only a small number of scattered soldiers escaping. This also set a precedent for the Chinese army to basically annihilate a Japanese detachment with a force equivalent to a regiment at that time.

  After meeting with Zhang Sheng, the chief of staff who led the 59th Army and others, Cheng Jiaji returned to the temporary detachment headquarters in Dawangzhuang with his two regiments and several staff officers. At this time, General Xu Zuzhe and Pang Jun led their men under the escort of the independent brigade of the 59th Army to withdraw from Dawangzhuang to a relatively safer place, Dawangzhuang had already been exposed as an unsuitable location for high-level command use.

  At this time, there was only Cheng Jiaji's brigade in Dawangzhuang, which was cleaning up the battlefield.

  "How many people did we lose tonight?" Cheng Jiaji hastily asked Gao Shiying, who was in charge of counting the casualties and cleaning up the battlefield, as soon as he entered the house without even sitting down.

  "My deputy commander, you should ask how many of us are left," replied Gao Shiying with a bitter smile, holding the casualty statistics in his hand to Cheng Jiaji.

  "How many of us are left?" Wen Songyuan, who was more anxious than Cheng Jiaji, hastily asked Gao Shiying.

  The total number of our troops who participated in this battle, including the cavalry company that joined later, is 927 people, consisting of two infantry regiments, one artillery company, one cavalry company and the direct detachment. The result of the count just now is: 336 people were killed in action, 119 people were seriously injured and disabled, 93 people were seriously injured, and almost no one among the survivors was not wounded. This statistic does not include those miscellaneous soldiers temporarily borrowed from Peng's brigade by Deputy Commander-in-Chief, and some brothers with severe injuries may not be able to hold on until today. Even though Gao Shiyin joined the battle relatively late, he still got a minor injury, and now he is touching his wound while reciting Wen Congyuan's words.

  "So that means the casualty rate is almost 100%!" Yu Juncai was the only one among these main officers who didn't get injured, it seems old soldiers are indeed old soldiers, still having a few tricks up their sleeves, not wasting half a month in Luo Dian's human prison.

  "A hundred percent is a bit of an exaggeration, if you really calculate it, ninety percent can't escape." Gao Shiying obviously already had a number in mind regarding the casualties, and he immediately answered Yu Juncai's question.

  "What about the devils?" Cheng Jiaji looked at the atmosphere in the house, which was getting more and more depressing. Even Wen Songyuan, who usually didn't care about anything, was silent, hanging his head low. He quickly asked about the casualties of the Japanese army to ease the gloomy atmosphere that made people feel uncomfortable. After all, they were the undisputed winners of this battle, and Cheng Jiaji felt it was unnecessary to make the atmosphere so tragic.

  As expected, Gao Shiying got excited as soon as he mentioned the Japanese losses.

  "In this battle, about 780 Japanese soldiers were killed, and 54 were captured. The remaining Japanese troops fled in disarray, with the cavalry unit still pursuing them. The seized guns and ammunition are being counted, including a fully intact Japanese radio station and most of the light and heavy mortars from an artillery battalion. Unfortunately, by this point, the enemy's ammunition was also running low, so our army didn't capture much.

  Gao Shiying said that they had killed approximately that many devils because many of their bodies were torn to shreds in the fierce battle at Qianzhuang Village and couldn't be counted. He would naturally add some water to the results when reporting on military affairs. Anyway, a Japanese battalion's full strength is no less than 1,000 people, so it's not an exaggeration. Of course, the Japanese wouldn't admit this number; two days later, the Fifth Division's battle report announced that 310 soldiers were killed or missing, which was also far lower than the actual losses suffered by the Japanese."

  Ten years later, Japan publicly released the confidential military report during the war period. It was only then that people knew that in this battle, the Japanese army had lost 662 men, and fewer than 80 members of the Yamaki detachment had escaped back to the Fifth Division's base in disarray. Among them, nearly a hundred were annihilated by the Chinese troops' defense line. Calculating this way, it is true that no more than 600 devils were actually annihilated in the battle of Dàwángzhuāng and the subsequent cavalry regiment's pursuit.