Chapter 19: Beheading the General and Snatching the Flag (Part 2)

  The highest commander of the Japanese cavalry on the other side of the slope, Lieutenant Colonel Teizo Kuwada, Commander of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, did not immediately notice that a small group of Chinese cavalry was approaching his regiment from across the slope.

  However, under the bright moonlight, he discovered two "Imperial Army" officers (later verified to be Lieutenant Colonel Nagamasa Osawa, deputy commander of the 40th Imperial Japanese Army and Major Seiji Hosokawa, chief of staff) in uniform. The two men stood on a mound, waving their hands and shouting something. Reacting quickly, Colonel Ma immediately ordered the main force to halt its advance, while dispatching an enhanced squad to investigate.

  From a military point of view, Lieutenant Colonel Sonta's move is quite in line with military conventions. Compared to infantry, cavalry has absolute advantages in mobility, close combat strike capability and impact force. However, in this era where light and heavy machine guns have been popularized in various armies, the cavalry no longer has any advantage over infantry with dense firepower and preparation.

  Especially now, it was still the deep night when cavalry was easily ambushed. If there were heavy troops ambush behind the earth slope, then the tenth Cavalry Brigade of the Japanese army would be in big trouble. To be on the safe side, Lieutenant Colonel Kuwabara ordered the main force of the brigade to stop advancing and only sent a reinforced platoon to meet those people wearing "Imperial Army" uniforms.

  Kuwata's lieutenant will soon regret his own cautiousness!

  Sanda Major stared at the opposite slope. Soon, a reinforced cavalry squadron arrived at the highest point of the not-so-steep slope. Seeing that the two Japanese military officers did not make any unusual moves, and the vanguard squadron of the 10th Cavalry Regiment was not attacked, Sanda Major let out a sigh of relief.

  Major Sonta was once beaten up by local bandits with big knives in Manchuria, China. Since then, Major Sonta has been left with a lingering fear and developed the habit of being extremely cautious everywhere he goes. Especially at night, it's become his habit to suspect every single blade of grass on this "Shina" land.

  But poor Lieutenant Colonel Kuwabara, he was too early to be excited. Just as he thought of ordering the main force of the brigade to continue advancing forward in order to complete the mission given by Major General Isogai, "to quickly arrive at Taierzhuang, clarify the situation and attack from both wings of Taierzhuang to alleviate the pressure on Taierzhuang". (The headquarters of the Japanese 10th Division had never expected that the 40th Brigade in Taierzhuang was not only trapped in a fierce battle, but had been completely annihilated by the Chinese army, which the Japanese had always looked down upon.) (With less than one division's strength, they wiped out a Japanese brigade with half of its original strength in just half a night. This was almost a myth at that time. Not only did the Japanese find it hard to believe, but even when the news arrived at Xuzhou, the headquarters of the war zone also had to verify it repeatedly before daring to believe that this was not a false report.)

  Two black shadows (Wen Songyuan and Ma Jiuxiao) riding horses entered the line of sight of Santianzhong. In less than ten seconds, these two shadows killed three Japanese soldiers. Not only did the two "Imperial Army" officers fail to escape death, but even a cavalryman from the 10th Cavalry Regiment who came forward to ask about the situation was not spared by these two "devils", and had his body cut in half.

  Right after that, more and more enemy cavalry emerged from the other side of the small hill. Sangtian watched as his vanguard squad was killed by the charging horsemen like falling flowers flowing water. (The key to a successful cavalry charge is to fully utilize the momentum of the galloping warhorse; stationary cavalry are not even stronger than infantry in terms of combat power, and at this moment, the Japanese cavalry squad was in a stationary state, so it's no wonder they were at a disadvantage when encountering the Chinese cavalry who had already accelerated.)

  Kanno's Sanada busily ordered the main force of the allied army to charge towards the slope, he had already seen that the opponent was only twenty or thirty Chinese cavalrymen, who were relying on their prior occupation of the high ground to slaughter his own troops.

  In the midst of Sangtian's loud shouting, 600-700 cavalrymen launched a fierce charge at that small mound.

  Without wiping the blood of the devils that had sprayed onto his face, Wen Songyuan dismounted his horse and personally searched the two devils' corpses from head to toe, leaving no stone unturned. Finally, in the lining of one devil's military uniform, he found the flag of the 40th Regiment of the Japanese Army, which was now dyed red with fresh blood.

  Withdraw.

  Since things have come to this pass, Wen Songyuan has not become arrogant enough to want to fight with several dozen times his own number of devils, so retreat is the most pressing matter.

  The Tenth Cavalry Brigade suffered a great loss and would not let it go. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Santanda, they tightly bit the tail of the 200th Regiment's cavalry company and did not let go.

  When he heard from the soldiers of the 40th Regiment that the Chinese army had actually taken away the regimental flag of the 40th Infantry Regiment, Lt. Col. Kuwada felt a chill in his heart. As a lieutenant colonel, he was well aware of the importance of a unit's flag to the Japanese military.

  The Japanese military law has always been extremely severe in punishing the loss of the military flag, and the person concerned is often ordered to commit seppuku. Therefore, the Japanese army values the military flag more than their own lives. Since all the flags were taken away by the Chinese army, the fate of the 40th Infantry Regiment can be imagined.

  Santana, who had just realized this point, immediately fell into a state of frantic madness. If the division commander knew that a small detachment of Chinese cavalry had snatched away the 40th regiment's flag from under the noses of his entire brigade and escaped, he would be subject to severe military punishment.

  Driven by fear of military law and shame from his own serious dereliction of duty, Lieutenant Colonel Sadatake Anami completely lost his composure. Disregarding the unclear enemy situation ahead and the fact that cavalry was not good at night battles with infantry, he commanded the entire brigade to pursue recklessly, following the dust raised by the 200th Regiment's cavalry.

  Only about twenty brothers were left around Wen Songyuan. The devil's cavalry behind was getting closer and closer, with small groups of Japanese cavalry flanking from both sides from time to time. In order not to let all the people be surrounded by the devils, there were always some Chinese cavalry who took the initiative to leave the team, using their own lives to block the Japanese cavalry that was almost as strong as the cavalry regiment. They used suicidal charges to fight for a glimmer of hope that might not appear for others. However, the difference in numbers between the Chinese and Japanese armies was too great, and bravery alone could not make up for this gap. Often, after charging towards the Japanese army for only one or two minutes, these brave warriors would become corpses thrown to the ground, and then be trampled into pulp by the war horses of the large Japanese cavalry!

  Wen Songyuan's heart was already filled with regret, wondering if the lives of so many good comrades were worth it just for a Japanese military flag. However, things had reached this point and there was no turning back. If they lost that devilish battalion flag again, wouldn't all those brothers have died in vain?

  At this dawn, the brothers of the 200th Regiment showed extreme bravery. However, the Japanese army's twelve-to-one military strength ratio made their efforts only add some touching tragic color!

  The Japanese army's huge advantage in numbers was increasingly affecting the battle as every minute and second passed.

  In the end, only a dozen or so men from the cavalry regiment remained, forced by the Japanese to a small hill. The surrounding area was filled with menacing Japanese troops, who had surrounded the hill in three layers.

  Wen Songyuan's body was already battered and bruised all over. Although they were just superficial wounds, he had lost a lot of blood. At this time, his face was deathly pale, and as he rode his horse, he swayed back and forth, looking like he might fall off at any moment. In contrast, Ma Jiuxiao, who was beside him, looked slightly better, but he too had several wounds.

  Relying on the nearly one submachine gun per person in hand, (when they came, Wen Songyuan allocated a lot of submachine guns to the cavalry company from the whole regiment.) and the relatively high terrain of the hill, Wen Songyuan and others temporarily blocked the Japanese army's impact.

  It was because Lieutenant Colonel Kuwabara, who thought he had already won, did not want to waste any more soldiers and wanted to use the artillery that had fallen behind the main force of the regiment to deal with these stubborn "Chinese" soldiers, which gave Wen Songyuan and others time to breathe.