Chapter 41: The Battle of Dongguan (7)

  As another wave of enemies surged in, the Seventh Regiment was forced to retreat step by step. At this time, a killing sound came from the town, and Du Yuming and Huang Mingcheng brought the workers' team to support them. As soon as these workers joined the battle group, the pressure on the Seventh Regiment was suddenly relieved. The scattered soldiers drew closer to each other, formed new formations, and stabilized the passive situation.

  Zhuang Jihua immediately withdrew from the combat team and rushed towards the enemy, shouting: "Seal off the follow-up troops!" Before his words had fallen, several enemies charged at him to kill him. The messenger soldier immediately blocked in front of him and was almost instantly stabbed to death. In that instant, two soldiers rushed up from beside Zhuang Jihua and clashed with the enemy in a chaotic melee. Zhuang Jihua did not join them; instead, he inserted his knife into his belt, pulled out his pistol, removed the magazine, pressed each bullet into place one by one, reinserted the magazine, cocked the gun, and fired once.

  A group of people whizzed past Zhuang Jihua's side, led by a short and stout Hu Zongnan.

  Hu Zongnan, who was guarding the small hill on the left side of Zhangmu, did not feel much pressure. Although nearly a hundred enemy soldiers launched an attack on him, their attacking will was not strong, and Hu Zongnan easily repelled the enemy's two attacks. However, the enemy did not completely retreat, but instead engaged in a shootout with them at the waist of the mountain. Hu Zongnan felt something was wrong, and then discovered that the gunfire in the town had subsided, and some enemies had rushed into the town. Hu Zongnan made a quick decision, handed over the position to the deputy platoon leader, and brought two classes to support him.

  Don't look at Hu Zongnan's small stature, he worked hard on assassination. When he signed up, others said his small stature would be a disadvantage in bayonet fighting, but he remembered those words and put extra effort into training. While others trained for an hour, he trained for two hours and even added more practice at night. His hard work paid off, as his assassination skills ranked among the top five in the entire period.

  In the seven consecutive training sessions, he was also very tight in a row of stabs, and his row of stabs ranked first among the three rows. These twenty or so people rushed in immediately, pushing the enemy back to the breakthrough point, and Zhuang Jihua was able to free up his hands completely, organizing people behind him to block the enemy's follow-up troops.

  But at this time, a killing sound came from the right side again. It turned out that an enemy force had advanced into the town along the mountain ridge on the right wing. Song Hili was in a hurry. This empty space was exactly what Zhuang Jihua had pointed out to him before, and he had also arranged for two observation posts. Unexpectedly, these two people were attracted by the enemy situation in front of them, so they were successfully ambushed by the enemy.

  The second platoon immediately fell into chaos, and Song Xilian, with a mixture of shame and anger, led his men in a desperate bid to block the enemy's charge on the flank. Although the casualties were heavy, they managed to buy time for Zhuang Jihua.

  Zhuang Jihua saw the chaos in the second row, this time he didn't rush up immediately, he first observed the front, the enemy on the front was controlled at the breakthrough point, then he let Da Niu block the enemy's follow-up troops, let Zhang Sanwa cover Da Niu, deal with the enemy's machine gun; finally organize manpower to reinforce the second row.

  When Zhuang Jihua rushed to the second row, the position of the second row was on the verge of collapse. Song Xilian was surrounded by three enemies in the middle, dodging and weaving to avoid the enemy's bayonet. The timely reinforcement allowed the second row to stabilize its position again, but the second row had already dispersed. Everywhere from the corner of the wall to the edge of the house were soldiers tangled together, with occasional low-pitched screams and curses.

  Du Yueming led the worker team to reinforce again, his gun opened a gap in an instant, and the workers of the worker team shouted and rushed into the enemy group. Although these workers had not received any training, who hadn't fought before? Let them shoot regularly or engage in one-on-one stabbing, they might not be able to do it, but they were not afraid of this melee. Several workers didn't even carry guns, they charged forward with big knives and cleavers. The worker team of dozens of people rushed up and pushed the enemy back a large distance.

  The enemy in front finally collapsed, and the enemies who were fighting to the death just now turned around and ran away. Cao Yuan stopped the soldiers' desire to chase, let Hu Zongnan command the defense in front, and led people to rush to the second row of positions. Just then, two workers rushed over from Zhen Nan, panting and reporting that there was a Chen army coming towards Zhangmu Head from the south, only two kilometers away. Cao Yuan was stunned at the time.

  He quickly found Zhuang Jihua, and after Zhuang Jihua received this intelligence, he was somewhat stunned. There were also a thousand or so of Chen's troops to the south. He hastily asked how many men there were, and Gong You replied that there were approximately over a thousand. This made him feel that this time things were going badly and that he might have to settle accounts here.

  He looked at the soldiers who were still fighting, his mind tense with calculations of their strength. This time, the hand-to-hand combat had resulted in heavy casualties for the 7th Company, with over a dozen wounded or killed. Adding the workers' militia, they now had only around 130 men left, and after deducting the squad defending the small hill, they could only deploy about 120 men to fight... It felt like looking for death. If they retreated now, they would definitely be able to preserve their remaining strength, but the enemy would also escape, and his comrades' sacrifices would have been in vain. Moreover, it would violate the orders he had received. Fight! After some thought, Zhuang Jihua decided to fight on. The principle he had instilled in the 7th Company was that orders were paramount, and even if it meant sacrificing their lives, they must carry out their orders. If he retreated now, the 7th Company would lose its military spirit, and it was hard to guarantee what kind of situation they would face in future battles. The key now was when the follow-up troops would arrive.

  Zhuang Jihua ordered Cao Yuan to lead a group of people and two workers to go to Zhen Nan to set up the battlefield and monitor the enemy, while he led the rest of the people to rush into the second row of the battlefield. Zhuang Jihua's arrival made the enemy on the second row of the battlefield even more panicked, and the reinforcements were pouring in continuously, indicating that the front line had already collapsed, the enemy's morale was shaken, and they quickly retreated.

  Song Xilian's face turned red as he came to Zhuang Jihua to request punishment, but Zhuang Jihua shook his head and only told everyone to hurry up and prepare for the enemy's next attack. Then he called Song Xilian, Hu Zongnan, and Du Yuming aside and told them about what had just happened.

  Hearing that nearly a thousand enemy troops were approaching from the south, the three of them were stunned. Hu Zongnan finally suggested: "Comrade Battalion Commander, let's withdraw our troops to the small hill and use it as a blocking position."

  Zhuang Jihua looked at him, sneered and said: "Hu Zuohai, who do you think you can deceive? The enemy in front of us didn't retreat from the town to the small mountain." Zhuang Jihua's words seemed harmless, but were actually very severe. Normally he addressed Hu Zongnan as either Shoushan Brother or Old Hu, and only used the title "Hu Zuohai" when giving orders, something all three men were well aware of.

  "But we don't have the strength to resist enemies on both sides." Hu Zongnan's face turned slightly red.

  "We can't stop it, but we have to try." Zhuang Jihua said seriously: "Shou Shan, Meng Guo, Guang Ting; do you know what's most important for a team?" The three of them looked at each other in confusion.

  "What is most important for a troop is not how accurate their shooting is, or how fierce their bayonet charge is. It's the soul, the military soul of this troop. The soul of an army is forged with iron and blood, it's forged with willpower. So what is this soul? It's tenacity, bravery, resolute execution of orders, yearning for victory, pursuit of honor. The 7th company is a new troop, strictly speaking, this is our first battle. If we retreat in this battle, then the soul of this troop will be hard to recover."

  "Will the revolution be accomplished if Chen Jiongming is eliminated? No, we still have to march north, we still have to... resist... drive imperialism out of China. And even if all these are achieved, this army will still remain to defend the nation. So his spirit cannot disperse."

  "Can we complete the task? I think so, the 8th and 9th companies are right behind us, we've been fighting for so long, they should be arriving soon. As long as we can hold on for another two hours, even if they have to crawl, they should arrive."

  "The enemy who had been repeatedly defeated and had lost their morale after these two blows, launched such a frantic attack this time, indicating that our army pursuing them from behind was already very close to them."

  "We are fully capable of completing the task." Zhuang Jihua's words became more confident, and the eyes of the three squad leaders also shone brighter; Zhuang Jihua's reasoning and judgment on the enemy situation, our situation, and the friendly forces were reasonable and convincing. The three thought that two hours would be enough, or even just one hour.

  Zhuang Jihua then began to deploy, letting Song Xilian command the front defense, Du Yuming lead the worker's team to assist; he and Hu Zongnan took the 1st and 2nd platoons and a machine gun to block the enemy army from the south at Zhenkou.

  After the arrangement was made, he brought people to Nanzhenkou. The terrain of Nanzhenkou is more open than the north, which is conducive to the enemy's deployment of attack formations. The people brought by Zhuang Jihua said that there were two rows, but in fact there were only about 40 people, so they could not form a dense defense line.

  So Zhuang Jihua decided to adopt small team operations, dividing his soldiers into five teams. Two platoons with the best marksmanship skills formed a special team of eight soldiers, tasked by Zhuang Jihua to shoot enemy officers at long range and machine gunners at close range. The remaining troops were divided into two groups of four teams each, defending one point to control the surface. The only machine gun was placed at the entrance of the town, while three alternative positions were designated for the machine gunner Da Niu to flexibly grasp. His orderly had been killed in action, so he called Zhao Hanjie to serve as his new orderly. This kid had charged into battle twice and still hadn't been wounded - it was unclear whether this was due to good luck or skill.

  After everything was set up, the enemy still hadn't appeared, which left Zhuang Jihua somewhat perplexed. He didn't know that Zhang Liguang had been instructed by Liang Xing to be cautious and careful all along the way, so Zhang Liguang proceeded with great care, advancing at a very slow pace.

  Yuan Huijiu and Meng Xianxiang launched an attack on the north side, leaving only two rows and one team of workers. Zhuang Jihua saw that the enemy in the south had not arrived yet, so he let Cao Yuan command the south side, while he himself ran to the north side to check the battle situation.

  Chen Jun's attack this time did not open fire, the soldiers' attacking will was even weaker, and they fell down at 150 meters and were unwilling to move forward. The officers' scolding was also useless, but the brave officers died in battle. These officers were all lying somewhere scolding, and none of them dared to stand up.

  Zhuang Jihua saw this and knew that the enemy's courage had been chilled, and the threat was not as great as the previous two times, but it was also somewhat strange. Why was there such a big difference between the front and back? Du Yuming saw his expression and said to him, "There's nothing strange about it." He had interrogated the prisoners and found that the first two attacks were joint attacks by Meng Xianxiang and Yuan Xiajiu, especially the last time when their guard regiment and special regiment led the charge. These two regiments were the best equipped, with high and sufficient military pay, and the soldiers had rich combat experience. Meng Xianxiang and Yuan Xiajiu would not have used these two regiments to charge unless they had no other choice. As long as these two regiments charged, there was no position that could not be broken through. Now that these two regiments had been defeated, the other regiments naturally became cowardly.

  Zhuang Jihua suddenly realized, no wonder the difference between this attack and the last one was so big. He turned his eyes, since that's the case, I'll add some more to you, he followed the method of the south, selecting soldiers with good marksmanship to form a sharpshooter team, aren't you terrified? I'll specifically target your officers, as they are the backbone of the army, take out your officers and see what drives your soldiers to attack.

  Then he handed over the north side to Song Xiliang and rushed to the south side with Zhao Hanjie.

  "Brothers, the more votes, the better we'll fight!!!"