Chapter 173 Big Eve

(... At that time, we called the army to the position, which was really filling, and filled with human lives; the brothers dug out the comrades who died in various bunkers; there were many trenches filled with people, but only one or two living people were filled there, filling the trenches... Excerpted from "My Memories of the War of Resistance" - Cao Xiaomin)

The artillery group directly under the Japanese division fired volleys, and the grass and trees on the Guanshan position were burned for a while, and mud and stones were overturned. Fortunately, the officers and soldiers on the formation were transferred in time. Most of them went to the back slope of the back of the mountain. Even so, the officers and soldiers lying on the mountain were also numb!

The battle just now was too fierce and too urgent. The soldiers didn't even have time to be afraid. But now after it became cold, everyone found that they were shaking. It was not just the muscles shaking after high-intensity combat, but they were trembling constantly! No one talked, most people's ears were buzzing, and almost everyone was afraid: they actually survived such artillery fire!? But what about the brothers around them who belonged to the same squad and one shot? Why didn't they see each other?... Oh! No wonder it hurts so much blood, when was they injured?...

"Report to the brigade, the wounded didn't have time to retreat... The brothers were still on the position..." A messenger rushed to Zhong Yi: "Many injured brothers were still on the position and had no time to transfer. Platoon Commander Huang finally took a squad to go back to save them, but none of them came back now..." The messenger with a childish look obviously hadn't experienced the scenes of separation and death on the battlefield. While speaking, tears were flowing.

"I'll go..." A veteran, the veteran who followed Peng Zhigao and Li Bin back suddenly said: "Maybe I know what to do..."

"Brother, you are so kind!" The messenger suddenly knelt down and kowtowed to the veteran: "My father is still inside..."

A father and son soldier went to the forefront of the anti-Japanese war together.

The veteran stared at the childish messenger for a while, then looked at Zhong Yi, Li Bin and other veterans who came back from Nanjing, looked at the other soldiers of the 823rd Regiment beside him, and then spoke: "In Nanjing, we guarded a position called Bazi Mountain... All the wounded were holding grenades and climbed to the bottom of the mountain as living landmines before the enemy's artillery attacked; most of them were blind, and they climbed down slowly with grenades one by one. I could still dream of dreaming every night... A wounded man asked two people to carry them, and we couldn't carry them away, and no serious wounded man who could not walk by himself could leave; I was not going to save them... In the words of Chief Cao, I was letting them die with more dignity..."

"Ah~! Ah~!" The young soldier's body, which was originally kneeling, suddenly collapsed. He was stupid, but he could see that he had hatred in his eyes and stared at the veteran!

"We don't know when the Japanese shelling will end, but the Japanese know that they will grab the mountain faster. If someone is ambushing them on the battlefield and blow them up, even if they can't kill a few people, they will be frightened and let them get up slowly... We only knew how to bomb the Japanese, but we didn't think about the order of the bombing. If we bomb them again tonight, it would definitely be better than blowing them in Bazi Mountain..." The veteran looked at Zhong Yi and other soldiers of the 823rd Regiment in a cold manner: "I know this is cruel, but this is the last explanation of the wounded to the alive brothers." He looked at the stunned messenger in front of him: "I'll lead the team and teach them how to use local thunder..."

A veteran who is fearless and a veteran with an iron-blooded and almost cold-blooded person! This is the person who crawled out of the dead people in Nanjing? Every one is like this!? Zhong Yi looked at the group of heroes crossing the river with ancient wells on their faces, and a chill broke out in his heart!

"Travel, tram...Master Biyun asked for a visit..." The messenger coming from behind actually brought a monk!

"I and all the masters have figured it out. If you give up, you will gain... The Buddha asked us to give up a stinky skin. How could he care about the clay sculpture? General, please move to Qingliu Pass..." After saying that, the monk stopped talking, but just counted beads and chanted the Buddha's name... (Writing Thoughts: Before and after Qingliu Pass, it turned out that there were many temples and famous trees. According to the current "Chuzhou Local Chronicles", it was destroyed by the war of the Anti-Japanese War. However, since the visit, both the local cadres and all the local elderly people said that it was basically destroyed by man-made disasters in the Cultural Revolution, and they still remember the years clearly... Alas, it is difficult to restore history. Many so-called standard materials are completely fabricated!)

Originally, Zhong Yi planned to guard Guanshan to set up his main position in Qingliu Pass, but later all the temples in front of Guanguan came out to kneel down and asked the army to move. General Zhong was a scholar and always respected Confucianism and Buddhism to treat people very kindly. Although he knew that the troops would suffer great damage in this way, he felt that it was necessary to do this in terms of personal worship of his ancestors or for the long-term struggle in Anhui War of Resistance, so he changed the main force to the original outpost position. Unexpectedly, at the critical moment, so many monks in so many temples would agree that he would use Qingliu Pass as the formation, and he couldn't help but be overjoyed.

He didn't know that the monks' actions were given by the lotus root soup at night! All temples sent monks to participate in the distribution of the "New Year's Eve dinner" of the Pearl Dragon. They saw that this army loved the people as much as their sons, and would rather be bloody than let the refugees be ravaged by the Japanese. When they returned to the temple, they saw the wounded soldiers carrying them past the temple. In addition, they had always heard that even the monks were not spared, and they were very cruel. So after discussion, they agreed to the 31st Army to use Qingliu Pass and the temples as positions to deal with the Japanese army.

Zhong Yi couldn't care much at the moment. When he heard Master Biyun say that they could use Qingliu Pass as a formation, he immediately asked the messengers to inform the battalion that came from Zhulong to move in immediately.

"Let me follow me... and persuade the wounded..." The soldier kneeling on the ground wiped his tears and suddenly stood up: "Most of our brothers have not experienced such bloody battles. I am afraid that the wounded soldiers may not be willing to make landmines; if I go, my dad will be the first to carry a grenade..." The soldier said and suddenly burst into tears!

The son still has a way out for life but he can no longer escape. What will the father do? The son personally asked his father to leave him as a living landmine! - How desolate, how tragic, how helpless! The Gui army soldiers present shed tears!

At this moment, the recruits of the 823rd Regiment were no longer rookies fighting while crying. They had already quietly hidden their hearts and softness. Just like Cao Xiaomin who came back from the Shao family, they would only show their iron-blooded side in the days to come!

In the night, the officers and soldiers who had originally formed a formation at the mountain pass began to quietly move backwards, preparing to use the Qingliuguan area, which is more favorable to the terrain and buildings, to continue to block the Japanese; in the smoke of gunpowder, bloody bodies crawled down quietly with grenades from the position, crawling into the pile of corpses and burying themselves... This time the wounded were carrying five bundles of cluster bombs. Once they exploded, they would return to dust and soil...

"Kill me!"... With the commander's sword finger, the Japanese who were defeated on the ground and the subsequent new forces launched another attack together. Those new Japanese who were intensified knew that this was their last attack of the Sixty-five Infantry Regiment - if they could not defeat them, they would be replaced by the 10th Fourth Regiment, and the captain of the regiment, Colonel Yezuo, will also be demoted to the next level!

All the Japanese soldiers understood the importance of this attack, which was the final test of their reputation and the glory of the soldiers! For this attack, they did not hesitate to let the artillery carry out an hour-long indiscriminate bombardment. There was no trace of life on the Kuomintang army's positions filled with smoke. But they knew in their hearts that as long as they rushed up, there would be completely desperate resistance on the positions - the situation was the same for the previous few times. They thought that when they could definitely capture the positions, they were beaten down by the desperate Chinese Democratic Party army with the most simple weapons, including stones and wooden sticks.

This time there is no way out. All the officers above the team leader who led the team were told to "do their loyalty" to the emperor without taking the position!

This is Zhang Bashan, and the guards are the 135th Division of the 31st Army - the rookie division that is even more delicious than the 138th Division!

But this rookie division was the first unit of the 31st Army to fight with the Japanese army. Since Chu County began to withdraw troops, they have been fighting as the last remaining troops and the three armies' rear-end troops; Zhang Bashan is the position they must defend to the death, and behind it is Mingguang! (Mingguang at that time was not the current Mingguang City, but Jiashan now). Because their positions were directly blocked on the Jinpu Road, the Japanese transported troops very fast and occupied Mingguang was a strategic need for the battle. The attacks they had to bear were several times higher than those of the 138th Division!

The 135th Division had two old mountain cannons, no submachine guns, and no French large-caliber machine guns. Their best rifle was the Buss Mauser. The strongest firepower was five British Vishko heavy machine guns, but the 7.7mm machine gun was very few. As for their other light and heavy guns, they could hold an expo! - The 135th Division was the most despised unit of the 31st Army, the cannon fodder among cannon fodder, but they actually used their lives to withstand the attack of a brigade of the Japanese brigade in the sky and underground for a whole day!

The Japanese came up! But what about the gun?! "Leeds" was very anxious. He came up with only ten bullets, without a gun!

The commanders have summarized: Let the brothers stay in the trenches and be bombed and then fight against the Japanese. Even those who survived were mostly injured or dizzy and could not fight at all. They just threw away the positions. But after the Japanese artillery fire attacked them all, they went up. The soldiers who did not rob had no chance to find guns in the trenches, so they could only fight hand in hand. They lost the positions again. Every time they lost the positions, they had to fill them with their lives to retake them, but the 135th Division could no longer hold on to them, and there were not many people left... Later, they changed their tactics and the Japanese retreated.

Later, their front-line soldiers quietly retreated back to the back of the mountain to wait, and everyone had to pick up their guns and the guns of the comrades who died in battle to add the reserve team to the back. However, after the Japanese stopped attacking, the position became very dark, and it was difficult for those who wanted to retreat to find the lost guns; if they went to a brighter place to look, it would be a death - the fire that was still burning would always be caught by the Japanese machine gunner who was aiming in one of the directions. In one stroke, they would most likely be hit... Not many people could bring more guns, and many people would not have guns every time they went up.

Later, the commanders changed again: when they were under the shelling, everyone counted the guns. When the gunless people started to extend behind them, they rushed to the first trench and rushed forward in shrapnel and shock waves! They only brought bullets and grenades, and they exploded when they encountered Japanese scouts, making the Japanese feel that there were people on the position; then they went to the position to find guns themselves - at this time they would not be sniped by Japanese machine gunners!

Time and again, countless brothers died in artillery fire without even touching the gun, ending their career as a recruit, but the brothers behind them continued to move forward one after another, looking for guns in artillery fire, and then lie down to become the first echelon of defense!

Good guy! Finally found it! The "leech" was almost tripped by something in the floating soil - he kicked a rifle with a bayonet! He finally had a gun!

The "leech" now has two grenades, one rifle and ten bullets. The gun with a bayonet was the 38 rifle left by the Japanese dead on the position. The bullets were "Hanyang-made" round-headed bullets received by the squad leader!

It's so fucking hell. "Lee" cursed. This is not the first time he has played such a vanguard. The last time he found a 38 rifle, but he also found the original owner of the gun. The Japanese soldier with half his head still had about fifty bullets in his pocket... This time he found a fire stick with a bayonet!

"Bang!" A Japanese vanguard fell down fifty meters in front of the "leech" and some brothers opened fire! Then the grenade exploded above the Japanese head. You can see the squad of Japanese who acted as vanguards fell in the firelight - some were blown up and some were knocked down by themselves. With the background of the firelight, he could see that the brother who opened fire first suddenly rushed into the shadow next to him and lurked in the shadow next to him, while other nearby soldiers used the explosive flames to quickly find the target... But nothing happened to him. He had no guns to fire, so he could only continue to pretend to be dead and throw the grenades when the enemy approached.

Guangxi is the only province in the country with a complete military reserve system. In addition, there are many barren bandits in the area. Most of the Guangxi soldiers have received military training from militias from all over the country before wearing military uniforms. Most of them have experience in fighting bandits, and they seem to be born to fight in field and mountain warfare. The most incredible thing is that most of the soldiers of the Gui army do not use bayonets like other troops and rushed over with bayonets or even bare hands after they have exhausted their ammunition. They actually took the last desperate weapon and waited for the enemy to die before launching a fatal blow!... After the Huaihe River Blocking War, the new soldiers of the Gui army were called veterans who had never fought before they fought!... After the Huaihe River Blocking War, the new soldiers of the Gui army were called veterans who had never fought a war!

Now, these "veterans" who have never been on the battlefield are fighting bloody battles with the Japanese on Zhang Bashan. They already know that every charge will be killed by the Chinese soldiers lurking and pretending to be dead. The Japanese have changed their strategies and always charge forward with scattered soldiers to sacrifice them to find the lurking people, and then use firepower advantages to eliminate them from behind. But this time the Japanese actually returned to the old path and rely on intensive troops to attack, completely ignoring the sacrifice of the opponent with a grenade, because the Japanese have no way out, and they must take Zhang Bashan in this attack!

"Bang!, bang!..." The gunshots of "Hanyang" are not very dense, but they almost bite the flesh! It's a pity that heavy machine guns were either blown up or there were no bullets. Otherwise, a round of strafing might be greater than the harvest of one day... The soldiers lurking on the front line saw the enemy's offensive group, those cold and dazzling helmets under the flares, and they knew that they could not escape this time. Everyone in the grenades quietly lurked quietly when the Japanese arrived before firing. Many ruthless people also pulled the grenade strings and fired at the enemy, and then howled like wild wolf... "Bang!" "Bang!" One explosion sounded at the forefront of the position, and each grenade exploded in the group of Japanese. These bone-breaking Bagui Jianer used the ruthlessness of Guangxi soldiers, and they had to bite you before dying and beat the Japanese who attacked them to tears...

"Boom!" With a loud bang, his ears immediately lost their hearing. The last grenade of the "leech" came out, and the one that exploded was the Japanese who rushed to the front. Then, half-unconscious, he leaned in the mud and endured the scorching debris and fell on his head and neck - he didn't have a steel helmet, but only a straw hat brought from his hometown! He also had a gun that could not fire, and there was a bayonet on the gun. If the Japanese didn't notice him passing by him, he would have a chance to fight one more!

Why can't the Japanese get up? "The leech feels a little too late, his mind is getting more and more confused. Is it hurt by the shock or is it bleeding? He doesn't know, he just wants the Japanese to step on his face quickly...

"Da da da da da!..." "Bang bang!..." The gunshots were dense, and they were the follow-up troops of the 135th Division. Those brothers who had originally hid on the back slope had entered the combat position. Two Czech light machine guns were the heaviest firepower of these brothers on the position now! As the brothers opened fire across the line, within a few seconds the Japanese grenade launchers and mortar shells exploded above their heads. The machine guns behind them were pouring like raindrops. The machine guns swept across every sandbag in the trenches... There was no way to avoid them, and the people who fired the fire could only let the enemy's powerful firepower pierce themselves! When the people in the gun fell down, the brothers who had been huddling in the trenches were overturned! All the brothers in the trenches held back the formations on their bodies and faces.

The burning pain and waves of dizziness opened fire at the enemy's dense battle group as fast as possible, and kept firing until the bullets were exhausted or they lost consciousness... (Footnote: The combat effectiveness of the Gui army is not exaggerated here. In fact, before the Battle of Changheng, the Gui army had repeatedly created battles with the Japanese main combat troops with poorly equipped equal forces to fight at various levels. There were cases of a 1:2 battle. It was just that because they were neither the Central Army and defeated the friction objects in this place, they were almost not mentioned in propaganda of all parties across the country. However, most of the territory they held was in a state of tug-of-war in Central China, which was coveted by the Japanese army, but it has never become a fallen area. The two main forces played the four ace troops in Central China, which said everything.)

The explosion smoke of the grenade actually enveloped the entire position in gray like a heavy artillery, making people mistakenly believe that the morning fog had arrived. Under the fog of death, the 65th Regiment of the Japanese almost collapsed and the 135th Division of the Kuomintang Army, which was exhausted. The Japanese could not capture the position but never retreated. Both sides were making the final persistence, and the persistence supported by their lives...

…It’s the Chinese New Year, can the family still have a lot of oil?… Although my hometown is poor, the grass and trees there are so fascinating and unforgettable... The family should be able to survive?… Such a cheap land rent (the military family of the Gui army could obtain arable land by proof of low rent during the War of Resistance against Japan) and the pensions they exchanged for their lives... Unconsciously, tears fell from the faces of those officers and soldiers who seemed to be fearless but were already facing death.

Are they really not afraid of death? Each of them is trembling! Because of their longing for their family, because of their understanding of the arrival of separation and death, and because of their fear of death! But they have to die, not because of the righteousness, just because they are already in the trenches! The Japanese on the opposite side will never let them go. They don’t know any international conventions, but they know that even if they are robbing water or bamboo forests in their hometown, they will kill so many people and will only stay alive!

The Japanese still remained unretreated after being hit so hard, and they would not retreat; this time they were sure to die for the country, and the living people were still preparing for battle... Every trench was filled with the remains of the brothers, and only one or two people were alive; all the bullets had been blown away and the grenades were thrown away... When the Japanese's leather boots had already stepped on half of the position, suddenly the position shouted to kill Lian Tian again!

The soldiers covered in blood stains and mud suddenly jumped up from the floating soil, just like the living dead crawling out of the soil, using bayonets, daggers, bulletless guns, stones, wood, teeth and fists! They did not shout out the bold words of "Serve the country with loyalty, work hard to kill the enemy, and strive for the final victory" but cursed angrily, "Don't you, fight for your life!"

This is January 31, 1938, the Lunar New Year; from this day on, the blood of the Bagui children has been red in the Huishan and Huai River for eight years!
Chapter completed!