Songhu: Never Give Up

Chapter 101: Night Crossing Yunzao Beach

Yunzaobang, Second Battalion Defense Zone, dark and windy night
At two o'clock in the morning, the Japs, who had been busy all day, had fallen asleep, leaving only the necessary guards.

It is already early October, and the weather is gradually getting cooler. You may not feel it during the day, but at night the temperature drops to more than ten degrees. Wading across the river is indeed a test of one's willpower.
Due to continuous fighting, the river was filled with the corpses of the Japanese soldiers, who didn't even have time to collect them.

A group of black shadows were moving slowly in the river. If you didn’t look carefully, you couldn’t see them at all. The timid ones might think they were zombies.

When they were about to approach the north bank, they heard a little light in the distance. Yue Qianli immediately signaled everyone to stop and disguised himself as a corpse.
Ten minutes later, a Japanese night patrol team arrived at the river bank. The Japanese second lieutenant who led the team was very responsible. He shone a flashlight back and forth in the river several times, and only felt relieved when he saw nothing unusual.

After the Japanese patrol team had gone far away, Yue Qianli slowly raised his head and made sure there was no danger before continuing to move towards the river bank.

In order to prevent any noise, each of them bit a leaf in their mouth. Their lips were frozen purple and their bodies were almost losing consciousness. They were supported only by their strong willpower.

Fortunately, the Japanese patrol had left, otherwise some people would have been frozen to death. It was only after more than ten minutes that they successfully reached the other side of the river.

After getting ashore, they took out the Japanese military uniforms they carried from their backpacks and put them on. They wrapped the wet uniforms in oil paper and stuffed them back into their backpacks.

These Japanese uniforms were left behind by the Second Battalion when it cleaned up the battlefield. They specially picked out more than 100 sets of larger ones, otherwise they would be easily exposed when worn.

Before long, dozens of "devils" disappeared into the night. Under the cover of darkness, they completed the infiltration mission under the leadership of Yue Qianli. During this period, they dodged the night patrols of the devils many times and had friendly exchanges with another team of devils.
With his authentic Kanazawa dialect, Yue Qianli easily got half a pack of cigarettes from the Japanese, authentic Japanese goods. Of course, he also gave them a few cans of beef in return.

The Japanese patrol was even careless enough to be tricked into revealing their nighttime password by him. One has to say how arrogant the Japanese were. They never thought that any Chinese would dare to approach them. The night patrols were more of a formality. As long as they didn't get close to the Japanese's defensive positions, they generally wouldn't care too much.

Yue Qianli and his companions infiltrated all the way to the vicinity of the Lion Grove, found a forest to hide in, and then sent out a small group of scouts to lurk near the official road. The Japanese heavy artillery group could not leave the main road at all, and the target was very conspicuous, so it was not difficult to find them.

After daybreak, the 9th Division once again launched an exploratory attack on the positions on the south bank of Yunzaobang, with the aim of finding out the firepower deployment of the defenders and waiting for the heavy artillery brigade to arrive so as to regain the position.

After receiving the call for assistance from the 9th Division, Matsui Iwane first politely greeted Lieutenant General Yoshika's mother and grandmother. It must be said that he had a strong taste;
After the scolding, a regiment of the 5th Field Heavy Artillery Brigade was sent to support the 9th Division in the battle. The Japanese army has always provided assistance when requested, unlike the National Army which would shirk responsibility and drag their feet, so even though Matsui Iwane scolded, reinforcements had to be sent.

Heavy artillery brigades are strategic-level. At the beginning of the war, the Japanese had a total of 6 heavy artillery brigades, of which the th Heavy Artillery Brigade was assigned to the Shanghai Expeditionary Force;
一个标准的重炮旅团下辖两个重炮联队，其中包括大正七年式150mm口径的重加农炮30-40门，九零式240口径的重加农炮20门，九六式305口径的重型榴弹炮10门，有的重炮旅团还配备有九八式320口径的臼炮3-6门。

The heavy artillery regiment sent by Matsui Iwane to support the 36th Division was equipped with 150 12mm heavy cannons and was divided into three battalions, each with guns;
Considering that other heavy artillery is too bulky and inconvenient to maneuver, only 150mm cannons were sent. Even these can only be transported on main roads and need to be towed by heavy trucks. The range is more than 18 kilometers, so they will not get too close to the war zone.

When the Japanese heavy artillery regiment was dispatched, it was discovered by the reconnaissance team. It was not until they found out the location of their artillery positions that they returned to their hiding place to report to Yue Qianli.
The data brought back by the scouts were very targeted, including the coordinates of the artillery positions, the number of artillery pieces, the number and location of the escort forces, the garrison situation of the surrounding Japanese troops, etc. After getting these data, Yue Qianli had a clear idea in his mind. The Japanese army's defense of the heavy artillery regiment was very strict, with a force of about one battalion, and the defense within three kilometers was impenetrable. It was difficult to get within one kilometer of the artillery position with conventional special operations;

The passwords changed several times a day. There were three inner and three outer cordons. If they found any suspicious people approaching, they would just shoot them with machine guns without questioning them.

These defenses are only the core. There are guard teams on every commanding height within 5 kilometers of the periphery, and mobile patrol teams are everywhere. Fortunately, the special attack operations used by Yue Qianli are epoch-making.

A 107 rocket launcher only requires a few square meters of territory. Even the Americans, who later had a large number of armed helicopters and drones, could not defend against it, let alone the current Japanese army.

Considering that rocket launchers make a lot of noise when firing, it would be easy to expose oneself if three rounds were fired in a row, so Yue Qianli spent a lot of time on selecting the position;
However, there was a squad of Japanese soldiers stationed at the location he chose. Since Yue Qianli had set his eyes on it, he would not give up easily. He decided to remove the enemy before launching an attack.

In order to train new recruits, he assigned the task of pulling out nails to the reconnaissance platoon leader, Lieutenant Jiang Shaoying. Lieutenant Jiang only brought a squad with him and used cold weapons to solve the problem.

After handing the task over to Platoon Leader Jiang, Yue Qianli and the others waited patiently. The Japanese heavy artillery regiment was already building artillery positions, leaving Yue Qianli and his team with little time.

The best time to launch an attack is when the Japanese are firing. At that time, the surrounding area will be filled with artillery shells, which will cause a chain reaction when covered by rockets. This will completely destroy the Japanese heavy artillery and deal them a devastating blow.

The heavy artillery regiment spent a whole afternoon setting up the artillery position, so naturally they would not launch artillery attacks at night, so nothing happened that night.
At four o'clock in the morning, the Japanese on the nameless hill had already fallen asleep, leaving only four guards, who took turns every four hours, completing one round in one night;
The Japanese guards were in groups of two. Even they themselves thought that setting up a guard point several kilometers away was unnecessary, let alone a few soldiers.

The squad leader had fallen asleep. Private First Class Hoshino and Sergeant Harada were talking quietly together, not noticing that two dark figures were quietly approaching them...

"Senior Harada, they say Chinese women are so tender that they can drip with water. I heard that you enjoyed two of them when you were in Manchuria. Can you tell me about them?"

When Harada mentioned Chinese women, his triangular eyes glowed with lust, and he began to brag to Private First Class Hoshino, who drooled and had difficulty breathing...

When he felt that he was about to suffocate, he suddenly felt a pain in his chest, and a sharp military dagger accurately pierced his heart;

He just struggled for a moment, and all his strength disappeared without a trace, and then he fell into endless darkness.

Harada also had his neck cut, and there was endless fear in his eyes, as if he had seen the soul-catcher from hell.

(End of this chapter)