Songhu: Never Give Up

Chapter 125 Li Jie guards the headquarters building
Saito's tactics were very clear, attack from the inside first and then from the outside. As long as they captured the core stronghold, the headquarters building, the defenders would lose their foundation and support, and all that was left was to wipe out the remaining troops.

Lieutenant Colonel Saito had spent some time in the headquarters building a few years ago and was very familiar with its structure. He planned to launch an attack from the front, using infantry artillery to blast it open. Eight tanks were lined up in a row to provide fire support for the infantry. It must be said that he was very good at attacking.

The tanks were 500 meters away from the building, and there was a 50-meter interval between each tank. There was a squadron of infantry on guard outside the tanks, and anyone approaching would be shot. This was used to guard against the Chinese anti-tank artillery, because they had lost four tanks before and had learned their lesson.

After setting up the fence, the Japanese launched an attack on the headquarters building. Three infantry guns were pushed in front of the tank formation and the tanks protected their safety.

Following the order from the infantry artillery commander, three infantry artillery guns concentrated their fire on the main gate, trying to blast it open;

The machine guns and 57mm smoothbore guns on the tanks continuously delivered fire to the front of the building, focusing on blocking the windows on the front, which were good shooting holes.

The front reinforced by the First Battalion was extremely solid. It was difficult to blast it open with 70mm artillery shells. Heavy machine gun bullets hit the thick wall, leaving at most a white mark. The Japanese also tasted the pain of having nowhere to attack.

It was not Li Jie's style to just take a beating without fighting back. The First Battalion not only had rocket launchers, but also six mortars. His order to Li Boxi was to destroy the infantry artillery that posed the greatest threat first.
However, the tanks were too far away, and the effective direct fire range of the rocket launcher was less than 300 meters, so they could not reach them. We could only wait for them to get closer before we could take action.

The firepower of the defenders was completely suppressed. Just when the Japanese were fighting with all their might, Li Boxi had already quietly climbed to the third floor with three mortars of the mortar platoon (three of which were hidden). The top floor had long been destroyed by artillery fire, and rubble was everywhere.
These rubble and broken walls protected the roof of the second floor from being penetrated by heavy artillery. After Li Boxi and a dozen soldiers went up, they set up the gun.

They had a very clear view of the Japanese artillery positions from their high ground, but the Japanese's view was blocked by the ruins, creating a unilateral advantage of battlefield transparency.

After the artillery had taken aim, Li Boxi ordered three rapid fires. The first three shells flew out of the barrels and whistled towards the tops of the Japanese soldiers' heads.

One missile landed next to the tank and did not penetrate the front armor of the tank. The other two missiles landed behind the infantry guns, killing several artillerymen on the spot.

The frightened Japanese commander exclaimed:
"Bagayalu, mortar group!"

As soon as he finished speaking, another round of shells fell, and this round just hit the infantry artillery position, destroying two infantry guns on the spot, and the Japanese commander was also hit and fell down;

Then came another round, in which the three infantry guns of the Japanese were completely destroyed, and most of the artillerymen were killed or wounded.

The Japanese tanks raised their guns and fired at the rooftops, but their shells either flew over the rooftops or hit the outer walls. Due to the shooting angle, they could not hit the mortars hidden on the rooftops.

The most effective way to deal with the mortars on the roof is to use the indirect fire cannon, but Li Boxi would not give them a chance. After firing three rapid shots, he would just fire the cannon. The Japanese mortars had no time to react at all.

"Bakayaloo! We must destroy the Chinese mortars, otherwise the Imperial Army will suffer heavy losses!"

Seeing his infantry artillery destroyed by the Chinese, Saito was so angry that his mustache was crooked. He could only order the field artillery squadron to fire at the roof, as their reaction speed was faster than that of naval guns.

The four 4mm field guns of the field artillery squadron poured out their fury towards the roof, but unfortunately the artillery platoon had already evacuated, and they did not dare to fire more, fearing that they would be ambushed by the defenders' mortars;

The effective range of the Min-20 mortar is more than 2800 meters, which is too much of a threat to the Japanese artillery. Without infantry artillery, the Japanese can only attack under the cover of tanks and use death squads to blow up the gate.

Eight tanks were lined up and rumbled towards the building. Two 7.7mm machine guns were continuously firing bullets at the building, in order to cover the death squads approaching the main entrance or other side entrances.
The two Type 92 heavy machine guns that had been hidden behind the barricade at the main gate suddenly opened fire at the Japanese, instantly mowing down more than a dozen suicide squad members. Some of them were even blown up by their explosive packs, killing all the Japanese within a radius of ten meters.

The defenders ambushed on the second floor opened fire at the Japanese from the windows, knocking them to the ground one by one;
Eight tanks continued to fire at the building, bullets flew everywhere, and anyone who was not careful would be hit. The defenders also began to suffer casualties.

The main force defending the building was the machine gun company, which had more than 300 people, and more than 200 people from the battalion headquarters. Although the number of people was small, the firepower was very strong, and the Japanese suicide squad could not get close to the building at all.

When the Japanese tanks approached the building within a hundred meters, the two rocket launcher operators who had been holding back suddenly opened fire at the Japanese tanks;
The two rockets accurately hit the two tanks and blew them up instantly. This frightened the Japanese tanks. They did not expect that there were anti-tank guns in the building, and they were single-soldier ones.

At first they thought it was an anti-tank gun, but it was not so flexible. This discovery frightened the captain of the Japanese tank squadron.

He knew it was too late to turn around and leave, so he could only suppress the defenders' anti-tank guns with machine guns and then evacuate.

Yue Qianli had previously produced a total of 12 rocket launchers, and gave 2 to Duan Yulin's Third Company, leaving 10. This time, because the First Battalion had to defend the headquarters building, they were equipped with 4 more;
Li Jie left two bodies in the building and handed the other four over to Duan Yulin, who was in charge of them. The destruction of the four Japanese tanks was their masterpiece.

Yue Qianli deliberately controlled the number of rocket launchers because he didn't want them to be seized by the Japanese too early. Li Jie had made a military order for these 6 rocket launchers: people could be sacrificed, but the rocket launchers must not be lost.

Yue Qianli was not afraid of the Japanese imitating it. This thing was not a big threat to the Chinese army. It was far inferior to infantry artillery in attacking bunkers, and the range was not comparable.
The biggest function of this thing is to attack tanks, but China doesn't have many tanks. As for the Japanese using it to deal with Russia's tank group, that is not within his consideration.

The reason why he kept it hidden was to ambush the Japanese more times. As long as the "real thing" was not seized by the Japanese, it would be difficult to imitate it based on imagination alone. They were not that powerful.

This time Yue Qianli retrieved a large amount of raw materials for making rocket launchers and rocket guns from Smith's warehouse, also for backup. They were far away from Shanghai in the future, so it would be inconvenient to get them.

Now that we have the raw materials, we can make them when needed. The remaining six are left in the artillery battalion, with none in the second and third battalions.

40 rocket launchers were able to hit the enemy tanks from a high position within 200 meters, and almost every hit was accurate. There were dozens of windows on the front, and the enemy could not block them at all.
The rocket launcher team used guerrilla tactics on the second floor, moving to another location after firing a shot, and quickly destroyed 6 tanks. The tank squadron leader was so scared that he no longer cared about anything else and turned around and ran away.

"You want to run away, have you asked grandpa for permission?"

The main gunner Wang Qinghua decisively pulled the trigger, and the rocket whizzed towards the Japanese tank and destroyed it.

Then another main shooter also destroyed the last tank, which made Saito the old devil stunned and heartbroken. He cried out miserably:

"Yamaidi!"

Today, 5 chapters are integrated into 3 chapters, still 1 words. Thank you again for your support.


(End of this chapter)