Songhu: Never Give Up

Chapter 176: Dimensionality Reduction Attack by the Reconnaissance Brigade

Yue Qianli was also on guard against the Japanese bombing of supplies. That night, the second and third detachments took turns to launch fierce attacks on the East Gate and South Gate, forcing the Japanese to continuously withdraw personnel from the West Gate and North Gate to support the East Gate and South Gate.
As the war intensified, almost all the personnel were withdrawn, the defense became non-existent, and the opportunity the reconnaissance battalion had been waiting for appeared.

At 3:30 in the morning, the fighting at the East Gate and the South Gate was still going on intermittently, while the dawn at the North Gate was quiet. A dozen or so sparse Japanese soldiers were patrolling on the city wall. The city wall was so huge that they could not be patrolled by so few people, so they could only pretend to do so.

The Blue Shirt Society's support personnel in the city were getting a little impatient. They had planned to launch a surprise attack at dawn but they hadn't seen a single person in the north city.
The person in charge, Captain Song Huaiqiang, took out his pocket watch to check the time. As soon as the patrolling Japanese went away, he used a flashlight to send a signal to the outside of the city as agreed.

Then there was an anxious wait. There was a Blue Shirt Society stronghold in Kunshan City. After the fall of Kunshan City, they went into hiding and were only awakened a day ago.

Their mission was to find out the location of the Japanese's material warehouse, and then to meet and assist the guerrilla column in controlling the warehouse to prevent the Japanese from blowing up the supplies in desperation.

As local bosses in Kunshan City and professional agents, they naturally knew about important targets such as the material warehouse;
Moreover, Song Huaiqiang was still planning how to blow it up, but because the Japanese were too well guarded, he had not found a chance to do so.

It was Zheng Pingru who awakened them. Because she was a liaison officer in the 527th Regiment, Zheng Pingru now had great authority to mobilize the undercover members of the Blue Shirts Society. This was also Dai Yunong's way of repaying a favor to Yue Qianli.

At this time, Zheng Pingru had already quietly sneaked out of the city with the reconnaissance brigade's action team. After receiving Song Huaiqiang's contact signal, she nodded to the brigade commander Jiang Shaoying.

Jiang Shaoying waved his hand, and a team of people sneaked towards the north gate from the darkness. Their mission was to eliminate the sentries at the north gate and then open the north gate.

The organization of the reconnaissance brigade is completely based on the special operations team. Each brigade has 4 squadrons, each squadron has 3 teams, each team has 16 people, divided into 5 combat groups, and the whole brigade has about 200 people.
When necessary, a rocket artillery squadron can be temporarily reinforced to improve their offensive capabilities.

武器装备主要包括MP28冲锋枪、Kar98k狙击步枪带4倍镜、毛瑟步枪、手枪，每个中队还装备了2门40火箭筒；
The brigade is also equipped with a radio, each squad has a compass, time bombs, anti-personnel mines, military daggers, etc., and each person has a tactical backpack. It can be said that they are armed to the teeth.

After Lieutenant Lu Xiaolin led his team to the city wall, two groups stood guard on the left and right, while the others began to climb over the city wall;
Since the wall of Kunshan City was not high, there was no need to use equipment such as ropes. They could easily climb up by stacking three people in a group.

Lü Xiaolin, who was the first to climb up, lowered the rope and met up the other team members. In just a short while, all 16 members of Lü Xiaolin's team climbed up the wall.

Then they used ropes to enter the city and disappeared into the night. Not long after, the Japanese patrol came over, but they did not notice anything unusual and turned around to continue patrolling.

After the Japanese patrol left, Lu Xiaolin led a team to sneak up on the sentry guarding the city gate;
Since the Chinese were attacking the city, they were all very alert and no one dozed off.

Guarding the north gate was a detachment of the garrison battalion. They were on guard towards the city, with a half-moon-shaped barricade on each side, on which were mounted a Type 99 light machine gun, with one machine gun group on each side.

Four riflemen were on guard in front, and no one was allowed to approach the city gate. The squad leader Kawaguchi Toshi and the sergeant's triangular eyes stared ahead like wolves.

But they didn't know that the danger often came from behind. Since most of the guards went to support the East Gate and the South Gate, their team of more than a dozen Japanese soldiers could not take care of everything and could only control the area of ​​a few dozen meters around the city gate at most.

Song Huaiqiang met Lu Xiaolin and others a hundred meters away from the left wing of the city gate, and told Lu Xiaolin about the deployment of the sentry posts at the north gate.

Lu Xiaolin's team then moved along the city wall from the left wing to behind the Japanese, and only started to take action after the patrol team made a circle and left.

They had a clear division of labor. Lu Xiaolin was responsible for dealing with the Japanese sergeant, and the other two groups were responsible for eliminating the Japanese machine gun groups, all using cold weapons.

Lu Xiaolin quietly approached Sergeant Kawaguchi from behind. Just when he was about to grab Kawaguchi's big mouth, Sergeant Kawaguchi seemed to sense the danger and wanted to look back reflexively;

Lu Xiaolin grabbed Kawaguchi's mouth with his big hand, and with his other hand holding a dagger, he stabbed him in the chest, directly piercing his heart.

Kawaguchi struggled for a moment before he lost consciousness. After he stopped twitching, Lu Xiaolin quietly put him on the ground.
At the same time, members of the two teams rushed towards the Japanese machine gun group, and each of them resolved the battle in the blink of an eye.

Then they disguised themselves as Japanese soldiers while the other two teams dealt with the four sentries outside.
The moves were also quick, accurate and ruthless, without making any sound from the Japanese. Song Huaiqiang and others were stunned. Their skills were even more professional than those of their action team.

After dealing with the Japanese sentries, they also pretended to be Japanese sentries and continued to be on guard. Lu Xiaolin went to gently open the city gate and used a flashlight to send a long and two short signals to Jiang Shaoying.

After receiving the signal, Jiang Shaoying led the reconnaissance brigade into the city quickly. After Song Huaiqiang exchanged the secret code with Zheng Pingru, he led them straight to the material warehouse. The Japanese material warehouse was located in the warehouse of a spinning mill. A reinforced team of Japanese was responsible for guarding it. This team was from the Asano Squadron, equipped with a Type 92 heavy machine gun and several Type 99 light machine guns.

Song Huaiqiang handed the Japanese firepower deployment map to Zheng Pingru, who handed it to Lieutenant Colonel Jiang Shaoying. This made Song Huaiqiang very unhappy, but there was no other way. Zheng Pingru was the person in charge of the operation, and he had to follow orders unconditionally.

Jiang Shaoying didn't care about these things at all. Zheng Pingru was now a member of the 527th Regiment. After looking at the troop deployment map, he began to assign combat tasks.
It was no pressure for Jiang Shaoying to have nearly two hundred special forces soldiers deal with dozens of Japanese garrison battalions. The only difficulty was not to make too much noise, lest the Japanese become desperate and blow up the supplies.

Asano's squadron deployed the defense of the material warehouse in a standard manner. The main gate was the focus of defense. A solid barricade was built, with a Type 92 heavy machine gun and two Type 99 light machine guns deployed, as well as a dozen riflemen.

On the roof of the second floor, there is a semi-circular barricade made of sandbags in each of the four directions. Each barricade is garrisoned by a squad of Japanese soldiers, equipped with a Type 99 light machine gun and two grenade launchers all concentrated in the front.

After verifying the enemy's deployment on the spot, Jiang Shaoying focused the assault on the left and right wings, first dealing with the enemy on the roof, then in the warehouse, and finally those outside the main gate.

The warehouse was very large, about 80 meters wide from north to south and about 160 meters long from east to west. It was a brick and stone structure. The barricades defended by a dozen Japanese soldiers could only control a distance of more than ten meters on both wings. Although there were lights on the roof, they still could not pay attention to the area beyond thirty meters.

The first and second squadrons climbed to the roof from the blind spots in the east and west directions respectively using ropes, and then split up to act. The six teams first dealt with the Japanese in the east, west and north directions.

Two teams dealt with a squad of Japanese devils. The killing was carried out efficiently under the cover of night, and they were quickly and successfully dealt with.

The first squadron then entered the warehouse, and three teams were responsible for dealing with the Japanese inside, while the second squadron continued to eliminate the two squads of Japanese in front;

Since there were more than twenty Japanese soldiers, it would be difficult to deal with them with cold weapons without making any noise, so we just used guns.

When the first squadron went down to the warehouse, the second squadron suddenly opened fire from behind the Japanese. The dense bullets fired by more than a dozen submachine guns quickly knocked the Japanese on the roof of the front building to the ground.
The grenade launcher squad plays a very important role in field battles, but in night battles and close combat, they are just offering their lives, so they are quickly wiped out.

The gunshots also alerted the Japanese soldiers inside and outside the warehouse. Before they could react, dozens of grenades were thrown down from the rooftop and exploded in the Japanese barricades, knocking down most of the Japanese soldiers.

The rhythmic sound of submachine gun fire was also heard in the warehouse, and the Japanese who rushed out in panic after hearing the gunfire were all killed by the first squadron.

When the first squadron entered the warehouse, the battle lost its suspense, and the remaining Japanese soldiers outside the warehouse were quickly wiped out. The combat power of both sides was not at the same level at all, and it was a complete dimensionality reduction attack.

The entire battle lasted only a few minutes, and dozens of Japanese soldiers guarding the warehouse were all wiped out, and the reconnaissance team successfully controlled the supply warehouse;

The 3rd and 4th Battalions were lying in ambush in the blocks on both wings, ready to ambush the Japanese reinforcements.

The gunfire from the warehouse soon alerted the Japanese in the city and spread to the outside of the city. Liao Jianping, who was in charge of commanding the siege, immediately issued a general attack order.

Thousands of soldiers from the two detachments rushed forward, and the defenders collapsed in an instant. The soldiers took the opportunity to rush into the city from the south.

The 9th Regiment Headquarters was also alarmed by the gunfire in the city. His first reaction was that the material warehouse was attacked, and he loudly ordered:
"A small group of troops is attacking the warehouse. Hurry up and gather the escort squadron to support them. If all else fails, blow it up and take the Chinese people and Kunshan City with them!"

"Sir, after the escort squadron is taken away, what will happen to the wing headquarters?"

Colonel Katagiri said with a cold face:
"From the dense gunfire, it seems that Kunshan City can no longer be defended. Now it depends on whether we can blow up the material warehouse.
After you leave, I will order the destruction of the military flag, and then fight the Chinese to the death. See you in the Yasukuni Ghost Toilet!"

Lieutenant Colonel Nakata was sad at first, then he showed a crazy expression, nodded heavily and said:
"Your Majesty the Emperor, I'm sorry, see you in the ghost toilet of Yasukuni!"

After Nakata finished speaking, he turned and left. Colonel Katagiri sent a farewell message to the 16th Division, and then ordered the destruction of the military flag and confidential documents, and even smashed the radio station.

A loud military call was heard outside the city, and soon after, Kunshan City was captured...

(End of this chapter)