Songhu: Never Give Up

Chapter 197 Returning in vain
The soldiers of the Kumamoto Division are mainly miners. They are well organized, disciplined, and tenacious. They can endure hardships that ordinary people can hardly imagine. They are as difficult to deal with as sticky candy.

After more than an hour of fighting, the 13th Regiment's offensive still showed no obvious weakening. They attacked the front-line positions held by the st and nd Battalions tirelessly and fearlessly.
With wave after wave, the First and Second Battalions were under tremendous pressure. They had never encountered such stubborn Japs who would never give up until they achieved their goal.

After receiving the order from the detachment commander, Li Jiaxun decided to give the position to the devils, giving them what they wanted;

Lieutenant Colonel Yasuharu Obata also had a grim look on his face. He had never encountered such stubborn defenders who refused to give up an inch of land.

Up to now, he had not even captured a single position, but had suffered hundreds of casualties, and the consumption of weapons and ammunition was alarming, which made him want to fight;
He was the front-line commander designated by the regiment commander, and on behalf of Colonel Okamoto, he unified the command of the main force of the regiment to attack the defending positions, but there was little progress for the time being.

If it were another regiment, they would choose to retreat after things became impossible and come back after the artillery bombardment;

The Kumamoto Brigade is not like that. They will persist no matter how difficult it is, so they said to Major Yoshiyuki Taniuchi:
“Taniuchi-kun, the 88th Division is indeed the most powerful unit in China. The more such units are, the more they must be completely eliminated. The Kumamoto Regiment is not afraid of any difficulties;

I have decided to send the last reserve troops forward, and you will be in charge. We must not withdraw until we break through the first line of defense!"

Lieutenant Commander Taniguchi agreed with the order and left. Not long after, they came to reinforce and the offensive increased sharply. Li Jiaxun was worried about not being able to find an excuse, so he pretended to be exhausted and retreated.

The Japanese took the opportunity to attack, causing many casualties to the first battalion.

Fortunately, they were less than 200 meters away from the second position, so they quickly "escaped" to the second position. The Japanese continued to pursue them, but were blocked by the firepower of the second position, resulting in dozens of casualties.

Seeing that someone had come to support him, Major Taniuchi did not force the attack again, but prepared to consolidate the first position before launching a new attack.

The second team was very particular when constructing two positions, about 180 meters apart, just within the attack range of the flying thunder cannon. Rows of gasoline barrels had been set up long ago, and now the opportunity had appeared;

Following Liao Jianping's order, rows of explosive packs fell from the sky. Dozens of them smashed into the front-line positions that the devils had just occupied, like thunderbolts hitting their heads. The devils' souls left their bodies. Lieutenant Colonel Obata stammered:
"Bakayaro, a rock that explodes?"

He was far away, so he could see clearly that rows of "stones" were thrown out, some exploded directly in the air, and some rolled several times before exploding;
I could feel the dull pain in my chest from a distance, let alone an explosion directly above my head.

Then there was another round, and this time the old devil reacted and yelled:
"Retreat quickly!"

Lieutenant Colonel Obata finally stopped stubbornly resisting, because he saw the terrifying killing power of the "stone", which was no less than that of heavy artillery shells;
There was no cover on the position, so the damage would only be worse. There was also one thing he didn't see, which was the massive amount of iron pieces that were thrown out. Basically, anyone who got touched would die, and anyone who got crippled would be disabled. If they still refused to retreat, then their heads would be broken.

The Japanese retreated like a tide, many of them had been blown to pieces, like zombies, and those who fell to the ground died in a horrible way, some of their internal organs were shattered, and their organs burst out of their mouths, and even the strong Japanese couldn't help vomiting when they saw it. The Japanese of the Sixth Division had never been subjected to such brutal artillery fire, so some of them were not used to it, and it was no exaggeration to say that they ran for their lives reflexively.

The first and second battalions took the opportunity to attack, leaving many of the Japanese soldiers behind. In the end, less than 60% of them escaped.

Adding the more than 500 people lost before, the 13th Regiment had suffered more than half of its casualties, with only more than a thousand soldiers able to fight. Even if the regiment headquarters and some directly affiliated units were included, the total number was only 2 people, and it was completely crippled.

When Colonel Okamoto saw the damage report, he could not accept this cruel reality. He angrily slapped Lieutenant Colonel Obata twice and cursed:
"Bakayalu, how do you command a battle?
Since the landing, the losses of the 6th Division combined are not as great as this time. You are responsible for a huge part of the responsibility. How dare you run back?
You should apologize to His Majesty the Emperor!"

Lieutenant Colonel Obata was so frightened that he dared not even utter a word. The Japanese army had a strict hierarchy from top to bottom. Although he was only one rank lower than the regiment commander, Colonel Okamoto could decide his life or death.
Therefore, he was still considering giving a portion of the looted property he had robbed along the way to the squadron commander as a gift, so that he would not be used by the squadron commander to take the blame.

After Colonel Okamoto finished venting, he saw that Lieutenant Colonel Obata had a good attitude, and his expression looked better. Then he asked what terrible things had happened on the battlefield that caused the collapse of the Kumamoto Regiment.

Lieutenant Colonel Obata put all the blame on the Flying Thunder Cannon, and it is understandable that he exaggerated the number and power of some artillery pieces.
Colonel Okamoto's expression became more serious, and he said worriedly:
“If I’m not mistaken, these are mortars with short range, low accuracy and poor stability, and there are quite a few of them;
It is only because their location is higher than that of the Imperial Army, so the range and killing effect of the mortar are improved.

Mortars, such outdated weapons, had been eliminated by the Empire 200 years ago, and only the beggar-like Chinese still used these antiques in battle;
These weapons are very heavy and easy to explode. Immediately order the field artillery squadron to blow them up, quickly! "

Okamoto's analysis of the conscienceless cannon was very accurate and insightful, but he did not think that a gasoline barrel could be used as a mortar launcher, so he made a serious mistake in judging its mobility and fell into a fixed mindset;
In fact, every country now has mortars. The Japanese heavy artillery brigade is equipped with a 320mm heavy mortar weighing tons. It is very effective in siege, but it is extremely heavy and China's roads cannot bear it.

Germany has a large caliber and a range of more than ten kilometers. This thing is a muzzle-loading gun, has no rifling, and has poor accuracy. It can only be used in special occasions, so it did not attract the attention of Japanese commanders.

The Japanese artillery fire quickly covered the unscrupulous artillery positions, but unfortunately they had already evacuated and were unwilling to exchange gasoline barrels for howitzer shells because China was too poor. Gasoline barrels were also treasures. After firing, they would just pick them up and retreat, so the Japanese bombed in vain.

The first round of large-scale attack ended with the defeat of the Kumamoto Regiment, leaving behind thousands of corpses. This taught Colonel Okamoto a good lesson that Yuhuatai was much more difficult to attack than he had imagined, and he also lost a lot of money.

Now they no longer had enough troops to capture the hill on the right wing of Yuhuatai, so they had no choice but to ask the division headquarters for tactical guidance. This time it was Colonel Okamoto who was scolded, and Tani Hisao was so angry that his nose was smoking:

"Damn it! The Kumamoto Division has been disgraced by these bastards!"

(End of this chapter)