The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Begins in Songhu

Chapter 327 The Ambush (Part 3) [Requesting Monthly Tickets]

At 1:35 p.m., in a place called Yeniuling in the northern part of Pingding County.

Old Yu and the warehouse manager led four companies of troops, totaling over 780 men: the Second Battalion's directly subordinate supply company, the recruit company, the First Battalion's Seventh Supplementary Company, and the Eighth Supplementary Company.

They had been fighting fiercely with the Japanese reinforcements for quite some time.

In fact, Yeniuling is no longer part of Pingding County, but is located at the border of the neighboring Pingshan County and Meng County.

The reason for coming here to intercept the Japanese was, of course, because the terrain was more suitable; it could block the Japanese advance from the Wutai Mountain direction, allowing for the urgent deployment of a large number of reinforcements.

As for why the two men led four companies with a force of over 780 men?
Of course, it was the Second Battalion under Lao Yu and the warehouse manager. This directly subordinate recruit company was somewhat special, as it was a recruit company with more than 450 people.

In terms of actual troop strength, it can actually be considered a new recruit battalion.

But now that the battle has reached this point, Lao Yu and the warehouse manager are filled with regret, regretting why they didn't recruit more soldiers when they were recruiting.

The recruit company consisted of only about 450 people, the size of a single battalion.

Why not one or two thousand people, but a whole group?

Because they had a single regiment of sufficient troops that could be continuously deployed to the battlefield to fight the Japanese to the death, they had the confidence to persevere in the current fierce battle until nightfall.

Unfortunately, it's quite obvious that troops can't just appear out of thin air, so Lao Yu and Cang Guang are already facing considerable difficulties...

After putting a Japanese lieutenant into the scope, Lu Diaoying, the warehouse manager, was a complete novice.

Without any hesitation, he decisively pulled the trigger.

The next second, a Japanese lieutenant, who was wielding a samurai sword and directing a Type 92 heavy machine gun to fire, was 300 meters away when a burst of blood erupted from his chest.

After his body went limp, he collapsed onto the gunner beside him; this sudden turn of events startled the gunner of the Type 92 heavy machine gun, who immediately stopped firing.

To be honest, every PLA veteran among the time travelers is a combat talent that the team desperately needs.

Because they already possess excellent military skills, the only thing they lack is practical combat experience; therefore, after transmigrating, as long as they fight a battle or two and see blood, they will perform exceptionally well.

For example, the warehouse manager, a retired PLA sergeant, is now a fairly qualified sniper.

Even if he's not as skilled as the team's previous sniper, Uncle Bo, I believe that with more targeted training and participation in more battles, he should be able to catch up to Uncle Bo's level.

After firing the first shot, the warehouse manager didn't even have time to glance at the result; his first instinct was to grab the sniper rifle and roll on the spot.

After rolling several meters, he immediately got up, crouched down, and ran towards the next sniper position.

The warehouse manager made the right choice to immediately move the goods after firing the first shot without any hesitation.

Just as he stopped rolling and before he could even get up, a small melon grenade fired from a grenade launcher exploded right where he had been sniping.

The dense shrapnel from the grenade almost grazed his nose, nearly turning him into a sieve.

It's like watching the transfer just now. If you'd been even a second or half a second slower, you would have been killed or injured by the explosion.

However, the poor warehouse manager, still reeling from his near-death experience, heard Old Yu yelling and cursing at the top of his lungs, as if his pants were on fire:
"Warehouse manager, warehouse manager, what the hell are you doing, lying there sunbathing?"
"Didn't you see that Japanese grenade launcher? It just shut down one of our machine guns! Take it out right now, quick, quick, quick!"

Upon hearing this, the warehouse manager couldn't help but curse:
"Who gave Lao Yu the nickname 'silent gourd'? It's not accurate at all because he talks too much."

The warehouse manager was complaining so much because during today's battle, Old Yu kept shouting at the top of his lungs; he was either directing the others on the front lines or telling them what to do.

For example: "Warehouse manager, are you blind? Get that crooked weapon out of my sight!"

"Warehouse manager, are you fucking dead yet? If you're not, get to work! Take out that Japanese marksman at 11 o'clock..."

Anyway, once the battle started, Lao Yu kept shouting like he was on the verge of death; all sorts of demands kept falling into the warehouse manager's ears, making him indescribably annoyed.

Despite his frustration, the warehouse manager knew that business was more important.

After rushing to the next sniper position, he quickly raised his rifle and shot dead the Japanese soldier who was stuffing a melon grenade into a grenade launcher, just as Lao Yu had requested.

The warehouse manager did not immediately pick up the rifle and move it again as he had done before. Instead, he pulled the bolt and loaded another bullet.

The main issue was that in this grenade launcher squad, the Japanese soldier who was originally supporting the grenade launcher witnessed his comrade being killed.

Surprisingly, he was holding the grenade launcher with one hand and reaching for the small melon grenade on the ground with the other, intending to pick it up and fire it again, rather than completely destroying it.

After quickly loading a bullet, the warehouse manager fired another shot.

In the rush, the bullet missed its mark.

Fortunately, the warehouse manager had originally aimed for the head, but the shot hit the Japanese soldier in the abdomen. Although it didn't kill him instantly, it made the Japanese soldier fall to the ground in pain, thus completely eliminating this grenade launcher squad.

Unfortunately, just as the warehouse manager was about to leave, a bullet struck him in the back.

As he felt a sharp pain in his left lower back, the warehouse manager stumbled and almost fell flat on his face.

As luck would have it, Old Yu's yelling voice rang out again: "Warehouse manager, warehouse manager, take down that Japanese Type 92 heavy machine gun for me, immediately!"

This finally broke the warehouse manager's temper, and he yelled back, "Warehouse my ass..."

******
It's not really the fault of the taciturn Lao Yu. Ever since the war started, he's been yelling and shouting, making the warehouse manager, a novice sniper, use his fingers like lightning.

He didn't want it to be like this, but there was no other way.

He wanted to maintain a cool and aloof image of not speaking, whenever possible.

It was all because this Japanese reinforcement force had received a death order from Yoshio Shinotsuka that they must arrive in Pingding County before 5 p.m.

Therefore, their attack, from the very beginning, can only be described as frenzied.

As the only veteran transmigrator present and the highest commander of this blocking battlefield, Old Yu had no choice but to shout orders and command the battle, even if he didn't want to.

After all, the troops he was currently leading were all new recruits who knew nothing.

Even with Lao Yu's best efforts, the Japanese troops, amidst the desperate firing of the defending soldiers, advanced all the way to within 30 or 40 meters of the front line.

This battle has reached its most critical moment.

With two loud bangs, a thick cloud of choking smoke drifted into Lao Yu's nostrils, making him cough involuntarily.

Not far from him, two soldiers from the recruit company, each holding an ancestral shotgun that was much older than themselves, pulled the trigger at the charging Japanese soldiers.

There was no other way! The Northern Jiangsu Independent Regiment was developing too fast, and time was extremely limited, so it was impossible to solve the equipment problem for everyone.

Especially in second- and third-line units such as recruit companies, guerrilla units, supplementary units, and security teams, the number of units equipped with various shotguns was quite considerable.

So much so that after the fighting with the Japanese began, choking white smoke often rose into the air above the position.

But what are the specific effects of these ancestral muskets in combat?

One of the recruits, who had a finger-sized iron skewer in his gun, shot a Japanese private forty meters away and hit him in the chest.

A large burst of blood erupted from his chest, causing the Japanese soldier to scream and fall to the ground.

Another recruit, whose gun was loaded with a large amount of iron shot, pulled the trigger, and a large jet of iron shot shot out in a fan shape.

Unfortunately, once they exceeded 20 meters, the power of these iron pellets became extremely weak. For the Japanese soldiers who had now charged to the front and were still 30 meters away, they only startled them and had virtually no actual effect. Then, the two new recruits who had fired their shots hurriedly took a cow horn from their waists and poured gunpowder into the chambers of their rifles.

Then, it takes a lot of tedious work, such as loading the bullets, tamping them, and installing a homemade percussion cap, before it can be fired again. It takes at least twenty seconds to complete all of this.

Compared to this type of shotgun, some warriors who used single-target weapons, single-barreled spears, etc., performed better.

However, after each bullet was fired, they had to remove the bullet and reload, and their firing speed was only slightly better than that of a shotgun.

In short, given the current rate of fire and density of fire on the position, it seems unlikely that we can stop these Japanese soldiers from charging forward.

Seeing the critical situation, Lao Yu immediately made a decisive change to the tactics and shouted, "Grenade!"

Upon receiving this order, the two hundred or so soldiers on the current position picked up the wooden-handled grenades made in Zhangjiayu.

After pulling the fuse, they threw it out, and each person threw two or three in a row before stopping.

After several improvements, the Zhangjiayu-made wooden-handled grenades, while not as powerful as those made in Jinling or Gongxian, are still quite lethal.

After two or three hundred wooden-handled grenades were thrown down from the high ground in front of the position.

Immediately, a dense zone of explosions formed within a 30-40 meter radius in front of the position, causing the Japanese soldiers who had just rushed there to be cut down like grass.

While the continuous explosions caused by a large number of grenades had not yet completely subsided.

Old Yu had already thrown away the submachine gun that had just run out of bullets, pulled out a large knife from his back, and was the first to rush out of the position.

Seeing this, everyone on the position,

Even the warehouse keeper, who had been shot in the waist and felt excruciating pain in his lower back with the slightest step, snapped his bayonet shut and charged out.

The other warriors also drew their broadswords.

Some brandished wooden-handled grenades that could be used as hammers, and followed their two officers out of the position, charging towards the Japanese soldiers like tigers descending the mountain...

Faced with a burly Japanese veteran who was less than 1.6 meters tall but weighed almost as much as he did at nearly 1.8 meters, he was suddenly thrust into a bayonet.

After parrying the bayonet with his knife, Lao Yu swung his blade at the old Japanese soldier's thick neck.

That veteran Japanese soldier was quite skilled; in a very short time, he sheathed his gun, took a step back, and managed to dodge the swift and ruthless slash.

Unfortunately, as the old saying goes, you can dodge the first day of the month, but not the fifteenth. The next second, Old Yu stepped forward and turned around, simultaneously unleashing a lazy, sweeping slash.

This time, the veteran Japanese soldier didn't have time to dodge. Even though he retreated hastily again, his abdomen was still slashed open by the sharp tip of the broadsword.

Like a pig being slaughtered, its colorful intestines spilled out all at once.

The old Japanese soldier threw away his rifle and tried to stuff the colorful things back in; but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't do it and eventually collapsed to the ground helplessly.

Using the Eight Blades of Breaking the Edge, which he had practiced diligently for a long time, one of the strikes was a "swinging horizontally to cut the waist".

After a few exchanges, having successfully taken down another veteran Japanese soldier, Lao Yu, knife in hand, continued to look around, intending to find a new opponent.

The result was that after a fierce hand-to-hand combat, what was originally the size of a company was reduced to nothing.

Now, only seventy or eighty Japanese soldiers remained, and they were frantically retreating.

Old Yu showed no joy at having repelled the Japanese attack again. Instead, his expression changed drastically as he turned and picked up a wounded soldier clutching his stomach, running back towards the enemy lines.

He shouted, "Stop chasing! Retreat to your position! Don't pick up the guns on the ground!"

It wasn't that Lao Yu didn't want to hunt down the Japanese soldiers and leave the remaining seventy or eighty Japanese soldiers behind.

Despite their severe lack of weapons, they were not unwilling to pick up the Type 38 rifles abandoned by the Japanese soldiers to replace their broken homemade guns and single-barreled rifles.

Rather, their previous combat experience or past losses taught them that the Japanese would never give them such an opportunity.

Sure enough! They had just retreated to their position and crawled into the artillery shelter when the Japanese bombardment began to rain down on them.

The area in front of the position where the two sides had just fought hand-to-hand, as well as the position itself, were blasted high into the air with mud and sand flying everywhere; if they had hesitated at all, who knows how many people would have been killed in such fierce artillery fire.

About ten minutes later, the Japanese shelling stopped completely; after Lao Yu led the way out of the anti-aircraft bunker, he first spat out a mouthful of mud and sand.

When they saw that the position, which had more than two hundred men when the last battle began, now had less than one hundred men left.

He immediately raised his wrist and glanced at the wristwatch he had seized from a Japanese major; after seeing the time on it, he realized it was not even two o'clock yet.

Thinking that they had to hold out for nearly four more hours according to Hu Biao's strict orders, he couldn't help but mutter to himself:
"Damn it! I wonder how the battle for Pingding County is going. Have they taken it yet? You bastards, hurry up and get it over with, or I'm afraid I won't make it until nightfall."

Then he gave an order to his guard: "Signal, get the reinforcement company to the position immediately."

Once this order was issued, it meant that his reserve force was reduced to the last Eighth Supplementary Company, with less than a hundred men.

At the current rate of consumption, it simply won't last and will be completely depleted.

Thinking about this, Lao Yuzi felt even more depressed.

But soon he realized that this was nothing compared to what was to come; things could only get worse.

As he was reloading the empty magazine before the Japanese soldiers came up, the warehouse manager, whose waist was wrapped in thick bandages, approached and delivered even worse news:

"You silent fellow, we're running low on bullets and grenades; we have about a third of bullets left, and less than a third of grenades."

Upon hearing this, Lao Yu immediately wanted to retort with, "That's bullshit, how could that be?"
Because when they came to Yeniu Ridge, they probably didn't carry too many bullets, but they brought a lot of boxes of Zhangjiayu wooden-handled grenades. How could they have used them all up so quickly?

He quickly realized that in every previous battle, they had almost always managed to repel the Japanese soldiers by unleashing a barrage of wooden-handled grenades.

The words that were on the tip of his tongue had to be swallowed back down.

After pausing for a few seconds, he came up with some desperate solutions: "Have the brothers conserve some ammunition, and have the 7th Supplementary Company collect some stones and send them up."

Upon hearing this absurd idea, the warehouse manager immediately objected.

This was during World War II, the era of modern weaponry. The Japanese had a ton of cannons and light and heavy machine guns, yet they had to fight back by throwing stones. Wasn't that ridiculous?
However, the thought of dying on the spot was an absolute order that left no room for negotiation.

He also suppressed his dissent, silently turned around, used his rifle as a crutch to support himself, and went to relay Old Yu's order to have people collect stones.

Damn it! I don't even know where the bullet that hit my back hurt, but it's getting more and more painful.

Surprisingly, when the Japanese attack resumed a dozen minutes later, the warehouse manager suddenly felt that the wound on his back had healed much better the moment the gunshots rang out.

Even after each shot kills a target, it is still able to run and move away.

Such a reaction only shows that humans are truly amazing creatures.

Often, a seemingly insignificant accident or a small wound can cost a person their precious life, highlighting how fragile the human body is.

However, in many cases, people with numerous terrifying and fatal wounds can continue to fight like wild beasts.

The reason this happened is probably because those who fought like wild beasts had something called belief and perseverance in their hearts...

(End of this chapter)