The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Begins in Songhu

Chapter 540 Launch (Bonus chapter for 2022……6132 Helmsman)

On September 26, a little after 11 p.m., in a forest more than 10 miles east of Chunhua Mountain.

"Damn it! It's already the end of September, how come there are still so many mosquitoes in Hunan Province, a southern region?"

When you get bitten on the face by a mosquito again, after countless bites, you know your face will be covered in welts.

"803," the guy from Northeast China who had just joined the time-travel journey, had studied medicine in the modern world, and was now the top medical officer in the army, muttered to himself.

But despite the cursing, he secretly wished he could get up immediately and swat all the mosquitoes flying around his head like a bomber squadron.

They remained firmly in place, not daring to move or even breathe.

The main concern is that if the commotion I cause causes problems with tonight's ambush and ultimately leads to failure, then all my efforts will be in vain.

Even without Hu Biao, that damned bastard, saying a word, he was too ashamed to continue living and might as well just hang himself from a crooked tree.

That's right! Tonight's operation by Hu Biao and his men is another ambush.

More than ten days ago, Xiao Henan, who was in charge of gathering information in C Sand City, made a special trip here.

Through personal field visits, inquiries with local residents, and analysis of relevant historical records, a conclusion was ultimately reached:
Historically, the Japanese 68th Infantry Regiment used this route to infiltrate and outflank the 74th Army from the rear, launching a fierce pincer attack.

This was also the most suitable place to ambush the Japanese troops during their infiltration routes.

Because of the terrain here, there are rolling hills on both sides. The hills are not very high, but they contain a lot of forests and shrubs.

During this time of night, thousands of people can hide inside and are difficult to detect.

Between the two hills lies a rectangular flat area, more than two miles wide and five or six miles long.

There was a dirt road, three or four meters wide, barely passable by trucks, in the middle of the flat land, and a small village, but unfortunately, all the villagers had long since fled.

The area surrounding the village is mostly paddy fields, except for a few vegetable plots.

Perhaps because agriculture here is more developed than in Xinning, they actually grow rice twice a year; now the rice in the fields is golden and ready for harvest.

Unfortunately, if this war had lasted any longer, the farmers' sweat would have shattered into eight pieces, and the fruits of their labor would have rotted in the fields.

However, whether or not these millet grains can be harvested now seems to be no longer important.

After nightfall, Hu Biao and his group of several thousand men secretly arrived at the location and laid an ambush. The most crucial situation they faced was:
Will Xiao Henan's judgment be correct? Will the Japanese 68th Infantry Regiment really have come from here?

After all, the materials that the veterans had seen back then did not specify which particular route these Japanese soldiers had infiltrated from.

If we ambush in the wrong place, we're completely doomed.

Fortunately! Twenty minutes earlier, Uncle Bo and Xiao Henan, along with several scouts who were hunters, had rushed back, crouching low.

He delivered good news to the group of people who were lying in wait:

The Japanese soldiers arrived; a squad of Japanese scouts had already plunged into the rectangular ambush area.

Not far behind the scout, a large group of Japanese soldiers followed in a dark mass; it could not possibly be any other unit except the Japanese 68th Infantry Regiment.

So everything was just waiting for the entire 68th Regiment of the Japanese army to enter the ambush area, and then they would launch a surprise attack.

Therefore, under such circumstances, 803 dared not utter a sound, for fear that his actions would cause the ambush to be discovered by the Japanese prematurely.

He let the swarms of mosquitoes in the wild bite his head until it was covered in welts.

Amazing, he kept muttering to himself:
"Damn it! If only I could bring all my mountaineering gear with me when I travel through time; aside from anything else, those mosquito repellent sprays would be incredibly useful."

What 803 didn't know was that compared to other novice transmigrators, he was already very lucky.

At the same time, Ji Shouxing watched as a green bamboo viper, illuminated by the moonlight, slowly crawled past him, its tongue flicking, no more than a meter away.

For a moment, he felt his bladder was so swollen that he almost urinated.

His job in the modern world is a narcotics officer, that's true, and he has encountered venomous snakes in his work; but he has never encountered a situation where he can only lie down and has no way to kill the venomous snake.
More importantly, he knew that these days, if you were bitten by a venomous snake, there was absolutely no antivenom available for injection to save your life...

******
Twenty minutes later, at the end of the rectangular valley floor where the ambush was set up, on that dirt road.

As the call of "cuckoo, cuckoo" traveled all the way and reached my ears.

The wizard, the cross, and the welder, whose expressions were already grave, immediately became even more serious; even the novice welder took several deep breaths to calm himself down. The main reason was that they were under too much pressure.

All I can say is that Hu Biao and his fellow time-travelers are quite capable.

They clearly realized that the 68th Infantry Regiment was an elite regiment under the command of the Japanese Class A Division, with a full strength of nearly four thousand men.

Even with some losses in the early stages of the battle, they still have about 3,200 to 3,300 men.

In terms of combat effectiveness, they were usually on par with one or two divisions of the National Revolutionary Army, and could even win.

Their Northern Jiangsu Independent Regiment and Hunan Provincial Supplementary Regiment, including those who voluntarily joined along the way, had reached 6000 people, which was enough to be considered the size of a division.

However, after only half a month of training, most of the junior officers were also rookies trained in a half-month crash course.

No matter how confident they are, they believe that in terms of actual combat strength, they are only equivalent to a ragtag division.

In this way, they would be no match for a Japanese regiment in a head-on confrontation, or even in an ambush, let alone be able to quickly defeat a Japanese regiment and gradually change the course of the battle.

Therefore, left with no other choice, they had to resort to some special methods and tactics.

Specifically, after numerous discussions, arguments, spitting at each other, and fights, the group of time travelers reached a consensus on the following battle plan:

First, reinforce the artillery company and launch a barrage of artillery fire.

Then, taking advantage of the Japanese soldiers' confusion, they charged forward in squads and platoons to engage in close combat, trying to compress them as much as possible into that small village.

Because they buried all the explosive charges and a large number of grenades in the village.

Furthermore, there were several suicide soldiers hiding in concealed places, ready to detonate these explosives once the Japanese soldiers gathered there to hold their ground.

Overall, this plan looks good.

However, all time travelers know that achieving this is extremely difficult; there are too many steps involved that could lead to failure.

The first difficulty lies in whether the initial artillery barrage can achieve the expected results; because if the effect is even slightly poor, the Japanese soldiers, caught off guard, will find it impossible for their newly recruited soldiers to break through the hastily erected defensive line along the roadside.

Not to mention that in the subsequent plan, the Japanese troops were compressed towards the village.

With this understanding, after receiving the call of the cuckoo, which signaled that the signal to be sent out immediately.

The wizard, the crossbowman, and the welder finally looked at the rows of cannons they had made for the artillery company along the dirt road behind them.
A DIY rocket launcher.

One design was initially intended to imitate the old-fashioned Congreve rocket, but the idea was later changed, and it was directly inspired by the Russian Katyusha rocket launcher.

The frames and rails were all made of wood; the ammunition casings were made of wood whenever possible, and cast iron was used if necessary.

The propellant and explosive charge were all made of granular black powder.

Because the wooden frame and guide rails were assembled in a modular way, they have now been successfully assembled.

The six-round racks and rails were assembled, with a total of 50 sets; they were pointing to the sky at different heights; the different heights represented different ranges.

At the bottom of the guide rail, a total of 300 rockets, all of which were DIY rockets, were installed.

They weren't even painted, and because they weren't electronically controlled to fire, they had fuses left on for ignition.

In short, the above DIY rocket launchers look shabby and unreliable.

In reality, due to factors such as materials and manufacturing processes, it is significantly inferior to a proper Katyusha rocket in terms of accuracy and power.

However, this was the best design and product that the three of them were able to come up with in a short period of time, under conditions of extreme shortage of machinery and raw materials.

As for the actual effect, let's leave it to fate.

With this thought in mind, the wizard shouted, "Light the fire!"

Then the three men and the rest of the artillery company struck matches and lit pine resin torches; holding the lit torches, they extended them toward the fuses.

At this point, the Japanese scouts were only about three hundred meters away from them...

(End of this chapter)