Bright Sword: The Flowers of War

Chapter 249: Breakthrough
Dead silence.

The command vehicle was deathly silent. The telegram containing the devastating news seemed to weigh a ton, making it hard for everyone to breathe.

Su Yaoyang slowly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, all the emotions inside—shock, grief, regret—had disappeared, leaving only a bottomless, cold abyss burning with black flames.

He didn't look at the trembling radio operator anymore, but reached out and snatched the communicator from his hand.

His voice wasn't loud, but it was like icicles in the cold winter, clearly transmitted to every combat unit's channel via radio.

"Connect with Armored Regiment One, John."

After a brief hiss, a voice with a heavy accent came through: "Boss, this is John Miller. What can I do for you?"

Su Yaoyang spoke each word clearly, his tone eerily calm:
"Commander Zhang Zizhong is dead in battle?"

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the intercom.

“What… General Zhang is dead?” John was stunned at first, then exclaimed in disbelief.

"All troops, advance!"

Su Yaoyang's voice was devoid of any warmth, "I don't care what methods you use, crush everything you see that's alive. Speed ​​up, rush into the pumpkin shop as fast as you can."

I want to ensure that not a single Japanese person can stand on this land anymore.

“As you wish… Boss!” John’s voice was laced with a bloodthirsty excitement.

Immediately, he switched to the team's internal communication channel and, with all his might, roared into the microphone:

"Attention all units! Attention all personnel! The Commander's latest order... General Zhang has been killed in action!"
Now follow me and kill all those sons of bitches of Japanese monkeys!

"Now, floor the gas! All machine guns, all cannons, fire freely! Turn everything you see in front of you, man or rat, into mincemeat! Charge! Charge! Avenge the general! GO! GO! GO!"

boom……

The entire armored group went completely mad in an instant!
As the best-equipped and most heavily armed assault force under Su Yaoyang's command, this steel monster, composed of Sherman tanks, half-track armored vehicles, armored reconnaissance vehicles, and Chaffee light tanks, transformed into a torrent of revenge at this moment.

The engines of armored vehicles roared deafeningly, their tracks and tires kicking up clouds of mud as they charged madly toward Pumpkin Shop at speeds far exceeding those of normal marching.

The Browning M2HB 12.7mm heavy machine gun mounted on the roof roared, its scorching ammunition belts unleashing a storm of metal upon any suspicious targets ahead.

The soldiers on the armored vehicles, holding their Garand rifles and Thompson submachine guns, swept volleys of bullets into the fields and woods on both sides of the road.

This was no longer an attack, but a pure, reckless, and destructive charge. Their goal was singular: to wipe the enemy who had killed the general, along with any trace of their existence, from this land with steel and fire!

…………

Outside the Pumpkin Shop, on a battlefield repeatedly ravaged by artillery fire, Japanese artillery company commander Hashimoto Jiro lay prone inside a carefully camouflaged bunker.

His muscles were tense, and sweat soaked the back of his military uniform.

He stood motionless like a stone statue, staring at the approaching torrent of steel in the distance, praying frantically to Amaterasu Omikami in his heart, praying that those "iron turtles" would not discover his small gun emplacement.

It wasn't that Hashimoto Jiro was afraid of death, but as a veteran, he knew all too well what kind of anti-tank weapons the Japanese army was equipped with.

From the Type 97 20mm anti-tank rifle to the Type 94 37mm rapid-fire cannon, they are all copies of foreign products. Even the Type 1 47mm anti-tank cannon in our hands was developed based on the Type 97 47mm cannon, and its armor-piercing capability is very poor.

It used to work well against the machine gun positions or mud houses of the Chinese army, but now it seems unreliable against those tanks that look so tough.

The only solution he could think of was to wait for the Chinese tanks to get close before firing, hoping to have even the slightest chance of destroying them.

Suddenly, a flash of light appeared at another gun position not far away! An impatient gunner fired the first shot.

"clang!"

The shell struck the front of an armored vehicle, exploding in a burst of sparks before bouncing off helplessly.

"Baka yarou... Which idiot fired so early?" Hashimoto Jiro roared in anger.

The next second, the machine gun turret on top of the armored vehicle slowly rotated, locking onto the exposed target.

"Da da da da da..."

The dense barrage of 20mm high-explosive shells, like the Grim Reaper's scythe, instantly tore the gun emplacement and the artillerymen inside to shreds.

"Baka!" Hashimoto cursed his foolish colleague in his heart while gripping the directional gun's aiming mechanism tightly with both hands.

He suppressed the urge to fire, watching helplessly as the steel behemoths drew ever closer. Three hundred meters… two hundred meters…

Just as he felt his heart was about to burst from the immense pressure, he finally roared and gave the order to fire.

"boom……"

The shell whistled out, but unfortunately missed its target and disappeared into the creeping tank formation. However, just as his gunners were frantically reloading, another surviving anti-tank gun unexpectedly performed a miracle! A half-track armored vehicle that was firing indiscriminately was accurately hit, bursting out a cloud of black smoke before coming to a stop.

"Hit!"

Before the brief cheers could spread, the shells of revenge came one after another.

Hashimoto had just brought his eyes close to the scope, preparing to fire a second shot, when he saw a real "Iron Turtle"... a Sherman tank with its long cannon barrel already pointed at him.

This was the last image he saw.

"boom……"

In the earth-shattering explosion, Hashimoto Jiro and his cannon were reduced to flying parts and flesh.

When the last Japanese anti-tank gun position was blown into the air, Battalion Commander Kato Kazuichi's bloodshot eyes were completely consumed by madness.

He knew that conventional resistance was pointless.

"Bring me the magnetic mine!" he roared at a soldier trembling with fear beside him.

The soldier scrambled and crawled out of a crater in the trench wall and retrieved several Type 99 magnetic anti-tank mines.

This weapon, which required soldiers to risk their lives to rush to the tank and place it by hand, became their only, and most desperate, hope at that moment.

Kato Kazuichi's gaze swept across the young and fearful faces around him like a venomous snake, and finally, he locked onto a soldier named Okamura Tatsuya.

"Okamura-kun!"

Kato's voice was icy cold, devoid of any human emotion, "It's your turn to serve the Emperor! Take this and blow up the Chinese war machine!"
If you succeed, you will be a hero of the empire!

When his name was called, Tatsuya Okamura looked up blankly, and the color drained from his face, which still had a touch of boyishness.

Kato didn't allow him any time to react, grabbing a magnetic grenade and roughly shoving it into his arms.

Okamura jolted violently as if he'd been scalded, nearly dropping the heavy metal object. His legs trembled uncontrollably, and cold sweat instantly soaked his forehead.

Using this to blow up tanks? What's the difference between that and running straight into the arms of death?
"What are you waiting for? Go for it!"

Kato's patience had run out. He drew his military knife with a "whoosh," the cold blade almost touching Okamura's neck.

Cornered, Okamura glanced desperately at his companions. None of them pleaded for him; instead, their eyes held a morbid expectation—a hope that he would succeed, so that they could be temporarily spared from being sent to their deaths.

Okamura's heart was completely dead.

Like a walking corpse, he trembled as he climbed the breastwork of the trench, using the shell craters on the ground as cover, and carefully made his way toward an approaching Sherman tank.

Just as the tank was less than ten meters away from him, Okamura suddenly bent over in the shell crater, used all the courage and strength he had in his life, and leaped out, rushing towards the steel behemoth!

He raised his arm with all his might and threw the magnetic grenade in his hand!

He acted very bravely.

However, he threw it off target.

The magnetic mine exploded with a bang next to the left track of the tank, splashing up a cloud of dirt and sparks, but it didn't even manage to scrape off a piece of paint.

The next instant, the coaxial machine gun on the tank turret roared with the death knell.

"Da da da da da..."

The dense streaks of bullets instantly riddled Okamura's young body with holes, and he fell heavily to the ground, unable to move again.

"Useless!" Kato Kazuichi cursed angrily, preparing to send more men up to their deaths.

Just then, a sharp, piercing whistling sound, like death tearing through the air, came from the sky.

Two F4U Corsair fighter jets, painted with shark mouth designs, swooped down from the clouds in an elegant yet deadly manner.

They did not fire, but simply circled over the Japanese positions and transmitted the precise coordinates of the area to the artillery positions behind them via radio.

Seconds later, the end of the world arrived.

Heavy mortar shells, mixed with tear gas that released thick white smoke, rained down like hail on the last Japanese positions.

boom! boom! boom!
The violent explosion tore the bunker, the soldiers, and their last shred of resistance to shreds. The choking white smoke quickly enveloped everything, and through the smoke, the sounds of soldiers coughing violently and screaming in panic as they thought they were being attacked by poison gas echoed everywhere.

The fear of the unknown instantly shattered their last psychological defenses.

The last barrier outside the pumpkin shop was completely breached by the triple attack of steel, flames, and chemical smoke.

(End of this chapter)