Bright Sword: The Flowers of War

Chapter 253 Struggling
At dawn, the first light of day broke through the darkness.

However, what shattered the silence above the pumpkin shop was not the chirping of birds in the early morning, but a terrifying shriek that came from afar.

On the horizon where the sky was just beginning to lighten with the first hint of dawn, dozens of tiny black dots appeared out of nowhere.

These black dots rapidly enlarged at a speed visible to the naked eye. After reaching the airspace above Pumpkin Shop, they seemed to receive a silent command and suddenly changed course, transforming into graceful parabolas as they hurtled down toward the ground!

"Air raid! It's a Chinese plane!"

"Enemy planes are attacking!"

The sharp alarm and piercing screams instantly shattered the tranquility of the Japanese positions.

The Japanese soldiers, who had just been awakened from their tired sleep, rushed out of their makeshift shelters and tents with terrified expressions, not even having time to get dressed properly.

They looked up in despair at the SBD Doomsday Dive Bombers that were diving down at a near-vertical angle like "death vultures."

These days, this scene has become a persistent nightmare for them.

As the fighter jets dived to extremely low altitudes, the bombs under their fuselages detached from their racks and, with a whistling sound of death, accurately struck Japanese positions, artillery bunkers, and assembly areas.

The moment the bombs were dropped, the fighter jet immediately executed a beautiful, brutally aesthetic left-handed climb, its powerful engines roaring deafeningly as it effortlessly pulled the heavy fuselage back into the air, escaping the range of ground-based anti-aircraft fire. The entire process was fluid and graceful, exuding a deadly elegance.

Immediately afterwards, a series of violent explosions that shook the earth came from afar!
"Boom! Rumble..."

Huge fireballs and black plumes of smoke rose up one after another on the Japanese positions.

Soil, gravel, and severed limbs were thrown high into the sky and then fell like raindrops.

The fortified positions were easily breached, and the soldiers hidden inside were either killed by the shockwave or torn to pieces by shrapnel.

Since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, this war has lasted for nearly three years.

As the most senior and distinguished "Class A" divisions in the Japanese Army, the 3rd Division (Nagoya) and the 13th Division (Sendai) were battle veterans who had clashed with Chinese troops countless times.

They were filled with contempt for the Chinese army and pride in being the "elite of the Imperial Army."

However, during their few days at the pumpkin shop, everything they were so proud of was completely shattered.

They had never experienced such a desperate battle.

In their minds, air raids should be the exclusive domain of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy Air Forces.

They must have been piloting planes, indiscriminately dropping bombs on Chinese soil, enjoying the ugly spectacle of those pitiful creatures scattering and fleeing on the ground.

But now, everything has turned out the other way around.

The situation changed more than a week ago when the group claiming to be a Shanxi militia started fighting them.

On the first day of the battle, only a few dozen Chinese fighter jets appeared in the sky, causing considerable trouble, but still within a manageable range.

But as the battle continued, the situation became increasingly terrifying.

The number of Chinese fighter jets in the sky has increased from dozens to hundreds every day without fail!

These high-performance, ridiculously fast fighter jets, like a flock of tireless falcons, take turns bombing thousands of tons of heavy bombs and incendiary bombs as if they were free.

Air superiority, once their proudest advantage, has now become a Damocles' sword hanging over their heads.

They could only huddle passively in their bunkers, praying that the bombs wouldn't fall on their heads. Any action that exposed them to the open was tantamount to suicide.

Pumpkin Shop, this originally inconspicuous little town, now seems to have become a giant magnet, drawing the most elite troops from both China and Japan to its vicinity.

The brutal fighting left the air in this area perpetually filled with an indescribable, pungent odor mixed with the smell of burning and blood.

It was the smell of burning steel, trees blasted into charcoal, and countless charred, rotting corpses mixed together.

This smell penetrated everyone's nostrils and seeped into their skin, as if constantly reminding them that this was hell.

A gentle breeze swept across the ruins of the pumpkin shop, stirring up plumes of black dust that carried a pungent, acrid smell. The entire town, once a bustling place, was now shrouded in a persistent haze, like a ghost town.

When Chinese planes come to bomb, those positions that have long been reduced to ruins will be set ablaze once more.

But these fires always went out quickly, because there was nothing left to burn. For the Japanese soldiers who were struggling to hold their ground, bombing and fire had become an indispensable part of the battle, like eating and drinking. They had become accustomed to this hellish daily routine.

In the distance, the huge column of smoke and dust raised by the new explosion was clearly visible even to the new recruits on the front lines who were still confused about the situation.

The loud explosion startled Colonel Kawanami Mitsuya, who had just fallen asleep huddled among the rubble. He sat up abruptly, his bloodshot eyes filled with fear and exhaustion.

The explosion came from behind. He instinctively looked in that direction and saw trucks stopping, and groups of soldiers in clean uniforms, their faces showing confusion and a hint of fanaticism, jumping off the trucks under the officers' shouts.

Looking at those fresh and innocent faces, Kawanami Mitsukoshi's once arrogant face now held only deep helplessness. He sighed deeply, a sense of powerlessness washing over him like a tidal wave.

How long can these people survive on this land? A day? Or half a day?

Further away, in a dilapidated house that was reduced to a mere frame, Major General Riichiro Katayama, commander of the 5th Brigade of the 13th Division, was watching all of this expressionlessly through a broken window.

“Pumpkin Shop is a meat grinder for the Chinese!” he said in a tone devoid of any emotion, as if stating an objective fact.

However, every staff officer and officer standing around him silently added the second half of the sentence in their hearts: Pumpkin Shop, wasn't it also a meat grinder for the Imperial Japanese Army?
This fact is more brutal than any battle report.

Four days ago, they had just received more than a thousand reinforcements, but only three or four days later, less than three hundred of them were still standing.

A casualty rate of over 70% is unimaginable in any previous war against China.

"Hopefully... the Chinese planes won't spot them."

A young officer, watching the reinforcements gathering, couldn't help but whisper a prayer.

Before he could finish speaking, as if specifically to refute him, a piercing shriek, all too familiar to them, suddenly echoed from the sky—a sound like the Grim Reaper's scythe slicing through the air!

Everyone's expression changed drastically, and they instinctively looked up.

Several F4U Corsair fighter jets painted with shark mouths emerged from the clouds like ghosts, diving at an extremely tricky angle toward the replenishment troops who were disembarking and assembling!

Immediately following was the dense, chilling sound of machine gun fire, followed by a series of violent explosions!

"Rat-a-tat-tat-tat—Boom! Boom!"

The Japanese reinforcements' positions, which were advancing towards Pumpkin Shop, were instantly engulfed in flames! The once orderly ranks crumbled in an instant.

The flashes of bombs and the trajectories of machine gun bullets intertwined, completely covering that area.

On the battlefield, the heart-wrenching screams of the wounded soldiers instantly echoed. Everywhere were mangled, bloody remains of limbs, shattered instantly by the large-caliber machine guns from the plane.

A person who was alive just a moment ago can turn into an indistinguishable mass of minced meat in the next second.

Major General Riichiro Katayama stared expressionlessly through the window at the hellish scene unfolding before him. His hands gripped the window frame tightly.

His prayers were in vain.

Or rather, under this sky shrouded in the shadow of death, any prayer is superfluous.

The hellish conditions on the battlefield left every surviving Japanese soldier disheartened.

The air was thick with the stench of charred flesh and gunpowder smoke; the cries of survivors and the groans of the dying mingled together, creating a symphony of despair. A young lieutenant named Kenji Sato peered out from behind a pile of crumbling rubble, staring blankly at the scene.

Just now, he witnessed a large aerial bomb lift an entire squad of reinforcements, along with the ground beneath their feet, into the air.

He felt extremely nauseous, but his stomach was already empty, so he could only dry heave a few times.

He shook his head numbly, as if trying to shake those horrific images out of his mind.

Then, like a walking corpse, he lay down on a relatively flat rock and carefully took out a small notebook wrapped in oilcloth and a fountain pen from his pocket.

In this pumpkin shop, known as hell, writing a letter to his lover far away in Hokkaido was perhaps the only solace a soldier like him could find. With trembling hands, he wrote the first line on the rough paper.

"My dearest Yoko:"

Just by writing down this name, a barely perceptible ripple appeared in Kenji Sato's bloodshot, almost lifeless eyes.

"The sound of the bomb exploding woke me up from my sleep again. My only relief was that I was still alive."

He stopped writing and listened intently. The sound of the explosion had faded into the distance, but the lingering shockwave seemed to still resonate in his ears.

He glanced at a mangled corpse not far from him and tightened his grip on the pen.

"It rained heavily last night, and we were all soaked to the bone."

All the buildings here were destroyed by heavy artillery or bombing by planes, and the walls were riddled with holes from shrapnel. I searched everywhere but couldn't find a clean spot. The small open space I'm in now, less than three square meters, is the cleanest place I could find.

The fierce fighting has been going on for more than half a month. Yesterday, the Imperial Army launched at least 12 charges against the Chinese, but all of them were repelled, and we suffered heavy losses.

As he wrote this, the scene from yesterday came to mind.

His squad, following the main force, charged towards the opposite position time and again, only to be swept away like wheat by the dense barrage of fire. His fellow villager and friend was riddled with machine gun bullets right before his eyes.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to keep writing.

"But we have no regrets, because we did it for the Emperor and for the Holy War. Our bravery was rewarded by the Brigade Commander, and we were granted permission to rest."

"My dearest Yoko, if it weren't for those damned Chinese, I should be married to you right now."

As longing welled up in his heart, he wrote faster, and his handwriting became messy.

"We can enjoy the happiness of our new marriage to the fullest, but it's all the fault of those Chinese people, why don't they surrender?"

We had already killed their army group commander, but they showed no signs of surrendering.

And I really can't understand why, even though it's already April, this damn place is still so cold at night.

"The woodpile had long been soaked by the rain. Pumpkin Town is as rainy as Hokkaido, so the woodpile could no longer be lit."

The soldiers sent to collect firewood yesterday haven't returned yet; they've probably already fallen victim to Chinese snipers.

To preserve our fighting strength, the battalion commander had given the order: no one was allowed to stick their head under the enemy's gun barrel for firewood. We had no choice but to huddle together and keep warm by each other's body heat.

He instinctively shrank his neck, the damp chill seeming to seep into his bones again. Beside him, several soldiers huddled together, shivering, their empty eyes staring into the unknown distance.

"I don't know how long this battle will last, maybe a few hours, maybe a few days, maybe even longer."

I hope the Chinese can temporarily stop their insane bombing. I've never longed to see our planes as much as I do now; I miss them so much.

He looked up at the gray sky, which was empty except for despair.

The eagle of the empire seems to have forgotten this abandoned land.

When the pen touches the softest part of his heart, his handwriting becomes gentle.

"My dearest Yoko, if I can return to you alive, I want to tell you in person how much I love you!"
Mount Akina is a great place. Let's hold our wedding there when I get back!

Invite all your relatives and friends over, and serve them the finest sake and rice balls.

A fleeting, illusory smile appeared on his grime-covered face. He seemed to see Yoko in her white kimono, and the cherry blossoms covering Mount Akina. But this beautiful vision was quickly shattered by the harsh reality.

"But if I die in battle, dear Yoko, please don't cry for me. I promised your father I would never let you cry for me."

I would give my life for the Emperor, just as I would give my whole heart for you. My dearest Yoko, please wait for me! I'll be home soon, very soon.

Finally, he solemnly signed his name and the date.

"Love you, Kenji Sato, April 25, 1955"

He carefully folded the letter, treating it like the most precious treasure, and stuffed it into the oilcloth bundle, pressing it tightly against his chest. The sharp edges of the letter, through his damp, cold military uniform, pressed against his chest, yet gave him a fleeting sense of peace.

At this very moment, in the brief, deathly silence of this battlefield...

A sharper, higher-pitched whistling sound, completely different from the sound of an airplane diving, suddenly came from the horizon!

"Whoosh...whoosh whoosh whoosh..."

Almost simultaneously, all the surviving Japanese soldiers raised their heads.

What is that sound?
The answer was revealed the next second.

The whole world seemed to be gripped tightly by an invisible giant hand, and then suddenly exploded!
"Boom..."

Before Kenji Sato could even utter a scream, an irresistible force surged from the ground, hurling him and the rubble beneath him high into the air! He felt like a leaf in a storm, completely unable to control his body.

Immediately afterwards, he was thrown heavily to the ground, the back of his head slamming hard against a sharp rock.

The deafening explosions weren't just one, but a barrage! Hundreds and thousands of shells simultaneously covered the entire Japanese frontline! The earth trembled, howled, and tore apart wildly and continuously! The "cleanest spot" where he had just been lying was now a huge crater billowing black smoke.

He struggled to lift his head, warm, viscous liquid streaming down his forehead and blurring his vision. He blinked hard, and everything in his sight turned blood red.

He saw that the comrade who had been huddled with him for warmth just moments before had lost his upper body, leaving only his two legs still curled up.

The other person was torn in two by the blast wave.

This is not an air raid!
This is artillery fire! An unprecedented and devastating bombardment from the ground!

The Chinese not only have airplanes, but also such terrifying artillery!

All that could be heard was a continuous, maddening buzzing sound.

Kenji Sato could hear nothing; all he could see was the entire position crumbling amidst fire and explosions. The letter in his arms, which held all his hopes and longings, now seemed so ridiculous and pale.

Yes, that's shelling.

Just last night, the 2nd Heavy Artillery Regiment of the Shanxi Militia finally arrived at Nanguadian after a difficult march. After setting up 36 155mm howitzers, they began to bombard the Japanese positions.

In less than an hour, more than two thousand shells were unleashed.

The bombing quickly devastated the Japanese positions, making the already struggling Japanese army suffer even more. Many soldiers could not withstand such brutal bombing and were on the verge of mental collapse. The officers had no choice but to execute more than ten soldiers by extreme means in order to maintain order.

Finally, the division commander, Masataka Yamawaki, had no choice but to send a telegram to the commander of the 11th Army, Sonobe...

(End of this chapter)