Bright Sword: The Flowers of War

Chapter 281 Father Beats Son

Above the azure sky, an F-4 reconnaissance aircraft painted with the Kuomintang insignia, like a lone eagle, is flying steadily over Shanxi at a cruising altitude of 6,000 meters.

Inside the cockpit, pilot Zhu Jin appeared somewhat sluggish.

As he piloted the plane, he squeezed a bubble out of his teeth and blew it. With a soft "pop," the bubble burst, and a sweet, fruity aroma filled the cramped cockpit.

He asked over the radio in a bored tone, "Old Bing, did you get any valuable footage? I'm about to throw up looking at those villages and fields down there."

Behind him, in the cramped rear cabin, photographer and telegraph operator Xie Bingchun was intently focused on the viewfinder of the K-22 aerial camera.

He rubbed his eyes, which were a little sore from focusing for so long, and replied irritably, "Nothing found yet. Same as always, nothing much has changed on the ground... Wait..."

His voice suddenly stopped, then rose sharply, filled with surprise and tension!

"Old Zhu...lower the altitude."

"Quick... descend to three thousand meters! I think I've seen something incredible!"

"Okay!"

Zhu Jin's voice instantly changed from lazy to excited; this was exactly what he had been waiting for!
He shoved the control stick forward, and the high-performance reconnaissance plane responded almost instantly to the pilot's command. Its nose dipped, and it plunged towards the ground at a terrifying angle of nearly sixty degrees, like an arrow released from a bow.

The powerful negative force made Zhu Jin feel like his butt was about to leave his seat.

Meanwhile, Xie Bingchun in the rear cabin was also disoriented by the sudden violent movement, and his entire body was pressed firmly into the seat by the seatbelt.

But he didn't have time to curse. His hands flew across the screen, and with a crisp "click," he switched the camera lens from a 6-inch wide-angle lens to a 24-inch telephoto lens.

In an instant, the scene on the ground was rapidly zoomed in through his viewfinder, and one clear image after another flashed by.

"Old Zhu...you damn well better drive carefully! Be careful!"

Xie Bingchun stared intently through the viewfinder, cursing and yelling through the throat-vibration microphone, while his right thumb frantically pressed the shutter button again and again.

"Click...buzz..."

"Click...buzz..."

The crisp click of the camera shutter and the mechanical whirring of the film reel intertwined with the roar of the engine.

If this precious camera hadn't been equipped with a gyro stabilization device, which is considered cutting-edge technology today, and could minimize the impact of high-speed flight and shaking on the image, the photos taken by Zhu Jin just now, which were comparable to a bomber dropping a bomb, would definitely have been a bunch of unwatchable blurry stuff.

"I saw it...I saw it..."

While shouting, Xie Bingchun greedily snapped photos of the scene below into his camera.

The plane continued to descend, soon breaking through one thousand meters.

At this altitude, the previously blurry landscape has become incredibly clear.

Zhu Jin didn't even need a telescope; he could see the ground clearly with his naked eye, let alone Xie Bingchun in the rear cabin who was looking through a 24-inch telephoto lens.

The sight on the ground made both of them gasp in shock.

Near Taiyuan City, what should have been a plain of golden wheat fields and rolling hills on both sides has now been completely transformed into a massive war fortress.

One after another, reinforced concrete bunkers of varying sizes and shapes sprang up from the ground like poisonous mushrooms, scattered across key vantage points and major transportation routes.

These bunkers are connected by deep, winding trenches and anti-tank trenches, forming an impenetrable, layered, three-dimensional defense network.

Countless Japanese soldiers in khaki uniforms bustled about like ants among the fortifications, constructing more defensive structures. The gleam of bayonets and the dust kicked up by entrenching tools mingled under the sunlight, creating a somber and desolate scene.

"Holy crap! When did those Japanese build so many bunkers and trenches?"

Zhu Jin couldn't help but exclaim in surprise. He clearly remembered that he had just flown along this route more than half a month ago, when this place was still a peaceful pastoral landscape.

In less than half a month, the Japanese have managed to pull off such a massive operation! It's as if they've turned the entire outskirts of Taiyuan into a giant tortoise shell!
Just as he was feeling sentimental, clusters of inconspicuous orange-yellow light suddenly emerged from the Japanese positions on the ground, which had just looked like ants.

Immediately afterward, before Zhu Jin could react, clusters of black smoke clouds suddenly exploded around their plane!
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Several death flowers, composed of shrapnel and gunpowder smoke, bloomed even less than 100 meters from the plane. The huge explosions pierced through the roar of the engines, and Zhu Jin, sitting in the cockpit, could hear them clearly, making his eardrums buzz.

The fuselage shook violently from the shockwave of the explosion, like a small boat tossed about in a storm.

"Get out of here! Lao Zhu! The Japanese have large-caliber anti-aircraft guns!" Xie Bingchun shouted at the top of his lungs from the rear cabin, his voice filled with anxiety.

"You don't need to waste your breath, I know!"

Zhu Jin gritted his teeth and squeezed out a few words. His eyes instantly became incredibly sharp, and his usual playful smile vanished completely from his face.

He yanked the lever back all the way down to his crotch, while simultaneously pushing the throttle valve forward with his left hand.

The reconnaissance plane's massive nose suddenly lifted up, soaring almost vertically into the sky.

The plane traced a thrilling yet graceful arc in the sky, its engines roaring under strain, and sped away from the effective range of the ground-based anti-aircraft guns, heading back towards safer altitudes...

Four hours later, night had fallen.

Inside the underground headquarters of the Wutai County militia, the lights were on, but the staff were even busier than during the day. A huge long table was covered with aerial reconnaissance photographs that had just been urgently developed in the darkroom.

These photos, taken by Zhu Jin and Xie Bingchun at great personal risk, are all stunningly clear.

In the black and white photographs, the Japanese army's defensive system built around Taiyuan was completely and nakedly presented to Su Yaoyang, Bai Chongxi, Chief of Staff Pi Ruoyu, and other senior generals.

The densely packed bunkers, like a patch of psoriasis, are scattered all over the mountains and fields.

Those deep, winding, spiderweb-like anti-tank trenches and communication trenches.

And those concealed artillery positions and hidden bunkers, cleverly concealed by camouflage nets but still impossible to hide from the high-altitude telephoto lens... all of this clearly shows that Yoshio Shinotsuka has made up his mind to turn Taiyuan into a meat grinder.

"I admit, I underestimated Yoshio Shinotsuka."

Bai Chongxi's finger slowly traced the surface of a photograph, a hint of barely perceptible astonishment in his voice. He looked up, giving Su Yaoyang a meaningful gaze:
"Of course, I admit I underestimated you even more, Mingxi."

A smile played on his lips. "This aerial reconnaissance work is done exceptionally well."

In ordinary times, we have to sacrifice countless excellent scouts in order to obtain even the smallest bit of intelligence.

But now? All we need to do is send a plane to circle over the Japanese positions, and the results are immediately and clearly laid out before us.

Bai Chongxi's praise was heartfelt.

As a veteran who had been through many battles, he knew all too well the importance of intelligence, as well as the difficulty and cost of obtaining it.

Su Yaoyang's near-God-like intelligence-gathering ability has completely overturned his understanding.

"It's a trivial matter, not worth mentioning."

Su Yaoyang waved his hand modestly, trying his best to appear nonchalant.

But the corners of his mouth, which he couldn't suppress and kept turning up in a crazy smile, completely betrayed the little bit of smugness in his heart.

After all, opportunities to show off and impress "Little Zhuge" are rare!

Bai Chongxi was a man of great stature; he had lived for decades and seen all sorts of people. How could he not see through Su Yaoyang's little scheme?

He was amused by Su Yaoyang's pretentious act, smiled, and waved his hand, saying, "Alright, alright! I know you, President Su, are a well-known nouveau riche, rolling in money, so don't show off in front of a penniless pauper like me."

After the joke, the atmosphere in the command post became serious again.

Bai Chongxi pointed to the trenches in the photo, some several meters deep, and frowned: "Hmm... these anti-tank trenches pose a significant threat to our tank units. Although we have tanks, we don't have many. If we get stuck in them, we'll become sitting ducks for the Japanese anti-tank guns. We need to find a way to deal with them."

Chief of Staff Pi Ruoyu immediately chimed in, "That's easy. We can follow the experience from World War I and send several elite engineering teams, carrying large amounts of explosives, to carry out targeted blasting of key nodes in these trenches, blasting them down and filling them in, thus opening up a path for the tank units."

Su Yaoyang nodded, then pointed to the scattered bunkers: "These bunkers also pose a great threat to our attacking infantry, especially the machine gun positions. If they are not destroyed, the infantry charge will suffer huge casualties."

"This will have to rely on your baby."

Bai Chongxi looked at Su Yaoyang and said, "We can only use airplanes to drop precise aerial bombs, or use your heavy artillery to eliminate them at specific points."

Bai Chongxi's tone shifted, his gaze sharpening. Pointing to some extremely well-hidden markers in the photograph, he asked in a deep voice, "And these too, these well-hidden bunkers, and those hidden troop shelters that can accommodate large numbers of soldiers. Airplanes and heavy artillery would have a hard time destroying them directly. What do you plan to do?"

Faced with Bai Chongxi's oppressive interrogation, Su Yaoyang simply smiled confidently, as if the question was utterly insignificant to him.

He pointed his finger heavily at the markings that represented bunkers and hidden troop bunkers, and said in a relaxed tone, "These rat holes hidden underground are easy to deal with. The conventional method, as Commander Bai said, is to drop heavy bombs from the planes. If the planes can't handle it, or to save on aerial bombs, then it's even simpler: let our independent heavy artillery battalion deal with them."

"An independent heavy artillery battalion?"

A hint of doubt flashed in Bai Chongxi's eyes; he had never heard of this designation before.

He thought he knew the organization of the Shanxi militia inside and out, so when did an "independent heavy artillery battalion" suddenly appear?
Before Su Yaoyang could speak, Chief of Staff Pi Ruoyu, understanding the implication, stepped forward and explained to the deputy commander-in-chief, "Commander Bai, this is a heavy artillery unit we just secretly established, based on the Commander-in-Chief's instructions. Its designation and organization have not yet been released to the outside world. It..."

Pi Ruoyu paused slightly, as if organizing his thoughts to make what he was about to say sound less alarming, "It is equipped with six 203mm M1 heavy howitzers, enough to deal with any bunkers and troop hideouts hidden in the gutter."

"What...you actually have...203mm heavy artillery?"

This time, Bai Chongxi was truly astonished.

He sat bolt upright, his eyes wide as saucers, his face filled with disbelief. If the aerial reconnaissance capabilities he had just witnessed had merely amazed him, then the appearance of this "203mm heavy artillery" was utterly astonishing!
As a veteran of the battlefield, he knew all too well what a 203mm heavy artillery caliber meant.

Because casting the barrels of large-caliber artillery requires a hydraulic press with a capacity of tens of thousands of tons for forging, and such top-level industrial equipment is only possessed by a few industrialized countries in the world, let alone the poor and weak China.

Therefore, China's arsenals can barely manufacture some small and medium-caliber artillery such as mortars, mountain guns, and field guns with relatively low technological content. As for those heavy howitzers with complex processes that represent the pinnacle of the army's firepower, they can only look on with envy and sigh, completely relying on imports. Moreover, the number of these howitzers is pitifully small, and each one is treated like a national treasure.

Now, Pi Ruoyu is actually telling him that the Shanxi militia, a local armed force, not only exists, but it's organized into a "battalion"—a full six units! This is simply... a fantasy!
After a brief moment of shock, an overwhelming sense of joy surged into Bai Chongxi's heart!

He stared blankly at Su Yaoyang for a moment, then suddenly burst into laughter, his laughter filled with joy and excitement.

"Hahaha... Good... Good! Mingxi... You've been hiding this really well!"

He stepped forward, patted Su Yaoyang heavily on the shoulder, his eyes filled with fervent light, "With such a siege weapon, I want to see just how tough those tortoise shells that Yoshio Shinotsuka painstakingly built really are! And whether they can withstand our army!"

With the 203mm heavy artillery, those seemingly indestructible reinforced concrete bunkers and pillboxes are no different from paper in front of it!
This is no longer a tactical advantage; it's a complete case of the father beating the son.

(End of this chapter)