Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 296 Water Gate Bridge

Seeing the airport runway completely destroyed in less than half a minute, Wang Gensheng immediately ordered a halt to the firing. Then, looking at the defensive fortifications on the front of Hagaru-ri Airport—the direction from which the Eighty-Nine Lions were attacking—he said to Lei Suisheng:

"Old Lei, turn the cannons around and tear a hole in the direction of the Eighty-Nine Lions' attack. Now that we've come this far, let's make this a real show!"

Under Wang Gensheng's orders, Lei Suisheng then commanded his artillerymen to turn their cannons around and fire at the direction of the Eighty-Nine Lions' attack.

Those seemingly sturdy defensive fortifications, such as machine gun bunkers, were utterly vulnerable to the power of 155mm howitzers. They were either shaken down or directly hit and blasted into pieces.

Of course, when Wang Gensheng was bombarding the area again, he also notified the Eighty-Nine Lions, instructing them to launch a real attack under the cover of artillery fire.

With the cover of heavy artillery, the attack became much easier. Smith reacted quickly and immediately sent out his combat team to retake the heavy artillery position. Wang Gensheng was not to be outdone and ordered the Seventh Company to stay behind to assist the artillery platoon in firing, while he led the Marines to intercept them.

There was no other way; Lei Suisheng's artillery platoon only had about thirty people, and it was naturally quite difficult for thirty people to operate twelve 155mm howitzers. Not to mention, moving shells was a physically demanding job.

Each shell weighs forty to fifty kilograms! In addition, the muzzle angles need to be adjusted according to the attack of the Eighty-Nine Lions, so only a company of more than one hundred people can fully operate these twelve 155mm howitzers.

Wang Gensheng was not only intercepting the US troops who came to seize the heavy artillery positions, but also launching another attack on Hagaru-ri Airport, preparing to cooperate with Shiro 89 to take over Hagaru-ri Airport.

With artillery cover, Shiro successfully stormed into the defensive positions of Hagaru-ri Airport and clashed with the American troops inside. At this point, even if American bombers came, it would be useless unless they wanted to bomb the American troops as well; otherwise, Shiro's Bomb 9 would be unable to be dropped.

Looking at the current situation, Smith understood that the tide had turned and he had no chance to organize manpower to repair the airport runway and send transport planes to evacuate the wounded. However, it was also unrealistic to evacuate with thousands of wounded soldiers.

After all, many seriously wounded soldiers couldn't even crawl. In addition, those with leg injuries needed help to get onto the vehicle, and those with arm injuries had difficulty aiming their guns, let alone anything else.

So Smith finally gritted his teeth and said to his men:

"Give the order: do not linger in battle. Immediately organize convoys, with tanks covering the rear, and begin our retreat! At the same time, order the bombers to help bombard the pursuing reinforcements from Chaozhou!"

Regarding Smith's decision, the staff officer standing nearby asked with surprise:

"Lion Chief, what about the wounded soldiers in our airport ward? Shouldn't we take them with us?"

Smith stared at the staff officer and said:
"Officer, you must understand that if we take these wounded soldiers with us, we will have to spend more manpower to take care of them. In the end, these wounded soldiers will only drag us down and cause our Marine Corps, or even the entire Tenth Corps, to be wiped out. So, Officer, sometimes you can't be so soft-hearted!"

However, after the staff officer ran out, he ran back in a short while later and asked:
"Chief, what should we do with the hundreds of tons of supplies we still have in the airport warehouse? Should we destroy or burn them?" Upon hearing this, Smith finally sighed and said:
"Forget it! Let's leave it to the reinforcements! Consider it food money for our wounded soldiers! Hopefully, they'll treat our wounded soldiers better!"

So when Wang Gensheng led the Marines to the airport, Smith had already retreated with a large number of soldiers in jeeps, leaving behind five or six thousand wounded soldiers at the airport.

Even the American soldiers who were originally fighting against the 89 Lions in the fortifications surrendered and gave up resistance after learning that their Lion Chief had retreated.

Wang Gensheng was speechless as he looked at the thousands of wounded soldiers. It was all over. He had worked hard all night and most of the day, but he still couldn't keep Smith's Marines. He only had these thousands of wounded soldiers.

But just then, Duan Peng happily ran over and handed Wang Gensheng a can of beef, saying:

"Si Ling, we found several warehouses at the airport, containing a large amount of supplies, especially a large quantity of canned goods, enough to feed the Ninth Army Corps for at least several days!"

Upon hearing this, Wang Gensheng went to check the factory warehouse and found at least 500 tons of canned goods and similar items. 500 tons is equivalent to 500,000 kilograms, or one million catties of food. At a rate of one catty per person per day, that would be enough to feed 150,000 people in the Ninth Army Corps for a week.

He didn't expect Smith to be so generous, actually giving him 500 tons of food instead of destroying it during the retreat. Of course, for the sake of the food, Wang Gensheng also decided to treat these thousands of wounded soldiers better, at least to make sure they were fed!

Otherwise, without these supplies, the thousands of wounded soldiers left behind by Smith wouldn't be able to fill their stomachs! After all, the reinforcements were starving! And these prisoners of war wanted to eat their fill!
Looking at the bombed-out airport runway, Wang Gensheng suddenly had an idea: if the runway were repaired, transport planes could dock, making it easier to transport their supplies, since some supplies were not convenient to airdrop.

With an airport runway, not only can supplies be transported directly, but more importantly, wounded soldiers from the aid troops to Chaozhou can be sent back to the country for treatment, since the treatment conditions in field hospitals are limited.

More importantly, this means that the US military can now send transport planes to pick up some of the wounded US troops at Garu-ri Airport.

After all, some of the seriously wounded are not as well-equipped as those in the United States, and it is not a worthwhile deal to spend precious medical supplies to treat them!

The U.S. military seemed to know that there were a large number of wounded U.S. soldiers at Hagaru-ri Airport, so after Smith evacuated, it did not send bombers to bomb Hagaru-ri Airport.

This relieved Wang Gensheng, since he had no air defense capabilities. If the US military sent bombers to bomb him, his plan to use Hagaru-ri Airport to transport supplies and his wounded would be ruined.

Just as Wang Gensheng was pondering, a messenger suddenly came over and handed him a telegram. The telegram's content was simple: he hoped that Wang Gensheng could blow up the Watergate Bridge and leave the entire US 10th Army behind.

(End of this chapter)