I am an industrial worker during the War of Resistance

Chapter 102 Bloody Battle South of Yinshan (Part 5)

"What did it say? That it's a trap?"

When Sakai Koji heard the telegraph operator finish translating the telegram sent from the base outside the mountains, he felt his hair stand on end.

After flying out of the mountains, the plane made an emergency landing on an open area in front of the Sakai Brigade's base.

The brigade's base had just received Sakai Koji's telegram when they saw the plane flying towards them, and they quickly directed the plane to an emergency landing location.

When they heard the pilot climb out of the plane and shout to everyone, "There are traps in the mountains! Get the brigade commander back immediately!" everyone went crazy.

In particular, Inoue Kamejiro, Sakai Koji's adjutant who was in charge of guarding the base, grabbed the pilot Izumiya Yamamasa by the collar and shouted, "What? What's going on? Explain yourself!"

Izumiya Yamashita said, "That canyon is a trap; the enemy has anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns."

Of the two squadrons' planes, only I managed to escape.

"Our air force was ambushed, so what about Brigade Commander Sakai's army? Won't they be ambushed too?"

Upon hearing what Izumiya Yamamasa said, Inoue Kamejiro immediately untied Izumiya Yamamasa's collar and ran towards the camp.

It needs to tell Sakai Koji this message as quickly as possible.

After standing there for a few seconds, Sakai Koji again ordered the radio operator: "Order, the other four groups of troops advancing into the mountains shall begin an orderly retreat."

We must proceed cautiously and step by step, be wary of ambushes, and quickly rendezvous with the tank detachment behind us before rapidly advancing out of the mountains.

He then sent a telegram to His Excellency Hideki Tojo, stating that the enemy headquarters in the mountains was a trap and that his troops were preparing to withdraw from the mountains to avoid an ambush.

"Hi," the telegraph operator wrote down the order, repeated it clearly, and then went to send the message.

The group under Sakai Koji's command also began to retreat in an orderly manner after regrouping.

Sakai Koji and his men are actually not far from where the tank unit is stationed.

Some of these five groups were a little further away from the chariots, but no more than three or four kilometers away; others were a little closer, only one or two kilometers away.

Not long after they turned back, they rejoined the tank unit.

This time, the entire tank unit was mobilized, with a total of 71 light and heavy tanks of various types throughout the brigade.

All sixty-five armored vehicles that were operational followed into the mountains.

However, after going more than ten kilometers into the mountains, they really couldn't climb the terrain anymore, so they could only stay in place and act as backup.

Now that the incident happened so suddenly, during this retreat, the dozen or so armored vehicles on each route became the vanguard as they made their way out of the mountains.

Once he safely rejoined the tank unit, Sakai Koji's mood stabilized somewhat.

It seems that the enemy has not yet reached my rear, so I will definitely be able to return safely this time.

I'll figure out how to wipe out the enemies in the mountains after I get back.

After traveling another two or three kilometers with the tank unit, it saw the truck convoy that was taking them into the mountains.

This is a slightly more open valley.

The trucks couldn't go any further once they got here, so all twenty-odd trucks are just sitting here.

Moreover, the vehicle's front end has already been adjusted, and it can be quickly taken away from this mountainous area at any time.

At this point, they were only seven or eight kilometers away from leaving the mountains.

When Sakai Koji saw Lieutenant Colonel Sasaki Nobuo, the leader of the truck squadron, running towards it.

Sakai Koji was finally able to relax completely.

"Sasaki-kun, have you noticed anything unusual?" Sakai Koji asked Sasaki as he ran over.

Sasaki Shinonome replied, "Reporting to the brigade commander, everything is normal here, and we have not found anything unusual."

Our watchtowers at various high vantage points also detected nothing unusual.

“Very good. Now get everyone on the bus, we’ll head out of the mountains immediately,” Sakai Koji ordered.

After responding with a long "Hi," Sasaki immediately arranged for all the infantrymen heading into the mountains to board the vehicles.

They also recalled the guards stationed at the warning firing points on the surrounding hilltops.

Sakai Koji led a total of over 500 infantrymen, along with some light artillerymen from the artillery battalion, for a total of over 600 men.

Including the motor transport soldiers and the tank soldiers of the armored vehicle brigade, there were more than 800 people in total.

The other four groups of troops that went into the mountains were slightly fewer in number, but not by much, still around six or seven hundred men.

Now everyone was on the vehicles, and Sakai Koji sat in the driver's seat of the third truck.

Looking at his convoy and soldiers fleeing in panic, Sakai Koji couldn't help but sigh again.

Since arriving in Yinshan, he has had no success. He has suffered two setbacks in a row before he has even seen the enemy.

Such a battle truly left Sakai Koji speechless with despair.

Fortunately, this time we didn't suffer any losses, which is a stroke of luck amidst misfortune.

The convoy will be out of the mountains in about five or six kilometers, which, at the current speed, should only take about ten minutes.

At this point, trucks were in front, with tanks bringing up the rear.

Just after the convoy turned a corner, when the mountain pass leading out of the mountains could be seen two or three kilometers ahead, there was a relatively narrow section of road.

This road is seven or eight hundred meters long and seventeen or eighteen meters wide, with cliffs on both sides that are a hundred meters high.

During the reconnaissance missions these past two days, the reconnaissance aircraft took many photos of Sakai Koji's terrain and landforms, and this is one of them.

Judging from the photos, this place appears to be a solitary, towering mountain, making it extremely difficult to climb.

Therefore, it abandoned its plan to set up a guard post here.

Instead, they stationed half a squad on each of the high ground on both sides of the mountain pass, making a standard enhanced squad of 44 people in total.

This squad is stationed at a location only two kilometers from the valley entrance, allowing them to directly monitor the valley from the entrance.

If they are attacked, the brigade's base, located about ten kilometers from the mountain pass, will come to their aid.

Therefore, this distance should be safe.

As the car entered the valley, Sakai Koji finally felt relieved.

Only then did it dare to lean back against the seat and gently close its eyes, wanting to let its brain relax for a while.

After the truck had been swaying for a few minutes, it was about to leave the valley when suddenly a loud explosion rang out ahead.

Sakai Koji suddenly opened his eyes, and then he saw the first car in the lead being blown up and sent flying.

It was in the third parking space, separated by a truck, and you could still see the truck body flying high in the air.

The three Type 97 sidecar motorcycles that were leading the way flew even higher. Just as Sakai Koji was shocked and about to shout, but before he could utter a sound, the second truck, which was nearly twenty meters away from it, was also suddenly blown up.

At that moment, Sakai Koji realized that the explosion was caused by a bomb buried by the roadside in the valley.

However, whether he could see clearly or not was no longer important to Sakai Koji at this point.

After the windshield of his truck was shattered by the bomb in front of him, Sakai Koji felt himself being lifted into the air.

Then it felt a series of cool, tearing sensations, followed by intense heat. Then it realized that its perspective was off; it saw half a body, and the body looked somewhat familiar.

And so it all ended, and everything fell into darkness.

If it could still see, it would see a series of explosions in the valley.

This is a super-large series of bombs.

Or rather, this is a huge string of roadside bombs.

The fuse of this super bomb is at the very front.

If the first few small landmines in series don't explode, then the roadside bombs that weigh 25 pounds each behind them won't explode either.

Those roadside bombs, which were made of wooden planks and filled with explosive charges, were detonated by the explosion of the small landmines at the front, which were connected to three pull cords, instantaneous detonators, and safety fuses.

Those small landmines were specifically designed to target the leading motorcycles.

Although those landmines were small, five pounds of TNT was enough to turn those small motorcycles into pieces and send them into the sky.

The roadside bombs, each weighing 25 kilograms, were then buried at a distance of 20 meters, with 30 more bombs buried behind them, totaling 750 kilograms of TNT.

As for why they were connected 20 meters apart, it was because the safe driving distance for the Japanese convoy was 20 meters between trucks.

What would be the effect of a 750-pound TNT explosive charge exploding repeatedly in a valley that is only 15 or 16 meters wide on average?
The blast waves continuously reflected from the two mountain walls could turn the internal organs of any creature in this valley into a complete mess.

No living thing could escape the impact of such an explosive wave.

Whether it's a warhorse, an insect, or a soldier in a tank.

Meanwhile, two kilometers away from the valley, on the high ground at the mountain pass where the Japanese squad had been stationed.

Fei Shaohua, the company commander of the cavalry company directly under Regiment Commander Chen, squatted on the ground, covered his ears with his hands and opened his mouth wide, waiting for the aftershocks of the explosion to pass.

After everything quieted down, Fei Shaohua spat and said to the squad leader squatting next to him, "I told you you used too much medicine, but you insisted that you used too little and that it wouldn't kill these Japanese devils."

"Look, this valley is now a complete mud pit. If those tanks get blown up too, see if the regimental commander doesn't scold you."

The squad leader then said, "Hehehe, as long as we can kill the Japanese devils, the regimental commander won't scold me. Besides, those iron lumps won't be damaged by the explosion."

"All you do is waste explosives. Those explosives were all brought over with great effort by the brothers in the supply corps. Can't you use them more sparingly?"

"Hehehe, I'll be careful next time, I'll be careful next time," the squad leader said with a nonchalant smile.

At that moment, a series of explosions could be faintly heard from the south.

Company Commander Fei then chuckled maliciously, "The regimental commander said that once you little devils enter the mountains, you won't be able to get out. Now you're all buried in there."

After saying that, he kicked one of the Japanese soldier's corpses next to him.

The cavalry company directly under Commander Chen's regiment was not tasked with cavalry raids and harassment.

The cavalry raids were just one of the tasks they were tasked with.

Their missions also included raids, demolitions, assassinations, and sabotage; you can think of them as modern-day special forces.

Chen Changzai even specially made a lot of gadgets for this cavalry company.

For example, their squad automatic weapons are lighter than ordinary squad automatic weapons because they use a lot of aluminum alloy materials.

Their submachine guns were also fitted with a detachable threaded silencer.

The principle behind this thing isn't very complicated; it's simply adding a round tube with many pressure relief chambers to the muzzle.

The difference in noise reduction effect is simply due to different designs.

The silencer that Chen Changzai created is the same silencer that was later used with the QCW05 silenced submachine gun.

If this silencer uses special reduced-charge subsonic ammunition, the muzzle blast will only be 116 decibels at a distance of two meters. In a natural environment, it will be virtually inaudible at a distance of thirty meters.

Its effective range is 100 to 150 meters.

In addition to silenced submachine guns and high-precision sniper rifles, the regiment's directly subordinate cavalry company is also equipped with some gadgets such as pulley crossbows and multi-functional daggers.

This time, the soldiers of the cavalry directly under the regiment launched a surprise attack on the Japanese guard posts near the five entrances to the mountains, and then delivered a big gift to the Japanese soldiers who were going into the mountains on their only way out.

Those who assisted them in their operations and delivered explosives were comrades from other brother units.

Just as the regiment's cavalry company was blocking the mountain pass with their comrades from other units, the regiment's cavalry company was blocking the pass.

Commander Chen had already led his men out from the southern mountains.

At this point, he had arrived at a small hilly area about seven or eight kilometers southeast of the Sakai Brigade's base outside the mountains.

Accompanying him were his cavalry and the artillery company equipped with eight Type 1 mountain guns.

By this time, everyone was in position. When the sound of explosions could be faintly heard from the distant mountains, Regiment Commander Chen ordered the mountain artillery company commander, "Fire!"

After the mountain artillery company commander, who had been holding back for several days, answered "Yes," he immediately shouted to the artillerymen around him: "Target: Japanese garrison, 15 rounds rapid fire, open fire."

The reason why Commander Chen ordered the mountain artillery company to fire 15 rapid shots was because the Japanese garrison had 12 field guns.

He absolutely cannot let that field gunner react in time.

If those field guns react in time, it will cause huge casualties to our side.

This is something Commander Chen absolutely cannot accept.

With its own mountain gun firing at a maximum rate of eight rounds per minute, it would take two to three minutes to complete this round of rapid fire.

However, it would take cavalry twenty-five to thirty-five minutes to cover this eight-kilometer distance.

I must completely suppress the Japanese artillery and their defensive forces within this half hour.

Therefore, Commander Chen was not stingy with artillery shells.

If this round of shelling fails to suppress the Japanese artillery, then two or three more rounds will follow.

When, in a span of just over two minutes, 120 rounds of 75mm high-explosive shells suddenly fell into the Japanese garrison from the side and rear.

All the Japanese soldiers were bewildered because their main defensive direction for artillery was towards the Yinshan Mountains to the west.

But at this point, being confused was no longer important. After those 120 shells landed, the Japanese camp had become a sea of ​​fire.

Especially after the shells on the Japanese artillery positions were detonated, this temporary outpost became a living hell.

(End of this chapter)