Bright Sword: I built Italian cannons for Li Yunlong

After the brigade commander left, Li Yunlong grinned and approached Zhou Zhen, saying, "Hehe, you're really a good friend, Lao Zhou. I was genuinely worried you'd abandon me, Lao Li, and go it alone!"

"If you ask me, the two of us are a match made in heaven."

"Old Li, I'm telling you, you're a roughneck, if you don't understand, don't use idioms. 'A match made in heaven' is for describing a married couple, it's not appropriate for us two tough guys to use it."

"Hehe! I, Old Li, am not as knowledgeable as you, Consultant Zhou, but the meaning is roughly the same."

Li Yunlong was very excited that Zhou Zhen was willing to continue following him to the Independent Regiment.

Zhou Zhen had considered his own safety, after all, he could only create more value if he lived.

But actually, if you understand the story of Bright Sword and stay by Li Yunlong's side, as long as you don't do anything reckless, it's actually quite safe.

Moreover, he remembered that Li Yunlong's wife was captured by Yamamoto's special forces.

To prevent a recurrence of Kong Jie's situation, he planned to keep a close eye on Lao Li himself.

Having gone through this whole ordeal, I absolutely have to help Old Li keep his wife safe.

The next morning, Li Yunlong and Zhou Zhen, along with several guards, set off for the Independent Regiment's garrison.

Before even entering the village, a heavy and oppressive atmosphere immediately enveloped us.

Although there were people standing guard at the village entrance, they were listless and their eyes were devoid of any spirit.

Most of the soldiers passing by had their heads down, some with bandages wrapped around their bodies, walking with a limp. The entire garrison was eerily quiet, devoid of the usual vitality of a military unit.

Seeing this, Zhou Zhen and Li Yunlong both looked rather unwell.

The regimental headquarters was located in the largest courtyard in the village.

When they went inside, Kong Jie was squatting under the eaves, smoking a pipe.

Upon seeing Li Yunlong and Zhou Zhen arrive, a complex emotion flashed across his face—shame, regret, and a sense of relief.

Neither Li Yunlong nor Zhou Zhen paid him any attention; both of them harbored some resentment towards Kong Jie in front of them.

Although they both knew that he couldn't be entirely blamed for the incident, seeing so many soldiers injured made them feel terrible.

Li Yunlong noticed the stretcher being carried by the side. He stepped forward, lifted the white cloth covering the martyr, and began to examine the soldier's wounds.

"You saw it too," Kong Jie's hoarse voice rang out behind Li Yunlong.

"The bullets were all in his face."

He looked up at Li Yunlong, his eyes bloodshot.

"Anyway, you won't believe me no matter what I say now. The Japanese soldiers who came this time are completely different from those before. Not only are they all extremely accurate shooters, but they are all armed with automatic firearms."

"We'll fight and leave, no lingering, we..."

"We didn't even have a chance to fight them with bayonets!"

He slammed his fist into the earthen wall beside him, sending dust flying.

"In all my years of fighting, I, Kong Jie, have never lost face like this."

Li Yunlong stood with his hands behind his back, his brows furrowed in worry.

"I think the root of the problem lies with you. Didn't I warn you a long time ago that something might be wrong lately? You just didn't take it seriously."

"How could I not take it seriously?" Kong Jie suddenly raised his voice, his chest heaving.

"I not only reinforced the fortifications, but also added several hidden sentries! But who would have thought... these bastards would sneak up from the back cliff!"

"Our fortifications were built at the front and were completely ineffective."

Li Yunlong turned around and stared at Kong Jie with a half-smile.

"What's wrong? You're scared out of your wits by these Japanese devils too? All I've heard you say the whole time is how powerful the enemy is!"

"What, damn it, aren't you also just two shoulders carrying one head?"

"I looked for a long time, and all I saw were the corpses of our comrades. What about the other side? Not a single hair was left."

"Does that mean all the guns in your Independent Regiment are fired into the air?"

"Li Yunlong!" Kong Jie was furious upon hearing this, his eyes wide with shock.

"You can disgust me, but you can't disgust my soldiers!"

He had barely finished speaking when he felt a pang of sadness in his heart, and his tiger-like eyes became slightly moist.

"You saw it yourself, which bullet didn't hit head-on?"

Kong Jie's lips curled up slightly as he retorted sarcastically, "Li Yunlong, don't be so arrogant. You won't find such a good soldier anywhere else."

Li Yunlong was speechless for a moment after being yelled at by Kong Jie. He opened his mouth but did not immediately refute.

Seeing Kong Jie's grief and indignation, Zhou Zhen, who was standing to the side, also felt very bad.

To be fair, Kong Jie cannot be entirely blamed for this.

Yamamoto's special forces, in terms of equipment, tactics, and training, far surpassed the Chinese army of that era.

The enemy was too unique, and their tactics were too unpredictable, exceeding the expectations of conventional defense.

In the original storyline, even someone as strong as Li Yunlong suffered a great loss at their hands, and even his wife Xiuqin died at their hands.

"Alright, Lao Li, we can't entirely blame Commander Kong for this. You'd better watch your mouth."

Li Yunlong finally sighed heavily and stopped blaming him: "Alright, Lao Kong, there's no use saying all this now. I'll remember this grudge."

"This blood debt will be repaid by those damned Japanese devils, tenfold, sooner or later!"

A wolf-like ferocity flashed in his eyes.

"I'll find a chance to chop off their dog paws!"

Back at the camp, Kong Jie handed over the group's affairs to Li Yunlong, and then went back to his room alone to pack his luggage.

Li Yunlong and Zhou Zhen accidentally passed by Kong Jie's room.

Just then, I saw Kong Jie with tears in his eyes, choking back sobs as he said that he could no longer avenge the political commissar.

Look at this once mighty general, this man of unyielding integrity, now looking so dejected and helpless.

Both Li Yunlong and Zhou Zhen's previous resentment towards him vanished at this moment.

Ultimately, Li Yunlong pleaded with the commander-in-chief through his division commander, allowing Kong Jie to remain in the Independent Regiment as deputy commander.

Li Yunlong reorganized the remaining personnel of the Independent Regiment, assigning most of the veterans with combat experience to the First Battalion, which was led by Zhang Dabiao.

The remaining veterans were divided into two groups, serving as the backbone of the second and third battalions respectively.

By employing a mentorship model between veterans and new recruits, we aim to help the new recruits quickly develop combat effectiveness.

At present, the Independent Regiment is mainly in a state of rest and recuperation. Zhou Zhen does not have many specific tasks at the moment, so he took the initiative to go to the wounded soldiers' camp to help.

Although he was not from a medical background, his basic medical and health knowledge was still better than that of most sanitation workers at that time.

Most of the wounded soldiers had also heard of Zhou Zhen's name and knew that the boric acid disinfectant they were using was created by this "Advisor Zhou".

Therefore, everyone was very enthusiastic about his arrival.

"Advisor Zhou, are you really someone who studied abroad?" a young soldier with a bandage on his leg asked curiously. "What do foreigners look like? What do they eat?"

While helping to change the dressing, Zhou Zhen smiled and said, "Foreigners actually look quite similar to us, with two eyes and a nose, except their skin is a bit whiter."

"However, what they eat is quite different from what we eat."

"There's bread, and there's something called 'chocolate,' which is sweet and fragrant; one piece can fill you up."

"Is it sweeter than our sweet potatoes?" another soldier with a bandage wrapped around his head interjected.

"That's much sweeter than sweet potatoes."

Zhou Zhen patiently explained the characteristics of foreign countries to the soldiers. Although these questions were trivial and boring, the soldiers, who had lived in the mountains since childhood, listened with great interest.