Bright Sword: I built Italian cannons for Li Yunlong

The room fell silent, broken only by the occasional crackling of the kerosene lamp wick.

Li Yunlong sighed heavily: "Alright, alright, you, Advisor Zhou, are right."

He turned his head toward the door.

"Zhang Dabiao".

"Here." Zhang Dabiao entered in response, already fully armed.

"Listen to me carefully," Li Yunlong said, enunciating each word clearly.

"Advisor Zhou is going to Wanjia Town, and I can't stop him."

"So you'd better lead a platoon of soldiers and protect him every step of the way. If he loses even a single hair, I'll kill you."

"Yes, sir, mission accomplished." Zhang Dabiao straightened his back, then hesitated for a moment, "Commander, what about the assault mission...?"

"Let the deputy battalion commander of the first battalion lead the way." Li Yunlong waved his hand, then looked at Zhou Zhen with a complicated expression.

At midnight, the group set off silently.

Zhou Zhen walked in the middle of the column, surrounded by thirty-eight soldiers spread out in a guard formation.

The mountain path was rugged, and Zhou Zhen's physical strength was obviously not as good as that of soldiers who marched year-round. He began to pant after walking for a short while, but he gritted his teeth and did not miss a step.

"Advisor Zhou, how about we take a break?" Zhang Dabiao asked in a low voice.

"No need, don't delay the march." Zhou Zhen wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"How much time is left until the scheduled time?"

"About an hour." Zhang Dabiao looked at the sky and carefully discerned the time.

Zhou Zhen nodded and stopped talking, conserving his energy.

Around four o'clock in the morning, the outline of Wanjia Town finally came into view.

It was just a typical small town in the north, with earthen walls surrounding a cluster of low houses. The only eye-catching feature was the large courtyard with blue bricks at the east end of the town—the garrison of the puppet army's cavalry battalion.

Kong Jie made a gesture, and the team dispersed like flowing water, disappearing into the night.

Zhang Dabiao, with Zhou Zhen in tow, hid in a ravine about a mile from the town. The terrain there was slightly higher, offering a clear view of most of the town.

"This is it, we can't get any closer." Zhang Dabiao pressed down on Zhou Zhen, who was trying to move forward, and handed him a pair of binoculars.

Through his binoculars, he saw the sentry dozing on the wooden watchtower at the town's entrance, and the scattered lights on the streets of the town.

"Deputy Commander Kong and his men have made their move," Zhang Dabiao whispered.

Several dark figures moved silently along the wall like raccoons.

Kong Jie personally led the scout team to act swiftly, and the entire process went exceptionally smoothly.

The puppet soldier on the watchtower was fast asleep, clutching his gun, and didn't make a sound until his throat was slit.

The gate was gently opened, and more shadowy figures poured into the town, with two teams quickly making their way towards the heavy machine gun emplacement.

"Success!" Zhou Zhen murmured, his palms sweating as he held the binoculars.

Before he could finish speaking, an unexpected event occurred.

A sharp gunshot suddenly rang out in the town.

"We've been exposed." Kong Jie tensed up. "There were sentries hiding."

Immediately afterwards, Wanjia Town erupted like a hornet's nest that had been poked.

The lights in the previously dark house gradually came on, and shadows moved around in the windows.

Kong Jie was a seasoned veteran, and he had a contingency plan in place.

He remained calm in the face of this.

"Proceed as planned. The main force will provide cover for the attack squad and draw the fire of the left and right machine gun emplacements."

In the footage, the soldiers advance in groups of three, taking turns providing cover.

The puppet troops reacted faster than expected, and heavy machine guns suddenly spewed fire from two high points in the town.

"Da da da da da—"

That was the distinctive roar of the Japanese Type 92 heavy machine gun, the ammunition belts lashing out like two fiery whips from afar.

Where the bullets passed, brick fragments flew everywhere.

The two teams of soldiers who had sneaked past were forced to lie down and hide in the shadows of the wall, temporarily unable to move.

Zhou Zhen's heart clenched.

"This is troublesome..." Zhang Dabiao gritted his teeth. "The positions of these two heavy machine guns are too tricky. Their crossfire covers the entire main street."

Zhou Zhen turned the camera to the compound of the puppet army cavalry battalion.

The courtyard was in complete chaos. Puppet troops dressed in haphazard uniforms were hastily assembling, and although their formation was disordered, their numbers were rapidly increasing.

"We must take out the firing point as soon as possible," Zhou Zhen muttered to himself, his voice a little dry. "Otherwise, once they organize a counterattack, the assault team will be in danger."

On the battlefield, although Kong Jie did not know the situation of the cavalry battalion, he could guess the general situation based on his experience.

At this moment, he shouted in a loud voice, even drowning out the gunfire: "First Company Commander, Second Company Commander, split to the sides and fire like mad! We must draw the firepower from the two machine gun nests over here!"

Zhou Zhen adjusted the focus of his binoculars, fixing his gaze on the machine gun nest on the left side of the battlefield.

As the first and second companies unleashed their firepower, the enemy's machine gun nests on the left and right were indeed completely drawn into the fray.

Six dark figures approached from the side, using the building's shadow to quickly get closer.

They carried earthenware jars secured with straw ropes on their backs, moving as nimbly as leopards in the mountains.

The leader was a lean man, a well-known grenadier in the battalion.

He suddenly stopped about thirty meters from the machine gun nest, knelt down, and unloaded a ceramic jar from his back.

Another soldier quickly stepped forward and lit the cloth strip at the mouth of the can with a match.

The soldier took a deep breath, arched his back like a fully drawn bow, and then swung forward with a sudden thrust.

The terracotta pot traced a perfect arc in the air and landed precisely in the machine gun pod.

"Clang—Crack."

Then--

"boom!"

A huge ball of flame erupted from the machine gun nest.

"Ah—fire."

Inhuman screams immediately emanated from inside the machine gun nest.

Through the binoculars, Zhou Zhen saw a figure engulfed in flames scream as it rolled out of the nest, thrashing and thrashing on the ground. But the flames clung to it like a bone-deep infection, burning ever brighter.

The machine gun nest on the right was also breached by the assault team, and heart-wrenching screams and desperate pounding sounds could be heard from behind the cover.

The gunfire stopped.

An eerie silence fell over the entire battlefield, broken only by the howling of flames and faint screams.

The soldiers around Kong Jie stared wide-eyed.

A green recruit named Zhao Tiezhu stared blankly for a long time before finally managing to utter, "My...my goodness...what...what is burning? How...how can a person be burned like this?"

Veteran Liu Sanpo also turned pale.

"I've seen plenty of people get shot, but this... being burned alive... is a first for me."

Even Kong Jie, a veteran of countless battles, felt his Adam's apple bob and muttered, "This thing... is too ruthless."

The machine gun nest was completely silent, with only the flames continuing to burn on the bricks, making a slight crackling sound.

After a brief moment of shock, Kong Jie reacted quickly, brandishing his broadsword: "The Japanese firepower has fallen silent, comrades, charge!"

The soldiers roared and began their charge, surging towards the puppet army compound like a tidal wave.

Most of the puppet troops had just woken up from their sleep, their clothes disheveled, some even without shoes, and they were running around like headless flies.

Without the support of heavy firepower, the puppet troops' resistance quickly collapsed.

Some knelt down and surrendered, some threw down their guns and fled, and the few who resisted were quickly dealt with.

"Surrender and you will not be killed."

"The Eighth Route Army treated prisoners of war well."

The roar echoed in the courtyard.