Chapter 136: Burn, Jiang Jin Maru
Landmines are generally divided into anchor mines, drifting mines, and submerged mines.
The so-called drifting mine is a landmine floating on the water surface, and the submerged mine is a landmine sunk below the water surface.
The anchor mine is a landmine with an anchor chain, specifically fixed in a certain body of water.
In a place like Niu Gu Tan where the water flow is rapid and there are many hidden reefs, drifting mines and submerged mines are not suitable, so only anchor mines can be used to fix the location and carry out targeted demolition.
As soon as Anvil finished speaking, several people slipped into the reed marsh, and soon one person dragged an anchor mine out.
“Get to work.” Anvil commanded, and the three men bit daggers in their mouths, dragging the anchor mine and infiltrate the rapid river.
At this time, there were no professional diving suits, yet the several people were like catfish, quickly infiltrate the bottom of the water, searching for a suitable position to drag the anchor mine to the bottom.
The three heavy anchor mines were carefully fixed in the crevices of the riverbed rocks, with long trigger fuses like the tongues of venomous snakes extending upward, the ends connected to the cold electric firing device in the concealed spot on the shore.
Black wires, like the umbilical cord of fate, extended from the device, slipped into the turbid river water, and disappeared.
Everything was ready, just waiting for the transport fleet to step into this death trap.
Waiting is the sharpest blunt knife in an agent’s career.
Time crawled forward minute by minute in the stifling heat and the buzzing of mosquitoes, every second carrying saw teeth, gnawing at taut nerves.
The sun slowly moved toward the western sky, pulling the shadows of the reed marsh longer and longer, and the light on the river surface began to become turbid, carrying an ambiguity of dusk approaching.
The sky gradually darkened, and Anvil occasionally lifted his wrist to check the time above, not knowing how long it had passed when several fireworks appeared on the distant shore.
Anvil instantly perked up; this was the signal from Shan Que that everything was going according to plan.
The fireworks returned to calm, followed by another long waiting time.
At midnight…
“Team Leader, they’re coming.”
Rivet, responsible for vigilance, kept his voice extremely low, like a gust of air scraping over reed leaves, yet it exploded like thunder in Anvil’s ears.
At the bend in the downstream river surface, two vague black shadows appeared one after the other on the river surface.
The black shadows gradually became clear, outlining the low profile of the transport ship.
Thick black coal smoke spewed from the chimney, like an ominous soul-summoning banner in the night.
The hull was deep in the water, weighed down by heavy weapons, making it lumber along, breaking through the turbid river water and emitting a dull “whooshing” sound.
At the bow, a glaring Japanese flag hung limply under the illumination of the heading light.
Anvil’s heart slammed against his ribs.
He quickly picked up the binoculars, and in the lenses, the forms of the two transport ships gradually came into clear view.
The massive hull of the Jiang Jin Maru slowly sailed into the Niu Gu Tan waters, the roar of the engine swallowed by the loud crashing of water flow against the rocks.
The rapid river water shoved the hull, causing the ship to sway slightly.
Matsumoto Koji on the bridge seemed to sense something wrong and abruptly raised his right hand, making a decisive gesture.
Immediately after, a short and piercing whistle sound tore through the dullness of the shoal!
“Woo, woo,”
“Stop the ship! Hard to port! Stop engines!” Matsumoto Koji’s command voice spread through the loudspeaker, carrying an unquestionable severity.
The massive hull clumsily struggled and decelerated in the rapid water flow, the bow stirring up turbid waves.
It slowly deviated from the predetermined narrow deepwater shipping route hugging the north bank, veering toward the river center, finally coming to a complete stop about a hundred meters from the core of the preset minefield, its massive body lying across the river flow like a beached giant whale.
At the bow, it was only a hair’s breadth from that patch of water hiding deadly steel and explosives underwater! Yet it was like an uncrossable chasm.
With the Jiang Jin Maru making an emergency stop ahead, the Tsunawa Maru behind also came to a halt.
What followed was a series of complaints.
“Baka, has Captain Matsumoto drunk too much again?”
“Why suddenly demand a stop at a time like this.”
“When we get back this time, I must complain to Lieutenant Colonel Saito; he’s commanding blindly.”
The helmsmen and sailors on the ship were dissatisfied with Matsumoto Koji’s blind commanding, but they didn’t dare disobey.
If it were the Army, the subordinates might have already grabbed weapons and come up to argue with Matsumoto, but this was the Navy; even if dissatisfied, they greatly respected their superior’s decision.
Matsumoto Koji looked at the river surface under the night, always feeling a sense of foreboding lingering in his heart; this was probably a soldier’s intuition.
He always felt that this place had something extremely dangerous.
“Team Leader, what do we do?” Wrench’s voice carried a barely perceptible trembling, coming from deep in the reed marsh, like the hum from a taut bowstring.
Anvil did not respond, his gaze through the binoculars fixed on that figure in the white officer uniform in the darkness.
Matsumoto’s face was flushed red, half his body leaning out, using binoculars to carefully scan that deathly still patch of reed marsh on the north bank, swaying gently in the wind.
“He’s looking toward our side…” Hammer’s voice was even lower, carrying the chill of prey targeted by a fierce beast.
Anvil’s finger joints turned white from gripping too hard.
In his mind flashed the expressionless face of Shan Que and the cold order before departure: “At all costs, the Jiang Jin Maru and Tsunawa Maru must sink at Niu Gu Tan!”
Cost…
Anvil’s gaze swept over the dense reeds behind him, over the positions where his brothers were undercover. Their lives were also part of the “cost.”
Matsumoto Koji put down the binoculars and rapidly issued orders to the person beside him.
Soon, a small boat was lowered from the ship’s side, and several Japanese sailors wearing life jackets and holding rifles jumped in.
The small boat cut through the turbid river surface, beginning to cautiously approach upstream toward the minefield area along the north bank for close reconnaissance.
Couldn’t wait any longer! Every second of delay was fatal.
Once the small boat discovered the anomaly underwater, or the fleet completely abandoned the north bank route and chose to force through the more dangerous river center reef area, all deployments would come to nothing.
He handed the device to Hammer and said to the few behind him: “We attract enemy fire, Hammer, you handle the detonation, everyone prepare.”
The group simultaneously gripped the guns in their hands tightly.
Anvil suddenly took a deep breath, like a leopard that had been poised for a long time, his body abruptly springing up from the prone position without the slightest hesitation!
“Action!” These two words burst from his clenched teeth, short, clear, carrying a do-or-die resolve.
He no longer deliberately hid his figure, instead abruptly pushing aside the dense reed stalks in front of him, exposing half his body in the open area of the riverbank.
Grabbing the battered Hanyang-made rifle always kept by his side, Anvil shouldered the butt, his movements fast as lightning.
“Bang!”
The gunfire exploded at the silent shoal, sharp as tearing silk!
The bullet whistled shrilly, grazing over the top of the Jiang Jin Maru bridge and hitting the chimney behind, splashing a trail of sparks and iron filings.
This marksmanship, for an experienced Military Statistics Bureau demolition team leader, was deliberately poor.
He had only one purpose: to attract and provoke!
“Baka! North bank! Enemy attack!”
In an instant, cries of alarm, metallic sounds of chambering rounds, and officers’ stern shouts mixed together on the Jiang Jin Maru.
All searchlights lit up like the eyes of awakened ferocious beasts, huge beams of ghastly white light accompanied by buzzing current sounds, viciously sweeping toward the source of the gunfire, that is, the reed marsh where Anvil had just exposed himself.
The light beam like a massive white broom crazily plowed through the reed marsh, revealing every withered yellow reed stalk in its path.
Anvil’s figure flashed at the edge of the light beam and vanished like a ghost, quickly throwing himself down and rolling toward the deeper shadows beside.
“Over there, it’s China soldiers, kill them!” The heavy machine gun on the ship opened fire first, a long tongue of flame spitting out,
“Da da da da——!” Dense bullets like scorching hot hail poured madly into the reed marsh.
Severed reed stalks, shattered leaves, and wet mud splashed everywhere, emitting “puff puff puff” dull sounds.
The massive hull of the Jiang Jin Maru, under the illumination of searchlights and machine gun fire, was like an awakened steel behemoth.
The bow abruptly turned right, clumsy yet with an aura of crushing everything, charging straight toward the north bank deepwater area, that deadly anchor mine array.
Anvil rolled and crawled in the mud and flying reed fragments, bullets “whooshing” past his scalp and body, the hot bullet trails scorching his skin painfully.
He was not fleeing blindly; every roll precisely calculated the distance, leading that raging steel behemoth step by step into the preset death trap!
While dodging the deadly bullet rain, he used all his strength to roar toward the detonation point deep in the reed marsh: “Prepare, detonate..”
“Boom”
A muffled to the extreme roar, as if the bellow of a demon from the depths of the earth, suddenly erupted from the river bottom.
This sound was not a crisp explosion, but the muffled roar from ten thousand tons of river water being instantly torn apart and then squeezed and collided by violent force.
Directly below the massive hull of the Jiang Jin Maru, an unimaginable orange-red flame, sweeping up thick black smoke and countless tons of turbid river water, shot skyward like a volcanic eruption.
The massive water column instantly soared dozens of meters, under the searchlight’s ghastly white glow like a black pillar holding up the sky, its top roiling with hellfire.
At the top of that water column were unmistakably twisted steel fragments, wood blocks, and blurred human tissue instantly vaporized and flung outward.
At the center of the hull, a huge, hideous gash was torn open at visible speed by this violent force from underwater.
The piercing shriek of twisting and snapping steel even briefly overpowered the explosion’s roar.
The river water like a prehistoric beast finding an outlet poured madly inward.
You think this is the end? Wrong, on the contrary, this is just the beginning; below the Tsunawa Maru behind the Jiang Jin Maru came another massive bombing sound, followed closely by another thunderous blast.
In a short few seconds, the three triangularly arranged anchor mines detonated one after another, and the two transport ships were simultaneously torn open by the huge explosive force of the anchor mines.
The shattered hulls sank continuously with the influx of river water, and the little Japanese devils on board howled as they jumped into the water.
