Chapter 126: Simple And Brutal
Wang Fuguai crouched in the trench, letting one shell after another fall around him, kicking up clouds of dust that enveloped the entire position in dust, with small clods of earth and pebbles constantly pattering on his helmet and body.
He couldn’t even curse, because opening his mouth would let countless bits of dust and sand fly into it.
Shells kept exploding around him nonstop; in such an environment, his eardrums were suffering immensely.
It was like something had been poured into them, producing a sharp buzzing sound, but even amid this cacophony, he still caught the distant sound of machine guns ripping like cloth.
Wang Fuguai wiped his face haphazardly, the clumped dust on his eyelashes falling off in showers; through the haze, he saw the sandbags at the trench edge shedding earth, with brownish-yellow streams continually falling into his collar.
He didn’t know how long the artillery fire had been going on when suddenly a voice rang out overhead: “The little Japs are coming!”
Wang Fuguai didn’t need to look up to know it was Monkey, the lookout, giving the warning; he quickly poked his head out of the trench for a glance, then crouched back down.
In just a short two or three seconds, he had sized up the scale of the Japanese forces opposite.
He extended his left forearm horizontally across his chest toward the comrades around him, palm down making continuous downward pressing motions with his left fist clenched, palm inward（ signaling to take cover）, then quickly spread his five fingers twice, telling the comrades that ten men were coming.
After instructing the soldiers around him, Wang Fuguai ran to the nearby machine gun position, pointed toward the enemy ahead with his finger on the machine gun, and mimed pulling the trigger.
The machine gunner got the message and immediately pushed aside the cover board in front of him; ten blurry, scattered figures instantly appeared in the dust and smoke.
“Open fire!”
As the machine gunner pulled the trigger, the firing pin of the M1917 heavy machine gun slammed into the primer, with cartridge cases continuously bouncing in the mud; the hot casings landed on the slightly damp soil, sending up wisps of blue smoke.
When the roar of the M1917 water-cooled heavy machine gun began on the position, the ten figures that had just appeared in front of it froze for an instant, and then two Japanese soldiers staggered and fell to the ground on the spot as if electrocuted.
The sergeant on the left staggered to his knees; he blankly looked down at the blood bursting from his chest, staining red the thousand-stitch badge pinned to his uniform.
Another soldier to the rear gripped his Type 38 rifle tightly but was too scared to speak.
Suddenly, a ricochet grazed his steel helmet with a piercing metallic ring; he reflexively dove into the shell crater, his cheek pressed against still-warm cartridge cases, hearing his own chattering teeth mixed in with the continuous machine gun howl.
Vaguely, he seemed to hear the squad leader shouting: “Grenade launcher… take out that machine gun quick!”
“Boom boom…”
After two minutes, two Type 91 grenades exploded several hundred meters ahead; this thing was notorious for its loud blast, and everyone on the entire position heard it clearly.
After the explosion, the machine gun fire opposite stopped abruptly, and the squad leader ordered them to continue advancing.
The eight Japanese soldiers reformed a triangular formation and crept forward, hunched over as they moved through the ruins, the bayonets of the triangle gleaming coldly in the twilight.
The leading squad leader suddenly raised his hand, and everyone immediately dropped low; the eyes under their steel helmets fixed dead on the ruins ahead, where the machine gun had just opened fire.
No one knew if that fire point had been knocked out.
“Squad leader… how about firing a couple more grenade launcher rounds to check?” a superior private whispered in the squad leader’s ear.
“Alright…”
The squad leader waved his hand, and the two grenade launcher men behind stepped forward, taking out the Type 89 grenade launchers and slamming the tubes heavily into the ground.
Mud splashed onto his puttee stained with gunpowder residue, and the tube base striking the ground let out a teeth-gritting metallic tremor.
Then his left thumb hooked the tube’s angle-of-elevation dial, observing the target through the sight, and began adjusting the tube tail spiral regulator.
He then pulled a high-explosive grenade from the ammo pouch and shoved it into the barrel. As the shell slid into the tube, it made a faint「 click」 sound.
“Fire!”
The hoarse shout burst from the squad leader’s cracked lips.
The grenade launcher man yanked the canvas lanyard at the tube base hard; with a dull thud, the Type 91 grenade flew out of the launcher muzzle.
In the flash of the propellant igniting, the grenade traced a dark red arc through the air and landed several hundred meters ahead.
“Boom… boom…”
Huge explosions rang out; the grenade launcher man didn’t stop, firing three high-explosive grenades in a row before halting; by then, the position ahead was already shrouded in flying dust, covered everywhere in gray.
After a while, someone asked: “Squad leader… those Chinese should all be dead by now, right?”
The squad leader hesitated, looking at the position shrouded in gun smoke hundreds of meters away. “I don’t know. Advance another hundred meters and see.”
“Advance!”
With the squad leader’s order, this Japanese squad finally crept to within a hundred meters of the position when suddenly gunfire erupted ahead.
The squad leader was just about to order a charge when the second-class private to his right let out a shrill scream; two rifle bullets pierced his abdomen almost simultaneously, his intestines hanging out like snapped hemp rope from the torn uniform.
This soldier, not yet twenty and enlisted less than three months, from a farm family in Fukuchiyama, still clutched the protective charm his mother had given him in his left hand.
And the veteran to his left was no luckier; a burst from the BAR machine gun nailed him to a dead tree, the 7.62mm bullets plowing open his chest like an iron plow.
In the spray of blood mist, white rib fragments could be seen spinning in the air.
“Baka yarou…”
The squad leader’s teeth were nearly grinding to bits; in just over ten seconds, almost all the soldiers in his squad lay in pools of blood.
The rearmost grenade launcher man tried to reload upon seeing this but was torn in half by the enemy’s crossfire.
That body hit the ground still in a kneeling posture, intestines snaking along the charred soil like a scarlet centipede.
When the last bullet struck the squad leader, this brief battle finally ended.
And this battle was playing out everywhere in Tai’erzhuang, with Japanese soldiers falling and Chinese soldiers dying almost every moment.
At this moment, tactics like ambushes, mine warfare, and sniping all lost meaning in the face of the surging charge by the 16th Division’s soldiers.
Nakajima Genmyo had no intention of playing tactics with Su Yaoyang; in his view, this little village of less than two square kilometers could be taken with one charge, and all that fancy stuff was pure waste.
So the 30th Brigade’s approach was extremely direct; seeing that artillery wasn’t gaining ground, they immediately launched a massed charge.
The goal was simple: use their superiority in numbers and firepower to crush the defenders of Tai’erzhuang.
