Chapter 237: Whack-a-mole
Gloomy weather enveloped the earth, and although it was only just past three in the afternoon, visibility was still low.
The icy cold rails were like two endless, faintly glowing snakes, winding through the pitch-black mountains and ridges in Shanxi Province.
“Clang, clang… clang, clang…”
A heavy military train was dragging a long body composed of boxcars and several passenger cars, emitting a monotonous and rhythmic roar, like a steel behemoth crawling laboriously across the dim earth, heading toward that meat grinder called Xincounty.
In the middle of the train, inside a luxurious compartment that stood out starkly from the dirty and crowded boxcars before and after it, the lights were bright and the warmth was like spring.
Thick deep red velvet curtains blocked out the biting cold wind and boundless darkness outside the window.
The compartment walls were inlaid with polished rosewood, and a small crystal chandelier emitted soft and bright electric light. On a dining table covered with a white tablecloth were placed exquisite Western-style cutlery, and two high-stemmed glasses filled with blood-red wine.
The newly appointed division commander of the 20th Division, Lieutenant General Ichiro Shichida, was elegantly cutting a sizzling, oil-dripping steak on his plate with a dinner knife, exuding a rich aroma.
His crisp general’s uniform showed not a single wrinkle.
Sitting across from him was his chief of staff, Colonel Kurehide Kineimura.
His eating manner was much cruder, chewing food in big mouthfuls and occasionally picking up his wine glass to down the wine in it.
“Division Commander, Commander Shinozuka is getting stranger and stranger.”
Kurehide Kineimura put down his wine glass, with oil stains still on the corners of his mouth and undisguised dissatisfaction on his face. “Kuroiwa Yoshikatsu’s 24th Division, known as mountain warfare experts, was nearly routed in two days by a bunch of Chinese peasant militiamen.
He doesn’t look for reasons in himself, but instead urges us to speed up and rush to Xincounty to clean up his mess! It’s outrageous!”
Ichiro Shichida slowly swallowed the beef in his mouth, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and said leisurely: “Kineimura-kun, mind your words. Shinozuka-kun is after all the commander of the First Army.
However… you’re right. Having the Imperial Army’s elite division pay for another division’s incompetence is indeed an unpleasant matter.
But there’s no way around it; not just any division qualifies as a Type A division.”
At that moment, the compartment door was gently knocked on. A young staff officer entered respectfully and presented a just-decoded telegram with both hands.
“Division Commander, Chief of Staff, this is the urgent telegram just sent from Army Headquarters.”
Ichiro Shichida didn’t take it, just lifted his chin slightly. Kurehide Kineimura snatched the telegram, scanned it quickly, and a trace of anger appeared on his face.
“Hmph! Another urging! Ordering us to speed up and ensure we reach the outskirts of Xincounty before dawn tomorrow to cooperate with the 24th Division in launching a general attack.”
He threw the telegram on the table and poured himself another glass of red wine. “Does the Commander think this is riding the tram in Tokyo’s Ginza? The railway is wrecked to hell by guerrillas; keeping our current speed is already the result of the engineer regiment giving their all.
He just moves his upper lip against his lower lip, opens his mouth, and tells us to speed up.
How? Should we fly there?”
The two exchanged a glance and saw the same dissatisfaction in each other’s eyes, shaking their heads helplessly and continuing to enjoy their fine wine and delicacies.
Of course, their meals were worlds apart from those ordinary soldiers crammed in the boxcars, who could only gnaw on cold rice balls and drink cold water.
But what they didn’t know was that danger was quietly descending from two thousand meters above their heads.
………..
Meanwhile, in the sky above this train, three P-47 “Thunderbolt” fighters painted with shark-mouth markings were flying through the thin cloud layer in a loose V-formation, with agile postures that belied their burly shapes.
“Buzz… buzz…”
Three Pratt & Whitney R-2800 “Double Wasp” engines simultaneously emitted a deep and majestic roar like a beast’s bellow.
Li Xiuming, who had just rejoined the unit a few days ago, was sitting in the cockpit of the “Thunderbolt” on the far right of the formation.
Through the icy cockpit canopy, he could see the vast and pitch-black North China plain below, as well as the Japanese military train crawling slowly like a glowing centipede in the darkness.
Just last month, during a routine patrol, he was ambushed by Japanese Zero fighters, forced to parachute after his plane was shot down, and luckily rescued by a hunter’s daughter.
For the next half month, he survived in the deep mountains and forests with the Yi girl A’guo.
Finally managing to bring A’guo out of the mountains back to the unit, and after another half month of recovery, the flight surgeon finally approved his return to the skies.
Now he was piloting this brand-new fighter, soaring again in the skies of the motherland, ready at any moment to strike the Japanese invaders.
His fingers rested lightly on the weapon firing button of the control stick. His eyes, like a hawk in the night, locked dead onto the moving “fire centipede” below.
From the radio headset came the steady and calm voice of the leader:
“Pirate Sixteen calling all units, ‘big fish’ sighted. Target, Japanese military train below, repeat, target, Japanese military train. Prepare to execute ‘night hunt’ plan.
Number Three, you’re responsible for knocking out the locomotive with rockets. Number Two, free attack, focus on the passenger cars in the middle and rear. I’ll handle any anti-aircraft fire.
On my command, begin dive!”
Li Xiuming took a deep breath, his gaze instantly turning from deep to serious.
He reached out his right hand in a leather glove and heavily flipped a switch on the dashboard!
“Click!”
The eight 127mm high-velocity air-to-ground rockets mounted under the wings had their safeties disarmed.
“Commence attack!”
The leader’s order was like ringing the doorbell to hell.
The three “Thunderbolt” fighters, these three steel eagles perched atop the clouds, instantly folded their wings.
Their massive and heavy fuselages dove toward the deep darkness below in a swift and ferocious posture utterly at odds with their size!
“Woo… buzz…”
The engine roar instantly shifted from a low bellow to a heart-chilling shriek tearing through the air! As if three divine arrows, trailing flames of death, shot toward the oblivious, slowly writhing iron dragon on the ground.
In Li Xiuming’s eyes, there was only that locomotive spewing white smoke, constantly enlarging in the darkness.
He and his plane seemed to merge as one, all distractions cast aside, leaving only the most primal, ice-cold killing intent of a hunter locking onto prey!
..
In the luxury compartment, Kurehide Kineimura had just raised his wine glass, preparing to mock Shinozuka Yoshio’s stupidity again.
“Boom… rumble…”
A earth-shattering explosion, as if to flip the entire world over, suddenly came from the front of the train!
Immediately after, an irresistible, destructive massive shockwave transmitted fiercely along the rails and cars!
“Clang—!!”
Kurehide Kineimura and Ichiro Shichida were like being shoved hard by an invisible giant hand, instantly flung off their soft seats! Exquisite plates, glasses, steak, and bottles flew into the air like celestial maidens scattering flowers, danced chaotically in mid-air, and then crashed to the ground with a “crash,” shattering into pieces.
“Baka yarou… what happened?” Ichiro Shichida crawled up awkwardly from the carpet, his military cap askew on his head, his face smeared with red wine, devoid of any general’s dignity.
“Screech—bang! Clang!!”
The train emitted a tooth-grinding, piercing wail of twisting and snapping metal! The entire car tilted and collided violently, as if it would fall apart the next second.
The huge inertia caused the rear cars to slam into the ones ahead one by one, countless soldiers crammed in the boxcars were crushed alive into meat paste in their sleep!
“Enemy attack! Enemy attack!”
Compared to Division Commander Ichiro Shichida, Chief of Staff Kurehide Kineimura was younger and reacted faster; he scrambled to the window, heedlessly yanking open the thick velvet curtains.
The scene outside the window made him instantly plunge into an ice cave!
Ahead of the train, it had become a sea of raging flames! The massive locomotive was blasted into a pile of twisted, black-smoke-belching scrap metal, derailed with half its body embedded in the adjacent mountain wall. Soaring flames illuminated the surrounding night sky blood-red!
And atop that blood-red canopy, three huge and ferocious black phantoms were diving from the sky like lightning, trailing long, devilish roars!
“Planes… Chinese planes… anti-aircraft fire, quick!” He let out a despairing howl.
Before the words were out, the leader’s and the other pilot’s “Thunderbolts” had entered optimal attack range!
“Rat-tat-tat-tat…”
Sixteen .50-caliber Browning heavy machine guns roared in unison! The sound like the Grim Reaper tearing a massive canvas, dense and terrifying!
Thick streams of red tracer rounds, massive and reeking of destruction, like sixteen angry fire whips descending from heaven, lashed viciously at the train’s fragile body!
“Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!”
Bullets tore through the thin iron and wood of the boxcars like a hot knife through butter!
The scene inside the cars instantly turned into a hell on earth! Japanese soldiers crowded together were shredded into fragments by the instant hail of large-caliber bullets!
Blood, shredded flesh, organs, and bone shards exploded into thick blood mists in the cramped space.
Bullets penetrating bodies then struck the other side of the car, sparking showers of sparks and wood chips. Eerie, inhuman screams even drowned out the machine gun roar, only to be swallowed by the next roar!
“Return fire! Anti-aircraft guns! Fire back!”
As a train specially for troop transport, it naturally had anti-aircraft firepower; the AA gunners on the mid- and rear-platforms finally snapped out of their shock.
They frantically swung their gun mounts, desperately pointing the Type 96 25mm anti-aircraft guns skyward.
“Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!”
Green tracers clawed futilely at the night sky like crazily growing ghostly claws, trying to grasp those unnaturally agile black reapers.
However, one “Thunderbolt” had locked onto the luxury compartment where Ichiro Shichida was, diving down!
Kurehide Kineimura’s pupils contracted to pinpricks in an instant! He could clearly see the eight black, devil-eyed machine gun muzzles under the plane’s wings!
Instinctively, he tackled Ichiro Shichida to the ground!
“Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat—!!!”
The bullet storm instantly swept the compartment, tearing hideous gashes in the solid rosewood walls! The ornate crystal chandelier was blasted apart by a bullet, scattering glittering shards everywhere.
Countless wood splinters and metal fragments flew horizontally like shotgun blasts! One bullet grazed Kurehide Kineimura’s scalp, blasting a huge hole in the sofa back behind him!
Officers’ curses, soldiers’ screams, machine gun roars, AA gun retorts, and the train’s derailed metal screeching all mixed together.
The effect of the first attack wave was devastating.
Li Xiuming’s eight 127mm rockets, like eight thunder god’s hammers, precisely smashed the locomotive’s “spine.”
The steel behemoth let out a final wail in the violent explosion, its massive body veering uncontrollably off the tracks.
“Rumble rumble… clang…”
The huge inertia brought a catastrophic chain-reaction pileup.
Dozens of heavy rear cars slammed into the twisted ones ahead like dominoes.
Fragile couplings snapped instantly under the immense force, cars flung off the tracks, some flipping sideways, others crumpling like crushed cans, stacking in twisted heaps.
The entire train, in just over ten seconds, became a huge pile of smoking, flaming scrap metal paralyzed beside the tracks. Nearly half the cars lay scattered in bizarre poses, completely blocking the rails.
But this was merely the prelude to the slaughter.
The true hell was in those externally padlocked boxcars.
“Open the door! Open the door quick!”
“Help! Help! My leg is pinned!”
“Fire! The car is on fire!!”
“Long live the Emperor… aaaaaah!”
Inside the cars, it became the most desperate, living iron coffins.
The violent impacts crushed and pressed countless soldiers to death alive.
And Cheng Rufeng’s follow-up machine gun sweeps turned these sealed cans into slaughterhouses. .50-caliber bullets easily tore open the iron, plowing bloody paths through the crowded masses.
Some cars caught fire from overturned oil lamps or ignited by tracers, flames raging through the cramped space, devouring the inescapable living bodies. Soldiers pounded frantically on the padlocked doors from inside, emitting eerie, inhuman screams.
Their bodies ignited into writhing, struggling torches until burned to charcoal, their howls and cries mingling with the “crackling” of burning wood and the “sizzle” of roasting flesh, echoing through the valley.
And the three reapers in the sky showed no mercy.
“Pirate Sixteen calling all units, ‘whack-a-mole’ game begins. Free attack, prioritize clearing AA positions, then crack open those iron cans one by one for me!”
The leader’s voice came clearly over the radio to every pilot, calm as target practice on the range.
“Understood!”
Li Xiuming and the other pilot acknowledged in unison.
They expertly pulled up their noses, tracing graceful arcs in the night sky, targeting the chaotic, dying prey below for the second dive.
“Woo—buzz—!!!”
The shriek of death descended once more.
This time, their targets were even clearer.
Li Xiuming’s plane, like a precise eagle, locked onto an AA position in the train’s midsection still futilely firing.
“Rat-tat-tat-tat…”
He pressed the firing button. A dense hail from eight heavy machine guns instantly blanketed the gun position.
Several Japanese gunners frantically swinging the mount were reduced to bloody mist before they could scream. The Type 96 AA gun exploded into scattering parts, a pile of scrap.
Threat cleared, Li Xiuming didn’t pause; he pushed down the nose, targeting a flipped boxcar.
He could clearly see countless desperate hands protruding from the car’s seams, waving futilely.
His eyes showed no flicker.
“Rat-tat-tat…”
Another short, lethal burst!
The bullet storm, like the Grim Reaper’s iron plow, raked the car’s roof. The thin iron tore open, revealing a huge, hideous gash.
Through the gash, one could see Japanese soldiers crammed inside, faces twisted in terror, staring dumbly at the black demon in the sky, eyes filled with endless despair.
Dive, fire, pull up…
Dive again, fire again, pull up again…
The three “Thunderbolt” fighters, like three vultures circling and pecking at a corpse, methodically used machine guns and remaining rockets to pick off the “iron cans” scattered beside the tracks, one by one.
Explosive firelight lit the valley like daylight.
Severed limbs, shattered organs, and mangled corpses were flung everywhere by blast waves, hanging from branches, littering the tracks, turning the area into a blood-soaked, flame-engulfed Asura field…
