Chapter 238: Marksmanship Test
When the three “Thunderbolt” fighter jets had exhausted all their ammunition and contentedly drew a victorious arc across the night sky, disappearing into the distant horizon, this railway shrouded in death finally broke free from that devastating roar and fell into dead silence.
But this dead silence was more terrifying than the noisiest battlefield.
Soaring flames still greedily devoured the train’s wreckage, dyeing half the sky an ominous blood-red. Twisted rails, shattered carriages, supplies and weapons scattered everywhere formed a surreal scene like a hellish scroll.
The air was filled with a nauseating smell mixed from gunpowder smoke, charred stench, and the sickly sweet scent of roasted meat.
The dead silence lasted only a moment before it was broken by the faint groans, cries, and calls for help from the survivors.
A Japanese sergeant covered in blood crawled out from under a relatively intact carriage.
One of his arms was twisted at a grotesque angle, clearly broken. He blankly looked around at this hellscape of flames and corpses, his eyes vacant, as if his soul had been completely drained by the one-sided massacre just now.
He saw nearby a charred, curled-up corpse still in its dying struggle pose.
He saw a severed hand lying alone on the rail, fingers still tightly clenched.
He saw a young soldier whose lower body had completely vanished, only his upper body still leaning against a wheel, intestines spilled everywhere, mouth opening and closing but making no sound.
“Ah… ah…”
The sergeant knelt on the ground and let out a beast-like, despairing wail.
At that moment, several equally disheveled officers stumbled over from the distance.
The leading major grabbed the sergeant’s collar and roared hoarsely: “Quick! Find the radio! The division commander and chief of staff are both wounded! Report to army headquarters immediately! Quick!”
This news struck all the surviving personnel present like a bolt of electricity.
They went mad, starting to rummage through the wreckage like a garbage heap.
Finally, in a communications carriage bombed to half its length, they found a radio that miraculously still worked.
……
Taiyuan, Japanese First Army headquarters.
Night had deepened, but the operations room in headquarters was still brightly lit with a heavy atmosphere.
The short, sharp-featured First Army commander, Lieutenant General Shinozuka Yoshio, stood before a huge sand table, brows tightly furrowed.
On the sand table, the red flag representing the 24th Division was deeply embedded in the Xinxian area, but it was surrounded airtight by blue flags representing the Shanxi militia.
He had been standing there all night.
Kuroiwa Yoshikatsu’s 24th Division was like a nail driven in, but it was also stuck fast, unable to advance or retreat.
All his hopes rested on the 108th Division racing to aid them. As long as Ichiro Nanada’s troops arrived on time and struck the Shanxi militia from behind, the battle situation could instantly reverse.
“Report!”
A communications staff officer rushed in with a panicked expression, his voice shrill with fear, even forgetting to salute.
“Commander! Just received an urgent telegram from the 20th Division! They… they were attacked by Chinese air force on the Yangquan section of the Zhengtai railway!”
“What?!” Shinozuka Yoshio whipped around, eyes flashing with incredulity.
The communications staff officer’s lips trembled; he hardly dared to look at the commander’s face, which had instantly turned ashen.
“The train… the train was completely destroyed, over half the carriages derailed… casualties… casualties extremely heavy! Division Commander Ichiro Nanada and Chief of Staff Hisahide Kineura… both wounded!”
“Crack!”
The baton in Shinozuka Yoshio’s hand was snapped in two by his grip!
His eyes bloodshot like an enraged lion, he snatched the telegram and scanned it rapidly. Every word was like a red-hot branding iron searing his heart!
“Baka yaro…”
A thunderous roar exploded in the operations room! Shinozuka Yoshio crumpled the telegram into a ball and smashed it to the ground. His chest heaved violently, veins bulging on his face twisted in extreme fury.
All the staff officers in the operations room were scared silent, not daring to breathe.
Finally, after this towering rage lasted over ten seconds, it slowly subsided, turning into an icy, chilling calm.
Shinozuka Yoshio closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, only the absolute rationality and decisiveness of a senior commander remained.
He walked back to the sand table and stared deadly at the red flag representing the 24th Division, now utterly isolated and without aid.
The reinforcements were gone.
Kuroiwa Yoshikatsu had become a lone force. If he didn’t withdraw now, only being thoroughly devoured, flesh and bone, by that mysterious and powerful Shanxi militia awaited him!
He absolutely would not allow a full-strength elite imperial division to be annihilated under his command! He could not bear that responsibility!
“Pass my orders!” His voice was icy and hoarse, devoid of emotion.
“Immediately wire Kuroiwa Yoshikatsu: 24th Division, abandon current positions, contract forces, withdraw to the rear immediately! Spare no cost to preserve fighting strength!”
“At the same time!”
He picked up a new baton and heavily pointed to two other spots on the map, “Immediately detach the Independent Mixed 2nd Brigade guarding the Yangquan-Shouyang line, and the Independent Mixed 4th Brigade guarding the Taigu-Qixian line, to rush toward Xinxian-Guxian! Establish a defensive line for me, spare no cost to cover the 24th Division’s withdrawal!”
This order made all the staff officers present gasp.
These two independent mixed brigades were the First Army’s key mobile forces to guard against the Eighth Route Army in the Taihang Mountains and the Jin-Sui Army in the Zhongtiao Mountains. Pulling them all away now was tantamount to exposing both flanks completely to two other powerful enemies!
This was using a massive strategic gamble to salvage a tactical disaster that had already occurred!
29th year of the Republic, February 29th, 5:59 AM.
The sky over Xinxian was still shrouded in impenetrable darkness. The deepest silence before dawn oppressed this land ravaged by war. The air was cold and stagnant, as if time itself had frozen.
Suddenly!
“Boom——!!!”
A muffled, earth-shattering thunderclap that seemed to tear the heavens exploded from the Shanxi militia’s rear positions under their control!
This thunderclap was like a signal.
Immediately after, over a hundred dazzling, orange-red huge fire flashes lit up simultaneously across the dark land! The flames were so bright they instantly illuminated the mountains and fields for kilometers around in stark clarity!
Over a hundred M1 155mm howitzers, lovingly called “long-legged Tommies” by the soldiers, simultaneously raised their long, menacing barrels, firing over a hundred 43kg heavy high-explosive shells at a terrifying muzzle velocity exceeding 780 m/s into the sky!
The massive muzzle blast waves blew away all the dust and camouflage nets around the gun positions, revealing the young faces of the artillerymen flushed red with excitement and effort.
Over a hundred shells traced over a hundred eye-invisible graceful parabolas in the air. They emitted “whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—” sharp whistles like the reaper’s scythe slicing air, forming a death net covering the sky, pouncing toward the Japanese 24th Division’s frontline positions kilometers away, where they still slumbered.
Twenty-three seconds later.
“Boom rumble rumble rumble——!!!”
A series of densely packed, earth-shaking explosions erupted along the Japanese defensive line!
It was as if an invisible divine giant hand held a red-hot iron plow, ruthlessly and repeatedly plowing over that position!
Over a hundred huge, gorgeous yet deadly death flowers of flame, thick smoke, and earth bloomed simultaneously on the Japanese positions! At the center of each fire flower was destructive energy from 8kg of TNT explosive, enough to turn everything around to dust!
Trenches, bunkers, barbed wire, sandbags… everything was instantly torn to fragments and hurled into the air by the massive shockwaves!
The Japanese soldiers hiding in trenches were the most vulnerable victims in this steel storm.
A dozing Japanese corporal hadn’t even woken from his dream when a 155mm shell accurately landed on top of his bunker.
“Boom!”
He only felt a flash of white light before his entire world vanished. His body, along with three soldiers beside him, and the thick logs and earth of their bunker, were instantly blasted into flying fragments mixed with flesh and mud.
The militia artillery observer at the front line clearly saw this hellish scene through high-powered binoculars.
He saw a torso bisected, mangled corpse thrown high by the blast wave, tumbling in the air.
He even saw a hideous, wide-eyed severed head trailing a long spine, flying dozens of meters into the sky like a kicked ball before crashing down.
The entire Japanese defensive line was instantly enveloped in scorching, high-velocity steel shrapnel and flying rocks. Countless soldiers were shredded to pieces in their sleep.
And this was merely the beginning.
“Quick… quick quick quick! Reload! Fire faster for me!”
On the militia artillery position, a gun layer in just a tank top revealing bronze, muscular build was roaring hoarsely.
The gunners’ enthusiasm was completely ignited by the results before them. Bare-chested, their knotted muscles bulging, they gleamed with sweat under the muzzle flashes.
Two loaders together used giant shell tongs to clamp a heavy, cold 155mm shell.
A burly ammunition handler flung his arms, roaring like a wild bull as he hugged the near-100-pound shell and charged desperately toward the gun position.
He shoved the shell hard into the red-hot breech, then quickly stepped back.
“Fire!”
“Boom——!”
Another massive bang, the huge recoil jerking the entire gun backward as the barrel spat destructive flames again.
Amid this thunderous heavy artillery roar, over a hundred M1A1 105mm howitzers joined the steel chorus.
With faster firing rates, they poured tons of shells onto the Japanese positions like pouring water.
Shells cratered the earth one after another; the blasted soil and rocks hadn’t even fallen before the next shells exploded them skyward again!
However, just as the militia gunners vented their firepower freely.
Kilometers away, at a Japanese artillery position cleverly camouflaged.
In the first devastating barrage, crews of several surviving Type 96 150mm howitzers crawled out disheveled from the collapsed bunkers.
A blood-smeared Japanese artillery lieutenant spat out mud from his mouth, staring at the soaring flames on their own positions in the distance, eyes instantly bloodshot.
“Counterattack! Counterattack! Coordinates XXX, XXX! Give those damn Chinese a taste! 」” He let out a beast-like howl.
The Japanese artillerymen were no pushovers. Tempered by multiple artillery battles, they had developed some tolerance for such intense barrages.
One minute forty-five seconds after the shelling, they completed ranging, loading, and aiming.
Over ten Type 96 150mm howitzers, also “army treasures,” raised their stubby barrels and began tooth-for-tooth counterfire.
On Artillery Regiment 2’s position, the slaughterous revelry was in full swing.
The gunners, fired up, heard only their own deafening cannon roars and comrades’ shouts nearby, oblivious to the reaper’s scythe quietly descending on them.
“Boom! Boom boom!”
Several muffled explosions suddenly rang out on the periphery of the artillery position.
Soil and rocks were hurled high, raining “pat-pat-pat” onto the gunners’ steel helmets and bare backs.
This was the first ranging salvo from the Japanese 24th Field Artillery Regiment.
Of course, the Japanese ranging method was still the primitive live-fire observation stage, but these shells had already landed very close to the position.
Yet the gunners on the position noticed nothing. They just wiped mud from their faces, cursed, and continued their work, thinking it was just one of their own guns malfunctioning.
Two or three seconds later, the whistle of death became clearly audible.
The Japanese barrage instantly widened, density surging! The impacts extended visibly toward the center of Artillery Regiment 2’s position!
These battle-hardened, among Asia’s elite artillerymen, were making deadly corrections with their superb skills.
“Whoosh—boom!!”
A 150mm field gun shell, with a shrill whistle, struck at an extremely tricky angle, as if divinely guided, accurately and directly hitting a firing M1A1 105mm howitzer!
“Boom rumble——!!!”
A roar far louder than any previous explosion erupted!
The over-two-ton howitzer flew like a toy kicked by a giant, instantly blasted apart; twisted barrel and parts, along with the gun crew’s limbs, were hurled nearly a hundred meters into the air by the massive fireball!
This wasn’t over!
This precise hit was like toppling the first domino.
The explosion’s shockwave and heat instantly detonated dozens of ready shells and propellant charges stacked beside the gun!
“Boom—boom boom boom boom——!!!”
Secondary detonation occurred!
An even huger, hotter, brighter fireball like a mini-sun erupted on the position of Battery 2, Company 1, Regiment 2! The devastating shockwave spread madly outward unstoppable! Nearby guns and their crews were instantly swallowed by this inferno!
The entire artillery battery turned into a burning hell in an instant!
Though this was a lucky hit at extreme range, it brutally and bloodily told all the reveling Shanxi militia gunners a fact—their enemy was no lamb for slaughter. This would be a life-or-death, grueling battle!
However, the Japanese gunners didn’t know that the instant they fired.
Fifteen kilometers above them, at 300 meters altitude, a pair of cold “heavenly eyes” had locked onto them.
It was an L-5 “Sentinel” two-seat reconnaissance plane. Its light airframe painted sky-melting camouflage hovered like a ghost at the cloud edge.
Though the sky was shrouded in thick fog and dense gunsmoke from both sides’ artillery duel, it couldn’t fully hide the huge muzzle flashes when the Japanese guns fired, nor the obvious water-ripple disturbances from the muzzle shockwaves stirring the surrounding mist.
The observer in the rear seat of the recon plane precisely captured this fleeting “ripple” through high-powered binoculars.
Without hesitation, he pressed the radio button.
“Eagle Eye calling artillery command, Eagle Eye calling artillery command! Enemy artillery position spotted! Bearing 326, range 11380! Repeat, bearing 326, range 11380! Request fire coverage! Impact fuse, six rapid HE rounds!”
“Received!”
Receiving the “spotting” from the sky, the atmosphere in Artillery Regiment 2 command post turned tense yet orderly.
Orders were swiftly passed to the recently hit battery.
“Counterfire! Target, enemy artillery position! Bearing 326, range 11380! Six rapid rounds! Fire!”
Artillery never takes hits passively; offense is artillery’s fundamental creed!
The surviving gunners wiped blood and tears from their faces, eyes burning with vengeance. They roared, re-traversing the heavy guns; the gun layer reset the data per the precise firing table corrected by the recon plane from artillery command.
“Fire!”
The gun layer yanked the lanyard hard.
Vengeance shells whistled toward that still-hidden enemy not yet in their sight…
