Chapter 300: Must Seize The Battalion Flag
Just as the Japanese troops on the front lines were overwhelmed by the Eighth Route Army’s infiltration tactics, their spirits and bodies both on the verge of collapse, the atmosphere in the rear joint command post gradually eased with the smooth progress of the battle.
Su Yaoyang and Bai Chongxi, who had been busy for most of the day, sat down to smoke and rest.
“Ding ling ling… ding ling ling…”
A burst of urgent and piercing phone ringing suddenly shattered the relatively steady hum in the command post, tightening everyone’s nerves.
The operations staff member closest to the phone quickly grabbed the receiver, covered his other ear, and responded loudly:
“This is the joint command post! What’s the situation?”
The staff listened to the voice on the receiver, his expression shifting rapidly from serious to surprised. He abruptly looked up, his gaze precisely locking onto the brigade commander who was standing with Su Yaoyang and Bai Chongxi, smoking and discussing something.
“What… you’ve discovered a Japanese command post and now request to speak with the brigade commander?” The staff’s voice involuntarily rose.
The brigade commander, who was puffing away on his cigarette, immediately raised his eyebrows upon hearing this.
He stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray, said nothing, strode over, and snatched the receiver from the staff’s hand, still warm from the other’s palm.
As soon as he brought the receiver to his ear, Li Yunlong’s signature booming voice came through immediately, loud enough to seem like it would explode from the handset:
“Report to the brigade commander, this is Li Yunlong.
Our regiment has scouted out a big one up front—it’s the command post of the Japanese 222nd Regiment. This damn command post is built inside a mountain cave, with a very concealed entrance, but it’s already been pinned down by our men!”
Li Yunlong’s voice was filled with irrepressible excitement. He paused, then added as if to bolster his case:
“I’ve discussed it with our political commissar Zhao Gang, and we unanimously agree that the little devils’ regimental flag is most likely hidden inside! Brigade commander! We plan to pull off a big one and seize their regimental flag! Please approve!”
“Regimental flag!”
These two words struck the brigade commander like a bolt of lightning. His voice instantly rose several decibels, his usually steady expression cracking, his eyes bursting with incredulous brilliance.
Su Yaoyang and Bai Chongxi nearby also heard the brigade commander’s exclamation and simultaneously stopped talking, casting inquiring and surprised glances over.
They all knew exactly what a Japanese regimental flag meant for boosting their own morale and shattering the enemy’s will.
It was more than just a flag—it was the soul of a regiment. Once the regimental flag was lost, the regiment was finished.
Of course, the importance of the regimental flag wasn’t limited to the Japanese; for any Chinese army, it was an unparalleled honor, heavy political capital, and glory worthy of the history books.
In these years since Su Yaoyang came to Shanxi, he had stirred up such a commotion—expanding the army and massively developing the livelihood—that calling him a local emperor was no exaggeration. Yet the one far away in Chongqing had never truly reprimanded him, even awarding him multiple times.
Among the reasons, besides his own formidable military strength that no faction dared underestimate, the most important was that during the Nanjing breakout, he not only poisoned a large swath of the Japanese 6th Division with sarin gas shells, but also captured the regimental flags of the Japanese Infantry 13th and 45th Regiments in one fell swoop!
Afterward, Su Yaoyang “readily” handed these two flags over to the special envoy sent from Chongqing.
Upon receiving the two regimental flags, Chongqing treated them as treasures and immediately activated their full propaganda machine, widely publicizing this unprecedented great victory in newspapers at home and abroad.
This directly rubbed the face of the Japanese government and army into the dirt repeatedly, leaving them utterly disgraced.
In this regard, Chongqing owed Su Yaoyang a tremendous favor.
Thus, in these years, no matter how Su Yaoyang stirred things up in Shanxi, Chongqing turned a blind eye, even pinching their noses to provide him some political conveniences.
And this logic applied equally to the Eighth Route Army.
The brigade commander’s mind raced, and he instantly grasped the key point.
If the Eighth Route Army could capture a Japanese Army regimental flag, the boost to their overall political influence and prestige would be immense.
This would be not just a military victory, but a political one powerful enough to change many people’s views!
With this in mind, the brigade commander pondered for less than ten seconds, his eyes flashing with brilliance once more, now utterly resolute.
He gripped the receiver tightly and issued the order to the other end in a resolute, unquestionable tone:
“Good… I approve.
Li Yunlong, assemble your most elite forces immediately. Use any means, pay any price—get that regimental flag into your hands intact!”
On the position
As soon as Li Yunlong got the brigade commander’s approval, a hungry wolf-like green glow flared in his eyes. He slammed the phone down with a “pa,” spun around, and kicked First Battalion Commander Zhang Dabiao beside him, laughing and cursing as he roared:
“Did you hear that, Zhang Dabiao! The brigade commander approved! Give it everything you’ve got—bring that little devils’ regimental flag out intact for me!”
“Regiment commander, just watch—mission guaranteed!”
Zhang Dabiao excitedly slapped his chest, his dark face flushed with bloodthirsty red. He whipped around sharply, racked the bolt of his Thompson submachine gun with a “clack” to the end, and roared at full volume to the warriors behind him, already assembled, their eyes glowing red:
“First Company, follow me! Second Company, Third Company, Machine Gun Company—pour it on, cover us!”
At this moment, any bullshit “avoid unnecessary sacrifices” principle had long been tossed to the winds by Li Yunlong and his men. They had only one thought in their hearts—a mad, burning thought: seize that regimental flag!
Everyone’s hearts pounded wildly in their chests—not from fear, but from extreme excitement and impulse.
With Zhang Dabiao’s order, the Independent Regiment’s trump card firepower poured out instantly.
Czech light machine guns and captured crooked-handle machine guns roared together, streams of blazing bullets like red whips lashing the rocks around the cave and any possible hiding spots, sending debris flying.
Bundles of smoking explosive packs were hurled over forcefully, grenades raining down like they were free onto the cave mouth where the 222nd Regiment headquarters was located.
“Boom…”
In a series of deafening explosions, two carefully built machine gun positions beside the cave mouth were blasted skyward almost instantly.
Concrete and rebar twisted into the air, the Japanese soldiers inside along with their heavy machine guns blown into scattered bloody fragments.
The assault did not stop!
Over a dozen captured Type 89 grenade launchers were lined up, gunners half-kneeling on the ground, expertly adjusting angles and loading one Type 89 grenade after another into the tubes.
The grenades traced low parabolas, precisely flying deep into the pitch-black cave.
Immediately after, muffled thunderous chain explosions echoed from inside the cave, each blast spewing thick smoke and dust from the entrance like a dying beast gasping in agony.
Inside the cave, compared to the earth-shaking outside, was a different kind of suffocating dead silence.
Dust and rubble from the cave walls trickled down in the violent blasts, clattering dully on steel helmets and communications gear.
Under the flickering light of a few oil lamps, 222nd Regiment Commander Katsume Naoyuki, Major General, was holding a tense and tragic regimental flag burning ceremony with his adjutant, aides, and the last few staff officers.
That flag, once regarded as the regiment’s soul and personally bestowed by the Emperor, now lay flat on a relatively clean oilcloth.
And the streamer of countless “glories,” the regimental color, had been cut into sections like a pile of pathetic rags, heaped with the flag.
If there were regret pills in the world, Katsume Naoyuki would never have ordered, just hours ago, out of unwillingness to bear the shame of being “the first 222nd Regiment commander to burn the regimental flag on the battlefield,” to cut the regimental color into dozens of segments in a vain attempt to have soldiers carry them out during the breakout.
And now… breakout was a joke. They were sealed in this cave, the shredded glory awaiting destruction with them.
“Could it be… that the regimental flag of the Imperial Japanese Army Infantry 222nd Regiment… is to be destroyed in my hands like this?”
Watching the flag bearer tremblingly pour a whole can of kerosene drenchingly over the flag, the pungent smell instantly filling the air, Katsume Naoyuki flushed pig-liver red with shame and fury, the muscles at his lips spasming uncontrollably.
This was an utter humiliation, an indelible stain forever!
At that moment!
“Da da da da da…”
A burst of violent, air-tearing submachine gun fire suddenly erupted from the cave mouth, amplified several times in the narrow cave, rattling eardrums.
Several soldiers guarding the entrance didn’t even get to scream before dense bullet rain turned them into bloody sieves, their bodies flying backward inside.
The Chinese troops had stormed the cave!
This sudden turn stunned all the Japanese officers, but Katsume Naoyuki reacted like lightning.
He had only one thought: absolutely cannot let the Chinese get the regimental flag!
He yanked a matchbox from his pocket, struck a match with hands trembling from extreme tension.
“Sizzle—”
The match head sparked a tiny flame.
Just as Yamanaka Yoshio was about to bring that flame to the kerosene-soaked regimental flag, a dozen smoke- and mud-covered gray figures like demons from hell burst in, submachine guns still smoking, black muzzles trained on them.
The leader, a burly man with a face full of savage flesh, grinned, revealing nicotine-yellowed teeth, staring at him with a dead-man’s gaze.
Time seemed to freeze in that instant…
