Chapter 35: Caught Off Guard
“Boom, boom…”
The shells landing around the church continuously kicked up clouds of dust. Yuichiro Nagano, who was commanding the troops from the rear, listened to the shells constantly falling in front, his face exceptionally grim.
Before today, he would never have believed that the Chinese army could unleash such dense artillery fire; this had exceeded his imagination.
Yuichiro Nagano, a graduate of the Army University, had experienced many major battles in his more than ten years of military career, but he had never encountered such dense artillery fire as today—not even during the September 18 Incident or the Xifengkou Battle a few years ago, when the shelling was not as intense as now.
Just as Yuichiro Nagano was secretly alarmed, following the orders of Su Yaoyang and the respective platoon and squad leaders, the fully re-equipped soldiers all drew M1905 bayonets from their waists, vertically slotted the bayonet handle’s catch into the bayonet lug, pressed down on the bayonet handle, and accompanied by a series of “click” sounds, indicating that the spring-loaded catch in the bayonet handle had locked tight.
On the question of what rifle to equip his soldiers with, Su Yaoyang had pondered for a long time. Although he didn’t understand much about grand military principles, coming from the future, he understood one truth: firepower is justice.
The Garand rifle might have various shortcomings, such as being much heavier compared to bolt-action rifles of the same period, not suiting the physique of Chinese people, loading noise issues, magazine capacity limitations, and many other flaws.
But it had one undeniable advantage: its firepower was far superior to the bolt-action rifles equipped by various countries at the time.
Moreover, Su Yaoyang knew well that, whether you admitted it or not, Chinese soldiers of this period could not compare to Japanese soldiers in individual quality.
To contend with the Japanese army, the soldiers needed to be equipped with a rifle that could suppress the Japanese army, and the Garand rifle was undoubtedly the best choice.
At this moment, Su Yaoyang tightly gripped the Thompson submachine gun in his hand, its fully loaded 100-round drum magazine particularly conspicuous.
He turned his head to glance behind him, where hundreds of soldiers stood densely packed.
At this moment, he suddenly felt his legs go weak. To be honest, he really wanted to back out right now—this wasn’t a game; any single bullet could take his life.
But reason told him that if he dared to take even one step back, the hundreds of temporarily assembled troops behind him would absolutely scatter in panic. To charge into the church, he had no choice but to lead by example and charge first.
Thinking of this, he turned his head to glance at Joe the Second Egg not far away, who was holding a bugle, and slowly nodded.
Joe the Second Egg, now in a new military uniform, put the bugle to his mouth, took a deep breath, and blew hard.
“Toot…”
When the harsh and piercing bugle sounded, Su Yaoyang suddenly roared loudly.
“Brothers… all charge with me…”
After shouting, he was the first to leap out of the ruins and charge forward.
As Su Yaoyang, their commander, was the first to charge out of the ruins, the soldiers behind him followed suit, jumping out one after another. Everyone shouted “kill” to bolster their courage.
“Toot… toot!”
“Toot, toot…”
The soldiers charging out of cover followed their respective commanders and rapidly rushed toward the Japanese army ahead from both the left and right flanks.
Since the Japanese army around the church was busy dealing with the bombardment from the 107mm mortars behind them, the charging troops did not encounter the resistance the Japanese had imagined. Even after advancing over a hundred meters, no bullets came their way.
“Kill…”
Su Yaoyang, holding the Thompson submachine gun, roared hoarsely like the other soldiers while desperately running forward.
At this moment, he only felt a flame burning in his heart, his blood boiling all over his body. The initial cowardice and fear had long vanished without a trace, leaving only one thought in his mind: charge forward and tear apart the enemy in front.
This charge came so suddenly that the soldiers of the Japanese 11th Regiment had no time to react and could only watch as hundreds of Chinese soldiers in German-style uniforms rushed right up to them.
“Da! Da! … Da da…”
Su Yaoyang, charging at the forefront, unhesitatingly pulled the trigger without hesitation. Opening fire with him were more than ten other soldiers also at the front, holding Thompson submachine guns.
The Japanese, who had been busy dodging the artillery fire the second before, had no time to react and were instantly engulfed by the hail of bullets from behind.
“Cease fire… cease fire…” From the rooftop of a building a li away from the church, Zhang Zhihao almost simultaneously issued the order to stop the bombardment.
In the short distance of just over three hundred meters, Su Yaoyang and his men reached the Japanese in merely tens of seconds.
Faced with the sudden attack, the Japanese, dazed by the heavy artillery, were clearly still stunned and only reacted when Su Yaoyang and his group rushed right up to them.
“Da da da…”
Against the Japanese, all Su Yaoyang could do was keep pulling the trigger until the 100-round drum magazine was empty. Only then did he notice that the Japanese in front of him had all fallen to the ground, with countless soldiers surging past him to charge forward.
Su Yaoyang stopped, half-squatted on the ground, and pulled a drum magazine from the cloth bag at his waist to reload the submachine gun.
But as soon as he loaded the new drum and looked up, he found no soldiers behind him—only the backs of a few soldiers ahead.
“Damn… these bastards didn’t wait for me.” He cursed under his breath and hurriedly chased after them.
It had to be said that Su Yaoyang’s surprise attack this time was very successful.
Caught off guard, the Japanese lost nearly an entire company and had no choice but to retreat in panic, ending their attack in failure.
On the scattered battlefield around the church, corpses were strewn everywhere, and continuous groans of pain came from the piles of dead bodies.
“Hurry… quickly withdraw… withdraw…”
Having been caught off guard by this blow, the Japanese had to retreat in disarray, allowing Su Yaoyang and the hundreds of soldiers he led to enter the church.
As soon as Su Yaoyang entered the church, he saw a graceful figure rushing toward him and throwing herself straight into his arms, hugging him tightly.
“Young master… you’ve finally returned!”
“Woo woo woo…”
Xiao Lu’s sobbing voice, accompanied by the unique fragrance of a young girl, echoed in his nostrils, diluting the smell of gunpowder and blood on him.
Su Yaoyang also tightly held the beauty in his arms, a immense sense of happiness surging in his heart.
The two didn’t know how long they hugged until a whistle sounded nearby, prompting them to look up and see countless smirking eyes and teasing faces around them.
“Damn…”
Su Yaoyang couldn’t help cursing, quickly letting go of his hands.
The moment he let go, the little girl in his arms blushed bright red, let out a soft whimper, and ran off like the wind.
