Chapter 43: Leading From The Front
Seeing that figure leaping out, the soldiers behind were all stunned.
“Regiment commander… it’s the regiment commander!”
That’s right, the one who rushed out and bombed the machine gun emplacement with a hand grenade was none other than Su Yaoyang, the commander of this newly formed security regiment.
This scene completely stunned the soldiers behind.
No one expected that the highest commander of a unit would fight so desperately.
Seeing this, the squad and platoon leaders behind immediately panicked and kicked the butts of the soldiers hiding behind the emplacement, cursing: “What are you idiots standing around for? Hurry up and charge forward for me. If anything happens to the regiment commander, you’ll have nine heads and it still won’t be enough to chop off.”
Seeing the second lieutenant with a face full of killing intent, the soldiers knew their platoon leader wasn’t just scaring them, so they all jumped out from behind the emplacement and charged toward the front.
“Kill ah…”
Seeing the soldiers jumping up one after another, this second lieutenant also picked up his Thompson submachine gun and charged forward first.
On the top of the church more than a thousand meters away from the Japanese gathering point, Zhang Zhihao, personally serving as the observer, pressed his eyes behind the artillery sight and clearly saw everything within two thousand meters.
He grabbed the SCR walkie-talkie just issued to the artillery and shouted: “Target Japanese No. 3 emplacement, distance 1865 meters… Fire!”
Several minutes later, with a command, accompanied by several loud blasts, the barrels of the 107mm mortars arranged on the street behind the church jerked back, the muzzles spewing thick smoke. The six 12.7 kg high-explosive rounds fired by the six heavy mortars flew toward the already aimed target at 580 meters per second.
“Woo…”
The 107mm high-explosive rounds, carrying the whistling of breaking air, hit the buildings where the Japanese were hiding. Because they used delayed fuses, they did not explode immediately but penetrated the roofs or beams of the wooden structures before heavily smashing into the rooms.
The Japanese hiding in the rooms could even clearly hear the cracking sounds produced when the shells penetrated the soil layer and the house’s beams, doors, and windows were deformed by the impact.
“Boom!”
Accompanied by a huge explosion, the shells that had penetrated the beams and roof exploded inside the house. The originally seemingly sturdy house was thrown into the sky by the fierce internal explosion, and the remains of the Japanese hiding inside were also flung into the air more than ten meters high.
This was the benefit that an excellent artillery commander brought to the troops.
An excellent artillery commander could spontaneously provide artillery support to the attacking troops based on the observed battlefield situation.
Facing entrenched enemies, they would concentrate all the artillery at hand and destroy the enemy’s emplacements and fortifications through fierce bombardment, clearing the way for the attacking troops and reducing unnecessary casualties.
While the 107mm heavy mortars continuously bombarded the Japanese gathering point, the 60mm mortars of the second artillery company were not idle either, firing shells toward the gathering point of the Japanese 11th Regiment.
For a moment, the sky above the Japanese was filled with the whistling and explosions of shells. Experienced veterans could easily distinguish that the ones dragging sharp whistling sounds like “ri…” were from the 60mm mortars, while those with slightly dull “woo…” sounds were the 107mm mortars.
These steel and cast iron shells fell into the Japanese positions amid various whistling sounds, exploding and raising thick smoke and flames.
Shells landing in the trenches occasionally flung Japanese limbs into the air, and steel fragments flying at several times the speed of sound streaked across the Japanese positions. By now, the Japanese gathering area had completely changed its appearance.
“Charge for me… We must break them!”
Under the cover of the artillery, Su Yaoyang led more than a thousand soldiers from two battalions of the security regiment charging toward the Japanese positions like a tide.
Actually, calling it positions was giving them too much credit.
The Japanese 11th Regiment was the attacking side and had not deployed defensive positions at all, especially since they were attacked while eating. Now with Su Yaoyang leading his troops in the charge, the entire regiment was in chaos.
“Huff huff…”
Su Yaoyang shuttled nonstop through the streets, continuous combat having greatly depleted his stamina, especially since American weapons were renowned for their heavy weight.
Take the Thompson submachine gun in his hand as an example: even empty, it weighed 4.9 kilograms, and with a 100-round drum magazine, it reached over ten jin. Such weight was no small burden even for an adult male.
Especially since he wasn’t just carrying one submachine gun; he also had five spare drum magazines, five M24 hand grenades, two smoke grenades, an M1911 pistol, bayonet, and other items. All added up to at least dozens of jin in load.
For an ordinary person, just walking with such a load would be strenuous, let alone fighting.
Only Su Yaoyang, after his mental power was enhanced and his body strengthened to a certain degree, could bear it.
Some might wonder why Su Yaoyang, as regiment commander, had to fight so desperately—why not just command from the rear?
But only Su Yaoyang knew that although he was nominally the regiment commander, no one understood better than him what kind of force the security regiment really was.
To put it bluntly, it was a makeshift outfit: the soldiers included some recruited with silver dollars, some gathered after their defeat, and some sent to reinforce him on orders.
These people originally had no affiliation with each other and didn’t know one another; they were only temporarily united by his silver dollars and the pressure of the overwhelming Japanese forces. Loyalty was out of the question.
Leading such a force to charge the Japanese, if he as regiment commander didn’t set an example by charging ahead, once the battle turned unfavorable or they hit a snag, the troops could collapse at any moment—and then it would all be over.
“Screech…”
The 530-gram Type 91 hand grenade, when fired from the Type 89 grenade discharger, made a sharp sound in flight that sounded just like the noise of those slender rockets kids in later generations often played with—shrill and piercing. Anyone who heard it once would never forget it.
They say the battlefield is the best teacher, and that’s not wrong at all.
Although he had only experienced two days of fighting, Su Yaoyang was already very familiar with this sound. When the distinctive sharp sound of the grenade discharger rang out, he unhesitatingly dove to the ground in one step.
“Boom…”
Accompanied by a huge explosion, a shockwave passed over his head, followed by thick smoke enveloping him.
“Da da da da…”
Immediately after, a burst of bullets swept across a nearby broken wall, making chirping sounds.
“Damn it…”
Su Yaoyang didn’t need to look to know he had been targeted by the Japanese light machine gun…
