Chapter 69: Confrontation
Seeing Su Yaoyang looking at him with a smile, Li Tao only felt his face burning hot.
His own words rejecting Su Yaoyang from yesterday were still ringing in his ears, but he never expected the slap in the face to come so quickly; there was nothing more heartbreaking in the world than this.
For a moment, Li Tao even thought of turning around and walking away, but in the end, reason overcame his shame.
He took a deep breath and snapped a military salute to Su Yaoyang. “Sir… yesterday your subordinate was ignorant and made you laugh.”
Seeing the major who was arrogant and unruly yesterday now softening toward him, Su Yaoyang stepped forward with a laugh and gripped his hand firmly:
“Hey… Battalion Commander Li, you’re too serious. I’m just a self-proclaimed guerrilla regiment commander. If it were me, I’d make the same choice as you. You don’t need to apologize for this.
The most important thing now is that we’ve met again, which proves we are fated to fight the Japanese together. Don’t you think so?”
Feeling the warmth from the palm of his hand, Li Tao felt both moved and ashamed. “Sir, how magnanimous!”
Su Yaoyang waved his hand: “What magnanimity? We’re all Chinese, all fighting the Japanese. If we quibble over a small matter, wouldn’t that make people laugh?”
At this point, his expression became serious: “Battalion Commander Li, you must know our situation. The Japanese have completely surrounded our regiment.
Right now, I have only about four thousand ragged soldiers at most, facing over a hundred thousand ferocious Japanese devils. There’s an eighty to ninety percent chance we’ll die here.
Now, are you still willing to follow me?”
Li Tao smiled faintly. “Your subordinate has already died once. Surviving until now is all profit.
As long as we can fight the Japanese, even death—what of it?”
“Good!”
Su Yaoyang nodded in satisfaction: “In that case, I now appoint you as the battalion commander of the 4th Battalion of the New Nanjing Security Regiment. Assume duty immediately!”
“Yes!” Li Tao solemnly saluted Su Yaoyang.
After casually returning the salute, Su Yaoyang suddenly said: “Oh, I forgot to tell you one thing. I’ll appoint two more battalion commanders later.
You three will have one common order: assemble your own troops before dawn tomorrow. Within two days, at the latest the day after tomorrow, you’ll follow me to the front lines to fight the Japanese. Can you do it?”
“I…” Li Tian hesitated, then gritted his teeth. “Yes!”
“Alright… go!”
Reorganizing and reassembling nearly three thousand routed soldiers into combat-ready units within one day was almost impossible under normal circumstances.
Are you kidding? In such a short time, the grassroots officers below probably haven’t even recognized all their own men. How could they fight like that?
But in special times, special measures. Under the pressure of life and death, Su Yaoyang managed to select Li Tao and two other captain officers from the routed soldiers, appointing them respectively as battalion commanders of the 4th, 5th, and 6th Battalions.
And Li Tao, the new battalion commander, along with the other two battalion commanders, went all out and managed to set up the framework for the 4th, 5th, and 6th Battalions before nightfall.
Not enough officers?
No problem… You were a second lieutenant before? Good… now you’re a first lieutenant. Go be a company executive officer for me… What? Who’s the company commander? After the battle, as long as you survive to the end, you’ll be the company commander.
That night, Su Yaoyang gathered all officers above battalion level in the church basement for a short meeting. There was only one agenda: do everything possible to delay the Japanese offensive, inflict maximum damage on the Japanese, until they show a flaw.
“Remember… our goal is to inflict maximum losses on the Japanese while finding a way to break out of Nanjing. That’s our ultimate objective.”
“Sir, what if we can’t break out?”
The one asking was the newly appointed 6th Battalion commander by Su Yaoyang.
This man, who was just a first lieutenant company executive officer a day ago, was a typical Shaanxi man: dark-skinned, with an honest and simple appearance. If he took off his uniform, no one would think he was a soldier.
Su Yaoyang looked at him deeply: “If we can’t break out… I would also be honored to die here with all of you. Battalion Commander Hou, are you satisfied with my answer?”
Hou Tianyou grinned: “Since the regiment commander has said so, what more can a poor guy like me with a cheap life say?
My life was saved by the regiment commander. Even if I die in battle, consider it repaid to the regiment commander.”
Su Yaoyang waved his hand impatiently: “Alright… everyone go make preparations. Tomorrow there will definitely be another big battle.”
The cold wind whipped with ice shards, scraping away the last bit of body heat in the trench. Zhang Wenshan lay in the trench tamped with frozen soil, the cotton padding at his shoulder from the gun stock already worn shiny, and the anti-tank rifle with a thin layer of frost looked like a hibernating black dragon.
These past two days, Zhang Wenshan had taken a liking to a new toy: the PTRD-41 anti-tank rifle.
This anti-tank rifle with a 14.5 mm caliber was simple in structure and enormously powerful; at 500 meters, it could even penetrate 25 mm thick vertical homogeneous armor.
His previous Springfield sniper rifle was like a little brother compared to it.
Of course, this gun wasn’t without flaws.
As an infantry light weapon, it was still too long and too heavy, and with its huge recoil, everyone who had fired it felt fear when shooting.
Due to this anti-tank rifle’s excellent lethality, Su Yaoyang redeemed two hundred of them at once and distributed them to the front-line positions.
The appearance of this anti-tank rifle caught the Japanese off guard; the 19th Regiment had suffered greatly from it these past few days.
“Old Zhang, come eat a sweet potato to warm up!”
A thirty-something bearded veteran from the neighboring bunker tossed over half a roasted sweet potato.
Zhang Wenshan didn’t reply, silently took the sweet potato and put it in his mouth, then scanned a pile of bricks 300 meters away with the four-power scope.
That Japanese Type 92 heavy machine gun was hidden too cunningly, concealed in a pile of bricks, the barrel wrapped in white burlap, the cooling jacket stuck full of icicles, looking just like a frozen tree branch.
He breathed hot air on his frozen fingers, then suddenly glimpsed movement in the dirt pile by the gun mount… it was a gray one digging a hole.
“Bang!”
The 14.5 mm steel-core armor-piercing round whistled out, the recoil shaking snow from the torn cloth on the bunker ceiling.
The bullet first penetrated the rabbit, then hit the Type 92 heavy machine gun’s receiver with a spray of blood mist.
Zhang Wenshan’s mouth twitched, he pulled back the nearly one-meter bolt, and the yellow brass casing ejected with a crisp sound.
Can’t hit people? Hit the Japanese weapons, like the Type 92 heavy machine gun.
This was a new trick Zhang Wenshan had learned these days.
Don’t look at the Japanese acting all rich and powerful; as an island nation, Japan’s resources are quite limited. Weapons like the Type 92 heavy machine gun for infantry support aren’t equipped in large numbers.
A standard infantry battalion has only twelve. From this, one can infer a regiment has thirty-six.
And they’re extremely hard to replace—one destroyed means one less. Ordinary sniper rifles can’t destroy heavy machine guns, but with an anti-tank rifle from hundreds of meters away, it’s easy to destroy one—just one bullet to the rear magazine, and that machine gun is scrapped for good.
This is also why Zhang Wenxue had become so keen on destroying Japanese heavy machine guns.
