At 12:33 noon, the bright sun was high in the sky.
However, under the warm sunshine, the officers and soldiers of the 1st Marine Regiment on the front line saw a sight that made them feel cold all over - hundreds of enemy troops poured out from behind the ruins of the factory that had been damaged by artillery fire!
Headed by that conspicuous military flag, the officers held their samurai swords high, and the soldiers held rifles with bayonets, shouting "Long live" or "Long live the Yamato clan" and launched an intensive charge in the direction of the Ming army.
The distance between people is less than two steps. Looking closer, it can only be described as "sparse", but tactically it is definitely a dense formation.
"Bang! Bang!"
"Da da da da——"
"Hurry up and fire!
In an instant, the fire net of Ming army rifles, light machine guns, and heavy machine guns in this area enveloped this large surging crowd.
Zhou Changfeng had just opened the heated can of braised pork. The pieces of braised pork wrapped in soup were half lean and half fat. The fragrant smell hit his face. However, before he could take a bite, he heard the noise coming from the front line. .
He put the can on the ground, leaned against the cover and looked over there, when his own 80mm mortar shell fell.
The explosion that broke out among the crowd made the already chaotic battlefield even more chaotic. The fragments or shock waves of each shell could knock down at least seven or eight people.
It’s outrageous, why would there be a Long Live Charge in this plane?
"Keep the firepower! What is the chariot team doing?!" Zhou Changfeng asked sharply, turning his head.
More than a dozen tanks in the chariot convoy are now parked in the second-line position. However, the scene they witnessed at this moment has shocked the tank crews. This behavior, which is tantamount to committing suicide, is really incomprehensible.
"Fire smoke ammunition, the first and second squadrons all attack, the rest will follow later!"
Lieutenant Colonel Fujiwara Yoshiharu gave the order loudly, and immediately a mortar shell landed ten steps away from him.
There was a "boom" sound. His height of 1.68 meters was already outstanding among the Japanese, but at this moment, he was ruthlessly overturned by the shock wave.
The resistance army launched a desperate counterattack and threw smoke grenades and rifle grenades at the Ming army's lines. The rising thick smoke blocked the sight of many people.
Hundreds of resistance troops had not rushed far when the shells fired by the 80㎜ mortars and 112㎜ mortars of the Marine Regiment fell like hailstones!
"Boom boom boom——"
In the blink of an eye, this large crowd was enveloped in the gray smoke and dust generated by the explosion. Screams came one after another. At the same time, countless broken limbs and pieces of clothing were scattered everywhere.
Fujiwara Yoshiharu, who was covered in blood, knew that he was seriously injured. His ears were ringing and his eyes were filled with stars, but he could not feel any pain at all, as if he had been cut off.
Seeing the Ming army's artillery fire completely engulfing hundreds of his subordinates, he felt as if his heart had been stabbed hard by a needle, and then clenched tightly as if by an invisible hand.
At this time, pain all over his body suddenly appeared, and the severe pain caused by multiple fragment wounds caused him to go into shock in a short period of time.
After being covered by dozens of mortar shells, a blazing fire net of amphibious tanks, light machine guns, and heavy machine guns strangled the remaining resistance forces one by one.
After two consecutive long bursts of ammunition and strafing, the barrel of the prototype Type 37 heavy machine gun had become red-hot, and the shooter could feel that the dispersion and landing point of the fired bullets had obviously deviated.
"Change the barrel!"
The ammunition hand pulled out a spare barrel from the rolled steel long barrel carrying case, and then cooperated with the deputy shooter on the right and left to quickly replace the barrel.
Opening the cover of the receiver and hanging a new 250-round metal bullet chain, the muzzle of this heavy machine gun once again spit out orange flames. The trumpet-shaped muzzle flash suppressor was not as effective as it was. People want it.
It's hard to determine the pace of the battle, it's sometimes fast and sometimes slow.
When it is fast, the winner may be determined in a few minutes; when it is slow, you may fire a few shots and I fire a few, and there will be back and forth. You lie in the crater waiting for artillery support, and I lean on the foxhole. Waiting for air support from sunrise to sunset.
Now in this factory area that has almost been reduced to ruins, the bloody exchange of fire that can be described as a one-sided massacre lasted for about half an hour.
In fact, most of the resistance forces who launched a desperate counterattack were killed or injured in the first five minutes. In the next twenty minutes, scattered survivors were fighting stubbornly. They relied on corpses, bomb craters, and concrete fragments to fight. Use all available weapons at hand to attack the Ming army.
Since they were not in a hurry, the officers and soldiers of the 1st Marine Regiment naturally did not take the risk to take the initiative to eliminate them, so they just fired at them from a distance, using heavy machine guns, rifle grenades, and anti-tank guns to deal with these die-hard stragglers one by one.
At 13:03 in the afternoon, the resistance of the Fujiwara detachment finally came to an end.
More than 500 of the more than 1,000 defeated soldiers participated in this pointless counterattack. About 400 of the remaining soldiers chose to give up. Some gave up their weapons and returned to their homes, while others waited for surrender.
The most stubborn hundreds of people evacuated under the leadership of several officers, and "turned" all the way to the high mountains in the northwest.
A seaplane that took off from the Yongping battleship flew over the battlefield at a low altitude of tens of meters. The pilot could clearly feel the brutal fierce battle that took place below.
The gunpowder smoke has not completely dissipated, and the dots of firelight are still there. Wisps of black smoke are rising straight into the sky. Large and small craters are dotted here and there. Bodies in different forms of death are scattered on the ground.
The refreshing spring breeze was blowing, but it became particularly strange because it carried the smell of burnt, bloody, and rotten corpses. If someone who had never been in battle smelled it, they would probably vomit on the spot.
The military flag with a red circle on a white background and four characters written on the left and right had been torn to pieces by artillery fire and debris, but it was still considered the flag of an army, and capturing it was still an honor worth remembering.
In the evening of that day, the resistance forces in the area responsible for the 1st Marine Regiment had been eliminated, and the battle ended.
In terms of tactics, the gap between the enemy and ourselves is reflected in the huge exchange ratio. Head-on combat is not an asymmetric combat form. The level of training, the number of heavy weapons, and the presence of air support can greatly affect the situation of the battle.
According to statistics from the regimental staff and field hospital, since landing in Tokyo until now, the 1st Marine Regiment has suffered a total of 211 casualties, 17 missing, 232 serious injuries, and 865 minor injuries. In addition, there are more than 100 non-combat casualties.
As for the opponent Fujiwara Detachment, due to constant joint attacks by land, sea and air firepower, only a few hundred soldiers of the 6,000-man force remained in the end, not counting the more than 900-strong brigade sent by the Takahashi Detachment for reinforcements.
"...In fact, most of the enemies in front of us were killed and wounded by fleet artillery fire. I am afraid that the number annihilated by our unit must be halved. If we only look at four thousand, the pure ratio of casualties is ten to one, and the ratio of casualties It’s three to one.”
Because Zhou Changfeng was not at the headquarters, when the call came from the General Military Office, Yao Liangchuan answered Nie Quan's inquiry on his behalf.
"Okay, this is quite impressive. Don't move your troops for the time being until the Fourth Division and Seventh Division on the left and right have finished their work."
"yes."
The Fourth Division in the west and the Seventh Division in the east have actually eliminated the main force of the resistance forces in front of them, but they are hampered by scattered stragglers, and a large number of booby traps and landmines are difficult to guard against.
Because the battle went smoothly, the 13th Division as a reserve also landed the evening before yesterday and headed towards Yokohama and Yokosuka.
Later, a group of officers gathered in the second-line headquarters to have dinner and chat.
Zhao Hanfeng picked at the noodles in the bowl and said, "To be fair, these Japanese's final charge to the death is meaningless. It's strange no matter how you look at it."
"Indeed," Zhu Lizhuo nodded and muttered: "Either surrender or escape. It feels a bit self-defeating to face death."
"This is probably a national characteristic." Zhou Changfeng replied casually.
Although everyone can understand the meaning and purpose of the other party's resistance despite knowing it is useless, they cannot understand the final act of giving up on oneself and breaking the pot.
If you want to continue fighting, then you should be wise to flee and escape into the mountains to fight guerrillas.
If you don’t want to fight anymore, just surrender or disband on the spot.
In the end, there was a senseless suicidal counterattack, sacrificing his own life in vain. Such an unreasonable approach was really difficult for the Ming army soldiers to understand.
"Maybe, after all, we can't figure it out. I'm afraid we have to switch to Japanese thinking to understand." Yao Liangchuan thought for a while and said: "Although Chinese people always prefer compromise, things that are related to their own interests, But he is rarely so unclear and self-defeating."
"It's like this." Xie Wancheng said: "If it were me, if I wanted to fight to the end with the Ming army, I would definitely run away when the situation was not good, and send away all the weak-willed, injured and weak ones, leaving only With a few hundred strong men, we can then retreat into the deep mountains and old forests, build a few lairs, cover ourselves, and then come out from time to time to cause trouble and then sneak back."
"Wrong, wrong, wrong starting point." Zhou Changfeng knocked on the table, "What they want is to 'prove the truth with death'. In this way, we will not dare to despise, so we have to fight to the death, and the ammunition is also limited." There weren't many left, so we couldn't commit suicide collectively, so we just sent them to the gunpoint."
Xie Wancheng, who looked confused, shook his head slightly and said: "It is still difficult to understand. If they are hostile to the Ming Dynasty and think that we are going to destroy them, then they should do everything possible to fight until the end, just like what I said , wisely fled, and then went into the mountains. But in the end, they chose to resist firmly and symbolically."
Before Zhou Changfeng could say anything, Yao Liangchuan put down his tea cup and said with a smile: "Silly, surrendering without resisting is a submissive slave, but if it is like you said, fighting to the end in every possible way, then that would be too extreme. They were worried that it would anger us and be counterproductive."
"You have to not make us look down on you, but also not make us angry, and just enough to make us respect you..." Zhu Lizhuo said thoughtfully, "It's really difficult."
"Actually, this is all because of their own sentiments. The imperial court had no intention of annihilating the Japanese country." Zhao Hanfeng shrugged and spread his hands and said: "There are a lot of things in the north and south of the Yangtze River that have not been taken care of, and there are many poor people. How can it be possible to annex the Japanese country? So many Tens of millions of poor people? The imperial officials are not stupid."
As the sun completely sank below the horizon, only a blush and glow remained in the western sky.
The progress of the Second Army was generally quite smooth, as was the Third Army, which encountered no strong resistance at all.
They set off from Ulsan County and landed in Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate, Hokkaido and other places. The lords of the local vassal towns knew the stakes and behaved very respectfully. They ate pots of wine and welcomed the king. There was only a small amount of resistance from the people. The force attacked the Ming army.
It set off in Haizhou on March 6th, landed on the afternoon of the 8th, achieved a three-sided encirclement on the 9th, and basically eliminated the resistance forces around Tokyo on the 11th. It can be said that the dust settled in a total of six days.
However, because this is something without any suspense, the Ming Dynasty's court and public did not see any scenes of lanterns and decorations and national celebrations, just like in the past.
The next day, morning.
The Navy, Army, and Air Force coordinated and organized an entry ceremony. The A-107 Special Agent Fleet mobilized 2,000 sailors and 400 Marines, the Army's three divisions mobilized 4,000 people, and the Air Force organized several formation.
Several transport planes departed from Yingtian Mansion in the capital and brought in dozens of officers and soldiers of the First Imperial Guard Division and Imperial Guards, as well as a full set of ancient armor.
This was purely to create a sense of ceremony. The ceremony of entering the city was kicked off by this group of people. Zhajia's armor was specially polished to be as smooth as a mirror, shining brightly in the sunlight.
On the edge of the city, on the side of the only way for troops entering the city, there are four vertical rows of guards, two rows on the left and two on the left, with more than ten pennants symmetrically placed, and some swallow-tail-shaped twenty-eight star horn belts.
Behind them, there were several flags with black characters on a white background, edged with red teeth, and the titles of the generals of the land, sea and air forces were written on them.
The armored Imperial Guards and Guards at the head were also responsible for carrying some flags, including the most basic Qingdao flag with black letters on a blue background and a red edge, and the Golden Drum Flag with black letters on a yellow background and gold edges.
With the help of God, the spring breeze, which is neither fast nor slow, blows up the flags of various colors and flutters slowly.
But the real limelight belongs to the officers and soldiers of the three armies. Amidst the sound of gongs, drums and suonas, each phalanx is made up of 200 people in strips, ten horizontally and twenty vertically. The officers are riding horses in front of the phalanx, and the soldiers will go up. He put his rifle with the bayonet on his shoulder and stepped forward.
Although the goose step was widely used in the French army during the Napoleonic period, with the collapse of the empire, this footwork, which was regarded as a "legacy", was canceled by the French. It was later promoted by the Prussians, and many countries followed suit.
The French did not ask for it, and the Ming Dynasty did not learn it. Therefore, China, France, and the United States became the only three major powers that did not use the goose step.
Different from the sense of power and oppression, this city entry ceremony and "Victory against Japan" military parade gave Zhou Changfeng a feeling of calmness, calmness, and a unique sense of grandeur. This made him feel quite comfortable who was used to the orderly and mighty military parade style in his previous life. interesting.
The long procession stretched as far as the eye could see. Reporters from various countries rushed to photograph the rare military parade that contained an oriental classical style. It also recorded the historic day when Western forces officially withdrew from the East.
Although the Americans are still hanging on, great powers such as Britain, France, Russia, and Italy have already withdrawn. How long can these "Yankees" hold on?
(End of chapter)
