To the north of Qixia Town is a stretch of low hills.
After the Japs occupied Qixia Town, in order to prevent sneak attacks by the guerrillas and the Eighth Route Army, they specially had all the woods and shrubs on the hills cut down, exposing the bare ground.
But shrubs and weeds "cannot be burned away by wildfire, but will grow again when the spring breeze blows." Now here, it is lush again.
Now, between these shrubs and weeds, criss-crossing ditches quietly appeared.
In the trench, nearly a thousand soldiers were squatting - of course, most of them were militiamen temporarily commanded by Xia Dayi.
This trench was naturally dug by Han Yang and his soldiers last night. At this moment, the trench was only six or seven hundred meters away from the gun towers in the north of Qixia Town.
In addition to the trenches, Han Yang also ordered the soldiers of the artillery platoon and the machine gun platoon to establish artillery and heavy machine gun positions on the two hills on the right, and covered them with weeds to guard against the little Japanese in the gun towers. Observer hand discovery.
When the sun quietly rose from the east and Han Yang's watch hands pointed to 7 o'clock, he decisively ordered:
"Artillery, fire, blow up the kid's turrets and bunkers first!"
"Use three heavy machine guns first to suppress the firepower of the Japs and cover the militiamen as they continue to dig in!"
"Each platoon of soldiers with good marksmanship will start firing freely after the trenches are dug to about 500 meters. Don't waste bullets and fire slowly. We still have to fight this battle!"
Following his order, two Type 92 infantry cannons from the first company opened fire immediately.
As for shooting Zhu Yuan, they had adjusted it half an hour ago!
"Bang...boo...boom!"
"Bang...boo...boom!"
The bombardment of artillery shells was like the roar of death.
The heavy machine guns also began to fire "aggressively" towards the little devil's firepower point.
The militiamen led by Xia Dayi immediately waved their shovels and continued digging along the trenches.
This is what Han Yang has figured out, not only to let the little Japs ask for help, but also to reduce casualties, and not to capture Qixia Town too quickly.
——The artillery fire knocked out the firepower of the little Japs, and then the infantry did soil work, slowly threatening the little Japs.
…
As soon as the company took action here, the little devils at the entrance of the town immediately broke into chaos.
A little Japanese lieutenant officer emerged from under the wall at the entrance of the town and shouted in horror:
"Enemy attack!"
"Bombardment!"
"Avoid the cannon!"
This person is Lieutenant Maeda Akihiko, the team leader responsible for the defense of the north of Qixia Town.
…
However, before he finished speaking, two high-explosive bombs weighing 3.8 kilograms from the Type 92 infantry cannon were dropped, hitting the turret at the entrance of the town that suppressed the area of several hundred meters with great accuracy.
"boom!"
"boom!"
With two loud noises in succession, the heavy machine gun on the turret and several shooters and observers were directly blown into the sky.
In order to achieve this effect, the gunners of the artillery platoon of the first company repeatedly calculated the shooting elements for an hour, and now they really succeeded.
However, although the little devil lost the turret, the heavy machine gun set up in the bunker also rang out and swept towards the artillery position of the company.
Unfortunately, Han Yang asked the artillery platoon to arrange the artillery position about 1,200 meters away from the gun tower, which was beyond the effective range of the Jaap heavy machine gun.
So now, although the heavy machine gun in the Little Japanese bunker is aiming at the artillery position and firing wildly, the bullets are still difficult to accurately hit the target they are aiming at. Except for a few stray bullets, which injured two ammunition handlers who could not dodge, and There is no big result.
At this time, three heavy machine guns from a company fired at them almost at the same time. The bullets penetrated through the bunker's firing holes and directly killed the little Japanese machine gunner, immediately causing the bunker's heavy machine guns to misfire.
But soon the little devil's assistant shooter stood up and continued to operate the heavy machine gun.
At the entrance of the town, Lieutenant Maeda Akihiko, the leader of the little Japanese team, stood quietly hiding on the wall, using a telescope to observe the offensive of the Eighth Route Army outside. He suddenly understood that it would be difficult for his team alone to block the attack of the Eighth Route Army.
Especially now that the artillery tower he was relying on had been blown up by two cannons from Tubal Road, killing the defenders.
He quickly shouted to his messenger:
"Quickly, go and report to the squadron leader. At least one regiment came from Tubal Road, carrying two Type 92 infantry cannons to attack us. Please ask for tactical guidance!"
Seeing the messenger running towards the town, he felt a little calmer and then ordered:
"Fukui-kun, take your people quickly and enter the turret to check the heavy machine gun. Without this heavy machine gun, Tubal Road will rush up soon!"
Team leader Tatsuo Fukui couldn't help but look bitter when he heard this.
He thought: Baga! Didn’t you see that Tubal Road’s offensive was so fierce?
But military orders were hard to disobey, so he could only lead his 12 soldiers honestly, brave the shrapnel flying outside and the heavy machine gun bullets flying around, and leave the town, heading towards the motionless building outside the town. The turret rushed away.
…
The Fukui team was actually quite lucky. They rushed into the gun tower at the risk of death, but only lost one soldier.
After a subsequent inspection, they found that the Locust Army warriors in the turret had been killed or injured by the Eighth Route Artillery shells, but the heavy machine gun only had its barrel bent. It could still be used with a new barrel.
Tatsuo Fukui was overjoyed. While instructing his men to replace the barrel of the heavy machine gun, he directed four light machine gunners to shoot at the Eighth Route Army soldiers who were frantically digging trenches a few hundred meters away.
A few rounds of bullets flew out, killing three or four militiamen who were not well hidden, causing Xia Dayi to shout quickly:
“Everyone squat down and take cover!
The little devil’s machine gun is vicious! "
Following his shout, Han Yang, who was in the trench behind, also saw the movement in the Jaap turret and immediately ordered:
"Artillery, fire two more rounds at that stupid turret!"
On the artillery position, after the artillerymen saw Han Yang's flag order, they immediately turned their guns towards the bunker and aimed at the gun tower.
"Bang...boo...boom!"
"Bang...boo...boom!"
After two loud noises, there was no movement from the Jaap's turret again.
The Fukui team was completely wiped out. They had already replaced the spare barrel, and the heavy machine gun that was about to fire again was completely scrapped, and even the gods couldn't repair it.
"Okay! Good job!"
Han Yang saw these two shots through his telescope and immediately shouted loudly.
…
After hitting the turret, the infantry artillery aimed again at the bunker made of reinforced concrete and continued to fire unhurriedly.
According to Han Yang's order, they must ensure that every artillery shell must be fired within the shooting hole range of the bunker. In this way, even if the bunker cannot be blown up, the flying shrapnel may still cause casualties to the Japs machine gunners.
But if they do this, their shooting speed will naturally not be faster.
But the little devil didn't know what they were thinking. He thought they were doing this because of the limited number of shells, and he felt a lot more relaxed.
For a while, the battle situation was at a stalemate.
There were a lot of casualties on the Japs side, and on this side of the company, militiamen were occasionally killed and injured by the Japs.
Han Yang saw the infantry cannon shells hitting the top of the bunker several times, but was unable to do anything to the kid in the bunker. He couldn't help but sigh with disgust:
"Sigh, the power of this Type 92 infantry cannon is still not very good. If it were replaced by two mountain cannons, this bunker would have been overthrown a long time ago!"
After hearing what he said, Zhao Shihong next to him couldn't help but reply:
"Old Han, what you said is too much!
Do you know that these two cannons are sent to the division headquarters, and the division commander has to buy you a drink?
Many of our main regiments don’t even have an infantry cannon! "
(End of chapter)
