under fire

boom.
The rifle in the hands of a puppet soldier suddenly went off.

The bandit Qi, who was busy checking the ambush position and arranging the retreat route, came to the place where the gunshots were heard and started to curse at him: "Who the hell told you to load the bullet?"

The puppet soldiers were all nervous: "Squad leader."

"Where is your squad leader?"

A puppet soldier came out from the darkness and said, "Sir, I'm here."

Qi Laofei really wanted to beat this idiot, but he was a grassroots commander after all, so he couldn't easily embarrass him: "Without orders, bullets cannot be loaded. Have you forgotten?"

"But no one told me?"

"What did you say? No one has ever said that? Just cough in your ears." The accidental discharge had already happened. They were from the division, so it was good enough that they could cross the river to support them. "Hey, go get your leader to come to me."

When Captain Kong heard from his subordinates that a superior was looking for him, he didn't understand what was going on and quickly followed his subordinates back to the team.

"What's going on with you guys?"

"Um, sir, what's wrong with us?"

"Uh...you guys stay behind as the reserve. Don't be nervous after the battle starts. Retreat south with us." As they were about to ambush the puppet army, the old bandit Qi had no plans to let them participate for the time being.

They don't even know the rule of not loading the bullets before going to the battlefield, most of them are rookies.

When there are wounded soldiers, help carry them. When cleaning the battlefield, just strip the puppet soldiers of their clothes and carry the supplies.

After saying that, he turned around and hurried away.

The voice of the monkey named "Qi" was full of surprise, anxiety and an indescribable panic.

"What are you doing?" The old bandit Qi said calmly, "Are you in a panic?"

"Here comes the mule."

"Mule?" The bandit Qi was stunned for a moment and turned around, grabbing the monkey's arm: "Chief Hu is here too?"

"No, Mule brought a company of puppet soldiers from the east side of the canal."

"What? Puppet army?"

"Most of the people who came ashore just now are puppet soldiers."

Something doesn't seem right.

The men who went to Hedong to contact the squadron at the foot of the mountain have not returned yet.

Hearing the sudden gunfire from the south, the Japanese major quickly used the radio to contact the friendly forces who were sweeping the south and crossing the canal under his orders.

The reply came back saying that the vanguard had crossed the canal ten minutes ago.

The major was relieved.

Following the scout who brought the news, he left the Japanese troops behind and walked forward.

It just so happened that the puppet army commander was also running backwards, stammeringly reporting the situation ahead to the major.

I roughly understood what I heard. The Eighth Route Army in front suddenly opened fire, and reconnaissance revealed that the Eighth Route Army had stopped running away.

The major picked up the telescope and looked into the darkness.

I can't see anything a little further away, it's such a damn dark night.

Under the nearby starlight, one could just barely make out a blurry figure lying on the ground.

When you turned around, you heard a gunshot, right?
Yes!
The major pointed at the puppet soldiers on the ground and said, "Don't you think... they are useless?"

The puppet army commander had to nod in acknowledgement. Fortunately, the major did not slap him.

Leader? What happened to the leader?
The Imperial Army will not care whether you are a squad leader or a regiment commander if they slap you in the face.

"Tell me what you mean. We have been chasing for most of the night. How many Eighth Route Army soldiers are there ahead of us?"

Speaking of this, the pseudo-commander became excited: "My Taijun's scouts and my scouts formed a joint scout group. After several rounds of reconnaissance, we found that there is at least one company of the Eighth Route Army ahead. If you don't believe me, you can ask the scout Taijun."

The major had already known the situation from the information sent back by the scouts, and his tone was a little more relaxed: "Do you know why I haven't let you guys go up?"

Uh. The fake leader thought, how the hell should I know what you are planning?
But the major had to answer the question. By the way, the major had a radio. The Imperial Army's favorite tactic was encirclement.
A quick solution: "Waiting for the flanking team in front to arrive in position"

"Haha, it seems that you, a piece of shit, are not an idiot. Did you hear anything about the location and distance of the gunshot just now?

"The distance is probably about three or four miles."

"What does that mean?"

"Does this mean that the encirclement troops from the south have arrived?" An idea suddenly occurred to the pseudo-captain.

"It's not necessarily that the outflanking team has arrived, it's more likely that the scouts of both sides have collided." The pseudo-command has also been on the battlefield for a long time, and the picture immediately came to his mind: "That's why those Eighth Route Army didn't run away."

Looking at the Imperial Army soldiers lying on the ground, the lieutenant colonel tried hard not to get angry: "What should I do next? Do you want me to teach you?"

"Ahem. I will use one company to launch a feint attack from the front, two companies to surround them from the left and right, and then use the remaining forces to deploy on the outside to form a second echelon, completely blocking the Eighth Route Army's chance of breaking out."

"It seems that you still have some skills. What are you waiting for?" The major nodded, and was quite satisfied with the encirclement arrangement of the puppet army commander.

However, to be on the safe side, he decided to deploy the Imperial Army and set up another line of defense outside the second encirclement of the Imperial Army.

As the Chinese say, no matter what you do, it's hard to fly even if you have wings!
The encirclement tactic seems simple, but it is not.

If the encirclement has only one circle, it is easy for the breakout group to concentrate their forces to break through even if the opponent has five times the number of troops.

However, if there are sufficient troops, you can consider setting up a double encirclement with two inner and outer circles about 100 to 200 meters apart, which can quickly make the breakout party lose their local troop advantage.

The reason is very simple. After the breakout party concentrates its forces and firepower to break through the first encirclement, it will not have to face the enemy's second line of defense again. At this time, the enemies in the encirclement that has just been broken through behind them and who have not been attacked will quickly change their formation and become pursuit troops or flanking troops.

The breakout will now be caught in a situation where they are attacked from both sides.

Human physical strength is limited, and it is very difficult to launch continuous charge-style attacks to break through.

Even if the breakout group has sufficient manpower, good physical strength, strong momentum and strong firepower, and is able to break through the second encirclement again, the enemies in each encirclement already know the direction in which their prey will break out.

The attacking speed of the breakout troops was much lower than the speed of troop movement on the battlefield.

A sudden counterattack is equivalent to getting back into the encirclement.

Even if they broke through the second encirclement, they were still in the third encirclement set up by the major.

Even if the enemy's combat power is strong enough to break through the third encirclement set by the devils, and the enemy has basically become a trapped beast at the end of its strength, the devils can easily change the formation and deploy troops to always surround the breakout.
There is no third option for the breakouts except to be annihilated or surrender.

Soldiers are crafty.

Most of the time, the commander of the breakout party will first send a troop to make a feint attack in the direction of 90 degrees to the left or right of the actual breakout direction, so as to make the enemy in the encirclement misjudge the direction of their own breakout and hastily mobilize troops.

When it came to the actual breakout, the enemy had mobilized its troops because of our feint attack, and a gap appeared on the flank due to the troop mobilization, which greatly increased the chance of breaking out of the encirclement.

There are many different breakout tactics, but one thing is very important: make a feint attack to the west and do not break out to the east.

Break out in the opposite direction of the feint attack and do not mobilize enemy troops in the opposite direction of the encirclement.

If the party being broken through is short of troops or has poor firepower and combat effectiveness, breaking through is equivalent to launching an attack, which is almost tantamount to seeking death.

Encirclement tactics are almost always about the strong surrounding the weak and the majority surrounding the minority.

As for using the few to surround the many, the weak to surround the strong, or one side surrounding the other with equal forces, that is complete nonsense.

However, there are also some nonsense.

For example, the feat that the 9th Battalion just accomplished.

The use of tactics is no longer limited to encirclement and annihilation.

It should be called an ambush, movement, and penetration.

The key point is to concentrate your forces and defeat them one by one!

The battlefield is ever-changing, and defeating the strong with the weak requires excellent battle plans and excellent command capabilities.

The Ninth Battalion almost wiped out the enemy, which was inseparable from the timely help from Battalion Commander Li of the brother unit.

"One squad for one mortar!" Captain Li gritted his teeth and made the condition.

"One hand over the person, the other hand over the goods!" Xiao Hongying immediately decided on the deal.

"If I give the man to you now, won't I be left alone as a battalion commander?" Captain Li shook his head: "Hand over the guns first, and we can wait and see about handing over the man."

"Okay, I can give you the goods first, but you have to tell me when you're going to hand them over, right?"

"Wait until the enemy's autumn sweep is completely over"

"Okay, write me an IOU."

Captain Li was stunned for a moment: "Is there no trust among comrades?"

"Yes, that's why I asked you to write an IOU."

"What do you mean?"

"The main thing is that we are all comrades now. I am afraid I will be embarrassed to ask you to pay me back if we meet again in the future." Xiao Hongying said sincerely: "We agreed that you should not fool me with those puppet army prisoners who are willing to stay."

“I always feel like I’m losing out”

"Come on, two rifles for a veteran like you, a mortar for a squad, we're losing out." (End of this chapter)