under fire

"It hasn't rained upstream these past few days, so why are there so many water plants suddenly appearing in the river?" A traitor from the reconnaissance team, who was bathing in the river with the puppet troops, casually grabbed a clump of water plants that was floating by.

Before becoming a traitor to the Japanese, this man was a police officer in the county police force, and he had accumulated rich investigative experience in his daily work.

He immediately noticed that the water plants in his hand were not swollen from being soaked, and quickly determined that these water plants had probably only been thrown into the canal recently.

Something was definitely amiss, so he quickly shouted to the puppet soldiers nearby, "Something's not right!"

"The Japanese on the boat... the Imperial Army has been firing at the river. They would have noticed something was wrong long ago. Why are you worrying about this?" The people bathing next to them were several puppet soldiers who had recently joined the Japanese army as part of the National Salvation Army.

I thought the detective was referring to the gunfire from the Japanese soldiers on the iron-hulled boat to the south.

The traitor in the investigation team said with certainty, "There's something wrong with these water plants in the river. The Eighth Route Army might launch an attack from the water."

Hearing this from the traitor, one of the puppet soldiers who was scrubbing the puppet platoon leader's back in the river panicked: "Back when I was doing risk-free business on the Yellow River near Kaifeng, I once sank my mortal enemy's boat using this method..."

"You mean there are Eighth Route Army soldiers in the river weeds?" the puppet army platoon leader shouted.

"Most likely. Before we changed our flag and became the National Salvation Army, those guys in the regiment's special operations company were very good at this kind of work!" the puppet soldier, who was doing this for free, muttered. "Moreover, the transportation sabotage team has been active along the railway line recently. They have explosives on them. According to the battalion commander, they even secretly approached him, trying to persuade us to defect."

"You mean there are people in the Eighth Route Army who can swim, and they might be carrying explosives, drifting downstream to the convoy's location, and then detonating them..."

"We need to report to the battalion commander right away."

The traitorous detective standing nearby, after overhearing the conversation between the fake platoon leader and his men, felt a chill run down his spine: "If the situation is true, it will surely be a great achievement..."

“You should handle this. The Imperial Army doesn’t really trust us…” After saying this, the puppet platoon leader immediately ordered his puppet soldiers to swim ashore.

Are these bastards afraid of false reports? The traitorous dog gritted his teeth, regardless of whether their analysis was right or wrong, he figured he would be fine if he reported to the Imperial Army himself.

He quickly turned around and swam towards the fleet of boats in the river. After swimming a distance, he shouted as he climbed onto the boats.

The major leading the group was already asleep, and the one who received the traitor was his deputy, a captain with a higher rank.

The captain's dream was to join the navy, but unfortunately, he didn't pass the military academy graduation exam because his grades were a little low.

He came to a foreign land with the army and became a transport captain in the shipping department on the inland waterways.

A few years ago, when the canal was closed to navigation, I had to drive my small motorboat to transport supplies and wounded soldiers to my comrades who were suppressing anti-Japanese elements.

Upon hearing that shipping had resumed, he immediately applied to become the deputy captain of the fleet.

He led his supply platoon, cooperating with a reinforced Imperial Army company led by the major.

They repeatedly routed the Eighth Route Army soldiers who attempted to attack the fleet.

He looked surprised after listening to the report from the traitor.

Are the Eighth Route Army guerrillas really that powerful?
Is it really necessary to throw so much aquatic vegetation into the water?
What is this for?
Is this a deliberate attempt to create a false impression?

Are they afraid the Imperial Army won't know?

Listening to the traitor's words, it sounds exactly like a naval operation involving a submarine sneak attack.

Turning my head to look near the water again, I saw cool night breezes and clumps of water plants on the river surface.

He quickly figured out the details: if the Eighth Route Army swam directly across, there would be puppet troops on both sides of the strait.

There was no way the Eighth Route Army could avoid the searchlights of the Imperial Army patrol boats!

The water plants thrown into the river were meant to provide cover for the Eighth Route Army!

A sense of foreboding arose in my heart.

The order was quickly issued: "Enemy attack! All personnel on alert! Clear all aquatic plants from the river!"

Then send someone to wake up the sleeping major.

Amidst the dense sounds of rifles and light machine guns from the Japanese patrol boats on the canal.

The puppet troops on guard on the east bank of the river seemed to hear someone shout loudly in the night wind not far away.

Then suddenly a bright moon appeared in the sky.
It's a flare!

The pale light instantly brightened the open space.

Immediately afterwards, a cacophony of machine gun and rifle fire erupted.

Bang bang... swoosh swoosh...

The whistling sound of bullets piercing the ground made the open area seem as if a torrential rain was falling. Thud, thud, the open ground was hit by bullets again and again.

It seemed that the hiding place was being hit by bullets everywhere, and puffs of dust were constantly appearing on the ground.

The unlucky guy was shot and fell to the ground.

Those who had survived by sheer luck were lying down in panic, wishing they could burrow into the ground.

The two puppet soldiers who were lucky enough to find a ditch to use as a guard post carried their guns and prepared to crawl back along the ditch.

His body jolted violently as a grenade exploded outside the ditch.

boom.
As the shockwave swept over the ditch, the two men fell face-first to the bottom.

One of them was probably unlucky; he made a slightly bigger movement and his arm swung out of bounds when he fell.

A rifle bullet ripped the hand open, and a scream echoed through the ditch…

Gunshots rang out five miles to the east, sounding like a sudden storm.

For the Canal Detachment, this was the starting clarion call for the battle.

Ma Liang did not personally participate in the charge, but instead held up his binoculars and shouted to the grenade throwers: "Fire the next flare about 100 meters away from the enemy!"

The Weihe Detachment Commander accepted Ma Liang's suggestion: the Weihe Detachment would launch a feint attack from the front, while the training team soldiers would launch the main attack from the flank.

More than 100 soldiers from the detachment suppressed the enemy with concentrated firepower from the front.

He would occasionally glance at the edges of the lights emitted by the flares on both sides of the enemy's position.

Dark figures appeared and disappeared in the open field as they approached the enemy.

Two squads on each flank were rapidly maneuvering, their coordination skillful.

In open ground, move forward like a cheetah, crawling, rolling, or shooting.

With such precise marksmanship, it seemed that every two or three shots fired would bring down one of the puppet troops who were retaliating from behind trenches not far away.
It all came crashing down.
More than fifty puppet soldiers, who were camping and sleeping by the river or bathing in the river, hurriedly put on their equipment and went to their respective combat positions.

"Brothers, don't panic! The gunshot was about five miles away!" The puppet company commander, standing on the riverbank, calmly deployed his forces, pistol in hand: "First platoon, deploy along the riverbank and coordinate with the Japanese soldiers on the boats to guard the river!"

"Second Platoon, immediately move east to reinforce Third Platoon. Once you reach a point about one mile from Third Platoon's defensive line, deploy to form a second line of defense. Depart now!"

With a series of clattering sounds, the puppet troops took off, leaping across the soft sand and beginning their rapid eastward advance.

The fake company commander instructed the second platoon leader, who had come to reinforce the Eighth Route Army, that this time the fighting would mostly be harassment warfare.

It is highly likely that this was to provide cover for the Eighth Route Army soldiers who were trying to blow up ships by water.

The fake second platoon leader looked down on the Eighth Route Army, ordering his puppet soldiers to carry rifles, not even bothering to take them off their shoulders.

Not to mention attaching bayonets to rifles.

They quickly reached a position one mile behind the pseudo-third defensive line.

They quickly spread out and deployed their defenses in the open area, forming two tiered defensive lines in an orderly manner with the false third rank.

They quickly inspected the firepower deployment of the second wave of rifles, machine guns, and small cannons.

The fake platoon leader then rallied his men: "Brothers, the Eighth Route Army is in the open while we are in the shadows! Their attack is simply suicide!"

They watched as the flares from the sky steadily approached the defensive line.

Having just said that the enemy was in the open while we were in the dark, it was somewhat of a slap in the face to the fake platoon leader.
One of the puppet soldiers under his command whispered, "Platoon leader, it looks like the third platoon might not be able to hold them off. The Eighth Route Army might even reach us!"

The fake platoon leader noticed that the gunfire had suddenly decreased in the open area about a mile to the east, and the shouts of killing didn't seem to be very frequent either.

"The defensive line seems too long!" The fake platoon leader suddenly realized that the company commander might be wrong.

It's highly likely that the Eighth Route Army's attack wasn't a feint.
What's odd is that, under normal circumstances, the third platoon should have sent someone back to report on the battlefield situation.

So far, not a single messenger has returned.

Could it be that the entire third platoon has been wiped out?
But how could the Eighth Route Army have such strength?

The Eighth Route Army, with its three guns, simply couldn't possibly have that many bullets to squander.
A sudden chill ran down my spine; these local Eighth Route Army guerrillas were firing flares on the battlefield.
This is very likely the main force of the Eighth Route Army! (End of Chapter)