under fire

The area near the ferry crossing on the west bank of the canal was completely shrouded in smoke.

From the sky, the area shrouded in smoke is not large, appearing as a long strip running from south to north.

The smoke on the bank slowly pressed and churned towards the canal, as if a section of the entire west bank had suddenly been missing.

At least you can breathe smoothly even in the smoke of battle.

Being in the smoke was very uncomfortable. The smoke from the incompletely burned firewood contained a lot of particles, which stimulated muscle spasms when inhaled, and there were coughs everywhere.

The Japanese soldiers who came ashore had a way to deal with the smoke: they covered their mouths and noses with wet towels.

However, they cannot keep their eyes open for long periods of time.

It wasn't until the engineers in the rear braved a hail of bullets to swim and deliver the gas masks that they arrived.

After the Japanese soldiers established their positions on the west bank of the canal, they found that they were safe as long as they lay on the inside of the bank.

Anyone who has experienced a battlefield knows that in the current battlefield, where you can't see anything more than a few meters ahead, the defending side has a greater advantage.

Unless the opponent launches a desperate, all-out attack.

Lying on the ground seems to be the safest option, as there's no way to attack because even with a gas mask on, you can't see anything from a distance and have no way to determine the opponent's location.

When Hu Yi was formulating the battle plan, he already knew how to deal with the situation when the smoke enveloped the entire battlefield.

The gunfire from both sides became sparse, and the passage of time seemed to slow down.

The sputtering of gunboat engines coming from the south of the canal was particularly clear.

As the gunboat drew closer to the battlefield where the two sides were exchanging fire, it slowly entered the edge of the smoke. Li Xiang, who was standing at the bow of the boat, finally crouched down behind the sandbags.

His vision began to blur, and he could no longer see anyone a hundred meters away. At that moment, he did nothing.

The entire platoon of over thirty men were hidden behind sandbags. So far, all the light and heavy machine guns and rifles on the ship are pointed towards the west bank of the river.

Amidst the thick fog, howls, frantic shouts, orders, and various other sounds mingled with the occasional whistling of bullets cutting through the air.

The gunboat continued north and disappeared into the smoke.

As the smoke thickened, a voice suddenly rang out amidst the chaotic sounds from the shore, its echo penetrating the dense smoke.

"Li Xiang, Li Xiang!" In the thick fog, Wan Baxi's voice was shouting loudly at the sound of a gunboat's engine chugging in the river not far away.

"explain…"

"The enemy has set up positions on the riverbank, and they're poking their ass from the riverbank all the way north," Wan Baxi growled in his distinctive Sichuan accent, then repeated it.

"Hey!" A voice replied from the river, and then the faint sounds from the thick fog on the bank disappeared.

The Japanese soldiers, who were hiding in the smoke, naturally heard the conversation.

Many of the North Special Police officers could understand and speak Mandarin, so they didn't immediately understand the meaning of the few sentences in the conversation amidst the gunfire.

Several Japanese soldiers instinctively raised their guns and fired a few shots randomly towards the source of the sound on the shore.

The west bank of the river has once again become chaotic.

At this time and place, the troops coming from the river are friendly forces. Could they be enemy troops?
Eighth Route Army soldiers firing gunboats? Is that a fantasy?
The western edge of the smoke cloud.

A figure rushed to Hu Yi's side: "Battalion Commander, Li Xiang has arrived."

"Order: After Li Xiang's attack, immediately eliminate the Japanese soldiers who have landed!"

They actually managed to fool the Japanese enemy's identification?

Li Xiang actually came and successfully fooled the Japanese soldiers on the east bank.

Calculating the progress of the battlefield from noon until now, it has hardly deviated from the previously formulated plan.

Everything went smoothly!
The gunboat's engine reduced its throttle, and it coasted using its momentum.

The boat suddenly rocked.

The bottom of the boat collided with the riverbank, and the hull continued northward, rubbing against the muddy riverbed.

The soldiers on the ship, responsible for launching the first attack, looked left and right behind their gas masks, communicating with each other using their limited field of vision.

Being too close to the enemy and unable to raise one's body would make it very dangerous, as the Japanese might quickly organize a counterattack after being attacked.

If the Japanese soldiers reacted quickly enough and threw grenades onto the gunboat, it would be an easy task!
"Company commander, fire!" The voice wasn't loud, and it didn't carry far amidst the gunfire and whistling bullets.

"Fight? How can we fight? Don't we see the enemy? Are we just going to fire randomly?" Li Xiang shook his head, calm and collected.

Finally, we saw the faint silhouettes of the Japanese soldiers lying on the east side of the riverbank.

Unfortunately, even with his eyes wide open, bigger than a bull's, he still couldn't see the details on the riverbank.

As they continued to approach, the Japanese soldiers, lying prone, would occasionally turn back to observe the gunboat, which was slowing down and gliding towards them as if preparing to dock.

I don't know how much time passed, it felt like an eternity.

"Rifle team, load up! Aim as planned, get ready!" Li Xiang's voice finally rang out from behind the sandbags as he raised his Nambu pistol and brandished it.

"Hit!" Judging from Li Xiang's voice, he seemed to be in a good mood.

bang bang bang
Upon receiving the order to fire, the soldier fired the first four bullets from his rifle.
He did not fire the Southern pistol in his hand, because the pistol was merely a commander's self-defense weapon.

Immediately afterwards, a second round of shooting followed, but there were still only four shots fired.

Perhaps because the gunshots were so synchronized that it seemed as if only one shot had been fired.
The soldiers who opened fire were sixteen carefully selected by Li Xiang, all skilled in rifle shooting.

Including the platoon in charge, there were a total of seventeen soldiers. The plan was to quietly shoot at the Japanese soldiers on the west bank with the Ayusaka rifle, so there was no machine gun fire support.

The sixteen soldiers were divided into four groups, with one soldier on guard duty and the other three firing from each group. Each round of firing actually used only four rifles.

Soon, the Type 38 rifles clanged crisply together.
The soldiers who were given the first opportunity to launch the attack remained calm, silently following their plan to deliver bullets to their chosen targets when the enemy had multiple targets.

They remained calm, simply because they had participated in numerous battles; they were as composed as Company Commander Li Xiang.

He even thought to himself that he must work hard and strive to reach the level of composure that the battalion commander had when facing the enemy.
When they fired, they didn't shout or yell. Apart from the sound of gunfire and the whistling of bullets, it seemed that only the sound of the bolt being pulled back and the faint sound of spent cartridges hitting the deck remained.

The frequency of the four Tomosaka rifles firing in rotation was not high, and their addition to the already chaotic gunfire in the thick fog did not seem particularly abrupt.

The sound of Yuzaka's rifle was rhythmic, unlike the usual loud and boisterous attacks of the Eighth Route Army.

The light and heavy machine guns on the boat did not fire, mainly because they did not want the Japanese soldiers on the east bank of the canal to notice something amiss from the gunfire, which would affect their subsequent plans.

The Japanese soldiers who were shot were stunned. Some of them screamed before they died. Most of the Japanese soldiers who were shot in the back of the head and had their eyeballs squeezed out of their eye sockets did not have the chance to scream.

However, they had a question before they died: why were the Imperial Army gunboats firing their evil bullets at them when there were clearly Imperial Army gunboats behind them?

The time from being shot to death was too short; their pig-like brains didn't even have time to figure out the reason before the so-called gods in their faith had already taken them away.

Whether she was taken to the eighteenth level of hell by the Black and White Impermanence of this land, or embraced by the distant Amaterasu across the vast ocean, remains unknown.

The smoke near the muzzle of the rifle was swirled up by the propellant gases after the bullet left the barrel.

The high-speed spinning bullets flew through a short distance of just a few meters, leaving long, eerie spiral-shaped trails that were exceptionally clear when viewed up close. Thick smoke was spreading outwards in circles along the spinning trajectory.

A scream before death echoed across the dark water.

Carried away by the slowly flowing river, followed by another scream.

Behind the rifle's sights, the sixteen eyes were not shaken by the bizarre scene; they seemed completely numb.

Numbness tinged with focus.

Numbly and intently, he pulled the cold bolt, pulled out the spent cartridge, and then deftly pushed the bolt back up to fire the next bullet.

Finger on the trigger.

And so, bullet after bullet burst from the muzzle.

boom.
boom…

One spent cartridge after another tumbled out of the barrel, leaving a trail of smoke that smelled delicious!
Snapped.
One gaze after another, recklessly searching for their next target in the thick fog, their peripheral vision still scanning for enemies lying on the ground, for a target who should be one of their team members, to see if they were being hit and dying as planned.

In the thick fog, you couldn't see anything beyond a short distance; all you could hear was the continuous sound of gunfire.

The Japanese positions were set up along the riverbank. The Japanese commander, a lieutenant with extensive battlefield experience, who was lying on the inside of the riverbank, finally realized that something seemed wrong.

The engines of the reinforcement gunboats sounded much lower than before.

It should be that after the gunboat reinforcements arrived, the engine was idling and the boat was coasting by inertia.

The gunfire coming from the friendly positions was unusually intense, and the gunfire seemed even more piercing.

The gunshots mixed with screams seemed too frequent, and almost all of them were the screams of someone dying.
Normally, someone shot would at least let out a few screams, but the screams I'm hearing now seem to be the kind of screams that abruptly stop after a fatal blow...

A chill ran down my spine, and I felt uneasy. I quickly called one of my men over to check on him…

Dozens, even hundreds, of clear, eerie smoke rings and bullet trajectories appeared between the blurred riverbank and the gunboats, increasing in number with each subsequent four shots, creating a bizarre and breathtaking effect.

There's no need to aim at all; the enemy is right in front of you, so why would you need to aim?
Simply follow your intuition to find your own goals.

Make a slight adjustment to the muzzle, deftly pull back the bolt amidst the commotion, fire again, continue firing, increase the circular trajectory, and intensify the noise.

When two armies meet on a narrow path, they will slaughter each other with sheer strength!

The four soldiers who fired first pulled out the fifth spent cartridge from their rifles and then quickly loaded a salvo of bullets into the rifles.

Loading the magazine will naturally affect the firing rate.

The fourth member of the group, who had been in reserve and had not fired until the third round of soldiers finished loading their magazines, joined the attacking trio. They were then back to reserve status.

Beside them, the machine gunners stared wide-eyed at the scene, anxious as if watching someone else fire artillery, even feeling bored. The rifle's rate of fire was too slow; they were thinking about how their company commander would let them join in the firing.
tsk tsk.
The Japanese soldiers must be trembling like a newlywed bride on her wedding night.

His palms were sweaty as he gripped the crooked-handle rifle, but he still hadn't received the order from the company commander to fire the machine gun.

The soldiers in the reserve grenade-throwing team held the grenades, which were already warm in their palms, with the safety pins torn off and placed in front of them. They only needed to tap their caps and gently wave their hands to throw the grenades into the Japanese soldiers in front of them.

He touched the second grenade in front of him, confident that he could throw all four grenades—in front of him and in his hand—within two seconds.

However, without orders, the first grenade still didn't get a chance to be thrown.

I'm so anxious!
The Japanese lieutenant who noticed the anomaly listened to the regular gunfire mixed in with the continuous idling sound of the gunboat's engine, which was approaching his position.

Finally, he could clearly hear that the occasional screams and subsequent bird calls came from his own men whom he had just sent over.

"Enemy attack! The gunboat is on the enemy!" The lieutenant didn't hesitate any longer: "Return fire!"

"Get ashore."

"Set up positions."

"Pitcher Thunder"

A series of orders were issued.
Pfft. Pfft.
Three bullets struck the lieutenant, who had just climbed onto the riverbank.

His orders were only heard by a few Japanese soldiers who were with him.

Before the order could be relayed, the Japanese soldiers who had gone ashore with him to prepare to return fire on the gunboat were shot one after another.

A scream rang out, then abruptly stopped, exactly the same as the one the lieutenant had heard earlier. (End of Chapter)