under fire

In the thick smoke.

More than thirty soldiers from the Ninth Battalion, their heads covered with pig snouts, were crookedly crawling towards the position that the Japanese had just established on the west bank of the river.

Gunshots rang out in the distance, mingling with the whistling of bullets overhead. Even if someone shouted loudly while wearing a pig snout, it was difficult for those nearby to hear them clearly.

The tactical hand signals the soldiers had learned from Liu Yuanqing came in handy at this moment.

Visibility was obscured by thick smoke, so the soldiers used hand gestures to communicate orders to their comrades nearby.

The leader suddenly gestured to the soldier next to him as if he were throwing a grenade.

Young Mancang threw a Japanese grenade first, then shouted through the thick smoke, "I don't need a heavy machine gun, I can still kill you little devils with grenades!"

Boom. Boom. Boom.
The soldiers received the grenade-throwing order from Mancang via sign language at different times, resulting in a sparse and uneven distribution of grenades.

The sounds of explosions, one after another, still echoed near the riverbank, forming a continuous chorus.

Within the explosion, one could vaguely see the crimson blood splattering from the body, swirling and churning in the sky.

Mud and blood mist completely covered the entire riverbank area, falling like a storm, with countless shrapnel flying everywhere.

The mud and severed limbs flew up and crashed into the nearby canal, making a splashing sound.

The whistling sound of bullets and the screams of those being blown into the air were now completely inaudible.

The Japanese soldiers, who had established their positions using the riverbank as cover, felt their bodies being repeatedly pounded by shockwaves.

It was shaking so badly that it couldn't find its target.
The blackness of the battlefield was filled with smoke, and the red was swirling everywhere. I could feel the red splashing out of my body.

He used the thick smoke to conceal his figure, but he didn't expect that his opponent would use the smoke to get close and drop bombs.

They are once again in a passive position.

Some grenades and hand grenades thrown too forcefully towards the Japanese positions crashed into the canal water.

The powerful grenade exploded, sending sprays of water tens of meters high into the river.

The grenade, accidentally thrown into the deep water of the river, only made a few bubbles on the surface after exploding.

bang bang bang...

The familiar sound of a Mauser pistol firing!

One after another, puffs of muzzle flashes appeared in the night-like smoke.

One after another, the bullets flew wildly through the thick smoke.

The gunboat seemed to completely ignore the explosions on the shore and continued northward, with rifle fire echoing all the way.

The sound of the explosion completely drowned out the sound of the rifle.

The Japanese soldiers, who were enveloped in smoke, were completely bewildered.

Finally, the smoke at the bow of the ship gradually thinned, and the Japanese soldiers who had swum across the river around the ferry crossing could be seen from the ship. They were now establishing positions outside the smoke-shrouded area.

The muzzles of rifles and machine guns on the boat quickly pointed at the Japanese soldiers on the north side of the riverbank.

"No firing at the Japanese soldiers outside the smoke-shrouded area!" Li Xiang quickly issued the order: "Turn around!"

He planned to launch another fierce attack on the Japanese soldiers lying prone on the east bank before they noticed anything amiss.
The engine, which was idling, suddenly roared loudly, and the gunboat slowly turned around at the edge of the smoke.

The Japanese lieutenant commander, who was outside the smoke-shrouded area on the shore, saw a gunboat faintly visible at the edge of the smoke turning south.

Then, the sound of Mauser pistols blasting through the smoke continued incessantly.

I hesitated for a long time.

In the end, he didn't dare order his elite men to rush into the smoke with the gunboat.

Bang. Bang. Bang.
In the smoke, the Mauser pistol, lying flat, bounced wildly, creating short, fan-shaped barrages wherever it was pointed.

Light machine gun fire, Mauser pistol fire, grenade explosions
The hustle and bustle on the west bank continues.

Time passed second by second.

The sound of Mauser pistols gradually became sparse, while the crisp sound of Tomosaka rifles seemed to slowly increase.
The smoke was mixed with a pungent gunpowder smell.

The smoke remained smoke, and the area around the Hexi ferry crossing was still shrouded in a gray haze.

The smoke seemed a little thinner.
Finally, the explosions in the smoke stopped.

The sound of the Mauser pistol completely disappeared.

Only the occasional firing of a few scattered Tomosaka rifles remained.

One voice after another.

Clear without being noisy.

The Japanese soldiers lying on the east bank stared wide-eyed and craned their necks.

I feel a sense of happiness in my heart.
Only Yuzaka's rifle fired, and the result was obvious: the Eighth Route Army was completely wiped out!
Some of the clever elites didn't quite understand why the gunboats that had provided fire support weren't rushing to the east bank to help the Imperial Army elites cross the river.

The gunboat's involvement and the end of the battle were brief. Lieutenant Commander Kujo, standing on the east bank, finally sensed something was amiss.

They immediately issued multiple orders to the radio operator to confirm the gunboat's identity!

Not long after, the radio operator, pale-faced, rushed to Lieutenant Colonel Kujo and reported: "Urgent telegram from headquarters: The sweeping force south of Donggu Ferry has no gunboats. The gunboats sent by the Tianjin Military Police Command to support the Northern Special Police were ambushed at the Baidu Ferry to the south and may have been captured by the enemy."

The colonel was stunned, then finally understood.

At this moment, the gunboat in the smoke in front of us is very likely a Nationalist army or Eighth Route Army soldier disguised as the Imperial Army!
The Imperial Army soldiers on the gunboats were all fake!
Imperial Army gunboats in front of us.

It's a complete ghost ship.

A ghost ship that reaped the lives of Imperial Army soldiers.

Lieutenant Colonel Kujo was furious and immediately gave the order: "Artillery, shoot down that gunboat in the smoke!"

The Japanese observers were experienced; although they couldn't see the gunboat, they could tell the approximate location of the thick smoke from the sound.

Without much thought, the parameters were immediately reported to the artillery.
The artillerymen quickly used the elevation mechanism to level the 1.56-meter-long gun barrel of Mount 94, which had a minimum firing arc of -8 degrees, with the muzzle even slightly lower than the breech.

The firing range in the left and right directions hardly needs to be reported by the observer; it can be determined simply by the sound of the gunboat's engine reaching the ear from forty or fifty meters away.

Quickly crank the steering gear to adjust the left and right direction of the gun barrel, and simply and directly lock the position of the gunboat.

The hoe tip nail quickly hammered into the ground.

The 75mm shell was quickly loaded into the gun barrel.

Standing atop the pillbox, Tang Dagou naturally saw the movements of the mountain guns on the Japanese artillery positions.

The veteran soldier observed for a moment and immediately noticed that the cannon barrel was pointing directly at the location of the gunboat on the river.

"Damn it, the Japanese have noticed something's wrong with Li Xiang." Big Dog was extremely anxious. If he shot and killed the Japanese artilleryman now, the Japanese would definitely find out, and the consequences would be severe.

The plan to disrupt the division continued, allowing them to remain under the noses of the Japanese and hide winter rations.

Big Dog locked the muzzle of his rifle onto the Japanese artilleryman who was pulling the trigger cord.

At this point, should we fire or not?

He hesitated.

Suddenly turning his head, he asked Wen Wuquan, the observer who had been holding binoculars beside him, "Did Commander Hu give any new orders?"

Knowing that the big dog was asking if there were any flag signals from the other side, Wenwu stared wide-eyed and shook his head: "The smoke on the other side is too thick, we can't see anything. How about we take advantage of the chaos and take out that Japanese lieutenant colonel?"

He suddenly stopped speaking: "Signal, I saw flag signals. There were people signaling with flags in the distance beyond the smoke."

Wen Wuquan instantly focused, holding up his binoculars and muttering, "Enemy artillery position."

The big dog quickly growled at the top of the tower stairs: "Call the district immediately and have them invent a code message: Twelve. Repeat three times: Twelve!"

boom.
A burst of fire shot up from the muzzle of the Type 94 mountain gun.
The shell's muzzle velocity was 350 meters per second, slightly exceeding the speed of sound. The spinning shell produced a piercing sonic boom as it rubbed against the air.

The shell instantly pierced through the thick fog, tearing a large, dark hole in the fog on the river's surface.
Although the distance was short, the gunboat had sandbags on its hull and a deep draft, with less than a meter of its hull visible above the river.

The shells flew past the machine gun sandbags on the gunboat almost grazing them.

Then they crawled into the western river embankment.

嘣.
The shell exploded on the riverbank with a deafening roar.

A rumbling echo continued to reverberate from the clouds in the sky.

The shells exploded in the smoke on the west bank of the river, and the explosions hit several corpses.

About a mile west of the riverbank, at the edge of the smoke.

A crooked radio antenna protruded from a ditch.

Hu Yi sat on the ammunition box, constantly marking the new positions and troop deployments of the Japanese soldiers who had crossed the river.

It experienced bombardment by Japanese warships and heavy artillery.

It was bombed by Japanese aerial bombs.

He completely ignored the explosions of the Type 75 mountain gun shells.

Based on the sound of artillery fire and the location of the explosions, it was quickly determined that the Japanese had definitely discovered Li Xiang, the fake Imperial Army soldier.

The fact that the Japanese discovered Li Xiang's identity was questionable in such a short time demonstrates their extremely strong battlefield intelligence coordination and deployment capabilities.

Wan Baxi emerged from the thick smoke, a smug look on his face: "The Japanese soldiers who crossed the river and set up positions in the smoke have been basically eliminated. So far, at least sixty have been killed."

Hu Yi carefully marked the positions of the Japanese soldiers crossing the river with a pencil.

The cipher clerk beside him said nervously, "Battalion Commander, we've received a telegram from the district command; the Japanese infantry and artillery are positioned at position number twelve."

Hu Yi looked at Wan Baxi and asked calmly, "Are you confident in your ability to blindly fire at the Japanese artillery position at position twelve?"

Wan Baxi grinned and said, "Hehe, if you can't hit the target even after marking it in advance, may your son be born without an anus." (End of Chapter)