Rise from eight hundred.

Chapter 369
Your Excellency the Major needs support?
This is definitely an extremely painful choice for Captain Toba, who is in charge of this fully loaded infantry squadron.

The reason is simple. More than an hour ago, there were faint gunshots and explosions in the distance.

But because the distance was too far, he couldn't hear it very clearly. He couldn't tell whether it was the surprise attack team led by Shao Zuo Xichuan himself who had a brief exchange of fire with the Chinese because of exposure, or took the initiative to attack the Chinese defensive positions, or whether it was the Chinese. Fighting took place between the people and other small forces of their own side.

Because, in addition to their elite task force personally designated by Commander Yanagawa Heisuke, I heard that the Sixth Division and the 114th Division also sent their own vanguard squads to intersperse the rear of Songjiang. They also had military maps. It's no surprise to get here.

But no matter how entangled and tormented Toba Hatoyama was, the one red and two green signal flares for help were an agreement made by Shaozuo Xichuan before his departure, and no one else knew about it except him, Shaozuo Xichuan and the accompanying signal soldiers.

As for why Chimelong Nishikawa just fired the signal flare at night and didn't care about the Chinese defenders defending the bridge, that's beyond what Toba Hatoyama can guess.

The infantry squadron led by Toba Hatoyama carried field radios, but the surprise attack team disguised as Chinese refugees did not. He had to ask his superiors about these questions.

The unscrupulous firing of the signal flares meant that his superior had issued a military order to him. If he did not follow the military order to support the direction movement that sent out the signal flares, when he returned to the division headquarters, what awaited him would be strict military laws.

Seeing that the Army Major is only one level higher than him, the Army Captain, but the lieutenant officer and the assistant officer are not in the same dimension. What is more important is that Xichuan Changlong is the celebrity in front of the division commander. The two are not only They came from the same non-commissioned officer academy, and they were taught by the same teacher, so they can be regarded as brothers in the same school.

Therefore, no matter how cautious the Japanese captain wanted to be, he could only choose to order the entire army to pack up their equipment after a short tangle of two or three minutes, and follow the path tens of meters away from the river bank at full speed to a position about two kilometers away in a straight line. go ahead.

Although impatient, Toba Hatoyama was an officer who had participated in several battles after all. Before the whole army set off, he still sent a small team of vanguard soldiers to scout 500 meters ahead of the main force in accordance with the army's drill regulations.

Because soldiers disguised as Chinese refugees had been dispatched to conduct reconnaissance beforehand, the nearest Chinese fortifications on the south bank of the bridge were 3 kilometers away from here, and based on the Japanese army’s understanding of the Chinese army, they would not dare to leave the fortifications that had been built with great difficulty. , So the Japanese army was also much bolder, directly lighting up the road ahead with a flashlight, speeding up the march, and at the same time, the reconnaissance vanguards could also observe the surrounding environment in more detail.

After all, traveling in the dark, and in an area currently controlled by the Chinese, anyone would be a little scared.

Toba Hatoyama has a lot of experience in the battlefield, but he never imagined that Xichuan Changlong had already become a dead ghost, and how Lei Xiong knew that they could only use the contact signal in an emergency was due to his thinking It was only at night that I came up with the trick of trying not to kill Chinese civilians by mistake.

The first person to kneel down and beg for mercy happened to be Xichuan Changlong's close messenger.

Because the fellow was thin and wretched, the soldiers in charge of selecting the Japanese took it for granted that he was weak, so it was safer to stay at the checkpoint.

No one expected that it was this simple and pure thinking that played a big role. The dozen or so Japanese troops left at the checkpoint were indeed the weakest group of Japanese.

Among the dozen or so people, one-third chose to surrender to fate.

Just like the signal soldier, since he was the first one to kneel down and beg for surrender, he was so eager to continue to live, and in order to live, it was only possible to tell more valuable information.

Because he was dissatisfied with a prisoner's hesitation, Leng Feng came from Qiaobei and mercilessly cut his throat with a middle bayonet, and let his hands be tied like a dying fish in front of the four prisoners. twist.

The Japanese army's signal soldiers peed in their crotch in fright. Not only did they say the names, military ranks, and establishments of Nishikawa Changlong and Toba Hatoyama, but also the three contact signals agreed by Major Nishikawa Changlong and Toba Hatoyama. The secret history of a woman's JIO is all in a bamboo tube --- it's completely exposed.

No wonder Tang Dao likes to say that Japan is a perverted nation, Erya, who was in charge of recording, almost didn't spit it out.

The Japanese army with flashlights in the dark moved quickly.

A reconnaissance squad was in front, and three infantry squads were in the back. Each infantry squad was 30 meters apart, and the team of less than 200 people stretched more than 300 meters.

This can also be regarded as one of Toba Hatoyama's strategies for dealing with possible attacks in the dark, making full use of the wide terrain here.

Of course, another important reason that made Toba Hatoyama decide to take risks is actually the terrain of their location.

There are some small hills on the banks of the river, but most of them are plains and wilderness. Almost no one would choose such a place to carry out a surprise attack.

In this flat position, the attacker and the attacked are completely equal in geographical location, and even because of the river bank here, it is impossible to form an effective encirclement of the enemy.

The victim can take advantage of the darkness to escape calmly.

Even, Toba Hatoyama is still using one infantry squad to withstand the opponent's attack, and the other two infantry squads are detoured from the flanks to counter-encircle the enemies who dare to attack them.

It can be said that this Japanese army captain who was forced to march in the dark has already prepared all the responses, including only 20.00% possibility of being attacked.

However, the army captain still miscalculated after all.

The Chinese are much more ruthless than he imagined.

Flat terrain is not conducive to ambushes, but that is only for light infantry. The two warring parties lie on the ground and shoot at each other. Naturally, the battle situation can only be anxious. The Japanese infantry squadron with nearly 200 troops can survive until dawn or take advantage of the night Slip away quietly.

Unfortunately, in order to guard the bridge, Lei Xiong's troops were equipped with a lot of flares, much more than the Japanese.

With a red flare rose into the sky.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!" The first thing that sounded was not the blazing gunshots, but the flares that rose into the sky like money.

More than ten flares illuminated the figures of the advancing Japanese infantry No. 200 in the dark night.

There was no so-called ambush circle. All the infantry and fire support troops assembled by Lei Xiong were waiting about 3 kilometers away from the bridge. The reconnaissance team composed of five groups of reconnaissance troops stayed in the wilderness and acted as the eyes of the whole army.

When they found that the Japanese reconnaissance vanguard team passed by, it meant that the main force of the Japanese army was not far away.

Niu Er, who was hiding in the wilderness, had seen the bright flashlights of the Japanese squad early on, but did not issue a warning. He waited until the sound of heavy footsteps arrived, and then sent out the red signal flare that the enemy had arrived.

According to Lei Xiong's military order, an infantry platoon approaching the river bank frantically fired flares more than 100 meters away.

"Enemy attack! Lie down!" Lieutenant Toba Hatoyama's small face was ugly but still calm in the white light of the flare, and he quickly lay down into the bushes on the side of the road.

The Japanese army reacted very quickly. While choosing a hiding place, they fired flares into the opposite wilderness.

Although the gray-blue and black military uniforms were inconspicuous in the dark, they still allowed the Japanese army to see clearly that there were not many people attacking them.

At least not as much as they thought.

Toba Hatoyama didn't have time to think about why it was Major Nishikawa who sent the signal for help, but was attacked by the Chinese on the way, and what was even more frightening was that there was no fierce battle in the dark night.

Or maybe, this is something to think about and fear.

His attention must be focused on the battlefield in front of him.

When he found that there were not as many Chinese people more than 100 meters away as he had imagined, the brave Japanese captain made an extremely wrong decision.

With the sound of gunfire from the infantry squad in the middle, the two infantry squads located at the front and rear began to move to the two wings, and started the old tactics of central attack and two-wing breakthrough that had almost been integrated into the blood of the Japanese infantry.

So they are bad.

What Lei Xiong brought was indeed an infantry company, 50 people fewer than the Japanese infantry, but there was also a fire support platoon with two mortars, two machine guns, four heavy machine guns, and two MG34s. , these things even dare to fight against the aircraft of Japan's Hainan Airlines, let alone a bunch of army turkeys?

And what about Toba Hatoyama?what?In order to increase the firepower of this task force, Sadao Ushishima added a light machine gun and a grenadier to each infantry unit.

Then, it's gone.

Heavy firearms such as infantry cannons cannot be carried away by manpower alone.

In other words, under Toba Hatoyama's command, what can be called suppressive firepower is a total of 9 light machine guns and 9 grenades. If it is against an ordinary Chinese infantry battalion, his firepower can definitely suppress it.

But here, they can only be hanged and beaten.

Mortars, heavy machine guns, machine guns, and MG34 all stayed in the temporarily dug out fortifications 500 meters away. The Japanese grenadiers couldn't reach them at all, but they were within their range.

In particular, the two Japanese infantry squads who tried to attack the two wings over their own means, were crushed by several heavy machine guns and MG50 machine guns after entering the wilderness for 34 meters, and did not even dare to lift their heads.

What the two infantry platoons rushing from afar had to do was not to shoot at each other blindly, but to approach and throw grenades at the Japanese soldiers lying in the wilderness.

The combat situation between China and Japan has undergone a rare reversal. One side consumes ammunition at all costs, while the other side can only use its will and body to fight against modern firearms.

The Japanese soldiers who could only be beaten passively were surprisingly tenacious. They persisted for a full hour. The huge consumption of ammunition made Lei Xiong's cheeks tremble in distress.

But obviously, it is the Japanese commander who suffers more.

What the Chinese lost was ammunition, but what he lost was the lives of soldiers. The number of soldiers who were not many was gradually decreasing before his eyes. He had to make a final choice, otherwise the whole army would be wiped out.

The heavy firepower of the Chinese is too fierce, and he knows that the biggest possibility of retreating from the land is to fall into the siege of the Chinese again.

Then only by water.

Toba Hatoyama could only painfully leave 80 of the 30 surviving people to form a blocking defense line. Under his leadership, the other 50 people jumped down the big river, dropped all their heavy weapons, and swam to the other side of the river.

As long as he is given 20 minutes, he can escape with at least one infantry squad, without all of them falling to pieces on the bloody river bank.

But here, not all the Chinese defenders, there are still on the other side of the river.

(End of this chapter)