War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1968 They didn't seem afraid at all.

At the same time as the Japanese launched their second round of artillery fire, even more Japanese soldiers, mixed with those who had been driven back earlier, charged forward.

Thanks to the Great Wall built by our ancestors hundreds of years ago, the damage caused by the bullets fired by these charging Japanese soldiers when they stopped from time to time to fire was not too great.

However, the artillery deployed by the Japanese in the rear was devastating to the artillery positions and machine gun emplacements of the defending side. In fact, the Japanese were also using their artillery to bombard the city walls indiscriminately, trying to create more breaches.

"boom!"

Ignoring the wound on his back caused by shrapnel from a grenade that had just flown from a distance, Wei Ran aimed at a grenade launcher less than two hundred meters away and pulled the trigger.

As gunfire erupted amidst the shelling, the Japanese soldier, who had just been kneeling and had just pulled the trigger, was shot in the groin. The grenade launcher in his hand fell to the ground, and the recoil from the grenade fired close to the ground broke his lower leg.

"boom!"

Just as the grenade, flying close to the ground, exploded, Wei Ran had already fired his third shot, hitting the third grenade launcher.

"The Japanese have stopped firing!"

Just then, someone roared, "Grenades ready! Uninjured men! Knives ready!"

"kill!"

Along the Great Wall, soldiers including Wei Ran and Wen Laoga roared in unison, throwing grenades over the wall.

"boom!"

When the first grenade exploded, Wei Ran had already mustered all his strength and threw out the second grenade, which had been smoking in his hand for two seconds.

Amidst this series of rapid explosions, the Japanese soldiers who had just rushed close had no choice but to lie down obediently, but the grenade launchers behind them did not stop.

"Big Sword Squad! Follow me and fight!"

The company commander in the distance roared as he brandished the broadsword wrapped around his hand. Wei Ran and Wen Laoga also picked up their broadswords again, stepped onto the ramp created by the collapsed blockhouse not far away, and charged down with the surrounding soldiers, once again beginning a bloody hand-to-hand battle.

Objectively speaking, although the 29th Army's Big Sword Brigade had a formidable reputation, that reputation was earned with human lives.

In other words, this broadsword was far less effective than the Type 38 rifle with bayonets in the hands of the Japanese soldiers, but it was their only option.

"kill!"

Amidst roars filled with national and personal hatred, Wei Ran, Wen Laoga, the wounded company commander in the distance, and even the nameless soldiers around them all fought with a desperate ferocity, using their flesh and blood to block the enemy from climbing the Great Wall behind them.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

After cutting off the claws of a Japanese soldier, Wei Ran drew his gun and repeatedly pulled the trigger around a besieged soldier.

After helping the other party out of the predicament, Wei Ran and Wen Laoga got back together.

"I...I've been stabbed," Wen Laoga said, clutching his hip and gasping for breath.

"Hide behind me"

As Wei Ran spoke, he had already tucked his Mauser pistol into the position at his lower back so that the other person could easily pull it out.

"Don't retreat, you can't retreat now."

Wen Laoga pushed Wei Ran's shoulder with his blood-stained hand, "If we retreat now, the others will retreat too."

"Shoot accurately"

As Wei Ran reminded the other side, he raised his broadsword and charged towards the next Japanese soldier.

Behind him, Wen Laoga also pulled out a Mauser pistol, hiding the muzzle at Wei Ran's waist, ready to provide follow-up shots at any time.

This close-quarters battle between the two sides lasted an exceptionally long time. It was so long that after Wei Ran's repeated slashes, not only were his sleeves soaked with blood and frozen into ice, but his hands also began to tremble from exhaustion. Even Wen Laoga behind him had emptied the bullets from the three Mauser pistols they both carried.

"Can you still hold on?" Wei Ran asked Wen Laoga behind him.

"We can hold on, we can."

With a pale face, Wen Laoga gritted his teeth and responded, while his hands, red from the cold, struggled to load the bullets into his two side-opening Mauser pistols, his trembling hands barely able to contain them.

"clang!"

Wei Ran raised his anti-Japanese broadsword, which was already chipped in several places, again, deflected the bayonet thrust at him by the Japanese soldier, then twisted his wrist and slid the broadsword quickly along the Type 38 rifle in the Japanese soldier's hand, completely ignoring the bayonets thrust at him by the other two Japanese soldiers.

"Bang! Bang!"

After two gunshots rang out in quick succession, the two Japanese soldiers who were about to plunge their bayonets into Wei Ran's ribs were shot in the forehead one after the other, and their weapons lost their grip.

"puff!"

At the same time, Wei Ran had already sliced ​​off the tips of three fingers of the Japanese soldier opposite him and slit its throat before it could scream.

"thump"

Just then, Wen Laoga's legs gave way and he fell to the ground.

"Old Ga!"

Wei Ran turned around and shouted, only to find that Wen Laoga, who had fallen to the ground, was pale-faced, but was still struggling to lift the Mauser pistol he was holding.

"boom!"

In the blink of an eye, Wei Ran's left-hand broadsword transformed into a Mauser pistol, and he pulled the trigger at a charging Japanese soldier.

Having eliminated the threat that was within reach, Wei Ran first quickly pulled out the Mauser pistol behind him, replaced the magazine, and then squatted down to check Wen Laoga's wounds as quickly as possible.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Wei Ran raised his hand and killed three Japanese soldiers who were coming towards him, then put away his gun and tore open the cotton-padded clothes around his wound.

With just one glance, Wei Ran frowned. The knife had pierced the flesh on the outer edge of the other person's thigh, but judging from the location, it shouldn't have damaged the bone.

But the dark red blood gushing from the not-so-wide wound suggested that the cut might have damaged a vein.

Looking around again, Wei Ran took two leg wraps from a Japanese soldier at his feet, tied one of them to the distal end of the wound, and grabbed a scabbard from another Japanese soldier's waist to help tighten it. He also raised his gun again and fired a fan-shaped shot at the group of Japanese soldiers rushing towards him.

Where is the egg?

As Wei Ran put away his gun, he reached into Wen Laoga's arms.

In just a short while, he was already on the verge of losing consciousness due to blood loss.

"Don't sleep."

As Wei Ran spoke, he peeled the egg and stuffed it into Wen Laoga's mouth, then took out a glass bottle containing medicinal spores.

Wei Ran poured the few remaining spores onto the wound, then applied the freshly peeled eggshell to it before tightly wrapping it with the second leg bandage.

Eggshells were the cleanest thing he could find on the spot. As for whether Wen Laoga would get infected from them, or contract tetanus from the bayonet piercing his skin, he could only leave it to fate.

Before bandaging his wound, Wei Ran raised his gun again and repeatedly pulled the trigger at the surrounding Japanese soldiers. Standing up, Wei Ran glanced down at the weakened Wen Laoga, gripped his broadsword again, and charged towards the Japanese with the surrounding soldiers. In the fierce fighting, Wei Ran had to fire his pistol to save his life from time to time, and wave after wave of soldiers around him fell.

"puff!"

Exhausted, Wei Ran skillfully chopped a Japanese soldier in the neck, letting the scalding, foul-smelling blood spray onto his chest. He no longer had the strength to dodge the filthy blood.

"Pfft!"

The Japanese soldier who had been killed knelt on the ground, but four or five more Japanese soldiers carrying Type 38 rifles with bayonets surrounded him from a distance.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Wei Ran pulled the trigger repeatedly, hitting three of them, but at this moment the other two had already rushed up and started thrusting at his chest and abdomen.

"Bang! Bang!"

Wei Ran emptied the last two bullets from the last magazine. The two Japanese soldiers were also shot in the liver and lungs. They staggered to a stop and finally knelt down in front of Wei Ran.

"laugh--"

Wei Ran slashed their necks open with one hand, letting two streams of blood spray onto his trousers.

Close combat is a skill that requires both technique and strength, but he was now out of strength and out of bullets.

Seeing that more Japanese soldiers were rushing up, Wei Ran bent down and picked up a Type 38 rifle, while also putting away the broadsword that was almost frozen in his hand.

"Click!" Wei Ran loaded a bullet into the rifle in his hand.

However, before he could pull the trigger, more warriors wielding broadswords surged out from behind him.

These soldiers roared as they marched over the corpses and wounded scattered on the ground, past Wei Ran who had pulled the trigger on the Japanese soldiers, and as he released his gun and hurriedly raised his camera and pressed the shutter, they brandished their broadswords and slashed at the fleeing Japanese soldiers.

“Da Da—!”

Just then, the Japanese machine gun fired its first shot, and then fell silent after a gunshot came from behind.

"boom!"

At the same time, the Japanese artillery once again rained shells down on the Great Wall.

"Beep—! Beep beep! Beep—!"

At the piercing whistle, the fresh troops who had just rushed out immediately returned to their posts. Taking advantage of the few machine guns and bolt-action rifles overhead that provided desperate cover, they either hurriedly picked up various weapons and ammunition or carried the still-living wounded soldiers towards the collapsed Great Wall.

What made Wei Ran both amused and exasperated was that one of the soldiers even tried to carry him on his back.

"I'm fine"

Wei Ran pushed the other person away, bent down to pick up two Type 38 rifles and slung them over his shoulder, then ran back after the other person.

However, he stopped after running only a couple of steps back.

"What are you doing? Run!" The soldier who had just tried to carry him urged anxiously in his thick dialect.

You go first.

Wei Ran ignored the cannonballs flying overhead toward the city wall; he even lowered the rifle slung over his shoulder.

What's wrong with you?

The soldier urged him anxiously, but seeing that Wei Ran was completely unmoved, he gritted his teeth, picked up the rifle he had put down, and ran towards the collapsed city wall.

At this moment, Wei Ran lay down on his side and pointed the adjusted camera lens at a body—no, a pile of corpses.

In the middle of this pile of corpses was the company commander, whose name he hadn't even had a chance to ask.

He was stabbed through the chest and abdomen by three Japanese soldiers with Type 38 rifles armed with bayonets, but his right hand also slashed open the neck of one Japanese soldier with a large knife and then stabbed into the neck of the middle Japanese soldier.

The last Japanese soldier died under the three-pronged pistol that the company commander was gripping tightly in his left hand.

Even in this final moment of mutual destruction, the company commander remained standing with his eyes wide open in anger.

In contrast, the three Japanese soldiers were either kneeling, lying down, or pressing down on the three rifles supporting the company commander's body.

"Crack!"

Wei Ran pressed the shutter again, this time to photograph the company commander whose name he didn't know. Then, putting away his camera and ignoring the artillery fire aimed at the city wall, he helped the company commander lie down and removed the rifles with bayonets from his chest and abdomen.

With some difficulty, Wei Ran took the three boxes from the other person's hands. Lying side by side with the other person on the scorched earth, he tried to pull the trigger, only to find that the gun was out of bullets.

He searched the man's body again, trying to find some personal items to leave for Wen Laoga as a keepsake, but he failed; the former company commander had nothing that looked particularly personal on him.

With a soft sigh, Wei Ran took off the blood-stained cap from the other person's head and put it on his own.

Gently closing the other person's eyes, Wei Ran glanced sideways in the direction of Wen Laoga.

Unfortunately, by then it had become a rather small crater.

He had no way of knowing whether Wen Laoga had been carried away or had been reduced to ashes.

Putting aside his worries about him, Wei Ran began to fret about his own situation.

At the foot of the Great Wall lies a rocky mountain that cannot be dug up.

By this time, the city walls were being bombarded by more and more cannons, and his idea of ​​retreating was simply wishful thinking.

Then we won't leave.
Despite being covered in major wounds and countless minor injuries, Wei Ran made a decision with ease. He grabbed a Type 38 rifle, loaded it with bullets, and used the corpses of Japanese soldiers as cover, searching for a worthy target to fire upon amidst the rumbling of artillery fire.

"boom!"

Shortly afterward, Wei Ran pulled the trigger on yet another Japanese soldier holding binoculars.

After that shot, even the sound of artillery fire stopped for a moment.

Did you manage to hit some big cargo?

Wei Ran's heart skipped a beat, but he didn't have time to verify it. He grabbed his gun and took advantage of the rare gap to run towards the collapsed city wall. Before the next round of shells came crashing down, he hid on the other side of the thick city wall.

A large number of wounded soldiers were already lying on this side of the city wall.

Those who cared for the wounded were mostly ordinary people dressed as villagers.

There were men and women, young and old. Some were boiling herbs, some were bandaging the wounded, and some had even set up large blacksmith shops and knife sharpening stalls on the spot, urgently repairing the large knives with chipped and broken blades.

Besides the jobs that are handled by adults, there are even children here.

These teenagers were either busy collecting firewood for heating or filling sacks with soil to make sandbags to plug gaps in the city walls and bunkers.

Here, regardless of gender or age, despite the booming cannons from the other side of the Great Wall and the occasional falling bricks, they seemed utterly unafraid.