The Iron-Blooded Army of Beacon Fire

Chapter 357 The calm before the storm

Although He Wei was now well versed in the factional struggles in the National Army, he could fully understand the deep meaning of Li Yannian's words "Li Fangbin will be in trouble sooner or later" on the phone.

This sentence not only hinted that He Wei and Li Yannian should take the opportunity to deal with Li Fangbin, but also hinted that He Wei should join him in getting rid of Li Fangbin, the commander of the 18th Division.

Although He Wei was very dissatisfied with the actions and various strange behaviors of Li Fangbin, the commander of the 18th Division, in the defense of Fuchikou, he actually believed from the bottom of his heart that if Li Fangbin was dismissed or no longer in charge of the defense of Fuchikou, it would actually be a good thing for the overall defense of Fuchikou and even Tianjia Town and Banbishan.

However, this man is a lieutenant general division commander who graduated from the second class of Whampoa Military Academy and a civil engineering officer. He has the big boss Chen Cheng behind him. This is someone He Wei cannot afford to offend at the moment.

Therefore, although He Wei could tell that Li Yannian wanted to punish Li Fangbin, he did not want to get involved rashly. If things got out of hand, he might end up getting into trouble.

Although this thing is not like fighting with real swords and guns on the battlefield, it is no less dangerous than fighting with real swords and guns on the battlefield. If you get it wrong, you may end up in a tragic situation of defeat and death.

Moreover, with a powerful enemy at the doorstep, he did not have the extra energy to focus on matters unrelated to combat, so He Wei really declined to be involved in personnel struggles and intrigues at this time.

Therefore, he avoided talking about the failure of the Fuchikou Fortress today and Li Fangbin's dereliction of duty, which Li Yannian mentioned frequently on the phone, and said, "Please rest assured, sir. No matter what happens to other positions, I will firmly hold the Banbishan position."

He Wei did not respond, and Li Yannian also stopped talking about this. Then, Li Yannian's hearty laughter came again on the phone, and he said, "He Wei, I will report your military exploits in today's battle truthfully, and I will never treat you unfairly. I like the sabers you sent me before. I hope your troops will continue to work hard, continue to make military exploits, and beat the Japanese devils hard. If you need anything, such as ammunition and supplies, just let me know."

Hearing that Li Yannian was going to replenish his troops with ammunition, He Wei immediately perked up and said, "Yes! Thank you, sir. I think the most useful weapon in today's battle is artillery, especially the German-made 150mm heavy howitzers of the mechanized heavy artillery battalion. They are excellent weapons for both anti-ship and anti-land operations. I hope to replenish more 150mm shells. In addition, I hope that the sir will allocate more Japanese 75-caliber shells and 76-caliber shells donated by the Soviet Union to our artillery."

Li Yannian, in a good mood, naturally would not refuse He Wei's request and said, "No problem. I will immediately report the ammunition you need to the Military and Political Department for replenishment. I will also send you a batch of bullets and grenades, as well as 200 bags of flour, 150 boxes of canned meat, 200 boxes of biscuits, and a batch of supplies that have just been delivered to the troops, so that your brothers in the army can have a good meal and have a good meal."

He Wei added, "I would like to thank you on behalf of our officers and soldiers. In addition, our unit also suffered some casualties in today's battle. The lightly injured officers and soldiers have been treated by our unit. The seriously injured soldiers who cannot be treated have been transferred across the river to Tianjia Town. I hope you will instruct the medical staff in Tianjia Town to take good care of them."

Li Yannian: "No problem, I will ask them to properly treat the seriously injured soldiers you sent, ammunition, and wounded soldiers. I will take care of all these things for you. Don't worry about these things. Think more about how to fight the next battle. I hope you can win more battles and give me better spoils. As long as you fight well, I will continue to ask the Military Commission for credit for you! You will definitely get all the credit you deserve."

According to military principles, no matter whether the troops are accepting orders from their superiors or taking the initiative to attack based on their own situation, as long as they fight the enemy, they must report the specific battle situation to their superiors after the battle. This is a military rule and principle.

He Wei's troops are currently in the battle sequence of Li Yannian's 11th Corps and are under the control of the 11th Corps. According to this basic principle, all military actions of He Wei's troops must be reported to the 11th Corps.

Therefore, after the battle in which the Advance Column completely wiped out the vanguard battalion of the Japanese Hata Detachment, He Wei immediately ordered the General Staff Office to compile a detailed battle report of the battle and quickly submit it to Li Yannian, commander of the 11th Corps.

In addition to the battle reports, He Wei also picked out the Japanese army's command swords and pistols from the spoils brought back by the Advance Column and gave them to Li Yannian as personal gifts. Of course, in order to establish a good relationship with Li Yannian, his temporary superior, He Wei also specially ordered Li Youcai, director of the logistics department of the assault corps, to take ten gold bars and give them to Li Yannian along with the sabers and pistols.

The saber that Li Yannian mentioned actually refers to the gifts that He Wei gave him, not just the saber itself.

After receiving these gifts from He Wei, Li Yannian's attitude towards He Wei indeed improved a lot. He also reported the situation and process of He Wei's first victory to the Military Commission without any dilution. He Wei also received a general commendation from the Military Commission for this battle.

Now Li Yannian's attitude was so kind when he talked to He Wei on the phone. In addition to the factor that He Wei won the battle, the role of these gifts was probably also significant.

"Yes! Sir, I will fight to the death to serve the country, defend Banbi Mountain, and protect Tianjia Town and Banbi Mountain Jiang Defense Line. Last time I gave you a lieutenant officer's sword and a lieutenant officer's sword. Next time, I will try to kill a Japanese general and give you a general officer's sword."

Regarding He Wei's "outrageous words" about killing the Japanese general, Li Yannian, who was unaware of He Wei's achievement of killing the uncle of the Japanese emperor, of course thought that He Wei was exaggerating.

However, taking advantage of the good mood brought by today's victory in Banbi Mountain, Li Yannian found such exaggerated words very pleasing to the ears, so he laughed a few more times and said, "Then I will wait for your good news."

He Wei exchanged a few polite words with Li Yannian before hanging up the phone.

After hanging up the telephone transmitter, He Wei let out a long sigh, stood up and stretched his aching muscles. The messenger Tao Heiwa also came over with a few steaming lunch boxes.

After the battle, He Wei had been handling military affairs until late at night. When he smelled the fragrance of food, he felt even hungrier. He immediately took the food brought by Tao Heiwa and ate it with relish.

Just as He Wei had finished his midnight snack and was feeling sleepy, he returned to his residence in the command post to take a nap, but the Chief of Staff Wang Yuanling pushed open the door and walked in with some documents without even saying hello.

Seeing that Wang Yuanling was not as excited and excited as he was when he saw the Japanese warships being sunk during the day, but instead had a depressed look on his face, He Wei was also very surprised. He pulled a steel camp chair and motioned Wang Yuanling to sit down, and then asked: "Brother Yuanling, what's wrong? You were the most excited when we shot down the Japanese warships during the day, why do you act like we lost the battle now?"

Wang Yuanling smiled awkwardly and said, "Captain, it's nothing. The General Staff Office just finished interrogating the Japanese prisoners." He Weiqi asked, "What's wrong? Did the interrogation go wrong? Are those Japanese navy sailors too stubborn to confess?"

In today's battle, most of the Japanese naval officers and soldiers on the four sunk Japanese ships were killed, but there were also a few survivors who swam to the river bank and became prisoners of the assault corps. After the battle, He Wei immediately ordered the General Staff to interrogate the prisoners in order to obtain important information about the enemy from them.

Wang Yuanling shook his head. "No, those Japanese navy sailors were really stubborn at first. No matter how we asked or beat them, they didn't say a word. They held out until the evening and still didn't utter a word. But they were also a bunch of people who couldn't be frightened. I called Captain Yang Biao of the Special Forces Company and the surrendered Japanese prisoners of war over here. I had the Special Forces chop a Japanese prisoner alive with knives in front of the prisoners, and then they all peed themselves and confessed everything."

Then, Wang Yuanling said helplessly: "But what they have explained is no different from nothing. Captain, take a look, it's basically useless information. These prisoners are all ordinary low-level sailors of the Japanese Navy, without any officers. They only know the number of their fleet and the situation of their own positions. As for the composition of their fleet, the use of tactics and the possible direction of the next attack, they are completely in the dark and know nothing. It's a waste of time to interrogate these people."

After taking the document handed over by Wang Yuanling, he saw that it contained only the confessions of the captives. After reading it, He Wei understood why Wang Yuanling was so disappointed.

These captured Japanese naval prisoners were either naval boilermen or the lowest-level ordinary sailors who cleaned the decks, as well as the ship's cooks and porters in the ship's warehouse. In short, they were a bunch of rotten fish and shrimp. Moreover, all these prisoners were soldiers, without even a warrant officer among them. The information they confessed was basically useless garbage information. There was no intelligence that could provide He Wei with decision-making support and help in the next operation.

And all this information was obtained through interrogation of officers by the Commando Corps' General Staff and torture by the Commando Corps' Rangers. It can be confirmed that the Japanese prisoners of war did not hide anything and only knew this much.

After winning the battle today, Wang Yuanling's morale was greatly boosted. The reason why he went to interrogate the Japanese prisoners in person with the officers of the General Staff Office was that he wanted to dig out some useful information from the Japanese prisoners. Based on this information, he would take advantage of the momentum of today's victory to help He Wei win another victory and give the Japanese a severe beating.

However, the garbage information confessed by these Japanese prisoners of war obviously did not have the effect that Wang Yuanling expected.

After throwing aside the documents filled with junk information, He Wei's expression became slightly solemn.

Today we indeed won a great victory, sinking four warships and dealing a heavy blow to the Japanese fleet.

However, He Wei also knew that the Japanese fleet that attacked Banbi Mountain was very powerful. Although it had suffered heavy damage today, it was far from having lost its combat effectiveness, and the captured prisoners could not provide any useful information.

What is certain is that the Japanese fleet attacking upstream would never stop its attack just because it lost four warships. Instead, it would most likely adopt more tricky tactics and launch more fierce attacks.

As to whether the Japanese army will continue to attack upstream with warships, or wait for the main force of the Japanese army to arrive and then launch a joint sea and land attack on Banbi Mountain and Tianjia Town, or adopt other tactics, He Wei is currently unable to make an accurate judgment.

In short, the situation facing the Banbishan garrison is still very serious, and He Wei also needs to be fully prepared to deal with the complicated and confusing battle situation that will follow.

In the next few days, the severely defeated Japanese Navy's 11th Squadron did not launch any military operations against Banbishan and Tianjia Town. Not to mention launching a large-scale fleet attack, even the shadow of Japanese warships did not enter the river defense range of the Banbishan Garrison Command.

This powerful fleet seemed to have disappeared suddenly and never had any contact with the Chinese defenders on the Banbishan defense line again.

Tianjia Town and Banbishan River, which had just experienced a brutal bloody battle, showed a very strange calm.

Faced with such a situation, although he didn't know what the Japanese were up to, He Wei instinctively raised his vigilance and ordered all troops under the Banbishan Garrison Command to strengthen their vigilance.

During these few days of calm, the Japanese Navy's 11th Squadron was planning a new tactical operation.

After the initial setback, facing the fierce firepower and tenacious defense of the Chinese army on Banbi Mountain, the 11th Fleet Commander Kondo Eijiro, who was somewhat helpless, decisively abandoned the attack plan based on water, and instead adopted the suggestion of Kitaro Tsuchi, the captain of the 11th Special Marine Corps of the Japanese Navy Kure Naval Base, who was operating with the th Fleet, and took a different approach to seek a breakthrough in the Banbi Mountain defense line by using a marine landing assault.

Although the Japanese Navy's 11th Squadron appeared calm on the surface these days, a landing battle plan was being intensively prepared underneath this calm. The so-called calm was actually just the last peace before the storm.

In the conference room of the Ataka, the flagship of the 11th Fleet of the Japanese Navy, the commander of the 11th Fleet, Kondo Eijiro, sat at the head of the table. On both sides of the conference table were the captains of the ships of the 11th Fleet, various large and small transport ships, and the commanders of the affiliated marines, dozens of people in total.

Standing in front of the large-scale map in the conference room was Kitaro Tsuchi, the lieutenant colonel captain of the 5th Special Marine Corps of the Kure Naval Base of the Japanese Navy. Compared with the naval captains at the conference table who looked a little dusty and listless due to the great defeat a few days ago, Kitaro Tsuchi, with a rosy face, looked extremely energetic.

Kondo Eijiro, who was sitting in the main seat, glanced at the audience, nodded to Tsuchi Shi Kitaro, who was standing in front of the large-scale map, and said in a deep voice: "Tsuchi Shi-kun, we can start now."

"Yes, sir!"

(End of this chapter)