The Iron-Blooded Army of Beacon Fire

Chapter 360 Night Terror 2
Under the tactical guidance of Kitaro Tsuchi's principle of rapid attack, the six Carden Lloyd ultra-light tanks of the landing Japanese Marine Corps Special Tank Squadron immediately deployed a combat search formation at an extremely fast speed, penetrated into the night, and advanced quietly.

In order to live up to Kitaro Tsuchiji's ardent expectations and to gain the first merit in the landing operation on the west bank of Tomichiguchi, the special tank squadron leader, Major Tanosho, personally got into the driver's cab of a tank and led the squadron's six tanks in a search and attack along the west bank of the Tomichi River.

The Carden Lloyd ultralight tank equipped by the Special Tank Squadron can be said to be the originator of ultralight tanks in the world. It was designed by British John Valentine Carden and Vivian Lloyd in 1927 and produced by the British Carden Lloyd Company. It is very small in appearance, weighs 1.5 tons, is 2.46 meters long, 1.75 meters wide, and 1.22 meters high. The crew is 2 people. The armor thickness is 6~9 mm, equipped with a British-made Vickers 1 mm machine gun, and the ammunition capacity is 7.7 rounds.

As the ancestor of ultra-light tanks, this type of tank does not even have a fully enclosed fighting compartment. Only the driver among the crew can hide in the enclosed cockpit, while the machine gunner needs to fire in a narrow and unprotected fighting compartment. The simple steel plate of the fighting compartment is only 6 to 9 mm thick, which cannot guarantee % resistance to even the steel core bullets fired by rifles. Its overall combat performance is not even as good as that of the Japanese Type tank.

However, this ultra-light tank was favored by the Japanese Marine Corps because of its light weight and high maneuverability, and a large number of them were purchased and equipped. Although this light tank, which has been on the market for more than ten years, is already outdated, it is a deadly enemy of light infantry that lacks anti-tank weapons, and is even more terrifying for the poorly equipped Chinese army.

In the night, six small and flexible Japanese tanks advanced along the west bank of the Fuchi River and gradually approached the defensive positions of the 18th Division.
West of the Fuchi River, in the defensive position of the 108th Regiment of the 54th Brigade of the 18th Division, most of the more than 2,000 officers and soldiers of the 108th Regiment, completely unaware of the impending danger, hid in the fortifications to rest. Except for the gurgling sound of the Fuchi River and the gusts of wind, there was no other sound around the position, creating an atmosphere of "tranquility and peace".

In front of the main position of the 108th Regiment, there were only a dozen scattered sentries and hastily built simple guard fortifications, which did not meet the basic requirements for nighttime guarding of an infantry regiment's position. The basic guard sections such as complete forward guard positions, side defense fortifications, etc. were either hastily implemented or did not exist at all.

The 18th Division was originally from the Hunan Army. It suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Shanghai. After the Battle of Shanghai, it was absorbed by Chen Cheng's Civil Engineering Clique and supplemented with a large number of new recruits and officers. The army underwent many personnel adjustments, and various personnel struggles and factional struggles emerged one after another. The entire army was in a stage of transition, and naturally its combat readiness and training were very poor.

The commander of the 18th Division is a mediocre person like Li Fangbin. In short, the overall combat effectiveness of the 18th Division is very low. Whether it is the lack of observation posts on the river bank or the flawed night guard duty of the positions, these are all the consequences brought about by the chaos within the 18th Division and the low level of combat readiness.

It is said that a strong general has no weak soldiers, but the saying is also true in reverse. The 18th Division is such a weak brigade, and with such a weird commander like Li Fangbin, there is no need to say much about the current situation of this unit in all aspects.

Since the 18th Division moved to Fuchikou to take up the garrison mission, due to Li Fangbin's poor military management, the division's defense has always been sparse. Li Fangbin also did not have the ability to reorganize the 18th Division, a force filled with new recruits and with extremely low tactical level and combat readiness awareness.

Therefore, the 18th Division had been guarding Fuchikou in such an extremely weak state until the Japanese fleet attacked Fuchikou about a week ago, which slightly awakened the 18th Division and improved its combat readiness awareness.

However, after the Banbishan defenders sank four Japanese ships, the 18th Division returned to its old ways, and its combat readiness awareness, which had been slightly improved, once again weakened.

Soon, the negative effects and negative impacts of all the chaos and ills within the 18th Division will be completely manifested and erupted in an extremely tragic and bloody way in this quiet night.

……

In front of the 108th Regiment's position, sentry Wang Goudan was standing in a hastily dug individual kneeling firing fortification that was completely unqualified according to the requirements of the Infantry Drill Manual. On the outer edge of the fortification, several long-handled grenades were placed in a crooked manner.

Wang Goudan, who held the rank of private, was standing and looked like he was on guard duty, but he was actually dozing off with his eyes blurry, leaning on a heavy Hanyang rifle. The hot summer night had already made Wang Goudan sleepy, and his head seemed to be filled with lead, constantly falling down, sometimes sinking down, sometimes tilting to the left.

Wang Goudan was originally a farmer in Hunan Province. A few months ago, the village headman and the captain began to recruit soldiers in the village. Since Wang Goudan was not the only son and his family had no money to bribe the headman or buy someone to replace him, he had no choice but to be conscripted and served as a soldier. He was tied up all the way and sent to the division command area. After a hasty training, he was added to the 18th Division.

Like most of the new recruits in the 18th Division, after entering the division, Wang Goudan had not received any systematic combat training except firing two shots with a rifle. He knew nothing about how to fight or how to be a good combat soldier.

Although he served as a sentry tonight, Wang Goudan had no idea about sentry duty and the basic principles of sentry duty. For him, the so-called sentry duty was nothing more than a change of place to sleep in a more painful way.

Suddenly, Wang Goudan, who was half asleep and half awake, seemed to hear a faint sound coming from afar. The unconscious Wang Goudan's head was startled by the sound and fell heavily on the muzzle of the Hanyang rifle. The cold muzzle stabbed him and he finally woke up in pain.

Wang Goudan, who had just woken up from a dream, looked in the direction of the sound and saw several dark shadows running quickly in the distance near the bank of Fuchi River. The noise was getting louder and louder. It was like the friction of steel and the roar of an engine. It was a strange sound that Wang Goudan had never heard of before. For the dark shadows and strange noises in the dark night, Wang Goudan, a new soldier born in a peasant family, his first reaction was that it was haunted!

Wang Goudan was suddenly startled and swallowed the air in big gulps out of fear. The strange situation in front of him made Wang Goudan suddenly feel terrified. Wang Goudan grabbed the rifle and then, as if to pluck up his courage, picked up a grenade and threw it in the approximate direction of the shadow without even pulling the string.

After throwing the grenade, Wang Goudan, who was in extreme fear, was about to run back to report to his squad leader. But before he could run away, suddenly, with a loud roar, several black shadows that Wang Goudan could not see clearly suddenly rushed closer, and their true faces were revealed. They were the six Carden Lloyd tanks of the landing Japanese special tank squadron.

Looking at the iron-boned turtle that he had never seen before, Wang Goudan, who was already scared out of his wits, staggered and could not run a few steps before the 7.7mm machine guns on the six Japanese tanks instantly spewed out a string of flames, and the dense machine gun bullets immediately turned Wang Goudan into a sieve.

The rest of the sentinels in front of the 108th Regiment of the 18th Division also suffered the same fate as Wang Goudan, falling in a pool of blood. After easily killing the sentinels at the 108th Regiment's position, six Japanese tanks immediately began to attack the main position of the 108th Regiment.

Six small light tanks fired blindly at the positions of the 108th Regiment while rushing towards the positions of the 108th Regiment. The positions of the 108th Regiment were like a sieve with holes everywhere, just like its current low combat effectiveness. Even the basic fortifications of the infantry units were full of holes, and there was no anti-tank trench built at all.

Therefore, the landing Japanese special tank squadron that attacked the position of the 108th Regiment easily broke into the position of the 108th Regiment and launched an attack on the officers and soldiers of the 108th Regiment in the position as if they were in an empty space.

The following battle was more of a massacre than a combat. Most of the officers and soldiers of the 108th Regiment were asleep and had not yet reacted to what was happening before they saw the Japanese tanks rampaging through their positions, with the machine guns on the tanks firing continuously and intensively.

Officers and soldiers of the 108th Regiment were constantly rammed by the Japanese tanks and mowed down by machine gun fire. Although the casualties were not heavy, there were still many casualties. Among the soldiers of the 108th Regiment, more than 70% were new recruits who had never participated in the battlefield.

These people, just like the sentry Wang Goudan who was just killed by the Japanese tank machine gun fire, had never seen a tank and had not received decent military training after joining the army. They were rushed into the battlefield without even completing basic shooting education. In essence, they were just a group of farmers in military uniforms. Many of them didn't even know that they had to pull the string before throwing a grenade, let alone receive systematic anti-tank education. They all panicked when they saw the tanks.

Many recruits were immediately frightened by the iron turtles spewing flames. They threw away their guns and started running for their lives, rushing around like headless flies.

Only the officers and a few veterans knew that they were the Japanese tanks and had an anti-tank awareness. However, faced with the large-scale fleeing recruits, although these officers and veterans tried their best to stop them and organized their troops to resist, they were simply unable to intercept the recruits who were retreating like a tide. In the end, they could only retreat with these recruits.

The defensive position of the 108th Regiment, a field position guarded by a field infantry regiment, completely collapsed and dispersed in just half an hour under the surprise attack of six ultra-light tanks of the landing Japanese special tank squadron.

But the defeat of the 108th Regiment was only the beginning of the 18th Division's disastrous defeat.

The 18th Division had two infantry brigades, the 52nd and 54th. The 54th was deployed on the west bank of the Fuchi River. The 54th was composed of the 108th and 107th Regiments.

The two infantry regiments were deployed in a line, and their positions were not far apart. After the 108th Regiment was defeated, the 107th Regiment could not survive on its own and soon repeated the mistakes of the 108th Regiment.

After easily defeating the 108th Regiment, the captain of the Japanese Special Tank Squadron, Major Tansho, decided to quit while he was ahead. Instead of continuing to pursue the defeated 108th Regiment, he quickly withdrew his troops and rushed towards the position of the 107th Regiment adjacent to the position of the 108th Regiment.

However, the Japanese offensive faced by the 107th Regiment was far more fierce than the attack suffered by the Japanese tank troops of the 108th Regiment, because after the special tank squadron of the Japanese landing force defeated the 108th Regiment, the main infantry force of the landing force commanded by Kitaro Tsuchi also caught up.

Therefore, the special tank squadron of the Japanese landing force that had just defeated the 108th Regiment immediately joined forces with the main infantry force and launched a more fierce joint attack on the defensive positions of the 107th Regiment.

This also means that the 107th Regiment encountered a joint attack from the main tank and infantry units of the Japanese landing force.

Under the night-time joint attack by the Japanese landing force consisting of two Marine infantry battalions and a tank squadron, the 107th Regiment was not only attacked by tanks, but also hit by infantry fire and mountain artillery fire.

Like the 108th Regiment, the 107th Regiment had mostly new recruits who had never seen such coordinated nighttime attack operations involving infantry, tanks, and artillery. Many of them were simply frightened when they saw the Japanese tanks rushing into the positions, so how could they put up any strong resistance?
Just like that, the 107th Regiment soon followed in the footsteps of the 108th Regiment and was defeated in less than an hour. What was even more tragic was that since the 107th Regiment was attacked by the main force of the Japanese landing force, after the troops were defeated, the Japanese did not stop while they were ahead like they did when they used tank forces alone to raid the 108th Regiment, but instead carried out a fierce coordinated pursuit by infantry and tanks and artillery firepower.

In the dark night, the special tank squadron and infantry of the landing Japanese army coordinated with each other to carry out coordinated infantry and tank pursuit operations, while using mountain artillery fire to pursue the defeated 107th Regiment.

The defeated troops of the 107th Regiment, which had lost their consciousness of resistance and completely collapsed, were killed and wounded in large numbers by the machine gun fire and mountain artillery fire of the Japanese infantry and tank pursuing troops. The already defeated team became further disorganized under the multi-level firepower attacks of the landing Japanese troops. The regiment was not organized, the battalion was not organized, the soldiers and officers were separated from each other, and the whole team was in chaos.

The defeated soldiers from various units mixed together, and even attacked and fought each other for escape routes.

At this point, in just a few hours, the two regiments of the 54th Brigade of the 18th Division deployed on the west bank of the Fuchi River were completely defeated. This also meant that in just one night, the 18th Division's defense on the west side of Fuchikou had completely collapsed.

(End of this chapter)