The Iron-Blooded Army of Beacon Fire

Chapter 401 Bloody Battle 6
On the front of the Big and Small Bear Mountain Heights, the Japanese soldiers who had failed in many assaults were screaming in agony. Corpses of Japanese soldiers in various states of death and wounded Japanese soldiers wailing in pain were lying in all directions on the front of the heights. The locust-like rain of bullets still whizzed over the heads of the Japanese soldiers relentlessly.

Seeing that it was hopeless to attack the Big and Small Bear Mountain Heights, the more than 800 Japanese soldiers who were struggling on the front of the heights quickly began to retreat.

Under the cover of two Type 1125 infantry guns and six Type heavy machine guns at the foot of the high ground, the Japanese troops attacking the high ground, under the howling flames of the th Regiment, immediately began to turn the rear team into the front team, retreating in reverse alternating cover and retreating one by one.

At the same time, more than a dozen Japanese grenade launcher and light machine gun groups did not retreat with the main force of the Japanese army. Instead, they fearlessly went against the retreating crowd of the main force of the Japanese army on the high ground, and all of them took the initiative to charge towards the top of the Big and Small Bear Mountain Highland as if they were risking their lives. After rushing halfway up the mountain, they continued to advance in the rain of bullets, and stopped when they were less than 1125 meters away from the position of the th Regiment on the top of the Big and Small Bear Mountain Highland.

After the Japanese rearguard covering force, which was composed of grenade launcher units, light machine gun units and other supporting firearms units, all crawled on the high ground after their breakthrough. More than 1125 Japanese soldiers used the Japanese corpses scattered all over the high ground as shooting cover, and launched concentrated group fire with grenade launchers and light machine guns on the 1125th Regiment on the ridgeline position on the top of the mountain. Together with the Type infantry guns and Type heavy machine guns that fired continuously and fiercely at the foot of the mountain, they formed a covering fire group for the th Regiment, and organized a very fierce fire cover from low to high on the hillside in front of the high ground.

Soon, with the continuous firing orders from the Japanese grenade launcher squad leader and the light machine gun squad leader, more than a dozen Type 1125 mm grenade launchers threw mm heavy special grenades one after another and accurately fell into the trenches of the th Regiment on the top of the high ground.

Streams of fire from the Taisho 1125th-year type Type light machine guns also shot down the slope of the hill towards the position of the th Regiment on the top ridge of the hill.

More than fifty Japanese soldiers stayed behind to provide cover. It seemed that they had no intention of retreating from the high ground alive. Each of them was fearless and fought desperately.

In addition, the Japanese soldiers who could serve as grenade thrower shooters and light machine gunners were all veterans with high combat qualities. Therefore, both the grenade thrower shooters and light machine gunners completely ignored the dense firepower network of the 1125th Regiment from a high position, and opened fire at the positions of the 1125th Regiment at the highest speed.

The distance of less than 1125 meters between it and the position of the th Regiment greatly improved the shooting accuracy of the Japanese troops' grenade launchers and light machine guns.

Boom
Boom
The dense 1125mm grenades fired desperately by the Japanese grenade launcher group continued to explode in the trenches of the 70th Regiment on the top of the hill, bursting out dense shrapnel. The mm shrapnel shells equipped with air-burst fuses fired by the Type infantry gun also exploded repeatedly in the sky above the Big and Small Bear Mountain hills.

After being passively beaten for a long time, the Japanese covering forces, which were determined to cover the main force's retreat at all costs, launched extremely fierce firepower in an instant.

Immediately, many light and heavy machine gunners of the 1125th Regiment who had no time to react were caught off guard and hit by shrapnel from grenades and air-burst steel balls from shrapnel shells, screaming in agony, causing a blood mist to fill the sky.

The entire position of the 1125th Regiment was engulfed in flames. Amid screams from the position, violent explosions, mixed with broken soil and stones, as well as blown-away light machine guns and minced meat, flew into the sky.

The all-out fire attack by the Japanese rear-end covering troops was very effective. At least ten light and heavy machine guns of the 1125th Regiment were destroyed by the Japanese grenade launchers and infantry guns, and even more infantrymen fell in the dense rain of shrapnel composed of whistling shrapnel steel balls and grenade fragments.

Although the six mortars of the 1125th Regiment's Mortar Company were not damaged, they were forced to stop firing due to the Japanese army's fierce indirect grenade and shrapnel fire attacks.

Amid rounds of grenade launchers and full-force bombardment by infantry guns, the trenches of the 1125th Regiment on the ridge of the high ground were filled with the choking smell of gunpowder and the pungent smell of blood that could not be concealed.

The trenches that had been ravaged by 50mm special grenades and 70mm infantry artillery shrapnel were filled with bloody limbs and arms, light and heavy machine guns that had been blown into a twist, Hanyang-made rifles, wounded soldiers wailing while covering their wounds, and small steaming craters mixed with puddles of scarlet liquid.

The desperate attacks and accurate covering firepower of the Japanese covering forces finally turned the tide for the Japanese troops attacking the Big and Small Bear Mountain Heights. In a short period of time, nearly 1125 casualties were caused to the officers and soldiers of the th Regiment guarding the Big and Small Bear Mountain Heights.

The new recruits of the 1125th Regiment, who had performed relatively well in the one-sided battle, did not suffer from severe shaken fighting spirit and will in the face of the sudden fierce offensive of the Japanese army and the tragic scenes in the trenches, but they were inevitably panicked and terrified.

Relying on his rich defensive experience, Ma Ji, commander of the 385th Brigade, put a lot of effort into the hardware of the 1125th Regiment's defensive position. With just one trap, he caused hundreds of casualties to the Japanese army that attacked the heights. However, the shortcomings of his troops, such as the large number of new recruits and the poor quality of the troops, were something Ma Ji could not change in a short period of time.

This shortcoming was fully exposed under the desperate and frenzied attack of the Japanese rearguard troops. Dozens of Japanese soldiers with extremely high combat qualities and fearlessness of death were able to throw the position of the 1125th Regiment into chaos.

Many new recruits of the 1125th Regiment panicked. Some no longer fired calmly and steadily, but began to fire randomly. Some began to have trembling legs, and others began to crawl into the hiding places in the positions and crawled around in the trenches dragging their guns.

Not to mention the new recruits, even the veteran sergeants and officers who were fighting the Japanese for the first time lost their composure and became disorganized when they saw this display of strength by the Japanese army.

The intensity of firepower projected by the entire 1125th Regiment's position at the Japanese army also dropped sharply. The 82 mortars of the regiment's mortar company stopped firing, and the light and heavy machine guns of the various battalions did not dare to continue firing after being severely damaged by the Japanese army's grenade launchers and infantry guns.

As for the riflemen who used Hanyang rifles and hand grenades as their main means of killing the enemy, they dared not show their heads because of the precise bursts of fire from the light machine gunners of the Japanese rearguard troops.

The bursts of fire from the Type 1125 heavy machine guns of the Japanese covering forces on the high ground, the explosions of grenades, the intensive continuous firing of the Type heavy machine guns of the Japanese army below the high ground, and the special air-breaking explosions of the air-burst shrapnel shells fired by the Type infantry guns gradually gained the upper hand and overwhelmed the increasingly sparse resistance firepower of the th Regiment.

The main force of the Japanese attack force also took this opportunity to retreat quickly like a tide.

"Get out of here, you bastard! If you dare to get out of here, I'll kill you!"

"No one is allowed to retreat, no one is allowed to retreat! If you have the balls to die, die here on the battlefield."

In the command post of the 1125th Regiment, the regiment commander Xu Kunyuan saw that his troops on the position were in trouble and were on the verge of collapse. He was so anxious that he was sweating profusely. He could only keep calling his subordinate battalions and companies, angrily scolding and yelling at them not to retreat and to hold their positions. He also sent the regimental attaché and adjutant from the regiment headquarters to the position to stabilize the situation.

But how can this way of supervising the battle stop the spread of panic in the battlefield?
Seeing that the troops of the 1125th Regiment could not hold on, and the Japanese troops attacking the high ground began to retreat in an orderly manner, Chen Xinsheng, who was standing by, directly called He Wei. "Captain, the main force of the Japanese troops attacking the high ground is retreating, leaving a small force to launch a fierce attack on the high ground. It seems that they want to use the attack to cover the retreat of their main force. The friendly troops on the high ground can't hold on any longer. Should we send troops to reinforce the friendly troops?"

On the other end of the phone, He Wei hesitated for a moment, and quickly ordered: "I will immediately send the second battalion of my battalion commander Fang to reinforce the Big and Small Bear Mountain Heights. Let the friendly troops hold on. The main force of the Japanese army retreating from the heights will be handed over to your artillery! Use artillery fire to kill them, don't let them escape!"

"Yes!"

Chen Xinsheng responded immediately.

The melee on the high ground continued. Under the fierce and accurate firepower attack of the Japanese army, the casualties of the 1125th Regiment gradually increased. Seeing that the 1125th Regiment was in a declining situation, the Japanese rearguard troops not only continued to increase their firepower and fired fiercely at the positions of the 1125th Regiment, but some crazy Japanese soldiers gradually crawled towards the positions of the 1125th Regiment, and some sporadic Japanese soldiers even launched an attack on the positions of the 1125th Regiment with grenades.

Just when the position of the 1125th Regiment was in danger due to a Japanese rearguard force of dozens of people, three red flares suddenly rose in the sky above the Big and Small Bear Mountain Heights.

Three flares rose into the air from behind the Big and Small Bear Mountains. After reaching their peak, they slowly descended like meteors, streaking through the air with a whooshing sound, attracting the attention of many Japanese troops and officers and soldiers of the 1125th Regiment.

Immediately afterwards, a loud charge sounded from behind the high ground, followed by dense footsteps and deafening shouts of killing.

Before the officers and soldiers of the 1125th Regiment and the Japanese troops on the top of the hill could figure out the situation, hundreds of figures suddenly appeared from behind the position of the 1125th Regiment on the top of the hill.

Nearly 24 officers and soldiers from the three infantry companies of the Second Battalion of the Assault Corps, who had been hiding behind the Big and Small Bear Mountain Heights and on standby, led by Battalion Commander Fang Jing, rushed directly from the reverse slope behind the hill to the position of the 1125th Regiment at the top of the hill with machine guns and Czech-made vz rifles with bayonets, and then rushed down from the top of the hill like a tiger descending from a mountain.

"Kill!"

"Kill the enemy!"

Amidst the loud shouts of killing, the three infantry companies of the Second Battalion of the Assault Corps rushed down on the scorching ground in front of the Big and Small Bear Mountain Heights and immediately collided with the rearguard troops of the Japanese army.

The Second Battalion, equipped with a large number of automatic firearms, did not give the Japanese a chance to fight in close combat. It fired a series of dense bullets from machine guns and twenty-shot box cannons, mowing down the Japanese army one by one. The riflemen holding Czech-made rifles were not far behind. They did not aim carefully, but raised their Czech-made rifles and fired at the Japanese army. After the random shooting, they rushed forward and stabbed wildly with their guns.

Dozens of Japanese rearguard troops were wiped out by the three infantry companies of the Second Battalion of the Assault Corps in just one encounter. Dozens of Japanese corpses were kicked and rolled down the slope in front of the high ground by the officers and soldiers of the Second Battalion who were charging from a high position. Together with the piles of corpses left by the Japanese army on the high ground, they rolled down the slope one after another under the charge of the officers and soldiers of the Second Battalion and fell into the trap built by the 1125th Regiment on the hillside.

As the bodies of the Japanese soldiers continued to fall, several passages made of corpses soon appeared in the traps on the front slope of the high ground.

The Japanese troops who were left behind on the front of the high ground were dealt with cleanly and neatly. The officers and soldiers of the Second Battalion stepped on the corpses of the Japanese soldiers in the traps, successfully rushed through the traps on the front of the high ground, and then pounced on the Japanese support firearms unit at the foot of the mountain.

This support firearms unit, which was composed of the remnants of the heavy machine gun squadrons and infantry artillery squads of the two Japanese battalions that attacked the Big and Small Bear Mountain Heights, had been coordinating with the Japanese rearguard troops on the heights to fire fiercely at the positions of the 1125th Regiment. Now that the rearguard troops on the heights had been eliminated, this support firearms unit composed of two Type infantry guns and six Type heavy machine guns naturally could not escape the fate of destruction.

Two Type 70 mm infantry guns and six Type heavy machine guns, which had used up most of their ammunition, had been bombarding the top of the hill at the maximum elevation. Faced with the officers and soldiers of the Second Battalion who were rushing down from a high position and roaring, they had no time to adjust the elevation of their artillery and machine guns before they were strafed by dense submachine gun and machine gun bullets, resulting in heavy casualties.

"Kill! Use the general-purpose machine gun to shoot!"

The second battalion commander Fang Jing rushed to the front, yelling as he threw a Gong-made long-handled grenade to the foot of the mountain, then leveled the twenty-shot submachine gun in his hand and fired a burst of fire.

Beside him, the general-purpose machine gunners from the nine infantry platoons of the three infantry companies of the Second Battalion had already lined up in a row, carrying the handles of the MG34 general-purpose machine guns that had been replaced with drum magazines, and pulled the triggers one after another after Fang Jing's order.

Nine MG34 general-purpose machine guns fired desperately, spitting out strings of flames, which together with the other submachine guns, pistols, rifles, Czech light machine guns and other automatic firepower of the Second Battalion formed a dense barrage of bullets, smashing down on the Japanese troops at the foot of the mountain.

Under the intensive hail of bullets, the Japanese army's infantry guns and most of the heavy machine guns had no time to fire at the Second Battalion before they were hit by sparks. The gunners and machine gunners were also severely killed and wounded, and fell in the vicinity of the infantry guns and heavy machine guns.

Only one or two Type 92 heavy machine guns and the firing of Japanese soldiers equipped with rifles caused some casualties to the Second Battalion, and some officers and soldiers of the Second Battalion were knocked down by the indiscriminate 7.7mm heavy machine gun bullets and 6.5mm rifle bullets.

But this weak resistance did not last long. The soldiers of the Second Battalion rushed down from the high ground, attacked the foot of the mountain, and overwhelmed the remaining Japanese troops at the foot of the mountain.

At the same time when the Second Battalion annihilated the Japanese troops at the foot of the mountain, following the orders of the two artillery commanders Chen Xinsheng and Hu Rizheng in the command post, the artillery group on the back of the Big and Small Bear Mountain heights once again launched a torrent of fire. The overwhelming artillery fire covered the more than 800 Japanese troops who had just withdrawn from the heights and tried to retreat along the original route of the attack.

Blazes burst out in the ranks of more than 800 Japanese soldiers, and the rolling barrage of bullets rolled over the retreating Japanese troops like wheels.

Amidst loud rumbling noises, more than 800 Japanese soldiers who had survived the artillery blocking fire and the tragic high ground attack during the attack were once again engulfed by the fire from the artillery groups behind the Big and Small Bear Mountains. They were drowned, blown away, and swallowed up piece by piece by flames, smoke, and shrapnel.

(End of this chapter)