The Iron-Blooded Army of Beacon Fire

Chapter 413 Killing the Japanese Major General
The Japanese troops who were fighting with the special forces company were the first to begin retreating, retreating to the rear in groups of three or five, or two or three.

Up to this point in the battle, both the Japanese army and the officers and soldiers of the special forces company directly under the assault corps have fought to the limit.

Twenty minutes is a negligible number in a fierce war, but twenty minutes of fierce hand-to-hand combat is extremely long.

Every officer and soldier of the two armies was fighting desperately, using all available weapons to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Many people had already lost their basic consciousness and were left with only mechanical, numb fighting, using their constantly consumed physical strength, willpower, and mental endurance to fight the enemy to the death.

In this battle of flesh and blood and will, the momentum and offensive spirit of the Japanese army's long live charge were gradually exhausted.

From the beginning of the battle, the annihilation of the light armored vehicle squadron that was responsible for the vanguard assault mission, to the fierce shooting of the Chinese army's anti-aircraft guns, the sudden attack of the tracked tractors, to the arrival of large-scale Chinese army reinforcements, and the extremely brutal fighting at the moment.

No matter how high and strong the Japanese army's fighting will and fighting spirit were, they were gradually worn out by such repeated setbacks and brutal battles, until they were no longer able to continue their attacks.

In fact, not counting the Japanese troops who were fighting hard with the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the Assault Corps, those Japanese troops who were fighting with the special forces company and were the first to stop the assault and fight and began to retreat, if they could hold on a little longer, they would be able to wear out the special forces company even at the cost of their lives.

But the large-caliber anti-aircraft guns were laid flat and fired, and the shocking scene of more than a dozen tracked vehicles loaded with infantry rushed into the Japanese assault team, crushing and fighting at the same time, coupled with the extremely powerful Chinese army infantry, facing all kinds of equipment, tactics, fighting methods and extremely strong combat effectiveness that they had never seen before. Many Japanese soldiers who were killed and almost collapsed could not help but ask themselves, was it really the Chinese army that was fighting against them?
As a result, all these incidents, one after another, completely overwhelmed the mental defenses of the Japanese army that was fighting against the special forces company.

On the Chinese battlefield, it was often the Chinese army that collapsed first in front of the crazy and highly spiritually powerful Japanese army, and was chased and killed by the Japanese army.

Today, the Japanese army fighting against the special forces company played the role of the Chinese army in many past battles.

In previous battles, once the Chinese army began such a retreat, it would immediately turn into chaos, and chaos would turn into retreat and even disintegration, and finally under the fierce attack of the Japanese army, it would turn into a military disaster with huge casualties.

Although the Japanese army defeated by the special forces company will not collapse as quickly and completely as many defeated Chinese armies in the past, its current hasty retreat is still a very bad start.

Moreover, the adverse effects of this hasty retreat quickly spread from the Japanese troops defeated by the special forces company to all Japanese troops on the entire battlefield.

As the Japanese troops that were defeated by the special forces company retreated, more and more Japanese troops lost the courage to continue fighting and withdrew. Although the retreating Japanese troops did not lose order and completely collapse, their retreat was quite embarrassing.

The retreating Japanese army only knew how to retreat and shrink, but they did not take into account that their own troops were still fighting with the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the Assault Corps, which had a strength of thousands of people.

Some Japanese troops defeated by the special forces company retreated like headless flies towards the location of the Japanese troops who were fighting with the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the Assault Corps. The situation of the Japanese troops, who were already struggling to hold on in the fight with the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the Assault Corps, took a sharp turn for the worse after being hit by their own comrades who retreated. Although they were not directly defeated, they were made extremely embarrassed by this group of defeated soldiers, which greatly affected their hand-to-hand combat with the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the Assault Corps.

The overall battlefield situation of the Japanese army was deteriorating at an extremely fast rate as the Japanese army was continuously defeated by the special forces company.

As for the battlefield where the special forces company was located, it was already a tragic scene of hell on earth.

Some wounded Japanese soldiers were also abandoned on the battlefield, paralyzed on the ground with fear and trembling, and the ground around them was littered with all kinds of broken weapons and equipment, corpses, and minced meat.

What was even more terrifying was the Japanese soldiers who had just been crushed to death by the crawler tractor as it was running rampant. Pools of debris mixed with broken bones and red meat were scattered along the countless dense track marks in the red-stained soil.

Many of the natural pits on the ground and the small depressions caused by bullets and explosions were filled with pools of blood.

The retreating Japanese army retreated hastily, stepping on the pools of blood and corpses all over the ground. The dense footsteps stomped on the ground, and the sound produced was not the sound of footsteps hitting the ground, but the sound of stepping on blood and the very sticky sound of stepping on body parts, which sounded very horrifying.

He Wei, who had been murdered into a bloody mess, staggered to his feet from the body of a Japanese warrant officer he had just killed. The Japanese warrant officer who had been strangled to death by He Wei still had his mouth wide open and his eyes bulging with anger. His bloodshot eyes seemed to be telling of his unwillingness before his death.

Climbing up from the corpse, He Wei's imitation German M35 helmet was already covered with spots, with even a huge scratch on the top of the helmet, and the blue and white emblem of the Republic of China on the side of the helmet had been dyed red with blood.

With the support of Tao Heiwa, who was also covered in blood, He Wei wrapped the wound on his shoulder that was oozing blood with a bandage. He leaned on a Type 38 rifle with half of its handguard cut off, looked at the retreating Japanese troops and the corpses on the ground with red eyes, and let out a long sigh.

Then, He Wei turned around and glanced at the officers and soldiers of the special forces company around him.

It was obvious that there were only more than twenty officers and soldiers from the special forces company still standing beside He Wei, and all of them were injured.

Seeing that the special forces company suffered such heavy casualties, the remaining officers and soldiers could not even form a platoon. It is no exaggeration to say that this company composed entirely of veterans was basically wiped out.

Many of the veterans of the special forces company who were killed in the battle were former veterans of the 10th Division who had followed He Wei since the Battle of Xinkou. They were all veterans of many battles. Defeating the powerful Japanese army was certainly not without cost, and the losses of the special forces company were also quite huge.

Few of the bodies of the veterans of the special forces company were intact, mixed with the bodies of the Japanese soldiers on the ground. Some veterans fought with several Japanese soldiers with bayonets alone before they were killed, and only fell down after being stabbed several times. Some detonated grenades at the last moment before death and died together with the Japanese soldiers.

Others fought with the Japanese until they were exhausted, and even after the bayonets and handguards of their rifles were bent and broken, they bit the Japanese soldiers to death with their teeth as scapegoats. Every officer and soldier of the special forces company who died could be said to have died a tragic death.

Looking at the bodies of the fallen brothers of the special forces company on the ground, the murderous He Wei would not sit and watch the Japanese army retreat easily, so he raised his arms and shouted: "The enemy is retreating, fight!"

Immediately, He Wei ran forward a few steps, crawled on the ground, and found a Type 89 50mm grenade launcher from several Japanese soldiers' bodies. Tao Heiwa also tacitly found many grenades from the surrounding Japanese soldiers' bodies, pulled out the safety pins, and handed the grenades to He Wei one by one.

boom

He Wei took one 50mm grenade after another, and regardless of the type of grenade it was, he just kept bombarding the retreating Japanese troops desperately, constantly greeting them.

The retreating Japanese troops failed to maintain the skirmish group battle formation they had during the attack, so He Wei's continuous bombardment with grenade launchers achieved excellent results. One grenade after another chased and drove into the Japanese army's retreating formation, knocking down large groups of Japanese troops amid the rumbling explosions.

The continuous exploding 50mm grenades exploded in the retreating Japanese army with dense shrapnel, reaping the lives of a large number of Japanese soldiers. The sporadic grenade launcher smoke bombs mixed in them released smoke in the Japanese army's ranks in twos and threes, disrupting the Japanese army's retreat order.

White smoke, black gunpowder smoke, and red blood mist bloomed one after another amid the roars and screams of the retreating Japanese troops.

"Brothers, fight!"

The company commander of the special forces company, Yang Biao, shouted loudly, and led the remaining twenty or so brothers of the special forces company to follow He Wei to start fire pursuit of the Japanese army. Some of the veterans took the Type 38 rifles from the bodies of the Japanese soldiers, some found the Japanese Taisho 11-year Type 99 light machine guns, and some veterans who were good at throwing grenades took grenades from the bodies of the Japanese soldiers and gathered all their strength to throw them at the retreating Japanese soldiers.

In short, the remaining officers and soldiers of the special forces company, who had used up all their ammunition and even had their weapons badly damaged in the hand-to-hand combat, picked up the weapons left behind by the Japanese army and launched a fierce fire pursuit on the retreating Japanese army.

The pursuit firepower composed of Type 38 rifles, Type 89 50mm grenade launchers, and Taisho 11-year Type 99 light machine guns quickly chased the retreating Japanese army.

The weapons left over by the Japanese army were mainly Type 38 bolt-action rifles, whose firepower projection speed could not be compared with the large number of automatic firearms equipped by the assault corps itself. However, by chasing the retreating Japanese army and the remaining officers and soldiers of the special forces company desperately firing, they achieved quite good results.

In particular, the Type 89 50mm grenade launcher in He Wei's hands contributed most of the firepower output against the Japanese pursuit firepower under He Wei's rapid shooting.

He Wei has always been not very supportive of the grenade launcher, a monkey-like light mortar that has no special sights and relies too much on experience for shooting. But in the current situation, the grenade launcher has become the best weapon in He Wei's hands.

Facing large numbers of retreating Japanese troops, He Wei didn't need to aim at all. He just needed to fire the 50mm special grenades and the Type 91 grenades that Tao Heiwa had collected from the Japanese corpses and the grenade launchers as quickly as possible. There was more than a 60% chance that the grenades would cause casualties to the Japanese troops.

Without having to worry too much about accuracy, the advantages of the Japanese grenade launcher's lightness and simplicity were maximized.

Boom
Boom
The crisp sounds of grenade firing and violent explosions came one after another. He Wei kept taking the grenades or hand grenades from Tao Heiwa and put them into the grenade launcher. After briefly adjusting the scale of the grenade launcher, he pulled the rod on the handle of the grenade launcher at a launch angle of 45 degrees to shoot the grenade out.

This shooting process has become a mechanized action under He Wei's repeated operations. Tao Heiwa not only collected many grenades and hand grenades from the corpses of the Japanese soldiers for He Wei, but also found several grenade launchers. Whenever the grenade launcher in He Wei's hand was overheated due to high-intensity shooting, he could immediately replace it with another one and continue firing.

Under high-intensity shooting, the mechanical properties of any firearm would be affected. After a long shooting time, even He Wei's arms became sore. The grenades he shot were not very accurate. He relied entirely on numbers to win. He shot to death and fought for his life. In addition, the Japanese army's retreat formation was relatively dense, and the Japanese casualties soared under the overwhelming bombardment of grenade launchers.

There were bursts of explosions from 50mm special grenades and Type 91 hand grenades that could also be launched by grenade launchers. When the grenades and hand grenades hit the target, many Japanese soldiers fell to the ground with screams, and flesh and blood flew everywhere. When the smoke from the explosions dissipated, the place where the bombs landed was already a mass of flesh and blood, a pool of blood and minced meat. The scene was very tragic.

He Wei's "random shooting" had a very good effect when the Japanese army was retreating. Even the highest commander of the Japanese army, Major General Shigeichi Hata, was seriously injured by He Wei's random shooting.

In the retreating column of the Japanese army, the highest commander of the Japanese army, Major General Shigeichi Hata, slumped in a pool of blood, covering his bleeding wound with one hand, waving his command knife with the other hand and shouting continuously, trying to stop his subordinates who were retreating like a tide.

"Stop retreating! Keep on attacking! Keep on attacking!"

"Keep going!"

At this time, Hata Shigeichi was in a very miserable state, completely losing the demeanor of a major general. His left leg was blown open by the exploding grenade, and his whole body was covered in blood and dirt.

Beside him, several Japanese officers and soldiers who were also injured in the explosion fell to the ground and wailed.

About seven or eight meters away from Hata Shigeichi, Hata Shigeichi's adjutant sat on the ground in a daze, his face pale as he watched his hand that was severed by a grenade. His eyes were dull and he was silent, as if he could no longer feel the pain of the severed hand.

All this was the result of a 50mm grenade fired by He Wei. Compared with those miserable and wailing subordinates, Hata Shigeichi was lucky. At least he was only injured in the leg. He could still wave his command knife and shout amid the continuous explosions around him to stop the troops from retreating.

However, the Japanese army that had been defeated by the special forces company had no intention of continuing the attack, and seeing Hata Shigeichi's current appearance, the retreating Japanese army could not recognize that he was their supreme commander. They only thought that he was a non-commissioned officer or warrant officer who had been seriously injured in the explosion and was equipped with a command knife. No one went to rescue him.

The retreating Japanese army, which had lost its offensive spirit, had no time to care for even the lightly wounded soldiers, let alone the "seriously wounded" like Hata Shigeichi who was covered in blood.

The orders he shouted at the top of his lungs were drowned out by the shouts and explosions on the surrounding battlefield. No one heard them, and no one responded.

Boom
Around Hata Shigeichi, the grenades fired by He Wei continued to explode. Under the intensive and random grenade bombardment, retreating Japanese soldiers continued to fall.

Hata Shigeichi was still slumped over, waving his saber and yelling.

Finally, almost in the blink of an eye, a 50mm grenade landed five or six meters in front of Hata Shigeichi. As a dazzling light flashed, Hata Shigeichi's roar came to an abrupt end in the violent explosion.

Hata Shigeichi felt that his whole body was enveloped by the hot air wave. His whole body was spinning in a different direction under the impact of the air wave. Then, he fell heavily to the ground in the severe pain brought by the shrapnel.

Then, Hata Shigeichi finally stopped roaring, lying on his back on the ground, looking at the gradually blurry sky, his consciousness gradually faded.
(End of this chapter)