Zhu Tian: Beginning to Cross the Changjin Lake

Li Moyin smiled and shook his head and said, "This is not something that can be achieved by luck alone, and you don't need to belittle yourself. Only with rich experience and a keen sense of smell can you achieve this."

Captain Cao nodded in agreement.

Li Guotao smiled and said: "I think it's mainly because of good luck."

Li Moyin turned and looked into the distance, and said seriously: "Then I hope we will always have such good luck. We must do our best to slow down the enemy's retreat."

Li Guotao nodded and said, "Don't worry, we will do our best."

"If we can kill these tens of thousands of enemy troops, the risk will be worth it."

Under the artillery bombardment of Li Guotao and his men, the enemy's retreat was greatly slowed down.

The main force of the 39th Army rushed to the Han River Bridge and launched a fierce offensive against the enemy.

Most of the enemies gathered on the north bank were concentrated in a small area near the bridge.

Moreover, due to their long stay here and the fact that the main force of the Volunteer Army had caught up with them, the enemy troops were in a panic and there was a certain amount of chaos in the camps everywhere.

However, the enemy troops responsible for covering the rear were quickly breached in the face of the fierce offensive of the Volunteer Army.

Because the morale of these blocking enemies was unstable, even if they could stop the volunteers, the most they could do was to ensure the successful retreat of the people in front. However, they had already been bitten by the volunteers and could not escape even if they wanted to.

Therefore, the morale of these remaining troops dropped to the bottom, and their combat effectiveness was naturally severely damaged.

Faced with the fierce offensive of the Volunteer Army, it was only a matter of time before we were broken through.

Deputy Commander Han ordered all troops to attack with all their might and directly capture the Han River Bridge.

The attacking force rushed forward with great force and attacked fiercely.

After the enemy's defense line was breached, a large number of stranded enemies were immediately in panic because they had no way of escaping.

Faced with the fierce offensive of the Volunteer Army, these enemies were unable to form any effective resistance.

A large number of enemy troops rushed to the bridge frantically, hoping to cross the bridge and escape with their lives.

The situation was completely out of control, traffic was completely blocked, and even a large-scale stampede occurred.

The enemies trampled on each other, causing heavy casualties.

In order to cover the troops' retreat, Ridgway also mobilized a large number of aircraft for cover.

However, as the Volunteer Army assault force successfully broke through the enemy's defense line, the troops of both sides fought each other and the scene was in chaos.

The enemy planes were unable to distinguish between friend and foe, so they naturally did not dare to bomb easily.

The most they did was bombard the large force of volunteers that came from the rear, although this also caused considerable casualties to the volunteers.

However, in order to completely wipe out this enemy, the Volunteer Army launched a fierce attack at all costs.

An assault force quickly attacked a position about 1.5 kilometers away from the bridge, and then ignored the scattered enemy soldiers.

Several mortars were set up, aimed at the enemy troops gathered at the bridgehead, and began to bombard them fiercely.

Mortar shells flew continuously towards the chaotic crowd, violent explosions continued to sound, and enemies were blown to the ground in large numbers.

The mortar fire directly blocked the bridge head. The enemies behind were so scared that they dared not run to the bridge. The crowd nearby began to retreat gradually, while more people behind still wanted to run forward, so the scene became even more chaotic.

In the crowded crowd, enemies were constantly trampled to death, but at this time, no one cared about the lives of others, and they didn't even know whether they could save their own lives.

As the battle progressed, more and more volunteers rushed onto the battlefield.

The panicked enemy, seeing that they had nowhere to escape, raised their guns in large numbers and surrendered directly to the volunteers.

The chaos lasted until noon, when it gradually calmed down.

Of the approximately 50,000 enemy troops stranded on the north bank, more than 10,000 were killed, and the remaining 30,000 enemies all became prisoners of the volunteers.

Not only were a large number of enemy prisoners captured, but the enemy also had a large amount of supplies, weapons and equipment on the north side of the bridge, which have now become the spoils of the Volunteer Army.

Our army won a brilliant victory in this battle and annihilated more than 50,000 enemy troops.

Approximately 300 tanks of various types, more than 800 artillery pieces of various types, more than 600 armored vehicles, more than 3,000 trucks, and other weapons, equipment and various strategic materials were seized. The quantity was so huge that it was impossible to identify them in a short period of time.

The results of this battle were brilliant, and for the Volunteer Army, it was definitely an unprecedented victory.

Seeing that Jiangbei had completely fallen into the hands of the Volunteer Army, Lieutenant General Ridgway was so angry that his teeth were itching.

"Tens of thousands of people were captured. This is a great shame and humiliation! Our army has lost all its reputation."

Lieutenant General Ridgway was furious. It was daytime now and he really wanted to order the planes to bomb.

But the problem is that their tens of thousands of prisoners are all gathered in this area. Once the bombing is carried out, more of their people will die.

So he could only swallow his anger and watch so many troops become prisoners, and watch so many weapons, equipment and strategic materials become the spoils of the Volunteer Army.

Lieutenant General Ridgway tried hard to suppress his anger and said through gritted teeth: "Order the engineers to blow up the bridge to prevent the enemy from crossing the bridge to pursue us. The rest of the troops will continue to retreat southward according to the original plan."

"Yes sir!"

Lieutenant General Ridgway got on the car angrily and retreated south with the troops.

At this moment, the old guy was also extremely frustrated. The successive defeats caused them to lose a large number of troops and their strength was seriously damaged.

At this moment, Lieutenant General Ridgway had also realized that if they continued to develop in this trend, it would be difficult for them to win the war. In order to reverse the defeat and turn the situation around, they needed more troop support.

So Lieutenant General Ridgway hurriedly drafted a telegram and sent it to Five-Star Mike, requesting the headquarters to dispatch at least 200,000 troops to them, otherwise they would not be able to withstand the attack of the Volunteer Army.

Our army won a great victory in this battle and the task force once again made great contributions.

Li Moyin came to Li Guotao with the telegram and said with a smile: "The Zhisi sent a telegram to commend our task force, especially Comrade Li Guotao."

"I have reported your heroic performance in detail to my superiors. It won't be long before your heroic deeds appear in major domestic newspapers. By then, you will become a household name as a combat hero."

Li Guotao smiled and said, "I don't really care about that. What I care about most is how to destroy more enemies, how to win as quickly as possible, and how to bring more comrades home." Li Moyin nodded slightly and said, "To be honest, we don't want to fight this war, but we have to."

"The US imperialists have gone too far and have already brought the flames of war to our homeland. If we don't send troops, the enemy will think we are weak and can be bullied. They will definitely take more extreme actions and may even cross the Yalu River at any time and threaten the Northeast Industrial Base."

"We have to fight this war to protect our country, but casualties are inevitable, especially since we are facing the most powerful army in the world."

"But no matter how powerful the enemy is, we must remain firm in our belief and defeat them no matter what to achieve final victory."

Li Guotao nodded and said, "I believe that the final victory will definitely belong to us."

"By the way, do we have any new actions?"

Li Moyin smiled and said, "According to Zhisi's instructions, we could have rested for a while."

"But now the enemy is accelerating their retreat. Zhisi has ordered all units to continue advancing southward and push the battle line further south."

Li Guotao nodded and said, "Li Qiwei has been frightened by our attack and is now accelerating his retreat. I think this is a very rare opportunity."

"And the morale of our soldiers is very high. I think we can continue to move south with the pursuit troops. Perhaps there will be more battles to fight."

Li Moyin nodded and said, "Since you think so, then it's settled."

"Cross the Han River Bridge tonight and continue to advance southward."

"Yes!"

Li Guotao responded quickly and then passed the order on.

That night, Li Moyin and Li Guotao led the task force onto the Han River Bridge and crossed the bridge with the pursuing troops.

Captain Cao's 38st Battalion has returned to the base. This time, their th Army is responsible for pursuing the enemy on the flank, so the task force did not act with them again.

Although General Ridgway ordered the bridge to be blown up when he left, he did not blow up the entire bridge, but only a small section of it.

The reason why the bridge was not completely blown up was not only because there were volunteer troops on the opposite side, but mainly because Ridgway was still counting on a counterattack in the future. If it was blown up now, it would be troublesome when they counterattacked in the future.

According to his guess, with the strength of the Volunteer Army, even if a small section was destroyed, it would be difficult for them to repair it quickly, so this would be enough.

But Ridgway overlooked one point, that is, in this battle, the Volunteer Army captured tens of thousands of enemy prisoners, among whom were enemy engineers, as well as their equipment and various materials for bridge repair.

So the volunteers directly asked these prisoners of war to repair the bridge. The speed was quite fast and they easily rebuilt the destroyed bridge deck. Then the large army began to slowly cross the bridge and advance southward.

Li Guotao found Li Moyin and said, "Captain, we can't move with the main force. At this speed, we can only follow behind them and won't even get a chance to catch up. After all, the enemy is retreating at an accelerated speed, and it's unknown whether we can catch up."

Li Moyin asked, "You mean, speed up, go around in front of them, and continue to advance towards the enemy's rear."

"Correct!"

Li Guotao nodded and said, "We are here to fight the enemy, so naturally we will go wherever there are enemies."

"Now that the enemy has run far away, we must do our best to chase them and try to catch up with them and destroy them."

Li Moyin nodded and said, "Okay, let's do as you say. Let's move forward boldly."

Li Guotao then directly ordered the troops to speed up their march and march quickly towards the south.

After running all night, he didn't know how far he had walked. Since he was walking on a mountain path, Li Moyin couldn't even determine his exact location.

Looking at the map in front of him, Li Moyin couldn't help but frowned and said, "We are not familiar with the terrain, we won't get lost, right?"

Li Guotao comforted him: "Don't worry, with my living map, we won't get lost."

Li Guotao pretended to observe the surrounding terrain, then pointed at the map and said, "We are roughly at this location now."

"If the map is correct, there is a small town over the mountain ahead."

"If you don't believe me, we can go over and take a look."

Li Moyin asked, "Are you so confident?"

Li Guotao said confidently: "Don't worry, it's absolutely correct."

Li Moyin nodded and said, "Then let's go over and take a look."

Then everyone climbed up the hill that Li Guotao had just pointed out. Looking around, they saw that there was indeed a small town a few miles away in the distance.

However, all the houses in the town had been burned down, and some of the houses that were not burned down were still burning, emitting black smoke.

Li Moyin frowned and said, "When the enemy retreated, they even burned the town."

Li Guotao pondered for a moment and said, "All the people must have fled. They are clearing the countryside."

"The further south we fight, the longer the battle line becomes, the longer our logistics supply lines become, and the greater the logistics pressure becomes."

"It seems that this bastard Ridgway has also seen our weakness and knows that our logistical support capabilities are insufficient, so they will clear the countryside and drive away all the local people, forcing them to flee south. In this way, we can't get any supplies in the local area at all, and all supplies can only be transported from the country."

After several decades of development, Goryeo had not been affected by the war of World War II and was originally developing quite well.

But because of this war, the flames of war almost spread to the entire peninsula.

Especially after the United States entered the war, their indiscriminate bombing turned towns into ruins one after another, and large numbers of people fled everywhere and became refugees.

The entire peninsula has become a scorched earth. As a result, it is difficult for our hundreds of thousands of volunteer troops to obtain sufficient supplies even in the northern region.

Therefore, the Volunteer Army’s supplies can only be transported from the country.

Li Moyin also had some understanding of these. He raised the telescope and observed carefully, then said: "Judging from the burning of the town, the enemy should have been gone for more than ten hours."

Li Guotao couldn't help but curse: "That damn Ridgway retreated so quickly."

"Looking at this trend, it may not be easy to catch up with them."

Li Moyin said: "The soldiers are tired, so let's stop and rest, contact our superiors, and determine the location of the main force before making plans." (End of this chapter)