Zhu Tian: Beginning to Cross the Changjin Lake

Before dawn, the restless Major General Jenkins called Lieutenant General Van Fleet.

"Commander, the enemy launched a counterattack at night and recaptured both high grounds. We sent troops to counterattack, but suffered heavy losses."

"Fake~!"

Lieutenant General Van Fleet yelled angrily: "What are you doing? One day and one night have passed, and you still can't take down two hills as big as tumors."

"You have ruined the honor of the military."

Major General Jenkins explained carefully: "Commander, calm down. Who would have thought that the enemy's resistance would be so tenacious?"

"What do we do now?"

Lieutenant General Van Fleet said angrily, "What else can we do? Organize troops immediately and take down those two tumors for me."

Major General Jenkins said with some embarrassment: "But we have already suffered thousands of casualties, and the casualties have reached twenty times what we planned."

"Is it really worth it to suffer such heavy casualties in order to capture these two strategically insignificant hilltops?"

Lieutenant General Van Fleet was so angry that his lungs were about to explode. He roared, "Don't tell me about casualties. I don't want casualty figures. I just want those two hills."

"I now order you to capture those two hills for me at all costs."

"If you can't do it, I can replace you."

Major General Jenkins sighed helplessly. Now that things had come to this, what else could he do?

Major General Jenkins took a deep breath and said, "Please rest assured, Commander. We will organize a new round of attack right away and we will do our best to capture those two hills."

After hanging up the phone, Major General Jenkins frowned and said to himself: "Van Fleet is crazy! This guy has lost his mind."

Even so, Major General Jenkins did not dare to disobey Van Fleet's order and could only order his troops to continue their fierce attack.

In such a small area, just to fight for these two inconspicuous hills, any superb strategy and tactics have lost their meaning at this moment.

Both sides just kept sending in troops, charging and killing each other repeatedly, fighting to the death.

The fighting on the two heights was so fierce that blood flowed like a river. The entire battlefield was filled with corpses, and the positions were littered with blasted human tissue. The brutality of the battle was so fierce that it was impossible to describe it in words.

On the 597.9 high ground, Li Guotao was guarding a position, firing wildly at the enemies who were swarming towards him.

Bullets rained down, continuously taking the lives of the enemy soldiers who rushed forward.

According to Li Guotao's assignment, there were only three soldiers defending the position.

The three men were scattered in various places, forming cross fire, and continuously shooting at the enemies rushing up.

However, there were too many enemies and they kept rushing forward. If the enemy got close, they would be greeted with grenades.

In order to repel the enemies everywhere in the mountains, grenades were thrown down continuously as if they were free.

Violent explosions continued to sound, knocking the enemies who rushed up to the ground.

The enemy suffered heavy casualties, but the two or so companies of volunteers defending the positions also suffered huge casualties, and their comrades fell one after another under the enemy's hail of bullets.

Platoon Leader Sun led his soldiers to hold position No. 2. In the end, Platoon Leader Sun was the only one left on the position.

Moreover, the ammunition had been basically used up. At this time, a large number of enemies swarmed up. Platoon Leader Sun picked up the last grenade and rushed into the enemy group without hesitation.

"Boom~!"

With a loud explosion, the enemy was blown to pieces and Platoon Leader Sun also died heroically.

During the entire Battle of Shangganling, there were 38 heroes whose names were recorded as having detonated hand grenades and blasting tubes and died together with the enemy, but in fact there were far more than these 38 people.

In the brutal battle, Deputy Instructor Qin of the 7th Company and Captain Li and the instructor of the th Company all died heroically.

The battle lasted until the evening. The soldiers on Hill 597.9 suffered heavy casualties, and most of them were injured, and they had very little ammunition left.

Unable to hold the position any longer, Li Guotao had no choice but to take the remaining soldiers into the tunnel.

All surface positions on Hill 597.9 were lost.

At the same time, all the surface positions to the north of Hill 537.7 were also lost.

Li Guotao hid near the entrance of the tunnel, observing the situation outside to prevent the enemy from sneaking in.

At this time, Yu Congrong came over and said, "I just counted the number of people, including the seriously injured, and there are only about 40 people left."

"There are about twenty people who can still fight, but we are running out of ammunition."

The battle was so intense that no amount of ammunition would be enough.

Li Guotao winked at Yu Congrong, meaning that he would solve the ammunition problem himself.

Yu Congrong immediately understood and knew that with Li Guotao around, they didn't have to worry about the ammunition problem, so he didn't say much.

Li Guotao asked: "Are you okay with your injury?"

Yu Congrong pointed at the blood-stained bandage on his head and said with a smile, "It's okay, just a superficial wound. It's been treated."

"Hehe~! I haven't killed enough! I can't bear to die."

"This is the first time I've encountered a battle like this. The foreign devils are rushing to run into your guns. If we don't take this opportunity to kill more enemies, wouldn't it be a waste of our efforts?"

Li Guotao smiled slightly and said, "I think so too."

Li Guotao insisted on going to the front line and staying to hold his position. Naturally, he also wanted to take this opportunity to kill more enemies.

Now that we have caught up with this battle, with such a good opportunity, if we keep hiding in the back, wouldn’t it be a waste of time?
Yu Congrong frowned and said, "But I still don't understand when these foreign devils became so crazy and rushed up without caring about their lives."

Li Guotao said thoughtfully: "Didn't you see the supervisory team behind them with machine guns, forcing them to charge forward?"

Yu Congrong nodded slightly and said, "I saw this, but what are their top leaders thinking?"

"Is it worth paying such a huge price to seize these two hills?"

"Are these two mountains his golden mountains?"

Li Guotao smiled bitterly and said, "Because Van Vleet is crazy!"

Yu Congrong nodded and said, "I think so too. Otherwise, there would be no need to fight so hard."

The Battle of Shangganling ended after a day of bloody fighting.

From the division headquarters, army headquarters, corps headquarters, to the Volunteer Army Headquarters, all the leaders at all levels turned their eyes to Shangganling on the map, this originally unknown small mountain village.

At this moment, the superiors also realized that the enemy's main attack direction was indeed Shangganling.

After the 15th Army Headquarters reacted, it immediately changed its previous strategic deployment, changing the 45th Division to the main attack force and the 44th Division to the assisting force. The artillery units that had been reinforced in the direction of the Pingkang River Valley were also transferred to the direction of Shangganling.

Various strategic materials also began to be transported to the Shangganling front line in a steady stream.

The army commander ordered that the supply of materials to the front-line troops must be ensured at all costs, especially ammunition, which must be absolutely sufficient. The number of grenades equipped to each company was increased to 8,000 to cope with the upcoming battles.

After these leaders learned about the situation and analyzed the battle situation, they all agreed that Van Fleet was really crazy this time.

"Is Van Fleet crazy? He invested so many troops and suffered so many casualties just to capture these two small hills with little strategic significance!"

"What does he want? Is it really worth it?"

"I think he's crazy!"

"This guy is absolutely crazy!"

"Doesn't he want these two hills? The more he wants them, the less I will give them to him."

"I know the fighting on the front lines was fierce and the troops suffered heavy casualties, but the enemy's casualties were several times greater than ours."

"This kind of battle is beneficial to our army. Since Van Fleet is crazy, we will fight him to the end."

"Drag the enemy's main force to Shangganling, use Shangganling as a meat grinder, and strangle the enemy to death at Shangganling."

Yes, the volunteer army suffered heavy casualties, but the enemy suffered even greater casualties.

In terms of overall strength, although our strength has improved, it is still far inferior to that of the US military.

If we were in another place or on another battlefield, we might not be able to achieve such a casualty ratio.

Therefore, such a battle is beneficial to our army. We can take advantage of this opportunity to consume a large number of the enemy's manpower.

"Immediately send a message to all frontline troops to go all out in the Battle of Shangganling and make sure to fight and win this battle."

"Yes!"

With the order from the head of the Zhisi, the strategic focus of the entire army began to shift towards the Shangganling front.

All strategic materials and additional troops began to be supplied to the Shangganling front first.

In addition, the Third Corps was also dispatching a large number of artillery units to the Shangganling front line for support, and the Zhisi also began to dispatch artillery and anti-aircraft artillery units from other fronts to the Shangganling front line.

The nearby 12th Army and other units also received orders from the Zhisi and the Corps, ready to support the 15th Army on the Shangganling front at any time.

The mad Lieutenant General Van Fleet was ready to take Shangganling at all costs, but the Volunteer Army wanted to take this opportunity to strangle the enemy's vitality on the Shangganling line.

So, around these two palm-sized hills, the two opposing sides began to send large-scale reinforcements to the front line.

These two small hills were like a huge whirlpool, gradually sucking about 100,000 main forces of both sides into the narrow battlefield of Shangganling.

……

As night fell, Li Guotao carefully poked his head out of the tunnel and observed the surrounding situation.

Now all the positions on the top of the mountain have been occupied by the enemy. In order to maintain the positions and prevent the counterattack of the volunteers, the enemy has left at least one company of troops there to defend.

Li Guotao just pretended to observe. In fact, Li Guotao, who had a system, had already roughly figured out the enemy's troop deployment situation.

Now it's just a rough confirmation of the situation, and Li Guotao doesn't dare to really go out because the enemy has already discovered the entrance to the tunnel.

However, some shooting holes were dug near the tunnel entrance to form cross fire, making it impossible for the enemy to get close to the tunnel entrance.

The enemy couldn't get close and could only throw grenades and incendiary grenades into the tunnel from a distance, but the entrance to the tunnel was also designed relatively scientifically.

Most of the grenades were thrown near the cave entrance. Even if a small number were thrown into the tunnel, due to its deepness, the grenades only fell near the cave entrance and could not cause fatal casualties to the soldiers inside.

Li Guotao returned to the command post in the tunnel, gathered several soldiers, took out a map, shone a flashlight on it, and said, "I have a general understanding of the situation outside just now."

"Although the enemy discovered the entrance to our tunnel, they did not discover all the entrances to the tunnel."

"When we counterattack later, I will go out from the backup tunnel entrance and knock out the enemy's firepower points set up here and there."

"These two enemy fire points can suppress the tunnel entrance."

"As long as you take down these two firing points, you can exit from the main tunnel and launch an attack towards the high ground along this path."

Yu Congrong asked: "How do we contact each other?"

Li Guotao said: "I will fire a flare when the time comes."

Another soldier said: "Now our contact with the main force has been cut off, and we have no idea when the main force will counterattack."

Li Guotao frowned slightly and said, "This is indeed a problem, but I guess our artillery should have been transferred here, so we must prepare for the artillery fire before the counterattack."

"Once the artillery preparation is over, the counterattack will begin."

"Let's wait until the main force launches a counterattack, and then take advantage of the opportunity to act."

"Now we can only wait. Even when we are sleeping, we must open one eye and close the other. We must be ready to fight at any time."

"Yes!"

Everyone responded quickly.

Li Guotao continued, "Yu Congrong and I just searched the entire tunnel again and found some weapons and ammunition. Now we only have 20 people left who can fight. This ammunition is enough for us. If it is not enough, we will attack the enemy and rob them."

In fact, this batch of ammunition was exchanged by Li Guotao through the system. Saying that it was found from the tunnel was just a deliberate cover-up.

But no one suspected anything. After all, the tunnel was so large, and each row had suffered heavy casualties. None of the remaining people would really go around the entire tunnel, and no one could say for sure whether there was any ammunition inside.

Li Guotao then gave a few more instructions and asked the soldiers to go back and rest.

After fighting for a whole day, the soldiers were all tired. Even after resting for a few hours, they were unable to fully recover.

Fortunately, the soldiers were in high spirits, and each of them was as energetic as if they had been injected with chicken blood. They only wanted to kill a few more enemies and make great contributions.

As Li Guotao expected, a group of artillery had already arrived at the front line at this time.

Under the personal command of Commander Cui, the Volunteer Army concentrated its firepower that evening and began artillery preparation on Hill 597.9 and the north mountain of Hill 537.7.

Amid the shrill whistling sound, one shell after another landed on the battlefield.

There was a loud noise of explosions, and the two hilltops were soon covered by our army's artillery fire. This was the prelude to the Volunteer Army's counterattack.

Li Guotao heard the explosion outside and quickly ordered the soldiers to prepare for battle and be ready to attack at any time. (End of this chapter)