Zhu Tian: Beginning to Cross the Changjin Lake

The battlefield was filled with shouts of killing, as soldiers from both sides fought each other, with blood and flesh flying everywhere, unable to separate.

When Wu Qianli came up this time, he also brought Wu Wanli up. This kid was covered in grenades and was following Wu Qianli, charging forward.

Wu Qianli killed an enemy on the opposite side with a single blow and shouted, “Wu Wanli, throw a grenade to the eastern hillside.”

At this moment, dozens of meters away, a large number of enemies were swarming up to Position No. 11 from the eastern hillside.

When Wu Wanli heard this, he picked up a grenade without saying a word, pulled the fuse, and threw it out with all his might.

The grenade drew a parabola through the air and landed accurately on the eastern hillside.

"Boom~!"

A violent explosion sounded, and several enemies who had just rushed up were instantly blown to the ground.

While Wu Qianli was protecting Wu Wanli, he shouted, "Keep throwing! Blast these bastards to death."

It is necessary to prevent more enemies from rushing up in order to completely recapture position No. 11.

Wu Wanli said nothing and continued to throw grenades towards the eastern hillside.

Violent explosions continued to sound, and the enemies who had just rushed up were immediately blown to the ground, with many killed and wounded.

When the battle got to this point, the soldiers were all blood-thirsty and rushed towards the enemy desperately.

Compared with these foreign devils, the volunteer soldiers were relatively thin, but they were not weak at all in hand-to-hand combat.

Especially those veterans who had experienced the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, their hand-to-hand combat skills were far beyond the reach of ordinary foreigners.

In addition, the morale of the volunteer soldiers was high and they charged forward, gradually approaching the No. 11 position.

The soldiers fought bloody battles all the way and drove the enemy out of Position No. 11 step by step.

At this moment, the battlefield was littered with corpses and blood flowed like a river.

Li Guotao cut the throat of an enemy with a knife, raised his gun in his right hand and fired quickly, knocking down several enemies on the opposite side.

He then took advantage of the situation to grab an enemy's carbine and fired continuously at the enemy rushing towards him.

"Da da da~!"

A string of dense bullets swept past, and several enemies who had just rushed up were shot and fell to the ground one after another.

At this time, more and more soldiers rushed up, shooting wildly at the enemies on the hillside and throwing grenades.

A large number of enemies rushing upwards were knocked down in an instant, resulting in heavy casualties.

Soon all the remaining enemies on the mountain were wiped out, and the soldiers concentrated their firepower and fiercely shot at the enemies rushing up.

Under the powerful firepower of the Volunteer Army, the enemy fell down in large numbers and soon retreated.

The Volunteer Army finally succeeded in retaking all the positions on Hill 597.9.

Li Guotao shouted loudly: "Quickly clean up the battlefield, collect weapons and ammunition, and the main force quickly withdraws into the tunnel."

"Only one squad will be left to defend position 11. Hurry~!"

The soldiers did not dare to delay for even a moment and immediately began to get busy, collecting all the weapons and ammunition scattered on the battlefield and transporting them to the tunnels.

Li Guotao met Yu Hongsheng, the battalion commander of the 134nd Battalion of the th Regiment, who was responsible for leading the attack.

At this moment, Yu Hongsheng was also covered in blood and standing in front of Li Guotao, panting.

Li Guotao said: "The terrain on the mountain is limited. We can only leave about one company of troops to continue to hold the position."

"The rest of the people are carrying the wounded and should be evacuated as soon as possible."

Yu Hongsheng nodded and said, "I'll make the arrangements. The troops have suffered heavy casualties, so I will ensure that a company of troops remain."

Li Guotao said: "Hurry up, the enemy may launch another fierce artillery attack at any time, and there are many wounded. We must send them to the rear for treatment as soon as possible."

"You just arrived and don't know the situation on the battlefield. I will stay and continue to hold the position with you."

Yu Hongsheng nodded and said, "That's great."

At the same time, the northern hill of Hill 537.7 opposite was also successfully recaptured by our army.

The battle over there was equally brutal. In order to fight for this small hill, both the enemy and us paid a heavy price.

The enemy suffered heavy casualties and did not launch a new round of attack that night.

Li Guotao called Wu Wanli over, touched the boy's head, and asked with a smile: "How are you? Are you not hurt?"

Wu Wanli smiled and said, "It's fine!"

"Yes you can!"

"That is!"

Li Guotao suddenly became serious, took out a piece of paper folded into a square from his pocket and put it in Wu Wanli's shirt pocket.

"I am now giving you an important task."

"Take this thing and return to the division headquarters immediately and hand it over to the division commander."

"Then you don't have to come back, just stay behind and rest."

Wu Wanli said stubbornly, "I'll be back soon."

Li Guotao said seriously: "If you want to fight, there will be plenty of opportunities in the future. There is no need to rush at this moment. This battle cannot be finished yet."

"If there is a chance tomorrow, you can come back and execute the order!"

"Yes!"

Wu Wanli responded, said hello to Wu Qianli, and turned and left.

After cleaning up the battlefield, most of the soldiers retreated into the tunnels, leaving only a small number of sentries outside to monitor the enemy's movements.

At Li Guotao's request, Battalion Commander Yu summoned all the persons in charge of various positions to hold a meeting at the command post in the tunnel.

The so-called meeting was actually just listening to Li Guotao talk about his experience in defending positions.

Li Guotao carefully explained to everyone the characteristics and defensive points of each position, and also shared with everyone all the response strategies he could think of.

The battle has reached this point, and it has become a large-scale war of attrition. Both sides are filling in company after company. While consuming the enemy's strength, they naturally have to try every means to reduce their own casualties.

Li Guotao naturally understood this, and naturally he had to try every possible means to reduce our army's casualties, hold the position as much as possible, and at the same time consume more enemy forces.

Wu Wanli was a smart guy. He retreated quickly and headed towards the division headquarters.

As soon as it was dawn, he rushed to the division headquarters and handed it over to the division chief, breathlessly.

Several leaders of the 45th Army unfolded the paper and spread it on the table.

The division commander looked through it carefully and said, "This is the enemy's attack pattern and the assembly point before the attack."

The Chief of Staff said, "It also indicates the time they assembled. Is that accurate?"

Commander Cui nodded and said, "The people in the task force are all capable people. What they got should be correct." "There are four or five enemy assembly points marked above, but our artillery can only hit two of them."

"The enemy will certainly conduct artillery preparations before attacking, and at that time these attacking troops will be concentrated in these assembly areas."

“Whether it’s accurate or not, you should always give it a try.”

"Anyway, we have plenty of ammunition now. The follow-up artillery units and shells are being transported in continuously. We can fight as much as we can."

"Notify the artillery units of these two locations immediately. Once the enemy launches artillery preparations, immediately concentrate firepower and cover these two locations with artillery fire."

"Yes!"

Sure enough, not long after, the enemy's artillery preparation began.

The enemy used hundreds of heavy artillery to continue bombarding the two small hills on the front line of Shangganling.

Planes also roared and dropped bombs and incendiary bombs, bombarding the positions indiscriminately.

Dozens of tanks were also parked at the foot of the mountain, serving as fixed firing points, bombarding the positions on the mountain.

At this time, the enemy's offensive forces had assembled at the assembly point and were ready to launch an attack immediately after the artillery preparation was completed.

At this moment, the Volunteer Army mobilized the firepower of two heavy artillery battalions, aimed at two of the assembly points, and bombarded them fiercely.

"Chirp!"

Amidst the shrill whistling sounds, shells fell from the sky and landed on the enemy's assembly area.

"Boom~! Boom~!"

Violent explosions continued to sound, and flames rose into the sky.

The enemy troops were caught off guard and were instantly blown to pieces, with many casualties.

In just a short while, hundreds of enemy soldiers preparing to attack were killed or wounded.

Li Guotao, who was hiding in the tunnel, checked the system map and saw the enemy gathering place. The light spots representing the enemy quickly disappeared, and he couldn't help but reveal a smile.

Li Guotao used the system to severely trick the enemy.

It feels great to kill hundreds of enemies easily.

But the enemy is not a fool, and this kind of thing can only happen once.

But that's enough.

The enemy's offensive was indeed much weaker that day.

Li Guotao led the task force to defend Position No. 9. Following the previous tactics, they eliminated a large number of attacking enemies and held the position.

The enemy attacked all day long but failed to capture the two heights and paid a heavy price in casualties.

Major General Jenkins reported the situation to Van Fleet again and asked him to abandon the attack, but what he got in return was a scolding from Van Fleet.

Major General Jenkins felt like he was going crazy, but the war had to go on.

That night, the superiors sent two entire companies to replace the troops previously guarding the position.

Battalion Commander Yu continued to stay in the position with a group of combat backbones, and Li Guotao also withdrew from the position with his soldiers.

After this brutal battle, Li Guotao's task force sent out two platoons, and more than half of them suffered casualties.

Li Guotao didn't want to stay there all the time and really fight to the death with all the task force members. Besides, this battle was just the beginning.

We need to conserve our troops so that we can prepare for the next battle.

In the next few days, the enemy continued to launch fierce attacks, and the positions changed hands several times. Each time, there were piles of corpses and rivers of blood. The blood had dyed the entire mountain red.

In the enemy's front-line headquarters, Major General Jenkins pointed to the sand table and said, "Based on previous experience, our army has used such fierce artillery fire, but has not been able to eliminate all the enemies on the position. Every attack has been stubbornly blocked, with heavy casualties. What do they rely on?"

"It's these damn tunnels!"

"Moreover, the enemy hid in the tunnels. When they counterattacked, we would cooperate with the counterattacking enemy to attack us, causing us to lose the positions we had originally captured."

"If we can't get rid of these tunnels, then we won't be able to completely occupy these two positions."

A U.S. colonel said: "According to reports from the front, we have discovered some tunnel entrances and have used some means to attack them."

"But the enemy's tunnels are interconnected, and it is difficult for us to eliminate all the enemies inside."

Major General Jenkins said angrily: "Then find a way to blow up all the entrances to these tunnels and bury these hateful enemies alive inside."

"In short, we must eliminate these hateful enemies at all costs and by all necessary means."

"We must occupy the position as quickly as possible and complete this mission before dark."

"Yes sir!"

"In addition, after capturing the position, we must quickly build fortifications on the position and build some bunkers as quickly as possible to block the enemy's counterattack."

"Send all the engineers that can be deployed, bring all the equipment that can be brought, and build fortifications for me every minute."

"Yes sir!"

In order to capture these two hills, the US military tried every possible means.

That day, the enemy once again captured the surface positions on the mountain.

Following the order of Major General Jenkins, the enemy moved the flat-fire cannon to the position and bombarded the tunnel entrance.

The enemy also kept throwing grenades and explosive packs into the cave entrance.

Violent explosions continued to sound, and the entrances to some tunnels were blown down.

They thought that they could kill the soldiers hiding in the tunnels in this way. However, in fact, the soldiers were hiding in the tunnels that were interconnected. Most of them were fine, and the wounded were also injured in previous battles.

As for the tunnel entrances being collapsed and blocked, it didn't matter at all, because the tunnels were interconnected, and as long as not all the exits were blown up, there wouldn't be any problem. What's more, there were some spare hidden entrances that the enemy hadn't discovered at all.

In order to hold their positions, the enemy began to race against time to build bunkers and other defensive fortifications on their positions.

After several days of fierce fighting, the 45th Division suffered heavy casualties.

However, the 15th Army called on the entire army to prepare for battle, shouting the slogan "One man sacrifices his life, ten men cannot defeat him."

At this time, our army was also blood-thirsty. The army commander said to the commander of the 45th Division: "It takes a thousand days to raise an army but only a moment to deploy it. For the sake of overall victory, even if the 15th Army is wiped out, it is worth it. There are many troops like the 15th Army in the country, but there is only one Shangganling. We must win this battle no matter what."

This is indeed true. At that time, each of our armies was an ace army and an elite force that had experienced hundreds of battles.

The 15th Army is indeed powerful, but there are many troops like it.

Commander Cui was also getting anxious. He gritted his teeth and said, "What else can we say? Let's fight! I still have some capital. It won't be easy for the foreign devils to bite off our hard bone."

"If my 45th Division defeats the remaining battalion, I will be the battalion commander. If it defeats the remaining company, I will be the company commander."

On the night of the 19th, our army once again launched a large-scale counterattack against Hill 537.7 and Hill 597.9 in Beishan River.

The Volunteer Army used 24 heavy artillery pieces and Katyusha rocket launchers to bombard the two hills. (End of this chapter)