Zhu Tian: Beginning to Cross the Changjin Lake

At this time, the main force of the Japanese army behind them had already arrived nearby. Yang Jihe put down the telescope and said, "It's not easy to deal with a battalion of troops!"

Li Guotao asked, "Can I use your telescope?"

Yang Jihe handed the telescope over directly.

Li Guotao took the telescope, observed carefully, and said: "The enemy is building a machine gun position. The river is only 300 meters wide. The enemy's machine guns can directly suppress us with firepower."

"And the enemy also brought a motorboat, which shows that they are well prepared. The Japanese soldiers over there are building bamboo rafts, and they are about to launch an attack."

"But the biggest threat is their mortars."

This group of Japanese soldiers did not carry the Type 92 infantry gun, but only brought ten mortars. They were building an artillery position about four or five hundred meters away from the defenders' position.

Yang Jihe nodded and said, "I just saw it, there seemed to be ten mortars."

Li Guotao frowned and said, "The distance is a bit far, it's not easy to deal with."

Yang Jihe frowned slightly, as if thinking about something, and muttered to himself: "It's not that there is no way to deal with them, but..."

His voice was not loud, but Li Guotao heard it clearly and asked quickly: "Battalion Commander, do you have any way to deal with their mortars?"

Yang Jihe said: "I just said that I still have the trump card given by the commander!"

"The commander has specifically instructed us that this battle is about morale, so we must fight well."

"So he specially assigned four anti-tank guns to us, but... this is our trump card and cannot be easily revealed."

Li Guotao was delighted when he heard this and said, "The enemy's mortar position is only four or five hundred meters away from us. The anti-tank guns are enough to reach them."

At a distance of four or five hundred meters, light and heavy machine guns can actually hit, but at such a long distance, whether they can hit accurately is another matter. Moreover, the Japanese are not stupid. In front of the gun position, they built a defensive fortification with sandbags, which made it impossible for bullets to penetrate.

The mortar is a indirect fire cannon, and this defensive fortification will not have any effect on the bombardment.

Looking at Yang Jihe's frowning and thoughtful expression, Li Guotao immediately guessed his intention.

Li Guotao asked, "You want to wait until they send troops across the river, and then attack them halfway across the river, using anti-tank guns to blow up their motorboats and rafts. By then, even if the Japanese in the river are not killed by the explosion, they will become living targets after falling into the water."

Yang Jihe said excitedly: "Yes, that's what I thought."

"But if we take action in advance and destroy their mortars, the enemy will know that we have anti-tank artillery and will be prepared. They will not send troops to die. I guess they will most likely wait for the main force to arrive and mobilize more powerful artillery to deal with us."

"Our army has few artillery pieces, and these four anti-tank guns are our treasures. If I leave them all here, the commander will skin me alive."

"So we may only have one chance to fire. After that, the anti-tank gun will immediately retreat and move. This thing will be of great use in the future!"

Li Guotao sighed helplessly and said, "This strength is too weak, and it will be limited in fighting."

"If that's the case, we won't be able to strike first. We can only withstand their round of bombardment and wait for them to launch an attack before we take the opportunity to strike."

Yang Jihe said: "We have built a complete defense here, so it is not a problem to withstand the bombardment of these mortars."

At this moment, a burst of intensive gunfire suddenly sounded outside. The three Japanese machine guns on the opposite side suddenly opened fire and strafed the defenders' positions.

Yang Jihe rushed over, took a look, and then shouted loudly: "Pass the order down, everyone stay in the position honestly, no one is allowed to show their heads, and no one is allowed to fight back."

Li Guotao glanced at Yang Jihe. This Battalion Commander Yang was very experienced.

Li Guotao secretly rejoiced that it seemed that his luck was still good and Yang Jihe was also quite capable. If he had met a coward or a fool, it would have been troublesome.

This was obviously a fire reconnaissance by the Japanese, aimed at attracting the defenders to expose their firepower.

Li Guotao shouted, "Battalion Commander, look over there?"

Yang Jihe took the telescope and observed carefully, and found that a group of Japanese soldiers were gathered on a slope opposite.

"It looks like he should be a Japanese officer!"

"But the distance is too far, about five hundred meters!"

"You don't want to fuck him again!"

At a distance of more than 500 meters, a person is like a small black dot. Even with a machine gun, it is difficult to guarantee that you can hit the target. Once the gunshot is heard and the person dodges, there is nothing you can do.

Even with artillery bombardment, there was no absolute certainty of being able to kill those Japanese officers.

Li Guotao said: "Don't use cannons, guns are enough."

"The leader might be the Japanese captain. I'm going to kill him."

"Lend me the telescope."

After saying this, Li Guotao snatched the telescope from Yang Jihe's hand, turned around and ran out quickly.

"So far! What the hell are you doing?"

But Li Guotao had already run far away, taking his telescope with him.

"This boy!"

"Luckily I have a spare."

Yang Jihe then ordered the orderly to bring the spare telescope.

In fact, Yang Jihe was also itching to do something. At this time, several Japanese officers were standing there, looking over here. There was a high probability that one of them was the Japanese captain.

But the distance is too far, how easy is it to kill them?

At this moment, on the high ground on the opposite bank, Major Kota Maeda was holding a telescope and observing the situation on the opposite bank.

The deputy captain of the battalion, Taro Asai, said, "Captain, it seems that the enemy has not been fooled."

Maeda Kouta ordered: "Continue the intermittent shooting. I want to see how long they can endure."

"According to my observation, the enemy on the other side has at most a battalion of troops, and they probably don't have any heavy weapons. Once the troops are ready, we will immediately launch a strong attack, cross the Leishui River, and defeat them."

"Hayi~!"

Asai Taro responded respectfully and immediately ordered someone to convey the order.

At this time, a Japanese second lieutenant ran over and said with his head bowed respectfully: "Report to the captain, we found dozens of bodies in a nearby ditch. Preliminary judgment is that they should be members of the Locust Army's plainclothes team."

Maeda Kouta frowned and asked, "A squad, all of them were killed?"

"Hai!"

"Bagaya Deer!"

Maeda Kouta said angrily: "This bunch of rubbish has brought shame to the Imperial Locust Army."

Asai Taro said: "Captain, the enemy can easily wipe out one of our squads. We must not underestimate the enemy!"

Maeda Kouta said: "Though the guys in the plainclothes team are all selected elites, they only carry a small amount of light weapons after all, not even machine guns, and in order to confuse the enemy, they generally don't attack easily."

"They must have revealed something, and the enemy discovered their plan and ambushed them, which led to their total destruction."

"I don't think this proves anything. Even if the enemy is their elite force, with a battalion at most, they are not a concern at all."

"With the strength of our brigade, we can easily defeat one of their regiments."

"Hai!"

Asai Taro responded respectfully, but didn't say anything more.

Before he finished his words, a crisp gunshot was heard and a hot bullet flew over quickly.

"Pfft~!"

A stream of blood spurted out. The bullet hit Maeda Kota in the face, and a big hole was blown out from the back of his head, and blood and brain matter splattered everywhere.

Maeda Kouta died instantly and fell down with his head raised.

The incident happened suddenly, and Taro Asai was obviously stunned for a moment, then he instinctively squatted down and went to help Kouta Maeda who had fallen to the ground.

"Captain, are you okay?"

At this moment, another soft sound was heard, and a bullet hit Taro Asai, who was squatting on the ground, in the back, killing him instantly.

Li Guotao lay in a defensive fortification and fired two shots with a Type 38 rifle, killing two Japanese officers. He then quickly hid in a trench.

"Da da da~!"

At this time, a dense string of bullets swept over from the opposite side, hitting the trench and splashing up clouds of dust.

[Ding Dong~! Congratulations on killing a Japanese major. An identification card was revealed.]

[Identification card: can be used on anyone within the field of vision, and the specific identity of the other person can be identified after use. ]

[Ding Dong~! Congratulations on successfully killing a Japanese captain, and exploding a Type 90 200mm mortar with shells.]

Li Guotao was ecstatic and revealed another special prop.

Identification card!
Just now, Li Guotao really couldn't tell who was the highest commander of the Japanese devils, because those devils were dressed in similar attire, and the distance was too far to tell them apart.

If a Japanese soldier had not come to report the situation, Li Guotao would not have been able to confirm Maeda Kouta's identity.

Now with this identification card, next time when encountering a similar situation, Li Guotao can easily identify the other party's identity.

However, the biggest flaw is that this thing is a consumable and can only be used on one person to identify a person's identity.

Even so, having such a prop might come in handy at a critical moment.

This time, a Japanese captain was killed and a 90mm mortar was discovered, which was a considerable gain.

At the same time, Yang Jihe, who was at the observation post in the distance, widened his eyes in surprise and stared at the opposite side with a telescope.

"Damn, it really hit me!"

"He hit two?"

"Is this kid still human?"

At a distance of more than 500 meters, it was impossible to tell how many Japanese soldiers were there with the naked eye, but Li Guotao actually killed two of them with one shot each.

Yang Jihe was surprised, and the more he thought about it, the more excited he became. This time he had found a treasure.

Who wouldn't be happy to see a random group of soldiers and guerrillas having such amazing strength?

Yang Jihe put down the telescope, frowned and said to himself: "This 4th Army is really burying talents. Such a person is just a small lieutenant platoon leader."

At this time, several gunshots were heard outside, and several Japanese machine guns that were originally shooting at this side fell silent one after another.

No need to guess, this must be another work of Li Guotao.

He could kill one with one shot from more than 500 meters away.

What’s more, the Japanese machine gunner was more than 300 meters away.

After several machine gunners were killed in succession, the Japanese soldiers on the opposite side instantly became obedient.

"Haha~!"

Yang Jihe laughed excitedly and said, "Well done, call Li Guotao over immediately."

"Yes!"

……

In a bamboo forest on the opposite bank, Captain Jiro Matsuda was supervising his soldiers to cut bamboo and make bamboo rafts.

Because they did not carry enough motorboats, they had to temporarily build bamboo rafts to make up the number. Fortunately, it did not take much time to build a simple bamboo raft.

Jiro Matsuda said viciously: "Speed ​​up, don't be lazy. If you can't make enough rafts within an hour, you won't have to eat."

"Hayi~!"

At this moment, a little Japanese soldier ran over and said in a panic: "Report to the captain, the captain and the deputy captain died in battle."

"Nani?"

Jiro Matsuda couldn't help but widen his eyes in surprise. They were together just now, how come he died suddenly?

The Japanese soldier said quickly: "When they were scouting the enemy, they were sniped by the enemy sniper and all died."

"Sniper?"

"Hayi~!"

"Why weren't you more careful? Are those people in the brigade headquarters idiots? Why did they let the captain put himself in danger?"

"The captain was sniped and killed by the enemy when he was more than 500 meters away from the enemy position. Perhaps no one expected that the enemy would have such a powerful sniper."

Jiro Matsuda hurriedly walked towards the brigade's temporary command post.

Now that it has happened, it's too late to say anything.

And at this moment, Jiro Matsuda felt a little excited.

Since both the captain and the deputy captain are dead, doesn’t that mean he has become the commander with the highest military rank in the entire battalion?
Moreover, among all the squadron leaders, Jiro Matsuda is the one with the longest seniority and the highest prestige. So it is only natural for him to become the acting captain.

Before I knew it, I had become the acting captain.

This happiness came too suddenly. Jiro Matsuda had been waiting for this day for a long time.

Now that my dream has finally come true, how can I not be happy?
But at this time, it is better to pretend to be sad.

Correct!
Jiro Matsuda could only pretend to be angry and sad.

Just as Jiro Matsuda had expected, several squadron leaders gathered together and quickly elected Jiro Matsuda as acting battalion commander, responsible for commanding the entire Maeda Battalion.

Maeda Battalion?

Maeda Kouta is dead, so now they should be called the Matsuda Battalion.

Jiro Matsuda could obviously no longer suppress the smile on his face.

A Japanese lieutenant said, "Mr. Matsuda, should we continue to attack the enemy positions on the other side?"

Jiro Matsuda thought again, he is only the acting captain now, if he doesn't show some achievements, how can he remove the word "acting"?

If they fail to capture the Chinese army positions on the other side of the river, and a battalion commander dies, they will inevitably be reprimanded by the regiment commander, and he will probably not even be able to hold the position of acting battalion commander by then.

Therefore, it is necessary to capture the position on the opposite bank. It would be best to take the opportunity to eliminate more enemies and make some contributions in order to stabilize your position.

Jiro Matsuda said seriously: "Of course we have to attack, and we have to do it in one go to capture the position on the other side."

"The original plan remains unchanged. Once all troops are ready, we will immediately launch an all-out attack and defeat the enemy in the shortest possible time."

"Revenge for the Captain!"

"Ha!" (End of this chapter)