Bright Sword: From Northwest Shanxi to Shangganling

Chapter 55: Cold as blood

"Baga, these idiots are so annoying!"

Hideo Shimada said angrily as he listened to the gunshots in front of him, which rang out a few times and then disappeared.

Along the way, the Eighth Route Army's attacks never stopped, from morning to night.

When Shimada Hideo complained, he did not notice that the formation of Shimada's brigade was being compressed due to the terrain.

The soldiers who were originally separated on the left and right gradually gathered together.

When the Japanese soldiers braved the cold gunfire and compressed their formation to climb up Xingjia Mountain, the leading Japanese vanguard was stunned by the scene in front of them.

A large number of Eighth Route Army suddenly appeared in front of them. Just a glance could tell that there were at least seven or eight hundred people.

These were the soldiers from the First Battalion of the New Second Regiment and the Special Service Company. They were quietly lined up in formation on the reverse slope of the hill, waiting in silence for the enemy to arrive.

Looking down from the Japanese position, the mounted bayonets of the Eighth Route Army looked like white trees, flashing coldly in the sun, but no one moved.

At this time, the slopes were so quiet that you could hear people's heartbeats.

Takeda, the vanguard Japanese squad leader, felt as if his blood had solidified. He opened his mouth but no sound came out.

Chen Chengxing was waiting for this moment. Before the devil could come to his senses, he shouted, "Kill!"

"Kill!~"

The soldiers lined up in formation followed behind Chen Chengxing and rushed towards the Japanese while shouting like a collapsed river embankment.

Chen Chengxing knocked the Japanese squad leader to the ground with just one blow, and at the same time shouted, "The first battalion will charge straight at the main Japanese force, and the special forces company will eat up the Japanese vanguard!"

"Yes!" Xu Wu passed by Chen Chengxing and rushed straight towards the Japanese army without even stopping.

Because the formation was compressed, the distance between the Japanese main force and the vanguard force was only 30 meters. As soon as Chen Chengxing finished speaking, the soldiers rushing in the front had already engaged in close combat with the Japanese.

The Second Battalion, the Third Battalion, the Replacement Battalion, and the guerrillas on the periphery located on the rear flank of the Japanese army also rushed out from behind the mountain immediately after Chen Chengxing launched the attack. However, they were far away and it took them at least three minutes to reach the battlefield.

However, as long as they can block the Japanese's retreat, the Japanese will not be able to wipe out an entire battalion within three to five minutes.

Chen Chengxing did not immediately deal with the Japanese's large army, but instead led the special forces company to target the Japanese's vanguard troops.

As long as the Japanese vanguard can be eliminated, the 200 people in the special forces company will be freed to participate in the battle with the large force.

"Kill!~"

Chen Chengxing killed several Japanese soldiers in succession with a knife in one hand and a gun in the other.

At first, Chen Chengxing could still chop off the heads of the Japanese soldiers with one blow, but after only chopping off three or four, several large gaps appeared on the Japanese sword in Chen Chengxing's hand, and when he chopped off the Japanese soldiers' bodies again, he could only take off a piece of flesh.

However, in addition to Chen Chengxing, Wei Dayong was also wielding a red tasseled spear and killing people everywhere.

With the help of the length of the red tasseled spear, Wei Dayong almost shot a bloody hole with each shot. Seeing this, Chen Chengxing simply threw away his saber and raised the 20-shot gun in his hand, which made a series of "crackling" sounds.

The vanguard team of about 50 Japanese soldiers could not even last 200 minutes facing 2 Eighth Route Army soldiers and 5 killer gods before they all went to serve their successive generations of locusts.

The special forces company that had freed up their hands immediately went to support the first battalion.

After Chen Chengxing replaced the bullets in his pistol, he picked up the saber of the Japanese squad leader who had been killed earlier from the ground, and led Wei Dayong to kill the Japanese.

Faced with the Eighth Route Army that rushed towards them in just a few seconds, the Japanese were unable to make use of their firepower advantage at all, and the heavy machine guns and infantry guns in their hands became a burden instead.

The weapons of the Japs all have chrysanthemum patterns that symbolize the Heavenly Locusts, which means that these weapons nominally belong to the Heavenly Locusts, and if they are discarded at will, it would be disrespectful to the Heavenly Locusts.

Among the severely brainwashed locust army, disrespecting the sky locusts is a serious crime and no one dares to commit it.

But even if these heavy weapons did not need to be carried, the Japanese machine gun squad and infantry artillery squad soldiers, who had no rifles and only a few pistols and bayonets, had no power to resist the surging soldiers of the New Second Regiment.

With a half-meter-long bayonet against a 1-meter-long spear, there is no other choice but to die in despair.

Everyone knows about the Japanese Type 14 Nambu pistol. You say it is a semi-automatic pistol. A magazine has 8 bullets, and there may be five or six times when the bullets cannot be loaded into the chamber, and it has to be loaded manually.

In close range, a semi-automatic pistol can still provide some resistance, but holding a 'manual pistol' is like playing with your life, especially when this 'manual pistol' has weak penetration and will not immediately lose its combat effectiveness if it does not hit the vital points, which is even more ridiculous.

Of course, although the Japanese heavy weapons units and baggage trains had no advantage against the charging Eighth Route Army, the Japanese riflemen still had the upper hand. In the nearly 1:1 bayonet fight, the New Second Regiment could win no more than 1/3 of the time. However, the current mission of the First Battalion was not to fight the Japanese to the death.

Chen Chengxing had explained before the war that the mission of the First Battalion was to complete the melee with the Japanese and eliminate the advantage of the Japanese heavy firepower. The main focus in the early stage was to delay time. The general offensive would not begin until the Second Battalion, the Third Battalion, the Supplementary Battalion and the guerrillas all entered the field.

As time went by, the rest of the troops of the New Second Regiment began to gradually enter the battlefield.

As Shimada Hideo looked at the increasing number of Eighth Route Army soldiers, he realized that things were going to go wrong. If it was just a hand-to-hand fight with seven or eight hundred people, he would not be afraid even though Shimada's infantry battalion only had about 350 people.

But now more and more Eighth Route Army soldiers are entering the battlefield, and the number has exceeded 2 and is heading towards 3. At this time, Shimada's battalion can no longer withstand it.

"Turn! Turn!" After Shimada Hideo chopped down a soldier from the New Second Regiment in front of him, the tip of his knife immediately pointed towards the hill on the right.

As long as they can break through the current melee, the troops can escape.

When the Locust Army was carrying heavy weapons, it could not catch up with the Eighth Route Army. But once they had no heavy weapons, Shimada Hideo was confident that the Locust Army could run no slower than the Eighth Route Army.

However, this time when they encountered the New 2nd Regiment, Shimada Hideo made a wrong calculation. With the two specialized reinforcements of mountain experts and infantry combat experts, the New 2nd Regiment ran so fast as if they were walking on flat ground.

Hideo Shimada led his troops to charge left and right, breaking through the encirclement several times, but each time they were surrounded again before they could run more than a mile.

Apart from scattering corpses along the way, the Japs' situation did not change at all.

In the end, Shimada Hideo had no choice but to order the remaining infantry to block the Eighth Route Army. He and deputy battalion commander Yoshino Munehiro took the battalion's orderlies and communications soldiers and fled.

They were carrying a large number of confidential documents of the Locust Army, and Hideo Shimada could not abandon them until the last moment.

　Thank you for your reward.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)