Bright Sword: The Flowers of War

Chapter 178 It’s too late
The night was as dark as ink
Five o'clock in the morning is the darkest time before dawn.

On the Japanese positions 500 meters outside Wolf Valley, snoring could be heard everywhere.

Suddenly, a sharp whooshing sound ripped through the silence, followed by a deafening explosion.

The Japanese soldiers were jolted awake from their sleep, their pupils still filled with fragments of their dreams, before being filled with the blinding light of the fire.

A sudden hail of bullets rained down on the Japanese positions, sending mud and gravel flying and filling the air with smoke.

The Japanese soldiers, who had been sound asleep, suddenly panicked. Some frantically groped for their helmets, while others hurriedly searched for their rifles.

Some people reflexively started running wildly around the trenches, losing their shoes in the chaos and not even noticing the cuts and bleeding from sharp stones on their feet.

But most Japanese soldiers huddled behind cover to avoid the sudden hail of bullets.

On the ridge of Wolf Valley, the muzzles of Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns still spew fire.

Halfway up the mountain, beads of sweat glistened on Old Cao's forehead, but he couldn't hide the excitement in his eyes.

When he first operated this anti-aircraft gun, he felt his whole body vibrate. Every time his index finger pulled the trigger, his eardrums would feel the vibration before his eyes. The entire gun emplacement trembled like an anvil being hammered by a blacksmith, and the recoil made his shoulder blades go numb.

Not only that, but 20mm bullet casings kept clanging and clattering against the base beneath his feet, and every now and then scalding hot copper casings would jump into his trouser leg, burning him until he grimaced.

I don't know which bastard installed the drum magazine for him. Instead of using the high-explosive shells, they installed tracer rounds. He just fired the first shot.

Just as the smoke billowed from the ventilation holes, streaks of orange-yellow tracer bullets tore through the dark blue sky, leaving golden-red cracks.

In the distance, the smoke columns from the Japanese positions that had been blasted open looked like lumps of mud suddenly crushed by a pair of invisible hands, and occasionally a few tan figures could be seen turning into distorted silhouettes in the flames.

Everyone says that if the anti-aircraft guns are laid flat, it will be a military court.

The power of the 20mm anti-aircraft guns firing horizontally astonished everyone. When hundreds of anti-aircraft guns fired simultaneously, the spectacular scene shocked everyone.

So much so that years later, some veterans recalled in their later years: That night was the most spectacular scene I have ever witnessed in my life. The Japanese positions were completely enveloped by our anti-aircraft guns, as if they had been boiled over.

Although we can't calculate the exact number of Japanese casualties that night, I estimate it must have been considerable, because early the next morning, more than ten trucks arrived at the Japanese positions, loaded up with corpses for half a day, and only launched another attack on us when it was already light.

Unlike Lao Cao and his machine gunners, the soldiers who had nothing to do just watched the show from the sidelines.

From their perspective, all they could see were the arcs of shells weaving together in the night sky, each shell exploding into countless tiny shrapnel fragments upon landing on the Japanese positions.

All obstacles erected by the Japanese army in front of their positions, such as sandbags and fortifications, were swept away by the 20mm anti-aircraft guns.

At the height of the excitement, some people even started blowing hooligans on the front lines. The tune, mixed with the sound of gunfire, had a strangely cheerful quality to it.

This is how the military history of the 20th Division was written in later generations.

The War History of the 20th Division: The Peril of Wolf Valley

(Excerpt from the detailed battle report of July 29, 1944)
Before dawn, the mountains were bleak and desolate. At exactly five o'clock, a continuous burst of crimson flames suddenly erupted from the western ridgeline of Wolf Valley, tearing apart the deathly silence of dawn.

The bandit forces of Shanxi, China, surprisingly used over a hundred anti-aircraft machine guns (note: later determined to be Swiss-made 20mm machine guns) to form a crossfire network, launching a full-depth, direct-fire assault on our division's forward positions. This bizarre tactic of converting anti-aircraft weapons into ground suppression presented the Imperial Army with an unprecedented crisis. At that time, the frontline battalions were in the midst of a rotation period, and most officers and soldiers were huddled in earthen bunkers for rest and recuperation.

The first volley of shells pierced through the trench's breastwork like a sudden downpour, while 20mm armor-piercing incendiary shells ricocheted repeatedly within the enclosed fortifications, turning the entire trench into a bloody grinder.

Major Yoshioka, the third battalion commander of the 77th Regiment, recorded in his field log: "Iron rain poured down from the slope, the observation post's shield shattered like paper, and all the men below the rank of company commander were killed... This was not a battle, but a massacre."

"You bastards...you should all go and disembowel yourselves, go and disembowel yourselves!"

In the 39th Brigade headquarters, Brigade Commander Yoshito Takagi unleashed a furious tirade against the 77th Regiment Commander, Tomoyuki Koi.

"Are your positions all made of tofu? Why did the Chinese inflict such heavy losses on us in just half an hour of reconnaissance? Why...why?"

Seeing Takagi Yoshito's expression, which seemed to be devouring people, Koi Toki looked as if he had swallowed a pound of bitter herbs, but he still forced himself to say, "Brigade Commander, this is the first time we have ever seen the Chinese militia fight like this."

I just went to check and found that all the sandbags and fortifications made of huge logs on the position had been blown to pieces. I have never seen such a level of destruction in my more than 20 years of military service!

In Chinese terms, this was not a fault of the war effort!

Takagi Yoshito fell silent. He knew that Kotoko was telling the truth. Even he never dreamed that the Shanxi militia on the other side would actually lay down the anti-aircraft guns originally intended to deal with airplanes and fire them horizontally. Wasn't that cheating?
They also paid a heavy price in this attack, with 347 killed and 189 seriously wounded.

“Yes, why would the Chinese do that?” Takagi Yoshito murmured. He pondered for a moment, then suddenly his body trembled, and a look of horror appeared on his face.

Koi Tokiichi's face turned pale, and a look of horror appeared in his eyes.

"not good!"

"The Chinese anti-aircraft guns were designed to target our fighter jets, and what they just fired was merely a...test shot!"

"Immediately notify the Army Air Force and have them cancel this morning's attack!"

“It’s too late.” Li Dengxing gave a bitter laugh.

As he spoke, a low rumble began to sound in the sky.

As dawn broke, Japanese air force planes loomed overhead like dark clouds, their engines roaring through the valleys.

A formation of eight Type 97 heavy bombers and six Type 93 light bombers belonging to the 1st Air Wing of the Japanese Army Air Force were ordered to carry out "sweeping and bombing" operations against the Chinese garrison in Wild Wolf Valley.

Today the sky was clear and visibility was over ten kilometers. The valley defenses marked on the aviation map had only sporadic anti-aircraft fire, so Lieutenant Colonel Nakajima Aoba, the commander of the air force, ordered the aircraft to dive and drop bombs in a loose formation.

However, just as the first bomb was about to detach, intense flames suddenly erupted from both sides of the valley.

More than one hundred Oerlikon 20mm anti-aircraft guns fired simultaneously, and a barrage of scorching bullets poured down like a torrential rain, tearing apart the once tranquil sky.

The whistling of shells mingled with the roar of explosions, shaking the earth. The Japanese pilots' faces paled instantly, their eyes wide with terror as they tried to pull up and avoid the danger, but it was too late…

(End of this chapter)