Bright Sword: The Flowers of War

Chapter 62 The Final Showdown (Part 12)
"Brothers, our friendly forces are here to rescue us! Get to the dock... get to the dock!"

Just as Su Yaoyang was leading the Third Battalion in a fierce battle with the Japanese army at Zhongshan Wharf, the prisoners who had been driven down the riverbank by the Japanese army also began to save themselves. Under the command of several officers, they ran towards the wharf.

"Da da da……"

They had only taken a few steps when the sound of a Type 92 heavy machine gun rang out, and more than a dozen prisoners of war were instantly hit and fell on the riverbank, their blood staining the river red.

In one firing position, two Japanese machine gunners were firing their Type 92 heavy machine guns at the riverbank, cursing as they pulled the trigger.

"Baka... They're all dead, all dead..."

"boom……"

Just then, a 75mm high-explosive shell exploded near the firing point. Although it did not directly hit the machine gun firing point, the violent shockwave still sent the machine gun and its two gunners flying into the air.

Snowflakes were still falling from the sky. Although the temperature had plummeted, the river was not completely frozen at minus ten degrees Celsius. Thousands of prisoners of war roared as they rushed toward the dock, their blood churning into a red tide among the floating ice.

A captain tore off the ropes binding him and roared in Suzhou dialect, "Brothers, charge! Those who cross the river will survive!"

John saw a strange sight through the commander's periscope as the tracks of the Chaffee tank crushed a Japanese mess kit discarded on the dock.

Thousands of ragged prisoners of war desperately ran from the riverbank toward the dock, while the Japanese troops stationed there were firing machine guns at the riverbank.

Five or six machine guns almost completely blocked the river, and countless prisoners of war fell on the riverbank. But the prisoners of war behind them still ran desperately toward the dock, stepping over the corpses of their comrades.

"Oh, God!"

John let out a painful gasp, swearing it was the most tragic run he had ever seen in his life.

He kicked Zhuang Xiaoman, the co-driver sitting next to the second-class bridge crew member, hard in the butt: "Fuck... what are you standing there for, you bastard? Shoot... shoot... kill all those Japanese monkeys!"

And you lot, aren't you going to fire the cannons yet, waiting for me to buy you drinks?

John's voice echoed inside the tank, even drowning out the roar of the engine.

"High-explosive shell, good!" The loader pushed a 75mm shell into the breech, closed the breech, and shouted.

"Two hundred and sixty meters at the three o'clock position... Japanese machine gun position, fire!"

With John's voice, the gunner slammed down the firing pedal.

"boom……"

The shell shot out of the cannon at a speed of 550 meters per second and struck a point less than ten meters from the firing point. The violent explosion and flames instantly engulfed that firing point.

Qiao Erdan yanked the control lever, and the tank's left track suddenly lifted off the ground—they charged up a row of bluestone steps, the hard bluestone scraping against the track with a roar like a church organ. To their right, more than a dozen Japanese soldiers were running towards them, screaming as they carried explosive charges.

When the turret rotated to 47 degrees, the M1919A4 air-cooled machine gun, which was used as a coaxial machine gun, suddenly spewed fire, and the barrel began to turn dark red at minus twenty degrees Celsius.

Before more than a dozen Japanese soldiers could scatter, they were hit by a long burst of machine gun bullets.

At such close range, these Japanese soldiers were instantly reduced to a mass of severed limbs, leaving only a large pool of blood. However, in the low temperature, the blood froze into a large pool of coral-like crystals shortly after it began to flow on the ground.

Suddenly, Zhuang Xiaoman, with sharp eyes, pointed at the object sizzling and emitting blue smoke in front of her and shouted, "A bomb...a bomb is about to explode!"

"Quickly reverse... reverse..."

Upon hearing the word "explosive pack," John nearly jumped out of his skin in fright, slapped Joe on the head, and shouted.

Qiao Erdan shifted into reverse almost without thinking and frantically pulled the lever.

"Squeaky..."

The Chaffee tank's snow tracks carved fan-shaped grooves into the ice before it crashed into a pile of rubble. "Boom boom..."

The two 10-pound explosive charges exploded almost simultaneously. Due to their close proximity, the violent explosions and shockwaves nearly overturned the 18.5-ton Chaffee tank.

While the Japanese army's attention was drawn to John and his men's Chaffee tanks, Su Yaoyang led the Third Battalion across the barbed wire that had been breached by the tanks and rushed into the dock.

The sky was shrouded in thick smoke, and the air was thick with the acrid smell of gunpowder.

At the dock, the waves gently lapped against the shore, seemingly silently recounting the brutality of the conflict. Corpses lay scattered everywhere on the ground.

In the darkness, the firelight from the Japanese machine gun positions flickered incessantly, appearing particularly glaring amidst the swirling smoke.

"Quickly, blow those firing points to smithereens!" Seeing several soldiers fall to the ground in pools of blood after being shot down by the machine gun, Su Yaoyang pointed at the machine gun that was spitting fire and roared.

"Quickly... set up the cannon here."

Xiong Junfeng directed his soldiers to set up a mortar on a step, held up his thumb to indicate the distance, and then shouted, "360 meters away, six o'clock...fire!"

A dozen seconds later, a high-explosive shell was inserted into the gun barrel.

"boom……"

The shells exploded dozens of meters away from the firing point.

"Fool!"

Xiong Junfeng turned to the gunners and yelled, "Have you forgotten what I told you? What kind of weather is this? Temperatures of ten degrees Celsius or lower will reduce the burning rate of the propellant by at least 19%. You have to factor in the firing delay as well!"

"Understood...Increase the charge, charge number one!"

The gunner gritted his teeth and added another propellant charge to the breech of the mortar.

"put!"

"Boom..."

Another high-explosive bomb broke free from the pull of gravity, arcing through the sky before striking a firing point.

"boom……"

The vibration from the shell leaving the barrel caused the gun carriage to sink several centimeters into the frozen ground.

As the projectile spun and tore through the snow, Xiong Junfeng saw the ice crystals on the trajectory of the projectile being burned into rainbow-colored water mist.

Instead of black smoke, the explosion produced thousands of glassy ice blades...

The bulletproof steel plates atop the Japanese machine gun positions became extremely fragile at low temperatures, and were shattered into a deadly storm of shrapnel by the shockwave.

The three Japanese machine gunners were instantly riddled with blood, and the furthest body even flew into the river.

"Well done!" Su Yaoyang, hiding behind a sandbag, felt extremely pleased as he watched the thick smoke rising from the Japanese positions opposite him.

"Order the artillery company to shoot all the Japanese devils' balls out!"

"Boom boom..."

When another shell accurately hit a Japanese mortar position, the molten steel mixed with the frozen soil to form a magma-like substance, and three or four ammunition boxes were sent flying twenty meters into the air in a chain reaction of explosions.

Under the desperate charge of the soldiers of the Third Battalion and the repeated ramming of the Chaffee tank driven by John and his men, the Japanese troops on the dock were killed and scattered, and the prisoners of war on the riverbank finally rushed onto the dock.

(End of this chapter)