Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 29 Tunnel War

Just as Wang Gensheng was recalling the movie about Tunnel Warfare, his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of crying.

Turning around, I saw that it was Li Xiu's sister Li Xue who was crying!
Wang Gensheng could understand Li Xue's crying. Not to mention in this era, even in the era before Wang Gensheng traveled through time, a house was the most important property of a family or a person.

The Japanese soldiers couldn't find any villagers in Lijia Village, so they burned down the village and left without staying there for long.

So after the villagers returned to Lijia Village, they began to clean up the debris.

Wang Gensheng took a look and found that the damage to Lijia Village was not very serious. Only the wooden windows and doors were burned, and the roof was collapsed.

But the most important adobe wall was intact, so all we had to do was get some wood, rebuild the doors, windows, and roof, and it could be used again.

The effort required for all these is less than one-fifth of that for building earthen brick walls. The most important part of building a house is still building the walls, especially the cost of burning green bricks or earthen bricks, which is not cheap.

After leaving a squad of soldiers he brought with him to help the villagers of Lijia Village rebuild their houses, Wang Gensheng returned to Wangjia Village, the base of the New Second Regiment, alone.

"What! These damned little devils! Wang Gensheng, you did a great job on this!"

After Wang Gensheng reported the situation, Kong Jie, the head of the New Second Regiment, first slammed the table in anger, then affirmed Wang Gensheng's decision at the time. Kong Jie then thought for a moment and said to Wang Gensheng:
"Well, since this incident was caused by us, take the soldiers from the first battalion and go repair the houses for the villagers in Lijia Village!"

Wang Gensheng nodded after hearing this and said:

"Captain, this isn't a good idea. If we hadn't discovered the situation in time, giving the villagers ample time to retreat, the losses in Lijia Village would have been even greater. So I think we should mobilize the villagers to dig more tunnels underground. This way, they can be used to store food and other supplies, or to escape!"

What Wang Gensheng said was true. Although a lot of food had been looted from Lijia Village by the Japanese in recent years, every family still had several hundred kilograms of food.

Therefore, when the villagers of Lijia Village retreated, almost everyone carried one or two hundred kilograms of food.

So it is conceivable that if Baili Xiu had not tipped off the enemy in advance, the consequences would have been disastrous. Even if the sentry at the village entrance had informed them, how could the people of Lijia Village who were carrying food have been able to outrun those Japanese devils!
If you escape with empty hands, you can certainly run fast, but without food, even if you run away, how to survive will be a big problem. In this day and age, food is life!

Kong Jie nodded in agreement with Wang Gensheng's proposal and said:

"Digging a tunnel to hide food and people is a good idea, but we still need to think carefully about how to dig this tunnel. Otherwise, this tunnel will not be used to protect the villagers, but will become a dungeon to imprison ourselves."

Wang Gensheng also agreed with Kong Jie's words. After all, in the history of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the effect of tunnel warfare was not so good at the beginning. In fact, the development of tunnel warfare can be divided into three stages.

Initially, around the May 1st Anti-Sweeping Campaign of 1942, soldiers and civilians in central Hebei dug numerous makeshift hiding holes to protect themselves from the Japanese invaders. These cellar-like hiding holes were the earliest forms of underground tunnels. However, due to their limited space, people were unable to move around normally, let alone fight in them.

Therefore, in the early days of tunnel warfare, the only option was passive evasion, with no way to fight back. Once the tunnel entrance was discovered, it was very dangerous. Basically, after hiding in the tunnel, you could only pray that the Japanese would not find you, just like playing hide-and-seek. Of course, if you were found, you would not only lose the game, but also your life.

For example, in May 1942, the massacre occurred in Beituan Village, Ding County. Because the cellars dug by each household were too simple, the Japanese invaders found the entrances one by one. As a result, more than 800 villagers and injured Eighth Route Army soldiers hiding in the caves were brutally murdered by the Japanese invaders.

Then the second stage was from 1942 to 1944. In the practice of struggle, the soldiers and civilians of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression gradually developed isolated hiding caves into connected tunnels.

These upgraded tunnels offered improved concealment compared to hiding holes, but they still had many shortcomings. For example, they were incapable of withstanding water, fire, smoke, or poison attacks. Their counterattack capabilities were also limited. If the Japanese army launched a massive sweep, the tunnels would still be ineffective.

This situation is also depicted in the film "Tunnel Warfare." For example, the villagers of Gaojiazhuang, having expanded their existing hiding cave, thought they could flex their muscles. However, their efforts proved ineffective. Not only were they unable to launch a counterattack, but the enemy also discovered several entrances to the tunnel. The Japanese flooded the tunnel, poisoned it, and attempted to dig it open, nearly putting everyone inside in a desperate situation.

If it weren't for the crucial moment when militia captain Gao Chuanbao's aura of heroism broke out and shot the Japanese commander with one shot, and with the support of militiamen from surrounding villages, forcing the Japanese to retreat, Gaojiazhuang would have also been massacred by the Japanese.

Then came the third phase of tunnel warfare, from the end of 1945 to the end of the War of Resistance. During this period, the tunnels underwent further upgrades, reminiscent of those depicted in the film. Villages, fields, and tunnels formed a continuous, three-dimensional battle formation. Offensive and defensive capabilities were greatly enhanced, making them impervious to the Japanese's water, fire, smoke, and poison attacks while also enabling counterattacks.

Fortunately, Wang Gensheng had watched the movie Tunnel Warfare back then, and later searched the tunnel structure of Tunnel Warfare on the Internet, so he can now roughly draw it.

What's more, the plot of "Bright Sword" also describes the large-scale mopping-up operation at the end of 1942. In this mopping-up operation, Li Yunlong's independent regiment lost half of its people, and Ding Wei's New 1st Regiment also lost one-third. Of course, the worst hit was the New 2nd Regiment that was established last.

Because it was established relatively late and its equipment was not very good, it lost two-thirds of its personnel in this mopping-up operation, with even more core members being sacrificed.

Therefore, if Wang Gensheng could have dug the tunnels used in the tunnel warfare now, that is, in 1940, it would needless to say have greatly reduced the casualties of the Eighth Route Army and ordinary people in the base area.

But no matter what I thought, the most important thing now was to bring the First Battalion of the New Second Regiment to Lijia Village to repair houses for the villagers.

With the help of a battalion of more than 300 young and middle-aged men, the houses in Lijia Village were completed in less than a week.

From the outside, apart from some black burn marks on the walls, the rest is no different from before.

Apart from the bedding that was not taken away in time and some wooden furniture that was burned and which required a lot of effort and money to rebuild, there was no problem with living there anymore.

(End of this chapter)