Bright Sword: From Northwest Shanxi to Changjin Lake, a Hundred Battles, a Hundred Victories

Chapter 111 A Camping Pot Captured
"This is going to be a tough battle," said Political Commissar Zhang Zhengze.

Judging from its current strength and combat capability, the 237th Regiment is stronger than the more than 5,000 soldiers mainly composed of the First Battalion that Chen Ming has mobilized.

Excluding the staff of the detachment headquarters, only 4,200 people in the independent detachment were actually able to participate in combat.

The 237th Regiment, with 3800 soldiers, is now almost one to one in terms of troop strength.

The opposing force was a core regiment of an elite Class A division, with formidable combat power.

Such a regiment could easily defeat a division or corps of the Nationalist army on the main battlefield, and in some battles, it could even chase down an entire army group.

To be honest, neither Chen Ming nor the other commanders and soldiers of the detachment were confident of winning this operation.

It's a big gamble.

They won the gamble; during this sweep, the independent detachment was able to survive with a relatively low casualty rate.

If you lose the gamble, you can only break it down into smaller, scattered pieces to break through.

At that point, the attrition rate was beyond Chen Ming's control.

Since Chen Ming's transmigration, he has won many battles, and even annihilated the main force of an independent mixed brigade of the Japanese army.

But the current situation is the most difficult one he has faced so far.

In the Battle of Cangyunling, the Independent Regiment was the first to destroy the command post of the Sakata Regiment, and with the cooperation of other units, the Independent 2nd Regiment only needed to hold the position to win.

In the Battle of Lijiapo, the Yamazaki Battalion had already lost more than half its troops and was trapped in the fortifications on Lijiapo. The Independent 2nd Regiment, with its powerful firepower and infantry-artillery coordination, was able to easily annihilate it.

The Battle of Huanglong Cave was won by surprise, thanks to the use of napalm bombs and the prior destruction of the enemy's artillery positions.

The Battle of Wutai relied on a large force to penetrate and encircle the enemy, and with an absolute advantage in troop strength, the Independent Mixed Fourth Brigade was annihilated.

This time, the troop strength and personnel quality were similar, but the weaponry and equipment were inferior.

The enemy can also call in air support at any time to bomb the Independent Detachment's positions.

The independent detachment not only had to confront the 237th Regiment head-on, but also had to cover the retreat of the local people in the base area.

Otherwise, given Okamura's methods, at least tens of thousands of civilians would have been ruthlessly killed.

This battle was a true test of the commander's command skills.

"We must fight tough battles! So what if it's a regiment of a Class A division? Are we, the independent detachment, made of clay?" Chen Ming said firmly.

"What's the current situation of the unit responsible for luring the enemy deep into our territory?" Chen Ming continued to ask.

"They've already been discovered by the Japanese reconnaissance unit, and the vanguard is now in pursuit, having begun to break away from the main force," Wang Dafei said.

“Alright, once we’ve drawn the Japanese troops apart, the task of holding off the main Japanese force will be handed over to Comrade Luo Jian,” Chen Ming said.

"Yes, sir. I guarantee I will complete the mission." Luo Jian saluted and said firmly.

This time, the First Battalion of the First Brigade had the most arduous mission.

In order to buy time for the main force to eliminate the vanguard of the Japanese army and build positions, and at the same time cover the evacuation of civilians.

The battalion of 800 soldiers was tasked with holding off the Japanese 237th Regiment's two infantry battalions and one artillery company from relentless bombardment for 36 hours.

During this period, they faced attacks from over 2,500 elite Japanese soldiers, as well as bombing raids by tanks, armored vehicles, and aircraft.

The task is extremely difficult!

Luo Jian took the initiative to obtain this mission. As the old core of the Independent Detachment, the Second Independent Regiment inherited the honors won by Chen Ming.

If they don't step up for this tough battle, who will?
"Alright, once we lure the vanguard of the Japanese into the encirclement, we'll concentrate all our firepower and annihilate them at all costs."

"At the same time, take advantage of the time when the Japanese are blocked by the First Battalion to cover the civilians' transfer out of the encirclement."

"This battle concerns the 15,000 soldiers and hundreds of thousands of civilians in our Fourth Military Sub-district. Whether we win or lose depends on whether we can take down the vanguard of the Japanese army!"

Chen Ming said solemnly.

"Guaranteed to complete the mission!"

The officers and soldiers of the Independent Detachment spoke loudly and solemnly.

High slope.

Under the orders of Colonel Okabe, the vanguard of the Japanese infantry battalion launched an attack on the independent detachment responsible for luring the enemy.

"Oh!"

"Oh!"

The Japanese artillery opened fire first, bombarding the troops that were being used to lure the enemy.

For a time, the sound of explosions continued incessantly.

The troop used to lure the enemy immediately fell into disarray.

"Retreat, retreat quickly!"

Tong Guowei shouted loudly from within the group.

He was the captain of the Fifth Guerrilla Brigade, and this time he led the guerrilla brigade and some county brigades and district squads on the mission of luring the enemy.

Under Tong Guowei's command, the soldiers braved the artillery fire and began to feign an escape while carrying their supplies.

Fortunately, they chose a good position, and the Japanese artillery company did not follow up with a large number of artillery pieces, so only the battalion's own artillery was shelled.

After being shelled, the soldiers quickly ran over the hillside and escaped the Japanese artillery fire, without suffering too many casualties.

The Japanese battalion commander looked through his binoculars at the scene of the Eighth Route Army being bombed, and a smile appeared on his lips.

"Order the troops to rush up immediately and entangle this local Eighth Route Army."

"Hai!"

Upon receiving the order, more than 300 Japanese soldiers took the lead and charged towards the retreating soldiers of the Second Battalion.

To avoid making the feigned trap seem too obvious, Tong Guowei left some troops behind to fight and retreat while maneuvering against the Japanese.

These troops were quickly "defeated" by the Japanese.

When the Japanese battalion commander stepped onto the attack site, he looked at the supplies left behind by the guerrilla fighters.

"Wow, so much supplies! We must have found the main force of the Eighth Route Army, otherwise there wouldn't be so many people responsible for escorting the supplies."

"I sent a telegram to Colonel Okabe: Our unit has successfully defeated the logistics force of the Eighth Route Army's Independent Detachment at Gaopo and captured a large amount of supplies."

"We are now preparing to pursue the Eighth Route Army's logistics troops and find the main force of the Eighth Route Army to engage in a decisive battle."

"That's what the Japanese battalion commander said."

"Hai!"

In the rear ranks, when Colonel Okabe received the telegram from the First Battalion, he immediately replied.

"We must catch up with the Eighth Route Army's logistics troops immediately and find their main force. The credit for this should go to our 237th Regiment."

Upon receiving the order, the First Battalion immediately began leading its troops.

Gradually, they grew further and further away from the main force behind them, and eventually became separated.

The mountain roads were in poor condition and had been damaged by the Eighth Route Army, so the Japanese cars, armored vehicles, and tanks moved very slowly.

Their speed cannot match that of an infantry raid.

The First Infantry Battalion pursued the enemy further and further away, capturing a large amount of supplies.

Even their cooking pots were confiscated.

This means that this Eighth Route Army unit has collapsed and even abandoned its means of livelihood.

They didn't stop until after dark.

Nighttime was not conducive to the deployment of troops, and in order to prevent a nighttime surprise attack by the Eighth Route Army, the First Battalion began to stop and rest.

Soldiers need rest to continue fighting, and superior firepower is less effective at night.

Although the Japanese were arrogant and conceited, they wouldn't continue to launch attacks at night.

However, while the Japanese soldiers rested, the soldiers of the Independent Detachment did not.

Night combat was the Eighth Route Army's forte and the most effective means of narrowing the weapons gap.

On a dark and stormy night, countless figures surged about, like deadly demons.

Chen Ming dispatched a large number of small units to launch harassment attacks against the Japanese.

Apart from the fifty-odd soldiers Zhou Weiguo took away, the special operations brigade had more than one hundred soldiers who joined the harassment.

Under the cover of darkness, the special operations team launched a surprise attack on the Japanese sentries.

Snapped!
The gunshots were crisp and clear, especially noticeable in the darkness.

The Japanese sentry fell to the ground.

The resting Japanese soldiers immediately awoke and began suppressing the darkness with machine gun fire.

The bullet disappeared into the darkness, and it was unknown whether it hit its target or not.

Colonel Okabe, who was just about to rest, was also awakened. After inquiring about the situation, Colonel Okabe said disdainfully:
"The Eighth Route Army will use these little tricks to keep the troops resting and not to panic, and to arrange more sentries to patrol."

After giving the order, Colonel Okabe prepared to continue resting.

These sporadic attacks were nothing more than underhanded tricks used by the Eighth Route Army to disturb their rest.

After daybreak, he will show the Eighth Route Army what fair and square tactics on the battlefield are, and what the truth of war is.

The gunfire ceased, and the night fell silent.

However, the special forces and guerrilla fighters did not want the Japanese to rest.

Adopting the guiding principle of "when the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy retreats, we pursue; when the enemy camps, we harass; when the enemy is exhausted, we attack," they began to launch frequent attacks on the Japanese sentries.

Taking advantage of their familiarity with the terrain, some soldiers even bypassed the Japanese sentry posts and blindly fired grenade launchers at the Japanese camp.

The grenade launcher can actually be seen as an ultralight mortar.

Although the caliber was small, it was still a cannon! As the sound of grenades exploding rang out, the soldiers began to fire, and for a moment, gunfire rang out everywhere, just as if the Eighth Route Army had really launched an attack.

As expected, the Japanese soldiers were awakened again, and the sleeping soldiers quickly grabbed their guns and entered combat mode.

However, at this moment the sounds of cannons and gunfire suddenly disappeared, and the night fell silent once again.

Colonel Okabe was thoroughly annoyed by the guerrilla fighters, but at this moment he felt that the puppet troops were of some use.

In the past, as the core regiment of a Class A division, he looked down on the puppet troops with low combat effectiveness.

Therefore, this time, when they came from central Hebei to sweep through the area, they did not bring any puppet troops with them.

Even if the puppet troops were useless, they could still hold the line and entangle with the Eighth Route Army when faced with nighttime harassment, without affecting their rest.

It's like having several mosquitoes buzzing around your bed after you turn off the lights on a hot summer day.

You can't hit them when you reach out, and they disappear when you turn on the light, but the buzzing noise comes back as soon as you turn off the light.

The key is that you can't ignore it, otherwise you'll wake up the next day covered in bumps, as if a lot of blood has been sucked out.

The role of the puppet troops was similar to that of a mosquito net, keeping mosquitoes out.

Left with no other option, Colonel Okabe could only send out several small teams to drive away the Eighth Route Army harassing them, following the direction of the gunfire.

This, however, fell into Chen Ming's trap.

The 237th Regiment's garrison was strategically positioned, occupying high ground and setting up crossfire machine guns.

It also has sufficient width and depth to facilitate the deployment and attack of troops.

Trying to launch a night raid using the main force would result in heavy casualties and would make it almost impossible to achieve a good result.

What Chen Ming wanted to do was to use guerrilla warfare to lure small groups of Japanese soldiers out of their camp, concentrate his forces to wipe them out, and gradually weaken the Japanese strength.

Even if we can't trick them out, we can still kill as many Japanese sentries as possible; it's just a matter of how much we eat.

After the Japanese squads came out, Chen Ming's main force company also quietly approached under the cover of night.

Relying on previous guerrilla raids, the Japanese reduced their perimeter to avoid losing too many sentries to the Eighth Route Army.

This gave Chen Ming the opportunity to arrange for his main force to approach.

The special operations team soldiers, who had been lying in ambush, quietly lay prone on the ground, waiting for the Japanese soldiers to approach.

As the Japanese troops drew closer, Li Yong, the captain of the special operations brigade, immediately fired the first shot.

"beat!"

As soon as Li Yong fired his gun, the more than forty special operations soldiers who had been lying in ambush immediately opened fire.

More than a dozen submachine guns, spitting fire, began to spray bullets at the Japanese squad.

After annihilating Yamamoto's special attack team, Chen Ming prioritized distributing the captured submachine guns and other weapons to the soldiers of the special operations brigade.

Zhou Weiguo's squadron of fifty soldiers each had one, while the others were distributed among other special operations team members.

Fortunately, the submachine guns used by Yamamoto's special attack unit were German-made, so ammunition was not particularly difficult to replenish. With the strength of the independent detachment, it was still possible to support the ammunition supply for more than a hundred submachine guns.

The powerful suppressive force of submachine guns in close-range combat goes without saying, especially under the precise marksmanship of special forces soldiers.

Of the more than fifty Japanese soldiers in the squad, more than twenty fell in a single encounter.

The remaining Japanese soldiers quickly lay down to avoid the bullets, but when they looked up, they saw dozens of grenades flying towards them, sparks flying.

"Ahhh!"

With so many grenades, the Japanese soldiers had nowhere to hide and were blown to pieces.

After throwing the grenades, the special forces soldiers, regardless of the outcome, disappeared into the night.

This scene also occurred in other Japanese squads that went out to drive away guerrilla forces.

Colonel Okabe realized something was wrong after hearing the loud explosions and the intensity of the gunfire.

"This is definitely not a small group of Eighth Route Army soldiers; this is the main force of the Eighth Route Army. Otherwise, they wouldn't have such strong firepower."

Colonel Okabe cursed loudly and immediately ordered his troops to enter combat readiness, fire flares, and send large groups of troops toward the location where the Japanese squad had been ambushed.

Only seven or eight wounded soldiers were found, groaning on the ground.

After gathering the wounded soldiers, the Japanese troops pursued for a distance before turning back, not daring to pursue any further.

Launching an attack rashly when the enemy situation is unclear is not the right choice.

Moreover, even with flares, it would be extremely difficult to catch an Eighth Route Army soldier who was determined to escape in these mountains.

All they can do now is wait until dawn, then send out scouts and call in reconnaissance planes to locate the main force of the Eighth Route Army.

When the troops he dispatched reported back on the battle situation, Colonel Okabe was furious.

This was the first time he had fought such a frustrating battle; he didn't even know where the enemy was or how many there were.

The key point is that the soldiers in these guerrilla units were even more elite than the soldiers in the core regiment of his Class A division.

According to feedback from one of the squads, after engaging in a firefight with a small force of more than thirty men, they were unable to defeat the small force despite having more troops.

This is simply unbelievable.

When did veterans of a Class A division become unable to defeat the Chinese army despite having superior numbers?

Left with no other option, Colonel Okabe could only order several units to take turns providing cover and guard, and did not send any more troops to drive and pursue them.

The night raid lasted until dawn.

Throughout the night, sounds of gunfire and explosions rang out intermittently, stimulating the Japanese soldiers' nerves.

During this period, the Japanese soldiers could only stay in their camp, strengthen their defenses in the face of the Eighth Route Army's sneak attacks, not give the enemy any chance, and minimize their losses.

When dawn broke, many of the Japanese soldiers had dark circles under their eyes, clearly indicating that they hadn't slept well or hadn't slept at all the night before.

According to statistics, nearly two hundred soldiers were killed and more than one hundred were wounded in one night.

The enemy's casualties were completely unknown.

morning.

Colonel Okabe had dark circles under his eyes, and his expression betrayed his exhaustion.

At this moment, he received a telegram from the First Battalion.

It turns out that the First Brigade also encountered an attack by a small detachment of the Eighth Route Army last night, and suffered considerable casualties.

However, during the attack at dawn, the commander of the First Battalion ordered his troops to prepare to counterattack immediately when the Eighth Route Army launched its attack.

Using the light of dawn to pursue them, they finally discovered the main force of the Eighth Route Army.

The First Battalion immediately sought instructions from Colonel Okabe.

When Colonel Okabe learned that the First Battalion had discovered the main force of the Eighth Route Army, he immediately found an outlet for his anger.

"Order the First Battalion to attack and wipe out the main force of the Eighth Route Army, and let them know that they can't amount to anything by relying on petty tricks like stealing chickens and dogs."

Colonel Okabe was furious and determined to make this troublesome Eighth Route Army pay the price.

After receiving orders, the First Battalion began to speed up its march and pursue the "main force" they had discovered.

However, they failed to notice that they were getting further and further away from the main force of the rear wing.

Or perhaps they discovered it but didn't care. The Japanese were confident that in the daytime with good visibility, even if they encountered the main force of the Eighth Route Army, they would never lose thanks to their elite soldiers and powerful firepower.

Even if they were ambushed, they are only 20 kilometers away from the main force, and with full support, they can arrive in a maximum of three hours.

Couldn't an infantry battalion of a Class A division hold out against the Eighth Route Army for another three hours?

What a joke.

Neither Colonel Okabe nor the commander of the First Battalion felt there was anything wrong with pursuing them.

This order, issued in a fit of rage, will make the Japanese pay a heavy price in the coming day.

The First Battalion launched an attack on the camp they had discovered and engaged in firefight with the soldiers of the Second Battalion stationed there.

This time, the Japanese attack did not proceed as smoothly as before, but instead seemed to have hit a steel plate, and they were firmly blocked in front of the position.

The Japanese battalion commander was extremely surprised and puzzled, unable to understand why the Eighth Route Army, which they had been chasing and beating all along, would suddenly display such powerful fighting strength.

The company he was in charge of attacking actually managed to fight the Eighth Route Army to a standstill.

This unusual phenomenon aroused the suspicion of the Japanese battalion commander, but suddenly he thought of a possibility.

"We must have found the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army's independent detachment, otherwise these Eighth Route Army soldiers wouldn't be so recklessly blocking the Imperial soldiers."

"The Japanese battalion commander said confidently."

His statement was endorsed by the officers.

At that moment, the Japanese communications soldier suddenly ran in to report.

"Reporting to the commander, a large number of Eighth Route Army troops have been spotted on the left and right flanks and have launched an attack on the high ground on both flanks of our army."

The communications soldier's words only deepened the Japanese battalion commander's suspicions.

He said confidently, "The Eighth Route Army, which has always been retreating, has actually dared to launch an attack on our troops this time."

"They must be desperate. They are trying to tie down our forces by attacking from both flanks, hoping to delay our frontal breakthrough and cover the retreat of important personnel."

"This is a clumsy tactic of the Eighth Route Army. They ordered the troops on both flanks to hold their positions. Once they broke through the Eighth Route Army's positions from the front and destroyed their command post, these Eighth Route Army troops who were making a feint attack would naturally collapse."

Therefore, due to the Japanese battalion commander's misjudgment, he did not send reinforcements to the high ground on both flanks, but instead concentrated a large force to continue the fierce attack on the Second Battalion's position.

While the Japanese soldiers' attention was entirely drawn to this so-called "command post," the 1st Battalion of the 1st Battalion, led by Luo Jian, quietly bypassed the Japanese 1st Battalion.

They penetrated into a 20-kilometer area between the First Battalion and the 237th Regiment, constructing three echelon blocking positions.

P.S.: Requesting votes.

(End of this chapter)