Bright Sword: The Flowers of War

Chapter 111: Can’t eat and walk around

"Sir... Five minutes ago, the Japanese army dispatched ten planes to bomb Taierzhuang, but after one round of bombing, these planes suddenly turned around and flew to the south bank of the canal to launch a surprise attack on the artillery positions of the security regiment. Now the two sides are locked in a fierce battle."

A staff officer ran into the command post, panting, and shouted to Li Zongren and Sun Lianzhong.

"what?"

Li Zongren stood up, exchanged a glance with Sun Lianzhong, and said in unison, "There's a spy!"

The artillery battalion moved to a new position immediately after the shelling, but they were still found by Japanese aircraft in no time. They could not think of any other reason than that of spies.

Sun Lianzhong slammed his fist on the table and roared, "You damn spy! If I find out who provided the information, I'll rip their heart out to see if it's black or red!"
And what are those guys from the Military Intelligence Bureau and the Central Bureau of Investigation and Statistics good for? They can't even catch a few spies. I could raise a dog that's more useful than them!

"Alright, what's the use of saying all this now?" Li Zongren said with a stern face. "The most important thing now is to find a way to get the artillery battalion to retreat as quickly as possible, and preserve as many as possible."

"Can we still withdraw now?" Sun Lianzhong said irritably. "Now we can only leave it to fate and see how many artillery pieces are left after the bombing."

Li Zongren remained silent with a sullen face. Although Sun Lianzhong's words were harsh, they were lessons learned through the blood of countless soldiers.

Because China's industrial base is too weak, it simply does not have the conditions to produce fighter jets and can only rely entirely on imports.

Before the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, China had about 300 warplanes, but due to shortages of spare parts, insufficient training, and outdated aircraft, only about 200 of them were actually combat-ready.

Therefore, although the Chinese Air Force performed well in air battles in the early stages of the War of Resistance, it was significantly outnumbered.

从七七事变到徐州会战前，中国空军经历了淞沪会战（1937年8-11月）、南京保卫战（1937年12月）等战役，战机损失惨重。

By early 1938, only 30-50 of the original fighter planes were available, which led to the complete loss of air superiority over China to the Japanese.

Once ground troops were targeted by Japanese aircraft, it was virtually impossible for them to escape, which is why Sun Lianzhong expressed such frustration.

After a long silence, Li Zongren sighed softly: "I originally estimated that Su Yaoyang could hold out in Taierzhuang for at least ten days. It seems that I was too optimistic and underestimated the threat of Japanese planes."

"Fang Lu...you immediately inform Chi Fengcheng that the originally planned rest period is shortened from ten days to three days. If the Nanjing Security Regiment is in trouble, they must be the first to step in."

“Alright!” Sun Lianzhong nodded with a dark face. “I’ll call Zhen’e (Chi Fengcheng) later and tell him to be ready to take over at any time.”

After saying that, he cursed under his breath, "Damn it... what kind of mess is this? We finally managed to get it down, and before we could even catch our breath, we have to start filling in the hole again."

Just as Li and Sun were worrying about the artillery battalion, Su Yaoyang inside the Guandi Temple was also cursing.

He could naturally think of the same things that Li Zongren and Sun Lianzhong could think of, but he didn't want to berate the spy who sold out the artillery battalion's position to the Japanese.

For him, coming from a later era, there were simply too many spies and traitors during the War of Resistance against Japan, to the point of being numb to it. So he was criticizing himself for not paying enough attention to the construction of air defense forces. If he had established two more air defense battalions, he wouldn't have had to fear Japanese planes.

At the same time, he was also lamenting that his strength was still too weak. If he had an air force, even just one flight squadron, the situation today would have been completely different.

But regret is useless now; all we can do is passively wait for the outcome.

Waiting is the hardest part; as time slowly passed, his anxiety grew.

Finally… the phone rang, and he immediately picked it up: “This is Su Yaoyang, please speak.” “Commander… this is Wei Danian!” Wei Danian’s voice came from the receiver.

"Wei Danian, how is the artillery battalion doing? How badly have they suffered losses? Have the Japanese planes withdrawn yet?"

"The Japanese plane has already flown away."

Wei Danian's voice was filled with barely suppressed excitement.

"Commander... We were just attacked by a group of six Type 97 heavy bombers and four Type 97 fighters."

After more than twenty minutes of fierce fighting, we shot down four enemy bombers and two fighters; the rest of the planes escaped!

Su Yaoyang was overjoyed, then asked, "How much did we lose?"

"We lost a total of three 105mm artillery pieces, one heavy mortar, and three anti-aircraft guns, and suffered more than 30 casualties."

"here you go!"

Su Yaoyang's heart, which had been hanging in mid-air, finally settled down. In fact, he had already prepared for the worst-case scenario. If the artillery battalion was wiped out, he would immediately have someone rebuild an artillery battalion in Xuzhou. Even if he had to trick or rob, he would get enough gunners. After all, Xuzhou City had plenty of soldiers these days.

Surely you can find a few hundred artillerymen out of tens of thousands of troops?

However, the worst-case scenario did not come. Instead, it gave him a pleasant surprise: the air defense battalion actually shot down six enemy aircraft, which was quite a significant achievement.

But now is not the time to be happy. He quickly said, "You must clean up the battlefield as quickly as possible and move to a new position to prevent a second air raid by the Japanese army."

"understand!"

After giving Wei Danian a few more instructions, Su Yaoyang plopped down on a stool made of artillery shell boxes, took a sip of water from his water bottle, and only picked up the phone again after calming down.

"Hello... connect me to the theater command headquarters, please put Commander Li on the phone..."

The world is full of strange things; some people are happy while others are sad.

When Rensuke Isogai received news of the air force's crushing defeat, he was initially incredulous, then his face turned ashen with rage.

He couldn't understand it at all. A group of six heavy bombers and four fighters went to bomb an artillery position, but not only did they fail to complete their mission, six of their planes were shot down by the enemy's anti-aircraft fire. Was this a joke?
"What on earth caused us to lose so many planes?" Isogai Rensuke roared. "What is Fujimoto Torata good for?"

In order to capture Xuzhou, Japan spared no expense, deploying more than 170 aircraft.

These planes may seem like a lot, but when scattered across various battlefields, they become somewhat insufficient.

The loss of four heavy bombers and two fighters is a painful blow for resource-scarce Japan.

As the commander in charge of air support and bombing during the Battle of Xuzhou, Fujimoto Tora has made such a big mistake. He, as the commander of the Sixth Air Squadron, will probably be in deep trouble.

(End of this chapter)