Bright Sword: The Flowers of War

Chapter 162 Pocket Formation

The car headlights pierced the thick darkness of the night, leaving several blurry streaks of light in the swirling yellow dust.

The tires made a soft, crackling sound as they rolled over the gravel, like countless insects gnawing at something.

The convoy of trucks moved slowly across the potholed road like a wounded centipede, with occasional bumps causing the helmets and guns inside the truck beds to collide with dull thuds.

Lieutenant General Ushijima Minoru, commander of the 20th Division, sat motionless in the back seat of a Nissan 70, his hands resting on his knees, his face somber and his eyes closed, lost in thought.

In the front seat, the driver carefully drove the car, occasionally manually flipping the windshield wipers to scrape away the dust accumulated on the glass.

In the passenger seat, the adjutant was wiping the lenses of his glasses with a piece of cloth.

Suddenly, the muffled sound of an engine shutting off came from afar, and the entire convoy came to an abrupt halt as if it had been choked, as if someone had pressed the pause button on the convoy.

"What happened?" Ushijima Minoru opened his eyes and asked unhappily.

"Commander, I'll go and inquire right away." After saying that, the adjutant pushed open the car door and got out, kicking up a cloud of dust. He couldn't help but cough, the sound of his coughing particularly jarring in the silence.

Minoru Ushijima reached out and rolled down the car window. The humid, hot wind, carrying the smell of diesel fuel, rushed in, dispersing the soot that had accumulated on the dashboard. He stared at the reddish taillights of the car in front of him through the dust and fog, his mood growing increasingly irritable.

I just received news that Xiangding County has fallen, and the Shanxi militia is launching an attack on Xin County. The garrison currently stationed in Xin County is struggling to hold on, but according to the telegrams sent by the garrison, the Shanxi army has even deployed tanks. They have blown up the outer city wall and could enter the county town at any time.

If they hadn't already stockpiled all their ammunition in the residential area, and if the Chinese hadn't launched an attack, they would have inevitably detonated the ammunition depot, perishing along with all the people in the county. Xin County would probably have fallen long ago.

Although the Shanxi militia temporarily ceased their attacks, Ushijima Minoru knew that this was merely a temporary measure. The longer the conflict dragged on, the more dangerous Xinxian would become, which was why he needed to travel overnight.

There was no other way; Xinxian was simply too important. If Xinxian fell, and the ammunition and supplies were destroyed or even captured by the Shanxi militia, the only thing the 20th Division could do was immediately turn back and cancel the operation. As the commander of this operation, his military career would also come to an end, which was something he could not tolerate.

Just as his patience was wearing thin, the adjutant finally returned.

"Your Excellency, the truck ahead had a flat tire, which is blocking the road. I have already ordered the road to be cleared, and it will be open to traffic soon."

"Tell them to hurry up."

Ushijima Minoru uttered a sound of annoyance. He looked around and found the scenery to be blurry and the soldiers bustling about.

"Ono... how many kilometers are we still from Xinxian County?"

"Reporting to the regimental commander, there are still more than 30 kilometers to go. If all goes well, we will arrive in Xinxian in a little over an hour."

"Alright... Order the troops to speed up, they must reach Xinxian before dawn!"

"Hai!"

After giving the order, Ushijima Minoru climbed back into the car, intending to take a nap while he still had some time.

…………

Outside a makeshift tent at the foot of a mountain more than ten miles away from Xinxian County, an antenna supported by a long pole swayed in the wind, and a dripping sound came from inside the tent.

Li Gaoyuan was sitting on a stool made of stacked ammunition boxes, looking at a map by the dim light. Suddenly, a staff officer stood up and said, "Report... the reconnaissance post reports that the Japanese vanguard has entered the ambush zone."

"understood."

Without looking up, Li Gaoyuan asked, "Has the artillery regiment moved into ambush position?"

"Commander, the artillery regiment took ambush positions half an hour ago, and the positions are already set up. We are ready to fire at any time!"

"Okay... Tell Zhang Zhihao not to hold back the ammunition for the commander-in-chief. Once the fighting starts, he must do everything in his power to fire all the ammunition in the shortest possible time!"

"Yes!"

The staff officer couldn't help but chuckle and respond.

It is often said that the fighting style of a military unit is inextricably linked to its first commander.

After being influenced by Su Yaoyang for more than half a year, the Shanxi militia, in terms of both combat style and daily work style, has begun to change in the style of American soldiers in later generations. This change is somewhat incompatible with the current Chinese army.

Today, the Chinese military, whether it is the central army or local miscellaneous forces, is living a very frugal life.

Take ammunition reserves as an example. An ordinary soldier in the Central Army carries only about 60 rounds of ammunition on a daily basis. Even the most elite German-equipped divisions carry no more than 100 rounds, while the miscellaneous troops carry only about 30 rounds at most.

As for the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, their situation was even worse. Their ammunition loads were consistently in the single digits, to the point that the Japanese often contemptuously referred to them as the "Three-Shot Unit," meaning that Eighth Route Army soldiers would run out of ammunition after firing three shots and would have to resort to bayonet fighting.

The Shanxi militia, however, were different. Under the leadership of the arrogant Su Yaoyang, they could take as many bullets as they could, as long as their pockets could hold them.

As for food, there were three full meals every day without fail, with plenty of sorghum rice, rice, and white flour buns. They could also eat canned meat every day, and every month they received a lot of silver dollars in actual pay.

Not only that, the troops even provided sugar, cigarettes, and coffee.

In the soldiers' words, Commander Su had everything except for not giving out wives; he lived a more comfortable life than even the richest man in their village.

Under this atmosphere, the Shanxi militia, from officers to soldiers, never had the concept of thrift.

Just as Li Gaoyuan gave the order, in a mountain valley two miles away from him, thirty-six M1 155mm howitzers and twelve M2 105mm howitzers were lined up in a row, their dark muzzles pointing towards the southwest, quietly waiting for the Japanese army to arrive.

Regimental Commander Zhang Zhihao paced back and forth on a dirt slope, looking somewhat anxious.

This formation today was specially prepared by Li Gaoyuan for the 20th Division. Li Gaoyuan had prepared two plans for this attack on Xinxian.

The first plan was to take Xinxian directly and destroy the supplies and munitions that the Japanese had stored there, but unfortunately this plan failed.

The second plan was to take advantage of the Japanese army's eagerness to reinforce, set up an ambush here, and once the Japanese army entered the ambush zone, use all artillery to bombard the marching Japanese army, killing as many Japanese soldiers as possible.

Therefore, he took a somewhat risky move and deployed his entire artillery regiment in a mountain valley more than ten miles away from Xinxian County, in order to launch a fatal blow against the 20th Division that came to its aid.

(End of this chapter)