Bright Sword: The Flowers of War

Chapter 42 Attack Attack
5:30 PM on December 12

The evening sky was a poignant yet beautiful tapestry of pale orange and purple hues, but no one knew that a calamity was about to befall them hidden within this tranquility.

At the Japanese military encampment, soldiers sat around a rubble-strewn building, eating their dinner heartily, their boisterous laughter and chatter mingling together.

We are currently in the early stages of a full-scale war between China and Japan. Thanks to the hundreds of tons of gold Japan has plundered from China over the years and the hundreds of millions of taels of silver that China has paid in reparations, the Japanese government is relatively well-off, so the food for these Japanese soldiers is quite good.

Each Japanese soldier on site received a bowl of rice, a spoonful of canned beef ("Yamato-ni") or canned fish (sardines, salmon), a spoonful of pickled vegetables, and a bowl of miso soup.

The soldiers ate heartily while chatting and laughing loudly.

"Kono... are you still a virgin?" an old soldier with a mustache shouted at his companion while eating.

The soldier sitting next to him was young, with a faint trace of lipstick on his upper lip. Hearing this, he blushed and retorted, "Who said that? I'm not a virgin anymore."

"Oh...is that true?" another soldier next to him sneered, "I remember you didn't have a girlfriend before you went to war, did you?"

Did your mother bring fifty catties of rice to propose marriage to Ayako of the Xiaojing family, but they refused?

"Baka... No, that's not true. Ayako is just too young. I'll propose marriage when I get back."

And next time I'll have my mother bring over 100 jin (50 kg) of rice; Ayako's father definitely won't refuse."

"Hahaha..." The young soldier's words caused a burst of laughter.

Japan implements a regional conscription system, which means that the vast majority of soldiers serving in a unit are from the same area. This has led to situations where soldiers serving in the same small unit are almost all acquaintances from the surrounding villages.

"Kono, let me tell you something," another veteran said with a grin, putting his arm around the young soldier's shoulder.

"It's easy for you to end your virginity. Just go out alone during your break, find a house with a woman in it, force the man out of the house with a bayonet, leaving the woman alone. I don't need to teach you what to do next, do I?"

"Koizumi-kun's method is very useful. I've used this method to sleep with several Chinese women all the way from Shanghai to Nanjing."

Let me tell you, Chinese women taste so much better than Japanese women. I guarantee you'll never forget it once you've experienced it.

"Hahaha... Uei-kun, you're not being honest either! I'll definitely tell your wife when I get back to Japan!"

A group of Japanese soldiers burst into wild laughter, their smiles so unrestrained and ferocious.

Just as a group of soldiers were laughing wickedly, a low and rapid whistling sound suddenly rang out in the sky, like the sinister laughter of death, sending chills down everyone's spine.

Upon hearing this sound, all the Japanese soldiers' expressions changed drastically, and they all jumped up from the ground. However, no matter how fast a person is, how can they compare to a cannonball?

A 107mm shell slammed heavily into the ground, accompanied by a deafening explosion. The shockwave and shrapnel mercilessly tore apart this once peaceful paradise. Sparks flew everywhere, and thick smoke quickly spread, engulfing everything within a radius of dozens of meters.

In the instant after the explosion, everything seemed to fall into dead silence, leaving only scattered figures and corpses lying in the dim light. Those beasts who had just been discussing how to rape and murder women were now cold, lifeless corpses.

Around them lay tattered, twisted, or broken weapons scattered in pools of blood, seemingly foreshadowing the invaders' fate.

As the first shell landed, subsequent shells rained down like raindrops, the deafening roar shattering the peaceful evening.

The explosion instantly kicked up a cloud of dust and debris, sending corpses and remains flying everywhere. Time seemed to freeze in that moment, with guns torn to shreds by the artillery fire scattered all around. Japanese soldiers screamed like rats, trying to dodge the shells, only to find that there was no safe place in the vast street, as shells continued to rain down.

……

"put……"

"Speed ​​up...release..."

On a street in the church's backyard, twelve 107mm and 60mm mortars were lined up, and dozens of artillerymen were busy at work.

Watching the soldiers' busy movements, no one knew that these soldiers were all novices who had never been exposed to artillery before. Now, under the tutelage of Zhang Zhihao and Xiong Junfeng, they had managed to fight quite well in less than a day.

Of course, the parameters and coordinates of all these artillery pieces had been adjusted by the two of them beforehand. All they had to do was attach the fuses to the mortar shells, put them into the barrels, and fire them.

The shelling lasted only ten minutes, but for the Japanese army, those ten minutes felt like ten years.

The explosions that filled the sky and echoed everywhere caused heavy casualties among the soldiers of the 11th Regiment. Just when the shelling finally stopped, before the Japanese soldiers could even crawl out of their bunkers, a deafening roar rang out from the front, accompanied by piercing bugle calls.

"kill……"

"Rush..."

Amidst the sound of bugles, a group of soldiers dressed in German-style field uniforms rushed out of the smoke.

Before the Japanese troops could react, a dense hail of bullets came their way. A group of soldiers armed with Thompson submachine guns rushed to within tens of meters of the Japanese troops and pulled the triggers without saying a word. These submachine guns, which were designed specifically for close-quarters street fighting and trench warfare, now displayed their maximum power.

"Da da da……"

"what……"

A Japanese soldier who had just crawled out of his bunker was hit in the chest by a burst of 11.43mm bullets before he could even raise his gun. The dense bullets instantly shattered his chest.

"Da da da……"

Just as the newly formed security regiment's soldiers were charging forward, a burst of rapid machine gun fire rang out, and two soldiers at the forefront fell to the ground. It turned out that a Type 92 heavy machine gun, which was hiding in a house, had opened fire.

Upon spotting enemy machine gun positions ahead, the soldiers quickly took cover.

"Smoke grenade!" someone shouted from the side.

Two smoke grenades were thrown onto the street, instantly creating a cloud of smoke that obscured the machine gunner's view, and the gunfire ceased.

Immediately afterwards, the soldiers saw a figure leap up and rush to the side of the machine gun firing point with lightning speed, then pull out an M24 stick grenade and throw it into the machine gun bunker.

Among the grenades of various countries, the German M24 grenade is considered a large one, with a 165-gram explosive charge that makes its explosive power enough to destroy any enemy within a radius of 20 meters.

"Boom..." With a huge explosion, the machine gunner and the heavy machine gun in the room were instantly blasted into the air.

(End of this chapter)