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

Chapter 44 The Great Sweep Begins

When only two Japanese soldiers remained alive in the convoy, Chen Ming ordered his soldiers to begin cleaning up the battlefield.

Upon receiving the order, the soldiers charged directly towards the Japanese positions, unleashing their full-level battlefield cleanup skills.

"Commander, there's still an old Japanese soldier alive here, and he's an officer."

The battalion commander, seeing that the Japanese company commander was still alive, shouted directly at Chen Ming.

When Chen Ming went over to take a look, he found that it was indeed a Japanese officer of the rank of captain.

The Japanese company commander, observing the attitude of those around him towards Chen Ming, realized that the man was the commander of this ambush unit.

"You have no Bushido spirit. You don't dare to fight me fair and square. You only dare to hide and ambush me with your cannons."

The Japanese company commander was extremely indignant. He had fought a very frustrating battle, and his entire army was wiped out before he even saw the enemy.

It was a complete annihilation by firepower. He deeply regretted not taking it seriously when he came and not bringing heavy firepower, which led to him being constantly on the defensive.

"What bullshit Bushido spirit? I'm Chinese, I don't have that stuff. When you beasts used to bully us because we didn't have artillery, why didn't you talk about Bushido spirit then?" Chen Ming said disdainfully.

"idiot!"

The Japanese company commander, upon hearing Chen Ming insult the Bushido spirit he had always been proud of, angrily cursed.

"Go to hell!"

Chen Ming didn't tolerate the other party's behavior and shot him dead.

With this, the ambush officially came to an end.

After cleaning up the battlefield, Chen Ming began to tally up the spoils and ammunition consumed in this battle.

Upon seeing the statistics, Chen Ming felt a pang of heartache.

"I was so busy having fun that I used up half of my artillery ammunition in this battle. What a huge loss!"

The victory in this operation was entirely due to the saturation of ammunition.

Judging solely from the spoils, this operation was definitely a loss.

Knowing that a breakout was hopeless, the Japanese destroyed a significant portion of their weapons, while the rest were almost entirely destroyed by artillery fire.

It can be said that the weapons and equipment captured after wiping out this company of Japanese soldiers were less than those captured by a single Japanese squad.

Fortunately, the existence of the repair company meant that some weapons could still be used after repair.

In terms of casualties, this was a major victory, the lowest casualty ratio since Chen Ming began commanding operations.

At the cost of 17 wounded and 7 killed, they annihilated an entire Japanese company, totaling more than 300 men, and destroyed 10 trucks and 1 armored vehicle.

The soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Independent Regiment swept away everything that might be useful from the battlefield with the speed of an autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves.

They didn't even leave the Japanese soldiers a single piece of cloth.

After taking them back, washing and dyeing them will provide the soldiers with a few new clothes. Even if there are any left over, they can be donated to other troops and civilians.

In those days, many families only had one or two sets of clothes, which were worn by whoever was working, and the rest of the time they could only stay in bed.

After cleaning up the battlefield, Chen Ming led his troops to withdraw immediately.

This place isn't far from the county seat; the Japanese devils will be here soon.

One squadron was ambushed, and no intelligence was sent back. Next time, there will definitely be more than just this many people.

Half an hour later, a battalion of Japanese soldiers who had come to provide reinforcements saw hundreds of white corpses lying on the snowy road and were so angry that they almost ground their teeth to powder.

Troops were immediately dispatched to collect the bodies of these soldiers, but more than forty Japanese soldiers died from booby traps laid beneath the corpses.

The soldiers in the regiment who set up booby traps have become incredibly cunning. They placed the traps under the innermost Japanese corpses to lower the Japanese soldiers' guard; once they moved them, they would trigger all the booby traps.

Then, boom!

The Japanese soldiers were blown to bits.

Enraged, the Japanese battalion commander immediately called in a reconnaissance plane to search for traces of the enemy in the surrounding area.

He was determined to avenge the attack on the Locust Army soldiers and wipe away the shame.

The news they received was that the Japanese air force had seen the destroyed Huting stronghold, with only a few bricks left.

If it weren't for the remaining ruins of the outpost and the surrounding trenches, the Japanese air force wouldn't have believed that there had once been a medium-sized outpost here.

This pre-mopping-up operation, which lasted for half a month, finally ended with the Japanese assembling a large number of troops.

This operation, aimed at eliminating strongholds deep within the base area, ended with our army suffering over 9,000 casualties, eliminating over 6,000 Japanese and puppet troops, destroying over 400 strongholds of various sizes, and capturing a large amount of combat supplies.

It dealt a heavy blow to the arrogance of the Japanese and puppet troops on the Shanxi battlefield, letting the Japanese army know that the Eighth Route Army was not just a bunch of harassing guerrillas.

When the battle report was delivered to Yoshio Shinotsuka, the commander of the First Army in Taiyuan, he was furious and accelerated the mopping-up operations against the anti-Japanese base areas.

What was originally thought to be a minor ailment of the Eighth Route Army has become an undeniable force on the Shanxi battlefield.

If left unchecked, it will inevitably escalate to an unmanageable level in the future.

Having suffered such a great loss, the Japanese will definitely retaliate.

Therefore, the Japanese army immediately launched a large-scale mopping-up operation against our base area with the First Army under the North China Area Army and its attached divisions, independent mixed brigades, and puppet troops.

Among them, the 36th Division and the Independent Mixed 4th Brigade were the main forces, which went deep into the base area in an attempt to destroy the Eighth Route Army headquarters in the base area.

The Independent Mixed Ninth Brigade, the Thirty-Seventh Division, and the puppet troops, along with the Zhengtai Railway and the Tongpu Railway, carried out sweeps along the surrounding areas, attempting to cut off the base area's connections.

When a Japanese regiment penetrated deep into our base area, headquarters reacted immediately and began to mobilize troops to carry out counter-sweeping operations against the Japanese.

"Commander, headquarters orders the Second Independent Regiment to move towards Yujialing to cover the First New Regiment's breakout."

The communications officer relayed the orders from headquarters regarding the 2nd Independent Regiment.

Although they knew about the Japanese sweep plan in advance, the Japanese swept the area too quickly this time.

Almost immediately after completing the counter-offensive, the Japanese launched their sweep without even taking a break.

It is clear that this operation launched by headquarters has hurt the Japanese, causing them to launch a large-scale mopping-up operation against the base area when they were unprepared.

The field hospital was overwhelmed with wounded soldiers, having just emerged from a major battle. Rapid evacuation was difficult.

In order to cover the retreat of the field hospital, they had to engage in battle on the main position of Cangyunling Mountain against the Sakata Regiment, which had penetrated deep into the base area.

"Reporting to headquarters, Chen Ming, commander of the Second Independent Regiment, has led his troops to ensure the mission is completed."

Chen Ming spoke to the communications soldier.

After the communications soldier left, Chen Ming immediately assembled the entire regiment.

"All regiments assembled!"

With the order issued, all 1,300 soldiers of the Independent Second Regiment assembled.

The subordinate units include: 1st Battalion: 432 men; 2nd Battalion: 353 men; 3rd Battalion: 297 men; regimental artillery company, sharpshooter company, machine gun company, etc.

The maintenance company consists of non-combat personnel, and when the troops were being mobilized, Chen Ming arranged for the maintenance company to be transferred first.

The current Independent 2nd Regiment is incredibly wealthy. Even compared to the numbered regiment, aside from having fewer people, the Independent 2nd Regiment is in no way inferior in terms of firepower.

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(End of this chapter)