Spy Wars: I have space, but I choose to work alone

Li Longting seemed to have noticed the nervousness of Peng Linfeng, the reporter sent from the rear, and despite his busy schedule, he took time out to emphasize it again to the two soldiers in the guard platoon who were holding Mauser pistols.

"Your mission is not to kill the enemy. When you go up, follow reporter Peng closely and make sure he is safe."

"Yes!" Two soldiers wearing simple gas masks answered firmly.

Then Li Longting changed his tone and said to Peng Linfeng:

"Reporter Peng, when we charge later, please charge back a little, but be sure to take photos of the evidence of the Japanese army's blatant use of poison gas bombs."

Peng Linfeng, who was frightened by the brutal fighting on the real battlefield, did not say anything, but just raised the camera that he had been holding in his arms.

Listening to the increasingly weaker gunfire from the front, the chief of staff could no longer hold his temper and came up to Li Longting and suggested:

"The third company is about to be wiped out, Captain, shall we charge? If we don't, we will lose the position."

Li Longting looked at his watch and saw that there were still five minutes left before the stipulated thirty minutes. He gritted his teeth and said:

"Wait five more minutes!"

The Chief of Staff couldn't hold it in any longer and reminded quietly:

"Commander, the members of the Third Company are from the same hometown as us! If they are all killed, how can we return to our hometown to see our fellow villagers in the future? How can we explain to their parents?"

Li Longting didn't say anything but continued looking at his watch. The gunfire from the front position became weaker and weaker, and the soldiers in the rear began to become restless.

This is what Ma Liang repeatedly requested. Some people have misunderstandings about poison gas and think that as long as they wear a gas mask, they can move freely in the poison gas.

This is a very wrong idea. Most of the filter-type gas masks used during World War II were mainly used in environments where the oxygen content in the air is greater than 19.5% and less than 23.5% and the concentration of toxic and harmful gases is less than 2%.

During the first ten minutes or so when the Japanese army used poison gas bombs to attack, when the concentration of the poison gas was the highest, even the Japanese army was afraid of being poisoned and would not charge immediately.

If the soldiers stayed on the position at this time, especially in a semi-enclosed bunker, it would be useless even if they were wearing gas masks.

Not to mention the "gas mask" of water-filled masks used by Li Longting and others. They must wait for the wind to reduce the concentration of toxic gas in the environment to a level before they can work.

"Bugler, blow the charge! Charge!"

As the charge of the National Army sounded, the soldiers of the 544th Regiment, who had been holding back for a long time, rushed towards the position like tigers descending from the mountains.

Reporter Peng Linfeng also rushed to the position under the protection of two soldiers. His originally staggering steps became firm amid the charge and the shouts of the national army.

As soon as he arrived at the position, he held the camera and constantly adjusted the focus to take pictures of the battle between the Japanese soldiers wearing simple "gas masks" and fully armed.

Just as Peng Linfeng was struggling to look through the narrow and blurry eyepiece of the gas mask, he lowered his head to take pictures of several Japanese and Nationalist soldiers who had been poisoned by poison gas because their gas masks had been torn off during the battle.

His obviously different casual clothes and the camera in his hand attracted the attention of a Japanese squad leader on the position, who immediately gathered three Japanese soldiers nearby and pointed at the camera in Peng Linfeng's hand.

The Japanese army had just started the war at this time, and generally would only use poison gas attacks secretly on a small scale when faced with a strong fortress that they could not conquer for a long time, for fear of being caught by the international community and giving other countries a reason to intervene.

But Peng Linfeng, who had no battlefield experience, did not notice the danger at all and was still adjusting the focus of the camera to take a clearer picture.

The two guards assigned to Peng Linfeng discovered the danger. One of them kept shooting with a Mauser pistol, knocking down a Japanese soldier and attracting the Japanese firepower.

Another one rushed over and pulled Peng Linfeng, who was still lowering his head to adjust the focus, to move away.

"Reporter Peng, let's go!" The soldier pulled Peng Linfeng's hand.

At this time, Peng Linfeng finally adjusted the focus. He was unwilling to leave. He shook off the soldier's hand, lowered his head, pointed the camera at the bodies of soldiers killed by poison gas on the ground, and pressed the shutter.

"Crack!"

"Boom!"

Two sounds were heard, and when Peng Linfeng pressed the shutter, a Japanese melon grenade thrown by a Japanese pitcher landed less than two meters away from Peng Linfeng.

Looking at the melon grenade emitting green smoke, Peng Linfeng stood there in a daze for a moment.

"Lie down!"

Along with this dull shout, the soldier who was holding Peng Linfeng's hand pounced on the stunned Peng Linfeng without hesitation and protected him with his body.

"boom!"

After an explosion.

"Brother, are you okay?"

Peng Linfeng gently pushed the soldier on top of him, but the soldier on top of him did not move.

After realizing that the soldier had sacrificed his life to protect him, he noticed that there was a sea of blood in front of his eyes.

In desperation, he tried to wipe it with his hands, but the more he wiped, the redder it became. He became so angry that he directly tore off the gas mask on his face.

Only then did he realize that his hands and gas mask were covered in the blood of the soldiers who had protected him.

"Protect reporter Peng!"

A nearby company commander noticed Peng Linfeng’s danger and rushed over with his men.

“Ahem…”

Less than thirty seconds after he took off his gas mask, a strange, pungent smell rushed into Peng Linfeng's mouth and nose.

For a moment, tears and snot flowed uncontrollably. Peng Linfeng no longer cared about it.

At this time, he had let go of life and death. He picked up the camera hanging on his chest, stopped moving his hands and feet, and calmly took pictures of the soldiers' battle scenes and the evidence of the Japanese army's use of poison gas.

40 minutes later, the 544th Regiment, which had occupied the advantageous terrain, drove all the Japanese troops that had rushed up off their positions, and the entire regiment began to repair their positions to prevent the Japanese army from counterattacking.

The soldiers carried Peng Linfeng on a stretcher into the regiment command post. When Li Longting saw Peng Linfeng's miserable appearance, he immediately got angry at the surviving soldiers.

"Ahem, ahem, didn't I tell you to protect reporter Peng? Ahem, why did it become like this?"

When Peng Linfeng saw that Li Longting was scolding the soldier because of him, he immediately started to squeak and anxiously used gestures to indicate that he did not blame the soldier.

Seeing Li Longting's astonishment, one of the two soldiers responsible for protecting Peng Linfeng who survived quickly explained:

"Reporter Peng took off his gas mask to take better photos. He is now unable to speak or stand due to the poison gas."

Although Li Longting admired Peng Linfeng's actions, he still focused on more important things.

"Reporter Peng, did you take photos of the evidence that the Japanese army used poison gas?"

When Peng Linfeng heard Li Longting ask this, he was unable to speak, but with a look of pride on his face he gently patted the camera box that he had been holding against his chest.

Li Longting was overjoyed and immediately sent a platoon of soldiers to escort Peng Linfeng and the photos to the rear under the cover of night to expose the fact that the Japanese army shamelessly used poison gas attacks on the battlefield.

This is the suggestion Ma Liang made to the national army.

It sounds like a shameful idea like if you had a fight with the kid next door and you couldn't beat him, so you went crying all the way to his parents to complain.

However, for the Nationalist government at that time, seeking international sympathy and using it to suppress the Japanese army was already a very effective approach.

If you just keep getting beaten without complaining, the beater will only become more aggressive and the one being beaten will be even worse.