Canteen System Assistance Notes

They filled all areas of the Qunkouxing Pass from north to south, as if the Communist army's forces also covered the entire battlefield, and were rolling in from a distance beyond the reach of the eye, blazing like flames, like dust storms, like blowing snow.

No, I'm afraid they can really occupy the entire battlefield!

The old sergeant felt the ground shake, the air tremble. He saw the advancing Communist tanks, and the Communist cavalry, Silver Wheel infantry, and automated vehicles, which maintained dispersed distances, bypassing the disabled Wu'an City and attacking "them" in the south, north, and center of the battlefield. He heard the explosions caused by the aircraft and saw the very few "Falcons" in the sky rushing towards the "Corsairs" and "PK-3s" that far outnumbered them. They were quickly hit and fell from the sky, emitting smoke. Although, he probably couldn't identify the models of those Communist fighters at all.

But it didn't matter, he could see red flags appearing occasionally in the rolling ochre smoke.

"Boom!"

A team of twin-engine, twin-tail bombers flew over the Purple Mountain position, creating a scorching explosion and a column of fire rising into the sky on the reverse slope, and violently pulled the old sergeant's already dull mind back from his trance.

The enemy's formal attack has begun!

Amid the sporadic counterattack fire, he raised the "turtle box" in his hand and blew the whistle resolutely, or perhaps desperately.

"She Qing--!"

Chapter 801 Heavy Blade (⑵) Purple Flame

“Hu, hu, hu, hu…”

A soldier clutched the middle of his submachine gun and ran along the remaining paths and craters in the mountains. He kept a rhythmic breathing pace to slow down the consumption of the meat buns, vegetable rolls, and pickled vegetable porridge in his stomach, while retaining the ability to accelerate at any time.

The rest of the "assault team" kept a distance of about 10 meters from him, forming a loose fan shape.

As a "veteran of Shanxi Province" who had participated in the Pingyang Campaign, the new deputy squad leader held the whistle in his mouth very familiarly, blew a short note, and waved his right hand forward.

The comrades on one side immediately lay down, while those on the other side immediately threw smoke bombs and accelerated forward with the help of cover.

As expected, the suspected tunnel entrance, which had just been discovered, erupted with fiery snakes. Two machine guns began firing short, sharp bursts of fire from different angles at the smoke-shrouded area, pinning the advancing "assault team" on the other side.

Two Type 99 light rifles, a very typical Japanese squad firepower configuration... The deputy squad leader thought that it was not difficult to solve, but he still had to be careful about the troops from other directions in the tunnel coming to support, or the possibility that this was a squad-level tunnel cluster that had been hit.

"Tank! Climb up and breathe!" "Don't rush! It's coming!"

Just come.

The deputy squad leader released the radio's call button, blew one long and two short whistles, and then stopped distracting himself and focused on the situation in the direction of the Japanese position. After hearing this command, another soldier in the "assault group" raised a small flag and waved it twice towards the rear.

Everyone in the "Assault Group" and "Demolition Group" lay down and suppressed the several positions that were firing intermittently. At the same time, a soldier carrying a reusable turtle fist on his shoulder found a rock, mounted his bipod-mounted launcher on it, and aimed a 105mm super-caliber high-explosive shell at the tunnel entrance where the fire was coming from.

The assistant gunner also crawled over, pulled out spare bullets from behind, and was ready to load at any time.

But they did not open fire, but waited quietly.

The next second, a flash of fire shot out from the back and quickly locked onto the tunnel entrance that was firing intermittently - a car in low gear.

The Stuart tanks were climbing up the fairly flat mountain, their front armor ricocheted by the flying Tomosaka bullets, leaving only white marks. The grenades thrown at them also damaged them, and the explosive tube "human bombs" that tried to emerge were quickly shot down by automatic fire knives. The only successful 11-year Taisho infantry gun only used an armor-piercing grenade to damage a piece of the tank's "leek box" additional armor, and then it was hit by a 105mm high-explosive shell into the bunker, sending both the gun and the tank flying.

Come out.

In this way, the tank approached the tunnel entrance within a hundred meters.

Before the enemy's "turret!!!" sounded, the heading machine gunner on the tank pulled the trigger first.

The previously unheard-of "directional machine gun" finally erupted: a stream of white liquid, driven by gunpowder gases, spurted out of a strangely shaped, heat-insulated nozzle, ignited by an igniter on the outside of the nozzle. Immediately, the viscous napalm transformed into a solid flame, instantly evaporating the soil in its path. A nearly 100-meter-long dragon of flames instantly formed, carrying white, black, red, and distorted air as it blasted into the exposed tunnel entrance!

Amidst the whistling of the flamethrower, the screams of the people were almost inaudible. "Don't shoot yet, let them burn!"

The deputy squad leader in charge of the "assault group" blew out his whistle, looked up at his surroundings under the oppressive heat wave, and pressed the transmitter button again, "Keep your eyes on the smoking hole and shoot the Japanese who come out!"

West of Handan, on the top of Zishan Mountain, flames and explosions were flying, and rapidly proceeding chemical reactions and simple and easy-to-understand physical movements were quickly reaping lives - of course, mainly Japanese.

According to intelligence, Zishan, Handan's western gateway, had been dug into a mountain of tunnels by the Japanese 50th Division (formerly the 1st Independent Mixed Division) that had occupied the area for more than half a year. However, because the Japanese lacked excavation equipment and were not wealthy enough to use explosives to open the mountain, these tunnels almost all remained in the soil layer of Zishan and could not penetrate the rocks. Their depth, specifications, and defensive capabilities were very limited, and they were unable to withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery.

But this is a tunnel after all, a tunnel where soldiers can be hidden.

This also made it much more difficult for the troops to clear the entire hilltop, occupy surface positions, and establish artillery observation posts. It was clear that many Japanese soldiers hiding in the tunnels would launch a counterattack from the tunnels after our troops captured the hilltop, taking advantage of the darkness. They might even threaten the transport convoys advancing north through Zishan. The logistics troops in this direction needed to provide supplies to their comrades advancing northeast, allowing them to bypass Handan and coordinate with the base troops to encircle and cut off the retreat routes of the 50th Division and the Kwantung Army's 28th Division.

The deputy squad leader did not want his side to be slow in clearing the hill, which would cause his comrades who were going around to the north to be slower than those who were breaking through in the middle and attacking Ci County in the south, and then let the 50th Division and the 28th Division escape.

Therefore, the Japanese soldiers on the top of Zishan must be cleared out! The positions on the ground must be destroyed, those in the tunnels must be captured and killed, and if they cannot be captured, the tunnel entrances must be blown up, and all the Japanese soldiers' "refresh points" on the slope must be sealed!

As the flamethrower tanks expended their entire charge of solidified fuel with a single gas cartridge, the Japanese resistance at the main tunnel entrance completely collapsed. The tunnel entrance, once concealed by brush and supported by wooden beams, was reduced to a charred hell. The two machine guns and a .37mm infantry gun emplacement, which had previously fired continuously, were completely destroyed, their operators reduced to carbonized remains.

At the same time, the gasoline poured into the tunnel also exposed two hidden sub-tunnel entrances. Without the command of the deputy squad leader, the forward "assault team" and "blasting team" rushed over, killed all three or four Japanese soldiers who struggled to climb out, and threw two sets of serial-loaded explosive packs into the tunnel entrance, completely blowing up the two sub-tunnel entrances.

The inside of the tunnel is now filled with a suffocating smell: the choking black smoke from the combustion, the stuffy gas caused by the lack of oxygen, and the smell of something "roasted"...

Ugh... doesn't it seem a bit cruel to look at it this way... No, it's not.

The deputy monitor shook his head, getting rid of the inexplicable association.

Putting aside the evils committed by the Japanese in China, he recalled his experience in the Pingyang battle: in that fist-to-fist and sword-to-sword offensive, the Japanese army not only launched an extremely fierce resistance to our offensive, but also forcibly conscripted many ordinary Japanese who had never had military experience to fight - and a very high proportion of them were children.

It is even said that these beasts tied these Japanese residents to their combat positions and forced them to carry out fatal tasks such as self-detonation attacks and attracting the attention of our army, causing many casualties to our army.

For a group of such beasts, what need is there for "mercy" and "sympathy" on the battlefield?

"The tunnel is short of oxygen, the situation is unclear, and we won't be able to get in for a while because of the fire." Although the entire mountain-attack combat team was equipped with equipment ranging from grenade rifles and flashlights hanging under submachine guns to double explosives, bulletproof vests, double explosives and combat engineers who were good at assault and blasting, as well as tanks and mortars for support, in order to carry out this mission, the deputy squad leader did not intend to throw the soldiers into the tunnel that had just been burned by napalm bombs.

He briefly met with the squad leader leading the demolition team and proposed an idea. "We should also bring in the artillery observation team—we can fire another round of white phosphorus shells into the tunnel, then blow up the tunnel entrance, and then we'll just keep an eye on the outside. How about that?"

"Alright, the most urgent thing is to open the eyes of the comrades firing the artillery." With the same thought, the demolition squad leader turned his head and glanced at the distant pass, where the rumble of artillery and the dense sound of gunfire were heard. That was the comrades in the central route, with the support of tanks and artillery, facing the Japanese reinforcements head-on and advancing directly towards Handan City. Therefore, setting up an artillery observation point on the commanding heights of Zishan would obviously be of greater value to the battle situation.

He nodded and expressed his opinion, "The remaining devils inside should be buried on the spot."

Chapter 802 Heavy Blade (3) Crossing the River Straight Punch

From the rooftop of the ancestral hall where the headquarters stood, the distant city wall seemed so low it seemed glued to the horizon, like a toy made of matchboxes. And surrounding this classical city, perched on the edge of the horizon, the gently undulating North China Plain temporarily receded, leaving behind a vast expanse of turbid, crimson-yellow water.

This is Yongnianwa, and over there is Yongnian City, Wang Tiechui thought.

Now, the Battle of Handan was gradually advancing. The North China Field Army commanded by Liu Mingzhao and Zhang Hao poured out from Yikouxing, successively defeated the Japanese troops in Wuan, Zishan, Yishan and Gushan (now Xiangtangshan), and after seizing the commanding heights in the west of the city, with the cooperation of artillery and air force, repelled the 28th Division of the Kwantung Army that had just been sent here to reinforce.

At the same time, the mobile corps attacking from south to north and the adjacent and local troops of the Central Plains Field Army attached to it were divided into two routes. According to the idea of ​​the General Front Committee, one route advanced northward along the railway in a "front-line attack" posture, intending to reunite with Liu Mingzhao's troops. The other route turned east into the base area, and with the assistance of the military and civilians in the base area, it circled to the east of Handan at the speed of "inner-line maneuvering" to form a three-sided pincer attack on it.

The key to the current battle was to close the gates north of Handan to Xingtai and Shimen at the right time. After all, since the Handan Campaign began, the Japanese Seventh Army had been trying to use the unclosed Handan-Shimen Passage to transport large numbers of "Anti-Communist National Volunteer Corps" composed of Japanese expatriates in China and Peninsular laborers to the battlefield as fresh troops in an attempt to stop our army's advance...

Forehead.......

Or it may cause some trouble for our army's next attack.

Therefore, whether it was to cut off the Japanese reinforcements, catch the 28th Division and the 50th Division (formerly the 1st Independent Mixed Division) in a trap, or to surround and attack the reinforcements and eliminate more of the Japanese army's available manpower, the Eighth Route Army had to close or pretend to close the Japanese passages north of Handan.

And Yongnian City is right in the way of achieving this goal.

"Sure enough, Commander Hammer, those two damned bandits have no intention of surrendering. They just shot at our soldiers, but we shot them back."

"Got it. The attack will begin on time."

"middle."

Wang Tiechui put down the phone and continued to climb onto the roof of the ancestral hall, looking at Yongnian City in the distance through a telescope.

This is not a "county town" that can be found anywhere in the North China Plain, but the capital of Dou Jiande in the late Sui Dynasty, Guangping Prefecture in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with high

Large and thick city walls, wide moat connected to the river.

In order to resist the liquidation of their comrades in the southern Hebei base, Wang Zemin, deputy commander of the pseudo-security brigade, and Xu Tieying of the pseudo-Jing'an Independent Work Brigade, who were stationed there, dug up the Yiyang River embankment in the north of the city and released the river water into Yongnianwa, forming a circle of swampland outside the moat, almost filling the entire Yongnianwa.

Even with less rainfall in 1942 and 1943, the total width of this "moat" was still 600 meters!

It's no wonder that the comrades in southern Hebei suffered setbacks in their sieges several times...

Wang Tiechui didn't know that in another time and space, after being occupied by the Japanese invaders for 8 years, this place even had to endure an additional 2 years of "unresolved"

"Liberation" years: After the end of the Anti-Japanese War in that time and space, the two bandits Wang and Xu transformed themselves into the "1st and 2nd Column of the Wing Province Security Brothers" of the Kuomintang reactionaries, and were awarded the title of "Major General Commander". Relying on the strong city of Kuanhe and the airdrop support of the reactionaries, they were not liberated until October 1947.

At the moment, because our army was making rapid progress in North China, the activity areas of the Japanese army, puppet troops and bandits were greatly reduced, and Yongnian City, occupied by these two puppet troops, became the "last retreat" for those stubborn, hardened and sinful bandits. With their help, the two bandits not only dug the levee earlier,

In just a few years, relying on the Japanese army's shipping supplies, they aggressively defeated the puppet army and turned Yongnian into a large stronghold with nearly 4000 people.

This is what is called a stone in the pit.

"But I think this is a 'good thing' in a sense."

Political Commissar Lei Zhende suddenly appeared beside Wang Tiechui. He handed the kettle to Wang Tiechui, took the telescope from Tiechui, and began to read it himself.

"How to say?"

"Iron Hammer, do you still remember the anti-bandit battles our team participated in before?" Lei Zhende leaned his hands on the roof and said slowly, "The most difficult thing about anti-bandit battles is not how to fight, but not being able to hit them. Whether they are puppet troops or bandits, the most troublesome thing is that they run around everywhere. The bandits on horseback can hide in the ravines and cannot be found; the bandits who are not on horseback can take off their clothes and hide their guns.

It is very time-consuming and laborious to identify them.

"If we were in the base area, we could have mobilized the people through mass work and relied on the power of the masses to fight. But this is enemy-occupied territory, and the base area is not open to the public.

There is a certain lack of organization at the lower level. Right now, Yongnian City is like a rock dipped in molasses, attracting diehard bandits and puppet troops from all over the country. And they're all those who can't do their jobs and have blood on their hands. Even the psychological burden of fighting is much less."

“So…”

"So, Tiechui, if we have to go through a bit of trouble and hardship here, it will make things easier for the local people and our comrades in the future." Political Commissar Lei Zhende put down his binoculars. "As for those two guys who came to 'negotiate' with us a few days ago, it wasn't because they truly realized they were 'guilty to the people and had done something wrong', it was just that they were really going to die this time.

"We're saying we can surrender, but the process of screening will continue as usual. They definitely won't accept that."

"Hey, you're trying to persuade me."

Wang Tiechui smiled. From the beginning of this battle, Wang Tiechui's "mobile brigade" had joined the Ji'nan Military Sub-district's existing "Yongnian encirclement system." They began utilizing their tanks and armored vehicles to maneuver around Yongnian, using 37mm artillery and 14.5mm machine guns to intercept Japanese and puppet troops' fleets transporting munitions and food to the Yongnian enemy.

Those unpowered barges towed by small steamers or "big boats" were quite vulnerable to direct fire from tanks. The modified Type 95 light and Type 97 medium tanks could often destroy an entire transport convoy in a small formation of one or two. After rending the leading powered vessels, the infantry would either use sticks and ropes to pull the plague soldiers out and seize their transported supplies, or practice target practice with their rifles and seize a shipload of food or ammunition.

Wang Tiechui had no idea of ​​being "annoyed" or "unable to do it". In fact, he only had a little idea that "it is not cost-effective to attack such a solid but isolated stronghold, it is better to surround it than to attack it".

"But you do have a point. Once we resolve this problem here, our comrades in southern Hebei won't have to surround this place anymore. The manpower, material resources, and financial resources used to besiege the area can be put to good use elsewhere."

He looked at the watch on his hand. The second hand was ticking forward, and the minute hand was approaching the thin line drawn with a marker.

Wang Tiechui climbed down from the roof and returned to the command room filled with the ticking sound of the radio and the smell of cigarettes.

.....Artillery fire is extending, the attack area has been covered by smoke, and the enemy fire has been suppressed!"

"The tank has entered the water! The 'buoyancy kit' is working properly! My God... this big piece of iron can actually float and swim forward..."

"The enemy is leaving the city through the west gate, attempting to escape by boat... We have organized firepower to intercept them. Don't let any of them escape unless they surrender!"

He placed his hands on the edge of the map, watching his staff move the chess pieces representing each unit. It felt as if the battlefield was unfolding before his eyes. This time, Wang Tiechui no longer needed to mentally simulate the unit's positioning and advance using a mosaic grid. His experienced and well-coordinated comrades would naturally communicate and coordinate with one another, consciously and proactively advancing the campaign's objectives.

....The commandos have already reached the top of the city wall!"

...The county government has taken control! Wang Zemin is dead, and Xu Tieying has been apprehended!"

Finally, several hours later, the long-awaited report arrived. Wang Tiechui took a deep breath, grabbed a small red flag, and stuck it into the clay representing "Yongnian City."

And just over ten kilometers away, on the top of Yongnian City, an equally bright red flag was fluttering in the wind.

Chapter 803: North China Collapses Under Pressure in Insomnia

Blood, lots of blood, blood that was as heavy, corrupt, and suffocating as mud.

Okamura Neiji was among them, running as hard as he could.

His breathing was disordered, his expression was distracted, as if he was running for his life. Behind him, a huge object as huge as a continuous mountain, impossible to look directly at, was like a surging ocean wave, crushing everything around it, rushing towards him from all directions.

He crossed the rice fields and ran wildly in the waves of wheat, but he could not escape the pursuit of the indescribable thing; he stretched out his legs and used his hands and feet to

But he could never escape the looming shadow.

Finally, Okamura Neiji could not run anymore - a bloody rainstorm was pouring down, and sticky blood mud had covered his ankles to his knees. He really could not run anymore.

Then, amidst the illusory rustling of wheat, one after another, withered, lean, exhausted figures emerged, each one furiously charging forward. They wielded sickles, hammers, bayonets, or extended giant hands with deep ridges, swinging at the immobilized man. As the crimson-glow blades sank into his body, intense phantom pain erupted from every cell in his body.

“Ah, ahhhhhhhhh!!!”

Whoosh! Crash!

Bang!

"Commander!"

The night watchman broke open the door and rushed into Okamura Yasuji's bedroom with a pistol in his arms.

In the dimly lit room, the commander of the North China Army was drenched in cold sweat, soaking even his cotton nightgown. In the hallway light, the already frail Okamura Yasuji appeared haggard, with dark circles under his eyes. He mechanically turned his head and met the orderly's gaze. At that moment, the orderly, on night duty, felt that the person he was looking at wasn't the admiral, the calm and composed general who could handle any situation with ease, but a stray dog, cowering in a corner after a heavy kick.

But before the orderly could make another move, an alarm clock flew over from the bedside and smashed into pieces on the wall. The wild dog, as if someone was about to snatch away its last bone, let out a cry of fear and anger, as if it was ready to give up everything and fight.

"Get out! Get out!!!"

"Hi!"

I wonder if it's because the recent surge in popularity has been a three-two-force response. The orderly, still feeling apprehensive, managed to quickly bow, turn back, and close the door in one go. He wanted to be P-ed up. The room was filled with shouting, panting, and meaningless friendly ejaculation. The orderly leaned against the wall, exhausted, as if drained of energy.

Bones in general, half squatting down.