plumnovel Chapter 248 Tens of thousands of artillery shells were fired, and several tanks charged forward.
Chapter 248 Tens of thousands of artillery shells were fired, and several tanks charged forward.
Urgent! Major plot twist! Watch now!
"yes!!!"
Lin Yongzhi stood at attention and responded, his excitement almost overflowing.
He had been waiting for this order for far too long.
On the outskirts of Huoqiu County, the Japanese positions were unusually quiet.
The silence was unusual, like the suffocating stillness before a storm.
Over the past few days, the Japanese troops stationed in this direction have been under constant attack from the Third Column.
It was either a barrage of artillery fire or a relentless assault by armored forces, wave after wave, like an unending tide.
The Japanese army suffered repeated defeats, inflicting heavy casualties, and their positions continued to shrink; even their breath smelled of blood.
But tonight, the third column across the street was unusually quiet.
Well-informed Japanese officers had already received word from the division headquarters that the Imperial Guard Division and the 13th Division were on their way to reinforce the enemy and had already threatened the enemy's flank.
The Nationalist army on the other side is planning to retreat, most likely tonight.
The news spread like wildfire across the battlefield.
The Japanese soldiers, who had been on edge for days, finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Some people leaned against the earthen walls of the trench, closing their bloodshot eyes; some took out family photos they carried with them, staring blankly at them in the moonlight; others took out the few cigarettes they had left, lit them, and took a deep drag, the smoke dissipating in the night wind like a silent sigh.
They thought this night would be different from the nights before.
They thought they could wait peacefully until dawn.
however--
"Boom!!!!!"
A loud bang shattered the silence of the night.
That wasn't thunder; it was the simultaneous roar of the third column's howitzers and field guns.
There were over a hundred cannons, their muzzles spewing flames that illuminated half the sky. The shells streaked across the night like meteors, crashing into the Japanese positions with sharp whistling sounds.
It's not just the eastern part of Huoqiu County.
The Japanese positions to the west and to the south were bombarded almost simultaneously.
This is a three-pronged attack, not just a flanking maneuver from the front and rear.
The moment the shells fell, large swathes of Japanese positions were completely engulfed by the shockwave of the explosions.
Soil, gravel, broken gun barrels, and mutilated limbs were all thrown into the air by the blast wave and then fell back down like raindrops.
The explosions flashed one after another, illuminating the night as bright as day, only to plunge back into darkness in an instant, repeating this cycle like a frenzied light show.
The Japanese soldiers were jolted awake from their brief respite; many were thrown to the ground by the blast wave before they could even grab their guns.
Some rolled around in the trench, trying to dodge the falling shrapnel; some huddled in a corner with their heads in their hands, muttering incoherent curses; and some stood there blankly, as if terrified, until a piece of shrapnel grazed their throat.
The shelling lasted for nearly twenty minutes, with tens of thousands of shells raining down on the Japanese positions.
As the last round of shells landed and the smoke had not yet cleared, the soldiers of the Third Column and the Northwest Army almost simultaneously leaped out of their respective positions and launched a general offensive against the Japanese positions.
Shouts, footsteps, and the clash of guns blended together like a flood bursting its banks.
The 6th and 10th Divisions had already suffered heavy losses in the fierce fighting over the previous few days.
Currently, only about half of the original personnel are still capable of fighting.
Coupled with the losses incurred over the past few days and the cutting off of their supply lines, they had very little ammunition and anti-tank weapons left. Like wild beasts trapped on a deserted island, their teeth and claws had been dulled.
Faced with this sudden and fierce offensive, the Japanese commander on the position could only let out a near-manic roar:
"Everyone, do not retreat! Be loyal to His Majesty the Emperor, and serve your country with your lives!!!"
The sound seemed particularly pale and weak amidst the gunfire, like the splashes of water made by a drowning person, which were instantly swallowed up by a larger wave.
In the stark white light of the flares, the Japanese soldiers, prone in shell craters or trenches, saw their enemy—
Those armored vehicles slowly emerging from the darkness looked like steel behemoths crawling out of hell.
The headlights were deliberately turned off, with only the occasional flashes of gunfire illuminating their menacing silhouettes.
The tracks rolled over the ground with a dull thud, each sound like a blow to the hearts of Japanese soldiers.
"Fire!!!!"
The roar of the Third Column's forward commander over the radio was like a knife cleaving through the chaotic battlefield.
The armored vehicles, equipped with cannons of different calibers and machine guns, simultaneously unleashed a dense hail of bullets upon the Japanese positions.
"Boom!!!!!"
"Da da da da!!!!"
Explosions and gunshots rang out one after another, like a frenzied symphony without a conductor.
The surrounding silence was completely drowned out, leaving only an incomparably noisy clamor, which became the background sound of the entire night.
The rifles and machine guns in the hands of the Japanese army posed no threat whatsoever to those armored vehicles.
The bullets struck the armor plating with a crisp "clang, clang," like raindrops hitting a tin roof—doing nothing more than creating a little noise.
Only anti-tank weapons can penetrate the frontal armor of those armored vehicles.
However—in the past few days of fierce fighting, the anti-tank artillery of the 6th and 10th Divisions has been almost completely depleted.
After their supply lines were cut off, they could only sit and wait until their resources dwindled, using up as little as they could.
Only one-fifth of the original anti-tank guns are still available for frontal combat.
One-fifth of these positions were to be dispersed across three different directions, leaving very few actually facing the main attack direction of the third column.
As a result, the armored vehicles charging ahead moved almost unopposed.
As they charged forward, they opened fire, the flames from their vehicle-mounted machine guns particularly conspicuous in the night. Every burst of bullets left a trail of fallen figures on the Japanese positions.
The infantry of the Third Column, following closely behind the armored vehicles, also pursued relentlessly, refusing to lag behind even a step.
They hid behind these mobile fortresses, like hiding in the shadow of giants, which allowed them to avoid most machine gun bullets fired from the front or sides.
The bullets bounced off the armor plates, and a few occasionally slipped through the gaps, but compared to the casualties during previous charges, they were negligible.
Mortars and infantry guns deployed in the rear were also roaring incessantly, focusing their firepower on the exposed Japanese positions.
Machine gun emplacements, anti-tank gun positions, and makeshift bunkers—once their positions are exposed, they will immediately be met with a precise barrage of artillery fire.
At the same time, the Northwest Army's infantry, under the cover of rear fire, launched an assault on the Japanese positions.
Following behind the third column's tanks, they felt an unprecedented sense of security.
That feeling was wonderful.