Chapter 212 The Unbridled Japanese Planes
On the battlefield on the river between Tongshi Town and Hegu Town.
Under the blocking of the New 2nd Regiment and the attack of a large number of grenade launchers, Kasahara Koizumi's troops were unable to successfully build a pontoon bridge, and they were even unable to establish positions on the river bank to fire against the Eighth Route Army.
"Baga, how come this group of Eighth Route Army soldiers have so many grenade launchers?!"
Using a telescope to watch the constant explosions on the river bank and the small grenades that were constantly fired from behind the hillside on the opposite side of the river, Kasahara Koizumi couldn't help but ask the person next to him.
The truth is that the Eighth Route Army on the other side had too many grenade launchers. In terms of quantity alone, they had more grenade launchers than their entire regiment.
Not only do they have a lot of grenade launchers, but the Eighth Route Army on the other side also has a large number of small grenades specifically for grenade launchers.
From the beginning of the war to now, the Eighth Route Army's grenade launchers have never stopped firing, and at least two hundred small grenades or Type 91 hand grenades have been fired.
It was by relying on a large number of grenade launchers that the Eighth Route Army blocked their troops on the river bank and prevented them from advancing an inch.
If engineers were sent to build a pontoon bridge, the Eighth Route Army on the other side would fire heavy machine guns.
Soldiers were sent to build heavy machine gun positions, but before the heavy machine guns were set up, the Eighth Route Army on the other side would use grenade launchers to blow up their heavy machine guns.
They wanted to use infantry guns to blow up the Eighth Route Army's grenade launchers, but the enemy's grenade launchers would move after firing a few shots, and the Type 92 infantry guns could not reach the enemy at all.
And because there is no cover here, the Type 92 infantry gun will be discovered by the Eighth Route Army as soon as it is pushed out.
A Type 92 infantry gun had just been rolled out, and before it could even fire, it was blown up by the Eighth Route Army's direct-fire artillery.
Although the Type 92 infantry gun is light, it still weighs 200 kilograms, and its transfer speed cannot possibly compare to the Eighth Route Army's direct-fire guns or mortars.
Kasahara Koizumi wanted to use mountain artillery, but the Eighth Route Army also had mountain artillery, and they pushed it out so quickly. What would they do when they attacked Heguzhen later?
What if one or two mountain cannons are blown up by the Eighth Route Army on the other side of the river? What should we do when we attack Hegu Town?
After defeating the ancient town, what should we do with the battles in other places?
The firepower of the Eighth Route Army on the other side of the river is so strong, how can it be worse than that of the Eighth Route Army in the ancient town?
Moreover, the Eighth Route Army must have built a lot of fortifications near the ancient town. If there are not enough mountain artillery by then, it will be difficult to fight.
So now Kasahara Koizumi cannot use special weapons, and mountain artillery cannot be used at will. He can only launch a tentative attack while waiting for support from the Army Aviation.
Kasahara Koizumi had already seen the Eighth Route Army's positions. There were no solid shelters along the river, only some sandbag trenches and anti-artillery holes.
When the planes come over, even if there are concrete bunkers, the aerial bombs carried by the Army Aviation bombers will be able to blow up the bunkers of the Eighth Route Army.
"Ask the Army Aviation Bureau and see when their plane will arrive!"
"And the Engineer Squadron, didn't they say they had figured out a way to cross the river? Ask them if they are ready?!"
"Hi!"
"Captain, the Army Aviation sent a telegram saying they will arrive at our battlefield in ten minutes!"
"Captain, the engineering squadron reports that they are modifying the river crossing equipment. In ten minutes at most, they will be able to make the river crossing equipment and it will be ready for use when the time comes."
"Yoshi, order the troops to prepare for the attack. Once the Army Aviation planes arrive, launch an attack on the Eighth Route Army on the other side!"
"Hi!"
……
At the position along the river, the battalion commander of the 1st Battalion of the New 2nd Regiment was leading his soldiers to fight the Japanese on the opposite bank when he suddenly heard a peculiar roar coming from the sky.
The battalion commander of the first battalion looked up and saw several Japanese planes flying towards them rapidly. He hurried to Kong Jie to report.
"Captain, the Japanese planes are flying towards us, what should we do?"
"Damn it, the Japanese really think highly of me and sent a plane to my place... Do they think I'm a soft persimmon?"
Kong Jie looked at the Japanese planes flying in the sky, spat, and turned to give orders to the soldiers.
"Order the troops to take shelter from the bombing of the Japanese aircraft!
Fortunately, I thought of the Japanese planes coming over, so I dug a bunker and paid attention to the catapults. I hid the cans and didn't want them to be blown up by the Japanese planes."
"Yes!"
"Captain, commander, the Japanese have sent a small number of troops to build a pontoon bridge and are preparing to cross the river!"
"The Japanese don't want us to hide from their planes. Damn it, the first company will stay in the position and stop the Japanese who are crossing the river and building the pontoon bridge!"
Listening to the soldiers' report, Kong Jie instantly understood the Japanese's plan.
It was obvious that the Japanese were sending a small number of troops to attack. If the Eighth Route Army avoided the planes and did not intercept them, then these Japanese would take the opportunity to build a pontoon bridge, cross the river and occupy the Eighth Route Army's position.
If the Eighth Route Army tried to stop them, the planes would bomb the exposed Eighth Route Army.
This was an open conspiracy, forcing the Eighth Route Army to send out troops to expose themselves to the Japanese planes.
Otherwise, the Japanese would take the opportunity to cross the river. Once they successfully crossed the river, they would launch an attack on the Eighth Route Army's positions along the river.
Kong Jie had no choice but to send a company to continue to hold the positions along the river to stop the Japanese.
……
"Hurry up, hurry up, reverse the cart, push the cart over!"
The small road between Tongshi Town and Hegu Town
After suppressing the Eighth Route Army on the other side of the river with the help of aircraft bombing and strafing, Kasahara Koizumi quickly ordered the soldiers to wade across the river, and at the same time asked the engineers to build defensive fortifications on the river bank.
When the air bombing is over, they will be able to use their fortifications to fight back against the Eighth Route Army.
The soil along the river is soft, which is very suitable for digging trenches and other fortifications.
But Kong Jie couldn't just sit there and watch the Japanese dig trenches and build fortifications.
The bombing by plane lasted only more than 20 minutes, which was not enough time for the Japanese to dig a qualified trench or build a qualified fortification.
So, the Japanese engineering squadron came up with an idea, which was to free up all the trucks used to transport supplies in the army.
Then they nailed wooden boards for building a pontoon bridge on both sides of the cart, and finally filled the middle with soil. In this way, a mobile fortification was built.
The Japanese could easily modify the cart and then push it to the river bank.
Therefore, with the efforts of the Japanese engineers, one large truck after another was converted into mobile fortifications.
Then these mobile fortifications were pushed directly to the river bank to serve as shelters. With the support of Kasahara Koizumi, the Tanaka Kazama Battalion responsible for the cover was replenished with a batch of heavy machine guns.
Seeing that the engineers had finished building the bunker, Tanaka Fuzama quickly ordered the soldiers to move the newly transferred heavy machine guns over.
"Lieutenant Colonel, the heavy machine guns are ready and the planes are about to leave. Should we directly send some warriors across the river to launch an assault on the Eighth Route Army positions on the other side of the river?"
After seeing the soldiers finish setting up the heavy machine gun again, Tanaka Fuzama's adjutant looked at the plane still circling in the sky and asked Tanaka Fuzama.
Listening to the adjutant's question, Tanaka Fuzama looked at the Eighth Route Army positions on the other side of the river where there was no movement, and nodded directly.
"Well, arrange for the warriors to prepare to wade across the river and directly charge the Eighth Route Army's positions!"
Under the command of Tanaka Fuzama, a squadron of nearly two hundred Japanese soldiers quickly rushed to the edge of the river bank and stepped directly into the river.
The river between Tongshi Town and Hegu Town is not a big river. It is just a small river with a width of five or six meters, a depth of less than one meter and a slow flow.
If there is no one blocking the other side of the river, wading across the river is not a big problem for light infantry, except that they cannot carry heavy weapons.
Because there were planes bombing in the sky and the heavy machine gun positions on their side had been set up, the Japanese soldiers crossing the river had no worries at all that the Eighth Route Army on the opposite side would take the opportunity to attack them.
This group of Japanese soldiers rushed into the river in a swarm and walked towards the other side of the river step by step.
The Eighth Route Army's riverside positions, which had been neatly built, were now full of large pits formed by the explosion of aerial bombs dropped by the Japanese planes, interspersed with bullet holes caused by machine gun fire from the Japanese planes.
Kong Jie, who was standing behind, looked at the bodies of the soldiers on the battlefield and angrily looked at the Japanese planes circling low in the sky.
"Damn it, the Japs are bullying us because we don't have anti-aircraft machine guns!
If you have the guts, go and hover low over the Vanguard Regiment or the Independent Regiment!"
"Captain, all the soldiers in the first company were killed by the bombing of the Japanese planes, and more than half of the soldiers in the second company were also shot by the machine guns of the Japanese planes!"
The battalion commander of the first battalion of the new second regiment looked at the Japanese planes in the sky and his eyes turned red.
In order to prevent them from avoiding the bombing, the Japanese started building a pontoon bridge and arranged for soldiers to cross the river as soon as the planes came.
Moreover, the main purpose of the Japanese was not to build a pontoon bridge, but to prevent the Eighth Route Army on the position from avoiding the bombing.
So the Japanese soldiers went in batches of one team at a time to build a pontoon bridge and cross the river. There were only a few people, but without fighting, this small team of Japanese soldiers were able to build a pontoon bridge and cross the river.
If the Japanese successfully crossed the river and gained a foothold on the other side, then without the river as a natural line of defense, the New Second Regiment would not be able to stop the Japanese charge with its manpower and combat effectiveness.
Moreover, if the Japanese crossed the river, many of the river-centered arrangements made by the New Second Regiment against the Japanese would be useless.
Therefore, the Eighth Route Army soldiers on the position could only attack the Japanese soldiers who were building the pontoon bridge and crossing the river under the bombing of the Japanese planes and had no way to escape.
"Damn, those damn Japanese devils... It's a pity that Xiao Qin has few anti-aircraft machine guns, most of which are deployed on Baihu Ridge... It would be great if we could have our own planes..."
Looking at the Japanese planes circling at low altitude and showing off their might, Kong Jie felt extremely uncomfortable and at the same time missed the time when he was in the independent regiment.
Qin Yangming had an anti-aircraft machine gun in his hand, and the heavy machine gun mount of the Vanguard Regiment could also be converted to anti-aircraft mode. If the Japanese dared to hover at such a low altitude over the Vanguard Regiment, they would have been shot down by Qin Yangming long ago.
However, the New Second Regiment did not have anti-aircraft machine guns, nor did it have the kind of heavy machine guns that could fire anti-aircraft weapons like the Pioneer Regiment, or the Type 24 heavy machine guns.
The heavy machine guns of the New Second Regiment were all Type 92 heavy machine guns, and anti-aircraft shooting was completely useless. The thirty-round magazine could not threaten the Japanese planes.
Moreover, the heavy machine gunners of the New Second Regiment are not as powerful as those of the Pioneer Regiment.
Kong Jie had seen with his own eyes that the heavy machine gunner of the vanguard regiment was able to control the heavy machine gun to kill a rabbit from a hundred meters away!
And because Qin Yangming had Li Yunlong to take the blame for him in the past, Qin Yangming would lead the team out to do side jobs every now and then, so the vanguard regiment had a solid foundation, all the soldiers had rosy faces, and they could easily select a group of tall and strong soldiers to operate the heavy machine guns.
But on the New Second Regiment's side, the heavy machine gunners were all provided by Li Yunlong, so it was not Kong Jie's turn to be picky; it was good enough to have one.
However, the heavy machine gunner that Li Yunlong gave him was just the deputy gunner of the heavy machine gun of the independent regiment.
From a technical point of view, how could they possibly compare to the skills of the heavy machine gunners who were specially selected by the Vanguard Regiment and fed with thousands of bullets?
The heavy machine gunners of the Vanguard Regiment had already used a thousand bullets for training, not to mention that Qin Yangming also used combat as training, so no one knew how many bullets the heavy machine gunners had fired.
As for the independent regiment, it is still a question whether the heavy machine gunner has fired a thousand bullets since joining the army.
Therefore, in addition to the problem of the sustainability of the heavy machine gun firepower, the skills of the heavy machine gun shooters on the New Second Regiment's side also make it impossible for the New Second Regiment to replicate the operations of the Pioneer Regiment's heavy machine gun shooters.
Forcing the air to fire would only waste bullets. Although there were sufficient bullets and they were sent by the Vanguard Regiment, the bullets of the Vanguard Regiment were also snatched from the Japanese devils by the soldiers of the Vanguard Battalion at the cost of their lives.
So when the Japanese planes discovered that the New Second Regiment could not pose a threat to their planes and had no weapons capable of attacking them, they simply lowered their altitude, carried out precision bombing, and circled and strafed at low altitudes.
Some planes even flew as low as 100 meters and indiscriminately strafed the positions of the New Second Regiment of the Eighth Route Army with machine guns.
Looking at the planes flying recklessly in the sky, Kong Jie couldn't help but think, how great it would be if their Eighth Route Army also had their own planes.
In this way, when they fight the Japanese, they no longer have to worry about the bombing of the Japanese planes, and their planes can also bomb the Japanese.
Kong Jie couldn't help but think of Qin Yangming.
"Hiss, this kid Qin Yangming can get cannons and tanks, so he should be able to get airplanes... I wonder if Qin Yangming can get a few airplanes..."
"Captain, commander, the Japs have sent people across the river again!"
"Damn it, First Battalion Commander, send the Third Company to hold them off!"
"Yes!"
The battalion commander listened to Kong Jie's order and looked at the Japanese planes still circling in the sky with no intention of leaving. He gritted his teeth and gave orders to the soldiers hiding in the rear.
"Soldiers of the Third Company of the First Battalion, follow me to the battlefield!
Kill the little devils!"
"Yes!"
Under the command of the first battalion commander, the soldiers of the third company of the new second regiment crawled out of the bunkers one after another, carrying their weapons and following the first battalion commander to rush towards the position.
"Captain, there are a lot of Japanese soldiers crossing the river this time, at least a squadron!"
(End of this chapter)
