Chapter Thirty-Two: RPG!!! (Please add this to your bookshelf and vote)
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The moment he heard there were canned beef rations, the chubby little fellow nearby immediately licked his lips and flashed a wide grin.
“Commander, you can rest easy!”
“We guarantee we’ll complete the mission.”
Half a minute later, Shi Xiaomao, nicknamed Krupp, extended a finger and aimed it at the slowly moving armored vehicle.
Finger, eyes, armored vehicle—three points in a straight line.
Seeing that the target was almost exactly where he had anticipated it would be, he suddenly pulled the firing mechanism.
Boom!
A seventy-millimeter high-explosive shell shot from the barrel, heading straight for the Japanese armored vehicle moving along the tracks.
…
The Japanese soldiers, unaware that Death had already set its sights on them, were sitting leisurely inside the armored vehicle, smoking cigarettes.
“Inoue,” one of them said with a grin, “the cherry blossoms in our hometown are about to bloom.”
“When you return home next week, remember to bring us a branch of cherry blossoms from home.”
The Japanese soldier named Inoue Keita smiled and nodded.
“Don’t worry, Nakamura. Besides cherry blossoms, I’ll bring you some authentic cherry blossom wine as well.”
“Hahaha! At least all our painstaking efforts weren’t wasted.”
With that, Nakamura Daigo tossed him a pocket watch.
“Here. I took it from a Chinese man in Taiyuan yesterday.”
“A fine thing like this is wasted in the hands of an inferior race like the Chinese. I didn’t just steal his watch—I also took his wife in front of him.”
“Hahaha! Chinese women certainly have a wonderful flavor.”
The other three Japanese soldiers exchanged glances and broke into savage laughter.
They, too, tossed Inoue Keita various gold and silver articles, each stained with traces of blood.
There was no doubt that all these things had been looted from civilians.
Just as one of the Japanese soldiers was preparing to climb down and inspect the railway, a familiar shriek suddenly came from the distance.
“What?”
Nakamura Daigo raised his ears in confusion.
That sound… Could it be… the Type 92 infantry gun?
Nakamura Daigo’s expression changed dramatically.
“Artillery…”
Before he could shout the next word, justice arrived.
Boom!
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A direct hit!
The Japanese armored car instantly transformed into a dazzling fireball and was hurled into the air.
“Enemy attack! Enemy attack!”
When the Japanese soldiers noticed what had happened ahead, the armored train immediately began braking.
Screeching and grinding filled the air.
Inside the armored train, Sergeant Major Jiro Ozaki, commander of the Second Company, First Battalion, Fourth Brigade infantry unit responsible for the supply transport, heard the explosion and his expression darkened.
Someone had actually dared to attack an armored train!
They were asking to die!
“Second Company, enter combat readiness immediately!”
“Yes, sir! Hurry, hurry!”
More than two hundred Japanese soldiers from the Fourth Brigade rushed to their assigned combat positions.
Suddenly, a furious roar came from nearby on the left side of the armored train.
“RPG!”
The instant the cry ended, three soldiers from the New Third Regiment, each carrying an RPG launcher on his shoulder, sprang up from the ground.
They had all been handpicked by Tan Ziwei.
Taking advantage of the Japanese soldiers’ momentary confusion, the three men quickly aimed at the armored train’s turrets within their field of vision and activated the launchers without hesitation.
With a sharp ripping shriek, a mass of dark-red flame and black smoke burst from the rear of each RPG launcher.
The next second, a forty-millimeter, 950-millimeter-long, 6.9-kilogram RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade streaked toward its target—the turret atop the armored train—trailing a long flame as the rocket booster at its rear drove it forward.
Under the horrified gaze of the Japanese soldiers aboard the supply train, all three armored-train turrets were struck by rockets in an instant.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
In the darkness, the turrets became enormous fireballs. The Japanese soldiers inside the carriages were consumed along with them, reduced to ashes.
“Damn it!”
Seeing this, Jiro Ozaki was nearly driven mad with rage. He let out an enraged roar.
“Fire! Fire!”
“Destroy the enemy at once! Charge!”
Rat-a-tat-tat!
Amid a storm of gunfire, the light and heavy machine-gun positions aboard the train immediately opened fire.
At the same time, more than a hundred Japanese soldiers raised their Type 38 rifles and pulled the triggers toward the attackers.
Countless points of light streaked across the darkness.
The last remaining turret of the armored train also swiftly swung its barrel around.
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There was a thunderous boom, and the carriage trembled slightly.
Immediately afterward, a devastating 110-millimeter high-explosive shell was fired.
The next moment, the spot where a flash of fire had just appeared became a huge crater, three or four meters deep and several meters across.
Earth flew in every direction, while smoke and dust billowed into the sky.
By then, however, the soldiers of the New Third Regiment had already followed Tan Ziwei’s instructions. The moment they finished firing, they turned and ran without looking back.
The Japanese counterattack did not even graze a single hair on the soldiers’ legs.
At that moment, nearly all the Japanese soldiers aboard both the armored train and the supply train had their attention fixed on the position where the attack had erupted.
They were completely unprepared for anything coming from the opposite side.
On the other side of the supply train, Gu Zidi was leading more than a hundred New Third Regiment soldiers hastily assembled for the emergency mission. Like ghosts, they quietly crawled out of the darkness.
Each man gripped an MP40 submachine gun tightly, clenching a wooden stick between his teeth for fear of making the slightest sound. They crept stealthily toward their target.
Farther away, Shunliu and more than a dozen New Third Regiment snipers lay concealed on elevated ground.
Holding their breath, they aimed Mauser 98K rifles fitted with four-power scopes at the machine gunners inside the carriages, providing cover for Gu Zidi and the others.
Thirty meters…
Twenty meters…
Ten meters…
The distance between the two sides continued to shrink.
The air was thick with tension.
Just as the two sides were drawing ever closer, something unexpected happened.
One of the Japanese soldiers aboard the supply train seemed to sense something unusual and suddenly turned around.
But before he could make out what was behind him, a flash of cold steel suddenly swept past.
A razor-sharp bayonet thrust forward with blinding speed.
The glint of steel arrived first; then the blade struck like a dragon!
Slash!
The gleaming bayonet pierced the Japanese soldier’s throat with ease, like a hot knife cutting through butter.
As blood spilled forth, Gu Zidi considerately clamped a hand over the soldier’s mouth.
Concealed by the fierce gunfire and cannon blasts raging at the front of the train, one Japanese soldier after another became a soul claimed by the warriors’ blades.
At last, several of the more vigilant Japanese soldiers sensed that something was wrong.
But by the time they realized the danger and turned around, it was already too late.
By then, Gu Zidi had already led his men silently and stealthily to the edge of the train.
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