Chapter Seven: Shedding Blood and Sacrificing All!

On another side, the same exchange was taking place between Liu Jianguo and Wei Dayong.

Thinking of one familiar face after another possibly falling on the battlefield, Wei Dayong could not help but feel reluctant.

How many men could possibly survive a battle like this?

"Commander, won't this cost too many lives?"

Liu Jianguo gazed toward the distant direction of Changye.

"Monk, pointless sacrifice truly is unnecessary."

But then his tone grew exceptionally resolute.

"Yet if our sacrifice can awaken the courage and fighting spirit of our people!"

"Not only the men of the First Regiment, even I, Liu Jianguo, can gladly shed my blood and lay down my life!"

...

Far away, within the temporary positions of the First Battalion of the Sakata Regiment.

After setting down his binoculars, Nakamura Kozo, the battalion commander, narrowed his eyes.

"So these are our opponents, the forces from Shaanxi?"

"Yes, sir!" A Japanese officer immediately bowed and nodded repeatedly.

Then he handed Nakamura Kozo a dossier and said briefly, "Reporting, Battalion Commander. According to the Special High Police, the New First Division has only sent out the strength of one reinforced regiment to block our Sakata Regiment's advance."

"But from what our sentries have observed," Nakamura Kozo smiled with thinly veiled contempt, "the enemy position across from us seems to have only about one infantry battalion."

"Tell me, isn't their commander rather interesting?"

His voice was calm as ever, yet every Japanese officer nearby could feel the fury hidden beneath that calm.

The enemy actually thought one infantry battalion would be enough to stop his First Battalion!

Bastards!

What arrogance!

The moment they learned this, all the Japanese officers burned with the same rage.

Amid the rising uproar, one officer shouted, "Battalion Commander! Let me lead the warriors of the Second Company!"

"I'll cut down every Chinese head myself and show them what for!"

A short, stout Japanese officer also cried out, "Leave it to the Third Company!"

"With just one charge, our Third Company can wipe out this pack of fools!"

"Let us go!"

"Let us!!!"

"Silence!!!"

With a sweep of Nakamura Kozo's hand, the scene immediately fell quiet.

Then he fixed his gaze on Masao Inoue, who had remained silent in the corner all this time.

"Inoue-kun, this will be entrusted to your Fourth Infantry Company!"

"I have only one demand: I do not want to see a single living Chinese soldier!"

"Understood?"

A bloodthirsty, ferocious grin spread across Inoue Masao's face.

"Yes, sir!"

...

At the Japanese artillery company positions.

"Use the decoy guns to launch a probing bombardment against the enemy position!"

"At once!"

Boom, boom, boom...

Four or five shells were fired.

Then the shells from the New First Regiment landed in the Japanese artillery company's decoy positions, destroying four or five obsolete guns as well as the fake wooden artillery pieces.

The artillery company commander, Suzuki Jiro, lowered his gun sight and curled his lips faintly.

Foolish Chinese people. You were fooled into revealing your artillery so easily.

Now die!

"Target: north by north, fifteen hundred to sixteen hundred meters. Prepare to fire!"

Boom! Boom! Boom!!!

Through the field glasses, the New First Regiment's artillery position in the distance was swallowed in a cloud of smoke and flame.

For the next two minutes, the Japanese artillery position that had launched the attack received no counterfire at all.

Only then did Suzuki Jiro finally relax and nod, issuing the next command.

"All units, concentrate every gun and begin a full bombardment of the Chinese position!!!"

"At once! At once!"

Soon, one fat, broad-faced Japanese gunner after another rammed shells weighing more than ten pounds into the breeches, then slammed the gun doors shut.

"Ready!"

Suzuki Jiro looked toward the First Battalion position of the New First Regiment in the distance and was just about to order fire when, all of a sudden, a familiar shriek came through the air from above the opposite side.

As a veteran gunner, he instinctively looked up at the sky.

"This sound, this trajectory—masaka, seventy-five-millimeter mountain guns!"

Suzuki Jiro's expression changed dramatically as he shouted, "Down! Get down, now!"

Before the words had fully left his mouth, shell after shell from the New First Division rained down upon the Japanese artillery company's position.

Boom, boom, boom!!!

Every shell burst apart in an instant.

Flames flashed everywhere; smoke billowed upward.

The shockwaves and deadly fragments from the explosions ravaged the entire Japanese artillery position.

Even the Japanese soldiers lying flat on the ground were indiscriminately torn into mangled flesh.

"Nani?!"

Suzuki Jiro, who had just managed to throw himself down behind a low rise, stared with eyes wide in shock.

"From the sound of the guns, there must be at least over eighty pieces."

"The other side is only a regiment—how could they possibly have so many guns? Impossible, impossible!"

In his memory, even the wealthy and well-equipped main regiment of the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army had at most forty or fifty guns, and they were all outdated models.

How could a regiment of the New First Division have so much artillery?