Aono Koda tried his best to look forward with his eyes wide open. He could vaguely see the trenches and machine gun positions of the Chinese army in front of him. Moving forward, he could make out the positions of the Chinese army under the clouds and smoke.
But not long after, their position was enveloped in a layer of boiling smoke, shining with rusty red spots of light.
The red spots stretched out, engulfed the smoke, filled the sky, and rose into a death stripe of red flames.
At this time, the Japanese artillery was still fighting, but compared with the Chinese army's artillery fire, it seemed much sporadic, but Aono Kodai knew that the imperial artillery had tried its best.
However, the efforts of our own artillery did not have much effect. What they did was like throwing a burning coal onto the land that was already burning with fire, and even so, the Japanese artillery bombardment did not last long.
.
In fact, in Aono Kodai's view, when it comes to artillery, the empire's artillery quantity originally had an advantage compared to the Chinese artillery, and the quality of the empire's artillery was obviously higher.
But the key to the problem is that the Chinese on the opposite side have received full cover and support from the Air Force.
Since three days ago, China's air force has been scurrying in the sky like a swarm of locusts.
In particular, there is a type of dive bomber painted black that looks like a mutated seagull. These aircraft hover in the sky like bloodthirsty vultures.
Once they find a target on the ground, they will, like vultures that have been hungry for three days, pounce on the ground from thousands of meters in the sky at a nearly vertical angle, and then drop incendiary bombs or high-explosive bombs onto the ground one after another.
But what Japanese soldiers hated most was a kind of evil bomb, which would split into dozens to hundreds of small bombs in mid-air, depending on the size of the bomb.
After these small bombs are dispersed in mid-air, they will suddenly explode at a low altitude of about ten meters near the ground, splitting into two to three hundred pieces of shrapnel.
As long as the Japanese soldiers were covered by these shrapnel, it would be difficult to survive unless they hid in the anti-gun holes in advance.
Those hateful Chinese troops relied on air cover to kill and injure countless imperial warriors in large numbers.
The 143rd Regiment, where Kodai Aono belongs, suffered heavy losses. Three days ago, the Regiment was at full strength with a total of more than 3,000 people. As of today, there are only more than 1,000 people left.
In order to avoid the bombing by Chinese aircraft, the commander of the regiment, Colonel Sadahisa Itabashi, had to disperse his troops.
But in this way, it is difficult to resist the attack of the Chinese army if they are too dispersed in the same area, which creates a very contradictory phenomenon.
Facing the charge of the Chinese army, the defender needs intensive firepower to repel it. However, once one's own troops are deployed too densely, the opponent's artillery and even aircraft will "focus" on it, so that the battle will be fought.
It must be extremely awkward.
At this time, the newly formed 22nd Division on the opposite side launched an attack on them again.
Kodai Aono couldn't understand why the Chinese army, which originally didn't even dare to open its machine guns and fire, was so generous this time, and the bullets were poured towards them as if they were free of charge.
The flames ejected from the muzzles of the Chinese soldiers and the explosions of explosives continued to pour deadly metal onto the Japanese positions.
Bullets were flying in all directions, and shrapnel from the shells flew into the sky.
Kodai Aono could clearly see the shells coming and falling on the ground, and the ground seemed to be torn apart.
To his right was a forest. After several days of fierce fighting, the originally dense trees in that forest were knocked to the ground by artillery fire, just like grass being cut down by a huge sickle.
"boom……"
A cannonball hit the top of a big tree not far away and exploded in mid-air, making a huge noise.
Kouda Aono squeezed his body desperately in the gap, trying to make his exposed area smaller.
Then he heard it was like heavy rain all around him, with dense raindrops hitting the ground, making a crackling sound.
But Kodai Aono knew very well that what was falling in the sky was not rain, and what fell from the sky was not crackling raindrops. Instead, it was the hot metal that penetrated into the soil and tore the earth apart. What was crackling was the sand and clay layers.
, what is left is a deep pit with a big mouth.
"ah……"
Aono Kouda heard a scream not far away, but when he heard the sound, he did not stick his head out of the gap to watch.
For a veteran who has been fighting for five years, he has seen too many life and death separations in these years and is too numb.
He was so numb that he didn't even bother to get to know each other or remember their names.
Because there is a high probability that these recruits will become cripples with missing arms and legs within a few days, or even turn into urns and be loaded on ships returning home.
Meeting and befriending these people would only be a waste of the few feelings he had left.
The battlefield was fought from day to night, and it seemed that the Chinese army would never run out of artillery shells.
The flames emitted from the muzzle when the artillery fired and the rows of shells fired by the mortars became everything today.
Brown smoke and dust were floating in the sky above the huge waves raised by the mud. The Maxim heavy machine guns and 75-caliber artillery fire equipped by the newly formed 22nd Division had been firing all day long, but they still did not stop.
Smoke, dust and flames were floating everywhere on the battlefield, suddenly rising into the sky and falling to the ground again.
Taungoo, an obscure place in the past, has become a hell spewing flames.
Aono Kodai, who was already exhausted, suddenly heard violent explosions six or seven hundred meters behind him. He looked back and saw streaks of flames rising into the sky.
His heart suddenly sank. It was originally one of their artillery positions, and three field guns were deployed there.
Now that position was blown up like a cracked irregular-shaped object flying into the sky. In the firelight, Aono Kodai could distinguish those dark spots as metal fragments, cannon parts and gunner's
body.
Kodai Aono couldn't bear it anymore. He rolled and crawled from the hiding place and ran towards the back. Then he jumped to a place that was not known to be a trench or a bomb crater. After he jumped in, he found that there was a body lying inside.
.
This mud-covered corpse just sat there in such filthy condition, motionless and staring at the sky with wide eyes. It looked more like a living person than Akira Aono, whose face was ashen and ferocious.
"idiot!"
Kodai Aono suddenly cursed, and he didn't know who he was scolding.
At this moment, Kodai Aono suddenly felt that everything he had done over the years and the countless urns that had been transported back to his homeland seemed to have no meaning.
"Can this nation really be conquered?" This question that he had always believed in came to his mind again.
"Aono-kun...Aono-kun..."
At this moment...a hoarse voice suddenly came from the side.