To Hirao Shaozuo's surprise, when he was nervously organizing the defense and thinking that the Eighth Route Army would attack soon, he waited for more than two hours and still didn't see a single figure.
Hirao Shaozuo asked the staff with a sense of luck: "Could it be that the Eighth Route Army's airdrop failed? Or the airdrop point is too far away from us!"
This is a common occurrence in airborne operations, especially nighttime airborne operations.
There are mountainous areas everywhere near Yanmen Pass. If you accidentally deviate from the landing point, you may not be able to reach Yanmen Pass overnight.
This is indeed the case with the Eighth Route Army's airborne troops. The two transport planes were delayed in parachuting. In addition, they were blown by the wind after parachuting and were taken to the mountainous area. This directly caused the more than fifty soldiers to be unable to enter the battle and fell into disarray as soon as they landed.
Three dead and six injured... This is what happens when you parachute into a mountainous area in the dark. The paratroopers have no idea whether the ground below is rocks or trees, or whether it is a slope or a cliff. They can only assume that the ground below is flat ground.
If not, there is a high probability that you will be injured when landing.
However, most of the soldiers successfully parachuted to the landing site and connected with the local guerrillas.
The reason why Hirao Shinname still didn't see the Eighth Route Army attack after waiting for more than two hours was because the Eighth Route Army's airborne troops did not attack Yanmen Pass as the main attack direction.
It is not impossible to attack Guancheng by force. There are more than 1,000 airborne troops to fight the Japanese and more than 1,000 puppet troops. With superior equipment and many gaps in the walls of Guancheng, it will not be a big problem to capture it.
The problem is that there are Japanese bunkers and artillery towers on the high ground on both sides, which will inevitably cause considerable casualties to the attacking Eighth Route Army.
When making the plan, Wang Shuheng said to Wang Xuexin: "Commander, since we plan to occupy the high ground and use the high ground as a defensive point, why not attack the high ground from the beginning? This attack may reduce casualties and achieve greater results!"
Wang Xuexin thought it made sense and agreed without much thought.
During these two hours, the Eighth Route Army airborne troops, in addition to gathering troops and moving closer to Yanmen Pass, were climbing mountains and rocks... The airborne troops are also equipped with multi-functional engineer shovels. With this and proper training, they can climb mountains and ridges.
It's not a difficult thing.
Interestingly, the swaying searchlight on the Japanese turret also became an excellent beacon for the Eighth Route Army. As long as they watched it move forward, it would be difficult for the Eighth Route Army soldiers to get lost.
Just when Hirao Shinina secretly breathed a sigh of relief and thought that the Eighth Route Army's airborne troops were nothing more than this, the battle suddenly started.
The sound of explosions came from the high ground on both sides. After just a few "bang bangs", the gun towers on the high ground were blown into a pillar of fire, and the Japanese inside were burned to death before they understood what was going on.
The worst thing is actually the higher-ups...
The lower floors of the blockhouse were immediately blown up and burned to death by incendiary bombs, but the Japanese on the upper floors could only watch helplessly as the flames shot up with no way to escape.
In the end, many Japanese screamed and jumped from the turret that was more than ten meters high... Instead of waiting to be burned to death, it was better to jump down. The height of more than ten meters was only three or four stories, and maybe they could survive.
As a result, the Japanese auto soldiers stationed in other gun towers stopped working.
They were not combat troops and had no combat experience. They originally thought that garrisoning gun towers and bunkers was a relatively safe and easy task... They only needed to hide in the gun towers and use searchlights to fire guns.
Who would have thought that this was not the case in actual combat. They did not notice the enemy at all, but the enemy could fire incendiary bombs into the turret in the dark and burn them to the ground.
I don’t know who started it. The Japanese auto soldiers shouted and threw down the bunkers and gun towers and fled...
This was beyond Wang Shuheng's surprise. He originally thought there would be a fierce battle in the gun tower and bunker area.
Because the Japanese only need to guard the artillery towers while sending ground troops to cover them, thus forming a line of defense that combines the artillery towers with infantry. The Eighth Route Army will then have to spend some effort and casualties to capture this line of defense...
The range of the rocket launcher is only a few dozen meters, and the mountain wind will further affect the accuracy. In other words, the Japanese infantry only needs to move the rocket launcher a few dozen meters forward to threaten the gun tower.
When the time comes, the Japanese in the turret occupy a high place and can use searchlights to illuminate their targets. This advantage is not ordinary.
Who would have thought that the Japanese were scared away after just one encounter, and those who escaped were all Japanese soldiers, not puppet soldiers... Such timid Japanese soldiers are really rare, it seems that they are lucky this time!
Although Wang Shuheng was surprised, his men did not hesitate at all. He immediately commanded the troops to occupy the bunkers and gun towers.
The Japanese's bunkers and gun towers are used to deal with guerrillas, and guerrillas may appear at any point, so the gun towers are often transparent in all directions and have perforations everywhere, and the same is true for the Guancheng below.
The next battle was about to begin. The Eighth Route Army shined their searchlights from the gun towers in the direction of Guancheng...the firepower and soldiers on the Japanese defense line were clearly illuminated, and then rifles and machine guns were directed at them.
At this time, the repeating rifle cannot function.
Because some gun towers and bunkers are too far away from Guancheng, even if they do not exceed the range of a repeating rifle, it is still more than two hundred meters. At this distance, the repeating rifle has no advantage, so almost all long-range bolt-action rifles and machine guns are in play.
effect.
Wang Shuheng originally wanted to conserve his troops and fight slowly, just to force the Japanese out of Guancheng. Anyway, now that the Eighth Route Army is condescending, the Japanese cannot make a big splash.
But he raised his binoculars and looked down. Under the light of searchlights, he saw cars everywhere inside and outside Guan City. If they couldn't stop inside, they were parked outside the city. One after another, there were at least hundreds of them (flammable and explosive ones).
Fuel and ammunition are parked inside the city, and supplies such as food are parked outside the city).
Then Wang Shuheng understood that they had accidentally blocked a transport brigade.
This made Wang Shuheng secretly happy. Not long ago, he was worried about the supply problem of the airborne troops. He was also worried that if he had to stay here for a long time, not to mention whether the people would be exhausted, there would not be enough bullets.
Now the Japanese are caring enough to send them ammunition?
It's not possible to fight slowly. Let's not talk about the problem that the Japanese will drive away in a car. If the Japanese know that they can't hold on, they will ignite the ammunition at the last moment...
Thinking of this, Wang Shuheng immediately ordered: "The sharpshooter and mobile phone gunner take cover, the others follow me!"
Then with a wave of the box cannon in his hand, he led the troops to charge along the high ground towards Guancheng below.
It's like a tiger rushing into a flock of sheep.
The Japanese and puppet troops were defeated amidst the heavy gunfire from repeating rifles. They tried several times to reorganize their defenses, but were immediately dispersed by the fierce firepower of the Eighth Route Army...