During the battle, Wang Xuexin's mind kept flashing back to the Japanese soldier's eyes before he died. Wang Xuexin was not sure what it was.
Nostalgia, resentment, or regret?
You can never see through what a Japanese is thinking, even on his deathbed.
Just like Wang Xuexin thought that the Japanese soldier was trying to survive, but it turned out that he was trying to drag Wang Xuexin down to support him before he died.
Wang Xuexin originally thought that he would not be able to forget it for a long time and would even have nightmares about it.
However, Wang Xuexin soon discovered that he was wrong.
Wang Xuexin led the soldiers to continue the attack. The initial progress was very smooth. The Japanese army's living space was continuously compressed. The 91st Regiment on the other side also successfully entered the village and started street fighting with the Japanese army.
It is not difficult to imagine that the Japanese were completely passive and could only use the terrain in the village to resist.
However, in front of the Seventh Company, when a Japanese squad came up for reinforcements, the enemy and we were still in a stalemate.
Wang Xuexin believes that the reason for the lack of follow-up is related to the lack of coordination among the soldiers and their unfamiliarity with Type 97 grenades.
The difference between the Type 97 grenade and the wooden handle grenade is not simply that there is an additional tapping procedure, it is more reflected in the tactical level.
The wooden handle grenade can be thrown very far, and the grenades made in the border area are not powerful enough, so throwing the grenade forward while charging forward will not be a big problem.
The Japs' Type 97 grenade is different. Its throwing distance is shorter, but its power is much greater than that of the wooden handle grenade, with a killing radius of eight meters.
In fact, if the distance is more than eight meters in an open area, the shrapnel ejected can injure someone from more than ten meters away.
This would cause a problem when charging and throwing grenades at the same time.
Wang Xuexin saw several of his recruits get into a panic when they were nervous during a fight. They threw the grenade forward and grabbed the bayonet before it exploded. As a result, they were injured by their own grenade.
Even Wang Xuexin almost fell into the trap... This is not to say that Wang Xuexin will make stupid mistakes like a new recruit. He has been a soldier for several years, and throwing grenades is a routine operation.
But two-thirds of a combat unit are new recruits, and they are all very energetic and fighting to fight the Japanese. This is beyond Wang Xuexin's control.
Therefore, although Wang Xuexin, the platoon leader, commands more than thirty people, he actually commands only Huzi's squad. When the other two squads start fighting, there are a few here and a few there, and it is difficult to tell which troops they belong to.
Of course, you can't direct it.
However, it was precisely this disorganized way of fighting that the Japanese got into trouble.
In the minds of the Japanese army, grenades should not be thrown away, but the Eighth Route Army did so at this time.
According to common sense, you cannot charge immediately after throwing away the grenade, but the Eighth Route Army just charged...
As a result, we were caught off guard again and again, and several times we were rushed into the formation by the Eighth Route Army and fell into hand-to-hand combat.
Wang Xuexin encountered a similar accident.
At that time, he was leaping forward with his gun in hand. As soon as he took cover in front of the earth wall, he found a grenade thrown at his feet and smoking... Wang Xuexin was very sure that it was thrown by his own soldiers, because it was supposed to cross the earth wall.
However, because the wall was not high enough, it bounced back when it hit the earth wall.
Wang Xuexin cursed secretly and rolled over into a big pit beside him without thinking.
At this time, he no longer cares about what is in this pit. Even if it is a mountain of swords and a sea of fire, he has to escape. It is better than being killed by one of his own grenades!
When Wang Xuexin rolled down, he was still thinking, Damn it, if he knew who threw the grenade, he would be caught and slapped in the face.
So you really can't fight this battle with the new recruits, otherwise you won't know when you will be killed by them.
Wang Xuexin, who rolled into the pit, was dizzy for a moment. He stood up unsteadily and took a look, and was immediately startled:
The pit was filled with corpses, at least hundreds of them.
These corpses included old men, women, and children, all lying in various postures in the pit. Each of them had several holes punched by bayonets.
From their attire, Wang Xuexin could easily identify them as fellow villagers from Xueququan Village.
They were tied up with ropes by the Japanese, and they were unable to escape.
Perhaps in order to save ammunition and fear that they would assist the Eighth Route Army, the Japanese stabbed them one by one with bayonets and piled them into a hole dug by the fellow villagers.
After interrogating the prisoners after the war, Wang Xuexin learned that this was not the case.
The Japanese originally wanted to bury the fellow villager alive, but the captain Kazuo Takeda ordered the soldiers to take turns to stab him with bayonets.
In Kazuo Takeda's words, "We must practice the bloodiness of the soldiers before the war, so that we can adapt to the killing on the battlefield as soon as possible..."
There were corpses and blood everywhere, and a foul smell hit him.
Directly in front is a female corpse. Her hair is messy and her face is pale. Her abdomen has been cut open with a bayonet. The fetus that is about to reach full term is lying horizontally in the mother's abdomen holding its head in its two small hands.
The mother tried to stuff it back several times and tried to save her child several times, but in the end she was unable to do anything due to excessive blood loss.
Both sides of the pit were full of fellow villagers who were struggling to climb out. They stuck their fingers in the mud and picked at the bleeding, bit the branches with their teeth to prevent themselves from falling. Some even climbed to the edge of the pit but were stabbed a few times by the Japanese again.
Knife's...
The easiest to identify and the most shocking thing are the little corpses of the children.
Not just one or two, but there were twisted, dirty little hands and bloody little heads everywhere in the corpse field. They were countless. They were all bent, curled up, and struggling... The bayonet wounds on the corpses were clearly visible.
At that moment Wang Xuexin was dumbfounded.
Although he had heard about various atrocities committed by the Japs in reality, hearing about it was just hearsay. Now that the bloody reality was before his eyes, it was a different feeling.
Wang Xuexin couldn't understand how someone in this world could do such a thing, how could he be so cold-blooded and so inhumane.
"Platoon leader! Platoon leader?" At this time Huzi slipped down from above. He saw Wang Xuexin rolled down and did not come back for a long time. He thought Wang Xuexin was injured and hurried down to check the situation.
Huzi vaguely saw Wang Xuexin standing in the smoke, and he breathed a sigh of relief. But when he turned his eyes, he saw a mountain of corpses at the bottom of the pit, and his eyes were about to split.
After a long silence, Huzi suddenly cursed in a tearful tone: "You stupid little devil, I'll fuck his ancestors!"
As soon as he said that, he turned around, climbed out of the pit with a gun in hand, and rushed towards the Japanese position.
He needs to kill someone!
He needs to vent his anger!
He needs revenge!
Only by killing the Japanese can we vent our hatred and take revenge!
Wang Xuexin also knew what he should do.
Not long ago, he was still brooding over the knife that stabbed the Japanese.
But now, Wang Xuexin only regrets that he didn't stab him more times!