The heavily armed brothers were quietly hiding in various bomb craters. Through the dark smoke, they could see the explosion flames rising in front of them.
The battlefield ahead seemed to have become a dark red purgatory, with things being blown up from time to time, being thrown high and falling again.
The shells wrapped in the aura of death made a sharp whistling sound and occasionally missed and landed near the brothers, exploding rotting corpses and blackened mud in all directions.
The roar of the explosion made the brothers' ears buzz, and the choking smoke and vomiting stench in the air made the brothers open their mouths to breathe, like fish out of water, as if they were suffocating.
The heavy atmosphere of the battlefield made every brother look tense and tightly clutched the only weapon that made him feel safe. The shells with the smell of death had shattered all the heroic words they had made when they surrendered to the army.
As the veteran said, on such a cruel battlefield, any rhetoric is nonsense. If you want to kill the Japanese, you must first stay alive.
Every time a shell hits the ground and explodes, the ground trembles. The bodies of the new recruits also tremble and tremble, but the veterans who have been added to each company act as if nothing has happened.
Captain Su Er, the captain of the company, knocked on a fellow recruit who was lying on the ground and seemed to be crawling into the dirt. He said with a smile: "We haven't fought yet. I'm afraid of a ball. Don't embarrass me."
The brother who was curled up in a ball raised his head and saw the laughing captain Su Er. He tried hard to maintain his manliness in front of the company commander, but there was an explosion not far away, and he was so scared that he hugged him again.
He dug his head into the floating soil.
"He's so fucking worthless -" Su Er laughed and cursed when he saw this fellow recruit burrowing into the floating soil like a frightened rabbit.
Su Er, a veteran company commander who had experienced hundreds of battles, was naturally not afraid of Japanese artillery shells. For those who stayed outside the battlefield, although the Japanese artillery was loud and noisy, it was intimidating.
But the recruits were different. Every time a cannon fired, they felt like the King of Hell was coming to urge them to death. They were so frightened that they were trembling all over, for fear that they would fall and blow themselves up.
"You have to learn more from them. If you want to be my soldier, you can't be afraid of death." Su Er smiled and pulled the fearful brother up from the dirt, pointing at the other recruits in the company and saying.
But when Su Er glanced around at the other recruits, he saw that they had not dug into the floating soil, but their bodies were tense and stiff, and many of them had wet crotches.
Seeing these new recruits who were so frightened before they even went to the battlefield, Su Er wanted to scold them for being worthless, but then he thought about what he said when he was brought out by regimental commander Yang Ling in Suzhou.
It became self-deprecating.
"Don't be afraid. The enemy's cannons are very loud and can scare people. When I first became a soldier, I was so frightened that my legs trembled."
As soon as Su Er spoke this way, the brothers all focused their attention and looked at Su Er.
"Company, company commander, were you really trembling with fear at that time?" Hearing Su Er say this, the recruits didn't believe that Su Er, who was calm and powerful in their hearts, could actually tremble.
"Not only was I shivering, I couldn't hold it back and even peed my pants. I was scolded by the group leader." Su Er unabashedly joked about his cowardly past.
"Haha..." Some brothers couldn't help laughing when they saw Su Er's angry look, and the tense atmosphere suddenly relaxed.
Su Er saw that the brothers were no longer so nervous and continued: "I later learned that the enemy's artillery was just a blind man lighting up a lamp and firing randomly. I was so angry that I chopped off the heads of two Japanese soldiers on the battlefield to calm down."
Su Er's self-mockery made those scared brothers suddenly feel less ashamed. Fear is human nature. They secretly swore in their hearts that the little devil actually scared them, and they must find this place again.
"When the enemy fires artillery on the battlefield, don't run around. You must obey the orders of your superiors. If someone gets hit by accident and is bombed and cannot continue the family line, it's not my fault." Su Er looked at his brothers and continued to joke.
The recruits laughed again. In a few words, Su Er made the recruits less nervous. Some even dared to stick out half of their heads to observe the battlefield ahead.
The regiment leader Yang Ling naturally knew that the new recruits were not well trained and something would definitely happen if they were rushed to the battlefield in such a hurry, so each squad and platoon had at least a few veterans to take them with them and teach them how to fight.
The new recruits had previously scorned the veterans who trained them harshly, and even had a fight with the veterans. Now on this battlefield where they can't distinguish between east, west and north, the veterans have become their backbone.
The veterans also came from the ranks of the new recruits, and they accepted Yang Ling's order to teach the new recruits how to fight, and they also carried out the order.
The veterans in each squad have different personalities, but facing the nervous recruits, they all use their own methods to make the recruits relax as much as possible.
The brothers of Yang Ling's regiment had already moved to a place only two miles away from the battlefield and took cover. The battle was still going on in the front. They had no clear idea of the situation on the battlefield. If they rushed forward rashly for reinforcements, they would most likely be accidentally injured by friendly forces or run into the arms of Japanese soldiers.
inside.
Therefore, for the sake of safety, Yang Ling did not act rashly. Instead, he sent a liaison officer to the front to make contact, while he and the regiment personnel hid behind a charred wall and waited.
Yang Ling and the others were responsible for defending a position guarded by a regiment of the 66th Army, on the flanks of the entire Mahuiling defense line. Although they had received some information on the way here, it was not accurate, and they did not know the specific situation of this regiment at the moment.
But Yang Ling and the others did not wait long. The regiment guarding the position of the 66th Army sent a disgraced deputy commander back with the liaison officer.
"You finally came up. If you don't come up again, all my brothers will be killed."
When the deputy commander of the lieutenant colonel saw Yang Ling and the others, he held Yang Ling's hand like an old friend he hadn't seen for many years, and was as excited as a child.
After the two sides introduced each other, they learned that Yang Ling and the others were from the 74th Army. The deputy commander of the criminal group also said without any secret: "Captain Yang, your name has been well known for a long time. We will hand over the position to you. We finally
We can retreat with peace of mind. If we leave it to their troops, I'm worried that they won't be able to defend it."
"Deputy Commander Xing, please introduce the situation to me first, so that we can take over the position as soon as possible."
Yang Ling saw that the deputy leader was disappointed. He expected that it would not be easy for them, so he did not continue the pleasantries and went directly to the topic.
"Oh, okay, okay." The deputy leader was happy to see Yang Ling being so crisp and clear, and hurriedly took out a crumpled piece of paper from his open pocket and spread it out.
"This is a simple map near our position. There are five main positions defended by our regiment. Here..." Deputy Commander Xing also came prepared and clearly explained to Yang Ling and others the key points of each defense.
Chu's markings were clear, which saved Yang Ling and the others a lot of trouble.