More than 170 people went out, but less than 30 people came back, and they were basically the puppet troops who were at the end of the attack.
More importantly, the army's only remaining heavy weapons, three armored vehicles, were left outside the village and suffered devastating blows.
"Sir, what should we do next?" Seeing Watanabe's gloomy face and silently looking at the wreckage of the armored vehicle outside the village, the adjutant asked in a low voice!
"There's nothing we can do!" A look of helplessness flashed across Watanabe's face.
"Without the armored vehicles, I can't think of any other way to stop the independent battalion's actions. Now we can only take one step at a time and hold on until dawn at all costs!"
"As long as the brigade headquarters promises that our plane can arrive on time, we will still have a chance to turn defeat into victory. At least we can exit the Independence Camp base alive and return to Lingqiu County!"
"Order: All troops enter their positions and strengthen their vigilance. As long as there are Eighth Route Army troops outside the village who show their heads from the trenches, they do not need orders to shoot directly. Kill them and try to reduce the subsequent defensive pressure on the troops."
"The puppet troops continue to build bunkers!"
"Without the armored vehicles and artillery, these bunkers have become our only chance to defend the village. The more we build before the independent battalion launches an attack, the greater our chance of defending the village."
At five o'clock in the morning, the five trenches were finally dug to a position less than fifty meters away from the earthen fence.
If we continue to dig forward, the grenades thrown by the Japanese from the earthen fence will hit the trench, and the gain will not be worth the loss.
Li Hao decisively ordered the troops to stop, began to deepen and widen the attack position, and build light and heavy machine gun shooting positions.
At six o'clock in the morning, all trenches were completed.
"There is still more than an hour before dawn, and it will take more than an hour for the Japanese planes to attack. This means that we must end the battle and evacuate the battlefield within three hours." Li Hao analyzed while looking at all the company commanders in front of him.
"It seems that there is still plenty of time, but when it comes to every battle node, the time is very little."
"I request that the attacking troops must break through the defense line built by the Japanese and puppet troops based on Tuweizi within half an hour, enter the village, and engage in street fighting with them."
"End the street fighting in one and a half hours, completely annihilate the Japanese and puppet troops. Clean the battlefield within half an hour, retreat within half an hour, and end the battle."
"I order: First Company, Second Company, Third Company, Battalion Commander Peng, your First Company and Second Company, as the main attacking force, launch an attack directly on the village from the position under our feet."
"The guard company is waiting in ambush to the east of the village, the independent company is waiting to ambush the west of the village, and the first battalion and three companies are waiting to ambush the north of the village!"
"Once the main attack force enters the village, there will definitely be Japanese and puppet troops who leave the village from these three directions and break out of the encirclement with a sense of luck. Your task is to kill these breakout forces."
"Get started now!"
"Boom boom boom..."
Twenty mortars broke the tranquility of the battlefield. Twenty shells rained down continuously around the earthen fence, and the thick smoke and fireballs from the explosion soon enveloped the place.
After firing more than two hundred shells in a row, the heavy machine gun opened fire.
"Company 1, follow me and fight into the village to avenge your fallen comrades!"
First company commander Chen Bing was the first to cross the trench with a box gun in his hand and under the cover of heavy machine guns.
More than a hundred soldiers, with infantry squads as units, formed a huge skirmish line, covering each other and fighting their way out of the trenches.
"Da da da……"
The independent battalion's attack distance was too close, and Watanabe originally wanted to kill more Eighth Route Army troops by showing weakness.
But he can't care about that much now. Defending the village until the plane comes is his most important task now, otherwise everything will be empty talk and his life will not be saved.
So as soon as he saw the independent battalion breaking out of the position, he ordered the light and heavy machine guns in the bunker to fire, directly blocking the attacking troops in the attack position and not giving them a chance to get close to Tuweizi.
Of course, Watanabe also kept an eye on it.
All machine gun bunkers were not used at once to prevent accidents.
Despite this, the company was fired upon by seven or eight light and heavy machine guns at the same time, and the company still suffered heavy casualties.
More than twenty soldiers were beaten into a sieve and fell to the ground, their life or death unknown.
Chen Bing, who was leading the charge, was also shot. A light machine gun bullet made a hole in his thigh. He fell heavily to the ground, and blood spurted out from the wound like a fountain.
"Get down, everyone, get down. The enemy still has hidden machine gun fire points." Chen Bing pressed the wound to stop the bleeding and shouted while enduring the pain in his thigh.
Li Hao obviously didn't expect this scene. More than two hundred artillery shells hit him, and there were still so many light machine guns left behind the wall.
He raised his eyebrows and ordered: "Intensify the firepower of the heavy machine guns, suppress the blocking firepower of the Japanese and puppet troops, and continue the attack!"
The heavy machine gun fired for a full half minute, but the firepower from Tuweizi did not weaken.
At this time, the thick smoke surrounding Tuweizi had dissipated. Looking at the position of the light and heavy machine gun fire on Tuweizi, Li Hao immediately understood.
"All the Japanese machine guns were hidden behind the fence. They dug shooting holes in the fence and shot directly at our attacking troops from the shooting holes. No wonder our heavy machine guns couldn't suppress them!"
"The artillery will fire immediately. The earth fence can block the bullets fired from our front, but it cannot block the shells falling from the sky!"
"Boom boom boom..."
An explosion soon sounded behind the wall.
Surprisingly, the light and heavy machine guns that fired through the firing holes did not misfire. The firepower was as fierce as ever. The flying bullets still suppressed the company in front of the position, unable to advance or retreat.
"Battal Commander, the mortars seem to be of no use? Did the Japanese build a bunker behind Tuweizi?" Hong Linfeng reminded with a frown.
But this idea was quickly rejected by himself: "It shouldn't be possible. The Japs occupied the village for just one night. The time was too short to build a bunker, and there are no raw materials for building a bunker in the village!"
The words woke up the dreamer, Li Hao suddenly realized and shouted.
"It must be a bunker!"
"A kid can't build a concrete bunker without raw materials, but he can build a civil bunker."
"Don't forget, there are more than 200 households in the village. Watanabe can find a sufficient number of wooden boards from the village. First use the wooden boards to build a bunker, and pile sandbags on top. As long as the wooden boards and sandbags are thick enough, they can block mortar shells.
No problem at all!”
"Don't forget, we used this method in the mountains when we were still guerrillas. Unless several mortar shells hit a bunker in succession, we couldn't destroy it at all!"
"It seems that we still underestimated this old devil Watanabe. When we were digging trenches and shortening the attack distance, he was not idle. He actually quietly built so many bunkers in the village, catching us off guard!"
"What a great method. He is worthy of being a veteran from the main force!"
Hong Linfeng became anxious and immediately asked: "Batalion Commander, what should we do?"
"The machine guns are hiding in the bunker and shooting at us, but we can't kill them. The attacking troops can't just attack with the bullets they fire!"
"In this case, the casualties of the attacking troops will definitely be very heavy!"
Li Hao sneered and replied: "If mortars can't destroy those bunkers, we will use mountain artillery. Don't forget that we still have a mountain artillery company idle."
"The earthen wall is just a half-meter-thick earthen wall. With the power of the mountain cannon, it can be easily destroyed by direct fire at close range!"
"If the Tuweizi is gone, the bunker built by the Japs based on the Tuweizi will be just a decoration."
"Order the mountain artillery company Yuan Qingfeng to fire immediately, shoot at the firing holes, and blow all the machine gun bunkers to rubble!"
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