Chapter 59: The Entire Set of Gear Acquired Through Borrowing

Chapter 59: All Equipment Acquired Through Borrowing

(I)

On the morning of March 23, following pre-battle mobilization conducted at the company and platoon levels, the Independent Regiment broke down into smaller units and quietly set out.

Just as the brigade headquarters leaders had deduced, the Japanese and puppet forces failed to accurately perceive the strategic intent of the Independent Regiment.

Consequently, although defenses between Hutingshan had been reinforced, the enemy had no inkling that the Independent Regiment possessed such immense ambitions!

Yet, the Baicun stronghold, acting like startled birds in a forest, was gripped with nervous tension. Throughout the day on March 23, they further strengthened their existing defense system, beginning to dig trenches along the outer edge of the ring of barbed wire and caltrops.

Before dawn on March 24, two companies from the 1st Battalion advanced into the outer positions of Baicun. After daybreak, looking through his binoculars, Li Yunlong saw puppet troops and garrison forces huffing and puffing as they labored at construction. Instead of getting angry, he was overjoyed, repeatedly boasting that he would award the Japanese commander of the Baicun stronghold a twenty-pound medal.

In a day or two, it was impossible to dig trenches reaching dimensions of three meters wide and two meters deep. Yet these half-finished trenches and mounds of earth would serve precisely as foxholes and barriers for the demolition squads and the subsequent assaulting troops!

In Li Yunlong’s eyes, those were no trenches at all; they were clearly graves the puppet troops had dug for themselves!

This demonstrated that even if Baicun had considered the possibility of "retaliation" by the Eighth Route Army's Independent Regiment, they never imagined the retaliation would arrive with such lightning speed.

Unlike the previous operation which only mobilized the 1st Battalion, this time the 2nd and 3rd battalions had returned early from Chenjiayu to muster. Advancing separately along their respective marching routes, they moved into their designated pre-set positions under the cover of night.

Due to limitations, information from the other three positions could only be transmitted via the two legs of messengers. As for the brigade and general headquarters, they still had to wait for Li Yunlong to compile the information and send it to Zhao Gang, who remained behind in Mopan Village, after which Zhao Gang would report to them by telephone.

The information lag was at least half a day, and that was already considered fast.

(II)

Around 1:00 PM on March 24, near the No. 4 ambush position at the Yejitai stronghold, five large carts came into view. As they passed near the stronghold, two puppet soldiers from the garrison emerged to inspect them before letting them pass.

Guan Shan, stationed at the hillside position, took a look through his binoculars and handed them to Chu Lianzhang beside him, saying, "There are only five puppet soldiers escorting them along the way, with one sitting on each cart."

Chu Lianzhang did not own any binoculars of his own; using them was a privilege he enjoyed thanks to Guan Shan.

Of course, these weren’t Guan Shan’s either—they were once again "borrowed." Before every mission, Guan Shan managed to borrow them from Teacher Bai.

"They aren't escorting supplies at all; they're just watching the cart drivers to make sure they don't run away!" Chu Lianzhang observed, gesturing with his hands toward both sides as he whispered, "Take aim at whatever you're supposed to! Get yourselves assigned, and don't fire until my command!"

The hillside position was located eighty or ninety meters in a straight line from the road. A squad of soldiers had ambushed here in advance, and the positions of Chu Lianzhang and Guan Shan were also chosen on the hillside.

Everything had been agreed upon beforehand: Guan Shan would lead three soldiers from Demolition Squad 2 to undertake the camouflage and infiltration mission at the foot of the hill, a plan to which Zhang Dabiao and Chu Lianzhang had readily and fully agreed.

However, once they reached the ambush position, Chu Lianzhang reneged completely. He had someone snatch away Guan Shan's camouflage uniform and assigned Wang Shuan as the squad leader of Demolition Squad 2. Wang Shuan was the only 1st Battalion soldier in Demolition Squad 2; the camouflage uniforms of the other two demolition men from the 2nd Battalion were also seized...

Chu Lianzhang’s attitude was resolute, his rationale thoroughly fleshed out, and with Wang Shuan playing along from the inside, Guan Shan and the two demolition men could only seethe with frustration in vain.

Wang Shuan had also offered plenty of pleading words to Guan Shan and the two comrades from the 3rd Battalion, particularly emphasizing that during the mission a few days prior, Stone had triggered a booby trap and died right in Shuan's arms. Shuan declared that if he couldn't take down a few more Japanese soldiers, he would never be able to get past this hurdle in his heart.

Chu Lianzhang employed both soft and hard tactics as well, analyzing the situation for Guan Shan and the other two demolition men: What if the Japanese iron turtles failed to be destroyed by the landmine explosions? What if, depending on subsequent developments, they needed to blow up the watchtower at the Yejitai stronghold? In short, he was in charge now, and they had no choice but to obey; there was no other way.

Commander Chen had once said that the moment gunfire starts, half of the operational plan becomes void. This had been the motto of Guan Shan's project team coordination resources back in his previous life when fighting hard battles, and he never expected to gain such a profound understanding of it at this very moment.

(III)

At 1:23 PM, as all five large carts entered the preset minefield, Chu Lianzhang fired a shot down the mountain, and the battle near the No. 4 ambush position at the Yejitai stronghold officially commenced!

This was a pre-arranged signal: firing a single shot served as a reminder to the undercover personnel at the foot of the mountain that they did not need to trigger the pull-mines to detonate the minefield!

Firing two shots in succession meant the minefield needed to be triggered synchronously, while firing three shots demanded that the troops on the ridge position open fire together!

Currently, with only five large carts and five puppet soldiers present, there was indeed no need to waste those well-concealed minefields.

Ten sharpshooters with precise marksmanship had clear divisions of labor. After two volleys of gunfire, all five mules collapsed, the five puppet soldiers were dropped to the ground, and several cart drivers, terrified out of their wits, scrambled under the carts and wailed aloud.

In accordance with the established deployment, the soldiers responsible for laying the pull-mines, who had been lying in ambush not far behind the firing position, sprinted down the mountain. Dressed in ordinary civilian clothes, they ran while shouting to the petrified cart drivers, "Run up the mountain! Hurry, fellow villagers, run up the mountain!"

The battle erupted too swiftly. The Japanese and puppet soldiers inside the watchtower scrambled in a panic to assemble in the courtyard, and the machine gun atop the watchtower rattled off a burst in the direction where the battle had broken out, purely to bolster their own courage.

The soldiers who had rushed down the mountain made a pretense of searching through the carts, then shouted with "disappointment" that they were all lumber and building materials, rather than the ammunition and grain they desperately needed.

In less than three minutes, they swiftly deployed the landmines.

According to the preliminary design, when the Japanese and puppet soldiers from the Yejitai stronghold came over later, they would most likely use those carts laden with timber and building materials as cover and support. At that moment, the lurking squad at the foot of the mountain would trigger the preset mines. The shockwave would shift the position of those carts, causing the second wave of tripwire-activated landmines to detonate. Thus, those timber and building materials would naturally transform into lethal shrapnel against the Japanese and puppet troops.

If the Japanese armored cars, upon hearing the gunfire or receiving notification via radio, entered the minefield together with the Japanese and puppet troops, that would be simply too perfect!

The soldiers swiftly completed the deployment of the minefield, hurriedly grabbed a few rifles, left the carts behind, and retreated up the mountain alongside the trembling villagers.

Seeing that their attackers were not even the Eighth Route Army, but rather "guerrillas" even cruder than the Eighth Route Army, the Japanese and puppet soldiers in the stronghold grew bolder, rolling out motorcycles and mounting machine guns as they sortied forth from the stronghold.

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(End of this chapter)