Chapter 40 Tank!

"Tank!" Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji's voice trembled.

It was hard to tell if he was excited or surprised. The tank's paint and markings clearly identified it as belonging to the Japanese Army.

Although the navy had always looked down on those army fools, the lieutenant colonel now hoped that these suddenly appearing tanks were reinforcements from the army fools!

Even Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji wholeheartedly hoped that these were his allies!

But the moment he saw these tanks, he knew they hadn't come to help him.

Because as soon as the tank emerged, the machine gun on top opened fire on the Japanese soldiers to the north.

What horrified Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji was that three such tanks had actually emerged from the defenders.

These three tanks advanced in their own unique styles!

The tank rushing in the lead was as fast as a bullet.

It left the other two tanks far behind, and the soldiers following it were sprinting at a hundred-meter dash pace.

They seemed to be rushing to a feast, afraid of being late and missing out on the good food.

The tank in the lead was driven by Lin Fan.

His only target was the only remaining tank of the Japanese that could still move.

Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji watched helplessly as this tank, like a crazed wild bull, charged straight towards his own sole surviving tank.

From the moment this crazed tank appeared until it crashed into his own tank, it never slowed down.

The tank that was stationary and hadn't had time to start was immediately hit, its left track breaking.

It could no longer move, but the barrel of the tank Lin Fan was driving was also bent.

The soldiers inside, despite preparing for the impact, were thrown about by the tremendous force.

Zhen Danxiao, following behind Lin Fan's tank, was already panting for breath.

Now was not the time to rest. He led his soldiers and climbed onto the Japanese tank.

He opened the hatch and threw in several grenades without any regard.

Then he immediately closed the hatch again.

Clearly feeling the vibrations coming from inside the tank, Zhen Danxiao then reopened the hatch and used his rifle to shoot at the Japanese soldiers who were already lying in pools of blood inside.

Zhen Danxiao was truly timid, so he and the soldiers in his squad had always followed Lin Fan's battlefield survival principles the best.

Whether the Japanese soldiers inside the tank were dead or alive, they had to be killed again.

Lin Fan's Number Five tank had now completed its mission.

Retreating from the battle now would already be a success, but he tried to operate it.

The Number Five tank could actually reverse, which he hadn't expected.

That it could still move after such a strong impact was a surprise.

He figured it was because it had hit the enemy's weakest point on the side with the strongest part of the tank's front.

Lin Fan immediately handed over the task of driving the tank to the original tank driver.

On the current battlefield, having one more tank to deal with the Japanese infantry, who only had light weapons, was crucial.

The role of this tank was no less important than a company of soldiers.

Lin Fan climbed out of the tank, took his rifle, and opened fire on the Japanese from behind the tank.

The three tanks advanced, mutually covering each other as they moved forward.

While Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji was still yelling at his soldiers to organize a team to blow up the tanks,

the three tanks, mutually covering each other, advanced with three squads of soldiers following behind.

The three demolition teams of Japanese soldiers who accepted the task of blowing up the tanks were all killed by the three squads of the Special Operations Company.

Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji watched helplessly as the three tanks rushed to a position less than three hundred meters from his temporary command post.

He had no choice but to stand up and order all the soldiers to launch a desperate charge against the advancing defenders.

Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji wasn't afraid of death, he was only afraid of failing to complete the task of capturing the Sihang Warehouse in three hours.

A lion leading a flock of sheep into battle will turn the sheep into lions.

A sheep leading a flock of lions into battle will turn the lions into sheep.

What kind of commander, what kind of soldiers.

Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji fought to the death, and all the Japanese soldiers attacking from the north also fought to the death.

Each direction of the Japanese attack had more than two thousand eight hundred men.

Even if Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji had sacrificed nearly half of his soldiers' lives in the previous attacks,

there were still more than a thousand Japanese soldiers here.

Lin Fan led three squads of the Special Operations Company, plus the fifteen men from his own company headquarters.

A total of seventy-five soldiers faced more than a thousand Japanese soldiers.

These Japanese soldiers began to struggle desperately, and the battle suddenly became fierce.

The machine guns on the tanks kept firing, and the Japanese soldiers kept crawling out from various positions, some holding explosive packs, some holding grenades, their expressions...

seeming to say that even if they died, they would bite off a piece of skin from the iron疙瘩 (g疙瘩 - literally lump/bump, here meaning the tank) in front of them.

Lin Fan had seen many times in works of art this kind of situation where soldiers were helpless in the face of advanced weapons.

To prevent accidents, Lin Fan ordered loudly: "All infantry, advance while clearing the battlefield.

For those Japanese corpses lying on the ground, all must be shot again before the tanks pass."

He knew too well what crazy things these determined soldiers would do.

Everything he was doing now was just to make these crazy Japanese soldiers give up completely.

Ye Dadan, leading the Sixth Squad, followed behind Tank Number Six.

Like all the soldiers of the Special Operations Company fighting in the north, he heard the company commander's order clearly.

Now he saw two Japanese corpses piled together in front of the tank he was following.

Ye Dadan pointed to the corpse lying underneath, with most of its body covered by another Japanese corpse, and said, "Shoot the one underneath first."

At least five of the soldiers from his Sixth Squad fired at the two corpses together.

Something amazing happened to the entire Sixth Squad: the two corpses lying motionless a dozen meters in front of the tank

actually struggled to stand up and launched a charge towards the tank.

The explosive packs they had just hidden under their bodies were now held tightly in their arms.

These two Japanese soldiers, facing a dense rain of bullets, had only the determined look of charging in their eyes.

Without a trace of fear or timidity.

But no matter how brave and fearless they were, they couldn't move half a step forward.

Every bullet fired by the soldiers of the Sixth Squad also carried the momentum of advancing bravely.

When you meet on a narrow road, the brave win!

Only two Japanese soldiers charged up, facing a full twenty brave men from the Sixth Squad.

When these two Japanese soldiers could no longer move a step,

they detonated the explosive packs they were carrying.

A loud bang, blood and flesh filled the sky.

The explosion seven meters away from the tank, besides splashing a lot of blood and flesh on the tank, did not cause any damage to the tank.

What happened in front of Tank Number Six was not an isolated case.

Among the Japanese soldiers attacking in the north, there were constantly people like this appearing.

On the entire northern battlefield of the Sihang Warehouse, the advancing soldiers of the Special Operations Company always encountered such Japanese soldiers who resisted desperately.

The soldiers of the Special Operations Company became even more careful.

Several squad leaders specially arranged for a few soldiers to carefully shoot at the corpses in front of the tanks.

More soldiers attacked the Japanese soldiers not far away.

The tank crews also carefully avoided the Japanese corpses as much as possible.

The heavy machine guns on top of the tanks kept firing angry bullets.

Those Japanese soldiers who had been stubbornly resisting could not resist head-on under the sweeping fire of the three heavy machine guns.

They could only hide behind various shelters on the ruins, stubbornly resisting.

This was a massacre of the Japanese soldiers by the seventy-odd soldiers of the Special Operations Company.

With three tanks as the vanguard of the attack, any resistance from the Japanese soldiers became a futile struggle.

Although these Japanese soldiers, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji, implemented a policy of step-by-step, desperate resistance,

they still could not stop the attack of these dozens of soldiers led by Lin Fan.

In fact, Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji had never thought about defense.

From the moment he accepted the mission, all he had thought about was offense!

Offense!

Therefore, there was not a single real fortification used for resistance on the entire northern battlefield of the Sihang Warehouse.

There was not even a single trench used to resist the attack of the Special Operations Company.

Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji and the Marine Corps he led could only use this ruin in the north.

He watched helplessly as a dozen of his men hid behind a collapsed

concrete slab.

The concrete slab was pierced by the heavy machine gun on the tank, and a dozen soldiers were cut off at the waist like green grass cut off by a sickle.

The last howls of the dozen struggling soldiers terrified all the Japanese soldiers.

This was not the end, the battle continued, and such scenes continued to repeat themselves.

Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji found that the machine guns in the team he was commanding could not fire continuously.

Faced with such a fierce charge from the National Army, the machine guns of his men could not form a real continuous barrage.

They always fired a few shots and were forced to stop immediately.

This was because Lin Fan had been paying attention to the entire battlefield.

Whenever he saw a Japanese machine gunner in position, he would immediately take action.

In the current battlefield, a machine gun could at least block a fifty-meter-long charging route for his team.

This was intolerable.

Not only was Lin Fan doing this, but the machine gunners on the tanks were also doing the same.

Prioritize shooting the opposing machine gunners!

In front of Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji, less than twenty meters away, he personally watched as three machine gunners were replaced in less than five minutes.

When Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji watched the half-collapsed dangerous building finally collapse,

he could no longer hold back the heartache, and a sweetness rose in his mouth, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.

In the house that had just collapsed, there were at least forty Japanese soldiers hiding inside, relying on the half-collapsed ruins to fire at the attacking National Army.

Although he had many soldiers under his command, he could not afford such organized annihilation!

Lieutenant Colonel Yoshino Eiji sighed in his heart!

The Japanese soldiers in the north fought to the death.

The Japanese soldiers attacking from the east and west had now retreated more than a thousand meters away.

These two directions were being pursued all the way.

For those Japanese soldiers who were fleeing, there was only the first step and countless steps.

When one of them took a step back and was not subjected to battlefield discipline,

the collapse of the entire team was already decided.

The thousands of Japanese soldiers in these two directions were being driven like ducks by dozens of National Army soldiers behind them.

Lieutenant Colonel Katsuharu Yota did not understand how the previously vigorous offensive had suddenly become like a receding tide?

What happened?

What am I doing?

Lieutenant Colonel Katsuharu Yota's feet moved non-stop, and his body faithfully moved further and further away from the Sihang Warehouse.

His thoughts also abandoned his body far away, soaring in the sky.

He clearly remembered that he and Lieutenant Colonel Kitahara Sosuke were leading the western attacking team well.

He clearly remembered that hundreds of warriors had rushed into the Sihang Warehouse.

Even if the defenders closed the gate of the Sihang Warehouse, could they resist his attack?

Reality taught Lieutenant Colonel Kitahara Sosuke a lesson when he personally witnessed the soldiers who had just charged to the front of the Sihang Warehouse being knocked down by a sudden explosion.

Then, when the iron gate of the Sihang Warehouse closed tightly again,

although Lieutenant Colonel Kitahara Sosuke felt a little flustered, he did not think it was a big deal.

At this time, there were more than five thousand Japanese soldiers outside the gate of the Sihang Warehouse.

So many people could really stop the flow of a river by throwing their whips into it.

Then another round of explosions occurred, and in the midst of the billowing smoke, Lieutenant Colonel Kitahara Sosuke vaguely saw all the soldiers near the iron gate of the Sihang Warehouse fall down.

Looking around again: all the Japanese soldiers within at least forty meters of the outside of the Sihang Warehouse had fallen down.

Many soldiers fell on the ground, struggling and groaning!

Is this hell!

Lieutenant Colonel Kitahara Sosuke watched the soldiers lying on the ground. The two waves of explosions had knocked down thousands of imperial warriors.

Those who were still alive continued to advance, ignoring their comrades who were struggling and calling for help on the ground, and continued to attack the Sihang Warehouse.

Those soldiers who were further away finally reacted and realized that it was time for them to launch an attack.

Lieutenant Colonel Katsuharu Yota also saw the explosion that had just occurred, and the sound of the explosion was like nails, firmly piercing into his head.

Making Lieutenant Colonel Katsuharu Yota's head ache as if it were about to explode.

He watched his elite troops, the elites from the various naval warships, fall down with a bang.

They fell in front of the iron gate of the Sihang Warehouse, fell beside the outer wall of the Sihang Warehouse.

The crazed Lieutenant Colonel Katsuharu Yota ordered loudly, directing the nearby soldiers to continue advancing.

The commanders of the east and west sides responded in the same way to the sudden changes.

They were still insisting that their soldiers continue to charge.

Victory was right in front of them: hundreds of their warriors had already rushed into the Sihang Warehouse.

A coordinated attack from the inside and outside! This is what the books say. Under such circumstances, the defenders should already be in chaos.

When the Japanese soldiers on the east and west sides charged up again, the explosions that had just occurred reappeared.

Lieutenant Colonel Katsuharu Yota closed his eyes in pain: none of those who had just charged up could still stand.

The National Army guarding the Sihang Warehouse did not know what kind of bombs they were using, but their power was so great.

They could knock down thousands of soldiers at once, and there were no survivors.

Those wounded who had not been dragged down were struck again.

The number of groaning Japanese soldiers in the outer fortifications of the entire Sihang Warehouse did not increase.

Most of those who had suffered secondary injuries could no longer withstand such blows and had gone to report to their 天照大神 (Amaterasu Ōmikami - the Japanese sun goddess).

Those who had just joined in and were groaning were the luckiest of the Japanese soldiers who had just charged up and had not yet found a breakthrough.

It was already a blessing from their ancestors that they had not been killed by the specially made explosive packs thrown down from the top of the building by the Second Company in one fell swoop.

Unfortunately, neither Lieutenant Colonel Katsuharu Yota, the commander of the east side, nor Lieutenant Colonel Kitahara Sosuke, the commander of the west side,

had any intention of sending people out to rescue them.

Although they could still be rescued.

The two lieutenant colonels now had nothing but anger in their hearts, and could no longer accommodate anything else.

Under their command, Japanese soldiers continued to attack the Sihang Warehouse, trying to rush to the front of the iron gate of the Sihang Warehouse, to the walls of the Sihang Warehouse.

Burying the explosive packs they were holding in their hands, blowing up the warehouse, so that the Japanese army behind them could rush in.

Just like those of them who had just blown up the outer fortifications they were now occupying.

It was only now that Lieutenant Colonel Katsuharu Yota suddenly realized that the fortifications that they had occupied today were a little different.

These fortifications could only defend against attacks from the outside, and were completely undefended against attacks from the Sihang Warehouse!

Whether it was an attack from the plane of the Sihang Warehouse or from a high place, it was completely undefended.

"This! This... are we being tricked?"

Lieutenant Colonel Katsuharu Yota's confidence was shattered by his discovery.

He shared his discovery with Lieutenant Colonel Kitahara Sosuke, the commander of the west side, who was directing the attack, with some uncertainty.

Lieutenant Colonel Kitahara Sosuke was reminded by his fellow commander, and then he had time to look at the environment in front of him.

As he looked around, his face slowly changed.

His face, which had just been flushed with excitement, was now green with anger, and then turned pale with fear.

"This is a trap!"

He suddenly understood: "Retreat! Retreat!"

Lieutenant Colonel Kitahara Sosuke shouted loudly, his voice hoarse.

His expression was tense and his voice trembled.

Recalling that the soldiers who had charged up two rounds had all died within thirty meters of the wall of the Sihang Warehouse,

that area had now become a dead zone, and at least two thousand soldiers had died in that area.

If they continued to charge like this, everyone would die there.

But it was still too late when he gave the order. In the hazy smoke in front of him, there was already a flash of fire.

Those warriors who had just been charging fell down again.

But at this time, many soldiers heard the commander's shouts.

They stopped, and for a moment, they were in a dilemma.

These soldiers all knew about the three-hour deadline.

They all understood what it meant to retreat at this time.

Just at this moment, the iron gate of the Sihang Warehouse magically opened.