Chapter 14 The Darkest Moment

After the fierce explosions, a dense rain of bullets poured from the Lunan Detachment's positions.

Many of the Japanese soldiers in Tanaka Tsubasa's company, who were charging at the front, had already fallen in the explosions. Even those who hadn't been blown down were mowed down by indiscriminate machine-gun fire in a moment of stunned confusion.

The situation was no different for the entire Sakai Yuto battalion. They were all enjoying the "big gift package" carefully prepared by the Fourth Regiment.

Captain Tanaka Tsubasa wiped the blood off his face, unsure whose it was that had splattered all over him.

Tanaka Tsubasa was a clever commander. He immediately threw himself down during the first wave of explosions.

He had luckily avoided the directional mine blasts, and the subsequent rain of bullets posed less of a threat to him.

In front of him, many fallen Japanese soldiers struggled, perfectly serving as his shields.

The bullets whizzed past, hitting the fallen soldiers, making their wails even more tragic or silencing them altogether.

Captain Tanaka Tsubasa buried his face deeply, wishing he could burrow a tunnel in the wilderness to escape back.

That's how he got the blood on his face and body. Tanaka Tsubasa crawled along the ground, clinging to the earth like a maggot wriggling through a latrine, inching back bit by bit.

Battalion Commander Sakai Yuto was in the same situation. There was no difference in his predicament. He too was inching back, trying to keep his entire body pressed to the ground.

The two captains crawled back in utter disarray, signaling the failure of the carefully planned breakout operation that they had prepared for all night.

Most of the Japanese soldiers who had charged with them lay groaning on the wilderness, like drowned dogs that had been beaten senseless.

The two captains completely disregarded the Lunan Detachment's demands. They returned in haste, paying no attention to the Japanese soldiers who had followed them into the charge.

The only thing on the minds of Sakai Yuto and Uehara Tetsuya at this moment were their own survival.

They all looked like demons from hell, covered in blood, the blood of other Japanese soldiers.

From elation to despair, it took Commander Aso Isoji less than a second.

One moment his troops were advancing triumphantly, and the next they were strewn across the wilderness.

Most of his troops had fallen in the fierce explosions. Commander Aso had now recovered from the numbness of the initial shock.

At this moment, he heard dense gunfire and explosions coming from the rear. The wounded soldiers who had been left behind were facing the Fourth Regiment's real attack.

Regiment Commander Shan Chengfu decided to leave the Japanese soldiers who had charged from the original position to the first line of defense where they were: the benefit of doing this was that the Japanese were concentrated, making them easier to manage.

Only a regiment's worth of soldiers was needed to surround the remaining Japanese in an iron-tight encirclement.

To leave these Japanese with some lingering hope, the Fourth and Eleventh Regiments didn't fire a single shot after blowing them up.

They let them retreat in fear and trepidation.

What else could Commander Aso do at this point?

He could only order his soldiers to take advantage of the lull in the enemy fire to drag the wounded soldiers back to the trenches.

The trenches of the Fourth Regiment were wide and spacious. Although directional mines had been planted in them, they hadn't been damaged too badly.

Now, they conveniently provided a place for Aso's troops to settle down.

Battalion Commander Sakai Yuto and Uehara Tetsuya, Commander Aso's remaining subordinates, had both survived.

Together with the three company commanders who had returned, they finally tallied up that there were only 157 uninjured Japanese soldiers left in the entire regiment, about the size of a company.

There were over 300 wounded, and more were being dragged back, so the count was inaccurate, only an estimate.

As for the wounded soldiers who had been rescued yesterday, they were now under heavy attack.

They had seen the entire regiment's breakout attempt thwarted, the commander's plan to break through at one point and then launch a full-scale counterattack.

It had just begun and had already been declared a failure. The darkness before dawn had passed, and the situation within this distance of a few hundred meters, less than a kilometer, was clear to both sides. Commander Aso and the wounded Japanese soldiers who were still holding out on the other side looked at each other with tearful eyes, speechless with despair.

Squad Leader Ishifuku Yūsho had been stabbed in the right hand in yesterday's battle. He could have escaped with Commander Aso.

However, he insisted on staying behind and was promoted to company commander, commanding all the remaining wounded Japanese soldiers to hold their ground.

Company Commander Ishifuku Yūsho firmly believed that the commander would break through and then turn back to bring them out.

When he saw Commander Aso's troops begin their breakout attempt, he began to cheer them on.

He watched as Commander Aso's troops occupied the enemy's first line of defense without encountering any resistance.

The temporarily formed Ishifuku Company cheered with excitement.

When the flashes of fire appeared and the smoke filled the air, they could no longer see clearly into the distance. The hearts of these Japanese soldiers were filled with anxiety.

In this situation, the Lunan Detachment also launched an attack on them.

Company Commander Ishifuku Yūsho directed the wounded soldiers to fight bravely, still hoping that Commander Aso would fight back to reinforce them.

In the minds of these Japanese soldiers, there were only two possibilities: one was that the commander and his troops had broken through, joined forces with the Nakajima Regiment, and would fight back to rescue them.

The other possibility was that the commander and his troops had not broken through, retreated, and would join the battle against the charging Lunan Detachment, and they would be rescued.

Either way, the entire Ishifuku Yūsho Company could be saved.

It was with this thought in mind that these two hundred or so Japanese soldiers fought so bravely.

The darkest moment before dawn passed, and the smoke in the distance dissipated with the morning breeze.

The Japanese soldiers of Ishifuku Yūsho Company suddenly realized that Commander Aso and his troops had stopped on the line of defense they had occupied.

They were neither breaking out nor turning back to rescue the wounded soldiers who were still holding out.

Most importantly, the passage between them was still open.

Suddenly, all the Japanese soldiers in Ishifuku Yūsho Company understood: they had been abandoned.

Of course, these Japanese soldiers didn't want to die here. They needed to survive.

So some of the lightly wounded Japanese soldiers stood up and charged towards Commander Aso's troops.

Along the way, there were no soldiers of the Lunan Detachment to stop them, and these wounded Japanese soldiers could still charge forward through the rain of bullets.

With the first Japanese soldier deserting the battlefield, a second followed. Soon, dozens of Japanese soldiers followed suit.

All the Japanese soldiers in Ishifuku Yūsho Company, except for those with leg injuries who couldn't escape, threw down their weapons and began to run. Company Commander Ishifuku Yūsho had no choice but to run as well.

Of the nearly three hundred wounded soldiers who had originally held the position, only forty or so who hadn't died completely remained on the battlefield.

These Japanese soldiers were also disheartened. They laid down their weapons and lay in the trenches, no longer firing.

These severely wounded soldiers had already lost the most blood and needed to replenish their fluids the most.

As a result, they still hadn't had any water for over ten hours and were already dizzy with thirst.

Now, seeing a Japanese soldier who had just been killed on the battlefield, with blood still flowing from his body, Nodai Taichi could no longer bear it. He was so thirsty that his throat felt like it was on fire.

Nodai Taichi, like a wild dog, pounced on the still-bleeding corpse and greedily lapped up the blood.

He felt that no flavor had ever been so delicious, and he drank for three minutes straight.

When he raised his head, he saw several Japanese soldiers looking at him with strange eyes.

He grinned and said, "It tastes great! You should all try it."

The corners of Nodai Taichi's mouth were still stained with Japanese blood. His bloody mouth opened towards the several severely wounded soldiers who couldn't escape.

The condition of these severely wounded soldiers was no better than his. They had lost more blood than the lightly wounded or even uninjured soldiers and were much thirstier.

Seeing that Nodai Taichi could drink blood, the other wounded soldiers immediately thought that if he could drink it, so could they.

When Tenth Regiment Commander Zhao Zheng led his troops onto the Japanese position, he saw dozens of Japanese soldiers lying on the corpses, drinking blood.

There were too many Japanese soldiers and not enough corpses. Several Japanese soldiers shared a single corpse, drinking from it. Some Japanese soldiers even felt that the wounds on the corpses weren't big enough, so they used their bayonets to cut long, deep gashes, so they could stick their heads in and drink blood. The way they looked was no different from wild dogs eating corpses.

This scene shocked the soldiers of the Tenth Regiment. These men had only recently been transferred from the militia to the regular army.

Although they had heard many stories about the cruelty of the Japanese soldiers, this was the first time they had seen Japanese soldiers eating people. They were really eating people!

No wonder they weren't considered human, but were called "devils." They were truly devils who ate human flesh and drank human blood!

Without Regiment Commander Zhao giving the order, the soldiers of the Tenth Regiment swarmed forward, bayonets flashing, and quickly stabbed the Japanese soldiers on the position to death.

Regiment Commander Zhao led the Tenth Regiment to pursue the fleeing wounded Japanese soldiers. They didn't chase too far, stopping about two hundred meters from the Japanese soldiers.

Company Commander Ishifuku Yūsho and the wounded soldiers finally rushed to the trench occupied by Commander Aso and his troops.

Nearly three hundred Japanese soldiers from the Ishifuku Yūsho Company who had been left behind had inadvertently retreated in less than ten minutes.

By the time they reached this place, there were fewer than a hundred Japanese soldiers left. None of these wounded soldiers who had been fortunate enough to join the main force of the Aso Regiment dared to complain.

They all knew that neither the battalion commander nor the regimental commander would be in a good mood at this time.

If any Japanese soldier dared to say anything out of place, he would immediately be suppressed by the battalion commander and the regimental commander.

When Commander Aso faced Company Commander Ishifuku Yūsho, he showed no embarrassment, nor did he reprimand him for not holding the position.

Instead, he encouraged Company Commander Ishifuku with a smile: "You! Able to adapt to the situation, leading so many brave warriors out of the encirclement, showing great intelligence. Well done!"

These few words moved the originally uneasy Company Commander Ishifuku Yūsho to tears.

He choked up, using a hoarse voice to describe how fierce the Lunan Detachment's firepower was, and how stubbornly the Japanese soldiers under his command had fought.

The entire Ishifuku Yūsho Company had killed hundreds of Lunan Detachment soldiers who had charged forward, and then retreated while fighting under the charge of thousands of Lunan soldiers.

As he reported excitedly in a hoarse voice to Vice Commander Aso, Commander Aso actively turned his gaze from the northern position to the south.

He was hoping that a miracle would appear on the road to the south.

The soldiers of the Tenth Regiment began to dig trenches again, and the soldiers of the Fourth Regiment in the other direction were also digging trenches.

The trenches dug by the two regiments in the four directions of southeast, northwest, and northeast interconnected, resembling the moats dug when building cities in ancient times.

It was just that there was no water in this four-sided moat. Its purpose was not to protect the city, but to surround the Japanese soldiers.

The remaining Japanese soldiers of the Aso Regiment were all surrounded in this small area.

In this narrow area, less than four hundred meters from north to south and less than two hundred meters from east to west, were huddled nearly five hundred of the last remaining Japanese soldiers of the Aso Regiment.

Among these Japanese soldiers, more than three hundred were wounded, and only more than one hundred were uninjured.

The phenomenon of drinking human blood that had occurred on the other side was not accidental. Here among the Japanese soldiers, many also had blood on their mouths.

They were already hungry and thirsty, and they had just launched a big charge, so their throats, which were already parched, were even more parched.

At this time, they dared to taste any liquid that could flow. The corpses that had just died and were still bleeding were undoubtedly tempting to these Japanese soldiers.

The first Japanese soldier dared to try it, and the second followed. In the end, even Commander Aso tried some.

At first, he felt a little nauseous, but after drinking a few more mouthfuls, he actually tasted a sweet flavor in the blood.

With the replenishment of this blood, the remaining few hundred Japanese soldiers were even more energetic than before the charge.

Now they finally knew that dead Japanese soldiers were good Japanese soldiers.

Earlier they had only dragged back the wounded, but now it was not too late to understand. These Japanese soldiers immediately rushed out and began to snatch corpses. These were lives, lives that could quench their thirst and allow them to live on!

The soldiers of the Fourth and Tenth Regiments had surrounded the Aso Regiment as tightly as an iron bucket.

According to the regimental commander's instructions, as long as the Japanese soldiers did not try to break out, they should be ignored.

Therefore, the thousands of soldiers watched as the Japanese soldiers sneaked out of the trenches, dragged a corpse back, and quickly returned to the trenches.

They looked just like rats stealing grain!

Commander Aso looked at the road to the south, hoping that Commander Nakajima Ayumu would suddenly appear at the other end of the road, behind the Lunan Detachment, with thousands of Japanese soldiers.

That way, he could lead the remaining Japanese soldiers of the Aso Regiment in another coordinated attack from the inside and outside.

Commander Nakajima Ayumu, on whom Commander Aso had placed so much hope, had a zero percent chance of appearing.

As soon as Regiment Commander Anping gave the order, the entire Nakajima Ayumu Regiment was bombed.

These Japanese soldiers, who had traveled hundreds of miles in a forced march from Xuzhou, had never imagined that they would be ambushed less than ten miles from their destination.

Ninety miles of the hundred-mile journey had been very safe! This left Commander Nakajima Ayumu, standing dumbfounded in the smoke, speechless.

After the explosion, the flares that rose into the sky made him realize that his troops had been surrounded.

What good intentions could these troops surrounding them have?

They definitely wanted their lives!

In fact, even the recent wave of explosions had already claimed the lives of many Japanese soldiers.

There were also many Japanese soldiers who had been wounded and had not yet died, moaning and wailing loudly.

These Japanese soldiers were different from those of the Aso Regiment. Although the Japanese soldiers of the Nakajima Regiment were exhausted from the journey, they were not hungry or thirsty.

The sounds they made were still very loud, unlike the wounded Japanese soldiers of the Aso Regiment, whose moans were as faint as the buzz of mosquitoes, even when they were on the verge of death.

Although Commander Nakajima Ayumu had lived a life of debauchery in the city for nearly a year, he was still a commander.

After regaining his composure, he immediately ordered: "Lie down! Counterattack!"

Under the bright flares, he had already seen countless gun muzzles firing from both sides of the road.

The cruciform muzzle flashes of those guns, even in the light of the flares, could still be seen clearly in the darkness before dawn.

Although he couldn't determine how far away those weapons were, he could see that there were many machine guns among those weapons.

The troops ambushing the Nakajima Regiment had strong firepower! And now, the entire Nakajima Regiment only had light machine guns.

Heavy weapons such as heavy machine guns and infantry guns were all in Xuzhou City. Even now, not many of their light machine guns could fire.

Many of the Japanese soldiers in the regiment were still in a daze, not yet awake from the sudden attack.

As Commander Nakajima Ayumu's order was issued, the Japanese soldiers began to shout to each other to pass on his order. The speed at which such an order was relayed down a nearly two-kilometer-long column was very fast.

When all the Japanese soldiers had received the order, they finally lay down on the road and in the drainage ditches on both sides of the road.

They began to return fire!

Although the drainage ditches on both sides of the road were not deep or wide, they had become the most reliable fortifications and fortresses for the Nakajima Regiment in the current situation.

Commander Nakajima Ayumu lay diagonally in the drainage ditch, directing the fighting of the entire regiment.

Now it was still dark, and the distance he could see was not far, only able to see some of the situation not far away in the light of the flares.

These flares were all launched by the Lunan Detachment, with a clear target: to illuminate the Japanese soldiers on the road and on both sides of the road.

This made life very difficult for the Japanese soldiers who were in the open. Although they could also counterattack in the direction of the muzzle flashes, they ultimately couldn't see as clearly or shoot as accurately as the enemy.

The soldiers of the Lunan Detachment used bazookas to bombard the Japanese infantry gathered together, and used infantry guns to bombard the Japanese infantry gathered together.

This caused the Japanese soldiers, who had been caught off guard by the sudden attack and had huddled together for warmth, to suffer a second wave of heavy casualties after suffering a first wave of heavy casualties.

Lin Fan saw all of this and had only one order: to surround the Japanese soldiers before dawn and not launch an assault.

The four regiments of the Lunan Detachment surrounding the Japanese soldiers really took advantage of the terrain.

Their trenches were built a hundred meters from the road, and the well-constructed fortifications were piled with two layers of sandbags. The machine guns and rifles of all the soldiers were extended through the firing holes left between the sandbags.

The Japanese soldiers of the Nakajima Regiment had been counterattacking for so long, but at most they could only hit the sandbags.

By this point in the battle, not a single soldier in the Lunan Detachment had even suffered a minor injury.

This made the several regimental commanders very happy. Such close-range shooting was just like regular target practice.

Especially the two newly promoted regiments, the Ninth and Eleventh Regiments, who were fighting alongside the main force regiments.

Regiment Commander Tian Huacai and Regiment Commander Qian Gui were both on the front line, giving instructions to their soldiers, telling them to relax and aim at the Japanese soldiers before firing.

Pan Zhong of the First Company of the Ninth Regiment looked out from the sights and saw a Japanese soldier cautiously crawling on the road, with a corpse in front of him to shield his figure.

The Japanese soldier nervously poked his head out and fired a shot in his direction.

Then he quickly retracted his head. Pan Zhong had already aimed his rifle at the spot where the head had just appeared, patiently waiting for the Japanese soldier to poke his head out again.

Kobayashi Koichi felt very good. He was on the road, using two corpses as cover.

He poked his head out, fired a shot, and then ducked down, waiting a while before poking his head out to fire another shot.

This tactic had prevented him from having any problems for so long. The Japanese soldiers in his unit, seeing that he had been firing all the time, even thought he was brave.

The soldiers on the other side didn't have time to hit him, allowing him to continue to be arrogant.

Kobayashi Koichi poked his head out again, but before he could pull the trigger on his rifle, the muzzle flashes of the guns in the distance flickered one after another. They were really beautiful.

His thoughts stopped there. Pan Zhong had waited for him for so long. Seeing the Japanese soldier poke his head out, he immediately fired.

One shot to the head! Kobayashi Koichi's head was like a ripe watermelon that had been smashed with a hammer. The red, white, and purple colors all exploded out.

Pan Zhong smiled with satisfaction this time: "Even the most cunning fox can't escape the old hunter's rifle."

He was looking for the next target. Deng Xian heard his murmur. These two had always been inseparable.

He immediately knew that Pan Zhong must have killed a Japanese soldier. He couldn't afford to lose.

Deng Xian was also trying hard to find a target. There were many Japanese soldiers surrounded in the middle, so there were naturally many targets.

However, there were also many Lunan Detachment soldiers surrounding the Japanese soldiers with four regiments, so it was often impossible to be sure whether the Japanese soldier that was aimed for had been killed.

This made Deng Xian a little depressed. He had no choice but to search for targets again and again.

Fortunately, there were many Japanese soldiers surrounded, so there was no shortage of targets.

The darkness before dawn was the darkest time. Commander Nakajima Ayumu didn't know the surrounding terrain, nor could he organize the Japanese soldiers to launch an assault.

He could only order the entire regiment to lie down and counterattack, persevering while waiting for the darkness to pass.