The Aso Isoroku Regiment's devils were happily searching for shady spots to rest when suddenly, they were subjected to a fierce artillery bombardment. Their dreams of relaxation were instantly shattered, and each one could only struggle for survival under the relentless barrage.

Captain Daisuke Inukai, a seasoned veteran, heard the whistling of incoming shells as he stood. Without hesitation, he threw himself to the ground, the most prudent action in such a situation.

Indeed, he and his guards managed to take cover, but the nearby warhorses remained standing calmly, their large eyes reflecting bewildered expressions.

"Boom!" Explosions erupted, sending countless fragments flying in all directions, many of which struck the horses.

The warhorses screamed and fell. The explosions gave Captain Inukai a sudden realization: it was over!

This wasn't due to a lack of fighting spirit or inherent cowardice, but rather his extensive combat experience.

Though unable to count the exact number of explosions, Captain Inukai could discern from the sheer volume that at least several hundred shells were detonating.

Hundreds of shells! That meant hundreds of cannons!

Captain Inukai had confidence in himself, but he knew that even the greatest confidence was useless against hundreds of iron cannons.

He understood this clearly. As a captain in the North China Area Army, he had witnessed the Empire's defeat on the border last month.

Their infantry simply couldn't withstand the enemy's steel torrent.

Regardless of what the other devils thought, Captain Inukai felt a growing sense of fear.

After the first wave of shells exploded, all the surrounding warhorses had fallen, yet he remained unharmed. As Captain Inukai prepared to rise, he heard the familiar whistling sound of compressed air again.

He could only continue to lie prone. This time, prepared, Captain Inukai carefully counted the explosions, attempting to deduce the number of cannons involved in the bombardment.

He counted just over a hundred explosions this time. Why were there so few all of a sudden?

Captain Inukai didn't understand. He couldn't determine the type of shells being used from the sound of the explosions.

The main force following behind was subjected to a fierce artillery bombardment. The two companies serving as scouts finally decided to charge in the direction from which the shells were coming.

Captain Aso Akito and Captain Yuto Yuto shared the same thought: the best way to save the entire regiment was to attack.

Occupying the enemy's artillery positions or forcing them to cease firing was the only way to truly rescue the regiment.

The entire regiment was being bombarded by an unseen enemy. Even if they wanted to resist or retaliate, they couldn't find a target.

The two companies of devils quickly advanced in the direction of the incoming shells.

The order to bombard the devils was given by Lin Fan. They had arrived here two hours earlier, and the artillery had immediately begun firing test shots to determine the optimal firing parameters.

Lin Fan watched as the main force of devils entered the bombardment zone, then ordered the artillery to open fire.

The artillery positions were four *li* away. They couldn't see the devils, but the firing parameters for each cannon had been obtained from earlier test shots.

Once the devils entered the designated bombardment zone, the artillery batteries only needed to fire according to the pre-set parameters upon receiving the order.

The fastest rate of fire came from the mortars, which were firing at a rate of one shell every five seconds.

The soldiers methodically and skillfully loaded shells into the tubes, launching them one after another before immediately starting the next round of bombardment.

Six regiments were involved in this ambush of the Aso Infantry Regiment. The three regular infantry regiments had a combined total of 180 mortars and 72 infantry guns, for a total of 252 cannons.

The other three regiments, recently converted from security regiments into regular regiments, had not yet been fully equipped with artillery, but they still had about 100 cannons of various types.

However, considering the need for close-range artillery support during the ambush, Lin Fan had extracted three mortars from each company, resulting in more than 100 mortars at the artillery positions.

The slowest rate of fire came from the rocket launchers. There were twelve rocket launchers at these positions, each firing 144 rockets at once.

However, it took longer to reload for the second round of firing.

This was because loading twelve rockets took considerably more time. Moreover, in the three rocket companies present, only one person behind each of the twelve rocket launchers was a skilled operator; the rest had only seen this type of cannon the day before yesterday.

But during the first strike, the most powerful weapons were these twelve rocket launchers. The first round of bombardment had already disrupted the devils' formation.

The four regiments, hidden 800 meters away on both sides of the highway, had yet to fire a single shot. All the soldiers were still awaiting orders.

After the initial, most intense bombardment, the devils of the entire Aso Regiment sensed that while the subsequent bombardment was still fierce, it seemed less intense than at the beginning.

Just as they thought this, the second round of rocket fire arrived, and another large wave of explosions erupted. Surrounded by the explosions, Regiment Commander Aso Isoroku could only continue to crawl on the ground.

He had given up on standing. With such dense artillery fire, even lying prone offered no guarantee of safety, let alone standing up under these conditions.

Regiment Commander Aso crawled on the ground, feeling the constant tremors. He had to strain his neck and look around, trying to find a suitable place to take cover.

Although his guards formed a human shield around him, Regiment Commander Aso still felt no sense of security. But this was the last resort for his guards.

The artillery bombardment was extremely fierce. The area was filled with smoke and dust. Regiment Commander Aso forced himself to remain calm.

He could hear the sound of shells flying from afar, cutting through the air; he also heard the sound of explosions; but he didn't hear any gunfire, no shouts.

"Could it be! This time, the enemy is only using artillery bombardment?" Thinking of this, Regiment Commander Aso gave an order.

"Continue forward! Quickly pass through the bombardment zone!"

The signal soldier immediately relayed the regiment commander's order: "Continue forward! Quickly pass through the bombardment zone!"

Upon receiving the order, the devils immediately acted. With a direction to move in, they began charging forward again.

In reality, the Aso Akito Battalion, which had been under bombardment, was already advancing forward before receiving the order.

This battalion was at the front of the entire main force. The devils had noticed a strange phenomenon: the two companies scouting at the very front had not been bombarded.

The devils of the entire Aso Akito company couldn't just sit and wait to die, so they also charged forward, attempting to break out of the bombarded zone.

To Captain Aso's disappointment, the shells seemed to have eyes, following his troops as they moved.

Some devils charged forward on the highway, while others thought about returning the way they had come, but they had only run less than thirty meters before being called back by Regiment Commander Aso Isoroku's order.

Some devils also rushed off the highway like ducks, charging into the open fields on both sides. This time, the skies above them were quiet, and there was no more artillery fire. These devils seemed to have found a glimmer of hope.

More devils rushed off the road and into the open fields. They shouted to the large group of devils struggling on the highway, urging them to come down and escape the bombardment.

The devils in the midst of the artillery bombardment didn't notice a squadron of warplanes flying in from the distant horizon.

Lin Fan saw them. He ordered the two artillery positions to cease firing.

The Lunan Detachment's ground attack aircraft were coming, so he couldn't let his own artillery continue to bombard the area. Otherwise, it would be bad if they accidentally hit his own planes.

Although the artillery had stopped firing, there were still planes strafing. It was time for the infantry regiments to move. Lin Fan ordered: "Everyone put on your helmets, prepare for battle."

Just now, fearing that the reflection from their helmets would attract the devils' attention, all eight thousand soldiers here had taken off their helmets.

Now, Lin Fan had to specifically order the soldiers to put on their helmets, fearing that some soldiers might get agitated and charge out without them.

Twenty ground attack aircraft had already begun their dive. Dong Yanghua was leading this flight formation, having arrived here only a few days ago.

Upon receiving the order to attack, these pilots had already been waiting at the airfield for more than two hours.

They took off immediately upon receiving the order. Although there were only twenty ground attack aircraft, a total of forty aircraft took off from the airfield, with another twenty fighter planes escorting them.

Weakness in air combat was the biggest disadvantage of ground attack aircraft.

After taking off from Feixian Airport, it took them more than forty minutes to reach Zhao Village. Now was the time for these planes to perform.

They could see smoke billowing ahead, and as they flew closer, they could clearly see that this was the battlefield.

The devils on the highway were lying prone and motionless, and there weren't many devils running around in the fields either. This was where ground attack aircraft could be most effective.

There were no mountains below, and even the highest mounds didn't exceed thirty meters. The ground attack aircraft could easily lower their altitude and sweep across the area.

The devils of the Aso Regiment suddenly felt that the bombardment had stopped. The sudden silence made their desperately fleeing footsteps stop abruptly. There were still many wounded devils in the bombarded area.

These devils needed to be rescued. Regiment Commander Aso Isoroku was also standing in the open field at this time, looking at the devils lying on the highway.

He ordered: "Halt the advance! Quickly rescue the wounded." He also ordered: "Immediately report the regiment's artillery bombardment situation to the brigade commander."

The Aso Regiment's usual rigorous training immediately became apparent. The entire regiment quickly recovered during this brief period of calm.

Those devils who had been desperately fleeing just now turned back and began to rescue the wounded devils.

At this moment, the roar of warplane engines could be heard. The devils of the Aso Regiment, who had been disoriented by the artillery fire, all looked in the direction the warplanes were coming from: a large, dark mass of warplanes in the sky, flying over like a flock of birds.

"Our warplanes!" Although they couldn't clearly see what the planes looked like, this didn't stop the devils of the Aso Regiment from cheering.

In this country, only their troops could have such a large air formation in the sky, or so these devils thought.

As for the National Army's warplanes? These devils had never seen them.

Many devils at this time forgot the panic they had felt during the artillery bombardment, and also put aside the task of rescuing the wounded.

They cheered and jumped at the warplanes in the sky, and some devils even took off their helmets and threw them into the air.

Not all devils in the devil army had helmets. Their auxiliary troops only had cloth caps and no helmets.

The warplanes in the sky clearly saw the devils' cheers and flew directly towards them.

The whistling sound of the planes diving echoed across the open fields. The cheering devils didn't feel anything was wrong. The warplanes in the sky were going to give them a close-up encounter.

The sound of machine gun fire, "Da da da! Da da da!" was not as frightening as the sound of artillery explosions just now; but machine gun fire was more accurate in hitting the devils.

None of this mattered. What mattered was that the psychological damage these machine gun bullets caused to the devils far exceeded the physical damage to their bodies.

The warplanes they had been excitedly welcoming had actually come to strafe their troops. This made the devils of the Aso Regiment very unwilling to die.

The Inukai Daisuke Battalion was at the very rear of the Aso Regiment's march. They had suffered heavy casualties in the artillery bombardment, so they were the most enthusiastic in jumping and cheering when the warplanes came.

Now, they were also the first to be strafed by the warplanes. Captain Inukai crawled on the ground, stretching his neck like an old turtle and looking up at the sky above.

When the warplanes first came from the horizon, although he hadn't jumped up and cheered, he had smiled at the warplanes.

Seeing the warplanes he had treated politely so ruthlessly strafing his entire troop, Captain Daisuke Inukai also felt a sense of bitterness in his heart.

He was a devil with a penchant for statistics. Just now, four warplanes had strafed past, and before he could properly savor the experience, another four warplanes came strafing along the same path.

Further away, many more warplanes were lining up to come over. Captain Inukai could only lower his body even further and raise his head even higher, trying to understand the entire battlefield situation while protecting himself.

The ground attack warplanes that first dived down to strafe flew from south to north, strafing all the way. The entire Aso Isoroku Regiment suffered strikes from beginning to end.

Even the Aso Akito Company and the Yuto Yuto Company, which had been lucky enough to avoid the bombardment just now, were also strafed by the warplanes.

The devils of the entire Aso Regiment were completely unable to resist the great gift that the Lunan Detachment's air force had sent them, whether they rejected it or accepted it.

The strafing from the Lunan Air Brigade was delivered so densely.

The Aso Regiment was no longer able to struggle or escape. The ground attack warplanes flew slowly, but even at their slowest, they were still much faster than the devils running on foot.

No matter how hard those fleeing devils ran, they couldn't outrun these planes. Moreover, these warplanes were specifically designed to strike them.

The four machine guns under the belly of the plane kept spewing flames, with a firepower so strong that it drove the devils to despair.

Yuki Inoue was a devil in the Yuto Sakai Battalion. He had luckily survived the artillery bombardment.

He jumped the highest and smiled the widest when welcoming the warplanes. When the machine guns strafed, he also crawled the lowest.

While crawling, Sergeant Yuki Inoue heard a dense swishing sound nearby, scaring him so much that his pants became wet.

Machine gun bullets strafed the ground next to him, and the dirt that splattered up hit his face, causing a stinging sensation, as well as a wet feeling.

This time, he was wet both above and below. He knew he wet his pants: he had been scared to pee.

What was the wetness on his face?

Yuki Inoue wiped his face, looked at his palm in front of him, and jumped up in fright.

What he had wiped off was actually a handful of blood: Was I going to die?

Yuki Inoue looked at the blood on his hand and thought, then felt his head with his bloody hand. His helmet was still there, and there was nothing wrong.

He wiped his face again, and there was nothing out of place.

After calming down a little, Yuki Inoue looked around. He wanted to find a devil to see if he had been injured somewhere without realizing it.

When he looked to his left, he staggered back two steps in fright.

Lying on the ground was Yuta Anbiki. At this time, his entire body seemed to have been divided up, with bullet holes from his head all the way down to his lower body.

His head had been split in two, and one eyeball was staring intently at him.

At this moment, Yuki Inoue realized that the blood on his face was the blood that had splattered from Yuta Anbiki.

Sergeant Yuki Inoue was startled by this tragic sight and couldn't help but click his tongue: Mmm! Yuta Anbiki's blood is a little salty!

The sound of machine gun fire, "Da da da!" came from far to near. They were coming again.

Yuki Inoue quickly crawled down, this time he wanted to stay further away from Yuta Anbiki.

Sergeant Yuki Inoue crawled sideways quickly for four or five meters, the sound of machine gun fire was already close.

A bullet hit his head, and then a string of bullets followed from head to toe. Yuki Inoue's death was exactly the same as Yuta Anbiki's.

The pilots of the Lunan Detachment who were flying the ground attack warplanes watched the devils fleeing in the air and immediately chased after them to strafe, not giving the devils any chance of survival.

Dong Yanghua commanded twenty ground attack warplanes, arranged in batches of four warplanes abreast, to strafe from south to north.

Twenty warplanes were arranged in five batches, which made the Aso Regiment on the ground suffer extremely.

The machine gun strafing had been going on without stopping. Just as the previous batch of machine gun bullets had passed, the next batch had already arrived.

Faced with the sudden appearance of warplane strafing, Regiment Commander Aso Isoroku was powerless to resist. He could only call for help, calling Brigade Commander Inouye Munetake for help.

This was already the second time he had called for help in ten minutes.

Brigade Commander Inouye Munetake, who was far away in Beiping and had already boarded the train and was waiting to depart, received two consecutive emergency telegrams for help from Regiment Commander Aso.

How could he leave in peace? No matter how dissatisfied he was with Commander Yamaoka Jiro before, now he could only ask him for help.

Most of the Xuzhou Task Force was still in Beiping and hadn't departed yet. Even if they wanted to provide reinforcements, it was too late at this time.

Even the troops who arrived in Xuzhou later were a hundred *li* away from the Aso Isoroku Regiment and could not provide reinforcements in time.

The fastest reinforcements at this time could only come from the air force: warplanes departing from Xuzhou could reach the battlefield in just ten minutes, while warplanes departing from Beiping would need an hour and a half to reach the battlefield, and then they would need to land in Xuzhou.

Their current fighter planes had a maximum flight range of only more than 700 kilometers. Beiping was 500 kilometers away from the current location of the Aso Isoroku Regiment. Departing from Beiping was a bit unreliable.

However, the devils also had an air brigade in Jinan. Departing from this place, they could reach the battlefield in forty minutes.

After urgently gesturing on the map for a while, Commander Yamaoka Jiro immediately reported the current difficulties to Commander-in-Chief Terauchi Hisaichi, requesting that the air forces in Xuzhou and Jinan be dispatched to support the Aso Isoroku Regiment.

Commander-in-Chief Terauchi Hisaichi heard that a full infantry regiment of the Xuzhou Task Force had been attacked by an unknown force, and that so far they had only encountered artillery bombardment and warplane strafing, and had not yet discovered the enemy's infantry charge.

He felt his head go blank all of a sudden: What kind of tactic was this? After fighting for more than ten minutes, an infantry regiment didn't even know who their opponent was?

"Baga!" He cursed loudly in his office, pacing around non-stop.

Terauchi Hisaichi was ten thousand times unwilling to send out the air force. He was somewhat afraid of troops associated with the Special Operations Brigade: he was afraid of their anti-aircraft firepower.

Until now, the devils had not figured out why their air brigades suffered such heavy losses when they encountered the Special Operations Brigade.

But today, Commander Terauchi Hisaichi had to send out the air force: a full infantry regiment of devils was worth him sending warplanes to check it out, and to help them out a little.

After all, the devils' troops had long been fighting under the protection of devil warplanes overhead. The sudden appearance of enemy warplanes overhead would have a great impact on the morale of the devils.

Until now, the devils' air force had not been independent. They were still just a supporting role on the battlefield. Their role on the battlefield was: to have a great impact on morale, but the actual damage caused was not high.

This was because all the warplanes now were propeller-driven. Not to mention fighter planes, even the bomb load of bomber planes was not large. After dropping two or even one heavy bomb, they were out of ammunition.

But Terauchi Hisaichi didn't know that the Special Operations Brigade's ground attack warplanes had discarded a large amount of unnecessary equipment, carrying only machine guns and bullets. At the same time, they had deliberately slowed down their flight speed. All of these designs were only for targeting infantry attacks.

Regiment Commander Aso Isoroku waited in the torment of machine gun strafing and finally received good news: the air force brigade from Xuzhou Airport was departing, and the air force brigade from Jinan Airport was departing.