There was no time to know what happened outside the north wall. After a violent explosion, there were noises outside the west wall and the south wall.
They moved things nearby and stood on tiptoe, trying to use the shooting holes on the wall. The problem was that the Type 38 rifle was too long, and it was extremely inconvenient to use these small holes to shoot.
When the long gun body poked into the yard from the hole, it immediately became an obvious mark under the sunlight. It was one thing for the shooting holes on the wall to shoot outward and another thing to shoot inward. The distance was too close and the angle was limited, so the range that could be seen in the yard was not large at all. As soon as the gun was extended inside, it immediately attracted close-range shooting from inside the yard.
There was a burst of gunfire, and a Japanese soldier fell down screaming, covering his eyes that were hit by ricocheting bullets and gravel. This method didn't work, so the Japanese soldiers under the wall took out grenades and threw them inside through the wall.
Explosions occurred again and again. The entire compound was filled with smoke and flying debris from the grenades thrown in randomly. Along with the continuous explosions, there was a loud noise everywhere. All kinds of debris, food particles and sand were blown up in waves and then fell down, making a sound like hail.
Strike while the iron is hot. The Japanese squad leader decisively ordered the grenade launcher to start firing, hoping to use one wave of firepower to blow up everyone who could breathe in the yard.
After a while, the explosions stopped. There was a thick haze everywhere, smoke and dust were drifting, and the yard was dead silent.
The Japanese began to use everything nearby to build a platform outside the wall, preparing to climb the wall. One Japanese pulled out a broken ladder from somewhere, put it outside the wall, and climbed up with a gun in hand, carefully sticking out his helmet, sticking to the top of the wall to look into the yard.
The yard was full of messy grain bags, and the broken rice was scattered everywhere. The ground was white and empty, and there was no one in sight. So I slowly turned my sight to the house in the yard. The windows were all broken, but the windows were blocked by furniture, revealing a few irregular gaps. It was so dark that I couldn't see what was going on in the house.
I was wondering whether to climb over the wall or not, when I felt someone hit my calf. Another Japanese soldier also climbed up the ladder and stopped below to wait for the next step. I had no choice but to grit my teeth and climb over the wall.
Sipping—thump—
He didn't jump in, but fell directly in, and was dead when he fell into the yard. In the gaps between the cluttered furniture at the window, there was a wisp of smoke coming out of the muzzle of a Mauser pistol.
The Japanese soldiers who were about to climb over the wall stopped immediately. This wall was the gate to hell. Anyone who insisted on climbing in was a fool. One of the Japanese soldiers loudly explained the situation to the squad leader. The Eighth Route Army was hiding in the house. There was no one in the yard.
Then the grenade launcher started firing again, desperately firing at the house in the yard. The third round of explosions began to sound, and the roof was shattered in an instant, and tiles flew everywhere. After more than a dozen grenades were thrown, most of them hit the target. Although the grenade launcher had limited power, the roof was still blown to pieces and most of it collapsed. What was a bit strange was that it didn't seem to have collapsed all the way.
Not long after, with a sound of "呷呷呷—plop—another Japanese soldier fell in and was still shot by someone inside the house.
The Japanese squad leader's face began to look grim. He had not expected to encounter such a tough battle before coming. He had no explosive materials with him. If he relied on the advantage of numbers to crawl into the yard, even if he succeeded, it would be a miserable victory. How many elites of the Great Japanese Empire would it take to exchange for one local Eighth Route Army? He couldn't afford it.
Looking back, the grenades brought by the two grenade launchers had basically been used up, so the order was to stop the attack and send a Japanese soldier out of the village to find the squadron leader to explain the situation and ask him to prepare the mortars to destroy the buildings and walls in the compound, as the cost of capturing them alive was too high.
At the same time, he ordered a platoon of puppet soldiers outside the west wall to look for tools nearby, hammers, pickaxes, whatever, as long as they could be used to demolish the wall. Before using artillery fire to destroy the Tubalu, they would make a final offensive attempt.
The puppet soldiers received orders to prepare to demolish the wall. They were not good at fighting, but they were good at doing work. Some smart people even came up with a good idea. More than a dozen people carried a log and suggested to the imperial army to use a human battering ram, which would save time and effort, and won the praise of the team leader on the spot.
My head still hurts and there is a constant whistling sound in my ears.
I was lying on the ground at that time, so my reaction was the slowest. I could only roll and crawl to escape from the explosion area. Luckily, I was not hit by shrapnel, but the explosion shock was too close, and the shock in the space between the courtyard walls was louder than usual.
He came to the corner of the house with a bayonet on the end of the rifle, half-crouched beside the corner, and when the mule came to him, he stood facing the corner with his legs apart, held the machine gun level, and nodded nervously. Now he only needed to take a step sideways to the outside, and he could directly face the other side of the corner and fire.
He tried to lower his body as much as possible, quickly exposed half of his shoulder and aimed his gun. More than a dozen corpses were lying in the sun, without even a breath of wind.
Mule stayed in the corner behind him with the machine gun, while Ma Liang crouched and ran to another corner with a revolver in his hand. Runny Nose walked side by side with him, with a bayonet fixed, and walked calmly forward along the other side of the wall. The footsteps of the fool were behind him.
I passed the first corpse, poking the drooping bayonet, and then heard the runny bayonet entering the flesh.
I continued walking forward and heard the idiot stop behind me and start searching.
The corpse had half of its shoulder blown off, but it was still pierced by its own bayonet. It wasn't because I was worried, I was just used to it. When the bayonet was pulled out, not even a drop of blood was shed.
"Why is there no one alive?" Runny Nose, who was also pulling out his bayonet, suddenly asked.
Looking ahead at the bodies, it was obvious that the Japs were still trying to pick up the grenades, so he walked to the next one and answered him, "Because they have no mules," and then continued to stab the bayonet.
More than 20 puppet soldiers stood in two rows, carrying a log and came to the base of the high and thick western wall. A crooked-handled rifle was already set up at the side and aimed at the wall. The Japanese squad leader commanded a squad of Japanese soldiers, standing on both sides of the wall with bullets loaded.
"One, two, hey-ho-ho-ho"
Bang!
As the call sounded, the logs were swung by the puppet soldiers and hit hard on the green brick mud. With a heavy muffled sound, one could feel a large section of the nearby wall tremble suddenly, and broken soil from the top of the wall fell down with a crash, choking someone at the base of the wall and causing him to cough.
Twice, three times, cracks began to appear on the wall where the impact occurred.
Four times, five times, the place where it was hit had already shown signs of cracks like the growth rings of a tree stump.
Finally, accompanied by the roar of collapse, smoke and dust suddenly filled the air, and a huge gap appeared in the thick courtyard wall.
The puppet soldiers dropped the logs and ran to both sides in panic. The Type 99 light machine gun immediately began to howl and began to sweep towards the yard in the gap without hesitation. It did not stop until the dust settled and the situation in the yard could be clearly seen.
After a moment of silence, the squad leader at the gap waved to the puppet troops around him, signaling them to attack.
The puppet soldiers were dumbfounded. If they had known this would happen, why would they have built a damn wall? Who the hell was so smart to come up with this stupid idea? Why not just swing the hammer a few times and then say that it can't be broken open, and just let the mortar directly blow up the yard? Isn't this just asking for trouble
It was too late to think about anything. The Japanese squad leader's eyes had become unfathomable. The Type 99 light machine gun was mounted behind him, so he had to go up even if he didn't want to.
So the puppet soldiers took off their guns one after another, hunched their bodies, trembling with every step, and began to enter the yard with gritted teeth.
Suddenly, gunshots started coming out of the window of the house. The few people who had entered in front began to fall before they had taken a few steps. The Type 99 light machine gun immediately found a position that could suppress the house. The Japanese soldiers on both sides of the gap began to poke their heads out from the gap and fight back, while the Japanese squad leader pointed his gun at the puppet soldiers and continued to charge.
For a moment, there was a burst of gunfire near the gap in the west wall. One puppet soldier after another crawled into the yard. The Japanese soldiers hid in the gap to suppress them, and the exchange of fire was extremely fierce.
The Japanese squad leader's face looked much better now. As long as they could break in, things would be easy. There was no longer no hope of capturing them alive. Based on experience, he estimated that the battle would be over within a quarter of an hour. He kept threatening with the muzzle of his gun and kicking them from time to time, driving a platoon of puppet soldiers into the yard like driving sheep.
Inadvertently, I seemed to see a figure in my peripheral vision. I subconsciously turned my head and looked north along the wall. At the corner of the west wall and the north wall, a bear-like guy was lying on the corner and had just set up a machine gun.
This scene made the Japanese squad leader feel like he was struck by lightning. Not to mention that there was a platoon of puppet troops in the north, could it be that even my squad was gone
The machine gun fired. It was a Czech machine gun. At this time and in this position, it was unexpectedly loud and clear. The bear didn't need to aim very accurately. He just had to shoot along the wall. All of them had straight backs, those of the Japanese and the puppet army. Only the stunned team leader was facing the machine gun with his chest. His ears were filled with whistling and piercing sounds, and it was a bloody scene.
At the same time, four Eighth Route Army hats suddenly appeared from behind a courtyard wall not far away, and then four dark shadows were thrown over. The obvious ones were light grenades, and the dimmer ones were hand grenades.
The bear emptied a magazine in a flash, then he picked up the machine gun and rolled away around the corner. The four people who threw the grenades also disappeared in an instant, leaving only four explosions outside the gap, which raised red and gray mist.
A burst of bullets was fired from a Czech machine gun, followed by four explosions. After that, the gunfire gradually stopped, both inside and outside the yard, and silence fell for a while.
The Japanese squad leader outside the south wall gate realized that the gunshots and explosions outside the west wall were not right. He gave instructions to the puppet soldiers around him and led his men to run west in a hurry.
But there was one Japanese soldier who did not follow the team to the west. He was not a Japanese soldier in that squad, and even his uniform was a little different. He came with the captain of the military police and followed the small group of Japanese soldiers into the village. At this moment, he stopped at the wall not far from the gate, quietly looking at the wall, a sheep's head pattern drawn with chalk.
He reached out his hand and rubbed the pattern casually, and chalk dust and wall dust fell together, making the pattern a little blurry, faint, and unclear. Then he turned around, walked to the gate of the compound, faced the gate that was already blocked tightly, and pulled out his pistol, the Nambu Type 14.
The muzzle of the gun is pointed at the door in front of us. 呷—呷呷—呷呷呷—呷呷—
With a bit of rhythm, he fired all eight bullets in the gun in one breath, breaking the silence at the scene and leaving eight clear bullet marks on the door panel.
The puppet soldiers nearby were confused. Was this imperial soldier going to be angry? They were still speculating whether this was a seizure, when suddenly a gunshot rang out from the compound. It was abrupt and clear, as if someone had accidentally fired the gun...