Chapter 147

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Protagonist:

Lv Muzhi

The main force of Zhou Weiguo's Armored Tank Regiment surged forward like a torrent of steel, slamming hard into the flank of the Japanese 43rd Infantry Regiment.

The Type 3 Tank Company led the charge, aiming at the enemy tanks' flanks and opening fire; the 50mm long-barrel guns fired first.

"Gunner in position! Aim at that Type 89, armor-piercing shell!" Zhou Weiguo, as the tank commander of a Type 3 tank, issued the order.

"Main gun loaded!"

Boom!

The shell precisely struck the side of a Type 89 Medium Tank; everyone saw a ball of fire, followed by a muffled sound from inside the hit Type 89.

"Ammunition rack on fire! Put out the fire!"

The Japanese tank commander shouted, but his cry was soon drowned out by the explosion; the entire tank was torn apart by internal ammunition detonation, and the turret was blown off.

"Enemy tanks, six o'clock!" the Japanese infantry accompanying the battle shouted loudly in warning.

The Japanese tank units turned one after another to meet Zhou Weiguo's tank force appearing on their left flank.

"Gunner in position! Aim at that enemy tank equipped with a long gun barrel!" The commander of a Japanese Type 89 Light Tank discovered Zhou Weiguo's twelve strange tanks and immediately decided to ram them.

With a boom, the Japanese tank was simply overjoyed, blasting a ball of fire directly onto the frontal armor of a Youth Army experimental Type 3 tank with a single shot.

"Yoshi! Good shot!"

But after the smoke cleared, the hit Type 3 tank merely paused, then continued forward to attack.

"Masa ka (Impossible)? Failed to penetrate?!" the Japanese gunner shouted in frustration.

The little devil continued loading shells inside the Type 89 Medium Tank when another tank shell, flying from who knows where, directly penetrated the Type 89 Medium Tank's armor.

"Tank commander penetrated!" the Japanese driver shouted in despair, and thick smoke billowed inside the tank.

This time Zhou Weiguo dispatched a total of three tank companies: two Type 38 Light Tank Companies and one Type 3 Tank Company, thirty-six tanks in all.

One Type 38 Light Tank Company accompanied an infantry company in raiding the little devils' rear, while the other Type 38 Light Tank Company and the Type 3 Tank Company fought the Japanese tank units together.

The Type 3 tank had thicker armor and led the attack formation at the front, while the Type 38 formation provided fire support from behind the Type 3 tanks.

A particularly unlucky Type 94 Tankette had barely emerged when it was targeted by a 37mm gun from a Type 38 Light Tank.

With a boom, it stopped in place and burst into flames.

"Nice!" Seeing the shell drill straight into the tankette's driver's compartment, the Type 38's tank commander knew this little tank was doomed.

The Japanese tank formation suddenly became much more chaotic; Tank Squadron Leader Takasaki, riding in a Type 89 Medium Tank, watched his comrades turn into fireballs one after another through the observation window, and was terrified.

"Baka yarō, Izumi gunner, counterattack immediately!"

With a boom, the gunner fired a shell, but it missed the Youth Army's tanks.

"Missed!" Squadron Leader Takasaki shouted.

Immediately afterward, the Japanese tank's side was pierced by a 37mm shell.

"Gunner penetrated!"

The squadron leader looked down and saw the gunner's chest had become a bloody hole; the machine gunner and driver were also dazed, their faces covered in blood.

"Hey! Are you still alive?" Squadron Leader Takasaki kicked the driver and machine gunner with his foot.

The Japanese driver was still alive, touching the blood and flesh on his face.

Squadron Leader Takasaki hurriedly ordered the driver to reverse, and the whole unit withdrew from the battlefield.

"Victory or defeat is common in war; turn around quickly!"

Squadron Leader Takasaki realized the enemy's tanks were obviously more advanced; whether it was the Type 3 Medium Tank or the Type 38 Light Tank, both could penetrate his armor, and moreover Zhou Weiguo had struck first, so he had to return to rearrange his tactics.

The Japanese tank driver had been left dazed by the shell explosion and began reversing without thinking.

Clang! The Japanese Type 89 Medium Tank reversed into a fish pond.

"Damn it! What are you doing, driving into a pool."

"Hurry up, you bastard, the enemy is charging up!"

The driver also lost his temper and stomped on the accelerator: "Squadron Leader Takasaki, you should know, tanks don't have rearview mirrors!"

With a boom, another shell came flying, this time directly blowing the Type 89 Medium Tank's turret off; Squadron Leader Takasaki's own corpse flew along with the turret into the fish pond, becoming food for the fish.

The Japanese tank force was soon defeated; the surviving two or three tankettes turned around and fled, leaving Kazuo Asama's 43rd Infantry Regiment and Luo Zhuoying's 11th Division facing off.

Kazuo Asama saw this wouldn't do, and then received Matsui Iwane's urgent order to return to defense: "The Liao Yaoxiang Brigade is advancing unobstructed and has already approached the Shizilin Position; turn around and return to defend immediately!"

From the afternoon when the Japanese naval guns began bombarding, the fighting lasted until the next morning before stopping.

At the Luozhan Right Wing Position, the little devils left behind nineteen tank wrecks and the corpses of hundreds of infantrymen, withdrawing from the battlefield in dejection.

Zhou Weiguo's tank force also suffered losses: two Type 38 tanks were destroyed and four damaged, and they could only wait for subsequent tank and personnel reinforcements.

Meanwhile, at the Luozhan Left Wing Position, the Liao Yaoxiang Brigade moved as if through empty territory; taking advantage of the Japanese opening battle lines everywhere and leaving their rear empty, they nearly wiped out Cangyong Chengzhi's Sixth Regiment and captured all their artillery.

Post-battle statistics showed that, excluding logistics, Cangyong Chengzhi's Sixth Regiment had only two squadrons of combat personnel left to commit to action.

Meanwhile, Huang Wei was also at the Luozhan Front Position, successfully blocking the Eighteenth Regiment's attack.

The Japanese offensive against Luodian could be described as coming in haste and leaving in haste; they came with great momentum and naval gunfire clearing the way, but in the end they still retreated in dejection.

At the Nanxiang Command Post, the Youth Army set aside part of an underground shelter used for hiding guns as a field hospital.

After days of continuous campaigning, more than five hundred lightly and seriously wounded from the Youth Army lay in the field hospital; as for the dead, from the attack on the Navy Command Headquarters until now, there were also over three hundred.

For the dead, Lv Muzhi could do nothing but issue relatively generous pensions and, on the premise of respecting the families' wishes, relocate them to the Southwest to provide stable jobs in factories.

At least in the Southwest, many schools, shops, hospitals, and so on had already been built around the factories, and employment positions could be promptly provided to the families of martyrs and servicemen.

The field hospital was also filled with wounded from other troops, with the Fifteenth Group Army having the most wounded, especially the 67th Division and 98th Division that had previously defended the beachhead positions, with over a thousand wounded and not a few dead.

Lv Muzhi could estimate that the number of Ghost infantry killed, including both army and marine corps, had already exceeded six thousand, and as for the wounded, the number was absolutely not small.

After the Battle of Luodian, the Ghosts did not dare to launch an attack easily, but relied on their warships for support, guarded the nearby beachhead, and waited for reinforcements to arrive; Lv Muzhi and Chen Cheng were not in a hurry to go find a fight either, and both sides tacitly began to rest and reorganize.

Because Lv Muzhi and the others were also waiting for reinforcements to enter the field, to continue fighting this battle required elite troops and ordinary troops to coordinate with each other.

Chen Cheng and Lv Muzhi inspected the field hospital and saw many wounded soldiers.

The weather in early September in Shanghai was still abnormally hot; many soldiers with light wounds did not recover, and even a slight scrape could easily lead to infection and inflammation.

Most of the medicines used by the wounded came from Jinling, and Lv Muzhi did not need to provide them; however, Lv Muzhi had anticipated the efficiency and corruption of fruit preserves, so before the war began, he had purchased a large amount of sulfonamide through his own channels to supplement the medical teams at all levels of the Youth Army.

Youth Army soldiers who were wounded still had their own sulfonamide available for priority use to reduce inflammation, but the quantity was decreasing more and more.

Chen Cheng was quite helpless; the medicines allocated from Jinling were mostly bandages and alcohol, with not much sulfonamide for inflammation, which had to be reserved for officers, and he himself was not like Lv Muzhi, who had money and channels to purchase sulfonamide himself.

"Muzi, there isn't much sulfonamide from Jinling for inflammation; I know you have stockpiled some—could you lend me some first? I will definitely ask the Ministry of Military Administration to repay you later!"

Lv Muzhi frowned; it was not that he was unwilling to lend to Chen Cheng, but rather he remembered the penicillin Sam had arranged: why had this penicillin still not arrived?

Sam's penicillin had not arrived, but Hans State's advisor William had come to the field hospital.

William had boarded the Ghosts' warship a few days ago, which he knew about, and today he came to Lv Muzhi's place—was he not here to say goodbye?