Chapter 247

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Protagonist:

Lv Muzhi

Xicheng Line, Japanese forward artillery position.

Regular infantry and artillerymen instinctively stayed away from those newly opened, heavily guarded areas.

There, soldiers of a Japanese mortar battalion wearing gas masks and full rubber gas-proof suits were busily working nervously.

Ninety-four Type 90mm light mortars were ready.

"First wave, Luoshi gas shell, rapid fire! Fire!" As the gas-masked commander gave the order, roaring sounds erupted from the poison gas mortar position.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Dozens of Luoshi gas shells painted with yellow stripes, that is, Lewisite gas shells, were thrown out, flying toward the Xia Army positions.

Bang—hiss—

The explosion sound was relatively dull, and after exploding, it quickly released large clouds of yellow-green smoke.

The poison gas smoke was heavier than air, spreading close to the ground, seeping into the trenches like water, and drilling toward the Xia Guo garrison positions along low-lying terrain.

Lewisite not only had the skin-corroding effect of mustard gas, requiring gas-proof suits for defense, but also took effect faster and more fiercely, was more painful, and was cheaper.

For the remaining mustard gas shells, the Japanese did not waste them either; whatever types of poison gas shells were left in the unit were all thrown at the positions they were about to focus on attacking.

"Wind from the northeast! Light breeze!"

"Smoke vehicles, poison gas cylinder squads, advance to X Area, downwind, release poison gas!"

The Japanese poison gas operation detachment sent out several trucks equipped with large-capacity chemical agent tanks and spray devices, as well as more Japanese soldiers carrying heavy steel cylinders in pairs.

Using artillery fire and poison smoke cover, deploy trucks and steel cylinders loaded with poison gas at downwind positions.

"Open the valves!"

Hiss——

Thick smoke sprayed from the rear of the smoke vehicle, and the directly opened poison gas cylinders continuously discharged high-concentration deadly gas directly into the air, drifting with the light breeze into the Xicheng Line garrison positions.

The wind carried the mixed poison gas released from shells, smoke vehicles, and steel cylinders; the air was mixed with corrosive Lewisite, mustard gas, and suffocating phosgene, chlorine, and gas...

Wide, dense, multicolored poison fog formed in the Xicheng Line National Defense Works opposite.

Wherever the poison fog passed, oily droplets appeared on damp ground, and sparse grass leaves gradually curled and turned black.

Birds in the air that could not leave in time flapped their wings and fell from the fog, twitching a few times before no longer moving.

Xicheng Defensive Line, Position 3, the defense area of Huang Wei's 67th Division of the Fifteenth Group Army.

The poison gas alarm had long spread throughout the entire position.

All officers and soldiers in open and concealed firepower points, observation posts, and communication trenches received the highest-level poison gas alarm.

"I repeat!"

"Put on your gas masks! Ensure airtightness!"

"Fire teams hold your positions, put on gas-proof suits, and check your equipment!"

"Non-essential personnel, immediately enter the gas mask fortress! Close the sealed doors!"

Division Commander Huang Wei was currently in a battalion-level command post at the front; this place was also a reinforced semi-underground bunker, but not an absolutely safe gas mask fortress.

He, like the staff officers and signalmen, had already put on full sets of rubber gas-proof suits and gas masks.

The gas-proof suit was slightly cumbersome and inconvenient to move in; the smell of rubber mixed with his own exhaled breath circulated inside the mask, and his vision was somewhat obstructed, but this was currently the most reliable life-saving equipment.

Thanks to the training and support sent by Chu Yunfei's unit of the Ninth Group Army earlier, Huang Wei's Sixty-Seventh Division also received two hundred sets of such professional gas-proof suits.

The Xicheng Line National Defense Works ran north-south for fifty kilometers; Huang Wei's Sixty-Seventh Division position was only part of it. Two group armies, and the two thousand gas-proof suits Lv Muzhi sent, when distributed to each division, were not many; most people needed to hide from the poison gas inside gas mask fortresses.

Huang Wei looked out at the position through the observation hole; the scene was heart-stopping.

Through the lens of the gas mask, the originally clear battlefield scene was now shrouded in a layer of constantly rolling, strangely colored thick fog.

Visibility dropped sharply; the distant Japanese positions could no longer be seen, only barbed wire, burning wooden stakes, and rotting Japanese corpses more than fifty meters away.

Originally a large flock of crows had been pecking at Japanese corpses, but now these crows also stiffly fell onto the battlefield.

Even migratory birds flying south for the winter, upon entering this airspace, suddenly became panicked in flight and fell straight down from the air, clattering onto the open ground before the position, onto the barbed wire, and one even landed in front of Huang Wei's observation window.

"Division Commander... this..." the voice of a young staff officer beside him came through the mask.

Birds flying in the air also died upon contact; the severity of this poison gas was beyond imagination.

Huang Wei forced himself to calm down, picked up the internal communicator in the fortification, his voice somewhat muffled: "All battalions and companies, this is Huang Wei! All personnel must strictly observe poison gas discipline! Fire teams and observation posts, watch enemy infantry movements and prevent the devils from sneaking up under cover of the poison fog!

The rest, stand by for orders at any time!"

At the Ninth Group Army headquarters in the rear, hearing that the Japanese had released large quantities of poison gas without restraint, Lv Muzhi also felt a touch of unease; if the Japanese used poison gas regardless of cost, the two thousand gas-proof suits he had sent seemed like a drop in the bucket facing the fifty-kilometer-long Xicheng Defensive Line......

Japanese forward area, near the concealed assembly area of the Sixth Division headquarters.

More than five hundred Japanese soldiers with white cloth strips tied on their heads and white cloth wrapped around their arms stood quietly, as if attending a funeral.

Each of them wore a somewhat bulky gas-proof suit, but their pig-nose gas masks were temporarily not worn.

As selected suicide assault troops, their task was obviously to charge the Xia Army positions and open a gap.

Sixth Division Commander Lieutenant General Gu Shoufu did not wear a gas-proof suit himself, but was dressed in a lieutenant general's general officer's uniform: "Gentlemen! You have all seen it! To open the road to victory, the Empire has deployed the most powerful 'special smoke'!

On the opposite positions, there are no longer any Chinese soldiers who can breathe normally or fight normally!

Their lungs are burning, their skin is rotting, they are wailing in hell!

Go and harvest the fruits of victory! Plant the Sun Flag on the enemy's fortress!

His Majesty the Emperor is watching you! The honor of the Sixth Division, in this one battle! To wash away the shame of Taihu, for the Empire, assault!"

"Received! Received!!" Below, the selected suicide squad members raised their weapons and shouted fanatically.

Such suicide commando units were organized in every division of the Japanese Army.

The attack assembly area of the Sixteenth Division's suicide squad likewise had five hundred devils in suits.

A Japanese Army soldier wrapped head to toe in a gas-proof suit asked his squad leader: "Squad Leader Xiangwei, when will it be our turn to charge and earn merit?!"

Sixteenth Division Japanese Army squad leader Second Lieutenant Minoru Xiangwei smiled: "No rush, let the poison gas continue to spread; this time we must exact blood for blood!"

Another squad leader beside him, Noda Takeshi, sneered: "Ten, see who can kill more Chinese soldiers!"