Chapter 365: Republic of China: Starting from Whampoa Phase 1 Chapter 375 I Want to Go into the Mountains to Hunt

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Protagonist:

Lv Muzhi

Bang bang bang~

Someone was pounding on the tank armor of Du Yuming's vehicle crew.

"Division Commander, Colonel Qiu requests you come out!" A signalman pounded hard on the T26 tank's outer armor, urging Du Yuming to come out from inside.

The tank reversed to a safe area, Du Yuming climbed out of the vehicle, and saw Qiu Qingquan.

"Commander Du, you're going into battle personally?!" Qiu Qingquan said admiringly.

Du Yuming looked back at the flames ahead of the position; the entire Japanese offensive front was completely swallowed by soaring firelight, thick smoke, and dust.

The Japanese launched dense charges heedless of death, but were met with saturation strikes from the Youth Corps' 48 132mm rocket artillery, 24 155mm howitzers, and over a hundred aircraft.

Coupled with the blocking by Song Xilian and Du Yuming's forces, for the Japanese dense infantry with no cover or obstruction, this was a destructive massacre.

Du Yuming said: "If you and Commander Lu don't come soon, I'll drive my tank and fight the Japanese to the death."

Qiu Qingquan nodded and patted Du Yuming's arm: "Commander Lu is already in your command post; go see him."

In the command post, Lv Muzhi observed the strike effects ahead through the artillery observation mirror.

What Lv Muzhi had prepared for the Japanese was not only joint strikes by aircraft and artillery.

There were also over a hundred tanks and armored vehicles he had brought with him, ready to enter the battlefield at any time.

In the artillery observation mirror's view, shattered limbs, weapon parts, and earth were thrown high into the air, and the blast waves overturned and tore apart swathes of Japanese troops.

The charging wave that had just been full of momentum was, before this rain of steel and flames, torn apart.

Rocket shells streaked over the heads of Du Yuming and Song Xilian's troops and smashed into the Japanese attack formations.

The Xia Guo soldiers in the frontline trenches personally felt the terrifying shriek of the rocket shells passing overhead, followed by distant earth-shaking explosions and the Japanese troops' wailing screams.

"Commander Lu, Commander Du has arrived!" Qiu Qingquan shouted from a few steps away.

"Guangting," Lv Muzhi walked forward and patted Du Yuming's shoulder hard: "You've worked hard!"

Du Yuming looked at this old Whampoa Class 1 classmate before him, Commander Lu who now held military power over a region.

His eyes filled with admiration and longing, he straightened his back and shouted loudly: "Reporting to Commander Lu! Not hard at all! Guarding the position is the duty of a Whampoa soldier!"

Lv Muzhi nodded: "This battle, your 200th Division has made great contributions; I know the situation, so rest assured!"

"No more idle talk—I came south to capture the king; together, we'll take down this Tōgū Palace Family prince!" Lv Muzhi's finger stabbed heavily at the Dabie Mountains North Foot area on the map.

"The Tōgū Palace Family is a cornered beast still fighting, wanting to make one last gamble."

Huang Wei stabbed him in the back from behind, and we gave him a heavy blow from the front; now is exactly when his formation is most disordered and morale lowest.

We cannot give him a chance to catch his breath; we must strike while he is ill and take his life!"

"Order all tank units and armored vehicles that have arrived on the battlefield."

"With tanks as the vanguard, coordinated with infantry, launch a counter-charge against Tōgū Palace's troops!"

"I want to crush them with a steel torrent at the foot of the Dabie Mountains!"

"Yes!"

The orders were quickly relayed.

After brief preparation, an unprecedented engine roar sounded on the battlefield.

The 200th Division plus two Youth Army divisions' tanks exceeded one hundred fifty vehicles, and with armored vehicles, light anti-aircraft vehicles, etc., exceeded two hundred combat vehicles.

The tank formation was like a moving steel mountain range, rolling toward the Japanese positions that had just been baptized by rocket artillery and had not yet recovered from the chaos.

On and around the vehicles were several thousand Youth Army infantry.

"Tanks! Over two hundred! The Chinese army has launched a counterattack!" Desperate cries rose on the Japanese positions.

The human wave charge just now had been directly pressed back by Lv Muzhi's overwhelming firepower.

The Japanese troops' last fighting will had already vanished completely.

Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko saw the endless steel torrent rolling in through his binoculars, and from his own position, inexplicably felt a helplessness and despair of "willing to kill the bandit, but powerless to turn the tide."

"The enemy is simply too strong..."

His troops had just experienced poison gas harassment and Huang Wei's forces' rear strike, then suffered heavy casualties and were scattered to the winds under rocket artillery coverage; at this moment they were on the edge of disrupted organization and collapsed morale.

Facing such a steel elite army coming with the might of a great victory, Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko's troops had absolutely no capital for resistance.

The Japanese hastily organized sporadic anti-tank fire, remaining 37mm rapid-fire guns, anti-aircraft guns, etc., before the Youth Army tank cluster were like a mantis trying to stop a chariot.

The tank main guns and machine guns spewed tongues of death fire, destroying those exposed firepower points one by one.

The steel tracks mercilessly rolled over the Japanese hastily built simple fortifications and trenches.

The collapse began.

First, Japanese soldiers on the frontline positions fell one by one before the absolute steel advantage; then, mentally collapsed, they dropped their weapons and fled backward.

Finally, the rout spread like a plague across the entire defensive line.

Officers' rebukes and the Supervise Battle Team's gunfire could not stop this avalanche-like defeat.

To say rout—but where to rout to?

Tanks ahead, poison gas behind...

One was immediate death, the other slow death.

In the end, the Japanese chose the poison gas behind them; dying later was always better.

The remaining Japanese began fleeing into the Dabie Mountains; under Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko's banner, the remaining organizations of the Sixteenth Division and One Hundred Eighth Division completely collapsed.

The soldiers only hated their parents for not giving them two more legs, and that the legs they had were not long enough; they desperately ran toward the only direction that might provide shelter—the Dabie Mountains—fleeing for their lives.

Swept along by routed troops, Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko also jogged toward the mountains.

He knew that once they retreated into the Dabie Mountains, it would mean losing all their heavy equipment and the vast majority of their supply train, and they would completely lose the initiative on the battlefield.

But if caught by this tank force on the plain, their only fate would be total annihilation.

The Japanese remnants and defeated generals surged toward the entrance of the Dabie Mountains like a receding tide, abandoning all artillery, vehicles, supplies, and even the wounded, just to run a little faster.

However, their nightmare had not ended.

Just as the Japanese panickedly retreated onto the Dabie Mountains, thinking they had temporarily shaken off the tank pursuit and could catch their breath relying on the mountains and forests, the troops dispatched by Huang Wei had long been waiting in the forest.

"Right! Lu Commander ordered to drive them all out!!!" Huang Wei, at Xiaojieling, issued instructions to the troops ambushing behind Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko.

The elite infantry regiment of the Eighteenth Army once again began to deploy the mysterious gas given by Lv Muzhi.

At the same time, using their familiarity with the terrain, they suddenly burst forth from the dense forest, mountain ridges, and gullies, and with machine guns, rifles, hand grenades, and mortars, launched fierce ambushes and harassment against the Japanese defeated troops marching in chaos and without order.

The Japanese became routed troops; such routed troops, struck by Huang Wei, were directly split into many groups and scattered in all directions in the mountains and forests.

Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko, under the protection of his guard company, ran toward a small highland with over twenty men.

In the command post, Lv Muzhi stood with his hands behind his back and said to the signaller: "Send a telegram to Huang Wei, telling him to bag the enemy at Xiaojieling; we're going into the mountains to hunt!"