Chapter 1 Lin Fan's Special Operations Company
Lin Fan led the Special Operations Company from Jiangyin towards Fengjing Town, a straight-line distance of less than three hundred *li*.

The Special Operations Company spent a full day and night traveling by truck, and along the way they saw teams being transferred to the front lines.

Even more so, they saw various materials and equipment being moved to the rear.

This time, the few tank drivers in the Special Operations Company took turns driving. Every three hours of driving required a half-hour break.

It wasn't that the soldiers of the Special Operations Company were pampered and unable to persist.

It was simply that the trucks they were driving had to stop and rest after running for a few hours, otherwise the water tank would boil over, and haste makes waste.

The entire Special Operations Company arrived at Fengjingbin at just past 7:00 PM on November 8th.

The day before yesterday, the Japanese 18th Division had already organized more than two thousand men to begin attacking Fengjingbin.

At that time, only a small advance force of the Japanese 18th Division had arrived at this location.

This force, totaling less than two hundred men, was quickly repelled by the 41st Regiment defending the area after a brief probing attack.

This morning, the main force of the Japanese 18th Division arrived, and they immediately began a strong attack.

At 3:00 PM, these *guizi* (derogatory term for Japanese soldiers) launched a probing charge with one hundred cavalrymen, which was repelled by the 41st Regiment from the front.

At 5:00 PM, the *guizi* gathered their main force and attacked from a different direction.

This time, they attacked Beiwangjing, located one kilometer southeast of Fengjingbin.

Defending Beiwangjing was the Guard Company directly under the 128th Division, a unit with a long history.

The Japanese army concentrated its superior forces and attacked for a full two hours.

The officers and soldiers of the 11th Reserve Division's Guard Company stationed at Beiwangjing fought back valiantly.

This time, the Japanese army learned from the lessons of the afternoon's attack on the main position of Fengjingbin:

Relying on their superior forces, they organized two teams, one specifically responsible for attacking Beiwangjing, and the other specifically responsible for intercepting the National Army reinforcements.

By 9:00 PM, the Guard Company soldiers had exhausted all their ammunition, and the reinforcements were still unable to break through the Japanese army's blockade.

They were unable to provide support to the Guard Company on the Beiwangjing position in time.

The Guard Company suffered heavy casualties and had run out of ammunition.

All the officers and soldiers of the entire company who could still stand took up bayonets and engaged in close combat with the superior enemy forces, sacrificing themselves completely.

Beiwangjing fell, and a gap had appeared in the defense of Fengjing Town at this time.

The soldiers of the Special Operations Company only rested briefly behind Fengjingbin.

At 11:00 PM that night, the Japanese army once again dispatched a large force and attacked overnight.

Since the Japanese 10th Army landed in Hangzhou Bay, the first day of the attack went very smoothly, but from the second day onwards.

They felt that the resistance they were encountering was becoming increasingly fierce, and now their military headquarters had a concern: they were afraid that prolonged fighting would lead to complications. If the National Army resisted desperately like they did in the Songjiang blocking battle, their troops would not be fully deployed.

They would be surrounded and annihilated by the National Army soldiers in a confined space.

This was the 10th Army Group's biggest concern.

Therefore, the 10th Army Group ordered the 18th Division to attack overnight, at all costs, to occupy Fengjing Town.

Their goal was to occupy Jiaxing behind Fengjing, an important node on the Sujia Railway, from which the National Army's right wing was rapidly retreating.

From the very beginning, the battle tonight involved thousands of Japanese troops simultaneously attacking all the positions on the front of Fengjing Town.

The Fengjing position defended by the 41st Regiment of the 11th Reserve Division was facing an attack by more than two thousand Japanese soldiers.

The 41st Regiment's defensive works were on the outermost edge, and the entire defense was constructed along the railway line.

A battalion was placed north of the railway line as an forward position, and the 3rd Battalion served as the second line of defense.

The 2nd Battalion served as an forward position south of the railway line, behind which were the 3rd and 2nd Battalions of the 654th Regiment of the 109th Division.

Along the railway line, from Fengjing to Jiashan, there were layers of National Army troops blocking the advance.

As soon as the battle began, the Japanese artillery fire was fierce, and the entire battlefield was as bright as day under the illumination of flares.

Zhang Wei, the commander of the 41st Regiment, who was directing the front line, was seriously injured and had to be sent to the rear for treatment.

Su Xue Su, the deputy commander of the 41st Regiment, took over command of the entire battlefield.

Lin Fan led the Special Operations Company to participate in the defense of the main position. As soon as they entered the position, they saw the *guizi* charging up.

The 170-man Special Operations Company appeared on the 1st Battalion's position, which was under the most intense attack by the Japanese army.

This was not the first blocking battle the Special Operations Company had participated in, but it was the first one they had participated in without being prepared.

Lin Fan ordered the direct-support team to set up seven mortars on the spot, each operated by one of the four men who had been following him every day.

He quickly picked up a cannon, calculated briefly, and fired five rounds in a row.

Lin Fan always did things strictly according to the standards. After firing five shells in a row, the cannon in his hand.

Immediately switched to another mortar, firing another uninterrupted five rounds.

The barrel of this cannon became red-hot after firing five rounds in a row in less than a minute.

Lin Fan threw down this barrel, picked up another barrel, and fired another rapid five rounds.

The veterans in the Special Operations Company had all seen Lin Fan perform this operation before.

They didn't find it strange at all.

Niu Dongxing, Bao Junyan, and the other core members who had just come from the base area.

Frankly speaking, they didn't really admire Lin Fan, the company commander.

They had only joined the Special Operations Company for two days, and most of those two days had been spent marching in trucks.

Their understanding of Lin Fan was all from listening to the Special Operations Company soldiers bragging.

Bragging about how amazing and powerful their company commander was.

These guerrilla captains and guerrillas who had fought countless battles had heard too much of this kind of bragging.

Their opponents always bragged about themselves like this.

Therefore, they had always believed that this team had one advantage: bragging!

Just now, as soon as they entered the position, they saw Lin Fan's non-standard action of holding a cannon barrel in one hand and launching shells in the other.

Each of them was quite surprised.

Lin Fan's target was the *guizi*'s artillery position, which was impossible to see visually at the moment.

These soldiers didn't know how effective the shelling had been.

But at least Lin Fan's operation was very impressive.

Lin Fan was trying to knock out the artillery support behind the *guizi* first. Whether the fierce artillery fire he fired had any effect was temporarily unknown.

Soon, the artillery fire from the *guizi* ceased on all the positions of Fengjingbin.

Kosakabe Yūshō was a company commander under the 18th Mountain Artillery Regiment of the 18th Division.

His company was equipped with the latest "Type 95" 75mm field guns currently equipped by the Japanese army.

This gun was manufactured in Japan in 1935.

It had a caliber of 75mm, a barrel length of 2325mm, and a rifling length of 2807mm.

In combat use, it was four and a half meters long, the barrel weighed 500 *jin*, and the total combat weight was 2,240 *jin*.

It used a Type 94 high-explosive shell weighing twelve *jin*, with a maximum range of 9,150 meters; using a Type 90 sharp high-explosive shell weighing thirteen *jin*,

It had a maximum range of 11,600 meters.

Such advanced artillery was fighting at a distance of less than 2,000 meters from Fengjingbin.

Kosakabe Yūshō's mountain artillery company also arrived on the battlefield after 5:00 PM.

They had just assisted the infantry regiment in capturing Beiwangjing.

Now they had changed targets and continued bombing.

This time, the bombing had just been going on for less than ten minutes when Company Commander Kosakabe Yūshō suddenly heard a familiar whistling sound of artillery shells.

This sound was different from the sound of the shells he fired.

This was the sound of artillery shells about to land.

Kosakabe Yūshō looked at the dark night sky. His four cannons had just finished firing.

They were still in the process of loading.

Suddenly, a string of fire lines appeared in the air, heading directly towards his position.

"Enemy attack!" Kosakabe Yūshō could only think this when.

The shells flying in the night sky had already landed. This shell was like a fuse, followed by a continuous barrage of shells.

Kosakabe Yūshō watched as one of his company's cannons was overturned.

Coincidentally, this cannon was ready for firing.

When it overturned, the rope behind it was pulled.

The cannon, with its muzzle touching the ground, caused the shell to explode on the position as soon as it left the muzzle.

Company Commander Kosakabe Yūshō's eyes were fixed on the sudden burst of flames in front of him.

He didn't know whether the secondary explosion was caused by his own cannon or by the shells fired by the National Army.

A series of explosions rang out continuously in the artillery position where Kosakabe Yūshō's company was located.

The entire company of fifty-three men was killed, and all four cannons were destroyed.

The defenders of Fengjingbin, two kilometers away, had no idea what was happening here.

The teams defending Fengjingbin only knew that the shells that had been falling on their heads from time to time had stopped.

But the Japanese infantry's charge became even more fierce.

Wu Xiaobao, Zhao Long, Ji Wudi, and Ji Jiachou concentrated their firepower to bombard the Japanese grenade launcher positions 300 meters away in front of the position.

They followed Lin Fan every day and learned all his habits, taking advantage of the cold shot to fire five shells in a row.

These four people could learn from Lin Fan's speed of shelling, but their accuracy was greatly inferior.

Even so, the continuous fall of twenty shells on the *guizi*'s rear positions still achieved the desired effect.

The Special Operations Company had strong firepower and very strong combat effectiveness.

Now they had added forty seasoned experts, who had just arrived at the 1st Battalion's position.

Holding their rifles, they aimed carefully before firing a bullet.

These people, who had fought in guerrilla warfare for many years, were very economical with the use of each bullet.

In the years they had persisted in guerrilla warfare, every bullet was precious and had to be used to the best effect.

Now that's how they were. Niu Dongxing held a Type 38 rifle, aiming at a *guizi* in the distance.

Gently pulling the trigger, he could clearly see the *guizi* falling headlong.

He wasn't the only one who fired such a shot, and he wasn't the only one with such marksmanship.

In fact, all forty people who joined the Special Operations Company with him had such marksmanship.

Facing the swarm of charging Japanese troops, a dense rain of bullets, like pouring water, rained down.

Plus, there were forty core members with accurate marksmanship sniping.

They quickly suppressed the arrogant momentum of the *guizi* in front of the 1st Battalion's position.

Amakusa Yūsuke was a company commander under the 55th Infantry Regiment of the Japanese 18th Division.

Since landing this time, his team hadn't fired a single shot before Fengjingbin.

Today, as soon as they arrived at Fengjingbin, they were immediately dispatched to charge forward.

According to the order of their division commander, Lieutenant General Ushijima Sadaharu: Charge! Charge! Charge! Charge forward, non-stop.

Now Company Commander Amakusa Yūsuke was commanding his team to charge forward.

In front was the National Army's position. Before Company Commander Amakusa Yūsuke's team charged, the National Army's position was still full of artillery fire.

This was the 18th Mountain Artillery Regiment of the division bombarding, clearing obstacles for the attack of its infantry regiment.

Company Commander Amakusa Yūsuke watched as bullets continued to be fired from the fortifications in front.

This showed that the National Army soldiers were still resisting!

This was very different from the rumors: after these soldiers landed, the entire 10th Army Group was spreading the word that the National Army had no resistance at all.

They began to run away as soon as they saw the Imperial soldiers.

Company Commander Amakusa Yūsuke did not expect that the National Army here was still persisting in the counterattack under the intense artillery bombardment.

After the artillery bombardment on the front position stopped, he immediately ordered his one hundred soldiers to launch an attack.

What Company Commander Amakusa Yūsuke never expected was that when his team charged to one hundred meters in front of the position.

They were suddenly met with a head-on blow, a dense rain of bullets, like pouring water, rained down.

That wasn't the end of it. There were also many sharpshooters hiding, sniping at his soldiers.

Company Commander Amakusa Yūsuke's soldiers were rapidly reduced in number. Seven or eight soldiers had already fallen in front of Amakusa Yūsuke's eyes.

Now these soldiers of the entire company no longer dared to charge while standing up. They could only lie on the ground.

Crawling forward.

Company Commander Amakusa Yūsuke was anxious and ordered loudly: Grenade launcher! Grenade launcher!

In fact, now he didn't even know which target on the front position to have the grenade launcher hit.

There were nearly twenty machine gun fire points in front, how could they hit so many fire points?

What made Company Commander Amakusa Yūsuke even more desperate was that the grenade launcher had just fired its first shot.

It was met with a fierce bombardment from the opposite mortars.

Lin Fan knocked out the Japanese artillery position in the distance, then turned the muzzle of the gun and opened fire towards the 2nd Battalion position on the other side of the railway.

Suddenly, National Army artillery appeared on the Fengjing Town position, and the artillery fire was fierce.

The *guizi* of the 18th Division were immediately dumbfounded.

Division Commander Ushijima Sadaharu had just taken over the task from Lieutenant General Yanagawa Heisuke, the commander of the Army Group today:

He had made a military pledge to capture Fengjing on the 9th and Jiashan Station on the 13th.

Now he was encountering such fierce resistance in this place.

The first artillery company to arrive was suddenly attacked by the National Army artillery and had all been destroyed.

This forced Division Commander Ushijima Sadaharu to order: Deploy our secret troops.

The secret troops he was talking about were the Japanese Sato Detachment, which was carrying internationally banned poison gas bombs.

At the same time, Division Commander Ushijima Sadaharu also ordered an increase in the attacking troops, attacking fiercely regardless of casualties.

At 1:30 AM on November 9th, the 2nd Battalion's defensive position was suddenly attacked by Japanese poison gas bombs.

The *guizi* suddenly fired poison gas bombs towards the 2nd Battalion's position.

Lin Fan estimated that the enemy's artillery position, this time the Sato Detachment's artillery, was at least several kilometers away.

The type of mortar Lin Fan had could not reach such a long distance at all.

The unprepared 2nd Battalion officers and soldiers had no choice but to evacuate the position.

The position south of Fengjingbin was lost.

After firing a round of poison gas bombs, the Sato Detachment turned around and fired ordinary shells.

The Special Operations Company had no chance to counterattack at all. The *guizi*'s artillery team, which was releasing poison gas, continued to bombard.

Now the 1st Battalion's position was facing enemies on three sides, and there was also the *guizi*'s artillery bombardment overhead.

The Japanese army's attack became even more fierce. With attacks coming from three directions, the 1st Battalion's position was no longer worth defending.

At this time, Regiment Deputy Fang Xuesu, who had taken over command, was also shot and wounded.

The officers and soldiers of the 41st Regiment advised him to retreat and hand over command to Battalion Commander Xiao Gang.

Fang Xuesu resolutely refused to retreat and continued to insist on fighting.

He said, "Fengjing is a strategic location for our army, and Jiaxing is behind it.

If Fengjing is lost, Jiaxing will be in danger, and the entire western Zhejiang will be unable to defend.

How can soldiers like us leave the position because of minor injuries?"

He had the medical soldiers bandage his wound and continued to command the entire regiment to bravely kill the enemy.

But the 1st Battalion's position had to be abandoned, and the 1st Battalion retreated to the rear of the 3rd Battalion's position to rest.

The 1st and 2nd Battalions' positions had been lost, and now both battalions were resting behind the position.

Fang Xuesu set up his headquarters in the Zhu Family Courtyard in Fengjingbin.

While directing the front-line battle, he organized the wounded soldiers to retreat.

At this time, the positions of the 3rd Battalion of the 654th Regiment of the 109th Division and the 2nd Battalion of the 41st Regiment became the front line.

In the recent battle, the performance of the newly joined core members of the Special Operations Company shocked all the National Army soldiers:

Although these people were scattered in various squads, their marksmanship was truly amazing.

Compared to these National Army soldiers, they were many times better.

Even for the soldiers of the Special Operations Company, Lin Fan had them practice aiming whenever they had time, and let them fire live ammunition when conditions permitted.

But in terms of marksmanship, they were indeed a lot worse than the core members sent from the base area.

The soldiers of the Special Operations Company also retreated to rest.

Only Lin Fan and his small artillery team could not rest.

They had to pay attention to the front line at all times. As long as there were *guizi* grenade launchers firing, they had to provide immediate support and destroy them.

But Lin Fan was also powerless to deal with the long-range bombing that exceeded the range of his mortars.

The advantages that the Special Operations Company had brought when they first arrived on the battlefield had now been taken back by the *guizi*.

On the entire Fengjing battlefield, the Japanese army not only had the advantage in artillery fire.

They also had the advantage in troops. In front of the entire Fengjingbin, the Japanese army already had the 18th Division and the Sato Detachment.

As the battle became more and more intense, there were more and more *guizi* on the front position.

That wasn't the end of it. The Japanese 18th Division's cavalry regiment, which had probed an attack once in the afternoon, also launched an attack under the cover of night.

The entire cavalry regiment had 950 men, with nearly 800 combat personnel.

Eight hundred cavalrymen charged towards the Fengjingbin position.

The dense sound of horses' hooves rang out like drums.

Lin Fan calmly pointed to the front position and ordered: "Special Operations Company, reinforce the 3rd Battalion position of the 654th Regiment."

He could hear that the direction of the *guizi*'s attack was on the south side of the railway line this time.