Chapter 47: The Encirclement

The yawning Japanese troops began to go on the road after hastily eating UO breakfast, and continued to advance towards the Dead Tree Ridge in the Amo Pass, the 10-mile mountain road ahead had already been walked once yesterday, and the Japanese army was sure that there were no mines and traps, so their speed was much faster than yesterday, and in less than 2 hours, they had appeared on the periphery of the minefield less than 2 miles away from the Dead Tree Ridge.

Yesterday, almost all the mercenaries who fought with the Japanese army all day, the Jewish airborne battalion slept almost for a day and a night outside the Dry Tree Ridge, and they used the airborne steel plates to piece together two four-layer thick armored fortresses, and each fortress was equipped with two Browning heavy machine guns, and if the Yamashita Wing wanted to pass through the fortress's machine-gun fire network, they had to pass through the minefield first, otherwise they could only climb all the way along the mountain through the Amo Pass, which was obviously unlikely, Because it was impossible for the Yamashita Wing to throw down the baggage they were carrying and go empty-handed to rescue Tengchong.

"All pay attention, the Japanese monkeys are coming" The voice of the outpost sounded in the walkie-talkie, and the officers in the trenches began to restrain their soldiers to be on guard, and they were idle for a day and watched the mercenaries fight fiercely, and they were secretly holding back their thoughts to compete with the mercenaries, and now that the Japanese army is coming, the time has come for them to prove their strength. The Jewish airborne battalion was not idle, and while the officers organized the soldiers to build steel fortresses, they also organized men to dig trenches on both flanks of the minefield.

The 1,000 Jewish airborne troops were divided into three parts, with 300 soldiers guarding the trenches on each flank of the minefield, and the remaining 400 airborne troops and dozens of auxiliary engineers on the frontal route of the Japanese army. The airborne battalion was set up in a pocket formation, and the three sides of the Japanese army's march route were guarded by airborne troops, and the Japanese army's rear defense line was in charge of the mercenaries led by Yan Wudao himself.

"Pap" "Pap" "Pap" "Pap" "Pap" The Japanese army was intercepted and blocked by the airborne troops outside the minefield, Garand's rate of fire made the Japanese mistakenly think that they were blocking the main force of Thunder equipped with a large number of light machine guns, Yamashita immediately ordered his mountain artillery to open fire, and after continuous bombardment, the airborne troops who intercepted and blocked the Japanese began to retreat. "Chase them up and kill them all" Looking at the Jewish airborne soldiers who were running for their lives from the binoculars, Yamashita saw a smile on his face, he regretted that he didn't pull out the mountain artillery to return fire when he was intercepted by the enemy yesterday, he knew that the other party was so vulnerable, he should have ordered the mountain artillery to return fire yesterday.

"Pap" "Pap" "Pap" "Pap" The retreating airborne troops were reduced to zero, and they retreated while returning fire, and the formation of the opponent's retreat was too scattered, and the Yamashita Wing used mountain artillery to bombard it a bit more than worth the loss, so Yamashita saw that he only ordered the infantry to continue the pursuit, but because they were constantly blocked by the other side, the pursuing Japanese troops began to appear congested on the mountain road. "Hurry, go, the Japanese monkeys are catching up, be careful under your feet, don't detonate the mines" The airborne soldiers who were responsible for acting as bait walked quickly through the minefield along the marks left by the sappers, and the last person was also responsible for cleaning up the marks left by the sappers, so as not to be recognized by the Japanese army that the minefield was laid here.

"Hehe, our Marenes fell, that posture is really the envy of God" The airborne troops hidden on both wings of the minefield idle with binoculars to judge the heroic posture of the bait when retreating, especially when the bait cares about the foot accidentally falling, the airborne troops lying in the trench will let out a low laugh. The bait, who looked like a rout, finally escaped from the minefield amid everyone's laughter, and the Japanese pursuing force that followed them had already arrived at the outskirts of the minefield.

"Can't let them enter the minefield so easily, give them a dismount first" and the Chinese stayed for a long time, and most of the Jewish officers could speak a few Chinese sayings, and after Haig gave the order, the Jewish airborne troops who were head-on began to bombard the Japanese troops close to the minefield with mortars. There are too many trigger mines and tripping mines in the minefield, once the Japanese pursuing force enters the minefield, there is a possibility of triggering the mine, Haig will not watch the minefield that has been time-consuming and laborious to make only two or three kittens, he needs to cause more casualties.

With the help of the pits left behind by the rescue of Burmese meat shields the day before, the Japanese began to use mortars and airborne troops in front of them to bombard, seeing that more and more Japanese troops were blocked outside the minefield, Haig ordered to stop the shelling and let the Japanese enter the minefield. The cessation of the artillery bombardment on the opposite side kicked off the prelude to the battle, and after a day and a night of being attacked, Yamashitami lost all his patience and directly ordered his troops to begin to break through the opponent's defensive line, and about a squadron of Japanese troops quickly rushed into the minefield and launched an attack on the airborne positions that blocked them head-on.

"There are mines" rushed to the front of the military Cao suddenly paused, and then screamed that he was blown up by the mine and flew up, and the surrounding Japanese soldiers heard the warning he issued before he died, but unfortunately it was too late, and the soldiers under the military Cao had already triggered the mine one after another. The huge and continuous explosion of "boom" and "boom" caused Yamashita to subconsciously lie on the ground dozens of meters away from the minefield, and the Japanese troops who rushed into the minefield caused more mines in the panic, and the smoke in the entire minefield was churning and screaming, and all the Japanese soldiers were dumbfounded.

"Use machine guns, pull up machine guns to clear mines" The only two military vehicles in Yamashita Wing drove up, and Yamashita saw that he was desperate and planned to use the machine guns on the military vehicles to clear mines. The bullets of the Type 92 heavy machine gun were enough to detonate the mines in the soil, although all the mines could not be eliminated, but at least the chances of the attacking troops triggering mines were minimized.

"Look, the Japanese monkeys have quite a lot of methods, aren't they afraid of Lang Fei bullets?" Haig had been paying attention to the changes on the battlefield, and the new measures seen by Yamashita naturally couldn't escape his eyes. It has to be said that the method of ordering the troops to use heavy machine guns to clear mines is very novel, and to a certain extent, it has indeed cleared a lot of mines, and the explosions and smoke that sound from time to time prove all this, but there are many more mines that have not been detonated by heavy machine guns, and to a certain extent, the current approach of the Japanese army is a blind move.

"Leave them alone, anyway, Lang is spending their ammunition, and if the Japanese army does not enter the ambush circle, we will ignore them" Haig thought about it, the mine array has eliminated at least one squadron of soldiers of the Japanese army, at this rate, the Japanese army will have to toss for at least a day if they want to break through their positions, Haig believes that the mine array he has laid can continue to cause casualties to the Japanese army. As Haig had expected, Yamashita was blinded by the effect of heavy machine gun minebreaking, ignoring the sharp reduction in the reserves of heavy machine gun ammunition and ordering the machine gunners on the military vehicles to continue demining.

The machine gunners on the military vehicle could not stand the continuous high-intensity ground fire and had already changed two stubbles, and they had already destroyed half of the minefield, and Yamashitami seemed to have seen the dawn of victory. "Let's start" watched as the Japanese troops followed the military vehicles into the pocket formation laid out by the airborne battalion, and the airborne troops in the trenches on both flanks finally waited for Haig's attack order. The first to fire was the Browning heavy machine guns on the flanks, and as soon as the large-caliber machine guns fired, they first targeted the two Japanese military vehicles that were breaking into the minefield.

The dark red ballistic trajectory of "Da Da" was clearly visible, and the Japanese military vehicle that was busy clearing mines was hit by a dense heavy machine gun bullet with a bullet hole, and the fuel tank of the "boom" "boom" military vehicle was hit by a bullet and caused an explosion, and two huge fireballs devoured all objects within a radius of more than ten meters around the military vehicle, including those Japanese soldiers who used the military vehicle as cover. Sudden burst of gunfire from the two flanks of the minefield joined together, sending a dense rain of bullets to the Japanese troops below them.

"Retreat, retreat immediately" Yamashita saw that this time he was clever, after the military vehicle was blown up by the thunderous heavy machine guns, Yamashita immediately ordered the mountain artillery to bombard the enemy troops on both flank positions, and he himself led his troops to prepare to withdraw from the encirclement set by the enemy along the same route. Yamashita had a premonition that his wing had now reached the point of life and death, and it was the right way to make a decision immediately, and he was now only desperate to fight hard, if he could not jump out of the encirclement set by the enemy, his wing might face the situation of total annihilation.

The mountain artillery bombardment of the Yamashita Wing also caused some trouble to the positions of the airborne battalions on both flanks, first of all, the heavy machine gun fire was weakened a lot, and secondly, the expected enemy charge did not appear, and this style of play and tactics was not the same as that of the Shina Army that Yamashita had fought. "Boom", "boom", "boom" The explosions that sounded continuously on the rear line of the Japanese army shattered Yamashitami's plan to jump out of the enemy's encirclement, and they were obviously surrounded by the truncated rear road.

Yan Wudao, who had temporarily rested for three hours, led the mercenaries to block the retreat of the Yamashita Wing, and the panicked Yamashita who had lost his judgment would never have imagined that there were only more than 100 people who intercepted their back road. Yan Wudao not only intercepted the Japanese army with strong firepower, but also set up a lot of trickery mines with grenades, coupled with the strong attack of the sniper team of the motor, in a short period of time, the Yamashita United team could not break through Yan Wudao's interception line.

After adjusting its tactics, the airborne battalion completed the encirclement of the Yamashita Wing, and the concentrated Browning heavy machine gun formation lasted half an hour of non-stop movement, and finally found a suitable machine gun position and covered the entire Japanese artillery position with firepower. The loss of the mountain artillery position deprived the Yamashita Wing of the strong firepower it relied on, and the extended heavy machine-gun fire scarred the Japanese defense line and left it dead and wounded everywhere.