Lu Xinghua immediately ordered the 122mm self-propelled howitzer unit to go out to strike at the Japanese fire point, and the artillery battalion received the order to start action immediately, and the artillery battalion commander Sun Kai began to select the firing position.

Sun Kai first found Li Yonglong, the commander of the 1st Tank Battalion, and asked, "How far is the range of the Japanese tanks?" Do you know the truth? ”

Li Yonglong said: "The armored base has been studied according to the wreckage of Japanese tanks, and the firing range of the main guns of Japanese tanks is about 1,100 meters to 1,800 meters when the target height is two meters. ”

Sun Kai said: "Okay, let's choose the firing position at a distance of two thousand meters, this distance our artillery is very casual, but they can't hit us no matter what." ”

Sun Kai laughed after speaking, Li Yonglong also laughed, Sun Kai said: "As soon as our artillery is fired, the Japanese army will find a way to attack us, you must protect us!" ”

Li Yonglong said with a smile: "Your self-propelled artillery unit is the heart-to-heart of the superiors, and every time you fight, you stay behind, but our tank unit is raised by the stepmother, and every time you fight, you rush to the front, if we don't protect you well, we have to be ignored by the stepmother." Everyone laughed, and the next day, on December 30, the self-propelled artillery battalion arrived at the predetermined position, but as soon as it entered the firing position, problems followed.

It turned out that there was a pine forest in front of the firing position, which was dense and dense, completely blocking the artilleryman's line of sight, so if the artillery wanted to hit the Japanese army's firepower point, it could only be through indirect shooting, so it was necessary to send scouts to guide the artillery to shoot.

However, the scout must arrive at the Japanese military position in order to guide the artillery to shoot, because when the artillery guides the shooting, the artillery needs to inform the artillery of the distance and direction of the target, this distance must be very accurate, if the artillery is not accurate, the enemy will not be able to hit the enemy, but the accuracy of the reconnaissance is closely related to the distance of the scout from the reconnaissance target, the closer the scout is to the reconnaissance target, the higher the degree of accuracy.

In order to prevent Lin Yuan's troops from secretly approaching, the Japanese army set up observation posts on the high ground, and also cleared the trees and bushes within one kilometer in front of the position, so that people would be found as soon as they appeared from the edge of the pine forest.

Sun Kai then said to Zhang Shifeng, the commander of the reconnaissance company: "The Japanese army does not have night vision equipment, so you can go at night." ”

The commander of the reconnaissance company said: "We can go at night and carry night vision reconnaissance equipment, but the accuracy of night vision reconnaissance equipment is not as high as that of equipment used during the day, so I am afraid that the accuracy of shooting cannot be guaranteed." ”

Sun Kai said: "Then you will ambush all night, and wait until daytime to correct the shooting for us." ”

The reconnaissance company commander said: "If we correct the shooting during the day, we will be discovered by the Japanese army, you also know that if we want to correct the shooting, we will definitely not be able to use vehicles, we can only go on foot, and the outside of the Japanese positions are all open space, there is very little decent cover terrain, if the Japanese army becomes alert and sends troops to attack us, we will be in danger." ”

Sun Kai said: "You can rest assured, the area outside the Japanese trenches is very large, and they will definitely not find you." ”

The commander of the reconnaissance company then suspiciously set out with the scouts, and on the night of 30 December, they left the pine forest and arrived at the periphery of the Japanese position.

As soon as it was dawn on 31 December, Zhang Shifeng, commander of the reconnaissance company, used radio communication equipment to send the coordinates of the Japanese army's firing points to the artillery battalion. ”

The No. 1 self-propelled howitzer vehicle immediately fired a shell, the shell flew through the jungle, exploded on the west side of the Japanese high ground, and a large cloud of dirt was raised, and a huge explosion sounded in the sky, and the Japanese army immediately reported the shelling to Kumamoto Shoichi, who immediately said: "Don't panic, this is just Lin Yuan's troops interfering with us." ”

The Japanese troops then stood still, and the scouts of Lin Yuan's troops detected the explosion and immediately told the artillery unit the landing point, and the artillery unit immediately adjusted the direction of firing and carried out a second test firing, this time it happened to fall on the high slope of the Japanese army's deployment of firepower, but the shells did not fall directly on the Japanese tank, after all, the area of the Japanese tank was not large compared to the high slope.

The reconnaissance unit found that the shell had hit the enemy position and immediately said to the artillery unit: "The shell hit the target." Sun Kai received this order and immediately ordered the artillery cluster: "Target the Japanese position, rapid fire, one minute, open the artillery!" "Forty 122-mm howitzers were ordered to open fire at once, attacking the Japanese at the fastest rate of fire of eight rounds per minute, and the shells rained down on the Japanese troops.

Forty artillery pieces, together are 320 shells, each shell is fully loaded with more than 10 kilograms of explosives, that is to say: in one minute, Lin Yuan's troops threw nearly four tons of explosives on the Japanese position, and the Japanese position was suddenly covered with a thick layer of black smoke.

After a minute, the shelling stopped, this was to provide the reconnaissance unit with an opportunity to evaluate the results of the battle, and the reconnaissance company commander led his soldiers to look at the Japanese position with binoculars, but the thick smoke blocked the view, and the scout could only wait.

While the scouts waited, Kumamoto Shoichi roared anxiously in the headquarters: "Did the shelling of the Shina people cause us any damage?" ”

Staff officer Yoshizawa Tadashi said: "Report to the captain, according to the reports of various positions, the shelling of the Chinese did not cause heavy damage to the artillery in our bunkers, and the Chinese people fired a lot of shells, but only two tanks were blown up, and the others were hidden in the bunkers intact. ”

Kumamoto Masa's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he asked, "It seems that the engineers are doing a good job, how did they repair their bunkers?" ”

Yoshizawa said with a smile: "Captain, this engineering army is the strength of the empire, and the permanent fortifications on the south bank of the Tumen River are all built by them, and those fortifications are highly hoped by General Nogi, hoping that they can become the iron rope to strangle Lin Yuan's troops!" It is enough to see the strength of this engineering army. ”

"Our bunker this time is surrounded by special concrete, which is said to be a secret formula developed by the engineering troops themselves, and its hardness and rigidity are several times that of concrete in Britain and the United States, and the top of the bunker is made of steel plates, and a reinforced support structure is used, which is enough to withstand several attacks by the artillery of the Chinese people, as long as the shells do not fall on the steel plate repeatedly, the steel plate will not be destroyed."

Kumamoto Shoichi nodded lightly and said, "Okay! Very good! With these things, he is not afraid of Lin Yuan's attack. ”

At this time, Yoshizawa Tadashi suddenly said: "Captain, didn't you notice that there was a lot wrong with this shelling? ”

Shoichi Kumamoto asked, "What's wrong?" What did you say? ”

Yoshizawa Tadashi said: "I suspect that there are scouts from the people of Shina outside, and they are correcting the shooting of the artillery unit of Shina!" ”