Chapter 137 Plan

The next day I asked Instructor Qin to wake him up. After fighting in Shangganling for so many days, it was the first time I was woken up. I couldn't help but turn over and sit up from the bed, and asked nervously: "What's going on? What happened?"

"No, it's okay..." Instructor Qin replied embarrassedly: "Just, it's almost dawn..."

"What? It's not dawn yet?" I couldn't help but look at Qin Commander in confusion after hearing this.

"This...is it!" Instructor Qin explained: "Captain Li didn't sleep all night. He has been studying the plan to use mortars to prevent the enemy from destroying our tunnels. He has some new ideas and wants to discuss with the Chief of Staff!"

"Um!" I couldn't help but blush when I heard what Director Qin said. Others are busy with this battle, but as the commander-in-chief, I slept here with peace of mind. I was not very happy to be woken up just now...

So I nodded and asked, "Where is Corps Li? Command?"

"Yes!" Director Qin replied: "He is discussing tactics with the mortars!"

"Yeah!" I responded, grabbed the rifle and walked towards the command center. Director Qin hurriedly put a flashlight on me from behind.

After walking a few steps in the passage, I arrived at the command center soon and saw people crowding under the kerosene lamp. Four or five volunteer soldiers were gathered on the map to discuss something.

When they saw me walking into the command center, they hurriedly stepped forward and saluted me.

"Continue!" I raised my hand and signaled: "Don't interrupt you just because I came, comrades continue!"

As he said that, he turned to Li Baocheng and joked: "Okay, Li Baocheng, I didn't call me when I was in the war last night!"

"War?" Li Baocheng couldn't help but look at the people around him in confusion: "Chief of Staff, I... we didn't fight last night!"

"I said there was no war!" My fingers lit up in the air a few times and said, "Instructor Qin told me that you have been fighting here all night for the whole night. If you don't believe me, please ask Instructor Qin!"

The soldiers were stunned for a moment when they heard this. After understanding what I meant, they laughed out loud with a coaxing sound. Even Instructor Qin was a little amused and crying.

"Chief of Staff!" Li Baocheng also opened his originally serious face and replied: "Good ideas to make decisions. Let me leave these small things like this to me as the company commander! You have been busy all day yesterday, why do I have the nerve to invite you to "night battle" again!"

With a coaxing sound, a burst of laughter came from the tunnel again.

"How is it?" I smiled for a while and turned the topic to the point and asked, "I have studied it all night and think yesterday's plan is feasible?"

"Of course it's feasible!" Li Baocheng nodded and replied, "Chief of Staff, I will introduce these comrades to you first. Comrade Sun Changlu, known as Sun Dapao, is a well-known mortar gunner in our company. Everyone said that if Sun Dapao wanted to hit the enemy's soles, the shell would not hit the enemy's heels!"

"Hello!" I enthusiastically held the hand of the old soldier who was already wrinkled, and felt a thick layer of calluses on his hand, and couldn't help but feel respect. I knew that these calluses were not planted in crops, but were touched by touching weapons on the battlefield, and were killed by killing the enemy!

"This is Comrade Yang Feiluo!" Li Baocheng continued to introduce: "He was originally from the artillery unit, but later he felt that he was not satisfied with fighting the enemy in the rear, so he took the initiative to ask the infantry unit to be a mortar gunner, and he had a good idea in measuring coordinates!"

"Hello!" I stretched out my hand again.

"This is Comrade Wang Changsheng!" When introducing the soldier, Li Baocheng couldn't help but smile and said, "I don't know if I don't ask. I only found out that Comrade Wang Changsheng had used his hand to hold a mortar to fight the Japanese when he was fighting guerrillas with the Japanese!"

"Oh! Then aren't you very experienced?" I couldn't help asking.

"The experience is not enough!" The middle-aged soldier smiled and said, "It was when he was fighting guerrilla warfare, and he was sometimes chased by the Japanese. He didn't even hurry to set up a cannon. He often held the cannon in his hand and put the cannon in. He just hit it like this! At first, it was not accurate, but practice made perfect, but later he got more and more, and then he gradually became accurate!"

"That's good!" I felt even more confident when the soldier said this.

"Chief of Staff!" After the introduction, Li Baocheng pointed to the map and said, "I counted last night that there were fifteen mortars and 523 shells in the tunnel! It is more than enough to use it to defend the remaining thirteen tunnel entrances of our till now!"

"Yeah!" I nodded.

Although there are not many shells, the base number of shells for the Volunteer Army mortars is fifty, and the average of these more than 500 shells is not enough for one base. However, we only have thirteen tunnel entrances, and this requirement for ammunition will not be too high.

"But comrades have other ideas!" Li Baocheng paused and continued: "Comrades think we cannot limit the battle to the remaining thirteen tunnels. If we fight in this way, the battle will be too dead and too regular! Fighting mortars outside the tunnel, there are few places to hit. If we are still limited to these thirteen tunnels, the area that can be controlled will be very small. The enemy can also use mortars, recoilless cannons, grenades and other weapons to prepare to fight us in front of the tunnel entrance, which will bring us great difficulties!"

"Not bad!" I nodded and agreed with Li Baocheng's statement.

This principle is actually very simple. If our mortars only move at these thirteen tunnel entrances, the puppet army would be able to assign a few people to each tunnel entrance, and prepare to wait for our mortars to come out with grenades, explosives or recoilless cannons.

"We think all of it!" Li Baocheng pointed to the map and continued: "We should expand the battle to all tunnel entrances. We can dig them open to the tunnel entrances blocked by the enemy. After the mortarists fired a few shots at this tunnel entrance, they will move to another tunnel entrance to shoot a few more shots. This will make this battle alive. Each tunnel may become a place to attack the enemy, making the enemy unable to defend!"

"That's right! This will turn passive into activeness!" I nodded and frowned and said, "But it's not easy to dig the tunnel under the control of the enemy's firepower! This requires a lot of casualties!"

This is beyond doubt. The puppet army is not fools. They blew up our tunnel entrance and would not let it go. They would definitely send someone to patrol me and monitor me in case we dig through the tunnel entrance again. In this case, if we want to dig out the soil and rocks at the tunnel entrance, it means we have to work with the enemy's bullets...

"The soldiers of the 45th Division were bleeding and not crying!" Li Baocheng gritted his teeth and replied: "There will always be casualties in wars. What's more, if we don't dig the tunnel, the danger will be transferred to the mortars, and the casualties may be even greater!"

I looked at the map and was silent for a while. After a while, I nodded and agreed to Li Baocheng's combat plan. However, the reason I agreed was because I considered one thing: the puppet army's damage to our tunnel entrance was targeted. They first attacked the tunnel entrance towards Wusheng Mountain. And because we did not think of countermeasures in time yesterday, they did it very successfully, so that almost all tunnel entrances towards Wusheng Mountain were blown up.

The enemy's purpose of doing this is very obvious, that is, to prepare for their attack on the Five Sacred Mountains. Once they are allowed to consolidate these blown-up tunnels, even if we can survive until the end, we will not be able to provide any support to Five Sacred Mountains.

From this perspective, it is also necessary to dig the blown-out tunnel.

So I immediately ordered Li Baocheng: "Before dawn, I immediately ordered the soldiers to dig out the tunnels that were blown up by the enemy, especially those facing the Five Sacred Mountains. Try not to alarm the enemy and do hidden work!"

"Yes!" Li Baocheng responded and immediately went down to organize the personnel to take action.

"All mortars are ready!" I ordered again: "Correspond to monitor the movements of the enemy. If any enemy moves, try to attract the enemy's attention and cover other soldiers to dig through the tunnel entrance!"

"Yes!" Several mortars responded, turned around and retreated.

"Instructor Qin!" After all the soldiers were exposed, I patted Instructor Qin on the shoulder and said, "The work behind you will be left to you!"

"Let go, Chief of Staff!" Instructor Qin nodded with a tired face: "Just just command the battle on the front line, and I will support the rear!"

"Yes!" I shook Instructor Qin's hand again, turned around and grabbed the rifle and walked towards the entrance of the tunnel.

Although Instructor Qin didn't say anything during this period, I knew it was not easy for him. Since the war in Shangganling started, the Qin commander has consciously taken charge of saving and distribution of materials in the tunnel, but these are nothing. The biggest problem is the huge number of wounded personnel in the tunnel...

It has been more than half a month since the war started in Shangganling. In the more than half a month of battle, the tunnel has undoubtedly become the best shelter for the wounded. Also, because the US military has always blocked the supply line of our army with uninterrupted artillery fire, the wounded have never been sent. So the wounded have accumulated more and more in the tunnel, and at most it reached more than 300. Now, the only more than 200 are left is entirely because these wounded people did not have enough medicine to treat, and they sacrificed one after another.

Last night, I took a free time to go to the wounded's tunnel. The scene there still makes me remember it fresh. There was not even a drop of alcohol or a roll of bandage in the tunnel. The wounded had to let the wound get inflamed and eroded, all supported by strong will and his own physique. The bloody, rotten, sweat and feces smell were intertwined, making it impossible for me to stay in that tunnel for another minute.

But I still endured it because I knew that those who were lying here were my comrades-in-arms, brothers who had lived and died with me. Now I can only watch them slowly die here, but I can't give them any help.

Later I found that in order not to affect the emotions of the comrades, these wounded people consciously endured the pain and did not say a word. Many wounded people clenched the bed sheets with their mouths, and some of them could not take off the sheets in their mouths until they died...

In order to take care of these wounded people, Instructor Qin spent all his time on it. He led more than a dozen tunnel sanitary officers to do their best to rescue them day and night. Some people even secretly climbed out of the tunnel at night, picked up parachutes on the flares, cotton in the cotton coat of the corpse and broken gun barrels, came back to make bandages and splints, replaced and bandaged for the wounded, and fixed the broken limbs.

Their hard work is no less than that of the soldiers fighting against the enemy on the battlefield, which can be seen on the hygienist's faces that are so tired that they are deformed.

"chief of staff!"

"chief of staff!"

...

The screams of the soldiers pulled me back from my thoughts. When I looked up, I found that I had arrived at the entrance of the tunnel. Several soldiers were waving engineer shovels to carry stones and soil under the dim light of the kerosene lamp.

Li Baocheng was commanding the side. When he saw me coming, he immediately met and said, "Chief of Staff, the entrance of Pit 1 was bombed very late, and the puppet army had not had time to expand the results of the battle. Therefore, the area where the bombing collapsed here was very short. I want to dig it through before dawn so that it can be used for us tomorrow morning!"

"Yeah!" I nodded, thought for a while and said, "Captain Li, I think we should not only emphasize digging the tunnel as soon as possible, but also emphasize the same time!"

"At the same time?" Li Baocheng couldn't help but feel a little surprised.

"That's right!" I pointed to a few directions and said, "This tunnel entrance is to support and cover each other with the other two tunnels. If we only dig this tunnel entrance, even if we dig it, we will not be able to get the cover of other tunnel entrances and will be blown up by the enemy soon. Our hard work and the tunnel entrance that we exchanged for the cost of our lives will be lost again. But if we can dig these three tunnel entrances at the same time so that the tunnels can support each other, this is meaningful!"

"Oh, I understand!" Li Baocheng scratched his head and said embarrassedly: "Look at me, I didn't expect such a simple truth, and it almost ruined a big deal!"

"This is called learning from strengths and weaknesses!" I continued: "In order to achieve the consistency of time of digging, we can leave a layer of soil when we are about to dig. After the three tunnel openings are ready, we make an appointment with each other to dig at the same time, so that we can catch the enemy outside off guard!"

"Yes! I'll organize it right away!" Li Baocheng stood up, turned around and made arrangements.

In order not to let the enemy notice, all the soldiers who dig the tunnel entrance were careful to do their work. In order not to make a sound, some soldiers even threw the engineer shovel aside and dug the soil and rocks with bare hands. Although the soil that collapsed from the top of the tunnel was not very hard, there were many shrapnel mixed in it, so after a while, the soldiers dug their hands full of blood, but they didn't care as if they were fine.

The digging soil was transported to other tunnels in boxes of shells by the soldiers, or evenly spread on the ground.

As time went by, the soldiers became more and more careful, and finally stopped digging.

One of the soldiers tiptoed to me and whispered: "Chief of Staff, we heard the enemy's voice outside, and we should be almost digging!"

"Good job!" I nodded and ordered: "Waiting for news from other tunnels, be ready for battle!"

"Yes!" The soldier responded softly, waved to the other soldiers, wiped his hands mixed with blood and soil on the military uniform, and then touched the gun he leaned against.

At this time, several telephone soldiers ran over while pulling the line. I was watching strangely. One of them stood up in front of me and reported: "This is the idea of ​​Corps Li. He ordered us to connect to the phone at the three tunnel entrances and be commanded by the Chief of Staff to achieve coordination among the three tunnel entrances."

"Good guy!" Seeing the telephone soldier busy answering the phone, I couldn't help but praise him secretly. This Li Baocheng is indeed worthy of being the company commander of the ace force, and he really has two tricks to do things!

The telephone soldiers were very quick and installed the telephone in a few minutes. This was also the battlefield requirement for the telephone soldiers. Since the military telephone was a single-line telephone at this time, two telephones were used to contact the other two tunnel entrances respectively. In order to prevent the enemies outside the tunnel from hearing the ringtone, the telephone soldiers carefully covered them with two thick cotton coats.

"Hey hey..." As soon as the telephone soldier installed the phone, I couldn't wait to get through the other two tunnel entrances. The sound from the phone came from the phone, and I decided that one who answered the phone was Li Baocheng and the other was Gao Yongxiang.

"Are you all ready?" I asked on the phone: "Do you quickly dig it out?"

"I'm ready!" Li Baocheng replied: "I'm just waiting for the Chief of Staff's order!"

"Give me a few more minutes!" Another phone call came Gao Yongxiang's anxious voice: "I should be fast here, but I can't confirm it yet!"

"Don't be anxious!" I told me: "Be more patient, the most important thing is not to let the enemy discover it. We still have time!"

"Yes!" Gao Yongxiang responded.

"Captain Li!" I ordered again: "Change three mortars, and these tunnel entrances in Pit 1 are very threatening to the enemy. After we dug through, the enemy may soon use the same trick again. We must not let them succeed again. Otherwise, it will be very difficult for us to dig through again!"

"Yes!" Li Baocheng on the other end of the phone immediately responded.

After a while, two soldiers ran up from the other end of the tunnel with a mortar and a box of ammunition. I looked closely and found that Sun Changlu, who was called Sun Dapao, couldn't help but hurriedly greeted him and shook his hands.

"Chief of Staff!" The veteran who was not very talkative stood up in front of me with full confidence: "It depends on my performance! I promise not to let the enemy destroy our tunnel!"

"Okay! It depends on you!" I replied.
Chapter completed!