Chapter 19: Release the Captives

Chapter 19: Release the Captives

What is different from the past is that this time the US bombardment of our positions was limited to fighter planes, but the artillery did not fire a single shell. As a result, the outside of the tunnel was filled with the strange screams of enemy planes, the whistling of bullets and bombs in the air, and the explosion of bombs. Later, the US military even transferred several B29 bombers, which were called "super fortifications," and poured dozens of tons of explosives on our high ground with one 'sex', and the entire high ground was bombed to the point that it seemed to jump.

Looking at the few logs that had been shaken down in front of me, I couldn't help but frown.

I believe in the 538th Regiment's ability to build tunnels, but the problem is that the tunnels on the 649.8 heights are not from the hands of the 538th Regiment. It has only been half a month since the 538th Regiment took over the defense, although during this time, the soldiers under my leadership have made necessary reinforcements and improvements to the tunnels of the 649.8 heights, but the congenital deficiencies determine that they are not as strong as we imagined.

It's fine if it's bombarded by enemy artillery, because most of the shells fired by the enemy will be borne by the positive slope of the high ground. But now, the enemy is completely using aircraft to carry out this very "extravagant" and relatively "precise" bombing.

My regimental headquarters was built by the soldiers, and its sturdiness was undoubtedly the best on the 649.8 heights, but even so, it was still a few logs broken under the bombardment of enemy planes, so the condition of the other tunnels can be imagined.

Sure enough, not long after, a correspondent came through the passage and anxiously reported to me: "Commander Cui, the No. 3, No. 7, and No. 8 tunnels have collapsed, several soldiers have been injured, and many comrades have been blocked in the tunnels."

"Order the commander of the third battalion to immediately organize personnel to rescue me" Hearing this, I couldn't help but be shocked, and immediately ordered: "We must rescue the soldiers blocked in the tunnel."

"Yes," the correspondent saluted, and returned to the passage in a hurry.

"Commander Cui......" Hu Biao stood in front of me with some fidgeting and said: "The No. 3 pit is the pit of my second company, I want to go and see the situation......

"What do you do with your battles?" I didn't want to refuse: "The matter of saving people is 'handed over' to the third battalion commander to do, you have the ability to fight while saving people?" ”

"Yes, Battalion Commander Hu" Li Pinghe also did Hu Biao's ideological work on the side and said: "You can't use one heart for two purposes, your battalion is now the main combat unit of the 649.8 Heights, and its main task is to resist the attack of US imperialism. Therefore, you should not have too much psychological burden, otherwise you will not be able to please both ends, not to mention, you must also believe in the ability of the third battalion, although most of them are new recruits, but their quality is still quite good, and they will definitely be able to rescue our comrades from the tunnel smoothly."

"Yes" Hu Biao responded, knowing that what we said was right, so he didn't say anything more.

"Report" Outside the tunnel, a fully disguised observation post ran in with a gun, stood still in front of me, and reported: "Commander Cui, the enemy is coming, but there are not many of them, and there are two platoons. And they were waving white flags, as if the squad leader who came up to snatch the corpses asked me to ask for instructions on whether to beat them down."

"Hmm" I couldn't help but be stunned when I heard this, it turned out that it was to carry the corpse. No wonder they didn't fight* but only bombed with planes, because they were afraid that if they hit* they would blow up the corpses.

But when you think about it, it doesn't feel right, the Yankees didn't pay so much attention to corpses before, they paid more attention to the living, and for the corpses that couldn't be taken away on the battlefield, they could only take off their military cards and be done. If this had been done in the past, they would have bombed our positions without any scruples, and even when our troops had just captured a large number of prisoners, they would have carried out a burst of artillery bombardment in order to kill and wound a large number of our soldiers, regardless of the casualties of their own people.

Because of this, there will be a very strange phenomenon of American prisoners on the Korean battlefield. That is, when the U.S. military was just captured by the volunteers, it was a surprising cooperation. No matter what we ask them, such as where the main firepower is, what troops are participating in the battle, how many people there are, etc., they will tell us truthfully at the first time, and even rush to pour out all the old brains that we have not mentioned. After that, they were very attentive, such as helping us carry the wounded down, helping us carry stretchers, etc......

The purpose is obvious, that is, to get out of the battlefield as soon as possible. Because these American prisoners knew very well that once these positions fell into the hands of the volunteers, the American artillery would soon carry out a protracted and large-scale bombardment of this place. And when they're pushed to the rear, they're going to start playing big cards, and it's going to be a lot harder to ask what to do.

Oddly enough...... This time, how could the U.S. military go to such great lengths and take such a big risk to order the troops to come up and snatch the corpses?

Is there any fraud in it?

It doesn't look like it, but after the last battle, I think it should have been clear to the commander of the U.S. Army that we had actually abandoned the hilltop position that was unfavorable for defense and instead defended on the anti-slope. Knowing this fact, if the US commanders still want to use this method to get the deceitful to the top of the mountain, they can only say that they are idiots. Because even if they don't cheat, they can easily occupy the hilltop position.

Do you want to occupy the hilltop position first, and then block us in the tunnel with firepower and not be able to deploy our forces?

There is such a possibility, but I don't worry about it at all.

One is because the fighters defending the ridge line will not let them succeed, and the enemy only has two platoons of troops, which is simply not enough to pose a threat to the fighters on the ridgeline.

Another reason, and more importantly, is that I have long considered the problem of the deployment of the warriors in the tunnels, so I have opened an additional tunnel entrance for each tunnel during this time. This is not difficult, all that is needed is to open an extra passage of several meters at the corner of the mouth of the tunnel, so that the warriors in the tunnel can quickly deploy their forces on the anticline.

Seeing that I hesitated, Hu Biao thought that I was worried that the soldiers would suffer too many casualties on the battlefield under the bombardment of enemy planes, so he couldn't help waving the rifle in his hand and said: "Let me take the soldiers up, the regiment commander can rest assured, I took the soldiers close to fight, and the enemy planes dare not do anything to us."

"No," I quickly shook my head and said, "Maybe the enemy really came up to carry the corpses."

"I think so too," Li Pinghe nodded in agreement.

"But......" Hu Biao asked a little puzzled: "When did the Yankees ever care so much about corpses, I remember that there was a war, and they didn't dare to call them to come up and move them, so beware that we were lying to them to come up and send them to death."

"This time it's different," I replied, "because this time there are a lot of reporters watching from behind, and to put it bluntly, this battle is actually what the Van Vliet guy is doing, and he wants the whole world to know how their American military keeps its word and how they fight for the remains of their comrades."

"That's right," Li Pinghe said with a smile: "So we can't beat them down, otherwise, although we win this battle, we will lose the moral Yankees, since we want to make an appearance, we can't show weakness."

"The commissar is right," I nodded, "so not only can we not send them back, but we have to give them a little gift."

"Gifts?" Listening to Hu Biao, he couldn't help but look at me with some puzzlement, and even Li Pinghe didn't understand what I wanted to do.

"How many American prisoners did we capture in these two battles?"

As soon as I asked, Hu Biao and Li Pinghe both understood, and couldn't help but sigh.

"Report to the head of the regiment" Hu Biao 'stood up' and replied: "A total of thirty-four people were captured, of whom seventeen were wounded."

Although most of the soldiers of our army did not leave prisoners in these two battles, there were still a small number of soft-hearted soldiers, and fortunately, with this part of the soft-hearted soldiers, we could play this scene.

"Release them all," I ordered, "be sure to take them to the top of the hill, also with a white flag, and shake them vigorously to attract the attention of others."

"Wait" Hu Biao was about to leave when he was stopped by Li Pinghe: "Bring two interpreters and tell the Yankees that our volunteers treat prisoners preferentially, and will never attack when they carry corpses."

"Understood" Hu Biao responded, turned around and went into the passage to arrange.

Originally, I thought that I could speak English and should let me go up with the prisoners, but when I thought about it, it seemed too rash for a regimental commander to personally do the work of releasing the prisoners, and it was very likely that they would be bombed by enemy planes by mistake, so I didn't speak.

After Hu Biao left, Li Pinghe shook his head and smiled: "The reason why we are still fighting now is, in the final analysis, because of the unequal number of prisoners on both sides of the enemy and us, and now we release the prisoners in front of reporters from various countries, so that they can understand why the number of prisoners on both sides is so different."

I understand Li Pinghe's reasoning. As a matter of fact, at the time of the Korean War from the Battle of Shangganling, the military demarcation line had been basically determined, and there was no objection from either side of the enemy, that is, the actual military demarcation line prevailed. The UN forces have abandoned their unreasonable so-called air and sea compensation. So the only contradiction now is the issue of the two sides 'handing' prisoners.

The United Nations has a much larger number of prisoners than we have, and they use this as a condition to blackmail one for one and then insist on what is called "voluntary repatriation".

In fact, the prisoners in the hands of our army will not be less than those of the combined army, and in the five battles in the early days of the DPRK, our army surrounded and annihilated a large number of United Nations troops in each battle. However, because it was very difficult for our army to supply at that time, there was a serious shortage of food and 'medicine', and there were not a few cases where our soldiers starved to death because they had no food, and because they had no 'medicine' to turn from minor injuries to serious injuries or even sacrifices, where could they still have the ability to feed or heal those prisoners.

As a result, a large number of prisoners were released by our army, especially the American army, the British army and other countries. At that time, the superiors considered that the treatment of foreign prisoners might affect the international situation, so they often treated them with special favor. Just like the veterans of the Volunteer Army who returned to China said, when they took care of the US prisoners, they couldn't eat enough fried noodles by themselves, but the prisoners ate white noodles and rice. His own wounded did not have a 'medicine' doctor, but he gave priority to the wounded captives with the last supplies, and he could not hold them all up, so he had to let them all go......

As for the prisoners of the puppet army, the People's Army, which had suffered heavy losses at that time, was in urgent need of new forces, so it replenished a large number of personnel from the prisoners.

As a result, there is now a difference of more than 100,000 between the number of prisoners and the enemy.

What is very helpless is that for the sake of the departure and retention of these hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war, the enemy and us fought another big battle and suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. That's why later generations said that this battle was a battle that should never have happened, and the Korean War should have ended three years after it happened.

With hundreds of thousands of casualties for the sake of more than 100,000 people, whether such a war will be cost-effective or not, even elementary school students will know. But what can be done? That's politics, and sometimes it's hard to understand

I was thinking that the whistling of enemy planes and gunfire outside the tunnel suddenly subsided, and then after a while the whole battlefield was silent, as if a storm had passed our position.

Just when I was 'confused', Hu Biao ran in with two soldiers happily, laughing as he ran: "Commander, you didn't see the Yankees' expression, it's a pity that you didn't go up......"

"The captives were put back?" I asked.

"Put it back" Hu Biao smiled: "At first, some soldiers were not happy, and I also did ideological work for a while, but to be honest, I was not very happy at first, but now I figured it out, you didn't see the Yankees' crying and laughing look, ha...... Although the boss was not happy to receive those captives, he had to pretend to be very polite and grateful to us, and I almost laughed and fell down......"

"Maybe ......" Liu Shunyi replied: "That's why the US planes stopped bombing."

Li Pinghe said with a smile: "This time, those Yankees are giving free publicity to our volunteers, I don't know if tomorrow's newspapers of various countries will write the article that US planes bomb indiscriminately, and Chinese soldiers will release prisoners in a righteous manner."

There was a coax, and the soldiers in the tunnel all laughed.

Reports

At this time, a familiar voice came from outside the tunnel, but I couldn't remember who it was for a while, so I hurriedly answered: "Come in"

A familiar figure walked in, although he was dressed in camouflage and his face was covered with mud, I still recognized him as Hu Zudi at a glance. I couldn't help but greet them excitedly and hugged each other tightly.

"Commander Cui" Hu Zudi saluted me, then held my hand tightly and said: "As soon as we heard that you need us, we came non-stop, please give an order, we will definitely complete the task you 'handed' to us."

"Don't be in a hurry, don't be in a hurry" I laughed and said, "The enemy hasn't come to his senses at this moment, maybe he won't start attacking so soon."

"Didn't come back to your senses?" Hu Zudi couldn't help but ask suspiciously: "By the way, when we were about to come up just now, we found that the enemy planes were bombing very badly, so in order to avoid unnecessary casualties, I temporarily stopped advancing. I didn't expect the enemy to suddenly stop bombing, it's all like a child's face, and it will change ......"

"Isn't it the credit of Captain Cui?" Li Pinghe said with a smile: "He let the prisoners go like this, so that the Yankees are not easy to behave."

As he spoke, he told him about the release of the captives.

Hu Zudi also felt funny when he heard it: "I didn't expect that there would be such a benefit in releasing American prisoners, so in the future, we will catch more Yankees, and let him go every time we fight."

Hu Zudi's words naturally provoked laughter from the soldiers again.

"How? What about the other comrades? After laughing for a while, I asked, "Yang Zhenshan, are they all right?"

"It's all right" Hu Zudi nodded and said: "The others are all arranged to be on standby in the No. 2 tunnel, and they all wanted to come to see you, but I want to ...... There are so many soldiers, all of them are crowded into this regiment headquarters, then Commander Cui, you can't command the battle yet, so you didn't dare to let them come."

"Hmm" I couldn't help but be stunned when I heard this, and patted Hu Zudi on the shoulder with a smile and said, "Hearing you say that, it's time to be promoted."

Hu Zudi embarrassedly 'touched' his head and smiled: "After Commander Cui, after you left, Staff Officer Wang led us for the time being, and later Staff Officer Wang was also transferred to the division headquarters as a staff officer, and the soldiers elected me as a platoon commander."

"Good job" I nodded: "Your platoon is different from other platoons, all of them are sharpshooters selected by the 'fine' in the army, and it is really not easy to be a platoon commander."

"That's not the cultivation of Captain Cui" Hu Zudi replied: "If there is no Captain Cui, where would there be our platoon"

I smiled noncommittally, led Hu Zudi to the map, pointed to the 649.8 heights and said to Hu Zudi: "Our difficulty now is that the enemy's 902.8 elevation is higher than our army's position, and there are many US snipers distributed on it, and the preliminary estimate is that there is also a platoon. This platoon on the 902.8 high ground threatens our troops at all times, so that our troops are controlled everywhere and cannot be let go to fight you, is there a way to solve it? ”

The best way to deal with snipers is to use them. Therefore, if we want our army not to be tied hand and foot to fight, we can only let Hu Zudi's platoon be on it.

Hu Zudi looked at the terrain of the 649.8 heights on the map, and couldn't help frowning and said: "If we want to deal with the snipers of the US army on the 902.8 heights, then we must lurk on the positive slope of the high ground or on the top of the mountain, otherwise we will not be able to see the enemy at all." But now...... We have entered the anti-slope operation, and the forward slope and hilltop positions are actually under the control of the enemy, so we have to deal with American snipers...... We don't seem to have a place to lurk."

"Hmm" I nodded, I also thought about what Hu Zudi said, but it was not completely impossible

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