Chapter 57: The Mountain Road

Chapter 57: The Mountain Road

The sound of 'fierce' guns resounded over Munden-ri, and although the artillery preparations were over, the mortars who were assisting on the high ground still 'fired' shells towards the south bank of the North Han River. At this time, our troops had not yet had time to rush across the river, and it was time for them to play their role.

In the aperture of the telescope, what had been a formidable fortification was now a scorched earth, full of bombed bunkers, machine-gun emplacements, barbed wire, and shapeless trenches, with the occasional corpse and severed arm.

Of course, I'd love to depict this scene as littered with the corpses of the puppet army. But this is not the case, because even the most stupid person will not easily get out of cover when he is shelled by the enemy, unless he is blown up by a bomb. Therefore, I believe that there are many living forces of the puppet army on the opposite bank, if their fortifications are built strong enough.

The machine gunners and mortars of the 540 regiment were not slow, and at the first time they got up from their hiding places and quickly occupied a favorable position to organize fire to suppress the possible fire on the south bank. They will be the most powerful cover for the troops crossing the river.

The rest of the warriors rushed towards the river in groups of more than a dozen people, carrying rubber boats, folding boats, and even bamboo rafts and rafts borrowed from nowhere.

The outpost positions of the puppet army, Heights 237.5 and 334, did not even have a chance to stop the volunteer soldiers, because at the moment when the artillery fire stopped, a small detachment immediately ran up and blew up their tunnel mouth with explosives. When I attacked the 902.8 heights, I also dealt with the puppet army's tunnels, and I knew that the puppet army's tunnel entrances did not have the function of covering each other, so it was not difficult to do this.

As soon as the soldiers carrying rubber boats, bamboo rafts and other tools for crossing the river ran to the river, they threw them to the river with a tacit understanding, and several people pushed the leather boats into the river, and then they flew up one by one and jumped up, and then waved the wooden pulp and rowed towards the opposite bank. Seeing their movements in one go, without half a minute of pause and panic, they must have been rehearsed countless times before the war.

At this time, there was a very spectacular scene on the Bukhan River, hundreds of boats of all kinds rowed towards the other side of the river one after another, some of them wielded, some of them held their submachine guns in their hands or put machine guns on the bow of the boat, like a group of cavalry on war horses pressed towards the opposite bank. At this time, it was only ten minutes before the moment of attacking, and even the puppet army on the other side had not yet reacted from the artillery fire.

"Boom ......"

When the vanguard of the Volunteer Army had already reached the middle of the river, the puppet army on the other bank finally came to their senses and fired several shells at the Volunteer soldiers who were crossing the river. With a few roars, several water columns rose in the river, and the water 'flowers' flew in the shape of radiation 'shooting' in all directions, and the rubber boats near the impact point also rose and fell violently with the 'waves' and 'waves'. There were even several fighters who were hit by shrapnel and fell into the river. But as if they hadn't seen it, the warriors still rowed towards the other side with their own wooden pulp.

It's not that the fighters don't want to save those who are wounded and overboard, it's that the situation doesn't allow the fighters to do so, and it's an order that has been repeatedly emphasized before the attack. If the rubber boat is stopped for the sake of one or two fighters who have fallen overboard, the consequences can be imagined. If a rubber boat stops, it is very likely to block the way of the rubber boat behind it, which will not only slow down the attack, but may even cause the entire attacking force to 'mix' and 'chaos' and put all the fighters in danger.

However, although there were casualties, I was relieved to see these few cannons of the puppet army. There are only three water columns, that is to say, only three 'doors' of mortars are bombing, which means that the puppet army did not have time to organize fire back at all, otherwise, the shells would have come in pieces and along with the machine gun bullets.

But now there is nothing. I think this should be because the puppet army did not expect that our army would have river-crossing equipment such as kayaks

"Boom ......" and several shells exploded in the rubber boat, directly overturning a rubber boat. The fighters on the rubber boats fell into the water one after another. But they did not give up, and all of them swam towards the opposite bank, even though some of them were wounded, even though the raging river had washed them away......

Several flares slowly rose into the air, illuminating the blood-stained water in the river, as well as the soldiers on the river like kayaks and boats. The machine guns of the puppet army soon rang out, and the bullets were piled up towards the soldiers like a line of fire.

Those bullets 'stirred' up in the river water, like water snakes hidden in the river, pounced on the soldiers' kayaks, followed by screams and blood......

The enemy's fire was not fierce, but the soldiers who were crossing the river were completely 'exposed' in front of the enemy like targets. In addition, each rubber boat was crowded with more than a dozen fighters, so the puppet army machine gun bullets could always carry the lives of several volunteer soldiers everywhere. In addition, the rubber boats are all inflated, and after a few bullets, they slowly softened, and the speed became slower and slower, but after a while, they sank weakly into the water

This frustrated the soldiers' attack, and in the blink of an eye, four or five rubber boats were sunk into the water, but fortunately, the soldiers were all wearing floating suits, which made it easy for them to swim towards the opposite shore even if they fell into the water.

Looking at this scene, I couldn't help frowning, it's not a way to go on like this, it's like a kayak that is too ineffective under the enemy's bullets, but those wooden rafts and rafts are more practical, and the soldiers can even set up machine guns on them to counterattack, although there is no accuracy because of the ups and downs of the river.

Just when I was embarrassed, there was a sudden sound of "chirp ......" in the air.

It was the "Katyusha" rocket artillery, and I quickly realized this.

Sure enough, before I could get ready, rows of small blinding mushroom clouds erupted on the south bank of the Bukhan River, and everything seemed to fall silent after a bright light. There was no more gunfire, and there was no more gunfire......

"Well played"

"Fight hard"

……

The soldiers who saw this scene nearby cheered one after another, but I am sure that these cheering soldiers must be the new reinforcements of the 538th Regiment. The soldiers of the former 538 Regiment, as soon as they walked into the battlefield, they knew that they had to be vigilant and concealed at all times. There is a saying among the warriors, that is, "you will not lose anything by being careful a hundred times, but if you are not careful once, it will be enough for you to lose your life". But it was clear that the recruits did not know this, even though most of them were veterans of combat.

I glared hard at the good warriors, and they immediately vomited the rest of the cheers into their stomachs.

You can't blame them too much, even I almost applauded the 540 regiment just now.

Zhang Xincai, this guy really has a hand, he has long thought that after the bombardment, the puppet army may organize firepower to prevent our army from crossing the river, so he fired a burst of rocket artillery at a critical moment. At this time, our army had not yet crossed the Bukhan River, so there was no need to worry about rocket artillery accidentally injuring one's own people. Moreover, the rocket artillery thing will shoot hundreds of rockets in one go in a few seconds, and those puppet troops who organized fire on the south bank to prevent our army from crossing the river will disappear into the artillery fire before they have time to escape.

So the battle became easy, and the first troops crossing the river successfully landed on the south bank. The soldiers couldn't wait to jump off the rubber boats, and then rushed to the enemy positions like little tigers, killing the puppet soldiers who were being blown up by the rockets in the trenches and pillboxes.

The battle of the 540th Regiment was not over, and their task was to quickly capture and hold the vast 'dong' and shonjian-ri after the forced crossing, which were in the upper and lower reaches of the Bukhan River, respectively, and held them, in fact, to spread a gap in the defense line of the puppet army, and to ensure that the rest of our army could rush out of this gap to complete the task of penetrating and 'interspersing'. At the same time, this is also a guarantee that our army's supplies can be delivered to the hands of the penetrating troops.

Therefore, after the soldiers of the 540th Regiment captured the position on the south bank of the puppet army, they were divided into several groups to cross the river by rubber boat, and then divided into three parts, one part to attack the vast 'hole' downstream, one part to attack the upper reaches of the river, and the last part to consolidate the fortifications on the south bank to prevent the puppet army from launching a counterattack and covering the sappers to build a pontoon bridge.

It is said that this Soviet-style pontoon bridge is still very convenient to build, and the sappers first carry them into the water and throw them into the water, and after unfolding them, they can be connected like small boats. It's just that these sappers don't seem to have used these new things before, so it took more than 20 minutes to build two such pontoon bridges on the river.

But this can't be blamed on them, at this time China's national strength and technology are incomparable with the United States and the Soviet Union and other countries, when have you ever seen this kind of pontoon bridge that can be directly spliced on the water. The more advanced ones were to lay planks in rows of small boats, the latter ones were to drive wooden stakes to build bridges, and even the soldiers jumped into the river and carried the planks on their shoulders to let other fighters pass...... It was now very good to be able to erect a pontoon bridge that could accommodate a large army in just twenty minutes.

The soldiers of the 539th Regiment drove the troops over in a hurry as soon as the pontoon bridge was built, and they had a reason to be anxious, and their task was to follow behind the 540th Regiment, and after they had taken the vast 'hole', they would occupy the 551.6 Heights and control the Jinchengchuan Bridge along the road. One thing is for sure, now that the battle has begun, the slower they move, the better prepared the enemy will be. The more prepared the enemy, the more difficult it is to hit the target.

But our 538th Regiment is not worried about this, because I believe that no matter what, the two regiments in front of us will not attack faster than our marching speed, unless the puppet army is all paper-paste

So I took the soldiers to follow behind the 539th Regiment as if on a walk, more than 3,000 combat troops, plus more than 1,000 sappers who carried ammunition and 'medicine' supplies, and 4 or 5,000 people drove south in a neat formation like a dark cloud. Climb over the undulating pontoon bridge, step onto the south bank strewn with corpses and craters, and then onto the road to the Kaneshiro River Bridge......

In normal times, I would never dare to take a team of four or five thousand people onto the road, and it would undoubtedly become the best target for enemy planes to bomb, but now it is raining heavily, and the US planes cannot take off, so we don't need to worry about this.

This is undoubtedly the most I have led the army, more than 5,000 people, if this should have been a general in ancient times, when I think of this, I have a sense of pride in my heart waving a spear, riding a war horse, and leading thousands of soldiers under my command to rush to the enemy, in fact, I am doing this now, the difference is only that I am holding a rifle in my hand.

But soon this pride was soon gone, because the cold wind blowing in my face reminded me of the phrase "the wind is sluggish and the water is cold, and the strong man will never return......

Although it shows that they know that the time for our war has not yet come so quickly, the pace of the soldiers is still getting more and more urgent. I can understand that, too. As the 'elite' of the 180th Division, the 538th Regiment rushed to the forefront no matter what battle it fought, but this time, it was placed behind the back, just watching others fight itself and just follow behind. This makes the soldiers feel a little bit like they are enjoying their success or even falling behind, so they subconsciously hope to be on the battlefield faster.

After marching on the road for more than half an hour, I felt the emptiness in the rear of the puppet army, because until now the 539th regiment, which was walking in front of us, had not encountered decent resistance, which can be seen from the sparse gunfire in front and the fact that there were not a few corpses of the puppet army along the way.

I'm thinking, this is a big deal because the puppet army was shocked by the overwhelming 'sexual' strength deployed by the volunteers on the front line of Jincheng On the front of the battle line, the four divisions of the puppet army confronted the 20th Corps of the Volunteer Army, under the jurisdiction of the 67th, 68th, and 54th armies, and the 33rd Division, a total of ten divisions. Ten divisions against four divisions of the puppet army, such a strength makes the puppet army feel that our country is of course focusing on frontal attacks. So focus all your attention on the positive.

But what they didn't expect was that we would 'insert' a knife on the flank, which they considered to be under-manned, and at the same time overwhelm the 'sexual' forces to attack head-on, and at the same time block their retreat from the flanks and rear.

It should be said that the intention of the higher authorities is obvious, that is, to annihilate the puppet army's 'elite' troops in one fell swoop, so that the puppet army will lose the pillar of laziness to "go it alone", so that the Syngman Rhee clique has to bow its head, so as to achieve the goal of ushering in peace faster.

It's just that this peace came at the cost of the lives of tens of thousands of volunteer soldiers

Just as he was thinking about it, suddenly a dense burst of gunfire came from the front. I couldn't help but pause, and raised my binoculars to look in the direction where the gunfire was coming from, but because I was blocked by the mountain, I couldn't see anything, only bursts of lightning-like light appeared and disappeared under the outline of the mountain.

"Regiment Commander" Li Pinghe came up and said: "It should be the comrades of the 539th Regiment who are on fire with the enemy."

"Hmm" I nodded, and the march was only now connected to the fire, and it should have been almost near the Kaneshirogawa Bridge. Listening to the sound of gunfire, it seems that the offensive of the 539th Regiment did not go well.

Sure enough, after a while, the top soldiers in the front came back and reported: "Report that the commander of the regiment, the 539th Regiment, was blocked at an unnamed high ground in front, and it was still two kilometers away from the Jinchengchuan Bridge, and the enemy's resistance was very stubborn, and it may not be possible to quickly resolve the battle."

"What's going on?" I couldn't help but frown.

Before reaching the Kaneshiro River Bridge, there was such a big resistance, and it was not possible to quickly resolve the battle...... We are still waiting for them to capture the 551.6 heights and then quickly 'insert' into the enemy's depth along the road, and the 539th Regiment has been blocked, so we are still in a hurry

"Commander, telegram" At this time, a telegraph soldier stood in front of me and said: "It is from the 539th regiment"

It was inconvenient to read the telegram in the dark and rain, so I used a more direct method.

"The puppet 3rd Division on the south bank of the North Han River was not defeated by our army, and the remnants of the army retreated in a planned way to build a new defensive line two kilometers away from the Geumseong River, and the resistance was very stubborn, and it was impossible to capture the 551.6 heights as planned."

"Hmm," I gasped as I listened to this telegram.

The puppet army is really getting more and more capable of fighting now, and after their troops were defeated by us in the past, they turned around like a gust of wind, and no one knew where they were going. But now...... The remnants of what we had scattered were still able to be gathered, and a new line of defense was built in such a short time

That's not good

Then I quickly thought that if all the troops of the puppet army are like this now, and they gather in the rear after they are scattered, then even if we can achieve the attack and victory, the more we hit the back, the more enemies will be, and I don't know when we want to hit the planned 585.2 heights, and then we still want to block the deserters of the puppet army?

"Map" I called, and Xu Yongwei and Zhang Mingxue, who were following me, immediately moved. One opened the paper umbrella, the other brought the shell box, uncovered a layer of tarpaulin to 'expose' the dry wooden board underneath, and then took out the map and quickly spread it out on it.

"Li Yongen" I squatted in front of the shell box, looked at the map under the aperture of the flashlight and asked, "Is there any other way to the 585.2 heights?"

Li Yongen's military rank was Major Deputy Battalion Commander and was the guide assigned to the 538 Regiment by the People's Army. In each battle, the KPA always provided us with some soldiers who were familiar with the combat terrain as guides, and such guides had spread to the company level, and each company would be assigned two or three.

"Yes, yes," Li Yongen said with some embarrassment: "It's just ...... The mountain road is steep and the road is slippery"

Li Yongen's Chinese is not very good, but I still understand what he means and understand what he is worried about. It's steep, slippery, and dangerous, which means that the sappers who transport the ammunition and supplies will have a hard time......