The land border between England and Scotland is more than 120 kilometres long from west to east. As the end of the war began, hundreds of thousands of Allied officers and soldiers poured across the border from the English side. At the eastern end, they temporarily stopped at the fortified fortress of Ellsden, while at the western end, the coalition forces soon advanced to the small town of Dumfries, about 20 kilometers from the border.

Garrisoned in Dumfries was the 22nd Commando Division, the first Japanese armament unit of the Scottish Army to be reorganized.

In the history of modern warfare, the Japanese army can be regarded as a victorious army with excellent combat records, except for the defeat to the Soviet Russian and American armies in the thirties and forties, they have won victories in the use of foreign troops, including defeating the decadent Qing Dynasty army and the corrupt Tsarist Russian army at the end of the last century and the beginning of this century, launching two wars of aggression against China in the thirties, and taking advantage of the opportunity when European and American countries had no time to look eastward, they quickly swept through Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, thus climbing to the pinnacle of military affairs. Even in the war lost to the Soviet Russian army and the American army, the Japanese army's battlefield performance was still remarkable, and the soldiers' well-trained, brave and tenacious performance left a deep impression on the opponent, and even the Soviet Russian and American generals admitted that if they fought with the Japanese army with equal weapons, they were not sure of victory.

There is no doubt that by 1949, the Type 38 rifle, Taisho Type 11 machine gun, and Type 89 grenadier cartridges were all old antiques that could be sent to the museum, so after the end of the Philippine War, the Japanese army that was forced to return to the mainland began to carry out tactical reform and equipment upgrading, and the new Type 7 automatic rifle, the Type 8 submachine gun and the Type 8 general-purpose machine gun produced by the introduction of Bergman technology were installed, and the guns and ammunition that were replaced due to the reduction of the size of the army and the replacement of weapons were accompanied by a large number of field guns and anti-aircraft guns. It was offered to the Scottish army free of charge or at a low price. Although the technical content of these weapons was no higher than that of the equipment received by the Scots from the British army, for the sake of expanding the army and comprehensive training, the Scottish Army formed a Japanese armament unit of more than 100,000 men in batches and gave it the title of "assault division".

……

"Damn Irish wolves! Damn England dogs! ”

In a field trench outside Dumfries, Max Marlborough, a native Scottish soldier, unceremoniously delivered a bunch of nasty expletives as he looked back at the group of coalition bombers that had turned around and returned home.

Since his cousin was also named Max, and the two families lived on the same street, they were called "Big Max" for the sake of distinguishing. In this winding trench, there were many men like Big Max who wore round-brimmed steel helmets, dark green combat uniforms, and large leather boots, and their weapons were either held in their arms or placed aside. Some of them closed their eyes calmly, some of them muttered words, and some of them sat blankly, lay on their sides, or shrunk in the corner with blank faces and dull eyes.

The bombing, which had just ended, was the fourth air raid on the first day of the war against the Scottish soldiers. On the first two occasions, the Scottish Air Force was able to send fighter jets to intercept it, but in the face of the air offensive dominated by the coalition forces, the Scottish Air Force was quickly defeated.

As soon as the air raid sirens stopped, the Japanese non-commissioned officer major, who usually served as an instructor and was appointed as a wartime war supervisor, shouted in broken English: "Hurry! Mend the position! Clear the passage! If you want to survive the enemy's bombs and shells, you have to protect your fortifications! ”

The Scottish soldier beside Big Max stood up stupidly and muttered dissatisfiedly: "We are a feud with the English, and we are not good neighbors with the Irish, and this battle will come sooner or later." However, what did the Britons do with the war of the British, and why did they want these Japanese to be involved? ”

Another soldier said: "I heard from the officers that the soldiers of the Japanese army obey orders like robots and are not afraid of death, and the top brass wants us to be like that, so they hire Japanese to train us, supervise us, and even give them the power to kill deserters in wartime." ”

Big Max gasped, the reason why he joined the army was entirely because the dictator Barriol enforced universal military service throughout Scotland, otherwise, he would rather be a shepherd than live this life of licking blood - during the two wars, Britain lost nearly half of its young men of military age, not to mention large colonies one after another, and in the end sent the British royal family, which lasted for more than a thousand years, to cold Canada, so the Scots who gained independence were the same as the English who accepted the rule of the German monarch, All are extremely war-weary.

Less than ten minutes after the bombardment was over, the rumbling of artillery was heard again from the south, and the Scottish soldiers quickly retreated along the communication trenches to hold deep positions, but even then they could not completely avoid the enemy fire. Under such heavy shelling, shells fell directly into trench bunkers, and it was not uncommon for entire squads and platoons to die.

The soldiers in the trenches could only pray and resign themselves to their fate.

The storm of artillery fire was fierce and intense, and the shrill whistling sound was intertwined with the loud explosions, high and low, one after the other. After a long time, the sound of the landslide and tsunami finally turned from dense to thin, and after a few more minutes, the last dull roar closed the powerful symphony. The night sky is quiet, and the transient changes allow people to experience inertial stimulation from the eardrum to the heart, which has a good emetic effect even on the underdeveloped cerebellum. The living survived the ordeal, but there was not a single cheer; The wounded groaned in pain, and all they got was empty compassion. As for those who died, there was no longer a distinction between honor and shame, persistence and vacillation, optimism and discouragement, and everything was over.

"Attention, attention, prepare for battle!"

Urgent shouts rang out as usual after the enemy's shelling had ended, and quickly spread throughout the trenches. The steel helmets with large ears shaped like sculptures moved one after another, some rushed to the forward position along the communication trench, and some got up to be their own combat position. Guns, steel helmets, water bottles, and other hard objects rubbed against each other, converging into a unique sound in the trenches, and the tense atmosphere quickly spread.

Although the unlucky Big Max was very reluctant, he was afraid of the sharp pain of the big leather boots kicking his body, so he stood up with difficulty, picked up the mud-stained rifle from the ground, and waited with a blank face. When the grumpy officer waved his fist and shouted "fire", he and the man next to him went to the edge of the trench and shot forward with the weapon in his hand.

Syllable! Syllable! Quack Quack ......

Gunshots rang out one after another.

"Hold on! Shoot! Hold! Shoot! ”

In the trenches, the officers pulled their throats and urged the soldiers to hold their positions, and the Japanese war overseers, who were short in stature and had hideous expressions, unceremoniously waved the whips in their hands.

The trench where Big Max was at this time was located in an open area running east-west, and to the northeast was Dumfries, an important support point for the entire defensive line; To the west, there are large woods and coastlines, where there are also guards, and there are also defensive depths, as well as stronger coastal fortifications.

In front of the position was a relatively open flat land, and further on there was a stream more than two meters wide, and there were originally small woods and bushes on the opposite bank, but under the continuous destruction of artillery fire, only a few tree stumps remained, and the potholed mud ground was like a soil pigsty in the countryside in the early years, trampled by pigs' hooves and trampled over and over again. As the enemy attack returned, countless figures shook on the potholes and muddy snow, and some tanks that were larger than the figures and were much more lethal and deterrent could be seen!

Rumble......

The artillery behind the flanks of the defenders' positions opened fire. Before the thunderous roar had subsided, a ball of fire rose in the open ground opposite, and it seemed that the shells had slightly deviated from the target. There was no room for emotion, and the sound of bombardment came one after another from the rear of the position, and the shells that broke through the air crashed into the ranks of the attackers in an instant.

Seeing that his artillery fire continued to fall near the enemy's tank, and the impact point was always a fraction of a centimeter away from the target, Big Max couldn't help but be a little anxious. In the recently concluded Austro-Italian War, the attack power of the new United Kingdom army was extremely impressive, and if their artillery could not take out the tanks early, they would use their tank guns and machine guns to kill and wound the defenders in large numbers, and the soldiers in the forward trenches had to use rocket launchers, grenades, explosive packs and ****** to block them. According to the Japanese officers, the self-damage rate of this anti-tank method reached the level of nine deaths.

As time passed, the number of enemy tanks hit by anti-tank fire on the way to attack increased, but the flow of people like a black tide was still rolling, and the shouts of killing faintly drowned out the guns.

"Shoot! Shoot! Free Fire! ”

Almost at the moment when this shout rang out, the long-suppressed gunfire finally erupted in the trenches. The hot bullets rained down like drops, and the approaching Kuroshio suddenly slowed down, and even reversed in some sections, but this only lasted for a short time. The heavily armored enemy tanks opened heavy fire against the defenders' fire, and the self-propelled guns that followed them stopped to shell. Bullets and shrapnel swept through the defenders' trenches in a storm, and many died before they could let out a wail, while most, including Big Max, retreated back into the trenches at the height of enemy fire in order to save their lives. As a result, the firepower on the positions naturally weakened a lot.

Big Max finally caught his breath, only to hear a rough voice ringing in his ears, and his big foot in leather boots kicked mercilessly.

"Get up and shoot! Fast! Get up and shoot! Coward! Coward! Get up! The Japanese war overseer of Big Max's company, a short man with a beard, scolded viciously.

He can't talk back when he is scolded, he can't fight back when he is beaten, and on this life-and-death occasion, Big Max has no time to taste the taste of grievance and resentment. He grabbed the rifle in one hand and the steel helmet in the other, and crawled back to the firing position on the edge of the trench, but as soon as his head poked out of the trench, the strong feeling that a bullet would hit him in the next second began to torture his senses and challenge his endurance, especially the groaning bullets flew by from close range, and his heart was completely suspended, and there was even an instinctive urine intention to stimulate the bladder!

(End of chapter)