On the way back to the shelter of the company headquarters from the 1st platoon camp, Liang Tenghui and Cheng Yukun were attacked by another batch of Soviet artillery shells. After lying down, Liang Tenghui realized that they were lying on the leg of the person lying just now! The feeling of horror and disgusting that had not been forgotten came back clearly, making Liang Tenghui's throat twitch and almost vomit something. For the first time, the following thought crossed his mind: he wouldn't make it back to the Shelter alive! Although he had made up his mind to live, the war ignored it! Your survival and death are beyond your own power!

The first shell fell from the mountain stream, and Liu Zongsheng sat on the slope outside the shelter of the battalion headquarters, just picking up his rice bowl to eat. The battalion headquarters originally partnered with the 8th Company, but the 7th Company was the earliest, and the commander of the 7th Company, Hong Dazhi, asked the secretary general to send a meal to more than a dozen people in the battalion headquarters first. Liu Zongsheng asked Xiao Qiang and them to eat first, which is an old habit for him, once he goes to the battlefield, his subordinates will not move chopsticks if they don't eat. He did not seriously think about why he had to do this, but perhaps he could find some clear explanation, such as the fact that there were not many opportunities to eat a hot meal after the battle, and since he had to rely on his soldiers to fight with him, it seemed that he should first let them be fed.

Xiao Qiang knew his temper, so he didn't push it anymore and ordered everyone to eat first. After more than ten minutes, everyone had eaten almost completely, and Liu Zongsheng snuffed out the cigarette butt in his hand, took the food handed by Wei Changgui, and took a sip into his mouth.

At that moment, the shell flew and exploded outside the camp of the 3rd Platoon of the 9th Company.

Liu Zongsheng still swallowed the mouthful of rice, then stood up, stood on tiptoe and looked at the spot where the cannonball landed, where a cloud of gray-brown smoke had risen into the sky. At the first moment, Liu Zongsheng's mind also flashed the idea that the Chinese artillery had hit the wrong target - since the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Regiment easily occupied the 342 heights at dawn and did not encounter counter-shelling by the Soviet army, he decided that the other side did not have enough artillery fire as in previous wars, especially the heavy artillery that could give the Chinese army a serious threat, and what fell just now was exactly a 122 cannon shell or 152 plus howitzer shell. But in the blink of an eye, the second shell flew again, and this time he clearly heard the sound of its flight, so he also identified the direction it was flying from - not the southern mountain group where the Chinese artillery group was distributed, but the Xilian Mountain area north of the First Ridge!

"The Soviets began counter-shelling! …… Tell the companies to be hidden! He yelled at Xiao Qiang and Cui Shi'an behind him, his face changed sharply, and his cheek muscles trembled obviously. Suddenly, he realized that he still had a rice bowl in his hand, and as soon as he raised his hand, he threw it seven or eight feet away. Another shell exploded in the woods near the battalion command post, and Liu Zongsheng instinctively fell to the ground. A small tree the size of a teacup fell more than ten meters in front of him, and the dust raised blinded his eyes. He had difficulty breathing, and his consciousness had crossed a line at this moment: after the battle of the 342 Heights was over, he had a feeling that the war was not over, and the easy capture of No. 1 Ridge by the 3rd Regiment was by no means the end of the war, and now his premonition was confirmed - the real war had not yet begun, it had just begun!

There is another idea that strikes me more urgently and soberly: the Soviet army not only has artillery, but also large-caliber artillery. In the firearms table of the Soviet army, only divisional artillery was equipped with 122 cannons and 152 howitzers! That is to say, today they are facing not a battalion of Soviet troops in the area of Ridge No. 1 and Highland No. 001, but a division of Soviet troops, including in the direction of Mount Xilian! Another premonition he had when he left the snow ridge yesterday afternoon was confirmed: the Soviets did not care about the battle line that stretched in the gorge between the Kibiv and the Silen, and since they had occupied the Kibiv mountain area, they would not cut it off from their entire defenses!

Today's things are going to be troublesome!

The last thought of the last conclusive surname popped into his mind, and another batch of shells exploded in the woods around him. Before the smoke fell, two people quickly emerged from the shelter and dragged him in, one left and one right. After being able to distinguish human faces in the dim light, he recognized that they were Xiao Qiang and his own guard, Wei Changgui. The shelter is not large, and more than a dozen people are all crowded in, so they have to squat against people, and they can hear each other's breathing and see the eyes of others.

Liu Zongsheng calmed down, feeling that there was something wrong with the sound of breathing, nervous, flustered, hurried, and frightened; Liu Zongsheng became angry with himself - he was the supreme commander here, he must have some uncalm expression and actions, otherwise the atmosphere in the masking department would not be like this!

Another shell exploded not far away. The entire shelter was shaken, and earth fell from the top layer of beams. Liu Zongsheng ordered himself to calm down, and unconsciously took out a cigarette from the pocket of his military jacket, lit a fire and smoked it. It was this cigarette that significantly eased the tension in the shelter department, and this cigarette also calmed Liu Zongsheng's own mood a lot, and he began to think about what this sudden change in the enemy situation would bring to the 3rd Battalion of the 5th Regiment, and what kind of fate this unit would have today!

With such a large-scale shelling of mountain streams, the Soviet army will definitely shell the 164th, 342nd, and 631st heights just occupied by the 3rd Regiment on the No. 1 Ridge, and even the troops of the 4th Regiment attacking the 001st Heights! The Soviets could not have had any other purpose, and at Heights 001 it would have been to delay the attack of the 4th Regiment, and in the area of Ridge 1, it would most likely be to 164; The prelude to the counterattack of 342 and 631 highlands!

The first line of the No. 1 Ridge is easy to attack and difficult to defend, and this is true for the Chinese army as well as for the Soviet army. It is possible that the 3rd Regiment today will engage in a rather fierce offensive and defensive battle with the Soviet troops on the No. 1 ridge. The ridgeline of No. 1 Ridge is 6 kilometers long, and the 3rd Regiment has more than enough troops when attacking the 164th, 342nd, and 631st heights, but with it to guard hundreds of high ground and salients up and down the No. 1 Ridge, the strength is not enough, so that the 5th Regiment and 3rd Battalion, as a reserve, will almost certainly be pulled into the battlefield by Peng Tao!

The shells were still blowing up around the shelter, and he couldn't sit down in the shelter anymore. After the battle of the 342 Heights, his unit had been in a semi-de-alert state, the officers and soldiers were not well concealed, let alone prepared for a big battle, and it was still a completely inexperienced unit, he had to go to the companies at once, to the soldiers!

"Battalion Commander Xiao, you and Officer Cui left the phone number of the command post of the 3rd Regiment, and I will go to each company to take a look!" He threw most of the cigarette roll in his hand outside the shelter, and said to Xiao Qiang with a stiff attitude, and at the same time, the cat's waist drilled out of the shelter, not allowing Xiao Qiang and Cui Shi'an to react. As soon as the counter-shelling of the Soviet army began, Peng Tao would think of them, which was a very sober instinct of his. As for letting Cui Shi'an stay, it was because this trainer also had no battlefield experience, and he couldn't let him go out and be shot!

When he walked out of the shelter, he only had troops in mind, and this unit was suddenly shelled by the Soviet army, and it might be chaotic; And the shells that fell in the forests from time to time added a more realistic and strong sense of crisis to his heart: any shell could fly towards him and tear him to pieces. Liu Zongsheng didn't let his life consciousness be filled with this simple terror, but the latter still held on to him tightly for a while. He had run out of the woods in a stubborn struggle with it, and had run north along the forest path, but had been forced to fall into the crater in front of him by the whistling of a cannonball before it landed. The shell exploded, and he suddenly looked up and saw Liang Tenghui, the instructor of the 9th Company, behind a big tree on the edge of the forest on the slope!

The anger in Liu Zongsheng's face and eyes rose from the bottom of his heart at this moment: also in the face of a cannonball that was about to land, Liang Tenghui did not lie down but he lay down, and his actions were seen by the former, and a shameful thought immediately came to his mind, "What's wrong with you?" Afraid of death? …… If you're afraid of death, what are you going to do, hide in the shelter! ......" So at this moment, Liang Tenghui saw that the brief panic on the face of the deputy head of the regiment was completely replaced by anger!

After a few words with Liang Tenghui, he continued to walk forward; In any case, he felt much calmer than he had just been.

"The shells don't have eyes and won't hit you so accurately, so you don't have to lie down all the time." He said angrily to himself, determined not to lie down casually any longer; Now he could concentrate on the two sides of the ravine. He walked out of the shelter for this: there was no one in the sands and streams of the valley, and there was not a single person in the woods on either side who was not hidden, and he was a little relieved; The whole mountain stream is under the Soviet artillery fire, and a cloud of fireworks is rising from the bottom of the stream, from the forest, straight up to the clear sky, from time to time in the stream there is a thick column of water straight up, and slowly falling, like a slow motion in the movie, and on the water surface where no shells have fallen, the sun is still bright and bright, and the green grass and bushes on both sides are green and vibrant. Liu Zongsheng suddenly thought that although his troops were not chaotic in the Soviet shelling, the casualties caused by the shelling would not be insignificant; Once casualties occur, morale is bound to suffer. As the supreme commander of this unit, he now needs all the more to let all the officers and men see his image of being calm, calm, and unfazed!

As soon as he thought of this, from the forest on the west side of the stream, a person quickly rushed out, ran diagonally all the way to the bottom of the stream, splashed across the stream, and ran towards this side like a life! "Who is it?! …… Where are you going?! Liu Zongsheng was furious. He had already recognized the man as the deputy commander of the 8th Company, and he was even more angry, because the man who was frightened by the artillery fire was an officer. "Fuck me——!

The deputy commander of the 8th Company was stunned by his shouting and stopped on the grass at the bottom of the slope. His hat was gone, his right cheek was cut by a branch, a long bloody gash was cut, his face was as white as a piece of paper, and there was nothing but a dazed and terrifying light in his eyes. Looking at Liu Zongsheng, the young man opened his mouth and shouted a sentence as if crying: "Deputy ...... Deputy Commander, there's a dead man over there! ”

"Where's your troops?!" Liu Zongsheng shouted at him loudly, the corners of his mouth twitched with anger, "You are an officer, why did you leave the soldiers and run around alone!" You are derelict in your duty! …… Go back and take care of the troops!" ”

The young man seemed to wake up suddenly, his eyes lit up, a look of fear and panic appeared on his face, he replied with a "yes", and hurriedly ran along the same road to the west side of the valley, and when he waded through the stream, he jumped up again with a large splash, which was as bright as pearls in the sunlight.

Liu Zongsheng watched the deputy commander of the 8th Company disappear before moving his feet forward. The shells were still falling around him, sending out fireworks and fireworks, but not only did he not lie down, he didn't even care about them anymore; He was concerned about whether there would still be people who were as panicked as the deputy commander of the 8th Company, and this caused panic and frenzied rush of the whole battalion. This must not be allowed to happen!

He could already hear the sound of the Chinese artillery group counterattacking the Soviet artillery. At dawn, the rockets and artillery shells that he and many others in the battalion had seen with their own eyes whizzed through the clear sky and flew farther south than Heights 342. The artillery group of the Soviet troops was hit, and the artillery fire immediately became sparse!

On this morning, many soldiers of the 5th Battalion of the 3rd Regiment saw a man on the slope on the east side of the valley through their holes! He stood motionless under Soviet fire for twenty minutes! The shells exploded all around him, but he was still alive, like a miracle! It is because of such a person that many of their recruits survived the most terrifying moments since entering the war safely!

It was not until he was convinced that the troops would not cause any more chaos that Liu Zongsheng left the place where he was standing and returned to the battalion command post. Now he has many things to do: seize the time before the 3rd Regiment has issued a specific combat mission to convene a meeting of officers at and above the company level to clarify the situation, mobilize the officers and men of the whole battalion, and make preparations for fighting a vicious battle; Let the deputy instructor quickly organize an ambulance team and a stretcher team of migrant workers to transport the wounded and martyrs; As far as possible, the psychological contusion caused by the Soviet artillery bombardment to the troops was minimized; The big war is coming, and restoring and keeping morale high is the most important thing!

He did not dodge the leg of the man lying on the meadow in the woods near the camp of the 9th Company and 3rd Platoon. Because he had to bypass the two craters that were crackling and burning, on the way back to the shelter of the battalion headquarters, he walked into the forest on the slope, and there he saw the scene that Cheng Yukun had seen and Liang Tenghui would see later. The cannonball that was destined to ignite the grass had not yet flown in, so Liu Zongsheng not only saw the human leg, but also saw a pink and white wildflower stuck to the sole of the infantry's stab-proof stab; Each of its petals is as thin as a cicada's wings, pierced by sunlight, revealing a shocking coquettishness. This sudden intrusion of the human leg did not bring him deep consternation, but it suddenly gave birth to a sense of consciousness: the war has begun, and death has also begun! , once death begins, war is not an ordinary war!

After exiting the forest, he looked up to the south and saw the 342 Heights, shrouded in a large cloud of black-brown smoke. Another black and red flame rose and extinguished in the smoke, and it was obvious that the Soviet artillery bombardment of the mountain stream seemed to be coming to an end, and the indiscriminate bombardment of the 342 heights continued. Liu Zongsheng's thinking returned to the accuracy of combat operations against the Soviet army.

With such a powerful artillery as the backing, it is normal for the other side to try to recapture the 342 height, and it is normal to carry out artillery bombardment on a mountain stream that may be hidden with the reserves of the Chinese army. All traces show that the scale of the war today will be greater than he imagined!

When he returned to the shelter of the battalion headquarters, Xiao Qiang had already counted the casualties by phone: the battalion suffered 19 casualties, of which 4 were killed and 15 were wounded, and among the seriously wounded were the deputy training officer of the 7th company. Liu Zongsheng ordered the commanders of each company to spend 10 minutes to deal with the martyrs and wounded, and then went to the battalion headquarters for a meeting.

In less than 10 minutes, the Soviets fired a fourth batch of shells into the mountain stream. In the midst of the violent explosions, Liu Zongsheng finally had a feeling: all these shelling, casualties, human legs lying on the grass in the forest, a pink and white wildflower on the sole of the infantry's stabbing shoes...... is what should happen in war; After that, it's the order to fight, the movement to the theater of operations, and the going into battle. This is all familiar to him, and he should not be surprised or frustrated!

But he was still a little surprised and frustrated, deep down; After the battle of 342 Heights, he secretly thought that this small team would have a better fate today, and at this moment this fluke mentality disappeared. A dark, unpredictable premonition weighed heavily on his heart: he and his troops would never survive today's war easily, he was too familiar with Peng Tao, and he was too familiar with what a war was all about!

The field telephone, resting in the corner of the shelter, suddenly rang. The training officer Cui Shi'an picked up the phone receiver, "Deputy regiment commander, the chief of staff of the 3rd regiment is looking for you!" ”

Looking at Cui Shi'an's face that quickly changed color, only one thought flashed in Liu Zongsheng's mind: it came too fast! He stood still, frowned in disgust, and said to Xiao Qiang, "You go and find it!" ”

At 8 o'clock in the morning of that day, when the first batch of shells fell into the mountain stream and exploded, the entire Chinese army on the Kibiv Mountain front -- the 3rd Regiment that had occupied the first line of the No. 1 Ridge, a battalion of the 4th Regiment that had first reached the southern foot of the No. 001 Heights and launched an attack, as well as the 3rd Regiment and the forward command post of the L Division located on the anticline of the Snow Ridge, and then scattered to the north The various artillery groups deployed in the Snow Ridge and Katya Ridge gorges were attacked by an unprecedented fierce attack by a large group of Soviet composite artillery.

Fifteen minutes before the shelling began, Peng Tao had returned to the "hall" from outside the cave.

The battle in the morning was fought so beautifully, and the main thing was that the Soviets had no artillery to pose a threat to the No. 1 Ridge, and Peng Tao happily thought that breakfast should still be eaten in the open space outside the command tent as usual. The view is wide and the air is fresh, making for a picnic-like experience. Since everyone was in the same excited and cheerful mood as him, the battlefield breakfast lasted for half an hour and did not end. At 7:40, the staff officer on duty hurriedly ran out of the No. 2 cave, leaned over Peng Tao and said something in Peng Tao's ear, Peng Tao stood up unhurriedly and said: "Everyone, I'm missing, the commander is calling, I want to answer it!" ”

(To be continued)