Chapter 54: A Difficult First Day
Shooting the last bullet in the chamber, Zhao Zhi ordered the mercenaries in the squad to retreat back, and Zhao Zhi, who was seriously understaffed, not only sent all his staff officers, but even he himself joined the raid against the Japanese army with the team of escort mercenaries around him. The mercenary in charge of the broken time quickly set up two trick mines with American grenades, but he only ran out more than 20 meters away, and the two trick mines were triggered and detonated by the pursuing Japanese army, and the Japanese army chased too close.
"Sir, it's not right, we've been around this area for more than three hours, and it is said that the devil soldiers chasing us should change targets, why do I look at the Japanese soldiers who were chasing us." Zhao Zhi's escort mercenaries followed Zhao Zhi around here for more than three hours in a row, each of them still carrying nearly 25 kilograms of ammunition and equipment, this mercenary who spoke was obviously too tired, in his opinion, all the Japanese soldiers wearing khaki military uniforms looked like a look.
"After walking south for a while, we'll rest, and by the way, I'll beat them up, I'm a little annoyed by these Japanese soldiers." Zhao Zhi changed the magazine of his sniper rifle while walking, although Zhao Zhi had not stopped training, but after all, he had been away from fighting for a long time, and the three-hour high-intensity combat made Zhao Zhi a little unbearable, which forced Zhao Zhi to be even more annoyed.
More than 100,000 Japanese troops poured into Fukuoka Prefecture, sweeping the places where the thunder troops might be hiding like a dragnet, and Zhao Zhi's previous disintegration was just enough for the mercenary troops to avoid the Japanese army's dragnet purge, and those mixed troops that Zhao Zhi regarded as cannon fodder were not so lucky, and at least 50,000 mixed soldiers became corpses or prisoners of the Japanese army in a morning of attack and pursuit. Zhao Zhi didn't care about the casualties of the mixed soldiers, what he cared about was time, and he needed the mixed troops to buy more time for himself.
Zhao Zhi arranged those mixed troops on the outer defense line, originally thinking that these hundreds of thousands of mixed troops should be able to withstand more than half a day, but he did not think that the Japanese army only broke through the defense line of the mixed troops in just half a morning, which made Zhao Zhi realize that he was underestimating the strength of the Kwantung Army. The mixed army collapsed, but there were still 3,000 mercenaries armed to the teeth in Fukuoka Prefecture, it was just a big scuffle, Zhao Zhi was confident in his mercenaries, he was betting that the Japanese army would not be able to wipe out all the thunder mercenaries in Fukuoka Prefecture within two days.
Zhao Zhi led his escort mercenaries to the south for another section, and finally stopped at the edge of a woodland to rest for a while, the rice fields and villages in the distance had been deserted, and the mixed forces drove all the Japanese in Fukuoka Prefecture to Kitakyushu, and Fukuoka Prefecture was almost dead. Zhao Zhi roughly counted in the telescope, this group of Japanese soldiers can have the size of a squadron, but he has not yet found that this group of Japanese soldiers has three light machine guns and two mortars.
"Yezi, you move to our left with two snipers, and as soon as you hear the gunshots, you can control their mortars, and the light machine guns will be handed over to me to deal with." Ye Kong, who was assigned a task by Zhao Zhi, quietly sneaked to the left flank of the squad with two snipers in the escort team, and there were some bushes on the left flank, which were just used to provide cover and concealment for Ye Kong and them. There seemed to be people who were proficient in pursuit of the Japanese soldiers who followed the pursuit, and there were still about 500 meters away from Zhao Zhi's hiding place, and the Japanese pursuit force stopped, and this sudden change made Zhao Zhi very annoyed.
I don't know why the Japanese army stopped, but for safety reasons, Zhao Zhi still sent two mercenaries to search backwards, and the front and back attacks are not the patent of thunder, and there are also masters in the Japanese army who are proficient in mountain warfare. Sure enough, as Zhao Zhi expected, the two mercenaries who were searching backwards set off and ran back within three or five minutes, reporting to Zhao Zhi that they had found Japanese troops appearing in the rear, although they were still far away, but the two groups of Japanese troops were already flanking in front and rear.
Of course, Zhao Zhi would not be stupid to wait for the Japanese army to complete the encirclement, and after beckoning Ye Kong to retreat, Zhao Zhi and his gang retreated into the woodland, and Zhao Zhi, who entered the forest, did not make any stops, directly crossed most of the woodland, and disappeared into the mountains and forests with the meeting point of the two groups of Japanese troops. Pursuit and encirclement have obviously become the usual tricks of the Japanese army, Zhao Zhi and the others encountered several dragnet encirclements by the Japanese army throughout the afternoon, but unfortunately they faced well-trained elite mercenaries. In the face of the ambush with the strong firepower that the mercenaries were accustomed to, these Japanese soldiers who surrounded Zhao Zhi all became corpses buried in the mountains and forests without exception.
The day disappeared, and the mercenaries ushered in the dark night when they couldn't see their fingers, and the mercenaries who were scattered by Zhao Zhi in Fukuoka Prefecture finally waited for the dark night. Among the equipment issued by Zhao Zhifa to the mercenaries was night vision equipment, relying on these slightly bulky night vision devices, the mercenaries could easily find the Japanese troops hiding in the shadows, and then kill them one by one. With the strong counterattack of the mercenaries, the Japanese troops who pursued into the mountains and forests suffered heavy blows and began to retreat, but the darkness could not provide them with effective cover, and the casualties of the Japanese began to gradually increase.
The efforts of hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops during the day were ruined, and the rabbit-like South Asian natives who were chased by them during the day were not good at night, bows and arrows, long knives, ropes, traps, these cold weapons before the Japanese Restoration were all used by mixed soldiers, and it turned out that these methods were indeed better than the Japanese guns, especially under the cover of night, the advantages of mixed soldiers were more obvious.
A well-trained Japanese unit often fails to collapse until it has more than 60 percent casualties, but they are now faced with mercenaries equipped with night vision devices and mandrill-like natives of South Asia, and in the face of rising casualty figures, the Japanese have to withdraw from the mountains and forests and shrink their forces into the territory they already control. The retreat of the Japanese army indicated that the implementation of Zhao Zhi's first plan was smooth, and the Japanese army did not know that Zhao Zhi had reserved more than 3,000 heavily armed elite mercenaries on the outskirts of Fukuoka Prefecture, and once the retreating Japanese troops thought they were safe, the crazy peripheral mercenaries would impress them.
Dawn is coming, most of the mercenaries who have escaped into the mountains and forests are resting, but Zhao Zhi has not closed his eyes all night, he is making a plan of action in the first half of the night, and Zhao Zhi is waiting for dawn in the second half of the night. The appearance of dawn indicates that a new day is coming, and the appearance of dawn means that the US fleet will appear in Japanese waters, and once the US fleet appears in Japanese waters, it will inevitably cause a shock in the current situation in Japan, and the Japanese cabinet may draw troops back to help the mainland, and the hundreds of thousands of elite Kwantung Army on Kyushu Island are the best and fastest choice for the Japanese high-level. When the Japanese army attacked Fukuoka in a big way, what Zhao Zhi could do was to search for troops, and the mixed troops that were arranged on the periphery were just smoke bombs that Zhao Zhi deliberately placed in front of the Japanese army, and what he wanted was that the Japanese army thought that Zhao Zhi's defense line had been defeated, and Zhao Zhi's troops had also been defeated and fled into the mountains. Zhao Zhi did not mean to show weakness in doing this, he just wanted to create a false impression for the Japanese army, so that the Japanese army mistakenly believed that the Thunder troops on Kyushu Island had lost the strength to continue fighting.
Once the Japanese high-level withdrew troops from Kyushu Island to help Honshu and other territories, the Kwantung Army, which thought that it had besieged Thunder, would never leave too many troops in Fukuoka, and at this time, the opportunity for Zhao Zhi's counterattack came. "Sir, it's about to dawn, you better sleep for a while, the Japanese army will attack again after dawn, and there won't be enough time to sleep then." Luo Ying, who served as a guard, persuaded Zhao Zhi to rest for a while, but the latter shook his head and said nothing.
In order to land in Japan to fight, Zhao Zhi pressed almost everything on Thunder, and the mercenaries who followed him to land on Kyushu Island were all the elite of Thunder, and transporting 400,000 mixed troops and a large number of supplies to Kyushu Island also cost Thunder a lot of manpower, material resources and resources. For this landing operation, Zhao Zhi did not hesitate to reduce the ammunition distribution of the Jewish troops in the three months before the start of the operation, and Morun even implemented a 24-hour continuous rotation system in the arsenal, and even so, the ammunition depots in Kunming and Burma still did not have ammunition, because they were all transported to Jiaodong by Molun.
After moving around Kyushu Island for more than half a month, the 400,000 mixed troops under Zhao Zhi have been crippled and scattered, and there are only 7,000 mercenaries left in the nearly 10,000 mercenaries, but they have restrained at least 20 divisions and more than 20 divisions for the US army in South Asia. The Americans must accept this invitation, otherwise Zhao Zhi will immediately reconcile with the Japanese army privately and return to Burma, and will no longer participate in the war between the United States and Japan, even if the American army will still win in the end, they will inevitably pay a hundred times more casualties than now, and this is exactly the situation that the American people do not want to see.
Zhao Zhi doesn't care what others think of him, some people may say that Zhao Zhi is an executioner, and some people may say that Zhao Zhi is simply a warlord who wants to arm and secession, but Zhao Zhi doesn't care, he doesn't care at all. If they continue to slander Zhao Zhi and Thunder, then they must be prepared to meet the anger of the people, and the common people will not be stupid enough to think that Zhao Zhi and Thunder, who are fighting in Japan, are bad people.
Zhao Zhi did all this in order to dominate the war situation in the upcoming war on the Japanese mainland, the US military in the late stage of World War II has always played the role of a savior in Japan, Japan is also a nation that bullies the weak and fears the hard, and has been beaten like that by the US military, it has no idea of making a comeback. This may have something to do with the national strength of the United States, but Zhao Zhi also thinks that this is a flaw in the personality of the Japanese, since this is the case, then let Thunder play the role of this savior.