In the early morning of Jinzhou City in October, the sea fog is thin and frost falls obviously, and the gradually cold air is filled with the unpleasant smell of explosion and decay.

Shells poured down from the Wehrmacht artillery positions in Lushan, fifteen kilometers away, raged all night, and the city was littered with craters and debris from the explosion, and the corpses were crooked in all sorts of strange shapes. A river speedboat ran aground on the bank with its belly bared on the surface of the Daling River, and more than a dozen Japanese infantry were disassembling machine guns on it in an attempt to reinforce the city's defenses.

After staying up all night under the shells, Otani Kikuzo walked out of the door and saw that several soldiers were picking up a war horse that had been killed last night, and the war horse that had been cultivated at countless costs had to continue to satisfy the hungry soldiers after sacrificing their lives for the country. Due to the early preparations, the Wehrmacht not only evacuated tens of thousands of people near Jinzhou and Linghai, but also burned all the food and drink before leaving, and then retreated to the Lushan and Shishan areas to take advantage of the mountainous terrain to block the attack of the 21st Brigade.

After the Battle of Qingdao began, the 21st Brigade of the Japanese Army, which had cut off the Jingbong Railway, was transferred to the defense, but the supply problem has been plaguing Otani Kikuzo since the beginning, especially after the Fourth Division of the Wehrmacht in the direction of Shanhaiguan came to support, and the two sides fought dozens of times in the area less than 30 kilometers from here to the sea, resulting in the destruction of a large amount of grain from the sea. In addition, the silting up of the Xiaoling River could not carry ships of more than 50 tons, so the 21st Brigade received less and less support. In particular, after the Battle of Qingdao, the Chinese Navy sent all five submarines to the area from Bohai Bay to Incheon to launch an unrestricted strangulation war against Japanese surface ships, resulting in the disappearance of several transport ships that were supposed to arrive.

With the Wehrmacht receiving two more submarines and another serious 914 incident in North Korea, Jinju seemed to be forgotten all at once. Only after Lushun's Terauchi Masayi tried his best to organize all kinds of ships to bring back the defeated generals of more than 10,000 remnants of Longkou, who were almost wiped out, did he restart the Jinzhou support plan, but Lushun's own reserves were not much, and the navy was blocked outside the Bohai Bay, so the supplies he could get were getting less and less.

The soldiers set up a cauldron and chopped up the blood-stained horse meat into it, and soon a bowl of hot horse broth with no shredded meat was delivered to Otani Kikuzo, and although a dead horse could not meet the needs of nearly seven thousand soldiers, the hot soup was still warming and getting colder and colder to the heart. But just as the soldiers were lining up to receive the broth, several shells fell without warning, and the smoke from the fire provoked the attack of four 105 cannons on Lushan Mountain, and the cooking room was blown away by the explosion almost instantly, and the boiled horse broth was completely turned into mud.

Seeing that the "delicacy" in their mouths was destroyed, the Japanese soldiers gritted their teeth with hatred, but they had no way to take the opponent's long-range artillery, and these artillery deployed on the top of the hill 15 kilometers away were at a low level, giving full play to the advantage of cannon direct fire, although the 21st Brigade organized death squads many times to try to blow up the artillery positions, but condescendingly deployed several infantry and machine gun artillery positions, so that the troops suffered heavy casualties, not to mention the few remaining reserves were consumed in vain.

No lights! There can be no flames! Even if you move around at will, you must be on guard against the opponent's cold artillery at any time, this kind of torment is what Otani Kihisa did not expect before the landing, he thought that after going ashore, like the Russo-Japanese War, the two sides would put on a posture to fight a dignified battle, but the other party was not willing to contact head-on at all, except for the first few days for the battle for Jinzhou was decent, the back was almost all this kind of exhausting cold guns and cold guns, or it was a bad battle of strangulation and consumption with each other.

If the troops are sufficient and the material support is strong, Otani Kikuzo is not afraid of this kind of strangulation, and the defense forces on the opposite side are all old Beiyang troops except for a brigade of the Fourth Infantry Division that came down from Shanhaiguan, and the combat effectiveness is far inferior to the elite 21 Brigade and Regiment, and nearly 7,000 men and horses will not be defeated when dealing with 3 to 40,000 people head-on, but the 21 Brigade is trapped in supplies and cannot move.

Without horse broth, the soldiers had to take two hard nests stuffed with grass and wild vegetables, and then return to their trench bunkers with rifles with few bullets on their backs.

After leaving the remaining broth for the wounded, Otani Kikuzo led the guards to the eastern position.

The city of Jinzhou is flat, with a drop of no more than 35 meters in the northwest, except for Lushan, which is occupied by the Wehrmacht, and the trenches are the best choice for the infantry if they want to hold this seemingly empty area. The circle of jagged trenches was the most important means of defense carefully constructed by the 21st Brigade, and it was it that blocked several fierce attacks of the Wehrmacht, blocking the enemy several times its own size under the city of Jinzhou.

In the trench, a soldier was stuffing bullets into the Type 38 rifle, the bulging cartridge belt before setting off was almost bottoming out, and there was only one grenade left on his waist, even if the division commander walked by, the soldier only saluted and continued to fight for his life, the momentum of departure was no longer visible on the young cheeks, only numbness and the death ash with a hint of fanaticism in his eyes.

"What a good soldier, ready even when he knows he is in the place of death." Otani Kikuzo understands the eyes in this way, whether it is right or wrong, the 21st Brigade and even the entire Fifth Division do have proud capital, even if the disabled Ninth Brigade has not flinched in the ** pig rush outside Laiyang. His gaze surrendered a few kilometers away, and there was the closest sortie position of the Wehrmacht to Jinzhou.

After watching it for a while, he began to walk back, preparing to send a telegram to Lushun to ask about the situation in the country, even if those cowards and capitulation factions want to negotiate peace! You can't watch the entire 21 Brigade starve to death, right? But as soon as he walked not far away, a shout suddenly came from behind him.

"General! Take a look. ”

The moment Otani Kikuzo turned his head, dense shells smashed from the direction of Lushan. Recently, several factories have concentrated their efforts on manufacturing 160-mm mortars to make up for the shortage of 150 heavy guns, and they have also fired from the direction of the mountains and rivers in the west, and the ears are suddenly filled with the sound of explosions. But his eyes were long gone, for he saw a black spot on the horizon in the distance that was coming towards the railway line, and as the black dot got closer and closer, a bad feeling instantly filled his body from the back of his spine.

"Get ready!."

In the shouts of Otani Kikuzo, 6 strange large tractor-like vehicles with 12 gray wolf armored vehicles slowly drove towards Jinzhou City. In the upper shooting fort of the led car, Xue Yue stomped his feet and shouted to speed up. It's a pity that he shouted to his throat, and the firepower bunker car under his feet was still as unhurried as an old cow pulling a cart.

Not to mention Xue Yue, even Yang Qiu has nothing to do about it, because this is currently the only tracked combat vehicle that can be used in China, a fire bunker vehicle modified from an American Type 77 steam tractor.

When he was about to introduce it, Yang Qiu fell in love with this American-made steam-style tracked heavy-duty tractor at a glance, because he found that although the obstacle crossing performance of this thing could not be compared with the British and French tanks, it was similar to the German Behemoth A7V, because it was steam propulsion, so the horsepower was strong and very suitable for modification.

Of course, a steam tractor can't be turned into a real tank no matter how much it is modified, but there is not much choice in the case of its own lack of technology, so dozens of vehicles were imported in one go, of which 12 were used for modification. The chimney was moved to the back, the nose of the long steam locomotive was completely wrapped in steel plates, the cab was designed as a slope, and a layer of shooting forts was built on top of the wheelhouse, the whole shooting fort was about the size of a sedan in later generations, and the four Makqin heavy machine guns were arranged according to the first 2 and 1 on the left and right. There was also a small ammunition depot behind the cab, and the entire hull was covered with 30 mm thick steel plates except for the buttocks, and the total weight reached a staggering 42 tons! It's actually 2 tons bigger than the German behemoth.

After the modification, when Yang Qiu took the army members to visit the test performance, he directly covered his face. It's an ugly, even disgusting monster! But this monster conquered the officers present, and in the end, Yang Qiu simply ignored this matter, anyway, it was also a temporary emergency product, and it was not bad to go with the technicians and the military to make trouble, and learn some experience and lessons.

Tank? No one knew the word at all these days, so it was called the Fire Bunker Car.

The 280-horsepower steam engine made a clanging and screeching noise, pushing the 42-ton fire bunker car to run over the Japanese position at a speed of 5 kilometers per hour, and the 12 Gray Wolf armored vehicles behind it used its fangs and heavy machine guns farther away than Maxim to clear all obstacles in sight, and the Lushan artillery and close-range mortars farther away suppressed a few Type 38 75 field guns.

"What's that?"

"I've read it in the newspaper, it looks like a tractor."

"Tractors? Are the people of China crazy? Can a tractor fight? ”

"Shoot, it's close."

Inside the trenches, looking at these giant beasts spewing black smoke, the Japanese soldiers began to panic, and many people began to blindly fire at the mobile pillbox cars, and the few remaining heavy machine guns were also moved to shoot wildly, but soon they found that everything was in vain! In addition to being able to punch a string of sparks on the steel plate of the nose, it can't stop the other party at all.

"It's our turn, whistle! Fire, fire at full speed! ”

Xue Yue, who was hiding behind the steel plate, jumped straight to his feet, and when the steam whistle whimpered, the front end of the six giant beasts suddenly erupted 12 long tongues of fire, and in an instant, the Japanese trench was filled with a torrential rain of bullets. Since the two-story shooting bunker was a full 4 meters above the ground, it was easy to fill the trench with bullets from a high vantage point. "Cannons with cannons!" In a hurry, the Japanese pushed two 75 guns, but they fell in the middle of the pillbox car and failed to stop the other party's advance, but exposed their position and were caught and blown up by fangs, heavy machine guns and artillery.

Seeing that no matter how much they could fight, the bunker car was less than a kilometer away from the trench, and the Japanese army, which had always claimed to be spiritually invincible, had been instilled with the spirit of sacrifice and bushido since they became soldiers, and many people began to retreat in fright. "Don't panic, they can't get past the trenches! Attack with grenades. Otani Kikuzo shouted, and even personally took the lead in picking up grenades and preparing to take advantage of the parking opportunity to launch a suicide attack when the bunker car approached.

Want to use a grenade? Xue Yue sneered when he saw this, and after ordering the two wing machine guns to turn around and strafe, he let the infantry hiding behind the pillbox car protect him. One or two Japanese soldiers rushed out of cover frantically with explosives and grenades, not to mention whether they could pass through the dense rain of heavy machine gun bullets, even if they were lucky enough to get close, they were swept into a sieve with submachine guns by soldiers who suddenly rushed out from behind.

The first bunker car rushed to the trench, and when all the Japanese soldiers thought that he would stop and have a chance to kill it, the steel monster seemed to have no idea of the trench, so it crossed the trench stubbornly, and the wide and cold tracks directly crushed over the dense corpses and drove towards Jinzhou City.

"Amaterasu!"

"Is this true?"

Otani Kikuzo was immediately carried by the guards and fled in the direction of the Daling River, and the remaining Japanese troops who were still preparing to make a decisive assault were also stunned. All six pillbox cars passed through the first line of trenches. The deer was easily shattered, the wooden stakes were uprooted, and all the anti-infantry and cavalry barriers were broken through one by one, leaving only two shocking blood marks and heavy machine guns still firing wildly.

Otani Kikuzo's eyes completely lost their brightness, just now he thought that the carefully dug trenches could stop several times the army, but it was overwhelmed by these giant beasts in less than an hour.

Jinzhou is finished! The 21 Brigade is also finished! The entire Fifth Division is finished!