Under the heavy bombardment of our artillery, the sky gradually brightened.

In fact, it was already dawn, but the air was full of gunsmoke, water vapor and dust from the shells...... The land in Vietnam is relatively humid, and the water in the soil will evaporate into the air when the artillery is blown up, and if it is blown several times, the water will evaporate into fine dust particles.

All of these things were intertwined and suspended in the air, and a thick layer of "fog" shrouded in the sky within a radius of more than ten miles of the old mountain, and even the sunlight could not shine in. This allowed us to see a little bit of sunlight until 8 a.m.

It was only then that the Vietnamese army's offensive against our troops stopped...... Of course, this does not mean that the Vietnamese army will not fight this battle, and the reason why they will stop is entirely because the sky is getting brighter and they need to make some necessary adjustments to their offensive tactics.

On the other hand, it is also because the vanguard troops they have placed at the front of the position have been almost wiped out by us...... Its vanguard is actually the unit that paid the highest price in this battle, and they will lurk in the front line of our army's position before the battle, which is still trivial. As soon as the battle began, they were actually in a Jedi, with a defensive position of Chinese soldiers in front and a wall of fire in the rear where no one could get through.

So they could only charge at our positions with one mind, again and again.

But such a charge did not pose much of a threat to our defenses.

First of all, the Vietnamese army's charge at this time should have been covered by their artillery fire, but the Vietnamese army's long-range artillery had been basically wiped out by our artillery at this time, and the follow-up mortars were also blocked outside the fire wall, and it was difficult to protect themselves, let alone provide fire assistance to the vanguard.

Secondly. The vanguard of the Vietnamese army itself...... As an undercover force, they had to bring enough dry rations. Restrictions on carrying weights and shelter have left them largely unarmed with heavy weapons.

Other words. They could only charge our line of defense with submachine guns under the cover of a few light machine guns and a limited number of heavy machine guns.

On the other hand, our army waited for the Vietnamese army to come up in the defense line at ease.

This is a trap that we have laid from the beginning, so we began to prepare for this battle ten days ago: there are mines and barbed wire in front of the position; The position was well fortified, equipped with light and heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft machine guns, mortars and directional mines, etc., and the firing points were carefully arranged to make the most of each piece of equipment, plus a large amount of ammunition was stored...... This makes the confrontation between friend and foe a massacre.

According to the troops on the front line, the charge of the vanguard of the Vietnamese army was actually somewhat useful at the beginning, and many units of our army did not expect that the Vietnamese army would lurk so close and have so many people. Without preparation, they rushed into the distance where the grenades were thrown, and after a volley of grenades, some casualties were inflicted on our troops, and then the Vietnamese troops rushed into our defense line in the blink of an eye and started a close fight.

But soon our army relied on the advantage of the defending side to push the Vietnamese army back...... This is mainly due to our artillery, because our artillery suppressed the Vietnamese artillery at the first time, as mentioned before, the preparation of the Vietnamese artillery only lasted about ten minutes.

Because of this, the task of clearing the obstacles of the Vietnamese artillery was not completed at all, that is, there were still a large number of barbed wire, mines, roadblocks, etc. at the front of our army's position, which directly caused only a small part of the Vietnamese army's vanguard to break through our army's defense line, and most of the Vietnamese troops were hindered and slowed down by half a beat. The troops on the front line of our army also took advantage of this time to react and beat the Vietnamese army back.

After that, the battle becomes very simple. All the fighters seem to do is condescendingly throw grenades or shoot rows of bullets at the enemy under fire......

According to the soldiers' recollections, they were all weak in their hands that night. The Vietnamese army rushed forward in piles, fell in piles, and then poured into piles, and again and again, and the fighting continued, and in the end, the soldiers even had some doubts about whether the Vietnamese devils could not finish fighting. But at that time, they didn't dare to think about it, they only knew that they mechanically raised their guns and pulled the trigger at the enemy to shoot rows of bullets, because they knew very well that once they let these devils rush up, they would tear themselves to pieces like a pack of hungry wolves.

It was a clash of flesh and steel, and the Vietnamese army was charging at our bullets and shells with their flesh and blood.

Although the soldiers of our army were also educated to be "not afraid of hardship and sacrifice", they were still surprised when faced with this scene, why the Vietnamese army launched such a stupid group charge...... The fact is that the Vietnamese army has no way to retreat, and if it does not surrender anyway, it will die, so it simply launched this large-scale charge that is tantamount to suicide.

At dawn, when the Vietnamese offensive was suspended, the soldiers on the front line were able to breathe a sigh of relief.

At this time, the sound of gunfire and explosions gradually subsided, and after a long time, the smoke of gunpowder slowly dissipated, and then the battlefield in front of me gradually became clear.

Although they were mentally prepared, the front-line soldiers were still shocked by the scene they saw:

The corpses of the Vietnamese soldiers were scattered all over the mountains, and these corpses were clearly divided into two parts.

Part of it is from the foot of the mountain to the front of the position, and this part is obviously the vanguard of the Vietnamese army, and most of them died on the way to charge our army's position, so most of them are head-headed towards our army's position, neatly like dried fish. We can clearly see that the Vietnamese soldiers are in rags and have no shoes, but their bodies are full of weapons, grenades, bullets, bayonets......

The other part is from the foot of the mountain to the direction of Qingshuikou, this part is simply a slaughterhouse, the original weeds more than a meter high and even a whole forest are gone, replaced by the corpses and equipment of the Vietnamese army, and these corpses and equipment can not be found intact, the entire open area is dyed a shocking red with blood.

"Battalion commander!" At this time, Staff Officer Wei reported to me: "I got the news from Division Commander Jiang that the strength of the Yue Devils is much more than we estimated!" According to preliminary judgments, its direct attack force is at least 10,000 people. ”

"What? More than 10,000 people?! When I heard this number, I couldn't help but be taken aback: "Are you sure? A judgment based on what! ”

"Sure!" Staff Officer Wei replied: "It is roughly estimated that there are thousands of Vietnamese corpses lying in front of the position, plus those who are wounded, and those who are still hidden in the Qingshuikou area and have not rushed up...... It is estimated that there are no less than tens of thousands! ”

I nodded, the figure estimated by Division Commander Jiang is reasonable, because if you look at the normal casualty ratio, if there are thousands of corpses on the battlefield, then there should be three or four thousand Vietnamese soldiers wounded.

Of course, it is also possible that our army did not give the Vietnamese army a way to live last night, so the number of wounded will be less. However, even if it is estimated based on the 3,000 Vietnamese troops wounded and the 1,000 Vietnamese soldiers killed, the Vietnamese army has already lost more than 4,000 people in the charge in the past few hours last night, so its total strength on the battlefield is tens of thousands, to say the least.

On the other hand, the estimation of the strength of the enemy army can also be inferred from the numbers of Vietnamese prisoners. For example, if this prisoner is from such and such a regiment, and that prisoner is from such and such a regiment, then it is concluded that there are at least two regiments of troops.

So I believe that there is no problem with Master Jiang's inference, it's just that ...... If there are tens of thousands of people directly into the battlefield, then what about the follow-up troops? The number of troops of the Vietnamese army participating in this battle is not an unimaginable astronomical number.

That's when I knew we had made a mistake and miscalculated the number of troops that the Vietnamese army had put in.

And the consequences of this mistake are......

"How many shells did we fire?" I asked.

"Hit 1.5 bases!" Zhao Jingping replied.

Zhao Jingping was a very prescient staff officer, and whenever the fighting stopped for a while, he would ask the correspondent to contact the artillery units and ask them to report the use of ammunition, so I could get an answer as soon as I asked.

It's a bit like a secretary in modern times...... A good secretary should be able to think about the boss and prepare a lot of things in advance, such as booking a plane ticket in advance.

From this point of view, Zhao Jingping has done a good job, he is always able to grasp the latest situation in all aspects, and I can get the information I need at any time with him, which undoubtedly saves me a lot of valuable time.

"Half of the ammunition has been removed!" Hearing this, I couldn't help frowning, and immediately ordered: "Immediately order the logistics troops to step up the delivery of artillery shells!" ”

"The logistics unit has already been contacted!" Zhao Jingping replied: "They are already doing their best to transport, but now because the front-line war is also very tight, the transportation pressure is quite large!" ”

"Hmm!" I replied helplessly.

I can also understand this, knowing that it is not only the artillery who fights, but also the soldiers who directly face the Vietnamese army on the front line.

Although there are still many ammunition reserves on the highlands on the first line of the old mountain, the problem is that it takes a long time for ammunition to be transported to these highlands...... As I said before, it takes 24 hours to make a round trip, and it takes almost two days to make a trip with a break.

Therefore, we can only replenish the ammunition on the front line while fighting, otherwise it will be a big problem if there is a shortage of green and yellow.

In addition, the ammunition consumption of the front-line troops is quite large, just like the previous hours of fighting, our artillery uses shells to pile up, and the front-line troops use bullets to pile up...... This directly makes the ammunition replenished by the transport troops feel like a drop in the bucket.

But what can be done about it? Once the artillery runs out of shells, it is no different from no artillery!

So I ordered: "Pass the order, no matter how stressful, and get as many shells as you can!" (To be continued......)