Chapter 5: Blowing Up the Bridge

On the issue of protracted warfare, the company commander was mentally prepared, but for the time being, he still did not dare to give such a hasty notice to the troops.

You must know that the soldiers are already aggrieved enough when they come here to carry out their tasks, and other troops are returning home in batches, and we still have to sleep in the open and risk our lives to cover the retreat of the troops...... It's like a small stone complaining: Are we fighting less wars than others or making less meritorious contributions?

If we really talk about the battles we have fought and the merits we have made, our company can compare with all the troops, and we really dare to show off our family background. But...... Even so, you have to walk in zuihou.

Therefore, the soldiers had such a resistance in their hearts, and after the company commander and the instructor discussed it like this, they did not dare to make public the psychological preparations for "protracted war" again, but planned to reveal it little by little after the soldiers had some habits and adapted to the environment here after they had spent some time here.

Of course, I agree with the idea of the company commander and the instructor, but in fact, the main reason why I told the company commander this is to make the company commander and these cadres have some psychological preparation.

As for the soldiers...... There is a saying called "boiled frogs in warm water", and the frogs are slowly heated in a pot...... This fire can't be too strong or too urgent, slowly, little by little...... The frog was boiled to death before he knew it.

This time, the company commander and instructor had to deal with these soldiers under our own command, and slowly revealed the news to the soldiers little by little, a little news today, and a little tomorrow at a little news...... Well, after a long time, the warriors will not be the same thing.

It sounds a bit cruel, but there's no way around it...... The company commander is also a passive person who accepts orders. He also didn't want to stay on the battlefield anymore. But the battle always has to be fought. All he could do was accept the reality and find a way for the fighters to accept it. Otherwise, we will soon face the problem of having devils in Vietnam and instability in the military internally.

Two things happened the next day in 581 Heights:

The first was that five artillery observers reported to our position early in the morning with two radios on their backs, so we knew what was going on with the observation post.

It is said that these soldiers of the 3rd Artillery Division were in a position a few kilometers behind us. These soldiers are also interesting, they are all elated when they come up, and they know at a glance that they are recruits who have never been on the battlefield......

It should be said that they have also been on the battlefield, but the artillery unit is much more comfortable than our infantry. One is because most of them provide long-range firepower in the rear and do not directly enter the front line, and our artillery has been pressing the artillery of the Yue devils, so there is no doubt that it will be much safer than the infantry. Another...... It is because the artillery units have many cars, so the living conditions are much better than those of the infantry.

So they didn't know the hardships of the front-line infantry at all, and it is said that three of them voluntarily signed up to cooperate with us, and they were still excited at first...... It is said that he has heard the name of our second company for a long time, heard many heroic deeds of our company, and heard that he is going to cooperate with the second company, and they all rushed to come......

As a result, the company took them to the sleeping cat's ear hole to see, and several people wanted to cry without tears...... It's a dirt hole. And it's wet and sticky, and you feel sick and sleepy if you want to hide in it?

The second thing is that we see an engineering unit laying mines under the high ground.

The mine was laid from one side of the bridge all the way to the other side of the bridge. Mines were planted everywhere in the meadows, paddy fields, and even streams, leaving only the middle of the road, with small red flags planted on both sides......

So Company Commander Luo and I knew that the retreat had reached the final stage of Zuihou.

What makes me helpless is ...... Our unit is stationed on the 581 heights, and the engineer unit does not leave us a map of the minefield when it lays mines...... What if we attack or go down the mountain? The devil knows where there are mines!

However, it does not seem surprising that the coordination and information sharing between the various branches of our army in this era can almost be described by the word "independent", such as the few artillery observers who just came...... We didn't receive a notice from our superiors beforehand, but after the people came, Company Commander Luo called the regiment headquarters for verification, and only then did we get a response: "Oh, there is such a thing, I forgot to inform you!" ”

After these two incidents, Luo Lianchang's brows became deeper and deeper.

I know what he's worried about, Company Commander Luo came out of the Military Academy, and of course he knows that this artillery observer came up to cooperate with the infantry, and sent five of them...... Why send five observers and two radio stations? Spare, two more were sacrificed, and one was a radio soldier...... The two radios were also for backup, and the quality of the radios was poor, and one was broken or broken, and the other was broken.

At the same time, this also means that what I said yesterday was correct, and we are likely to have to spend a long time with the Vietnamese devils on this border.

"Di Di Di ......" Just when we were still digging trenches, Company Commander Luo walked out of the company headquarters and blew a loud whistle at us, and then gave an order: "All assemble!" ”

"Comrades!" After we formed the team, Company Commander Luo stood up and said loudly to us: "I just received a notice from my superiors that the engineer unit will blow up the bridge on time at two o'clock in the afternoon, and the superior ordered us to cooperate with the engineer unit to blow up the bridge and receive a group of retreating friendly troops!" Now I order, three platoons are stationed in place, and the first platoon and the second platoon go down the mountain to carry out the mission! ”

"Yes!" The fighters answered and immediately began to organize their equipment according to the order.

Cooperate with the engineering troops to blow up the bridge, this is already our old task...... This has the advantage of fighting similar battles, for example, we now know very well what kind of situation is likely to happen when carrying out this mission, how we should station, how the devils are likely to attack, and so on.

So he went down the mountain to contact the engineer troops, and immediately began to dig foxholes.

But it didn't take long to see that the problem wasn't that simple......

By half past one in the afternoon, the commander of the engineer company looked at the endless stream of retreating troops on the bridge and said to Company Commander Luo leisurely: "It seems...... It's impossible for the troops to withdraw at two o'clock, how can this bridge be blown up? ”

"Have you been in contact with your superiors?" Company Commander Luo asked.

"Just contacted!" Company Commander Wu nodded: "What does the superior mean...... The retreating troops are guaranteed to complete the retreat mission by two o'clock! ”

"Guaranteed, guaranteed to have a fart!" Company Commander Luo couldn't help but scold: "Some cadres only care about empty words and clichés, and don't care about the actual situation at all!" ”

That's when I realized something...... It turns out that sometimes it is not the mistake of the superior command, but there is a very unpleasant atmosphere in our army, such as knowing that the retreat task cannot be completed before two o'clock, but still insisting that it is okay...... This seems to be a common phenomenon, in order to let the superiors know that they have a determination to complete the task ahead of schedule.

It's just that...... This will give the superiors a wrong message, and then the superiors will command according to this wrong information, and the coordination between the various units is not very smooth, so this becomes a big problem.

Blowing up the bridge on the orders of your superiors? That would undoubtedly leave many friendly forces on that side of the bridge.

Don't blow up the bridge? Once the fighter plane is delayed because of this, and even the Vietnamese devils take this opportunity to cross the bridge to launch an attack on us, then who will bear the responsibility...... Not to mention that this is a trivial matter, if you disobey the military order, you will be shot.

Seeing that the hands of the watch were almost two o'clock, there were still cars on the bridge deck retreating from the south of the bridge, most of the soldiers on the cars were the wounded and the remains of martyrs who could not walk on foot, and the cars left shocking blood stains behind them all the way through the stone bridge......

Then another group of infantry, who had been covering the south of the bridge, also withdrew, because it was about time to blow up the bridge, and they were afraid that if we blew up the bridge, they would not be able to come back.

Soon the hands were pointing to two o'clock...... Company Commander Wu looked at the troops who were still retreating on the bridge, gritted his teeth, and said: "No matter, wait another ten minutes, the infantry brothers are bleeding and dying on the front line, we can't let them have any more losses!" ”

Company Commander Luo and I couldn't help but nod and agreed with Company Commander Wu's words.

"Company commander ......" At this time, I saw the communicator of the engineer unit shouting at the commander of the company: "The order from the superiors is here, ask Weishenme that the bridge has not been blown up yet!" ”

Company Commander Wu didn't have a trace of bloodshot on his face, and he gave an order to the correspondent without thinking about it: "Hang up the phone and don't answer it, I'll take the responsibility alone!" ”

"Yes!" The correspondent answered, and then hesitantly hung up the phone and stopped moving.

Ten minutes passed, and the retreating troops were still not finished, but the gunfire on the other side had already sounded, and we couldn't help but get nervous immediately...... You must know that we are acting in defiance of military orders, and if we still let the Yue devils rush across the bridge, then the crime will be big.

So everyone did not dare to slack off, and a few people from the engineering unit immediately rushed to the vicinity of the stone bridge to prepare for the detonation, and we set up machine guns and submachine guns on this side of the bridge to prepare to block the Vietnamese army.

At this time, a jeep suddenly drove from the south of the bridge, and a cadre from above stepped down in a panic and shouted at us: "Who is directing the bombing of the bridge?" Who is responsible here? ”

"It's me!" Company Commander Wu immediately greeted him.

"I am Wang Qixing, deputy commander of the 168th Division!" The cadre shouted: "We still have a lot of troops who have not crossed the bridge, please don't blow up the bridge so early!" ”

Hearing this, we couldn't help but be stunned: there are still many troops...... How many troops is that? How much time will it take for these troops to cross the bridge? When these troops cross the bridge, will the Yue devils follow? Or will the Yue devils be one step ahead of these troops?

Once again, we are caught in a dilemma! (To be continued......)