After the soldiers saw the appointment documents, there was a burst of cheers in the tunnel, they were happy for Xia Yuan, happy for Xia Yuan, the person they admired became the battalion commander from a recruit in less than a month, which made the soldiers very happy and happy.

A tall young soldier squeezed in front of Xia Yuan and said: "Comrade battalion commander, my name is Li Xiangze, there are many units in the tunnel, I am willing to take charge of the registration work and register everyone!" ”

After Li Xiangze's brief introduction, this comrade was a cultural instructor at the battalion headquarters and an intellectual young man who had been severely tested on the battlefield.

Xia Yuan immediately clapped: "Okay!" You'll be in charge of the leveling! ”

"Yes!"

Li Xiangze said happily, "By the way, Comrade Battalion Commander, it would be better if you could give me a hygienist, because there are many wounded people who will pretend to be uninjured people to register for the counterattack, and they must be checked." ”

Xia Yuan asked around, there was no hygienist in the tunnel, and there was no way to meet this requirement, but the registration started quickly. Except for the seriously wounded who were really unable to move, the rest of the soldiers sat up, the party members took out their party cards, and the members of the regiment took out their group cards, and everyone recounted their duties and combat experiences as if they were reports, and loudly expressed their determination as if they were taking an oath.

The man who was still mediating the dispute for others just now walked to Xia Yuan's side, took out his party card, and reported: "Comrade battalion commander, my name is Sun Shangyong, I am a party member, and I joined the party in the firing line of the Huaihai Campaign in 1948. I have been a soldier, a squad leader, fought twenty or thirty battles, joined the Volunteer Army in 1950, and now I am the secretary general, I hope that the party will hand over the most dangerous and arduous tasks to me! ”

His tone was resolute and powerful, which deeply moved Xia Yuan, and he said, "Can you command the battle?" ”

"Yes! I'm sure it won't be worse than those 'baby' platoon leaders! He replied to Xia Yuan with confidence.

Xia Yuan nodded, "Okay, there will be a task for you later." ”

"Yes!" He replied in a sonorous voice.

After the registration, a few people were not at ease, and one by one they personally found Xia Yuan to express their attitude, asking them to give them combat tasks, in the face of such an enthusiastic attitude of the comrades, Xia Yuan answered them affirmatively, and then he shook hands with every soldier in the tunnel, and encouraged them separately.

Before dawn, Li Xiangze successfully registered, Xia Yuan took the registration roster, looked at the names from different companies, and there were thirteen correspondents in each company alone, which showed that the sources of personnel were mixed.

After a brief discussion, he organized the personnel in the tunnel into five squads, in addition to the three combat squads, there was a complete squad composed of lightly wounded people, and the last squad was a reserve squad composed of seriously wounded people who repeatedly asked to participate in the battle, so they also became a reserve squad, the fifth squad.

The atmosphere in the pit changed, the clamours and the groans of the wounded were replaced by the sound of guns being wiped and grenade caps being twisted, the quarrels disappeared, and so many people from different formations were brought together and organized together, all with a common will: to destroy the enemy, to hold the tunnel, to overwhelm all enemies!

When night came, Xia Yuan decided to take the soldiers out to practice their hands and run in with each other.

Li Xiangze was appointed as the leader of the first squad, Sun Shangyong was the leader of the second squad, and the leader of the third squad was himself, and he used the time he came to observe the enemy situation on the No. 8 position, and used sand to build a simple model of the position in the tunnel, using stones as enemy bunkers.

He gathered the two squad leaders together and said: "Tonight's battle plan is still a small counterattack, the first squad will go first, there is no need to blow up the bunker, your task is to deal with the enemy, destroy the enemy's living force under the condition of preserving yourself, do not take the initiative to attack, do not blindly sacrifice!" ”

Li Xiangze assured: "Yes! Comrade battalion commander! Mission completion guaranteed! ”

The orders of the second and third squads were almost the same, they were all small-scale counterattacks, just fighting, not attacking, and not sacrificing.

The wounded were also eager to find Xia Yuan and ask for orders, Xia Yuan said in embarrassment: "Tonight's task is to run in with everyone, we still have a long way to go." ”

At this stage, it is the counterattack operation of the 597.9 heights, and the task on their side is still to rely on the tunnel, stick to the tunnel, and deal with the enemy, and the counterattack operation of the small group of troops at night is very smooth, especially after the battle of the third squad, the soldiers ran into the tunnel excitedly, telling the combat performance of the summer battalion commander.

The battalion commander knocked out the enemy's machine-gun bunker with one shot, let the enemy's machine-gun bunker fire dumb, and two or three shots knocked out the enemy's firing point, the enemy's flares, they saw very clearly, the bullet swished into the enemy's steel helmet, and the machine gun was knocked out by the battalion commander not long after.

Hu Changdao shouted excitedly: "The battalion commander is a combat hero, leading a squad to annihilate the legendary recruits of a company of foreign devils, and turning the No. 1 position into the Shangganling God of War in the devil's position, that gun must be powerful!" ”

The soldiers were excited when they heard this, screaming, and worshipping Xia Yuan even more.

In this way, three days and two nights passed smoothly, Xia Yuan led them to carry out dozens of large and small counterattack operations, destroying the enemy's fortifications dug on the mountain, destroying the enemy's heavy machine guns and rocket launchers on the top of the mountain, and smashing the enemy's conspiracy to destroy the tunnel with explosives packets, poison gas, and incendiary bombs one after another.

insisted until the day of the counterattack operation, Xia Yuan heard the secret words of the regiment commander giving the attack order on the walkie-talkie:

"Xia Yuan, Xia Yuan, prepare to eat, prepare to eat, do you have chopsticks there? Do you have chopsticks there? ”

Xia Yuan confidently replied to the regiment commander, after this period of running-in, the soldiers showed strong combat effectiveness and a fighting spirit that was not afraid of sacrifice, and he believed that these soldiers would be able to complete the combat tasks assigned by their superiors!

Then, the regiment commander ordered in secret language to launch a counterattack at 11 o'clock in the evening to launch a counterattack on the No. 8 position of Beishan on the 537.7 heights.

Every time Xia Yuan talked to his superiors again, the soldiers in the tunnel looked at him quietly, how eager they were to fight back against the coming day, and now, the opportunity has finally arrived.

He put down the phone and said loudly: "Comrades! The regimental commander ordered us to counterattack position No. 8 tonight, and start preparing now! ”

As soon as Xia Yuan's words fell, the entire tunnel suddenly boiled with cheers, and the soldiers could no longer suppress their joyful mood, some stood up with their guns held high, and some stuffed grenades into their waists. The lightly wounded were busy arranging their bandages, and the seriously wounded were also propping up their bodies with guns, wanting to join in.

For a while, the tunnel was as lively as the New Year's Festival, and the soldiers were nervously busy.

The time for the big counteroffensive is getting closer and closer, and the fighters have already prepared everything, holding their guns, holding the ground with the butts of their guns, and waiting quietly,

Xia Yuan was looking at the time.

At 11 o'clock in the evening, after a fierce bombardment of the enemy's surface position by the artillery fire of the Volunteer Army, the 'assault platoon', which was mixed with sixteen units, launched an attack on the stick soldier garrison on the No. 8 position under the leadership of Xia Yuan as the counterattack signal rose.

The third squad led by Xia Yuan served as the main force of this attack, the first squad led by Li Xiangze served as the left flank offensive mission, and the second squad led by Sun Shangyong served as the right flank offensive mission, and they would face the enemy of nearly a battalion on the No. 8 position.

Their task was to open the enemy's gate on Position 8 and cover the 2nd Company on Position 11 on Heights 597.9 to launch an attack on Heights 537.7.

Xia Yuan quickly sniped out the machine gunner in the firepower bunker and shouted: "Demolition team, give it to Lao Tzu!" ”

"Yes!"

With a shout, the three fighters crawled out of their bunkers, carrying blasting canisters and anti-tank grenades, they got out of behind the bunkers and quickly crawled towards the enemy pillboxes.

Under the cover of all kinds of light and heavy firepower, three fighters quickly rushed to the gun, under the muzzle of the enemy bunker, a soldier pulled out the blasting canister and stuffed it in, accompanied by a roar, the rubble splashed, the mountain shook suddenly, Xia Yuan shouted: "Comrades! Come on!! ”

As early as yesterday, they had cleared the enemy's bunkers on the mountain, and during the day, they organized small units to harass the enemy on the positions from time to time and disrupt the progress of their bunker construction.

After our army's dense artillery fire covered the position, most of the enemy's fortifications on the position were destroyed, which relieved the pressure on the assault troops, Xia Yuan led the assault platoon, according to the original plan to attack the enemy on the position, they pulled out the enemy's fire point on the anti-slope, quickly turned over the ridge, built a simple fire point, and suppressed the enemy on the position,

The enemy has a reinforced battalion on the position, and all kinds of light and heavy firepower are covered like mountains and rivers, and the No. 8 pit of the 537.7 Heights is not as rich as the No. 1 pit of the 597.9 Heights, and there are only two machine guns, and some of the soldiers even use bolt rifles.

During the counterattack operation in the No. 1 tunnel, the soldiers had four fully automatic rifles per capita, as many as 1,000 rounds of ammunition per person, more than ten mortars, more than 20 light machine guns, four heavy machine guns, and 20 bazooka and recoilless guns, most of which were captured and collected by Xia Yuan, a captured madman, and the firepower of the two was completely incomparable.

Because of this, this battle is far more difficult than imagined, although Xia Yuan has done his best to snipe the enemy's heavy firepower, but because of the poor equipment, even if the enemy gets rid of the heavy machine gun, their 60 guns, recoilless guns, and bazooka can always play a huge role.

At this stalemate, the reinforcements on the 11th position of the 597.9 high ground successfully broke through the gap formed by the two highlands, and the reinforcements came up, and their addition immediately changed the occupation, when Xia Yuan continued to snipe the enemy's heavy firepower, the second company arrived with their Bazooka, accompanied by a series of roars, and the stick soldiers blocking the defensive line in front of them quickly collapsed, and the soldiers were murderous, drilled out of the bunker, and attacked the eighth position like a bamboo.

The three-hour battle wiped out nearly two companies of the enemy defense army on the No. 8 position, the position was full of corpses, the soldiers were dusty and dusty and packed up the weapons and equipment scattered on the position, Xia Yuan carried a gun, stood on the battlefield full of gunsmoke, and shouted Hu Changdao's name.

"Battalion commander, battalion commander, I'm here."

Hu Changdao ran over, his dark face was full of excitement, he was carrying a few carbines on his back, and a few strings of bullet bags were hanging on his body, and he said excitedly: "Battalion commander, you see, there are a lot of guns." ”

Xia Yuan glanced at Hu Changdao and said, "Allow you to replace the gun on your body and pick a good one." ”

Hu Changdao was very happy, he was a new soldier, and the gun issued was still 50 punches with a high failure rate, and he often got stuck while fighting, and often couldn't hit, he had long wanted to replace the gun in his hand, but when he thought that these guns were produced in our own country, he was a little reluctant in his heart, except for a military uniform and the people around him, only the gun on his body was from the country.

"Battalion commander, I want to keep this gun." Hu Changdao touched the 50 punch in his hand.

Xia Yuan nodded, it doesn't matter whose gun he keeps, in Shangganling, the higher the failure rate, the easier it is to be eliminated and delay the fighter. He looked to the side and saw the commander of the second company and the instructor coming over.

"Summer Camp Chief!"

The two walked over, saluted, and reached out to hold Xia Yuan's hand.

"You've come just in time, we've been pinned down by the enemy, thanks to you." Xia Yuan said with emotion.

"Camp Commander Xia, it should be thanks to you, you helped us solve the enemy's bunker, and our soldiers will rush down like a bamboo." The instructor looked at the weather-beaten battalion commander in front of him with some excitement.

From a recruit to a battalion commander, the only thing that can take office so quickly is through a brutal battle, and this cruel battle is Shangganling.

Everyone chatted for a few words, and after the second company commander and instructor left Xia Yuan a lot of weapons and equipment, they left, the eighth position had been counterattacked, and they now had to hurry back to the eleventh position. The counterattack was undoubtedly successful, and the rest of Heights 537.7 would be locked in repeated battles with the enemy until the end of the war.

The last large-scale attack of the 2nd Korean Division was on the 30th of October, because 5 November was the day of the US election, Van Vleet would not watch the loss of the 597.9 heights, and personally went to the Shangganling front line to cheer up the 2nd Korean Division, but unfortunately their largest attack was quickly crushed by the counterattacks of the volunteer soldiers, and on the 597.9 heights, the 2nd Korean Division lost at least two battalions of troops, which is still a conservative estimate.

The 2nd Han Division on the 597.9 Heights was exhausted, and their division commanders realized that this method was undesirable and continued to send soldiers to the Heights, which would only increase casualties, so the commander of the 2nd Han Division risked that he would rather go to a military court than give up attacking the 597.9 Heights, and only held on to the 537.7 Heights Beishan.

The current 537.7 highland North Mountain is still in their hands.