Toulon, Southern Alpine Cluster Command.

“...... Your Excellency, the Japanese army attacking Milan suffered heavy losses, the 14th and 15th Divisions have lost more than 70% of their personnel, and the 4th Division is holding on to the ...... Now General Yoshiko Akiyama is leading the 8th and 9th Divisions to rush to reinforcements, and at the same time he is asking us to send reinforcements......"

The chief of staff, Major General Gan Molin, took the battle report that had just been sent and reported to the cluster commander Xia Fei with a frown.

"What? The Japanese were beaten so badly?" Xia Fei was stunned for a moment, and said with some surprise: "How many troops did the Italians send, and who is in command?"

"The Italian commander is General Luigi Cadorna, and he commands the Italian Second Army, with a total of 10 divisions......"

"Your Excellency, according to our observers in the Japanese army, the Italian army has shown great morale and unimaginable courage in this battle. Major Reynaud said in his report that there were many Italian soldiers who did not flinch even when they were seriously wounded. He saw with his own eyes, and even an Italian soldier dragging his intestines to launch a counter-charge against the Japanese......" he said with a look of disbelief as he handed over the report from the front-line observers.

Xia Fei immediately took the report and read it, and the more he looked at his expression, the more surprised he became, and finally exclaimed: "Oh my God! Is the army they met really Italians? I read it several times before I was sure that the warriors they spoke of were not our French soldiers. ”

Those front-line reports were full of praise for the courage of the Italian army, and they were almost boasted to the sky.

"As far as I know, he is a capable, but not particularly imaginative, general. I don't think he was able to transform the Italian army into a courageous army in a short period of time. Could it be Germans in Italian uniforms? No, there's no need for them to pretend to be Italians......" Xia Fei felt that his brain was a little insufficient, and he felt that he must have gotten up the wrong way today.

"Hurry up and investigate and see what's going on!" he thought it was better to investigate this kind of thing first.

"Yes, Your Excellency. I have ordered the relevant authorities to investigate. But what about the reinforcements that the Japanese wanted?"

Xia Fei thought for a while and said, "We can still free up 2 Indochinese divisions and 5 African divisions now. Well, I'll leave one Indoshi division, and the rest will be sent to Akiyama Koko......"

.....................................................................

At this time, Akiyama Yoshiko, who was on the front line, was already pale.

After receiving an urgent report from the front, he hurriedly led the 8th and 9th divisions to reinforcements, but this time the Italian troops did not look like Italians, and they showed unimaginable courage and morale.

When the two armies began to fight, the Japanese decided to crush their opponents with their best meat-and-egg attacks. Four wings of Japanese troops launched a plate charge against the Italians, and tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers shouted "board load" and rushed towards the Italians. According to previous experience, it was time for the Italians to flee or surrender at this time.

But this time it was different, and Akiyama Yoshiko saw a scene he will never forget on the front line. The Italians on the opposite side not only did not panic in the slightest, but jumped out of the trenches and launched a counter-charge against the Japanese army. They roared wildly, lunging at the Japanese with their bayonet rifles loaded, and a brutal hand-to-hand fight ensued.

White-knuckle combat is the most brutal and most challenging way to combat the combat effectiveness of the troops, and this kind of battle will not last too long. Because in such a battle, there is always one side that will collapse quickly. The Japanese have a rich lesson in this, and they broke out thousands of hand-to-hand fights with Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. In hand-to-hand combat, the Japanese usually have a ratio of five to one to win.

After the war, the Japanese began to sum up their experience, of course, the courage of the Japanese is not lacking, the reason why they were so miserable by Lao Maozi is, first of all, there is racial inferiority. Russians are generally a head taller than the Japanese, and Russians with tall and long arms and strong strength naturally have an advantage in martial arts. Then there are the weapons, at that time the Russian army was equipped with the Mosin Nagant rifle, which has a relatively long sting, and the front of the gun has a natural narrowing, which is very comfortable to use and conducive to assassination. At that time, the Japanese army still used the Golden Hook rifle, which was relatively short, and the bayonet was also relatively short, which was not conducive to assassination. Finally, the Japanese army's stabbing skills are still insufficient.

So the Japanese immediately set out to improve, and the racial factor was innate, and there was basically no way to improve it. The Japanese worked on the latter two, so they replaced it with the Type 38 rifle, which is probably the longest rifle in the world today, and with the long bayonet, it is very suitable for stabbing. Then they worked harder to improve their "sword technique", that is, the stabbing technique.

It should be said that the current Japanese army has made great progress in hand-to-hand combat compared to that time. Of course, in the Sino-Japanese war, their white-blade fighting ability was basically not shown, but it was mainly because the Chinese were too cunning, not that the Japanese soldiers were too inferior. Because the Chinese actually use a large number of submachine guns and pistols in hand-to-hand combat, and in the face of a pistol in the hands of Chinese soldiers, the Japanese will cry in grievances.

The Italians are of the Mediterranean race of southern Europe, and their stature is far from being comparable to those gray animals in Russia, and they do not have much of a height advantage over the Japanese. The Carcano M1891 rifle they are armed with is also no longer than the Type 38. And they also did not have a pistol in their hands like the Chinese infantry.

But what's going on now?

The speed of the hand-to-hand combat was very fast, and the two armies shouted and killed together, and almost in the blink of an eye, countless people fell screaming. To Akiyama's disbelief, most of the people who fell were Japanese.

At this time, the Italians showed unimaginable hand-to-hand combat ability, not only did they have amazing courage and high morale, but their strength, speed and reaction showed that they were much better than the Japanese army. So as soon as the battle began, the Japanese suffered a big loss.

On top of that, the Italians were like the berserkers of ancient legends, and as long as they weren't killed on the spot, they would keep fighting. Akiyama Yoshiko saw with his own eyes that an Italian soldier whose stomach was pierced by a bayonet and his intestines flowed out, but he still insisted on fighting, and after killing two more Japanese soldiers, he finally died with one Japanese soldier.

In the face of an enemy whose strength, speed, and reflexes were clearly superior to their own, and who were completely berserk, the Japanese horse dung could not withstand it even if they were fierce. Under the bayonet assault of the Italians, the Japanese finally collapsed. The remaining Japanese fled in terror, completely frightened by the demonic Italians.

Many Japanese soldiers were so frightened that they threw away their weapons, let out a frightened scream, turned around and ran away. They only hate that their parents have given birth to two fewer legs, and it would be nice if they were centipedes. These can run quite well, some Japanese soldiers were directly frightened and their legs were weak, and they couldn't run away at all, so they simply knelt on the ground and surrendered with their hands raised. This really can't be blamed on the incompetence of the Japanese army, in the face of this kind of monster that knows no pain and is not afraid of death, it is not easy for them to support it for so long.

The Italians immediately chased after them. For those Japanese soldiers who surrendered on their knees, the red-eyed Italians did not care about this, and stabbed them to the ground with a bayonet. As for the fleeing Japanese soldiers, although they had already used their strength to eat, the Italian army chased them faster, and in a blink of an eye they caught up behind them, and then easily dealt with them with a bayonet.

What kind of monster is this Nima?!

Akiyama's eyes are about to fall out. Monster images such as "Tengu", "Shura", and "Rakshasa already came to mind" in his mind, and they were overlapping with online Italians.

Not only him, but almost all the officers and soldiers who saw the Italians were stunned.

A French officer, who was a little insane, was pale, and muttered: "Is the Roman Empire going to be restored? Could it be that Caesar has ......come again?"

This time, however, the Italians did not withdraw after killing most of the Japanese soldiers, and continued to yell and pounce on the Japanese positions.

Akiyama Yoshiko was also battle-hardened, and he immediately ordered: "Order the machine gunners to shoot at the Italians...... More than 100 light and heavy machine guns in front of the Japanese position immediately began to fire.

Then they saw another unbelievable scene, the Italians did not evade it at all, and rushed straight to the rain of bullets.

"This ...... It's ......" Akiyama Yoshiko was completely stupid. This Nima is no longer the era of queuing up to shoot, well, in the face of the hard charge of the heavy machine gun positions arranged, are these Italians stupid?

There was no suspense in the final ending, and in the roar of heavy machine guns, the Italians fell like wheat, and when the last Italian soldier fell, the Allies let out a long sigh of relief as if they were in a nightmare.

The Japanese command was cold, and the people on the Entente side didn't know what to say about their opponents. If it was in the era of cold weapons, or the era when machine guns were not invented, the Japanese army would have hit the streets today. There's no way, that kind of monster that doesn't know pain, isn't afraid of life and death, and is superior to others in all aspects is really terrifying, it's not something that normal people can deal with at all.

"Report to Your Excellency Deputy Commander, we have captured a few prisoners...... at this time, a Japanese officer rushed to report.

"Hurry up and interrogate, what the hell is going on?" After calming down, Akiyama Yoshiko also felt that today's Italian army was too abnormal. If the Italian army was really so capable of fighting, it would be them who showed off their might in France.

"Your Excellency, I'll take a look......" Chief Staff Officer Terauchi Shouichi said quickly.

"Okay, ask carefully, those Italians don't seem to be right......" Akiyama said with a gloomy face.

Today, his heart was so distressed that his liver trembled, the 14th and 15th Divisions had been disabled, and together with the Fourth Division, they were still holding on to the hillside in front. The losses of the 4th Division were not small, according to reports from the front, the casualties exceeded 50,000, of which almost 40,000 were killed or missing. Just now it was almost 10,000 again. Nima has only been a day, and 60,000 people are gone.

It didn't take long for Terauchi Shouichi to run back and excitedly exclaimed, "Something is wrong!

Akiyama Yoshiko hurriedly followed him to the tent where the prisoners were held.

"Nani?" Akiyama looked carefully at the Italian soldiers. The Italians were all shot in the legs and feet and were unable to move before they were captured, and by this time the Japanese military doctor had already treated them and the wounded areas had been wrapped. Of course, that's not the point.

Sure enough, these Italians have straight eyes, dull eyes, and flushed skin, which is not normal no matter how you look at it. This is a leg injury, and it shouldn't be like this.

"Your Excellency, the captives are cooperative, but they are extremely slow to react. In the process of inquiry, they can forget the topic we just asked at any time......"

Aoi Shaosa, who was in charge of the interrogation, reported the results of the interrogation to Akiyama Yoshiko. They claim that the captives were very depressed. This is also normal, becoming a prisoner and suffering a lot of injuries, anyone will be depressed. If you can still be full of love in this situation, then there is definitely a problem. And these captives were also very cooperative, and when they asked them anything, they answered. It's just that sometimes, they are so absent-minded that they don't even hear the questions.

Akiyama Yoshiko frowned and said, "Could it be pretended? Are they trained in counter-interrogation?"

At this time, the chief military doctor, Furutegawa, came over and said, "It's not like it's pretended, we have tested it." These people's heart rates are sometimes high and low, their pulses are very disturbed, and their pupils are slower than normal in response to bright light. As for why this is happening, we don't know why......"

Gu Tegawa thought for a while and said in a low voice: "However, their spirits are extremely abnormal and their reactions are very slow. Even when they were operated on, they seemed unresponsive and had a very poor state of concentration, as if they hadn't slept for days. ”

Aoi Shaozo paused, and said in a skeptical tone: "Oh, by the way, Your Excellency. Just now they said that when they went to war, their commander gave them something called the source of courage......"

"Is there such a thing as a source of courage?" Akiyama turned curiously to the chief medic.

"I've never heard of anything like this......" Furugawa shook his head.

At this time, Shouichi Terauchi came over and said, "Your Excellency, when I was cleaning the battlefield in front just now, I found this kind of thing from some Italian soldiers......

Here are several pill bottles and wrapping cartons. The vial was small, about the size of a finger, and there was a label attached to it, which depicted a Viking warrior with a horned helmet, an axe, and a screaming battle. The pattern is written in a striking row of red letters with the Italian words "Source of Courage".

The content on the packaging carton is similar to that of a medicine bottle, but there are more instructions and precautions on the back.

"Is there really such a thing?" After seeing this pile of things, Akiyama's face turned green all of a sudden.