You were tasked with guarding the Sihang Warehouse, and you ended up with a German-equipped division

Chapter 59 Li Jianghe's Counterattack Strategy; Japanese Night Raid Fails

(The previous chapter was blocked by the review committee and is being revised...)

Saburo Isoda cleared his throat, breaking the somewhat awkward atmosphere.

"It's getting dark, should we halt the attack?"

As he said this, he pointed to the setting sun.

It's the dead of winter now, with short days and long nights. It's only a little past five o'clock, but the sky is already quite dark.

Suppressing his anger, Shigeharu Suematsu took a deep breath before slowly speaking:

"Cease the attack and redeploy troops for a night raid! How can we be utterly defeated by these despicable Chinese soldiers?"

He could not accept this outcome and had to take the entire position completely within two days.

Otherwise, he would recall his previous promise to Tani Hisao and his contempt for the man.

Now he seemed to understand why Hisao Tani hadn't rashly chosen to take on the main attacking role, but instead waited and saw what would happen.

This guy already knew that the enemies on Yuhuatai were not easy to deal with, and that the first wave of attacks would result in heavy losses, which is why he was given this task directly.

Suematsu Shigeharu had no doubt that if their troops were still unable to capture Yuhuatai and suffered heavy losses, forcing them to withdraw from the battle, then Tani Hisao could reap the benefits.

He couldn't let this happen; he had to take the Yuhuatai position before the Sixth Division took over.

On the Yuhuatai battlefield, soldiers, taking advantage of the cover of night, were clearing the battlefield, seizing weapons and ammunition, and searching for the bodies of their fallen comrades.

Inside the command post, Li Jianghe tallied up the merit points he had earned and discovered that he had eliminated at least seven hundred Japanese soldiers during the day, and had also wiped out an entire Japanese air force squadron.

This allowed him to receive more merit points.

Especially for high-value targets like airplanes, destroying one can earn you thousands of merit points, equivalent to taking down twenty Japanese soldiers.

The daytime battles alone earned him over 35,000 merit points.

Even after deducting personnel, ammunition, and the replenishment of damaged weapons and equipment, 25,000 merit points will still be left.

Combined with his existing merit points, Li Jianghe had even greater confidence in the upcoming street battles.

At this moment, Zhu Chi and the others walked in.

"Commander Li, Commander Xu, you fought well, especially against the Japanese planes. If it weren't for your machine gun positions, we don't know how many of our brothers would have been killed by the Japanese warplanes."

Zhu Chi, with his strong features and square face, said with great gratitude.

Xu Dingguo hurriedly said:

"This is all thanks to Jiang He; I dare not take credit for it."

Li Jianghe went straight to the point, pointing to the map and saying:

"That was nothing. What I need to say is that the Japanese will definitely launch a night attack tonight, and it won't be small-scale. We need to be prepared to deal with it."

Zhu Chi, the brigade commander of the 262nd Brigade, nodded in agreement, looking at Li Jianghe with a hint of mutual respect.

"Don't worry, I've already deployed defenses around the perimeter. The Japanese won't dare to charge from the front; they can only outflank us. If they dare to launch a sneak attack, I can guarantee they won't return."

Li Jianghe, however, said:

"Simply wiping them out isn't enough; we'll launch a counterattack tonight."

"A counterattack!?"

Zhu Chi thought he had misheard.

He thought to himself, "This Commander Li has a really bad temper. He says he wants to launch a counterattack, and he does so without caring how many Japanese soldiers there are on the other side."

This time it's not like the last sneak attack. Both of the Japanese divisions are keeping an eye on Yuhuatai. How can it be so easy to launch a counterattack?

So he said somewhat awkwardly:

"Isn't this... a bit too risky? After all, the other side has 40,000 Japanese soldiers, not 40,000 pigs."

Compared to Li Jianghe's unconventional and imaginative tactics, he was more conservative and steady.

Xu Dingguo never expected that Li Jianghe would actually attack the Japanese camp.

"It is indeed a bit risky, but based on my understanding of you, you must have already thought of a complete strategy, otherwise you wouldn't say that."

Li Jianghe chuckled and said:

"Old commander, you're the one who understands me best."

Then he explained his strategy, and after listening to it, Zhu Chi and the others felt that it seemed more plausible.

"That...is actually quite possible. Although there are certain risks involved, if it succeeds, it will certainly inflict huge losses on the Japanese army."

Zhu Chi also began to agree with this battle plan.

"At that time, I'll need your troops to launch a frontal assault and support our night raid."

Li Jianghe said with a smile.

Zhu Chi readily agreed:

"That's natural."

Just then, gunshots rang out in the darkness. The group exchanged glances and knew that the Japanese had launched a night attack.

As they had predicted, the Japanese attack did not take place in a direct confrontation.

After all, these Japanese soldiers also knew that the enemy at Yuhuatai had laid a large number of landmines on the front lines.

A frontal attack would be tantamount to suicide, so a night raid from the flank, which has never been attacked before, could have a surprising effect.

However, the soldiers on the Yuhuatai position had already received orders from Li Jianghe and Zhu Chi as soon as night fell to guard against a Japanese night attack and strengthen their flank firepower.

The Japanese army dispatched over a thousand men to participate in the night raid. These were all carefully selected veterans who launched the attack from both flanks.

Their advance went smoothly, and the Japanese soldiers demonstrated exceptional professionalism; almost no one spoke throughout the entire operation.

When the Japanese soldiers reached the flank of the Yuhuatai position, they lay prone on the slope, trying to approach the front line, but were discovered by hidden sentries.

The first shot was fired from the hidden sentry.

After the gunshot, flares and machine gun fire were directed at the Japanese troops below.

Seeing this, the Japanese soldiers stopped trying to hide and launched a direct attack on the flank positions, attempting to take them by force.

At the same time, Japanese artillery fire also arrived to provide support, bombarding the forward positions in an attempt to completely capture the area.

But of course, it didn't work. They couldn't break through the Nationalist army's firepower during the day, and they couldn't break through at night either.

So these Japanese soldiers began to retreat in disarray.

However, during their retreat, they did not notice that on the Yuhuatai position, there was also a group of soldiers dressed in Japanese military uniforms, crouching behind them and running towards the Japanese camp.

At the same time, field guns and heavy artillery that had not fired during the day were brought out and placed into pre-designated artillery positions.

Li Jianghe held the binoculars, looking into the darkness ahead, feeling somewhat uneasy.

If this night raid succeeds, it will definitely deal a huge blow to the morale of the Japanese troops, and there may even be some unexpected gains.

Around 1 a.m., Shigeharu Suematsu received news that the troops that had launched the attack had withdrawn.

The enemy's defenses are tight, and a night raid is impossible.