usatvline Chapter 365: Attacking Ping'an County, I, Zhao Gang, am the first one to disagree!
Chapter 365: Attacking Ping'an County, I, Zhao Gang, am the first one to disagree!
Under the order of Major General Fujiki, the attacking Japanese fighter planes began to evacuate. In order to prevent the Japanese from making a counterattack, Lin Zhenhua did not let the troops relax their vigilance. Instead, he asked them to be on high alert and be prepared for a second battle.
An hour later, after confirming that the Japanese fighter planes had indeed left, Lin Zhenhua breathed a sigh of relief. During the time when the Japanese fighter planes had left, all the troops had already immediately invested in the rescue of the wounded. The doctors and nurses in the field hospital immediately treated the injured soldiers and civilians. The entire base was full of busy scenes.
The signalmen sent by Li Yunlong did not deliver the message before the Japanese launched an air raid. Fortunately, Ding Wei and Kong Jie were prepared in advance, and the troops did not suffer heavy casualties. However, the two battalions responsible for escorting more than 5000 puppet soldiers suffered considerable losses in the Japanese bombing, and a large number of puppet soldiers died in agony due to inhaling poison gas.
Ding Wei and Kong Jie did not rush back to the base, but launched an attack on Fengjia Town according to the original plan. After capturing more than 3000 puppet soldiers, they were besieged by a large number of puppet soldiers and a battalion of Japanese devils and had to retreat. They marched quickly all the way and finally returned to the base before eight o'clock in the evening.
After sending people to settle the captured puppet soldiers, Ding Wei and Kong Jie immediately took an armored vehicle to the underground air defense command center to discuss the next step. Li Yunlong and Zhao Gang had been waiting for a long time, and when they saw Ding Wei and Kong Jie return safely, they finally smiled.
After exchanging a few pleasantries, they began to eat dinner. After finishing the meal, they started to talk about the main topic. Zhao Gang was the first to speak: "The Japanese bombing this time caused us huge losses. We underestimated the Japanese before, and we really suffered a lot this time. The casualties are very heavy. Now I will tell you about the losses so that everyone can have an idea of the situation!"
"In today's air raid, all 17 pilots of the Thunder Fighter Squadron were killed. The two pilots who successfully parachuted were hit by the enemy's machine guns and eventually died. In addition, we also lost two transport planes and the four pilots on them. Today we lost a total of 21 pilots. Including the two transport plane squadrons we lost earlier, we lost a total of 95 pilots."
"This has made the situation of our air force extremely bad. Now there are only 82 pilots left and 69 reserve flight trainees. The loss of pilots has exceeded half, and this is not the worst. Today, our arsenal was bombarded by the Japanese. Six factories were destroyed, three factories were severely damaged, and two factories were slightly damaged. The production capacity of Thunder fighters has also dropped significantly, from one every two days to one every four days. It will take three months to make up for our current loss of Thunder fighters. The situation is already very serious!"
"In addition, three of our material warehouses were destroyed, and we lost a lot of ammunition and food. Fortunately, we had sufficient reserves before, so this loss is still within our tolerance range."
"But the casualties this time were too great. Four air-raid shelters were destroyed, six were severely damaged, and three were slightly damaged. A total of more than 6000 civilians were killed or injured, including 1892 deaths, 1312 severe injuries, and 3309 minor injuries."
Seeing the ugly faces of the crowd, Zhao Gang felt bad, and he continued, "Our troops suffered heavy casualties this time, and directly lost two air defense companies. This is a complete loss, which was completely beyond our expectations. The second and third air defense companies have been destroyed and have completely withdrawn from the air defense sequence of our independent regiment. It is impossible to rebuild them now, so we can only talk about it later."
"The losses of other units were not small either. In total, we lost more than 600 soldiers, and more than 8 soldiers were injured. The results were not significant. We only shot down 17 Zero fighters, 18 Type dive bombers, and Type bombers. This includes the results of the Thunder Fighter Squadron. It can be seen how badly we fought the air defense battle this time!"
Suddenly, the entire underground command center became silent. Ding Wei cleared his throat, stood up and said, "Let me tell you about our losses today. Lao Kong and I captured 7826 puppet soldiers today, of whom 6300 died from the Japanese poison gas attack, and more than were injured. Only more than were safe and sound. Now all these puppet soldiers have been placed near Xiaoyunling, and they will be diverted tomorrow!"
"In this offensive, we lost two armored vehicles and a tank, with a total of more than 600 casualties. The loss reached a battalion, which is still within our tolerance range. If we hadn't hidden in the woods in advance, relying solely on the firepower of an anti-aircraft company, we would not be able to stop the raid of the Japanese bombers. The air defense problem that we have been concerned about has not been completely solved. Our air defense firepower needs to be further strengthened. Otherwise, if we really encounter a large-scale cluster bombing by the Japanese, our artillery will be very dangerous. This matter must be taken seriously, otherwise there will be no way to fight the next account!"
"Through this attack, I found that the new recruits are not as weak as we thought. The battlefield simulation training ground built by Li Yunlong before really played a good role. In the future, we must increase investment in this area and build more training grounds to speed up the training progress of the troops!"
Ding Wei's good news finally eased the atmosphere in the headquarters, and the gloomy faces of the people gradually became calmer, no longer as solemn as before. However, this blow also made the impetuous emotions of the people disappear completely, and they all pondered and thought about countermeasures.
Li Yunlong slowly sat up while holding onto the table beside him. He analyzed with a serious face: "The Japanese's revenge will definitely not stop here. If things go wrong, the Japanese will bomb again tomorrow. We must now withdraw the air defense forces from various positions and strengthen the air defense forces of the base to reduce the losses of the military and civilians in the base."
"Before, I wanted to reserve the fighter squadron as a trump card to deal with the Japanese, but the Japanese attack this time was too sudden. If the fighter squadron hadn't bought us half an hour, more civilians would have been harmed."
"Old Zhao, you have been in charge of the construction of the air-raid shelter. I know you didn't cut corners when you built it, but judging from the results of the Japanese bombing this time, the air-raid shelter you built is really not that good. It can't withstand the Japanese bombs at all."
"This incident has also reminded me that the most important thing for me right now is to solve three things first. The first thing is to find a way to strengthen the defense of the air-raid shelter, so that there will be no more Japanese bombs that can blow up the air-raid shelter. The second thing is to take out all the anti-aircraft weapons in our inventory and distribute them to the troops below to form six large air defense intensive formations to defend our air-raid shelters and material warehouses. The third thing is to retaliate against the Japanese. It is not my style, Li Yunlong, to not retaliate after suffering a loss. I think we should not think about attacking the second blockade of the Japanese now, but directly mobilize the army to attack Ping'an County, eat up the Black Vine Battalion, and blow the horn of counterattack!"
Zhao Gang was the first to object, saying, "Old Li, we must not send troops to attack Ping'an County now. Our priority now is to defend our base, wait for the Japanese to send troops to attack, and use positional warfare to consume the Japanese's manpower."
"Old Li, you can't get carried away at this moment. It's absolutely unacceptable to ignore the future for the sake of revenge. I, Zhao Gang, will be the first one to disagree with this."
"Besides, Ping'an County is not that easy to attack. The puppet army and the devils have a strength of more than 4000. If we count some other forces, the total strength can reach 5000. We have to send tens of thousands of people to attack in order to take Ping'an County. The noise is too big, not to mention the three lines of defense deployed by the devils, but there are a large number of troops. If we launch an attack on the base at this time, we may really be able to cut off our retreat. The attacking troops may be isolated by the devils, and the tens of thousands of troops may be divided and surrounded by the devils and eaten away step by step!"
Ding Wei and Kong Jie did not speak. They were a little undecided for a moment. Judging from the current situation, the Japanese's revenge was limited to air strikes. It was really difficult to send ground troops to attack the base of the independent regiment in a short period of time. After all, looking at the current situation, it might snow again in a few days. The two thought it would be better to be safe.
Xing Zhiguo, Zhang Dabiao and others did not say anything, and they did not have any good ideas in their minds. Finally, everyone looked at Lin Zhenhua, wanting to hear his ideas.
Facing the gazes of the crowd, Lin Zhenhua did not speak directly. After thinking for a moment, he sniffed and said in a tangled tone: "The current situation is indeed unfavorable to us, but it is not yet critical. Ground-based air defense is nine out of ten air defenses. I have said this many times. If we want to solve the air defense problem of the base, we have to deploy more fighter jets. The first problem we need to solve is to increase the production capacity of fighter jets, from the current one every four days to one every day, to make up for our previous consumption."
"I just checked the weather forecast bottle. It will snow lightly tomorrow. This is good news for us. But we don't know when it will snow, so we must prepare for the worst. The air defense units have begun to mobilize according to my orders and formed a circular air defense formation. It should be able to play a good air defense role tomorrow."
"As for the defense of the air-raid shelter, I have arranged for the arsenal to urgently cast a batch of iron wire barrier nets. They will be installed overnight today. We can see the effect tomorrow. Anyway, I think it is better to have something than nothing. Let's give it a try first. Maybe it will really work!"