After Zhang Dabiao received the order, he immediately called in more than a dozen engineering soldiers.
He unloaded the German-made mines from the mule cart, then carried the box and headed towards the slope pointed by Li Yunlong.
The Eighth Route Army is also equipped with land mines, but most of them are land mines made in the border areas. Not only are they weak, some even require strings to be pulled before they sound.
Even with such land mines, the Eighth Route Army units do not have any excess, and they save what they can.
The slope Li Yunlong mentioned was between the New Regiment's position and the Japanese's position, close to the New Regiment's position.
If the Japs wanted to attack the new regiment's position, the slope was the only way to go, and the engineers were doing earthwork behind the slope without being noticed by the Japs.
Li Yunlong had been fighting with the Japanese for several years and had already learned the Japanese tactics clearly.
It's nothing more than artillery bombarding the infantry and then charging. After the infantry has charged, the artillery bombs. After the artillery bombards the infantry, charge.
This tactic seems simple and mindless, but the simpler and cruder it is, the more effective it is. The Chinese army, with its poor equipment and lack of weapons and ammunition, suffered heavy losses when faced with this Japanese tactic.
The engineer soldiers carried the mine boxes and quickly reached the bottom of the soil slope. Two soldiers were on guard, and the remaining soldiers picked up bayonets and shovels and began to dig the soil.
These soldiers are all good at laying land mines. Although they have never seen German-made land mines, the principles of land mines are similar.
There is also an instruction manual produced by the system, which is equipped with text and pictures to make it clear at a glance.
Landmines are generally divided into pressure-fired, loose-fired, or trip-fired mines. The German-made S-type mines are loose-fired.
That is, when an enemy who steps on a mine releases his foot, the mine will be ejected to waist height before exploding, and the pellets will be ejected in the horizontal direction at a fatal speed.
After about half a second, the main charge explodes at a suitable height, killing infantry and personnel.
The German-made S-type mine is the most famous among jumping mines. It is notorious because of its huge power and anti-human shooting.
In less than 10 minutes, the soldiers buried all 50 landmines, removed the safety devices, and buried the mines with sand.
Then he carefully exited the minefield, carried the empty box on his shoulders, and returned to the new regiment's position with the rifle in his hand.
"Report to the captain, all the mines have been laid!" The captain of the engineering team ran to Li Yunlong and reported.
"Okay!" Li Yunlong nodded and said loudly, "I'm afraid the Japanese are about to start shelling. Soldiers, please take cover!"
After a pause, Li Yunlong said again: "Pull the Italian cannon behind, don't let the Japanese cannon explode!"
Immediately, several soldiers came up and led the mules to pull the field artillery and artillery shells to a hidden position behind.
About 5 minutes later, there was a sharp scream in the sky, and a shell was coming.
boom--
An artillery shell exploded more than 20 meters in front of the new regiment's position, raising a mud mist.
The first shell was a test fire.
More than ten seconds later, the whistle of multiple artillery shells sounded again. The artillery shells fired from the Japanese artillery position arced across the sky and landed on the new regiment's position.
Boom boom boom, boom boom, boom boom boom——
Continuous shells fell down one after another, and with the booming sound of explosions, the new group's position was instantly enveloped in fire and smoke.
However, Li Yunlong was well prepared for this and had already withdrawn the soldiers to a safe position, leaving only a few observers on the position.
At the same time, a squadron of more than 200 Japs held rifles and launched a probing attack on the new regiment's position.
This is a consistent tactic of the Japs in combat. Before a general attack, a small group of troops is sent out to conduct a trial attack to find out the opponent's number of troops and firepower distribution.
The Japanese commander then makes corresponding combat arrangements based on the opponent's strength. Using artillery advantage to destroy the opponent's firepower points is just a basic operation.
After the bombardment stopped, the Japanese probing troops were already 300 meters close to the position, and the Japanese machine gunners were looking for a favorable position.
Quickly set up two crooked-handled light machine guns and a Type 92 heavy machine gun, and opened fire at the new regiment's position.
Da da da da…
Three machine guns sprayed out long tongues of flame one after another, and the machine gun bullets hit the new group's position, sending up a cloud of mud mist.
Under the cover of machine gun fire, the charging Japs became even more arrogant and rushed toward the new group's position with strange cries.
It has to be said that the Fourth Brigade is known as the elite of the Japanese army. The Japanese soldiers have extremely high fighting qualities and have a fierce and fierce momentum when charging.
It didn't take long for the Japanese's dense charge formation to reach the slope in front of the position. Then they jumped down from the slope and continued to charge toward the Eighth Route Position with bayonets in hand.
Most of the more than 200 Japanese soldiers entered the mine array.
A Japanese soldier stepped on a landmine with his right foot first, then quickly lifted it up and stepped forward.
Only a slight dinging sound was heard as the detonator ignited the projectile charge at the bottom of the mine, and then threw the cylindrical body of the mine into the air 1 meter high.
boom--
After 0.5 seconds, the explosive inside the mine was ignited.
Accompanied by the explosion of the mine, hundreds of steel balls and metal fragments were shot horizontally in all directions.
German-shaped mines are extremely powerful, lethal within a range of 20 meters, and lethal within a range of 100 meters.
Suddenly, the Japanese screamed like slaughtering pigs. Seven or eight Japanese fell to the ground. The Japanese who stepped on the mine was even blown into two pieces.
Immediately afterwards, more and more Japanese soldiers stepped on the landmines, and a series of violent explosions were heard below the slope.
The entire slope was shrouded in fire and smoke.
Blood mist splashed everywhere, and pieces of flesh flew everywhere!
After more than twenty explosions in succession, as the smoke dispersed, less than 80 Japanese were still standing.
Many of the Japs lost their luck, and those who survived lost all their initial arrogance and looked at the ground around them in horror, their legs and feet trembling.
"Don't panic, just go back the way you came!" The Japanese squadron leader was still calm and immediately issued the order.
At this time, all the Japs had entered the mine array, and it was not easy to get out. Moreover, the footprints on the mud were messy, and no one knew where they came from.
The squadron leader quickly made two retreat gestures, and the Japanese soldiers retreated cautiously.
Immediately afterwards, another Japanese soldier stepped on a landmine, and there was an explosion. Several more Japanese soldiers screamed and fell to the ground.
The Japanese finally panicked, turned around and ran away, wishing that his parents would give him two more legs.
The consequence was that more landmines were triggered, and the Japanese were killed and injured one after another.
Of the more than 200 Japanese who arrived, only about 20 escaped, and the remaining 180 or so Japanese all died in the mine array.
When the bombardment was over, Li Yunlong returned to his position and looked through his binoculars. He saw only about 20 Japanese soldiers running away in panic.
Looking towards the direction of the mine formation, Li Yunlong immediately couldn't help but take a breath of cold air.
Through the field of vision through the telescope, Li Yunlong saw that the landmine array was covered with corpses of Japanese soldiers, with broken limbs and broken arms scattered everywhere, and even the muddy ground was dyed red with the blood of Japanese soldiers.
Zhang Dabiao came up with a ghost machete on his back, looked over with a telescope, and was immediately stunned.
"Dear me..." Zhang Dabiao exclaimed, "What a powerful mine!"