Chapter 085 The Sound of Guns and Cannons by the Riverbank

  At midnight, there were sudden bursts of gunfire from the other side of the river. Several flares shot up into the air like fireballs, tearing through the darkness and flying towards the Japanese defensive line on the riverbank, illuminating their positions in a blaze of light. Immediately afterwards, wave after wave of artillery fire erupted, with shells whistling over from the opposite bank, drawing beautiful arcs across the night sky, like rainbows spanning the river, landing amidst the Japanese positions, and exploding in rapid succession, shaking the earth and mountains.

  "Long, it rang..." Hu San rushed into the house and saw Dong Li Mao crawling on the table top, sleeping. The dust that had fallen from the roof was constantly sprinkling on his head and back. Hu San tiptoed over, picked up his coat, and prepared to cover Dong Li Mao with it.

  "Little beard!"

  Hú Sān was startled and immediately stood up straight and replied: "Yes!"

  "Give me some water to drink." Dong Li Mao stood up from the chair, stretched his waist, rubbed his eyes and asked: "Have all the trucks outside been modified?"

  Hu San twisted open a military canteen cap and handed it to Dong Li Mao, saying: "It's almost done, and several local carpenters even came to help voluntarily."

  "Where is Miss Tai Li?" Dong Limao took over the water bottle, put the mouth of the bottle to his lips, and asked after taking a few big gulps.

  “She is also helping with the renovation of the truck along with a journalist.”

  "Go! Take a look!" Dong Li Mao put on his overcoat, wore his helmet, and picked up his submachine gun.

  As I walked out of the house, the sky on the riverbank was illuminated by the bright light of explosions, burning firelight, flares and the flashing light of shells flying back and forth between the two banks, making it as bright as daytime. Except for the sound of gunfire coming from the direction of the riverbank, all other directions were relatively quiet, with no gunshots or artillery fire.

  Dong Li Mao was like a bystander, as if this war had nothing to do with him. He stood under the eaves, admiring the shells and machine gun bullets flying randomly along the riverbank, his nostrils still smelling the smell of gunpowder blown by the river wind.

  Such a fiery war scene, this is something that Dong Limao can't see in movies and TV shows, this is the first time he has witnessed such a large-scale battle with his own eyes, how can he not appreciate it?

  "Beautiful! Much more beautiful than fireworks!" Dong Limao couldn't help but exclaim.

  Hu San tilted his head and looked at Dong Li Mao, hearing him say that it was more beautiful than setting off fireworks. He asked a question: "Company Commander, what is setting off fireworks?"

  Dong Li Mao was taken aback and turned his head to ask: "Haven't you let off any firecrackers?"

  "I didn't let it go, and I've never heard of it before." Hu San replied with a flash of his two bright black eyes.

  "It's the kind you used to set off when you were a kid, back home during Chinese New Year." Dong Li Mao really couldn't understand why Hu San, at his age, would have forgotten about setting off firecrackers during Chinese New Year.

  "What's the fun of Chinese New Year? I grew up in a mountain village and only came out because of poverty. I especially love Chinese New Year, there's meat to eat, but I've never had any fireworks like Lianzhang said." Hu San replied with a smile.

  Dong Li Mao reached out to touch Hu San's head, feeling a sourness in his heart. He thought back to when he was Hu San's age, just entering high school. From what he could remember, every year during the New Year celebrations, his father would buy a lot of firecrackers and fireworks, enough to last until they were tired of them. Even after finishing those, they wouldn't be satisfied, so they'd use the lucky money given by their elders to buy more fireworks, insisting on getting the biggest, most impressive, and most expensive ones.

  "Afterwards, brother will have a chance to let you take a look, but it's not as good as this scene." Dong Li Mao pointed at the flashing cannon fire on the riverbank in front and said.

  "Brother?" Hu San asked somewhat disbelievingly: "Company Commander, you just called me 'brother', does that mean I can treat you like a brother from now on?"

  "Alright, from now on you call me brother, don't always be calling me Commander, Commander. I don't like being called Commander." Dong Li Mao stretched out his hand and put it on Hu San's shoulder, at this moment he really had a big brotherly feeling.

  "Yes! Brother Long!" Hu San immediately changed his words: "No, brother!"

  "Haha......" Dong Li Mao patted Hu San's shoulder, feeling particularly good.

  "Report to Commander Lian, the truck has been modified!" Zhao Yong ran over to report to Dong Li Mao.

  "Go! Let's take a look at our chariots!" Dong Li Mao took big strides forward.

  All trucks were almost sealed with thick wooden boards, modified like a large wooden box, except for the exposed head of the vehicle, all were enclosed by more than ten centimeters thick wooden boards.

  Dong Li Mao burst out laughing: "In the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang invented wooden horses and cows for transporting grain. Now I've invented a wooden armored vehicle to withstand bullets! The little devils will think it's the latest invention from the British, haha..."

  Crawling into the carriage, Dong Li Mao picked up a machine gun leaning against the side of the carriage and extended the barrel out of the narrow shooting hole. The butt of the machine gun rested on his right shoulder chest, swinging the machine gun left and right, except for the sky which couldn't be seen, the field of view was still wide open. After checking the machine gun, he picked up a rocket launcher to try if it could launch rockets from the shooting hole. Although the field of view seemed a bit narrow, he could still stretch out the rocket launcher.

  Jumping off the bus, Dong Li Mao asked Zhao Yong: "Has the driver been found?"

  "Each truck has two drivers, all of whom are volunteers, and they're also armed with twenty-odd young and robust male journalists who have used guns before, and they too volunteered to join the combat team." Zhao Yong replied.

  At this time, the artillery fire on the riverbank was no longer so dense and became sparse. It seemed that the half-hour concentrated bombardment had come to an end. Under the special "da-da" sound of heavy machine guns, accompanied by intense and dense gunfire, it seemed that the Japanese defenders were firing at the National Army crossing the river. The intensity of the battle could be judged from the sound of the guns.

  "We should also get going!" After inspecting the modified vehicle, Dong Li Mao told Hu San: "Assemble the troops!"

  Hu San took out a small horn from his waist. He used to be the bugler of the 9th Company, and after becoming Dong Li Mao's orderly, he still retained his old profession.

  At the sound of the whistle, all the special agents rushed over to stand by the truck, armed to the teeth, in three rows, with journalists and missionaries surrounding them.

  Dong Li Mao Chuan stood with his legs apart, standing in the front and center of the team, scanning from left to right, then shouted: "Brothers! Are you all ready?"

  "Ready!" The whole team shouted in unison.

  "What we are going to do is a great historic undertaking! They are journalists from all over the world, who with their pens and cameras, recorded the atrocities of the Japanese army. Only by safely sending them out can they send the photos and manuscripts in their hands to their respective countries, print them into newspapers or broadcast them on the radio, so that people all over the world can know what happened here, and more people can understand through pictures and broadcasts the fascist brutality of Japanese militarism! We soldiers fight with guns, while these journalists use pens and cameras as weapons. Our guns can kill devils, their pens and cameras can also kill devils! Through their written records and camera shots, let more people around the world stand up to resist the fascist war! In the end, we can completely eliminate the Japanese devils, such fascist warmongers from this world..."

  Dong Li Mao was like a lecturer, stirring up the passion of every warrior, this is called pre-war combat mobilization.

  "Now, I command! Board by combat teams!" Dong Li Mao finally gave the order to depart.

  All the commandos, according to the pre-arranged combat groups, climbed onto the trucks and jumped onto the jeeps, followed by the journalists and missionaries, in an orderly manner, all of which were first assigned by Zhao Yong.

  Dong Li Mao walked quickly towards the frontmost jeep, he still didn't know who was driving it.

  Arriving at the Jeep, I saw Tai Li sitting in the driver's cab, turning her head back to smile at Dong Li Mao.

  "Miss Tailor, how could you..." Dong Limao looked at Elizabeth Tailor in surprise.

  "It was Miss Tai Li who asked for it herself, not me..." Hu San said softly beside Dong Li Mao.

  Pan Guangzu sat in the back seat of the jeep, holding a rocket launcher and said: "Little Hu is my ammunition hand."

  "Little Huzi..." Dong Li Mao's eyes turned towards Hu San, his face stern as he asked: "What is going on here?"

  "It's... it's just that you told me to take care of Miss Teri, wherever she goes I'll follow..." Hu San was somewhat afraid of Dong Li Mao's gaze and hastily gave Teri a pleading look for help.

  "Dong Lianchang, this is all my idea, it has nothing to do with Little Hu." Taili came down from the driver's cabin and said: "I am one of the best drivers in the entire news reporter team. In your Chinese ancient people's words, 'the great general goes on an expedition, riding a precious horse under his crotch.' You will know soon that I am the precious horse under the crotch of the great general you Chinese ancient people talked about."

  "Hip... down... BMW... Haha... What a great hip-down BMW! And it's even a foreign mare! Haha..." Dong Limao heard Tai Li's words and couldn't help but think of that thing between men and women, laughing with his head thrown back.

  Pan Guangzu couldn't help but burst out laughing, Hu San didn't know what Dong Limao and Pan Guangzu were laughing at, seeing them laugh, he also followed suit with a silly grin.

  Tai Li was laughed at and blinked her eyes, asking: "Isn't that right? Did I quote the ancient Chinese wrongly? I remember it's 'under the horse is precious'... Could it be 'foreign mother horse'?"

  "Haha...... you......" Dong Li Mao laughed even harder, holding his stomach in pain, pointing at Taili and saying: "That's right, it's Foreign Mother Ma...... haha......"

  Pan Guangzu was so happy that he lay down on the back seat of the jeep and kicked his legs wildly.

  "Alright, get in... Haha... Foreign mother - horse..." Dong Limao jumped into the front passenger seat.

  The windshield of the jeep in front had been folded down, and a machine gun was set up in front of the co-pilot's seat. The power of this machine gun far exceeded that of the portable Thompson submachine guns equipped by Zhang Dali's squad. It was difficult to control when held by hand, and it could only exert its greatest power when fixed in a certain position. In theory, it should be equipped with an ammunition handler or deputy machine gunner, but on the limited jeep, the ammunition box was placed at the foot, and as long as a box of bullets was inserted into the barrel, basically no one else's help was needed, unless the shell was stuck or after shooting hundreds of rounds in a box.