War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1618 No One Left Behind

How long does it take a horse to run 100 meters? How about 200 meters?

Whether the answer is ten seconds or twenty seconds, it is enough time for the cavalry on horseback to raise their sabers and get ready.

Similarly, whether it is ten seconds or twenty seconds, it is not enough time for the infantry to set up a position. Not to mention other things, it is impossible to set up a machine gun and find a good cover and firing range so quickly.

"puff!"

On the galloping warhorse, Wei Ran leaned his body sideways and forward relying on the horsemanship that the metal notebook had taught him, urging the biting black horse to speed up. At the same time, he raised his hand and swung his saber, easily blocking a Type 38 rifle that the Japanese soldier had hastily raised without even having time to attach a bayonet, and also cut his wrist in the process.

Before it could even scream, Wei Ran had already changed the blade and chopped down. Feeling no resistance at all, he cut off most of the other devil's face.

In the repetitive up and down swinging of the sword, one Japanese soldier after another was either scratched on the arms and shoulders, or had his face cut, or was directly knocked down by the warhorses. Before they could even get up, they were trampled into rags and pulp by the iron hooves that followed.

"puff!"

When Wei Ran swung his sword to kill a ferocious Japanese soldier again, a bullet came from nowhere and brushed past his armpit and flew behind him.

He had no time to look back to see if anyone was shot and fell off the horse, nor did he have time to check if he was injured. At the same time that Wei Ran loosened the reins with his left hand, he had already grasped a box gun that suddenly appeared.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Amid the occasional gunshots and the wielding of sabers, Wei Ran followed the cavalry in front of him and slashed from the rear to the front of the team.

He had to admit that this cavalry team was very tough. They even sent several men to charge at the trucks from both wings, fearlessly slashing the still spinning tires with sabers, throwing smoking grenades into the cargo box, smashing the windows and throwing them into the cab, and even risking a few suppressive shots before controlling their horses to escape before the explosion.

Amid the explosions and the increasingly dense gunfire, some cavalrymen fell off their horses and some war horses fell to the ground.

But at this time, the third company, which was still hiding in the deserted village, launched a second charge, raising their sabers towards the enemies who once again had their backs to them.

  At the same time, Ma Jintao also ran back in a circle with the cavalry company under his command and launched another death charge at the panicked puppet troops!

This time, under his leadership, the war horses rushed directly into the ranks of the puppet army.

Hack, charge, trample, shoot. After just one round, the puppet soldiers immediately collapsed and scattered.

Ma Jintao, who was also wounded, did not stop. Instead, he took advantage of the time when the third company was attracting attention and rushed straight to the Japanese at the rear of the team at high speed, and at the same time blew the command whistle!

Amid the sharp whistle sounds, the pistol team led by Li Sui'an immediately took out their box guns and ran wildly along the side of the Japanese transport team, pulling the trigger repeatedly at the animals pulling the carts!

At the same time, the third company also ran towards the head of the team from the other side. They also had a small number of soldiers equipped with pistols shooting the animals pulling the carts!

"kill!"

Ma Jintao spat out the whistle in his mouth and let out a roar, and the saber in his hand easily chopped off a Japanese soldier's head!

The casualties of the cavalry charge were undoubtedly heavy, but from the moment the cavalry successfully charged, it was a high-speed massacre without suspense!

  When they once again broke through the Japanese troops and rushed towards the head of the team, the third company had also arrived. Just like they had just done, they turned around and started the third round of devastation on the Japanese infantry!

At this moment, Wei Ran, who was riding on horseback, was trembling all over due to the excessive secretion of adrenaline. He was covered in bruises. If it weren't for the cloth wrapped around him, the saber in his hand would have slipped out of his hand when he accidentally hit a rifle.

Even so, this flesh and blood mill did not stop.

When they once again fired at the transport troops and used up the remaining bullets in their box guns, Ma Jintao also used the whistle to command them to start chasing the fleeing Japanese soldiers.

"puff!"

Wei Ran, whose arm was already half stained with blood, raised his saber again and successfully took off the head of a fleeing Japanese soldier.

Gently turning the handle of the knife to let the air flow carry away the blood stains on the blade, Wei Ran seized the opportunity, placed the knife on the back of the neck of the next running Japanese soldier and turned his wrist.

Amid the spurting smelly blood, the Japanese soldier's neck was cut with a huge wound so deep that the bone could be seen. His whole body staggered to the ground, twitching and becoming motionless.

Letting the air flow blow away most of the blood on the knife again, Wei Ran pulled the reins and made a circle, starting to chase the Japanese in other directions.

Nearly four hundred cavalrymen were facing a mixed force of more than five hundred Japanese and puppet troops, especially among whom were more than a hundred transport soldiers. It was impossible for this battle to last too long.

"beep--!"

With another whistle, the battle came to an end.

Ma Jintao shouted loudly, "Gather the bodies of our comrades! Search for spoils! Xiaobai! Guard the patrols!"

"Yes!"

Bai Yuguang responded loudly, and rode his horse with a few people to the direction where the Japanese troops came from. Similarly, the third company commander also sent a few people to the direction where the Japanese troops were preparing to advance.

After making sure that Zhao Jinyu and Li Sui'an were both alive, Wei Ran did not participate in collecting the bodies or looting the spoils. Instead, he untied the cloth wrapped around his hands, stuffed the saber into his saddlebag, then stood up in the stirrups and raised his camera to shoot everything he saw.

Although this battle yielded fruitful results, the special forces company alone suffered nearly 20 cavalry casualties. The third company, with relatively inferior weapons and equipment, suffered nearly 40 casualties.

Even so, this was because they launched a surprise attack. If the Japanese had set up machine guns and grenade launchers, their casualties would probably have been even greater.

  As for why we don't rely on numbers to ambush or engage in high-intensity gun battles

Wei Ran couldn't help but shake his head. Not to mention the Third Company, even the special forces company led by Ma Jintao, the rifles carried by those cavalrymen were mostly rusty and poorly maintained. As for the accuracy, no matter how accurate they were, they were probably still far behind the quality of the Japanese soldiers.

This can be seen from the condition of the cavalry rifle that Wei Ran received at the beginning.

  What’s more important is that the Japanese on the opposite side have more than 120 rounds of bullets per person. How many 120 rounds of bullets can a company of these cavalrymen muster?

This is a helpless and sad reality. Because of these helplessness and reality, these Northwest men chose the bloodiest, most dangerous, but also the most reliable and winning way to fight this annihilation war.

After pressing the shutter again towards the soldiers cleaning up the battlefield, Wei Ran finally had time to check his own condition.

In the previous few rounds of charging, he had been cut on the leg by the Japanese bayonet, a bloody groove had been left on his left rib by a bullet, and a black bruise had been left on his arm. Even the horse that bit him had been cut by a stray bullet on the edge of its butt, leaving a hideous wound of six or seven centimeters long.

Fortunately, although both people and horses suffered many wounds, none of them were fatal and would not hinder the team.

"I checked it."

At this time, Li Sui'an also rode his horse to Ma Jintao's side not far away, "I guess it's another grain collection team and a conscription team. We've been beating them up these days, so they're sending out more and more people."

"We have only just begun. We need to give them more strength." Ma Jintao muttered to himself as he looked at the corpses of his cavalrymen.

In silence, amid the neighing of war horses, the bodies of the cavalrymen and bundles of various rifles were carried onto the horses' backs, and boxes of rifle bullets, grenades and other captured items were packed into saddle bags.

This was a rare opportunity, so Wei Ran took the opportunity to take out the oil barrel from the metal notebook, made a large enough hole in the fuel tank of one of the trucks, and filled the barrel with fuel.

He was not the only one who was collecting fuel. The other soldiers also used the captured Japanese helmets to collect most of the fuel and poured it on the carts, trucks and even the piled up Japanese corpses.

It took less than ten minutes to clean up the battlefield. At the command, the soldiers set fire to the trucks, flatbeds and corpses. With the joy of victory and the sadness of losing their comrades, led by the two company commanders, they rode away from the ambush site filled with the smell of meat. Finally, Wei Ran took a photo of the mess, glanced at the two ugly Japanese soldiers who survived not far away, snorted, and urged his horse to catch up.

It was not until they left that the two Japanese soldiers who were deliberately spared but had their horses confiscated, ran hurriedly in the direction they came from - they all had their noses, ears, upper and lower lips and thumbs cut off by Bai Yuguang and his men.

Accordingly, in order to keep them alive, Zhao Jinyu kindly used fine sand to help them stop the bleeding. If they were not beaten to death by the refugees along the way, as long as they were quick, I believe they could always run back before the blood ran out, probably."

"Are you two injured?"

Wei Ran, who was riding on horseback, asked loudly while using the first aid kit seized from the Japanese to treat the wounds on his body.

"I'm fine," Li Sui'an said, waving his hand.

"It's just a minor injury." Zhao Jinyu waved her hand nonchalantly, "Are you seriously injured?"

"You won't die," Wei Ran said as he tightened the wound.

"Xiao Wu is gone"

Li Sui'an said abruptly, his eyes subconsciously looking at the corpse lying on the back of an unridden warhorse not far away.

"Xiao Wu is"

"Brother Li's fellow villager"

Zhao Jinyu sighed and pointed at the body tied to the back of another cavalryman not far away. "Brother Su is gone too. He even said he would introduce his cousin to me. Well, I have to continue to be single again."

Seeing them chatting with comrades whom he had not yet had the chance to meet, all Wei Ran could do was to press the shutter towards them, the corpses tied to the horses, and the trophies.

They rode at full speed all the way, and when they circled and crossed the flooded Yellow River from another route, they saw from a distance Captain Ma, who was personally waiting on the shore with another company, as well as the few artillery pieces and pitiful amount of shells around him.

"How many are injured?" asked Captain Ma.

"57," Ma Jintao replied.

"How many were killed?" Captain Ma asked again.

"We just let two of them run away and asked them to go back and report the news," Ma Jintao continued.

"Go bury your brothers"

Captain Ma drew his saber and said, "Gawads! Open the gate!"

"Open the gate of heaven!"

The surviving cavalrymen and the cavalrymen who came to support them all shouted in unison, surrounding the horses and cavalrymen carrying the corpses and marching back to the cemetery where the soldiers were buried.

Just like the last time when the soldiers were buried, the graves here had already been dug in advance.

Fifty-seven soldiers who had trained together, eaten and drank together, worshipped devoutly together, and sharpened their swords together yesterday, were hastily rolled up on half a straw mat and laid side by side in the grave under the gaze of the people around them. The only thing that could be buried with them was a piece of cloth that had once been tied to the handle of a sword and a strand of the horse's tail from a beloved warhorse.

"salute!"

Following a roar from the captain, all the mounted cavalrymen raised their broad, notched sabers in front of their chests and swung them diagonally downwards, striking the blood-stained stirrups hard.

"Qiang! Qiang! Qiang!"

Amid the strong smell of blood, the war horses anxiously stomped on the blood-stained ladders, and the horses that had lost their comrades were also neighing in the distance.

"Brothers! Open the Sky Gate!" Captain Ma roared loudly.

"Brothers! Open the Sky Gate!" Wei Ran also followed the crowd, roaring blessings and hitting the stirrups with his saber.

After a while, the knocking sounds stopped, and shovels of dirt covered the once living soldiers. In the rising white light, Wei Ran also heard the buzzing sound of more and more soldiers around him chanting scriptures.

Is this the end?

While Wei Ran was stunned, the white light that had just blocked his vision slowly faded away. When he came to his senses, he found himself standing at the edge of the stable, holding an iron-toothed comb in his hand, combing out the grass stalks and dirt balls on the body of the biting horse.

Almost subconsciously, he looked at the edge of the horse's butt.

Before the white light appeared, a stray bullet had left a wound about six or seven centimeters long. But now, the wound had healed and the scab was almost falling off.

Looking at myself again, the stitches on the wounds on my legs and ribs have all been removed and only scabbed scars remain, but it still hurts a little when I press them with my hands.

So it seems that it hasn’t been too long since the last injury?

Wei Ran was thinking while checking his equipment. Compared with the last scene, there were less than 44 bullets left in the Type 20 cavalry rifle, and there were many more notches on the saber that could not be completely polished away. There were less than bullets left in the pistol in the Kowloon belt.

Fortunately, the box gun tied to the Changzheng shoulder pole was fully loaded this time. But what made him grit his teeth and secretly think that it was not good was that the three oil barrels were emptied again, and there might not even be a bacteria left!

Before he could start greeting the bastard who always withheld his supplies, a sharp whistle sounded in the front yard.

  Your uncle!

Wei Ran only had time to curse inwardly before hastily checking the equipment on the biting horse. After making sure that everything was there, he immediately stuffed the iron-tooth comb in his hand into the saddle bag, untied the reins, jumped on the horse, and ran out.

When he found the assembly place and rode his horse to the side of Li Sui'an and Zhao Jinyu, the captain of the cavalry also rode to the front of the queue at almost the same time.

"Gawads!"

The regiment commander drew his saber and roared, "Everyone cross the river! Attack Huaiyang! Kill the devils, leaving no one alive!"

"No one will be left alive! No one will be left alive! No one will be left alive!"

All the cavalrymen gathered here, even the kitchen staff and Bai Yuguang's father, roared together.

"The special forces company lead the way! Set off immediately!" Captain Ma issued a new order.

"set off!"

At Ma Jintao's command, Bai Yuguang was the first to ride his horse and gallop. This time, he had a large flag in his hand that fluttered in the wind.