Chapter 152: Chen Qingzhi's Plan!

With eyes burning red, Wang Yachuan gazed at the scene before him, a sight beyond the power of language to describe!

Some of the soldiers had been pierced right through their bodies by bayonets, their already stiff corpses propped up and nailed directly to the ground.

Some soldiers were locked in a final embrace with Japanese corpses, their teeth still clamped onto half a devil's ear even in death!

Others had their eyeballs gouged out by the Japanese bastards, their entrails spilling across the ground, yet they still clutched tightly onto the thighs of the enemy, refusing to let go, their fingers embedded deep into the flesh!

One soldier had bitten fiercely into a Japanese soldier's throat, refusing to loosen his jaws even after his entire lower jaw was sliced off by a bayonet!

Even more horrifying was the soldier who hugged a Japanese brute so tightly that a bayonet from behind pierced clean through his own body and straight into the body of the enemy as well...

...

Such scenes were playing out everywhere along this small street. Any single one of them was enough to strike profound shock into the soul, but now, wherever one looked, the landscape was flooded with them!

The soldiers of the Third Regiment, including Wang Yachuan, felt tears instantly stream down their faces at this spectacle!

Watching his men standing there in a daze, Wang Yachuan wiped the tears from his face and growled fiercely, "Damn it! Leave one platoon to clear the battlefield! Every other man, follow me into the charge! Pursue the little devils and wipe them out!"

Though grief wrung his heart, Wang Yachuan had not forgotten the mission Chen Qingzhi had given him—to pursue the Japanese forces three miles out!

Regaining his composure, he immediately led his troops in a furious pursuit of the retreating enemy.

Filled with an incomparable rage, the soldiers of the Third Regiment charged forward like madmen, running at full tilt to hunt down the Japanese. With the artillery regiment providing long-range fire support to cut off the enemy's retreat, the Third Regiment's men swarmed in from behind, desperately slaughtering the foe.

Having long since lost all will to fight, and hunted relentlessly from the rear by the Third Regiment, the Japanese soldiers panicked completely, casting aside their helmets and armor as they fled in disarray.

As for the Japanese battalion commander, a stray artillery shell landed right on top of him during his flight, blowing him to smithereens without leaving a single bone behind.

...

"By dusk, Fang Xiaodong had sustained seventeen saber wounds and five gunshot wounds. When the rescue party dug him out from a pile of corpses, he was hanging on by a single breath!"

"Of the more than nine hundred men in the First Regiment, casualties in this battle were catastrophic. Officers at the battalion and company levels were wiped out almost to the last man, and only two platoon leaders survived—both of them critically wounded and barely breathing. When the entire First Regiment was rescued, including the heavily wounded, only eighty-three men remained, with fewer than twenty of them able to stand on their own feet!"

atop the city wall of Dingyuan, an officer reported loudly to Chen Qingzhi.

"Utterly tragic, yet every single one of them is a hero!" Su Zuxin could not help but sigh in profound emotion beside him.

"How is Fang Xiaodong?" Chen Qingzhi asked.

"Regimental Commander Fang is severely injured. He went into shock from massive blood loss when he was rescued, but the soldiers have already rushed him to the field hospital, where emergency treatment is underway!" the soldier replied.

Hearing this, Chen Qingzhi fell silent. He turned his head to look in the direction where the Third Regiment was still pursuing the Japanese.

Su Zuxin glanced at Chen Qingzhi's expression, shook his steps forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with him, gazed out at the distant battlefield, and said in a deep voice, "Brother Chen, aren't you afraid that such a fierce tiger of a general of yours might die in battle? It just has to be you; if it were anyone else, who would dare risk pushing such a fierce warrior to this absolute limit? Anyone else would have tucked him away and treated him like a priceless treasure!"

At this, Su Zuxin asked with a trace of curiosity, "Not that I'm prying, but what on earth is your plan? How can you be so confident? You actually stood by and let a premier tiger general risk his life like this without a single backward glance?"

Others might not know Chen Qingzhi's intentions, but Su Zuxin saw things with absolute clarity!

Ever since Chen Qingzhi moved the troops out to garrison outside the city, the shrewd and experienced Su Zuxin had known that Chen Qingzhi would never make a move without a purpose; he undoubtedly had a grand design. Coupled with the fact that the First Regiment had been pushed to the brink of annihilation before Chen Qingzhi finally unleashed the Third Regiment, Su Zuxin would never believe there wasn't a calculated strategy at play!

He simply had yet to figure out what that plan actually was!

At these words, Chen Qingzhi could only offer a bitter smile.

He indeed had a plan!

A plan he had begun setting into motion long before this battle even commenced!

Knowing the historical trajectory of the Xuzhou Campaign, he had meticulously crafted this scheme in anticipation of the Japanese military's reactions!

He had split his forces into three regiments: the First Regiment held the frontline position, the Second Regiment defended the southern gate to the death, and the Third Regiment waited for the opportune moment, while an entire artillery battalion was moved outside the city—all of this designed to be sprung the exact moment the time was ripe!

And the moment he unleashed the Third Regiment, it signaled that the time had indeed arrived!

The crucial node for this ripe moment lay in the intelligence Chen Qingzhi had received earlier:

The Japanese 13th and 3rd Divisions were launching an offensive against Linhuaguan!

For this Xuzhou Campaign, the Japanese were employing a strategy of simultaneous northern and southern pincer attacks. The enemy forces in the south consisted of only three divisions and a few independent detachments. Now that their 9th Division had been intercepted and stalled right here, and the 3rd and 3rd 13th Divisions were advancing toward Linhuaguan, the Japanese rear must undoubtedly be hollowed out and vulnerable. If troops were sent to launch a surprise attack on the enemy's rear at this very moment, this entire campaign could dramatically reverse its momentum!

A surprise assault on the Japanese rear would not only lift the crisis at Linhuaguan but also prevent the southern Japanese forces from throwing their full weight into the offensive, allowing the defenders to hold the natural barrier of the Huai River and lock the enemy in a stalemate across the water.

In this way, the Third War Zone would be able to free up its hands, concentrate massive forces, and fight a decisive battle against the northern Japanese army!

Yes! That was Chen Qingzhi's exact design!

Yet, to execute this plan, the primary prerequisite was to pin down the Japanese forces! The enemy's 9th Division must not be allowed to slip away!

Otherwise, the moment he launched an assault on the Japanese rear, the enemy's 9th Division might well turn around and hunt them down from behind, a nightmare scenario Chen Qingzhi had no intention of welcoming.

Therefore, to counter this exact threat, Chen Qingzhi had made preparations—in the form of the Third Regiment!

To render the 9th Division incapable of pursuit, and ultimately incapable of further combat, the Third Regiment was the decisive linchpin!

Ordering the Third Regiment to push forward three miles and hold its ground while waiting for orders was the most critical component of Chen Qingzhi's master plan!

As long as the Third Regiment could successfully advance those three miles, half of Chen Qingzhi's strategy would already be crowned with success!

And what followed next would be the killer blow with which Chen Qingzhi would decisively settle the fate of the entire campaign!

Lost in these thoughts, Chen Qingzhi glanced at Su Zuxin's inquiring face. Instead of answering directly, he shifted the topic and said, "Brother Su guessed correctly. I indeed laid out a plan, but for now, I cannot reveal the details. I trust Brother Su will forgive me."

This veil of mystery woven by Chen Qingzhi only piqued Su Zuxin's curiosity further, leaving him desperately eager to know the truth.

Yet, since Chen Qingzhi chose not to speak, Su Zuxin refrained from pressing him any further.

Deep in his heart, however, a vague premonition stirred—Chen Qingzhi's fatal stroke was likely about to break the surface very soon!

At this thought, a sense of eager anticipation blossomed within Su Zuxin. He truly wanted to see what kind of extraordinary methods this Brother Chen possessed that could turn heaven and earth upside down and reverse the tides of destiny!

He was immensely curious!