205: Chapter 115 Steel Flow

That starlight fell upon the rolling swells, pulled into intermittent silver threads, like fine silk being repeatedly stretched and snapped back by someone.

But a sound was breaking this tranquility—first a low roar, followed by a continuous, approaching metal tremor, as if something huge beneath the entire sea surface was turning over, preparing to surface.

When that sound passed through the waves and cold air, it was somewhat distorted, becoming low and heavy, like some approaching omen; every tremor was a bit clearer than the previous one, like someone continuously and gradually increasing force to beat a huge bronze gong not far away.

Three landing ships were approaching the designated beachhead; the camouflage on the sides of their hulls was almost indistinguishable in the night, but their silhouettes were massive and solid, like three approaching steel behemoths, and in the dark, only a row of vague dark lines could be seen at the bow, with the curve of the lines gentle and firm.

They cleaved through the swells and advanced, the foam glowing faintly in the dark, quickly disappearing into the white wake churned up by the stern, which persisted for several seconds in the dark before being covered by the subsequent swells, like handwriting slowly being wiped away.

There were no lights on the deck, and the soldiers marched relying on night-vision goggles and previously familiar terrain, every step treading on pre-marked positions.

A soldier tripped over a cable fixed on the deck while crossing the hatch, his body leaning forward two steps before he stabilized, and someone nearby reached out to support him; that hand accurately found his upper arm in the dark, neither of them made a sound, they just exchanged a quick glance in the dark, then separated and continued moving forward respectively.

The hull steel plates made a low moan in the swells, like the sound emitted from the bones and joints of a large animal turning over, dragged very long by the wind over the open sea, suppressed by the sound of the waves, and then rising again.

This was the vanguard of the First Army Group—a reorganized Heavy Combined Arms Brigade of 7,000 men, equipped with the latest Qingyun-1 automatic rifles and Heavy Machine Gun, equipped with sixty Mortar and twelve 105mm howitzers.

This unit was also equipped as an organic whole for the first time with a battalion of light armored vehicles, twelve Qingyun-09 armored reconnaissance vehicles, weighing twelve tons, with twenty-five millimeters of frontal armor, armed with a thirty-seven-millimeter main gun and a coaxial machine gun, with a maximum speed of sixty kilometers per hour.

Those armored vehicles were idling and waiting in the bottom cargo hold of the landing ships, their hoods still feeling icy to the touch, but a thin layer of dew generated by the temperature difference condensed on the edge of the radiator grille, slowly sliding down the metal surface and leaving streaks of water marks in the dark.

On the dark green ammunition boxes behind them, rows of thirty-seven-millimeter armor-piercing shells were stacked, their bodies glowing with a dark bronze sheen under the dim light, like neat rows of teeth.

For the Japan Second Division, which was still dominated by light infantry and a small number of old mountain guns, the existence of these armored vehicles meant a virtually uncrossable gulf at the tactical level—they neither had anti-tank weapons capable of piercing twenty-five-millimeter armor—the heaviest infantry gun was only seventy millimeters in caliber, with an armor-piercing capability of less than twenty millimeters—nor did they have sufficient mobility to evade flank encirclement, and troops primarily in marching status found it difficult to complete deployment in a short time when encountering an armored assault.

In the first forty minutes of landing, everything proceeded according to schedule.

The first batch of landing craft lowered their ramps, and the splashes made when the ramps crashed into the shallow water only made a vague splashing sound in the dark, and then subsided into silence in the dark.

The soldiers rushed onto the beach stepping through the shallow water, their boots hitting the hard bottom mixed with gravel and wet sand, quickly establishing a beachhead without encountering any effective resistance.

When they deployed into skirmish lines and advanced forward, the sound made by boots stepping on the washed-flat sandy ground was muffled, largely covered by the engine noise, like a low-frequency background sound being swallowed up.

The armored vehicles drove slowly down the dedicated ramps of the landing ships, their treads crushing the damp sandy ground and making a muffled swishing sound, every tread leaving a clear, neat rectangular mark on the sandy surface before being flattened by subsequent treads after the vehicle body moved forward.

The engine's radiator grilles emitted fine white mist in the cold air, which flickered in the darkest hours before dawn arrived, like a layer of body heat slowly evaporating.

Subsequent troops poured onto the beachhead endlessly, deploying formations on the semi-frozen sandy ground, advancing towards the north and east simultaneously, forming two expanding pincer frontlines.

The orders coming from the walkie-talkies were short and restrained, with an instruction being transmitted every few seconds, as if someone in the dark was plucking tense strings with a uniform speed.

At seventeen minutes past six in the morning, the sky began to brighten, revealing a line of grayish-white light on the horizon, like an edge slowly rolling up from the bottom of a heavy curtain.

Those shallows, bushes, withered reed stalks, and scattered piles of gravel were emerging one by one, like something hidden all night was becoming visible again, from a blurred outline to a clear shape, and then to physical objects whose details could be recognized.

A sentry of the Japan Second Division heard the abnormality at this moment—not seeing the landing ships, but hearing a continuous, low sound of tread friction.

That sound traveled particularly far on the frozen soil and ice surface, like countless iron chains slowly dragging on the frozen ground, or like someone repeatedly shaking a rusted metal tape measure in the distance.

Although faint, it was extremely recognizable and getting closer and closer, like an accelerating, increasingly distinct pulse; every impact of the tread pads arrived before the echo of the previous one had completely disappeared, gradually forming a continuous, steady low-frequency oscillation.

"Enemy attack! Southeast direction!"

The sentry's voice appeared particularly abrupt in the morning silence, sharp and hurried, like a string pulled hard and broken.

At the same time he shouted this sentence, he had already bent down and ran toward the bunker, his boots making a hurried sound on the frozen sandy ground, slipping slightly underfoot, stabilizing his posture, and continuing to run.

A few seconds later, the alarm siren came from the direction of the division headquarters—first a short, long sound, then two short sounds, and then another long sound—oscillating in the cold air, suddenly waking up the soldiers still sleeping in the nearby camp.

Someone rushed out of the tent barefoot, one hand still tying their waistband, the other hand grasping a rifle, the butt catching on the tent canvas and tearing a slit; someone grabbed a rifle and ran outside forgetting even to wear a steel helmet, running a few steps before reaching back to get it; someone stumbled and knocked over the brazier at the entrance, charcoal scattering all over the ground, a few burning pieces of charcoal rolling into the snow and making a faint sizzling sound, grayish-white smoke quickly spreading in the cold air with a smell of wood ash and embers, suspended in the cold air for a moment before being blown away by the wind.

When the first Qingyun-09 armored vehicle crossed the low earth ridge ahead, it was less than four hundred meters away from the division's outer camp.

Its treads tilted slightly when crossing the ridge and then leveled back, and the thirty-seven-millimeter main gun completed its first sighting during the advance.

When the first shell left the muzzle, it carried a sharp metal friction sound, like a long nail scraped hard across sheet iron; that sound traveled farther than expected in the frozen air, hitting an ammunition accumulation point at the edge of the camp.

The shell penetrated the outer wooden boards and detonated inside, wooden boxes and oil drums being blown dozens of meters high, burning wood fragments rolling everywhere on the frozen soil like firecrackers, a few fragments still carrying residual warmth hissing on the accumulated snow, scorching a depressed shallow pit on the snow surface, as if licked by something scorching hot.

Immediately afterwards, more armored vehicles rushed out from the flanks, spreading out in a fan shape, strafing the infantry columns trying to organize defense with coaxial machine guns.

Dense bullets traced dark red light trails in the morning cold air, like burning fuses flying out of the ejection port, clinking on the frozen sandy soil like a small and dense metal rain, the edges of the cartridge cases still carrying residual heat, scorching the surrounding snow grains into tiny water droplets when falling onto the snow surface, and the water droplets quickly freezing into transparent ice grains in the low temperature.

The hit sandbag fortifications loosened and collapsed like scattered mounds of earth, sand grains pouring out along the damaged bag openings, forming several narrow streams of sand on the earth ridge.

Those machine guns that had not yet been set up shook a few times on their mounts, their barrels tilting to one side like a drooping arm.

The second wave of assault was completed by infantry.

The infantry of the Heavy Combined Arms Brigade advanced rapidly under the cover of armored vehicles, advancing alternately in squad units, and the orders coming from the walkie-talkies were short and clear, with every instruction transmitted to squad and platoon units within three seconds.

An infantry squad deployed into combat formation from behind an armored vehicle, advancing forward through the gaps of machine gun fire, stopping every fifteen meters for observation and covering fire.

Mortar shells fell into the preset target area—the edge of the snow-covered tent cluster; canvas fragments remaining after the artillery coverage hung on broken wooden poles like tattered flags, turning slowly in the morning wind, some canvases still having charred edges, like scorched paper.

The outer defense line of the Japan troops was torn open with three gaps within half an hour.

Someone tried to shoot the front armor of the armored vehicle with a rifle, the bullet bouncing off the edge of the inclined steel plate and making a sharp metal scraping sound, like some futile vow repeatedly chanted and repeatedly failing.

Someone tried to organize a counter-charge, clutching a Hand grenade and running out of the bunker bent over, and was mowed down by machine gun bullets in less than fifteen steps in the open field, dark red liquid seeping across the snow, that person still lying in the snow in a forward-leaning posture, the Hand grenade rolling aside, rolling two turns before stopping, the pin still inserted in place, the wooden handle leaving a shallow arc imprint on the snow surface.

Colonel Kawasaki, the commander of the Japan Second Division, barely managed to establish a temporary defense line twelve minutes after receiving the first alert.

He already realized he had made a grave mistake—the intelligence department had severely underestimated the maneuver speed and long-range projection capabilities of the Tang Country Army.

When those armored vehicles appeared on the flank, not a single company under his command was equipped with anti-armor weapons, and even a few infantry guns had not completed position deployment due to time constraints.

He grabbed the telephone and shouted "Prepare to fire" three times, but the telephone wire connecting to the gun position was cut by shrapnel in the second round of shelling, leaving only the static hiss of current in the earpiece, pouring into his eardrum continuously and without fluctuation, like some sneering white noise.

"Send a telegram to the Kwantung Army Headquarters, the main force of the Tang Country has appeared on our flank, numbering about a division, equipped with a large number of armored vehicles, requesting urgent aerial reconnaissance and artillery support.

Our forces are organizing defense relying on existing fortifications, and are expected to hold out for more than twenty-four hours."

Kawasaki's voice was almost shouted in the signalman's ear, every word being forcefully pushed out of his oral cavity, condensing into a thicker white fog than usual in the cold air.

But a quarter of an hour after that telegram was sent, Kawasaki learned that the first batch of distress signals had not been sent out at all.

About forty minutes ago, Commander Zhao Tieshan's Special Forces had cut all wired communication lines in an abandoned brick kiln less than one kilometer away from the division's temporary headquarters—those telephone lines were severed from the middle, and a three-meter-long section was pulled out from the break, twisted together and buried in the frozen soil—and deployed electronic jammers near those tents where the radio antennas were located.

Those electromagnetic pulse modules materialized through the system were able to create a signal blind spot at a short distance that paralyzed all conventional military frequency bands.

The plain-text distress telegram sent by the Japan division headquarters was like shouting into the deep sea in a storm, receiving no reply whatsoever, not even an echo.

The signalman's fingers tapped repeatedly on the telegraph key seven times, the power was turned to the highest setting, and the indicator light still showed no signs of any change; only the power light remained on, like a silent eye, blinking unblinkingly and shining meaninglessly.

When the battle reached 8:20 in the morning, Kawasaki finally realized that he was facing more than just an ordinary flank attack, but a meticulously planned, multi-service coordinated campaign-level offensive.

His 6,000-man southern route force had been divided into three parts, unable to communicate with each other or support each other, with the distance between each part ranging from hundreds of meters to two kilometers, interspersed with the active areas of Tang Country infantry and armored vehicles.

The 8,000 men on the northern route were also being frontally pinned down by the Second Army Group, falling into a deadlock, unable to advance or retreat, and the gunfire on the front line continued without pause, but without significant progress.

The Tang Country's armored vehicles interwove along the edges of the frozen wheat fields under the cover of high mobility, avoiding open frontal firepower and constantly roaming between the weak points of the defense line.

In the distance towards the Liaohe Estuary, bursts of low gunfire were approaching; that was the capital ships of the First Fleet using their main guns to bombard the supply yard and fuel storage point he left on the beach, and the craters blasted by the 380-millimeter shells landing on the sandy beach by the sea were seven or eight meters wide, enough to make any attempt to repair that supply point futile.

Li Ling arrived at the periphery of the newly captured division headquarters around 10:00 in the morning.

When he got out of the jeep, the armored vehicles were still clearing out the last few stubborn firepower points about three hundred meters ahead.

He stood on an earth slope half-cut off by a shell, looking through binoculars at the snowfield being covered by the battlefield.

The tracks of the armored vehicles intertwined into a complex net on the snow, and the infantry moved rapidly between those tracks, like the weft threads weaving this net.

Behind him, more armored vehicles were driving into the battlefield from the direction of the landing ship, the machine gunner on the roof pushing his wind goggles up to his forehead, a thin layer of frost on his mask, making gestures facing the rear to guide the following vehicles to follow up.

"System," he said in his heart, "You see, this is the real war."

"The host said the same thing five years ago when he only had a rifle and a Mortar."

"That was fighting then, but now it's crushing."

Li Ling put down his binoculars, exhaled a puff of white breath, "Our soldiers are not fighting, they are executing a predetermined plan.

And the enemy has no response plan, because their plan was disrupted in the very first step.

This is the gap brought by firepower, equipment, and coordination—once the chain starts running, every gear meshes in a fixed position, requiring no thinking, no hesitation, just moving forward along the predetermined direction.

When the opponent is still considering how to organize the next charge, we are already considering how to allocate the next supply."

In the distance, several armored vehicles were slowly adjusting their positions, and the turrets made a low mechanical friction sound when turning, like the breathing of steel, dragging slender shadows in the morning light.

Behind a low earthen wall on the left, more than thirty Japan soldiers were holding their rifles high above their heads, walking out slowly and neatly, their steel helmets reflecting slightly under their heads, the barrels of their rifles casting slender shadows on the snow, arranged in parallel like a row of bamboo poles being laid down.

One man walked in the front, holding high with both hands a white flag made by tying a white shirt to a bayonet, gently swaying in the cold wind.

A Tang Army non-commissioned officer stepped forward, his voice calm and clear: "Put down your weapons, take off your cartridge belts, walk west, someone will meet you over there.

Don't run, if you run, bear the consequences."

Li Ling watched those prisoners with drooping shoulders and hunched backs slowly walk past the earthen ridge where he was.

Some of them raised their heads to glance at him quickly and lowered them rapidly again, as if confirming something, or as if avoiding something.

Some people's paces were very slow, every step heavy and tired, as if they had exhausted all their strength, their boots dragging intermittent marks in the snow; some people walked very fast, as if wanting to get away as soon as possible from the battlefield behind them that no longer belonged to any of them, their chins tucked into their collars, hands tucked into pockets, shoulders tightened.

On the snow, their footprints and the tracks of the armored vehicles intertwined, forming a complex pattern, like some kind of writing being written.

Some of those footprints were deep, some shallow, some dragged a skid mark, and some were close together side by side.

The last soldier stopped and bent down to tie his shoelace, tying it very slowly, his fingers somewhat clumsy due to the cold, and was signaled by the escorting Tang Army soldier behind him to keep up; when he straightened up, a tin cigarette case pinched out of shape fell out of his pocket, with a pressed crease on the surface of the case, and the cigarette case fell into the snow, a few scattered shreds of tobacco sprinkled on the snow surface, like a few extremely thin dark brown lines against the white background, like an unfinished period.

A row of very small characters was engraved on the back of the cigarette case, like a part of an address, which was hard to see clearly due to deformation.

By the end of the day, the southern route force of the Japan Second Division had lost its organized combat effectiveness.

About four thousand people were encircled and annihilated, surrendered, or routed, a large amount of equipment was captured or destroyed, and the division's flag and command radio had fallen into the hands of the Tang Army.

Upon learning the news that the southern route had collapsed and the sea supply was cut off, the northern route force also began to experience large-scale retreats and turns, some retreated northward deep into the mountainous area, and some retreated westward toward the coastline, attempting to find surviving ships, but most of those ships had been blockaded or sunk by the surface warships of the First Fleet.

Only a few remnant forces scattered in the snow were still fleeing in all directions like startled flocks of birds, losing a unified direction and a unified will, and the snow was full of abandoned equipment and scattered supplies, like a chain hurriedly dismantled.

When the last trace of twilight disappeared below the horizon of Liaodong Bay, Li Ling stood in front of a freshly cleared barracks, watching several armored vehicles shut down their engines one by one.

Their engine hoods were still emitting white steam, the ice and snow on the cooling grates had melted into pools of water stains, shimmering with a faint warm color in the night light, and the edges of the water stains slowly froze into new thin layers of ice in the low temperature, forming a shallow ice ring at the boundary between the residual heat of the engine and the surrounding cold air.

In the distance, the communication lines under repair were reconnecting, and the tapping sounds of some telegraph keys were faint and indistinct in the night wind, short and evenly spaced, like some stable and slow heartbeat starting over again, patiently restoring its original rhythm beat by beat.

"System," his voice appeared exceptionally clear in the winter night, "What do you think Kawasaki is thinking right now?"

"Probably thinking that the intelligence he received didn't mention those iron guys."

Li Ling turned around and walked toward the barracks.

Behind him, the night of Liaodong was closing in, the cold wind swept the smell of the last artillery fire away from the open field, and the accumulated snow covered the tracks and scattered shell casings, as if nothing had happened.

Those armored vehicles became a row of silent gray silhouettes in the night, like beasts in hibernation, waiting for the next awakening.

A small patch of warm yellow light shone out from the barracks window, falling on the snow like a small piece of ironed silk, forming a soft halo at the edges on the snow surface, gradually spreading softly in the increasingly deep night.

And further away, an undetected pair of eyes, through the circular field of view of the night vision goggles, was observing the direction where the light was coming from.

Those eyes squinted slightly, then withdrew their gaze, as if they had seen nothing, blending into the boundless snow mist behind them.

A very thin layer of frost formed on the lenses of the night vision goggles, melted a small patch by the exhaled breath, and quickly condensed again.