At the same time, beside the railway tracks, Xiang Chengyu was exchanging fire with the Japanese troops advancing from the northeast. Watanabe was still employing a multi-pronged advance, hoping to settle the battle swiftly.
On the front line, the soldiers of 2nd Company dug their back legs deep into the earth, coiled with strength. When the enemy was mere inches away, they lunged forward with explosive force, swinging their broadswords down toward the heads of the charging Japanese soldiers!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The Japanese fired back on instinct, instantly cutting down the foremost charging soldiers, but those behind surged forward through the pouring rain without pause.
On the battlefield, it was impossible to tell whose hot blood was splashing through the mud. Both sides fought with eyes reddened by madness!
Faced once more with hand-to-hand combat, the Japanese soldiers in the rear hurriedly ejected their cartridges, leveled their bayonets, and plunged into the fray.
Gu Chuanning led the charge, fighting back-to-back with Zhu Shiqing. Within two minutes, friend and foe were hopelessly entangled across the entire forward position, amidst flashing blades and cold steel, where blood and water mingled as one.
Stepping down, Zhu Shiqing could no longer tell whether the puddles underfoot were rainwater pooled from the downpour or the hot blood shed by the soldiers. Suddenly, his foot slipped, and he tumbled backward into the waist-deep trench behind the sandbags, the hard fall bruising him all over.
"Damn it."
Zhu Shiqing cursed as he straightened up. The murky water reached halfway up his calves. This hardly looked like a foxhole anymore—it was practically turning into a mud pond.
Fortunately, no Japanese soldier had noticed him. If an enemy had come up to finish him off right then, unless he could kip-up like a carp and counterattack, he would have ended up with a few extra holes punched into him.
Zhu Shiqing didn't know how to do a kip-up, though he wondered if Fang Wenjian could.
The soil along the railway tracks was hard and packed, making it impossible to dig deep trenches. Xiang Chengyu could only conduct his defense by taking advantage of the slight drop in elevation from the railway embankment. For a time, battle cries shook the skies across all of Fengtai as both sides fought to the death.
Commanding from the center, Sun Yi was naturally consumed with anxiety. One moment his eyes were fixed on Gu Chuanning's company directly ahead, and the next he was glancing toward the Fengtai flank defended by Xiang Chengyu's battalion, terrified that if either line broke, the Japanese would envelope them like dumpling wrappers.
"Regimental Commander! Company Commander Gu's line can't hold out like this!"
Anxiety was etched across Fang Wenjian's face. Even before speaking, he had been calculating the troop strength on both sides. After observing for a while, the sheer volume of enemy machine-gun fire alone told him this had to be a full-strength Japanese battalion!
Strictly speaking, an understrength regiment lacked the combat capability to contend with a full battalion. The frontline clash only confirmed his assessment. Even though the firepower network Zhu Shiqing had arranged dealt heavy blows to the enemy's vanguard, whenever a Japanese platoon leader fell, another stepped up to take his place. Gu Chuanning's entire company numbered under a hundred men; how could they withstand wave after wave of ferocious Japanese assaults?
Now that they were trapped in the quagmire of close-quarters combat, even disengaging and falling back was next to impossible!
Sun Yi, who had received high praise from Feng Zhian before the battle, felt none of the joy from half an hour ago. Seeing the soldiers of 2nd Company fall one by one, he felt a twisting ache in his chest. With their current shortage of manpower, Xia Qidong's entire battalion had practically no effective combat strength left. Sun Yi wished he could rush over to Xiang Chengyu's position and serve as a company commander himself.
A faint realization crept over him: the Japanese now were even harder to deal with than they had been at the Great Wall.
"He's right, Regimental Commander! Old Gu can't hold them, and Staff Officer Zhu is up there too! Let me lead a company up to reinforce them!" Tan Hai said, watching the situation at the front as he ran over to volunteer.
Beads of sweat the size of beans mingled with rainwater streaming down Sun Yi's forehead. It wasn't that he was unwilling to send reinforcements, but he only had two companies left at his disposal. If anything went wrong on Xiang Chengyu's side, the entire regiment would find itself with no reserves left to deploy.
"Fang Wenjian, Tan Hai! Each of you take a platoon and flank them from the left and right to relieve 2nd Company! Once you repel the enemy assault, pull back behind the defense line immediately! No more hand-to-hand combat! Even if we burn through every last bullet today, I won't have any more men dying pointlessly!" Sun Yi ordered.
"Yes, sir!"
Receiving their orders, the two saluted and split up, heading toward the front line.
Watching them depart, Sun Yi shouted all around, "Signalman! Signalman!"
"Here, sir!"
The signalman, who had barely rested, hurried over again carrying the field telephone on his back.
"Connect me to Division Headquarters."
"Yes, sir."
"You're through, Regimental Commander!"
Sun Yi snatched the receiver. For the sake of the 219th Regiment, he had to ask for reinforcements.
"Division Commander! This is Sun Yi! Sun Yi!" he roared into the mouthpiece. Yet the commotion on the other end was no quieter than his own, punctuated by the dull rumble of distant explosions.
Feng Zhian barked, "Sun Yi, spit it out! We're fighting like hell over here!"
"The Japanese are pushing south into Fengtai in force! We need reinforcements!" Sun Yi cut straight to the point without beating around the bush.
"What?! Damn it, Sun Yi, it's not even noon yet! Is your regiment made of paper? You can't even hold out for a single day?!"
Stationed in Wanping, Feng Zhian was under immense pressure himself. Instead of attacking Beiping proper, the Japanese had zeroed in on his Wanping. Having failed in their assault the night before, they had launched a surprise attack across Lugou Bridge despite the torrential rain. In the span of a single morning, the beachhead on the eastern side of Lugou Bridge had fallen to the Japanese, leaving Chinese and Japanese forces glaring at each other across the river.
The Oshima Battalion had subsequently turned its guns toward the west gate of Wanping, where the city wall was low and the open terrain favored an assault on fortified positions.
"Division Commander, the Japanese deployed an entire battalion! Fengtai is under attack from two sides now, and all my battalions are locked in bitter fighting. If this keeps up, the 219th Regiment is going to be wiped out right here today!" Sun Yi's voice held an edge of pleading, tinged with a desperate sense of injustice.
Feng Zhian froze. He didn't know what to say to Sun Yi. Every word was also overheard by the chief of staff beside him.
At that moment, the chief of staff leaned in and whispered into Feng Zhian's ear, "Division Commander, if Sun Yi hadn't held Fengtai yesterday, Wanping would have been completely surrounded today."
The chief of staff's words carried a double meaning. On the surface, he was speaking up for Sun Yi and acknowledging the regiment's contribution, but the underlying message was clear: Fengtai could not be lost.
"Old Sun! Old Sun, listen to me." Feng Zhian paused, his tone softening. "The Japanese are coming at us with everything they've got. Just a short while ago, we received intelligence that they've deployed an additional regiment advancing on Beiping from east of Shunyi. Bitter fighting has broken out on all fronts. I'm begging you—you must hold out until nightfall. Tomorrow... tomorrow I will send reinforcements your way!"
Tomorrow? Drenched to the bone, Sun Yi shivered with cold. Wounded men were constantly being carried back from the front line, their eyes squeezed shut, groaning, "Commander, it hurts! Commander, it hurts!"
"Old Sun?!"
Hearing no reply, Feng Zhian called out several more times until Sun Yi's voice finally came through the line.
"Understood, Division Commander. But I can't guarantee we'll hold until dark."
Sun Yi stared blankly at the station sign of Fengtai Station to his right. Was this sector, which he had guarded day and night, destined to become the final graveyard of the 219th Regiment?
After a long silence, Sun Yi's voice came through the line once more: "Division Commander, the 219th Regiment will live or die with Fengtai."
Feng Zhian fell silent. At this point, there were no more instructions he could give Sun Yi. He understood all too well the dire predicament Sun faced. A single Japanese battalion plus a company had pinned down the defenders of Wanping so tightly they couldn't step outside, yet Sun's regiment, fighting completely alone, didn't even have city walls to rely upon.
As for Zheng Dazhang's cavalry division, which had arrived earlier, it had already been dispatched to support the fighting around Beiping. Feng Zhian truly had no troops left to spare.
In grim silence, the receiver was quietly hung up.
Chapter 54