Chapter 931: Machine Gun Nest

Why did the Soviets hastily launch the southward offensive towards Kursk? The story begins with the Soviet high command learning of Japan’s intent to attack the Soviet Far East. It must be remembered that the Soviet Union was once a powerful and vast nation, straddling the Eurasian continent, possessing immense territory and a massive population.

In the past, even if they had known of Japan’s intention to attack the Far East, the Soviet leaders would have likely laughed it off, treating it as a joke for a few days. Even in the early stages of the German-Soviet war, the Soviet Union maintained a superior force against the Japanese in the Far East.

But now, things had changed slightly. The main forces of the Soviet Far East had been transferred to the western front. The remaining troops were, at best, reservists. To use this force to stop a possible full-scale Japanese offensive was something no one was confident about.

It should be known that the Soviet Union had always maintained a military superiority in the Far East, and thus had always maintained a high-pressure offensive posture. This was the main reason why the Japanese Kwantung Army had built extensive fortifications in northeastern China. Now, the roles were reversed. The ones with the defensive lines were to attack, and the ones who had not built defenses were the ones who needed to defend—it truly had a sense of the unpredictable helplessness of the world.

In the end, the Soviet high command felt it necessary to quickly stabilize the constantly retreating western front, otherwise the entire Soviet Union would be left with no effective resource supply bases. The Baku oil fields near Stalingrad were being harassed by the Germans and were already unable to meet demand. If the supply line from the United States in the Far East were to have problems, then the Soviet Union would truly be in a state of total crisis.

So Stalin grew anxious. He decided that he would rather give up Moscow than lose Stalingrad. This would at least give him a chance to restore the Soviet Union’s resource supply, giving it the capital to organize a counter-attack in the Far East or on the western front to regain the strategic initiative. With this in mind, the main force of the Red Army began a full-scale southward advance, to fight for the strategic initiative on the German-Soviet front in the Kursk region.

Unfortunately, neither Stalin nor Zhukov had expected that Germany’s most elite G Army Group would be such a tough nut to crack. The Soviet army’s full-scale offensive had, for a time, been unable to swallow this army group. It should be known that the Soviet high command had experience in attacking the German List’s E Army Group. They generally believed that even if G Army Group was more elite than E Army Group, the Soviet army of today, which was no longer what it used to be, was confident of annihilating this German elite force.

They had calculated everything, but they had still misjudged the strength of the German armored forces. The combat capability of the German armored forces, which the Soviet high command had already overestimated in their eyes, was only proven after the battle began—they had still underestimated the Germans’ heaven-defying combat power.

It was for this reason that the operational plan to quickly and decisively secure the Baku oil fields on the western front was completely shattered. The war would not likely be decided in a month. Judging by the current situation, it was even possible it would drag into a second winter. So now the question was—what about the Far East?

In the endless mountains of the Khingan Range in northern Manchuria, dim light filtered through the dense forest, illuminating the face of an ordinary soldier of the Japanese Kwantung Army. He held his Type 38 rifle, trudging through the soft, decaying leaves that formed a path, his eyes warily scanning his surroundings.

Beside him, another Japanese soldier, also holding his rifle, stepped carefully on the springy, rotten leaves, moving forward one step at a time. Further in the distance, more Japanese soldiers, a dense mass that seemed to have no end, were crossing the Sino-Soviet border, or rather, they were crossing what they called the dangerous “Manchurian border.”

Kimura was a standard infantryman of the Kwantung Army. On his back, he carried his pack and an anti-tank mine, a full set of standard issue for a Great Japanese Imperial Army infantryman. The bullets in his pocket had never been so plentiful, over a hundred rounds. The only thing that made him regretful was that he had to carry all these things himself. After all, the Japanese army’s logistical supply problem had always been in the “extremely immature initial exploratory stage.”

However, for the grassroots soldiers, to launch an attack so rashly against a powerful enemy was not good news. When everyone heard they were to attack the Soviet Union, they were all trembling with fear. They had heard of the thrilling battle in the Nomonhan region, and they also knew that in that battle, the Japanese Army had suffered a rather ugly defeat.

So this time, for everyone to come here again with their rifles, it was clear they were all very apprehensive. No one knew what kind of situation awaited them, and no one knew what kind of terrifying posture the Soviets opposite them would jump out with and finish them all off.

“I heard the company commander say when he was explaining the attack route, that this time we’re specifically taking the mountain paths, not fighting the Soviet tanks.” In every army, there is always someone whose gossip fire burns brightly. This kind of person can chatter endlessly even in battle. The only way to shut them up is to dislocate their jaw or smash their head.

Not having to fight the enemy’s tanks? That sounded good. But what about the one anti-tank mine that every infantryman had to carry? It was said that the various units had also been strengthened with sappers, and a good number of them had even been trained in the combat method of using anti-tank mines as explosive packs to take out enemy tanks in a suicide attack… In any case, it sounded quite terrifying and made one feel a little uncomfortable.

“Hey! I say… Fujiwara…” Kimura swallowed hard, cautiously using a large tree in front to block his figure, and then asked the gossip-monger beside him, “On the map, isn’t there supposed to be a village here? Where’s the village?”

“What do you expect from the maps those idiots in the training department draw? They said there was a road here. Have you seen one on your way here?” the gossip-monger named Fujiwara sneered, a look of utter disdain on his face. He pushed aside the plants at his feet with his rifle butt and then continued to walk forward with indifference.

Rat-tat! Rat-tat-tat! From behind a patch of dense vegetation not far away, a faint cloud of white smoke suddenly spewed out. It was the gas that was released when a machine gun was firing continuously. Clearly, there was a carefully camouflaged fire point there, and it was pouring a dense hail of ammunition at the Japanese soldiers who had approached to within a few dozen meters.

The sudden attack threw these Japanese soldiers, who were spread out in a dense formation, walking through the forest, into a state of panic. They were not the elite A-class divisions of the Japanese army from a few years ago, so many of them had not been through the test of real fire. They had practiced their marksmanship on the local people in China and had then come here to fight a “real” battle with the Soviets.

Tracer rounds zipped through the crowd. Kimura was so scared he quickly covered his head and threw himself to the ground. Fortunately, the layer of dead leaves on the ground was very thick, so the fall was not too painful. He reached out and picked up the rifle he had just dropped, and only then did he manage to get a clear look at the surrounding situation. The Soviet machine gun nest was firing fiercely, and his comrades around him were already a bloody mess.

“Baka!… Where’s the cover? Fire! My God,” Kimura, who had at least been through strict military training, was not too flustered by the current situation. But his comrades behind him were not so calm. These farmers, who had been sent to the battlefield after only a few days of training, were really no different from civilians in terms of combat effectiveness.

So, under the hail of bullets, these Japanese soldiers were in a complete mess. It was only after dozens of men had died that they remembered they were supposed to fight back. And so, in the distance, a few Type 38 rifles began to return fire. Their bullets struck the patch of grass, sending branches flying far.

The Soviet machine gun was clearly suppressed by the dense Japanese fire. Its firing became less continuous, which gave the Japanese soldiers more opportunities to shoot. So a good number of Japanese soldiers knelt on the ground and fired, and some even charged towards that patch of grass with a roar, their rifles with fixed bayonets.

Kimura glanced at the gossip-monger Fujiwara, who had been hit by a bullet and was lying on his back on the ground. Hearing that he still had the strength to shout, he was temporarily relieved. And so he took a hand grenade from his person, pulled the pin, tapped it on his helmet, and then threw it with all his might.

BOOM! The grenade exploded near the patch of grass, kicking up a cloud of black earth. Seeing that the enemy’s fire point had been completely suppressed by the grenade, an officer’s shout came from somewhere in the distance. “All units! Charge! For the Great Japanese Empire! For His Majesty the Emperor!”

At this shout, the Japanese soldiers, who had been lying on the ground, not moving an inch, as if they had been given a shot of adrenaline, scrambled up from the ground and, shouting “Banzai!”, charged frantically towards their target.

At this moment, Kimura, who had thrown the decisive grenade, had just managed to get up from the soft ground. Leaning against a large tree, he glanced at the gossip-monger Fujiwara behind him, only to find that his noisy comrade, who had been squealing like a pig just now, was now silent. The amount of blood on his body was shocking. It was clear that in the depths of these mountains, such a wound was absolutely fatal.

“Damn it!” Kimura muttered. He was just about to go around the large tree and continue his attack when he found that the battlefield had already fallen silent. He passed some of the soldiers who were standing around in a daze and squeezed to the very front to see the scene behind the patch of grass. There were two dead Soviet female soldiers, and a destroyed, old-fashioned Maxim heavy machine gun… This was an isolated position. It was clear that the enemy’s purpose here was to launch a surprise attack.

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