Rise From Eight Hundred

Chapter 1397 The Great Bombing Begins (Part 2)

This should be the first time in more than two years that the Japanese aircraft fleet has encountered such fierce ground-to-air defense firepower in bombing the mountain city.

However, the escorting Zero fighter jets were much smaller than the bombers and had greater maneuverability. They could pass through the white mist caused by anti-aircraft artillery grenades with little loss.

The Japanese air commander of the bomber formation was also extremely experienced. He knew that just escaping had no effect now. He had to first reduce the load on the bombers. Only in this way could he quickly raise the altitude and leave the range of the anti-aircraft guns.

As for the previously set bombing targets, they are no longer that important!

Aerial bombs were thrown from the belly of the bomber and landed inside and outside the mountain city. There were also flashes of fire on the ground, at least when viewed from an altitude of 5,000 meters.

For a full 10 minutes, the sky and the ground in the mountain city were shrouded in gunpowder smoke, and the roar of artillery and the sound of bomb explosions were heard endlessly.

The entire city is trembling in the high technology created by humans!

No amount of anti-aircraft guns can prevent the fleet from dropping bombs and destroying the city. This is the most essential difference between defensive warfare and offensive warfare. One is passive and the other is active.

But the defender's efforts are not ineffective. A fierce and determined counterattack will still leave terrible wounds on the enemy.

In 10 minutes, the Japanese aircraft fleet entering the mountain city area dropped almost dozens of tons of bombs, incendiary bombs, and even poison gas bombs. Regardless of whether they achieved the set tactical goals or not, the city below was already the most important city in China. , has ignited a raging fire that can be clearly seen from thousands of meters in the sky.

However, the initiator of all this was only able to leave the mountain city area safely, 41 of them!

Nine Japanese 97 bombers and their crews remained permanently in the city they bombed. Four of them were directly hit by 40mm anti-aircraft guns and disintegrated in the air, and three struggled to move forward due to damage. It crashed more than ten kilometers away, and the last two were forced to make an emergency landing.

Don't tell me, the technical level of Japanese pilots is really good. Half of the wing of a 97 bomber was cut off by shrapnel, and there was a hole the size of a washbasin in the tail of the aircraft. Just like that, this aircraft The bombers also made an emergency landing in a farmland 20 kilometers away from the mountain city.

Then, the four-man Japanese Navy crew who had just escaped death on the bomber faced the darkest moment of their lives.

More than 200 Chinese mountain people, armed with poles, sickles and other simple weapons that the Japanese pilots couldn't even name, surrounded them.

In fact, if the Japanese pilots had been decisive and smart, and immediately put down their weapons and surrendered, their lives might have been saved. After all, the national government had already issued reward orders through various levels of government, and anyone who caught the Japanese pilots would not be alive. The reward is 200 yuan, and 50 yuan for the dead!

Just like in the livestock market, live pigs are much more expensive than dead pigs, and ordinary people are very sensitive to the price difference.

How can you say that a big machine like this can't fish out hundreds of oceans? The villagers in the mountain village who gathered around now thought that they should seize the Japanese pilot so that each family could share the money.

But how proud and arrogant the Imperial Japanese Navy pilots were, especially when they saw a group of approaching "barbarians" approaching, how could they let themselves fall into the hands of such a group of enemies and immediately shoot with pistols.

The villagers were caught off guard, and three people were killed and four or five others were injured.

What kind of character do Sichuan people have? It has been cultivated by eating chili peppers for generations. It is so explosive that the 'beast' who wants to exchange it for money turns back.

"The dead can be exchanged for money, but the living can be given up, and their heads will be used as a memorial to our people." Following the village chief's order, the whole village, old and young, immediately dispersed and surrounded the tattered Japanese aircraft.

This mountain range belongs to the Wushan Mountains. It has beautiful scenery, but from the perspective of human survival, it is extremely bad. People who have been able to thrive in such mountains for hundreds of years have long learned to fight against the cruel nature. How can they rely only on simple poles, sickles, and hatchets?

Not long after, the four Japanese pilots who relied on the tattered fighter plane as a cover were horrified to see that the "barbarians" surrounding them more than 100 meters away moved a big gun from a distance.

Yes, it took four strong men to carry that thing. It can only be described as a door.

We can't blame the Japanese for their lack of knowledge. That thing should not be called a gun, but a cannon, because its caliber is definitely over 20 mm, and its name is so unpretentious - a cannon!

Perhaps in order to show off its earthy characteristics, the gun barrel is made of unknown material. There are 11 iron hoops on the barrel, which clearly shows that the quality of the gun barrel is worrying, and its range is also appallingly short. China The villagers moved it only 100 meters away from the plane before placing it on the ridge.

But none of the four Japanese could laugh, especially when the fuse was lit and the first shot was fired.

The solid bullets activated by black powder easily penetrated the aircraft's fragile skin and the supposedly strong aluminum alloy frame. A hole the size of a basketball showed that even if the gun was so earthy that it could tear the aircraft body into pieces.

The angry Chinese villagers did not move the artillery so close because of insufficient range. They wanted to ensure the hit rate. The effective range of the Southern Type 14 pistol worn by the Japanese pilots would never exceed 70 meters.

As for the 5 7MM machine guns originally equipped on the Type 97 heavy bomber, they were either on the nose or on the wings or could not be used due to the forced landing. 70 meters was the last distance for the four Japanese pilots to defend their pride.

So, the four Japanese pilots could only watch in despair as the Chinese used this most inferior weapon to destroy their last shelter bit by bit and tear it to pieces.

In the face of absolute numbers, the so-called high-precision and cutting-edge technology is nothing more than this.

But what is even more ironic is that it was not this earth cannon that could only fire 15 rounds at most before exploding that really destroyed the last line of defense of the Japanese pilots, but the Chinese villagers holding torches and firewood.

The Chinese villagers knew very well that the earth cannon alone could not kill these stubborn Japanese. The purpose of their offering this earth cannon with a history of 100 years was more to deter and attract the attention of the Japanese.

The real killer move is still people!

Taking advantage of the blind spot of the Japanese pilots hiding in the plane, several agile young men carrying firewood and holding torches gradually approached the plane, and then set the plane on fire.

The four Japanese pilots trapped in the plane were like ants on a hot pot. In the end, they jumped out of the plane one after another with the spirit of dying if they didn't get out.

It was useless. The explosion caused by the unused aviation fuel being ignited even injured Chinese villagers more than 100 meters away, not to mention the Japanese who were less than 10 meters away from the plane.

Three Japanese pilots were burned to death on the spot, and a Japanese pilot who was lucky enough to survive and was stunned by the explosion was hung upside down on a big tree in the mountains by angry villagers. When the people from the township office came, they planned to take him alive to the county to receive the reward, but found that the bloody Japanese pilot was already covered with creepy mountain ants.

Not to mention the question of whether he was alive or not, I don't know how much of his flesh had been eaten!

The other three were not much better off. Their heads were chopped off and placed in front of the spirits of the three dead villagers. The headless bodies were taken away by the township office in exchange for rewards. For this reason, the villagers would rather ask for 20 yuan less for each body.

It is said that the three heads were finally thrown into the manure pool where the villagers fermented manure. According to the elders, the three devils were suppressed forever and never reincarnated.

Several years later, the descendants of the three Japanese pilots found this village based on clues and hoped to use money to find the three heads lost in China. The price was as high as one million. The villagers even held a village collective meeting for this.

A 70-year-old man just pointed to the hillside opposite the village and said: "As long as your uncles, grandfathers, and uncles agree, it's fine."

The young villagers who shouted the most immediately became timid and dared not mention the matter again. Three people died in the village at that time, but there were 50 men in the village who joined the army. In the end, only the old man returned to the village 13 years later.

All his cousins ​​and childhood friends died in the war! All 76 households in the village hung white flags!

Another Japanese bomber chose to make an emergency landing on a simple road. Their lives were obviously better than their colleagues, because the location they chose was absolutely amazing, just where an air defense regiment's observation post was located.

The post had 8 soldiers, and they looked at the Japanese bomber in disbelief as it made an emergency landing on a dirt road only 1,000 meters away from their post.

The Chinese soldiers holding rifles approached the plane carefully, only to find that 3 of the 4 Japanese pilots in the 97 bomber, which was almost intact in structure, had died and 1 was injured. Two of them should have been killed by shrapnel in the air, and 1 died from the huge impact when the plane made an emergency landing. The head wearing the flight cap was hit like a ripe watermelon that was hit by two punches.

At that moment, the soldiers all felt that the army was still good, at least they were equipped with a steel helmet. Look at these flying ones, wearing a leather hat is not only good-looking, but also useful.

Even if the Chinese soldiers wanted to save the wounded one, they had no way to do it. They were just a bunch of miscellaneous soldiers. Their killing skills were not high, and their saving skills were almost nonexistent.

Besides, wouldn’t a nearly complete Japanese plane be more valuable than the Japanese? The eight soldiers made a very wise choice at that time. They didn’t care whether they were alive or dead. They threw the four Japanese into the field, picked up their weapons and cut branches in the mountains to camouflage the plane first.

It was such a simple camouflage, but the Zero fighter that was flying at an altitude of 2,000 meters to find its colleagues missed it, and lost the last chance to destroy the Type 97 bomber.

In the end, this Japanese bomber was not only thoroughly studied by the engineers sent by the Americans, but also put into active service after being repaired by the Chinese, and participated in the bombing of the Jianghan Airport occupied by the Japanese army.

But for the Japanese fleet that poured bombs under dense ground anti-aircraft artillery fire, their losses were by no means just these nine bombers. Their disaster had just begun.

At the moment the air raid alarm sounded, Chinese pilots from four flying squadrons at six airports in Shancheng and Sichuan Province had already rushed to their fighter planes.

96 Wildcat fighters and 32 I-15 and I-16 fighters, a total of 128 fighters, continued to fly towards the southern sky.

Their mission was not to prevent the Japanese aircraft from entering the airspace over Shancheng, but to intercept them on their way back.

This tactic was developed by Tang Dao and Zheng Shaoyu, the captain of the 4th Flying Squadron, during the 10-day training break.

Although the two did not want to face this cruel fact, they had to admit that the 3:0 record of 6 fighters against Zero fighters in the battle over Yiling was more luck than strength.

Shen Chonghai, Zhang Dafei, Lin Heng and other 6 people were already the best pilots in China at that time. With the targeted tactics formulated by the surprise attack and Tang Dao for them and the situation of fighting with more people, it was still extremely difficult, and they almost lost Shen Chonghai, the ace pilot.

If the number was expanded to 100, even if they could fight the opponent on equal terms, they would actually lose.

Because, in order not to stimulate the Japanese again, the US side has stated that it will not provide complete fighters in the short term. The Chinese side will lose one less, while Japan, which has a complete military industrial system, will continue to invest in fighters.

Therefore, they not only want to make the Japanese heartbroken, but also try their best to preserve their strength to meet more challenges.

Therefore, the interception operation named "Sunset" was destined to have sacrifices from the beginning before the fighter took off.

The artillery fire of the mountain city's counterattack was the first wave of consumption of the Japanese escort aircraft and bomber groups. It consumed not only the number of Japanese aircraft, but also the spirit of Japanese pilots.

After all, if you want to rush out of the barrage, the highly tense brain nerves can't be recovered quickly, and the Chinese pilots responsible for the ambush airspace are waiting for the opportunity.

But it's not just the burning city that will be sacrificed, but also the fighters and pilots. The 32 I-series fighters that were ordered to take off, their role is bait, inducing the Japanese escort aircraft to chase them, and the wildcat fighters hovering in the higher sky will dive down to attack the Japanese bomber group.

Although every I-series fighter pilot was clearly told before the war that they only needed to lure the Japanese escort aircraft to leave and try to entangle with them, rather than fight with them in the air, when the fighter encountered damage that could not return, they had to parachute immediately, without considering the replenishment of fighters, but Zheng Shaoyu, looking at the firm faces of his pilots, knew very well that these young faces were likely to never return!

Because the Japanese bombers were not soft persimmons that could be squeezed by anyone. The self-defense machine guns they were equipped with were destined to be hedgehogs that exploded at that moment. It would take enough time to win the last chance of survival for themselves.

During this period of time, how many I-series fighters, whose performance was inferior to that of the Zero fighters, could survive after the war?

Zheng Shaoyu, who personally formulated all this, could not predict the outcome, but Tang Dao knew that in the Bishan air battle in time and space, China was 30 to 13, but was beaten 0 to 24!

Before the fight between the lion and the tiger, there was destined to be a moth flying into the fire!

The so-called "sunset" not only shot down the scarlet sun flag, but also meant the glory of falling.

Shooting down Japanese planes is glory, and falling is even more glorious!

Zheng Shaoyu was appointed as the first commander in the air by the Air Force Command. He personally led 48 Wildcat fighters and 24 I-series fighters to hover at an altitude of 6,000 meters above Bishan Mountain. In the direction of Guangyuan, Huang Xinrui, the captain of the 3rd Flight Squadron, led 48 Wildcat fighters and 8 I-series fighters to hover over Jianmen Mountain.

Captain Shinto Saburo led 22 Zero fighters to escort 25 bombers and returned at high speed along the route they came from!

Captain Shinto Saburo looked very ugly. In the two air squadrons he led, only one Zero fighter was damaged in the fierce artillery fire and was ordered to leave the formation and return early. This loss was still within an acceptable range, but the escort bomber formation lost as many as 5.

This huge loss has exceeded the total of the past year.

A bombing operation that was devoted to it ended in a loss for both sides. This was something the Japanese naval aviation soldiers who were determined to take revenge did not expect.

It would be great if Chinese fighters could come to intercept at this time, so that he could regain some balance for the lost 5 bombers.

Captain Shindo Saburo looked sideways at the green mountains under the wing, his eyes full of resentment and anger.

Then, he heard the shouts from the radio.

"Enemy attack!"

Looking up, at least 20 biplanes roared and dived from an altitude of 4,000 meters, heading straight for the fleet.

"Chinese, die!" Shindo Saburo was full of murderous intent and turned the rudder.

"Imperial warriors, follow me to kill the enemy. In this battle, the last air resistance of the Chinese will be crushed in one fell swoop!"

24VS24, the first round of the famous Bishan air battle in later generations, started!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

PS: Some readers in the comment area said that the chapter title should not be "The Great Bombing" but "The Anti-Aircraft Counterattack". Fengyue actually thought about it, and finally named it "The Great Bombing". This book is a historical narrative, but Fengyue still hopes that my book friends and I will not forget that darkest and most glorious period of history. I hope that this chapter can commemorate the true history that happened on that day! ()

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