The battle was over, and more than 200 Japanese were all dead in front of the blocking positions, with bodies scattered on the ground, weapons and ammunition scattered everywhere, and the air was filled with the smell of blood and smoke...

Every soldier involved in the ambush was cleaning the battlefield and gathering weapons and ammunition, and even the weapon parts that were blown up by shells were not spared.

In less than ten minutes, the three company commanders came over together, with smiles on their faces.

The company commander of the first company, Xiang Feng, spoke first: "Captain, all three mortars on the Japanese artillery position were seized by us, and fifteen boxes of 150 shells were seized!"

"A heavy machine gun was seized at the heavy machine gun position, and the remaining two heavy machine guns were blown up!"

The fourth company commander Li Yifang interrogated: "We and the spy company blocked the Japanese devils head-on, and then launched a counterattack against the Japanese attacking troops. A total of five crooked hands were seized, 118 large 38 covers, 11 pistols, and ammunition were still under statistics, and the remaining weapons were all destroyed!"

These seizures were completely expected by Zhou Cheng. After listening to the report, he ignored these data. Then he stared at Chen Liwen and Li Yifang and asked: "Where are the casualties? During the battle, I saw that the Japanese killed a lot of grenades to your blocking position. The soldiers must have suffered a lot of losses!"

Li Yifang's good mood suddenly disappeared, and his face sank, replied: "The loss is indeed a bit big!"

"When blocking the Japanese, the fourth company suffered at least fifteen grenades, 26 people were killed and eight were seriously injured. Almost all of them were caused by grenades, and most of the losses were machine gunners and riflesmen who stayed next to the machine gunners."

Chen Liwen's face was also very bad, because the casualties of the spy company in the battle were greater than those of attacking Xiyang County a few hours ago. He replied with a heavy face: "The spy company's losses are similar to those of the first company. 21 people were sacrificed and five were seriously injured, which were also caused by grenade launchers."

Xiang Feng then reported: "The continuous losses were slightly smaller!"

"Because I didn't take the Japanese devils, I just suffered some casualties during the attack, and eight people were sacrificed and two seriously injured."

Zhou Cheng thought about it and replied: "We have three times more firepower advantage than the Japanese army, more than twice the strength advantage. The time, place, and people are all in our hands. As a result, the loss of two platoons of troops is a bit expensive!"

Xiang Feng and Li Yifang both lowered their heads and humbly accepted Zhou Cheng's criticism.

Chen Liwen was surprised. Isn’t this an unprecedented victory at the cost of two platoons? But looking at the regiment commander, there was no joy after winning the battle.

He asked with confusion: "Captain, the cost of two platoons should not be high! After all, we killed more than 200 Japanese soldiers in the battle just now, which is equivalent to a sacrificed soldier fighting four Japanese soldiers."

"If it were put in the war zone, such a result would have been boasted as a great victory."

Zhou Cheng shook his head: "Company Commander Chen, from the perspective of casualties, we have indeed won the battle."

"But when we fight, we cannot only consider the casualty ratio, but also consider ammunition consumption and weapon loss...that is, the so-called combat cost."

"We are in the enemy's back and the war zone doesn't like us very much, so it's difficult to obtain ammunition supplies. The weapons and ammunition used by the soldiers usually rely on capture. This means that we have to consider the cost of every battle, and try to ensure that the capture can make up for the loss. Otherwise, our national rescue army will be exhausted after a few battles..."

"Compared to attacking county towns, the number of seized in the field is the least."

"The Japanese have the habit of destroying weapons and ammunition before they die. If the field battle lasts too long, a battle will not only consume a large amount of weapons and ammunition, but in the end it will not be able to seize anything."

"So before the battle begins, I specifically ask everyone to concentrate all their firepower advantages to fight quickly and not give the Japanese a chance to destroy weapons and ammunition!"

"I watched the whole battle. Everyone fought very well. In less than half an hour, more than 200 Japanese were wiped out. Most of the Japanese had no chance to destroy the weapons and ammunition they carried on when they died, so we successfully seized more than 100 38 blocks."

"But there is another problem. After the war has been fought for so long, the Japanese have not carried much ammunition with the army, so they must be consumed a lot, especially when the two sides fire at each other, the bullets are like they don't have money, constantly entering our blocking positions."

"If I expected it was right, the Japanese riflesmen consumed at least half of the bullets in the battle, and the light and heavy machine guns consumed more bullets."

The fourth company commander Li Yifang nodded: "Captain, this is indeed the case."

"Because the Japanese artillery joined the war late, they seized more than 100 shells in a row."

"Their infantry and machine guns have been fighting, consuming a lot of bullets. When the battle is over, many Japanese soldiers have only forty or fifty bullets left."

"The heavy machine gun position is only four boxes of four thousand bullets left, and the Japanese shot out two thousand bullets..."

Zhou Cheng continued to analyze: "This means that the total number of crawler machine gun bullets and heavy machine gun bullets we seized in this battle just now is only 10,000?"

Li Yifang nodded silently: "Absolutely!"

"Then do you know how much ammunition we used just now?" Zhou Cheng suddenly asked.

The three company commanders were immediately stopped, obviously they had not considered this issue yet.

Seeing that they didn't speak, Zhou Cheng gave them a surprise answer: "It must be more than 10,000 times..."

"We just now had eight heavy machine guns and more than thirty light machine guns to participate in the battle."

"Based on the average of 300 bullets by heavy machine guns and the average of 150 bullets by light machine guns, these light machine guns alone fired nearly 7,000 bullets."

"There are more than 400 rifles and more than a dozen pistols. Based on the average of twenty bullets per gun, that is more than 8,000 rifle bullets, a total of 15,000 bullets."

"This is not the more than 100 grenades fired from the grenade launcher..."

"After this analysis, the ammunition we seized from the battlefield cannot replenish the bullets we used on the battlefield. Even if we used two platoons to subdue a Japanese reinforcement squadron, our National Salvation Army lost five or six thousand ammunition reserves. If we lost so many bullets in each battle next, we would lose fifty or sixty thousand bullets in ten battles."

"The family of our National Salvation Army is not rich, and we can withstand much losses? Have you ever thought about this?"

The three company commanders were silent, especially Shen Liwen. He was backed by the arsenal before and could be replenished immediately after the ammunition was fired. There was no need to consider these issues.

It's different now. The arsenal has been destroyed. As a member of the National Salvation Army, before there is no continuous ammunition supply, I really have to consider the issue of ammunition consumption.

If there were no bullets and onto the battlefield, the weapons in the hands of the soldiers were not as useful as a fire stick.

Zhou Cheng continued to speak: "Although from the perspective of combat costs, we have lost this ambush."

"But from the long-term interests, we did not lose this battle."

"Without this Japanese devil who strengthened the squadron, and kill the other Japanese and puppet troops who have reinforced them, the two surrounding counties will be in a situation where there is no soldiers available. This means that the Japanese army wants to retake Xiyang from us, but there is no soldiers available. Next, we will have at least one month's rest time in Xiyang."

"In addition, this battle also gives you a profound lesson."

"In the future, when fighting the Japanese, you must fight quickly and decide quickly, and try to kill the Japanese in a shorter time so that they can consume less ammunition on the battlefield."

"At the same time, we must also tell our own soldiers that although the firepower advantage lies with us and everyone has the equipment in their hands, the bullets are still very precious. We can no longer shoot at a target like we did just now, as if the bullets don't have money."

"Such continuous shooting damages weapons and consumes ammunition."

"We need to further strengthen shooting training, let machine gunners shoot more long and short shots, and try to kill an enemy with three or four bullets."

"If all the machine gunners did not shoot randomly in the battle just now and hit the enemy with long and short shots, the bullets consumed by light and heavy machine guns could be reduced by at least half."

"There are also riflemen, you must continue to improve your shooting level and don't waste bullets by random shots."

"If the soldiers' shooting skills are too poor, we can consider shooting guns at the Japanese in squad."

"A single infantry squad aims at one target at the same time, which will definitely increase everyone's hit rate and strive to kill the most enemies with the least bullets."

"The spy company has the least strength. It just now lost another platoon. The total losses have exceeded half. I will not participate in the next battle. I will continue to stay here to clean the battlefield, and then send all the wounded and captured back to the county town."

"The first and fourth companies, artillery companies, two battalions of reinforced heavy machine gun troops, artillery troops will gather immediately. There will be a reinforcement force to fight in more than two hours..."

The command center of the Laiyuan Japanese Military Brigade, since the news of Xiyang being attacked here, the brigade commander guarded the war room and did not continue to sleep.

Although there has not been a more detailed battle report here yet, the brigade commander vaguely felt that this battle was not as simple as the one mentioned in the Xiyang Garrison's telegram for help.

He felt that the enemy attacking Xiyang was not the Eighth Route Army.

Although a large number of Eighth Route Army were operating in the defense zone and gradually growing into a major concern for the Imperial Army, their equipment level was there.

It’s okay to fight guerrillas, touch the whistle, and sneak attack the transport team. If they ask them to attack the county town, the brigade commander would not believe it if they were killed.

They were too poorly equipped with almost no offensive weapons, and even the Imperial Army stationed a small and medium-sized stronghold of an infantry squad could not be captured, let alone the county towns that were heavily defended.

After searching all the defense zone, only the National Salvation Army has the strength to attack a county town.

So he felt that the attack on Xiyang was the National Salvation Army, not the Eighth Route Army mentioned in the telegram.

As soon as this thought came to his mind, the brigade commander issued a military order to the pacification garrison, asking them to immediately investigate the National Savior Army and determine whether the National Savior Army had conducted large-scale mobilizations in the past few days.

If so, then your own judgment is right. The defense zone of the National Salvation Army located in Pingding is already empty, and they may be able to take advantage of it.

As for Xiyang City, it is too poor and is also a useless existence for the Imperial Army.

The brigade commander actually wanted to give up, but for the sake of the imperial army, he had to set up the Xiyang garrison to occupy it.

After Xiyang was attacked, the brigade commander's first idea was to order the Xiyang garrison to break through and give up there, but it was too embarrassing to do so. In the end, he had to send troops to reinforce Xiyang against his will.

But the brigade commander also has his own ideas and purposes.

If the reinforcements arrive at the battlefield in time and save Xiyang, they will take the opportunity to severely damage the siege troops.

If you are not rescued, then give up Xiyang and throw this useless ribs to the National Salvation Army and the Eighth Route Army, drag them down through Xiyang and weaken the opponent's strength.

With this idea, the brigade commander only drew two imperial troops from the surrounding area to reinforce Xiyang. If Xiyang is lost and the reinforcement troops have an accident, his own losses will not be great. Moreover, the reinforcement troops have been sent by themselves, so he can live up to his face.
Chapter completed!