Chapter 53: The Trench Value Rises

Between the southern and central districts of Red Tower City lay a naturally strategic stronghold: the Red Tower City Mining Museum.

Whether the municipal government of the day had suffered a collective brain fart or was inspired by some bizarre architectural whim, they had erected a six-story-high stone tower right there.

That's right! It was that absurd style of architecture where cranes hoisted thick slabs of granite and glued them to the exterior of reinforced concrete walls. The people of Red Tower had crammed inside specimens of gold, molybdenum, tin, lead, zinc, and coal ore, along with last-century mine cars, forest harvesting and timber processing machinery, and even constructed a one-to-one scale replica of a mine tunnel within.

This eccentric feat of engineering resulted in a building structure of unrivaled sturdiness.

Lieutenant General Yoshikawa had called in a bomber strike at the risk of losing numerous military aircraft, but the results were less than stellar.

A 250-kilogram aerial bomb struck the east wing, collapsing only the topmost floor while leaving the five levels below entirely unscathed.

And to make matters worse, this monstrosity was exceedingly difficult to bypass.

Situated on the dividing line between the city's central and southern sectors, it sat atop a hook-shaped protruding peninsula.

From that vantage point, one could overlook a span of several kilometers across both banks of the small river. The Russias had set up mortars there and even hoisted a 37mm anti-aircraft gun to the top using a crane. Aside from a few apartment blocks obstructing the line of sight, half of the industrial zone to the south fell within its firing arc.

It was utterly preposterous!

Aside from a ten-meter-wide stone bridge leading north, the southern side was connected only by a land route roughly three hundred meters wide.

To capture this place, the Yamato forces launched a battalion-scale "Banzai charge."

Yesterday evening, as the smoke of battle kneaded the artillery fire of Red Tower City into the dusk, an inhuman roar suddenly erupted from behind the shattered barricades in the south.

Demons clad in khaki uniforms surged toward the north like a hundred rivers emptying into the sea.

Over a thousand pairs of military boots trampled the gravel-strewn streets, and Type 38 bayonets stained with blood and mud slashed through the smoke filling the sky, resembling a swarm of butterflies scorched by fire.

A sergeant, with a regimental flag wrapped around his rifle barrel and his jaw—severely infected by a wound—bound in place with a rag, led the charge with veins bulging on his neck, pushing forward against the blazing stream of fire spewing from a third-story machine gun nest belonging to the Russias.

Humans instinctively feel fear in the face of danger, yet not a shred of rationality could be seen in the eyes of these heavily drugged wretches.

One crazed individual had his arm blown off by a Maxim machine gun round. He simply waved his severed limb, letting the smoking stump at the end of his arm dangle and flap in the wind, and continued charging until the next machine gun bullet blew away the top of his skull.

They shouted incoherent cries of "Banzai," ignoring their fallen comrades, disregarding the acrid stench of burning human fat drifting in the smoke, and seeing nothing in their blood-red eyes except the Russias.

A Yamato private, who had rushed to the front of the Russian trenches under the cover of his comrades, suddenly smiled. His teeth crushed the amulet he had brought from Guanbei, and the moment a shrapnel fragment sliced across the corner of his eye, he seemed to catch a glimpse of the hometown Obon festival fireworks. He pulled the fuse of his explosive charge and leaped straight into the enemy trench.

"Boom!"

Across three parallel trenches, following a fierce and brutal bout of hand-to-hand bayonet combat, the explosions rang out everywhere in mutual destruction.

This was not the end. Several Yamato soldiers, ignited by Molotov cocktails, desperately stumbled toward the doors of the Mining Museum ten paces away.

That evening, 237 drugged Yamato lunatics charged into the museum, dragging down 481 Russian Home Guard defenders with them in a fierce struggle to the death.

Had the mortar battalion attached to the Russian 8th Infantry Division not opened fire in timely support, sealing off several streets south of the location with a continuous barrage of explosions, the museum would have fallen.

Major Alexander Panfilov, commander of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment, 2nd Brigade of the 8th Division, who had been ordered to reinforce the area urgently, faced a terribly difficult situation: ammunition inside the building was running low, only two MG-34 machine guns remained, and there were barely five hundred men left inside, over three hundred of whom were poorly trained Home Guard troops.

Judging by the usual temperament of the Yamato forces, they were likely to launch another Banzai charge in a matter of hours.

The problem was that the entire city's front lines were under attack by these lunatics, and no troop reinforcements would arrive here before dawn tomorrow.

In his desperate predicament, Alexander Panfilov made a brilliant decision: he ordered his men to dig the three outer trenches deeper, and then had the Home Guard stand on stools inside the deepened trenches to fire.

"Tie ropes to your stools. When the enemy launches their charge, take your stools and withdraw from the trench."

"And the enemy..."

The middle-aged officer smiled and said, "Those short bastards won't be able to climb out."

The Home Guard did as they were told; steadfast as their fighting spirit might be, putting in a bit of muscle work was infinitely easier than risking their lives.

Before long, the trenches had been dug about half a meter deeper.

Just as the Home Guard were utterly exhausted, as ill luck would have it, that damned "Banzai" cry rang out once again.

Night combat.

Without a doubt, this increased the difficulty of shooting!

The machine guns were no longer as accurate as they had been during the day.

Although many of those drugged lunatics were mowed down by machine guns, at least half of the khaki-colored, demonized Yamato soldiers reached the first trench.

Seeing the Russias "running away," the leading Warrant Officer Suzuki let out a wild, ferocious roar of laughter.

"Hahaha! Look at those cowards! They're running!"

Excited beyond measure, the Yamato troops shrieked without hesitation and leaped into the trench, only to be struck dumb.

There wasn't a single Russian in the trench—it was filled entirely with their own people, while oblivious comrades behind them continued to shriek and jump down.

Suzuki cursed aloud, "What are you dazed for? Go to the second trench!"

They went, yet they didn't go!

A supremely awkward scene unfolded: the trench was simply too deep. Two meters wide, and a depth comfortably exceeding two meters. The burly Russias averaged nearly one meter and eighty centimeters in height, and paired with half-meter-high stools, they could just manage to poke their heads out to fire.

When the Russias fled with their stools, these Category B division soldiers, with an average height of only one meter and fifty-five centimeters, met with tragedy.

They couldn't reach the edge of the trench even by jumping.

Though the trench walls were not smooth, the fatal flaw was that these Yamato soldiers were completely hopped up on drugs.

The price of feeling no pain and no fear was a drastic reduction in agility.

A cluster of Yamato soldiers scrambled along the edge of the trench, even trying to step on their teammates' shoulders to get out. The spectacle looked precisely like a bunch of turtles trying to crawl out of a fisherman's bamboo basket, appearing utterly ludicrous.

Aside from a handful of heavy infantrymen who could make it up using the strength and agility granted by their demonized state, no one else could climb out.

At that exact moment, those heavy infantrymen were wiped out by a massive explosive charge improvised from an anti-tank mine, followed by a shower of Molotov cocktails thrown from the windows of the third and fourth floors of the museum.

"Clink-crash!" Following the crisp shattering of glass, the entire trench turned into a brilliant line of fire.

"Ahhhhh—" Countless Yamato soldiers wailed and shrieked in agony within.

Drugs could numb their nerves, but that did not mean they lost their sense of pain entirely.

The scorching inferno seared their hair, skin, flesh, and even their very souls...

These frenzied wretches either died within the flaming trenches or remained paralyzed in confusion right in front of them, picked off one by one by the museum defenders firing from above.

After that night, the trenches across the entire city were uniformly deepened, and soon every major and minor street was plastered with cartoon drawings of turtles with demonic horns failing to crawl out of ditches.

The most absurd part was that this incident even made it into the Boreal Daily, eventually spreading to the international stage.

As for people elsewhere, nobody knew, but the people of Xulis laughed their lungs out.

It perfectly embodied the art of killing your enemy while driving them absolutely mad with frustration!