Wang Zhong confirmed that the enemy was retreating, so he yelled into the radio, “Cease fire! Cease fire! Conserve the ammunition!”
As he was shouting, he picked up a branch that had been shaken off the turret top by the cannon fire and threw it at the signalman who was fully focused on the enemy.
The signalman was startled by the hit and turned his puzzled gaze towards Wang Zhong.
General Wang: “Cease fire! Tell all the tank crews to stop firing!”
“Oh!” The signalman finally sprinted off along the communication trench.
It took a full two minutes before all 30 T34 tanks completely stopped firing.
It was unclear what those guys were shooting at after the enemy smoke cover.
Wang Zhong continued to instruct the signalman, “Order the infantry battalion to advance! Look for the ranks of the prisoners, capture lieutenants and above, especially those with staff armbands, adjutant ribbons, carrying briefcases, carrying map cases.”
Signalman: “What about the prisoners who are below the rank of lieutenant?”
The first response that came to Wang Zhong’s mind was, “The enemy fought bravely and did not surrender; we must commemorate their fighting spirit and erect a monument for them.”
“Yes!” The signalman turned and ran off.
“Wait a moment!” Wang Zhong called out to him.
If they kept enemy officers alive, it could lead to unfavorable consequences in the future. And he remembered someone saying that if they didn’t keep prisoners, during future counter-offensives, the enemy would fight to the death when encountering their own forces.
After a second of silence, Wang Zhong changed his order, “Ignore what I said earlier about the prisoners. For those below the rank of lieutenant, injure their arms to ensure they can’t return to combat for three months. Then let them walk towards the enemy’s direction.”
The signalman nodded his head and walked away.
Although he didn’t condone executing prisoners, the current situation of the 151st Division definitely didn’t allow for taking care of prisoners; so, it might be better to use them to feed the enemy misinformation.
Wang Zhong: “Order all tanks to rev their engines, make them sound louder!”
Consequently, the whole ambush position roared deafeningly, as if a whole tank army were advancing.
————
Filippov led his platoon towards the road filled with the remnants of tanks and vehicles.
Yes, Filippov had been promoted to platoon commander, but it wasn’t an exceptional promotion since they were originally going to be warrant officer platoon commanders after their military academy graduation; it was merely an early start.
Apart from each squad leader, Filippov’s platoon consisted of green recruits. Seven or eight had fallen behind during the march, and he wondered if seeing the dead enemies for the first time they might act up.
This made Filippov anxious.
After cautiously approaching the road with his platoon, Filippov ordered, “Spread out, don’t bunch up! Have you forgotten what I told you during training? Huddling together makes it easier to die; machine guns prefer firing at clusters!”
“Acting alone, on the other hand, the enemy machine gunners won’t feel it’s worth wasting bullets on you.”
In fact, what Filippov said was more of an Ante Army philosophy, as the Ante Army had always been short on ammunition and needed to conserve it.
Had it been some other military unit, even if there was only one enemy, the entire platoon would have unleashed its firepower, with machine guns and rifles firing simultaneously.
Watching as his subordinates scattered, Filippov led the way onto the main road.
Wherever he looked, there were Prussian Army corpses, and some of the tanks stopped on the road were still smoking.
A signalman on horseback came galloping down the road: “The general has ordered us to capture officers above the rank of lieutenant as prisoners, and for those with insufficient rank, we are to injure their arms and let them run back. We are to leave the enemy’s wounded to carry themselves back!”
Filippov: “You all heard that! Semyon, take your squad to check the tanks, don’t look inside, just lift the hatch and throw a grenade in.”
Sergeant Semyon immediately led his squad towards the tanks.
Filippov continued shouting, “First, remove the enemy’s weapons. Their hand grenades are very well made and are more effective than ours! And their submachine guns are good stuff; look, I’m using one and won’t switch back, it complements the Tokarev perfectly.”
While speaking, Filippov also deliberately adjusted the position of the MP submachine gun slung over his shoulder so it was ready to shoot instantly.
Just then, another veteran who had experienced the battle at Loktov shouted to Filippov, “Filippov, these guys’ uniforms look a bit different! Aren’t they the Plathen Emperor’s Imperial Guard?”
“Possibly.” Filippov said, pulling on his raincloak, a symbol of the Ante side’s Imperial infantry.
At that moment, Sergeant Semyon, who was checking tanks, shouted, “Grenade out! Don’t get scared!”
As soon as the words fell, a muffled explosion followed, with smoke puffing out of tank number 235’s hatch.
Sergeant Semyon jumped off the tank and led his men to the next one.
At this moment, Filippov saw his new recruit, Aleksei, standing in front of an enemy’s corpse, looking as if he were contemplating life.
He went up to him and asked, “Alyosha, what are you thinking about?”
“Platoon commander! It’s nothing much, I’m just wondering if war is really such a simple and comfortable thing?”
Filippov: “We thought the same when we just repelled the enemy’s first wave of attacks at Loktov. After the General’s precise round of artillery fire, the enemy completely collapsed. We thought we could advance into Ploseni by tomorrow.”
Aleksei: “What happened then?”
“Then, half of us did not get to see the next day’s sun,” said Filippov. “Or rather, we became the colors on the General’s standard.”
Aleksei’s mouth opened wide, as if he were an oxygen-deprived goldfish.
In the distance, Sergeant Semyon shouted, “Grenade out, don’t—”
Suddenly, a Prosen Tank Operator popped out of the tank, using a submachine gun to shoot down the new recruit about to throw a grenade into the hatch.
The grenade dropped right at Sergeant Semyon’s feet; he managed to curse “Damn” before the explosion flipped him onto the ground, with his leg blown high into the air.
The Prosen Tank Operator, standing in the turret, aimed his submachine gun at the closest squad from Semyon and fired, bringing down three new recruits instantly.
Filippov’s platoon of rookies froze, while the veterans were already prone.
Filippov himself, half-kneeling, aimed his submachine gun.
It happened in a flash. Aleksei fired.
Tokarev’s first semi-automatic shot missed, striking the edge of the turret and sparking a shower of sparks.
The enemy tank operator immediately swung the gun barrel around, but by then, Tokarev’s second shot came, piercing his shoulder.
Aleksei, shouting loudly, kept firing until he had emptied Tokarev’s magazine.
In reality, the subsequent shots all missed, hitting the trees behind the tank.
The lifeless enemy slid into the tank under the force of gravity.
Aleksei continued to shout, desperately pulling the trigger, regardless of the fact that there were no bullets left to fire.
Filippov pulled out a grenade, primed and threw it in one smooth motion, the “little flying stick” with its trail of smoke landed inside the tank’s hatch.
With a muffled blast, the tank became still.
Aleksei knelt to the ground, his entire body collapsing to the side.
Filippov thought he had been hit and quickly came over to check, “Where are you hurt? Are you okay?”
After a cursory check, Filippov found that the man hadn’t been shot, he was perfectly fine. But there he was, lying on the ground like a deflated eggplant.
Filippov didn’t bother with him further and ran towards Semyon’s squad, “Medic! Medic! Nurse!”
“I’m here, I’m here!” The nurse, dressed in military uniform, ran over, felt Sergeant Semyon’s neck, shook her head, and moved on to the next one.
After handing over the injured to the nurse, Filippov returned to Aleksei’s side, only to find him clutching his stomach in pain.
“What’s wrong, private?” Filippov asked.
“My stomach… it’s cramping, and I can’t feel my legs. Am I going to die?”
Filippov grabbed Aleksei’s shoulders and hauled him up, “No! You’re still fine! You’re just too tense! Stand up!”
chapter-source-MvLeMpYr
However, it was no use at all. The new recruit, Aleksei, just slumped onto Filippov like a mound of mud, his speech tinged with a crying tone, “I’m going to die… I’m going to die…”
Filippov tried to console him for a bit, but to no avail, eventually shouting, “Priest! Where’s the priest?”
The priests were professionals at dealing with this sort of thing, so it was a sure bet to find them.
But Filippov called for a while with no response.
At that moment, he suddenly had an idea.
He threw the new recruit, Aleksei, aside—he immediately collapsed to the ground, sprawling like a heap of goo.
Filippov rushed onto the enemy’s tank, climbed inside, and dragged out the tank operator who had just surprised everyone with a submachine gun, pulling him all the way to the new recruit, Aleksei.
Then Filippov once again pulled up the recruit, forcing him to look at the tank operator, “Take a good look, this is the enemy you brought down!”
The new recruit, Aleksei, stopped his wailing and looked at the enemy, “I brought him down?”
Filippov said, “Now, as your platoon leader, I command you to piss on his pants!”
The new recruit Aleksei was stunned, “What? Why?”
“I’ll tell you why!” Filippov said, all the while subtly reducing his support for the new recruit, Aleksei, “Our division commander, Major General Rocossov, is very brave, isn’t he?
If you don’t know how brave he is, you can ask the people of the tank units, ask those old guys from the original 23rd Tank Army, they’ll tell you because the BT tank turret only fits two people, the general stood outside the tank when he commanded them, directing while mowing down Prussians with the roof machine gun amidst a hailstorm of bullets!”
The new recruit Aleksei had a look of admiration, “I’ve heard about it! But what does that have to do with making me piss…”
“Do you know what kind of person he used to be? You should ask the old soldiers from the original Third Plowsonia Amur Group, they all know! Before the war, the general was a coward, and no one wanted to follow him to the front lines. Then the war broke out, a Prosen tank fired a shot, and the general pissed himself from fright!”
The new recruit Aleksei was even more puzzled, “I know… but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s now a brave and fearless general, does it?”
“Don’t you understand?” Filippov said, “With that piss, the general washed away his past cowardice! That’s called learning from shame to become courageous! Right now you’re a coward too, but you’ve killed an enemy! Just do as the general did, and you’ll be set!”
Filippov pointed at the enemy, “Piss! On his pants! What are you hesitating for? You were just about to piss your own pants, weren’t you?”
The new recruit Aleksei eked out a word, “Yes.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
The new recruit Aleksei gritted his teeth, and wet the enemy’s body.
After he finished, Filippov stepped back, “Does your stomach still hurt now?”
“Eh? This…”
Filippov, “Look at your legs, are they still weak?”
“Really! I… I do feel braver!”
The others exchanged glances.
“Wait a second, I remember now,” someone yelled, “I killed that enemy! He’s mine!”
“Give it a rest, it’s clear he was killed by a machine gun. Could your Tokarev make such a big hole? I think it’s mine to piss on, not yours, I killed him, so I should be the one to do it!”
“Then I’ll do this one!”
Just then, the unit’s priest finally arrived and frowned at the scene before him, “Wait a minute! What are you guys doing?”
He spoke while holding his nose because it reeked.
Filippov, “We’re conducting a ritual to embolden the new recruit!”
The priest looked at the enemy’s corpse, and understood.
The priest said, “You guys… collect the weapons before pissing, who’s going to use these dirty weapons now? Whoever pissed on them is responsible for collecting, cleaning, and using them! Understand? Now get moving!”
That evening, the Imperial Guard 31st regiment 1st battalion 1st company, along with the unit priest, wrote in their log: “I originally thought that the rumors about the general’s dark history would weaken our unit’s cohesion, but now it seems completely unfounded.
In fact, these dark histories have, in a wondrous (crossed out) in a ridiculous manner, enhanced the general’s prestige, which is worth studying in depth.”