Just when Luo Yue commanded the army and attacked Lushun, on the front line of the Liao River, the battle was also raging.

The 2nd Army of the People's Army launched an attack on the Japanese defense line of the Liaohe River on May 12, and successfully broke through the Liaohe defense line in the early morning of May 13 and captured Liaozhong, but it also fell into the unfavorable situation of being attacked by the Japanese army on two fronts, and in order to break this unfavorable situation and consolidate the foothold of the People's Army on the east bank of the Liaohe River, the commander of the 2nd Army, Qiu Yahui, decided to immediately attack the Japanese army's Shalingbao position.

After Qiu Yahui's battle plan was approved by the Qingdao command group, he immediately began to arrange the troop arrangements for attacking Shaling Fort, and the 2nd Army will dispatch the 2nd and 9th Divisions, together with two reserve regiments, with a total of 32,000 troops, to attack Shaling Fort, with the 8th Division stationed in Liaozhong and the 17th Division still stationed on the west bank of the Liao River to prevent the Japanese attack.

On 15 May, the People's Army divided its forces into two routes, with the 9th Division and the 1st Reserve Regiment marching along the Liaohe-Shuangtaizi River, and the 7th Division and the 2nd Reserve Regiment marching along the banks of the Wailiao River, forming a pincer on Shahebao.

On the night of May 14, the 11th Division stationed at Shaling Fort received an order from the Manchurian Army Headquarters in Liaoyang to send troops to assist the army in Ping'an Fort and flank the People's Army in Liaozhong. Therefore, the Japanese 11th Division made an attack early in the morning of May 15 and marched along the line of the Liaohe-Shuangtaizi River to Liaozhong.

Liaozhong and Shalingbao are about 55 kilometers apart, so at 10 a.m., the front troops of the Japanese 11th Division and the front troops of the People's Army marching along the Liaohe-Shuangtaizi River met near the town of Yujiafang, and a battle broke out.

It was indeed an encounter, so both sides were a little caught off guard, but after about 30 minutes of firefighting, the Japanese took the initiative to retreat to Huangshatuo Town, and at 11 o'clock, the Japanese abandoned Huangshatuo Town and retreated to Shalingbao. It turned out that the scouts of the Japanese army had discovered another KPA marching along the Wailiao River, and only then did they know that the original KPA had sent a large army to attack the 11th Division of Shaling Fort.

In this case, the commander of the 11th Division, Lieutenant General Mitsuharu Tsuchiya, decided to withdraw to Shaling Fort to defend, because the Japanese garrisoned Shaling Fort for more than 2 months and built relatively complete fortifications, and the People's Army dispatched a large army to attack Shaling Fort, then the garrison in Liaozhong would inevitably be empty, and at this time, the Japanese army had already dispatched a large army to attack Liaozhong from the direction of Ping'an Fort, so as long as the 11th Division held Shaling Fort 3, In five days, the attacking People's Army will inevitably withdraw its troops to help Liaozhong, and then the 11th Division will take the opportunity to launch a counterattack, and it will be expected to win the battle.

At 2:40 p.m., the 11th Division received a call back from the Liaoyang Manchurian Army Headquarters, agreeing with Tsuchiya Mitsuharu's battle plan, and asked Tsuchiya Mitsuharu to guard Shaling Fort for more than 3 days, and try his best to hold back the People's Army and buy time for the attack in the direction of Ping'an Fort.

The Japanese army arranged a total of 3 forward positions in the Shalingbao defense line, namely Tangshulin, Fujia Town, and Xinglongtai, all of which were arranged along the Liao River, among which the location of Xinglongtai was westward, not the direction of the People's Army's attack, so the Japanese army's key defense area was still Tangshulinzi and Fujia Town, so Tsuchiya Mitsuharu sent the 10th Brigade to guard these two positions.

However, in the direction of the Wailiao River, there was no completed position, and in a hurry, it was impossible to arrange a complete position, so it could only rely on the Shalingbao position to resist the attack of the People's Army. The Shalingbao position is mainly composed of several positions around Madaokou, Xizhukou, Potaizi, Jiutaizi Village, Fuzhuangkou, etc., which are guarded by the 22nd Brigade.

At 4 p.m. on 15 May, both KPA armies approached Shaling Fort. However, the KPA did not rush to attack, but arranged positions, established headquarters, and observed the enemy's troop deployment, battlefield, etc., while waiting for the arrival of follow-up artillery units.

At 8 p.m., the artillery units also went to the front, and during this time, the Japanese launched two tentative attacks, but the KPA was well guarded, and the Japanese did not take any advantage. After defeating the Japanese attack, the KPA arranged artillery positions, set up observation points, distributed troops, and made battle plans for points, and so on, and was busy until more than 12 o'clock at night.

Of course, while testing the People's Army, Japan also seized the time of this last night to strengthen its positions and fortifications and strengthen its own defensive strength.

At 7 o'clock in the morning of May 1 6, the KPA launched an attack on the Japanese positions at the same time by both armies.

The 2nd Division, which was responsible for the direct attack on Shaling Fort, first launched an artillery bombardment on the Japanese positions by the towed * artillery regiment, because yesterday the KPA had clearly understood the position and layout of the Japanese positions through drones, and calculated accurate data, so 1 8 155 mm * guns opened fire together and launched accurate artillery bombardment on various positions of the Japanese army. On another front, self-propelled artillery units also opened fire on the west bank of the Liao River, bombarding the Japanese positions in Tangshulinzi.

The Japanese were also shocked by the accuracy of the shells on both fronts. Moreover, according to the observation of the Japanese artillery and the results of the reconnaissance of the scouts, it was determined that the artillery position of the KPA was at least 1 5 kilometers away, and this distance had exceeded the range of all the artillery of the Japanese 11th Division.

After the loss of Liaozhong, some Japanese soldiers fled to Shaling Fort and told Tsuchiya Mitsuharu that the People's Army's use of artillery was quite strong, not only fighting far away, but also with a high degree of accuracy, and that there was also a number of large-caliber, long-distance artillery, and it was suspected that the naval guns might be moved to land.

However, Tsuchiya Mitsuharu was quite skeptical of this set of statements, because it fundamentally subverted Tsuchiya Mitsuharu's perception of artillery tactics in this era, so Tsuchiya Mitsuharu thought that this was a defeat in order to reduce his own guilt, and deliberately exaggerated the enemy's combat effectiveness, so he did not take it to heart. But judging from the current situation, the stories of the defeated soldiers turned out to be true.

It's just that now Tsuchiya Mitsuharu is also helpless, because his own artillery can't hit others at all, so he can only do it in a hurry. Tsuchiya Mitsuharu also took the risk of sending a small group of artillery close to the positions of the People's Army, and then opened artillery to attack the artillery positions of the People's Army, but before the Japanese army could complete the preparations for the opening of the artillery, it was discovered by drones and guided the artillery of the People's Army to strike, and as a result, several rounds of artillery were fired, and the Japanese artillery was left with nothing.

The KPA shelling lasted for more than half an hour, with 1,8 155-mm* guns firing more than 1,000 shells, while two 200-mm* guns also fired more than 120 shells, and the positions hit by the artillery suffered considerable losses, with more than 1,000 casualties on both sides combined. The fortifications and firing points on the positions have also been destroyed a lot.

However, it is obvious that it is impossible to completely defeat the Japanese army by artillery bombardment, and to occupy the positions of the Japanese army, it is still necessary to rely on the attack of ground forces. Therefore, as soon as the shelling stopped, the KPA launched an attack on the Japanese positions.

Although the Japanese positions were fiercely attacked by the KPA artillery, the positions were not completely destroyed after all, and they still had considerable defensive strength, so after the KPA shelling was over, the Japanese soldiers who were hiding in the trenches to avoid the shelling also showed their heads one after another, rearranged their positions for defense, and tried their best to restore the destroyed firepower points to block the KPA's attack.

It should be said that at this time, the battle can be regarded as truly entering the stage of full swing.

However, the Japanese soldiers guarding the position soon discovered that the offensive mode of the KPA was very different from that of the Russian army, although the number of KPA troops in the attack seemed to be quite large, almost all over the mountains, but the distance between the soldiers was obviously much wider than that of the Russian army, so the distribution was relatively scattered; in addition, the KPA offensive seemed to be chaotic, not all the soldiers were rushing towards the charge in one go, but some people rushed forward, while others were finding cover to avoid on the way to attack, and firing at the Japanese defense line, but it seemed to be according to a certain law, so that it was not chaotic。

The offensive tactics of the army in this era still bear the traces of the era of line tactics, and the offensive is basically in a dense formation, and the commanders also require the soldiers to rush to the enemy's position as quickly as possible, and then start a white-knuckle battle with the enemy, at most, before the attack, use artillery to fire on the enemy's position, weakening the defense of the enemy's position. However, this tactic is extremely advantageous to the defender, even if it is attacked by enemy artillery, as long as it can quickly arrange a perfect defense line after the shelling, and a few machine guns form a fire point, it can inflict huge damage on the attacker. Therefore, it is quite difficult to break through the enemy's position from the front, and most offensive battles are based on frontal containment and flank detour. And if you encounter a battlefield environment that cannot be detoured, you can only attack head-on, and you must pay a heavy price.

In the Russo-Japanese War, both Japan and Russia basically used this set of tactics, but most of the time, the Japanese army was the attacking side, while the Russian army was on the defensive, so if you want to count the casualties on the battlefield, the Japanese army is much higher than the Russian army.

But in the face of the offensive of the People's Army, it is not the same thing at all, in the past battles with the Russian army, the Maxim machine gun is definitely a battlefield harvester, as long as there is a burst of strafing, the enemy will fall to the ground in rows like cutting crops, if there is a fortress, it is even more terrible, and the attacker often has to pay the price of hundreds of people to knock down a fortress.

In the face of the People's Army, the machine guns were "sudden, sudden, and sudden", although they fought happily, but the deputy machine gun could see clearly, and after a burst of strafing, the People's Army was able to fall 10 of them, which was a pretty good result, on the one hand, the soldiers of the People's Army were scattered, and on the other hand, once they were hit by the machine guns, the People's Army would not stupidly rush forward, but lay down on the spot to dodge, and then get up to attack after this round of strafing.