Han Xing continued to ask Chen Cheng for conditions: "Tell me to guard Yichang, the question is how many troops Commander-in-Chief Chen can give me." With the current amount of troops, 5,000 people against 70,000 Japanese will definitely not work. It is difficult for a good woman to cook without rice, and without an army, how can she fight? Besides, these two militia groups have not yet been fully equipped? ”

Chen Cheng had no choice but to give in again and said, "I only brought a guard battalion here, and I will hand it all over to your command!" As for the equipment of the two militia groups, I will immediately prepare them in the rear and send them by car. ”

Chen Cheng thought that after covering the nest, it was useless for me to stay by my side. If the Japanese really come in, this battalion will be in vain, so it is better to be a favor now and sacrifice this battalion. As for the equipment of the militia group, it is not just a matter of writing black letters on a blank piece of paper.

Han Xing is now a general of Han Xin, the more the merrier, not to mention a battalion, even a company, that is also useful. At this time, Han Xing was not polite and said:

"Now Yichang City is full of soldiers, even half of the old men, prostitutes, and student dolls, although there are not many battalions, but it is much better than those ordinary people who have just picked up guns. Before the national army came, I would work hard for Commander-in-Chief Chen, if the national army came, then I would have lifted my burden! ”

Chen Cheng thought about it, this Han Xing is also interesting, the national army is coming, what do you want you, the former enemy commander-in-chief, to do? Now I want you to be the commander-in-chief of this former enemy, you think it's a good thing, this is to ask you to block the bullets for me in front.

Chen Cheng praised Han Xing, and then said cruel words to Bai Huoshui: "Mayor Bai, from now on, your local government must cooperate with Commander Han to complete all the tasks of defending the city. Whatever Commander Han wants, you just pick up the house, and you have to supply it by smashing the pot and selling iron. After completing the task of defending the city, we will not mention all the previous mistakes. If you are passive and slack off and derelict in your duties, then you will settle the old account and the new account! ”

Frightened, Bai Huoshui was resigned, and nodded vigorously: "Yes, yes, yes!" Good, good, good! ”

Han Xing heard what Chen Cheng meant, as if Bai Huoshui had some shortcomings in Chen Cheng's hands. Ever since Han Xing met this Bai Huoshui, he knew that he was not a good thing.

It turned out that he was given some building materials, food, etc., but either there was no this, or that, and he had to wait for the approval of the relevant departments. It's been a lot more refreshing these days, and whatever Han Xing wants, he obediently agrees and sends it to the door.

He also had to follow Han Xing's ass like a fart, Han Xing annoyed him, and found something to do and took him away.

After Han Xing and Liu Zhiyuan discussed, what could still be done at present was to ask Xu Da to think of a way to increase some ground air defense forces in order to deal with the enemy's air raids. Xu Da was also asked to bring a large number of mines from the rear to increase the obstacles to the Japanese attack.

In order to cope with the attack of the two divisions, the 13th Division strengthened Hanshui from the southernmost area of Jiukou and Shayang Town. The 26th Army of the Jiangfang Army, which was supposed to go north for reinforcements, and the 94th Army, which arrived in a hurry, had to stop advancing and move south to meet the 13th Division.

The 13th Division is a type A division with a full strength of 30,000 troops, while the 26th Army and the 94th Army have only 10,000 defensive troops on this line.

After several days of hard fighting, the 13th Division broke through the defense line of the Jiangfang Army in one fell swoop and also crossed the Han River.

The 13th Division immediately flanked the Nationalist Army, and at this time, the Nationalist Army's troops were limited, so in order to prevent the Japanese from cutting off the rear road and encircling it, they had to abandon their positions and retreat to the west to defend the second line of defense.

At this time, Li Zongren had no other way, he was a step slower, the current surrounding national troops were left behind by the Japanese army, and the national army on the front line of Yichang was scarce, almost an empty city, and it was definitely not enough to resist the impact of the Japanese army's 70,000 troops.

Li Zongren sought victory in defeat, and ordered the main force of the Nationalist army in the north to immediately chase after the Japanese troops who had crossed the Han River and attack the cities they had already occupied, forcing the Japanese to turn back.

At the same time, Li Zongren sent troops to storm the 40th Division of the Japanese Army remaining in the Suizao area, trying to encircle and annihilate it, forcing the Japanese troops attacking Yichang to turn around.

Unexpectedly, the purpose of the Japanese army this time was Yichang, so they didn't pay attention to Li Zongren's siege of Wei to save Zhao. In order to concentrate superior forces to occupy Yichang, the Japanese army successively abandoned the cities it had occupied, not to mention the life or death of the 40th Division.

The 3rd Division west of Hanshui abandoned Xiangyang on June 3, then Nanzhang, and the 39th Division abandoned Yicheng on the 6th.

The Japanese army did not stick to the occupied city, leaving only a palace behind to block the reinforcements of the national army.

Therefore, this time the Japanese army advanced very quickly, and the offensive force was very strong, the offensive was sharp, and soon broke through the second line of defense of the national army.

On the 8th, the 3rd Division occupied Yuan'an; The 39th Division reached the vicinity of Dangyang, southeast of Yuan'an; The main force of the 13th Division reached Harong, southeast of Dangyang, and a part of it, together with Ikeda's 11th Brigade, occupied Gangneung at 14 o'clock on the 8th and Changsha City at 15 o'clock.

This time, the Japanese army was almost destroyed, and all their troops east of Hanshui were transferred to attack Yichang, leaving only the 40th Division behind.

Sun Lianzhong's 3rd Group Army, Tang Enbo's 31st Group Army, and Huang Qixiang's 11th Army marched west to reinforce Yichang at the same time, and even attacked the 40th Division that was fighting alone.

First of all, the 29th Group Army of the Sichuan Army in Dahongshan was responsible for cutting off the rear road of the 40th Division. On June 11, the 40th Division found that the situation was not good, and immediately attacked the Sichuan army, hoping to open the line of communication.

The Sichuan army gritted its teeth and struggled to support it with inferior equipment, and the 40th Division fought fiercely for several days without success, and was surrounded by Zhang Xuezhong's 13th Army, Mo Shujie's 84th Army and other national troops in the Liufangzui Mountains.

At that time, the 40th Division was originally at the end of the crossbow! Since it was not the main force attacking Yichang, it only received very few supplies. The division commander Naojiro Amaya hurriedly asked the headquarters of the 11th Army for help, and the reply was: At present, there is not a single soldier to reinforce, and it is necessary to break through before more main forces of the Chinese army arrive!

Naojiro Amaya was helpless and commanded the 40th Division to break through to the east. It was June, and the heat was scorching in Hubei, which was extremely uncomfortable for Japanese people living in colder regions.

In addition, the supply was almost cut off, so I had to rely on airdrops to hold on.

After 6 days and 6 nights of hard fighting, the 40th Division barely broke through and suffered heavy casualties. In fact, the reason why the 40th Division broke through was that the main forces of the national army went to rescue Yichang!

The casualties of the 40th Division in this breakthrough operation exceeded 3,000 people, plus the casualties of the previous series of operations, which greatly damaged the vitality!

Although the 40th Division was heavily damaged east of Hanshui and caused a complete rout of the Japanese army here, the situation west of Hanshui did not improve in the slightest. Because the Japanese army did not care about the life or death of the 40th Division, the attack became more fierce, which made the situation worse.

Due to the heavy advance of the three divisions of the Japanese army, not only was the speed very fast, but the strength was also very strong, forming an absolute superiority in the local area. A small number of national defense troops could not resist and retreated, and the reinforcements did not have time to arrive, and it seemed that the Yichang defensive battle was coming very quickly.

In order to cope with the Japanese army's attack on three sides, Han Xing also had to divide his troops into three routes. Directly east of Yichang was defended by Liu Zhiyuan's regiment, north of Yichang was defended by the Special Operations Battalion and the 1st Regiment of the Militia Regiment, and to the south of Yichang, it was defended by the Guard Battalion and the 2nd Regiment of the Militia Regiment.

The mechanized regiment established a defensive position to the west of Yichang City, and provided artillery support to the defending troops at any time. The tank battalion that swam forward and Chen Cheng's guard battalion were also in good standing in Yichang City as a general reserve.

Han Xing arranged the general deployment and hurriedly went to various positions to inspect the troops. Han Xing first arrived at the guard battalion in the south of Yichang City and the position of the Second Regiment of the Militia Regiment.

The second regiment was made up entirely of women, including young women farmers from the neighborhood, schoolgirls, young women workers in factories, prostitutes and some housewives. When Han Xing arrived, he saw that the instructor Li Dazhong had divided the women into two groups, one digging trenches and the other still training in the queue.

After training for a while, and then rotate, the training team digs trenches again, and digs trenches for retraining queues.

Li Dazhong solemnly shouted to the female trainees in the training queue: "Don't forget at any time, you are now a soldier, and you are no longer ordinary people." What is the biggest difference between soldiers and ordinary people, the biggest difference is that soldiers have to obey orders. What is a command, that is, I want you to take your life to obey this command of mine. It's called a command. ”

Frightened, the girls bared their teeth one by one, frightened, and chattered and complained, "So that's what an order is! "If I had known this, I wouldn't have come, isn't this here to die!" "If you say this, if you don't let the Japanese kill you, you have to die under your own guns."

Li Dazhong frightened them and said, "Hmph! If you don't want to come, it's too late. Don't think that the Japanese are a good thing, they kill all the men, they catch the women, and rape them all. We are Chinese, and Chinese must have backbone, and we must die like a person. ”

Xiao Diao Chan said positive words at this time, and shouted to everyone: "Girls, don't look at us as cheap, but we also have our personality." It's okay to be voluntary, it's not okay to force it, we're just going to pick up guns and hit these little devils, aren't we, girls! ”

"That's right! We're going to fight devils too. "This time, we have to hold our heads up and be human beings." Her girls babbled.

"Good! That's a good point," Li Dazhong said to them, "this is the Chinese, this is the Chinese girls." ”

Xiao Diao Chan said to Li Dazhong again: "Yo! I said, Instructor Li, you've been training in this training queue for several days. I don't think it's useful, you just teach us how to fight. Don't train these useless people? ”

Li Dazhong criticized her and said: "I just said that students should report before speaking. You can only speak after approval, and you can't talk nonsense. ”

"Oh...... I forgot," Xiao Sable said with a grin, "Report—"

"Please." Li Dazhong approved her to say.

"I'm done talking, that's what I just said." Xiao Diao Chan giggled and said nonchalantly.