Chapter 127: Yasumi Kurashige is blown up
On August 5, it was another rare sunny day, and this time 32 Allied B-25 planes were invited. Now that the Chinese army has found a way to break through the city walls, it is necessary to fight quickly.
32 planes bombed the ancient city wall of Tengchong in 8 batches, and 13 gaps appeared. A part of the 106th Regiment and the 107th Regiment of the 36th Division rushed into the city through the gap and arrived near the streets and alleys near the Dongyue Temple and the Yamen of the Superintendent's Office; The 348th Regiment of the 116th Division also broke through the gap and attacked the city wall from the Lingguan Temple outside the city, while the 346th Regiment attacked the assistant yamen.
However, the Japanese army was also very stubborn, and all units of the expeditionary force that rushed into the city were blocked by the enemy's dense firepower, and suffered heavy casualties, and several battalion commanders who rushed to the front line had already died.
The Japanese set up bunkers everywhere, and black muzzles of guns stretched out from one after another, coldly shooting at the Chinese soldiers.
On 6 August, 32 Allied planes continued to bomb and destroy the South Gate Tower.
The 107th and 106th regiments of the 36th Division ascended the city through the gap and occupied the city walls and fortresses respectively.
The sky is not beautiful, and the heavy rain will fall. It is no longer realistic to wait until a sunny day to rely on airplanes to drop **, and the current gap is too small, and there is no way for large troops to pass through in time, and if all of them are blocked in the gap, it will only increase the casualties of the troops. Li Zhipeng, the commander of the 36th Division, decided to have sappers blast to further expand the gap in the city wall.
The Japanese had been hiding within the city walls, and the criminal gun holes were aimed at the siege troops of the expeditionary force, and the dense fire network swept towards the troops of Division Commander Li. Under the cover of the machine gunners, the sappers braved the crossfire from the front and the side, bravely rushed to the foot of the city wall, and dug the explosion crater with difficulty under the Japanese fire net. Bursts of machine guns swept through the devil's bunker, and groups of Chinese soldiers fell under the walls. The Japanese launched 9 consecutive counterattacks against the 36th Division, and the troops suffered heavy casualties. Division Commander Li saw that he could not widen the gap again, and it seemed that the infantry had no choice but to put his cavalry company into battle.
The battle encircled the walls. Taking advantage of the gap opened, each division successively had troops grab the city wall. At this time, on the city wall, the two sides started a battle for a showdown; Under the city wall, our attacking troops built ladders and blew up gaps, and they also repeatedly pounced at the foot of the strong city wall. In this small walled position, the sound of gunfire and shouting of killing continued in the city and under the city, the two sides were glued together, and the battle was white-hot, but the results of the battle were difficult to push away.
From August 2nd to August 9th, the siege never stopped, and then almost stopped in place, basically no progress, in the face of the progress of the battle sent by the divisions, Commander Huo was full of displeasure, and the battle situation analysis meeting held in the Heshun Township Library was even more dull.
At this time, good news finally came from Peng Gang's pre-2 regiment. Members of his task force managed to blow up an ammunition depot in Tengchong. At the same time, from the gap in the southeast corner of Tengchong, the inside and outside should be closed, and the gap there was torn open by nearly ten meters.
"Good!" With a wave of his hand, Commander Huo made a decisive decision: to advance the attack on all fronts with a key breakthrough.
Soon, a new attack plan was formulated: the focus of the breakthrough was to the southeast corner of the city, and with superior forces, relying on Laifeng Mountain, first breaking through the southeast of the city, and then advancing from the southeast to the north.
Commander Huo readjusted the battle deployment, transferred out the 2nd Pre-Regiment on Fengshan, and ordered Peng Gang to attack the city from the gap in the east of the city, except for leaving a part of his troops to defend the Fengshan Heights. In order to strengthen the attack force of the 2nd Advance Regiment, the mountain artillery battalion and heavy mortar battalion of the group army were allocated to Peng Gang, and at the same time the engineer company was allocated with flat fire guns and *****. At this time, the strength of the 2nd Pre-regiment has been greatly enhanced, and as an assaulter, it should not be able to live up to the heavy responsibility this time.
In order to divert the strength of the Japanese army, the siege of the southwest and northeast corners was intensified. At the same time, in order to cooperate with the 2nd Advance Regiment, Commander Huo also asked the 36th Division, 198th Division, 116th Division and 130th Division to attack from other directions at the same time.
On August 15, the 20th Army launched a second general offensive against Tengchong.
At this time, the Qiluo Airport outside the city was repaired and put into use under the hard work of the people of Tengchong for several months. In this way, the Allied planes could take off nearby and cheer for the officers and men of the 20th Army again.
The style of play is basically the same, the planes come over, the artillery bombards, and the infantry attacks.
The main force of the siege remained the infantry. Under the cover of powerful artillery fire, the siege troops took the ladder to forcibly ascend the city, the head of the city more than two zhang high, once close to it, each bullet hole of the three layers of shooting holes on the wall was directly facing the soldiers who climbed the city, although the shelling was very lively, but here the same cost the lives of many Chinese soldiers.
In the sound of the military trumpet, the pre-2 regiment swooped down from Laifeng Mountain like a whirlwind, like a tiger descending the mountain, the momentum covered the people, and after a hard fight, the pre-2 regiment captured the gap in the southeast of the city in one breath and rushed into Tengchong City.
The 108th Regiment of the 36th Division also captured the gap to the right of the British Consulate in the southwest corner of the city after a bloody battle.
Although it only captured a few gaps in the city walls, it meant that the southwest and southeast corners of the city had been breached, and the impregnable Tengchong City was gone.
On August 13, when the heavy rain stopped and the sky was bright, 24 Allied planes were dispatched in time to hover over Tengchong City.
In the roar of the plane, Kurashige Yasumi and his Tengyue garrison only cowered in the dark bunker, this day more than a dozen heavy ** exploded near the city gate tower, after a series of deafening loud noises, the pungent black smoke and thick gray pillars rose in the dazzling firelight, covering half of the sky. These dozen **, impartial, happened to blow up the important shelter of the Tengyue garrison, and 32 Japanese officers including the captain of the Tengyue garrison, Yasumi Kurashige, who gathered in the shelter, were all killed, and none survived.
That's great news!
It's just a pity that Commander Huo and his 20th Army didn't get this exciting news in time, and until the end, they all thought that it was Yasumi Kurashige who was commanding the Tengyue garrison.
The Japanese immediately sealed off the news of Kushige's death, and even the Tengyue garrison did not know that their commander had been killed. In order to stabilize the morale of the army, Major General Sakaguchi, commander of the 56th Division of the Japanese Army, ordered Captain Ota Masato to command the Tengchong battle on his behalf.
Ota Masato, a small officer who had just retreated from Fengshan to Tengchong City, could not imagine that he would suddenly be trusted and reused by his superiors, he did not hide the sorrow of Yasumi after his death, on the contrary, he felt that he was in danger and was enough to show off his life.
The arrogance and ferocity of a typical Japanese young Zhuang soldier made him immediately raise his sword and continue to command his subordinates to fight, and the war machine of the Tengyue garrison still did not stop.