When Sangou ran back to Zhonghua Gate, he found that there was gunfire in the direction of Yuhuatai in the defense area of the 88th Division of the 72nd Army outside Zhonghua Gate, which turned out to be the 6th Division, the vanguard of the Japanese army, and began to attack.

Yuhuatai is the only high ground outside the Zhonghua Gate, in the past, Yuhuatai was a very desolate place on the outskirts of Nanjing, so it has been used as a place of execution for death row prisoners in Nanjing.

Although Yuhuatai is a mountain, it is actually just a small hill, which is not a terrain conducive to defense at all, and its highest point is only 100 meters, and the terrain is very flat and there is no steep terrain.

The whole area of Yuhuatai is not large, the circumference is only 3.5 kilometers, and it takes only 1 hour to walk around.

Yuhuatai must be defended, once Yuhuatai falls, the Japanese artillery on Yuhuatai, can cover the city of Nanjing, the tower on the Zhonghua Gate, is also attacked, Zhonghua Gate is captured by the Japanese army is only a matter of time.

……

Zhonghua Gate, one of the thirteen Ming Dynasty capital gates of Nanjing Ming City Wall, formerly known as Jubao Gate, is 118 meters wide from east to west and 128 meters long from north to south.

The main building of Zhonghua Gate is the first city gate is divided into upper, middle and lower three floors, 21.45 meters high, and the upper floor is built with the dysprosium tower of the heavy eaves tube tile roof of the palace type.

Zhonghua Gate has a total of three urn cities, penetrated by four coupon gates, presenting a "me" zigzag structure, each door has a jack gate and a double wooden door that can be started up and down. There are 13 Tibetan caves up and down the urn city, and 14 Tibetan caves under the left and right horse roads, which can accommodate 3,000 people.

There is a horse road with a width of 11.5 meters and a length of 86.1 meters on the east and west sides of the urn city, the horse road is steep and magnificent, it is a fast road to transport military supplies to the city during the war, and the generals can also ride their horses to the head of the city.

There is the internal and external Qinhuai River runoff across the east and west before and after the Zhonghua Gate, the south traffic is connected to the Changgan Bridge, and the north is connected to the Zhenhuai Bridge, which is the southern traffic throat of the old Nanjing old city.

Yuhuatai and Zhonghua Gate, Sangou in Nanjing Huangpu Military Academy, have been here, at that time is to make military maps, climb high and look far away, sigh thousands of miles of rivers and mountains so delicate.

But now, the three dogs and their seven companies are stationed in the Zhonghuamen position with the three battalions of the 306th Regiment, looking at the fierce battle in Yuhuatai not far away, they can't help but be worried, hoping that the 88th Division in Yuhuatai can hold out a little longer, so that the 51st Division has enough time to build a position.

……

In the middle of the night of December 9, the 26th year of the Republic of China (1937), the 305th Regiment of the 51st Division, under the leadership of Zhang Lingwu, approached the Zangjia Lane defensive area.

Collector's Lane is on the right side of Yuhuatai, which is the forward position in front of Zhonghua Gate, and the Yuhuatai position has begun to fight on the 8th, and Zangjia Lane must have been guarded by the enemy.

Zhang Lingwu immediately launched his troops, launched a night attack, and fought fiercely with the enemy who broke into Zangjia Lane, taking advantage of the enemy's attention to Zhonghua Gate, launched a fierce attack behind it, and took the defense line of Zangjia Lane in one fell swoop.

……

The 72nd Army only has jurisdiction over an 88th Division, which is an army expanded by the 88th Division in the Battle of Songhu, but there is just one more military headquarters, after the Battle of Shanghai, the 72nd Army suffered great losses, and there are only more than 7,000 people left in the whole army, half of whom are still recruits.

At present, the Gao Zhisong 264 Brigade of the 88th Division cooperates with two artillery companies to defend the main position of Yuhuatai, and another Zhu Chi 262 Brigade defends the flank position from Yuhuatai to Guanghuamen; Sun Yuanliang, commander of the 88th Division, led a supplementary brigade of 2,000 recruits in the Zhonghua Gate.

According to the "Army Operational History of the Chinese Incident" compiled by the Japanese official, the 114th Division and the 6th Division of the 10th Army attacked in the direction of Yuhuatai side by side.

On the 8th, the 6th Division of the Japanese Army Tani Shofu launched an attack on Yuhuatai, and the 88th Division was extremely tenacious in defense, and the Japanese army charged several times throughout the day, but there was no progress, and a large number of corpses were lost and forced to retreat.

Beginning on the 9th, the 6th Division of the Japanese Army increased its strength by a wing and attacked the Yuhuatai position with nearly 10,000 men. The Japanese army was more than twice as numerous as the defenders, besieging Yuhuatai from all sides, and once attacked the main position of the 264th Brigade of the defenders.

Brigadier Commander Zhu Chi led a group of death squads to launch a counter-charge, and the Japanese attacking troops were met head-on and were stopped for a while. At this time, Gao Zhisong, the commander of the 264th Brigade on the flank, saw that Zhu Chi's main position was in danger, and personally led two main battalions to flank the Japanese army.

The Japanese army did not expect the national army to dare to take the initiative to attack, and the flanks were suddenly disrupted and retreated in embarrassment.

In the two days of August and 9, the main position of Yuhuatai was barely held, and the Japanese army lost thousands of corpses, and the casualties of the 262nd Brigade were also quite heavy, and the casualties of the 264th Brigade were not light.

On the 10th, the Japanese army continued to increase its troops, and almost used most of the entire 6th Division, about 20,000 to besiege Yuhuatai on all sides.

By this time, the Japanese had reached the front line with heavy weapons, and they used heavy artillery and aircraft to bombard and shell repeatedly, and then the infantry charged in large groups.

During the battle, Japanese artillery shells turned over almost the entire Yuhuatai of several square kilometers. More than half of the trees in Yuhuatai, which was originally densely shaded, were blown up, and there was blown up floating soil everywhere.

The Japanese army bombarded 6-7 shells per second and a large number of aerial bombs and napalm, and the Japanese fired 360,000 shells in 9 days

The two armies fought fiercely for a whole day, and the positions on the small hill of Yuhuatai were basically blown up, and the floating soil blown up made the defending soldiers sink to their ankles.

The officers and men of the 88th Division did not retreat, and many positions were fought to the last man, but they still shot stubbornly, throwing grenades in the face of the charging Japanese troops.

After a strong attack on the 3rd, the Japanese army was not able to move forward, but suffered more than 2,000 casualties at Yuhuatai, and the corpses of Chinese and Japanese officers and soldiers were covered with Yuhuatai.

On the 11th, the Japanese army increased its forces again, and a large number of heavy artillery, and at the same time organized a group of tanks to launch a group charge. Due to the low terrain of Yuhuatai, the Japanese tanks were able to rush to the bottom of the hill until they were blocked by the anti-tank trenches.

The 88th Division had no anti-tank guns and could only rely on cluster grenades to blow up Japanese tanks at close range. This is not easy to say under the cover of the Japanese infantry of no less than thousands.

The defenders of the Nationalist army were forced to push up the downed trees, large rocks, and even the corpses of the martyrs to block the Japanese tanks.

Wounded Nationalist soldiers also continued to fight, and one of the young soldiers, whose legs were broken, strapped a grenade to his body, climbed on it and blew up a Japanese tank.

The 262nd Brigade has not retreated, in fact, they are not ready to leave Yuhuatai alive.

After 3 days of fierce fighting, due to the fierce Japanese artillery fire, Yuhuatai is a small hill and there is no danger to defend. The defenders of the 88th Division suffered heavy casualties, and the 262nd Brigade had more than 3,000 people, and only about 1,000 people remained.

Gao Zhisong's 264th Brigade on the flank also rushed to reinforce and abandoned part of the flank positions, which barely held the position.

In the fierce fighting until the afternoon of the 11th, the front-line officers and men of the two brigades were completely lost, and finally even the engineer battalion was thrown into battle with guns.

……

According to the "History of Army Operations in the China Incident" compiled by the Japanese government, it is recorded: "On the side of the 10th Army, the 114th Division and the 6th Division attacked in the direction of Yuhuatai side by side. ”

The 6th Division attacking the left flank of Yuhuatai, the 23rd Wing mainly attacked the Andemen position, the 1st Brigade of the 13th Wing covered the right side of the 23rd Wing, and the main force of the Wing and the 45th Wing attacked the central area of Yuhuatai together with the 114th Brigade of the 127th Division.

During the attack on Andemen, the Japanese army was stubbornly counterattacked by the Chinese army, and the "Battle Notes of the 23rd Infantry Wing of the Capital" wrote:

"The enemy forces were holding fortified positions surrounded by barbed wire and machine-gun bunkers, and put up considerable resistance with field artillery, mortars, and a considerable number of automatic firearms."

In the fierce battle, the 1st Brigade Captain Komazawa Nakasa and the Acting Group Captain Kaneda of the 23rd Wing of the Japanese Army were wounded one after another.