Zhang Xiaohu clearly remembers that that night, Sun Yumin's words were full of big truths, unlike today, when he didn't say a big truth, they were all real words, but these real words were far better than those impassioned slogans.

He felt in his heart that the boss in front of him was no longer the young battalion commander in Nanjing City four years ago, but a brave and resourceful general who could dominate the storm. I haven't been by his side for two years, and now I can't fall into the back of people, so I immediately walked out, took the empty bowl in Sun Yumin's hand, and then stood next to him, although there were not many actions and words, but anyone could see that Zhang Xiaohu was showing that he was supporting the military seat.

After Zhang Xiaohu came forward, Deng Dongping and Dong Wenbin, and then Wang Heng and Shi Zhonghua.

In the gloomy sky, in the biting cold wind, on the simple platform, and under the gaze of thousands of soldiers, the figures of Sun Yumin and the division and brigade commanders standing in a row looked extraordinarily tall.

…………

December 24, 1941.

The north wind, which had been blowing for nearly half a month, finally blew the rain and snow out, and in the morning it was still a light rain, and at noon it turned into a hail-like snowhead. The bad weather made the soldiers of the 134th Division and the 133rd Division of the 20th Army of Yang Hancheng's 27th Group Army of the Sichuan Army Yang Sen, who were stationed on the south bank of the Xinqiang River, complain bitterly.

The position is not too far from the Xinqiang River, the humidity is relatively heavy, and as we all know, the Sichuan army's own weapons and supplies are relatively poor in the national army, although it is a cold winter, but there are few people who can wear thick cotton uniforms, these days the cold wind has made the soldiers on the position suffer, if it is not for the commanders to turn a blind eye and allow them to light a fire in the trenches, it is estimated that the soldiers have already frozen, let alone fighting, it is estimated that they will not even be able to run away.

The fire is the lifeblood of the 133rd and 134th Divisions of the Sichuan Army on the south bank of the Xinqiang River to hold their positions, but when it rains, where can the fire burn, and there is no fire, so how can the thinly clothed soldiers hold on to the position.

The recruits wrapped all the quilts they slept on, but what was the use of it, although the rain was light, but after a little time, the quilt was drenched, and the quilt was wet, and it was more uncomfortable to wear it than not to wear it. The veterans were much smarter, probably having experienced such situations a lot, and knew how to deal with them, so they worked together in three or five of them to dig a hole in the trench that could accommodate them, and then built a fire in the hole, and it was a paradise in a small space compared to the outside. This local method is good, but the drawbacks are also obvious, the recruits also follow the same example, the entire trench is not dug in the same way, but the officers still did not stop it, they also know that if they are not allowed to do this, I am afraid that before the devil attacks, the soldiers will have frozen, let alone the word defense.

In the afternoon, the snowflakes finally fell from the sky, one by one, like countless goose feathers. As soon as the snow fell, the light rain that had been carrying the snow stopped, and the gloomy sky was brightened up by the white snowflakes.

A veteran of the Sichuan army came out of the hole where he was hiding, and took the 79 rifle that was hanging on his shoulder in his hand, and the person stretched his waist in the trench, moving his hands and feet, although the clothes on his body were thin, but just came out, his body was hot, and the cold wind blew on his body and it was quite comfortable.

At the same time, he looked down, in the long trench, except for him, there was not half a figure in sight, everyone was nested in the warm soil hole, unwilling to come out to suffer this damn freezing.

"I'm so fucking afraid of the cold, I'm all hiding!" The veteran laughed at himself, why is he not one of them, since he went out of Sichuan two years ago, he followed the army and the devil fought a lot of battles, first between Lu, Henan, Anhui and Suzhou, and then came to Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan, and he has experienced a lot, originally thought that Hunan, which belongs to the south, would be better than the places he had been to before, but he didn't expect that the winter here is colder than those places, and it really responds to the sentence that describes Hunan: the thief is cold in winter, and the thief is hot in summer.

Another cold wind blew, and the old soldier struck, he tightened his collar, hung the seventy-nine rifle on his shoulder again, and trotted to the earth hole where he was hiding.

On the other side of the river, there are dense devils, and there are even some devils wading on foot. The Xinqiang River is not a river, not even a big stream, the water is not deep, and the river is even shallower in the dry season in winter, and from the devil who waded in the water, the water in the middle of the river was not up to his knees.

The veteran didn't have the heart to care whether the devil who was wading in the water on foot was cold or not, and the 79 rifle hanging on his shoulder was skillfully taken into his hand, and he pulled the bolt to load it, and without any aiming, he directly pulled the trigger.

In the cold north wind and the snowflakes flying in the sky, the belated sound of the Hanyang 79 rifle broke the silence around the Xinqiang River and fired the first shot of the Third Battle of Changsha.

Sun Yumin sat in the headquarters, staring at the military map on the table in a daze, to be exact, he was staring at a river marked on the map, and there were three words written on the side of the river: Xinqiang River.

Today is December 24th, and if I remember correctly, the devils will attack today, and the New Wall River will soon be at the forefront of the war. He sat quietly in the command headquarters, just waiting for the report on the battle situation in the Ninth War Zone, Xue Yue is a tiger general, as long as a gun is fired on the front line, he will definitely inform all the troops in the Ninth War Zone, and he can also know from this whether the war will develop as he knows and presets.

Deng Dongping and the staff officers were very careful and quiet, although they didn't know what the military seat was thinking about sitting here, they all knew that they couldn't bother. The entire headquarters was particularly quiet because of Sun Yumin's silence, and this silence lasted until Tang Chunhong walked in.

"Military Seat, Message ...... of the Theater Commander's Department"

"Hurry up!"

Before Tang Chunhong could finish speaking, he was interrupted by Sun Yumin.

He had been waiting for this telegram for a long time, and it would not be an exaggeration to describe it as a desire to pierce it, so he sat quietly in the headquarters, although he was staring at the map, but his eyes kept lingering on the threshold between the headquarters and the telecommunications room.

"All units in the theater have learned that the Japanese army has suddenly launched an attack on our army's position on the south bank of the Xinqiang River at 14 o'clock this afternoon, and the 133rd and 134th divisions of the Sichuan Army have already risen up to counterattack, and it is hoped that all units will be ready to participate in the battle at any time. Xue Yue, commander of the Ninth Theater of Operations. ”

"Fighting? It's time to fight! ”

After hearing the news, Sun Yumin didn't have any expression on his face, nor did he make any movements, as if he was listening to something that had nothing to do with him, but Deng Dongping shouted excitedly, he first asked in disbelief, and then answered in surprise, and completed the answer alone.

A few days ago, Sun Yumin told Deng Dongping that the Japanese army would launch an attack on Changsha in the near future, and asked him to inform all units to step up preparations before the operation, and asked him to work with Zhao Lei to strengthen the screening and monitoring of staff officers, saying that this was a lesson bought with blood in the Shanggao Campaign.

He didn't quite believe that the devil would choose to attack in the cold winter, but because he had been by Sun Yumin's side for a long time, he had formed the habit of listening to his orders, and he had also experienced and seen a lot of his hypothetical come true, so he didn't ask out loud. Now, as Sun Yumin expected, the devil really launched an offensive, which made Deng Dongping calm, and added some more admiration for the young army commander in front of him, and he was also glad that he did not choose to return to the 87th Division back then, and after fighting with the devil for several years, Sun Yumin was promoted from a small major battalion commander to a lieutenant general, and Shen Fazao, the commander of the 87th Division, had already been reduced to the director of the third branch of the Central Military Academy without military power, although he was the same lieutenant general as Sun Yumin, But between these two lieutenant generals, the gap is not half a star.

"Sister Hong, inform Huzi that the 20th Division is ready to leave at any time."

Tang Chunhong hadn't left yet, she was waiting for Sun Yumin's reply message, she had been a telecommunications director for several years, she knew that once the war started, she would not be idle, at this time, the military seat must have a lot of orders and replies to be issued and processed. It stands to reason that a telegraph operator can accomplish these things, but since she was in the old 20th Division, she has developed the habit of personally doing all the orders and telegrams during the war, and she is not worried about handing over these important things to the young people below.

"Yes, Throne." Tang Chunhong quickly recorded it in the small notebook, and after she finished writing, she habitually asked, "What else do you command?" ”

Sun Yumin pondered for a moment, shook his head and said, "Not for the time being." But when Tang Chunhong was about to turn back to the telecommunications room, he said again: "Sister Hong, reply to the Ninth Theater Commander's Department, just say that the Twelfth Army has made all preparations and is waiting for the battle order at any time!" ”

This sentence is actually redundant, because the dominance and command of the war have long been taken away by Lao Jiang, and Xue Yue can in fact only be regarded as a sound barrel, and all of this is actually thanks to his Sun Yumin. The reason why he asked Tang Chunhong to reply to the Ninth War Zone Commander's Department was very simple, that is, he didn't want to embarrass Xue Yue too much, so he could be regarded as giving him a lot of face.

The life-saving shot of this veteran of the Sichuan Army on the position of the National Army on the south bank of the Xinqiang River alarmed the soldiers of the Sichuan Army who were in the soil cave in the entire position, first of all, the officers, who shouted at the top of their voices: "The devil is coming, hurry up and get to the position." ”

But where can there be such a fast movement, when the veteran of the first gun fired four bullets, the heavy machine gun has not yet been set up on the position, the reason is that the trench dug is too deep, although the Makqin is not too heavy, but it is also an iron lump, and the slippery trenches and benches prevent the shooter and the secondary shooter from putting the heavy machine gun on the position.

In fact, logically speaking, a bulky weapon like Makqin should not be removed from the position, but the Sichuan army is too poor, and there is only one company in total, take the 2nd Battalion of the 398th Regiment of the 133rd Division of the Sichuan Army defending this position, the three companies of the whole battalion plus the machine gun platoon of the battalion headquarters have a total of only five heavy machine guns. Although the Sichuan army is poor, but the combat effectiveness is very tenacious, many times and the devil head-on, they summed up a lot of experience and strategy, just like the trench they defended in front of them, compared to the general trench is more than one meter deep, but also one meter wider, and the two walls of the trench are built extremely smooth, but the inside of this trench, because of the cold weather, has been dug out of a lot of soil holes. With such an "improved" trench, not to mention the short Oriental Japanese pirates, even the soldiers of the Sichuan army, if they did not have the wooden bench they carried with them, it is estimated that no one would be able to lie on the trench. It is precisely because of this that several heavy machine guns did not go up to the position for the first time, and Wang Chaokui, the commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 398th Regiment of the 133rd Division of the Sichuan Army, who was defending the position, was so anxious that he scolded his mother.

Fortunately, most of the Sichuan soldiers had already gone up to the position, and the light machine guns of each company began to play cheerfully.

"Yingza, why did these devils start attacking without saying hello?"

It was a veteran of the Sichuan Army next to Wang Chaokui who spoke, and he had dealt with devils a lot, so he was naturally familiar with the tactics of devils.

Usually before the devil launches an attack, he will open the way with artillery fire, and then the infantry will charge, and the larger battle will even have heavy artillery and aircraft bombardment, and it will never be like in front of him, the devil actually began to cross the river in vain, no wonder this veteran of the Sichuan army all asked such a question.

"You ask me, who do I ask? Ge Lao Tzu. Wang Chaokui said scoldingly. Since he was sent by the regiment commander to defend on the front line, his temper has not been better, although the regiment commander promised him that as long as he feels that he can't stand it, he can retreat at any time, but, as a bloody soldier, will he say these three words? Or rather, how does he know when and when he can't stand it?

The attack from the north bank of the Xinqiang River opposite the second battalion was the 13th Wing of the 6th Division of the Japanese Army, and when crossing the river in barehead, it actually sent a few sharp soldiers to cross the river to reconnoitre, although it was found that there was a trench position, but no one was found, and the careless and arrogant devil soldiers did not really go to the edge of the trench, and naturally they did not find all the Chinese soldiers who were roasting fires in different soil holes to keep warm. In fact, it is also to blame the Sichuan army for being "too unbelievable", and in the forefront of the position, there is not even a single guard sentry, which makes the Japanese army mistakenly think that this is a position abandoned by the Chinese army, so there is no loss of shells for shelling. It was not until the position on the other side of the river, which was mistaken for the Chinese army, that a platoon of guns and Czech-style gunfire rang out, that they knew that the opposite position had not been abandoned, and that the elusive Chinese army had come out of nowhere, and that it seemed that it was still a formed army of considerable size.

Fortunately, the firepower of the Chinese army did not seem to be strong, and although the devil officer who commanded the attack was taken aback, he quickly calmed down and directed the grenadiers and mortars to begin artillery fire to suppress the machine guns of the Chinese defenders.

The ghost soldiers who were wading through the Xinqiang River were already shivering from the cold, such a cold weather, let alone going down into the water, they couldn't even stand standing on the shore and blowing the wind, but the damn officers still gave such an order, which made almost everyone in the soldiers curse. Seeing that they were about to reach the opposite shore, the first few devil soldiers had even aimed at a wrecked boat not far from the shore, and the planks on the boat were good things for making a fire.