After all, the strength of the Japanese army was limited.

Because the Japanese army in North China happened to encounter the defeat of Zhengding, the Japanese army base camp was also afraid that there would be further variables in the North China battlefield, so it had no choice but to suspend the "grand plan" to reinforce Songhu, and the 10th and 11th armies, which were already ready to go, had no choice but to continue to rest and recuperate, wanting to wait until the battle of Shijiazhuang was clear, and then talk about other problems.

In the unlikely event that the Japanese army in North China were defeated again, these mobile forces would be able to save the day.

Kenji Dohihara is a master of intelligence, and he is a bit of a layman for a large-scale confrontation between the two armies.

Fortunately, the layman has a layman's way of playing, that is, step by step, advancing layer by layer, so that the enemy does not have any possibility of exploiting loopholes, and he wants to force the Chinese army to have a decisive battle with him, if he does not want a decisive battle, he has to give up Shijiazhuang.

As long as Shijiazhuang succeeds, this game of chess in North China will be considered alive.

On October 24, under the cover of nearly 100 fighters and two heavy artillery brigades, the Japanese 14th Division launched a full-scale attack.

On the same day, the Japanese army broke through the Dasha River, and only advanced 15 kilometers a day, which happened to be the best distance for the Japanese heavy artillery group to attack, and any unit that wanted to be the enemy would be hit by hundreds of heavy artillery, and the only western Sichuan troops that could compete with it had not yet grown up, and as for the other Chinese troops, it was difficult to stop its sharpness.

Tufeiyuan placed the 27th Brigade to the west of the Pinghan Line and the 28th Brigade to the east of the Pinghan Line, and the four infantry wings lined up, just sandwiching the Pinghan Railway in the middle, while the troops directly under the division were advancing one by one while repairing the bridges and railways.

The Chinese defenders were calm and calm, and engaged the enemy according to the plan.

At this time, the troops stationed in Xinle County were Deng Xihou's descendants, that is, the 375th Brigade of the Sichuan Army, the brigade commander Lin Yiru, the 749th Regiment of Qu Liancheng, and the 750th Regiment of Zhang Yuanya, under the personal leadership of Wang Shijun, the deputy commander of the 125th Division, adhered to the Xinle City Wall and its various strategic points.

In just a few days, Xinle County has changed hands twice, and the entire urban area has long been turned into ruins and ghost domains, so the intention of Deng Xihou, Wu Peifu and others is obvious, that is, to try their best to delay the advance of the Japanese army, try their best to consume the Japanese army's war materials and their vital forces, and when the time is ripe, then carry out a counterattack on the whole front.

Even if the 14th Division of the Japanese Army cannot be completely annihilated in this battle, it is necessary to let them suffer heavy losses once, so that they will have to go around when they see the Sichuan Army in the future.

Originally, according to Liu Yun's idea, he was going to let the bomber brigade hoarded in Zhengzhou immediately go out to bomb the tactics of the Japanese army step by step, but as soon as he said his thoughts, Deng Xihou and Wu Peifu "followed the temptation" and hollowed out all the relevant information one by one.

In particular, when these two people learned that someone had more than 100 bombers, they even celebrated each other, thinking that this Shijiazhuang battle was really sure to annihilate the 14th Division of the Japanese Army.

Mr. Wu's tactic is very simple, it is "luring the enemy deeper".

It was not a simple lure of the enemy to go deeper, but an incomplete version of General Xue Yue's "Heavenly Furnace Tactics", which allowed the Chinese army to resist step by step, such as clearing the wall and fortifying the field, such as field close combat, such as a rapid attack by an artillery group, such as hitting and running, and not running to the east of the Pinghan Line, but to the Taihang Mountains in the west, so that the 27th Brigade of the Japanese army had to fortify along the road and disperse the troops one by one.

As a result, the only one who could really reach Zhengding was the 28th Brigade of the Japanese Army.

Moreover, when most of the Japanese army arrived in Zhengding County, the heavy artillery unit in Shijiazhuang set up an artillery position across the Hutuo River, and the Huangjiayu Airport could also provide air cover, so the Japanese army had no choice but to form a tug-of-war with our army in Zhengding County, fighting for every inch of land one by one.

As long as the Tufeiyuan Division, once the soldiers are tired or the reinforcements are delayed, then the 22nd Group Army will launch a counteroffensive on the whole line, and the Zhengzhou bomber group at this time is just used to bomb the heavy artillery positions of the Japanese army, as well as various strategic points in the northern section of the Zhengtai Line.

Then, the total annihilation of a division of the Japanese army is not out of reach, and even after this war, the entire North China battlefield will be changed.

Although Liu Yicheng is a layman, he also sees the price of luring the enemy deep this time.

In addition to Wang Mingzhang's 122nd Division and Lin Yiru's 375th Brigade, two or three divisions will be disabled, and it can even be predicted that the outcome of this battle will be completely annihilated, even if the Tufeiyuan Division can be completely annihilated, the entire 22nd Group Army will be severely damaged, and even have to return to Sichuan to recuperate.

Is it really worth it to play with such a lose-lose style?

Deng Xihou replied on behalf of the entire Sichuan army, "For the sake of the victory of the anti-Japanese resistance, it is worth it."

However, Wu Peifu, an old warlord, didn't care about the casualties at all, but stared at the battle map and asked a very fatal question, "You say, with the urine of Tufeiyuan, will you send an elite westward from the front line of Cangzhou and Dezhou to attack Shijiazhuang with him?" ”

Transferring troops from Dezhou and Cangzhou is a fatal thing, because these two places are more than 100 kilometers away from Shijiazhuang, and they happen to be on the North China Plain.

However, for the western Sichuan army, it is not difficult to deal with this kind of hasty long-range attack, with only two tank battalions, there are nearly 100 tanks, and six mechanized infantry battalions, and six tank platoons, each platoon of 12 tanks, they are also very considerable.

Therefore, in the Shijiazhuang area, the Western Sichuan Independent Brigade has nearly 200 tanks, and if a number of armored vehicles are added, it is enough to form a torrent of steel.

Moreover, the endless plain area is one of the favorite terrains of the tank troops, and if the Japanese reinforcements really dare to come from Cangzhou and Dezhou, Brigade Commander Guo Qixun, who has become an expert in armored tactics, will definitely let the Japanese army know what tanks are and what armored troops are.

On October 25, the main force of the Japanese army crossed the Dasha River, and the forward troops of the Tufeiyuan Division reached the outside of Xinle County.

Lin Yiru, Wang Shijun and others had to withdraw their troops from Xinle County overnight, quickly retreat to Pingshan County in the west, and converge with the main force of the 125th Division.

Tu Feiyuan was so shrewd, and he quickly saw through the tricks of the Sichuan army.

In order to reach Shijiazhuang as soon as possible, he simply handed over the task of fighting for the city wall of Xinle County and the task of preventing the enemy from coming down from Taihang Mountain to the 27th Brigade and Regiment with full authority.

Tu Feiyuan himself, with the division headquarters, the 28th Brigade, and two heavy artillery brigades, continued to move south, still in the old way of fighting - "steady and steady, step by step", every 15-20 kilometers, he stopped to repair trenches and fortifications, forcing the enemy to fight a positional battle with him.

I have to say that Tu Feiyuan, a layman, is really sharp and vicious enough, and his tactics are too time-consuming and too shell-consuming, and he can't find any faults.

Even Deng Xihou and Wu Peifu and others were a little unconfident that the 122nd Division could hold Zhengding County, so the three heavy artillery battalions in western Sichuan were their only hope.

It's just that in this way, a good war of annihilation will become a battle of defeat.

On October 27, the 14th Division of the Japanese Army, which had been in the camp step by step, finally arrived at the outskirts of Zhengding County, and the heavy artillery of both sides had been in place one by one, waiting for an order to be issued and 10,000 artillery pieces fired at once.

Unexpectedly, there was bad news that night.

However, for the 122nd Division, it was great news, many munitions warehouses of the Japanese army in North China were blown up by the guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army, and at the same time, under the command of the special agents of the military command, resistance organizations such as the Blue Coat Society and the Loyal National Salvation Army also sent people to blow up many railway lines and bridges.

The 14th Division of the Japanese Army became a lone army.

Kenji Dohihara was still a little unbelieving, and he wanted to invite the Sixth Division of the Japanese Army, along with the railway engineering repair team, to repair various traffic points overnight, and he swore not to take Shijiazhuang.

However, the development of events seems to have become even more evil, and the secret submarine formation of Huaxia actually appeared in the Bohai Bay, and at midnight on the 26th, it also attacked the Japanese convoy, and one troop transport ship and three munitions ships were sunk, including heavy artillery shells, which were most scarce by the Japanese army at present.

The Japanese navy was extremely powerful, and as soon as a destroyer fleet was dispatched, these sea lines would be restored immediately, but it would take time.

When exactly will it be restored? The navy itself doesn't know, but Bohai Bay is not big or small, and if it wants to ensure the absolute safety of the transport fleet, it needs to be searched and investigated one by one, and it will take a day or two, but for the Tufeiyuan Division, it is a bit cruel.

Could it be that without heavy artillery shells, the Imperial Japanese Army would not have fought a war?

Kenji Dohihara doesn't believe in this evil.

He planned to fight a "World War I-style" trench battle with the 22nd Group Army in Shijiazhuang to see who could have the last laugh, but the heavy artillery shells needed to be spared, and I am afraid that it would not be possible to play with several hours of artillery bombardment.

In the early morning of October 28, the Japanese army officially launched an attack.

After 15 minutes of heavy shelling, more than 1,000 Japanese troops divided into three routes and launched an attack at the east, north, and west gates of Zhengding County.

In fact, this is not the case, this time the Japanese army is much more timid.

They began to build trenches and fortifications from afar, and the whole process of the attack was much more obscene, one by one, hunched over, leaving the figure-eight steps, looking around with a look of thieves, as soon as they heard any noise, they immediately crawled to the ground, and there was no trace of the majesty of the Imperial Japanese Army.

Do you want to let these Japanese troops drive all the way in?

Wang Mingzhang, commander of the 122nd Division, did not do anything, and immediately summoned the sharpshooters and sharpshooters of the whole division, set up a sniper team and a cold artillery team, scattered in all corners of the city wall, and specialized in shooting and killing the Japanese civil engineering personnel.

Just a few hours later, before 12 noon, the Japanese casualties reached more than 300, and more than 1,000 Japanese troops had to retreat without even touching the city walls.

Tu Feiyuan sneered, because the firepower point in Zhengding County had been tested by him, and this guy immediately ordered the heavy artillery troops to return fire, according to the firepower points exposed before, one by one, anyway, the infantry is not valuable, and then sent the infantry again to continue to test the firepower point.

After several rounds of repeated testing, both the enemy and the enemy suffered heavy losses.

However, to the frustration of Tu Feiyuan, on the surface, the results did not seem to be ideal, the density of the defenders' firepower did not seem to have decreased much, and it was getting late, so the Japanese army had to temporarily rest and retreat three kilometers away like a tide.

This distance is exactly the effective firing range of the Type 72 infantry gun, and the Japanese army's ability to learn and improve is indeed something to be proud of.

At the same time, the Japanese army also placed a small number of infantry guards in the forward trenches dug up, in order to prevent the defenders of Zhengding from going out of the city at night to compete with them for forward positions.

And Master Wang Mingzhang really thinks so.

That night, the Zhengding defenders sent seven or eight companies to search and advance along the forward trenches dug by the Japanese army.

Unexpectedly, the Japanese army also had preparations, resulting in the soldiers who groped for a while, repeatedly blocked by machine guns, and suffered heavy casualties for a while.

In the end, the Japanese army was also set on fire, and they also came to paint a scoop with a gourd, and also ordered their artillery units to retaliate, resulting in great losses on both sides of the enemy, and hundreds of people were lost before dawn.

Both warring sides may be addicted to fighting.

From the initial infantry confrontation, it was upgraded to artillery firing on both sides, and finally even the heavy artillery units were added, especially the 122 mm heavy artillery in western Sichuan, but the cutting-edge cannon, not only had a long range, but also a relatively fast rate of fire, which blew up the Japanese artillery.

However, the Japanese army won because there were more people and more artillery, and in the end it ended in a draw.

When the sky was about to dawn, Huang Jiayu's fighters took off, just in time for the arrival of the Japanese planes, and raided the Japanese heavy artillery positions, especially the newly baked rockets, causing the Japanese to lose more than 20 heavy guns, including several Type 38 150mm howitzers.