Although the Japanese attack was very fierce, after all, they had already run out of ammunition and food, and they had reached the end of their crossbows.

In addition, the soldiers of the defenders are also determined to leave them behind, and they will not retreat.

So, no matter how fierce the attack was, the soldiers still resisted it stubbornly!

The two sides came and went, and in this way, on the small battlefield of Wanjialing, they fought fiercely for three days all night, and finally ended in the defeat of the Japanese army!

October 10th

Due to isolation and lack of supplies, the Japanese 106th Division, in addition to some troops left behind in Jiujiang, was surrounded by more than 13,000 people in Wanjialing, as well as the 101st Division and the 27th Division that came to the rescue, a total of three divisions were heavily surrounded.

Although the three divisions broke through in the end, they all suffered major injuries of varying degrees, especially the 106th Division, which suffered the heaviest casualties, and when they finally broke through, there were only less than 1,500 people left in the end, which can be described as heavy casualties!

In addition, the four brigades of Aoki, Ikeda, Kijima, and Tsuda, which were invested in the Battle of Wuhan, were surrounded by regiments and finally annihilated in the Battle of Wanjialing.

The Battle of Wanjialing ended with the victory of the defenders! At this time, the great victory is also called the 'Wanjialing victory'!

As soon as the news came out, the whole country was excited and jubilant, countless newspapers and media published articles, and countless citizens took to the streets to celebrate this victory!

In this great victory, in addition to the 32nd Army holding the front to block the retreat of the Japanese 106th Division, the 51st Division, the main force of the 74th Army, the main force of the First Corps of a division, was dispatched to attack the Japanese flank at Changling, Beixi Street, Zhanggushan, Lion Rock and other places, and this later became the main offensive position of the Japanese 106th Division, in order to block the offensive pace of the Japanese 106th Division, the 51st Division, under the command of the division commander Wang Yaowu, took the 153 Brigade under its jurisdiction as the main attack, and the 151 Brigade as the reserve, and attacked Zhang Gushan with the main force. and occupy the main position of Zhanggushan. That night, the Japanese counterattacked and fought fiercely.

By the morning of the 8th, that is, the day after the general attack, under the bombardment of more than 20 Japanese aircraft, the Japanese 106th Division broke through to the death, and although the defending 153 Brigade tried its best to fight to the death, it finally suffered heavy losses due to the frantic attack of the Japanese army, and had to retreat as a last resort.

That night, in order to regain the position, Wang Yaowu selected more than 400 daredevils from the 51st Division, and under the leadership of Zhang Lingfu, deputy commander of the 153rd Brigade, attacked from 8 o'clock in the evening of the same day, occupied the main position of Zhanggushan again, and cooperated with the reinforcements to attack Beege Street, and completely annihilated the Japanese army on Beege Street on the morning of the 10th.

It is worth mentioning that in the Battle of Wanjialing, due to the heavy losses of the Japanese 106th Division in the previous attack, although the division commander Junrokuro Matsuura sent a farewell message to Okamura Ninji, the commander of the Central China Dispatch Army, Shunroku Hata was unwilling to give up the 106th Division just like that.

In order to rescue the 106th Division, Shunroku Hata personally organized more than 200 officers below the rank of wing commander to be airdropped to the battlefield by plane, in order to strengthen the command force of the 106th Division.

This approach of Shunroku Hata is unique in the entire history of the War of Resistance Against Japan!

In addition, in the Battle of Wanjialing, General Xue Yue always stuck to his command post throughout the battle.

He asked his men to set up a marching bed, and when he was so tired, he was confused in the bed. If the war is tense or encounters a hard battle, he will go to the front line to command, as a commander, he can also brave the rain of bullets to go to the front line, and it is precisely because of his practice that the morale of the soldiers on the front line has been greatly boosted!

After the end of the battle, Chen Cheng deliberately sent a telegram to Jiang in Yucheng on the day of "******": "The enemy's 106th Division and the 101st Division were surrounded by me in the area near Wanjialing, and fought fiercely for two days and nights. After the brave attack of our army, it was settled at dawn. Due to the enemy's stubborn resistance, unwilling to disarm and surrender, they were all killed, the corpses were all over the valley, and the weapons were abandoned all over the field, and only thousands and hundreds of people fled to the northwest, and the situation was extremely embarrassing. ”

……

Just when the soldiers south of the Yangtze River were fighting smoothly, the war north of the Yangtze River was also in full swing at this time.

North of the Yangtze River, the Japanese 6th Division crossed Taihu Lake from Anqing on 24 July, broke through the defensive lines of the defending 31st Army and 68th Army, and occupied Taihu County, Susong County, and Huangmei County on 3 August.

As the Japanese army continued to advance westward, the Chinese 5th Theater, under the command of Li Zongren, ordered the 4th Army to deploy forces in the areas of Guangji, Hubei and Tianjiazhen to meet the Japanese army, the 11th Army and the 68th Army were ordered to set up a defensive line in Huangmei County, and the 21st, 26th and 29th armies moved south to flank the Japanese.

After more than half a month of fighting, the Japanese side was finally unable to resist, and only one of the 6th Division, even though it had many soldiers and generals, still had to evacuate because it was outnumbered.

On August 28, the defenders pursued the retreating Japanese troops and recaptured Taihu and Susong counties along the way.

However, because the counteroffensive launched by the 11th Army and the 68th Army was not successful, although they retreated to Guangji together with the 26th, 86th and 55th armies to resist the Japanese army, and the 4th Army ordered the 21st Army and the 29th Army to attack the Japanese army from the northeast flank of Huangmei County, but they failed to stop the Japanese advance!

The Guangji and Wuxue areas have fallen one after another! Controlled by the Japanese army!

Subsequently, the main force of the Japanese army raided and surrounded the fortress of Tianjiazhen, and the 4th Army used the 2nd Army to reinforce and let the 87th Army defend the fortress, and at the same time mobilized the 26th, 48th and 86th armies to coordinate the flank of the Japanese army, but in the face of the Japanese army with strong firepower and rich combat experience, it did not achieve the slightest advantage at all, but suffered huge casualties.

General Headquarters of the Fifth Theater of Operations

The telephone rang incessantly in the command center, and Li Zongren, the former commander-in-chief of the enemy and commander of the Fifth Theater, was observing the terrain at the command center, and the sand table was full of troop deployments marked with the enemy and our anti-enemy forces.

In the headquarters, there are officers coming and going from time to time, and they are busy.

"Commander-in-chief, the 4th Army sent a telegram that the soldiers in the area of the Tianjiazhen fortress are tight, our army cannot gain an advantage, and there are heavy casualties, the 4th Army has come to ask the commander-in-chief, can it be evacuated?"

An officer opened the folder and said in a deep voice.

"Retreat? They still have the face to say retreat?! Li Zongren showed a rare look of anger on his face, and said with an angry face: "A dignified group army, under the jurisdiction of the 2nd Army and the 87th Army, and I mobilized the 26th Army and the 48th Army for him to attack the Japanese army together. ”

(End of chapter)