Chapter 1: The Great War (5)
The Hongqiao Airport incident immediately became another trigger for the war between China and Japan. x updates are the fastest
On that day, a lieutenant of the Japanese Marine Corps with a Japanese soldier, as usual, wanted to force his way into the Hongqiao Airport, but did not want that the security regiment at this time was no longer the Chinese who only knew how to bow their heads and waists, they were still so arrogant, naturally attracted the angry scolding of the Chinese soldiers who hated the Japanese, the two sides were already unable to speak, and in a hurry the lieutenant first pulled out the pistol, and the Chinese soldiers did not show weakness, and fired a shot at Tianming first, and the two Japanese soldiers fled in a hurry, but were punctured by the Chinese soldiers.
When the Japanese lieutenant abandoned his car and fled near the airport kitchen, he was killed by a grenade by a cook who ran out to check on the noise; Another Japanese soldier was robbed and killed by a Chinese sentry who was secretly building fortifications.
However, at this time, the people of the Shanghai Garrison Command acted hastily, and in order to gain the initiative in the situation, they dragged the bodies of the two Japanese to the car with a flat tire, took out a death row prisoner from the prison, dressed him in the clothes of a security force and a military policeman, and shot him at the entrance of the airport.
Who would have thought that this would be self-defeating.
Japanese investigators were not stupid, and they and those from other countries who participated in the investigation soon discovered the flaws: first, the hands of the prisoners on death row were bound with ropes; Second, the death row prisoners were killed by shell guns, while the two Japanese soldiers used Browning-style pistols of different calibres; Third, the death row inmates were unkempt, had excessively long nails, and did not look like gendarmes.
Based on this, the Japanese believe that the killing of the two Japanese soldiers was a deliberate provocation by the Chinese side. What is even more unacceptable to the Chinese side is that their conclusion has also been recognized by other countries.
In the next two days, China and Japan engaged in difficult negotiations, and the Japanese side arrogantly put forward unreasonable demands such as the withdrawal of China's Shanghai security forces and the dismantling of all fortifications. The Chinese representative, Shanghai Mayor Yu Hongjun, was even more ordered by Chiang Kai-shek to sternly refuse. Representations and negotiations between the two sides were extremely difficult.
At this time, the two countries were already at war in North China, and public opinion on both sides added fuel to the fire, so the situation became more and more intense.
On 11 July, the negotiations broke down, and the commander of the Japanese Third Fleet in Shanghai, Hasegawa Kiyoshi, immediately ordered the Japanese ships to sail into the ports of the Huangpu River and the Yangtze River, and the fleet under his command urgently went to Shanghai to wait for battle.
Also that night, General Zhang Zhizhong of the Beijing-Shanghai Garrison Command also urgently ordered his 87th Division from Changshu, the 88th Division from Wuxi, and the former 2nd Division Supplementary Brigade, which had been renamed the 20th Independent Brigade, from Suzhou and other places, to advance to the vicinity of downtown Shanghai, preparing to besiege the Japanese army in Shanghai.
On the morning of the 12th, the squadron arrived in downtown Shanghai, and Shanghai citizens greeted them on the road.
In the early morning of 13 August, under the pretext that the squadron had violated the "Songhu Armistice Agreement" and under the command of the commander of the Third Fleet, Kiyoshi Tanigawa, the Japanese troops in Shanghai suddenly launched an attack on the squadron stationed in the vicinity of the Bazi Bridge.
The 87th and 88th Divisions resolutely returned fire, and at the same time dispatched the Chinese Air Force to bomb the Japanese Marines and their headquarters, and damaged their flagship Izumo.
The "August 13" Songhu War of Resistance was thus launched.
On 14 August, the Chinese Government issued the "Statement of the Nationalist Government on Self-Defense and War of Resistance," which clearly stated its stance and determination to "resist violence and resist the War of Resistance and self-defense."
At the same time, the Central Military Commission ordered the units under the Beijing-Shanghai Garrison Command to be reorganized into the Ninth Group Army, with General Zhang Zhizhong as commander-in-chief, under the jurisdiction of three divisions and one brigade, as well as the Shanghai Police Corps, the Jiangsu Security Corps, and other units, mainly to undertake the task of counterattacking the enemy at Hongkou and Yangshupu.
He also reorganized the troops in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang border region into the Eighth Group Army, and appointed Zhang Fakui as the commander-in-chief, guarding the north shore of Hangzhou Bay and taking charge of sweeping away the enemy in Pudong.
At this point, the outbreak of the Battle of Shanghai on August 13 also meant the real beginning of a full-scale war between China and Japan.
The headquarters of the Ninth Army has been moved from Suzhou to Nanxiang Town in the western suburbs of Shanghai, which is only more than 10 kilometers away from the central city of Shanghai.
Xiao Linghu took the guard company, and also moved to Nanxiang Town with his father and two senior staff members of the staff.
As the battle information from the front continued to reach the front headquarters, the generals, who were still a little excited, found that the Japanese were not easy to fight, that is, the 87th and 88th Divisions, with great effort, did not achieve the plan predetermined before the war and reached the position where they should have arrived.
The two divisions in the Ninth Army, both in terms of equipment and troop allocation, are the best, especially in terms of equipment, these two divisions are also the first to complete the German armament of the whole division, they and the Japanese army should be in terms of firepower, not too much difference, and there is also a tank company to accompany it, if it is bad, according to Xiao Linghu's words, it may be inferior to the tactical level. That is, the difference lies in the combat quality of the personnel.
The 87th Division was responsible for attacking the Japanese military camp at Yangshupu, so the division's operational positions were in the Jiangwan, Wusong and Baoshan areas; The other 88th Division was deployed south of the 87th Division, and the main attack was the headquarters of the Japanese Marine Corps at Hongkou, so it was deployed along the Suzhou Creek to Zhabei.
Although the battle of the 87th Division was difficult, on the 15th, it had advanced to the area from Hujiang University to Jiangwan.
The 88th Division also directly occupied Wuzhou Cemetery, Baoshan Bridge and Bazi Bridge.
Although the Japanese army had only more than 4,000 men in Shanghai, they had already established a number of key points on the periphery of their Japanese concession, and built strong cement fortifications, with the cover of the artillery fire of warships on the Huangpu River and Suzhou Creek.
The Japanese were also determined to fight the battle of Shanghai, and at the beginning of the war, they sent planes to bomb the Jianqiao airfield in Hangzhou, but the Chinese air force fought back bravely and shot down six enemy planes.
Japan has already sent its army from the mainland to Shanghai, time is victory, for the squadron that has been delayed for a long time and cannot defeat the Japanese army, the further back, the more disastrous it will be.
On 15 August, the Nationalist Government finally issued a general mobilization order, appointing Chiang Kai-shek as the supreme commander of the whole country, and dividing the country into five theaters. Shanghai belonged to the Third Theater, General Feng Yuxiang was the commander of the Third Theater, Gu Zhutong was the deputy commander, and Chen Cheng was the former commander-in-chief of the Third Theater, preparing to concentrate 300,000 troops to fight the Japanese army to the end.
General Feng Yuxiang arrived at the former enemy headquarters of the Ninth Army in Nanxiang in the afternoon of the same day.
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