Chapter 199: Striking the East and Attacking the West to Defeat Wenzhou
Zhang Lei did not discuss this operation with Lu Wenjie, chief of staff of the army, in advance, because after consulting with him, he would definitely report to the Third War Zone, so that there was a possibility of leakage of secrets in this operation.
Telegrams are exchanged, who can guarantee that the Japanese will not be able to decipher?
Zhang Lei has participated in two years of enemy training in modern times! He has a stronger sense of secrecy than anyone else.
Zhang Lei adopted the strategy of attacking the east and attacking the west, wanting to fight the Japanese invaders in Wenzhou one by one. To prevent Sawada Shigeru from taking advantage of the situation, he sent a large army to counterattack Lishui and Wuyi, and adopted the strategy of encircling Wei to save Zhao, forcing Zhang Lei to withdraw his troops, and preventing Sawada Shigeru from reinforcing Wenzhou from the sea.
Three days later, Zhang Lei led his troops to the outskirts of Wenzhou, and immediately convened a meeting of officers of three divisions and regiments, first with Du Xuanyu of the Wenzhou division introducing the enemy situation, and then Zhang Lei deployed each division, and agreed on an attack time of two o'clock in the morning. The task of the task force was to attack the port and prevent the Japanese invaders in Wenzhou from escaping from the sea.
As soon as the time came, the general attack began, first the artillery fire of each division was prepared for an hour, and then the artillery fire was extended, and the infantry of each division launched an attack on the Japanese invaders in Wenzhou from all directions.
The Japanese invaders in Wenzhou have a half-brigade! Half of Xiaojijiang's brigade was also in Wenzhou, and the Wenzhou Japanese invaders used to face Du Xuanyu, a weak division of Zhang Leijun. They didn't take Master Du Xuanyu seriously at all, and they lived a very stable life. Thinking that with their backs to the sea, if they attacked them, they could call in warships for support. If Wenzhou can't hold it, it can retreat by warship.
What the Wenzhou Japanese invaders never dreamed of was that Zhang Lei's two powerful divisions appeared in Wenzhou unknowingly, and suddenly launched a full-scale attack while they were still asleep.
After a round of artillery bombardment, a large number of fortifications were destroyed, and many little devils were killed in their sleep.
Before the artillery fire stopped, an overwhelming army poured up from all directions.
Before dawn, the Japanese invaders in Wenzhou were divided and surrounded.
It was only at this time that Xiao Jijiang figured out that they were attacked by a powerful army, but he didn't know whose army it was.
Because in his opinion, Zhang Lei's three divisions were not so strong in combat effectiveness, and Zhang Lei did not dare to launch a surprise attack on such a scale against a one-and-a-half-brigade Japanese invaders.
Kojie hurriedly sent a telegram to the commander of the 13th Army, Shigeru Sawada, asking for reinforcements.
Shigeru Sawada's first reaction after hearing the news was to call the Wuyi Japanese Kou and ask Zhang Lei if his army had attacked the Wuyi mining area during the day, and the reply he received was that it had attacked.
Sawada Mao was stunned, since Zhang Lei is in Wuyi, then who is attacking Wenzhou?
Sawada Shigeru looked at the map, he found that except for Zhang Lei, no other army would have this speed, in Sawada Shigeru's view, Zhang Lei continued to attack the mining area, there was no progress, and the attack on Wenzhou must be an egg to hit the stone. In Sawada Shigeru's view, the combat effectiveness of the Wenzhou Japanese invaders definitely surpassed Zhang Lei's troops.
After the headquarters was bombed, Sawada Shigeru had fewer intelligence sources and fewer staff officers, and he liked to personally command and make decisions, and he made a big mistake.
First, he seriously underestimated Zhang Leijun's combat effectiveness, second, he did not immediately notify the navy to move closer to Wenzhou, third, he did not order the Taizhou Japanese invaders to rescue immediately, and fourth, he did not let the Japanese invaders control the port at the first time.
At nine o'clock in the morning, when Xiaojijiang reported that Shigeru Sawada's brigade and another brigade were divided and surrounded, and were suffering from round after round of attacks, the command system was disrupted, and most of the team had lost control, Sawada Shigeru woke up and said that something was wrong, Zhang Lei seemed to want to eat the Wenzhou Imperial Army, and the imperial army in Wenzhou was all rice buckets, and even a ragtag army like Zhang Lei could not beat it. Hurry up and order, all retreat to the port to wait for reinforcements, and order nearby naval warships to reinforce.
The order was given late, and when the Wenzhou Japanese invaders retreated to the port, they were hit head-on, and powerful and invincible cluster rockets continued to explode in the Japanese invaders' piles, and batch after batch of Japanese invaders were blown into pieces and scattered in all directions.
The port has long since fallen into the hands of Zhang Lei's Einsatzgruppen.
When the Japanese found that they could not retreat to the port, they could only rush to the city again, but the retreat route was broken.
Zhang Lei let the offensive method of the team's training play a big role, and the combat effectiveness has improved a lot at once.
When attacking these Japanese invaders, it was as if they were training troops.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, all the Japanese invaders were annihilated.
Xiao Jijiang and other brigade commanders were also killed in battle.
The team knew that Zhang Lei was not allowed to take prisoners, so the soldiers would replenish their guns when they saw the wounded Japanese soldiers, and not a single living Japanese prisoner remained, and a half-brigade of Japanese prisoners was wiped off the face of the earth.
At four o'clock in the afternoon, the reinforcement of the Japanese warship arrived in the nearby waters, but was attacked by the special task force cluster rockets, and the warships retreated to the direction of Taizhou and Ningbo, and the battle of Wenzhou ended with a complete victory for Zhang Leijun.
In the evening, Zhang Lei listened to the reports of the divisions at the Wenzhou Headquarters of the Japanese Army, and the total casualties of Zhang Lei's army reached 5,000, and nearly 10,000 Japanese soldiers were killed.
The battle losses were one to two, and it created a miracle in the history of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
The port was filled with arms and other supplies. The Japanese invaders vainly tried to use Wenzhou as a base, and all the materials transported to Jinhua, Lanxi, and Quzhou fell into the hands of Zhang Lei.
Zhang Lei ordered the divisions to recruit troops in Wenzhou, replenish them, and equip their own troops with as many heavy weapons as possible from the heavy weapons stacked in the harbor. The artillery battalion was converted into a field artillery regiment, and each company formed a heavy machine gun squad, a mortar platoon, and each platoon was assigned two light machine guns. A number of vehicles were also allocated to the divisions.
A week later, Zhang Lei's army was replenished in place, and Du Xuanyu's division continued to stay in Wenzhou to control the Wenzhou line, and Tang Jian's division and Qian Ji's division returned to the Wuyi and Shengzhou lines. This time, the strength of Zhang Lei's army has been greatly improved, and its firepower has greatly exceeded that of the Japanese regular army of the same size.
The Third Theater Command was overjoyed, and immediately held a press conference to report on the situation after Zhang Leijun had disappeared from Wenzhou. Celebrations were held throughout Chongqing, and Zhang Lei's name was filled with various newspapers and periodicals. The president issued a general order to commend Zhang Lei, and all armies sent congratulatory messages to Zhang Lei, and a large number of reporters flocked to Zhang Lei's military headquarters again.
The whole people were deeply encouraged, and their enthusiasm for the War of Resistance was even higher. Western media also began to report on Zhang Lei in large numbers, calling Zhang Lei the god of war.
Britain and the United States sent a telegram to the president, highly affirming China's war of resistance and saying that it had set an example for the war of resistance in the Pacific. At a time when the British and American armies in Southeast Asia were losing one after another, China's victory boosted the morale of the British and the Americans and gave them the confidence to defeat the Japanese invaders.
Zhang Lei's army admired Zhang Lei very much, and many soldiers made up songs to praise Zhang Lei.
The common people even wrote Zhang Lei's name and pasted it on the wall of the house in the house, saying that Guan Yu and Guan Yunchang were reincarnated.
Some wealthy businessmen decided to build temples to worship Zhang Lei, calling him a living bodhisattva.
Shunroku Hatata, commander of the Japanese Chinese Dispatch Army, and Shigeru Sawada, commander of the 13th Army, met in Hangzhou.
Shunroku Hata said: "The Japanese Imperial Army has never fallen into such a predicament on the battlefield in China, and in a very short period of time, it lost Lishui, and then lost Wuyi, and now Wenzhou has fallen into the hands of Zhang Lei, and tens of thousands of heroic Japanese Imperial Army jade shattered. The base camp was furious and ordered us to defeat Zhang Lei, otherwise we would be completely defeated in Zhejiang. ”
Sawada Shigeru sighed heavily and said: "The forces of the Japanese Imperial Army are scattered, from Hangzhou to Shangrao, all major roads and cities must maintain heavy troops, and there is no way to organize a large army to encircle and suppress Zhang Lei. We have fallen into the quagmire of China's exchange of regions for strategic space, and we can only ask the base camp to draw troops from other regions to come in for reinforcements. ”
Hata Junroku asked: "Why don't you see any signs of Zhang Lei's attack on Wenzhou?" ”
Sawada Shigeru sighed and said: "Zhang Lei has been attacking the Wuyi mining area for many days, I thought he might be planning a conspiracy to encircle the point and send reinforcements, who would have thought that he would suddenly transfer the army to Wenzhou unknowingly, and I was caught off guard by him." The Imperial Japanese Army did not have time to defend at all, and reinforcements were not sent in time. What puzzled me the most was that in Wenzhou we had a complete brigade, and half of Xiaojijiang's brigade was completely annihilated by Zhang Lei within 24 hours, and I still haven't figured out why. ”
Shunroku Hata said: "Zhang Lei was born out of nowhere, which was beyond everyone's expectations, and I didn't expect that the team he led could become so powerful overnight. We all seriously underestimated Zhang Lei, and it was too late to regret it, and now we need to think about how to deal with Zhang Lei. If Zhang Lei does not get rid of it, if the global plan of Greater Japan cannot be realized, the common prosperity of Greater East Asia will come to naught. ”