Near noon, the positions of the artillery regiment of the 10 th Division of the People's Army were tense and hectic, and the officers and men opened their artillery mounts, dug up the hoes, and carried the artillery shells, and arranged the 36 105mm howitzers and 18 155mm howitzers of the division's artillery regiment into a horseshoe-shaped position. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Zhang Fang, the commander of the Info Artillery Regiment, stood in the center of the artillery group, looked at the watch he was wearing on his wrist, and suddenly shouted loudly: "Attention all artillery, the enemy artillery position in front of the target, the gauge is thirty-five, the pitch zero direction is thirty, the fuse is instantaneous, and the load is one!" ”

"One shot!"

"The second cannon is good!"

"Three guns are good!"

"Four guns are good!"

……

"Eight guns are good!"

"Nine guns are good!"

……

"Fire!" With the command flag in his hand slammed down, Zhang Fang decisively gave an order.

The KPA artillery finally opened fire, and the positions began to burst into flames. Zhang Fu looked at the front with no expression on his face, and under his feet, the ground trembled.

At this moment, in the headquarters of the Beiyang Third Division outside Lingbao City, Cao Kun and Lei Zhenchun were leading a group of officers to discuss how to share combat tasks for their troops. Suddenly, they heard the whistling sound of cannonballs tearing through the air in the sky, and everyone's faces suddenly changed. They have been fighting horses for many years, and they have long been familiar with the whistling sound of shells of various calibers crossing the air when the artillery is fired, especially the 75mm mountain guns and field guns, as well as the 57mm rapid-fire guns, which are more commonly equipped in the Beiyang Army. However, the sound they had just heard clearly did not belong to any of the ones they had heard before.

After a while, the sound of a violent explosion suddenly came from the artillery position, and the faces of Cao Kun, Lei Zhenchun and others, who had reacted, changed greatly, and in a panic, they hurriedly came out of the headquarters, ran to a small dirt slope not far away, and picked up the telescope in their hands. In an instant, after seeing the smoke and firelight constantly blowing up on the artillery positions in the distance, whether it was the two division commanders Cao Kun and Lei Zhenchun, or the two chiefs of staff Xiao Yaonan and Zhao Jingqing, their faces were extremely gloomy.

"Judging from the trajectory and explosive power, it should be a howitzer with a caliber of more than 100 mm!" Lei Zhenchun put down the binoculars and gritted the teeth in his mouth with a rattle.

"Earlier it was heard that each infantry division of the KPA was armed with an artillery regiment with a large-caliber howitzer. Now it seems that the opposite side should be the main force of the 10th Division of the People's Army! Cao Kun had mixed feelings in his heart, he was really careless, it turned out that the main force on the opposite side had already arrived on the battlefield, but it was ridiculous that he and the others were still in the dark, and they didn't know it. After a long time, Cao Kun sighed and said, "It's careless! ”

"Where did this People's Army get so much money, even if it is equipped with mountain artillery and field artillery, it is actually equipped with heavy artillery!" After Lei Zhenchun observed for a while, his face became a little pale. Heavy artillery, even the Beiyang Army, is only the size of a regiment, but the People's Army is a division.

"The artillery is over, I'm afraid the next battle will be even more difficult!" Xiao Yaonan, chief of staff of the Third Division, said with a frustrated face. Originally, in the previous battle, the Beiyang Army was at a disadvantage, but now that the other side has come to reinforce troops, and its own artillery has been destroyed again, the gap between the two armies is afraid to be even greater.

Looking at the smoke and dust that continued to blow up in the distance, although Zhao Jingqing, the chief of staff of the Seventh Division, did not speak, the expression on his face was the same as Xiao Yaonan, full of worry. This battle seems to be really not easy.

When the generals of Beiyang were full of worries and worried about the war, Zheng Kaiwen and others of the 10th Division of the People's Army, who were also watching the shelling, were smiling and in a good mood. Obviously, they were very satisfied with the results of the shelling.

"Well done the brothers of the artillery regiment! Now let them divert artillery fire and strike at the enemy's forward positions. Zheng Kaiwen held the binoculars in his hand, looked at the fierce artillery fire in the distance, and said: "Order, after the artillery fire extends to the depth of the enemy position, each regiment will immediately attack and charge at the intended target!" ”

"Yes, division commander" The staff officer replied and hurriedly ran to convey the order.

Half an hour later, the artillery fire of the 10th Division of the People's Army, which had been attacked by saturation on the forward positions of the Beiyang Army, began to extend its artillery fire in the direction of the depth of its positions. Outside Lingbao City, the officers and men of the regiments lurking on the front line of Yangping Township, Xiyan Township, and Wumu Township also began to attack the 3rd and 7th Divisions of the Beiyang Army on the opposite side in accordance with the predetermined plan.

As the charge began, the soldiers who had been waiting on all fronts, under the leadership of their squad leader, deputy squad leader, and platoon commander and company commander, climbed out of the trench one after another, and then began to trot forward with their waists bent. The bullets fired by their own heavy machine guns above their heads kept flying, and from time to time there were smoke and dust shot up by the bullets of the Beiyang Army under their feet, and the charging soldiers were constantly knocked to the ground, and there were constantly shells exploding nearby, screams and ** sounds, and the explosion of gunshots and shells resounded throughout the battlefield.

At this time, Fan Shisheng was holding a pistol and with dozens of officers and soldiers around him, and was striding towards the position of the Beiyang Seventh Division in front. He couldn't do anything in the rumbling cannons, and the only thought left in his mind was to rush over, just rush over and win the battle, and then everything was over. But the wish is beautiful, but the reality is cruel.

The KPA's previous shelling, although heavy, did not completely destroy the resistance on the Beiyang Army's frontline positions. Although the soldiers of the Beiyang Army lacked artillery support, they were still using heavy machine guns to continuously carry out heavy strafing and rifle fire to block the KPA charge. At this time, Fan Shisheng, when facing the heavy machine guns fired fiercely by the Beiyang Seventh Division in front, had to stop charging and lay down in a ditch.

"Battalion commander, what should we do now?" A soldier with the rank of corporal shouted nervously.

Fan Shisheng turned his head to observe the situation around the meeting slightly, and then looked at the friendly troops who continued to charge in the distance, and couldn't help but feel anxious in his heart. Now he is blocked by the heavy machine gun of the Beiyang Army in front, but there is no sniper around, so he can't snipe it from a distance. After a quick turn in his head, Fan Shisheng ordered a sergeant behind him: "You go to the back, transfer 60 mortars for me, and knock out this heavy machine gun!" ”

The sergeant nodded, quickly turned around, bent down and ran backwards, and it didn't take long for his figure to disappear from everyone's sight. He did not disappoint his battalion commander, and soon there was a whistling from behind, followed by a mortar shell from the heavy machine gun position of the Beiyang Army in front, and a few seconds later the second mortar shell arrived, and three or four seconds later the third mortar shell fell again. After three consecutive rapid fires, when Fan Shisheng looked at the heavy machine gun position of the Beiyang Army in front of him, it was already a mess, except for smoke and dust, let alone heavy machine guns, even if he couldn't see people.

The opportunity must not be lost, the time will not come again, Fan Shisheng should give the order to charge. At this time, not only him, but even the more than 100 friendly soldiers next to him who had been suppressed by this heavy machine gun and could not move, also ran out of various temporary obstacles and took this opportunity to charge. The sound of gunfire and shouts continued to ring. When Fan Shisheng led the people to rush into the position defended by the Beiyang Seventh Division, the People's Army troops in the rear immediately rushed in, first a platoon of dozens of people, and then a company of more than 100 people, taking this as a breakthrough point, quickly opened the opening of the position. After that, more and more positions of the Beiyang Army gradually began to be broken through.

At noon on 7 May, more than an hour after the 10th KPA Division launched its attack, a regiment under the 7th Division of the Beiyang Army took the lead in a rout. First one regiment, then another, and then, as if a chain reaction, only a few dozen minutes later, the entire Beiyang Seventh Division began to rout on all fronts. Looking at his subordinates who had retreated all the way, although Lei Zhenchun's eyes were about to split, he was powerless to stop it. His troops were newly formed, and they were filled with recruits who had never been on the battlefield before, and it was not easy for them to be able to withstand such heavy artillery fire for so long.

The rout of the Beiyang Seventh Division soon allowed Zheng Kaiwen to seize the opportunity to break through the People's Army in the position, and soon under his command, the Beiyang Third Division, which was still fighting, formed a three-sided siege posture.

Seeing this situation, Cao Kun, who shouted in his heart that the general trend had gone, hurriedly ordered his third division to abandon his original position and organize a retreat in order to prevent his third division from being completely surrounded by the People's Army. However, in the process of retreating, they were pursued by the 10th Division of the People's Army, and not only suffered heavy casualties, but also lost a large amount of materials and equipment. It was not until the evening of the same day, after the emergency reinforcements of the Eighth Division of Beiyang came, that the Third Division regained its foothold at Kipshi. At this time, the two Beiyang Army divisions defending Lingbao, of which the seventh division had completely collapsed, the whereabouts of the division commander Lei Zhenchun were unknown, and the third division was slightly better, but only about half of the strength was left. If it weren't for the timely reinforcements of the two regiments of the 8th Division, it would still be a question of whether the 3rd Division could run to Kipshi.

The battle of Lingbao will have such a result, although the reasons for this are complex, but in general, they are still classified into three aspects. One is that although the Beiyang Army has been in existence for a long time, it has always lacked experience in large-scale operations, and it is inevitable that it will be a little difficult to face a tiger and wolf division like the 10th Division of the People's Army, which has competed with the British on the battlefield in Burma. The second is that the People's Army's equipment superiority far exceeds that of Beiyang, as well as the logistical and ammunition supply issues. And the third, and most important, is the sudden collapse of the 7th Beiyang Division. Before the war, Cao Kun's expectations for the Seventh Division were not small, and let them undertake combat missions in secondary directions, but it was this Seventh Division, in the face of the blows of the two battalions on the side of the Tenth Division of Zheng Kaiwen's People's Army, but it was simply unable to resist, and it quickly collapsed, resulting in the rout of the entire front.

However, in the end, no matter what, on the battlefield in Henan, the first large-scale battle between the People's Army and the Beiyang Army ended in a crushing defeat for the Beiyang Army!