readx; Okamura Ninji finally finished assembling his troops, and the Southern Route Army, with the Ishihara Detachment as the lead, and the 101st, 106th, and 26th Divisions as the main forces, launched an attack on Pengze County; With the Marine Brigade as the vanguard, the 27th Division and the 3rd Division as the main force, the Central Route Army stormed Madang, Changshan and other positions under the cover of more than 40 warships and dozens of fighter-bombers of the Third Fleet; The Western Route Army crossed the Yangtze River, landed fifty kilometers downstream of the Hukou fortress, and then built fortifications in place with an infantry company, while the rest marched towards Madang, preparing to attack the defenders from behind. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

In this operation, Okamura Ninji spent a lot of effort, and at the same time took as many secrecy measures as possible, thinking that it was seamless, but as the battle reports from the front line continued to come, his face became longer and longer, and he felt extremely disappointed and angry: the Southern Route Army was stubbornly resisted by the [***] team in the Gushan area north of Pengze, and it took three hours to advance less than five kilometers, which was far from the expected progress; The Central Route Army encountered only sporadic resistance, and after occupying the position, it found that it was empty, and the Central [***] team was all gone; The Western Route Army did not encounter any resistance, and drove all the way to Madang, where it successfully joined the Central Route Army.

Okamura Ninji speculated based on the intelligence from the front line that the squadron must have retreated southward, and if they were allowed to escape calmly, they would always threaten the safety of the Yangtze River waterway, so only by completely defeating them could the problem be solved once and for all!

Okamura Ninji immediately issued a new combat order, except for leaving the Marine Brigade to defend Madang, the rest of the troops all pursued the [***] team to the south, and must annihilate it in the area north of Fuliang.

The bomber group, which had no place at Madang Fortress, immediately turned south and quickly appeared on the Gushan front, and then launched an air attack on the defenders' positions under the guidance of ground troops.

Bombshells rained down from the sky, drowning the lonely mountain position in a sea of fire, followed by enemy planes taking turns to dive and strafe, using dense machine-gun bullets to cover every inch of the mountaintop. As soon as the planes departed, the artillery of the Chinese army began a new round of shelling, pouring more than 1,000 shells on a position covering an area of less than two square kilometers.

The defenders were clearly unable to resist, and as soon as the infantry had reached the halfway point of the mountain, they saw countless figures emerge from the tunnels and trenches, fleeing in panic, and some of the soldiers even discarded their weapons, apparently in confusion.

The detachment commander, Shintaro Ishihara, couldn't help laughing when he saw the Chinese soldiers fleeing in embarrassment in the binoculars, and hurriedly ordered the troops to pursue at full speed, and absolutely not let the friendly troops rush to the front.

Immediately afterwards, the vanguard found a large number of squadrons retreating southward, and at the same time, a large number of semi-automatic rifles were found among the captured weapons, and Shintaro Ishihara was overjoyed: he had finally captured the main force of the squadron [***] - the Ninth Army with the 26th Division as the main force!

Ninth Legion, Goofy!

Judging from the information obtained, the sworn enemy of the Yue army flew high and was promoted quickly, which was surprising. Before the Battle of Wuhan, he was only a major general and division commander of the 26th Division, but with the advancement of the Battle of Wuhan, he has become the commander-in-chief of the Ninth Army Corps, a lieutenant general!

This is what makes Yue himself the most unbearable, Gao Fei is simply stepping on Yue himself's corpse step by step to this position!

In order not to let the other troops take their credit, the baggage troops of the Ishihara detachment intentionally or unintentionally blocked the middle of the road, forcing the other three divisions to endure the surname and slowly grind behind. After following for half an hour, the other troops could no longer bear it and fought against the Ishihara detachment, seizing the way to advance, Ishihara Shintaro knew that he was at a loss, and very reluctantly gave way to the road, but even the 106th Division at the front was ten kilometers away from the vanguard of the Ishihara detachment.

The 53rd Division, with the strength of two regiments alternately covering and resisting, lured the Ishihara detachment into the ambush circle step by step, and followed the enemy with the strength of one battalion, and after the army passed, blew up the bridges and destroyed the roads, making it more and more distant from the three main divisions and the baggage troops. At dusk, Shintaro Ishihara, who did not know that a catastrophe was coming, led his troops to the vicinity of Heights 346 in Yangjialing, and plunged into the pocket of the squadron. At this time, the three main divisions of the Yue Army were already twenty-five kilometers away from the Ishihara detachment, and they were blocked by the 26th Division.

At this time, the Ishihara detachment found that there were middle [***] teams on the left and right flanks active, and only then did they wake up from a dream, feeling that the situation was not good, and hurriedly asked Okamura Ninji for help, and at the same time built fortifications on the spot, preparing to hold on and wait for help.

Suddenly, the thunderous sound of artillery rang out in the valley, followed by the earth-shaking explosions and dazzling fires, and the improvised fortifications hastily built by the Japanese army were blown to the ground, and the limbs and shovels of the soldiers flew all over the sky. Countless shells rained down on the army, and the enemy was completely drowned in a sea of steel and explosives. In just a few dozen minutes, the artillery unit of the 19th Route Army poured 4,000 shells into the army, and the Ishihara detachment immediately lost one-third of its strength.

Immediately afterward, hundreds of light and heavy machine guns roared at the same time, and one after another fire snakes flew and scurried close to the ground, forming countless deadly nets in the mountains and fields, mercilessly strangling the fish in the nets. Then, earth-shattering shouts of killing sounded all over the mountains, and dense figures surged from all directions, wanting to completely submerge the army.

Shintaro Ishihara is like a mad dog in a desperate situation, and he begins to fight back frantically, trying in vain to survive. While directing the troops to fight back with all their might, he quickly organized a death squad of hundreds of people, covered with explosives, and rushed forward against the [***] team, containing the frontal attack with a brutal * offensive. Immediately afterwards, he ordered the artillerymen to fire the existing thirty or so poison gas bombs at the right and rear sides, leaving the two brigades with a broken strength, and he himself led the rest of the troops to the left to make an all-out assault, because he found that the intensity of fire here was the lowest.

The dozens of soldiers who rushed to the front continuously detonated the explosives on their bodies, and they used their flesh and blood to open a hole in the middle of the [***] team, and the rest of the troops rushed towards the hillside with a bright bayonet howl.

Gao Fei saw through the telescope that the attack was blocked, and the army chose the position of the 53rd Division as the breakthrough point, and secretly shouted that it was not good: Most of the troops of the 53rd Division had just entered the position, and they were already exhausted, and in addition the weapons and equipment were at a disadvantage, the situation was not good. He hurriedly ordered Bai Yuehai to withdraw all the troops to the position and set up defenses, as long as the army was blocked, it would be a great achievement, and then ordered a regiment of the 26th Division to reinforce it.

Tong Dehou, commander of the 3rd Regiment of the 53rd Division, was lying next to the window of the shelter, his eyes fixed on the front, and on the position hundreds of meters away, the deafening sound of guns and artillery was mixed together, and everywhere there was flying sand and stones, bloody rain and bloody wind. The enemy's mortars and infantry guns seemed to have gone crazy, constantly bombarding without a head, not at all afraid of accidentally injuring their own people, and not sparing shells at all. And the infantry at the front of the position was also attacking frantically, swarming towards the tide, pouring batch after batch, and soon piling up corpses several meters thick at the front of the position. The Yue troops in the back simply mounted light and heavy machine guns directly on the corpses to shoot to cover the infantry charge.

From time to time, a few people strapped to explosives* rushed out of the army, rushed over in the face of a dense rain of bullets, and jumped into the trenches with a howl that was lucky enough to not die, and then detonated the explosives. The tight defense line quickly appeared more than a dozen gaps under the frantic attack of the Yue army, and the enemy, who saw hope, was even more frenzied, so he simply took off his shirt and came up to fight hand-to-hand, and the defenders also jumped out of the trenches and started a fierce struggle with the Yue army, and thousands of people were strangled together in a position hundreds of meters long. The shouts of killing, the sound of gunfire, and the screams were incessant, and a bayonet had just pierced the opponent's chest, and a large knife cut off his head, and in just a few minutes, both sides lost hundreds of people, but neither was willing to take a step back and continue to fight to the death.

Compared with the 53rd Division, the Yue Army was not only well-equipped and well-trained, but also had an overwhelming superiority in troops, and gradually gained an advantage.

Seeing that the army was about to break through his own defense line, but Bai Dehou had already used up the reserves, he hurriedly asked the division commander for support, but Bai Yuehai said sharply: "There are no reserves available at the division headquarters, you will fill in when the soldiers are exhausted, and I will fill in if you kill them!" After saying that, he hung up the phone with a snap.

Tong Dehou threw away the phone and shouted loudly: "Correspondent, gather all the personnel of the regiment headquarters, get on the bayonet, follow me!" With that, he grabbed a submachine gun and rushed out.

More than 200 people from the guard company and the civilian personnel of the regimental headquarters rushed forward after Bai Dehou, and the dense mortar shells continued to explode in the ranks, and by the time they arrived at the position, the remaining people were less than half of the original.

Tong Dehou raised his hand to shake off a bloody intestine that had fallen on the brim of his hat, and roared and rushed into the enemy group, the submachine gun kept spraying dense bullets, and the communicator held two shell guns, opened the bow left and right, and followed closely behind. The addition of this new force, which was mainly based on automatic weapons, quickly changed the situation on the battlefield and sent the Yue army backwards one after another, and the morale of the soldiers on the position was greatly boosted, and the more they fought, the more courageous they became, and they drove the Yue army back to the foot of the mountain with all their might.

Before the soldiers could enter the trenches, a dense stream of mortar shells rained down from the sky, and countless shrapnel screams flew on the ground, slicing through any flesh and blood that stood in their way.

Tong Dehou just shouted: "Lie down!" A cannonball exploded a few meters in front of him, knocking him to the ground and burying him in the dirt. In the smoke, he heard his correspondent shouting, "Battalion commander! Are you still alive? ”

Bai Dehou struggled to get up, only to see the messenger pounce on the back of a heavy machine gun, firing wildly at the Yue army that rushed again. A dense rain of bullets flew through the enemy group, bringing up a splash of blood, and suddenly, a shell exploded behind the communicator, and the back was suddenly blurred with flesh and blood, and the gunfire stopped abruptly. The army that was lying on the ground hurriedly jumped up and rushed wildly. Bai Dehou rushed over with an arrow step, grabbed the machine gun and fired a shot, and the three soldiers at the front floated backwards like kites with broken strings, and flew four or five meters away before falling. The rest of the army had lost their sharpness and turned around and ran back.

Although the two brigades in charge of the broken army continued to use their own tactics, the attacking troops that had already prepared directly covered them again with artillery fire, and then quickly rushed forward and killed the few Yue troops who were still stubbornly resisting one by one. The middle [***] team finally tightened the noose and tightened the neck of the Ishihara detachment!

At this time, there were less than a hundred soldiers gathered around Shintaro Ishihara, and the rest were either divided and surrounded or had already died in battle. Seeing that there was no hope of breaking through, and the [***] team had launched a final attack, he hurriedly ordered his subordinates to resist with all their might, while he knelt down facing east, unbuttoned his shirt, and prepared to commit suicide by seppuku.

He had just wiped his saber clean with his handkerchief and aimed it at his abdomen, when he suddenly heard a loud shout, and looked up, only to see a tall Chinese soldier already standing in front of him, his contemptuous gaze as if looking at a hen to be slaughtered, and kicked the knife away with one kick, and then the cold light flashed, and his head was split in half, so that he could never see his ancestors and gods again.

Just when Shintaro Ishihara's head fell to the ground and the entire Ishihara detachment was wiped out, the sparse gunfire rang out from the blocking position of the new 2nd Division five kilometers away, and the three main divisions of the Japanese army were belated, and they did not even hear the gunfire of the middle [***] team that killed the last soldier of the Ishihara detachment. After seven or eight hours of continuous marching, the officers and men were generally very tired, and by the time they arrived at the position of the new Second Division, they were all as tired as dead dogs, and it was difficult for them to even stand. With all roads and bridges destroyed, heavy weapons and all baggage left far behind, the vanguard arrived here with only light weapons.

Although Okamura Ninji repeatedly asked to speed up the march and make every effort to relieve the Ishihara detachment, the exhausted army faced the new Second Division, which was waiting for the battle, and there was a strong sense of powerlessness in their hearts, and their morale was extremely low. After a short rest, the soldiers of the Yue Army, under the supervision of the officers, lined up in more than a dozen straggler lines and launched a surprise attack on the position of the new 2nd Division. Immediately afterwards, more than a dozen mortars and dozens of machine guns on cover opened fire at the same time, and the flames were like pythons, rushing straight towards the position that had almost completely disappeared into the darkness.

As soon as they advanced to the place where they could see the top ridge of the trench, the squadron counterattacked with fierce firepower, and the bullets fired by the light and heavy machine guns jumped forward at a height of dozens of centimeters from the ground, and the sound of bullets hitting ** and terrible screams were heard from time to time in the middle of the crowd; The heavy artillery shells, with their piercing chirps, pierced the air like the sound of steel drills idling, whistling past the heads of the charging soldiers, dragging their fiery tail wings to the position at the foot of the mountain, and the sound of an explosion that had weakened could be heard in the distance--knock-knock! Knock knock! Then, the defenders' mortars began to fire in a volley, and the dense shells added gaps in the middle of the ranks.

The closer the trench became, the stronger the defenders' counterattack became, and the commander immediately ordered his troops to attack by leaping forward: after the soldier fired a bullet, he ran a few steps forward, then lay down on the ground, pulled the bolt, pushed another bullet, and then got up and rushed forward. In the end, the army lay down about fifty meters from the trench and could not move forward. The machine-gun fire of the [***] team was so overwhelming that they could only lie on the ground and shoot, and at the same time, the long-handled grenades began to fall continuously, causing the corpses on the ground to continue to increase.

The defenders laid three barbed wire fences in a row at the front of the position, and a soldier tentatively threw out a grenade, which exploded after a bounce on the barbed wire, blowing up a fixed pile and several meters of barbed wire, the soldier just raised his body and wanted to throw out another grenade, a bullet drilled into his shoulder, his hand was weak, and the grenade fell a few meters in front of him, killing himself and several soldiers around him.

After more than ten minutes, the army finally couldn't support it anymore and climbed back down the hillside, until it climbed out of the range of the machine gun before daring to get up.

By this time the sky had darkened, the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, and the earth had fallen into darkness again.

Through this tentative attack, the commander of the army already knew that the defenders' firepower was very fierce, and it would be difficult to accomplish anything before the heavy weapons arrived, so he had to order his troops to prepare camps and wait until dawn before launching an attack.

At midnight, a drizzle suddenly began to fall in the sky, and then the raindrops gradually became heavier, and finally turned into a downpour, which lasted for half an hour. At this moment, a hazy crescent moon suddenly emerged from the clouds, shining with a pale yellow halo, but immediately burrowed into the clouds like a nimble swimming fish, and when it resurfaced in the clear night sky, it sprinkled a hazy moonlight, and the branches of the [***] trees shimmered a little phosphorescent in the moonlight.

After daybreak, the Japanese army, which had struggled in the rain all night, began to move again: the artillerymen drove mules and horses to drag one cannon after another to the gun emplacement, lifted the gun jacket, and pointed the muzzle of the black hole to the mountain peak in front; The machine gunner mounted the light and heavy machine guns behind a fortified bunker, and the magazines filled with bullets were carefully loaded; The infantry lined up in a neat queue, ready to attack under the command of an officer.

The dull sound of gunfire shattered the silence of the mountains, and groups of soldiers bent over the woods and gradually advanced towards the top of the mountain. Curiously, the defenders did not make any counterattack, so the attacking troops immediately picked up speed and rushed towards the hill. Half an hour later, when they reached the top of the hill, they found that it was empty, except for a few trenches more than one man deep and bullet casings all over the ground.

Half an hour later, the vanguard of the 101st Division finally came to the Yangjialing battlefield, and when they saw the corpses of the Ishihara detachment, they were all angry, because the thousands of corpses in front of them had all been cut off their heads! The corpses were lying in the muddy water in various strange positions, severed necks revealing white bones and soaked pale skin, swarms of flies flying on them, and a strong stench in the air.

Just as the army was standing next to the corpse, a few shells suddenly came from the hillside in front of them, which woke them up. As if they had seen a bison in red cloth, they desperately charged ahead, and the follow-up troops did not hesitate to join in after witnessing this scene!

(To be continued)