"Good! Let's go and prepare! Half an hour later, an attack was launched on the positions of the Japanese army! The 1st Division attacked the east bank of the canal, and the 3rd Division attacked the west bank of the canal. Zhang Mingyu gave the battle order.

"Yes!" Everyone agreed with a bang, and then turned around and left.

Seeing everyone leave one after another, Zhang Mingyu suddenly became full of pride, today, just today, he will personally command tens of thousands of tigers and Okamura Ningji, who is known as a famous general of the army, to fight each other, and he still holds the initiative and belongs to the attacking side. Can it not be exciting?

Soon, as the vanguard of the first division, Niu Tiangui's first brigade was prepared, the first brigade had tens of thousands of officers and soldiers, and the strength had already reached the scale of a division, but Niu Tiangui did not have the frame of a division commander, he called the commanders of the three infantry regiments under his command.

The three regiment commanders were the battalion commanders under their original command, the first regiment commander was Song Hu, the second regiment commander Wang Yong, and the third regiment commander Zhou Ming.

The three regiment commanders gathered beside Niu Tiangui, Niu Tiangui's big eyes looked around at the three of them, and said: "Three brothers, how important is this battle, I believe that the general seat has already made it clear, right?" We not only have to fight for the honor of our iron army, but also for the thousands of Chinese people who are silently supporting us behind our backs! Therefore, in this battle, we must play the prestige of the Chinese! ”

"Luzao, how many brothers followed you to fight in Nanjing, Xuzhou, Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningbo, did you frown that time? You give the order! Song Hu, the head of the first regiment, said.

"Good! This time, the devils are ready to work and have strong fortifications, so we can't all go up at once, we must make reasonable use of troops, in this way, the commander of the first regiment, you lead the first regiment to go first, and then change to the second regiment, and the three regiments will attack in turn, until the physical strength and sharpness of the army are almost sharpened, and then we will press the whole brigade to fight with the devils! Ushida said.

"Okay! We'll do it right away! Song Hu and the others got up together and stood on the right path.

"Hmmm! The artillery regiment of the division headquarters and the tank regiment of the armored division will provide us with fire support! Niu Tiangui also got up and nodded.

Seeing a few of his subordinates leaving, how did Niu Tiangui know that this would be a protracted war of attrition, and his first brigade had suffered more than half of the casualties when it reached Beiping, and almost lost its combat effectiveness.

Soon, Song Hu's regiment was ready, and before that, the divisional artillery regiment had already bombarded the forward positions of the Japanese army.

Suddenly, the entire army position was filled with gunsmoke, and the flames soared into the sky. However, the army did not return fire.

After the shelling, Song Hu ordered the mortar battalion directly under his regiment to bombard the position of the Yue army again. Although the caliber of the mortar was small and the power was much smaller, it still exploded countless clusters of scarlet fire and clouds of smoke on the positions of the Japanese army.

After the artillery battalion finished the shelling, Song Hu waved his hand, and the commander of the second battalion led nearly 1,000 soldiers of the second battalion to attack the position of the Yue army along the canal.

"Kill! Kill! The soldiers of the first regiment and the second battalion shouted for slaughter, and under the personal leadership of the commander of the second battalion, they lined up in a straggler formation and rushed to the position of the army like a tide.

When the soldiers of the second battalion entered a distance of 1,000 meters, the army's Type 92 heavy machine guns began to roar, and scarlet tongues of fire sprayed bullets one after another.

Immediately after rushing within a distance of 500 meters, some of the fighters were armed with full-fledged rifles and a few sniper scopes equipped with six-fold binoculars.

I saw that one of the soldiers was holding a formal rifle produced by the Taiyuan Arsenal, opened the sight, pulled the bolt, took a deep breath, and then pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Nearly 300 meters away, a devil machine gunner fell in response, and the heavy machine gun, which was still roaring and spitting out tongues of fire just now, was suddenly stunned.

The co-gunner next to him hurriedly pushed away his companion's corpse and continued to fire from the crane gun to the left and right, but before he could fire a few shots, he was knocked down by the soldier with a single shot.

There were seven people in a company, and there were seven machine gunners lying next to a heavy machine gun, so that no one from the other soldiers dared to touch the heavy machine gun.

This soldier with excellent marksmanship is a disciple of Zhang Haisheng, the current shooting instructor of the military school, named Guo Feng, who is particularly fond of formal rifles and never uses a scope for aiming.

At this time, I saw another soldier not far away giving a thumbs up to Guo Feng, and just now that soldier also killed three military machine gunners and a grenadier in a row.

At this time, the troops had already rushed up, and the infantry of the second battalion equipped with ** sand had extremely strong melee firepower, and only one of the devils in the face could not resist it, and they were forced to retreat to the rear.

In this way, the second battalion easily took the devil's first line of defense, but things were far from being as simple as the second battalion thought. Just after the devil collapsed and retreated, it was not five minutes.

A vigorous and high-morale army of about 1,000 people howled and rushed towards the second battalion, only to see that each of the soldiers had a kamikaze samurai cloth wrapped around their heads.

The second battalion commander immediately opened his throat and shouted: "All ready to fight!" This is the devil's death squad! As he spoke, he quickly pulled the bolt of his favorite gun.

When the army had already rushed into a distance of less than 100 meters, the commander of the second battalion roared: "Brothers, give me a hard beating!" ”

"Da Da Da Da..., Suddenly......", the dense gunfire suddenly rang out quickly.

The devil soldiers who rushed to the front fell one by one, like cutting wheat.

But as if he hadn't seen the tragic condition of his companion, the devil behind continued to rush forward over his companion's body.

The distance of 100 meters was limited, and although the firepower of the second battalion was fierce, the number of soldiers was too large, and they quickly rushed up.

When the second battalion commander saw that the devil was about to rush up, he immediately stood up and pulled out the ghost-headed broadsword behind his back and said sharply: "All bayonets!" Offensive! ”

The soldiers rose up to kill, drew their cold weapons and jumped out of the trench to follow their battalion commander and rushed towards the oncoming devils.

Soon, the two sides collided together like two sharp swords, and a tragic white-knuckle battle began!

Niu Tiangui saw through the telescope that although his troops quickly gained the upper hand in the stab, they were unable to eliminate the counterattack for a long time.

It can be seen that the combat effectiveness of the army is also extremely strong, and Niu Tiangui couldn't help but be a little surprised when he saw this, these are just the devil soldiers of the second-rate brigade of the army, and the combat effectiveness is not so bad, and he can even fight with his own regiment to a draw!

Maybe these devils launched a counterattack with the determination to die, so the combat morale has been greatly improved.

The Battle of Cangzhou was of course very important to Zhang Mingyu and the 42nd Group Army, but as everyone knows, the Battle of Cangzhou was more important to Okamura Ningji and the North China Army, and the most important thing was that they needed a victory too much to boost morale, and if this battle was lost, then I am afraid that as Okamura Ningji said, Beiping and Tianjin would not be guaranteed.

Therefore, all the units belonging to the army participating in the war this time are also holding back their strength and want to compete with the 42nd Group Army!

The 11th Mixed Brigade, which was responsible for garrisoning the front line on the east bank, was completely newly organized, and most of its soldiers were recruited from Korea and the mainland, and its combat effectiveness was not too strong. But newborn calves are not afraid of tigers, they are under the same strength, but they can fall into the disadvantage, it is obvious where they lose, that is, the battlefield is inexperienced, their military training and proficiency in weapons are far above the [***] general troops, are trained and quality soldiers.

If such a unit is tempered by years of war, it will certainly soon be able to grow into a unit like 17 permanent divisions and regiments.

At that time, I am afraid it will be a disaster for China, but it is a pity that they have encountered one of the most elite ace regiments under Zhang Mingyu.

As the saying goes, the brave wins when they meet on a narrow road, and with the good fighting quality of the army, they are relatively lacking in actual combat experience, and after gradually falling into a disadvantage, they are forced to turn around and evacuate.

More than 100 corpses were left in front of the position, and of course, the second battalion also lost nearly dozens of people. The casualties were almost one to two.

Niu Tiangui saw that the second battalion had stabilized his position in the telescope, and he immediately picked up the phone and said to Song Hu: "Old Song, you immediately replace the second battalion to rest, and then the first battalion or the third battalion will go up!" ”

"Yes!" Song Hu's voice came from the other end of the phone, and it immediately turned into a busy line sound. Apparently Song Hu had hung up the phone.

In this way, at the end of the day, the army launched nine counteroffensives in a row, and the eighth time it actually recaptured the position from the hands of the third regiment, and just now it was recaptured by the second battalion.

At the end of the day, more than 10 battalions of the 1st brigade took turns to fight, and all of them fought a bloody battle with the Yue army, but the Yue army was unwilling to fail and organized the ninth attack, but all of them ended in failure.

At the same time, the third division also fought extremely fiercely with the Yue army, and the six infantry regiments also took turns to fight and engage in repeated tug-of-war with the Yue army.

After a day of fierce fighting, the battle was at a stalemate.

Du Meimei, a special correspondent of the Central News Daily, who accompanied the army to cover the news, used the camera in her hand to record the fierce battles during the day.

In the evening, Du Meimei began to write tomorrow's paper, in which she wrote: "The 42nd Group Army of our National Revolutionary Army launched a simultaneous attack on the positions on the east and west banks of the army at noon today.

The two sides had already fought and even if they went all out, the officers and men of our 1st Division [***] fought bravely for two hours and captured a trench of the Japanese army, but then the Japanese army began a counteroffensive in an attempt to recapture the lost position.

The officers and men of the 1st Division fought bloodily and fought to the death, and from noon to evening, they repelled a total of nine frantic counterattacks by the Japanese army, and successfully stabilized their positions. The entire front of the position was already full of blood and bones.

I am waiting for tomorrow with excitement and apprehension, because tomorrow I can see the heroic [***] soldiers fighting bravely to kill the enemy.

I am worried that I don't know how many of these lovely soldiers around me will be able to come back alive!

Du Meimei, a special correspondent of the Central Daily, reported from the battlefield. July 29, 30th year of the Republic of China. ”

(To be continued)