readx;

Chapter 1517 Battle Xinkou (1)

Xinkou is a large village, located 25 kilometers north of Xinxian County, with the Pu Railway running through the north and south. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 The northwest of Info Village is Hongtuliang, and the Yunzhong River in the north of Liangbei flows into the Hutuo River after passing through the Jiehepu in the north of Xinkou. The Hutuo River bends to the northeast from the south through the foot of Ling Mountain. In this way, Xinkou Village is sandwiched between Hongtu Liang and Lingshan, becoming a natural barrier between the north and the south, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack.

There is a southwest and northeast ravine on the southwest side of Xinkou, which is called "red ditch". On both sides of this ditch, there are more than 30 holes in the pre-constructed national defense position, and the headquarters of the Central Corps of the Xinkou Defensive Battle is located here.

As of 16 March, the Xinkou frontline troops in the Second Theater had basically entered their designated positions and occupied their positions.

The Second Theater made further adjustments and arrangements: The 25 to 30 km frontal defense line held by the Central Army was divided into three operational areas, and the Central Military Region was divided into three corps to defend three operational areas. Among them, Liu Maoen, the commander of the right-wing position, has the Fifth Army, the Ninety-seventh Army and the New Seventeenth Army under his command, and is responsible for the defense of Longwangtang in the east and Jiehepu in the west. Hao Mengling, commander-in-chief of the central position, and Chen Changjie, deputy commander-in-chief, have jurisdiction over the Ninth Army, the Sixty-first Army and the Sixty-eighth Army, and are responsible for the defense of the Xinlianzhuang area from Jiehepu in the east to the Xinlianzhuang area in the west. Li Mo'an, commander of the left flank position, has the 14th Army and the 10th Army under his jurisdiction, and is responsible for the defense of the Xinlianzhuang area in the east and Ruzhuang and Nanyu in the west, of which Dabaishui, Haoteng, Ruzhuang, Nanyu and other villages are the main combat areas.

The commander of the General Reserve in the Xinkou area is Fu Zuoyi, who has under the jurisdiction of the 32nd Army, the 53rd Army, the 35th Army of the headquarters, the 19th Army of Wang Jingguo, the 67th Army of Liu Jianxu, and the 78th Army of Wang Lingji, which have rushed to Xinkou to assemble. It should be said that such a troop allocation, taking into account the interests of all aspects, the Japanese army has to spend a lot of effort to break through such an iron bucket formation, not to mention that Lu Yixuan's 30th Group Army is eyeing the side and capturing fighters.

On the evening of the 17th, Yuan Ping was lost, and Jiang Yuzhen's brigade, which was responsible for covering the retreat of Chen Changjie's group army, was surrounded by the Japanese regiments, and fought hard all night, no one in the brigade surrendered, and the brigade commander Jiang Yuzhen died heroically, and finally only more than 500 of the more than 6,000 people in the brigade broke through. Feeling the loyalty of Jiang Yuzhen's brigade, the Military Commission of the Nationalist Government awarded Jiang Yuzhen the title of "Honorary Brigade" and retained the structure forever.

After the Japanese army captured Yuanping, it immediately sent an independent mixed brigade to carry out a comprehensive attack on the defense line of the defenders of Xinkou and carry out campaign reconnaissance.

At about 8 o'clock in the morning of the 18th, under the cover of more than 40 planes, nearly 100 tanks, and heavy artillery fire, the Japanese army concentrated its forces and launched a fierce attack on the position of the Central Corps in Nanhuaihua, in an attempt to break through from the center and capture the main position of the defenders of Xinkou in one fell swoop. At about 10 o'clock, the position along the Yunzhong River in Nanhuaihua was destroyed by Japanese fire, and the defenders suffered casualties. Since reinforcements failed to arrive in time, the Japanese army took the opportunity to cross the river, broke through the Nanhuaihua position, and continued to develop in depth, capturing 1300 heights.

Hao Mengling intercepted the counterattack with the 125th Regiment and the 124th Regiment of the 21st Division, and after a hard battle, recaptured the 1300 Heights at about 1 o'clock at noon and pressed the Japanese army on the south bank of the Yunzhong River. At this time, a brigade of Japanese troops from the Yanzhuang position of the left flank corps also broke through, but the 10th Army fought back strongly and repelled the Japanese army. Wei Lihuang and Fu Zuoyi judged that the enemy in front of them suffered heavy losses after the onslaught was frustrated, and they were bound to rectify the situation and seek reinforcements before attacking again.

In order to take the opportunity to divert the offensive and annihilate the Japanese army in front of him, Wei Lihuang sent a telegram to Yan Xishan, asking for permission to attack from the central area with a reserve army. In order to make it easier for the main force to fight, Yan Xishan also ordered the left and right flank armies to actively move behind enemy lines to sabotage and prevent Japanese reinforcements; At the same time, the 8th Independent Brigade of the Independent Army, Meng Xianji, and the 71st Division of Guo Zongfen, which were attached to the Left Wing Army, were transferred to the Central Army.

On the night of the 19th, the 19th, 32nd, 35th, 53rd, 67th, and 78th armies of the General Reserve Army, which participated in the counterattack, all entered a state of readiness. The counter-attack units of the various corps have also been prepared. At about 2 o'clock in the morning of the 20th, the defenders of Xinkou began to attack on all fronts.

On the side of the Central Corps, which was the main direction of the counterattack, the officers and men of our six corps were like tigers coming out of the gate, counterattacking the Japanese army in Huaihua in the south. When the battle began, Japanese reinforcements quickly entered the battle and attacked. The competition between the two sides is extremely fierce. Dong Qiwu's brigade repelled four consecutive attacks by the Japanese army, and the brigade commander Dong Qiwu was wounded and could not get out of the line of fire, insisting on commanding the battle; Li Xianzhou, commander of the 21st Division, and Yu Zhenhe, commander of the New Fourth Brigade, were also wounded in the battle.

On the left flank corps, the 10th Division counterattacked the Japanese troops in Jiulianzhuang east of Yanzhuang, and the 85th Division and the 196th Division counterattacked the Japanese troops in Weijiazhuang and Magang. After the battle began, the 10th Division captured Lianzhuang at dawn; At the same time, the Japanese army in Weijiazhuang also attacked the left flank position of the division in Dabaishui. Li Mo'an immediately dispatched 1 regiment of the 196th Division to help block it. The main forces of the 85th Division and the 196th Division continued to attack Weizhuang and Magang.

On the right flank corps, when the 15th Army was preparing to counterattack the Japanese army in Taoyuan Village, a Japanese brigade also crossed the Hutuo River from Nanguo to attack the Lingshan position. The defenders fought stubbornly. Fierce fighting lasted until the night, and the Japanese army was pressed on the south bank of the Hutuo River to the foot of Lingshan Mountain.

By the morning of 20 July, hundreds of thousands of troops had been strangled at the left, center, and right positions in Xinkou, which were 30 kilometers wide from east to west and more than 20 kilometers deep from north to south.

At 11 o'clock in the afternoon, an overwhelming group of warplanes suddenly appeared from the sky in the south and southeast over Xinkou, and the Chinese and Japanese officers and soldiers who had killed red-eyed officers and soldiers raised their heads slightly, and then plunged into the battle in front of them.

Today's Southwest Air Force has expanded its flight group into a large unit with six fighter squadrons, six bomber squadrons, three transport aircraft squadrons, and one reconnaissance aircraft squadron. This time, the An Jiajun invested three brigades in Shanxi in one go, and carried out a comprehensive attack on the Japanese army on the front line of Xinkou in batches.

It is still the old attack style, first the S3 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft takes the lead, monitoring the battlefield airspace near 50 kilometers, followed by the escort of three squadrons of A26 fighters and three squadrons of A27 fighters, and finally the protagonist of the bombing mission - B1 and B2 bomber squadrons.

Almost instantly, the sun's rays were blocked by the dense airplanes, casting huge shadows on the ground.

In ground attack, the three squadrons demonstrated the superior performance of the B2 bombers, which were modeled after the German Stuka JU87 dive bombers.

This kind of bomber has slightly raised crooked wings like a seagull, the rear tail is square-shaped, the fat landing gear makes people feel extremely dazzling at a glance, and what is unbearable is that the glass cockpit of this type of aircraft is much higher than the fuselage, like a hunchbacked old man, and the whole plane is like a silver crow, extremely ugly.

However, it is this ugly aircraft, in the hands of experienced pilots, that does not have an error of more than 25 meters when bombing vertically at an angle of 90 degrees, and the effect of ground support is incomparable.

Therefore, when the three squadrons of Stuka began to carry out precise bombardment of the Japanese troops on the ground, the Japanese army fell into great trouble, and the tank units, artillery positions, machine gun positions, underground bunkers suspected of being the Japanese headquarters, and cavalry units were given priority to be bombed, and bombs of 50 kg, 100 kg, 200 kg, and even 500 kg fell on the heads of the Japanese troops like raindrops, causing the Japanese soldiers to cry wolf.

The all-wooden B1 bomber, with its impressive bomb load, could not carry out dive bombing, but it was irreplaceable in bombing that did not require much accuracy. Therefore, the B1 bombers penetrated deep behind enemy lines and carried out merciless bombing of the barracks, railway stations, munitions warehouses, and other strategic points of the Japanese army located inside and outside Yuanping County in the rear of the combat area.

At the same time as the air force unit was attacking, Lu Yixuan, who was hidden in the valley in the western part of the battlefield, had already gathered four divisions of armored and tank troops and lined up on the Jinzhong Plain.

In order to strengthen the strength of Lu Yixuan's division, each infantry division was assigned to a tank battalion directly under its command, under the jurisdiction of a light tank company (11 J1 Wolf light tanks) and two medium tank companies (22 J2 Leopard medium tanks), concentrating four divisions, that is, 132 tanks, in the Sino-Japanese battlefield, this can already be regarded as a powerful torrent of steel.

Before the offensive was officially launched, the artillery regiments of the four infantry divisions, under the guidance of the S3 high-altitude reconnaissance plane, began to carry out concentrated bombardment of the Japanese defensive positions.

Forty-eight 150mm howitzers and ninety-six 120mm howitzers made a loud noise, and the Japanese army was instantly stunned by the unprecedented intense shelling.

Five minutes later, the artillery fire stopped, and the four tank battalions attacked from Ruzhuang Village to the east, along Sanquan Village, Xiaohe Village, and Taoyuan Village, all the way to the west of the Hutuo River, dividing the Japanese army into two parts, north and south, which were not connected to each other.

Behind the tank unit, there are four mechanized self-propelled air defense sports car companies with strong strike firepower, each company is equipped with 24 anti-aircraft gun trucks, this kind of air defense gun car is actually the chassis of the big leopard off-road vehicle with a convertible seat and a tow bucket, equipped with a 12.7mm caliber high-level dual-purpose machine gun, which can strike at the enemy in the field of vision in high-speed marching, and can be regarded as a mechanized assault force that the infantry unit can handle.

The infantry units of the Anjia Army, armed to the teeth, like tigers out of the gate, quickly entered and arranged the battle line along the strategic passage opened by the tank troops.

After the 26,000 soldiers of the 170th Division under the command of Li Jun firmly blocked the road for the Japanese army to advance south or retreat north, the chariot troops turned again and slaughtered the Yuanping County Town, the rear center of the Japanese army in the Xinkou Battle, in an effort to eliminate the Japanese army's nest in one go.

The New Fifth Division and the New Sixth Division closely followed the tank forces for assault, while the 17th Division began to cooperate with friendly forces to annihilate the Japanese troops in the encirclement, and the Battle of Xinkou entered a white-hot stage.