readx; The regiment commander Ma Debi had to order the soldiers to retreat to the east while fighting. The pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info said that the cavalry of the army had galloped to the front of the formation at this time, made a detour to the east, and cut off the retreat of the regiment. Ma Debi led his officers and men to rush to the enemy's position, desperately broke through the encirclement, and staged a melee with the enemy. Officers and men of a battalion south of the railway tried to rush through the railroad to reinforce the two battalions north of the road, but were pressed by enemy fire and could not approach the railway embankment.

At this critical moment, the 928th Regiment came from the east, and the 468th Regiment of the 78th Division regrouped after the rout, and flanked the enemy reinforcements from Luowangzhai from the northwest.

The regiment was besieged by the enemy, and after the bloody battle, the casualties amounted to more than one battalion.

The troops of the 58th Division in the west launched a fierce attack in the midst of fierce fighting with friendly forces in the east, trying to storm the station in one fell swoop. However, the army's firepower was not weakened by the dispersion of troops, and the attack was ineffective.

At dusk, the battle fell silent. Gao Fei rode his horse to the Dong Lou military headquarters and reported the attack to Li Hanxun. In the afternoon, Li Hansoul had received Chiang Kai-shek's instructions to annihilate the enemy troops in each stronghold on the night of 25 July, but the troops had made no progress in besieging the small projectile station in a single area, and he was very anxious.

After analyzing the reasons for the disadvantage of the attack, he and Gao Fei decided to bombard the station in advance with artillery, and move the artillery to a distance of 1,200 meters from the station, and bombard the enemy fortifications directly before launching an attack. Dozens of mortars were also mobilized to cover the charge of the troops, and another powerful part was placed south of Luowang Village, cutting off the road for reinforcements in the wall, and thickening the strength of the attacking troops, so as to capture Luowang Station before dawn on the 26th.

However, Gao Fei suggested postponing the attack, saying: "Commander, the officers and men of the front-line units are fighting fiercely, not only can they not eat food, they can't even drink a sip of water, and the weather is so hot and humid that if they fight continuously, they are afraid that they will be tired and tired, which is not conducive to the attack." ”

"There is no way, the commission has instructed all armies to conquer the strongholds of Lanfeng and Kaifeng this night and clear the enemy on the south bank of the Yellow River. If there is a delay, how can I explain it to the chairman? ”

"Army Commander, in the past day, I and the 58th and 78th Divisions have suffered more than 1,000 casualties, and we have done our best.

Li Hansoul hesitated for a moment and said, "Okay, the attack time will be postponed until 4 o'clock in the morning tomorrow, but it must be on the 26th to conquer King Luo Station." ”

At dawn on the 26th, the artillery first fired at the Nawang station from a long distance. When the fire in the station was everywhere and the night sky was red, the artillery that had already moved close to the station aimed at the fortifications, houses, and trains in the station and fired directly. Suddenly, one sandbag fortification after another was blown up, the train was shot, the broken wooden planks and iron sheets burst out in all directions, the platform warehouse that was used as the commanding height of the army was hit by several shells, and the army on the roof was blown to pieces, flew into the sky with bricks and tiles, and scattered on the platform and railroad tracks.

After the shelling stopped, it was already dawn, and the sky over Luowang Station was like a cloud. The ruins on the station were still faintly recognizable, and the commander of the 26th Division, Gao Fei, ordered his troops to launch an attack 300 meters from the station. The army put up a stubborn resistance with the help of undestroyed fortifications, but the firepower has weakened compared to yesterday. Goofy also ordered mortars to be aimed at the enemy fortifications to cover the charging of the attacking troops.

At dawn, the third battalion of the 151st Regiment attacked the station, one company occupied the north room of the station, the other company occupied the platform fortifications, and the follow-up troops rushed into the station one after another and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.

The army fought and retreated, and fled to the north of the station, and one was hidden in the station box office and the nearby woods!

The 151st Regiment, which had entered the station, was clearing out the remnants of the enemy and occupying the position, when the Japanese army, which had fled into the woods, fired mortar fire at the station and fired poison gas shells at the same time. For a time, up and down the platform, bullets and fires flew and poisonous gas filled, and the officers and men of the 151st Regiment did not have a firm foothold and had no time to hide, and many soldiers were killed by shells or fainted from poisoning.

Subsequently, the army rushed out of the woods and the box office, and counterattacked the [***] team in the station, and a team of the army started the only remaining locomotive and strafed along the platform, and the 151st regiment was attacked from inside and outside, and it was difficult to gain a foothold for a while, so it had to withdraw from the station.

The 26th was more fierce and brutal than the 25th, and the attacking troops of the 26th and 58th Divisions repeatedly charged and rushed into the station twice, but failed to capture them.

Seeing that the head had slipped past the middle of the sky, the attacking troops were still blocked by the army hundreds of meters away from the station. As soon as the artillery fired, the troops evacuated outside the station, and as soon as the artillery fire stopped, they took their positions again. The army commander Li Hansoul kept asking about the battle situation, and the attacking troops were repeatedly frustrated, Gao Fei was so anxious that he wanted to transfer all divisions to the line of fire, but besieging a small station, the front line was short and narrow, and he could only use his troops one by one, and the large troops swarmed up, which would only cause heavy sacrifices. The only hope is to pin on the night attack.

Gao Fei was anxious when he suddenly received an order from the army commander to block several trains to the east of the division's position, and asked him to quickly send two companies of troops to protect against enemy attacks. After Gao Fei received the order, he suddenly had an idea, since the army can use the train as a fortress of activity, why don't I treat it the way of others, and immediately order a soldier to carry light and heavy machine guns and grenades to charge the station by train in the east. At the same time, it contacted the attack force of the 58th Division and ordered it to launch a coordinated attack at that time.

After 4 p.m., a locomotive with five stuffy tank cars rushed towards Luowang Station from the east. The army immediately panicked, and wanted to blow up the railway with grenades and block the train outside the station, but it was too late, the train had rushed to the front of the station in a blink of an eye, and the light and heavy machine guns in the carriage swept all the way to the platform fortifications, grenades flew out like hailstones, and there were many dead soldiers on the platform, and the living ones dropped their weapons and fled in all directions.

At this time, the 155th and 58th Divisions attacked the station from the east and west. Seeing that the general trend had gone, the army retreated in the direction of Luowangzhai.

After that, the army had transferred artillery from Sanyi Village and Quxingji to bombard Luowang Station. However, due to the timely evacuation of Chinese officers and soldiers, although more than 1,000 rounds of bombs were dropped at the station, there were few casualties. Subsequently, more than 2,000 troops of Luowangzhai bypassed the position of the 468th Regiment of the 78th Division in the north and counterattacked at Luowang Station, but were also repelled by the 26th Division.

At dusk, the battle gradually fell silent, and the bloody battle of the Luowang Station was finally occupied by the [***] team.

The battle to conquer Luowangzhai was still brutal and fierce.

At dawn on the 27th, the main force of the 26th Division, with the cooperation of the 58th Division and the 78th Division, launched an attack on Luowangzhai from the east, west, and northwest. The army relied on the wall, the outer moats and the houses of the surrounding villages to resist stubbornly. Under the fire of enemy artillery and the bombing and strafing of enemy aircraft, the 26th Division suffered heavy casualties and made slow progress. The Quxingji army dispatched a combined force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery to attack Luowang Station and the nearby Pizhai. The 928th Regiment of the 26th Division stationed in Pizhai was all killed. The 151st Regiment stationed at Luowang Station engaged in a tug-of-war with the enemy, and the station was lost three times, and until the end, there were less than two companies of officers and soldiers left, and the enemy was completely repelled when reinforcements arrived.

In the early morning of the 28th, Li Han ordered the 26th Division to launch a night attack on Luowangzhai with friendly forces.

The defense of Luowangzhai and Luowang Station is said to be a wing, and its main force is at Luowang Station. As soon as the station was lost, the army in the village felt lonely, and its morale was also greatly reduced. In the dark of night, there was no air force support, and the artillery lost its due power, and under the sudden attack of the Chinese soldiers, it finally could not support it and retreated to the north of the village.

Gao Fei saw that the car lights were shining on the road north of Luowangzhai and the sound of men and horses could be faintly heard, so he ordered the artillery to shoot at the north of the village, and ordered a regiment to pursue and defeat the enemy.

After dawn, he entered the Luowang Village to clean up the battlefield, and saw that the army was full of corpses in the village, and there were many in the north gate. Firearms, ammunition, documents, and other documents were scattered in all corners, and there were more than a dozen cars and artillery tractors that did not drive away.

Before the recovery of Luowangzhai, other small villages along the Kaifeng-Lanfeng railway line that were occupied by the Yue army had been conquered by the Chinese [***] team. So far, the Longhai Railway, which has been interrupted for several days, has resumed operation.

However, the price paid by the [***] team in order to open up the Longhai Road west of Guide was heavy, and the 71st Army sacrificed more than 1,000 people when it conquered Lanfeng, and the battle of Luowang Station and Luowangzhai, only the 26th Division, killed more than 1,800 people and wounded more than 1,600 people.

When the 64th Army and other units were besieging Luowang Station and Luowang Village, other armies were also engaged in thrilling, tragic and tragic bloody battles.

After Hu Zongnan arrived in Kaifeng in the early morning of the 23rd, he went to pay a visit to Cheng Qian, and the commander had great hopes for this corps commander. Because the "Western Route Army" currently only has Liu Heding's 39th Army, Shang Zhen's newly formed 35th Division and the 14th Cavalry Brigade to rely on, and a considerable part of Liu and Shang's troops are serving as river defense. Therefore, the Hu army can be said to be the only strong force in the "Western Route Army".

After Cheng Qian briefed Hu Zongnan on the situation of the enemy and us, he gave Hu the army a combat mission, and ordered Hu Zongnan to command the First Army, the 36th Division, and all subordinate units to immediately sweep the enemy in front of him along both sides of the railway, and the main force of the army attacked the enemy in Quxingji and the vicinity. In addition, one brigade of the 1st Division was responsible for guarding near Kaifeng and preparing for subsequent mobile use.

In normal times, Hu Zongnan led the staff of the army to arrive near Xinglong Station east of Kaifeng by train.

Shortly after the station was recaptured from the enemy after fierce fighting, the walls were riddled with bullets, and some of the houses that had been destroyed by artillery fire were still burning. The railroad that was blown up on both sides of the station is being repaired by workers and people. Li Wen, commander of the 78th Division, reported to Hu Zongnan on the division's battle situation over the past two days.

The 78th Division arrived at Luowang Station on the afternoon of the 20th, and then launched an attack on the enemy on both sides of the railway on the order of Cheng Qian. The main force of the division is said to be in Lianke Village, and is now gathering in the north and south lines of Xinglongji.

After Hu Zongnan led the chief of staff, Li Wen and others to inspect the vicinity of Luowangzhai and Quxingji, he ordered the 106th Brigade of the 36th Division to attack Quxingji at 12 o'clock on the night of the 23rd; The main force of the 78th Division held on the front line of Baliwan, Street Sweeping and Recruitment Battalion west of Luowangzhai to prevent the enemy from fleeing westward; The other part assisted Li Han's soul army to attack Luowang Station and Luowang Village.

Quxingji is located in the north of Luowangzhai, near Chenliukou on the south bank of the Yellow River. It is said that the army occupies the first line of Luowangzhai, Quxingji, and Chenliukou, and can capture Kaifeng if it advances, and it can cross the river north from Chenliukou to retreat. In order to consolidate the occupied strongholds, the army has increased the number of infantry and cavalry in the areas of Quxingji and Luowangzhai to 5,000 or 6,000 people.

The battle to conquer Quxingji can be said to be lightning compared to the capture of Lanfeng and Luowang Station.

Jiang Fusheng, commander of the 36th Division, was already secretly optimistic about the terrain at dusk: there was a bush of forests south of Quxingji, and there was only a hundred meters between the woods and the wall. After 10 o'clock that night, the 221st Regiment of the 106th Brigade of Jiang Fu's life quietly sneaked into the woods with two companies, and when the attack time came, they crawled forward from the forest to the wall, and ordered another company to occupy the Hanzhai near Quxingji with light and heavy machine guns, and if necessary, suppress the enemy in the village with firepower. The rest of the divisions prepared to climb the ladder, and after the two companies of the 221st Regiment had succeeded in the attack, they would attack the village in one fell swoop.

After midnight, the south bank of the Yellow River is quiet, and there are a few stars in Quxingji. On the tall and sturdy earthen wall, the army is said to be ten steps and one post, five steps and one sentry, and in the wall bunker, soldiers and machine guns lie together, ready to shoot at any time. However, the night was too thick after all, and while the eyes of the sentry were staring vigilantly into the depths of the darkness, more than two hundred Chinese soldiers were crawling towards the wall. When the soldiers sensed that the situation in the wheat field was abnormal, it was already a little late, and the black shadows suddenly jumped up from the vicinity of the ditch and rushed towards the wall.

The first sentinel to spot the enemy fired a shot into the shadows. Immediately afterwards, the machine guns on the walled wall were fired, the people inside the walled wall shouted whistles, and the soldiers of the Japanese army who were lying in their clothes and had fallen asleep rushed out of the farmhouses one after another, and put their guns on the walled wall to resist the night attack of the Chinese soldiers.

Beyond the wall, the black shadows of the charge fell in rows in the crisp and rapid sound of gunfire. However, the machine guns of the Yue army were no longer able to knock down all the more than 200 Chinese soldiers outside the ditch, and the grenades flew to the wall like birds returning to the forest, and the sound of explosions overwhelmed the gunfire of the Yue army.

After a bloody battle, more than 100 Chinese soldiers rushed into the village and engaged in gunfights and hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.

The night raid was initially successful.

The division commander Jiang Fusheng immediately ordered the soldiers of the first company of Hanzhai to shoot fiercely at the enemy troops on the wall of Quxingji Zhai to cover the large army to launch a charge from the west and south. The commander of the 106th Brigade came to the front line to supervise the battle.

But the resistance of the army was still very stubborn. Some of the Chinese soldiers were engaged in street battles with the Chinese soldiers who rushed into the wall, and some of the Japanese soldiers were shooting inside the fortifications on the wall.

The attacking troops were temporarily held back in the open ground outside the wall. If the large army does not enter the fortress quickly, the soldiers who rushed into the fortress in advance will be in danger of all their deaths.

In the emergency, the soldiers of the mortar company of the division commander Jiang Fu rushed to a distance of 400 meters from the wall and fired at the fortifications on the wall.

Before the mortar company could reach its designated position, several fires broke out in the wall, and the flames were blazing -- the soldiers who had entered the village used grenades to blow up several haystacks and houses, and the enemy position was already in disarray.

At this time, the mortars in the wheat field outside the village also began to fire, and the fortifications of the Japanese army were immediately destroyed in several places.

The attacking troops took advantage of the gap to rush to the wall, set up ladders, bravely climbed the wall, and attacked the wall.

There were only thirty or forty officers and soldiers left who were the first to attack the village, and they were fighting to the death with the Yue army that surrounded them layer by layer. As soon as the enemy formation was in chaos, they took the opportunity to cover up and kill, and the surrounding troops could not escape, and most of them were killed.

After some desperate resistance, the troops in the village finally could not stop the officers and men of the 36th Division from bravely rushing and killing, and fled from the north gate at about 3 o'clock in the morning.

Quxingji, which was guarded by more than 1,000 people, took just over two hours from the beginning of the attack to the complete occupation.

The good news reached the corps headquarters, and Hu Zongnan was overjoyed. In the battle of Shanghai, the First Army had no military achievements, and the losses were extremely heavy, Hu Zongnan felt that his face was gloomy, and this time he was ordered to drive to eastern Henan to participate in the war, and he wanted to fight a few beautiful battles to revive the prestige of the Northwest Army. I didn't expect it to be victorious. Unfortunately, the 36th Division was only a corps annex. But it doesn't matter, the merit of defeating the enemy's important stronghold will only be recorded in the 17th Army Corps, not in the 27th Army. He immediately called Cheng Qian and Chiang Kai-shek to report the news of the capture of Quxingji and publicize the results of the army. Chiang Kai-shek and Cheng Qian, of course, were very happy when they heard the report and expressed their condolences.

However, Hu Zongnan released the news of Kefu Quxingji a little earlier.

At about 8 o'clock in the morning, more than 2,000 infantry cavalry, more than 10 tanks, and more than 20 artillery pieces came from the northeast to launch a counteroffensive against Quxingji. The enemy first destroyed the wall with artillery, and then opened the way with tanks to cover the infantry charge. The cavalry carried light and heavy machine guns in a roundabout way.

A large section of the walled wall on the east side of Quxingji was blown down by artillery fire, and many houses were shot and caught fire. The smoke and dust are choking. After the officers and men of the 106th Brigade occupied the village, they did not have time to repair the fortifications and improve the defensive deployment, but they were fiercely counterattacked by the enemy, and suffered heavy casualties for a while. In order to avoid heavy sacrifices, the division commander Jiang Fusheng ordered Quxingji to be abandoned at about 9 o'clock, and the troops withdrew to Hanzhai to confront the enemy.

A few hours after Quxingji was occupied, it fell back into the hands of the enemy.

Hu Zongnan was furious when he heard the news, and Qu Xingji was in an embarrassing situation, and if he did not report the news of the loss of the place to Shangfeng, the phone call he made to Chiang Kai-shek and Cheng Qian a few hours ago would be suspected of lying about the results of the battle. Lying about the results of the battle will punish even the most high-ranking front-line commanders. However, as soon as he turned his face and reported bad news to the chairman of the committee and the commander of the theater of operations, he was really a dignified corps commander who could not open his mouth. After thinking about it, the news of the loss of Quxingji could only be reported by the General Staff Office, and he transferred the 78th Division to work with the 36th Division to regain the lost territory.

Despite this, he did not escape Chiang Kai-shek's criticism. In the afternoon of the same day, Chiang Kai-shek called and asked whether Qu Xingji had been recaptured from the enemy. When he replied, "I am mobilizing troops and preparing to launch an attack on Quxingji," Chiang Kai-shek's tone became a little unpleasant: "Shoushan, how did you do it, you just won the victory, and you lost your ground in an instant, so many troops, why can't you even hold a small village?!" ”

"Headmaster, not but"

"Don't tell me the reason, you can take Qu Xingji back within one day, otherwise only the army commander will ask."

"Please rest assured, before noon tomorrow, I will definitely revert to the song." Hu Zongnan said.

But his promises have not been kept.

Hu Zongnan ordered the 106th Brigade of the 36th Division and the 1st Division of the 78th Division to jointly launch an attack on Quxingji at 4 a.m. on the 25th. However, due to the lack of artillery preparation, it was delayed until 6 o'clock before the artillery began to fire at Quxingji. At this time, the sky was already bright, and three reconnaissance planes of the Yue Army flew in from the north and circled over the Quxingji railway to reconnoitre. Subsequently, the Yue army raised the tethered balloon 1 and directed the artillery to return fire at the artillery position of the Hu army. After the infantry of the Hu army launched an attack, eight enemy planes flew over Quxingji and bombed the officers and men of the Hu army indiscriminately, diving and strafing, while the infantry cavalry of the army in the village repeatedly counterattacked under the cover of tanks and armored vehicles. The attacking troops of the 78th and 36th Divisions suffered casualties and corpses.

The attack has failed!

(To be continued)