readx; On the morning of the second day, Huang Qixiang woke up and suddenly heard that Wang Zhiyuan and the 364th Regiment were still in Xiangyang City, so he immediately issued an order: "The 122nd Division is guarding Xiangyang City." Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info"

As for the 364th Regiment and a division headquarters with only two battalions of recruits, he did not consider whether the huge Xiangyang City could be defended.

The enemy who crossed the west bank of the Xiang River was the Northern Corps of the Army. After forcibly crossing the Xianghe River, the main force attacked in the direction of Yicheng along the Xiangyi Highway, and about 10,000 people went north to Xiangyang. At about 9 o'clock in the morning, the soldiers approached the city, and artillery and machine guns bombarded the city. Due to the huge disparity in strength, where can these recruits of the 364th Regiment be supported? Seeing that it was bombed by artillery and running in all directions, it was really difficult to support, so he withdrew from the West Gate and retreated to the highlands around Zhenwu Mountain and Zhougong Mountain outside Xiguan; Wang Zhiyuan and his division moved to Yunwan Mountain, 10 miles away from the city, to the west of the city. Immediately, the army swaggered into the city, and Xiangyang fell into the hands of the enemy.

When Chen Zongjin, chief of staff of the General Headquarters of the 22nd Group Army, learned that there were only two battalions of recruits from the 122nd Division, which was fighting the enemy near Xiangyang, he stomped his feet and said: "Don't talk about fighting devils, as soon as the devils are beaten, these recruits will be finished!" "Immediately ordered the Reading Regiment directly under the 41st Army in Nizui Town to go to Yunwan Mountain, under the command of Division Commander Wang Zhiyuan, and work together with the 364th Regiment to resist the enemy advancing westward.

Although Xiangyang and Fancheng are two cities, they have gained and lost in the past wars. As soon as Xiangyang City fell into the hands of the enemy, the defenders of Fancheng immediately became chaotic. The defenders immediately set fire to the city, using "fire arrays" to "block the enemy" and prepare to "turn in" at any time. Such a disturbance caused the Laohekou and Nanyang areas to also fly into the headquarters of the Fifth Theater like snowflakes, and the alarm phone rang and the commander's headquarters was confused. Li Zongren urgently ordered the Zhou Yan Division of the 75th Army to go south from Lüyanyi and gallop to help Fancheng; and ordered Tang Enbo's headquarters to advance from Zaoyang to Xiangyang and attack the rear of the devils; At the same time, the Chifeng City Department of the 30th Army of the Left Corps was dispatched to the vicinity of Laohekou to stand by.

After occupying Xiangyang City, the army only cared about burning, killing, annihilating, and looting money inside and outside the city pass and in the surrounding villages, and did not continue to attack westward.

That night, Wang Zhiyuan received a telegram from Commander-in-Chief Huang to Chiang Kai-shek, who was far away in Chongqing, to "defend Xiangyang".

Commander-in-Chief Huang also added a sentence at the end of Chiang Kai-shek's telegram: "Because of this, Wang Zhiyuan, commander of the 122nd Division, led his troops to restore Xiangyang." But Xiangyang City has been lost during the day, how can it be "defended" in the middle of the night? It can only be called a second counteroffensive.

Second, Wang Zhiyuan got up early in the morning, and at dawn he personally led the reading regiment directly under the army as the lead to counterattack Xiangyang City. On the way forward, they did not see the slightest movement of the enemy, and they were so strange that when they rushed into the west gate, they knew that the army had left the city from the south gate and was turning in the direction of Nanzhang. When the vanguard of the Reading Regiment chased to Nanguan, they encountered the back of the devil and immediately started a battle. The army fought and left, and then set up a rearguard force at the Da Hyeon Pass, 10 miles south of the city, to occupy a covering position. The Reading Regiment pursued to Nanguan, because there was an open area between Nanguan and Da Xian Mountain, and after suffering twenty or thirty casualties, they stopped the pursuit.

The army occupied Xiangyang City, why did they flee timidly when they saw a reading group?

It turned out that in this so-called "Xiangdong Offensive Battle" they only aimed at striking at the vital forces of the [***] squadron, and sought the field troops of the [***] squadron everywhere to fight, and only wantonly ravaged, trampled and destroyed the cities, market towns, and villages they had captured, and then threw them all away, instead of defending them. Xiangyang is no exception. Therefore, the county seat of Xiangyang was lost and regained on August 2, and the army marched to Nanzhang.

In the afternoon of that day, Sun Lianzhong, commander-in-chief of the Left Wing Corps of the Fifth Theater, led the 30th Army to rescue Xiangyang from the direction of Gucheng. When they arrived near Yunwanshan Village in the west of the city, they saw that Wang Zhiyuan, the commander of the 122nd Division, had come to greet him from afar, and reported to Commander-in-Chief Sun in person: "The enemy has fled to Nanzhang, and Xiangyang has been victoriously recovered!" ”

This surprised Commander-in-Chief Sun: "Just one of your reading regiments succeeded in the counterattack?!" ”

"Not really! The devils ran away as soon as they were beaten, and our troops suffered only twenty or thirty casualties. ”

When Sun Lianzhong heard this, he didn't enter the city anymore, and immediately led his troops to camp in Longzhong, 30 miles southwest of Xiangyang, from Yunwan Mountain.

Huang Qixiang received the news that the enemy in Xiangyang had "fled" to Nanzhang in Gucheng, and urgently ordered the 124th Division to arrange city defenses and hold Nanzhang. On June 3, the army attacked Nanzhang and pounced, but in the end it did not take Nanzhang. The second said that he did not continue the offensive and even withdrew automatically. In the same way, the army captured Yicheng. This army turned to the direction of Jingmen, so the battle situation shifted to the Jingdang area. At this point, the combat mission of the 22nd Army in this battle came to an end. Due to the shift of the center of gravity of the operation to the south, the right flank of the Fifth Theater, all the outer flanks of Dahongshan, the front of the Xianghua Highway, and the periphery of Xinyang gradually returned to the pre-combat posture.

At this time, the situation in Nanning suddenly changed!

After the winter offensive, Bai Chongxi began to prepare for the attack on Nanning.

Bai Chongxi began to prepare to implement his second-step plan, which was to recover Nanning and annihilate the 5th Division in one fell swoop before the reinforcements of the Yue army arrived. To this end, his general deployment is:

(1) On the Yongbin Road, the 5th Army handed over the defense to the 9th Division of Zheng Zuomin of the 2nd Army to Qianjiang for consolidation, and prepared to participate in the counteroffensive on Nanning; The 66th and 159th Divisions of the 160th Army were responsible for attacking Batang, Qitang and other positions; The newly arrived 43rd Division (division commander Kim De-taek) was transferred to the reserve force; It was under the command of Ye Zhao, the new commander-in-chief of the 37th Group Army.

(2) On the Yongwu Road, the army was about one brigade, the main force occupied the peak pass, and the other occupied the incense burner ridge. The 16th and 135th Divisions of the 170th Army were responsible for attacking the enemy in front of them.

(3) On the Yongqin Road, the army was said to be the rear liaison line from Tingziwei through Qipoao, Wuwei, Yangcun, Tangbao, Nachen, Datang, Xiaodong, and Qinxian to the key points of Longmen Port, and the strength was mainly garrison troops at the military station, plus a number of mobile troops, a total of two or three thousand people; Xiaodong of Qinxian County, which is close to the southern end of Yongqin Road, and Tingziwei and Shishikou at the northern end, and other places are called armies, and the whole line is formed into a so-called "Changshan Snake Formation". The 131st Division and the 188th Division of the 31st Army were responsible for attacking the strongholds of Nachen, Tangbao, Wuxu and Qipoao in the northern section of the Yongqin Road from the west of Yongqin Road; The 175th Division of the 46th Army and the remainder of the newly formed 19th Division were responsible for attacking the enemy from the east side of the Yongqin Road against the strongholds of Xiaodong and Datang in the middle section of the Yongqin Road.

Bai Chongxi envisaged that after the progress of the three-way attack of Yongbin, Yongwu, and Yongqin, the three-way army would attack Nanning.

The 31st Army, west of Yongqin Road, first began a new operation.

In the battle in Guinan, He Weizhen, the commander of the 131st Division, has not done anything. He is a native of Yongxin, Jiangxi, a classmate of Bai Chongxi's Baoding Military Academy, who first ran a military academy in Guangxi, and was called by Bai Chongxi as one of the "15 people from other provinces who have contributed to Guangxi". However, during this period of time, he, a "contributor from other provinces", has not contributed, so he went out first, and the 131st Division sent a regiment to attack Qipo Pass at night. Division Commander He personally deployed one battalion to attack the commanding heights of Qipo Pass, and the other part made a detour behind Qipo Pass to carry out a flank attack.

After the battle began, the previous battalion once hit the commanding heights on the col and fought with the Yue army, and the next day, the Yue army counterattacked with the direct coordination of the aircraft, and the battalion was defeated.

The personal command of Division Commander He still did not "contribute".

So another part of the division attacked Wu Wei. As a result, it is still unsatisfactory. Because the army that came to reinforce from the lion's mouth made a detour to the right flank of the attacking force, the commander of the army was afraid of being surrounded by devils and also withdrew.

Two attacks, in vain, "contributing provincials" did not have any "contribution".

Wei Zhen, the commander of the 188th Division, was not "15 people from other provinces who contributed to Guangxi", but this time Bai Chongxi was also very determined to counterattack Nanning, hoping that Guangxi would be able to fight peacefully this time, and also sent a regiment to attack the enemy strongholds of Nachen and Tang Bao at night, but it was also unsuccessful; Then, during the day, the fire continued, and the concentrated mortar fire flew one shell after another, and all of them exploded on the machine-gun bunkers built by the devils, and the fortifications were not damaged. The attacking troops rushed up with a "hula" and did not dare to approach when they encountered the enemy's barbed wire.

In this way, they confronted the army.

But confronting the devil like this, just like a joke, the two strongheads collided head-on, and no one gave way, so they stood and fought down, but it was much more dangerous for the 188th Division to continue to confront each other for a long time. If Xiao Dong or the enemy from Datang came to reinforce them, they could arrive in a few hours. Fortunately, the military headquarters expected that the reinforcement enemy would definitely encircle the right flank of the 188th Division, and sent a regiment to choose a position on the right flank in advance to ambush. At dusk that day, the army really came to reinforce it, and the vanguard arrived in front of the ambush position, hesitated, and then retreated.

It turned out that the ambush force had been exposed and was seen by the army. Reinforcements ran. The confrontation continued, and the army ran out of food and grass, and in a hurry, they went out, and the 188th Division was so frightened that its face changed greatly, so it withdrew.

The two divisions of the 31st Army did not capture the enemy's stronghold, but simply retreated to the west side of the Yongqin Road, and finally chose some mountainous areas, built positions, and confronted the enemy.

The 31st Army did not make any progress on the Yongqin Road, and the offensive on the Yongbin Road and Yongwu Road was not much better than on this side. The eastern and western sides of the Yongqin Road attacked the enemy's rear line of contact, and not a single stronghold was defeated. After that, the various units had no choice but to send some small troops to cover the sappers and civilians at night from time to time to destroy the Yongqin Road, bury mines on the road, and lay triangular nails. When the army automobile convoy passed by, it first sent armored vehicles to clear the roadblocks, and then sent planes to cover it, so that the passage was still unimpeded.

The 31st Army did not attack, but the army felt that they were a thorn in the side and sent mobile troops to carry out a "sweep".

Although their numbers are small, the "sweep" can always "sweep" the "itch" of the 31st Army and touch the "most sore spot", so they are often swept away and invincible.

What is the trick of the army?

This method of "grasping the most sore spot" was first discovered by them from the 31st Army.

The 31st Army is also a formed army of the Kuomintang, and there are a number of generals such as Wei Yunsong, who have gone through battle formations, what is the big "most painful point" that can be grasped by the Yue army who have not fought a few battles?

It turned out that although the 31st Army was quite capable of screaming, the generals from top to bottom had a disease: they were most afraid of the "flank threat".

Because the military headquarters and division headquarters are often dozens or even hundreds of miles away from the front-line troops. As soon as the follow-up troops of the army made a detour to the flank of the front-line troops, they would threaten the military headquarters of the 31st Army and the divisions and divisions. It is said that the army has made several detours from its flanks to the front line to reinforce the front, and at first it is always cautious and detours, but who knows that as soon as it takes a detour, the front of the 31st Army will be in great confusion, which makes the devil very surprised, and over time, although he can't figure out what is going on, every time he goes out in the future, he makes a "pincer offensive" to the military headquarters and division headquarters of the 31st Army from both flanks, and skillfully defeats the other side.

With experience, as soon as the army encountered a tight front, it sent troops to start a detour, and the detour force was not large, only one brigade on the left and right flanks was enough, and sometimes there was not even a brigade, and these horses were all pieced together by the garrison troops of each stronghold.

In this "sweep", the old method they still adopted still achieved new results: the 31st Army fled when it heard the news. But their move only frightened, and a few days later, as soon as they left, the troops of the 31st Army ran back.

The commander of the army decided to drive the 31st Army away completely. One day, the Yue Army sent a combined detachment of less than 1,000 infantry and cavalry artillery from Tingziwei to attack the flank of the 31st Army, which was in the mountains in the north of Shangsi and the south of Yonglong Road, through Suwei and Shanwei; In addition, a detachment of less than 1,000 people was pieced together from the area of Xiaodong and Datang, and attacked on the right side of the east and near the western mountains of Yongqin Road; Only a few small and scattered troops were sent to the front to feint. As soon as gunfire rang out on both sides, Wei Yunsong, deputy commander-in-chief and commander of the group army, hurriedly ordered troops to be sent to "resist the enemy one by one" and hurriedly led the army headquarters to "retreat" in the direction of upward thinking.

The staff officer of the military headquarters said: "I am afraid that the retreat during the day will be attacked by enemy air raids." ”

Deputy Commander-in-Chief Wei Yunsong decided to start retreating at dusk.

In this way, the headquarters of the 131st Division in front of the army headquarters could not retreat before the army headquarters. Zhou Junyi, the regiment commander who was conducting a "guerrilla attack" in the area between Funan and Qipoao, suddenly received an urgent telegram from the division commander He Weizhen: "Return the establishment." ”

This week, the regiment commander immediately rushed to the rebuilding with the whole regiment to prepare to defend the division headquarters. In the afternoon, in a daze, they walked to the back of the army that was attacking the division. When the officers and men saw that the devil reserve was in action, they immediately reported to Regiment Commander Zhou, and Zhou Junyi hurriedly telegraphed to the military headquarters and the division headquarters.

Seeing this, the General Staff Office of the Military Department immediately ordered Zhou Junyi to immediately attack the enemy's back violently, and to "break the siege" from both sides. He Weizhen, the commander of the 131st Division, disagreed, saying: "Zhou Junyi's regiment is isolated and eaten by the enemy, and I can't bear it. The telegram instructed Zhou Junyi to quickly make a detour to the vicinity of the division headquarters.

Why did he have to rush to the vicinity of the division headquarters? It turned out that he was afraid that his frontal position would be broken through by the enemy or the flank would be surrounded by a roundabout, and the troops at hand would not be enough to deal with it.

The 31st Army survived until night, Wei Yunsong withdrew with the military headquarters first, and then, the divisions retreated, and tens of thousands of horses fled away in a hurry like mice afraid of cats.

In fact, the troops of the Yue army did not have many troops for this "sweep", but they forced the 31st Army to retreat to the vicinity of Shangsi, away from Yongqin Road. Seeing this, the commander of the army led his troops back to Yongqin Road.

After they turned back to Yongqin Road, they went to "sweep" the 46th Army on the east side of Yongqin Road. As a result, the same "pincer tactics" of roundabout encirclement on both flanks forced the 175th Division and the new 19th Division of the 46th Army to retreat to the Lingshan and Hengxian areas.

While the army was "sweeping" the 46th Army, the 31st Army was tentatively approaching the west side of Yongqin Road, attacking and destroying the communications of the Devil's rear contact line. However, the army still used planes to cover the transportation of the automobile convoy from Qin County to Nanning. Once, the 188th Division sent troops to attack the broken road, and found something lost by the army on the road, with a new unit number written on it, and the commander of the 188th Division, Wei Zhen, immediately said: "This is proof of the arrival of enemy reinforcements!" "Divide the Guilin camp, the headquarters of the 16th Army, and the military headquarters of the 31st Army.

Wei Yunsong immediately sent Ge Ming, commander of the Operations Section of the Military Headquarters, to inspect the headquarters of the 188th Division. Ge Ming saw the "physical evidence" brought by Master Wei and suspected that it was "deliberately used by devils to confuse us"; went to the headquarters of the 1st Battalion of the first line to observe Yongqin Road with a telescope, but the devil did not move at all. In the end, he concluded that "the devil may not really have reinforcements arriving", and did not do anything accordingly.

Afterwards, nothing really happened.

The Guangxi soldiers did nothing in the counteroffensive against Nanning carefully arranged by Bai Chongxi, or it may be that the local army is not strong enough, so what about Chiang Kai-shek's descendant Central Army?

On January 25, 1940, a brigade of the 18th Division and a part of the 5th Division of the Chinese Army transferred an offensive to the 66th Army on the front of Yongbin Road, and after attracting the attention of the 37th Army to the front of Yongbin Road, they pieced together a brigade to detour the left flank of the 37th Army and detour from the vicinity of Gaotian to Binyang. This not only directly threatened Binyang, where the headquarters of the 37th Army was located, but also threatened the flank of the Kunlun Pass defenders. Who knew that in only a few months in Guangxi, the 2nd Division of the 9th Army of the Central Army was also infected with the "flank disease", seeing that the devil detoured to the left flank of the group army, he was worried that the devil would cut off the support of the friendly army to Kunlun Pass, and cooperate with the frontal enemy to carry out a strong attack on the Kunlun Pass position garrisoned. Li Yannian, commander of the 2nd Army, immediately led the 2nd Division stationed here to abandon the pass and retreat.

In this way, they easily gave up the Kunlun Pass, which was captured by 14,000 officers and soldiers of the 5th Army. It was as if these souls who had died in battle were dissatisfied with their cowardly behavior and were going to punish them.

The 2nd Division retreated and rushed to Binyang. On the way to escape in a hurry, he suddenly fell into the pocket array set up by the devil in advance. As soon as they entered the "pocket," the troops in ambush on the hills on both sides stormed violently, the artillery fired with blazing firepower, and the planes also volleyed to assist in the battle, bombing and strafing the ground in turn, and soon the command system of the 9th Division was disrupted, the officers and men fled in disarray, and men and horses ran in all directions in the fields.

Li Yannian, the commander of the 2nd Army, was accompanied by only a few staff officers and entourage guards, and in the confusion he got into the bushes, avoiding the devils and fleeing.

In the case of losing command, officers and soldiers are killed, those who flee flee, those who fight, and the wounded are wounded, and the whole army is collapsed!

(To be continued)