readx; Major General Katsuharu Imamura, commander of the 11th Brigade of the Army, was struggling. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Pavilion River Town, a long street in the shape of a zigzag, placed on the north side of Taisu Highway. The two lines of mountains in the north of the street, called Yujian, come from the Dabie Mountain in the middle of the look. 100 meters away from the southeast of the town, a peak stands tall in a lonely place, although it is not very majestic, but it is proud of the smoke and dust, it is high to see the flat domain, and Yan Gong Mountain, call the rain tip to each other as horns, form a natural fortress. This small mountain is called the Beacon Volcano. In the eighth year of Yongming of the Southern Qi Dynasty, in 480 A.D., Emperor Wu Xiao Zhen was here to list the brave beacons, and the soldiers have always thought that they were dangerous.

The task of defending the Beacon Volcano was the 3 battalion of the 1 regiment.

The Imamura Brigade approached the Pavilion River after dawn on the 27th. In the early morning of this day, the red glow was like blood, and soon the clouds covered it, and the sky was full of haze. The army had already detected that the area around the Feng Volcano was the main position of the Central [***] team, and first strafed with bombs dropped by planes, followed by wanton and indiscriminate bombardment by long-range artillery. After about 15 minutes of fire preparation, the Feng Volcano and the nearby Yangong Mountain, Yujian seemed to have been on fire, the trees were broken, the grass was withered, and the ashes were in place. The town of Pavilion River also suffered from fishing. The offensive of the Yue army began.

The commander of the 13th Wing of the main attack force, Hidemitsu Nakano, was lying on the roof of a tiled house 1 kilometer away, holding a telescope and looking this way. When the army was about 100 meters away from the Beacon Volcano, the upper, middle, and lower layers of fire nets were cast at the same time, and Nakano watched as his Satsuma samurai fell one by one. He raised his sword and shouted behind him, begging for artillery to bombard the Beacon Volcano. Katsuji Imamura, who was also looking at the battlefield with a telescope, was even more furious and ordered the Beacon Volcano to be razed to the ground.

The 7th Wing of the Field Artillery and the 2nd Wing of the Mountain Artillery pointed to the hill with only 200 square meters at the top. Explosions began, and the smoke and flames buried the historical beacon of the First World War. I don't know how long the bombing lasted, when the black smoke slowly left the ground inch by inch like a dark cloud, and the beacon volcano reappeared, the heart of the soldier Xie Baohe trembled suddenly: Ah? The Beacon Volcano became unrecognizable, a large mound of yellow and yellow, like a new grave bag. What about people? What about the more than 500 Hunan barbarians? That's their grave? He suddenly wanted to cry.

The offensive of the army began again. Facing the mound that was already a new grave, the descendants of the pirates who had been washed in blood in Nanjing waved the small sun flag and rushed straight towards it with a strange scream. "Bang!" Gunshots rang out from the mound, followed by an explosion on the mound

The attack failed again.

When Katsuji Imamura ordered the artillery again, he didn't lose his temper, but said weakly, "Erase that lump from the face of the earth for me." ”

After this bombing, Xie Baohe felt that the Beacon Volcano was much shorter. This time the Hunan barbarian has no way to live, he doesn't want to cry, he just thinks about being angry, he thinks that this battle is too fucking unfair, and he knows how to shoot cannons.

Faced with a small hill that had been blown down much shorter, the army bent over as if crossing the river by feeling the stones, and walked step by step. The beacon volcano was dead, silent Xie Bao and his eyes widened, and his heart was beating loudly. There was no sound, no movement, nothing. The Hunan barbarians are dead, and this battle has not begun. Seeing that Ben Lao had already gone up to the Beacon Volcano and waved the small sun flag behind him, he suddenly wanted to yawn. At this moment, I heard a loud roar, the yellow dust flew, and the beacon volcano suddenly expanded, steep and seven feet high, like a huge male lion standing up with a trembling mane, looking up to the sky and roaring

"Kill!" The roar flashed with knives, and the grenade exploded into a circle of silver light at the foot of the mountain. The steel sound of the bayonet sounded to Xie Laohan, like the hammer and anvil of countless blacksmiths.

Su Zuxin, commander of Yan Gongshan's 135th Division, learned that Wang's division was tight, and urgently ordered the 805th Regiment to launch a counterattack and penetrate directly behind Nakano Yingguang's flank. Nakano didn't have time to add fuel tactics and hurriedly contracted. The samurai of southern Kyushu, famous for their bayonets, were defeated in a bloody battle.

The medium gun sounded at night under Dabie Mountain, and the [***] team attacked frequently, and the village had the feeling that the wind was blowing, and the grass and trees were all soldiers, so they were strictly guarded, but prayed for the dawn. And the warriors of the Beacon Volcano worked hard overnight to put the ancient beacon that was already full of crisp soil back into a steel robe.

On the 28th, after a day of fierce fighting, Wang's division, with the strong cooperation of Lin Cixi's 131st division and Su Zuxin's division, stood tall and tall. Imamura Katsuji failed to take a step beyond the thunder pond, and the battle line moved south, and on the 28th, he attacked and advanced to the position of Liu Ruming's 78th Army. Liu Ruming, the commander of the 78th Army, was pulled up by Feng Yuxiang, and during the melee in the Central Plains, Feng was more small and defected in battle. As early as the Great Wall Anti-Japanese War, he personally led the pistol team to supervise the battle, captured the army alive, and raised Luo Wenyu. This time, Liu's troops were fortified in the area along the rivers and lakes, although the troops were not adapted to the water and soil, and the epidemic was unbearable, but under an order, the heroes rushed to be the first, and everyone had a big knife, and cut Imamura Katsuji to touch a nose of ash, and turned back to attack the Feng Volcano.

Shiro Inaba couldn't hold it anymore, and before launching the offensive on the morning of the 30th, he ordered the 37th Brigade Regiment, which was left as a "trump card" guarantee, to be put into the front line to assist the 11th Brigade to take the Beacon Volcano. The commander of the 37th Brigade, Major General Mitsuru Ushijima, was the only senior general of the 7th Division who remained in the 7th Division after the massacre of Nanjing. And the samurai of Southern Kyushu under him are all murderous demon kings. The photo of Captain Tanaka Gunyoshi, the squadron leader of the 45th Wing, holding aloft the "Sukehiro" saber, has been featured in many pictorials. With his ambition of cutting off 300 Chinese heads, he made the soldiers of that small island crazy.

It is said that Ushijima was known for his ability and calmness, and later served as the principal of the non-commissioned officer school, and was appointed commander of the 32nd Army as a lieutenant general on the island of Okinawa. But he was not calm at all at the moment, and as soon as he passed the field shop and entered the Imamura defensive area, he issued an attack order, and there was a great momentum to enter Xianyang first. Imamura was also anxious, and hurriedly launched a full-line charge, and for a while, the yellow stream of the army rushed straight in.

In this bloody battle, the warriors on the Beacon Volcano all saw their bayonets red, and everyone fell, from the battalion commander to the small soldiers, all died in the battle with the army. The blood of 500 heroes changed the color of the beacon volcano.

In the second year, a kind of yellow-leaved grass grows on the Feng volcano, and it blooms very red flowers in July and August

After more than 280 battles along the way, Daoye did not approach Huangmei until August 2, but was met with stubborn resistance by Qin Lianfang's 84th Army at the Dayangmiao Pass, while Liu Ruming's 78th Army was entangled with him step by step in Shuanghekou, Zhelinpu, River Bridge, Kuzhu Bridge and Xiahe Bridge on the outskirts of Huangmei City, Baojiashan and other places, and it was a fierce street battle in Huangmei City. With the cooperation of the fleet along the river, Inaba made great efforts to move mountains, and on August 4, the Marine Corps flag with the sun flashing between the 17 red lines and the 17 white lines was finally hung at the head of Huangmei Castle.

For Okamura Ninji, the first phase of the operation to occupy Jiujiang and Huangmei and attack Wuhan - the preparatory stage - ended here

In the heat of August, Chiang Kai-shek came to Songbu, Macheng, where the headquarters of the Fifth Theater Commander was located, to visit his front-line soldiers.

The weather of this year is really strange, March 8th, it is already a time when everything is shaken, the three towns of Wuhan have a rare heavy snow in a hundred years, and they have been raised to build jade and silver, and the world is vegetarian. And in the summer season of August, it seems that he intends to take the opportunity of this Chinese and foreign brain crane to promote the prestige of the "furnace", but it is so hot that it messes up the rules. The high temperature outside the northern foot of Dabie Mountain was as high as 43 degrees, and more than 300 people suffered heat stroke in one day in the 2nd Army of Minoru Higashikunomiya. The heat source of the Yangtze River is naturally better. At Wangjiadun Airport in Hankou one day, a machine gun suddenly roared, and stray bullets were splashed, and it turned out that the high temperature caused the bullets to explode and fire continuously.

The Jiujiang defense line, Chiang Kai-shek did not insist on defending it. On the day of the fall of Jiujiang, when he did not receive a battle report from the front, he still said in his notes: "Observing the enemy's situation, we must not make unnecessary sacrifices when we go directly up the river, only occupy the stronghold of the fortress and do not defend Wuhan after the field battle, and we must maintain a considerable number of troops and use them at the right time as the basis for the final victory." In view of the pain of the Shanghai War of Resistance and the great loss of the troops, he would not have wrestled at the same intersection. However, Jiujiang lost it too quickly, which made him unacceptable. This is a war in which time is exchanged for territory, and what I am relying on is the advantage of military resources and the vast territory. Without the determination to fight for every inch of land, no matter how large the territory is, it cannot withstand the squandering of the loser.

Zhang Fakui, commander-in-chief of the 2nd Corps, disappointed him that the Jiujiang Defensive Battle actually abandoned the city and lost ground without bloodshed even the soldiers of the 4th Army, known as the "Iron Army", and was defeated at the hands of a second-rate division that was said to have just been formed. On July 31, he sent a telegram ordering Zhang Fakui to leave the front line, which could be regarded as dismissal: "The military affairs of Nanxun will be presided over by the two commanders-in-chief, Xue Yue and Wu Qiwei, and Commander-in-Chief Zhang Fakui will be transferred back to Keye immediately." ”

Zhang Fakui wrote a detailed review, and Chen Cheng said that Xiang relieved his cheeks, saying that the retreat of Jiujiang was his own order. For the sake of the veterans of the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-shek was not easy to investigate. The poor Pre-11th Division and the 128th Division were canceled and became Zhang's scapegoats. Zhang Fakui said that he was haunted by this matter in his memoirs, and there were quite a few criticisms. It is true that a patriotic general who was ambitious to resist the emperor was a little wronged when he beat the drum and went into battle, and he was captured as soon as he fought with his old enemy.

Huangmei in Jiangbei is only sixty or seventy kilometers away from the fortress of Tianjia Town, and the army is already sleeping soundly on the side of the couch.

In the past few days, the Jiangnan army has launched a new offensive, and the Jiangbei army seems to be on the defensive. In fact, on 31 July, Shunroku Hahata and Kiyoshi Hasegawa had reached an agreement on the warships that they would concentrate naval and air forces to cooperate with the 11th Army and the 2nd Army, which was being assembled, to attack Wuhan. Originally, at the end of July, according to Shunroku Hatata's opinion, he returned to the Tokyo base camp and reached a consensus: in view of the high temperature in the Yangtze River basin, it was decided to wait until August after autumn to launch an attack, and before that, political inducement should be strengthened. However, Vice Admiral Kagawa, who later climbed to the high position of prime minister of Shanghai, resolutely opposed it, believing that the summer flood season was the best time for the navy to cooperate with the army, and that the dry season after autumn was a major taboo for the navy to use troops. Shunroku Hata was unable to reach Kagawa, so he had to sign the "Memorandum of Agreement on the Army and Navy Agreement on the Capture of Hankow" with Kagawa, and its "essentials" were:

1. The Central China Dispatch Army fought with the 11th Army from the Yangtze River and the 2nd Army from the Dabie Foothills, and at the same time captured the important local areas of Wuhan, and wiped out as many troops as possible. During this period, the aviation regiment conducted air operations.

2. The Chinese fleet carried out the Yangtze River tracing operation with the 3rd fleet, and while defeating the enemy in front of them, it occupied the waterway and cooperated with the army to capture Wuhan. During this period, aviation units conducted air operations

According to the so-called "Mainland Order" No. 133 issued by the War Department of the headquarters of the Chinese army on 4 July and later adjusted, the number of troops participating in the Battle of Wuhan has reached more than 20 divisions:

Jiujiang and Huangmei fell under the command of the army, and their determination to resist the national political axe could not but cast a shadow. At the party, government, and military summit meeting presided over by Wang Jingwei the day before yesterday, a decision was made to abolish the offices of the central party headquarters and all the ministries, ministries, and associations in Han and move to Chongqing within a time limit.

The Hubei Provincial Political Axe and Military Commission planned to set up a bank in Jigong Mountain, Xinyang, Henan Province, as a summer retreat. There are many Western-style houses on Jigong Mountain. Most of them were summer homes for missionaries, and most of them returned home because of the war. The vacant bungalows on the hill have been slightly renovated, and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications has erected double copper telephone lines, which is quite considerable. There is a particularly exquisite villa in the mountains, which is the palace of Jiang, but he pushes and pushes, and has no intention of enjoying the cool world. Nanyue Hengshan is also a good place to cool off, and some units of the Central Military Commission, such as guerrilla training classes, have already held classes there. The Banshan Pavilion was renovated, the highway line extended in all directions, and Chiang Kai-shek had to repeatedly lose his trust to the Supreme Si Tianwang of Nanyue

That night, Chiang Kai-shek and Li Zongren slept together in this nameless small temple in the mountainous area of eastern Hubei Province. He barely slept all night. It seems that the sound of artillery is always heard. Early the next morning, he sat on the bunk and finished practicing, his face couldn't be washed, and he called Lin Wei, who was accompanying him, and said: "I can't rest assured that Tianjia Town and Fuchikou will not go down, I think twice, I should go to Tianjia Town." ”

"Chairman," Lin Wei shook his head again and again: "I'm afraid this will definitely not work!" If the chairman of the committee is not at ease, he can ask Ji Fu to come here or Wuhan. ”

"He can't leave," Chiang Kai-shek sighed and said heavily, "in this way, send him a telegram first, Tianjiazhen cannot be lost, and it will be defended to me!" This meaning must be made clear: Tianjiazhen and Fuchikou are the keys to our main position in Dabie Mountain and northern Jiangxi, the pivot of the battles in the Fifth and Ninth War Zones, and the last barrier of Wuhan."

It is said that the flagship of the 11th Navy's Sentai "Anzhai" is facing the clear waves and blue waves that have poured for thousands of miles, and is tracing the river. Ninji Okamura and Eijiro Kondo walked out of the dining room and onto the foredeck, looking out over the railing.

Although it is a flagship, it is actually just an 800-ton gunboat, a shallow draft and flat-bottomed riverboat built for driving on the Yangtze River. Although its appearance is not good, the commander flag on the mast is waving in the wind, revealing a dignified atmosphere, and the 15-centimeter caliber cannon is looking up in the sky, which is very like a fox and a fake tiger!

(To be continued)