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Chapter 1832 Break through the line of defense

At noon on 23 July, the Central Plains battlefield ended with the heavy rain that lasted for nearly 10 days, and the atmosphere on the Sino-Japanese confrontation front quickly became tense. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

At one o'clock in the afternoon, the spicy sun broke through the thick clouds, the earth was hot, the air was steaming with dense water vapor, everyone who was exposed to the sun was sweating, and many people with poor physique fell ill from heat stroke in this steamer-like environment.

At a quarter past two o'clock in the afternoon, Lieutenant General Nakayama, commander of the 68th Division and commander of the 68th Division, who had already been informed by the meteorological department that it would rain and clear today, personally went to the headquarters behind the artillery position to inspect the operation so that the troops could launch a surprise attack.

After receiving the report, the artillery commander, Major General Kayu Nakano, who was inspecting the preparations for the artillery bombardment at the artillery position, quickly rushed back to the headquarters and exchanged salutes with Nakayama.

Subsequently, Kahiro Nakano reported the shelling plan to Nakayama.

"Commander Zhongshan, since half past four in the afternoon, our department plans to bombard the *** position with high intensity for an hour and a half, and destroy the *** position in one fell swoop!"

Major General Kayu Nakano, whose artillery unit has been strengthened to more than 240 artillery pieces of various types, is full of confidence: "An hour and a half later, the artillery fire was extended, covering the rear positions of the *** army, and at the same time, the 30,000 smoke pipes arranged by our army on the riverside fired smoke screens and poison gas at the same time, completely eliminating the *** defenders on the opposite bank of the river and on the positions of Longtou Mountain and Xiaonan Mountain!" ”

Since the wind direction today happened to be northerly, Major General Kahiro Nakano had a smile on his face.

"Gas?"

Lieutenant General Nakayama said with some hesitation: "I am still hesitating, is it appropriate to use such an unconventional weapon?" Since August 37, when our army fought against the Fifth Army Corps of the Hujialin Division of the Anjia Army, it used poison gas, and was strongly counterattacked by the thief leader An Yi, who immediately dispatched planes to drop bombs, gasoline bombs and leaflets on Taiwan, Ryukyu, Korea and the mainland, which was a serious blow to the morale of the army and the people, so His Majesty the Emperor decreed that the use of poison gas was not allowed on the territory of ***.

"What if we make an exception and are severely retaliated against by the An Jiajun, whose military strength has now swelled rapidly? Who will bear the wrath of His Majesty the Emperor? ”

Nakano Kayu was slightly stunned, he didn't expect that the things that had been discussed in advance would be retreated at the end of the day, so he persuaded:

"Commander, please rest assured, now that the An Jiajun is in harmony with the Nanjing government, it may not be able to stand out for the Central Army and other local armies. Moreover, if we use poison gas and immediately attack, we can eliminate the evidence of the crime. As long as you move fast enough, you will never be caught! The year before last and last year, poison gas had achieved very good results in the war in Burma and India, and I am sure this time will be no exception! ”

Speaking of this, Kahiro Nakano pointed to the other side of the river: "If you don't use poison gas bombs, it will be difficult to destroy the will of *** people to resist by relying only on artillery fire, which will bring us huge casualties!" Judging from the feedback from the 4th Brigade of the 57th Brigade, the strength of the *** army is not bad, and the strength of the army is comparable to ours, if this countermeasure is not adopted, it will be difficult to get benefits! Once the casualties of the troops are too large, not only will they not be able to recover Lincheng, but they may even be counterattacked by the superior army, and the battle situation will fall into a complete passivity, and you and I will become the sinners of the Yamato nation! ”

"Okay!"

Nakayama was obviously unwilling to hinder this victory, and after speaking, he came to the lookout of the headquarters built in the mountain, observed with a telescope for a while, and saw that the south bank of the Xue River was heavily fortified, and finally nodded, put down the telescope and raised his wrist to look at his watch, and ordered Major General Nakano Kayu:

"In this way, in order to better disguise our use of poison gas, the time for launching the artillery bombardment will be postponed by one hour from half past four and from half past five, so that after half an hour of artillery preparation, the sky has already darkened, and then suddenly launch a poison gas attack, so that we can unconsciously take the enemy's position in one fell swoop.

"The key to winning this battle is to be quick and ruthless, and never allow the news of the emperor's *** team's use of poison gas to leak out, and then attract the revenge of the An Jiajun! Nakano-kun, I hope that the first victory of the emperor's southern expedition will be fired by you! ”

"Hey—"

Nakano Kayutachi bowed, his eyes showing a fierce and stoic look.

While the Japanese army was preparing for the artillery bombardment, the Chinese defenders' positions on the other side of the Xue River and Longtou Mountain and Xiaonan Mountain did not know that the crisis was approaching, and they were still methodically preparing materials such as stones and giant trees to build positions at night.

The positions destroyed by the Japanese artillery raid in the heavy rain two days ago have been completely repaired at this moment, and only the huge craters on the positions that have not yet been filled and the stagnant water inside prove that this place has been subjected to extremely heavy bombardment. In order to prevent the Japanese from carrying out another artillery raid and inflicting huge casualties on the officers and men, the reinforcement of the position was now carried out at night.

The defensive position of the company led by Gu Zhengtao was at the forefront of the division, the choppy Xue River was a hundred meters in front, and the earlier position was built at a distance of fifty meters, but it had been washed away by the river and had now become part of the river beach. The focus of the Japanese army's artillery bombardment in the past two days was actually the positions of Longtou Mountain and Xiaonan Mountain in the rear, and the positions deployed along the front line of the river, but the losses were not too great.

Since the Japanese shelling the day before yesterday, the forward units of the 131st Division and the 188th Division have been ordered to strengthen the observation of the enemy's situation, and at the same time, the troops drawn from the 173rd Division have been deployed as reserves to the diagonal back of Longtou Mountain and Xiaonan Mountain, so as to support the frontline operations at any time.

Gu Zhengtao carefully held the binoculars and observed the Japanese position, from left to right, carefully going through it, and still found nothing that needed to be particularly noteworthy.

"It's okay, it's getting dark, and the devil shouldn't attack again today!"

Gu Zhengtao's heart was slightly relieved, and he put down the binoculars and muttered to himself. Although only one division was transferred from Zaozhuang, judging from the intensity of the Japanese artillery bombardment two days ago, with the current strength of three divisions trying to hold the Xuehe defense line, Gu Zhengtao still felt a little bottomless in his heart.

In fact, this kind of passive beating tactics, Gu Zhengtao is the most despised, when he was in Qinzhou Port in three or seven years, he was still a small squad leader, trained with An Jiajun, and learned to read and write with the cultural officers of An Jiajun, and also learned some basic common sense of leading troops to fight.

In Gu Zhengtao's view, Xia Wei, as the commander of the group army, should promptly break the main force into pieces, move through the mountains and hills of Lunan to the rear of the Japanese army, constantly strike at the flanks of the Japanese army, cut off its grain routes and supplies, and when the Japanese army and the main force of the Central Army in the south face each other, they should fight in one fell swoop and form a strategic encirclement situation.

But now, I can only be beaten passively, how unhappy I think!

Just when Gu Zhengtao was in a state of disgust, three red signal flares suddenly rose in the opposite sky. Since the sun was still falling in the western sky, if you didn't distinguish it carefully, you really couldn't see it, but the unique whistling sound of the signal flare still attracted Gu Zhengtao's attention.

Just when Gu Zhengtao was inexplicable and didn't know what the Japanese army was going to do, the hour and minute hands were already pointing to half past five, and the Japanese artillery front commander, who had long been holding the microphone on standby, heard the screams of the artillery commander Kayu Nakano: "Kill it!" The attack starts now! ”

The commander, who hurriedly put down the microphone, quickly signaled to the signalman to begin.

With the wave of the signal flag, the gunners of the 36 guns who served as the school firing simultaneously pulled the cannon rope fiercely, and in the huge roar, 36 flames roared and flew towards the south bank of the Xue River.

"Boom-"

In the continuous explosions, the 36th Regiment of orange fireballs rose into the air around the positions of the Chinese defenders. Just when the defending officers and soldiers were unable to cope and hurriedly dodge, on the Japanese position, six black hot air balloons used for calibration fire slowly rose into the sky.

The former enemy headquarters of the 131st Division, which was located on the mountainside at the junction of Longtou Mountain and Xiaonan Mountain, was strangely hit by a 120-millimeter grenade that missed the target during the first round of Japanese test firing, and the headquarters built by dozens of long giant trees collapsed with a bang, and Division Commander Lin Cixi and more than 10 division staff officers who were observing the movements of the Japanese army inside were all crushed under the rubble.

The guards were frightened and frightened, and one by one, with tears in their eyes, howled loudly and frantically moved away the burning wood, and finally found the unconscious Major General Lin Cixi under a corpse.

It turned out that at the moment when the grenade landed on the top of the headquarters and exploded, a staff officer beside Lin Cixi pounced on him and used his body to bear the impact of the falling wood for Lin Cixi!

Because Lin Cixi was seriously injured, he was quickly sent to the rear on a stretcher for rescue, and the command of the unit was replaced by the deputy division commander.

On the Japanese observation balloon, six artillery school archers carefully observed the landing point of the shells, a series of data, through the telephone connected to the gun position, soon, after correcting the firing angle, the second round of salvo fire, 36 brilliant fireworks with the kiss of death, curled up on the defender position on the south bank of the Xue River.

Several grenades that fell into the trenches exploded with a bang, mixed with endless screams, and pimples of sand and gravel flew up one after another, and the fragile flesh and blood bodies were swept into the air, and then turned into a rain of mud and stones mixed with blood mist to the ground.

With these 36 guns as the base guns, a number of guns of various calibers from all the artillery units of the Japanese army were concentrated and fired at full speed.

Balls of flames erupted from the muzzles of the cannons, and swept towards the Chinese defenders' positions like meteors in the air!

In an instant, the entire Xue River position was trembling terribly, the thunderous explosions were undulating, everywhere was shrouded in churning smoke and fire, the entire ground was caught in a raging sea of fire, the raging air waves rolled everywhere, pieces of bombs, roaring to the ground, rising orange flames on the ground, fireworks and air waves swept out, raging shrapnel flew everywhere, devouring all targets within the killing range, yellow flames rose into the sky, the sky was illuminated a miserable red, Compared to the colorful glow on the western horizon, who is more vivid.

"Boom-"

In the continuous explosions, waves of invisible sounds were like hammers, smashing fiercely at the officers and soldiers in the trenches. Many officers and men at the center of the explosion had suddenly bloodshot eyes, dizzy heads, and their bodies were even more violently hit by the violent and raging invisible sound waves that bounced back into the traffic trenches, and they were fiercely pressed against the bottom of the trenches.

Countless grenades, some of which fell into the trenches with unmistakable accuracy, and violent explosions followed, and the officers and men around those explosion points were torn to shreds before they even had time to scream, and some officers and soldiers were directly hit by the grenades, and were blown into blood and minced flesh and flew in all directions.

The position was littered with gun parts, scattered pieces of flesh and blood, charred corpses.

Lying in the trench, Gu Zhengtao opened his mouth wide, looking up in despair, the sky that was already dim was now illuminated by the bullet marks in the sky that flashed with blazing flames.

Fortunately, the focus of the Japanese artillery bombardment was still the Longtou Mountain and Xiaonan Mountain positions behind, and the forward positions were relatively safe, and the recruits who had shelled them two days ago also began to learn to control their inner fears with their will.

At this time, the positions of Longtou Mountain and Xiaonan Mountain have almost become purgatory on earth, and everywhere the dense grenades go, there is a churning sea of fire, and the few trees have been ignited by the fire, and the violent explosion makes the whole earth tremble terribly, and the trees fall down in the explosion, burning into scorched wood in the skyrocketing fire.

The entire trench collapsed in front of the tyrannical shock wave, and the firing points built of huge stones were instantly reduced to ruins under the terrible power of the explosion of a grenade of 240 mm caliber, like a castle made of sand.

The positions of Longtou Mountain and Xiaonanshan, where almost all the fortifications were completely destroyed, are still suffering from large-scale bombardment by the Japanese army!

The 120 mm, 150 mm and 240 mm grenades, with a sharp whistling, ploughed over and over again this battered mountain, two or three hundred meters above sea level, countless corpses, countless human limbs, together with gravel and soil, flew into the sky and turned into flesh and blood.

"Order the artillery regiments of all divisions to strike back immediately!"

Lieutenant General Qin Lianfang, commander of the 84th Army, who received the urgent report, immediately bypassed the divisional commander and directly issued a counterattack order to the artillery regiments of the three divisions deployed on the front line!

The officers and men of the three artillery regiments who received the order quickly launched a counterattack, ordering 72 75-mm mountain guns from the Xufu Military Factory and firing revenge shells at the north bank of the Xue River, but unfortunately the accurate range of these 75-mm mountain guns was only more than 4,000 meters, and it was impossible to hit the Japanese artillery positions 5,000 meters away.

Under their guidance, the Japanese concentrated 36 150-mm howitzers and 12 240-mm heavy howitzers and launched an artillery attack on the Chinese artillery who dared to counterattack.

As they could only be beaten passively, the artillery positions of the artillery regiments belonging to the three divisions suffered huge losses, and in desperation, the remaining 36 guns and artillery were urgently transferred, while the Japanese artillery fire, which had lasted for almost an hour and a half, continued.

At this time, the positions of Longtou Mountain and Xiaonanshan were completely destroyed, the troops defending all fronts were no longer four, and the entire Xue River defense line was crumbling.

The sound of artillery gradually stopped, and the Japanese artillery headquarters, Major General Kahiro Nakano, was using a telescope to observe the effect of the shelling, and nodded with satisfaction and said "Yo Xi", at this time the staff officer said that there was a telephone, he was in good spirits, and immediately returned to the phone, and the voice of the front commander came from the microphone.

"Report to the Commander, the smoke pipe is ready, please order!"

Major General Kayu Nakano did not answer immediately, and looked at a staff officer of Nakasa who looked polite with a pair of eyes.

"Commander, the current climatic conditions are fully in line with the conditions for use!" This Nakasa staff officer from the Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army gave Nakano the answer he wanted most.

"Let's get started!"

Kayu Nakano spoke into the microphone and gave a heavy order, and then he called Nakayama who was sitting in the rear to report the message.

With the order of the commander of the front-line artillery, 30,000 smoke canisters arranged on the forward positions of the Japanese army began to fire smoke screens at the same time, and clouds of black smoke rose into the air, forming a fog wall more than 10 kilometers wide in mid-air.

Since the wind direction at this time was northerly, this huge black fog wall slowly drifted along the wind towards the south bank of the Xue River.

"Attention, the little devil is attacking!"

"Everyone has to shoot at their command!"

With the orders of officers at all levels in the forward position, the soldiers, who were highly nervous, pointed their guns at the surface of the Xue River.

Gu Zhengtao, who had given the combat order, immediately began to inspect the position, only to see that the officers and men were unscrewing the caps of the grenades in the wooden boxes one by one, putting them in a convenient position, and carefully checking the weapons in their hands, feeling a little relieved.

Returning to the position, Gu Zhengtao found the black smoke floating from the north of the Xue River, and was surprised in his heart, his two ears were pricked up, and he listened carefully to distinguish whether the Japanese army used the smoke screen to launch a river crossing operation, and his hands holding the Zhongzheng II semi-automatic rifle were all in cold sweat.

As night fell, Gu Zhengtao and all the officers and soldiers did not notice that in this huge black fog wall, there was a faint yellow and brown mixed with it!

The huge black fog wall slowly but firmly floated across the Xue River, slowly enveloping the beachhead on the south bank and the Longtou Mountain and Xiaonan Mountain positions in the rear.

With their eyes wide open, they kept distinguishing the sound of the "roaring" river, and the officers and men deployed on the front line all focused their attention on the surface of the river and immediately fired at any disturbance.

It didn't take long for every officer and soldier on the battlefield to start a faint itch in their throats, and they had a feeling of wanting to cough, and their eyes began to sour, and many officers and soldiers began to shed tears involuntarily.

It wasn't until it became more and more difficult to breathe, and at first the officers and soldiers who thought they were just alone in the situation, found that there seemed to be something else in the smoke floating in the air, and a strong feeling of uneasiness spread over the position!

Odd! What's in this black fog, isn't it......

Gu Zhengtao, who had a bad feeling, couldn't help but feel the urge to cough and the increasingly strong feeling of suffocation, which finally made him understand what was going on, and used all his strength to roar loudly, "It's poisonous gas, the little devil uses poisonous gas!" ”

It's a pity that everything was too late, when the first cough in the black fog sounded, the sound of coughing one after another continued to come from the position, more and more officers and soldiers, while coughing, desperately opened their mouths to breathe more fresh air, but found that the air seemed to disappear out of thin air, so they began to cover their throats, desperately gasping!

One, two, three or four, more and more officers and men fell in the trenches and began to roll and wail in pain.

The lungs of the officers and men seemed to be about to explode, and it became more and more difficult to breathe, and most of them wanted to cut their trachea, and their brains began to pause due to lack of oxygen, and their eyes gradually closed, and then they gradually lost consciousness......

At eight o'clock on the night of the 23rd, the vanguard of the 57th Brigade of the Japanese Army, about four brigades, all put on gas masks and began to force their way across the Xue River.

In addition, Japanese sappers also wore gas masks and built pontoon bridges and other river crossing facilities.

By 11:30 p.m. that night, an independent chariot brigade assigned to the 68th Division had successfully crossed the Xue River, and nearly 40,000 Japanese troops and 20,000 puppet troops had broken through the positions of Longtou Mountain and Xiaonanshan, and had broken through the defense of the 173rd Division, which had hastily built a defensive line to resist, and marched towards Lincheng, 14 kilometers away.

At this time, Yu Jishi, commander of the 41st Group Army, had placed high hopes on the 74th and 90th armies of the 26th Group Army of the Central Army, and was still slowly advancing towards Lincheng, and its forward was still stranded in Weishanhu Village, 15 kilometers south of Lincheng, while Hanzhuang was less than 30 kilometers away from Lincheng, and the Central Army spent two days and two nights, and actually only walked 15 kilometers, which is really incredible.

......

Also on this night, thousands of miles away, Nanhua Xinjing Railway Station, was bustling with people.

The arriving train slowly stops at different platforms, and as the doors open, a continuous stream of people pours out. Next to the departure train under the platform, the ticket inspector is carefully checking the train tickets, instructing passengers which carriage which seat, although the work is busy, no one shows an impatient look, and keeps smiling and serving.

An Yi and Lin Shuangshu, both dressed in civilian clothes, shook hands and said goodbye to Hu Jialin, who also came to see him off in civilian clothes. Next to the four of them, Shen Fengdao, Lin Yaodong, An Yi's guards and the guards of the Central Security Bureau were all wearing various clothes to disguise their identities, looking at the surrounding situation intentionally or unintentionally.

An Yi put down his clenched hand and said to his brother-in-law Hu Jialin:

"Brother Hu, this time I took the train to Guangzhou in disguise, one is to go deep into the people, to understand what the people think, so as to find and solve problems in time, and the other is to accompany Xiaotong and Xiaoran, so that they can see the customs and folklore of various parts of the north, taste the flavor and special snacks along the way, and third, I also want to investigate the situation of our mainland transportation lines.

"What we saw before was written and formal, and we were huddled everywhere we went, and everything below was considered, but we couldn't get in touch with the real situation. I hope that what I have heard and seen on this trip is the same as what the officials below have reported to me, then I will be relieved! ”

Hu Jialin nodded: "Don't worry, I'm watching here, I can't mess around!" But you're not in Xinjing, what if there's an emergency? ”

"It's okay!"

An Yi said with a smile: "Now that our rules and regulations have been established, and each department performs its own duties, I am just playing a coordinating role, and the specific work is still carried out by them, where is there a reason that cannot be separated from it for a moment?" Moreover, several key battlefields in the world are now in a situation of equal strength, and they cannot threaten us for a while!

"Besides, even if there is any situation, the intelligence department knows where I am, and can send a plane to pick me up at any time, and I can't miss something!"

At this time, the radio on the platform began to urge to get on the train, An Yi hugged his fist at Hu Jialin, and then walked towards the train with Lin Xiaotong and Lin Xiaoran in one hand.

Behind An Yi, Shen Fengdao and Lin Yaodong, like two ordinary bodyguards, followed closely, and further away, thirty-six iron guards and seventy-two guards entered the various carriages of the train, on the one hand, not to disturb An Yi's observation of the people's feelings, and on the other hand, when the situation was critical, emergency reinforcements were needed to avoid being wiped out.

At this time, An Yi didn't know that the situation on the battlefield in the Central Plains had changed dramatically.

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