The Sichuan army bigwigs designed Zhuang Jihua to plan very well when he went back, but after Zhuang Jihua left, they found that there were so many drawbacks, especially the logistics supply, although Zhuang Jihua did work in Yucheng, he could only ensure the supply of eighty percent, of which the supply of artillery shells was at least sixty percent, mortars were fine, and heavy artillery shells were even less, which made Deng Xihou Sun Zhen and other Sichuan army generals complain.

Wang Mingzhang did not guess wrong, there was indeed a big trouble on the front, the troublemaker was still that Nakajima Kangjian, after conquering Huoqiu, Nakajima Kangjian pursued the 21st Group Army, Liao Lei retreated to the west bank of the Guan River to block, the two sides fought across the river, but he did not expect that Zhongdao dangled a false shot, with the 58th Division to contain the 21st Group Army, he personally led the 5th Division and the 56th Division to the north, launched an attack on the flank of Hu Zongnan's 34th Group Army, and soon broke through the defense line of the 30th Group Army southwest of Fuyang, Hu Zongnan, who was confronting the Yue army in Fuyang, hurriedly retreated, and the Yue army took the opportunity to storm it, and Hu Zongnan's Wang Lingji's troops suddenly collapsed and retreated to Xincai.

Now Xincai's Fifth Theater Command is directly exposed to the attack of the Yue Army, and what is even more worrying is that Bai Chongxi has no reserves in his hands, and the original reserves of the New 38th Division and the New 22nd Division have been transferred south to reinforce the southern front.

The middle road of the Fifth Theater of Operations inevitably collapsed, and Bai Chongxi now deeply felt that Zhuang Jihua had repeatedly reminded the meaning of the Fifth Theater of Operations, which was aimed at the Fifth Theater, and that it was not only the Second Army of the North China Dispatch Army, but also the First Army and the Eleventh Army of the Central China Dispatch Army, with a total strength of up to 600,000, which was comparable to the strength of the Fifth Theater after receiving reinforcements.

With the same number of troops, the army took advantage of their superiority in equipment and quality to attack the defense line of the [***] team in a flexible and mobile way, and did not stick to the combat route at all; as long as there was a gap in the defense line of the [***] team, they dared to insert it in, and then cooperated with the frontal troops to force the [***] team to retreat, and then pursued it closely, so that the [***] team could not establish an effective defense line, and this was the case on the south bank of the Yellow River and the north bank of the Yangtze River.

Nakajima's oblique insertion caused the collapse of the middle defense line, and the northern front, which was being adjusted, was not completely stable, and the fierce battle on the southern front was in full swing, Bai Chongxi looked around the entire battlefield, and there was no way to draw troops to plug this gap.

Bai Chongxi also urgently appealed to Chiang Kai-shek for help, and in his telegram he gave a detailed account of the serious difficulties faced by the Fifth Theater, the biggest of which was the lack of troops, and demanded that the Fifth Army be immediately transferred to the Fifth Theater and immediately transported to Xinyang and assembled in Xinyang. After Chiang Kai-shek received the telegram, after hesitating, he was still reluctant to put China's only mechanized army into the battlefield, He Yingqin and Soviet Russian adviser Cui Kefu persuaded again and again before agreeing to transport the 200 divisions to Xinyang, but as soon as the vanguard of the 200 divisions set off, Xincha was declared lost.

After the army broke through the defense line of Hu Zongnan and Wang Lingji, the army immediately divided into two routes, and the south road of Zhongdao Kangjian detoured to the flank of Xincai, constantly impacting the chaotic troops of the 30th Group Army, Wang Lingji could not stand still and kept retreating, and finally simply gave way to the main road, and the troops retreated from Ganglidian to Zhengyang.

Hu Zongnan's 27th Army in the south preemptively withdrew to Xincai, and launched a fierce battle in Xincai on Zhongdao.

Fan Hanjie led the 27th Army to stay in Xincai, surrounded by the Yue army, Fan Hanjie struggled to support in the encirclement, the 27th Army had three divisions, the 45th Division was in the city, the 46th Division and the 8th Reserve Division were outside the city, and the Yue Army started a fierce battle. The 45th and 46th Divisions were reorganized from the Teaching Corps of the Central Military Academy, and their equipment and training were all first-class.

This unit, trained by German advisers, held on to Xin Cai alone with the courage of dying and sacrificing, and the troops swarmed in all directions, ploughing the fields with artillery fire and corpses all over the field, fighting bloodily for four days, and the 27 officers and men stubbornly resisted the attack of the Yue army by relying on the hastily constructed simple fortifications.

The joy of encircling a main force of China made the army very excited, pitiful, the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression was fought for two whole years, and the army did not have a record of completely annihilating the [***] level units, on the contrary, they had a record of the division being completely annihilated, the 16th Division was in Linyi, the 5th Division and the 28th Division were in Yucheng, which made the army feel ashamed, and now the 27th Army was in the mouth, up to the commander of the North China Dispatch Army, Nishio Shouzo, down to the commander of the Second Army, Prince Minoru Higashikuremiya, all ordered the front-line army to completely annihilate the 27th Army.

The battle of Xincai was very fierce, the Chinese soldiers did not give up any position, every trench, every broken wall, had to go through repeated fierce battles, repeated battles, until one side was all dead before it could be completely occupied, to the third day, the positions of the reserve eighth division outside the city were all lost, the division commander Chen Sulong was wounded, the remnants of the troops withdrew into the city, and the army began to storm the city wall.

The 27th Army was surrounded, which shook Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Kai-shek strictly ordered Bai Chongxi to relieve the siege for the 27th Army, Bai Chongxi mobilized the 101st Army and the 71st Army, and ordered Hu Zongnan to transfer the first division, and in addition to the 200 division's vanguard 60 tanks to join, these troops formed the encirclement relief corps, commanded by Lan Yundong, to launch a counteroffensive north of Xincai.

In order to ensure the success of the siege, Chiang Kai-shek dispatched air force units to cooperate. The losses of the air force in more than two months of air combat were very large, but fortunately, the Sichuan Aircraft Factory produced planes, although the output of only a dozen planes per month, but finally there was a little supplement, Qian Dajun ordered Gao Zhihang to lead two destroyer brigades and one bomber brigade to support the Xincai battle.

From the sky to the ground, Xincai is burning, the air force in the sky is strangled together, the ground is covered with trenches, soldiers are fighting repeatedly, and white-knuckle fighting is all over the battlefield. The bloody battle of the 27th Army won itself a chance to survive. Lan Yundong launched a counterattack in the north with 60 tanks as arrows, tore through the defense line of the Yue army, and rushed all the way to Shilipu, Fan Hanjie used all his strength to launch a breakthrough, reopened a bloody road, and the whole army safely withdrew from Xincai.

The First Battle of Xincai sounded the alarm for the North China Dispatch Army, the troops continued to fight, the casualties were huge, and the logistics support could not keep up, the middle [***] team blew up all the bridges and destroyed almost all the roads when retreating, the tracks of the Longhai Railway and the Pinghan Railway were all burned, and the troops were extremely fatigued. After the Xincai War, the North China Front Command ordered all armies on the Northern Front to move to rest.

Bai Chongxi finally won a little respite and began to readjust his deployment, but the army on the northern front turned to rest, and the army on the southern front was still attacking.

The sun slowly tilted to the west, coldly staring at the blood on the earth, the tattered blue sky on the top of the mountain was still standing proudly, the battle flag was fluttering in the hunt, the smoke blackened its face, shrapnel pierced its body, and the flagpole that tied it had been replaced several times, but it was still fluttering.

The position was very quiet, Wang Mingzhang gasped for breath, he got up from the soft soil, and shouted: "Is there anyone else? Get into position! Get into position! ”

A few figures emerged from the dirt, and they threw themselves into the trenches silently, "Division commander!" Wang Mingzhang turned his head and saw a staff officer stumbling over, and he reached out to support him.

"Chief of Staff, Chief of Staff," there was a cry in the staff officer's voice, and Wang Mingzhang's heart sank: "What's wrong with Chief of Staff Zhao?" Hurt? ”

"Sacrificed."

Wang Mingzhang closed his eyes tightly, in the fierce battle just now, the army finally rushed to the top of the mountain, and he personally led the troops composed of division guards, staff officers, and men to counterattack, and pressed the army down at a heavy price.

"I see." Wang Mingzhang said in a rough voice, and after finishing speaking, he stood up and shouted loudly: "Brothers! The fathers and villagers in Sichuan are watching us kill devils! Kill! ”

From all corners of the corner hazy came out of a few more figures, these people rushed into the trench crookedly, it could no longer be called a trench, only slightly lower than the rest of the place.

At the foot of the mountain, the sun flag slowly moved forward, the steel helmet reflected a layer of red light under the falling, the soldiers were a little timid, fourteen days, seven or eight attacks a day, seven or eight shells, the shells have cut off the entire mountain by two meters, sometimes they think that there can be no one on it, but every time they go halfway up the mountain, they are greeted by a rain of bullets. He rushed up the hill several times, but was eventually driven down.

They passed through the foot of the mountain cautiously, there were no bullets, no grenades, but there was not the slightest joy in their hearts, the commander waved his command knife and walked at the front of the line, and the soldiers who participated in several attacks knew that he would definitely be the first to eat a gun at that time, without exception.

Sure enough, just halfway up the mountain, "pop", the officer in front turned over and fell, and there was an angry roar from above, and the machine guns rang out like beans, and grenades fell from above one after another, and the soldiers immediately scattered and lay down, and the machine gunners set up their machine guns and fired at them, and the grenadiers immediately fired at the place where the fire was breathing.

"Boom", with the explosion, the machine gun on the top of the mountain was dumbfounded, and the yellow figure jumped up from the ground, roaring and rushing upward, and after a few steps, the machine gun sounded again, and several figures fell down with the gunfire.

They didn't know that the top of the mountain had fallen into a desperate situation, Wang Mingzhang personally kicked the crane gun, the violent rain of bullets poured down, beads of sweat slid down, and there were only dozens of soldiers left around them, almost all of whom were injured.

The guard pounced on Wang Mingzhang, and the explosion sounded beside him, Wang Mingzhang pushed away the soldier's body, grabbed the machine gun and continued to shoot, and the bullet chain was quickly depleted, "Load!" "Bullet!" , Wang Mingzhang shouted loudly, but the guard who acted as the deputy archer did not move at all, he turned his head to see that the guard's back was gushing blood.

A figure rushed to his side, quickly picked up a bullet chain from the bullet box, and skillfully loaded the machine gun.

"Bastard! Didn't you let you protect them as they went? How did you get back? ”

"Division Commander, they're gone, I'll be back." The staff officer grinned and pointed his finger downward: "There, the dog!" ”

Wang Mingzhang didn't say anything, the muzzle of the gun turned and shot in the direction he pointed, "Boom!" "Boom!" Several explosions in succession sounded near the machine-gun position, and the machine-gun sound stopped abruptly.

The soldiers didn't notice this, and the soldiers on the mountainside were still rushing up, "Grenades!" Hand grenade! Dozens of grenades were dropped from the mountain, and the explosion resounded on the mountainside.

(To be continued)