Chapter 652: The General Attack Order of the Battle of Taixi

The southern group of the Taixi Campaign commanded by Hong Chaoyuan, Wang Nanhu, and Hu Xuerong was composed of the Fifth Brigade of Jiao, the New Fifth Brigade, and the Southeastern Lunan Detachment.

After the order for the Battle of Taixi was issued, Hong Chaoyuan immediately mobilized the three brigades. According to him, the Battle of Taixi can defeat Lunan in one battle, liberate Lunan's fathers and villagers from the iron hooves of the Japanese invaders, and then win more strategic maneuver space. The main force of our army can break through the Longhai Road in the south, so that the enemy in Xuzhou and eastern Henan will become a lone army, and will be under the blow of our army at any time; Advancing westward can threaten the enemy on the Pinghan Road and open up the connection with Taihang Mountain; Going north can recover Jizhong and directly threaten the Pingjin region. In a word, recovering Lunan, the little devils in North China will have nightmares when they sleep.

That's the big truth. In private, Hong Chaoyuan happily told the cadres that the spring of the Anti-Japanese War in Lunan had arrived. Is Yimeng Mountain good? The good mountains are continuous, easy to defend and difficult to attack. However, the limited arable land and grain production in the Yimeng Mountains made it difficult to feed such a large number of troops. What is Lunan place? It was a land where coal was needed, power plants were planted, and grain was needed. Only when our army recovered Lunan could it be regarded as having Shandong in its entirety. Even if the Japanese army mobilized a large army to recapture the Jinpu Road later, it was impossible for them to regain their rule over the Lunan region. Because after our army recovers Lunan, it is bound to completely uproot the Japanese puppet forces in Lunan, destroy the Japanese puppet regime, and establish an anti-Japanese democratic regime and local armed forces at all levels, and the basis for the survival of the little devils in Lunan will not exist. In the future, like Luxi, Jilubian, Jiaodong, Qinghe, Jiaolai, Luzhong, Ludongnan, and Taixi, as long as the little devils arrive in Lunan, they will be greeted by mines, tunnels, cold guns, and cold cannons.

According to the battle plan, on the evening of the 20th, Hong Chaoyuan commanded three brigades and nine regiments of the Southern Group to start the operation, jumping out of the mountainous area of Lunan and dividing the troops into separate roads and advancing covertly to the front line of Surabaya, Qufu, and Yanzhou.

It is ridiculous that the little devils, who are known for their habit of playing with conspiracies, are both airplanes and tanks and artillery, and they are attacking north in a hurry, trying to attack and occupy Jinan, but they do not know that the mantis is catching cicadas and yellow finches, and the Eighth Route Army is about to cut off their rear road.

At half past five in the afternoon of the 21st, the sky became dark, and night gradually fell.

By this time, the Japanese planes had already returned. In accordance with the discipline laid down by Terauchi Shouichi, the former commander of the Japanese North China Front, to fight against the instructors of the Eighth Route Army, all units of the Japanese army should stop attacking, deploy defensive positions on the spot, and arrange camping. But now the commander of the North China Front is General Shanshan Yuan, not General Terauchi Shouichi. Killing pigs and buttocks, each has its own way of killing. General Shanshan Yuan, who used to sit in the Tokyo base camp and formulate various policies and operational plans for invading China, did not believe in that evil, and his judgment was very clear: Liu Yimin must have taken the main force of the instructor to Luzhong to prepare for an ambush of the Fifth Division, and the blocking battles on the southern and northern fronts were all to cover Liu Yimin's ambush in Luzhong. Liu Yimin must now know that it is not only the Fifth Division that came from Qingdao, but also the Sixth Division, the Sixteenth Division, the Guards Division and the Armored Brigade.

Based on this judgment, General Shanshanyuan strictly ordered the Japanese armored brigades, guards divisions, fifth divisions, sixth divisions, and sixteenth divisions of the Japanese army on the Eastern Front to give full play to their superiority in armor and mechanization, adopt the method of group marching, and march in the direction of Jinan overnight. The 14th Division was ordered to go north overnight and attack Jinan directly, in order to seize Jinan before Liu Yimin's forces returned from Luzhong. At the same time, Shanshan Yuan strictly ordered all divisions of the Japanese army on the northern front to quickly suppress the Eighth Route Army on the west bank of the Yellow River, and then attacked the Yellow River defense overnight, crossed the river and marched westward, and together with the 14th Division, attacked Jinan.

This Shanshan Yuan originally judged that Liu Yimin's forces were in central Lu, and he wanted the main force of the Japanese army on the eastern front to build fortifications on the spot when they arrived near Weixian, and after the Japanese army on the northern front and the Japanese army on the southern front took Jinan, he would implement the tactics of east-west advance and gather and annihilate the main force of the Eighth Route Army in central Lu. Now it has changed again, and it has been changed to gather and annihilate Liu Yimin's forces around Jinan. Of course, this is not Shanshan Yuan's random change of battle plan, he also has a basis.

According to the reconnaissance of the aviation unit and the reports of various units, the Eighth Route Army, which was blocking on the west bank of the Yellow River, simultaneously carried out a three-line operation against the 23rd Division, the 32nd Division, the 36th Division, and the 1st and 2nd Divisions with roundabout flanks. In Tai'an and Feicheng to block the Japanese army's Eighth Route Army, arrange multiple defense lines, under the powerful offensive of the 14th Division, the 35th Division, and the 13th Independent Mixed Division, they will not retreat, and there will be two brigade-level numbers of the Taixi Garrison Brigade and the New Eighth Brigade, and the strength should be about 20,000 people; The Eighth Route Army, which was blocking the Japanese army on the eastern front, although it was about to collapse at the first touch, blocked and harassed and entangled all the way, and there were three brigade-level numbers of the Jiaodong Garrison Brigade, the Qinghe Garrison Brigade, and the Luzhong Garrison Brigade, and the total strength should also be 30,000 people. These seven brigades are all garrison brigades, which should be the troops developed in Shandong by Liu Yimin on the basis of part of the main force, and do not belong to Liu Yimin's forces. Considering that this is a period of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, it is impossible for Liu Yimin to violate the military system of the Chiang Kai-shek government, and at most it is the establishment of the third brigade and nine regiments of the first division of the squadron, which is also in line with the fact that the main force of Liu Yimin's instructor besieged the third brigade of Weixian during the Luzhong Campaign.

It's just that Liu Yimin is bold and reckless, although it is impossible for him to expand the main force number privately, but he can make more supplementary regiments, artillery, engineers, and baggage soldiers. Judging from the actual situation of today's one-day operation, each brigade of Liu Yimin's army has artillery, engineers, baggage troops, signal troops, and health troops, and the strength of the troops should be about 10,000.

In this way, the staff officers of the North China Front Army Headquarters calculated the total strength of the instructors of the Eighth Route Army, that is, the main force of three brigades and nine regiments, and seven to eleven brigades of the local garrison force, which were the four extra brigades, according to the calculations of the Japanese staff officers, one brigade should be deployed in the river defense position on the east bank of the Yellow River, one brigade should be stationed in Jinan, one brigade should be located in Luxi, and one brigade should confront the defenders of Xuzhou in Lunan. With the addition of artillery and other special forces, the total strength of Liu Yimin's troops should be between 150,000 and 180,000. This is consistent with General Terauchi's judgment of Liu Yimin's troops. It was precisely because of such a large army that Liu Yimin dared to act boldly and wantonly attack the imperial army.

Not to mention, the little devil's detection ability and analysis and judgment ability are indeed extraordinary, and he quickly judged the strength of the instructor to be ten miles away.

Another basis is the rapid progress of the main forces of the Japanese army on the Eastern Front. Since the vanguard of the armored brigade was ambushed at Xiawangbu and completely annihilated, the Japanese army, mainly the armored brigade and the two mechanized divisions of the Guards Division and the Fifth Division, formed a triangular attack formation, relying on the powerful force of steel piles to advance rapidly, and the Sixth Division and the Sixteenth Division followed suit. Although they were constantly attacked and harassed by the Eighth Route Army along the way, the Eighth Route Army was all one blow away, and the Japanese army marched quickly. On a journey of 180 kilometers from Qingdao to Weixian, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the Japanese advance had already crossed the Weihe River and approached Fangzi and Weixian, and did not encounter an ambush by the main force of the instructor. On the contrary, the blocking troops on the northern and southern fronts of the Eighth Route Army fought hard, which confirmed Shanshanyuan's judgment more and more. That is: After Liu Yimin received the information that the Japanese army on the Eastern Front was huge, he gave up his attempt to ambush the Fifth Division in Luzhong and began to prepare to shrink to Jinan.

Shanshanyuan, this guy, is used to sitting in the office and planning the invasion strategy against China, and he doesn't want to think about why Terauchi Shouichi strictly forbids the troops to be dispatched at night, and he doesn't want to think about how Liu Yimin can be so famous, so he dares to be like this, purely holding the head of a Japanese soldier as a ball and kicking it.

Because of Shanshanyuan, an ambitious guy, the west bank of the Yellow River and the front line of Tai'an and Feicheng at this time were still shaking the sky.

The Japanese planes flew away, and night fell, and the troops of the New Sixth Brigade and the Luxi Garrison Brigade, which had been retreating in the direction of the Luokou Bridge at a rapid marching speed, had no scruples at this time, and the rapid march turned into a running advance, and they retreated sharply towards the Luokou Bridge.

On the north and south flanks of the Luokou Bridge, the Eighth Route Army, which served as a blocker, fought to the death with the Japanese First Division and the Second Division to cover the retreat of the main force.

Without the cover of aircraft, the 2nd Division lost its artillery wing, and the losses of tanks and armored vehicles were also very large. At 10 miles to the south flank of the Luokou Bridge, it was strengthened by the Jinan Garrison Brigade to support the crossing of the river.

After the First Division lost its combat effectiveness in the First Wing, Naosaburo Gangbe, who was far away in Dexian County, immediately ordered three of the four supplementary brigades of the division and regiment to be incorporated into the First Wing, so that the First Wing could be restored to its original structure in terms of strength. However, the captain of the first wing, who was lucky enough to save his life, was completely frightened, and shrank his head and tail when he started fighting, as if he had a cold, and he was soft. The commander of the 1st Brigade and Regiment, who was the former enemy commander of the 1st Division, was so angry that he slapped him in the face, and after the fight, he ordered him to lead the 1st Wing to serve as the reserve of the division, and then ordered the 3rd, 49th, and 57th Wings to launch a fierce attack on the whole front.

That's not all, the cavalry of the 1st Division of the 1st Division is a brigade formation, numbered the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, with a total of three cavalry wings and a cavalry artillery wing, of which the 16th Cavalry Wing and the Cavalry Artillery Wing are stationed in the country, and the 1st Cavalry Wing was completely annihilated by the Eighth Route Army in Langfang. However, at that time, the Eighth Route Army retreated in a hurry, and it was too late to clean up the battlefield and check the results of the battle, and did not capture the military flag of the First Cavalry Wing, nor did it tear off the epaulettes and badges of the commander of the First Cavalry Wing, resulting in the fact that the First Cavalry Wing was completely annihilated and not disclosed. The Eighth Route Army only knew that the First Cavalry Wing had been disabled, but it did not know that it was completely annihilated. The Japanese army also simply concealed the truth and rebuilt the 1st Cavalry Wing. This morning, after the Japanese launched an attack on all fronts, the 1st Cavalry Wing took up the task of flanking search and alert and did not join the attack. At this time, the Japanese army was eager to capture the Luokou Bridge and encircle and annihilate the Eighth Route Army on the west bank.

After leaving Yanzhou, the commander of the 14th Division, Takashi Sekii was blocked all the way, and was bombed by planes of the Eighth Route Army along the Wen River, causing heavy casualties among the troops. Seeing that it was getting dark and the planes providing air cover were returning home, Sekii Takamasa was terrified, not knowing what would happen to this gloomy and dark night, and he wanted the troops to stop attacking, so he deployed a defensive line between the Wen River and Anjiazhuang, and camped on the spot. It is a pity that Takamasa Sekii's plan was vetoed by Sugi Sugimoto and Yamashita Fumi, and Yamashita Fumi, who advocated active offensive and had the nickname of "infantry artillery", ridiculed Sekii Takasuma in a telegram for forgetting the heroic spirit of Lieutenant General Dohihara commanding the 14th Division to detour thousands of miles to eastern Henan, turning the heroic and combative 14th Division into a Chinese woman walking on small feet, and completely forgetting that the 14th Division was already an elite division with heavy artillery brigades and all mechanized.

The telegram sent by the headquarters of the North China Front made it very clear that all divisions and regiments on the northern front were making every effort to pursue and outflank the Tuba Road on the west bank, and that the Tuba Road had already been defeated, and that the main force of the northern front would soon arrive at the iron bridge over the Yellow River at Luokou, and that they would launch a river-crossing operation overnight to attack Jinan. Liu Yimin's forces are far away in Luzhong, and he will definitely take advantage of the night to move to Jinan and return to the Yellow River defense line. The 14th Division should make a single effort to break through the enemy blocking in front of it, quickly attack Jinan, cut off the retreat of Liu Yimin's forces, cooperate with all divisions and regiments on the northern front, compress Liu Yimin's forces in the area around Jinan, form a flanking attack with the main force of the eastern front, and completely wipe out Liu Yimin's forces in a battle.

The telegram of the North China Front Army was conclusive, as if it had already called Liu Yimin's pulse, and Takashi Sekii could not help but believe it.

As a result, when night fell, the 14th Division turned on its headlights and, under the cover of artillery fire, attacked and advanced in the direction of Feicheng.

Just as night fell, Liu Yimin issued an order for the artillery group to enter the position, and the assault group, the east group, and the west group to enter the attack position. An hour later, that is, at half past six, Liu Yimin gave an order, and three signal flares rose from Tai'an City, and the general offensive of the Taixi Battle began.

At half past five, after Liu Yimin ordered the artillery group to enter the position, Li Chang, commander of the artillery headquarters and commander of the artillery brigade, and Wang Shanzhu, political commissar of the Eighth Route Army, ordered all artillery regiments to immediately remove their camouflage and go to position. Artillery cannons were pushed out of villages and ravines, and were soon pulled to the positions by pack horses.

Li Chang was elated and said to Wang Shanzhu: "From morning to dark, it was all the artillery of the little devils performing, as if the Eighth Route Army had no artillery. Okay now, it's our turn to speak, the little devil is going to cry and call his mother."

Although Wang Shanzhu is rigorous by nature, unlike Li Chang, who is not serious every day, but today, the little devil's planes and artillery are all in battle, Wang Shanzhu knows with his eyes closed that the casualties of the blocking troops are so great that they have long been unbearable, if it were not for the complete elimination of the 14th Division, the 35th Division and the 13th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade, if it were not for the discipline of the Eighth Route Army, Wang Shanzhu would have wanted to open fire.

When Li Chang said this, Wang Shanzhu also smiled: "Lao Li, it's time for us to go." After a while, you stay in command at the headquarters, and I go to the 1st Field Artillery Regiment. To tell the truth, the troops have expanded, our strength has increased, we have become senior commanders, and we can no longer feel the excitement of fighting every day in the command headquarters. It's uncomfortable."

Li Chang looked at Wang Shanzhu: "You also have itchy hands?" ”

Wang Shanzhu smiled: "Which turtle son doesn't have itchy hands"

Li Chang made a habitual move again, rubbing his hands together and muttering in his mouth: "Lao Tzu really has itchy hands."

After sighing, Li Chang said thoughtfully: "We have itchy hands, and the division commander must also have itchy hands." He is so tall and has such a good marksmanship, it is a waste that he can't go into battle to rush and kill. After the plane accident and parachute jump last time, the division commander dared to block the devil's army with one shot per person. I guess he must have itchy hands. If he hadn't been the division commander, he would have had to report the news of his escape to the Central Committee, the General Headquarters, and the division headquarters, and maybe he would have fought guerrillas on Han Xinling. You think, bang, it's just a little devil going back to his hometown, one shot and one life, it's more enjoyable, if you let him move freely, maybe one person can kill two hundred little devils in one day. Cow, the division commander is really too good."

Besides, the signal flare of the general attack rose into the sky, Li Chang folded his hands, and there were words in his mouth, it was still the same old thing, that is, what kind of little devil don't blame Grandpa Li for having black hands, it's an old saying and cliché that you shouldn't come to China yourself. After chattering, he habitually said "Division Commander, Division Commander, I love you", jumped up and jumped high, and shouted: "Send a signal, fire the cannon, open the cannon"

In an instant, the artillery brigade of the Eighth Route Army, the 1st Brigade, the 2nd Brigade, the 3rd Brigade, the 4th Brigade, the 6th Brigade, the 7th Brigade, the 8th Brigade, and the Cavalry Brigade opened fire, and 12 artillery regiments formed two artillery groups, and nearly 600 cannons roared, and the swarms of shells pierced the night sky, conjuring up countless bright rays of light in the sky, and then smashed into the attack queue of the 14th Division, the 35th Division, and the 13th Brigade of the Japanese Army.

Dear book friends, I am so busy that I don't even have time to attend the annual meeting. Today, the mountain people went to a village to discuss with the villagers, and the results were unexpected, the villagers did not listen to the mountain people, it was really depressing, thank you for your support, please subscribe more, vote more, thank you