readx; On the afternoon of the 25th, Hu Zongnan received another instruction from Chiang Kai-shek that all the armies participating in the war must conduct a general attack on all fronts this night and annihilate the enemy forces between Kaifeng and Lanfeng tomorrow morning. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info he was even more anxious, planning to increase his troops and attack again, but there were no troops to adjust. In the past two days, the front-line battles in Chenliukou, Da, Xiaowangzhuang, Qinglongpu, and Liangzhai have been tense, and one brigade of the First Division has remained near Kaifeng, and the other brigade has been ordered by Cheng Qian to cooperate with the 39th Army; The 1st Division of the 78th Division was ordered to cooperate with the 64th Army in attacking Luowang Station, and it was also engaged in battle, and the 108th Brigade of the 36th Division was maneuvering with the troops south of the railway. He had to order the original team to rest temporarily, and attack Quxingji again in the early morning of the 26th.

However, the enemy in Quxingji had gradually increased to three or four thousand men, making it more difficult for the 78th and 36th Divisions to make progress in their attacks.

By the early morning of the 28th, Hu Zongnan's subordinates launched four attacks on the enemy in Quxingji, all of which failed.

However, at this time, the 71st Army had recovered Lanfeng, the 64th Army had captured Luowang Station and Luowang Village, and the enemy in Chenliukou and Lanfengkou were also expelled by other troops. The main force of the Tufeiyuan Division has retreated to the areas near Sanyi Village and Quxingji. Cheng Qian informed the armies of the battle report, and Hu Zongnan couldn't help but feel embarrassed when he heard it.

In the early morning of the 29th, Hu Zongnan's headquarters launched the fifth attack on Quxingji, but it was still unsuccessful. At this time, the battle situation on the Guide side had changed, and Cheng Qian had ordered to adjust the strategic deployment of the eastern Henan battlefield, and transferred the troops of the fifth division to occupy Huaiyang, Taikang, Qixian and other places, and prepared to meet the enemy attacking from the west of Xuzhou. He also ordered Hu Zongnan to take a defensive position against the enemy in Quxingji, wait for the enemy to move, and then annihilate it with all his might.

However, Hu Zongnan felt that he had led his troops out of Shaanxi and into Henan, and had traveled thousands of miles, but he had no military achievements, and he was dwarfed by the generals who participated in the war, and secondly, it was difficult to explain in front of the "principal". And his 17th Army also seems to have come to Henan in vain. Therefore, he decided to ignore Cheng Qian's order, and launched a general attack on the enemy of Quxingji at dawn on the 31st, in order to finally fight a good battle.

Hu Zongnan analyzed that the reason why the five attacks failed was that the artillery was too small and lacked ammunition to effectively destroy the enemy's defensive fortifications, resulting in heavy casualties among the infantry. Therefore, he personally asked the commander's headquarters for ammunition, and ordered the 200th Division Tank Battalion and the 3rd Artillery Battalion of the Reading Mountain, which were newly assigned to the corps, to arrive at the front line at 8 p.m. on the evening of the 30th. He led the corps headquarters to enter Duliangzhai near Quxingji before dawn on the 31st and personally commanded the battle.

On the evening of the 30th, the 78th Division, the 36th Division, and the 109th Division each arrived at the designated position in accordance with Hu Zongnan's order.

However, the 1,500 rounds of mountain and field artillery shells supplied by the branch of the Kaifeng Military Station did not arrive until midnight, and Qiu Qingquan's chariot battalion did not show up until midnight. Hu Zongnan contacted him by telephone, and Qiu Qingquan replied that the troops would not arrive until the morning of 31 July. Hu Zongnan regarded the artillery unit and the chariot battalion as a guarantee for the success of the attack, and the artillery shells could not be delivered, and the chariot battalion could not be delivered, so he had to order all units to stand by in their original positions.

At 10 o'clock in the morning of the 31st, Qiu Qingquan arrived with the chariot battalion, and 1,500 rounds of mountain and field artillery shells supplied by the branch of the Kaifeng Military Station also arrived at the artillery position. Hu Zongnan then ordered a general attack at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

The commanders of the divisions, brigades, and regiments under Hu Zongnan's headquarters also felt the same as the corps commanders, and everyone was determined to go all out and not give up until they took the enemy's stronghold. The soldiers of the various units rested for a day and night, their physical strength was somewhat restored, and when they learned that the corps headquarters had transferred artillery and chariot units to support them, they were all in high spirits.

The morale of the troops is high, and Quxing is bound to be overcome.

However, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, Hu Zongnan suddenly received an order from Cheng Qian: Due to strategic relations, all the armies of our eastern and western Henan operations were said to be transferred to western Henan, and all units of the 17th Army Corps stopped attacking the enemy in Quxingji, and immediately prepared to move to western Henan.

Hu Zongnan received the order and had to order all his troops to prepare for the westward retreat.

The general offensive that was about to begin was stopped as a result.

The officers and men of all units were relieved to lose, and Hu Zongnan's plan to win a battle fell through, and he was even more disappointed.

However, although the 17th Army Corps failed to achieve military prestige in eastern Henan, it suffered heavy casualties. In the entire battle, the regiment lost more than 1,330 dead and more than 1,980 wounded, which can be regarded as the best effort for such a small battle.

In the afternoon of the same day, when Hu Zongnan was discussing a retreat plan with the chief of staff and others, six enemy planes suddenly flew over the village where the corps headquarters was located and bombed them, destroying dozens of houses in the village and killing more than 10 soldiers and civilians, one of the bombs happened to fall in the corps commander's capital courtyard, and a corner of the house was blown up, and the major staff officer Wu (Huo/Jie) was killed, and Hu Zongnan, the commander of the 17th Army Corps, who had failed to leave the army, was also almost killed.

Yu Jishi's 74th Army was ordered to march westward from Guide on May 19, and after connecting several villages between Lanfeng and Minquan, it received an order from Xue Yue on the 23rd: the 26th Division and the 106th Division were under the command of Yu Jishi, and attacked Sanyi Village on the 24th.

Sanyi Village is one of the important strongholds of the Tufeiyuan Division. The village is surrounded by the earthen wall of about 5 miles long, the wall is thick, the height is about more than zhang, and there are the gate of the village on the east, south and west sides. Outside the wall, dig a ditch that is more than a foot deep, and there is water in the ditch. On the wall of the northeast corner, there is a brick blockhouse. There are several huts outside the wall in the southeast corner. There are two earthen embankments in the northeast of the village, one extends to the northeast through the firewood building of the small village outside the village, and the other extends to the southeast through the river canal. The river canal is about 400 meters away from the village, and the water in the canal is continuous.

Although the terrain around Sanyi Village is open, there are still several bushes that can be hidden. The fortifications on the periphery of the village are all made of sand and soil, which are easily destroyed by artillery fire. In the firewood building, Baowang Temple, the embankment along the canal. It's just that the fortifications in the east have been occupied by the Japanese army.

The defenders in Sanyi Village were more than 1,000 at the beginning, and later increased to more than 3,000, and were equipped with more than 10 tanks and more than 10 guns. Tu Feiyuan began to sit in the village to command, and later because the Chinese [***] team was very urgent to attack the village, he led his staff to withdraw to Hebei Guantai to command the division to fight. Because Sanyi Village is quite close to the Yellow River, and the section of the Lanfengkou River is the same as Liuyuankou, the riverbed is narrow, and pontoon bridges can be erected, supplemented by steamboats to transport arms supplies and reinforcements, so Tufeiyuan uses Sanyi Village as the fulcrum of each division and regiment, and deploys considerable troops in the villages around the village to form a defense of the main stronghold. The army near Lanfengkou can also echo with the north and south of the army in the wall, and go back and forth for reinforcements. This brought great difficulties to the 74th Army and other units in attacking fortified positions.

On the evening of the 23rd, Yu Jishi convened a meeting of the commanders of the three divisions in a village more than 10 miles east of Sanyi Village, and demarcated the attack routes of the three divisions. After the 106th Division conquered the enemy's outlying stronghold from Xuelou, it attacked Sanyi Village from the south earthen embankment; After Yu Jishi led the 26th Division to assist the 2nd Division in clearing the stronghold, he attacked Sanyi Village from the east. The newly formed 35th Division and 1st Brigade of the 141st Division served as perimeter guards to prevent the enemy from fleeing westward. The units arrived at their designated positions before midnight, and the attack was scheduled for 4 a.m. on the 25th.

Yu Jishi, born in 1902, was born in Fenghua County, Zhejiang Province, and was a lieutenant general in the army. When Yu Jishi was 18 years old, he worked as an apprentice in a rice shop in Fenghua, and once, he was carrying vegetables and delivering food, accidentally fell, and ran away from home for fear of being beaten by the boss, and defected to Yu Feipeng, an uncle of the Guangdong clan and the quartermaster of the Whampoa Military Academy at the time. Sponsored by Yu Feipeng, Yu Jishi was admitted to the first phase of the Whampoa Military Academy, and was favored by Chiang Kai-shek because of his hard work during the training, and stayed by Chiang Kai-shek's side as a guard after graduation, and was promoted to the commander of the first guard division in 1930. In 1932, he was reappointed as the commander of the 88th Division of the Fifth Army. As soon as Yu Jishi took office, he was ordered to go to Shanghai to participate in the "128" Anti-Japanese War, in the battle, Yu Jishi personally led the troops to launch a counteroffensive against the enemy, and was seriously wounded in the abdomen, and was later cured by the German Concession Hospital.

In 1935, Yu Jishi was appointed as the commander of the "suppression of bandits" in Anhui, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi, and led his troops to the Taiping area of Anhui Province to suppress the anti-Japanese advance team led by Xing Weigu, Fang Zhimin, Su Yu and others.

After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Yu Jishi was promoted to commander of the 74th Army, under the jurisdiction of the 51st and 58th divisions. He was ordered to sail from Hankou to Shanghai to participate in the Songhu Anti-Japanese War. Later, he participated in the Battle of Nanjing. The 74th Army suffered heavy losses in two major battles. After the fall of Nanjing, the troops were concentrated in Hubei for training.

In this Battle of Lanfeng, Chiang Kai-shek and Xue Yue both regarded Yu Jishi's 74th Army and the 26th Division attached to him as one of the main forces to defeat the enemy, so they ordered the army to be the main attacking force of Kefu Sanyi Village.

The battle of besieging Sanyi Village was difficult and tragic.

After three days of bloody fighting, the attack troops of the 3rd Division conquered some of the outlying strongholds after three days of bloody fighting. The army in Lanfengkou and Sanyi Village constantly waited for opportunities to counterattack, causing great casualties to the [***] team.

Due to the gradual oppression of the outer defense line of the army, the troops gradually concentrated around Sanyi Village, so the closer to Sanyi Village, the more difficult it was to conquer its stronghold. The two places of firewood building and river canal later became the focus of contention between the offensive and defensive armies. After repeated bombing by enemy planes, after continuous shelling and tank crushing, and after many brutal battles, the village was almost razed to the ground, and the corpses of Chinese soldiers lay everywhere under the ruins. In the battle for Chai Lou, the enemy dispatched several tanks to cover the infantry for a counteroffensive, and the attacking troops of the 26th Division suffered heavy casualties.

Later, Yu Jishi transferred one of the companies of Qiu Qingquan's chariot battalion to help in the battle, and tanks appeared in front of the Chinese [***] team, which was second only to the appearance of Chinese planes in the air for the Yue army. In the face of shelling and indomitable charges from Chinese tanks, the enemy tanks retreated. As soon as the enemy tanks retreated, the infantry began to disorganize.

Seeing this, Ji Hongru, commander of the 203rd Regiment of the 106th Division, immediately led his troops to charge the enemy and tried to destroy the enemy in front of the formation, but failed. In the tragic white-knuckle battle, Ji Hongru was killed by drinking bullets, and the two battalion commanders also died bravely.

On the 27th, the Lanfengkou and Sanyizhai armies launched a counterattack against the 26th Division's stronghold of Yang Qiyuan, and the enemy first dispatched planes to bomb wildly, then raised tethered balloons, commanded artillery to bombard, and then dispatched infantry and cavalry to counterattack. The deputy commander of the 26th Division led the 119th Regiment to rush back and forth, fought hand-to-hand with the enemy, lost the position and regained 4 times, and fought bloody battles until the afternoon, before the enemy was completely repulsed. Most of the officers and men of the 119th Regiment were also killed or wounded.

When the attacking troops of the 26th Division advanced to the vicinity of Sanyi Village, they were also counterattacked by the army and formed a state of confrontation with the enemy.

At this time, Lanfeng had been recovered, and Xue Yue immediately ordered the newly formed 35th, 61st, and 87th Divisions to send one division to assist the 74th Army in clearing the outlying positions of Sanyi Village, and ordered the 46th Division of Gui Yongqing Army to be responsible for guarding the stronghold of Jike, and the other part to attack Sanyi Village from the south.

Sanyi Village has been completely surrounded by the [***] team.

On the morning of the 28th, Yu Jishi came to the rear of the position of the 26th Division, and together with the division commander Gao Fei, he selected 500 strong soldiers to form a brave team, carrying light weapons, as the vanguard, to attack the southeast corner of the village, and the main force of the division pointed to the east gate of the village.

At noon, the sky was clear and the sun was dazzling, and a heavy rain in the evening washed away the smoke and dust on the battlefield. The place where the earthen wall of Sanyi Village was collapsed by artillery fire has been repaired by the army overnight. The sun flag is still fluttering in the wind at the head of the wall. In a small village southeast of Sanyi Village, 500 brave team members are ready to go.

At 1:30, the artillery of the 74th Army began to bombard Sanyi Village. On the field, which had been quiet for a long time, there was another rumbling cannon. Smoke rose in Sanyi Village, and the sun flag at the head of the wall also disappeared after a cloud of gunpowder smoke rose. Subsequently, 500 brave members rushed to Sanyi Village under the cover of dense firepower. More than 10 members of the team held light machine guns in their arms, strafing all the way, and the garrison troops outside the wall, under the brave charge of the Chinese soldiers, fled north in panic, trying to retreat into the village from the east gate, and the division commander Gao Fei immediately ordered the main force to launch an attack on the east gate.

However, when the brave team rushed to the edge of the ditch, the advance encountered difficulties, the ditch was about 1 zhang 5 feet wide, the water depth in the ditch was five or six feet, the ditch wall was steep, it was difficult to climb, some brave team members jumped off the ditch, to the opposite side, but finally climbed the edge of the ditch, and were killed by the army on the wall. Most of the team members were blocked in the wheat fields outside the ditch, unable to advance or retreat under the enemy's fire net.

After killing dozens of Yue soldiers who tried to escape into the wall, the attacking troops from the east rushed to a distance of more than 200 meters from the wall, but were also blocked by the firepower of the Yue army, and the enemy in the wall resisted stubbornly with the help of the pillboxes and existing fortifications, and the light and heavy machine guns formed a dense barrage, making it difficult for the Chinese soldiers to move forward.

Yu Jishi used a telescope to observe the battle situation on the front line on the roof of a house near the command post, and when he saw that the attacking troops were blocked in the enemy's fire network and could not advance or retreat, he quickly got down from the house, rushed into the command post, and ordered Gao Fei by telephone: "Bring the mortars up and knock out the enemy's wall fortifications and pillboxes for me!" Do you hear that? Yes, knock hard with mortars! ”

Gao Fei immediately mobilized more than a dozen mortars and ordered the soldiers to carry them to a distance of 400 meters from the wall, and bombarded the fortified pillbox on the wall. However, this measure did not have the desired effect. The enemy immediately returned fire with infantry artillery, several mortars were destroyed by enemy fire, and more than 10 soldiers were killed and wounded. The rest were evacuated and concealed on the spot.

Gao Fei saw that the enemy's artillery fire was fierce, and it was impossible to destroy the enemy's fortified pillbox with mortars, so he ordered light and heavy fire to cover the retreat of the attacking troops.

The attack failed with hundreds of casualties.

In the evening of the same day, Yu Jishi received a report from all divisions that the 61st Division had occupied the outlying stronghold Guanzhai, and the 46th Division had attacked the south of the village and was in a confrontation with the enemy. The newly formed 35th Division has taken over the defense of the city and nearby fortifications

Yu Jishi was inspired by these news, and he analyzed the above intelligence that the enemy army in Sanyi Village had fallen into a state of isolation and helplessness, and victory in the battle was in sight. After consulting with the chief of staff and the staff of the military department, he issued the following order to the headquarters:

1. The enemy situation and the position of friendly forces; 2. The army was determined to encircle the enemy's two flanks with the main force before dawn, break the enemy of Sanyi Village on the south bank of the Yellow River in one fell swoop, and capture and annihilate the remnants of the enemy. The main direction of attack is on the right flank; 3. The 26th Division should immediately consolidate the line of occupation and attack the enemy in the north of Sanyizhai with one part of the army, and attack the enemy north of Sanyizhai with the main force, and the 4th and 26th Divisions should attack the enemy in the southeast and northeast of Sanyizhai on the present front; 5. The attack will begin at 4:30 p.m. tomorrow.

The attack at dawn was relatively smooth at first. The attacking troops, under the cover of artillery fire, quickly advanced. However, when the troops attacked only a hundred meters away from the wall, it was difficult to advance, and the army not only relied on the fortifications on the wall to condescendingly strafe, but the enemy hidden in the grass huts outside the wall and behind the embankment also suddenly began to shoot. Yu's attacking troops were blocked by fire from several sides, making it difficult to move an inch, and then the troops in the village used grenadiers to shoot at the Chinese officers and soldiers who were prostrate on the open ground.

The dense sound of machine guns was no longer prioritized, and the sound of bomb explosions was loud. The Yu army's assault troops continued to be killed. Taking advantage of the interval between the firing of enemy flares, the heroic Chinese officers and men crawled forward and approached the moat inch by inch. However, because the soldiers carried ladders and gangplanks, they were not able to move easily.

At dawn, the attacking troops finally moved to a distance of several tens of meters from the wall, and were about to launch an attack, when four enemy planes suddenly flew in, and the enemy planes circled in a circle in the gray sky, and then separated, looking for the target of the attack. In an instant, a string of heavy bombs exploded among the Chinese soldiers outside the wall, and the rampant enemy planes bullied the [***] squadron without anti-aircraft fire, and from time to time flew at ultra-low altitude and strafed the [***] squadron crawling in the fields. Deafening whistling and gurgling machine guns resounded over Sanyi Village.

On the rear position, a battalion commander saw that the attack was about to be successful, but he was bombed indiscriminately by enemy planes, picked up a light machine gun, and fired angrily at the enemy planes flying low like a harrier. The enemy planes turned and swooped down and strafed the position, several soldiers were shot and killed, and the battalion commander was also seriously wounded.

The army in Sanyi Village took the opportunity to use light and heavy machine guns to shoot fiercely at the [***] team that attacked the front of the village, and frequently threw them with grenadiers; The artillery of the Japanese army bombarded the positions of the 26th Division on all fronts. In order to reduce casualties, the attacking forces had to cover each other and withdraw to their original positions.

The 26th Division's attack on Lanfengkou was also met with stubborn resistance from the Yue Army. At noon, the army dispatched more than 800 infantry and artillery combined troops, under the cover of 8 tanks, to counterattack the positions of Yang and Liang Yuan, which were defended by the 26th Division.

(To be continued)