readx; The terrain around Dashiqiang Village is open and not easy to defend, and Cai Zhengying, who is responsible for the defensive task, retreats to the back mountain of Dashiqiang Village. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 The fierce battle began, and the enemy side was bombarded with tanks and artillery, covering the infantry charge. On the other hand, a roundabout force of hundreds of enemy soldiers, dozens of cavalry, and four mountain artillery guns was sent from the left flank to attack the rear of Stonewall Village.

Dashiqiang Village is adjacent to Weishan Lake in the west, and Yao Chaolun in Puyang Mountain is connected to it in the east. The enemy's detour troops could not bypass the frontal position too far, and as a result, they were ambushed and intercepted by our Kangping battalion in the middle of the way, but they failed to make a detour, but were defeated by our troops, a commander with a war knife was killed, and the enemy's ten cavalry and horses were all killed, and dozens of infantry corpses were left on the side of the road, and they retreated.

At the height of the fighting that day, Sun Zhen, commander-in-chief of the group army, led his staff to inspect the Beishahe front. The telephone rang in the headquarters, the staff officers shouted loudly into the microphone, and the rumbling and heavy gunfire could be heard in the distance, and Zhang Xuanwu's 727th Regiment was building fortifications around it. The commander-in-chief came to inspect in person, and the soldiers were full of spirit, sweating all over their faces, and kept waving the tools in their hands!

At this moment, six enemy planes flew over and bombed and strafed the soldiers building fortifications in the sky. The terrain around Beishahe was open and flat, and the fortifications had not yet been built, so the soldiers had nowhere to hide, and in an instant, sixty or seventy people were killed or injured under the blows from the sky. Sun Zhen broke free from the guards' guards and stood at the door of the headquarters, staring at the fire and smoke rising from the position amid the deafening explosion, a pair of sword eyebrows locked.

Apparently, a large-scale offensive began. He knew very well in his heart that it would be extremely difficult to defend against such a wide frontal attack with the strength of his group army, and although the whole army had made a complete sacrifice and was determined to do its duty, if the battle line was lost, the entire battle situation on the Jinpu Road side would be endangered, and the consequences would be extraordinary! So he immediately called for reinforcements. At the same time, he also instructed Chen Li, the commander-in-chief of the front line who accompanied him: "The Jiehe position will definitely be broken by the enemy, you must quickly contain the scattered troops to strengthen the Beishahe line, and strive to hold on for more time!" ”

March 15 was an unprecedentedly fierce day of battle in the mountainous positions.

On the morning of that day, the group army received a telegram from the Theater Commander's Department and the Chairman of the National Committee to take Tengxian as the key point on the northern line of the Jinpu Road, which had a bearing on the overall situation, and that it should do its best to defend it and provide more support for time to wait for reinforcements.

At this time, the group army had only two regiments in reserve, and one of them was transferred to a hundred miles away to assist the friendly forces fighting in Linyi. Sun Zhen had already transferred the last and only Zhang Xuanwu regiment to reinforce the front line, and strictly ordered all departments to reorganize and deploy, fight desperately, fight the enemy with all their might, and if necessary, defend Teng County with all their might, and shed the last drop of blood!

From dawn onwards, the enemy, relying on the superiority of firepower and tanks, made a detour to our rear and cooperated with the frontal enemy, encircled and attacked our first-line position on Puyangshan and the second-line position on Jiehe River in multiple ways, and the other part attacked the position in depth at Beishahe. The entire front was divided and turned into a pot of porridge, the enemy and our positions were staggered, the smoke of gunpowder was filled, and the corpses were everywhere on the ground. Our defensive positions were cut into disconnected pieces by the enemy's interspersed troops, but the small positions were still engaged in fierce fighting with the enemy. At one o'clock at noon, the enemy increased its troops to more than 10,000, and several positions on the front of our Puyang Mountain were broken through, and the remnants of Yao Chaolun's regiment, which had retreated from Puyang Mountain to defend the boundary river, were surrounded by the pursuing enemy, and fought separately with the units of the 125th Division that were sticking here.

The 749th Regiment, east of Jiehe Town, was attacked by more than 1,000 enemies from the north-east at around 9 o'clock. The regiment commander Qu Liancheng immediately led the 1st and 2nd battalions to engage in a fierce battle with the enemy. At about 12 noon, the enemy broke through from the middle, divided the 1st and 2nd battalions into two parts, the north and the south, the south retreat to Beishahe, and the regiment commander retreated with the north to a village east of Jiehe Town. After breaking through the lines of the 1st and 2nd Battalions, the enemy launched an offensive against the 3rd Battalion.

Two of our heavy machine guns entered the position and opened heavy fire on the enemy.

The attacking enemy was suddenly hit by machine-gun fire and was in disarray, but quickly adjusted his fire, returning fire with several machine guns and bombarding them with grenadiers. The position was instantly filled with shells, and even the command post was hit, and one of the heralds inside was killed.

By about 4 p.m., the company had suffered more than half of the casualties, with lieutenant platoon commander Shi Caiyu killed and second lieutenant platoon commander Wang Ziwu seriously wounded. When the company withdrew to the village where the regiment headquarters was located, there were only about 30 people left in the company. The Qu regiment contained more than 200 officers and soldiers and was about to move towards Jiehe Town, but as soon as they reached the west entrance of the village, they were met by a burst of machine gun fire, and the first few soldiers in front of them were killed and wounded. Commander Qu immediately ordered to occupy the earthen wall around the village and defend it, and at this time they saw more than 1,000 devil soldiers advancing in the direction of the boundary river through three or four miles north of the village!

Yin's only battalion, which was holding on to Longshan east of Jiehe Town, first made contact with the Yue army and constantly repelled the attacks of the devil soldiers. The attacking army saw that it could not be effective immediately, leaving one force to continue to stalemate in the front, and the rest of the army divided into two routes, passed through the two flanks of Longshan, and directly attacked Jiehe Town and Longshan Position.

The Sichuan army fought the front line, treating death as home, and the people of Tengxian County were also desperately supporting the front line. This unprecedentedly deep relationship of interdependence between the military and the people has infinitely strengthened the sacred sense of responsibility of our officers and men to protect the country and the people, and this sense of responsibility has greatly enhanced the fighting spirit and combat effectiveness of these Sichuan men wearing military uniforms who regard death as their home.

This kind of fighting spirit and combat effectiveness finally composed an earth-shattering tragic swan song in the defense of Tengxian County.

At the same time as the fierce battle at the Boundary River position, a very fierce battle was also going on on the side of the big stone wall on the left flank. The fighting was far more tragic than the previous day.

Due to the successful detour of the enemy on the front and right flank of Puyang Mountain, the attack of the enemy on the left flank was greatly stimulated**. On 15 March, about 2,000 enemy infantry, more than 100 cavalry, and more than 10 artillery pieces attacked along the road leading from the stone wall to Teng County, and the spearhead of the attack was directed at Daji Village on the front of the road. At the same time, there is another enemy army of more than 1,000 soldiers, more than 100 cavalry, 12 cannons, the old trick is repeated, divided into two roads, bypassing the front of Daji Village, to the Changyu and Jindoushan positions behind.

At 7 a.m., the three positions were shelled at the same time with unusually heavy shelling, and the devil soldiers took turns charging under the cover of artillery fire. At about 9 o'clock, all the guard positions of the three positions were occupied by the enemy. However, the terrain of Changyu and Jindou Mountain is good, the slope of the mountain is steep, condescending, and the fortifications are very strong, which is conducive to defense. Although the enemy captured the alert position, the attack on the main position was repeatedly frustrated and stopped.

Dajizhai was defended by a battalion of our 740th Regiment, and the battalion commander Kang Ping commanded each company back and forth. At this time, the regiment commander Wang Lin had recovered from illness and returned to the department, and came to the front line of Stone Wall Village to command the battle before the war. At the height of the battle, He Xuanrong was ordered by Wang Lin to come to the Kangping camp to supervise the battle. At this time, the enemy could not attack Changyu and Jindoushan, so he concentrated all his artillery fire and attacked the Kangping camp with all his might.

The terrain of Dajizhai is relatively open, which is suitable for cavalry combat. After the bombardment, the enemy charged with infantry and cavalry, and at the same time five enemy planes flew low to assist in the battle. The position was filled with gunsmoke and a sea of fire, and the enemy actually rushed into our positions several times, and they were all wiped out by grenades and broadswords.

At this time, for the first time, a number of planes of our army's air force flew over the sky and unexpectedly dived and bombed the enemy, causing the devils to turn their backs. An enemy plane was shot down, belching smoke and planted near the village of Dashiqiang. The other was wounded, erupted in flames, and fled north. Our air force won a complete victory, and on its return, it flew low over our position and waved its wings in greeting. Seeing this, the soldiers of our army, who had always been bullied by enemy planes, cheered, took off their hats and threw them into the sky, waving frequently at our air force.

It turned out that Li Zongren, the commander of the theater of operations, saw that the front line in Tengxian County was in danger, and in order to boost morale, he specially asked the air force to help in the war. It is said that the requirements are not high, and it only requires our planes to make a few circles around the enemy formation on the front line, drop a few bombs, and then fly at a low altitude over our troops' positions, so that the defenders can see our planes with their own eyes and complete the mission.

Under the leadership of Wu Ruliu, the commander of the group, they rendezvoused at Madian Airport one after another, and in order not to let the enemy find out, they quietly flew to Henan Guide Airport at dusk to land, and flew to the Lunan front early the next morning. The Commander's Department notified the front-line troops in advance so that the troops would know the flight routes and sorties of our planes, and placed white cloths in conspicuous places in their positions for identification.

Aircraft flying to the front line simply do not need to identify signs to find enemy targets. Looking at the surface of the ground from the air, the position of friend and foe is clear, on one side is thick smoke, many houses are on fire, the defenders are resisting in the trenches, and no one is moving on the ground. There are no fireworks on the other side, people are walking on the main roads and small roads, and there are cars parked in some villages. This is precisely the enemy's side, attacking us with its heavy weapons.

Our air force is on alert in the sky with a squadron and takes turns attacking on its own in two waves. Those devils didn't even think that our plane would appear in the sky, so everything went on as usual, as if nothing happened!

When the bombs fell, they were caught off guard, and some ran from the road to the side, some from the back of the horse to the horse, some from the house to the outside, and some from the house to the outside. The whole enemy formation was in disarray, like ants on a hot pan. Sixty-four-kilogram bombs were dropped on each plane at one time, and the enemy's positions suddenly burst into full bloom, with thick smoke billowing and flickering fire. Although the bombed corpse could not be seen clearly from the air, the embarrassed appearance of the devil who had not died desperately escaping from the clouds of smoke could be seen clearly.

Just as the 8th Squadron was attacking under the leadership of Squadron Leader Lu Guangqiu, it found that two enemy bombers were flying from the direction of Xuzhou. This may have been the plane that flew from Nanjing to bomb Lunan, but it also deserved its bad luck and happened to collide with the destroyer squadron I was carrying out the mission. Ouyang Sen, the squadron leader of the No. 7 Squadron, immediately led three planes to attack head-on, and one shot lasted less than 10 seconds, one enemy flew on fire on the spot, and the other crashed into the enemy's formation, Ouyang Sen's left hand was wounded by the enemy's shot, and our planes were intact and did not lose a single one, and all of them flew back to the station.

After the air battle, the fighting on the ground continued to be fierce.

By 11 o'clock, the Kangping battalion had suffered heavy casualties and was unable to support it. Wang Lin drew Cheng Ziyi's company from the reserve to reinforce him.

When Cheng Lian ran to Daji Village, the enemy had already attacked our position. As soon as Cheng Ziyi saw it, he ordered the whole company to charge, picked up the big knife and rushed into the enemy group, more than 100 men went down the mountain like tigers, and a grenade increased the slashing and killing, and the blood splashed on the position! Seeing the reinforcements coming, the Kang battalion doubled its morale and drove the enemy out of the position. Company Commander Cheng Ziyi was wounded in the struggle, and more than half of the company's casualties were lost.

At 12 o'clock, the enemy's reinforcements arrived again, and Wang Lianquan was killed in a position in our Kang camp.

At the very moment when the Kangying position was on the verge of attack, another group of the enemy bypassed the Kangying camp and the Jinshan and Changyu positions behind it, and directly engaged in a fierce battle with Xiong Shunyi's battalion and Jiang Youhou's reinforced company, which had been reinforced from Tengxian County's defense, in our deep Chitou.

After the reinforcements of Xiong Shunyi's battalion came the day before, they deployed on the hill north of Chitouji. However, the rocks here were hard and difficult to build fortifications, so Xiong Ying and others pushed the fortifications to the northern foot of the mountain and the deep ravine in front of the mountain, and rushed to build fortifications here, forming a dense fire network to prepare to block the enemy.

When the enemy's roundabout troops arrived in front of Chitouji, they did not expect our troops to be ambushed at the foot of the mountain, so they opened artillery and bombarded each hill fiercely, causing the mountains to fly sand and rocks, and it was a mess.

But the troops in the foothills and deep ravines suffered few casualties, and they stayed there to watch the excitement.

As soon as the charging enemy entered the front of our position, the machine rifles in our fortifications opened fire in unison, causing the enemy to turn on their backs and lose their heads. In particular, some young people from Chitouji also participated in the ranks of our defenders, in the deep ravine on the side of the mountain, flickering forward and backward, flickering left and right, really like the heroes of Liangshan in those years, out of nowhere, repelling the enemy's four charges in a row, and never letting the enemy cross Chitouji.

Later, a large number of local people recalled the fighting that took place here:

"On the 13th day of February in the old calendar of 1938, in order to block the southern advance of the Yue army into Teng County, the Sichuan army went to the stone wall and the ancient road junction in the north to set up defenses and blockades. After fierce fighting, our Sichuan army retreated here - Yanshan. The Sichuan army only has one or two light machine guns, and the company commander is not tall, so there is really a kind of war! He took four or five people to the north of Hongshan Pass to fight the devils who climbed the hillside and rushed straight over. The machine gun hit a few shuttles in a row, and it was said that many of the devils were killed! It is said that the devil who rushed up had a company formed by our China, but there was nothing left, and all of them were wiped out by the Sichuan army."

Protecting the country from poison is the highest interest of the nation and the most sacred duty of military personnel. Later in the battle, the Sichuan soldiers, who were about to die generously, were still calling the villagers to avoid the bullets.

What a respectable and lovely officer and soldier!

Some local people recalled:

"The Central Army is our Chinese army in the end, and it cares about and loves our people very much. When he was about to lose his resistance and retreat, he shouted to the villager and urged him to flee: "Fellow countryman (Chuanyin), you quickly find a place to take refuge, and when this devil comes up, we will fight with them." Don't move, don't panic and stand up, the devil's bullets are hit.'

Later, the weapons of our Sichuan army were not good, and the tanks of the devils drove over, and the heavy machine guns fired vigorously, and our Sichuan army finally couldn't withstand it, so it had to retreat from the stone wall and ancient road intersection in Zou County, and retreated to Chitouji through Hongshan Pass, and withdrew to Tengxian County to defend the city. ”

On March 15, although the devils occupied several positions of our 740th Regiment, our army resisted day by day, and the army never opened the road from Shiqiang Village to Teng County, but paid a heavy price.

On the afternoon of March 15, Tengxian County.

The county seat of Tengxian County is a nearly square city outline, slightly longer from east to west. The walls are about six meters high, made of bricks and stones, and are fairly strong, and are still intact despite hundreds of years of war.

In Xiguan, outside the West Gate City, there is a thermal power plant, and the headquarters of the former enemy is located in the power plant.

Lieutenant General Wang Mingzhang, former commander-in-chief of the enemy, acting commander of the 41st Army, and commander of the 122nd Division, was in the command headquarters; he talked with Chief of Staff Zhao Weibin in a hurry for a few moments, and then stared at the large-scale combat map hanging on the wall in a daze, and his eyes seemed to penetrate the red and green arrows on the map and directly reach the battlefield where the smoke of gunpowder was everywhere. The cigarette tray on the table had been cleaned several times by the guards, but cigarette butts continued to come in.

Staff officers kept coming and going, using red and blue pencils and small flags to mark the latest battlefield developments on the map. The red arrows and small flags indicating the position of the army continued to branch southward, and except for the branch on the left flank of Dashiqiang Village, which was blocked and stopped, in all other places, these red arrows had crossed the mountains in the northern part of Tengxian County and reached into the plain dam. It is like a flash flood that crosses the levee that surrounds it and spreads along the ravines and canals. Although there are still some blue islands in the red encirclement, it is clear that these islands will soon be submerged as well. The speed of the army's attack was unexpectedly fast, and the 10th Division really lived up to its name!

At this time, Zhong Langhua, a staff officer of the group army headquarters, came to Teng County to understand the situation on the order of Sun Zhen, and casually visited Wang Mingzhang, and saw that there were our army sentry posts all around the county, and sandbags were piled up in key places. Zhou Tong, the county magistrate, is organizing the evacuation of non-combatants and women and elders in the city. In the command headquarters, Wang Mingzhang hurriedly talked to him a few words, and was busy answering the phone, when the sound of enemy planes humming and gunfire was heard in the distance. Zhong Langhua saw it in his eyes, exchanged opinions with Zhao Weibin for a while, and returned to Lincheng to resume his life.

At about 5 o'clock, the scouts reported that they had discovered the enemy's traces more than 10 miles northeast of the county seat, and that a large force of nearly 10,000 enemy troops had left the positions of Jiehe and Beishahe, which were in the midst of fierce fighting, and had opened the way by tanks and armored corps, and had made a roundabout way towards the county town from the east, apparently to insert themselves into the south of the city and cut off the defenders' retreat to the south! The intention was clear, the enemy not only wanted to occupy the county seat, but also to annihilate me in the dam of the plain between the county seat and Weishan Lake.

Obviously, the center of gravity of the battlefield is about to shift to the county seat.

At this time, almost all the combat units of our army were in a scuffle with the enemy in the area north of the county and could not get out. There are only three divisions, a brigade and four guard companies, a communications company and a health team directly under it, and there are no combat units in the city. Standing guard on the city wall and at the city gate were only about 500 police and security teams led by Zhou Tong, the county magistrate. A huge county, close to an empty city!

At present, only one unit of the whole army has not yet come into contact with the enemy. This is the 366th Tongcheng Brigade of the 122nd Division that assisted the friendly forces in Linyi to the east of the county seat. In fact, this brigade only has one combat regiment, Wang Wenzhen.

Wang Mingzhang had sent a 100,000 urgent telegram on the night of the 14th to order the brigade to return to the county seat, but the brigade was 140 miles away, and it was stationed in the Yimeng Mountains, and on the way back to help, it had to pass through the area controlled by the roundabout troops of the Yue Army, and it seemed uncertain whether it could be reinforced to the city in time.

Wang Mingzhang urgently telegraphed to the group army headquarters in Lincheng, asking for reinforcements!

In fact, Wang Mingzhang also knew that the General Headquarters was also an empty shelf, without any direct teams, and there were only three infantry companies and one pistol company in the Lincheng Guard Headquarters.

Sun Zhen told him on the phone that he had asked the battalion commander Liu Zhirong to rush to the county seat with the three infantry companies in a car, and a train of munitions arrived with the car. The General Headquarters left only this pistol company as a bodyguard. The original police chief of Lincheng had disappeared when Han Fuyu fled, and a middle school principal was elected by all walks of life in the city to act as the director of the bureau and lead the police to manage law and order in the city. I also told the king that there is no need to worry about it, there is enough pistol here.

At the same time, Commander-in-Chief Sun also said that 100,000 troops of the Tang Enbo Corps of the Central Army had been ordered to come to the aid from Shangqiu, Henan.

The first division had arrived at Lincheng at noon, and the commander-in-chief had already gone to urge them to go north to Tengxian as soon as possible. It was only because the division commander said that they would not be able to enter the battlefield until their army commander arrived, and now the army commander Wang Zhonglian estimated that he had arrived in Xuzhou.

Therefore, it is not yet possible to say when the reinforcements will arrive in Teng County. Hearing this, Wang Mingzhang felt a little reassured in his heart.

The Tang Enbo Regiment was a well-equipped corps, equipped with a rare 15-centimeter caliber gun in the country, and its equipment was not only unmatched by the Sichuan army, but also the rest of the central government.

Here, Sun Zhen's words on the phone that one of the Tang Army's divisions had arrived in Lincheng were not accurate, in fact, only one regiment of this division had arrived in Lincheng at this time, and the main force of the division was still in Shangqiu!

At 5:30, the reconnaissance reported to Wang Mingzhang that the enemy troops in the northeast of the county were still gathering, and there seemed to be new movements. And there is no news from the Liu Zhirong battalion of the general headquarters, even if the Liu battalion can come immediately, it is a drop in the bucket and useless.

Tong Cheng Brigade also did not have any news, and did not know if it could reach the county seat through the gathering area of this roundabout army, Wang Mingzhang, who was anxious, made up his mind, picked up the phone, and called the 727 regiment on the front line of the Baisha River!

Similarly, the group army headquarters at this time was also anxious, and Tengxian County had reached the point where it could no longer afford to delay, but where were the reinforcements?

The headquarters is empty, and there is no one to adjust it anymore!

At the most critical moment, a huge team of trucks suddenly appeared on the battlefield!

(To be continued)