The army placed a total of two main divisions and a Botian detachment no less than a first-class division on the line of Pengze and Hukou, with a total strength of more than 80,000 people, and at the same time placed a main force division in the area west and south of Hukou, and in the vast area north of the Yangtze River, the army gathered three main divisions, and at the same time in Madang Fortress, the army also left a main force division as a defender and a reserve, in this area of less than 10,000 square kilometers, the army invested a total of 7 divisions and one detachment. This shows the determination of the army to take Wuhan.

However, the-for-tat [***] team is not weak, in the same area, the national political axe alone on Xue Yue's first corps invested troops: 20th Group Army: (Group Army Commander: Shang Zhen), under the jurisdiction of the 32nd Army: (Army Commander: Shang Zhenjian, 32nd Army under the jurisdiction of: 139th Division (Li Zhaoying) 141st Division (Tang Yongliang) 142nd Division (Fu Liping), 18th Army: (Army Commander: Huang Wei), The 18th Army is under the jurisdiction of: 11th Division (Peng Shan) 60th Division (Chen Pei) 16th Division (He Ping) Tax Police Brigade (Jiang Shuke) 9th Group Army: (Army Commander: Wu Qiwei) Under the jurisdiction of: 4th Army: (Army Commander: Ou Zhen) Under the jurisdiction of the Fourth Army: 59th Division (Zhang Denerg) 90th Division (Chen Rongji), 8th Army: (Army Commander: Li Yutang), 8th Army under the jurisdiction of: 3rd Division (Zhao Xitian) 15th Division (Wang Zhibin), 66th Army: (Army Commander: Ye Zhao), The 66th Army is under the jurisdiction of: the 159th Division (Tan Di) the 160th Division (Hua Zhenzhong), the 29th Army Corps: (Commander: Wang Zanxu (not in office, Li Hansoul is also the commander of the Corps) Under the jurisdiction of: 64th Army: (Army Commander: Li Hansoul) The 64th Army is under the jurisdiction of: 155th Division (Chen Gongxia) 187th Division (Kong Kequan) Reserve 9th Division (Zhang Yanchuan), 70th Army: (Army Commander: Li Jue), Subordinate: 19th Division (division commander concurrently served by Li Jue), 128th Division (Gu Jiaqi), 91st Division (Feng Zhanhai), Reserve 6th Division (Ji Zhangjian), 37th Army Corps: (Army Commander: Wang Jingjiu) Subordinate: 25th Army (commander concurrently served by Wang Jingjiu), 52nd Division (Tang Yunshan), 190th Division (Liang Huasheng), 167th Division (Zhao Xiguang), Reserve 2nd Division (Chen Mingren), Reserve 11th Division (Zhao Baochang), Poyang Lake Garrison, etc., a total of 25 divisions of about 180,000 troops, Not counting the First Corps, Zhang Fakui's Second Corps and the Third and Fourth Corps on the north bank of the Yangtze River, the scale of the Battle of Wuhan is now far beyond the expectations of the high-level leaders of both sides.

Just as the Botian detachment was storming Penglangji, the 27th Division and the 101st Division rushed towards Hukou in two ways. Xue Yue had long expected that the Yue Army would have such a hand, so he placed eleven divisions of troops on the periphery of Hukou, and Xue Yue invested an entire group army of the 20th Army in the military town of Hukou and the fortress of Hukou.

Stationed at the forefront of Hukou Tongzijian is the Second Reserve Division of the National Revolutionary Army (hereinafter referred to as the Second Reserve Division), and the division commander is called Chen Mingren. The defensive position of the 2nd Division was a low hill that was not high, but this hill was not a single peak, but composed of four small peaks, and the terrain was not high but very dangerous.

At three o'clock in the afternoon of October 20, the main force of the 27th Division of the Chinese Army arrived at Tongzijian, and immediately launched a fierce attack on the position of the 2nd Division. Although there were no planes used by the Japanese army, the offensive of the Japanese army was still fierce.

Xue Yue is not very familiar with the 27th Division, but the commander of the 27th Division, Lieutenant General Honma Masan, can be said to be Xue Yue's old opponent, according to the information sent by the military commander, Xue Yue learned that the division was formed on August 15, 1938 by the Chinese Garrison Corps, and was immediately incorporated into the battle sequence of the 11th Army after its formation. Departing from Tanggu by boat in late August, the main force assembled in Nanjing on August 19, set sail from Nanjing on August 26, landed in Jiujiangdong on August 30, and then assembled at the eastern foot of Lushan Mountain, and arrived at the Pengze ferry port east of Madang Fortress on September 11. The division is a three-unit division and has the following divisions under its jurisdiction: the 27th Infantry Brigade (Brigade Commander Major General Toshitoku Nagami): the 1st Wing of the Chinese Garrison Infantry (Wing Commander Hasegawa Kiosa), the 2nd Wing of the Chinese Garrison Infantry (Wing Commander Kiyozaburo Okazaki), and the 3rd Wing of the Chinese Garrison Infantry (Wing Commander Tomio Miyazaki). The 27th Division Search Team (Captain Miyawaki Kanzo Nakasa), the 27th Mountain Artillery Wing (Wing Commander Nobuo Kobayashi Nakasa), the 27th Engineer Wing (Wing Commander Saburo Ogawa Nakasa), the 27th Light and Heavy Infantry Wing (Wing Leader Ishikawa Asaro Osa), the Signal Team, the Health Team, and the 1st to 4th Field Hospitals.

In fact, Xue Yue was still skeptical about the combat effectiveness of the 27th Division, and although Honma Masaharu was considered an excellent military theorist, he lacked actual command and control, and in fact, Honma Masaharu was considered an unqualified general in the army. Originally, the best candidate for the commander of the newly formed 27th Division was Yamashita Fumi, the commander of the Yamashita Brigade, and compared with Masaharu Honma, almost everyone thought that Major General Yamashita Fumifumi was more suitable for the commander of the division. However, because the Yamashita Brigade was almost annihilated by Han Yunhua's troops during the Battle of Saibei, and Major General Yamashita Fengwen himself was trapped in Zhangjiakou City by Shen Yuquan for nine days. Although he was lucky enough to be rescued later, he was seriously injured and is still recuperating in Beiping, so the first division commander of the 27th Division became Masaharu Honma.

Lieutenant General Masaharu Honma was born in Niigata Prefecture, graduated from the 19th class of the Army Non-commissioned Officer School in May 1907 and the 27th class of the Army University in 1910. In 1917, he entered the General Staff Headquarters, worked in the China Section, and in 1918, he studied at the University of Oxford, England, and served as a military attache on the Western Front. But Honma Masaharu's road to the general is not smooth, Xue Yue fought with him twice, he was defeated by Xue Yue, and although the combat effectiveness of the 27th Division is very strong, but the tactics are very dull, almost a demonstration template for the training of the army, but it is extremely inflexible in combat, so when he learned that it was the 27th Division that first engaged the Hukou defenders, Xue Yue couldn't help but have some other ideas.

The second division against Masaharu Honma is also a strong team, but the current situation of this strong team is a little shabby. After the "77 Incident", all provinces across the country were ordered to go out to resist. However, since the divisions of the Guizhou Army had already been reorganized in advance and were transferred out of Guizhou, there were no divisions to be sent out of Guizhou. At the end of 1937, appointed by Wu Zhongxin, then chairman of Guizhou Province and commander of the provincial security department, Feng Jianfei, director of the Guizhou Provincial Security Department, formed the Second Reserve Division (hereinafter referred to as the "Second Reserve Division") in Guizhou.

But at this time, Guizhou did have no more troops to adjust, but the military law was ruthless, and the order must be completed once it was issued. After Feng Jianfei was instructed, on the basis of the First and Second Regiments of Guizhou Provincial Security Regiment, in less than three months, a full-strength division with 10,000 soldiers was formed. Feng Jianfei (born in the first phase of Huangpu, from Panxian County, Guizhou) is the division commander, Chen Taiyuan (born in the third phase of Huangpu, from Guiding, Guizhou) is the deputy division commander, and Duan Huatang (from Hunan) is the chief of staff. The division has jurisdiction over the Fifth Regiment (Regiment Commander Wang Boxun, a native of Anlong, Guizhou, Guizhou Jiangwutang, Yueben Infantry School, and graduated from the General Lu Officer Class), the Sixth Regiment (Regiment Commander Zhang Xuesheng, a native of Guizhou), and the Seventh Regiment (Regiment Commander Wang Chongjian, a native of Xinhua, Hunan). The lower-level officers are a group of students from the Provincial Security Command's officer training team and the security department's non-commissioned officer training class, as well as the backbone of the former provincial security regiment and the second regiment.

Chen Mingren was the second commander of the Second Division, and although the number of the Second Division was quite large when Chen Mingren took over, it looked like a good one, but the level of weaponry and soldier training was only unsatisfactory, and there was not a single artillery, and there were only a few dozen light and heavy machine guns, which was a standard ragtag army. So far, the Second Preparatory Division has a total of three regiments, and in addition to the division commander Chen Mingren, there are also Hong Xing, commander of the Fourth Regiment, Dai Jian, commander of the Fifth Regiment, and Lu Xuanmeng, commander of the Supplementary Regiment and chief of staff.

During the period when the Second Preparatory Division was stationed in Hubei, it recruited a large number of patriotic youths, including students in exile in Northeast China, and promoted a large number of promising young officers during the training.

From the telescope, Chen Mingren saw that the army was lined up in a neat phalanx towards Tong Zhijie's position, and the morale was very high, but Chen Mingren felt very strange, the infantry of the Yue army did have such an infantry method, but on the battlefield he had never seen such a fighting army, and the 27th Division was the first.

However, Lieutenant General Honma Masaharu is not really stupid to this extent, although he is indeed a qualified general, but he still has a certain level, otherwise he would not become one of the only two generals in the world to defeat the famous American MacArthur (the other is the famous Chinese general Peng Dehuai), he did this on the one hand because he himself thought that this kind of war was the right thing to do, and on the other hand, it was to boost morale, and the neat pace and consistent movements were really shocking.

When the infantry phalanx of the Yue army entered the firing range of the Tongzijian position, the neat infantry phalanx suddenly dispersed into several smaller attack groups, and it seemed that a squadron was an attack group. Chen Mingren is also an understanding person, he knows that although the Yue Jun on the other side looks a little "stupid", he has real kung fu under his hands, and he must deal with it carefully. Although this kind of army is rigid, it is also fierce and fearless of death, and it is difficult to repel it, let alone annihilate it, with ordinary methods of attack.

However, Chen Mingren thought of the task given by Xue Yue, the commander of the corps, to the Second Division, and couldn't help but smile bitterly, he didn't know whether he could really catch a fish or be eaten by a fish in the end. Luring the army with an infantry division, a fully equipped infantry division is only capable of the tiger cub.

(To be continued)