On January 20, the 22nd year of the Republic of China, after receiving Zhang Xinghan's order, the five motorized infantry divisions and three heavy artillery brigades stationed in Changchun, Siping and Tongliao began to move south in two ways.

On the east road, the 2nd Reading Division stationed in Siping, the 4th Reading Division and the 10th Reading Division from Harbin and Yichun, with two heavy artillery brigades, went south along the South Manchurian Railway and served as the main attack task.

On the west road, the 3rd Reading Division stationed in Tongliao and the 9th Reading Division from Songyuan to the south were composed of a heavy artillery brigade, which was responsible for attacking in the direction of Zhangwu and Xinmin.

In the end, it joined the main attacking force of the East Road under the city of Shenyang, and the army of more than 100,000 troops of the two roads marched south, and the war was about to break out.

The 1st Reading Division and the 1st and 2nd Armored Tank Divisions of the Armored Group Army stationed in Jilin were retained by Zhang Xinghan as strategic reserves.

Zhao Zhenfan commanded two infantry regiments, an artillery regiment and a tank regiment of the 2nd Division of Reading Li to take the lead along the railway.

At noon on the same day, he arrived near Tieling by train, and because the southbound railway was destroyed by the Yue army, Zhao Zhenfan led his troops to get off the train and advance to Tieling on foot.

As mentioned earlier, a motorized infantry division of the Northeast New Army has three infantry regiments, a new tank regiment and an air defense regiment, and the original artillery battalion has also been officially expanded into the 105 Howitzer Regiment, which is the reading combat unit of the five regiments.

Zhao Zhenfan led two infantry regiments, an artillery regiment and a tank regiment, totaling more than 10,000 people, to arrive outside the entrance of the railway station in the northern suburbs of Tieling at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

Relying on the South Manchurian railway line, the army built a large number of field fortifications, and after more than half a year of repair, most of the fortifications of the army have been turned into permanent fortifications made of reinforced concrete.

On both sides of the railway line, there are many pillboxes, dark forts, barbed wire, and anti-tank trenches for anti-tank defense are criss-crossed, and layers are interlocked.

Zhao Zhenfan took advantage of the gap in the artillery regiment to build an artillery position, and took Chen Feng, the deputy division commander at this time, the former commander of the 1st Battalion of the 701st Regiment, and some guards to quietly come behind a col at the front.

Raising the binoculars to peek at the position of the army at close range, holding the telescope and looking at it for a while, Zhao Zhenfan said to Chen Feng: "Deputy Division Commander Chen, after looking at the defense line of the little devil, do you have any ideas?" ”

Chen Feng was holding a telescope and watching, probably knowing the arrival of the Northeast New Army, and there was not a single devil in the effective line of sight of the telescope, and they should all enter the bunker and the dark fort.

After listening to Zhao Zhenfan's inquiry, Chen Feng put down the binoculars and said seriously: "Master, the little devil has been prepared for a long time, we don't have any loopholes to drill, and I can't avoid it, this battle will be a hard-fought offensive and defensive battle without any tricks."

So, nothing to say, let the artillery regiments and tank regiments prepare for the attack. ”

Zhao Zhenfan nodded, turned around and said, "Let's go, let's go back to the division headquarters." ”

After a short time, the two of them arrived at the division headquarters that had been set up, and in the division headquarters, the signal soldiers were setting up radio stations and telephone lines to contact the regiments, battalions, and companies, and were very busy.

After returning to the division headquarters, Zhao Zhenfan immediately said to Chen Feng: "Chief of Staff Chen, immediately give an order to the first regiment, artillery regiment, and tank regiment to prepare for battle as soon as possible, prepare for attack, cover the tank regiment, coordinate the attack of the first regiment, and suppress the artillery fire in a hurry." (The deputy commanders of each motorized infantry division temporarily concurrently serve as the chief of staff of the division.) "Yes! Chen Feng suddenly agreed, turned around and went to the herald.

It didn't take long for the 36 105mm howitzers of the 2nd Artillery Regiment of the Reading Division to be prepared.

The 100 No. 4 tanks of the tank regiment were also all ready for battle.

Due to the terrain, it was impossible for a hundred No. 4 tanks to participate in the offensive at the same time.

Therefore, after discussing with Chief of Staff Chen Feng, Zhao Zhenfan mobilized 20 No. 4 tanks and the 1st Infantry Regiment to attack together, and the infantry and tanks coordinated to support each other.

"Division, the artillery regiment is ready, and it is ready to open fire at any time." In the division headquarters, after Chen Feng received the call from the artillery regiment, he covered the microphone and turned to Zhao Zhenfan, who was looking at the map, and ordered.

"Tell the artillery regiment, fire the cannon immediately, and give me a hard blow to his son of a bitch." Zhao Zhenfan raised his hand and commanded without thinking.

Chen Feng nodded, let go of the hand holding the microphone, and ordered to the head of the running group on the other end of the phone: "The division has an order, immediately open fire and bombard him hard." ”

As soon as the artillery regiment received the order, 36 105mm howitzers opened fire.

A burst of hurried shells suddenly fell on the field positions of the Japanese army with a screaming sound, and immediately exploded violently.

Each explosion was accompanied by a cloud of red light and black smoke, and although the ground was very hard due to the weather, dozens of craters of various sizes were blown up in the clearing.

Blocks of hard mud and snow flew in all directions with a raging shockwave.

However, in the first round of salvos, the shells rarely hit the devil's bunker directly, and the bunker hidden in the hidden place did not even blow up.

After the first round of test firing, the gunners stepped up their speed to adjust the calibration of the firing elements, and it didn't take long for the second round of shelling to be restarted.

The second round of shells also whistled down, and it was not difficult to see from the impact point that the accuracy of this shelling was much higher than the last one.

However, some shells weighing nearly 30 catties landed on some of the devil's pillboxes and exploded directly.

Countless shrapnel scattered out in all directions, and most of the shock wave also raged and dispersed, only the bottom explosion hit the top floor of the devil's bunker.

Due to the heavy snow covering and freezing, almost all of the devil's bunkers were covered with an extremely solid layer of ice and snow.

The artillery of the 2nd Division of Reading only shattered some of the ice and scattered the broken ice slag everywhere, but it could not shake the reinforced concrete bunkers that the devils had built for a long time.

It didn't even shock and kill the devils hiding in the bunker, after all, the bunker is not a tank or armored vehicle, as long as it is not a direct hit with great power.

As long as the people hiding in the bunker are not close to the fort wall, they basically don't feel much vibration.

The shelling lasted for more than half an hour, and 36 howitzers rained no less than thousands of shells on the positions of the Japanese army.

Taking advantage of the fact that the military position was filled with gunsmoke and the line of sight was blocked.

Chief of Staff Chen Feng immediately gave the order to attack.

The 20 No. 4 tanks, which had been waiting for a long time, took the lead in mobilizing, and two infantry companies of about 400 officers and men followed suit and launched an attack on the forward positions of the army.

"Boom" Twenty No. 4 tanks marched forward quickly, each tank about 20 meters apart, followed by dozens of soldiers of the Northeast New Army.

Soon, the attacking troops of the new army entered the range of the machine guns of the devils, although the line of sight was blocked, but in order to prevent the approach of the attacking troops of the new army, dozens of pillboxes of the devils, light and heavy machine guns in the bunkers still opened fire one after another.

Dense bullets rained down, hitting the armor of Tank No. 4 with a thumping and sparks splashing wildly.

Under attack, the tankmen also began to return fire, and armor-piercing shells were fired from the barrels.

The Devil's Bunker Group exploded violently, and the thickness of the Devil's Bunker was basically more than one meter, so the armor-piercing bullet could not cause fatal damage to it.

When the tanks marched to a distance of 500 meters from the forward position of the Japanese army, the infantry accompanying the attack noticed an anomaly, and a trench about four or five meters wide blocked them in front of them.

The infantry immediately issued a warning to the tankers, and twenty tanks stopped one after the other.

Such a wide trench had exceeded the maximum capacity of Tank No. 4 to cross the trench, and Tank No. 4 was forced to stop at a distance of five hundred meters.

In the headquarters of the 2nd Division of Reading Power, Zhao Zhenfan saw this scene with a telescope and said, "What's the matter?" Why didn't the tank move forward? ”

"It can't be that the devil dug the anti-tank trenches, right?" Chen Feng said subconsciously.

Suddenly, a communications soldier ran into the division headquarters out of breath and saluted: "Report, the front found a large anti-tank trench dug by the army, the tanks could not pass, and the infantry was not easy to pass, and the attack was forced to be suspended. ”

"Withdraw it, withdraw it immediately." Zhao Zhenfan thought about it and immediately ordered.

"The division, the engineer battalion, the third infantry regiment and the air defense regiment have not yet arrived, let's stop the attack for the time being and wait for the arrival of the follow-up troops." Chen Feng suggested.

"Well, there is no need to increase the senseless sacrifice in vain in order to grab time, order the troops to call the air force to bomb, and the artillery regiment will continue to bombard me with his son of a bitch, so that the little devil can taste the power of the artillery fire of our Northeast New Army." Zhao Zhenfan nodded and said, "By the way, at the same time, report the latest battle situation to the General Headquarters." ”

"Yes, I'll go right away." Chen Feng stepped forward and turned to walk towards the radio.

…………………… Dalian Lushun, the headquarters of the Kwantung Army of the invasion of China.

The news that the troops of the Northeast New Army were marching south in two directions had already reached the Kwantung Army Headquarters.

Inside the headquarters, Chief of Staff Toranosuke Hashimoto is reporting to Muto Nobuyoshi about the latest battle report sent by the Tieling garrison.

"Your Excellency General, our Tieling garrison reported that the Chinese army carried out a large number of artillery bombardments on our Tieling forward troops, and then dispatched tanks to cover the infantry attack, but because the anti-tank trench attack of the imperial army failed, it has now retreated."

Muto Nobuyoshi nodded and said, "Are the casualties of our army large?" ”

"Returning to the general, our bunkers and bunkers are all made of reinforced concrete, and it is freezing like today, so as long as you are not directly hit by the large heavy aerial bombs or shells of the Chinese people, there is no problem at all.

The previous artillery shelling of the Chinese was at least a 100 mm caliber heavy artillery, but it failed to cause much damage to the Imperial Army's pillbox group. "Hashimoto Toranosuke said.

"Well, the Tieling garrison is electrified, Tieling is the gateway to Shenyang, we must stick to the end, and the reinforcements will continue to support them." Muto Nobuyoshi nodded slightly reassuringly.

(To be continued)