readx; When Zeng Yuan received Huang Qixiang's defense order, he immediately ordered the 122nd Division to serve as the river defense of Xiaohe Liuji, Oujiamiao to the right bank of the Xianghe River at the south gate of Xiangyang City, and the 124th Division to serve as the city defense of Xiangfan. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 The commander of the 122nd Division was named Wang Zhiyuan, and after receiving the task, he immediately ordered Hu Jianmen, deputy division commander and commander of the 365th Regiment, to command the 365th and 366th regiments to serve as river defense; Because the 364th Regiment was a two-battalion recruit, it was placed in Xiangyang Nanguan as the division reserve; The division command post is located in the Zhou Gong Temple outside the south gate of Xiangyang. The 124th Division, which was defending the city, placed a battalion in each of the two cities of Xiang and Fan, which was to be defended, and the 372nd Regiment, the main force, was placed behind the river defense troops of the 122nd Division to support the river defense.

After the army directly controlled the east bank of the Xiang River, it carried out three days of preparations for crossing the river. As soon as it was dark on June 4, taking advantage of the darkness of the night, the artillery on the opposite bank of Liu Ji began to concentrate their artillery fire and roar, firing shells at the 366th Regiment of the 122nd Division of the River Defense Force and its right flank friendly 29th Army defenders' positions, and casting smoke screens and tear gas, and then the infantry began to force the crossing under the cover of artillery fire. The officers and men of the river defense unit relied on the simple fortifications built temporarily to do their best to stop the enemy who forced the crossing. Although it was very heroic, the artillery fire of the army was extremely fierce, the braver the officers and soldiers, the greater the casualties, and finally because the fortifications were destroyed by artillery fire, and at the same time there was no gas mask, and the devil's tear gas smoked so that he could not open his eyes, where could he resist? With a slight negligence, the army successfully crossed from Xiaohe and Liuji near the junction of the new 4th Brigade of the 29th Group Army and the 366th Regiment of the 122nd Division, and broke through the defense line on the west bank of the Xianghe River in one fell swoop.

The river defense troops are all recruits who have just been recruited from the countryside, and they have never seen power boats in the past, and the moon is dark and the wind is high, and the shadows can see them crawling heavily on the river, and they can hear the loud rumbling noise. Chen Zeshan, commander of the 366th Regiment, reported to the division headquarters in a panic: "The devils used a large number of amphibious tanks to force our crossing. ”

He didn't even know about a ship with an engine, so how did he know about an "amphibious tank"! The division headquarters didn't think about it carefully, and reported it to Commander-in-Chief Huang Qixiang, who was in Xiangcheng. Commander-in-Chief Huang learned in advance that the devils had poisoned the gas, and that the devils had used "a large number of amphibious tanks", not thinking about how to defeat it, but fearing that it would knock him out, so he hurriedly rushed out of the west gate of Xiangyang with the command post and the guard battalion and fled straight to Gucheng.

In the middle of the night, passing through Nizui Town, where the headquarters of the 22nd Group Army is located, Chief of Staff Chen Zongjin received the news in advance, and Zhang Yuchu, a senior staff member of the department, greeted Commander-in-Chief Huang at the intersection early in the morning to rest at the headquarters. At this time, Chief of Staff Chen knew that the front line had successfully crossed the army and occupied the west bank of the Xiang River, and that Xiaohe and Liu Ji had fallen into the hands of the enemy, so he brought the supper that had been prepared a long time ago, and accompanied Commander-in-Chief Huang to use the "supper" to report on the battle situation ahead and ask for instructions on how to save it.

When Commander-in-Chief Huang heard this, he didn't think about it, and shouted: "Bring a brush!" He immediately put down his chopsticks, picked up a brush, and wrote a note warrant to the effect that the 41st Army would immediately retreat to the line from Nizui Town to Nanzhang and strangle the enemy's westward advance. After eating supper, he hurried on the road again and continued to hurry in the direction of Gucheng.

Chief of Staff Chen took the warrant from Commander-in-Chief Huang and immediately informed Zeng Yuan and his 124th Division by phone to retreat to Nanzhang. However, Zeng Yuan, who acted as the commander of the 41st Army, actually forgot his acting duties, and did not even give notice to the "subordinate" 122nd Division and the Reading Regiment directly under the army, let alone give any "instructions", so he ran away with the 124th Division.

The 122nd and 366th regiments of the 366th Division were not remembered by the acting commander, and there was no major hindrance. As early as when the army broke through the river defense position, they had already retreated to the location of the 124th Regiment that the 372nd Division had previously sent to support the river defense. When they learned the news from the regiment that they had retreated to the line from Nizui Town to Nanzhang, they followed behind the butt of the 372nd Regiment and automatically retreated to Nizui Town. As a result, the commander of the 122nd Division, Wang Zhiyuan, the division headquarters and the 364th Regiment were abandoned on the positions around the Nanguan Pass of Xiangyang City.

In the middle of the night, division commander Wang Zhiyuan was still in the dark, "knowing the other" but not "knowing himself", only knowing that the devil had occupied the west bank of the Xianghe River, but he did not know the movements of the group army and even the whole army; although he learned that the 124th Division and the Reading Regiment directly under the army had withdrawn to Hexi, he did not know that his two regiments had been transferred with the 124th Division, and he did not dare to do his work freely because he had not received an evacuation order. Therefore, with the division headquarters and the 364th regiment, he continued to stay outside the city of Xiangyang.

Because Commander-in-Chief Huang's command post and a battalion of the 124th Division in the city were withdrawn one after another, there was no soldier in Xiangyang City, and it became an empty city without soldiers. Division Commander Wang then ordered the 364th Regiment in Nanguan to enter the city to deploy defenses, and the division headquarters immediately moved into the city.

On the morning of the second day, Huang Qixiang woke up and suddenly heard that Wang Zhiyuan and the 364th Regiment were still in Xiangyang City, so he immediately issued an order: "The 122nd Division is guarding Xiangyang City." As for the 364th Regiment and a division headquarters with only two battalions of recruits, he did not consider whether the huge Xiangyang City could be defended.

The enemy who crossed the west bank of the Xiang River was the Northern Corps of the Army. After forcibly crossing the Xianghe River, the main force attacked in the direction of Yicheng along the Xiangyi Highway, and about 10,000 people went north to Xiangyang. At about 9 o'clock in the morning, the soldiers approached the city, and artillery and machine guns bombarded the city. Due to the huge disparity in strength, where can these recruits of the 364th Regiment be supported? Seeing that it was bombed by artillery and running in all directions, it was really difficult to support, so he withdrew from the West Gate and retreated to the highlands around Zhenwu Mountain and Zhougong Mountain outside Xiguan; Wang Zhiyuan and his division moved to Yunwan Mountain, 10 miles away from the city, to the west of the city. Immediately, the army swaggered into the city, and Xiangyang fell into the hands of the enemy.

When Chen Zongjin, chief of staff of the General Headquarters of the 22nd Group Army, learned that there were only two battalions of recruits from the 122nd Division, which was fighting the enemy near Xiangyang, he stomped his feet and said: "Don't talk about fighting devils, as soon as the devils are beaten, these recruits will be finished!" ”

He immediately ordered the Reading Regiment directly under the 41st Army in Nizui Town to drive to Yunwan Mountain, under the command of Division Commander Wang Zhiyuan, and work together with the 364th Regiment to resist the enemy advancing westward.

Although Xiangyang and Fancheng are two cities, they have gained and lost in the past wars. As soon as Xiangyang City fell into the hands of the enemy, the defenders of Fancheng immediately became chaotic. The defenders immediately set fire to the city, using "fire arrays" to "block the enemy" and prepare to "turn in" at any time. Such a disturbance caused the Laohekou and Nanyang areas to also fly into the headquarters of the Fifth Theater like snowflakes, and the alarm phone rang and the commander's headquarters was confused. Li Zongren urgently ordered the Zhou Yan Division of the 75th Army to go south from Lüyanyi and gallop to help Fancheng; and ordered Tang Enbo's headquarters to advance from Zaoyang to Xiangyang and attack the rear of the devils; At the same time, the Chifeng City Department of the 30th Army of the Left Corps was dispatched to the vicinity of Laohekou to stand by.

After occupying Xiangyang City, the army only cared about burning, killing, annihilating, and looting money inside and outside the city pass and in the surrounding villages, and did not continue to attack westward.

That night, Wang Zhiyuan received a telegram from Commander-in-Chief Huang to Chiang Kai-shek, who was far away in Chongqing, to "defend Xiangyang". Commander-in-Chief Huang also added a sentence at the end of Chiang Kai-shek's telegram: "Because of this, Wang Zhiyuan, commander of the 122nd Division, led his troops to restore Xiangyang." But Xiangyang City has been lost during the day, how can it be "defended" in the middle of the night? It can only be called a second counteroffensive.

Second, Wang Zhiyuan got up early in the morning, and at dawn he personally led the reading regiment directly under the army as the lead to counterattack Xiangyang City. On the way forward, they did not see the slightest movement of the enemy, and they were so strange that when they rushed into the west gate, they knew that the army had left the city from the south gate and was turning in the direction of Nanzhang. When the vanguard of the Reading Regiment chased to Nanguan, they encountered the back of the devil and immediately started a battle. The army fought and left, and then set up a rearguard force at the Da Hyeon Pass, 10 miles south of the city, to occupy a covering position. The Reading Regiment pursued to Nanguan, because there was an open area between Nanguan and Da Xian Mountain, and after suffering twenty or thirty casualties, they stopped the pursuit.

The army occupied Xiangyang City, why did they flee timidly when they saw a reading group? It turned out that in this so-called "Xiangdong Offensive Battle" they only aimed at striking at the vital forces of the [***] squadron, and sought the field troops of the [***] squadron everywhere to fight, and only wantonly ravaged, trampled and destroyed the cities, market towns, and villages they had captured, and then threw them all away, instead of defending them. Xiangyang is no exception. Therefore, the county seat of Xiangyang was lost and regained on June 2, and the army marched to Nanzhang.

In the afternoon of that day, Sun Lianzhong, commander-in-chief of the Left Wing Corps of the Fifth Theater, led the 30th Army to rescue Xiangyang from the direction of Gucheng. When they arrived near Yunwanshan Village in the west of the city, they saw that Wang Zhiyuan, the commander of the 122nd Division, had come to greet him from afar, and reported to Commander-in-Chief Sun in person: "The enemy has fled to Nanzhang, and Xiangyang has been victoriously recovered!" ”

This surprised Commander-in-Chief Sun: "Just one of your reading regiments has successfully counterattacked?!" ”

"Not really! The devils ran away as soon as they were beaten, and our troops suffered only twenty or thirty casualties. ”

When Sun Lianzhong heard this, he didn't enter the city anymore, and immediately led his troops to camp in Longzhong, 30 miles southwest of Xiangyang, from Yunwan Mountain.

Huang Qixiang received the news that the enemy in Xiangyang had "fled" to Nanzhang in Gucheng, and urgently ordered the 124th Division to arrange city defenses and hold Nanzhang. On June 3, the army attacked Nanzhang and pounced, but in the end it did not take Nanzhang. The second said that he did not continue the offensive and even withdrew automatically. In the same way, the army captured Yicheng. This army turned to the direction of Jingmen, so the battle situation shifted to the Dangyang area of Jingmen. At this point, the combat mission of the 22nd Army in this battle came to an end. Due to the shift of the center of gravity of the operation to the south, the right flank of the Fifth Theater, all the outer flanks of Dahongshan, the front of the Xianghua Highway, and the periphery of Xinyang gradually returned to the pre-combat posture.

This time, Xiangyang City was lost and recovered, and Wang Zhiyuan, commander of the 122nd Division, can be said to have little responsibility, and compared with other fleeing generals, on the contrary, he has made meritorious contributions in battle. At the beginning of September, Chiang Kai-shek held him accountable for the loss of Xiangyang, but he was dismissed from his post and punished, while other defeated generals and deserters were not held accountable.

After the situation of the war shifted to the Jingdang area, the situation deteriorated. The Fifth Theater Commander's Department had already estimated the attack on Xiangfan by the Yue Army, and had always believed that this was a necessary step for the Yue Army to attack the northern Hubei region; As for the fact that the army turned to Nanzhang after attacking Xiangyang, and then went straight to Dangyang, it was greatly unexpected.

When the army attacked Jingdang, the headquarters of the Fifth Theater Commander thought that he had figured out the "new attempt" of the devils, and sighed greatly: "It's not that we can't do it, but that the devils are too cunning." In the face of the "black" people who are masters in the high-level of the Central China Dispatch Army, the Fifth War Zone has come to make up for the loss of sheep in the style of "blind people telling hexagrams and blocking at both ends".

In order to contain the actions of the army, the commander's department immediately ordered the 75th Army to cross the river from Fancheng to pursue the enemy, and the 30th Army followed up with the 75th Army; Tang Enbo was ordered to lead the 13th, 29th, 85th, and 92nd armies to cross the river near Xiangyang, and rush south along the Xiangsha Highway to aid Jingdang. The Nanzhang army was advancing along the mountain road at the eastern foot of Jingshan towards Dangyang. The defenders on the west bank of the Hanshui Corps of the Right Corps were the 33rd Army and the 55th Army, due to the death of Zhang Zizhong, the morale was low, and the flank was threatened, and the defense line was in chaos, so they retreated to the mountainous area northwest of Jingmen. At this point, the west bank of the Han River in the north and south of Zhongxiang was completely empty. As a result, the army on the east bank swarmed across the river and entered the area around Jingmen, and the main force of the army on the front of the Hanyi Highway was also preparing to cross the river. The situation is even more critical.

When the Right Corps was dispersed, the Yucheng Command urgently ordered Chen Cheng, head of the Political Department, to go to Yichang, Hubei Province, to command the Jiangfang operation, and then issued an order to adjust the deployment of the Fifth Theater Corps: The Fifth Theater was redivided into two corps, the left and right corps, which were under the unified command of Li Zongren. The commander of the right wing corps was Chen Cheng, head of the Political Department, who commanded the Jiangfang Army and the Ninth Theater Transferred Unit (formerly the Dongting Lake Northwest Region Unit), responsible for operations in the Shayi area. The commander of the left wing corps was concurrently Li Zongren, who commanded the troops under the jurisdiction of the Fifth Theater and dispatched as many powerful troops as possible to cooperate in the operations in the Shayi area. The combat territory of the left and right corps is the line of Xiema River, Maliangping, Yangping, Guanyin Temple, Jiukou, Sooshi, and Yingcheng.

Chen Cheng was Chiang Kai-shek's closest confidant, and although nominally under the command of Li Zongren, he was in fact much more powerful than Li Zongren, and was known as an "iron fist" in the Kuomintang army. Under his orders, Peng Shan's 18th Army Headquarters, Song Kentang's 32nd Army, and He Guangqian's 1st Supplementary Training Office were all deployed in Yichang and Zigui; At the same time, Huo Kuozhang's 20th Group Army, Zhou Fucheng's 53rd Army, and Peng Weiren's 73rd Army, which were transferred to the Ninth Theater, also arrived at the south bank of the Yangtze River above Shashi to deploy defenses and prepare for battle.

When the army arrived in Jingdang, it was not to frighten the [***] team, but to contain a greater ambition: to seize the city of Yichang.

Yichang is located on the north bank of the east mouth of the Three Gorges, known as the "throat of Sichuan and Hubei", and is a transshipment station for the Yangtze River shipping, with a very important strategic position. It is located in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, overlooking the Jianghan Plain, with a large population, rich in products, going west to Nanjin Pass for more than ten miles, choking the entrance of Xiling Gorge, since then to the west, the north and south banks are rugged and stretching mountains, the river is narrow, easy to defend and difficult to attack; However, the suburbs of Yichang are hilly areas that are easy to attack and difficult to defend. Since the fall of Wuhan, the waterway to Changsha via Yichang can reach the southeastern provinces; If you go north to Xiangfan by land, you can reach Henan and Shaanxi. More importantly, it is the gateway to accompany the capital of Chongqing, Yichang was lost, and the waterway of the Yangtze River attacking Yucheng was opened.

It was said that the army intended to be in Yichang, not only Li Zongren did not guess it, but even the headquarters of Yucheng did not expect it.

Everyone knows the important surname of Yichang. After the retreat from Wuhan, the headquarters made a plan for the defense of this place, and sent Guo Xin as the commander of the river defense in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and the headquarters was set up in Yichang to guard the gate of Chongqing. The Kuomintang troops that served as the defense of Jiang were first Zhou Yan's 75th Army and Li Jilan's 94th Army. This is the backbone of the Jiang Defense Army; Later, he joined Xiao Zhichu's 26th Army and Li Yannian's 2nd Army; Li Yannian's 2nd Army is being reorganized and placed near Badong and Zigui to support at any time. The Guo Chenjiang Defense Army has 4 armies and 12 divisions, with more than 80,000 people. The enemy in front of the Jiang Defense Army was the 13th Division and a part of the 4th Cavalry Brigade of the Army. The two armies confronted each other, but they were uneventful.

However, in order to change the situation on the battlefield and dominate the battlefield, Yamada Otozo, commander of the Central China Dispatch Army, quietly took the capture of Yichang as the only goal of the recent operation. For this reason, he locked himself in the house, did not eat or drink, meditated for three days and three nights, and finally came up with a plan.

At the beginning of May, the army began its offensive against Yichang, ostensibly following the old path of the spring offensive, first attacking Xiangfan. As a result, after successively defeating Sun Lianzhong's 2nd Group Army in the Tongbai Mountain area and Tang Enbo's 31st Group Army in the Suizao area, and occupying Xiangyang and Fancheng, Chen Shiyao had the appearance of continuing to advance westward, smashing the Laohekou directly, and destroying the headquarters of Li Zongren in the Fifth Theater. The southern flank of the army along the line of the Han River in Yuekou, Jiukou and Zhongxiang pretended to be on the defensive, and the troops did not move, and the Jiang Defense Army under the command of Guo Xin was calm and uneventful, giving people the illusion that they had no intention of doing so. However, in Tianmen, Jingshan and other places behind the position, the army secretly controlled the powerful troops, watched the opportunity, and was ready to attack.

Yamada Otosa's trick of striking east and west is quite cleverly hidden. Both Li Zongren in the front and the command in the rear were "blinded by it" and strictly ordered the army to fight desperately and bloodily to block the enemy in the Xiangfan area, so that Yamada Otozo's strategy advanced step by step.

Yamada Otozo intended to be in Yichang, and Li Zongren and others not only did not strengthen the river defense, but also weakened the river defense because of the war situation. On May 10, the army approached the line of Hanshui Xiangfan and Tangbai River, and the front-line commanders were in a hurry. Li Zongren believed that the army would take advantage of the situation to advance westward, and the commander's department said: "The army's offensive this time is more fierce than the spring offensive. So he decided to do whatever it took to fight the enemy in the Xiangfan and Xinye areas. Li Zongren ignored the opposition of Guo Chen, the commander of the Jiangfang Army, and strictly ordered him to quickly cross the river from the Han River and take a shortcut to the north of Xiangfan and Xinye to assemble.

Guo had no choice but to send Zhou Yan's 75th Army and Li Jilan's 94th Army to go. Li Jilan handed over the task of guarding the forward position on the west bank of the Hanshui Division to Xiao Zhichu's 26th Army to extend and take over, and placed the division in the second line of positions at Jianyangyi and Huihui Bridge to prevent accidents, and then personally led the 121st Division and the 185th Division to advance to Xinye.

As soon as the 75th Army left, Guo Xin immediately asked the Quasi-Chongqing Command to order Li Yannian's 2nd Army, which was in Badong and Zigui, to be stationed in Jingmen and Dangyang. But as soon as the 75th Army and the 94th Army left, although Yichang had fortifications, it was ungarrisoned and became an empty city!

(To be continued)