Chapter 86: Changes in the Situation
The detachment headquarters of the Ushijima detachment and its directly subordinate units were strangled back and forth by several interspersed detachments of the 500 division, and finally most of them were annihilated, and the remaining remnants scattered and escaped. The 23rd Wing led by Okamoto was stubbornly resisted by our 195th Division. In the case of failure to advance, Okamoto Osa turned around, prepared to meet the headquarters of the upper detachment, and then found a way together to join the large forces of the division.
As soon as he turned around, he happened to run headlong into the interspersed troops of the 500 Division, which had just won the battle. Without saying a word, these interspersed detachments came up and launched a fierce attack on the 23rd Wing from different directions.
In the face of this kind of unorganized multi-faceted attack, Okamoto Daisa was extremely uncomfortable. The 23rd Wing was sure to defeat any of these forces, but when these troops attacked from different directions, Okamoto had no way to deal with it. It's like a very strong and ferocious leopard, in the face of a lion, it may still have the strength to fight, but when the lion becomes a pack of wolves, no matter how strong the leopard is, there is only one way to escape.
The current 23rd Wing is like this, in the face of the five hundred divisions and six interspersed detachments that are attacking in groups, Okamoto Daisa, after trying to parry a few times, immediately found that in addition to defeat, he can only sit and wait for destruction. Back down? Where is the way for him to retreat? The 195th Division behind him has been pressing forward step by step, and Okamoto Osa has no way to retreat!
The 195th Division was in an iron plate formation behind it, waiting for Okamoto Daisa to kick it up at any time, so as to break his toes. The interspersed detachment of the 500th Division in front was like a group of bloodthirsty sharks, circling around the 23rd Wing looking for opportunities, ready to open a gap and drill into it at any time!
The situation had reached its worst, and Osa Okamoto finally remembered the aviation mentioned by General Ushijima. Now that General Ushijima can no longer be contacted, according to Okamoto Daisa's thoughts, General Ushijima must have led his troops to break through. He didn't know that Mitsuru Ushijima had died in battle. Well, Okamoto now has to call for air reinforcements on his own.
The Japanese planes appeared amid the hoarse roar of Osa Okamoto. It's just that after circling twice over the 23rd Wing, the Japanese air force really couldn't find anything to support.
When the devil's plane flew over, several interspersed detachments of the 500th Division had completely melee with the 23rd Wing, and there was me among the enemies, and we had the enemy, once again forming a situation of pork belly. Even if the devil plane wanted to bomb, he didn't dare to bomb it, the scene below was too chaotic! In the end, the Japanese pilots finally found a target for bombing, that is, the 195th Division, which had not yet been fully involved in this battlefield.
General Qin Yizhi has long had experience in dealing with the bombing of devils. The devil pilots watched from the sky as people were blown up below, but in fact, the losses of the troops below were not large. Moreover, taking advantage of the negligence of the devil pilots, the plane dived down too low during the bombing, and the machine gun shooters of the 195th Division simply used machine guns to shoot down a Japanese plane!
The elite of the Japanese air force was frightened, pulled the control stick sharply, and hurriedly jumped into the air. I had the heart to fly away, but I couldn't wipe my face away, and finally threw all the bombs I brought, which was considered to save face. The aviation, whose self-esteem was satisfied, flapped their wings and flew away.
The flight of the devil plane means that the end of the 23rd Wing has arrived! After making one last effort, Okamoto finally found that he had lost effective command of the troops. After the last interspersed detachment led by Gao Quan also joined the battle group, the devils of the 23rd Wing completely collapsed.
The devils who had no fighting spirit were in groups of three, and groups of five began to withdraw from the battle. After paying the price of more than half of the casualties, finally some devils began to flee. In the woods, in the river, behind the big rocks, as long as it is a place where people can be hidden, or a place that seems to be safer, it is a place where the devils are willing to hide. Of course, there are many clever devils who choose to break through, after all, no matter how tight the blockade is, there will always be loopholes, not to mention that there is no blockade line on the side of the 500 division.
The 23rd Wing finally escaped, but they didn't escape as a unit, not even a squadron. The devils who escape are generally squad-based, even if they are squads, they are very rare. As a wing-level combat unit, they no longer exist, at least in this battle, the Japanese army will not appear in the battle sequence of the 23rd Wing.
At this point, the Ushijima detachment completely disappeared from this battlefield. It became the first and only brigade-level unit of the Japanese army to be annihilated in this battle.
Gao Quan didn't have time to celebrate, and he didn't even have time to congratulate Qin Yizhi on his division, and the situation on the battlefield had changed significantly!
As the supreme commander of the Japanese side in this battle, General Okamura Ninji of the 11th Army was actually very optimistic about the situation of the Japanese army at the beginning. At the beginning of the battle, the Japanese army on three fronts, each of which was winning one after another, and the good news was frequent.
The 106th Division and the Sazhi Detachment in northern Jiangxi broke the defense of Luo Zhuoying's Seventh Army and were advancing towards northern Hunan all the way; The 33rd Division in southern Hunan was advancing to the upper reaches of the Miluo River, and Yang Sen's Sichuan army was simply vulnerable; The Sixth Division, the Shangcun Detachment, and the Nara Detachment in northern Hunan had successively broken through the two defensive lines of the Xinqiang River and the Miluo River, which Xue Yue had painstakingly operated for many years. The elite 15th Army was defeated by the more elite Kumamoto Division. The Japanese army is attacking fiercely to the south, as long as it crosses the Laodao River and takes Changsha, it is just around the corner.
However, the situation on the battlefield inadvertently changed like heaven and earth being reversed! The Japanese army in northern Jiangxi suddenly fell into passivity, being held back by Luo Zhuoying's troops, and the 106th Division was even in danger of being surrounded by Chinese troops; Although the 33rd Division in southern Hunan reached the upper reaches of the Miluo River and joined the main force of the Japanese army in northern Hunan, Guan Linzheng's 15th Group Army had also successfully retreated, and the hope of encircling and annihilating this Chinese ace army was dashed; After the Japanese army in northern Hunan broke through the two lines of defense of the Chinese army, the 15 th Group Army no longer fought positional warfare, and they changed to a flexible and mobile tactic of fighting and retreating. And the Japanese army began to be ambushed continuously!
To make matters worse, with the destruction of the roads between the Xinqiang River and the Miluo River, the replenishment of the Japanese army's supplies and baggage became a problem. Although I can't understand why the situation has developed like this, Okamura Ninji can still understand the reality that if the three Japanese forces continue to fight, they will all be in danger.
Okamura Ningji is an old devil who is very good at looking at the situation, seeing that this battle, whether it is to annihilate the main force of China's Ninth Theater or to occupy Changsha, these two goals cannot be achieved, and the old devil of Gangcun immediately issued a retreat order to his three-way army and various departments, ordering everyone to return to the various stations along the original road to rest and wait.
Although the Ushijima detachment suffered heavy losses, and the detachment commander Ushijima Mitsuru did not know what to do, this detachment was a temporary detachment of the Sixth Division, and it was not any of the several independent detachments before the war. Commander Gangcun did not intend to pursue it.