The midsummer sun shines on the vast land of eastern Henan, and there are almost no trees on this rarely mountainous field, only endless endless fields and villages with smoke curling and roosters crowing between the fields. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 infoScattered peasants work under the sun, some driving the ploughing cattle in tune, some bending their backs to plow the land, and some sitting on the ridges smoking cigarettes and talking about the new wooden cattle and horses in the village.

A few days ago, I heard that the Oriental devils had crossed the Yellow River, and they were about to call, and all the people who had a little way and surplus wealth had fled, and the officials and lords had long since disappeared, but for those of them who had left this land to beg for food, they could not escape, at most the young people hid, and the old people did as in the past when the sun rose and rested.

The peasants have their own minds, they look at the crops in the field that are more than half a person tall and have infinite expectations, and on the other side of the field, Corporal Du Baiqing, who is looking at the land through a telescope, also has infinite expectations. At this time, she was no longer dressed as a Boy Scout, but in a yellow-green military uniform, with a blue sky and white sun cockade on her hat, and the salute was no longer the three-finger salute of the Boy Scouts, but a standard military salute.

"There are no devils." Du Baiqing put down the binoculars and swept the field 360 degrees, quite disappointed.

"Hehe......" Zhang Wenbin, who became a tank driver (reserve) as he wished, immediately laughed, Du Baiqing was the boss when she was in the regiment before, but now she is only a clerk of the military department. If there were devils, I would still be here? I was already ordered by the company commander to be on standby. The devil is still in the north, and I heard that it will come down soon. When the time comes...... Hmph, it's another good beating, just like Taierzhuang, that guy, that scene, shouting and killing, cannons roaring, and the tracks pressed against the devil's head......"

Among the members of the 50th Regiment of the Boy Scout Shanghai Regiment, except for Du Baiqing, all the others became reserve tank drivers, thanks to the rapid expansion of the armored forces during the war, and even more because they were all young people with solid basic skills. After several months of military training, all these people were assigned to each tank company to wipe the guns and carry the batteries, and when the third batch of tanks arrived, they would become tank drivers. Zhang Wenbin was lucky, he was assigned to the first brigade and directly participated in the Battle of Taierzhuang, while Du Baiqing was unlucky, he was currently in the military department, but because of his gender, he could only be a clerk.

"Dether!" Du Baiqing didn't speak, Zhang Wenhuan and Zhao Yongsheng couldn't get used to his appearance, they were in the second brigade, the Soviet-made T26 tank in Yishui, because of training, did not participate in the Battle of Taierzhuang.

"Stand up!" Not far from the town, Congdapu motorcycles and mustaches were parked at the door of an earthen ancestral hall with dusty soil, and the first to get out of the car was Lieutenant General Xu Tingyao, the commander of the army, followed by Lieutenant General Du Yuming, deputy commander of the army, and Major General Liao Yaoxiang, chief of staff of the army. The guards raised their guns and saluted, and greeted a few people into the ancestral hall.

"This Gui is true!" The old ancestral hall looked shady, and as soon as he entered it, Xu Tingyao said very angrily.

Last night, he and Du Yuming went to Lanfeng to attend a military meeting, and in terms of theater of operations, eastern Henan was under the jurisdiction of General Cheng Qian of the 1st Theater of Operations, but in fact, it was Xue Yue, a Cantonese Yankee, who commanded the eastern cluster. With the chairman's arrangement, Yu Jishi's 74th Army, Li Hanxun's 64th Army, Song Xilian's 71st Army, Gui Yongqing's 27th Army, plus the 88th Army, which lacked only one armored brigade, and a few newly organized miscellaneous divisions, was completely sure that the enemy's 14th Division, which was alone and deep in depth, would be completely assured. Moreover, unlike Taierzhuang, although there are many rivers in eastern Henan, they are not as dense as Taierzhuang and the battlefield is narrow, which is the best place for armored troops to gallop.

But there are pros and cons, it took several months to prepare the Supreme Command for the Battle of Taierzhuang, and the preparation time for the Battle of Lanfeng was less than half a month because of the late arrangement. Lanfeng is on the Longhai line, and the 88th Army will not fight more than 100 kilometers of the railway line, but the field airfield cannot be arranged in about ten days. During the Battle of Taierzhuang, there were two brigades of air force to cover for themselves, and on the Lanfeng side, only the planes taking off from Kaifeng Airport, Zhengzhou Airport, and Zhumadian Airport could cover for themselves, and there were barely two brigades, but the enemy's air force was also strengthening, and it was very likely that the troops would fight without air supremacy at that time.

In addition to the fact that the air force airfield could not keep up, Gui Yongqing, commander of the 27th Army, actually wanted to pry the Second Armored Brigade away by taking advantage of his relationship with Qiu Qingquan, commander of the Second Brigade.

Xu Tingyao complained, but Du Yuming, who got up to refute at the meeting just now, did not speak. Xu Tingyao saw him like this, and said: "Guangting, they are all first-term students, why are there so many differences between people?" ”

"Sir, I don't know ...... of lowly duties" Du Yuming was speechless about Gui Yongqing's question.

Du Yu was really hard to say anything, Xu Tingyao knew the temper of his subordinate, and then thought that Qiu Qingquan's second brigade had not been pried away, so he didn't mention this stubble. Taking advantage of the sunlight shining from the patio of the ancestral hall, he pointed to the sand table on the table and said thoughtfully, "The bandits will really come to Lanfeng." ”

"In the chairman's judgment, this is indeed possible." Du Yuming's demeanor was very respectful when he said that the chairman of the committee -- even if everyone said that the president was wrong, he would think that the president was wrong, and it was the whole world that was wrong. "The 14th Division is a division at this time, in addition to its own 2nd, 15th, 50th, 59th and corresponding subordinate units, there is also a heavy artillery brigade, which is already a mechanized corps. Although Dongkou is only more than 100 kilometers away from here, the mechanized troops are very dependent on logistics for operations, and they cannot withstand attrition. Only by occupying Chenliukou and backing the Yellow River to replenish the ferry line, it can continue to fight, if the lone army goes deep into Shangqiu, then the heavy artillery will be useless after the shells are exhausted. ”

As Du Yuming spoke, his hands were gesturing on the sand table, and he believed Chang Kaishen's judgment from the beginning that the enemy would not attack Shangqiu, but would occupy Lanfeng. In fact, the meaning of occupying Lanfeng is exactly the same as that of occupying Shangqiu -- the Yellow River, which has nine bends and eighteen bends, cuts across the Central Plains from west to east from Luoyang, but when it arrives at Lanfeng, it suddenly turns around and goes almost vertically to the north. Correspondingly, the Longhai Railway, which has been parallel to the Yellow River since Luoyang, also turned a corner in Lanfeng and headed south.

Shangqiu is on the Longhai line south of Lanfeng, and even if the 14th Division occupies it, it can only defend the city, and it may not be able to cut off the retreat of the Xuzhou army. the danger of annihilation; Kelanfeng is different, Lanfeng is less than ten kilometers away from the Chenliukou of the Yellow River, which can not only cut off the Longhai line, but also facilitate the supply of the north bank of the Yellow River, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone.

Du Yuming thought about the battle plan that the Japanese commander might take, and at this time, in addition to the Third Tank Brigade, two armored brigades and two bicycle motorized infantry divisions of the 88th Army had already entered service. This army of more than 40,000 people ambushed in Beiguan Town between Lanfeng, Heze and Shangqiu, which is 48 kilometers away from Heze in the north, 45 kilometers away from Lanfeng in the west, and 54 kilometers away from Shangqiu in the east. The intention of this arrangement was to annihilate the enemy troops 30 kilometers away before the enemy could open up when the Japanese heavy artillery units were advancing towards Lankao.

For infantry, a thirty-kilometer journey takes a day, but for armored units, a thirty-kilometer journey takes up to two hours. The Japanese army, which did not have preset positions and field fortifications, could not resist the armored iron flow of the 88th Army at all. Once the Japanese army's baggage and heavy artillery units are eliminated, the Japanese troops who only have grenadiers will be eaten up by the eastern Henan cluster, and as for Chen Liukou, they will not be able to die.

The battle plan is such a spy, but in Du Yuming's opinion, the better way is to fight north of Heze, but unfortunately Heze has no railroad - the omnipotent Li Kongrong finally made a fatal mistake, although the 120mm mortar is a portable artillery, and its power is considerable, but its shells are fifteen kilograms. Based on the ammunition consumption of the Japanese army, the mountain artillery will consume 2,000 shells per battle. With the same amount of ammunition projected, each 120mm mortar required a minimum of six hundred shells. One armored division had 108 120mm mortars, with a total of more than 64,000 rounds of shells and a net weight of nearly 1,000 tons.

The 200th Division only has a total of more than 600 trucks, and the total size of the trucks in the whole army is only 900, even if it does not carry 60,000 rounds of artillery shells at one time, the number of trucks needed is staggering. The lack of trucks can only be supplemented by mules, horses and manpower, which is even more frightening. Fifteen-kilogram shells cost a mule two to three rounds at most, and even a third would cost more than six or seven thousand animals; A fifteen-kilogram artillery shell can make a soldier unable to hold anything but shells, and 20,000 shells require 20,000 soldiers to carry them, which is more than a combat unit.

The armored forces are sharp, but logistics are its Achilles' heel. With the current truck equips, the 88th Panzer Army can only fight within two hundred kilometers of the railway line. This is still on the basis of reducing the artillery reserve to 10,000 rounds. The cross-country mileage of the Panzer 35 tank is roughly 120 kilometers, and 200 kilometers is a tank and a half of oil and 250 liters, but the actual combat fuel consumption is several times the theoretical fuel consumption, Li Kongrong remembers that the European battlefield is 10 times, according to this calculation, each tank needs two tons of combat gasoline for 200 kilometers, plus lubricating oil, more than 190 tanks need more than 400 tons of fuel for 200 kilometers, and the fuel for trucks has not been calculated......

All in all, the 88th Panzer Corps was actually a short-legged Panzer Corps, and 200 kilometers away from the railway was the limit of attack, and the most suitable attack distance was 100 kilometers. In this way, not only can the fuel be guaranteed, but in the face of the insufficient strength of the reinforced division of nearly 30,000 men and the two motorized infantry divisions such as the 14th Division, the infantry corps assembled by railway can encircle and suppress the enemy troops scattered by the armored torrent under the guidance of the armored troops, so the maximum mileage of this operation is determined by the shortest board of the barrel -- the mileage of the infantry corps in one day, that is, 50 kilometers.

The knife is always sharpened more and more, Du Yuming thinks more and more about the logistics of the 88th Army, and hopes to buy the kind of half-track truck that Li Kongrong said, which will greatly enhance the traffic capacity of the armored troops; And the army commander, Lieutenant General Xu Tingyao, has been thinking about the Japanese heavy artillery brigade. In any case, this heavy artillery brigade must be taken down, otherwise, the tank will charge in the face of the heavy artillery brigade that has already preset its position, and it will be looking for death.

The army commander and deputy army commander had their own plans in their hearts, and the chief of staff was silent. Forty-eight kilometers away, in Heze City, Lieutenant General Xu Tingyao's 150mm heavy artillery was bombarding the positions on the outskirts of Heze City. The Type 38 field howitzer shells weighed thirty-six kilograms, and one round was enough to kill and injure a naked infantry the size of a football field. Although the defenders had been prepared for this, digging as many holes as they dug and how thick the trench covers were, the shells still hit the majestic earth like a heavy hammer, blowing up handfuls of dust.

Under heavy artillery bombardment, the Japanese shock troops were gathering not far from the defenders' positions, and the 18th Cavalry Wing was on standby on both sides - once the Chinese army retreated in panic, the cavalry would pursue the defeated army together with the chariot troops.

"Why is it so sturdy?!" The division commander, Lieutenant General Kenji Dohihara, who was on the front line, looked at the dusty defenders' positions that had been bombarded by heavy artillery and was extremely puzzled. By the nature of the Eschina army, they should have broken up at the first attack.

"Your Excellency, the defenders are the 88th Division of the Song Xilian Division of the Shina Army......" Chief of Staff Tadayoshi Sano said the information he had just obtained.

“88…… Division? The bandit's thick beard trembled under his nose, and the fat on his face twitched irregularly. The 88th Division made him think about the 88th Armored Corps that had just annihilated the Seya Kai detachment in Taierzhuang. This army rushed from the rear of Taierzhuang to the outside of Lincheng City in one day, and scattered the 63rd Wing that rushed to Taierzhuang to rescue, so that the retreating 10th Wing was surrounded and annihilated by the Zhina Army south of Yinpingsha River. The entire Taierzhuang battle Segu Qi detachment was annihilated, Major General Seya Qi jade was broken, the Shina newspaper published his body, and his command knife was sent to Wuchang by the Shina Army to Zhujie, all of which were given by the 88th Armored Army.

"Our southward battle plan has been detected in advance by the Zhina Army," the bandits originally swept the information about the Taierzhuang operation in their minds, and began to put their minds on it. "Only then did the Chinese army build strong fortifications......"

While the bandits were talking, the artillery bombardment did not stop, the commander of the front line drew his command knife, and a large group of Japanese troops followed behind nine Type 94 tanks to attack the defenders, and he immediately stopped talking and watched the attack.

The Type 94 tank is a bean fighting vehicle, weighing only three tons, and the armor thickness is only 6mm. Not to mention that there are few ways to deal with it, soldiers who have never seen a car will be frightened when they see this invulnerable monster rumbling over. At this time, the nine bean chariots marched forward in a row, still bombarded by artillery fire, and there was no sound on the defender's position, but when the tanks drove two hundred meters away, the artillery fire extended backwards, and it was easy for the usual gunfire to ring. The front armor of the Bean Chariot sparkled, and then the tanks did not move, at first only one or two, and by the end all nine tanks were out of control or out of control.

The Japanese soldier Cao who followed behind the chariot was at a loss, but fortunately, the squadron leader did not care whether the troops had the cover of the chariot, and they commanded the knife to rush through the tank with the soldiers in one move, and at this time, the Makqin heavy machine gun, which had been suppressed by the enemy artillery, was 'bang-bang' and strafed, and they were no longer as rigid as they were during the battle of Songhu, but fought for a while to change places.

The salvo of machine guns, mortars, and rifles immediately made the Japanese troops who were charging at a rapid pace lie on the ground, and at this time the Japanese artillery fire had extended back to prevent reinforcements from coming forward to support, but the trench fire point was still there, and the battle began in this short two hundred meters. (To be continued.) )