[Anti-Japanese Iron Blood King] Chapter 927: The City is Broken (Ask for Subscription!) , ask for a monthly pass, ask for everything! ）

September 14, 1940 was an unforgettable day for the Japanese army invading China, especially for General Seishiro Itagaki who was commanding operations on the Zhangjiakou front. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Just when Seishiro Itagaki was planning to break through the fortifications of Zhangjiakou from the underground, a shocking news suddenly came - Baoding had been lost.

Baoding lost?

When the news came, the entire North China Front was stunned, but more panicked.

What is Baoding, that is the capital of Hebei Province, although it has been broken by Ma Zheng's department once, but afterwards the Japanese army quickly recaptured this big city, and even deliberately strengthened the defense force of Baoding, and also set up the headquarters of the 26th Division in Baoding.

I didn't expect such a big city to be breached by the earth eight roads, and the speed was amazing.

In fact, it is nothing for Ma Zheng, although the fortifications of Baoding are good, but the main force of the 26th Division guarding Baoding was transferred to Zhangjiakou to participate in the offensive and defensive battles, when Xu Hu's troops came to the city, there were less than 5,000 defenders in Baoding City, of which the Japanese army only had one wing.

More importantly, the strength of Xu Hu's department was too strong, and after Ma Zheng's strengthening, the attack group commanded by Xu Hu had 2 infantry divisions and an armored division, in addition to 6 independent brigades, and 5 other brigades directly under the troops, with a total strength of 120,000 troops.

Ma Zheng's purpose is very clear, he not only wants to take Baoding, but also take Shimen, and completely surround the first army stationed in Shanxi in Shanxi.

At that time, the reorganized 1st Division and other units will move south from the north of Jin to complete the annihilation of the First Army. In this way, not only can the danger of Zhangjiakou be solved, but also the Japanese army can be attacked as much as possible.

Although it was difficult to completely annihilate the First Army stationed in Shanxi with the strength of the Suicha Military Region, Ma Zheng believed that as long as Yan Laoxi saw that Ma Zheng's troops had the intention of encroaching on Taiyuan and even the whole of Shanxi, even if there was no order from Chongqing, the Second War Zone would spare no effort to fight. After all, in Yan Laoxi's eyes, the Eighth Route Army and the Japanese army were equally terrifying, and even the Eighth Route Army was even more terrible than the Japanese army.

Once the Second War Zone enters the war, Wei Lihuang's First War Zone will not sit idly by, and when the three-way army ravages Shinozuka Yoshio's department, it will be a lot of fun.

On the 15th, Ma Zheng personally went south, moved the former enemy headquarters to Baoding, and commanded the army to attack Shimen in two ways.

According to Ma Zheng's order, Xu Hu's troops went out of the city and took Shimen directly through Shunping, Tangxian, Yangqu and other counties. And Liu Fengchi's department is out of the Qing Yuan, through Wangdu, Dingzhou, Xinle, Zhengding and other counties, the soldiers pointed directly at Shimen.

At the same time, the special forces came out of Jingcheng at night, ready to seize the county seat at any time.

The two sides now have their own calculations, and the Japanese army plans to do everything possible to take the Pingjin barrier in Zhangjiakou, and then settle the account with Ma Zheng's subordinates. And Ma Zheng is now doing everything possible to seize Shimen, then close the door and beat the dogs, completely annihilating the first army of the Japanese army in Shanxi, and cutting off the arm of the North China Front.

Knowing that Ma Zheng's headquarters did not care about the life or death of Zhangjiakou, they actually concentrated more than 100,000 people to go south to Baoding, and continued to go south after taking Baoding, and instantly the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army and the Japanese army judged that Ma Zheng's target was Shimen.

Immediately, under the order of the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region, the Jizhong Military Region, and the 120th Division quickly dispatched to launch a counterattack against the Japanese troops in Laiyuan and other places.

At the same time, Gao Shuxun's department in southern Hebei also actively moved northward, making a posture of attacking Shimen, and for a time the whole Hebei became a pot of porridge, with battles everywhere and gunfire everywhere.

Needless to say, the importance of Shimen, the Japanese army in China is an extremely important transportation hub and logistics base, if Shimen is lost, then the entire first army stationed in Shanxi will really become the king of the urn, Ma Zheng's move to close the door and beat the dog can be said to really hit the weakness of the Japanese army.

In order to keep Shimen and leave a way back for the First Army stationed in Shanxi, Okamura Ninji had no choice but to order the 32nd Division, which had just recovered, to defend Shimen, and together with the mixed 16th Brigade in the Shimen area, the 7th Infantry Division of the puppet army, the 4th Cavalry Division, and the 8th Mixed Brigade, they urgently reinforced Shimen and defended it together with the 32nd Division.

In view of the strong armored strength of Ma Zheng's department, Lieutenant General Iide Tetsuzo, the commander in charge of the defense command of the Shimen area, did not block Ma Zheng's headquarters along the way, but concentrated all his forces on the periphery of Shimen. With Shimen as the center, it focused on defending Zhengding, Luquan and other counties, and built a solid defense line on the periphery of Shimen with an army of 50,000.

As a precaution, Iide Tetsuzo also drove the Chinese people in Shimon Castle to build fortifications, just like his predecessor, Hyotaro Kimura. The focus of the well is to build the commanding heights and semi-basement bunkers in the city for street fighting.

At the same time, in order to contain Ma Zheng's department, the Japanese army arrested all the people around Shimen in Shimen City, in order to let Ma Zheng's department have scruples and not to shell Shimen, and the method is still the same as Kimura Hyotaro.

After learning that the Shimen guard turned out to be a well out of the iron store, Ma Zheng knew that Shimen must be a difficult bone to gnaw. In order to take Shimen as soon as possible, Ma Zheng ordered the troops on the front line to speed up their march and be sure to arrive at Shimen before the city of Zhangjiakou was broken.

Under Ma Zheng's order, the two armies successively descended six county towns in one day, especially Xu Hu's department, and with the cooperation of the armored division, they finally captured Lingshou County on the morning of September 17, and Liu Fengchi's department arrived at Xin'an Town in the northwest of Zhengding County.

However, just as the two armies continued to advance towards Shimen, news came from the front line of Zhangjiakou - the city was broken!

After more than a week of excavation, the Japanese army's engineering unit finally dug the tunnel under the Zhangjiakou city wall, with a few loud noises, the city wall in the south, east and west of Zhangjiakou was blown up by the Japanese army to open a gap of 30 or 40 meters wide, and under the surprise of the war, hundreds of soldiers of the Zhanan Military Division were buried in the ruins, including one regiment commander and four company commanders, and the losses were not insignificant.

The Japanese attacked at the first moment when the city wall was blown up, and since the incident happened at night, most of the defenders stationed in the fortifications of the city wall were resting, so not many escaped.

Although the remaining defenders also put up a desperate resistance, this time it was not those puppet soldiers wearing Japanese uniforms who attacked, but the real elite of the Japanese army.

Tens of thousands of Japanese troops rushed towards the gap in the collapsed city wall like a tide, and soon the hundreds of defenders who had just gathered were routed, and the Japanese army officially entered Zhangjiakou City.

The news of the Japanese army's entry into the city surprised Yang Chengwu, but then Yang Chengwu was relieved, the Japanese army had been planning for so many days, and it really couldn't be underestimated.

Now the city fortifications in the outer city have lost their effect, and fighting with the Japanese army in the outer city can only increase casualties, so Yang Chengwu and He Xiulin directly ordered the troops to immediately withdraw to the inner city and fight street battles with the Japanese army in accordance with the battle plan formulated before.

Originally, Itagaki Seishiro thought that as long as the city fortifications in Zhangjiakou were taken, the Eighth Route Army would take the initiative to withdraw from Zhangjiakou, and would not even stop at the periphery of Zhangjiakou, and it would be reasonable to withdraw directly to the large fortification group built by Ma Zheng's headquarters in Zhangbei or the Xinghe area.

However, the news from the besieging troops surprised Itagaki Seishiro that Tsuchihachi was going to fight a street battle with the imperial army. However, the other high-ranking officers on the front line were overjoyed when they heard this, and although the street fighting was fierce, the street fighting demanded very high quality of the individual soldiers.

Although the Imperial Japanese Army suffered a great loss in positional warfare, this did not mean that the quality of the individual soldiers of the Imperial Army was poor, on the contrary, the overwhelming majority of officers still firmly believed that the quality of the individual soldiers of the Japanese army was far higher than that of the Tsubachi Road, and when they heard that the Tsubachi Road was stupidly going to fight street battles with the Imperial Japanese Army, all the senior officers were crazy with joy, and they thought that the opportunity to be ashamed had finally come.

But only Itagaki Seishiro had a different opinion on this, and fought with Ma Zheng's department for a month, Itagaki Seishiro had a deep understanding of this enemy army, and he didn't think that Ma Zheng's department was messing around, but should have its intentions. Thinking of Ma Zheng's main force going south, Itagaki Seishiro's heart hung up. (To be continued.) )