Chapter 166: Jiujiang is lost

In the end, Jiujiang was still not able to hold, although the Military Commission had decided to send two divisions of Xue Yue's First Corps to reinforce Jiujiang, but the troops had just reached the halfway point when they received the latest battle report from the Second Corps, the Japanese army had captured Jiujiang, and the troops of the Second Corps had withdrawn from Jiujiang.

Zhang Fakui, the commander of the Second Corps, was extremely depressed at this time, he knew that this was a mess before he came, but he didn't expect it to be so erosive. As early as when Hukou was lost, Zhang Fakui predicted that Jiujiang would be difficult to hold, after all, Hukou is the gateway of Jiujiang, and if Hukou is lost, the gateway of Jiujiang will be wide open.

The Jiujiang region chokes the gateway of Hubei and Jiangxi, and its strategic position is extremely important. If Jiujiang is lost, the Japanese army can easily take Wuhan in the west and detour to Nanchang and Changsha in the south. Although the Military Commission mobilized 100,000 troops to defend Jiujiang, none of its subordinate troops could be called elite.

The most important thing is that the Japanese army is also bound to win Jiujiang. Zhang Fakui knew about Gangcun, and they had fought as early as ten years ago. At that time, during the Northern Expedition, Okamura, as a military adviser, was seeking military affairs in Sun Chuanfang's Jiujiang Front Headquarters. Zhang Fakui was the commander of the Fourth Army of the Northern Expeditionary Army at that time, and was ordered to launch an attack on Sun Chuanfang's army.

Although Sun Chuanfang said that he was an old warlord, he still let Zhang Fakui's troops retreat, and at the most critical moment, Okamura disguised himself as a common man to escape. While escaping, he stole a military topographical map of Central China, which later became the main military map used by Japanese commanders at all levels during the Battle of Wuhan.

In fact, according to Zhang Fakui's plan, defend Jiujiang but not fight in Jiujiang, after all, Jiujiang is bordered by the Yangtze River in the north and Poyang Lake in the east. If they fought here, the Japanese naval fleet and air force planes would be able to give full play to their superiority in the sea and air. Therefore, Zhang Fakui believed that it was quite difficult to defend the city, and it was necessary to set up a second-line reserve position in the hilly area southwest of Jiujiang, so that once Jiujiang was lost, it could make effective resistance and contain and consume the Japanese army.

But. But Lao Jiang didn't think so, he ordered Zhang Fakui to stick to Jiujiang. His arms couldn't twist his thighs, and Zhang Fakui had no choice but to make military deployments in accordance with this decision, but there was not much time left for him to prepare for battle.

Three days earlier, the Botian detachment had taken a boat from Hukou and under the cover of the 11th Naval Brigade to infiltrate near the Shoe Mountain in Poyang Lake in an attempt to land at Gutang. By the time the officers and men of the 11th Division of our defenders discovered it, the Japanese had already covered the beachhead. Although they tried their best to resist and sank more than 10 enemy ships, under the suppression of the salvo fire of the Japanese naval guns, the defenders suffered heavy casualties, and the Hatada detachment forced a landing.

After dawn, dozens of Japanese fighters bombed and strafed the sky. The Japanese artillery positions at Shoe Mountain and the Japanese naval guns on Poyang Lake fired thousands of shells at the Chinese reinforcements. According to Zhang Wenmei's battalion guarding the beachhead, all died. The 15th and 118th Divisions, which were ordered to be reinforced, were pressed on the potholed road to Gutang and could not get ahead at all. Although the reserve of the 11th Division was close to the beachhead, it was outnumbered and alone. The equipment was poor, and several counterattacks failed to work.

Subsequently, the main forces of the Botian detachment and the 106th Division had all landed and occupied Gutang. On the same day, about 100 sorties of Japanese planes bombed the Jiujiang city in turn. After that, the Japanese Navy's minesweeping team forcibly carried out minesweeping operations. And with the fire of the boat's artillery fire at the Suojianglou pagoda. At that time, the tower was hit by three cannons, and the tower was tilted to the northeast. Our officers and men from the artillery position near Suojianglou immediately returned fire on the enemy boat with heavy artillery fire, and immediately damaged one ship.

At about 7 o'clock yesterday, 20 Japanese warships and 50 or 60 planes entered the Jiujiang urban area. The Jiujiang defenders' positions and urban areas were bombed indiscriminately to cover the landing of their marines. At 10 o'clock, the Japanese army landed at the foreign oil factory and launched an attack in the direction of Shazitan. At the same time, the Japanese army landed at Xiaochikou in the northwest of Jiujiang, and although the 9th and 119th Divisions of the defending reserve tried their best to resist, they were finally at a disadvantage in firepower and troops, and it was difficult to support them.

The Japanese Botian Detachment and the 106th Division, which landed from Gutang, also advanced to the Sun Temple and launched an attack in the direction of Miaozhipu, approaching the Jiujiang urban area. Under such unfavorable war conditions, Zhang Fakui reported to the 9th Theater of Operations, believing that Jiujiang was actually difficult to hold onto, and that in order to protect the main positions in northern Jiangxi and eastern Hubei and that it was not appropriate to invest troops in Jiujiang and increase losses, it was necessary to adjust the deployment of the 2nd Corps and abandon Jiujiang.

At 10 o'clock in the evening of the 22nd, after receiving a telegram from the Ninth War Zone, Zhang Fakui issued an order to retreat from Jiujiang in the name of the commander of the Second Corps.

After the Japanese army occupied Jiujiang, it did not stop attacking, and continued to attack the periphery of Jiujiang, and repeatedly fought with the Chinese defenders.

At this time, Ma Zheng and his Duqi Division were on their way to Ruichang, which had become the forefront of blocking the Japanese attack. At the same time, Major General Shigeichi Harata, who had been advancing all the way and was arrogant, also led his Taiwan brigade to Ruichang to kill, and the two troops were about to rub fierce sparks.

Hakata Shigeichi obviously didn't know about the arrival of Ma Zheng's department, and with Hatada's arrogance, he wouldn't care even if he knew. The current Major General Hatada Shigeichi was at the most glorious time of his life, he defeated the 780,000 defenders of the Madang line with a force of less than 7,000 men, captured the fortress of Madang, and at the same time defeated the 100,000 Chinese defenders on the Jiujiang front.

But unlike Shigeichi Hata, Ma Zheng had long anticipated the enemies they were going to face. As a well-known special operations commander in later generations, he carefully studied and studied this period of history of the Japanese invasion of China. Although a lot of historical truth is buried in the dust, it is impossible for him to know everything that happened. But the history of the major battles is known.

Even when the troops moved south, Ma Zheng calculated that the most likely troops of the Duqi Division were the Japanese Sixth Division, the 101st Division, the 106th Division, and the Botian Detachment, which attacked Wuhan.

Among the above armies, Ma Zheng was sure that the Duqi Division was the first to face the Botian detachment, and in the five-month battle in history, the Botian detachment fought almost all the defenders on the periphery of Wuhan.

At 11 o'clock in the evening of the 22nd, Ma Zheng's department boarded the train at Wuhan Station, and the department rushed to Ruichang by train. In fact, the most convenient way to get from Wuhan to Ruichang is not by train, but by boat, preferably by warship. But Ma Zheng knew that taking a warship now was simply looking for death, not to mention colliding with a Japanese warship, even if it was touched by a Japanese plane, it would be extremely dangerous

In addition, almost all the troops of the Duqi Division are men from the north, except for the special combat team members who have undergone special training, few of the rest are water-based, most of them are landlubbers, and once they fall into the water, there is still a way to live.

Besides, there are no large warships in Wuhan for them to ride on now.

Even by train, it was still not very safe, and now the entire theater of operations, including Wuhan, was within the bombing range of the Japanese air force, so we had to board the train at night. However, on the morning of the 23rd, when the train arrived at Fenglin Town in Yangxin, it encountered a Japanese plane, and after seeing the train, the Japanese plane immediately dropped bombs like crazy.

Fortunately, the two Japanese planes seemed to have completed their mission and were ready to return home, and there were not many bombs on board, so they left after dropping a few. But even so, it's still terrifying.

Ma Zheng then ordered the troops to get off at Fenglin Town, and then rushed to Ruichang on foot. Ma Zheng knew very well the virtues of the Japanese, and since the two planes thought that this train was of great value, they would definitely go and return.

And it's still daylight, and it will be troublesome if you are targeted by Japanese planes. One or two are fine, if they encounter an aviation formation, their troops are likely to die before they can get out of the division, and they will be blown up before they reach the battlefield.

Sure enough, not long after the troops got off the bus and left, a group of Japanese fighters flew to Fenglin Town, and after not discovering the military train, they dropped a few aerial bombs on Fenglin Town and flew away. (To be continued.) )