The 644th Octopus Bites the Hook (continued)

Strictly speaking, Osamu Maeda's 35th Division can only be regarded as a fourth-rate unit in the Japanese army, and its equipment and number of soldiers cannot even be compared with the special divisions, let alone the six permanent divisions from the first to the sixth and the seventh-twenty-fourth divisions of the Japanese army. However, after this period of battlefield training, the recruits of the 35th Division have also become veterans, they have combat experience, they have intensive training, and there are no illiterates in the Japanese army, and the soldiers have a relatively high level of education, and their understanding and grasp of the performance of weapons are relatively accurate, and their combat effectiveness can easily go up. And the most important thing is that the soldiers of a garrison division like the 35th Division are all young people in their twenties, and they are most easily poisoned by militaristic ideology and are very fanatical. After the last battle of Anjiazhuang, the tails of these young soldiers were almost raised to the sky, and they only felt that they were not worse than the permanent divisions, and their sense of war was very strong. In this way, the combat effectiveness of the 35th Division surpassed that of the special division, whose soldiers were all in their thirties and was a little twilight, and it became a third-rate unit of the Japanese army.

This is also in line with the reality of the Anti-Japanese War in history. Historically, after being tempered on the battlefield, the Japanese army's garrison divisions and public security divisions surpassed the ad hoc divisions and regiments in combat effectiveness, and became the third-rate units of the Japanese army. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, as the elite permanent divisions of the Japanese army were successively transferred to the Pacific theater, these third-rate garrison divisions became the main divisions and regiments on the Chinese battlefield, committing many crimes.

Morita Masafumi's independent mixed 13th Brigade was originally based on the Kwantung Army, and its combat effectiveness was extremely strong, which was not a grade compared to the 35th Division. However, in the first battle of Beijipo, his main force fell into the fire net of the instructor of the Eighth Route Army, and the five elite independent infantry brigades did not even have a chance to resist, so they disappeared. Later, the North China Front incorporated the remaining infantry wing of the 21st Division into the 13th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade.

Some time ago, the Eighth Route Army carried out special guerrilla warfare, and the 35th Division and the 13th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade were beaten into shrinking turtles by the snipers of the Eighth Route Army, bent on finding an opportunity to take revenge on the Eighth Route Army with the power of aircraft artillery

According to the operational plan of the 12th Army of the Japanese Army, the 35th Division and the 13th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade were to attack and advance along the Jinpu Road and the highways of Jinan, Tai'an, and Yanzhou, and first seize Dawenkou, so that the air force could use the Dawenkou airfield to support the southern front operations nearby, and firmly attract the blocking troops of the Eighth Route Army around Tai'an. The 14th Division gave full play to its superiority in firepower and mobility, and when the 35th Division, the 13th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade, and the Eighth Route Army were fighting fiercely in Tai'an, they quickly detoured north along the highway between Yanzhou, Ningyang, Feicheng, and Jinan, and directly attacked Jinan, disrupting the deployment of the Eighth Route Army, and giving the Eighth Route Army a black tiger to steal their hearts.

In other words, the 35th Division and the 13th Brigade were to gnaw on the bones and let the 14th Division pick peaches.

In order to realize this plan, the Japanese army made great efforts to mobilize troops on the road from Zaozhuang to Yanzhou every day in the form of changing troops, and quietly concentrated all the main forces of the 14th Division in Tengxian County and strictly sealed the news. 10,000 men from two brigades of the Manchurian Defense Army defending the Longhai Road were transferred to put on Japanese uniforms and disguise the troops of the 14th Division, and stationed them between Xuzhou and Yixian, Zaozhuang, and Tengxian to protect the logistics supply line.

This battle plan was resisted by Maeda Osamu at the beginning, because if you go north along the Jinpu Road, you will have to pass through a series of important military towns such as porcelain kilns, Dawenkou, Beijipo, Tai'an, and Jieshou, especially Tai'an, which is famous. Maeda Osamu and Morita Masahomi judged that although Liu Yimin's strength was far from Luzhong, the Eighth Route Army that fought the blockade would definitely focus its defense on Tai'an City, and the strong city wall would make up for the lack of firepower of the blocker troops.

Now that it is clear that the main force of the Eighth Route Army is not in Jinan, Jinan is equivalent to an empty city, and the battle exploits of recovering Jinan are so tempting, Maeda has a heart to fight for merit. He was determined to let the 13th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade command a regiment of the puppet Manchurian Defense Army after its downsizing, to attack and advance along the Jinpu Road and the Tai'an-Yanzhou Highway, and he led the 35th Division to quickly move north along the highway between Yanzhou, Ningyang, Feicheng, and Jinan.

In order to accomplish this plan, Maeda sent telegrams to Iida Sadagu, commander of the 12th Army, and Shanshan Moto, commander of the North China Front, requesting that a large-scale air force be organized to open the way for the 35th Division, which would be directly inserted into Jinan. As a result, the commander of the Twelfth Army, Iida Sadagu, called back in a contemptuous tone: "By the time the 35th Division runs to the city of Jinan on two legs, Liu Yimin's forces of the Eighth Route Army may have returned from Luzhong. Waiting for the 35th Division, it is not as simple as being defeated last time on the Jilu side, and I am afraid that your situation will also be very bad. ”

The ashamed Maeda Osamu knew that Iida Sadagu looked down on his 35th Division, but he didn't expect to look down on him so much, and scolded Baga angrily

After scolding, Maeda also figured it out after calming down, he was facing the instructor of the Eighth Route Army, not Chiang Kai-shek's troops. How long it takes to fight with the instructor, it is good to have a surprise attack, but it is not good to fall into the trap of the Eighth Route Army in a surprise attack. Let's follow the battle plan of the 12th Army

In fact, Maeda did not know that the main reason why Iida Sadagu did not agree to the northward attack of the 35th Division and the 13th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade along the highway between Yanzhou, Ningyang, Feicheng, and Jinan was because of the suddenness of the campaign. Because the 35th Division and the 13th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade have been stationed in the Lunan and Taixi areas for a long time, the scouts of the Eighth Route Army must have been staring at them to death, and I am afraid that even the names and origins of their wing commanders and brigade commanders will be clearly known. As long as they are dispatched, no matter how well they do the secrecy work, they will be detected by the Eighth Route Military Prophet. However, the 14th Division had only fought in Shandong last time when it was sweeping up the Shandong Heavy Army Group, and this time it was urgently transferred to Lunan, and the Eighth Route Army was relatively unfamiliar with them, and it should also be relatively unfamiliar with their operational characteristics, and it was easy to receive the effect of a sudden attack. In this way, Osamu Maeda's 35th Division and the 13th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade will inevitably become the Japanese army's containment force, and the 14th Division will be the killer weapon for the Japanese army to attack and occupy Jinan.

This kind of battle plan was only approved by Iida Sadagu, who had just arrived in Shandong, and Shanshan Motokai, who had just arrived in North China. Because Shanshan Yuan and Iida Sadagu did not have a personal experience of the rapid attack on the main force of the Eighth Route Army, they thought that the Ningyang and Feicheng highways were only 25 kilometers away from the Jinpu Road in a straight line, and there were almost no gaps after the offensive troops were deployed, and this area was a plain and shallow hilly area, and the 14th Division and the 35th Division could support each other, even if the main force of the Eighth Route Army was in the Jinan area, it would not be possible for it to be divided and encircled by the 14th Division or the 35th Division. You must know that the 14th Division is a permanent division and regiment, and its combat effectiveness is strong, and this is also an active offensive operation of the troops, and it is impossible to be caught off guard by the Eighth Route Army. With two divisions and one independent mixed brigade, Sugi and Iida Sadagu didn't believe that the Eighth Route Army could do anything with their southern front troops.

Of course, Shanshan Yuan and Iida Sadagu still have a hole card, that is, the base camp has been assigned to the 27th Division and officially assigned to the North China Front. At present, the 27th Division is being transported to Zhengzhou, and after completing the assembly in Zhengzhou, it can enter Xuzhou eastward at any time to support the Lunan operation.

If Shouichi Terauchi was still in North China, he would never approve such a battle plan. Because he was already afraid of the Eighth Route Army, and he was afraid of the lone army in his bones, at least he would add another division to the offensive operations of the Southern Front Group. If it were the current strength, he would let the 14th Division and the 35th Division form a group, fight steadily and steadily, and contain the Eighth Route Army. After the main force of the northern front crossed the Yellow River, let the southern front group launch an offensive and cooperate with the northern and eastern fronts to attack Jinan.

Terauchi Shouichi had already returned to Tokyo with his Miss Masako in the morning, and the fate of the Japanese army on the southern front was irreversible.

Zhao Shan, commander-in-chief of the Southern Front Blocking Group of the Taixi Campaign and commander of the Eighth Brigade of the Eighth Route Army, was the commander of the old fifth battalion of the former Red Eighteenth Regiment. Since joining the Red Eighteenth Regiment by the Xiangjiang River, Zhao Shan, as a backbone general under Liu Yimin, has participated in all major battles from the Red Eighteenth Regiment to the Shandong Military Region of the Eighth Route Army. In Liu Yimin's understanding, Zhao Shan is characterized by a steady and sharp edge, able to attack and defend, especially good at defending. Every time there is a big war, as long as it involves a blocking battle, Liu Yimin's first thought is him. In addition, the Eighth Brigade needed to be further refined, and the task of blocking the 14th Division, the 35th Division, and the 13th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade naturally fell on his shoulders.

This time, the defense arranged by Zhao Shan is very distinctive, and it is not too much to call it a needle hidden in Mianli. The guiding ideology is a word "deception", which makes the little devil believe that the main force of the Eighth Route Army is not in Jinan, and the blocking force of the southern front of the Eighth Route Army is only the original Taixi group that disguises the main force. Let the little devil have the idea of pride and contempt for the enemy, and attack the north in great strides.

In accordance with this guiding ideology, Zhao Shan set up a total of three main lines of defense on the line from Yanzhou to Feizhong Mountain and Tai'an, each of which was equipped with several auxiliary defense lines, and allocated small troops to use mine arrays to block the sluggish devils. The main force is deployed in the Feizhong Mountains north of the Dongping-Tai'an Highway. The lines of defense are connected by the trenches reconstructed by the villagers, and the plain area can also be connected to the tunnel, and the blocking troops can withdraw into the tunnel at any time, so as to facilitate the later battle with the Japanese army through the tunnel to fight for villages and towns.

Zhao Shan's idea was: The front-line blocking troops resolutely defeated the Japanese search troops, and after the Japanese army attacked in an all-out way, they would concentrate their firepower to beat them up, and then take the company as a unit to fight and retreat, so that the little devils could see and could not catch up. Resolutely block the Wen River, and concentrate the 14th Division, the 35th Division, and the 13th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade. When the Japanese army attacked the front line of the Feizhong Mountain area, it was necessary to let the three Japanese troops gather into a group to create conditions for the main force to finally annihilate the enemy.

As for whether the 14th Division of the Japanese Army will go north along the canal or through Dongping, Zhao Shan is not worried, because there is the Western Group of the Taixi Campaign commanded by Liu Jianli, and the little devil can't slip away.

The reason why Liu Yimin arranged the battlefield so wide at the beginning was mainly because the Japanese army attacked during the day, the Eighth Route Army wanted to annihilate the enemy at night, and the 14th Division was already mechanized, with many tanks, armored vehicles, and automobiles, and the speed of movement was very fast. In addition, in addition to its own artillery wing, the 14th Division was equipped with a heavy artillery brigade of the First Army. This heavy artillery brigade should be equipped with 105 howitzers or 105 cannons, which is an absolute heavy artillery in this era, with great power and long range, and if the preset battlefield is too narrow, a heavy artillery brigade can cover the entire battlefield. When the troops attacked, they would be heavily damaged by the Japanese heavy artillery brigades.

The Eighth Route Army has laid a net here, and now it depends on whether the shield of the blocking group can block the mechanized iron spear of the 14th Division of the little devil.

In terms of the level of tactical command in this era, the Japanese army is indeed much, much higher than the average squadron.

The first to attack was naturally the 13th Brigade and a regiment downsized by the Manchurian Wehrmacht.

The puppet Manchurian Defense Force, after the Japanese training, has indeed become a well-equipped and well-trained regular army. If you were mixed into the Japanese army, put on Japanese uniforms, and attack under the cover of aircraft and artillery, you really couldn't tell whether it was a Japanese army or a puppet army. Fortunately, they didn't wear Japanese uniforms, and they could still recognize them as puppet soldiers.

Morita Masatsu is an officer trained by Japan's military education system, and his combat deployment is naturally clear-sighted, and he has sent a number of search teams to the front and back, and has also asked some local traitors who are familiar with the terrain in Lunan to lead the way. At the beginning of the attack, Morita Masatomi was supported by the Japanese air force, and this guy was even more murderous.

The first target that the Japanese army wanted to capture was the town of Ciyao.

After the rapid retreat of the 35th Division and the 13th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade from Taixi, the Japanese army took Yanzhou as the defense center and built a blockade line from the junction of Yanzhou, Qufu, Surabaya and Ningyang to resist the attack of the Eighth Route Army. Now, this blockade line became the starting point for the Japanese attack.

At the beginning of the attack, Morita Masahomi was quite satisfied, and under the cover of planes and tanks, he only attacked three times, leaving behind hundreds of corpses, and the defense line of the Eighth Route Army was loosened. Morita Masahomi was overjoyed, and immediately reported the situation to Maeda Osamu who remained in Yanzhou, and demanded that the main force of the 35th Division be fully engaged in the battle, expand the attack area, break through the defense line of the Eighth Route Army in one fell swoop, and quickly advance to capture the porcelain kiln.

After receiving the report, Maeda Osamu could not wait to meet with Lieutenant General Takamasa Sekii, the commander of the 14th Division, and ordered the main force of the 35th Division to attack on all fronts, and he himself got into a black car and led the division headquarters to the front, and he wanted to personally direct the troops to attack, thinking that he could win another medal, so that his wife would have an excuse to intercede with Empress Yoshiko and transfer him back to the mainland.

Unexpectedly, the next attack did not go well at all. The Eighth Route Army retreated from the first line of defense, but did not leave behind the wounded, remains, weapons and ammunition, but left behind many tricky mines, explosives bags, the Japanese puppet army that rushed into the trenches of the Eighth Route Army did not have time to cheer, let alone take pictures to commemorate, they were bombed by the thunder and explosives to cry for their fathers and mothers, and suffered heavy casualties.

Greater suffering awaits the little devils. Let's take the big road, I don't know where the Eighth Route Army got so many inexplicable anti-tank mines and electric explosives, which could make Japanese tanks, armored vehicles and soldiers sit on dirt planes anytime and anywhere. Let's go in the fields, there are countless land mines made of black explosives, although they are not as powerful as those anti-tank mines and explosives packs, but they are enough to break the legs and arms of the little devils.

The village was even more inaccessible, not only was it empty and there was no figure in sight, but it was full of murderous intentions. If the little devil dares to raise his leg and kick the door, a grenade or a mine will fall on the door, and the little devil who kicked the door will be blown back to the East. If the little devil dares to walk around the village, maybe a brick on the wall will suddenly be removed, and a bright bayonet or a black hole muzzle will come out of it, and it will be killed by the same guy. If you are not afraid of death, just come

The most annoying thing was that the Eighth Route Army left leaflets everywhere, on which were written in Japanese to encourage Japanese soldiers to kill officers, and junior officers to kill superior officers. Some of the leaflets depicted cases of Japanese officers withholding soldiers' salaries, while others contained letters of repentance written by Japanese soldiers after they were captured.

There is a flyer that reads: "My name is Fujii, and my family owns a sake brewery in Asahikawa. After I joined the army, I was assigned to the 35th Division to search for the 35th Wing. My squad leader often beat and scolded me and blackmailed me to ask my family for money to squander it. Once, when I went to receive comfort, I found out that it was my own sister who received me. After holding my head and crying, my sister told me that my family's brewery had gone bankrupt due to the war, and my father had sold the house to pay off his debts. The people in the army coaxed my sister that going to the battlefield as a female soldier would not only make contributions to the emperor, but also earn a lot of money. My sister joined the army to help the family pay off her debts. Who knew that after arriving in North China, my sister did not become a female soldier. Instead, he was sent to a comfort station and became a prostitute who had to receive dozens of soldiers every day. In the end, my sister committed suicide in front of me. It was only then that I realized that all the propaganda of the military department was deception, and the purpose was to make us low-level people give their lives to those who were officials. My family was forced bankrupt by this damn war, and then I saw a leaflet from the Eighth Route Army, which said that you can get a prize for killing an officer. I just thought that the squad leader hadn't done a single good thing, and he should have died a long time ago. So, during a battle, I hid, shot the squad leader in the back of the head, and shot him in the head. As a result, the Eighth Route Army captured me, gave me a bonus, and gave the money to my parents through the Red Cross. My father wrote to me that if I could kill another adjutant, I would be able to pay off my family's debts. ”