The solemn forward headquarters was set up on a high slope on the east bank of the Zhujia River, and was only a half-open observation and command post. The observation port is facing the Zhujia River, and the field of vision is very broad, and through the observation pass, you can see the whole picture of the battle line from Chenjiayu to the highlands north of the Zhujia River. Due to the high terrain, in the observation post, you can even see through the telescope more than ten miles behind the Zhujia River. Standing outside the observation post, you can also see that on the bank of the Yangtze River, Yin Chenggang's troops are busy on the fishing boats that have been solemnly collected. Hu Zongduo, who had already come to the observation center of Zhengzhong, had a smile on the corner of his mouth. It seems that Yin Chenggang is about to start crossing the river immediately, and the position of the commander of the Seventh Army is still very tempting to him.

Two miles behind the observation post, on the edge of the solemn artillery battalion position, the two artillery battalions of Li Sichi and Yin Chenggang were dragging the mountain artillery into the newly repaired position. Li Zongren was still very willing to invest in his troops in Wuhan, and the 7th, 18th, and 19th armies, including Ye Qi's division, each division had a 75mm mountain artillery battalion, and each infantry battalion was also equipped with 60mm mortars, although the number was not very large.

Yin Chenggang was a little reluctant to ask him to hand over the mountain artillery battalion, but Hu Zongduo let his division cross the river first, which almost gave him a hope and possibility of being promoted to army commander. As long as he returned to Guangxi, he believed that Li Zongren would definitely give him the position of army commander, and at that time, his troops, as the main force of the Gui system, would definitely not have only one mountain artillery battalion, maybe it would be a regiment.

Hu Zongduo is now a little disgusted with both Zheng Chong and Li Yixuan, and Zheng Zheng also knows Hu Zongduo's attitude towards him, so the two don't talk much. After solemnly reporting to Hu Zongduo on the offensive deployment, Hu Zongduo only proposed that each wave of attacking troops should not be less than one battalion, and the second wave should be followed by the overseer team, and his guard battalion should supervise the battle at the end.

After the meeting between Zheng Zheng and Li Yixuan, the two secretly discussed, and Li Yixuan rushed back to his troops behind his palace as soon as possible, contacted Liu Zhi, who was closely catching up, and then joined Liu Zhi with solemn cooperation to disarm the troops directly under Li Sichi and Hu Zongduo. What Zheng Zheng needs to do now is to stabilize Hu Zongduo, and he still has to obey Hu Zongduo's orders. Therefore, after solemnly returning, he immediately found several brigade commanders to arrange combat missions.

In order not to make Hu Zongduo suspicious, he solemnly gritted his teeth and decided to fight a serious battle, if he could defeat the troops of the Fourth Route Army, he would have some capital in the reorganization.

The solemn arrangement was to launch an attack with three regiments at the same time, attacking the high ground north of the Zhujia River, the Zhujia River, and the section from the Zhujia River to the main road along the river. According to the observation of the previous attacks, the high ground north of Zhujiahe is the firepower support point of the entire front, and as long as it is taken, Zhujiahe can be taken very smoothly; After taking Zhujiahe Village, the line of defense blocking their way did not exist. As for the position of more than 2,000 meters from Chen Jiayu to the main road along the river, he was not interested, he just wanted to attack on the whole line, and he did not have so many soldiers. With such a long position, even if his whole division attacked, there were only a few people per meter.

Therefore, the focus of this offensive is on the high ground. However, in order to disperse the firepower of the defensive highland, Zhujiahe Village and the section south of Zhujiahe to the main road must also be fiercely attacked, and if these two positions are broken through first, the high ground can also be threatened from the flank.

The staff officer reported that the artillery was ready. Solemnly asked Hu Zongduo if he could start the attack, and Hu Zongduo nodded in agreement. Solemnly picked up the phone and gave the order to attack.

On the banks of the Yangtze River, where the breeze was blowing, the screams of shells tearing through the air immediately sounded, and 24 mountain guns of three battalions began to bombard the Zhujiahe River and the heights north of the village.

The power of the salvo of 24 mountain guns was still very amazing, and it was the first time that Hu Zongduo used so many artillery pieces on such a narrow front, and for a time it blew up the Zhujiahe River and the highlands north of the village, and smoke and dust flew everywhere. After 20 minutes of shelling, the infantry attacked from the starting point of the attack from 1,000 meters away.

Huang Dafu in the trench shook off the dirt on his body, asked loudly about the casualties, and Huang Dafu, who had always only watched others being bombarded by heavy artillery fire, also tasted the taste of being bombarded this time.

In the trenches built by the security forces, each soldier's firing position was a single bunker that protruded forward, and during the shelling just now, although there were also shells falling into the trench, they could only cause damage to people near the bullet impact point, so the casualties were not large, one person was seriously injured, three people were slightly injured, and the mortars in the back were blown up.

Seeing that the enemy's charge this time was different from the past, at a glance, there were earthy yellow figures everywhere. Huang Dafu knew that this time there was really going to be a bloody battle. He cheered up the warriors loudly: "Brothers, our reinforcements are coming up soon, as long as we repel this attack of theirs, they are finished, they all put their bayonets on and aim at me again." ”

When the Gui army rushed to 500 meters, the mountain artillery of the three regiments began to fire, and the first to be bombarded was the first wave of the Gui army's attacking troops. The shells continued to explode in the crowd, and each explosion would blow up flesh and blood, and the formation of the Gui army immediately became chaotic. Some of the soldiers in the back even ran backwards in a panic, and after only a few dozen meters, they were knocked down by the overseers in the second wave of charges, and the rest had to rush forward desperately under the loud shouts of the officers, hoping to rush through the shelled area as soon as possible.

The firing range of the mountain artillery has not changed, and it is still in the range of 400-500 meters, blocking the follow-up troops of the Gui army. It was only the focus of the shelling that gradually turned to the open area south of the Zhujia River and near the main road. The Gui army here attacked quickly, while the security army there had no danger to defend, and only fought fiercely with the Gui army with a few trenches.

As soon as the first wave of the Gui army's attacking troops rushed out of the shelling area, they had just taken a breath when they immediately flew over with a swarm of mortar shells. This time, the Gui army did not dare to stay any longer, and they all charged forward frantically, just wanting to approach the opponent's position as soon as possible, so as to avoid the dense artillery fire of the security army. After two baptisms of intensive artillery fire, the originally dense formation of the Gui army was obviously much thinner.

At a distance of 200 meters from the position, heavy machine guns rang out on the high ground. The shelling just now damaged two heavy machine guns, but four heavy machine guns were still assigned on the high ground to help Huang Dafu and them stop the Gui army.

When the Gui army was still 100 meters away from the position, Huang Dafu gave an order, and the light and heavy weapons on the position opened fire together.

The Gui army, which had been blown up by mountain artillery and mortars, was sparsely formed and chaotic, and under the blows of Huang Dafu and them, more than 20 people fell, and after barely rushing more than 20 meters, they did not dare to rush again.

Most of the soldiers of the 19th Army were veterans who had been on the battlefield for more than 10 years, and although they suffered heavy casualties under the dense artillery fire when they charged just now, once they fired at the security forces at a distance of 70 to 80 meters, they showed relatively strong combat effectiveness.

Most of these veterans of the 19th Army are not very standardized, but everyone is very well covered, and it is very difficult to achieve this level of hastily selected terrain on the way to charge, and it is absolutely difficult to do without the accumulation of many years of actual combat experience. These veterans were very accurate in their guns, and they did not suffer any loss in the shooting with the security forces, and the casualties of the security forces increased rapidly.

In the first trench where Huang Dafu was, there were now less than 100 people, and there were more than 200 soldiers of the 19th Army who shot at them.

Huang Dafu saw that the situation was very unfavorable to him, and after fighting like this for a while, his casualties would continue to increase, and the machine gunners in the third squad of the platoon beside him had already changed three people in this meeting.

Huang Dafu hurriedly grabbed the phone and shouted: "Mortars, mortars, targets, enemies lying in front of the position, blow up these rabbit cubs for me." ”

In the second trench, the mortar platoon and the mortars of a company of four platoons were all here, under the unified command of the artillery platoon commander, who had been constantly blocking and firing at the Gui army 400 meters away. After receiving Huang Dafu's order, the artillery platoon commander also discovered that Huang Dafu was in a very unfavorable situation, and visually inspected the distance, which was only 12 or 30 meters. However, the situation was urgent, and the platoon commander of the artillery platoon pushed away a shooter, personally shot the gun, and adjusted the design angle. The angle of the barrel has been adjusted to more than 80 degrees, and I tried to fire a shell, and the shell flew out of the muzzle with a "bang", flew high into the sky, and only after flying to the end did it fall headlong, accurately landing in the crowd of lying down Gui troops, and with the sound of the explosion, a soldier of the 19th Army was thrown high by the shock wave generated by the explosion.

After the test firing, the platoon commander of the artillery platoon immediately loudly reported the firing parameters, and the mortars of the whole company bombarded the group of soldiers of the 19th Army who were shooting at the front of the position and the security army.

At this time, the soldiers of the 19th Army could no longer lie down, although they were all lying down, but a shell fell nearby, it was either dead or wounded, but they had to get up and charge, and they had to face a dense rain of bullets from the security army. While he was hesitating, the second wave of attacking troops also stormed up, and because the threat of a company of mortars was gone, the second wave of this battalion suffered fewer casualties, and there were still more than 300 people when they rushed over. The battalion commander of the Gui Army, who led the charge in the first wave, had already been killed, and the commander of the second battalion knew that waiting here to be bombed was a dead end, and shouted loudly for two groups of men and horses to charge desperately.

When the two battalions first converged, there were still more than 500 people, and when they reached a distance of 50 meters from Huang Dafu's position, the 30 meters or so that they had just passed were intertwined with flying shrapnel and a dense rain of bullets, and dozens of remnants of the two battalions fell.

(To be continued)