By the time the commander of the Japanese 1st Air Group discovered the anti-aircraft positions on the back of the surrounding hills outside Cihu Town, it was too late to escape.

Cihu Town is a valley-like terrain surrounded by mountains on three sides and backed by the Yangtze River on one side, and if Japanese planes flew over from the north bank of the Yangtze River, they would have discovered the positions of these anti-aircraft guns far away.

It is a pity that the independent regiment felt that the Japanese planes were not familiar with the terrain here, so they deliberately set up two anti-aircraft gun positions on the backs of the hills on three sides of Cihu Town.

Each anti-aircraft gun position had six anti-aircraft guns, so that there were six anti-aircraft gun positions and thirty-six anti-aircraft guns. Such a small town of Cihu did have 36 anti-aircraft guns, what a dense anti-aircraft firepower.

You must know that the anti-aircraft firepower of the entire Nanjing is only 36 anti-aircraft machine guns and 12 anti-aircraft guns, and the anti-aircraft firepower of Nanjing has to defend the whole of Nanjing, resulting in the thinning of the anti-aircraft firepower, and in the end not only did not effectively stop the Japanese air attack. It was all blown up on the first day of the Japanese army's full-scale attack.

However, in this Cihu Town, there are 36 antiaircraft guns, forming six anti-aircraft artillery arrays, not to mention dealing with these 16 Japanese planes flying at medium and low altitudes, even 60 of them are in one nest.

In just the first round of shelling, eight of the sixteen planes were knocked down. Then, the eight planes that were finally not hit had just pulled their noses and were about to rise into the air to escape, but under the concentrated attack of the anti-aircraft guns, they were hit one by one by hundreds of anti-aircraft shells that exploded in the air.

This anti-aircraft shell is not effective if it hits an airplane. Each shell exploded with thousands of small steel balls and other explosives scattered into the sky at high speed.

And the plane is very fragile in the high altitude, not to mention being hit by an anti-aircraft gun, even being hit by a flying bird is also the fate of the plane being destroyed and killed.

What's more, it is a special anti-aircraft artillery shell produced by Huaxing, each anti-aircraft gun only fired a magazine of six shells, except for four planes that were directly hit by anti-aircraft guns and exploded in the air, the other twelve planes were hit by shrapnel of high-explosive shells on the fuselage, and plumes of black smoke finally fell around Cihu Town.

Seeing the sixteen planes, they were shot down so simply, and Deputy Regiment Commander Yue Xiaofei, who was observing the battle situation at an air defense command post, happily extended his thumb.

"Our anti-aircraft artillery is too harmful, and we can beat all these planes down with a few shots, which is too relieving."

"Okay, don't be happy, didn't you see a few Japanese pilots parachuting? Hurry up and send someone to catch it, you want to live, but the boss said that these pilots are expensive, catch a few more, and exchange prisoners with the Japanese army in the future. Yang Shuai, the head of the independent regiment, immediately ordered.

Yue Xiaofei, who was trained by Yang Shuai, was not angry, and happily arranged for a company of soldiers to catch the Japanese pilot.

Seeing that all 16 Japanese planes had been shot down, Yang Shuai turned on a radio station next to him and reported the battle situation here to Li Tie, who was in Nanjing.

At the same time, he also received a telegram that two Japanese wings, totaling more than 6,000 people, were rushing to Cihu Town, and it was expected that the enemy's vanguard would reach Cihu at noon at the earliest.

Yang Shuai opened the military map in front of him and whispered: "Two wings of 6,000 people came to attack us, they really look up to us."

However, I don't know if the Japanese soldiers without the support of the air force will resist the attack, and I heard that they have sent 20 tanks and a mechanized brigade to rush to us first. Looks like we're going to split up in two ways. ”

"Commander Yang, aren't we here waiting for their tired division to arrive? Do we still have to take the initiative to find trouble with them? "Yue Xiaofei, who has just joined the Hainan Guards, is obviously not used to the fighting style of the Hainan Guards.

"Of course, except for a few small hills, this Cihu Town has no natural dangers to defend, and the area is narrow, so it is not suitable for large troops to deploy at all. If we don't take the initiative to go out to meet the Japanese army, will we wait to be beaten here? Rest assured, there's enough for a thousand people to guard here.

We each have two thousand troops, and all the mortars are coming, and they have to walk at least sixty kilometers to get here, and we only need to go ten kilometers. We only need to secretly let go of the mechanized troops in the vanguard of the Japanese army and go all out to deal with the 5,000 Japanese troops behind.

As for these 1,000 mechanized troops, don't we still have a thousand guards, and they still have dozens of infantry guns, don't worry, these 1,000 Japanese are not enough for them to stuff their teeth. ”

Listening to Yang Shuai's indifferent look, Yue Xiaofei became more and more confident in dealing with the Japanese troops of the two wings that were about to come.

"Since you say so, it means that you must have some good idea, the elimination of the Guoqi detachment last night was your handiwork, this time I still listen to you, you just say, what are we going to do?" Yue Xiaofei is now extremely convinced of Yang Shuai.

Yang Shuai saw that Yue Xiaofei was full of fighting spirit, and said with a smile: "You see, the distance from Nanjing to here is nearly sixty kilometers, and at a distance of twenty kilometers from Cihu Town, there will be a small hilly area almost every few kilometers.

This is a rare place to set up an ambush near Nanjing, a plain. We don't need to go head-to-head with the Japanese army, as long as they don't go well. Yang Shuai pointed to the map and said.

"So how do we get them off the road?" Seeing Yang Shuai's evil smile, Yue Xiaofei was also curious.

Yang Shuai whispered in Yue Xiaofei's ear, and Yue Xiaofei nodded while listening, "It turns out that the battle can still be fought like this, okay, I'll go and assemble the team." ”

At the same time, the news of the annihilation of the 1st Air Brigade had already reached the headquarters of the Central China Front, and when the commander of the 1st Air Group reported everything they had encountered in Cihu Town to the Air Force Commander by radio before he died, the Air Force Commander could not believe it.

It was not until he clearly heard the explosion of the anti-aircraft cannon and the whistling sound of the plane falling from the plane's radio that the air force commander changed his face and reported to General Matsui Ishine about the possession of dozens of anti-aircraft guns in Cihu Town.

Seeing that Cihu Town quietly killed one of his own brigade of planes, Matsui Shigen also felt that the Chinese defenders in Cihu Town might not be simple.

He ordered the Japanese intelligence services to immediately gather all the information about the Hainan Escort Army, and at the same time he sent two reconnaissance planes to reconnoiter the defenders of Cihu Town from a long distance on the north bank of the Yangtze River.

Matsui Ishine has never encountered such a strange thing, what kind of army is this? Thinking that this unit silently killed the Guoqi detachment last night.

Thinking that they had quietly killed one of his own air force groups this morning, he was now a little worried about the fate of his two wings.

He immediately wiped out the 1st Air Force Group, and at the same time informed the two wings that the defenders of Cihu Town had dozens of anti-aircraft guns.

However, at the thought that the two wings also had a mechanized vanguard, Matsui Ishone's mood calmed down a little. After all, in his consciousness, mechanized troops are invincible.

On the morning of the 12th, the fierce battle for the city of Nanjing continued, as the defenders of the city of Nanjing, although it was already known that the Japanese army was preparing to break through from Cihu Town to the north bank of the Yangtze River and outflank the rear road of the defenders of Nanjing.

However, the defenders did not take this news seriously, and everyone still fought with the Japanese on the front line for every position.

The defenders of Yuhuatai and the Japanese army have repeatedly fought for positions more than ten times, and the casualties on both sides have reached 3,000 in a day, and the battle for Yuhuatai has become the most famous meat grinder in the Nanjing battlefield.

The battle for Bauhinia Mountain also continued, but because the defense of Bauhinia Mountain was much stronger than that of Yuhuatai, the position of Bauhinia Mountain was always in the hands of the Chinese army.

However, the battle at the entrance of Nanjing, Zhonghua Gate, Guanghua Gate, Zhongshan Gate, several important entrances to Nanjing, was particularly fierce, in the original history, these three strong city gates were attacked by the Japanese heavy artillery at the beginning, and they collapsed directly.

But this time it was different, from the beginning of the war, dozens of infantry guns supported by Huaxing Company were moved to the city tower.

Since the infantry guns were very easy to move, more than a dozen infantry guns were pulled around by the vast number of artillery on each city gate. Every time a few shots were fired on the city wall, the position was immediately shifted, so that the Japanese artillery could not touch the exact position.

Although a few were destroyed by Japanese artillery during the transfer, most of the infantry guns were still intact.

Due to the presence of these dozen cannons, the three city gates have been firmly controlled by the Chinese army.

This situation remained maintained until the morning of the 12th, when it was learned that the Guoqi detachment in Cihu Town had been wiped out, and the Japanese army knew that it would not be possible to cross the north bank of the Yangtze River in a short time, and the Japanese army could only increase its attack on Nanjing.

In just one morning, the Japanese army bombed the three city gates by hundreds of planes, and at the same time, a heavy artillery wing that had just arrived at the Nanjing battlefield was sent to these three city gates.

Don't underestimate this heavy artillery wing, in Japan at that time, a division was only equipped with a few dozen 75 to 105 mm guns.

Heavy artillery of more than 105 mm is an independent combat unit and is regarded by the Japanese army as the most important strategic weapon. In the Battle of Shanghai, it was supported by aircraft and naval guns of a larger caliber.

At the same time, they did not dare to use 150-mm heavy artillery in the urban area of Shanghai, so although the Japanese had a heavy artillery brigade sent to Shanghai, they did not contribute much during the battle in Shanghai.

It was not until a few days ago that Matsui saw that the situation in Shanghai had stabilized, and he secretly transferred from this heavy artillery brigade a reinforced heavy artillery wing with a total of 36 heavy guns of 150 mm caliber or more.

There are only six brigades of heavy artillery of more than 150 mm like this in the whole of Japan. Four of them were scattered across various battlefields in China, and two heavy artillery brigades were responsible for guarding the homeland.

At this time, the Japanese heavy artillery with a caliber of 150 mm was far stronger than the heavy artillery of 155 mm caliber in the same period.

Therefore, as soon as these 36 heavy guns joined the ranks of attacking the three city gates, they immediately inflicted heavy casualties on the defenders of Nanjing, and before noon, the defenders of the three places had already suffered more than half of the casualties.

And all the infantry guns sent by Huaxing Company were destroyed one by one, and even the city gate tower was collapsed by explosives.

The Japanese army took the opportunity to launch a battle to seize the city gate, but fortunately, the Chinese defenders in these three places fought desperately, organized many daredevils, and even used grenades and explosives bags to recapture the position of the city gate.

However, the ratio of battle losses between the two sides was really disproportionate, because each heavy artillery shot caused the Chinese defenders to lose at least one platoon of strength. After the Japanese army wiped out all the Chinese defenders with heavy artillery, they only arranged for dozens of soldiers to occupy the city gates.

Moreover, as soon as these Japanese soldiers encountered the counterattack of the Chinese soldiers, they took the initiative to evacuate, and then attacked again with heavy artillery. In just a few rounds, most of the Chinese defenders at the three gates were wiped out.

The Chinese defenders, who saw the true intentions of the Japanese army, immediately reported this important discovery to Tang Shengzhi, who immediately summoned all the generals to the headquarters for a meeting to study countermeasures.