Chapter 215: Strategic Decisive Battle (3rd Update)

As soon as the battle began, Hideo Fukuda knew that it was too bad that the Shina army had such powerful artillery. You must know that in the previous battle, the artillery wing of the 101st Division was completely annihilated along with the 101st Wing, and almost all the artillery was lost, so the Japanese troops on the front line only had a dozen small steel cannons in their hands, and their power could not be compared with mountain artillery and field artillery.

Hideo Fukuda was a commander with a lot of combat experience, and after listening to it for a few minutes, he judged that the opposite Shina unit had at least one artillery regiment, or even more. And it is equipped with German cannons with excellent performance, and such a heavy sound is a 75mm caliber mountain gun produced by Krupp.

Knowing that the trouble is big, in front of these artillery, the fortifications built by the 103rd Wing before are almost like papier-mâché. Due to the lack of cement and steel bar, the materials used to build the fortifications were earth and large stones, after all, they did not know in advance that the other side would have artillery of this size.

The shelling lasted for more than ten minutes, and then the infantry attacked, and voices were heard in all directions, and it seemed that the other side was preparing to eat them, and they didn't even bother to play the trick of surrounding them!

Heavy gunfire continued for half an hour, and the forward positions reported that they had repelled the attack of the Chinese army.

But before Hideo Fukuda could rejoice, there was another sound in the sky outside, followed by a violent explosion, and even they could feel the power of the explosion in the town.

The shelling began again, this time for a longer period of twenty minutes.

After the artillery bombardment, it was an infantry attack, but this time, because the troops used for the attack had already moved to a few dozen meters in front of the Japanese position, and when the artillery stopped attacking, the distance between the two sides was even closer, almost a short intersection.

First, they shot at each other. However, at such a close distance, the headquarters of the 7th Division soon broke through to the outlying positions of the Japanese army. The two sides soon became entangled.

Just when Ma Zheng's troops were besieging Furong Dun Town, the troops of the Fifth War Zone of the National Government also started the blocking battle at the northern foot of Dabie Mountain. At the end of July, the 10th and 13th Divisions of the enemy's 2nd Army had assembled in Hefei and set up a corps command post in Hefei.

At the same time, the command post of Okamura Ninji's 11th Army had been moved to Anqing, and its 6th Division had reached the Huangmei area north of the Jiujiang River; The 101st Division and the 106th Division have been entrenched in Pengze; The vanguard of the 9th Division arrived in Wuhu on 31 July.

The 3rd Fleet of the Navy and the 12th Fleet had also converged at Wusongkou at this time. More than 50 warships, large and small, are ready to attack along the Yangtze River, 164 combat planes of the 2nd Combined Air Force have arrived at the advance airfield, 36 seaplanes have been deployed on the surface of the Yangtze River, and 30 bombers of the 2nd Air Attack Force have also been deployed. The Army Aviation Corps has been stationed at various aviation bases as planned.

On the morning of 1 August, after most of the above-mentioned combat units had arrived at the predetermined assembly area, the Japanese base camp issued an order to the Central China Dispatch Army and the Chinese Fleet to coordinate with the army and navy to defeat the main force of the Chinese army and capture Wuhan, and the North China Front to launch a diversionary attack in North China.

At 17 o'clock on the same day, the enemy's Central China Dispatch Army issued an order to attack Wuhan to its subordinate troops. That is, the 11th Army recaptured the first-line position of Hukou Jiujiang before the arrival of the navy, and after the arrival of the main force of the 12th Naval Force, with the cooperation of the army, navy and air force, captured Wuhan along both sides of the Yangtze River. The main force is located south of the Yangtze River, cutting off the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway from the Xianning and Heshengqiao areas, and detouring to Wuhan from the south; The other way is to attack De'an and Yongxiu, and to capture Nanchang.

The main force of the 2nd Army was from the northern foot of Dabie Mountain. Capture Xinyang through Lu'an, Gushi, Huangchuan, and Luoshan, and then move south along the Pinghan Railway and the area west of it. encircling Wuhan from the north and northwest; The other road went south from Mall, crossed the Dabie Mountains to Macheng, and coordinated with the troops along the river from the northeast to attack Wuhan.

According to the order of the Dispatch Army, the units of the enemy's Second Army also drew up a plan of action, and the specific plan was: the 10th and 3rd Divisions. Yu Lu'an, Wulongmiao, Liji and Yeji defeated the defenders in front of them, captured Xinyang through Shifo, Gushi, Huangchuan and Luoshan, routed the main force of the Chinese defenders in the area, cut off the Pinghan Railway, and then along the Pinghan Railway and Yingshan, Anlu, Yunmeng, Hanchuan and Hanyang to the west. It detoured to the north bank of the Yangtze River southwest of Hankou, and cooperated with the troops and navy of the 2nd Army on the north bank of the Yangtze River to capture Wuhan.

The 13th and the 5th Brigade were independently mixed, and the Shangcheng and Xinxian areas were captured by Lu'an and Yeji, and then southward through Shawo, Xiaojieling and the areas on both sides, across the Dabie Mountains, from Lianglukou, Huangtugang, Changlinggang, Macheng, Songbu, Gushandian, and Huangpi, and cooperated with the 6th Division to capture Hankou.

Since the 3rd and 5th Independent Mixed Brigades had not yet arrived, the 2nd Army had only two divisions at this time, namely the 10th and 13th Divisions, which began to operate on 2 August. Yoshio Shinozuka's 10th Division braved the rain on August 2 and set out from the areas of Fifty Small Temple, Guanting, Jinqiao, and Jiangxiadian west of Hefei, intending to capture Lu'an. On the same day, the 13th Division of the Ogizhou Libing Corps set out from the Chunshugang and Sungang areas southeast of Lu'an and attacked Huoshan.

On the other hand, in order to contain and wear down the enemy, the Nationalist Government launched a new operational deployment at the end of July, and increased its counterattack forces in the areas west of De'an and Huangmei in the main direction of the enemy's offensive and on both sides of the Shihe River east of Shangcheng, that is, Xue Yue's 1st Corps and Zhang Fakui's 2nd Corps were assembled on the line of Jiujiang and Hukou in preparation to concentrate and annihilate the enemy advancing westward.

Li Pinxian's 4th Corps strengthened the defense of the Huangmei area and prevented the enemy from advancing westward. The command post of Sun Lianzhong's 3rd Corps was set up in the mall, and the main force was assembled in the Xiaojieling and Macheng areas. Song Xilian's 71st Army assembled in the Yejiaji area on both sides of the Shihe River east of the mall, preparing for a decisive battle with the enemy advancing from Lu'an and Huoshan to the west. Zhang Zizhong's 59th Army, in addition to leaving one part between Xinyang and Wusheng Pass and preparing for defense, opened the Huangchuan River at the northern foot of Dabie Mountain in the east to strengthen the defensive force east of Xinyang. Wei Yunsong's 31st Army entered Liubo Tuan with 1 division, and responded to Feng Zhi'an's 77th Army to garrison the Lihuang area.

In order to effectively coordinate the various theaters with the decisive battle in the Wuhan area, Lao Chiang ordered his troops behind enemy lines to step up their attacks on 1 August. The telegrams were: Commander Cheng (Qian) of Luoyang, Commander of Xingji Yan (Xishan), Deputy Commander of Mianchiwei (Lihuang), Commander of Tunxi Gu (Zhutong), Acting Commander of Xishuibai (Chongxi), Commander of the Shi (Yousan) Regiment of the 10th Army, Chairman Shen (Honglie) of Shandong Province and Commander of the Wu (Huawen) Brigade of the New Fourth Brigade, Chairman of Lu (Zhonglin) of Hebei Province, Commander of Gao (Ziju) of the 91st Army, Commander of Zhu (Huaibing) of the 97th Army, Commander-in-Chief of Zhu (De) of the 18th Group Army, and Commander of the Xia (Chuzhong) of the 79th Army, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the 24th Group Army Han (Deloitte): The enemy has invaded Jiangxi, and the decisive battle is imminent. The battle situation of our main force is good in all aspects, and the guerrilla units have also performed miraculous feats, which is very gratifying. It is hoped that all guerrilla units under their command will make further progress and make the greatest efforts to supervise and actively carry out guerrilla warfare. Its troops in northern Jiangsu should especially continue to attack the southern section of Jinpu and plan for the operations in the 5th and 9th theaters.

After receiving Lao Chiang's military order, all the armies in Central China and North China moved, although everyone understood that the main battlefield was still along the Yangtze River, but in order to hold Wuhan, their troops far away from Wuhan also had to play a leading role, so they made battle plans one after another and launched an attack on the Japanese puppet army in front of them.

No one would have thought that the Battle of Wuhan would turn into a large-scale strategic decisive battle, and no one would have imagined that it was not the Japanese army or the Kuomintang army that started this strategic decisive battle, but Ma Zheng's Duqi Division.

Obviously, at this time, Ma Zheng had not realized the significance of his initiative to attack Peng Ze, and at this time he was leading people to set up an ambush position in the area of No. 7 Xuan. However, the terrain of this place made Ma Zheng quite helpless, all the way this generation was plains, and he didn't even see a low hill, which made the troops ambush the enemy lose the terrain advantage.

In desperation, Ma Zheng had no choice but to order the troops to hide in the rice fields on both sides of the road, fortunately, the rice at this time had also grown taller, and they could barely hide people, plus it was now night, as long as the Japanese army did not get close to reconnoitre, they should not be able to find them. (To be continued.) )