[Anti-Japanese Iron Blood King] Chapter 404: The Battle Begins (Ask for subscriptions, ask for monthly passes, ask for everything!) ）

Since he is gambling, there are losses and wins, and in order to win this gamble, Ma Zheng must go all out.

According to Ma Zheng's battle plan, after the battle began, the main force first broke through to Zhangjiakou along the Huai'an line, but the main role of the army on this road was not to break through Zhangjiakou City, but to attract firepower.

After the main forces of the 16th Division were all attracted to the front line of Huai'an and Wanquan, another large army, with the cooperation of armored troops and artillery units, advanced with all its strength along Shangyi to Zhangjiakou and approached the city of Zhangjiakou in the shortest possible time.

Ma Zheng knew that the Japanese army was going to fight a blitzkrieg in Nanchang and take Nanchang, an important town in central China, lightly, and he was going to fight such a battle in the north to fight back against the Japanese army.

On the Nanchang front, the main force of the Japanese army has arrived at the Xiushui line, and the troops of the 9th Theater are defending south of Xiushui and the Nanchang area, with a total of more than 200,000 people in 33 divisions of 4 group armies, 10 armies, and directly commanded by Luo Zhuoying, former commander-in-chief of the enemy in the theater and commander-in-chief of the 19th Group Army.

However, neither Luo Zhuoying nor the bigwigs of the Military Commission of the Nationalist Government thought that the Japanese army would choose this time to attack. With the intelligence gathering capabilities of the Military Command Bureau, the Nationalist Government had long judged that the Japanese army had the intention of seizing Nanchang, but in view of the Japanese army's preparations for troops and materials, the Military Commission judged that the Japanese army's attack on Nanchang could not be carried out until after April at the earliest.

However, they never expected that on March 17, the Japanese 106th Division launched an attack on Wucheng, an important town at the mouth of the Xiushui River, and the Kuomintang army had to rush into battle. In just over two days, the Japanese broke through the outlying positions of the Kuomintang defenders. On the afternoon of the 20th, the Japanese bombarded the positions of the 49th Army and the 79th Army on the Kuomintang front for three hours with heavy artillery fire and occasional poison gas bombs, and suffered heavy losses.

After that, the tank group acted as the vanguard for the 106th and 101st divisions, and successively crossed the Xiushui River by Qiujin and Tujiabu.

The continuous rain for several days caused the water level of Xiushui to rise, many of the forward positions of the Chinese army were flooded, and most of the obstacles on the water were washed away, providing favorable conditions for the Japanese army to cross the river. Despite this, the Chinese army put up a resolute resistance, bravely returning fire in the torrential rain and the rain of Japanese aircraft and artillery.

Although Ishii Hiroyoshi Osa and his engineer unit conducted a week-long training of tanks and support vehicles crossing the river in the rain and at night on the Boyang River near De'an City before the war, in the face of the stubborn resistance of the Chinese army, some Japanese tank drivers still panicked, resulting in mistakes in their movements and their tanks falling into the water one after another. Some tanks were hit by artillery fire, blocking the way for the tanks behind them to advance, and for a time there was a great chaos. But in any case, the Japanese tank cluster eventually crossed the Xiushui.

The 106th Division did not expect the tank group to fall behind it, so when it crossed Xiushui, it was hit by the intensive fire of the Chinese army at Wuguling, and the number of casualties of the division increased significantly. It was not until the tank group caught up that the 106th Division regained its spirit and launched another attack on the Kuomintang defenders with the tank troops. The sudden appearance of a large number of tank units made the Kuomintang troops unable to resist for a while and were forced to withdraw from their positions.

Seeing that the defenders had all withdrawn from their positions on the south bank of Xiushui, Okamura Ninji immediately ordered the tank group to quickly capture Fengxin through Lingxia Bridge, Anyi, and Qianzhou, and protect the bridge south of Fengxin City from being damaged by the retreating Kuomintang troops. At the same time, the 101st and 106th divisions were ordered to quickly advance to Nanchang.

The vanguard of the tank cluster arrived in Fengxin on the evening of the 22nd, and immediately took the bridge over the Lushui River outside the south gate by surprise. The Kuomintang Fengxin defenders were caught off guard and retreated one after another, causing a large amount of baggage and equipment to fall into the hands of the Japanese army, and at the same time, exposing the flanks of Nanchang to the Japanese army.

At this time, the Japanese tank unit was in trouble, due to the rainy days in the Nanchang area, the roads were muddy, and many tank engines were flooded and frequently broke down. Not only was the entire convoy moving slowly, but many bikes were left behind. In order to contain the stragglers, the Japanese had to stay in Bongsin for a day.

Finally managed to contain the team and repair the broken tank, only to find that there was not much fuel left. It turned out that the harsh climate made the tank often run at high speeds and high temperatures, the engine was greatly affected, fuel consumption soared, and the supply of the support fleet was delayed. In desperation, Ishii Hiroyoshi had no choice but to order all the remaining fuel in all tank tanks to be pumped out and concentrated on the independent 9th squadron with strong combat effectiveness, the 9th squadron set off first, and the rest of the tanks were replenished and then quickly followed.

At this time, the reinforcements of Gu Zhutong's 3rd Theater east of the Ganjiang River were stopped by the 22nd Division of the Japanese Army stationed in Hangzhou, and only security forces remained in Nanchang City. Therefore, Luo Zhuoying urgently ordered the 32nd Army to retreat from the south bank of Xiushui to Nanchang, and the 102nd Division was transferred from Gao'an to the Dacheng area to hold the road from Nanchang to Fengxin to prevent the Japanese tank troops from attacking Nanchang. However, due to the Japanese army's layers of resistance, only two regiments of the 32nd Army reached Nanchang, and before the 102nd Division reached Dacheng, the Japanese tank unit had already surpassed Dacheng and covered the Japanese army to force the Ganjiang River and force into Nanchang.

At this time, the follow-up tanks of the tank cluster also followed after being replenished with fuel, and the Japanese assault force was strengthened. As a result, the Japanese army soon crossed the Gan River from the southwest of Nanchang and cut off the Zhejiang-Jiangxi railway.

On March 27, the Japanese army concentrated planes and artillery to bombard the positions of the Kuomintang army and the urban area in Nanchang, and the defenders' positions were lost one after another, and Nanchang fell.

After the Japanese army captured Nanchang, the base camp quickly spread the good news to the Japanese troops in Central China, South China and North China, and the 11th Army captured Nanchang, an important town in northern Jiangxi in less than ten days, and also captured the county seat of Shiduo, almost one city a day, such a record can be described as extremely brilliant, and the great victory of the Central China Dispatch Army also greatly encouraged the morale of the Japanese troops.

In order to boost morale, the North China Front Army Headquarters ordered Lieutenant General Yoshio Shinozuka to command the troops to intensify the offensive against the fourth column of the Eighth Route Army, and it was necessary to fight a beautiful battle of annihilation. On the 27th, more than a dozen cities, including Beiping, Tianjin, Taiyuan, Zhangjiakou, Shijiazhuang, and Jinan, were all singing and dancing in unison, and a large number of Japanese expatriates took to the streets, quite a festive taste.

Even in order to set off this atmosphere, the North China Front Headquarters even lifted the curfew on this day for the first time, and the Japanese army only sent some more soldiers patrolling the streets.

However, the Japanese army did not expect that in Xinghe County, which is only more than 120 kilometers away from Zhangjiakou, a large number of elite troops have been assembled. Different from the other units of the Eighth Route Army, the uniforms and weapons of this army are obviously different, and the military uniforms are neither the gray cloth uniforms of the Eighth Route Army, nor the dyed Japanese military uniforms, but the strange yellow and green military uniforms.

That's all, and more importantly, the armament of this army is also quite different. Although the vast majority of the troops were still equipped with Japanese-style equipment, some of them were replaced with guns that had never been seen before, and some soldiers were carrying an iron pipe more than one meter long, and they did not know what it was used for.

At the same time, in Daqinggou, north of Shangyi County, a huge convoy was quietly parked in the jungle, only to see that the first part of this convoy was more than 100 tanks and armored vehicles, and the rest were all kinds of automobiles, and there were more than 300 vehicles, lined up, mighty and quite mighty.

Xinghe, the temporary division headquarters of the 93rd Division, Ma Zheng looked at his pocket watch, and then asked in a deep voice: "Send a report to Xu Hu and Xing Chao, and ask them if they are ready?" ”

At this time, Yun Jian immediately said: "No need to ask, just now the Guard Brigade and the Independent Brigade sent a telegram saying that they are ready, just waiting for your order!" ”

"Okay, send a report to the guard brigade, let them attack in the direction of Huai'an on time at 12 o'clock, and beat up that group of bitches for Lao Tzu!" Ma Zheng said.

"Yes!"

"In addition, send a report to the independent brigade, ordering them to advance in the direction of the Jiashi River, but pay attention to concealment, let the special combat team open the way for them, and not attack the Japanese army without the order of the headquarters!"

"Yes"

(To be continued.) )