On the morning of 13 August, hundreds of tactical bombers took off from Dalian, Kaesong, and aircraft carriers and began to carry out a continuous and heavy bombardment of the periphery of Seoul. In the face of the endless bombing, Seishiro Itagaki simply recycled all his troops into the urban areas on both sides of the Han River, and used civilians as meat shields in a vain attempt to evade air strikes.

No matter how many front-line officers and men hoped to use aerial bombs to solve the problem, considering that the DPRK was an ally and it was impossible to completely wipe out the city as it did with Japan and the Soviet Union, Zhu Peide, commander of the theater of operations, took the initiative to reduce the scale of the bombing and only let some tactical bombers of the navy and air force carry out precision strikes to minimize accidental damage. Faced with this situation, Zhuo Fan did not complain, immediately changed his plan, and dispatched the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division and the 9th Infantry Division of the North Korean Army at 2 o'clock in the afternoon to take the lead in launching an attack on the north gate.

The rapid loss of the Bukhansan Peace Government made Itagaki tremble, especially the news that the second line of defense of the Ui government had not been held even overnight, forcing him to consider breaking out early. But Seoul was too heavy, so Hirohito was not willing to give up so easily, and after receiving his telegram requesting a breakthrough, he vetoed it, and asked Itagaki and the troops to hold out to the end through Anan Yuji.

This order made Itagaki very helpless, so he had to let the troops take advantage of the urban terrain to defend it, and at the same time actively deploy a breakthrough operation. The battle did not go as smoothly as expected, the cityscape of Seoul was very similar to that of Japan, the streets were narrow and the city was messy, and the Japanese soldiers with the heart of death also made full use of the most familiar skirmisher tactics, hiding in every window, every pile of rubble, even every tree, every sewer, and repeatedly fought with the East Asian coalition forces. The special environment also caused the coalition forces to encounter a lot of suicide attacks, and the armored regiment of the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division alone encountered nearly 100 Japanese soldiers who jumped out of the corner with various explosive bags and cluster grenades within three hours. As a result, many armored vehicles were destroyed and dozens of soldiers were killed.

Zhuo Fan stood on the second floor of the parliamentary government, holding a telescope in his hand and carefully observing the details of the operation. In the footage, two light T25 tanks of the 9th Infantry Division of the DPRK Army were enveloped in a puff of smoke rising from the ground as soon as they approached Seoul University. Zhuo Fan, who has rich experience in urban warfare, knows very well that this is a scene only after the sudden explosion of mines and explosives, and looking at the smoke, the yield is still very large, and a T25 light tank was directly overturned and detonated, and the turret flew out a few meters away. The North Korean infantry, which followed behind, also suffered heavy casualties. But before they could rescue the wounded, hundreds of Japanese soldiers opened fire on them from behind the university walls. In an instant, the ground was covered with the corpses of the Korean soldiers. At the critical moment, an engineering tank belonging to the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division pushed to the house on the left, blocked the sight of the Japanese fire with bricks and smoke, and began to cover the retreat of the North Korean army.

Luo Binghui, who was beside him, also saw this scene, grabbed the herbal tea on the table and leaned up: "Made! Little Japan can really work hard! Commander, just let the 104th Division and the assault gun battalion go up, I don't believe it. They have what it takes to hold off our armored demolition team! ”

Wu Qiwen of the armored demolition team pursed his lips beside him, wanting to laugh but couldn't. During the attack on Alcarek last year, Zhuo Fan used a large number of engineering tanks and self-propelled assault guns to bulldoze all the way to the city buildings and clear the shooting corners. This tactic, known as "armored demolition" by the do-gooders, spread throughout the army and was soon used in Petropavlovsk and subsequent urban warfare.

"Don't worry." Zhuo Fan pressed his hand, but strangely did not agree. This made Luo Binghui secretly surprised. He knew that Zhuo Fan was not the kind of person who would be bound by politics, in order to win. Even if he wiped out Seoul, he didn't hesitate to do it, how could he change his personality today? "The opponent is different." Zhuo Fan handed the binoculars to the guards and explained: "We have been fighting the Japanese army for a year, but how many times have you seen examples of encirclement by formation? ”

When he said this, he really reminded Luo Binghui. In addition to the islands, where there was nowhere to escape, there were cases of large-scale encirclement of the Japanese army from south to north. "The Japanese army and the Soviet army are different." Zhuo Fan picked up the multi-purpose kettle and said while drinking: "The Japanese army relies on the polar regions for logistics, or there is no modern supply concept at all. This is their weakness, but under certain conditions, it is also an advantage. The lack of logistics means that they don't need to carry too much baggage, which allows them to play lightly interspersed tactics on a regular basis. In the early days of the southward movement, many Japanese veterans relied on one rice ball a day, carrying more than 100 rounds of ammunition, and then lightly interspersed in the depths of the unfamiliar rainforest to eat the British troops who were not familiar with this tactic. It can be seen from this that the Japanese infantry has a very strong ability to intersperse, and is very capable of enduring hardships, and the will to fight is also very tenacious. As in the three months in the Ryukyus, there were very few people who surrendered voluntarily unless they were injured. The current North Korea happens to be the most suitable area for the use of field skirmishing tactics, and we now have about 20 divisions in our hands, Zhao Dengyu took five away, Ruixing three, and the rest except for a few of you, all of them are Russian and North Korean troops. If the investment is too fierce, it will definitely frighten Itagaki and deploy the breakthrough early, and when the time comes, when the Japanese army desperately breaks through, do you think they can be the heavy task of blocking it? ”

Luo Binghui understood that Zhuo Fan was going to boil the frog in warm water. Don't look at the front of the battle, but compared with the Japanese army, the losses are much, much smaller, and it is completely possible to take advantage of the superior armored forces to wear out the more than 200,000 Japanese troops in Seoul little by little, saving them from breaking through the encirclement and burrowing into the central mountainous area desperately. When the Japanese army finds out that the losses are too large and then wants to break through, let alone how to gather tens of thousands of elite forwards, I am afraid that even the most capable veterans will not be able to run.

"But Itagaki is so obedient?"

"Of course not, but Seoul is the heart of North Korea, and he can't run away without firing a single shot with more than 200,000 troops. So he will definitely fight a dozen, as for giving the order to break through. After Wu Qiwen interjected, he looked at Zhuo Fan and smiled: "I'm afraid he doesn't have a chance." ”

"No chance?" Looking at the mysterious two, Luo Binghui was just about to ask, but the staff officer hurriedly rushed in: "Commander, the 177th Division reported that the corpses of tens of thousands of Korean civilians were found in the woods in the northeast, and it seems that they were massacred!" ”

"Did you read that right?" Zhuo Fan had heard of the Ryukyu "Jade Crushing Order", but he didn't expect it to happen in Seoul, so he hurriedly picked up the steel helmet and walked out. Wu Qiwen followed behind, and after thinking about it, he grabbed the staff officer: "Go and call the war correspondents, and let the officers of the North Korean army and the Russian army also come to see it, so that they can understand the brutality of the Nazis and see the face of the enemy." ”

"Yes."

After Zhuo Fan went to inspect the scene of the massacre, the first day of the attack ended quickly. Several times in succession repelled heavy troops. The news that they had successfully destroyed dozens of tanks suddenly restored the spirit of the whole country, and many officers even clamored that they would turn Seoul into an "armored graveyard" for their opponents. But Itagaki knew very well that in order to destroy dozens of tanks, he would take in thousands of elite veterans in one afternoon. It would be fine if there were enough troops, but now there is one less death, and it is impossible to hold on for a long time.

"Nishimura-kun, the situation is not good." Seishiro Itagaki sat in front of a kerosene lamp with his eyelids drooping. A closer look at the map shows that the casualty reports of the daytime battles are placed in the upper corner of the map. "Yes, although the Chinese army was repulsed, the casualties were too great!" Nishimura also understands: "Tokyo's ideas are too unrealistic. Fortunately, we blocked the mouth of the Han River with torpedoes, and the heavy naval guns of China could not hit them, otherwise there would be no chance to be loyal. ”

Itagaki took out Anan's telegram, looked at it twice, and sighed deeply, as if he couldn't make up his mind. Seeing this, Nishimura couldn't take care of it, and hurriedly said, "Commander." Holding on to Seoul certainly shows the heroism of the empire, but in my opinion, this sacrifice is a waste! It is necessary to take advantage of the courage of the soldiers to break through to the eastern mountains at full speed! As long as you can learn with Kohata-kun. It is possible to use the mountainous areas to carry out long-term raids and disturbances, so that the Chinese army will not be at peace. ”

These words reached the bottom of Itagaki's heart, and he immediately waved his hand to let the staff officer leave first, and asked, "Then Nishimura-kun thinks that he should break through from there?" "Here." Nishimura's finger just clicked on the map. The staff officer closed the blast door, so that Takeda Yixiong outside had to retract his gaze and walk quickly towards the exit.

"Stop! The general has an order. Blockade the fortress. But as soon as he reached the door, he was stopped by several gendarmes.

Takeda didn't expect Itagaki to order the fortress to be sealed, and the vest suddenly oozed a trace of hot sweat. You know, in another half an hour, the air force will bomb the fortress, and if you don't leave, it will be too late. So he frowned, and immediately took out his documents: "Baga! Don't know who I am? Open the door quickly, I just received information that someone is plotting against those North Korean evil ministers, I want to rush to see it immediately! If they collude with the people to sabotage the enemy in the city, who can bear this responsibility? ”

Takeda Takeo's term for a retainer refers to Yi Yin, a descendant of the Lee dynasty, and his family, as well as Korean officials who were vassals of Japan.

Changdeokgu Li Yin was a puppet supported by Japan, and in order to control him and Joseon, Yama Prefecture Aritomo also persuaded Emperor Taisho that year to marry Princess Fangzi, the daughter of King Shousho of Rihongu. After Hirohito came to power, he also allowed him to lead troops to serve as division officers, as a symbol of the integration and goodwill between Japan and North Korea. Although there has been no emperor in Korea for a long time, the Li family is still valuable in the hearts of many older Koreans, so before the start of the Battle of Seoul, Banhuan gathered these valuable Korean officials and brought them out together when they were ready to break through.

Takeda was the head of the intelligence division, and he was on his way to check on important North Korean hostages, and the gendarmes had no idea for a while, so they had to call the commander of the fortress. The commander originally wanted to ask Itagaki and Nishimura, but the two were studying the breakout route, so they had to let Takeda leave first, and sent two gendarmes, saying that they would escort him all the way to the palace bunker.

The air outside was full of gunsmoke, and Takeda finally breathed a sigh of relief, and there were only a few minutes left to look at his watch, and he hurriedly quickened his pace and walked towards the palace. After three days of slaughter and a day of fierce fighting, Seoul has become a real ghost, with no human figures walking on the streets, and the whole city is as silent as death except for flares every few minutes. The streets and alleys are full of craters, rubble and broken corpses, and you can see a lot of female corpses with full body **, which are killed after being raped. The two Japanese gendarmes who followed behind were pointing all the way, evaluating which female corpse had a better figure, not noticing that Takeda had already pulled out his pistol from his arms and quickly loaded the silencer.

After two soft sounds, Takeda quickly stuffed the corpse of the gendarme into the gutter, then took out a small telescope and found a hidden place to hide.

Three minutes later, the sky was buzzing with the sound of engines, and the anti-aircraft guns of the Nanshan fortress and various parts of the city immediately opened fire, and a series of fire points blindly flew into the night sky. Soon, two H-10 bombers took the lead in dropping two incendiary bombs directly above the Nanshan Fortress. By the light of the ground fire, eight high-altitude H-7 long-range bombers quickly opened their bomb magazines, revealing the No. 25 radio-guided ground-penetrating bomb weighing 3,370 kilograms that had bombed the Tokuyama oil depot and the "Fury" extra-heavy bomb used in the raid on Guam.

"Targeted!"

"Boulder 1 detached, radio guidance!"

"Ten seconds countdown to 4, 3, 2, 1."

"Boom!"

With the kinetic energy of the fall and the sharp tungsten alloy warhead, the No. 25 bomb quickly penetrated the 15-meter-deep soil layer on the surface of Nanshan, and then penetrated the entire 3-meter-thick cement layer, and exploded inside the underground fortress. Hundreds of kilograms of aluminum-magnesium mixed powder. In an instant, the high temperature of thousands of degrees burst out, and all personnel within a radius of ten meters of the explosion point were directly vaporized.

From Takeda's point of view, Namsan Fortress, known as the first fortress on the Han River, was like a dragon turning over, and the explosion-proof steel doors that could block direct fire from 240 mm heavy guns were blown open from the inside, and flames erupted from air vents scattered throughout the mountain almost simultaneously. Before the surrounding Japanese troops could react, four more No. 25 ground-penetrating bombs drilled into the underground fortress centered on the explosion point. When the surface of the mountain was torn open, in order to ensure that the people inside were killed, the bombers dropped three more "Fury" heavy bombs that resembled cabinet bombs. This total weight is 5,500 kilograms, and it contains 2,400 kilograms of explosives. The giant bomb that could penetrate the 5-meter concrete layer was undoubtedly devastating, so much so that all the glass within a kilometer radius of the fortress was shattered, and the surface shook strongly, as if a small earthquake had occurred, causing the internal structure of the fortress to collapse rapidly.

Looking at the Nanshan Fortress that was "stripped naked" under the mushroom cloud, and the Japanese soldiers who rushed to the rescue frantically, Takeda laughed happily. He believed that Itagaki had not been killed by a ground-penetrating bomb. It is absolutely impossible to avoid the earthquake collapse caused by the "rage". After the bomber left, he quickly packed up his things and quickly disappeared into the darkness.

His mission is not over, and perhaps never will be.

Just as Takeda expected. Thirteen high-ranking generals, including Seishiro Itagaki of the Japanese and Korean Army, Nishimura, chief of staff, and Toshio Tani, who had fled from the Ryui government, as well as more than 20 staff officers, dozens of officers, and more than 3,200 defenders of the fortress, were all killed by ground-penetrating bombs and "rage" heavy bombs, and no one was spared.

There is no unified command of Itagaki . The Japanese army immediately fell into a panic, and Matsui Ishine, who was inspecting the troops on the south bank of the Han River at that time, had to take on the heavy responsibility. But because Banhuan died too quickly, he didn't tell Matsui that he had a breakout plan. Therefore, he continued to follow the telegram of Anan Weiji before, and led the troops to defend to the death.

This order completely destroyed the Japanese army in Seoul, and in the next few days, Zhuo Fan took advantage of the armor advantage and deliberately put in fewer troops each time, so that the Japanese army could see the hope of holding out for a long time. In order to consume the energy of the Japanese army, he also deliberately launched an attack regardless of day and night and time period, and also stuffed the loudspeaker into the plane, flying back and forth over Seoul for several hours in the middle of the night, so that the enemy could not rest and sleep.

After five days of attrition and torture, and the loss of tens of thousands of people, Matsui Shigen realized that something was wrong and had the idea of organizing troops to break through.

But it's too late! In the early morning of 19 August, before Matsui had yet to deploy a breakthrough through the siege, Zhuo Fan threw in 10 "Siberian Tiger" tank battalions, 3 multifunctional engineering tank battalions, 6 Russian-DPRK UZP34/152 assault gun battalions, and 62 self-propelled 203/210 mm howitzers, with the entire three infantry divisions, to start a mighty "demolition offensive." The two Korean infantry divisions that were stimulated by the massacre were even more crazy, and none of the Japanese soldiers they saw were alive. The Russian army also showed great courage this time, giving full play to the bayonet tactics on Soviet artillery, driving the uzp34/152 assault gun and uzpkv/203 to a distance of dozens of meters from the Japanese position, and then firing flat!

The Japanese army was not good at urban warfare, and it was able to hold it before because Zhuo Fan did not exert his strength. Not to mention this kind of first encounter, which is completely unreasonable and eliminates all shooting dead ends. Many Japanese soldiers were killed by rubble and rubble without even seeing the enemy, even if they hid in the sewers, it was useless, because Zhuo Fan ordered that as long as he saw the drain, he had to stick a flame gun into it and burn it. By the afternoon, Matsui had lost control of his troops, and was full of Japanese soldiers fighting in their own hands, first surrounded by armor cuts, then killed by artillery, and finally swept several times by submachine guns and flamethrowers.

At eight o'clock that night, the 104th Division took the lead in erecting a pontoon bridge and crossing the Han River into Nancheng. Seeing this, Matsui Ishine had no choice but to send a telegram to break through to the south, and then lead the remnants to break through to the south. However, as soon as the troops arrived in Suwon, they were attacked by four battleships on the sea and two divisions of Zhao Dengyu.

On August 25, after the last Japanese troops entrenched in Yeongdeungpo were all killed, Zhuo Fan sent a telegram to Zhu Peide, announcing the end of the Battle of Seoul. In the three-week battle, a total of more than 220,000 Japanese soldiers were killed, more than 50,000 people were captured and surrendered (Korean puppet army), and with the help of the Korean underground party, the former members of the Korean royal family, including Li Yin, were successfully captured. But what made Zhuo Fan look down on was that in order to save his life, this Li Yin actually took the initiative to tie up his Japanese wife and let him be disposed of after seeing him.

In any case, the reconquest of Seoul laid a good foundation for a comprehensive settlement of the Korean Peninsula. When Zhu Depei learned that after the Battle of Seoul, he also concentrated 6 divisions and quickly defeated the 2 divisions left behind by Hidera Obata who had no intention of fighting and liberated Pyongyang. The commander-in-chief of the Korean army, Pak Eun-sung, also personally led 12 divisions to liberate Chongjin and Hamhung, and launched a general attack on Wonsan on February 27. The joint onslaught of the trio forced Tokyo to give up the main coastal cities, and finally let Hidera Obata lead the remaining 570,000 Japanese troops and 400,000 Japanese expatriates to hide in the central mountains to prepare for a long-term guerrilla war.

After a three-day rest, Zhuo Fan temporarily abandoned the rugged and complicated central mountainous area, and once again swung his army southward, liberating Gwangju in the southwest of the peninsula in only seven days, just a stone's throw away from Busan, an important seaport in the south.

At this time, Yang Qiu has finally arrived in Cape Town, where he will open a new chapter in the world's political map...... (To be continued......)