After reading the report on the enemy's situation, Sun Li knew that his three regiments were going to have a bloody battle today. After calling back to the division headquarters to report that he had arrived at the designated area and began to arrange the defensive position, Sun Li handed over the matter of the headquarters to the deputy regiment commander and took the guards to inspect the position.

Sun Li first came to the hill behind the village, although the hill is only more than 70 meters high, but the terrain here is flat, and you can still see it far away.

Five miles behind the hill, two 75mm mountain artillery batteries of the artillery battalion had begun to intensively build artillery positions, and the 120mm heavy mortar battery had 12 mortar positions behind the hill. Seeing his 24 mountain artillery and heavy mortars, Sun Li was a little relieved, the artillery fire of his regiment probably caught up with the firepower of the opponent's army, especially the 120mm heavy mortar, its power is absolutely amazing, after the explosion, there will be almost no living people within a radius of ten meters, the only flaw is that there are very few shells. 60mm and 82mm shells can be made in China, while 120mm mortar shells must be purchased out, and this kind of large-caliber heavy mortar shells can definitely be bought without money. Therefore, according to the requirements of the artillery brigade commander Liang Fang, 120mm mortars are generally only allowed to be used to destroy the enemy's strong bunkers, so even the second regiment did not fire a single 120mm shell in Xiaogan. For the security army, only Liang Fang is an absolutely genuine artillery expert, so although he is the commander of the artillery brigade, Song Zhewu requires Liang Fang not only to manage his artillery brigade, but also to manage all the ordinary artillery training and tactical guidance of all units, and even the artillery manual of the security army is also improved by him on the basis of the German army's canon and according to the characteristics of the country.

The commander of the first battalion placed the battalion machine gun company on the hill, and at this moment the soldiers of the machine gun company were building heavy machine gun bunkers and communication trenches, and the 82 mortar positions were set up in a few flat depressions behind the ridge line, and the observation posts of the artillery battalion were also set up here.

Sun Li watched the soldiers of the machine gun company quickly digging trenches and bunkers with the sharp sapper shovels in their hands, and he was a little amused in his heart about what he thought when he first joined the security army. At that time, he felt unbelievable that Song Zhewu spent a lot of money to buy this kind of sapper shovel from Germany.

He knew that there were special sapper shovels in foreign countries, mainly for sappers and artillery as tools for building positions, and although there were no real sapper shovels in his previous troops, they were also equipped with some civilian shovels and picks for digging trenches, and he thought that would be enough. However, the security army is equipped with this kind of sapper shovel is said to be designed by Song Zhewu, and applied for a patent abroad, this shovel steel shovel body, the front end of the large arc, both sides and the front end of the steel shovel with a sharp blade, digging up the soil is very convenient, and the handle can also be folded, usually in the sleeve back on the waist, once you need to take it out, you can dig immediately, and the security army also has this kind of sapper shovel for combat training.

Now it seems that Commander Song spent the money unjustly, and looked from the hill with a telescope, from the hill to the south to Chenjiaji on the Yangtze River, there were soldiers everywhere using this kind of sapper shovel to carry out earthwork, if the troops were not equipped, he would definitely not be able to find these thousands of shovels to dig trenches now.

From the hill, two semicircular trenches were dug in front of the hill defended by the first battalion and Zhujiahe Village, and there were several communication trenches connected between the two trenches. From Zhujiahe to Chenjiaji, due to the lack of terrain support, only three trenches 50 meters apart were dug on both sides of the road as blocking positions, which were defended by the second battalion. However, the main road is only more than 500 meters away from Xiaoshan and Zhujiahe Village, and both places can provide fire support.

Originally, the position of the position should have been set up on the riverside more than a dozen miles away, but the terrain on the other side of the river was higher than this, and the enemy on the opposite bank could condescendingly suppress the blocking forces. Moreover, now that the dry season has just passed, the water level in the river is not high, and it does not play a great role in blocking the attack, so it is finally decided to let the enemy go across the river.

It was already 8 o'clock in the morning after inspecting the position, and as soon as Sun Li returned to the regiment headquarters, the reconnaissance company reported that a brigade in the vanguard of the enemy was less than 10 miles away from the Zhujia River.

It was the first brigade of Hu Zongduo's 19th Army Zhengzhong Division, this brigade found that on the other side of the river after arriving at Zhujiahe, there were already troops on the front line from Zhujiahe to Chenjiaji to set up a blocking position, and I heard that the other party was wearing grass green military uniforms, the brigade commander of the Gui Army couldn't help but be surprised, after Tang Shengzhi drove away Bai Chongxi, many Guangxi officers resigned and returned to the Seventh Army, and heard them say that the military uniforms of the Hebei Security Army, that is, the current Fourth Route Army, are grass green, did they enter Wuhan so quickly!

It turned out that they set out in the middle of the night, and the radio station was very troublesome to set up, and it was impossible to send and receive newspapers during the march. Not only did their 19th Army not know that the Fourth Route Army occupied Hankou and Hanyang, but even the 18th Army of Taojun in Jiangbei had just received the news that Liu Dayong sent people on horseback on the way to Wuchang. Tao Jun, who got the news, was very anxious, and on the one hand ordered people to go to the river to find fishing boats to cross the river to report the news to Hu Zongduo, and on the other hand, he ordered the troops to speed up the march and rush to Wuchang as soon as possible, so as to meet the 19th Army to cross the river.

Surprise to surprise, the combat subordinates will continue as usual. While sending people back to report, the brigade commander of the Gui Army ordered the machine gun company and the 3rd Regiment to set up a position on the east bank of the river to cover the 1st and 2nd regiments crossing the river and establish an offensive position. He knew that there was only one way at the moment, and that was to crush the Fourth Route Army in front of him and rush over. Only when they reached Hankow, through the ferries and a large number of other boats, they could quickly cross the river, where the big ships could not dock, and only by fishing boats, they could only cross small troops, and their tens of thousands of troops had to cross, and it took two or three days.

After crossing the river, he ordered the two regiments to establish positions at once, and he personally ran to the front with the two regiment commanders to observe the situation. When he returned to the position, his division commander solemnly sent him an order, asking him to quickly break through the position while the Fourth Route Army was not firmly established, and open a passage for the whole army to return to Hankou. In addition, he was told that the Fourth Route Army had entered Hankou and Hanyang in the early morning of this morning, and it was estimated that it was the vanguard of light equipment. If Hankou could not be quickly recaptured and the river could be crossed, the 19th Army would have no choice but to disarm.

After receiving the order, the brigade commander of Gui Jun did not dare to slack off. Immediately ordered a regiment to send a company to Zhujiahe Village, Xiaoshan north of Zhujiahe Village, Chenjiaji, and Yanjiang Road to launch a tentative attack. Prepare for a follow-up attack by a large force.

The task of the first battalion and one company was to defend the two trenches in front of Zhujiahe Village, and the company commander Huang Dafu personally led the first and second platoons to defend the first trench, and the mortar platoon and the third and fourth platoons were in the second trench 50 meters behind. Here is near the river, the terrain is not high, the surface water layer is very shallow, the trenches dare not dig too deep, only chest high, and then the water will come out, and it is just right to shoot.

Of the three regiments of the 1st Division, only their regiment had not experienced a major battle, and the last time they fought Zengjiazhai against those bandits was not even a real battle. Seeing the Gui army rushing over with a skirmish line from a distance, the soldiers of the first company were a little nervous, and even Huang Dafu was a little nervous, he had never fought with the regular army. However, he is a company commander after all, not only can he not be nervous and panicked, but he also has to arouse the emotions of the soldiers of the whole company.

Huang Dafu stood up straight, stood in the trench, and shouted loudly in his high-decibel voice: "Brothers, tell me, are our security forces eating well? "For Huang Dafu's question, the soldiers are a little strange, why did the company commander ask about food at this time? Therefore, the answer is also sparse. "Haven't you eaten enough? Be louder. "Eat well." There were loud shouts from the trenches. Huang Dafu nodded with satisfaction and continued to shout loudly: "Let me tell you, our division commander said that our security army is the best-fed unit, the hardest-trained unit, and the best-armed unit among all the troops in the country. Another thing is that none of you know that you shoot more ammunition in training every year than other armies fight in three years. After speaking, he pointed to the Gui army who rushed over on the opposite side: "We eat better than them, train harder than them, and have stronger weapons than them, you say, are we afraid of them?" Can they overcome us? ”

"Don't be afraid! We can beat them! "The emotions of the fighters were aroused, and one by one they were in high spirits and ready for battle.

Because he didn't know the reality of the security army's position, the Gui army company that rushed over Huang Dafu and them did not rush fast, and they advanced cautiously, or under the urging of the horn behind them, the commander of the Gui army company shouted loudly to drive the soldiers to speed up the charge.

When the rushing Gui troops were still 200 meters away from their position, Huang Dafu gave the order to open fire. He didn't dare to put the opponent too close, for fear that his soldiers would let the opponent rush into the position if they were nervous, and he wanted them to gradually adapt to this combat environment.

As soon as Huang Dafu gave the order to open fire, 8 machine guns, 20 submachine guns and more than 100 rifles in the first trench opened fire at the same time, and the mortars of his company also began to bombard the charging Gui troops at the same time. The dense rain of bullets immediately knocked down more than 20 people, because it was a tentative attack, the company commander of the Gui army saw it, and the opponent's firepower was strong, so many machine guns and mortars, he judged that the front of his attack would not be less than the strength of a regiment, and his company rushed up to die. I didn't finish shouting the words in my mouth, so I turned my head and ran. The other party had already run to 300 meters away from them, and several squad leaders' submachine guns were still ringing. Huang Dafu was so angry that he scolded: "Stop, stop shooting, you rabbits, bullets don't cost money!" What is the effective range of the submachine gun? 300 meters you still play. A few platoon leaders who were happy to fight also came back to their senses, just smiling, still thinking about how enjoyable they had just played.

Scolding and scolding, Huang Dafu also knew that this kind of battle was very important for his subordinates to accumulate experience, so he stopped saying two sentences of scolding, and ordered all factions and platoons to report casualties and replenish ammunition.

(To be continued)