Meng Qingshan's worries were obviously unnecessary, although his assassination caused a certain amount of turmoil in the troops. However, after Zhou Baozhong handed him the latest telegrams from the front almost every day, on the whole, except for the Shangjiang area, where the fighting was more intense, the battle situation on the other three roads was still extremely stable. Several main division commanders and political commissars conscientiously fulfilled the combat tasks assigned by the headquarters. Although they sent telegrams almost several times a day, they were concerned about Meng Qingshan's condition, and at the same time, asked Meng Qingshan not to worry about the situation on their front line and to recuperate from his injuries, which made Meng Qingshan very pleased.

General Umezu Mijiro, commander of the Japanese Kwantung Army, saw that he had to take the Shangjiang area, and in addition to dispatching the 25th Division and the 4th Division, he also mobilized the 11th Independent Mixed Brigade that had just returned from the Kannai battlefield to go north to Jiamusi. Meng Qingshan attached great importance to this new Japanese brigade and regiment, and did not dare to relax in the slightest, and the Japanese army mobilized nearly two full-fledged divisions in the Shangjiang area.

On the fourth day of Meng Qingshan's assassination, with the resumption of the all-out air raid on the area controlled by the Japanese army in North Manchuria, which had been quelled, the Japanese army independently mixed into the 42nd Wing of the 11th Brigade Regiment forcibly crossed the Songhua River as the sequence of the attack, marking the official launch of the Japanese army on the Shangjiang area.

On the same day that the 42nd Wing of the 11th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade forcibly crossed the Songhua River, reinforced by the divisional engineering wing and the search wing, the 14th Wing of the 25th Division of the Japanese Army, which had been stagnant on the Yilan line, launched a fierce attack to the north under the cover of artillery. There was a fierce battle with Zhao Shangzhi's division of the Third Army Division on the opposite bank.

In order to avoid a recurrence of the situation where the last division of troops was weakened by the opponent's sniper layer by layer. This time, Hattori did not use the tactics of dividing the Japanese army's usual division of forces, combining flank and frontal attacks. Instead, two wings of the 25th Division and one wing of the 4th Division, as well as two wings of the 11th Brigade were all thrown into the attack at one time. The tactic of four wings marching together and one wing responding to each other was adopted.

The 11th Brigade was independent from the original Second Division, which was a veteran of the Japanese army. The main place of conscription was Sendai, and the 2nd Division, which together with the 6th Division, became one of the two most effective divisions of the Japanese army. A year ago, the combat effectiveness of the 2nd Division could be described as extremely strong, but due to the serious losses of the veterans of the 100 battles in the army due to the participation in Nomenhan, the troops had to replenish new recruits, and Umezu Mijiro deliberately gathered the remaining Japanese soldiers in order to retain the elite units of the 2nd Division. The 11th Brigade was formed into an independent mixed group.

After the September 18 Incident, it was the Second Division, which was the only division of the Kwantung Army at that time, that occupied the entire northeast with more than 20,000 troops in one division. Although there were factors outside the battlefield, the fact that the 2nd Division was able to defeat the resistance of all parts of the Northeast in a short period of time also proved that its combat effectiveness should not be underestimated.

In the end, the Japanese army has a long reputation, and its combat effectiveness can definitely be said to be extremely strong. As soon as they came up, under the cover of the planes and the mountain artillery directly under the division, they launched a wave-like attack on the blocking positions of the second division. The momentum of its attack is so fierce and so powerful. It was the first time that Zhang Yunzhi, who rarely hit and blocked, and more often took a roundabout attack.

From the north bank of the Songhua River to the Jiangjunshi line in Heli, except for a few Mangang, almost all of them are plain areas of Pingchuan, and they can only rely on these few Mangang terrain to fight hard, and Zhang Yunzhi, who encountered the hard-boned Zhang Yunzhi on the first day, fought extremely hard.

After a day of fierce fighting, the two regiments that served as the first wave of blocking troops held on to the north of the Songhua River, but they also suffered great casualties. After the fierce fighting on the first day, the three regiments could only barely piece together into a single regiment. The casualty rate is as high as 50 per cent.

Under the overwhelming superiority of the Japanese army's ground-to-air firepower, the mountain artillery regiment of the 2nd Division had not yet opened fire to suppress the Japanese firepower. It was directly suppressed by the Japanese artillery fire, and the Japanese planes kept moving on the position to find the location of the artillery position, so that the artillery of the 2nd Division was directly canceled from having the right to speak. The headquarters of the 2nd Division, which had lost fire support, could only rely on light and heavy machine guns and rifles, and under the cover of a small number of mortars, it was difficult to resist the fierce Japanese offensive.

In order to reduce casualties, Zhang Yunzhi decided to adopt close combat tactics after consulting with the political commissar and staff officers. Take advantage of the terrain to fight close combat with the Japanese army, so as to avoid being shelled by the Japanese army. But even so, after the fierce fighting on the first day, the field fortifications built before the war were almost razed to the ground by the Japanese army's ground-to-air firepower soon after the start of the war, Zhang Yunzhi's troops also suffered an unimaginable price.

Zhang Yunzhi was stamping his feet in distress about the casualties of the troops. Kotaro Hattori didn't have a good time either. After a day of fierce fighting, not only was the consumption of shells extremely large, almost half of the shells carried this time were destroyed, and the two brigades involved in the attack were also crippled.

At the cost of more than half of the casualties of the two brigades, but the failure to occupy the opponent's first line of blocking positions really made Hattori Kotaro look gloomy. Despite his mental preparation, he didn't expect his opponent to be so difficult. At first, they hid in their holes and could not come out.

When the attacking troops had marched about 50 meters, the group of anti-Japanese troops suddenly came out of the hole and opened fire on them. The troops were greeted by an overwhelming barrage of grenades, and then a rain of bullets from a large number of light and heavy machine guns. Its light and heavy machine guns, mortars, and grenadiers form long-range lethal firepower, separating the attacking troops from the follow-up units, so as to facilitate their fire strikes against the attacking troops. After a day's attack, the two infantry brigades in the vanguard were brutally crippled.

Fortunately, the other two roads brought good news, and under the combined attack of the 9th Wing and the 26th Wing of the 4th Division, they broke through the left flank defense of the Chinese and captured the county town of Suibin at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.

Looking a little irritable, the four wing commanders who had barely made any progress in the face of their subordinates' attacks for the next day reprimanded them harshly: "You rice buckets, don't you often say that the Fourth Division is a disgrace to the empire? Look at what this is, this is the battle report, the Fourth Division has broken the left flank defense line of the Anti-Japanese Union and taken Suibin County, and the strength of your four wings! I can't even take a small position of the Chinese people, and I have caused casualties in two brigades, I think you are a disgrace to the empire, and you are not as good as the fourth division. ”

Yasui Fujiji, who was standing on the side, opened his mouth to dissuade him: "Your Excellency, commander, please be calm for a while. We had expected this result before, after all, we had already fought them once, and they had already shown us their fierce fighting power. Judging from the tactics adopted by the other side in today's blocking battle, the opponent in front of us will definitely be the main force of the Anti-United Nations. Therefore, today's small setbacks are normal, in the battle just now, not only did we suffer heavy casualties, but there would also be no fewer people in China, not to mention that the defense line on their left flank had already been taken by us, and if they didn't want to be flanked by us on both sides, the blocking troops would immediately move. ”

"It's just that there is one thing I don't understand, the supreme commander has been assassinated, shouldn't this group of people have no fighting spirit? Why are you still so tenacious, is there a mistake in the news from the Kwantung Army Headquarters, or is it the strength of the commander of this unit, who is the person who commanded the enemy in front of us to fight against us? I don't believe that anyone in this army can be so strong other than Meng Qingshan's cunning guy. ”

Speaking of which. Hattori Takushiro raised his head and said to Lieutenant General Toji Yasui: "Yasui-kun, did you find anything in the Second Cavalry Wing that you sent to search for the other units of the Shina people?" ”

"Your Excellency Commander, rest assured, the cavalry wing has expanded the search range to a range of thirty kilometers, except for the troops who dare to resist us on the opposite side, there is no other troop activity track within a radius of a hundred miles, we are pressed in this time by a large number of soldiers, where can the Chinese people mobilize troops to resist our troops, now as long as we wait for tomorrow the fleet to deliver the ammunition, we can take the position of the Chinese people early tomorrow morning, and when the time comes, we can wave our division to the west to eliminate the headquarters of the Chinese people."

"Yo Xi! It seems that we don't need to complete the implementation of Tada's B battle plan, and we can deal with this rabble. ”

(To be continued.) )