Just when Meng Qingshan cleared the Japanese spies in Aihui County. www.biquge.info The battle of the 3rd Independent Division in the Shangjiang area was heating up, and the 3rd Independent Division was slowly depleting the Japanese army's vital strength under the desperate and crazy attack of the Japanese army. After three days and three nights of fierce fighting, they fought fiercely with the Japanese puppet army on the position, and the troops suffered nearly one-third of the casualties.

On the first day of the battle, the Japanese puppet army invested a total of seven infantry squadrons and eight artillery squadrons, more than 20 aircraft, consumed tens of thousands of shells, more than 200 aviation bombs, the entire small Fengxiang fortress, under such a rare and fierce artillery bombardment, the original overgrown trees were blown into a mountain of light with no grass left, and the rock on the fortress was cut off two meters! The solid soil layer has become dusty empty soil! The smoke of gunpowder, which had not had time to dissipate, completely obscured the sun, making many survivors think that that sunny day was a cloudy day! However, the garrison strength of the 3rd Independent Division on this high ground is only about one battalion, and the artillery that is fully prepared to counterattack and support the direction of the high ground is only 3 105 mm howitzers, 6 75 mm mountain guns and 15 mortars, which cannot compete with more than 50 large-caliber heavy artillery pieces of the Japanese army at all, and is almost a pure infantry operation, and due to the blockade of the Japanese army's artillery fire, the garrison has cut off contact with the rear, and cannot get any reinforcements. At the cost of 380 casualties, it repelled dozens of attacks by the Japanese puppet army, and recaptured the positions lost during the day through night counterattacks, so that the Japanese puppet army paid as many as 2,200 dead and wounded and gained nothing!

On the 22nd, the battle entered the second day, becoming more and more fierce, the position was gained and lost, lost and regained, and changed hands several times in a day, each time it changed hands was accompanied by earth-shaking artillery bombardment and dark fighting, the position was covered with corpses, and blood stained the high ground red. In the end, due to heavy casualties and lack of support, the 3rd Independent Division was forced to retreat into the tunnel and persist in the battle. For the first time since the battle began, the surface position of Fengxiang Fortress was lost!

On the 23rd, as soon as the sun set, Meng Qingshan mobilized 26 artillery pieces and rocket artillery of more than 90 mm caliber of the artillery division and all 24 132-mm rocket launchers of the 209th Regiment to carry out fierce artillery preparations for the surface position of Fengxiang. Because it will produce a large amount of gunpowder and smoke when it is launched, and it is very easy to expose the launch position, it is determined that when the rocket artillery participates in the war, the launch position and the shelling target are selected in advance, and the shooting points are calculated, and then the vigilant troops escort the way, go straight to the launch position, open fire immediately after unfolding, and quickly withdraw as soon as the shooting is finished. Generally, they only stayed in the position for forty or fifty minutes, and the Japanese army did not have time to organize a retaliatory counterattack.

As soon as the artillery fire extended, the infantry began to counterattack. All the underground fortifications of Fengxiang Fortress are excavated at the bottom of the mountain, and all the underground facilities are poured with cement and concrete, and the reinforced concrete cover of important parts is up to 3 meters thick. On the ground, the terrain is used to construct battle bunkers and communication trenches around the mountain, forming ground fortifications with a certain depth that are convenient for plane and three-dimensional crossfire to exert firepower, and are equipped with passages in and out of underground fortresses, observation posts, shooting holes, and communication and liaison facilities, so that the above-ground and underground military installations are linked into a whole. The six companies of the counterattack went on the offensive in a great way, and in only 20 minutes they recaptured all their positions, and then moved to the defensive in accordance with the pre-regulations. The highlight of this fierce counterattack was a position captured by the Japanese. The eighth company that had entered the tunnel began to extend the fire, and then rushed out of the tunnel, first captured the No. 1 position, and then rushed to the No. 3 main peak position, which was blocked by the fire of a bunker on the east side, and the eighth company organized two explosions without success, and the machine gunner Qian Dahai, who was responsible for the cover, was wounded by all the guns, he picked up a bundle of grenades and rushed with injuries, and on the way to the bunker, he was wounded in many places, but he kept crawling to two meters away from the bunker, and then lay on the ground to rest for a while, accumulated the last physical strength, jumped up, and even people pounced on the bunker with grenades, A loud bang and the bunker are gone!

Almost at the same time, at the No. 8 position on the southeast mountain beam, a deputy platoon commander named Ouyang Qing of the Fourth Company, after his legs were blown off, he resolutely rolled into the crowd of Japanese soldiers and pulled out the grenade! Eight companies captured the No. 3 main peak position and continued to advance, in the attack on the No. 9 position was blocked by the intensive fire of the Japanese main bunker, this main bunker was built with a boulder hollowed out, due to the angle constraints, the independent third division and the artillery division had concentrated more than ten artillery bombardment and failed to destroy it, the Oroqen warrior Makail Goda rushed up with an explosive bag, and was about to approach the bunker, a shell exploded next to him, and his left leg was broken at the knee, but he still stubbornly crawled towards the bunker, and finally climbed to the front of the bunker, The blaster was pulled and thrown along the muzzle of the ground protection machine gun, and the Japanese troops in the bunker immediately pushed the blaster out again, and Makair Goda pushed it in, and the two sides were deadlocked, and Markair Goda resisted the blaster with his chest, and at this moment the blaster exploded, and the bunker disappeared with him in the firelight, and the Eighth Company took advantage of the situation to regain the No. 9 position.

The fierce artillery fire caused the entire Fengxiang fortress to be shrouded in gunsmoke, and the light of the signal guns could not be seen from a distance of 100 meters, so both sides had to use mortars to fire signal shells to communicate.

At dusk, the troops have been fighting fiercely for a day and a night, the casualties are huge, the backup is useless, and the inability to fight again, so they have to abandon the surface position and retreat into the tunnel, except for the four positions in the center of the Fengxiang fortress, the rest of the positions are lost, Hu Qicai originally painstakingly arranged only to attack but not defend the ace eight companies can not be withdrawn, continue to fight on the high ground on the left side of the Fengxiang fortress, at this time there are only 15 people left, under the leadership of the company commander Zhao Baocheng retreated into the No. 1 tunnel.

That night, Liu Yalou rushed to the headquarters of the Third Independent Division to listen to the report on the combat situation, and Hu Qicai reported that the casualties of the troops had exceeded 3,500, and that there were only 2,300 people left in the 134th Regiment and the 135th Regiment in total, and that there was no complete battalion left in the whole division. Yu Zhanshan, the head of the 134th Regiment, said that he could still organize organs and miscellaneous personnel to continue fighting, and Liu Yalou was heartbroken. Knowing of this situation, Meng Qingshan immediately convened an emergency operational meeting and decided to transfer a group of people and some new recruits from the troops directly under the headquarters to supplement the Third Independent Division. In view of the fact that the 3rd Independent Division was no longer able to organize a counterattack, it changed its tactics and used tunnel struggle and small detachment counterattack as the main means to consume the exhausted enemy army.

Hu Qicai, the commander of the 3rd Independent Division, who had been standing on the underground observation gate of Fengxiang Fortress for half an hour, put down the telescope in his hand, shook his body slightly, and was covered in dust from the shells fired by the Japanese army, turned his head to Ding Sheng beside him and said: "Political commissar, this is the first time that the devils have attacked today." The little devil is really fucking rich, he has been shelling for half an hour, and he hasn't stopped, and the little devil doesn't count the loss of shells at all. There is no way to tell the point of this artillery attack, and I think their purpose is to blow up the Fengxiang fortress. ”

"Division commander, don't you say that the little devil outside the pass is not only stronger than the little devil outside the pass, but the fortress built here is also much stronger than the pass, this has been shelled for several days, and not even a single tunnel has been blown up, the devil outside the pass is much more cunning than the little devil in the pass, it seems that we have beaten a little badly before, and we dare not send infantry to attack again. After the artillery battle in the past two days, the intensity of the devil's artillery fire has not decreased, but has an upward trend. Moreover, there are quite a few large-caliber heavy artillery of more than 100 millimeters, and you said that if in a few days, the little devils will come up with more powerful artillery to blow us up. ”

Hearing Ding Sheng's words, Hu Qicai, who was lying on the map watching the progress of the Japanese army, said: "Old Ding, don't say it, it's really possible, judging from the battle situation in the past two days, it seems that the devil is determined to take this place this time." The 4th Division of the Japanese Kwantung Army not only launched a full-scale attack with three wings in parallel as soon as it came up. For each attack, there are more than ten tanks used to cover the infantry, but fortunately we have a bazooka, so that the devil's tank was knocked out as soon as he appeared, otherwise this Iron King Eight is really a troublesome thing. ”

"And the devil's artillery is not counted as artillery below the wing, there are at least two wings of artillery directly under the artillery alone, I estimate that the devil has transferred all the artillery in the entire Xiajiang area. Since we moved into the tunnel, this little devil has used cannonballs as bullets. This strength is probably still rare on the battlefield in the Kannai, and I estimate that the Japanese army surrounding us has at least two divisions or more. If this is a 150-millimeter grenade in a small building in the Guannai, it will not be much, and there will be no shadow after just one shot. Fortunately, we hid in this sturdy fortress to consume the Japanese army, if we had been left elsewhere, we would have been bombed and there would be no scum left."

"Lao Ding, you have to think of a way, although we were well prepared before, but if we continue to fight like this, I am afraid that we will eventually be blown up by the devil's cannon. The little devil has made up his mind to blow up the entire fortress little by little with artillery fire. Moreover, judging from the Japanese army's more aggressive attack on the two flanks, they wanted to completely cut off our contact with the outside world. ”

"Our periphery is now suffering about one battalion of casualties every day, and it has only been three days that less than half of the regiment has been lost, and once there is no support from the rear, then the troops in our hands cannot be consumed at all, not to mention that the wounded also need to be transported to the rear for treatment. And we have no fire support now, this morning the artillery division of the headquarters has withdrawn to the territory of Sun Wu, we will not be able to support the Japanese army at all in this kind of fighting, we will collapse ourselves, it is better to abandon the surface positions and withdraw all into the ground to consume the enemy. ”

"It's okay, it's very unfavorable for us to have the troops in the outer positions and the Japanese army to fight attrition, and besides, this fortress devil built it very carefully, let alone three days, I estimate that it can stand up in three months, we can afford to wait, but the little devils under the mountain can't afford to wait! Even if this little devil is a rich man, let's drag him down. Hu Qicai said with a smile.

(To be continued.) )