On July 92, north of Hutou Fortress, in the vicinity of Lijiadian in Xiaomuhe. Although it was at the forefront of the Sino-Japanese war, it was quiet at this time.

From the start of the war on the night of June 7 to the present, this section of the defense line of more than 10 kilometers has been relatively calm. Because it is far away from the Tiger Head Fortress, the heavy artillery of the fortress cannot reach here, so the squadron defending here has always been on the defensive, and the strength is relatively weak, at most it is only one battalion, and when it is few, there is only one company. The Japanese troops opposite them did not seem to be many and did not act very actively, except for a few tentative night raids in mid-June, after which they fell silent. From late June to now, almost two gunshots have been heard here. However, the headquarters of the First Army of the Wehrmacht did not dare to take the defense of this place lightly, because this place was not far from the Tiger Head Fortress, and if the Japanese broke through from this line, it would be difficult for the artillery of the Tiger Head Fortress to reach. And if the progress is smooth, you can approach the defensive position north of the Tiger Head Fortress in one night! It is even possible to copy from the west of the Tiger Head Fortress and form an encirclement of the entire fortress. Therefore, the most elite 2nd Division in the Eighth Army, together with their veteran division commander Major General Shen Xingye (Shen Yizhi), was transferred to this line to strengthen the defense on June 25. Of course, they have to defend not only a dozen kilometers around Lijiadian in Xiaomuhe, but a defensive zone from Xiaomuhe to the north of Hutou Fortress, with a straight-line distance of about more than 0 kilometers, and in fact, the area to be defended is more than 50 kilometers, and the troops are still extremely weak.

Fortunately, the terrain in this area is more favorable to the squadron. To the west, the Ussuri River is a sea of forests that stretches for hundreds of kilometers, and there are only a few simple roads leading from the forest to Guò. It connects the Wehrmacht line on the west bank of the Ussuri River with the Tiger Head Fortress. The Wehrmacht's defensive line was also built on the forest, and it was a relatively strong fire base and anti-artillery fortifications reinforced with a large amount of wood. In the area of Lijiadian, Xiaomuhe, where the Japanese army was about to launch the main attack, the 6th Regiment of the 2nd Division was responsible for the defensive task, and the regiment commander was Colonel Wu Qiwei, who graduated from the 6th phase of Baoding.

Because it is a unit stationed on the front line of national defense for a long time, the 6th Regiment is the first infantry regiment in the Wehrmacht Army to be equipped with regimental artillery. In addition to three infantry battalions of more than 700 people, an engineer company, and a reconnaissance company, the regiment had an establishment of more than 700 people. In addition to a baggage company, a regimental headquarters company, there was a mountain artillery battalion and a heavy mortar battalion. Armed with four 75mm mountain guns and six 20mm heavy mortars. The three infantry battalions were also armed with three 0mm mortars each. Up and down the regiment, there are a total of nineteen mountain guns/mortars! Such regimental artillery firepower is already very powerful. They were also supported by a divisional artillery regiment deployed about 5 kilometers behind the battle line, which was armed with 24 French Type 97 05mm howitzers and 2 75mm Japanese mountain guns. The total number of cannons and mortars owned by the 2nd Division is as high as 9, which is not known to be many times stronger than the so-called German armor division in another time and space with the "fastest chapter update". In addition, the two heavy cannon battalions that were originally placed in the Tiger Head Fortress were also secretly moved about 5 kilometers north. It is now possible to cover the entire area defended by the 2nd Division with firepower.

Therefore, the officers and soldiers of the whole division, including Shen Xingye, the commander of the 2nd Division, and Wu Qiwei, the commander of the 6th Regiment. None of them made this defensive task an extremely difficult task. Although their forces were somewhat weak, their strong firepower and favorable terrain gave them plenty of confidence. Even if there are two or three times as many enemies, they are confident that they can hold out until reinforcements arrive!

Divisional and regimental-level officers like Shen Xingye and Wu Qiwei still don't know that the main force of their First Army has already secretly left! They also thought that the Northeast Front was making full preparations for the Battle of Hutou Xin'antu! As long as they can withstand it for a few days, follow-up reinforcements will continue to arrive. No one could have imagined that their 2nd Division would soon face an extremely tragic defensive battle that the Chinese National Defense Force had never encountered since its establishment.

Unlike the vast forests on the west bank, the west bank of the Ussuri River is an endless stretch of rice paddies. There are only small patches of forests and villages in between. Since the Far Eastern Railway runs from here, this area is the most prosperous place in the entire Far East. Although it was in wartime. However, the Japanese immigrants who lived here did not leave, and many of them joined the Volunteer Corps and became the reserve soldiers of the Japanese Far East Army, while women and children continued to guard their homeland and fields. Therefore, every evening, wisps of cooking smoke would waft out from the villages scattered in the wilderness, making the Chinese and Japanese officers and soldiers facing each other across the Ussuri River feel an unreal scene of peace.

At this time, a detachment of Wehrmacht reconnaissance detachments, dressed in grass-green camouflage overalls, were vigilantly navigating through the woods close to the west bank of the Ussuri River. Under this peaceful and tranquil scene, you may bump into the infiltrated Japanese reconnaissance troops! Due to the lack of troops, the Chinese and Japanese armies did not have enough manpower to establish a continuous trench defense system in this area, and could only establish isolated ring defense strongholds in important areas, and the sections between the strongholds could only rely on patrols to control them. In the first two days of the defense, the 2nd Division also specially organized a reconnaissance team to infiltrate the other side of the river to observe the movements of the Japanese army, but every operation was accompanied by a lot of casualties, and the Japanese army obviously opened a very tight power search curtain to carry out a ferocious attack on any reconnaissance team they discovered, preventing anyone from approaching their battle line for reconnaissance! As a result, the 2nd Division, which could not bear the losses, had to give up its attempt to peek into the Japanese battle line, but the Japanese army's tight defense still revealed an important message: they must have gathered heavy troops behind the apparently calm defensive line, and this may really be the main breakthrough point of the Japanese attack!

While abandoning the reconnaissance of crossing the river, the 2nd Division also strengthened its control of the west bank of the Ussuri River, and more patrols were sent out. Mines and snipers were also planted in the dense forest near the Ussuri River. This patrol detachment was tasked with laying mines and delivering dry rations to snipers. They stopped in an elm forest. Second Lieutenant Zhang Zhonglin, who led the team, raised his clenched fist. The long and sparsely stretched guard formation suddenly gathered. Everyone gathered around and listened to Zhang Zhonglin whisper: "A shift is going to inspect the minefield." There is no destruction; the second shift is on alert; The rest of the men brought dry food with me......" Before he could finish his sentence, he heard faint footsteps. Everyone spread out and lay down at the same time. Zhang Zhonglin followed the footsteps and saw the sniper Chen Li ambushed here carrying a sniper rifle with a sight on his back. He ran over with a snort, shouting as he ran: "It's me, it's me, don't shoot, don't shoot." ”

Zhang Zhonglin stood up and greeted him, but no one else moved. "What's going on?" Zhang Zhonglin asked with a smile. "Aren't you a starving ghost reincarnated, and you come to smell the scent of dry food?" As he spoke, he reached out and took a backpack from one of his subordinates. It was filled with oil cakes and salted meat, enough to eat for three days.

"Eat? How can you think about it! It's going to be a fight, you know? "Chen Li is tall and thin. He was about twenty-three or fourteen years old, with big eyes and always looking nervously, but his eyesight and observation skills were excellent. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been selected for the sniper school. Changed from a normal soldier to a sniper with the rank of sergeant. He raised his hand and pointed to a Japanese village on the east bank of the Ussuri River and asked Zhang Zhonglin. "Lingfu, what did you find?"

It was four or five o'clock in the afternoon, and the Japanese in the village were probably preparing dinner, and wisps of cooking smoke were wafting high.

"Somebody's cooking." Zhang Zhonglin said with a smile. "They do this every day, and the Japanese have to eat, too."

"No, no!" Chen Li shook his head vigorously. "I stayed here for a week

Now, every day they make a fire to cook, but today is different! Today from more than 10 o'clock in the morning to now. The smoke never stopped...... They're definitely not cooking for themselves! Maybe these villages are already full of imp infantry! Go back and report it! ”

……

The observant Chinese sniper guessed well. At this time, the villages and woods on the east bank of the Ussuri River were already crowded with Japanese officers and soldiers who were fully prepared for the attack. They've been sneaking here for days. It's all raw rice and cold water, but today's dinner can't be sloppy, it's a meal before and after the attack! It is almost a tradition in Asian countries to go to the front line to attack to the death after eating and drinking. The smoke that drifted for most of the day was because the chefs of the Japanese army were using the kitchens of Japanese villages in this area to prepare the last supper. There are rice balls mixed with red beans, deep-fried small fish, and beef that is not available in the domestic market! Each person was also given a small bottle of sake. In short, the Japanese officers and soldiers tonight ate a very rich meal by Japanese standards.

The officers and men of the artillery wings and the three independent heavy artillery wings belonging to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 16th divisions were the first to enjoy this sumptuous meal. Above the Japanese artillery positions scattered in six groves, it was already a busy scene. A large number of shells are being brought in by mule-horse convoys from the ammunition storage site. Under the reprimand and leather whip of the Japanese baggage soldiers, the Korean coolies, who were despised for human life, carried heavy ammunition again and again. They are no longer the subjects of the emperor, but the most humble slaves, and even if a large number of them die of exhaustion, no one will feel sorry. In recent years, the Japanese have built several branch railways and mines in the Far Eastern Prefecture, and it is said that countless Korean ghosts are floating around...... Major General Nobuyuki Abe, who was in charge of the unified command of the six artillery wings, was in his former enemy command post, his pocket watch with a gloomy face. The planned start of the shelling was at 7 p.m. on July sharp, and the artillery preparation would last for an hour, at which the infantry of the first wing of the offensive would launch a forced crossing about 5 kilometers from the front line of Lijiadian on the Xiaomu River.

For this offensive, the Far Eastern Army Command also transferred three independent heavy artillery regiment wings from Yanpu, one of which was also equipped with 24 Meiji 45-style 240mm heavy howitzers, which were specially used to bombard the Tiger Head Fortress of the ** team! The other two separate heavy artillery wings were equipped with 24 Meiji 45 50mm heavy cannons and 6 Taisho 4 50mm heavy howitzers. If you count the artillery cannons of the artillery wings belonging to the four infantry divisions, there are as many as 22 cannons available in Abe's hands. Among them, there are as many as 0 heavy guns with a caliber of 00mm or more.

But he, the commander-in-chief of artillery, had no bottom in his heart, because according to the information provided by the Japanese intelligence department. The squadron on the other side of the Ussuri River had three corps and a fortress brigade. That is to say, even if it is not additionally attached to an independent artillery regiment, the Chinese have concentrated an artillery regiment on this line! Not counting regimental artillery, it also has at least 40 to 500 cannons of various calibers! Exactly twice as much as the Japanese army! Moreover, the current Chinese Air Force is also far more powerful than the Japanese Army Aviation. The air supremacy of the battlefield was completely controlled by the Chinese, and the Japanese artillery not only had to fight the powerful Chinese artillery group during the day, but also had to be on guard against the threat from the air at all times, and it was impossible to effectively support the infantry attack unless it received more reinforcements and more effective air cover. He had also made such a request to Yamanashi Hanzo and the Far Eastern Army Command, but was completely rejected by the two generals who wanted to use a desperate surprise attack to establish victory. The national fortunes of the Japanese Empire can only be pinned on the victory of the gambling-like surprise attack operation "Iron and Blood Great Republic"!

Time passed slowly in waiting. Soon it will be 7 p.m., when the shelling is scheduled to be launched. Major General Nobuyuki Abe picked up the phone on the table, asked for a call to the headquarters of the six artillery wings, and checked his watch again. It's 6:55 p.m. on July '92. In five minutes, the first major battle between China and Japan in this war will begin immediately.

At 7 p.m., Shen Xingye was reading a letter marked top secret. Although the Japanese army did their best to cover up their actions, they still showed a lot of clues. Some were spotted by scouts patrolling along the Ussuri River. Some were reported by intelligence officers of the Military Intelligence Bureau, while others were detected by planes that had penetrated deep into the Japanese Far East to conduct reconnaissance. In short, all kinds of circumstances show that the Japanese attack is imminent, and it is likely that it will be tonight! At one o'clock this afternoon, the headquarters of the First Army and the headquarters of the Eighth Army both issued orders for full alert, and Shen Xingye also ordered his 2nd Division to be on alert all night. In order to avoid the casualties of the Japanese artillery fire, the three infantry regiments arranged in the front line had already retreated to the reserve positions, and only a few officers and men who served as observers remained in the forward positions. The reserves, consisting of heavy and engineered troops, were also fully concentrated in the most convenient areas, and the artillery was ready for a counterattack.

Just when all the preparations for the battle are ready. An unexpected order was transmitted from the headquarters of the Eighth Army in the Tiger Head Fortress to the headquarters of the 2nd Division. In this order, Li Zongren, commander of the Eighth Army, told him very clearly. The task of the 2nd Division is to hold back, not hold! If the first line of the Ussuri River is lost, it should immediately rely on the dense forest to resist and retreat to the Hulin fortress. Moreover, in this battle, the First Army and the Eighth Army will not send any reinforcements to the 2nd Division, because at present, the First Army is only subordinate to the Eighth Army!

"Shelling! The Japanese shelling has begun! The shouts of Lieutenant Colonel Gong Chu, chief of staff of the 2nd Division, suddenly rang out. The right hand of the chief of staff, who graduated from the first phase of Whampoa and the first phase of Lu University, was pointing out the window of the war room of the division headquarters. Shen Xingye looked in the direction of his finger and saw that the eastern sky had been lit red by the flash of the cannon.

Explosions rang out almost simultaneously throughout the front line. Shen Xingye and Gong Chu immediately rushed out of the war room, climbed up the stairs to the roof of the temporary division headquarters made of logs, and held binoculars to observe the Japanese shelling. Although the Japanese artillery fire was fierce, it did not cause many casualties to the infantry of the 2nd Division, which had retreated to the reserve position. The two of them just figured out guò to judge the focus of their attack by observing the focus of their opponent's shelling. In fact, their biggest headache was the weakness of their troops, especially after learning that the other armies that had been assigned to the First Army had been transferred. In the absence of reinforcements, the headquarters of the 2nd Division now has less than 000 people in reserve, and this force "must be used in the most dangerous directions!" As for what the corps that have been transferred away are doing now, it is not something that officers of their rank need to consider.

The firepower of the Japanese heavy artillery was almost always concentrated on the forward positions on the front line of Lijiadian in Xiaomuhe. The shells of the heavy howitzers blew up terrible craters in the ring fortifications, lifting the deer wire and minefields in front of the position into the sky. Occasionally, there would be a few oversized mushroom-shaped fireballs rising high, and in Shen Xingye and Gong Chulai it looked like a volcanic eruption, and they knew that it was the Japanese 240mm heavy howitzer that was going unchecked! Even the sturdy reinforced concrete fortifications of the Tiger Head Fortress could not withstand the shelling of this level!

"Division, the number of heavy artillery above 00mm of the enemy is about 50 to 200!" Gong Chu headed to the telescope and said loudly to Shen Xingye. "The main direction of attack should be the position of the 6th Regiment on the front line of Lijiadian in Xiaomuhe, now do you want to move the reserve team up?"

"Go up to a baggage camp first, and tell Wu Qingyun (Wu Qiwei) that there will not be another soldier for him within 24 hours, and then tell him that he must stick to the front-line position for 24 hours! Make no mistake! (To be continued.) )