The 10th Division of the Japanese Army was one of the 17 standing divisions of the Japanese army before the war, with extremely strong combat effectiveness and excellent equipment, and was known as the model division of the modern army of the Japanese army.

As the division commander of such a unit, Ryosuke Isoya is extremely proud and at the same time extremely stressed, especially since he and Kenjiro Dohi and Seishiro Itagaki are classmates at the same time, and they are also known as the three major China experts, which makes people unconsciously compare them with each other, and they themselves continue to compare their respective merits.

The Battle of Xuzhou, Isoya Ryosuke and Itagaki Seishiro fought together, Isoya Ryosuke was extremely hopeful that he could surpass the exploits of this old classmate, and the development of things was also very smooth, first Jinan and then Teng County, one after another military important places were taken by him, and the original sweep of Shanxi was invincible Itagaki Seishiro was blocked by Linyi.

While urging his troops to march towards Zaozhuang, Ryosuke Isoya greedily looked at the final target, Xuzhou City.

Xuzhou, one of the ancient Kyushu states and known as "Pengcheng" in ancient times, has always been the political, economic and cultural center of the Huaihai region. However, its geographical location is militarily easy to attack and difficult to defend, so as long as there are troops under the city, Xuzhou is in danger.

-- Xuzhou

Li Zongren kept writing and drawing on the map with a paintbrush, and he asked without raising his head, "Has the Second Army arrived at the designated position?" ”

Li Pinxian said worriedly: "Is the combat effectiveness of the Second Army weak, I'm worried that they won't be able to resist the attack of the Japanese army." ”

Li Zongren said with a smile, "Don't worry, I won't use the wrong person, not to mention that this time we are several times the enemy, Sun Lianzhong will definitely fight to the death, but I am a little worried about Tang Enbo, he is our killer blow." If he hadn't done well, we would have been in real trouble. ”

Li Pinxian thought for a while and said, "Do you want me to meet Tang Enbo?" ”

Li Zongren took off his white gloves, patted the ashes, and said, "It's useless for you to go, this guy knows who he should listen to." ”

-- Taierzhuang

Sun Lianzhong took Chifengcheng's 31st Division to Taierzhuang one step ahead of the other troops.

Chi Fengcheng rode a horse and said incomprehensibly, "Commander." You say that we are not good at guarding any place, but we have to guard such a small Zhuangzi, don't look at it to know how big a small Zhuangzi will be, I think the devil can blow up the Zhuangzi with a cannon. ”

Sun Lianzhong knew how powerful Li Zongren was when the warlords were fighting, and waved his horsewhip and said, "Don't talk nonsense, Commander Li must be justified in doing this, go, after this slope, you will arrive at Taierzhuang." ”

The two of them hurried to whip up, but they saw several white-haired and white-bearded old men with the people holding food and wine to the side. A few children were spreading the yellow sand, and a few children were sprinkling water in the back. This is the highest Chinese traditional etiquette to eat pot pulp to welcome the king, loess paving the road, sprinkling water to clean the street.

Sun Lianzhong dismounted and asked, "How many are you?" ”

The old man said, "A few of us are the elders of Taierzhuang, most of our thousands of families in Taierzhuang have been evacuated, and a few of us stayed here to introduce the situation to a large army." ”

Sun Lianzhong said happily when he heard it, "Please speak." ”

The old man touched his beard and said, "Our Taierzhuang is located on the right by the canal and the railway on the left, the place is not big, but it is very prosperous, with ten streets. It is 1,200 meters long from east to west, 1,000 meters wide from north to south, and 500 meters at its narrowest point. ”

As soon as Chi Fengcheng calculated, he exclaimed, "This is less than a square kilometer." How do we keep this? ”

The old man laughed and said, "General, don't worry, although our Taierzhuang is small, it can be defended, and there are many bandits in Shandong." Because of the prosperity of our Taierzhuang, there are often bandits, in order to deal with bandits. We are surrounded by stones, and we have built a solid wall about 4 kilometers long on the east, west and north sides of Taierzhuang, which is more than 2 meters high, and is all made of bricks and stones. Most of the houses in the village are also made of bricks and stones, there are thousands of them, which can resist the attack of foreign guns and cannons, in addition, there are 75 pillboxes outside our village, which are arranged according to the ancient formation, and the cannons are difficult to blast open, and there are tunnels connected underground in order to dispatch troops. ”

Sun Lianzhong and Chi Fengcheng were stunned when they heard it, what kind of village is this, this is completely a fortress.

Sun Lianzhong laughed and said, "Commander Li is worthy of being a famous general in the world, and he has discovered such a place." With such a geographical advantage, if we can't hold it anymore, we will really go to hold the child. ”

Whether it is a modern army or an ancient army, there is a principle in the choice of marching routes, that is, the smooth and convenient supply lines. The 10th Division originally went south along the railway, and after capturing Tengxian, it easily captured Zaozhuang, and the next step should be to continue to attack Xuzhou along the railway, and there are two ways to attack Xuzhou, one is to continue the attack along the railway, and the other is to attack from Taierzhuang.

Li Zongren saw that the Japanese were the same as he thought, and it was the most critical time. I also started my final layout.

The Japanese army began to be led away by Li Zongren.

Li Zongren first ordered Zhang Zizhong in Linyi to start a counterattack, the Fifth Division was just a dissatisfied brigade at this time, seeing the sudden counterattack of the Chinese defenders, Itagaki Seishiro was startled, and thought that the main direction of attack of the Chinese army was himself, and felt that the 10th Division was too aggressive, but he could not say it directly, so he hurriedly sent a report to the commander of the Second Army, Nishio Shouzo, saying that he needed the support of the 10th Division, hoping that the 10th Division could be slowed down in this way. Nishio Shouzo saw that the 10th Division was in a state of strength, and the 5th Division was stagnant, and he also felt that the strength of the 5th Division was a little short, so he ordered the 10th Division to send an additional wing to support the 5th Division. As soon as Ryosuke Isoya heard the order, he felt that this was a conspiracy by Seishiro Itagaki in order to prevent himself from getting great merit, but the order from the headquarters came down, and he had no choice but to obey the order and send a wing north to Linyi to support.

However, Li Zongren's layout was not over, and the direction of the Japanese army's march had not changed, so Li Zongren ordered the Shandong army of Han Fuqu to put on the clothes of the Central Army, carry the cannons made of wood, and swagger through the city on Weishan Lake on the 1,200 ships urgently mobilized.

Weishan Lake is located next to Xuzhou and is connected to Lincheng, from here you can cut off the Jinpu Railway at any time. When Ryosuke Isoya saw the information reported by the air force and the news from the spies, he immediately felt that this was a reinforcement from the Nationalist Army, and when he saw the information from the front, he said that the enemy on the opposite side dared to fight with the Imperial Army with bayonets.

You must know that the army that dares to fight with the imperial army with bayonets is the absolute main force of the Chinese army. Based on the overall judgment, Isoya Ryosuke believed that the troops on the lake were Tang Enbo's Central Army, and Tang Enbo's troops performed well in Nankou and Hebei.

Li Zongren finally relieved himself when he saw the news that the Japanese army had transferred to Taierzhuang from the inner line, but this was only in the north, and the Japanese army in the south also made Li Zongren unable to let go.

In fact, the main force of the Japanese army is now in the south, and how to prevent the Japanese army in the south from interfering in this operation is the key to the operation.

The unit selected by Li Zongren was the New Fourth Army.

Li Zongren had long known that the guerrilla warfare of the Red Party troops was very powerful, and he felt that the use of the Red Party troops in this kind of battle to contain the enemy was simply a dereliction of duty on the part of the commander.

After Ye Ting received the order. Immediately began to command the troops to start a guerrilla war, and since Wang Ming was also preparing to strengthen the united front in order to better carry out the work in Wuhan, he asked Xiang Ying to fully support Ye Ting's work.

It was the 13th Division that attacked the Huaihe defense line, and the main forces of the New Fourth Army were all veterans of guerrilla warfare in the south for several years; in the face of the Japanese army, which was only thinking of finding the main force for a decisive battle, it only felt like it was teasing a big grizzly bear; during the Battle of Taierzhuang, the entire 13th Division did not set foot in Xuzhou even a half-step. Instead, he was taken by the New Fourth Army in Anhui and kept circling in circles, and the equipment of the New Fourth Army was still brand new German weapons, and even if it was frontal, it could fight with the 13th Division for a few rounds, not to mention guerrilla warfare. The 13th Division reluctantly retreated to Nanjing after losing two or three thousand men and horses.

When all the conditions were ripe, Li Zongren began to make dumplings.

The 10th Division came to Taierzhuang, and the 10th Division had three infantry wings at this time, and one wing each of the cavalry, artillery, engineer, and baggage directly under the jurisdiction of the division. There are also a communications corps, a sanitary corps and 4 field hospitals. Temporarily attached to 2 artillery wings and 2 machine gun brigades. 2 armored squadrons. The number of troops exceeded 30,000.

Ryosuke Isoya looked at the long black rock wall in front of him, shook his head helplessly, and said, "What era did the people of China live in, and you can see these walls everywhere, can one of them rely on these walls to stop our imperial warriors?" ”

The commander of the 63rd Infantry Wing, Fukuei Shinpei, took the lead and said, "Your Excellency the division commander, please leave the task of attacking to me, and I promise to end the battle within three hours." ”

Ryosuke Isoya touched his beard and said, "The warriors of our 10th Division are much more valuable than the people of China, and we order our artillery to teach our opponents first, what is called the god of war." “

The Japanese army concentrated more than 100 cannons, began to bombard the city gate of Taierzhuang continuously, for a time, the ground shook, the whole city wall seemed to be covered with a layer of red and yellow armor, the continuous explosion made the soldiers of the national army in the Tibetan soldier cave desperately close their eyes, cover their ears, from time to time the Tibetan soldier cave was blown up, and one after another squad of soldiers disappeared in the loess.

Chi Fengcheng saw that the position in front was completely covered by artillery fire, and worriedly called the head of the regiment in front Wang Zhen, "Wang Zhen, how are you?" Can you hold it? “

Wang Zhen was in the bunker, only feeling that his whole body was shaking, and he could only keep shouting, "Please rest assured, we will never take a step back." “

The Japanese artillery position was set up at Liujiahu, which was only five miles away from Taierzhuang, and one after another Japanese artillery shining with metallic light continued to spit out fire, and although the Japanese troops transporting ammunition were sweating all over their bodies in March, many of them simply stripped off their clothes and loaded ammunition shirtless.

Not far from the position, a Nationalist army unit was sticking to the ground, advancing slowly.

The leader was Gao Hongli, the commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 183rd Regiment, who was supposed to be fighting guerrillas on the periphery, but after knowing that the Japanese artillery position was set up next to him, he immediately approached the Japanese artillery position with a selected 200 death squad, each with a big knife and eight grenades. "Damn, we're going to have a big ticket this time." Gao Hongli has a black face and steel beard, and he looks fierce, and when he sees that he is almost crawling, he will be discovered by the Japanese outpost before he goes.

Gao Hongli took a deep breath and shouted, "Kill the devil!" With a big knife and rushed up, the Japanese soldiers guarding did not expect that there would be so many Chinese troops who would hurt people, Gao Hongli stepped forward, cut off the head of the sentry with a jump, and the blood splashed out like crazy, Gao Hongli licked his lips stained with blood, pointed to the Japanese artillery and said, "Kill!" “

The Japanese artillery did not talk about weapons for self-defense, many people were even naked, and hurriedly shouted, the soldiers of the national army didn't care what you called, one after another big blades were cut red, and nearly 100 Japanese soldiers died under the knife in a short time.

Gao Hongli still knew what he was doing here, and hurriedly shouted, "Don't patronize and kill, throw grenades and blow up cannons." “

The soldiers who heard the words hurriedly took out their grenades, and after pulling the strings, they stuffed them into the muzzles of the cannons one by one. There was a somewhat dull explosion. I only saw that the entire barrel of some cannons was protruding, and some of the cannons were even blown in two.

By the time the Japanese guards concentrated their forces and fought again, dozens of Japanese artillery pieces had already been destroyed.

Fukuei Zhenping, who led the troops to attack the city gate, saw that the shelling had stopped, and thought that the shelling was over, so he led his troops to attack.

Wang Zhen had already gone up to the city wall with a machine gun at this time, Wang Zhen looked at it and said, "Let the brothers take it easy, and wait for the devil to get closer before fighting." “

And the Japanese army's shooting began one or two hundred meters away, the soldiers of the first battalion of Wang Zhen's regiment are basically recruits, the recruits at this time are not the same as the recruits in the later period, most of the recruits in this period still take the initiative to join the army because of patriotism, these little soldiers who have just picked up the gun for a long time know that it is probably difficult to rely on shooting, so they have inserted bayonets, under the leadership of the battalion commander, like a little tiger rushed to the attacking Japanese army.

Furong Zhenping saw that there were Chinese troops rushing out, and he was a little nervous, and hurriedly ordered the troops to hedge up, many of the recruits of the Chinese troops had not even killed a chicken, and now let them kill, many of them saw blood and stumps flying everywhere, and their combat effectiveness could not even be brought into play, so they could only fight back desperately, and were soon killed and dispersed by the Japanese army, but these recruits did not flee because the battle formation was chiseled, but took the initiative to fight desperately with the Japanese army. Wang Zhen watched his soldiers die in front of him one by one, and his eyes were about to crack.

Wang Zhen frantically controlled the heavy machine gun, constantly nailing the Japanese army to the ground.

Furong Zhenping never thought that the national army in front of him would be tenacious to this point, but Furong Zhenping, who did not admit defeat, not only did not adjust his tactics, but continued to join the troops to attack the city.

Ryosuke Isoya finally smiled when he saw the city gate breached, what he didn't know was that Tang Enbo's army of 80,000 had begun to close the encirclement, and the arrival of another person announced his death sentence. (To be continued.) )

PS: There will be changes in Taierzhuang, wait and see