July 6, 1932, eleven o'clock in the morning.

When the Southwest Air Force took off again from the Daxing Airport in Beiping and the North Airport in Taiyuan, the encirclement and annihilation battle began. The planes taking off from the Daxing airport were still responsible for supporting the Kuomintang blocking positions in the Xushui and Xin'an directions, while the Taiyuan North Africa airfield was responsible for supporting the annihilation battle outside Baoding.

The battle of annihilation outside Baoding proceeded very quickly, and when a huge bomber group composed of hundreds of planes of various types flew over the Yue army, the Yue army had lost all its anti-aircraft firepower, and any fighter could strafe any place at a low altitude, and he himself painfully found that they could only hide in the trenches and wail, enjoying the dive strafing of Chinese fighters in the air again and again and the bombing of heavy aerial bombs.

Different from previous ground bombings, in this bombing, planes flying from the southwest to the north airfield put tremendous pressure on the Chinese army, and it can be said that it was the group bombing composed of more than 100 advanced planes that crushed the Fifth Division, which was enclosed in a small circle.

After the encirclement and annihilation battle began, with the bombing of the air force as the vanguard, the two main divisions in the southwest took the 3rd Regiment of the 3rd Division of the Main Division, each equipped with 1,500 submachine guns, and the 1st Regiment of the 4th Division of the Main Division as the vanguard of the attack.

During the attack on the trenches, the submachine gun once again showed the great power of its 'trench broom', the short gun body, the dense firepower, it was simply the nightmare of the defenders of the trenches, as long as it was broken through by a few southwestern armies, the entire section of the position was lost.

Although this kind of submachine gun was issued on a temporary and large-scale basis, the main division originally had one or two pieces of equipment per squad, and the fact that it was not equipped on a large scale did not mean that it was not trained in peacetime. As is a common practice in the southwest, while the main force is trying to equip these weapons, it is also necessary to do a good job of receiving new equipment at any time. While saving, it is also necessary to complete the training task. During the year, the unit always concentrates on several submachine gun shooting training. And for these professional soldiers, the recoil of a submachine gun is much smaller than that of a single-shot rifle, and it is easy to make a fuss, even if it is fired urgently on the battlefield, it is only half a magazine to find the feeling.

This time, the encirclement and annihilation battle went unusually smoothly, because after the army was surrounded, the ammunition was exhausted under the high-intensity battle, and in the face of the encirclement of the two main divisions in the southwest, there was no ability to penetrate the defense at all.

And it was in this battle that the cluster offensive capability of the modern army in the southwest was finally demonstrated.

Earlier, when the troops of a regiment or a division were put on the defensive battlefield, the army only felt that the defensive line of these southwestern armies could not be broken through, and the feeling of being difficult to resist was not as strong as it is now.

And when the encirclement and annihilation battle began, Lieutenant General Yanagawa Heisuke, commander of the Fifth Division of the Japanese Army, finally understood that the Southwest Army was so terrible.

For example, the Yue Army, which also built a position, a brigade resisted stubbornly, but it was quickly captured by the same number of troops of the Southwest Army.

They were fully armed, and apart from the absence of chariot units and cluster artillery, their infantry configuration almost suppressed the Japanese army to the death.

When encountering the resistance of the grenadier group, in addition to pulling up the infantry artillery, the opponent often flies over with a rocket, and directly destroys the stubborn grenadier group.

In addition to rocket suppression, the opponent's Ripper heavy machine gun can well follow the troops to provide fire suppression during the march due to its convenient movement.

Speaking of marksmanship, the army also found that the marksmanship of the Southwest Army was more accurate than its own, especially their widespread grassroots sharpshooters, which could be seen in almost every company and platoon, and the result was that at any attack point, as long as there were a few soldiers with good marksmanship, they would immediately be taken care of by the opponent's sharpshooters, and then they would soon be directly shot in the head.

Of course, these are only details that reflect the combat effectiveness of an army, and in Yanagawa Heisuke's view, the real horror of the Southwest Army lies in the cluster advantage. The combat effectiveness of the two divisions is far stronger than that of the two divisions fighting alone, and they are used appropriately in offensive tactics, and even a commander at the battalion and regimental level can formulate several plans during the offensive.

This proves that the modern officer education in the southwest has gone ahead of the empire.

This proves that not only do they have an army that has undergone 20 years of professional military training, but they also have a large number of excellent officers.

He didn't even expect that the two Chinese he once disdained, the two juniors of the non-commissioned officer school, Cai Gong and Jiang Baili of the sixteenth and seventeenth phases of the army non-commissioned officer school respectively, would cause such great harm to the empire. One is the chief of general staff of the Southwest Army, the other is at the helm of the highest military academy of the Chinese, and has cultivated a large number of modern military talents.

The Fifth Division of the Chinese Army, after being quickly broken through its position, was divided into small regiments in less than half a day, and the Southwest Army quickly broke up the Japanese Army in the fierce attack, and then organized an attack on these small units that had lost their threat.

At 3 p.m. on the 6th, the Southwest Army was already cleaning up the battlefield.

The whole battlefield can see groups of Japanese soldiers being escorted towards the prisoner of war assembly area, burning corpses everywhere, some of the corpses of the soldiers are still pressed on heavy machine guns after they die, some are hit by artillery fire, scattered in the trenches and stumps everywhere to declare that they have fought, and some of them want to fight back when they are dying, or pretend to be wounded, hiding under the corpses, thinking about burning the jade with the [***] people, but what is ushered in is only a bullet that penetrates the corpse.

As for the wounded, the Southwest Army refused to provide medical treatment and went into the prisoner of war camp, even if they could survive, otherwise it would be better to go to see Amaterasu as soon as possible. It is better to spend huge medical expenses to treat these prisoners, so it is better to build a few more submachine guns.

Although the Southwest Army did not shoot the captured Yue soldiers on a large scale, the few thousand remaining Yue soldiers will not become bargaining chips on the negotiating table in the future, and they will use their splendid youth to forgive their sins in China. In the revival of China, there are too many large-scale transportation projects or mines waiting for them.

After the 3rd and 4th Divisions completed the encirclement and annihilation battle and captured the Yue army, they handed over the task of cleaning the battlefield to the only [***] second class division on the battlefield.

The 3rd and 4th Divisions quickly marched towards Xushui and Xin'an, intending to make new contributions, but Shirakawa Yoshinori, who had received the news of the destruction of the 5th Division, urgently ordered the two divisions to retreat while preparing to plead guilty to the military headquarters.

It is a pity that before the retreat, the troops of the four divisions lacked the ability to pursue, and by the time the two main divisions in the southwest arrived at the battlefield, the army had already broken away from contact with the squadron and fled more than 20 miles in great strides.

The entire battlefield was abandoned by the army, and they didn't even have time to take away a single wounded, and all the wounded were shot in the field hospital by themselves.

On this day, the siege of Baoding was completely over, and the Chinese people won the greatest victory since the War of Resistance Against Japan. Not counting the defensive forces on the Beiping side, more than eight divisions and 100,000 troops were mobilized before and after the entire annihilation battle, and more than 800 sorties were taken off by air and planes to support them.

Due to the rapid movement of the Southwest Army, it defeated the Fifth Division in a short period of time beyond the expectations of the Yue Army, and finally the Chinese Combined Army of eight divisions won a great victory over the three divisions of the Yue Army.

The Fifth Division of the Army, under the commander of the division Yanagawa Heisuke, was killed or wounded more than 10,000 people, and several thousand of them were captured, except for His Excellency, the commander of the division, who used his saber to open his belly and apologize for his crimes. In addition to the air raids by the Southwest Air Force, the two divisions also left too many corpses in front of the positions of the four Kuomintang divisions, and the total casualties of the two divisions reached more than 6,000 people. (More than 1,000 people were killed or wounded in the air raids, and the four divisions [***] killed nearly 4 or 5,000 people combined.) This is still under the premise that [***] has the air support provided by the Southwest Air Force, but the army lacks artillery, if the situation is reversed, or if the battle drags on for another day or two, then the [***] of the four divisions will end in a crushing defeat.

Of course, the Central [***] team also paid a heavy price, except for the two divisions of the southwest division suffered relatively small losses, the losses of each Kuomintang division involved in the war reached a huge number of several thousand, especially Zhang Zizhong's 38th Division and Fang Shuhong's 21st Division, which was also the division commander, suffered particularly heavy casualties. Zhang Zizhong himself was wounded in the leg, Fang Shuhong was also injured by shrapnel from artillery shells, and Huo Shouyi, commander of the 21st Division, was killed by artillery shells from the Yue Army. Compared with the more elite Xin'an blocking force, the 38th Division counted the number of people after the war, and only more than 2,000 people were wounded, and the battle losses were as high as two-thirds.

After the war, Zhang Zizhong himself told reporters truthfully: If it were not for the rapid annihilation victory of the Southwest Army against the Fifth Division of the Chinese Army, the only choice for the 38th Division would be to retreat.

On July 7, 1932, Zhang Shusheng, the supreme administrator of the Southwest Alliance, delivered a speech on the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in Kunming, and spoke highly of this great victory achieved by the cooperation of the two armies.

“…… This was a great victory, and the destruction of the Fifth Division of the Chinese Army proved the ironclad fact that China was no longer the late Qing Dynasty and Chinese capable of countering any aggression...... We will fight to the end until we reclaim all our fallen lands...... And their sacrifice will give impetus to the process of rejuvenation of the entire nation......"

Chiang Kai-shek, the political axe of the Nanjing Nationalists, also delivered an enthusiastic speech on the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression at his official residence in Nanjing, claiming that this was a great victory since the War of Resistance Against Japan, that the myth of the invincibility of the army had finally been shattered, and that it would be completely shattered, and that China would definitely achieve the final victory of the War of Resistance against Japan.

In the ensuing news discussion, many people also reflected on why the Kuomintang army was not as capable of fighting as the army in the southwest. Although they were also able to fight bravely, the shocking casualty figures were painful.

Although the results of the discussion were varied, the name of the Southwest Army's good fighting spirit has already been known to the people of the country, and photos of them can be found on the front page of every newspaper: The officers and men of the Southwest Army wearing field camouflage uniforms are full of spirit and their faces are full of strong fighting spirit. They are seen resting in the trenches, fighting, or escorting captured soldiers...... In the midst of this great discussion, there was also an incident that made the Nanjing National Political Axe extremely passive.

The Southwest Daily published a signed article, in which well-known patriots Ms. Song Qingling, Mr. Lu Xun, Cai Yuanpei and others jointly called on the Southwest Political Axe and the Nanjing National Political Axe to hold reunification talks.

“…… In this war of national defense, we have seen that a China that is not unified cannot exert its greatest energy. However, a unified political axe can protect the homeland and the country, defend the land and the people. We call on the Southwest United Autonomous Government and the Nanjing National Government to face up to the major issues of national reunification and ethnic unity, and to hold sincere negotiations on the issue of reunification......"

After this signed article incident, all Chinese people began to realize a truth, that only by reunifying and strengthening China can we counter foreign aggression, defend the land and secure the people, and bring hope to the nation.

From north to south, the voices calling for reunification have never stopped.

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(To be continued)