As soon as dawn broke, the formation of Japanese gunboats cruising on the Taihu Lake began to emit a deafening sound of shelling, and the shells made a terrible howl in the air, piercing the silence of the early morning.

On the defensive line of the 45th, 62nd, and 63rd Divisions, bursts of fire and gunpowder smoke rose from the ground, and heart-rending screams rang out from time to time.

For a time, the officers and soldiers of the country who were in the rudimentary fortifications were like falling into the Shura Hell, and everywhere they could see flying flesh and blood and broken arms, and the surviving officers and soldiers buried their heads in the trenches and endured hardship.

Some of the recruits persevered, no longer listening to the officers and veterans, crying and shouting, jumping out of the trenches and fleeing to the rear, but soon disappeared into the overwhelming explosion of fireballs, and their bodies turned into dust and smoke.

The quarter-hour shelling passed quickly, and just as the defenders were secretly glad that they had escaped, suddenly a loud roar of aircraft engines came, and many officers and men looked up blankly to see Japanese fighters passing from low altitudes, and rows of dense bullets poured down, and they were immediately beaten into bloody gourds.

More than a dozen warplanes strafed back and forth over the position, dropping dense bombs one after another and flying away

The smoke of the huge explosion gradually dissipated, and the overwhelming Japanese troops were rolling in, and countless devil soldiers frantically shouted "board loaded," and under the leadership of officers at all levels, they rushed towards the positions of the national army in a straggler formation.

Heavy machine guns were the first to erupt from the Nationalist positions, followed by light machine guns and rifles, but they were soon suppressed by a combination of Japanese infantry guns, mortars, and grenadiers.

When the Japanese army attacked, it was usually dispersed into large and small units, carried out multi-point infiltration attacks, emphasized the use of non-frontal firepower to attack the defenders, and strived to disrupt the defenders' communication command and fire support system.

At present, the Chinese defenders east of Nanxun have been crushed under this fierce offensive.

Tao Liu, who was located in the forward headquarters of Fangjiagang Village, held a telescope and watched blankly as his soldiers melted rapidly under the repeated impact of Japanese artillery fire and infantry, like ice and snow exposed to the sun, and the blood almost stained the position red. In the face of the combined strangulation of Japanese naval guns, aircraft, and artillery, the three lines of defense in the front and rear of the 62nd Division held out for two hours, and finally collapsed on the whole line.

Looking at all this in front of him, Tao Liu almost couldn't believe his eyes, he had participated in the attack of the Temporary Third Division on the Japanese Kunisaki Detachment throughout the whole process, and saw with his own eyes that in the thunderous attack of the Temporary Third Division, the Kunisaki Detachment gradually lost its support from point to surface and finally fled, and there was almost no power to fight back, so he thought that the Japanese army was not as powerful as the legend, and as long as the Chinese army took it seriously, coupled with the defensive advantage, it was not much inferior to the Japanese army.

However, today the 62nd Division defended with all its might, and despite its best efforts, it still fought back. Faced with the rout of his own troops, Tao Liu sat on the ground weakly, wanting to cry without tears.

Seeing that the Japanese army that broke through the defense line was rushing towards Fangjiagang, two fierce guards, one on the left and one on the right, picked up Tao Liu, and quickly retreated to the rear under the cover of the guard company.

On the battlefield, the Japanese Seventh Division was like a long-hidden sword, taking over the 18th Division that tore through the defense line of the Nationalist Army, following the ass of the officers and men of the three divisions of Dai Minquan, Tao Liu, and Chen Guangzhong, who had fled, and drove straight in

Looking at the soldiers of the Nationalist Army who fled in the distance, Kazuichiro Sonobe waved his hand at Nakajima Sadao with a cruel smile on his horse, and set off with a proud face, and the officers of the 18th Division who had not been washed up and down were not light, and the face of the division commander, Lieutenant General Nakajima Sadao, was particularly ugly, rising like a pig's liver.

The Seventh Division pursued at such a fast pace that it was like chasing ducks, and every shot fired by the Japanese soldiers would take the life of a Chinese deserter.

In less than half an hour, the defeated Chinese officers and soldiers had fled into Nanxun County.

Following in the footsteps of the deserters, the Japanese army entered Nanxun County, and the officers and men of the 52nd and 55th Divisions and the 128th Division, which were already being reorganized, rose up to fight.

Most of the county towns in Nanxun are some low thatched and brick houses, and occasionally there are some two-story arcades and small western-style buildings; in the dense artillery fire of the Japanese army, one building after another collapsed, and the Chinese officers and soldiers in it were either killed or wounded, and the defense line was quickly shaken. The collapse spread rapidly from point to point, and finally could not be suppressed, and tens of thousands of officers and soldiers finally gave up the defense and fled to the west of the city.

When the news of the defeat at the front reached the headquarters of the Right Wing Army in Jima Village near the West Gate, Zhang Fakui almost went crazy, and it took less than three days for the Third Division to leave, and the Right Wing Army, which had six divisions and six brigades, lost its defensive line again, which was really embarrassing.

Seeing that the Japanese artillery fire was about to hit the headquarters, Liu Jianxu was anxious and persuaded: "Commander, let's go, the Japanese army is about to fight, and if you don't leave, it's too late."

Zhang Fakui pushed away the guards who were about to stand up to him, stared at Liu Jianxu viciously, and asked loudly: "The new Second Division has been holding out in Pinghu for a week, and they have suffered ten times and a hundred times more artillery fire than they are now, why can they do it but the 28th Army can't?" What about Tao Guangren? ”

Liu Jianxu was speechless for a while.

People are more popular than people, and the new Second Division is different from other units in terms of weaponry and training, where can it be generalized? Besides, he didn't see the process of the Battle of Pinghu with his own eyes, just relying on the battle report, where did he know so much? Now the crux of the matter is that the front line has been defeated, and if two more generals are gone, they will fall into the hands of the Japanese

"Boom-"

A violent explosion sounded next to the compound where the headquarters was located, and it was shocked by the shock wave, and the bricks and rubble on the roof trickled down, smashing everyone's face to ashes, and a staff officer even broke his head and bled blood.

Liu Jianxu couldn't care about anything else, and gestured to the guards who gathered up, and the two strong guards ran outside with Zhang Fakui in their arms.

By noon, the county seat of Nanxun had all fallen, and with the escape of Zhang Fakui and Liu Jianxu, the officers and soldiers below had no intention of fighting, and fled to Wuxing in a swarm along the highway on the north and south banks of the canal-Hushen line.

Sonobe and Ichiro stopped at Nanxun County for a while, handed over the defense of Nanxun to the 18th Division, and then led his troops to continue to pursue the fleeing national army.

The 25th and 28th Wings of the Seventh Division, which rushed to the front, were like two sharp machetes, swinging left and right, wantonly reaping the lives of the officers and men of the country.

Towards the evening, the 7th Division fought to the line from Xinggang, Zhili, Jiuguan and Shuanglin, and finally encountered the stubborn resistance of the officers and soldiers of the 3rd Division, and the Japanese army was repulsed by three consecutive charges, and saw that the troops suffered heavy casualties and had to order to stop the pursuit, and set up a position on the line of Changle, Luoyao and Shijiadun with their backs to the river

Zhang Fakui, Liu Jianxu, Tao Guang and other members of the right-wing army met with Zhou Juncheng, a general of the Provisional Third Division, who came to meet him at Bailongguan in the west of Zhili Town.

Subsequently, with the help of Zhou Juncheng's regiment, all divisions and brigades began to collect the rout, and when the number of troops was checked at 11 o'clock in the evening, it was found that most of the right wing army had been lost, and many troops were missing one by one, which made Zhang Fakui lose face.

At 3 o'clock in the morning, while the Japanese army was asleep, the Chinese army took the initiative to withdraw from the temporary defense line and retreated to Wuxingcheng.

Due to the dense water network around Taihu Lake, it effectively delayed the advance of the Japanese army and gave the right wing army a chance to breathe. At 9 o'clock in the morning of the next day, Zhou Juncheng led two battalions to ambush Shenjiaguan Village on the north bank of the canal, and counterattacked a large Japanese brigade that had broken away from the pursuit of the main force and found that the situation was not right.

The Japanese army reacted quickly, adjusted the battle formation at the first time, counterattacked and defended, and Zhou Juncheng's regiment was mostly recruited, and the attack was not decisive enough to expand the results.

Seeing that it was impossible to achieve the victory of the total annihilation of the Japanese army, Zhou Juncheng instructed to lay mines and immediately leave the battle, and was constantly attacked and harassed by Japanese planes on the way to the west, due to the lack of air defense weapons, Zhou Juncheng led his troops to pick reeds and thatched bushes, and from time to time to take refuge in the woods and bamboo forests, but still suffered many casualties.

After receiving the news that Zhang Fakui and others had returned safely, Long Shaogang, who was already in the temporary headquarters of the temporary third division of Feiying Tower in Wuxing County, breathed a long sigh of relief.

Although Zhang Fakui suffered defeats in a row, he was the commander of the right-wing army, and if it fell into the hands of the Japanese army, not only would the country lose face, but the temporary third division would also bear a certain responsibility.

By the time Zhang Fakui led the rout into Wuxing County, it was already one o'clock at noon on December 3, and Long Shaogang led the officers and soldiers to prepare a hot meal to welcome Zhang Fakui and his party.

Zhang Fakui, Liu Jianxu, Tao Guang and other generals were ashamed and ashamed, and they hastily ate something and went to rest.

The ordinary officers and men were frightened all the way from the night before yesterday to today, and the food prepared by the Third Provisional Division now moved them to tears, and they pulled the officers and men who brought the food and said that they also wanted to join the Third Provisional Division.

One meal solved the problem of food and clothing for tens of thousands of officers and men, quickly brought the Third Division closer to friendly forces, and greatly enhanced the sense of collective honor and superiority of the officers and men of the Third Division.

When Zhang Fakui led his troops to retreat into Wuxingcheng, the Japanese Seventh Division was only five kilometers away from Wuxing, and the Eighteenth Division was less than eight kilometers away from Wuxing.

At 3 p.m. on 3 December, the Japanese Seventh Division rushed to the east of Wuxingcheng and immediately launched an attack.

Although the Japanese artillery fire was fierce, all units of the Nationalist Army gradually recovered their morale under the influence of the Temporary Third Division, and they were able to withstand the strong attack of the Japanese army.

That night, the 7th Division, reinforced by the 18th Division, launched four group charges at Wuxingcheng in one go, and the two wings of the Japanese artillery covering the charge almost beat the barrels red, and the dense shells bombarded the defenders' defense line like raindrops. By early morning, the Japanese army successfully crossed Yujiayang, and the 62nd Division guarding the line could not resist, so the Japanese army successfully erected a pontoon bridge and attacked the city.

The situation in Wuxing took a sharp turn for the worse, and many officers and soldiers of the country lost their fighting spirit and fled to the north bank of the Huancheng River through the north gate, ready to cross the Xitiao River and flee to Changxing County in the north.

At the headquarters of the new Second Division, Wu Ming, who received an urgent report from Long Shaogang, checked the map against the telegram and figured out the next move of the Japanese army.

Wu Ming was not interested in knowing how Wuxing City was lost, after all, Wuxing was located on the edge of Taihu Lake, with a dense water network, and it was not an important military town, and the east and south of its county town did not even build city walls, so it was not surprising that the various departments of the national army could not resist it.

Wu Ming is currently most worried about Okamura Ninji's Second Division.

The battle has continued until now, and this main division has not yet appeared, and no trace of this division can be found anywhere, which is very abnormal.

Okamura Ninji is a scheming fellow, who has a keen political sense, is a military genius, and also knows how to work in intelligence.