Outside Dingxing City, the artillery bombardment of the tank regiment of the 1st Division and the artillery of the 1st Division had not yet ended, and at this time, the commander of the 1st Division, Jiang Haidong, led the main force of the division to arrive.

After the divisional air defense regiment, the 75mm Krupp artillery regiment, the guard company, the communications company, and the other two main infantry regiments all arrived, Jiang Haidong and Liu Yidao discussed and decided that the artillery regiment air defense regiment would immediately build a position, the former joining the artillery attack on the Japanese city defense in Dingxing, and the latter should guard against possible air raids by devils.

Half an hour later, the defensive positions of the artillery regiment and the air defense regiment had been formed, and the two artillery battalions of the 2nd Infantry Regiment and the 3rd Infantry Regiment had also formed their artillery positions.

At this point, the artillery firepower of the 1st Division, which was gathered outside Dingxing City, had reached two regiments and one tank regiment, and the firepower was unprecedentedly strong.

"Division commander, I think it's time to attack." Liu Yidao, commander of the first regiment and deputy division commander, stood in the temporary headquarters and said to Jiang Haidong.

Jiang Haidong said: "Don't worry, we obviously occupy an absolute advantage in artillery fire, so let the artillery group shell more and cause as much damage to the devils as possible, in fact, the most important thing is to hit and disintegrate the morale of their army."

Moreover, I think that the devils should not sit idly by, so the regiments postponed the attack in case the devils counterattacked. ”

Liu Yidao nodded and said: "Well, if the little devils in the city really dare to go out of the city to counterattack, hehe, then it is exactly what we want, and we guarantee that they will not return!" ”

Jiang Haidong lit a cigarette, looked up at the blue sky while smoking, and said meaningfully: "Do you remember that before we set out on the expedition, the commander had specially instructed us that the only thing that needed special precautions was the air attack of the devils." ”

Liu Yidao's face turned solemn and said: "You mean that the devil will send air force fighters to attack us?" ”

"That's right, it's the Air Force, now this is the only shortcoming of all departments of my Dragon's Tooth Column, and it is officially because of this that the commander and chief of staff will not hesitate to postpone the Northern Expedition for more than half a year, in order to equip the troops below us with a certain amount of air defense force.

Otherwise, why wait for more than half a year? How could the commander not know how precious the past six months have been to the Japanese devils? Jiang Haidong said with emotion: "The commander is far-sighted, by no means comparable to us, sending more than 300 people including Li Yansan to learn flying skills is a very correct move!" ”

Liu Yidao nodded in agreement, and suddenly, a piercing roar of aircraft engines came from the airspace ahead.

Jiang Haidong and Liu Yidao were startled when they heard this, the two glanced at each other, and immediately raised their hands and raised their binoculars to look at each other.

Some small black dots flew towards them from far and near, Jiang Haidong immediately put down the binoculars, and ordered in a deep voice: "It's the enemy's plane, pass the order, all artillery units immediately stop shelling, air defense regiments, tank regiments and regiments prepare for air defense, give me the air force that beats the little devil hard!" ”

As soon as the order was transmitted, the six artillery battalions immediately stopped shelling and covered the artillery with the prepared straw mats and camouflage canvases.

The officers and men of the air defense regiment quickly raised the muzzles of anti-aircraft machine guns and anti-aircraft guns and waited for the battle.

The tank regiment also drove back, and at the same time, the muzzles of all the vehicle-mounted general-purpose machine guns were also pointed diagonally to the sky, and the officers and men of each unit performed their duties without panic, as if they were all under control.

Jiang Haidong was right, as early as Liu Yidao led the forward troops to Dingxing and launched an artillery bombardment of the Japanese puppet army in the city, the Japanese commander sent a telegram to the North China Front Army Headquarters requesting air force support.

Tada Jun and Iizawa Mamoru immediately gave their approval, agreed to the request, and decided to send 50 fighters to form a huge wave of air attack aircraft to assist the defenders of Zhuozhou and Dingxing in the battle.

After receiving this news, the Japanese commander in the city was greatly relieved and immediately formulated a bold counterattack plan, that is, to wait for the arrival of his own air force to launch a surprise air attack on the enemy.

The Japanese army in the city took advantage of the chaos of the dragon's tooth column outside the city to suddenly kill, and formed an assault group with elite troops to launch a counterattack on the dragon's tooth column, striving to defeat them in one fell swoop!

For this reason, the Japanese army has always maintained contact with this air attack group that took off from Beiping Airport, so when the devil air attack group arrived over Dingxing, the Japanese troops in the city were also quickly ready to attack.

In order to ensure the success of this counterattack, the Japanese commander in the city mobilized more than 3,000 elite infantry, in addition to more than a dozen tanks and armored vehicles, which will serve as the vanguard of the counterattack force to guide and cover the infantry charge.

俅俅俅俅...... The group of planes attacked by the devils this time, consisting of 20 Type 97 fighters and 30 Type 95 bombers, flew along with the group to the sky south of Dingxing City.

More than 30 devil bombers began to drop bombs one after another, while at the same time, more than 20 other fighters quickly dived down from the sky like falcons at high speed.

Jiang Haidong had been standing outside the headquarters with a telescope to observe the movements of the enemy planes, and when he saw this, he immediately picked up the telephone next to him and ordered: "Fire!" ”

The anti-aircraft regiments, tank regiments, anti-aircraft guns, anti-aircraft guns, vehicle-mounted universal machine guns, which had already been prepared, opened fire one after another.

In addition, thousands of general-purpose machine guns of several regiments also opened fire one after another, and in an instant, thousands of guns were fired at the outside of Dingxing City, and the dense bullets formed a series of eye-catching scarlet tongues of fire, which rushed straight to those Japanese planes in the sky.

Hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition formed a dense network of anti-aircraft fire, and anti-aircraft artillery shells were also sent into the air one after another, and suddenly exploded near the approaching enemy planes.

The three Type 97 fighters that had dived in the front were the first to be hit by a dense rain of bullets, and they caught fire and exploded in the air on the spot, and the wreckage of the plane turned into countless burning parts and flew wreaking havoc in the air.

It's like a cluster of brilliant fireworks.

"Damn, how could the Chinese army have such dense and powerful anti-aircraft firepower!" Seeing that several of his own fighters in front of him were destroyed in an instant, a Japanese soldier hurriedly piloted the fighter plane to pull it up, and in the process, he clearly saw the picture of hot and dazzling tongues of fire on the ground.

In addition, the anti-aircraft shells that constantly exploded in the air exploded into brilliant sparks, and the scene was extremely shocking, which made all the devil pilots tremble and be terrified.

At this time, the south gate of Dingxing, which had been closed, suddenly opened, and more than a dozen Japanese thin-skinned tanks and armored vehicles rumbled out of the city, and behind them there were a large number of heavily armed and group Japanese infantry.

At the same time, there were thousands of puppet troops from the east and west gates as a strategy, and they fought out at the same time, heading straight for the dragon's tooth column outside the city.