Seeing Xu Jiu's guilty expression, Feng Shengfa patted him on the shoulder and said with relief: "Ah Jiu, you have done your best. ”

"I know." Xu Shijiu nodded, and said: "Shizuo, there is one more thing, today the 3rd Company scrapped eight gun barrels, I hope that the Ordnance Department can replenish me, and then I hope that Hu Jie's mortar company can be transferred to me for command, tomorrow Xiaori's offensive will only be more fierce, if there is no artillery support, I am afraid this battle will not be easy to fight."

The 58th Division originally had an artillery battalion directly under the division, under the jurisdiction of a mountain artillery company, an anti-aircraft artillery company and two mortar companies, Hu Jie was the company commander of one of the mortar companies, but before arriving in Luodian, the anti-aircraft artillery company was detained by the group army headquarters, and was attacked by the Japanese army in Luodian, and only Hu Jie's artillery company escaped the catastrophe.

Since then, Hu Jie's artillery company has been operating with the 19th Brigade.

After the 74th Army was transferred from the Third Theater to the Nanjing Garrison Headquarters, Tang Shengzhi transferred four L50mm caliber heavy mortars to the 5L Division and the 58th Division, and Feng Shengfa used these four heavy mortars as the backbone, plus Hu Jie's mortar company and the other regimental artillery platoons to rebuild the artillery battalion, which was specially used to seal the road from Suolangxi to Nanjing.

Feng Shengfa readily agreed: "Okay, Hu Jie's artillery company can be under your command, and if necessary, I will also let the heavy mortar company also directly provide you with artillery support." ”

"Master, don't." Xu Shijiu hurriedly said, "It's better not to expose the heavy mortar company first, when Xiao Ri doesn't want to attack it, let's fire when the sappers are sent to repair the road, after all, there are not many shells for heavy mortars, and there are only more than 400 shells in total, and they are consumed at this time, and there will be no fighting in the back." ”

"Okay." Feng Shengfa was not hypocritical, and immediately sent an adjutant to call Hu Jie in.

When Hu Jie returned to the Patriarch Hall of Hongjue Temple with the artillery company and Xu Shijiu, Gao Shenxing had already returned, he took the guard platoon to touch the ancestral hall mountain at night, and wanted to sneak attack Xiao Ri Ben, but it turned out that Xiao Ri Ben was heavily guarded, and not only dug trenches around the station, but also pulled up barbed wire with barbs, and searchlights were constantly sweeping around.

However, Gao Shenxing still brought back a piece of news, in the middle of the night, a huge Japanese convoy arrived at Dongshan Bridge, not to mention hundreds of trucks, as well as dozens of armored vehicles and tanks, many of which were dragging heavy artillery behind them, and it should have been the field artillery wing that was left behind.

Gu Wei said worriedly: "Captain, this is troublesome. ”

Gao Shenxing also said heavily: "Judging from the process of the Battle of Songhu, Xiao Ri's infantry and artillery coordination level is indeed very high, and his infantry even dares to advance the sortie position to within fifty meters of the impact point!" It took six or seven seconds to rush up from a distance of fifty meters, and in such a short time, our brothers did not even have time to get out of the bomb shelter. ”

"It doesn't matter." Xu Shijiu waved his hand and said indifferently, "Xiao Ri's infantry and artillery coordination is powerful, but this shijie is not only Xiao Ri's infantry and artillery coordination, but our national army is also good." ”

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The information brought back by Gao Shenxing is basically accurate, the 6th Field Artillery Wing of the 6th Division of the Japanese Army has indeed rushed to Dongshan Bridge, and the 6th Wing of the Field Artillery arrived with the brigade commander of the 36th Infantry Brigade, Mitsuru Ushijima, who led his troops to capture the Shanghai Municipal Government 24 days ago, and now this old devil has pointed his blade at Nanjing, the capital of the Central Chinese State.

At twelve o'clock in the evening, Ushijima was tired of carriages and horses, and urgently convened a staff meeting of the officers.

There are two kinds of staff meetings in Konichimoto, one is the cabinet meeting, and only the commander of the unit and the chief of staff are qualified to attend the meeting when they reach a certain level, and this kind of meeting is convened in the army in peacetime, and the other is the staff meeting, as long as the chief officer presiding over the meeting thinks it is appropriate, even a small second lieutenant adjutant can participate, this kind of meeting is not held often, and only occasionally held when the chief officer is unable to make a decision in an extremely difficult emergency.

At this time, the emergency staff meeting convened by Ushijima Mitsuru belonged to the staff meeting.

The first topic of the meeting was to assess the need to storm Niushou Mountain.

During the day today, the 23rd Infantry Wing encountered fierce resistance at the foot of Niushou Mountain, and the Takada Brigade, which was in charge of the main attack, suffered more than 500 casualties, and all four infantry squadrons were disabled.

Under such circumstances, it is debatable whether to continue to storm Niushou Mountain.

If the Kumamoto Division (the 6th Division) delays in Niushou Mountain for a long time, the first to fall into Nanjing will fall to the 9th Division or the 13th Division, which is something that all the officers and men of the Kumamoto Division cannot complain about.

In a word, the city of Nanjing is the primary goal of the Kumamoto Division!

However, this did not mean that the Kumamoto Division could ignore the Chinese army on Niushou Mountain, and still less did it mean that the Kumamoto Division could bypass Niushou Mountain and directly attack the city of Nanjing, because the only road for the Kumamoto Division to attack Nanjing passed through the west side of Niushou Mountain, and this road would become a logistical supply line for the Kumamoto Division to attack Nanjing.

If the Japanese troops on the north and middle routes are also not progressing well, the Kumamoto Division, which is alone in depth, is very likely to fall into the encirclement of the national army, and it is also possible that a war of annihilation will be fought in turn by the Chinese army.

Although Ushijima Man, an old devil, was arrogant, he did not think that the Kumamoto division could defeat the national army with hunger and bayonets, and it would be able to capture the city of Nanjing.

The atmosphere of the meeting was not warm, although nominally all the staff officers attending the meeting could speak, but in addition to the old devil Ushijima Man, who really spoke at the meeting, there were only Okamoto Zhenchen, the commander of the 23rd Infantry Wing, and Kanda Masasang, the commander of the 45th Infantry Wing.

In the evening of the same day, the 6th Field Artillery Wing began to repair artillery fortifications on both sides of the road.

The next day, December 6, early in the morning, a huge balloon rose from the position of the 6th Field Artillery Wing.

Soon, two of the field guns began a test firing, followed by a second one.

After the second test firing, there was a pause for about ten minutes, and then the 24 75mm field guns and 12 L05mm field guns of the 6th Field Artillery Wing roared at the same time.

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Xiao Mao Nan was squatting in front of the shooting hole, silently smoking the old knife.

Xiao Mao Nan and four other veterans are in charge of a semi-enclosed heavy machine gun nest at the foot of the mountain, their heavy machine gun nest is extremely cleverly constructed, originally a rock crack between two boulders, the rock crack is facing east and west, facing the southern slope of Zutang Mountain and the passage up the mountain, the front of the rock crack has been completely killed with masonry and cement, and people can enter it from the top by hanging cable.

Xiao Mao Nan looked out through the shooting hole, and saw that the two mountain roads up the mountain and the entire slope facing south were completely shrouded in thick gunsmoke.

In the smoke that could not be dissolved, there would be a dazzling red light from time to time, followed by a deafening explosion, a huge wave of sound rushed into the nest of the heavy machine gun through the shooting hole, and reverberated in the small space, which could literally shake the soul of a person out of the shell, and at this moment, except for the buzzing sound, Xiao Mao Nan could no longer hear anything.

The little boy who didn't want to go to the stone wall hatefully pressed the cigarette butt to extinguish it, and scolded in his heart: It's really his mother's money to give up his blood, and the shelling is almost half an hour, right? At the rate of fire of two rounds per minute, and based on the calculation of 36 guns of an artillery wing, at least more than 2,000 shells were fired in half an hour.

However, if Xiao Rijian thought that he could destroy the side-firing point of the 19th Brigade by shelling alone, then he would be wrong, because the light and heavy machine gun nests of the 19th Brigade were either built in dead corners that could not be covered by Japanese artillery fire, or they were built under huge rocks weighing hundreds or even thousands of tons, not to mention artillery shells, even thousand-pound aerial bombs were helpless.

If you want to destroy the light and heavy machine gun nest of the 19th Brigade, there is no other way, Xiao Ri can only fill it with human lives, when Xiao Mao Nan's machine gun is blown up or the bullets are exhausted, Xiao Ri can rush to the position, otherwise, no matter how many Xiao Ri Ben comes, he will have to be buried here.

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Half an hour after the 6th Wing of the Japanese Field Artillery bombarded Mt. Zutang, Captain Takeshi Noguchi entered the sortie position with the entire 180 Japanese soldiers, and the sortie position of the Noguchi Squadron was even only 50 meters away from the artillery shelling range, which was an extremely terrible and dangerous distance, and the shells fired by the artillery of this side could fall on their heads by mistake at any time, causing accidental injuries.

I took out my pocket watch and looked at the time, the hour hand was already pointing to 7:38, and in two minutes, the artillery fire of the field artillery wing would extend forward and launch a continuous artillery bombardment of the deep positions of the national army on the mountainside of Zutang Mountain, while the Noguchi squadron would quickly break through the defense line of the national army before the smoke of gunfire had dissipated and the sight of the national machine-gun nest had not yet recovered.

There won't be much time left for the Noguchi squadron, and once the smoke clears, they will immediately be exposed to the guns of the national army, and just a few machine gun nests can take out the entire Noguchi squadron.

Suddenly, Noguchi's white-gloved right hand was already tightly gripping the long handle of the saber, and several squad leaders were staring at Noguchi's right hand for a moment, just waiting for Noguchi's saber to be unsheathed, they would not hesitate to lead the entire infantry squad to jump out of the trench and charge forward.