The Japanese Seventh Division sent two brigades to participate in the battle, and more than 1,000 soldiers, under the orders of officers at all levels, bent their waists one after another and launched an attack on the positions held by the New Second Division in a straggler formation.

After several days and nights of high-intensity marching, the Japanese troops, from officers to soldiers, were extremely tired and emaciated, but they were still full of spirit and spirit, and their bodies were full of ferocious energy that was not afraid of death.

Luo Yuming, who returned to the brigade headquarters at the foot of the mountain, calmly observed the movements of the Japanese army.

At this time, it was the second regiment that served as the heavy task of blocking the front line of Diantou Village and the rear Banqiao Mountain, Dadi Mountain, and Tianzhu Ridge, and the first regiment continued to carry out raid and harassment operations during this time, and had previously ambushed the Japanese army on the front line of Chuanqiao Mountain, and retreated to Bantian Mountain and Pangong Ridge north of Zhongshao River to resist the Japanese army.

Judging from the direction of the Japanese army's main attack, the 2nd Regiment was under heavy pressure.

On the front-line position in the east of the village, Major Fan Yuzhong, commander of the third battalion of the second regiment, shouted loudly: "The devils are coming, give Lao Tzu a hard beating, and kill these damn little devils."

"Bang bang—"

"Da-da-"

Rifles, light machine guns, and heavy machine guns are firing at full power, and the rain of vengeful bullets is shrouded in the devil soldiers who can already see the hideous expressions.

In the furious roar of bullets, puffs of blood mist rose from the Japanese army's front, and one by one the devil soldiers with guns rushed to the ground screaming.

The well-trained devil soldiers quickly lay down on the spot and counterattacked with the Type 38 rifles in their hands.

Once again, the Japanese showed accurate marksmanship, and the rain of bullets from the counterattack knocked down an officer and soldier of the 2nd Regiment who only showed half of his head from time to time on the defensive line.

After the deployed grenadiers extinguished the defenders' fire points one by one, the Japanese launched another assault.

Amid the deafening sound of "onboarding," about 600 devil soldiers jumped up from the ground and surged up in the face of the rain of bullets.

The officers and men of the 2nd Regiment on the front-line position, braving the suppressive fire of the Japanese army, shot desperately, and the bullets that came out of their disembowels knocked the crazy surprise devil soldiers to the ground from time to time, but they could not stop the Japanese army's crazy offensive pace at all.

At the critical moment, new light and heavy machine gun fire points were put into battle, sweeping down the devil soldiers who rushed in front one by one, but the Japanese counterattack fire immediately overwhelmed the sky.

"Boom-"

In the continuous explosions, fireballs rose into the air on the positions of the second regiment, and the machine gunners and ammunition men died heroically.

"It's a tough battle"

Looking at the changes in the battle situation under the mountain, Wu Ming sighed slightly, turned his head and asked Zhang Ying, who was standing on the side: "How are the preparations going over there in Dongning?" ”

"The chief of staff called, saying that the Qingshanzui flood storage project has been largely completed, and the explosives that broke the embankment have been laid, as long as the division gives an order," Zhang Ying reported.

Wu Ming nodded with satisfaction: "That's good...... In this way, even if we lose, we will not be afraid that the Japanese army will enter Lin'an City."

It turned out that in order to eliminate the vitality of the Japanese army, Wu Ming instructed Zhang Dongning to find a way to store water on Zhongshao River immediately after arriving in Lin'an. With the help of the sappers, Zhang Dongning chose the location of the Qingshan Reservoir in the later generations, and blocked the river channel by blasting the mountains on both sides of the river to cause landslides, and after four or five days of interception and storage of water, the water level in the west of Qingshan has now reached more than 30 meters, and once the embankment bursts, the threat to the downstream can be imagined.

Zhongshao Creek lost its upstream water, and could only rely on the support of four or five tributaries to keep it from flowing, and the water level dropped rapidly. This was also the fundamental reason why the 37th Wing of the Japanese Army had to go ashore when it arrived at Shimen Bridge, because most of the flat-bottomed boats ran aground. And it is precisely because Zhongshao Creek has become shallow that a group can freely travel back and forth between the north and south banks.

The battle on the front line continued, and Fan Daoquan constantly sent the reserves in his hand to the front line, and the dense tongues of fire formed a dense barrage, and the yellow crowd was forced back like a wave.

The Japanese attack was frustrated, and the 12 Type 92 infantry guns brought by the 37th Wing smashed wave after wave of 70-mm grenades into the position of the 2nd Regiment at a rate of six rounds per minute.

"Boom-"

The earth trembled violently with almost every round of grenades that exploded on the Second Regiment's position, and more bullet marks came in the sky like a rain of meteors.

Luo Yuming, who was at the headquarters of the 1st Brigade at the foot of Banqiao Mountain, used his telescope to observe the defense line shrouded in gunpowder smoke in the sky.

Whenever a cloud of blood mist flashed in front of him and stumps and severed arms were thrown, Luo Yuming's hand holding the telescope couldn't help but tremble.

Under the attack of the superior artillery fire of the Japanese army, the first regiment had no ability to counterattack at all, and now Luo Yuming could only hope that the trenches and fortifications built by the engineers according to local conditions could effectively resist the invasion of the Japanese army's Type 92 infantry artillery, which was dense but not too destructive.

After a quarter of an hour of shelling stopped, the surviving officers of the forward positions began to organize officers and men to quickly restore the points of fire, while the hygienists of the field hospital searched for survivors from the destroyed trenches and fortifications, and carried the seriously wounded from the bloody and seriously wounded down the positions.

This round of shelling fell, and a mass of light and heavy machine guns was basically dumb fire.

Lacking machine-gun support, and the Japanese had mortars and grenadiers to suppress fire, the life of the 2nd Regiment suddenly became difficult.

The quality of the Japanese soldiers was extremely high, and they fired at a distance of 150 meters, and their marksmanship was extremely accurate, and the officers and men of the New Second Division in the trenches could often only exchange two soldiers for the life of a devil.

Although the sacrifice was great, the perseverance of the officers and men of the new Second Division was not inferior to that of the devil soldiers, and they gritted their teeth and persevered hard.

The battle lasted nearly an hour, and the soldiers on both sides were tired.

Seeing that the defenders on the opposite side were already at the end of their strength, Morita Yoshisaku Nakasaku from the Osaka Division took advantage of the opportunity and immediately rushed to the headquarters of the 7th Division and volunteered to Lieutenant General Sonobe: "General, the officers and men of your division have worked hard, and now our Osaka Wing will break the defense line of the Shina army in one fell swoop." ”

"Yo West"

Kazuichiro Sonobe naturally would not disagree, he knew that the resilience of the officers and men of the new Second Division was by no means as unbearable as it seemed, and there must be a hard battle ahead: "Don't worry, Morita-kun, the supporting aviation is already on the way, I believe that your wing will definitely impress everyone." ”

Morita returned to the headquarters of the 37th Wing and immediately deployed for operational suitability.

Half an hour later, the Japanese army started from the position more than 200 meters west of Huang Po Temple.

"Kill and give—"

Morita Nakasa brandished his saber and cheered loudly at the officers and men of the Osaka Wing who had set off in formation.

The recuperated Morita Wing quickly marched into the battlefield, their movements swift and neat, half-bowed, and soon overtook the soldiers of the 7th Division, who had come to a standstill. These Osaka soldiers, who were born into a family of peddlers and pawns, had accurate marksmanship, and the officers and men of the 2nd Regiment on the front-line positions were hit one by one.

Under the command of Morita himself, the Japanese army was like a sharp knife, tearing open the defense line of the new second division at once, and the main position of Jumptou Village was quickly broken, and the troops deployed on both flanks were forced to retreat to the village, and then retreated to the defense line of Banqiao Mountain and Dadi Mountain.

Wu Ming looked at everything in front of him, his face turned gray, and he turned to look at Lu Kuiyuan: "This is the Morita Wing of the Osaka Division?" It's not weak at all."

"That's right"

Lu Kuiyuan nodded, and said a little anxiously: "Division, the Osaka division is not good at fighting just compared to other main divisions of the Japanese army, in fact, this army established after the Meiji Restoration is not as weak as the legend, otherwise it would not have continued until now." ”

"The officers and soldiers of the Osaka Division were equally eager for victory, and they fought bravely to be the first when they saw a cheap battle, and the fact that Morita Wing had marched westward by boat without experiencing a forced march was far more terrible than the exhausted Seventh Division. Division, you should quickly retreat with the guards."

"What are these words?"

Wu Ming lowered his face, pointed to the officers and soldiers of the new Second Division who were fighting with the Japanese army again at the foot of the mountain, and reprimanded loudly: "Now the soldiers are still fighting bloodily, you let me escape, how will I face them in the future?" ”

At this time, traces of Japanese fighters appeared in the northeastern sky.

After continuous attrition, only nine Japanese fighters remained at the Wuxing airfield, and the 2nd Division, which had failed to force the crossing of Okamura Ninji's road, had no possibility of intercepting the new 2nd Division, and pinned all its hopes on the 7th, 4th, and 18th Divisions, so he used his connections in the military headquarters to transfer 17 fighters from other battlefields to prepare for the battle.

The Japanese aircraft group soon flew over Banqiao Mountain, and the experienced battalion commanders of the 2nd Regiment quickly ordered all the officers and men in the rear fire support points to withdraw into caves, trenches, and communication trenches in addition to the forward positions.

No matter how Lu Kuiyuan persuaded him, Wu Ming, who was standing under a green pine, still held the telescope motionlessly, observing the direction of the sun.

In the telescope, six Kt7 Nakajima 97 fighters rose into the air after breaking away from the group, and a group of two served as battlefield guards, while the rest of the bomber group, including the Kt-19 Nakajima heavy bomber, the KTL Mitsubishi 97 heavy bomber, and the Kawasaki 98 light bomber, were divided into two planes as a formation, and a total of nine waves entered the bombing orbit in turn.

The first wave of two Kt-19 Nakajima heavy bombers, just before reaching the position on Mt. Banqiao, dropped a string of dense aerial bombs like fish spawning and crashed into the mountain position where the smoke of gunpowder was rising.

Looking at the raging Japanese fighters, Wu Ming's hand holding the telescope shook lightly - the Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft guns had been transferred to western Zhejiang, and nearly half of the millimeter Erly anti-aircraft guns were taken by Luo Changling to Hualingwu in the north to block the second division of the Japanese army.

In the telescope, there was a sky-high fire, and then the continuous explosions came into Wu Ming's ears, and his face became more and more ugly.

When Japanese fighters began to bomb the mountainside and the top of the mountain, several guards desperately carried the pale-faced Wu Ming to a cave behind a large pine tree.

"Boom-"

In the continuous and dense sound of explosions, the big pine tree where Wu Ming was originally standing was uprooted, and soon turned into fragments, and wave after wave of invisible sounds, from far and near, were transmitted into the ears of Wu Ming, the guards, and the staff officers hidden in the cave.

Wu Ming, who opened his mouth wide, looked at the soldiers under his command who also opened his mouth wide, shook his head and sighed, and closed his eyes helplessly, at this time his heart was dripping blood, under such a large-scale air raid by the Japanese army, the casualties of the troops must be very large, and I don't know how long the Second Regiment of Ludao can hold out.