The ground was covered with a thin layer of snow, which formed ice ballast, which was dry and hard and cold. The officers and men of the 88th Division of the 15th Group Army were ambushed near the Pingtou Bridge, and the soldiers, like tank vehicles and armored vehicles, were covered with a layer of dry grass or straw to camouflage.

When the Japanese attacked, they lined up on both sides of the road in two rows, first driving three-wheeled motorcycles with crooked light machine guns in front of them, and then trucks, armored vehicles, and tanks mixed with infantry.

The Japanese unit was highly mechanized, with light green truck beds filled with Japanese soldiers in yellow tweed coats and steel helmets, and the bayonets of Type 38 rifles gleamed in the sun.

The cold wind in the south of the Yangtze River was blowing, and these stocky Japanese soldiers were all red. However, they could be seen to be in a state of euphoria, and the soldiers sitting in the carriages were smoking unscrupulously, and some were singing loudly.

"General, the front is about to reach the Pingtou Bridge, do you order the troops to speed up?" Sitting in the rickety command car, Chief of Staff Kenichi Matsuoka tentatively asked the division commander Imasago Nakajima.

Nakajima lifted the curtain on the window and looked outside, and the long line was moving forward. It is foreseeable that the vanguard is already about to reach the Pingtou Bridge.

In the telescope, Nakajima took a look at the general terrain and landform here, and saw that the surroundings were all covered by vegetation, and there were many hidden firepower possibilities, Nakajima couldn't help but be vigilant.

"Order the troops to stop advancing!" Nakajima got out of the car, and the herald rode back and forth, and the march slowed down to the sound of the whistle of the flute.

"Order to go down, rest on the spot, recuperate, and let the 19th Infantry Brigade and the Chariot Wing advance together." After all, Nakajima has rich combat experience, and even though he has the excitement and urgency to rush into Suzhou, he can still maintain enough calm to analyze the situation at that time and make a reasonable judgment.

The Japanese command was studying whether there was an enemy situation, and the command of the 88th Division of the 15 th Group Army, which had set up an ambush at Pingtou Bridge, was also anxiously waiting. In an underground forward command post several kilometers away from the Pingtou Bridge, Sun Yuanliang, commander of the 88th Division, and his own operational staff officers frowned, and they observed the movements of the Japanese troops on the other side of the Pingtou Bridge from time to time in the lookout hole.

The 88th Division is said to be an integrated division, but in fact it is considered the last army in terms of personnel size and equipment, and this well-equipped unit belongs to the 15 th Group Army, which can be regarded as a unit with relatively strong combat effectiveness among the 15 th Group Army.

The main composition of the 15 th Group Army was still the 15 th Army of Guan Linzheng, and it also included the 75 th Army and the 29 th Army on the Songhu battlefield, which could be regarded as a heavy army group in the Jiangnan battlefield.

After the renovation, there were also a lot of personnel adjustments. The former army commander Guan Lin was transferred to serve under Cui Wu in Shaanxi, and Chen Cheng, the head of the Central Training Corps, a descendant of the Chiang faction, was transferred to the Jiangnan battlefield to serve as the commander-in-chief of the 15th Group Army.

Transferring Chen Cheng to the post of commander of the 15 th Group Army is actually a balance, and the post of commander-in-chief on the battlefield of Songhu, whether it was Zhang Zhizhong or Li Zongren later, can be regarded as generals of the Xiguan faction, so in the selection of the main group army, the Chiang faction naturally has to fight for it.

He didn't have any opinion on the selection of Chen Cheng and Huang Ke, he knew Chen Cheng, he was very good at military affairs, and he was brave and resourceful in fighting, and Huang Ke was relieved to send him to the front line. In any case, although there were some differences and struggles between the two factions, they were still able to coordinate and agree on the overall situation of the war against Japan.

Chen Cheng led all units of the 15 th Group Army to deploy defense on the front line of Suzhou, and when he learned that the 16 th Division of the Japanese Army had already begun to advance, he ordered the 88 th Division to go to Pingtou Bridge to deploy defense.

The 88th Division was also a newly reorganized unit, which was originally subordinate to the 71st Army, but was later transferred to Shanghai and suffered heavy losses. After withdrawing from Shanghai, after a period of reorganization, the 15 th Group Army carried out the reform of the large group army, and many units were disorganized and reorganized, and the 88 th Division was one of them.

After receiving the order to block the attack, Sun Yuanliang could order the troops to go to the front line of Pingtou Bridge. After arriving at Pingtou Bridge, Sun Yuanliang found that this place was not suitable for blocking at all. As its name suggests, the terrain is flat, and although there are many ravines in the rice fields, because it is winter, the hard ground cannot hinder the advance of the Japanese mechanized troops.

Sun Yuanliang originally wanted to give up this place as a blocking position, but then he changed his mind, as the so-called soldiers are treacherous, what you think is inappropriate, others will also think it is inappropriate.

The 88th Division deployed behind the Pingtou Bridge, and a large number of tanks, armored vehicles, and field artillery were deployed at a position of tens of miles in a cross-section with the Pingtou Bridge as the center, and there were still deep gun emplacements left behind.

If you don't have the capital, you have to do it with your life, it's not a joke that the military order is like a mountain, Chen Cheng gave him the order to be sure to prevent the Japanese army from attacking from Pingtou Bridge, at all costs.

Sun Yuanliang knew that there was no room for bargaining with this order, because as soon as the Pingtou Bridge was broken, the Japanese army tore a hole, and now tens of thousands of troops of the Japanese 16th Division began an attack on the horizontal plane east of Suzhou for more than ten miles, and the vanguard had arrived in the eastern suburbs of Suzhou; The Ninth Division also began to attack Wujiang, and if the Pingtou Bridge changed hands again, then the strength of the two divisions of the Japanese army would complete the siege of Suzhou City.

Two heavy army groups besieged Suzhou, and it was a matter of time before Suzhou fell. Once Suzhou falls, the Japanese army will move westward, Wuxi and Changshu...... Next up is the capital Nanjing.

Sun Yuanliang knew what this battle meant, so he knew that he couldn't beat him, but he still had to grit his teeth and fight.

If you want help from other troops, Chen Cheng said that he didn't have a single extra soldier under his command, and even Commander Li Zongren's guard platoon was also owned by people from the Security Department of the Ministry of National Defense. Sun Yuanliang naturally knew about this situation, and he didn't expect troops on land to come to support, so he aimed at the air.

You must know that the Japanese Shanghai Dispatch Army is the most powerful of the three Japanese front armies, relying on the sea aircraft carriers near Shanghai and the military airfields that occupy Shanghai, and their air force attacks are often preceded by high-density bombing and air wave attacks.

It is precisely on this basis that before the battle here in Suzhou, the Ministry of National Defense ordered the Air Force Department to dispatch the air forces of Nanjing and Hangzhou to support the Suzhou campaign. Therefore, although the Japanese air force is strong, in the air, they do not say that they have air supremacy, but they do not even take advantage of it.

Sun Yuanliang naturally knew the importance of the air force, and he asked his superiors for the air force to increase its support over the Pingtou Bridge, and hoped to mobilize a group of dive bombers to bomb the Japanese army when it was heavily assembled.

Chen Cheng, commander of the 15th Group Army, fed back his appeal to the Eastern Theater Command. After reading it, Li Zongren approved it, and the Air Force Department made combat arrangements and mobilized fighters to focus on supporting the Pingtouqiao Campaign.

The level of support from the Air Force is evident. Early this morning, Sun Yuanliang saw the Air Force's fighter formation flying back and forth several times above them to warn whether the Japanese planes were coming.

In addition to the security overhead, several reconnaissance planes had flown several times over a range of hundreds of miles over the position, bringing them the latest advances of the Japanese troops.

These are all very important to Sun Yuanliang, so he dared to rely on one of his integrated divisions to prepare for a head-to-head confrontation with the 16th Division of the Japanese Army at Pingtou Bridge.

Providing strong support to the ground forces is not a small strain on the Air Force. Since the fall of Shanghai, the center of air warfare in the Jiangnan region has been shifted to the area of Suzhou, where the Chinese Air Force has deployed a large number of fighters in order to prevent Japanese bombing. In order to advance quickly, the Japanese army also deployed more fighters here. In just a few months, the two sides gathered more than 500 warplanes here, and the scale and intensity of the air battle were also unprecedented, and this battle was also a big test for the pilots.

On several occasions, Fu Guoqiang almost died in such high-intensity battles.

It has only been a week since he came to Suzhou, and Fu Guoqiang has already taken to the air more than a dozen times, and now he does not dare to take off his flight jacket when he goes to the toilet, for fear that there will be a battle alarm at that time.

Although he is flying the fighter again, he feels good. With the excellent performance of the Blitzkrieg and his excellent piloting skills, he has achieved the record of two Japanese fighters being damaged and one of them damaged in more than a dozen lifts.

Although this achievement is not the best, but with the number of enemy planes shot down in previous air battles, Fu Guoqiang has shot down more than five enemy planes, which can be regarded as the title of ace pilot stipulated by the Ministry of National Defense.

For this, the Air Department also awarded Fu Guoqiang a silver eagle medal, and also painted the logo of an ace pilot on the nose of his plane.

However, the "trump card" is nothing here, let alone shooting down five fighters, among these pilots stationed at Suzhou Airport, there are many people who shoot down enemy planes in double digits, and ace pilots abound. Gao Zhihang, the commander of the Jianqiao Brigade, the combat hero of the whole army, has shot down more than 50 enemy planes since the beginning of the war, which is equivalent to destroying more than one Japanese aviation brigade. Therefore, in the army that worships the former, Gao Zhihang has always been the idol of the air force pilots, and Fu Guoqiang is no exception, so he will find Gao Zhihang to discuss when he has the opportunity.

Just after lunchtime, Fu Guoqiang, who was full of wine and food, changed into a leather jacket and went to Gao Zhihang's dormitory with sunglasses. He and Gao Zhihang are old acquaintances, they used to know each other when they were in Jianqiao Aviation School, and this time they came to Suzhou and the two were in the same dormitory building, close to each other, so they usually come and go, so they naturally don't have to be polite.

As soon as I arrived at the door, I happened to bump into Gao Zhihang, who was wearing a leather military hat and went out. Fu Guoqiang asked casually: "Zhihang, why are you in such a hurry to go out?" The battle alarm didn't go off again! ”

Gao Zhihang frowned and said: "Guoqiang, you came just in time, the Wujiang battlefield found that the Japanese army's water supply troops were using chemical weapons, and now order us to carry out reconnaissance, let's go and fly." ”

Fu Guoqiang couldn't help but be surprised when he heard it, but he still quickly picked up his fur hat and put it on his head, and followed Gao Zhihang to the airport.