Chapter 611: The Battle Outside Changsha City (Asking for Subscriptions, Asking for Monthly Tickets, Asking for Various !! ）

At this time, Anan was like a crazy gambler who had won the first hand, and he was no longer satisfied with the current gain. Although he was not completely ignorant of the risks ahead, he still bet on a bigger stake to win back a bigger bankroll. On the morning of September 1, the headquarters of the 11th Army issued a final order, abandoning the goal of encircling and annihilating the national army, and changing the combat goal to capture Changsha!

The issuance of this order completely deviated from the idea of the 11th Army when it first put forward the concept of operation: to annihilate the 37th Army. At this time, attacking Changsha has no visible benefits to speak of. Maybe at this moment, Anan Weiji is having a fever.

After receiving the order from the headquarters of the 11th Army, the three divisions and two independent wings participating in the attack also went crazy, thinking that the Chinese army in front of them launched a fierce attack. The 6th Infantry Wing, which belonged to the 13th Division, with the support of the Air Force, attacked the position of the 95th Division at Yazui Mountain, gradually advancing from north to south. In the afternoon, the 23rd Infantry Wing fought fiercely with the Nationalist troops on the steep Piaofeng Mountain.

However, to the frustration of the Japanese army, the defenders in these two places took the rare initiative to surround the headquarters of the 23rd Wing from the left and right flanks. The Japanese did not crush the defenders until the evening with the support of the air force, but they also suffered extremely heavy casualties, and the captain of the 1st Squadron of the 6th Wing of the Mountain Artillery Field Artillery was killed in the battle.

At the same time, the 235th Wing of the 40th Division of the Japanese Army was also frantically blocked when attacking the headquarters of the 99th Division near Yukou Bay, and the two sides fought hard for a day and a night without any progress. A stalemate was formed, and it was not until the night of September 1 that this position was taken.

For the Ninth Theater of Operations, the day of September 1 was a grim one. On the front, the 3rd Division crossed the Laodao River through Liqiao and Fenglin Harbor and attacked Changsha through Pailoupu, Langli City and Dongshan; The 6th Division, coordinated by the Air Force, advanced from Xinshi on the south bank of Mishui, passed through Changling, Fulinpu, Malin, and arrived at Langli City, so as to coordinate with the 3rd Division to attack Changsha. The 40th Division used a division to resist the 95th Division of the 37th Army at Yajian, Modaojian and Tianjing Temple in Mishui River Bay west of Hukou, and the main force went south through Lishan Lane, Changling, Tianwangmiao and Xiangbiqiao to reach the Jinjing area to contain the defenders in the eastern mountainous area. Respond to the attack of the 3rd and 6th Divisions. The situation is critical.

However, Xue Yue was as steady as Mount Tai, and he had already seen that the Japanese army was coming to Changsha this time, so on the one hand, he ordered the troops in front to block it step by step, and on the other hand, he quickly mobilized troops to both flanks. A huge pocket was made on the outskirts of Changsha. If the Japanese army hadn't come to Changsha. Then the layout of the Ninth Theater of Operations will be in vain, but if the Japanese army really intends to completely occupy Changsha, then this pocket can come in handy.

And according to the information obtained before the war. Xue Yue judged that the old problem of the Japanese army not paying attention to logistics had flareed up again, judging from the previous situation of the two sides fighting, the Japanese army had no intention of capturing Changsha, and now that such a hand suddenly came, it should not be a pre-formulated operational plan, it is likely that the old devil Anan had a dizzy attack and temporarily changed the operational plan.

After fighting with the Japanese army for 4 years, Xue Yue knows the group of devils on the opposite side very well, and even knows the 11th Army of the Japanese army more than he knows his own troops.

With this judgment, Xue Yue ordered the troops in front to retreat while fighting, taking advantage of the favorable terrain to block the Japanese army step by step, and depleting a large amount of the Japanese army's vitality and ammunition materials.

At 2 p.m. on September 2, the 3rd Division advanced all the way, and finally arrived at the city of Changsha before the 6th Division and the 40th Division. The advance unit of the 29th Brigade first crossed the Liuyang River near Mopen Prefecture in the afternoon of the same day, and the 3rd Engineer Wing, which was accompanied by it, began to build bridges. At 18 o'clock in the afternoon, the 68th Wing arrived in Langli City, and through the translator and the puppet army, asked the local residents to learn that it was possible to wade in the vicinity of Mopanzhou, so they immediately began to cross the river, and at 23 o'clock that night, the unit completed the crossing. At this point, the Japanese army had already killed to the bottom of the pocket arranged in the 9 theater of operations.

On the same day, the 9th Theater ordered all units to counter-encircle the enemy outside Changsha before the attack began at 0:00 on the 4th, and limited the night of September 4 to the arrival line of the first attack.

At this time, both sides seemed to see the hope of victory, the Japanese army saw Changsha City, hoping to get a handful and leave, and the Japanese army's logistics and heavy weapons could not support long-term operations. And the ninth war zone thinks that the pocket array has been set up, the prey has come, and the rest of the time is harvest, but at the same time, Xue Yue is also worried that the bottom of the bag is too thin and will be chiseled, and both sides are now ready to kill each other.

On the afternoon of September 3, the headquarters of the 3rd Division of the Japanese Army, which had already arrived at the outskirts of Changsha, issued an order to attack, and the whole army pressed on it in an attempt to capture Changsha City in one fell swoop.

However, the Japanese army apparently underestimated the will of the defenders of Changsha to resist, and after being attacked, the 10th Army stationed in Changsha immediately returned fire, and the two sides fought over the permanent fortifications on the periphery of Changsha across the city walls and moats. The Ninth Theater Commander's Department gave the Changsha defenders a death order, even if the whole army was annihilated, they could not retreat half a step, ordinary soldiers ran and shot the squad leader, the squad leader ran away and shot the platoon commander, and the platoon commander ran away and shot the company commander, if the company commander also ran away, the battalion commander and the regiment commander were pulled out and shot.

In addition, the fortifications of Changsha Castle have been built since 1939, and although they have survived the war, they are still very strong. The most important thing is that the Japanese 3rd Division lacked artillery support, and the Japanese side did not lack artillery, but due to road restrictions, the artillery could not synchronize the operation of the troops.

Moreover, even if there is no problem with the road, with the current situation of the Japanese army, the ammunition cannot keep up with the consumption, so the Japanese army attacking Changsha only has a small amount of artillery support, and at this time, in order to hold Changsha, the Ninth Theater deliberately concentrated the artillery directly under the theater and the artillery units of the 10th Army under the unified command of the 10th Army, a total of about two artillery regiments, equipped with more than 80 infantry guns and 46 heavy mountain artillery, surpassing the Japanese Third Division in terms of artillery in one fell swoop.

In order to win this battle, Lao Chiang deliberately transferred the American Flying Tigers stationed in Kunming to Chengdu to deal with the Japanese army's army aviation units.

After a day and night of hard fighting, the Japanese army did not make any progress, but lost more than a thousand men. At 9 o'clock in the morning of September 4, just when the Ninth Theater was preparing to issue a counteroffensive order, the Japanese army suddenly changed its offensive mode and divided its troops into the vicinity of Changling, Nanyuan Palace, and the military storage depot, trying to seize the storage depot and Tianxin Pavilion not far away.

The Ninth Theater reacted quickly, and the 190th Division stationed at the north gate immediately counterattacked Zuojiatang, and the 10th Division in the south counterattacked the army depot, and at the same time, the 10th Division encircled and annihilated the enemy at Baishaling, and the two positions were recovered at 22 o'clock in the evening. At around 2 p.m. on the same day, Kato's brigade, which had rushed to Baishaling, encountered reinforcements from the Ninth Theater of Operations, and Commander Kato Shaosa was immediately shot through the abdomen and died soon after. The rest of the officers were killed in battle, and only Captain Ikeda fought his way to death.

The Japanese then launched several charges to rescue Kato, but under the fierce resistance of the defenders, several Japanese attacks were in vain. The battle lasted until the night of the 4th, and the surrounded Kato Brigade was completely wiped out.

The Battle of Baishaling was extremely important for the 9th Theater of Operations, and for the Japanese army, Kato's death was more than just the loss of a captain. However, the Ninth War Zone obtained from Kato's corpse various documents such as plans and orders since the Japanese army was dispatched, and learned a lot of information about the Japanese army that had not yet been mastered. More importantly, the Ninth Theater of Operations finally determined the important intelligence of the lack of ammunition for the Japanese army.

Xue Yue immediately adjusted his tactics, on the one hand, he ordered all group armies to quickly close to the periphery of Changsha and encircle and annihilate the enemy according to the predetermined plan; At the same time, the 10th Army was ordered to counterattack, not to defeat or annihilate the Japanese army, but to contain the Japanese army and prevent it from retreating.

Due to tactical adjustments, the operational plan to encircle and annihilate the Japanese troops on the outskirts of Changsha was forced to be postponed to 6 September. Obviously, the Japanese only saw that the 3rd and 6th Divisions were already under the city of Changsha and that victory was in sight, and they had not yet discovered that a large number of Chinese* troops had appeared on both sides of these two divisions, and they could be dumplings at any time.

Anan Weiji was still daydreaming of capturing Changsha, and ordered the 3rd and 6th Divisions in front of him to intensify their offensive and capture Changsha City within 3 days.

After receiving the order, the Japanese army's offensive intensity was indeed strengthened a lot, and the troops once again came up with the hooligan tactics of not being afraid of death, and rushed to the position of the 10th Army without fear of death, and in just one day, the forward positions in the eastern, northern, and southern suburbs of Changsha were all lost, and the northeast to the national army retreated to Kaifusi, Shangpanjiaping, Tangjiaxiang, Shangdayuan, Hujidu, Chenjiashan, Dujialing, Yuanjialing, Yaoling, and Changling. The national army in the southern suburbs held strongholds such as Houjiatang, Broomtang, and Donggua Mountain.

However, this was the end of the Japanese side, and the 3rd Division was almost running out of ammunition due to logistical supply problems. In addition, the division suffered heavy casualties in the past few days of fighting, and had to fight with all its troops, with no ammunition and no reserves, and the situation of the third division was very bad.

In addition, according to the information transmitted by the Japanese military intelligence department, the Chongqing side transferred the reserve under its direct control, the 74th Army, the number one ace of the government army in China, to the command of the 9th theater. Except for the 58th Division, which remained in Hengyang for training, the main force of the army immediately drove to Hengshan, Lukou, and Zhuzhou. At the same time, Shang Zhen's 4th Army was also rushing to Changsha. This situation was enough to make the Japanese army shudder. (To be continued......)