Chapter 954: The Great Battle

The first battle of Nanning, with the 314th Regiment of the Gui Army, the total annihilation of a wing of the Japanese army, this battle, for the morale of the Gui army, firm confidence in the defense of Nanning, the role is undoubtedly huge, but also to achieve the most important Bai Chongxi in the first battle of the purpose of victory, for the regiment commander Wu Xiaoxian in the process of the operation, the superb command art, as the commander-in-chief of Nanning city defense Bai Chongxi is very appreciative.

Such a general cannot be fixed in the trenches of passive defense, and should be given greater command and the power of military aircraft to make arbitrary decisions, so Wu Xiaoxian, as a colonel, commanded the troops close to a division, and moved freely around Nanning, Bai Chongxi gave him the greatest freedom and authority, and looked forward to this young regiment commander who created a miracle to give him more surprises.

The flames of the Nanning battle, which had been burning for several hours, were extinguished, and all the Gui army troops were talking about this victory, and there were many middle-level commanders like Wu Xiaoxian, looking forward to creating such a miracle in the future battles and making the Gui army famous, and the pressure in Bai Chongxi's heart was not alleviated at all.

Tang Qiuli, who had already arrived in Guangzhou, was more aware of this, and the Japanese army of six divisions was pressed on the whole line, clearly setting up a decisive battle posture, in order to eliminate the main force of the Gui army on the Nanning line and open the big mén to Chongqing.

As for the 15th Army of the Japanese army that invaded Guangzhou in the north, Yamashita Fengwen, was worn out by Chutian's special operations detachment to the point that it had no temper at all, and it had the original high-spirited and vigorous advance, but now it has become cautious step by step, steady and steady, and Yamashita Fengwen is annoyed enough, Tang Qiuli believes that only his own troops can meet the Japanese army face to face, and neither can the Gui Army, nor can the Central Army.

Tang Qiuli prepared a big bag for Yamashita Fengwen in the area of Guangzhou, loaded it into the 15th Army, and beat the craziest dog of the Japanese Southern Dispatch Army to death with a stick, and the six brigades of Ma Chaoyang's Southeast Mobile Corps and Feng Jiwu's Corps formed the main force of the Guangzhou Campaign.

All of them were carried out according to his plan, only Yu Hanmou really annoyed Tang Qiuli, and retreated for nearly a thousand miles, and the troops scattered a little and a half, and the Cantonese army troops assembled in Guangzhou were only about 70,000 people, and many of them lost their heavy weapons, and those who could drag back a rifle were considered good soldiers.

Yu Hanmou cried many times with a sad face, and came to Tang Qiuli to complain, turning over and over the same meaning, asking for guns, money, and equipment, the reason is very good, the Guangdong army is now a subordinate of Vice Chairman Tang, and he can't fight with the Japanese empty-handed, right? Tang Qiuli saw through Yu Hanmou's cautious eyes, and instructed Zhang Quan, the minister of logistics, to immediately transport the Japanese-style weapons in stock to Guangzhou according to the standards of the three divisions.

Zhang Quan's efficiency was good, within a few days, the Japanese equipment of the three divisions was transported to Guangzhou, Yu Hanmou felt so much that he almost burst into tears, and regarded Tang Qiuli as a living bodhisattva, and under Tang Qiuli's construction, the Guangdong army was reorganized into four armies and drove to the Zhaoqing and Yunfu lines in the northwest of Guangzhou, as the left wing of Guangzhou, and cooperated with the progress of the Guangzhou campaign.

Tang Qiuli only asked Yu Hanmou to hold on to the above-mentioned areas, and not to retreat under any circumstances, after receiving his own order, he made a decisive attack, and surrounded the Japanese army attacking Guangzhou near Guangzhou, Yu Hanmou said that he would resolutely carry out the order of the vice chairman, and even if the Guangdong army fought to the last man, he would never give up his position.

Yu Hanmou was satisfied with the troops, rushed to the northwest of Guangzhou to set up defenses, this guy's resolute attitude, so that Tang Qiuli was not very relieved, if the Japanese army arrived, the Guangdong army fled in the wind, Guangzhou's left flank would completely collapse, the Japanese army would outflank the rear of the first-line independent division in Guangzhou, although it would not be encircled, the plan of annihilating the enemy in the battle of Guangzhou would be in vain, and it would be difficult to contain the main force of the Japanese army to press to Nanning without dividing the troops, therefore, Tang Qiuli issued an order that the rest of the troops directly under the independent division would be in the corps. Immediately go out to the Wuzhou area of Guangxi Province to stand by.

This is prepared, Tang Qiuli instinctively felt that Yu Hanmou's Cantonese army was unreliable, and the staff office had been established, and this Guangzhou campaign did not use the Cantonese army troops, and the independent division troops were responsible for it, which also took into account the division commander's worries, but Tang Qiuli himself couldn't tell what psychology he had, and sent the Cantonese army to the left flank, and this decision was later made, almost putting the troops of the independent division on the front line of Guangzhou to an extremely dangerous situation.

If Tang Qiu left the army and did not join the war in the south, the Japanese would not be nervous, and since it was unavoidable, they would not be able to take advantage of the strength of the troops dispatched from the south, and in the end, the Japanese base camp decided to take the Japanese troops stationed in Taiwan as the mainstay, and transferred two divisions and regiments from China to form the Guangxi Front.

The front army has five divisions and regiments, a strength of 120,000 troops, and the combat area is Guangdong, which is not subordinate to the southern dispatch army, and this troop deployment is obviously aimed at Tang Qiu's departure, and Terauchi Shouichi also threw the Seventh Army, which is a strategic reserve, into the direction of Guangdong, so that the Japanese troops concentrated in the direction of Guangdong will reach three armies, plus one front army, with a strength of 460,000 troops.

There was an unexpected change in the situation in Guangdong, behind the 15th Army of Yamashita Fengwen, followed by more than 300,000 troops of the Japanese army, while in the direction of Guangxi, there were only the third and fourth armies of the Japanese army, more than 200,000 troops, and the scale of the defense of Nanning was much smaller than that of the Guangzhou Campaign.

At this point, Tang Qiuli completed the task of containing the Japanese army, the Japanese army could not and did not dare to divide the troops in the direction of Nanning, Guangxi, Bai Chongxi could rest assured that he would defend Nanning, Tang Qiuli reported this situation to Bai Chongxi, Bai Chongxi was greatly relieved, what he was most worried about was that the Japanese army attacking Guangdong, the situation of dividing troops to press the right flank of Nanning, there was no more zài, Bai Chongxi was relaxed, but Tang Qiuli's pressure increased sharply, for this reason, he ordered Tang Qiusheng's corps in Wuhan to immediately go south to the line of Changsha, Hunan, As a strategic reserve of an independent division, it can join the Guangzhou battlefield at any time.

In the southern battlefield, two main battlefields were gradually formed, one was Nanning, Guangxi, and the second was Guangzhou, Guangdong.

On May 8, the Nakagawa Division of the Japanese Third Army was the first to arrive at the periphery of Nanning, outside the city of Nanning, the Takashima Wing that was killed by the Takeshi First Regiment was the sequence of the division, and the division commander, Lieutenant General Nakagawa Keno, was puzzled by how this guy Takashima could be wiped out by the local army of China, and the whole army was wiped out, and no one escaped, so that Nakagawa's desire to understand the battle was frustrated.

However, although Keno Nakagawa is more arrogant than Takashima, he does not have the brainless stupidity of Takashima, and he attacks Nanning with a heavily defended division with an incomplete formation, which is asking for hardship, just looking at the defensive positions on the periphery of Nanning, the strength of his two wings is not enough to fill in, and the only thing he can do is to wait for the arrival of the main force of the army.

From 10 to 12 May, the main forces of the Japanese Third Army and the Fourth Army arrived at the outskirts of Nanning one after another, and as more than 200,000 Japanese troops gathered under the city of Nanning, the 180,000 soldiers of the Gui Army defending the city felt the unprecedented pressure, and a major battle was about to break out.

At 5:30 a.m. on 13 May, the Japanese army launched a fierce attack from the two directions of Shajing in the western suburbs of Nanning and Wuxu in the southern suburbs, and at the same time, sent a division of troops to the north of Nanning through the direction of Luancheng, in an attempt to surround the city of Nanning on all sides.

On this day, the troops of the Gui Army on the outlying positions of Nanning really saw the ferocious firepower of the Japanese army, and Lieutenant General Masaharu Honma, commander of the Third Army of the Japanese Army and commander of the Nanning Campaign, did not have any psychological burden on fighting against the Guangxi Army in China; in order to achieve the results of the campaign, he concentrated more than 1,000 mén artillery pieces of various calibers from two heavy artillery brigades and five artillery wings, divided them into two artillery groups, and carried out an overwhelming artillery bombardment of the defensive positions on the periphery of Nanning of the Gui Army.

Countless shells, with a scream that tore through the air, fell on the position of the Gui army, and a cloud of gunpowder smoke rose, first I saw a flower of soil blooming, and then, there were rows of soil làng constantly surging, the ground seemed to be raised, a huge roar, with the impact bō, shocked people's hearts panicked, sandbags and mud, bunkers and hidden forts built of logs, could not withstand such dense artillery fire, gravel and mud flew into the air, among them, mixed with the stumps and broken arms of the Gui soldiers, the smoke of gunpowder was filled, obscures the rising sun.

Nanning trembled in the smoke and flames, with a violent explosion, steel fragments, with a metal trill, swirled and cut into the bodies of the Gui soldiers, a cannonball fell, the bodies of several Gui soldiers were thrown high, the fortifications and trenches collapsed and filled in the dense artillery fire, the barbed wire was torn into sections of wire, the earth trembled, and the artificial buildings, in the raging steel, helplessly destroyed.

The shelling lasted for a full hour and a half, thousands of tons of steel, poured into the position of the Gui army, Honma Masaharu with a large number of senior generals, on a high ground outside the city of Nanning, to observe the effect of the shelling, His Excellency the commander dressed today, the extraordinarily pulling the wind, the army green sè general Dayu, snow-white gloves, standing posture as immobile as a mountain, as if a qiē in hand, all of which showed his mood at the moment, with the extension of the shelling time, Honma Masaharu's face sè, more and more proud.