Episode 6 The crawler drinks the blood of the Tartars

Even because the pontoon bridges were not erected on the right flank, the troops on the right advanced an average of 20 kilometers on the first morning of the war. The division that advanced the farthest, their light motorized vanguard had penetrated 40 kilometers and was already approaching the outskirts of Chuzhou.

As of 12 o'clock at noon, within the first seven hours of the war, the Right Route Army had already taken Pukou Town, ** County, Yizheng County, Gaogang County, Taixing County, Jiangdu County, He County, Wuwei County, Lujiang County, and Hanshan County, in addition, more than 80 small towns, more than 300 natural villages and settlements. The major targets that are being attacked and about to be attacked include Yangzhou, Chuzhou, Chaohu, Hefei, Gaoyou, Xinghua, and Dongtai.

But Army Group Left was quite different. It was a completely land battlefield, and two armored divisions and two mechanized divisions were perfectly capable of driving straight in. The only thing holding them back is the minefields on both sides of the border.

However, although the minefields on the side of the Ming army were dense, there were several passages left in the middle for the troops to pass through. The density of minefields on the Qing army's side was not good, the level of laying was not high, and there were no patches of concrete anti-tank obstacles, only overlapping barbed wire areas. With the opening of the way by sappers and mine-sweeping tanks, the vanguard infantry units of the Ming army crossed the border like a playful one, and opened the way for the armored division of the People's Guard behind at once.

Army Group Right is the main direction of attack of the war, shouldering the heavy task of recovering North China and Shandong and approaching Beijing, and all the way is mainly a thousand miles of great plains, and their task is to "advance!" Push forward! Push it again! So in the arrangement to Xiaoqiang, this road armored division was "positive", and Guderian was appointed as the commander of the three armored divisions on the right side.

The left army group was the auxiliary direction of the war, and it was tasked with advancing to Guanzhong, recovering Sanqin, and then going north to fight in Shanxi, Shaanxi. This road should not encounter such tough battles as Shandong, Henan, and Zhili along the way, but the road is mountainous and the terrain is complex, and the requirements for campaign tactics under special conditions are high. Therefore, in Xiang Xiaoqiang's arrangement, this armored division was "strange", and Rommel was appointed as the commander of one of the armored divisions, expecting him to play his true colors as a "fox", show his skills in this complex environment, and give the enemy one "surprise" after another.

……

Xinye County, 50 kilometers north of Xiangfan, was also an important military town of the Qing army north of the Ming army's Yangtze River defense line, equivalent to Pukou. The two cities of Xiangfan and Xinye have been far away from each other for many years, one in the south and one in the north, and they have been battlegrounds for soldiers since ancient times.

Xinye County, because of the legend of "three visits to the thatched house", "burning Xinye" and other legends, has been famous in China for thousands of years. In the late Southern Song Dynasty, the Mongolian army besieged Xiangyang many times, and the soldiers and civilians of Xiangyang desperately held on, and the Mongolian army could not overcome it for a long time. In the case of the defeat of the entire Southern Song Dynasty, the isolated city of Xiangyang was surrounded by the absolute superior forces of the Mongolian army and held on for six years, becoming a banner of the Southern Song Dynasty to resist the Yuan.

Finally, until 1273 in the era of Kublai Khan, the Mongol army invaded Fancheng, and the defender Niu Fu and the partial general Wang Fu fought in the streets with the Mongol army. Subsequently, the Mongol army surrounded the isolated city of Xiangyang on three sides. There were no reinforcements outside Xiangyang, no grain and grass inside, and the siege lasted six years before finally falling.

…… However, later generations of young people did not learn about this heroic history of the Chinese nation from history textbooks, but from Hong Kong's martial arts. Including Xiang Xiaoqiang, too.

Today, 663 years later, this ancient battlefield has been awakened.

The Ming army began to advance northward from the border on the northern outskirts of Xiangfan. The People's Guard's two armored divisions and two mechanized divisions rushed to the front, followed closely by 19 motorized infantry divisions, marching along both sides of the Baihe River, rushing through Shuanggou Town, Guyi Town, Huangji Town, Zhuji, Chenghe Town, Shiqiao Town, Zhangji Town, Xueji Town, Liuji Town, Wangzhuang Town, Cangtai Town, and Longtan Town, all the way to the city of Xinye County, 50 kilometers away.

In the first hours of the war, compared with the right army group, the performance of the left army group (which can almost be a performance) can become a model of "blitzkrieg" and more in line with the standard of blitzkrieg in Xiang Xiaoqiang's mind.

On the wide plain on both sides of the White River, scattered remnants of the Qing army threw away their armor and fled lifelessly in front, steel helmets, rifles, and machine guns were thrown all over the ground, and an abandoned cannon could be seen from time to time. The tanks of the Ming army rushed forward with a roar of green smoke, and the machine guns in front of the vehicles spat out tongues of fire "da-da-da" and "da-da-da", catching the fleeing Qing soldiers in front of them, and falling to the ground one after another.

In the place where the Ming army's armored troops drove through, in addition to the large corpses of Qing soldiers on the ground, there were countless flattened steel helmets, broken rifles, broken sandbags leaking yellow sand, and 37mm small cannons crushed into discus.

The vanguard tank units of the People's Guard were lined up too densely, and Xiang Xiaoqiang gave them a dead order, which was to "just move forward, don't stop and meddle." The place where the defeat was brought down had its own follow-up troops to clean up, hurry up and advance, and join forces with the right flank, and put the million Qing troops in the middle into their pockets." Therefore, the armored units of the People's Guard Corps did not stop at all, and looked at the weapons, equipment, and materials of the Qing army all over the ground, and they did not capture them at all, and those who stood in the way were directly rolled over.

Most of the Qing soldiers who were killed did not have their whole corpses. Tanks and armoured vehicles were so crowded that it was impossible to stop and collect their bodies. After the vanguard armored troops drove over, most of the corpses of the Qing soldiers were miserable. Each corpse was run over by two or three tracks, mixed with the dirt, and became a piece of flesh in the clothes.

Two hours after the start of the battle, the tracks of most of the vanguard tanks were stained with a mixture of Qing army's flesh and earth.

In the loudspeaker on the roof of the command car, the military song "Man Jianghong" of the Ming Empire was played loudly:

"Angry hair rushes to the crown, relying on the Lan place, Xiaoxiao rain rest.

Raise your eyes, look up to the sky and roar, fierce and fierce!

Thirty merits, dust and earth, eight thousand miles of clouds and moons!

Don't wait, the young man's head is white, empty and sad!

Jing Kang is ashamed, it is still snowing, and the courtiers hate, when will it be destroyed?

Drive a long car and step through the lack of Helan Mountain!

Zhuang is hungry for Hulu meat, laughing and thirsty for Hun blood!

Stay from the beginning, clean up the old mountains and rivers, and face the sky! ”

……

Judging from the flesh and blood mud scraped on the tracks of the Ming army, it really responded to the lyrics of "driving a long car to break through the lack of Helan Mountain", "Ambition to eat Hulu meat, laughing and thirsty for Hun blood".

In each tank, the tank soldiers of the Ming army shook their heads in the bumpy body, singing in unison with the military songs on the radio, and the blood of excitement surged. When the song is enjoyable, he stomps his feet in the steel plate cabin and beats it.

The Heavy stomped his feet and sang as he searched for the Qing soldiers through the narrow observation window, and when he saw it, he shot and knocked him down...... Then they will shout "Hit!" Or "missed", and then several people in the tank cheered at the same time, or booed. After the fight, several people continued to sing......

The soldiers in the tank had a narrow field of vision, could only see a little ahead, and did not react to the blood all around them. But the commander with a half-exposed body on the turret is different. They also sang along with the military song, but they could see the corpses mixed with brains and meat sauce on the ground around them. The young captains also sang along, tapping their submachine guns on the roof of the car, and occasionally sticking their heads out to vomit. After throwing up, he sang excitedly.

The soldiers of the Ming army in the open armored car all climbed the armor baffle to look out, and they also vomited while watching, and then sang with high morale after spitting. Sing over and over again......

Nausea is disgusting, but it's enjoyable.

……

There are also living captives, and they have not had time to return.

When the Qing soldiers who couldn't run stopped, threw away their guns and raised their hands in surrender, the commanders on the turret brandished their submachine guns and shouted to them:

"Get out of the way, get out of the way!"

"Wait here and surrender to the infantry behind!"

"Throw the gun away!"

"Hey, say where you're standing! Pull aside, get aside! ”

"Damn, I don't have long eyes! I want to be crushed to death! ”

Between Daba Mountain and Dabie Mountain, on the Xiangfan Plain, which is dozens of kilometers wide, this peculiar scene is everywhere. In the roaring army of tanks and armored vehicles, loud military songs fluttered everywhere. Countless sporadic Qing soldiers crowded in the middle, raising their hands, and cautiously dodging and moving around amid the impatient shouting and honking of the Ming army in the car, for fear of being the way of others, and for fear that they would be crushed to death, like a herd of tame sheep.

……

In Xinye County, a group of Qing army majors, captains, and lieutenants crowded on the top of the city, staring dumbfounded at the tanks that were constantly roaring a few hundred meters below the city, and the commanders on some tank turrets waved to them with a smile.

These middle- and lower-ranking officers of the Qing army were all stunned. They had never seen so many tanks at one time. …… And it's a tank painted with the Ming army logo.

Beside him, some soldiers politely handed over their rifles, meaning: Sir, at such a close distance, you can show your skills. We support you spiritually.

A group of middle- and lower-ranking officers were about to go crazy in horror, grabbed the phone and shook it vigorously, pulling their throats to "hey, hey, hey", but they couldn't get through anywhere. Commanders, military commanders, those who were officials went to Nanyang City in the north yesterday to eat, drink, and find a good friend, according to the usual experience, these masters will not come back at all until noon on Monday......

However, looking at the city, those dense cement trenches are now empty, and there is not a single defender. On the artillery position, on the half-sunken cement gun mounts, the formidable cannons are still covered with gun jackets, and groups of artillery men are huddled next to the guns with pants and jackets, looking at the tanks roaring past hundreds of meters away, and they are all hesitating whether to untie their gun clothes.

But soon, the Ming army made a decision for them.

A light tank drove away from the group, spewing green smoke from its back butt, and drove nimbly, crossing several trenches, and finally stopped in front of a group of bewildered Qing soldiers.

"Dang!"

The lid was lifted, and a Ming army commander came out, condescendingly, and asked arrogantly:

"What, are you surrendering? Go, tell your sir, if you surrender, throw down the false Qing flag on the head of the city, replace it with a white flag, and then concentrate all your weapons outside the city. We had special troops behind us to come and take the surrender. If you don't surrender, you will say that you will not surrender, and we will transfer planes to ......"

Then he looked at his watch, and then said:

“…… We'll transfer planes, and we'll be able to get down at one o'clock in the afternoon at most. How, surrender? I'll give you ten minutes. ”

……

So, five minutes later, the entire army of the Northern Qing Dynasty stationed in Xinye disarmed and surrendered. On the morning of the first day, the first hostile military town encountered by the Ming army on the left offensive was taken without a single shot.

Immediately after that, the army did not stop, all the officers and soldiers had lunch in the car, and the steel torrent continued to surging in the direction of Nanyang, which was 50 kilometers north.