In fact, although Hu Weidong was a little lucky when formulating Jihua before, he had already dealt with this worst-case scenario, and if the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division saw that something could not be done, it could retreat on its own, which was a big deal that the 12th Division of the Japanese Army could not be completely annihilated. As long as unnecessary losses were avoided, with the strength of the Red 15th Army at that time, even if the two divisions of the devil successfully joined forces, they would not be able to keep the Red 15th Army if they wanted to leave, but the performance of the 4th Division was very different from that of other Japanese units, but the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division miscalculated, and the battle situation also underwent changes that Hu Weidong did not expect

The 4th Division of the Japanese Army was mostly derogatorily called the "Osaka Wo Waste Division" in later legends, even in serious historical materials, the combat effectiveness of the 4th Division is considered to be one of the last of the Japanese permanent divisions, but if you only talk about the combat performance, this "Osaka Wo Sac Waste Division" is not much inferior even compared with the elite divisions of the Japanese army at the same time, and the 4th Division is the most brainy among so many permanent divisions in Japan.

However, the officers and men of the 4th Division were not obedient to the orders of other Japanese troops, and Osaka was rich, and most of the officers and men were in a good situation, so they generally cherished their lives, and their war-weariness was much stronger than that of other Japanese troops, and they could always find such and such reasons to justify their passive slackness, and even summed up the so-called "three don'ts" principle of "don't pay for unnecessary sacrifices", "don't participate in unreasonable battles", and "don't pursue the enemy troops who are desperate", of course, in front of outsiders. They will never admit it, because there has been no real combat test for a long time. The 4th Division, which had generally excellent training results, was still regarded as an elite division by the Japanese military at this time

After receiving the order from the military headquarters to go to war, the sickness of the 4th Division suddenly increased dramatically. For this reason, the commander of the 4th Division, who is only 1.47 meters tall (historical facts), had to sit in the infirmary in person, and the soldiers saw that they could not pass the pass, so they reluctantly went on the road, but the matter was not over, and the soldiers of the 4th Division on the road played a new trick - "dragging". Although the distance was a little farther, it is enough to say that the 4th Division, which did not have heavy artillery, arrived here several days later than the 12th Division, which had a large number of heavy artillery

As soon as these Osaka soldiers exchanged fire with the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division, they found that the other side was brave and well-trained, and their light firepower was extremely powerful. The 4th Division, despite its superiority, withdrew from the battle first. This gave the officers and men of the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division the false impression that the enemy was not strong. The brigade commander and commissar immediately decided to act cheaply, not to retreat according to the instructions of the army commander, but to stay behind to block the enemy. However, although the Osaka soldiers were afraid of death, they did not want to kill the enemy and make meritorious contributions. Immediately after retreating to a safe distance, they launched a continuous artillery bombardment of the positions of the Red Army with 48 divisional field guns. Although the firepower was far inferior to that of the 12th Division, the 4th Division's outstanding training results were brought into full play in this kind of "safe" battle beyond the visual range, and at this time, the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division was still digging trenches, and under the heavy artillery fire of the Japanese army, the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division of the Red 15th Army, which lacked protection and cover, suddenly suffered unprecedented huge losses

Moreover, the 4th Division did not save ammunition like other Japanese troops, and these Osaka traders were very skilled, their lives were their own, and their money belonged to the state. Weishenme wants to sacrifice his life to help save money for the country? Besides, when the shells ran out, they had a reason to retreat, but in this way, the commanders and fighters of the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division suffered, and the 48 field guns of the 4th Division fired more than 3,000 shells in just a quarter of an hour, causing huge casualties to the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division. …,

Su Yu learned that the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division had actually suffered more than half of the casualties. He couldn't help but sink in his heart, but he did not let the 2nd Brigade retreat, but categorically ordered the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division to continue to hold on at least until night, because the craters left by the enemy could be used as a natural anti-artillery position (Note 1), and after that, the threat of artillery fire from the devils was not as great as it was at the beginning, and if it retreated in broad daylight, once the devils pursued, or even just sent off with artillery fire, the 2nd Brigade would definitely suffer greater losses

Hu Weidong's ideal expectation before was that after capturing or destroying the devil's heavy artillery and successfully cutting off the devil's retreat, he would give full play to the artillery superiority of the Red 15th Army to bombard the enemy indiscriminately until the devil collapsed like in the historical Battle of Nomenkan, so as to reduce his own casualties as much as possible. However, now that the interspersed troops have encountered great difficulties, the army headquarters can only choose to devote as many troops as possible to storm the enemy army, and strive to kill and wound as many enemy troops as quickly as possible, so as to ensure that even if the two divisions and regiments finally succeed in joining forces, the enemy will no longer pose a major threat to the Red 15th Army. But if you fight like this, even if you have the support of advanced artillery offensive tactics, the casualties will definitely not be small, especially now that the devils of the 12th Division of the Japanese army know that the morale of the reinforcements has been greatly boosted, and almost every devil position must be killed before they can be taken, and the fierceness of the battle can be imagined.

However, to say that the most casualties were still the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division, which was attacked from both sides by the devils, although they stubbornly held out until nightfall, but at this time there were only more than 3,000 people left in the whole brigade, and most of them were wounded, and even the brigade commander was killed in battle

Note 1: Lying in the crater to prevent artillery is the experience of veterans in the civil war and even the Anti-Japanese War, and there are two main principles: one is that in the case of low shell density, the probability of two shells hitting the same place is very low; Second, conventional artillery shells mainly rely on fragments to kill and injure, and people lying in deep pits are below the horizon, and after the shells that fall outside the pit explode, shrapnel will fly over their heads and cannot injure people, thus greatly reducing the mortality rate during enemy shelling. However, in the later War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, because the density of US artillery fire was too large, this trick was not very effective, and the emergence of new types of ammunition such as "air-burst bombs" completely lost its effect. In addition, it must be noted that even during the Anti-Japanese War, the effect of crater anti-artillery is not as good as even the simplest trench, after all, it is just a way to respond to emergencies when it is too late to build fortifications (but the actual combat effect is still obvious, after all, many of our recruits during the Anti-Japanese War did not even understand the basic common sense of lying down to avoid bullets)