Regarding the ****'s decision to hit Shijiazhuang first, the Soviet Military Commission and ****** were a little disappointed. Because for the future battle of the Soviet Red Army to liberate Taiwan, Shijiazhuang is not interesting, but Beiping and Tianjin are extremely important, if the **** can capture these two large cities, the railway line from Zhangjiakou to Tanggu will be fully dredged, which is extremely important for transporting supplies. And now that Beiping and Tianjin are under the control of the Japanese army, this line is basically abandoned.

Of course, the Soviet side was disappointed and disappointed, but it is understandable, after all, the **** side has not been growing for long, although it is a shotgun for a change of artillery, but it is really not sure about the capture of big cities, and it is understandable to use Shijiazhuang to practice first.

Anyway, according to the timetable of the Soviet Union, the military operation to liberate Taiwan would not be earlier than January 1945. There are still four or five months to go, and such a long time is enough for **** to find the feeling of conquering a big city.

Of course, the Soviet Union did not let the **** find its own feelings, it was too slow to figure out by itself, the Soviet Red Army still had sufficient experience in this regard, and the commanders of the Red Army had enough experience in the face of German fortress tactics on the Eastern Front.

In fact, to put it bluntly, it is simple, first of all, in order to keep up with the firepower, there must be heavy artillery, and preferably the support of the air force. For this point, the Soviet side has also made preparations, and specially transferred a heavy self-propelled artillery brigade from the Soviet-German battlefield, at the moment they are fighting in the northeast, and will allocate reinforcements after conquering Qiqihar and Harbin.

It's not enough to have enough firepower, and an ancient capital like Beiping can't just blow it to pieces, right? Therefore, the most important thing is the siege tactics of the infantry, for this reason, the Soviet side also made preparations, and dispatched a group of engineering experts to spread experience to ****, although the experience of the Soviet Union is not necessarily suitable for ****. But experience is better than no experience, right?

After everything was ready, the **** attack on Shijiazhuang began, the main attack force was naturally the main force of the 120th Division, in order to conquer the Shijiazhuang 120th Division also made sufficient preparations, most of the division's artillery was mobilized around Shijiazhuang, in addition to Kulikov also sent the only armored force he had at hand. It is believed that there are tanks to open the way. It's much easier to attack the perimeter.

Shijiazhuang has a short history, it is a new industrial city that emerged entirely because of the railway. Before 1947, it was called Shimen, and it was renamed Shijiazhuang after the People's Liberation Army took Shimen. Shijiazhuang in 1944 was not ordinary, in short, where is a city, it is simply a barracks.

Since the Japanese army occupied Shijiazhuang, it has always been regarded as an important strategic fortress base in the whole of North China. In order to "feed the war with war," the Japanese army began to expand its military facilities on a large scale, placed important military institutions, and stationed a large number of heavy troops.

During the 8 years that the Japanese army occupied Shimen. Although the troops stationed at Shimen were frequently moved, the total strength of the garrison remained between 20,000 and 50,000. The 1st Army, the main force of the Japanese North China Front, the 110th Division, the 1st Independent Mixed Brigade, the 4th Independent Mixed Brigade, the 8th Independent Mixed Brigade, the 9th Independent Mixed Brigade, the 2nd Independent Infantry Brigade, and the 27th Flying Squadron were stationed here.

By the end of 1942, the 110th Division was still stationed in Shimen, with three infantry wings and a total of 14,784 personnel. And that's not all, according to the clear record of the War History Office of the Japanese Defense Agency: the 8th Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade was also assigned to the 110th Division at that time for enhanced use.

Therefore, the permanent strength of the Japanese army in Shijiazhuang is as high as about 25,000 people, and since 1939, the devils have been building fortifications and blockade ditches around Shijiazhuang. The whole Shijiazhuang is composed of a "blockade ditch" and is roughly a rectangular military city, with an area of about 38 square kilometers. On the inside of the blockade ditch, an embankment is built parallel to it as a road. Defensive strongholds were set up along the roads to restrict access and access. Also along the periphery of the blockade ditch. Set up 300 meters of open land, prohibit or restrict all buildings, and serve as an open protection zone on the edge of the city. In this way, Shijiazhuang was transformed from an industrial and commercial city without a city wall to a military city with an underground city wall.

This is still the periphery of the city, and in the city of Shijiazhuang, the defense is even more severe. Among them, the military camps are dense and the fortresses are numerous. There are mainly West Barracks, Southwest Barracks, South Barracks, North Barracks, East Barracks, New East Barracks, etc. Due to the increasingly prominent function of Shimen City as a military city and the expansion of the status of military facilities, in order to meet the demand for a large number of building materials, the Japanese army also built a military smelting yard in Shimen.

Let's put it this way. The whole Shijiazhuang is a veritable fire hedgehog, surrounded by blockade ditch bunkers and artillery towers, and the internal military camp fortresses are numerous, which can be said to be three steps, one post, five steps and one sentry. Not to mention the **** of the year, even a Soviet adviser like Kulikov, who has seen the world, admits that the city is quite difficult to fight.

But it's not easy to play, Shijiazhuang is a difficult test question, if **** can do this question well, there will be similar questions in the future, it will naturally be difficult for them.

The attack was first launched by the Soviet Air Force's strike aviation, and the scene of more than 50 B17s opening the hatch and dropping bombs shocked many "dirt eight roads" who were "watching" on the ground.

Of course, for Soviet advisers such as Kulikov, this level of bombing was really nothing. As far as he knew, the long-range air force of the Red Air Force bombed the German hinterland by hundreds of bombers, and the dozens of bombers in this area were really out of their control.

This batch of B17s is stationed at the airport in Outer Mongolia, and it takes several hours to make a round trip to Shijiazhuang, so at most two sorties per day, to be honest, the scale of bombing is really limited. In addition to this batch of B17s, the only ones that the Red Army could send were the Il-2 and Tu-2, which had just been stationed at the expanded Yan'an airfield, but in order to seize air supremacy over North China, Yan'an was stationed more fighters.

Of course, this was very satisfying for the Eighth Route Army, which had never enjoyed air support. In the past, only the Japanese bombers rode on their heads to and pee, but now, the devil's plane has been chased by the Soviet big brother, and from time to time there are big brother bombers and attack planes rushing down to ride the devil's neck, that's cool!

After the bombing of the B17, the Tu-2 carried out a supplementary bombardment. Although these two rounds of bombing do not say how many devils' fortifications have been blown up, they can be regarded as playing a role in knocking mountains and shaking tigers. What's more, the Il-2 rushed to the battlefield to dive immediately afterward, and the target of the Il-2 was mainly the artillery turret of the devils on the ground, and these cylindrical conspicuous buildings could not escape the eyes of the Il-2 pilot, whether it was diving to drop bombs or strafing back and forth. All in all. The so-called "bunkers" that this group of devils once used to bully Tubalu were either opened or blown up.

The entire air raid lasted for two hours, and when the Red Air Force waved its wings and did not leave the battlefield, the outskirts of Shijiazhuang were already shrouded in smoke. It took nearly an hour for the smoke to dissipate.

Just when the Japanese army was urging the puppet army and the captured strong men to repair the damaged fortifications, the artillery of the Eighth Route Army and the Red Army opened fire, and it was quite spectacular for 200 howitzers to fire at the same time, and the 76 mm, 122 mm and 152 mm grenades blasted up the smoke and dust that had just landed again, and the fierce artillery fire that lasted for two hours fired a total of nearly 60,000 shells.

Speaking from the heart, so many shells are simply unimaginable for ****. In the first 7 years of the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, they did not fire so many shells, mainly because they did not have so many cannons, and they could not supply so many shells. The **** of that year basically could not even produce mortars and mortar shells, let alone howitzers and grenades.

This extremely spectacular artillery attack in the eyes of **** is aesthetic fatigue for the Red Army, which time the Red Army attacked when it was not a salvo of 10,000 artillery, shelling of this scale is too common.

So when the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army were a little stunned, the armored units of the Red Army that cooperated with the Eighth Route Army were just quietly doing their own thing. It is important to take advantage of this time to make the final pre-war preparations.

When the last shell exploded in the Japanese trenches, the Red Army tankmen put up the forward gear. The already roaring chariot began to move slowly, followed by a group of soldiers of the Eighth Route Army behind the T-34-76, who, under the command of their superiors who had studied in the Soviet Union, cautiously and curiously followed the iron lumps that made a loud roar.

Li Siliang was a combat hero who participated in that battle, and he still remembers that battle vividly many years later.

"I am a soldier of the Sharp Knife Company, and our entire company is a Communist. They are all models of battle, and they are used to gnaw hard bones...... In July 1944, after the victory in Zhangjiakou, the troops soon moved south, and when we recovered Baoding, our company was the first to plant the red flag on the head of Baoding City...... After that, the superior commander was determined to destroy the Japanese army entrenched in Shimen. It was a large stronghold of the Japanese army in the hinterland of North China, with more than 20,000 devils and more puppet troops, and only by taking it can we say that we have truly recovered North China. ”

"The whole army knew that this battle was not easy to fight, and the enemy surrounded the stone gates with blockade ditches, forts, and barbed wire and mine arrays, like a fire hedgehog. However, in order to recover North China and the whole of China, we must take down this fire hedgehog. For this battle, the superior commander gathered all our artillery and issued a large number of explosive packs, and according to the original battle plan, we will blast all the way in. ”

"But before the battle really started, the big brother of the Soviet Union sent a support force, a lump of iron, a big iron wheel, a black cannon barrel with a thick mouth, when it ran up, it rumbled, climbed over the trench like walking on the ground. We hadn't seen a tank at that time, and we all watched it from afar, thinking in our hearts, when will our Eighth Route Army have this treasure? Then the dream came true, and after the Liberation War began, we formed our first tank brigade, equipped with tanks supported by Big Brother and captured from the enemy, and I became the first tank driver......"

"At seven o'clock in the morning, the battle officially began, first of all, the plane bombed, the dense plane hula flew over, and the big black iron egg was thrown down at the devil's position, and the smoke from the explosion was dozens of zhang high, covering the sky and the sun, and it was impossible to see things clearly...... The plane blew up the artillery and continued to bombard, without stopping for the whole morning. We thought, how many bombs and shells would we have to use in such a war? But if you can beat the devil to death, our hearts will bloom! ”

"At half past ten in the morning, it was finally our turn to appear in the knife company, each of us had a submachine gun, a dozen grenades pinned to our waists, and each of us carried an explosive bag. Be prepared to attack the fortifications in accordance with the traditional method. But we soon found out that today was different, Big Brother sent the tank, and the iron monster went ahead and we followed, and to be honest, it was really new. ”

"It's been a haste or a slow journey. More than a dozen tanks covered our company and slowly approached the position of the devils, and from the side of the rear of the car, the devils' positions were already in disarray, and the barbed wire fence had either disappeared, or it was not a threat, which made the big iron tongs we had prepared useless...... Walking further, you can still see that the blockade ditch dug by the devils has also been blown beyond recognition, some have collapsed, and some have been blown flat. When we were about to get close to the blockade ditch, the devil finally couldn't help but open fire......"

Li Siliang has not fought with devils, he used to be envious and jealous of the devil's firepower, the machine gun barrel is enough, there are grenadiers, mortars, and if it doesn't work, he will use poison gas bombs, all in all, the Eighth Route Army is far from it. And on this day, when he fought side by side with the big brother of the Soviet Union, he discovered what it means to be outside the world.

The devils who used to look extremely powerful were not worthy of carrying shoes for Big Brother. The boss's machine gun is like a bullet that doesn't need money, and from time to time he makes up for a shot or two. This style of play is really extravagant!

"The explosive packs and blasting canisters that were prepared before the outbreak of the fighting hardly came in handy. When encountering enemy fire points, Big Brother's tanks will not hesitate to open fire, fire two shells if one shell is not enough, and continue if it is not enough. Anyway, Big Brother is just opening the way with artillery and crushing it all the way! ”

Li Siliang also recalled: "Big Brother is also equipped with a tank that can breathe fire, which is amazingly powerful. When encountering a strong fortress, after approaching, the fire is violently spewed, and generally soon the devils in the bunker can't support it and escapes with flames all over it, and all we need to do is to replenish the gun. ”

Let's put it this way, according to Li Siliang's recollections. The only thing that caused a little trouble for Big Brother that day was the Japanese anti-tank mines, and several T-34-76s were unfortunately blown up and had to withdraw from the battle with their tracks or load wheels. But soon the Red Army's combat engineer came into play, arriving at the minefield in a professional engineering vehicle and shoveling it with a demining vehicle or simply blasting a path with a demining rocket.

In this way, almost all the way unimpeded, Li Siliang and his comrades-in-arms easily broke through the outlying positions of the Japanese army and hit the urban area of Shijiazhuang. And that's when their sharp knife companies come in handy.

As mentioned earlier, Shijiazhuang has been turned into a large military camp by the devils, almost three steps, one post, five steps and one sentry, the barricades are full of dark forts, and the devils and the puppet army rely on the dense fortifications and buildings to begin to entangle with the Eighth Route Army and the Red Army.

Li Siliang recalled: "There were dark bunkers everywhere, and the devils hid in them and attacked us with machine guns and rifles, and there was almost no way to stay on the streets, and when it came to this part, the devils had become extremely crazy, and in order to destroy Big Brother's tank, they did not hesitate to use suicide tactics with explosives bags." ”

For a time the battle fell into a stalemate, in order to reduce losses, the sharp knife company began to think of a way, they did not blindly fight with the enemy's complete fire fortifications, since it was difficult to march on the streets, then from the buildings on both sides of the way, they used explosives to make holes in the wall, and then one by one to clear the stubborn devil soldiers, step by step down-to-earth forward.

At the same time, the combat sappers of the Soviet Red Army were not idle, they brought "siege tanks" modified from the T-54 chassis, dismantled the turret of the T-54 and replaced it with a 160-mm mortar turret with an elevation angle of 70 degrees, which could fire both flat and curved fire, which was very suitable for urban combat environments. Of course, the most important thing is to strengthen the defense of this "siege tank", its hull front armor is welded with 30 mm bulletproof steel plates, and the side is also welded with a ring of hollow armor.

Let's put it this way, with the anti-armor capabilities of the Japanese army, it is difficult to destroy this kind of "siege tank" even if it is loaded with explosives and **** tactics. Of course, the main thing is that the combat engineers of the Red Army had a complete set of coordinated tactics, and not just "siege tanks" to forcibly demolish. Generally, behind a siege tank, two wheeled or tracked infantry fighting vehicles will be followed, infantry fighting vehicles with 30 mm machine guns and 12.7 mm machine guns to flank siege tanks, encounter the Japanese strong fortifications, siege tanks rush forward, and infantry fighting vehicles cover on both wings, they are responsible for removing those devil soldiers or anti-tank teams who try to bypass the two wings to play **** tactics. When the siege tanks broke down the fortifications on the opposite side, the mechanized infantry in the infantry fighting vehicles immediately got out of the vehicles and seized the position to prevent the devils from counterattacking.

If you think about it, there are unreasonable armored combat engineers of the Red Army on the streets, and the sharp knife companies of the Eighth Route Army that use explosives to open the way in the buildings on both sides. Stubbornness will be crushed into powder, and rushing out will be swept away by the superior firepower of the Red Army so that there is not even a scum left, in short, the devil has only a dead end!

What was supposed to be a brutal battle went so smoothly was completely unexpected. By the third day of the official start of the battle, the Japanese puppet army entrenched in the city had been divided into several pieces, and they were desperately relying on the few remaining large fortifications to resist stubbornly...... (To be continued.) )

PS: Bow and thank you for going to bed early and getting up early to exercise more, the blue sky of the four seas, Admiral Hood, the fish over the city, the old students, the glorious charter, the king of mending knives and Comrade Juventus!