What Ouyang Yun wanted, Okamura Ningji naturally couldn't think about it. However, considering the existence of Chen Cheng's corps in Jiangnan, from the very beginning, he never thought of putting the main forces into the Hukou battle. Okamura Ningji's scruples are justified to a certain extent, although Jiujiang was taken, it seems that a hole has been dug in the Chinese army's Jiangnan defense line, but from another angle, the situation of the 106th Division at the moment is equivalent to sending itself into the encirclement of the Chinese army group. You must know that the current Jiangnan is in the Changsha area, but there are nearly 200,000 troops from several divisions of the Central Army. If the Madang fortress could not be taken, the Yangtze River fleet would not be able to go up to the river near Jiujiang, and it would not be able to provide strong support. In addition, the Anqing airfield was destroyed by a sneak attack, and the Japanese army in Jiujiang lost the support of the Second Air Regiment, so once it encountered the ground attack of the Chinese army, it would have to fall into a situation of fighting alone. This kind of situation was something that Okamura Ning tried his best to avoid, so he didn't dare to make a desperate bet at all and create an opportunity for Chen Cheng's corps to wipe out the 2nd Army. Okamura Ninji placed the 112th Division in Huangmei, not so much to strengthen the offensive against Hukou, but because he was worried that Chen Cheng's corps would attack Jiujiang.

After the heavy artillery wing of the 106th Division carried out a quarter of an hour of wanton and indiscriminate bombardment of the Shizhongshan position on the Hukou front, the devils of the three brigades launched a landing operation in nearly 100 small boats. The quarter-hour-long shelling destroyed almost all the strong fortifications on the Shizhongshan position. And several trenches in Linjiang were blown up and completely useless.

The 123rd Regiment was now on duty at the Shizhong Mountain position, and the Japanese artillery bombardment had no warning, and when the cannon sounded, many students were still busy reinforcing the fortifications, so the first round of shelling caused them a lot of casualties, and at least one platoon of officers and soldiers fell into the artillery fire and lost their young lives. The cannon sounded, and the head of the regiment, Wu Gang, still had some doubts at first: "Devils of dog days, are they going to hit the mouth of the lake?" When the cannon rang out again, he immediately gave an order for all officers and men to enter the anti-artillery hole to avoid it. However, because the soil in the coastal area is soft, it is impossible to dig too deep anti-artillery holes, and the solid mountain fortifications are relatively far away from the trenches where they are now, so although the cadets entered the anti-artillery holes in time, after this round of artillery fire, the 123rd Regiment still sacrificed more than 100 officers and soldiers, and nearly 100 people were temporarily deaf because they were too close to the bombing point.

The sound of the artillery stopped, and Wu Gang thought that it was just a way to harass the shelling, but soon, the shouting of the observation post through the walkie-talkie dispelled this idea. "Eyes call heads, eyes call heads, the Japanese army rushed out of the hidden position with the boats, and they seemed to be about to launch a landing operation!" On the other side, almost immediately after the shelling stopped, a large number of Japanese troops appeared on the originally empty river beach. More than a dozen or even dozens of these devils carried wooden boats, fishing boats, and other boats of different sizes to the surface of the lake, and the devils who rushed to the front had already put the boats into the water and immediately began to board the boats.

Wu Gang climbed out of the air-raid shelter, he squatted on the edge of the bombed trench and raised his telescope to look at the mouth of the Panyang Lake, his face quickly changed, and then he dropped the telescope and ran towards the location of the communications platoon not far away. Li Xiaoyong, the platoon commander of the communications platoon, had already made preparations, and when he saw him coming, he immediately handed him the microphone and said, "I have been connected to the brigade headquarters, regimental seat, you can just speak directly." ”

The headquarters of the 34th Brigade is located in Yanlie Mountain, five kilometers to the left of Shizhong Mountain. Yanlie Mountain is also near the river, so when the round of artillery just now sounded, the brigade commander Meng Kailan had already heard the sound, and he saw everything that happened on the river beach opposite Shizhong Mountain through the telescope, and then ran back to call the division headquarters and report the situation to Ye Zhao.

Wu Gang sent a telegram to the brigade headquarters, first, to report the situation, and then to ask for artillery support, believing that if artillery was used to carry out a saturation strike on the Japanese landing force at this moment, it would definitely be a sure deal.

Meng Kailan held a phone in one hand, did not dare to make the decision on his own, and immediately conveyed Wu Gang's request to Ye Zhao, hoping that the heavy artillery regiment directly under the division could seize the opportunity to open artillery to annihilate the Japanese army crossing the river. The Japanese attack was very sudden, and Ye Zhao was not prepared at all. He originally thought that because of the various postures made by the headquarters at Hukou, even if the Japanese army wanted to attack, it would attack Duchang from Xingzi first, but he did not expect that the Japanese army would fire at Hukou first. Although the artillery unit of the 12th Division of the 12th Division opened fire at this time, although it could inflict huge casualties on the Japanese army, it was locked first without locking the Japanese artillery position, and then it was bound to suffer a big loss in the artillery battle that would definitely occur soon. Since the artillery could not immediately enter the battle, he gave Meng Kailan an order to resolutely repel the first wave of Japanese attacks at all costs. Then, realizing that the stakes were high and likely to affect the Madang strategy formulated by the commander-in-chief, he called Ouyang Yun, emphasizing the fierceness of the Japanese attack and hoping to get some support. The 12th Division was transferred to the chariot unit, and now there are eight infantry regiments left, and they have to defend Hukou and Duchang, the battle line is quite long, and the distribution of troops is slightly insufficient. He was very worried that once Hukou was the main direction of the Japanese army's attack, because the scope of the troops was too wide to support each other, it would be very likely that the Japanese army would be defeated in one fell swoop. And once the mouth of the lake is lost, then Madangke will be attacked on both sides or even surrounded, and this responsibility is not something he can afford.

Ouyang Yun's reply arrived quickly, and to Ye Zhao's surprise, there was not a single reinforcement, but fortunately, he was allowed to adjust his defense at will according to the situation. When Ye Zhao got this telegram, Wu Gang was already organizing mortars to shell enemy ships on the lake.

The crossing point chosen by the Japanese army is very good, the lake is only about one kilometer, such a short distance, if there is no obstacle, it can be passed in about ten minutes. The Japanese army dispatched more than 3,000 devils in three brigades for the first attack, apparently intending to go down in one go. In the era of cold weapons, the art of war had the tactics of attacking half-crossing. In the era of hot weapons, the troops crossing the river are still the most vulnerable in the process of crossing the river, and this time is the best time for the defenders to take advantage of the defensive time. Wu Gang saw that the artillery support was delayed, and the Japanese army was getting closer and closer to his defensive position, he didn't think about it, and immediately mobilized the mortars of the whole regiment to start bombarding the boats crossing the lake.

The sound of "empty" cannons sounded, and then there were columns of water that exploded on the surface of the lake, and those who were lucky hit the enemy ships directly, and when they boarded, a piece of flesh and wood chips flew sideways, and the screams rang out, and when they landed, the water mist and gunpowder smoke flooded the entire lake.

The first round of the Japanese army commanded the first round of attack, and it was Yamaikegaki who commanded it. Yamaikegaki held back his strength, and he wanted to show himself in front of Nakajima, and it was best to be reinstated after this battle, so he behaved extremely hard. He stood on the front board of a slightly larger fishing boat's cabin, holding on to the handrail specially erected for this lake-crossing operation, watching one fishing boat after another being shattered in his field of vision, and one soldier after another being blown into the water, unmoved, just calmly shouted: "Leave them alone, speed up, rush up, rush up is victory!" His Majesty the Emperor will bless us! ”

After Zhongdaoqing Village succeeded in defrauding Jiujiang, he knew that the Ludao Headquarters would launch the Hukou War sooner or later, so he began to prepare and organize the materials and vanguard troops needed for the landing operation from the night of the same day. But even so, one in five of them are landlubbers. It would be extremely risky to let landlubbers land on such small fishing boats, which require high operational skills. In order to minimize non-combat damage, Nakajima had his men erect well-thought-out handrails for each boat. I have to admit that these handrails did allow the Japanese army to reduce non-combat attrition, and more importantly, because those landlubbers had these handrails, they could stay on the ship relatively safely, so they were less psychologically frightened, and to a certain extent, they also ensured their combat effectiveness after landing. However, those landlubbers who fell overboard because of the bombing of their boats did a terrible fate. I saw that some devils were still tossing desperately in the water one moment, and the next moment there were only two hands left to scratch on the water, and the next moment, after a string of bubbles, these devils sank to the bottom of the lake, and since then they have become a ghost in Panyang Lake.

The 123rd Regiment had a total of more than 30 mortars, and these guns fired at the same time, although as the enemy got closer and closer, it gradually got out of range, so that each gun could only fire about ten grenades, but it still caused a lot of trouble for the Japanese army, and more than 20 ships were directly hit, so more than 100 devils were directly killed, and those who fell into the water did not know how many roads.

Ten minutes may seem like a short time, but on the battlefield, it is fleeting. Wu Gang had been nervously watching the progress of the Japanese army's river-crossing troops, and seeing that the boat in front was only more than 200 meters away from the river beach, he gave the order for the mortar troops to retreat, and immediately personally led the machine gun company combined by the machine gunners of the whole regiment to block a trench at the forefront of Shizhong Mountain.

This trench was badly damaged by the previous shelling, and in fact it did not play much of a protective role. However, in the case of landing warfare, because the Japanese army had the process of disembarking, it could still be used as a strong line of defense.

The machine guns of the cadet army are fully equipped, one in each squad, and the whole regiment combined, that is nearly a hundred. Nearly 100 sick machine guns fired at the same time, and their firepower density, not to mention that there were only more than 3,000 devils in the first wave of attack, even if it was doubled, don't think about rushing up in a short time. Moreover, in order to ensure the safety of the machine gunners and make the Japanese sharpshooters and mortars ineffective, Wu Gang also organized the snipers in the regiment and established a sniper position on a high ground more than 200 meters behind the machine gun position. As for the remaining officers and men, they will be under the command of Jiang Youwei, deputy commander of the regiment, and will launch a charge at an appropriate time to completely smash the Japanese army's plan for this round of landing operations.