The Japanese 101st Division advanced in the direction of Qianshan County, the 5th Division occupied Anqing City, and Okamura Ninji also prepared to move the headquarters of the 11th Army to Anqing. Okamura was accompanied to Anqing by the remnants of the 27th Division, the 18th Division, and the 106th Division. The 18th Division and the 106th Division have recovered most of their original strength and are now ready to fight again after being replenished with troops and weapons and equipment from the mainland.

The navy's Yangtze River fleet passed through the Laoshan fortress and arrived at Anqing Port, and used Anqing Port as a base to continue along the Yangtze River to the west of Jiujiang. The commander of the Yangtze River Fleet, Rear Admiral Kawakoshiro, had already learned through reconnaissance that the next opponent he faced was Madang Fortress, which was not far from Anqing.

Rear Admiral Kawagushiro first sent a small fleet consisting of two destroyers, four Hanoi gunboats, and two minesweepers to Madang Fortress to find out the reality. And when the minesweepers were ready to come forward to clear mines, the 150 heavy guns on the Madang battery opened fire.

In the face of twenty 150 heavy guns, the two destroyers were not opponents at all, and they could not even return fire, and under the welcome of the heavy guns, one destroyer was sunk on the spot, and the remaining warships immediately withdrew to Anqing Port in a gloomy manner. When Major General Shiro Kawako learned that it was difficult to open the river near Madang Fortress by water, he reported to Commander Okamura Ninji.

Because the Madang Fort Fort was on the south bank of the Yangtze River, Commander Okamura Ninji had the idea of sneaking up on and occupying the Madang Fort Fort from land. If you want to attack Madang Fortress from land, you must send troops to land on the south bank of the Yangtze River by transport ships. The task of the sneak attack was handed over to the 101st Division, but the location of the landing was difficult to determine.

After some reconnaissance, Okamura Ninji and Kawako Shiro chose the landing site on the south bank of the Yangtze River in Dongliu Town. Dongliu Town belongs to the edge of the 16th Army Defense Zone, because of the relationship of troops, there is only one platoon of soldiers stationed here, and there are Xiangkou Town and Xiangshan along the Yangtze River to the south from Dongliu, these two places are the key defensive positions of the 16th Army.

Okamura Ninji did not attach much importance to the 16th Army on the south bank of the Yangtze River, but still allowed the 106th Division to secretly arrive at Dongliu Town in the middle of the night under the transportation of troop carriers mobilized by Kawagu Shiro. In the face of the sudden appearance of countless troop carriers and gunboats, a platoon of soldiers in Dongliu Town, unprepared, did not even have the idea of resisting, and fled from the town without firing a shot, and the Japanese 106th Division landed in Dongliu Town without much effort.

The 106th Division that went ashore reorganized its formation, and still took the 111th Brigade of Takeshiro as the lead, along the Yangtze River, and really galloped as a fortress. In order to ensure that they could quickly reach Madang Fortress, the 111th Brigade handed over artillery and other heavy weapons to the rear team, and the whole brigade went into battle lightly and quickly advanced southward.

When the 111th Brigade advanced along the river to Xiangkou Town, it encountered the first formal resistance from the troops of the 313th Regiment of the 53rd Division of the 16th Army. Not long ago, Wang Haitao talked to Li Yunheng, the commander of the 16th Army, and Li Yunheng still attached great importance to it, so the Xiangkou Town and Xiangshan positions were also taken seriously as the barrier of Madang Fortress, and a battalion of troops was arranged in Xiangkou Town.

As soon as the Japanese army arrived in Xiangkou Town, the battalion commander of the defending army called the military headquarters of the 16th Army. It's a pity that at this time, Li Yunheng went to the county government as a guest because of the invitation of the county magistrate of Dongzhi County, and did not receive a phone call, so he did not respond to the defenders of Xiangkou Town. When the 111th Brigade arrived at Xiangkou Town, it did not even do a rest, so it directly sent a brigade to attack Xiangkou Town.

The defenders of Xiangkou Town, led by the battalion commander, fought back and repelled three Japanese attacks in a row. At this time, the Japanese gunboats on the Yangtze River began to shell Xiangkou Town to support the infantry attack, and the artillery and other heavy weapons of the 111th Brigade also arrived at Xiangkou Town. Under the bombardment of Japanese artillery, the defenders of Xiangkou Town suffered heavy losses, and the commander of the garrison battalion had no choice but to give the order to retreat.

The remaining more than 100 officers and soldiers of this battalion, with their battalion commander withdrawing to the Xiangshan position behind them, guarded the Xiangshan position by the strength of the other two battalions of the 313th Regiment, it stands to reason that with the strength of the two battalions, plus the terrain of the Xiangshan position, it is enough to block the Japanese army for a few days, and they can also get reinforcements from other units of the 16th Army, but the commander of the defenders on the Xiangshan position, Liu Xiangjun, the commander of the 313th Regiment, is a timid mouse, greedy and afraid of death, and heard the withdrawn battalion commander say that the Japanese army has tens of thousands of people, and there is also the support of gunboats on the river, he was frightened, and he did not even see the shadow of the Japanese army, so he ordered to abandon the Xiangshan position and retreat to the east to the county。

The Japanese army, which was originally ready for a fierce battle, unexpectedly occupied the Xiangshan position without firing a shot, which also made Takeshiro arrogant again. A few kilometers behind the Xiangshan position is the main land position of Madang Fortress, the Changshan position. The Xiangshan position was lost, and the barrier of the Changshan position was lost. After the Japanese army occupied the Kayama position, it was getting late, and Takeshiro ordered to stop the advance and rest and recuperate.

When the Japanese attacked Xiangkou Town in the morning, the rumbling sound of artillery had already reached the Changshan position. Liu Yuzhu, commander of the 570th Regiment, hurriedly dispatched a reconnaissance unit to check whether the Japanese army had only shelled Xiangkou Town from the river or whether the infantry had already reached Xiangkou Town. When it was almost dark, the reconnaissance unit came back and reported that the Japanese army had captured the Xiangkou Town and Xiangshan positions in a company, and was now resting at the Xiangshan position, and would launch an attack on our Changshan position tomorrow.

The report of the reconnaissance unit made Liu Yuzhu stunned, but there was a whole regiment of the 16th Army defending the positions in Xiangkou Town and Xiangshan, and in less than a day, all the two positions were lost, so that the Changshan position lost its barrier, which Liu Yuzhu never expected. After figuring out what happened, Liu Yuzhu couldn't help but scold: "What a fucking bastard!"

Scolding and scolding, what should be faced still has to be faced, Liu Yuvain immediately notified the troops to make full preparations for battle. After a few days of preparation, the Changshan position was already ready for battle, and more importantly, the land between Xiangkou and Changshan was actually disconnected. It turned out that these days it has rained again and again, the river water has risen, and the water of the Yangtze River has actually flooded the roads and fields between Changshan and Xiangkou, and the water of the Yangtze River and Taibai Lake has actually become a piece.

The next day, Takeshiro was preparing to launch an attack on Nagayama early in the morning, but when he looked at the terrain, no, the land drawn here on the map was obviously passable, how did it become a lake? , So Takeshiro ordered several co-captains under him to launch an attack on the Changshan position, and today must take the Changshan position, and immediately spread out the formation for me, "Uniclothes and pants sit ——!"

Little Japan's intelligence work is indeed meticulous, but unfortunately it is still insufficient, and it is only marked that there is a land or rice field between the long mountains of Xiangkou, but it is not marked, and it will turn into a mud when it rains in the summer. The devils rushed into the water in a hurry, and at first they could still move and dodge left and right, rushing and jumping, jumping to a place close to the Changshan position, hundreds of devils couldn't jump, most of them were stuck in the mud, and it was very difficult to pull out their feet, so they could only do a slow motion with their left foot and right foot, and replay it in slow motion with their right foot and left foot.

Watching the devils' dung digging performance, the brethren of the naval garrison guarding Changshan must have appreciated them extremely happily and fell in love with them, Liu Yuzhu concentrated the light and heavy machine guns, and the bullets rained down. In an instant, hundreds of devils fell into the blood water, and let the water of Taibai Lake in the Yangtze River rush into the big river and lake to feed the fish and shrimp, which can be regarded as a dismount for the 106th Division.

Takeshiro didn't dare to attack easily at this time, but just sent a small force to find out the shape of the ground while attacking. It was not until the afternoon that Takeshita no longer engaged in a cluster charge, but brought in artillery and bombarded it vigorously, and then organized devils to attack along the road in the water.

These tricks of Takeshiro were all within Liu Yuzhu's expectations. The Changshan position was less than 10 kilometers away from Madang Fort, and the Japanese gunboats on the river were only 13 or 4 kilometers away from Madang Fort. The current 20 German-made 150 heavy guns on the Madang Fort have a firing range of more than 20 kilometers, and it is not a problem at all to hit the Changshan River from the Madang Fort.

After Liu Yuzhu called the Madang Fort through the radio, the 20 150 heavy guns on the Madang Fort began to strike at the Japanese gunboats on the Changshan River. How could these small gunboats withstand the blow of 150 heavy guns, and the heavy guns on the Madang battery only fired for ten minutes, and several gunboats were destroyed, and the remaining gunboats hurriedly turned around and ran away.

Without the support of the gunboats, Takeshiro was like cutting off an arm, and relying only on the 75 mountain guns, 92 infantry guns and mortars in the brigade, he was helpless to take the strong permanent defense fortifications on the Changshan position. On the contrary, the hundreds of mortars of the 570th Regiment dealt a very heavy blow to the attacking Japanese infantry.

After a day of fighting, Takeshitaro's 111th Brigade reimbursed nearly a brigade of men and horses, and he didn't even touch the edge of the Nagayama position. This made Takeshiro both disappointed and frustrated. In desperation, he could only send a telegram to the division commander Junrokuro Matsuura, asking the division to transfer the artillery wing as soon as possible.

Takeshitaro's 111th Brigade went smoothly at the beginning, and in one day it defeated the two Chinese armies in the Xiangkou Town and Xiangshan positions, and captured the two positions, which also made Matsuura Junrokuro, the commander of the lieutenant general's division, proud, and Matsuura Junrokuro even thought that he would soon be able to occupy Madang Fortress and launch an attack on Jiujiang City.

In order to help Takeshitaro's 111th Brigade take the Nagayama position as soon as possible, Matsuura Junrokuro ordered the division's artillery wing to rush to Xiangkou Town with all its strength and obey the command of the commander of Takeshita's brigade. He led the 136th Brigade to continue to advance in the direction of the Changshan position.