When Lieutenant General Shunjiro Takeuchi, commander of the 116th Division of the Japanese Army, received a telegram from the East Gate position asking for help, he was discussing with Lieutenant General Iide Tetsuzo how to counterattack the Chinese army after the reinforcements arrived tomorrow. Although there are not many people left in the 32nd Division, he is still the supreme commander of the battlefield, and how to arrange the battle has to be up to him.

Seeing that Lieutenant General Shunjiro Takeuchi had an ugly face after reading the telegram, Lieutenant General Iide Tetsuzo guessed that the situation was not good. Sure enough, Lieutenant General Shunjiro Takeuchi had a calm face, and while handing the telegram to Lieutenant General Iide Tetsuzo, he said to him: "Ide-kun, the Shina army is attacking the East Gate position, and there is only half an infantry wing on the position, should we immediately reinforce the East Gate position?"

Lieutenant General Iide Tetsuzo read the telegram at a glance and replied, "Takeuchi-kun, not only can you not reinforce the East Gate position now, but you must immediately order them to withdraw to the main position of the North Gate. You must know that the chariots of the Chinese are very difficult to deal with, it is difficult to stop them without heavy artillery, and sending reinforcements can only allow the Chinese to defeat us separately. As long as the troops are concentrated on the main position at the north gate, all the forces are gathered, and the strong position is relied on, in order to block the attack of the people of China and hold on until the reinforcements arrive. ”

Lieutenant General Shunjiro Takeuchi nodded and said, "What Iide-kun said is right, it's me who didn't think it through. I will now order all the troops in the East Gate position to withdraw to the main position at the North Gate. However, with the strength of one of my divisions, I am afraid that it will be difficult to hold out until the reinforcements arrive tomorrow, and I hope that Izukun will send a telegram urging the 37th Division to rush here immediately. Lieutenant General Iide Tetsuzo also understood that Lieutenant General Shunjiro Takeuchi was telling the truth, so he promised to immediately send a telegram urging reinforcements.

The Japanese commander on the position outside the east gate waited anxiously and finally received the order of the division commander to retreat, and at this time the Chinese army's chariot was only more than 100 meters away from the position. The soldiers in the trenches suppressed by the strafing of the machine guns on the chariots had difficulty raising their heads, and several heavy machine gun fire points were even more attacked by the vehicle-mounted artillery, which was basically ineffective.

The commander hurriedly conveyed the order to retreat to his subordinates, but fortunately he was not too stupid, and he knew that he would leave an infantry squadron as the main force. When the Japanese troops on the position heard the order to retreat, they hurriedly retreated. The squadron that remained behind remained resolutely in position. The commander gave them the order to hold out for thirty minutes before retreating. At this time, the characteristics of the Japanese soldiers' obedience were reflected, although they knew that staying on the position was more auspicious, but no one from the squadron leader to the soldiers disobeyed the order.

The attacking 877th Regiment clearly felt the weakening of the firepower on the position, and the regiment commander Wu Zhijun guessed that the Japanese army would retreat and ordered the troops to speed up the attack. Even so, under the desperate resistance of the Japanese army, it took more than ten minutes for the chariot and the 877th Regiment to rush to the Japanese position. Seeing that the Chinese army rushed to the position, the Japanese squadron leader on the position took the last nearly 100 Japanese soldiers and launched a decisive charge against the Chinese army.

It only took about ten minutes for the Japanese army to be completely wiped out, but it was the desperate resistance of this Japanese squadron that caused more than 40 casualties in the 877th Regiment, and two heavy armored vehicles were blown up and their tracks could not move, so they could only wait for the rear rescue team to come for repairs. The most important thing is that in this nearly half an hour, the main force of the Japanese army escaped more than 1,000 meters.

Wu Zhijun, who was unwilling to achieve such a result, gave an order, leaving a company to clean up the battlefield and rescue the wounded, and the rest of the troops chased down with the chariot in the direction of the Japanese retreat. The 877th Regiment pursued this pursuit, and the brigade commander Tang Yu was afraid that they would have an accident, so he also ordered the 878th Regiment and the 879th Regiment to pursue later. The 871st Regiment and the 872nd Regiment that rushed out of the city also joined the tank and Tang Yu together after filling in a section of anti-tank trenches.

It was only a few kilometers away from the east gate to the north gate, and the Japanese army retreated directly to the north gate from the trail, and this kind of small road chariot could not walk at all, and could only detour from the main road, so that the chariot and the 877th Regiment were thrown farther and farther away by the Japanese army, and later even the 878th Regiment pursued from the small road surpassed them, and rushed to the Japanese North Gate position first.

The movement of the 462nd Brigade was discovered by the observation post of the 463rd Brigade on the wall of the north gate, and the sentry immediately reported the situation to the brigade commander Wei Erxi. From the Battle of Hengyang to the present, Wei Erxi is quite depressed, and only one or two real battles have been fought, but the losses are not small. I thought that I could fight a few more tough battles with the 210th Division, but I didn't expect to be besieged for so many days in the small county town of Zhangshu.

Now that he heard the report that the 462nd Brigade had arrived near the Japanese position outside the north gate, Wei Erxi, who was unwilling, directly grabbed the phone on his desk and wanted to call Wang Haitao's office. Wang Haitao was discussing with Tang Longzai in the office what the troops should do next after defeating the Japanese army, and whether Nanchang City could continue to attack, when Wei Erxi's phone called.

On the phone, Wei Erxi directly asked the 463rd Brigade to participate in the attack on the main position outside the north gate of the Japanese army, Wang Haitao listened to Wei Erxi's request, and only replied: "The task of your brigade is to hold the city wall of the north gate, you let the troops stand by first, and I will consider your request." Hearing Wang Haitao's answer, Wei Erxi didn't dare to say anything more, so he could only put down the phone helplessly.

In fact, there are already two full regiments of the 460th Brigade in front of the position outside the north gate, plus three regiments of the 462nd Brigade that are not fully staffed, the total strength of the troops has exceeded 10,000, and there are more than 50 combat vehicles of various kinds. As for the two regiments of the 463rd Brigade, Wang Haitao does not plan to use them now, and plans to use them as the main force when attacking Nanchang City.

The troops of the 4610th Brigade and the 462nd Brigade successively arrived near the main Japanese position outside the north gate, and were divided into two parts to prepare for the attack. Li Changwu had already rushed to the front line on the orders of Wang Haitao and was responsible for the overall command of the attack of the two brigades. The movements of the Chinese army were clearly seen by Lieutenant General Shunjiro Takeuchi standing on a high place, and he couldn't help but feel a little flustered when he looked at the dozens of chariots neatly arranged in front of the Chinese army.

Lieutenant General Nokuichiro, the commander of the 37th Division, had just arrived at the county seat of Fengcheng, and before he had even sat on the hot bench, he was connected to several telegrams urging him to rush to Zhangshu City immediately. Lieutenant General Nokuichiro was still unimpressed by the telegram sent by Lieutenant General Iide Tetsuzo, but the telegram sent by Commander Isamu Yokoyama made him dare not slack off. So Lieutenant General Nokuichiro kept cursing in his heart for Lieutenant General Iide's incompetence, and he could only let the troops gather again and rush to Zhangshu City.

Because the troops had just arrived in Fengcheng County and had not yet been disbanded, the soldiers quickly assembled despite their complaints. As in the order of march, the 13th Independent Brigade was at the forefront of the troops. The 13th Independent Brigade Regiment had four infantry brigades and an artillery brigade and an engineer squadron, with a strength of more than 7,000 people. By the time they arrived not far outside the tugboat port for nearly two hours, it was already evening. When the 56th Infantry Brigade, which was at the forefront, discovered that there was a defensive position of the Chinese army outside the town, the captain of the brigade was shocked and immediately reported the situation to the brigade commander, Major General Yoshiharu Ozaki.

Guarding the tugboat port town was the troops of the Jurong Independent Brigade, which was originally a defensive position jointly built by the 3rd and 4th regiments, of which the 3rd regiment and the 2nd battalion were guarding Rongtang Town. When Huang Guizhong was ordered to lead the first and second regiments to arrive, the defenders here already had four regiments. Considering that the tugboat port town was too small, it was difficult for the four regiments to spread out, and the location of Rongtang Town was also very important, Huang Guizhong sent the entire three regiments to Rongtang Town to garrison.

As soon as the 13th Independent Brigade of the Japanese Army arrived near the tugboat port town, it was discovered by the Independent Brigade, and Huang Guizhong ordered the 4th Regiment to prepare for battle while reporting the situation to Wang Haitao by telegram. Wang Haitao's reply was very clear, the independent brigade must hold on to the tugboat port town until there is an order to retreat. Huang Guizhong's order to Wang Haitao will not be disobeyed in the slightest way, so Huang Guizhong called the three regiment commanders around him together, and after conveying Wang Haitao's order, he said: "The order has been issued, our brigade is the last man to fight, and we must complete this task." The fourth regiment is now in a defensive position outside the town, and your regiment must strictly defend the position!"

Chen Yishan, the commander of the fourth regiment, stood up and replied: "Please rest assured, our regiment will fight to the death, and if little Japan wants to cross Lao Tzu's position, it must step over Lao Tzu's corpse!" Huang Guizhong nodded, and then said: "The second regiment will first continue to strengthen the defensive position in the direction of Zhangshu City to prevent the Japanese army outside Zhangshu City from being defeated and retreating. One regiment was stationed in the town, ready to reinforce the fourth or second regiment. Let's go get ready!"

Huang Guizhong was arranging defensive tasks, and the Japanese army was not idle. After receiving the report, Major General Yoshiharu Ozaki, commander of the 13th Independent Brigade, ordered the artillery group to prepare for the attack, and at the same time the 56th and 57th brigades also prepared to attack, and reported to Lieutenant General Nokuichiro. Half an hour later, 16 Japanese mountain guns simultaneously launched artillery bombardment on the Chinese defenders' positions.

There are quite a few large- and small-caliber mortars in the Jurong Independent Brigade, but there are no large-caliber artillery. The mortar was inferior to the Japanese mountain artillery in terms of power and range, so it could only endure the bombardment of the Japanese mountain artillery and could not return fire. Fortunately, it was already dark, the number of Japanese mountain guns was not large, the accuracy was not very good, and the casualties of the soldiers hiding in the fortifications and trenches were not large.

After twenty minutes of shelling, two Japanese infantry squadrons went on the attack, by which time the Chinese fighters had quietly entered their positions. On the first defensive position were the officers and soldiers of the fourth regiment and one battalion, and the battalion commander Li Youming was also a veteran who had participated in the Battle of Songhu.

The gradually darkening sky made Li Youming a little difficult to observe, and he turned his head to his subordinates and said, "Pass my order, wait for the Japanese army to enter within 100 meters before firing, and concentrate fire to kill and wound the Japanese army." The order was immediately conveyed, and the soldiers in the trenches clenched their weapons and waited quietly for the order to open fire, and some of the new soldiers were also infected by the composure of the veterans, and their mood was calmed.