Section 136 Bloody battle to the end

The situation in Guanqiao and Wuqiao and other places made Luo Zhuoying, commander of the 19th Group Army, very angry, and in the case of the loss of Wuqiao, the 34th Division that surrounded and annihilated the Japanese army had actually become empty talk. In the early stage, at the risk of losing Shanggao, a unit of the 74th Army faced the Japanese army's second-way attack, and after paying a great price, it finally created an opportunity to encircle and annihilate. I didn't expect it, but there was such a mistake when the net was finally closed, and it was almost impossible for the devil to open a breakthrough, and let the peerless combat exploits that had almost been in hand slip away, who could stand this situation?

In fact, not only Luo Zhuoying was furious, but also Li Jue, the commander of the 70th Army, was also furious at the moment. When he was rich, the encirclement and annihilation battle advocated by him was also broken through as soon as the encirclement of the devils was encircled, or the independent regiment of the 74th Army annihilated more than 1,000 Japanese troops and killed a wing commander in several consecutive battles in that battle, they would probably have lost face long ago. And this time the opportunity is better than the beginning, the Japanese 34th Division is deeper in the encirclement, the reinforcements are farther away, and the strength is far beyond the enemy, which can be described as a good opportunity that can not be found!

However, no matter how good the opportunity is, it is no problem to seize it, who would have thought that the devil would conquer Wuqiao in such a short time? Who would have thought that when they were shrinking the encirclement, the 19th Division, which has always been steady, would fall into an ambush by devils? Now that the enemy forces of the 33rd Division have moved south, there is no longer any barrier between the two enemy divisions, and it is impossible to completely annihilate the Japanese army in the situation of being horns of each other. This made General Li almost vomit blood in anger, but the fact is that this is already the case, and he has no other way.

On 26 March, the headquarters of the group army also made adjustments in light of the current situation, changing the encirclement and annihilation battle to a pursuit battle, and changing the encirclement and annihilation of the Japanese 34th Division to the main force of killing and wounding the enemy, so as to expand the results of the battle as much as possible. Although this kind of adjustment does not seem to be much different at first glance, and it is mainly based on the strength of killing and injuring devils, the essence is completely different, and there has been a fundamental change in the deployment of troops.

Encirclement and annihilation warfare focuses on encirclement at all levels, completely cutting off the enemy's retreat, and then dividing and encircling and eating the opponent in one bite. The battle of annihilation of the enemy is to find the weak point of the enemy army and carry out a fierce attack in order to carry out the maximum damage, such a battle, there is no need to encircle the enemy army, nor do you need to pursue the annihilation of the opponent in formation, but it is more flexible in battle. Whether it is Luo Zhuoying, commander of the 19th Group Army, or Li Jue, commander of the 70th Army, they have repeatedly reiterated that if this battle is not fought well, it will definitely be dealt with by military law!

On the morning of the 26th, Oga Shigeru received a telegram from Sakurai Province, knowing that the 33rd Division had sent troops to the front line of Guanqiao to respond, and he also breathed a long sigh of relief in his heart!

In fact, Oga Shigeru was also very depressed in his heart, just a few days ago, the 34th Division under his command was still advancing step by step around Shanggao, and the enemy troops only had the ability to parry and had no power to fight back. It was precisely because Sakurai was selfish and withdrew his troops without permission in disregard of the current situation, which led to them falling into a heavy siege. Before last night, he even thought with some fear that he would become the first division commander to be surrounded and annihilated by a formation since the start of the war. Once this thought grows, it makes him involuntarily timid and afraid, and makes him sit still.

Who would have thought that it was the 33rd Division that entered the encirclement to rescue them at this moment, which really made him feel a little crying and laughing. However, there are also many problems in front of them, breaking the encirclement of the enemy army and successfully evacuating are really two different things, and he has no bottom in his heart about how many soldiers can be safely withdrawn in this battle.

This battle has been fought to this extent, which is really beyond his imagination and expectations. Originally, I wanted to take advantage of the 33rd Division to strike hard at the enemy before it left, but I didn't expect to fight the current situation, but it was my own side that suffered heavy losses. After the battle situation led by himself is like this, how will he explain to the base camp when the time comes?

"Your Excellency, the enemy is attacking again." A staff officer ran over panting and reported.

His voice interrupted Ogashige's thoughts and pulled him back to reality, and after hearing this, he couldn't help but frown, quite a headache for this stubborn army that followed behind! After fighting for such a long time, they finally figured out the details of this army, but the result they got was that they were very jealous. This unit actually annihilated a brigade of the 216th Wing of the enemy army in the wild market, and also gave them a heavy blow on the outer defense line of Yuntou Mountain, and the strong combat power of its troops is really amazing, and the fact that it is not the opponent of the enemy army at all in the case of the same strength has been proved by several consecutive battles. He even heard that this unit seemed to have killed the captain of the Hamada Wing at Wuqiao and raided a brigade of the 215th Wing, but he really didn't have the heart to confirm it now.

"Is the enemy still the same as before?" Oga Shigeru asked as he frowned and thought.

The lieutenant's staff officer immediately responded: "Yes, Your Excellency, the enemy has not many troops to attack, but the marksmanship is accurate, and some soldiers will be killed if they are not careful, and as long as our troops take the initiative to attack, they will quickly withdraw and not fight head-on at all." The enemy's position is very dense, and the losses of the strong attack must be great, and it seems that it is precisely because of this that the people of China will continue to advance and retreat and consume, like flies as annoying. ”

Ogashige's brow furrowed deeper and deeper, and his rich battlefield experience told him that the more enemies like this, the more terrifying they were. The more lethality does not seem to be very great, the greater the harm it brings to them, and sometimes the lethality does not only refer to the killing of soldiers in the army, but also the impact on the emotions of soldiers. It is conceivable that if the soldiers on the front line fight against these enemy forces, there will definitely be big fluctuations in psychology, and how many layers can the battle play at that time? Thinking of this, Oga Shigeru couldn't help but sigh a little helplessly, and immediately said: "Order all departments on the front line, prohibit active attacks, try to hide your body, and don't engage the enemy when they don't reach a distance of forty steps in front of the position." ”

"Hi" The staff officer replied, and left quickly, leaving only Oga Shigeru standing there alone with his eyes closed and pondering. There are heavy enemy troops in the north of the army, and there are enemy troops around them who are constantly entangled, in such a situation, how can we safely withdraw to Gao'an or Fengxin line?

At noon on the 26th, without waiting for the 34th Division here in Guanqiao to make any action, the 70th Army launched a fierce attack on the front line of Guanqiao again, perhaps in order to wash away the shame of being ambushed last night, the officers and men of the 70th Army fought particularly resolutely and thoroughly in this attack, and the 19th Division after the reorganization of the team was also extraordinarily hard, under the command of the division commander Tang Boyin, the officers and men of the 19th Division launched a bloody battle against the Japanese positions in the area of Guanqiao with a brave attitude of almost regardless of casualties, bleeding and fluttering!

Under the 19th Division's almost life-for-life style of play, Oga Shigeru was a little unable to resist! It's not that the combat effectiveness of the 19th Division is strong, but compared with the 19th Division, the 34th Division has more things to consider, and the entire division has not yet broken away from the encirclement and fights with the other side.

But is there still a choice for the 34th Division in this kind of battle? No, especially in this situation where there is no room for movement at all, the 19th Division attacked desperately, and the 34th Division could only fight back desperately. Under these circumstances, the independent regiment in the northwest direction of Guanqiao also gradually increased the intensity of the attack, and continued to advance towards the deep hinterland of the Japanese army, and for a time the entire defense line of the Japanese army felt great pressure. Especially here in the independent regiment, they don't dare to deploy too many troops, so as not to be unable to support the frontal battlefield, but they don't dare to be careless, the strength of the enemy's army, they have already learned it a few times, any carelessness is completely a joke with the lives of the soldiers!

After thinking about it, Oga Shigeru immediately asked the infantry commander, Major General Iwanaga, to personally lead the divisional regimental headquarters guard team to the northwest to reinforce it, plus a brigade of the 217th Wing that was originally stationed there, although it was still at a disadvantage in terms of strength, this was already all the troops they could transfer here. The rest of the troops, including the soldiers of the Engineer Wing, had now taken up their arms and were at the forefront. To be honest, that is, the pressure on them from the independent regiment is too great, otherwise, the strength of the national army with only one regiment and one and a half squadrons of strength defense is enough in the eyes of the Japanese army, which is like now, on the basis of a brigade, the infantry commander and guard squad are actually transferred to reinforce.

The situation of the Japanese army fell into a great predicament in vain with the fierce attack of the 19th Division, and the bloody battle on the periphery of Shanggao in the early stage and the large losses in the wild market made the 34th Division at this moment stormy, although they barely blocked the attack of the Chinese army at this moment, but when they thought that the enemy still had a steady stream of troops to rush to participate in the battle, Oga Shigeru had a headache and could only choose to ask for help from friendly troops.

The chief of staff of the Japanese 11th Army, Kinoshita Isamu was also very anxious after receiving the news of the 34th Division's request for help, under their planning, the 33rd Division finally took the Wuqiao line, and was preparing to rescue the 34th Division to break out of the encirclement. For this reason, in addition to stepping up his urging of the 33rd Division to speed up its southward movement, he also urged the independent mixed 20th Brigade Regiment guarding the Gao'an front line to quickly launch an attack to deal with the battlefield on the Guanqiao front.