More than an hour passed, and the 2nd and 3rd regiments of the guard brigade continued to carry out breakthrough attacks on several small warehouses. The Japanese knew that there were Chinese troops attacking on the left, right and west, but they were unable to defend effectively, and most of their firepower was attracted by the Chinese troops attacking head-on. By noon, the 2nd and 3rd regiments had captured several small warehouses, and now only the three warehouses in the middle were still in the hands of the Japanese.

The three warehouses are located in the northernmost part of the yard, side by side, and are all concrete structures. The two warehouses on the left and right are five meters high, and in addition to the windows directly in front of them, there are several ventilation holes in the walls on both sides. Now both the windows and the ventilation holes have become the firing points of the Japanese machine guns. The warehouse in the middle is the largest, a two-story building with a height of more than eight meters.

The second floor of this warehouse was originally used as an office and duty room, and now a Japanese wing headquarters is located in it. The Guard Brigade surrounded the three warehouses from three sides, and the distance from them was about three hundred meters. In front of the attacking troops, tanks and armored vehicles were lined up neatly, and the black holes pointed directly at the three warehouses.

Tangshan Leopard did not immediately order an attack, but raised his binoculars and observed the three warehouses. In the binoculars, you can clearly see the machine gun muzzles of the warehouse windows and the shaking Japanese soldiers. Among the three warehouses, the windows of the left and right rooms are more than three meters above the ground, and the doors are iron doors, and the first floor of the warehouse in the middle has no windows at all, and the windows are on the second floor more than five meters above the ground.

Tangshan Leopard was already prepared for the difficulty of attacking the warehouse group, but the difficulty in front of him still made him frown. Against such concrete buildings, the role of howitzers and artillery is not great, and what is needed is artillery fire that can be directly targeted. Now only the bazooka and the vehicle-mounted artillery on the tank belong to direct-aiming artillery fire, but the power of the bazooka is still smaller, and it seems that it can only be tried with the vehicle-mounted artillery on the tank.

With this idea, Tangshan Leopard stopped observing, and after returning to the command vehicle as a temporary brigade headquarters, he immediately ordered the tank vehicles to try to attack the warehouse with on-board artillery. Tangshan Leopard's order was immediately arranged for execution, and after a short time, Tangshan Leopard was sitting in the command car when he heard the sound of vehicle-mounted artillery firing outside.

The sound of artillery did not last long, because only a test firing was ordered, and only four heavy tanks fired a few shots each. The results of the shelling were quickly sent to Tangshan Leopard. Tangshan Leopard listened to the report of the signal corps, "The four heavy tanks fired four cannons with grenades, shells, piercing and armor bullets, and the grenades and shells bombarded the warehouse wall leaving only a dent, and * penetrated the wall and blew out a hole with a diameter of 30 centimeters. ”

After listening to the report, Tangshan Leopard pondered for a while and said: "Pass my order, the heavy tank advances to a hundred and fifty meters in front of the warehouse, and bombards the wall near the iron gate with * concentration, and it is necessary to blow up a hole that allows soldiers to break through." The bazooka team aimed at the window to fire grenades and shells to kill and injure the Japanese troops in the warehouse. As soon as the hole was blown open, the assault team was responsible for breaking into the warehouse. ”

The signal corps left the command vehicle to convey orders, which was also the most practical attack method that Tangshan Leopard could think of. Of course, under the desperate resistance of the Japanese army, the attack team attacking the warehouse will definitely have casualties, but in the face of such a strong fortress, it is almost impossible to take it without casualties. After issuing the order, Tangshan Leopard stopped staying in the command vehicle and walked to a high place to personally observe the attack.

In the Guards Brigade, all orders of Tangshan Leopards will be carried out unconditionally, and today's orders are no exception. The 2nd Regiment took four tanks to deal with the warehouse on the left, and the 3rd Regiment also took four tanks to deal with the warehouse on the right. The fighters stopped advancing three hundred meters from the warehouse, while the tank continued to move forward until it was only one hundred and fifty meters from the warehouse.

The four tanks lined up in front of the warehouse, and the Japanese small arms, including grenadiers, had no effect on the tanks at this distance, so the tanks were also bold to move forward. The gunner on the tank replaced all the shells with piercing and armor shells, and the commander's command to open the gun shrank as soon as the muzzle of the gun shrank, and one piercing and armor shell flew towards the warehouse wall with a "boom".

The four tanks took turns firing their guns, and the holes in the walls were getting bigger and bigger, and the Japanese troops in the warehouses also wanted to stop the bombardment of the tanks, but they had no way to deal with these steel behemoths more than a hundred meters away, so they could only watch the holes in the walls getting bigger and bigger. Finally, a large, irregular hole two meters square was blown out of the wall, which even two fighters could easily pass through at the same time, and then the tank's bombardment of the wall was completed.

The two warehouses were blown out of the hole almost simultaneously, and although the tanks had completed their mission, they did not retreat, but were using their heavy machine guns to cover the attack of the attack group that was about to begin. After the hole was blown open, the bazookas and heavy machine guns on the attack position opened fire on the window of the warehouse, and the grenades and shells fired by the bazooka exploded in the warehouse after passing through the window, and the Japanese soldiers in the warehouse were crying wolf.

The blockade of the heavy machine gun at the window caused casualties to the Japanese soldiers who wanted to block the attack of the fighters at the window. There are only a few windows in a warehouse, and a few heavy machine guns block one window, and no one can stay at this window. Under the cover of bazookas and heavy machine guns, ten attack groups of the 1st battalion of the 2nd regiment began to move towards the warehouses.

When the assault group advanced to a distance of only fifty or sixty meters from the warehouse, it did not meet much resistance from the Japanese, and only sporadic fire wounded two soldiers. But as soon as they entered the range of 50 meters, more than a dozen * suddenly flew out of the window, but fortunately* the throw was not accurate, only two fighters were killed by shrapnel, and four other fighters were wounded.

The stubborn resistance of the Japanese army angered Wei Song, the commander of the Second Regiment who was pressing the formation, and Wei Song ordered the five bazooka teams to work harder to shoot grenades and bullets through the window. If the power of the bazooka was not strong enough, then the commander of the tank in anger ordered the artillery to be replaced with grenades and shells, and after the grenades and shells were also fired into the warehouse through the window, it was a devastating blow to the Japanese army.

After a burst of artillery fire, there was no movement at the window, and the assault team took the opportunity to approach the hole. The two spearheads of the attack group looked in from the entrance of the cave, and in the smoke of gunpowder, they could only vaguely see the Japanese soldiers who had fallen in the warehouse. The soldiers did not dare to be careless, and after throwing a few grenades and bullets from the hole, they took the lead and rushed into the warehouse.

Dozens of fighters from ten assault groups rushed into the warehouse in turn, and sporadic gunfire rang out from the warehouse. After ten minutes, two warriors ran out of the cave and made a victorious hand gesture at Wei Song on the battlefield, and Wei Song relaxed and knew that this warehouse had been captured by himself.

It took about the same amount of time as the 2nd Regiment, and the 3rd Regiment also captured the warehouse on the right in a similar way. Without waiting for the news to come over, the Tangshan leopard, who had seen the whole process clearly, was already excited and secretly applauded! Now that the warehouses on the left and right have been taken down, the target is only the largest warehouse in the middle. With the experience of capturing the left and right warehouses, Tangshan Leopard is ready to continue to use this method to take the last warehouse in the middle.

The 2nd and 3rd regiments, resting a little, concentrated on the front of the middle warehouse, and this time the number of tanks advanced increased to eight. Perhaps knowing how the tanks would break the walls of the warehouse, this time as soon as the tanks advanced into position, a continuous shelling sounded from the flat roof of the warehouse, and with the sound of artillery, more than a dozen shells fell on the tank group.

However, all that fell were mortar shells, and such a bombardment naturally didn't matter to the tank, but it still scared Wei Song and Sun Linhai, the two regiment commanders. After being frightened, the two secretly rejoiced that the Japanese did not use these mortars when the infantry attacked, otherwise the attacking infantry would suddenly encounter artillery fire, and casualties would not have been avoided.

Now that they knew that the Japanese still had hidden mortars, the two regiment commanders simultaneously ordered the artillery in the regiment to destroy the Japanese artillery positions on the top of the warehouse. Together, the two regiments had almost fifty heavy mortars, and it did not take much effort to cover the roof of the warehouse. Not long after the orders of the two regiment commanders were transmitted, a burst of artillery rang out from behind the position.

Then I saw an explosion on the roof of the warehouse, and in the smoke and fire, Japanese soldiers and mortar parts flew in all directions, and even Japanese soldiers were directly lifted from the roof of the warehouse to the ground outside the warehouse. It took only a few minutes for the mortar positions on the roof of the Japanese warehouses to cease to exist, and at this time the shelling of the vehicle-mounted artillery on the tank vehicles began.

After the tank's on-board artillery once again blasted a large hole in the wall of the warehouse with piercing and armor shells, the outcome of the battle was no longer in suspense. The 2nd and 3rd Regiments each dispatched 15 attack groups to participate in the attack, and this time the battle in the warehouse lasted a little longer, and after all, there were more than 1,000 Japanese troops stationed in the warehouse.

The battle in the warehouse lasted for more than an hour before it came to an end, and the attack groups of the 2nd and 3rd regiments cooperated with each other to completely annihilate the defenders of the warehouse, killing one captain of the Japanese army's Osa Wing, three captains of the Nakasa Brigade, and more than 1,800 other officers and soldiers, thus achieving the greatest result among the three positions today. The capture of the warehouse complex meant that the most important half of the Japanese positions outside the south gate were lost, and the attack below the guard brigade would be easier.

Seeing that the time was already more than three o'clock in the afternoon, and the troops were very tired after a day of fierce fighting with the Japanese army, Tangshan Leopard asked the troops to stop the attack first, rest on the spot, and he drove to the military headquarters to personally report the victory to Wang Haitao. Wang Haitao, Su Zuxin and Tang Longzai were in the headquarters at this time, discussing today's battle situation in front of the map of Hengyang City, Wang Haitao's tone could show that he was not satisfied with today's battle situation of the 211th Division and the 90th Division.

At this moment, there was a voice at the door: "Report!" came, and Wang Haitao answered: "Come in!" The three of them looked at the door at the same time. At the door, Tangshan Leopard walked in with a smile on his face, and after saluting the three of them, he shouted: "Commander, Chief of Staff, * Chief, Tangshan Leopard, Commander of the Guard Brigade, has come to report to the commander about the attack of the Guard Brigade. ”