readx;? General Okamura Ningji sat in the command room of the military headquarters in Hefei, feeling a little confused, the three divisions in his hands had all attacked, and now the 18th Division had first requested aircraft support, and although the 106th Division had captured Tongcheng County, it had also suffered a lot of losses. The 27th Division of the www.biquge.info Pen & Fun & Pavilion has not yet reached the city of Yuexi, and only a third mixed brigade is left here in Hefei, which is really a bit empty.

As soon as Okamura Ningji thought that more than 10,000 people of a Hatian detachment would be easily eaten by the Chinese army, his heart was blocked, and he hated Wang Haitao as an opponent, and he was secretly frightened. Just as Okamura Ninji was restlessly circling around the command room, a subordinate came to report that the Fifth Division had arrived outside Hefei, and that Lieutenant General Ando Toshiyoshi, the commander of the division, and Nishimura Riwen Daisa, chief of staff of the division, had entered the city.

The Fifth Division returned to the Japanese mainland this time to rest and recuperate, not only replenishing the troops but also strengthening the artillery wing, which was reduced to a cavalry squadron and supplemented with a tank brigade. In this way, the strength of the Fifth Division after reorganization was stronger than when it participated in the North China Battlefield and the Shanghai Campaign, and the Fifth Division was transferred to Okamura Ninji's 11th Army as a permanent A division, which also greatly increased the strength of the 11th Army.

Okamura Ninji was worried about the lack of troops, and the arrival of the Fifth Division undoubtedly reassured Okamura Ninji. In the command room, Okamura Ninji met with Lieutenant General Toshiyoshi Ando, commander of the Fifth Division, and Nishimura Toshion, chief of staff. After meeting, Okamura Ninji introduced the current form to the two, and when the two were surprised when they heard that the Hatata detachment, which was not weak, was attacked by the Shina people and was attacked by the Shina army, all the jade was shattered in a short time.

When he learned that the opponent he was going to face was the 90th Army, known as the First Army of China, and the commander was the famous General Wang Haitao, he couldn't help but gasp. The Fifth Division suffered from Wang Haitao and his 90th Division during the Shanghai Campaign, and Itagaki Seishiro, the former division commander of the Fifth Division, was transferred to the General Staff Headquarters precisely because of the loss of troops on the Shanghai battlefield.

Chief of Staff Nishimura Riwen Daisa was more aware of the combat effectiveness of Wang Haitao and his troops, and he personally followed the commander of Itagaki Seishiro's division to fight Wang Haitao on the battlefield in Shanghai. Major General Kunizaki Noboru, the commander of the 9th Brigade of the Fifth Division, has been fighting Wang Haitao as the head of the Kunisaki detachment since he was in Shanghai on 6 days.

Of the three attacking troops sent by Okamura Ninji, the 18th Division should be the stronger, and it was the 18th Division that worried him the most. Because the task of the 18th Division was to open up the Dabie Mountain, attack directly from Lu'an and Jinzhai to Henan, and then attack Wuhan from the Henan side. The terrain of Dabie Mountain is dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and there are many places conducive to the ambush of the Chinese army, even if the combat effectiveness of the 18th Division is good, but it is Wang Haitao's troops, it is difficult to have a chance of winning.

Okamura Ninji's plan was to turn the 106th Division from the front to the direction of Jinzhai and combine the forces of the 18th Division and the 106th Division to attack the Chinese army in Dabie Mountain. On the frontal battlefield of Huaining, the 5th Division plus the heavy artillery brigade and a chariot brigade attacked the Chinese people. With the strength of the Fifth Division, plus heavy artillery brigades and tank brigades, and then aircraft for air support, such strength should be sufficient.

After Okamura Ninji told Ando Toshikichi and the two of them about the plan, the two did not object, no matter how powerful Wang Haitao's army was, it would only be known after the battle, and the Imperial Japanese Army would never be afraid of war. After Ando Toshikichi and the others accepted the order, they did not stay in Hefei City for long, but led the troops to Tongcheng County to change guards with the 106th Division.

The 277th Brigade stationed in Huaining County did not know at this time that the enemy it was facing had been changed from the 106th Division to the 5th Division, and after Li Yuanhong, the former commander of the 277th Brigade, was promoted to the commander of the 93rd Division, the post of brigade commander was concurrently held by Li Chunshan, commander of the 568th Regiment. At present, Li Chunshan has soldiers of two regiments and five battalions in his hands, and the 75th Mountain Artillery Battalion of the division's heavy artillery regiment has also been placed under the command of the 277th Brigade.

After the 75 Mountain Artillery Battalion supported the brother troops for the second time, it now has only 12 75 Mountain Artillery Guns plus 12 105 howitzers. With these twenty-four artillery pieces, plus the whole brigade has one hundred and sixty mortars of large and small calibers, the artillery is still sufficient. Considering that the aerial bombardment by Japanese planes was very severe, Li Chunshan organized anti-aircraft fire with six or seven heavy machine guns at the head of the city.

As for the artillery positions of the mountain artillery battalion, two antiaircraft artillery batteries sent by Wang Haitao were used for air defense. The four positions outside the city were defensive positions built by the 271st Brigade of the 90th Division, which was originally stationed. The position of the 271st Brigade is really repaired without saying anything, not only is the distribution of light and dark fire points reasonable, and the hierarchical structure is quite good, but also the fortifications are also very solid, and the anti-artillery holes are dug more than two meters deep underground, and the roof is reinforced with rough wood, so that the anti-artillery holes are enough to withstand the bombardment of heavy artillery.

On the position outside the city, Li Chunshan arranged for the second and third battalions of the 568th Regiment to defend, while the 1st Battalion, the 1st Battalion, the 2nd Battalion, and the brigade firepower battalion of the 569th Regiment were arranged on the top of the city. The baggage battalion and guard battalion directly under the brigade headquarters are the general reserve of the whole brigade, and the people in the city have basically been mobilized out of the city, and the rest of the people also have special air-raid shelters to avoid artillery fire and bombardment.

While Li Chunshan was actively preparing for war, Wang Haitao had already completely annihilated the Japanese army's Botian detachment, and transferred 12 75 mountain guns and 12 Type 96 105 howitzers from the captured artillery pieces to Huaining County to strengthen the strength of the 75 mountain artillery battalion.

The intention of sending the tank detachment to Huaining County was to use the MG-34 heavy machine gun on the armored vehicle to strengthen the air defense. With twelve armored vehicles and twenty armored trucks armed with anti-aircraft guns, the air defense of the 75 Mountain Artillery Battalion was still very strong. After the defenses here in Huaining County were in place, the Japanese Fifth Division officially replaced the 106th Division in Tongcheng County to prepare for the attack.

Three days later, the Fifth Division finally completed its preparations, and the Ninth Brigade, together with the Fifth Field Artillery Wing and the Tank Brigade, left Tongcheng County and advanced towards Huaining County. The headquarters of the Fifth Division is located in Tongcheng County, and the headquarters of the Sixth Brigade of Independent Heavy Artillery is also located in Tongcheng County.

This independent heavy artillery brigade was also transferred from the Japanese mainland to China after the capture of Nanjing, and was originally intended to be used for the Battle of Xuzhou, but the squadron quickly withdrew from the Xuzhou battlefield, so this heavy artillery brigade was also assigned to the command of Okamura Ningji for the Wuhan battlefield. With the assistance of this independent heavy artillery brigade, Okamura Ninji was more sure about capturing Wuhan.

This independent heavy artillery brigade has a brigade of 12o mm heavy cannons, a 96 24o mm heavy howitzer 12 guns and two ** 15o mm field heavy cannons of 12 guns each. In addition, there is an independent heavy mortar brigade of 18 heavy mortars of the Taisho 14th type 27o mm caliber.

It was a distance of more than 40 kilometers from Tongcheng County to Huaining County, and soon after the Ninth Brigade left Tongcheng, the Heavy Artillery Brigade also left Tongcheng under the protection of an infantry brigade. Half of the artillery of the 6th brigade of separate heavy artillery was towed on half-track transporters. This half-track trailer has on it the artillery squad to which this gun belongs, as well as ammunition and a vehicle-mounted machine gun.

The separate heavy artillery brigade stopped its advance as it advanced to the town of Xindu, fifteen kilometers from Huaining County. Fifteen kilometers had already come within the range of heavy artillery, and the brigade commander, Major General Takeshita, set up three artillery positions in Xindu Town. Independent heavy artillery brigades generally do not attack without receiving a call for help, after all, the cost of heavy artillery and shells is high, and the Japanese army is reluctant to waste a single shell.

The Ninth Brigade, under the leadership of the commander of the Kunizaki Deng Brigade, spent most of the day coming to Jingong Town outside Huaining City. Jingong Town is only a few kilometers away from Huaining County, and not far in front is the defensive position of the defenders. Major General Danzaki Noboru had his troops stationed first, and then came to the not high wall of Jingong Town, and used binoculars to observe the positions of the defenders.

At this glance, Major General Kunisaki Noboru immediately had a very familiar feeling, and the layout of the positions here was exactly the same as the positions outside Songjiang City during the previous Shanghai Campaign. Thinking of the difficult attack battle outside Matsue Castle, Major General Kunisaki Noboru took a breath of cool air. If you want to capture such a position, you don't know how many lives of the Imperial Japanese Army will have to pay.

In the view of Major General Noboru Kunisaki, there was no other way to face this kind of position but to use powerful artillery fire to completely destroy it. Fortunately, when the division returned to the mainland to recuperate, the division and regiment comprehensively strengthened the strength of its artillery, and now the division and regiment not only replaced the artillery wing with a new type of artillery, but also strengthened the infantry wing with an artillery squadron, and the mortar squadron has even increased the number of heavy mortars of 150 caliber.

On the morning of the next day, Major General Noboru Kunisaki first sent the 11th Infantry Wing to advance to a 1,000-kilometer distance from the defenders' positions to set up an attack position, and the wing commander of the 11th Infantry Wing, Yuichiro Nagano, ordered the artillery squadron in the wing to take out all the artillery including eight 75 field guns and 16 mortars, including six 150 heavy mortars, and set up an artillery position at the rear of the team. The infantry, on the other hand, advanced to 600 meters in front of the defenders' positions and assembled in large formations.

Guarding the first line of defense were the 1st and 2nd companies of the 2nd Battalion of the 568th Regiment, as well as most of the firepower companies. These soldiers turned out to be veterans of the 90th Division, and from the Battle of Shanghai to the present, each of them has quite rich experience, and they are also extremely familiar with the Japanese offensive methods.

The position was commanded by Sun Yuanwu, the commander of a company, and after Sun Yuanwu arranged several observation posts in the bunker fortifications, he led other soldiers directly into several anti-artillery holes. The soldiers were laughing and laughing in the anti-artillery holes, and at the same time preparing for battle, and no one took the thousands of Japanese soldiers on the opposite side seriously.