The Japanese bombarded the position on the dirt slope for 20 minutes, until the position was blown up beyond recognition, and Shigematsu Jiedasa could no longer see a single active defender officer and soldier from the telescope, so he nodded with satisfaction and ordered another infantry squadron to attack. The infantry squadron attacked from the dirt slope to the top of the slope, and when it was more than halfway up the slope, a soldier appeared in the ruins on the top of the slope.

Their whole bodies were blackened by the smoke of gunpowder, like demons crawling out of hell, manipulating various weapons and firing fiercely at the attacking Japanese troops, but the number was obviously much smaller, and the firepower was not as dense as at the beginning. The tenacity of the defenders surprised Shigematsu, who stared at the Chinese soldiers who had emerged from the position, wondering how they had survived such a dense artillery fire.

The 234th Wing encountered a hard bone here in the Shadow Pearl Mountain position, but the 236th Wing got lost when attacking forward. The 54th Division was guarding the position of Xiagaoqiao, waiting left and right for the Japanese troops who did not wait for the attack, and could only listen to the sound of gunfire in the direction of Yingzhu Mountain. Even the division commander Wu Chongyan was a little skeptical that the Japanese army had given up attacking the lower Takahashi and turned in another direction.

At the Guhuashan position, the reinforcements of the New 11th Division of the 58th Army and the rest of the 133rd Division joined forces and strictly held the position, while they faced the combined attack of the 23rd Wing and the 45th Wing of the 6th Division of the Japanese Army. The Guhua Mountain position is a 120-meter-high Guhua Mountain as the main position, with a mountain beam several tens of meters high extending from both sides as the two wings.

The 133rd Division guarded the main position on Guhua Mountain, the new 11th Division each used two regiments to guard the flank positions, and the last regiment and the team directly under the division were used as reserves. The only four mountain guns and twenty mortars of the two divisions were placed on the top of Guhua Mountain, which was condescending and could pose a threat to the infantry attacking by the Japanese. When the two wings of the Japanese Sixth Division arrived at the Guhua Mountain position, Major General Saburo Takehara, commander of the Sixth Infantry Regiment who was in charge of the operation, observed the defenders' positions and knew that the defenders' positions were easy to defend and difficult to attack, and it seemed that the immediate attack would be a tough battle.

In order to ensure the smooth attack, Major General Saburo Takehara asked the division commander, Lieutenant General Kanda Masane, to transfer the 6th Field Artillery Wing. At this time, the 6th Field Artillery Wing had just crossed the Xinqiang River by the pontoon bridge erected, and it would take some time to reach the forward position, so Major General Saburo Takehara first arranged for the 23rd Wing to attack the main position of Guhua Mountain, and the 45th Wing sent two brigades to attack the positions on both flanks of Guhua Mountain.

Without the artillery support of the artillery wing, it was obvious that the support for the attack was not enough with the small artillery in the wing, so the two wing commanders did not launch a large-scale attack as soon as they came up, but both sent infantry squadrons to carry out exploratory attacks, and when attacking, they tried to draw out the defenders' firepower points, and then destroyed them with artillery fire after the field artillery wing came up.

The Japanese attacked only with infantry squadrons, so naturally they would not pose much threat to the defenders who had already built up defensive positions, and the defenders easily pushed back the Japanese attack several times, and the two sides attacked and defended until noon when the 6th Field Artillery Wing reached the front line. After the arrival of the 6th Field Artillery Wing, Major General Saburo Takehara immediately ordered the artillery of the Artillery Wing to concentrate on the main position of Guhua Mountain, and the 23rd Wing also took up the main attack mission. The attack of the 45th Wing only served to divert the defenders on the two flanks from supporting the main position of Guhua Mountain.

After lunch, twenty-four 75-caliber field guns and twelve 120-caliber howitzers of the 6th Field Artillery Wing of the Japanese Army simultaneously began shelling the main position of Guhua Mountain. The powerful artillery fire of the Japanese army made the 133rd Division guarding the main position of Guhua Mountain suffer enough, and the officers and men were lying dead in the trenches and various fortifications, avoiding the Japanese artillery bombardment.

The bombardment of dozens of artillery pieces of the Japanese army has completely covered the main position, and from time to time artillery shells explode among the soldiers, and the air waves will rush these unlucky soldiers into the air, and if you are lucky, you can leave a whole corpse, and if you are unlucky, even the corpses are torn apart. After 20 minutes of shelling, the position was full of craters, only two trenches were still intermittently lying across the position, and all other fortifications that had been built were blown into ruins.

Before the Japanese artillery bombardment had stopped, an infantry battalion of the 23rd Wing had already begun to attack and advance to the top of the hill. When the Japanese infantry advanced to the halfway point of the mountain, the defenders on the position found the attacking Japanese troops, at this time the living defenders were lying on the front line, and the commander gave an order, and the defenders began to counterattack under the Japanese artillery fire.

At the forefront of the position was the 399th Regiment of the 133rd Division, which lost more than one battalion in the previous two days of fighting, and only more than 800 officers and men were on the position. Although the shells of the Japanese army above their heads kept falling, the officers and men of the 399th Regiment still held their positions fearlessly to death, and their comrades-in-arms continued to fall in the rain of artillery fire and bullets.

An infantry brigade of the Japanese army attacked for nearly an hour, but could not attack the defenders' positions, but suffered more than 200 casualties, and the wing commander Junhiko Arima saw that the resistance of the defenders was quite stubborn, so he had to let this brigade withdraw. In this attack, there were less than 500 people in the 399th Regiment on the defenders' position who could continue to fight, and after sending the wounded down, the eyes of the regiment commander Liu Yuxi were full of hatred.

The 6th Division attacked in front of the Guhua Mountain position for a day, but failed to attack the defenders' positions, but lost a lot of soldiers, and the defenders' stubborn resistance made Major General Takehara Saburo very helpless. On the afternoon of the 26th, the 236th Wing of the 40th Division of the Japanese Army finally touched the Xiagaoqiao Bridge and came head-on with the 54th Division guarding the Xiagaoqiao position.

Xiagaoqiao is not a bridge, but a small town, this town is next to a road, this road is also one of the main roads for the Japanese army to go south, so the Japanese army must take Xiagaoqiao Town. The 54th Division guarding Xiagaoqiao had just been reorganized from the local security team in northeastern Jiangxi and was transferred to the command of the 20 th Army because of the Great War in Northern Hunan.

At this time, the 54th Division was guarding Xiagaoqiao Town, and the main position was only a wall that was not very solid on the periphery of the town, and officers and men of a regiment of the 54th Division were defending this wall in the face of the Japanese frontal attack. When the 236th Wing of the Japanese Army arrived in front of Xiagaoqiao Town, it immediately deployed on the spot, and more than a dozen 92 infantry guns and more than a dozen mortars of the Wing, as well as eight heavy machine guns of the heavy machine gun squadron, were lined up in front of the Xiagaoqiao position. These heavy weapons put tremendous pressure on the officers and men of the regiment on the defensive.

The 236th Wing wasted almost a whole day because it got lost, for which the wing commander Yoshio Kamegawa was severely reprimanded by the division commander Lieutenant General Aoki Seiichi, and in order to recover the loss of time, the wing commander Yoshio Kamegawa immediately ordered the artillery to open fire after arranging the offensive position, and then an infantry squadron immediately launched a tentative attack on the town of Shimotakahashi under the cover of artillery fire and heavy machine guns.

If these small artillery pieces of the Japanese army were replaced by any unit of the 90th Army, they would not take it seriously, even if they were replaced by the elite of the national army such as the 18th Army or the 53rd Army, they would not attach too much importance to it, but the 54th Division, which had just been reorganized from the local security regiment, had never experienced such an artillery bombardment by the Japanese army, and most of the soldiers of this regiment who were guarding the position were a little panicked amid the dense sound of shell explosions and the smoke and flames of gunpowder.

Fortunately, these grassroots officers of the 54th Division were still able to hold on, and the officers at all levels in this regiment continued to cheer up their soldiers, and after the Japanese attacked, they commanded their soldiers to lie on the wall and fight back with the rudimentary weapons in their hands. Both sides exchanged fire for half an hour, and there were casualties on both sides, but the defenders suffered more casualties. Wing Commander Yoshio Kamegawa Osa, seeing that the purpose of the trial had been achieved, had the infantry squadron withdrawn.

The 54 officers and men guarding the position could not help cheering when they saw that the Japanese troops had been beaten back. But before they could be happy, the Japanese artillery bombarded again. The Japanese artillery bombardment was very targeted, and the defenders on the position were unprepared, and they suffered heavy losses at once, and the screams of wounded officers and soldiers were everywhere, and blood stained large sections of the city wall.

Under these circumstances, the Japanese again attacked with the strength of an infantry brigade. The officers of the defenders on the wall took great difficulty to organize the soldiers and began to shoot at the attacking Japanese troops. The armament of the defenders was poor, with only three light machine guns and an old Makmi heavy machine gun firing on a large section of the wall.

When the Japanese artillery fire destroyed the heavy machine gun and a light machine gun, the defenders were a little powerless in the face of the attack of the Japanese army. Fortunately, there is this wall to block the Japanese army, the defending officer on the position commanded the soldiers to condescendingly, using grenades to greet the attacking Japanese troops, one by one grenades exploded in the ranks of the attacking Japanese army, a large number of killing and wounding Japanese soldiers, seeing that the casualties increased too quickly, the Japanese retreated again.

After the Japanese troops withdrew this time, no one cheered among the officers and soldiers on the defending positions, and everyone hid behind the battlements of the wall, preparing to hide from the Japanese artillery again while recovering their strength. Sure enough, soon after, the Japanese shelling began again, and within ten minutes of this shelling, a large section of the wall could not withstand it and collapsed. Dozens of defenders on this section of the wall were also buried under the collapsed rocks and dirt.

At this time, the defenders were suddenly in chaos, and the Japanese commander Yoshio Kamegawa Osa, when he saw that the wall had fallen down a large part, immediately became excited, and regardless of the fact that it was getting dark, he immediately sent an infantry brigade to attack the defenders' positions. This time, the resistance of the defenders was even weaker, and the Japanese rushed under the collapsed wall in one fell swoop, and the defenders engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Japanese here.