Chapter 10: Anqing (54)

Not long after the position of Zhong Xiang of the 33rd Group Army on the South Road was lost, the news of the Japanese attack on the middle road came, Wei Yongcheng danced the telegram in his hand, ran all the way, chanting non-stop, looking from a distance, he thought that he had achieved some victory, and when he was approaching, he heard him shouting: "The fight is up, the middle road is fighting!" The soldiers around looked at the running colonel with strange eyes, not understanding what there was to cheer about!

Tang Ruru took the draft of the telegram in Wei Yongcheng's hand, glanced at it, handed it to Mo Di, and said: "The first to meet the enemy is the 29th Group Army of Wang Zhanxu of the Sichuan Army, and the location is Anju on the right side of Gaocheng. ”

"Oh!" Mo Di answered, took the telegram in Tang Ruru's hand, and glanced at it hurriedly. He knew that the middle interception front was composed of Huang Qixiang's 11th Group Army and Wang Zhanxu's 29th Group Army. Wang Zhanxu's 29th Group Army was under the jurisdiction of Liao Zhen's 44th Army and Xu Shaozong's 67th Army. This is the worst fighting force of the entire Fifth Theater of Operations, in March 1938, out of Sichuan, led by Deputy Commander Xu Shaozong into the anti-Japanese battlefield, Wang Zhanxu took over Liu Xiang's post of chairman of Sichuan Province, in the Wuhan War and the Suizao War, the 29th Group Army has a good performance, and the losses are also quite serious. In December 1939, Wang Zhanxu organized several security forces in his hands into four independent brigades, supplemented them into the 29th Group Army, and personally went out of Sichuan to the area of Xiangyang, Fancheng, and Dahongshan in Hubei, where the 29th Group Army was stationed. In mid-March this year, in the battle with the Japanese army that invaded Dahong Mountain, Wang Zhangxu personally braved the arrow, took the lead, and was wounded in the battle, so he had to hand over the post of commander of the 44th Army to Liao Zhen. When the 22 nd Group Army entered Xuzhou, the commander-in-chief Deng Xihou once said to Li Zongren, commander of the theater, that there are a lot of important people in Sichuan, and as long as there are guns, there will be soldiers, which shows the difference in equipment. In this era of all-round firearms, wars are fought with science and technology and weapons, and without advanced weapons, it is so backward that people are used to fill them.

Wang Zhanxu's 29th Group Army can basically guarantee that each person has one rifle, and in the fifth theater, each person can also be equipped with enough ammunition and enough *, which is their maximum combat effectiveness. In addition to the armament, the quality of the soldiers is even more worrying, most of them are recruits, not to mention, and some of the security forces do not even know how to fire guns. The most important thing is that there is no food, and it is common for the Sichuan army to be hungry and full of meals, and the entire military camp is hungry and thin. It is said that Wang Zejun of the 149th Division sold tobacco and soil from Yunnan more than once, and the income he earned was not enough for the soldiers of a division to eat and drink.

The tactics of the Japanese army in the center were already very clear, first bombarded with heavy artillery, then attacked by tanks, and after destroying the strong fortifications of the national army, the infantry assault was finally carried out. In the face of a large cannon with a caliber of more than 150mm and more than 100 Type 97 tanks weighing 15 tons, I was afraid that the Sichuan army would be difficult to withstand, and the enemy shook its head.

"Tianzhong, your estimate is good, there is no suspense at all in the battle between the 39th Division of the Japanese Army and the 29th Group Army." Tang Ruru held the telegram in his hand and said: "As soon as the artillery bombarded and the tanks entered a no-man's land, in less than two hours, they occupied the position of the 29th Group Army and drove Wang Zan Xu into Dahong Mountain. ”

Next, it's up to Huang Qixiang to the Eleventh Group Army!

Gaocheng, ready for battle. Huang Qixiang, commander of the 11th Group Army, said to Mo Shujie, commander of the 84th Army: "The enemy's offensive intention is very clear, that is, to take Tang County as the encirclement point, outflank the troops from the north and south to gather in Tang County, and then flank the enemy troops in the middle to wipe out our troops in the encirclement. Relatively speaking, the enemy forces in the center are the largest, and we cannot stop them, so we only need to hold out for three days, delay the enemy's attack in the center for three days, and let the troops of the fifth theater in the Japanese encirclement safely withdraw from the encirclement, even if the task is completed. ”

Mo Shujie completely ignored Huang Qixiang's train of thought, nodded, and said, "Three days, I'm afraid it's not easy!" "The order was immediately given: the front-line troops must hold out for three days. During these three days, it is necessary to hold the position to the death, even if there is a single soldier in the battle. Those who retreat without permission will be shot on the spot!

Seeing Mo Shujie's telegram, the invincible Li Baicheng and the others couldn't help but feel a pang in their hearts, this is to fight to the death!

The 84th Army, also a remnant army, had three divisions under its jurisdiction: 173, 174, and 189, with an actual number of less than 15,000 people. The most important thing is that after the Battle of Suizao last year, at the Laohekou Conference, the former army commander Qin Lianfang had a big quarrel with Li Pinxian because of the issue of responsibility, and was removed by Li Pinxian. Li Zongren supported Li Pinxian's decision and transferred Qin Lianfang to the Military Commission as a senior staff officer, and Mo Shujie, commander of the 175th Division stationed in Beihai, as the commander...... As a result, the army's work style is slackened and its military strength has been greatly reduced. Due to the code names of the armbands of the 84 th Army, the military headquarters is the word "hair," the 173rd Division is the word "Yang," the 174th Division is the word "light," and the 189th Division is the word "big." There is a new folk song that makes people cry and laugh in northern Hubei and southern Henan: "Carry it forward, rape, kidnap, burn and kill."

It was not until Li Pinxian was transferred out of the 11 th Group Army to take up the post of commander of the 21 st Group Army, and the 11 th Group Army was commanded by General Huang Qixiang, that the situation changed slightly. Under the reassurance and rectification of Li Zongren, Huang Qixiang, and Mo Shujie, this unit finally improved a little, and the 84 th Army, which was gradually recovering its vitality, will once again assume the vanguard role in this major war.

The Japanese army's choice of the direction of attack in the middle was very correct, it was Tang Enbo's 31st Group Army that was defending in the Suiyang area, and the purpose of Sonobe and Ichiro was to use the middle route army to suppress Tangbe, and then outflank the north and south, so as to eat Tangbe. Li Zongren is not good at stubble, so he secretly transferred the Tang Department to Ye County, and replaced the Tang Department with the 11th Group Army to guard the Suiyang and Gaocheng areas. It can be imagined that this time the 11th Group Army has to endure great pressure, it is difficult to prepare a table of dishes for two tables of people, and it is quite difficult for a table of guests to eat two tables of dishes.

Huang Qixiang deployed his three armies, with Mo Shujie's 84th Army holding the first line of defense in Gaocheng, Liu Heding's 39th Army in charge of the second line of defense in Suiyang, and Li Xianzhou's 92nd Army on the outer line, covering the attacking Japanese army.

The Japanese armored units that swept the 29th Army past soon appeared outside the Gaocheng position. Zhang Guangwei, who saw the Type 97 tank for the first time, was stunned, and his saliva almost flowed out. An hour ago, he received a telegram from Modi, in which the relevant data of the Type 97 tank were listed one by one, if Zhang Guangwei did not have an intuitive impression of the Type 97 tank when he read the data, then everything is now understood.

Zhang Guangwei knows the Japanese army's Type 94 Xiaodou tank, and has also seen the Japanese Army's Type 89 medium tank, although the Type 89 tank weighs 13.6 tons, but on the whole it is still relatively rubbish, and its performance is far inferior to the Soviet-made T26 light tank equipped by the national army.

When the Type 97 medium tank appeared in front of him, Zhang Guangwei knew that trouble was coming! The Type 97 medium tank had significantly increased protection, the armor thickness had increased to 33 mm, its mobility had been greatly improved, the speed of the Type 89 had increased from 25 to 38 km/h, and the maximum range was 220 km. The German-made 37-mm anti-tank guns and the 45-mm anti-tank guns purchased from the Soviet Union are no problem against the Type 89, but they are a bit difficult to deal with the Type 97, and it is quite difficult to deal with the Type 97 at a long distance. The most important thing is that the caliber of the main gun of the Type 97 medium tank has been increased from 37 mm to 57 mm of the Type 89, which can destroy the relatively strong fortifications of the national army.

The Japanese attack began, and the heavy artillery was the first to speak, and the 150MM heavy artillery was amazingly powerful, and the sound of the explosion could shake people's overnight meals out. However, the effect of the shelling was not very good, because the accuracy was really not very good, and some of the shells did not know where to aim at all. After a round of bombardment, the defenders did not suffer much damage, and they did what they had to do. Keisaku Murakami, the commander of the 39th Division, who was standing in front of the bunker in the bow and arrow posture, waved his gloves to ask the heavy artillery unit to stop the shelling, turned his head and signaled to Yoshino Katsuo, the commander of the armored vehicle brigade on the side, raised his gloves high, and threw them forward.

Yoshino Katsuo screamed wildly, and the forty Type 97 tanks of the first echelon roared and rushed towards the Takajo position, firing tank guns while galloping. When the tank rushed to the edge of the anti-tank trench dug earlier, it stopped. Zhang Guangwei was overjoyed that the anti-tank trenches that had been excavated with the Type 89 tank as a reference standard could finally play a starting point. However, the next scene made Zhang Guangwei unforgettable for life. A group of soldiers, pushing a 37 mm German-made anti-tank gun, quickly advanced from the position, their target was a huge crater about 300 meters away from the anti-tank trench, the effective range of the German 37 mm anti-tank is 1,600 meters, but the long distance can not pose a threat to the Japanese Type 97 tank, so these gunners, ready to risk death to push the tank to the nearest distance, trying to clean up the Japanese tank.

In the crater, soon, the gunners fired their first shells. I saw a shell fly out and hit the turret of the nearest tank. All eyes were drawn to the shell. With a crisp sound, the shell pierced through the protective steel plate of the tank and exploded in the turret.

"Fuck, I can punch through! Not bad. Zhang Guangwei shouted uncontrollably.

Immediately after that, there was the second shot, the third shot, and the hit rate was 100 percent. Less than a minute after the third artillery fire was fired, a bunch of heavy artillery shells were fired from the rear of the Japanese army, concentrated on the anti-tank gun squad in the crater, and after the smoke cleared, there was not even a single iron sheet left.

Zhang Guangwei punched hard and smashed it on the cover in front of him.

When I looked up, I realized that in the chaos, a soldier with a bundle* of clusters had appeared next to the Japanese tank.

Because of the bombardment of the Japanese heavy artillery, the anti-tank trench was flattened, and the tanks began to charge, recklessly rushing to the trenches of the 84th Army. Human bullets, every soldier has become a shell, the anti-tank gun has no time to react, the most effective is the cluster *, the daredevils who rub their bodies around the cluster *, and at the same time as the * explosion, the first thing to lose is their own life. Some heroic officers and soldiers, not effectively armed, simply climbed onto the tank, smashed the roof with *, and shot at the tank lookout with rifle pistols. The red-eyed Japanese tanks also rushed back and forth on the positions of the 84th Army, crushing back and forth in the trenches of the 84th Army.

The battle was fierce, and the sky was moved.