Chapter 9: Behind Enemy Lines (6)

In Li Songde's chattering recount, Mo Di basically sorted out the recent events in western Anhui. Li Songde is indeed far behind Huang Tianhua, with the same chief of staff background, the chief of staff of this brigade is not as good as lifting shoes for the chief of staff of that regiment, and I don't know how he got into such a high position. Li Songde's last sentence answered this question of Mo Di, Li Songde said: According to reliable information from the military department, Jiang Chunyang, director of the Political Department of the 1056 Regiment, will be appointed deputy commander of the 1056 Regiment. Mo Di was taken aback, Jiang Chunyang, a political stick who can gag, he never knows how to fight, how can he be qualified as the deputy of any regiment! Li Songde explained that no one can fight from their mother's womb, and Jiang Chunyang can't either, but he can learn, not to mention that with a famous teacher like Mo Di, I am afraid that he will not be able to become a qualified deputy head of the regiment. Mo Di was dumbfounded on the spot and couldn't speak. It is not surprising that Jiang Chunyang can be the deputy head of the regiment and Li Songde can be the chief of staff, and this employment mechanism is really unexpected.

It doesn't matter, in the past, Zhuge Liang was able to borrow arrows from a grass boat, Jiang Chunyang is always stronger than a straw man, not to mention that he has been with him for two years, and he knows the roots, as for the combat ability is not strong, with a strong chief of staff, and then strengthen the three battalion commanders. A smile appeared on the face of Mo Di, who had figured it out, he knew that he was too strong, and he didn't dare to send someone who was not familiar with him to be his deputy, so he would make this decision. It's okay, just take advantage of the situation to adjust, He Degui is an old subordinate who has been with him for two years, and the adjustment to the director of the political department of the lieutenant colonel and in charge of logistics can be regarded as a step up. As for the chief of staff, he remembered Yang Kezhi again.

It is absolutely impossible for Yang Kezhi to be his chief of staff, and in Li Songde's words, Mo Di once again confirmed this, because his identity is too sensitive.

In the past six months, the 176th Division has basically not fought any major battles, but it has not received any supplements, the Japanese army landed at the mouth of the Pearl River, Guangxi Laowo was tight, the 31st Army was rebuilt, the 46th Army was newly organized, and the province's elite men were almost drained, and no troops could be sent to supplement the 7th, 48th, and 84th armies far away in Anhui and Hubei. Liao Lei, as the governor of Anhui Province, in order to coordinate the supply of troops from Anhui to replenish the troops, was in a hurry and coughed non-stop every day. Zhang Yichun, commander of the 48th Army, was a native of Anhui and had the benefit of the locals, and he also tried his best to incorporate a number of local militia regiments to supplement the troops, but he did not increase his combat strength too much.

At the end of April, while the Japanese army had the upper hand in the Battle of Nanchang, it was decided to launch a strategic offensive in order to eliminate the threat of Chinese troops from northern Hubei and southern Henan to the communications of Wuhan and the Pinghan line. On 1 May, Okamura Ninji, commander of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army, took the 3rd, 13th, and 16th Divisions as the main force, and cooperated with the 2nd and 4th Cavalry Brigades to attack the Suixian and Zaoyang areas.

"The Tang education chief of your Yougan class is really a thorn in the side of the Japanese, in Xuzhou, the Japanese did not hesitate to gather two divisions in order to eradicate him, and this time, three divisions were used." Li Songde said: "The Japanese did not want to start a war on two fronts at the same time, just because General Tang Enbo moved his defense from Xiangyang to Zaoyang, which was the fuse that caused this great war. ”

Mo Di was very concerned about this, if in the past Tang Enbo was just a legendary figure, now it is completely different. In Nanyue, Tang Enbo appeared in front of him as a living person, a talented, virtuous, flesh-and-blood amiable and respectable teacher, he was in strong shape, spoke Chinese with a strong Jiangsu and Zhejiang flavor, and spoke very decisively. It is said that he was a physical education instructor, and later admitted to the law department of Meiji University in Japan, majoring in political economy, because there was no tuition, he could only transfer to the 18th infantry department of the Japanese Army Non-commissioned Officer School. During the study period, he often fought with the Japanese, and the Japanese students with the spirit of bushido were looking for teeth all over the place, and he was the most famous villain in the 18th phase of the Buke Division, and was deeply hated by the Japanese classmates. After Tang Enbo became commander of the 31 st Group Army of the National Revolutionary Army, he was even more suspicious of the Japanese military circles, and his previous senior, Hideki Tojo, a senior officer of the Japanese Army, once said that it was impossible to defeat Tang Enbo without more than twice his military strength. The national army unanimously believes that Tang Enbo is the contemporary Xiahou Yuan, and his team has amazing explosiveness, amazing speed, and amazing interspersing power, which is difficult for ordinary people to match. His appearance in Zaoyang shows that the national army may have an intake on the Pinghan line, and once the Pinghan line is blitzed, the Pinghan line will be immediately blocked, and Wuhan will become an isolated city. The base camp of the Japanese army absolutely could not allow this to happen, so it became a strategic necessity to concentrate troops to kill Zaoyang in Suixian.

What the Japanese army did not expect was that as soon as they moved, the national army also moved, but their opponent was not Tang Enbo, but Li Zongren, the commander of the Fifth Theater.

Li Zongren fights a war, which is completely different from Tang Enbo, if Tang Enbo is a strong general, then Li Zongren is a big handsome, and he can fight against the general, and when he plays with the handsome, he must move his whole body, and he will move his whole body if he pulls a hair. Okamura Ningji can be called a general, but he is not a handsome talent, and Li Zongren pushes his hands, Okamura Ningji is destined to be a tragedy!

Compared with Tang Enbo, Mo is more close to Li Zongren, which is a closeness to his own people, and closeness is concern, so Li Songde took out all the information about this war and carefully examined it in the order of each day.

The campaign has developed to this day and is roughly divided into three stages.

The first stage was a menacing Japanese offensive. The Japanese soldiers attacked in two directions. At dawn on 1 May, the main forces of the 16th and 13th Divisions of the Japanese Army and the 4th Cavalry Brigade on the left in the direction of Zhongxiang and Jingshan, with the support of aircraft and tanks, launched an attack on the 37th and 180th Divisions of the Chinese Army's Right Army. On the 4th, it broke through the position of Changshoudian and assaulted in the direction of Zaoyang along the east bank of the Xianghe River.

On the right flank, the 3rd Division was the main group, and on 2 May, it immediately launched an offensive and attacked the position of Wang Zhonglian's 13th Army of the 31st Group Army of Gaocheng Tang Enbo. The 2nd Cavalry Brigade also set out from Xinyang to cooperate with the flanking attack. The two sides fought fiercely in Gaocheng, the attack and defense were fierce, Wang Zhonglian defended it without leaking, and the Japanese army broke through the difficulties. However, the 31st Army of the 13th Army did not entangle with the enemy too much, but left with one blow, and was ordered by the theater of operations to abandon Gaocheng and move westward immediately after winning a blow, and the Japanese were able to occupy Gaocheng.

"Commander Li is still the old routine, let the enemy go deep, and hide the 31st Group Army." A smile appeared at the corner of Mo Di's mouth, how similar this is to the Battle of Taierzhuang, but who will replace the 31st Group Army in the second line is an extremely difficult challenge, thinking of this, Mo Di suddenly had a sense of foreboding, the 84th Army, it must be the 84th Army, this is the Gui Army, Chief Li will definitely not hand over such a difficult victory to others, only the 84th Army can complete this task, not to cripple the 84th Army, it does not reflect the selflessness of Chief Li, nor can it inspire the brother troops to fight bravely. Mo Enemy couldn't help but hang his heart high for the 84th Army.

"Take retreat as advance, lure the enemy deep, Chief Li is really everyone!" Mo Di said with reverence: "The Japanese army is strong, and Okamura Ninji used tanks and artillery to attack intensively in Nanchang for the first time, and tasted the sweetness, and he will definitely use cluster operations in this operation." In the face of the Japanese army's aircraft, tanks, and artillery, it would be unwise for us to use our flesh and blood to fight hard, and Chief Li should first avoid it and let the water network of the Xiangdong Plain pull up the Japanese army's mechanized team, which is no way and the best way. ”

Li Songde nodded, he couldn't see the will of the command at all, and Mo Di could see it at a glance, this is the difference, looking at Mo Di's eyes, there were all little stars.

The second stage is indeed to stagnate the enemy. The 180th Division of the Western Front held Changshoudian, the 37th Division retreated to Yaojiahe, the 38th Division was stationed in Liushuigou, and the 122nd Division held Wenjiamiao. On 6 May, the Japanese army captured Changshoudian, broke through Huangqi'an and advanced rapidly to the north, and the right army flanked the Japanese in the areas of Fengle River, Yaojiahe, Liushui River, Shuanghe and Zhangjiaji. On the 7th, the Japanese army continued to advance northward and captured the defenders' positions in Zhangjiaji and Shuanghe. On the 8th, the Japanese army continued to attack Maoci and Xinji; The two sides fought fierce battles at Maoci and Xinji, and by 10 May, the Japanese army had captured Huyang Town and Xinye, and advanced to the Tang River and the northeast area of Zaoyang. The battle line became longer and longer, and the supply of the Japanese army was obviously insufficient, and the Japanese army had no way to send troops to occupy some places that had taken the initiative to give up. Mo Di deeply felt that on Chinese soil, as an aggressor, after all, manpower and material resources were limited, and it was just wishful thinking on the part of the Japanese to take China by force. With a wise man like Chief Li and a strong man like Chief Tang, the Japanese army's gain of power was only temporary.

The second line of defense on the eastern front was indeed handed over to the 84th Army, and Commander Qin Lianfang led Zhong Yi's 173rd Division, Zhang Guangwei's 174th Division, and Lingzhuoxi's 189th Division to carry out a desperate stagnation of the enemy. These three people all have a deep relationship, and their every move affects the heart of the invincible.

On May 2, the Japanese army pursued to the vicinity of Taerwan, and the Japanese army launched an attack on the 174th and 173rd Divisions with more than 3,000 people under the cover of tanks, aircraft, and artillery, and pounced on the 13th Army east of Gaocheng with more than 3,000 people, and at the same time attacked the position of the 189th Division with a small force as a diversion. A tragic and tragic fight began.

At dawn on the 2nd, the Japanese army first concentrated 12 heavy artillery pieces and 18 aircraft to bombard the positions of the 84th Army. With a piercing roar, artillery shells flew towards the positions of the 174th Division, and the explosions came one after another, and the black soil was lifted up, forming a thick smoke. The artillery fire lasted two hours, and the Japanese front commander, who found through his binoculars that the defenders' forward fortifications were badly damaged, ordered the infantry to start a charge. What he never expected was that just as his infantry was approaching the front of the 174th Division's position, it was suddenly attacked by powerful firepower, and the guns fell on the heads of the unobstructed Japanese troops, and the Japanese suffered heavy casualties.

Zhang Guangwei was smiling, smiling very proudly, when he was fighting in the south of Jinpu Road, he had seen Huang Tianhua's tricks, and built a lot of camouflage fortifications in the forward positions, and dug a lot of foxholes behind the camouflage fortifications, and the soldiers were hidden in these foxholes, and the artillery fire was placed in the rear of the foxholes, and they responded to the battle in a mobile way. The Japanese thought that the main force of the 174th Division had been destroyed by artillery fire, but they did not expect that they were unharmed. A well-planned attack stole chickens and rice, and the Japanese army became angry and began to attack again after a short rest. After shelling and fighting, the small Taerwan position was lost and regained as many as seven times.

On 4 May, the Japanese troops, who had lost their minds by the 84th Army, used artillery and aircraft to release thick poison gas on the positions of the 84th Army. Because there were no anti-poison equipment, a large number of soldiers were smoked by poison gas, the combat effectiveness of various units was greatly reduced, and Taerwan and Guanjiazhai were lost one after another. The 173rd and 174th Divisions had to move to Zhoujiawan, Zhulinwan, Gaomiaopo and the line between the north and south highlands. By 8 May, both sides had suffered heavy losses, and the battle situation remained in a stalemate. At 8 o'clock that night, the 84th Army received a telegram from the commander's headquarters: The task of delaying the enemy had been completed, and it was quickly moving towards Fancheng.

has been twisted into a ball with the Japanese army, you have me, I have you, want to go? It's not that easy! Qin Lianfang asked all departments to fight separately, fight and go, not to fall in love with the war, and to leave as soon as possible. In mid-May, the various units of the 84th Army successively drove to Fancheng, and the losses were very serious.

Through the effective delay of the enemy, time was gained, Li Zongren waved his baton, and the time for counterattack was up! At this time, Tang Enbo's 31st Group Army had already penetrated into the rear of the Japanese army in Zaoyang, cut off the rear road of the Japanese army on the left, and formed a flanking attack with the friendly forces in the Tang River area. Sun Lianzhong's Second Army also penetrated to the rear of the Japanese army in Suixian at the same time, trying to cut off the return of the Japanese army on the right side.

The scales of the battlefield immediately tilted!

A full-scale counteroffensive begins!

Mo Di closed the scroll in front of him, and smiled faintly, this battle, we have won!