At 9 o'clock on the morning of the 29th, the Japanese Third Division was on the left and north bank of the Miluo River, with three infantry wings from left to right and one cavalry wing lined up one after another, namely the 68th Infantry Wing, the 34th Infantry Wing, the 18th Infantry Wing, and the 3rd Cavalry Wing. Only one infantry regiment was left to cover the division headquarters and the third field artillery regiment and the baggage corps.

An hour later, the 68th Wing on the far left was the first to cross the river, because there was originally a bridge over the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway in the area where they crossed the river, and although the bridge had been blown up, as long as the engineering troops were sent to repair it, even if the heavy equipment could not pass, ordinary soldiers could still cross it. However, there were defensive positions of the defenders on the south bank of the river, and in order to cover the construction of the bridge by the engineer troops, the 68th Wing requested not only artillery support, but also gunboats on the river.

On the south bank of the Yangtze River was a battalion of the newly formed 14th Division. Because Commander Xue Yue wanted the tactic of luring the enemy deep into the river and then annihilating him, the 30th Group Army did not deploy too many troops on the south bank of the Miluo River, and the tactics of the commander of the group army, Wang Lingji, were very clear, that is, on the basis of preserving themselves, the effective strength of the Japanese army should be consumed as much as possible.

The position on the south bank of the Yangtze River is not in danger to defend, and it will be bombarded by a large number of Japanese artillery fire, and if the Japanese army is not blocked to the death, then it is undoubtedly unwise to consume a large number of troops on the position on the south bank of the Yangtze River. In order to realize his tactics, Wang Lingji chose some more dangerous terrain to set up a second defensive position a few kilometers away from the south bank of the Miluo River, and arranged heavy troops.

The same is true on the left side of the Miluo River, where the main force of the newly formed 14th Division is deployed on the high ground south of Guiyi, two kilometers away from the south bank of the river. It is conceivable that with only one battalion of troops, under the heavy artillery fire of the Japanese army and the blows of two inland river gunboats, it will be difficult to protect itself, let alone prevent the Japanese soldiers from building bridges.

After the 68th Wing succeeded in suppressing the defenders on the south bank of the Miluo River with artillery fire and river gunboats, the engineering unit repaired the bridge at 3 p.m. After receiving the report that the bridge was repaired and that the river could be crossed, the commander of the 68th Wing, Nono Kenzaburo Osa, immediately ordered the 1st Brigade of the Wing to be the vanguard, equipped with some mortars, to immediately cross the river and seize the defenders' positions on the south bank of the river.

The battalion on the south bank had already lost part of its strength under the attack of Japanese artillery and gunboats, and all the fortifications on the position had been destroyed.

The first team occupied the defenders' positions on the south bank of the Miluo River, and the main force of the rear wing followed them across the Miluo River in a steady stream, and even artillery and other heavy weapons and equipment crossed the river through the pontoon bridge. The 68th Wing successfully crossed the Miluo River, and the 34th Infantry Wing and the 18th Infantry Wing also erected pontoon bridges under the cover of artillery fire and crossed the Miluo River through pontoon bridges.

On the morning of the 30th, when the other divisions launched a forced crossing of the Miluo River as ordered, most of the troops of the Third Division had already crossed the river and had already expanded the occupied area to the south. The Fourth Division was an outlier in the Japanese army, and they avoided vicious and tough battles, and did not have the characteristics of other Japanese divisions and regiments in terms of toughness and aggressiveness, so they also became the laughing stock of other Japanese troops.

The Fourth Division arrived at Changle Town on the morning of 29 July, when the water depth of the Miluo River was already three meters, and the current was very fast. Seeing that it was impossible to build bridges in vain, the Fourth Division began to build bridges in Changle Town, but it was not so easy to build bridges under this weather and current, and the Fourth Division was not in a hurry, looking for bridge-building materials while watching other troops quickly cross the river.

It was only after the Sixth Division had airdropped rubber boats that it forcibly crossed the Miluo River under the cover of artillery fire. After rushing to the south bank of the Miluo River, the 45th Wing of the vanguard launched an attack on the position of a battalion of the newly formed 16th Division of the defenders on the south bank of the Miluo River. The battalion fought back, and after repelling the second attack of the Japanese, one battalion lost more than half of its weight and withdrew.

The 40th Division searched for two ferries at the ferry port in Hukou Town, and with two ferries and several river gunboats, they crossed the river at one time to an infantry brigade, and the two battalions of the newly formed 13th Division guarding Hukou Town also desperately blocked the attack with the help of the town, but as the Japanese army crossed the river with more and more troops, the momentum of the attack became more and more fierce, and the deputy regiment commander who led the two battalions to counterattack had to withdraw from his position because of the great disparity in strength after blocking the attack for several hours.

By 5 p.m. on the afternoon of 30 July, the Japanese army, except for the 4th Division, had successfully crossed the Miduo River and began to expand its results. The 3rd Division, which was the most active in Chong, had already exchanged fire with the newly formed 14th Division on the high ground south of Guiyi, on the preset position of the newly formed 14th Division. The 6th and 40th Divisions also advanced two to three kilometers to the south, approaching the defenders' established positions.

The second line of positions of the 30th Group Army was set up on the line from Guiyi in the west to Wengjiang Town in the east, of which the high ground south of Guiyi was the position of the newly formed 14th Division, the Tongzishan position to the east was the position of the newly formed 15th Division, the Huyuanshan position to the east was the position of the newly formed 16th Division, and the easternmost Wengjiang Town was the position of the newly formed 13th Division.

The Japanese army rested for the night, and in the early morning of the 31st, the rain and snow stopped, and the Japanese attack on all fronts began. At present, several divisions of the Japanese army are only more than 100 kilometers away from Changsha City, and the smooth attack in the past few days has greatly inflated the confidence of several generals Anan Wei, who already think that Changsha City is within reach. However, his chief of operational staff, Shimamura Juyasu Nakasa, had been observing and studying the movements of various units of the Chinese army, and at this time he had put forward his opinion to General He Nanwei that he should be cautious in attacking Changsha.

This naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of several generals Anan and reprimanded him. Obviously, Anan Wei's generals were very optimistic about the situation of this battle, a group army in the Xinqianghe defense line was defeated in a few days, and now the Miluo River has also been crossed, and the 3rd Division, which is the most fiercely attacked, is only 100 kilometers away from Changsha City.

The 3rd Division took the lead in storming the defense line of the Guiyi South Heights of the newly formed 14th Division. The 30th Group Army and the 27th Group Army are both Sichuan Army, and the two armies of the 30th Group Army are two divisions per army, four regiments per division, plus other departments, one division is about 7,000 people, and only 5,000 people can fight.

Although it was inferior to the Japanese army in all aspects, in the face of the Japanese 3rd Division, which was killed with great momentum, the newly formed 14th Division still relied on the ground type and position to carry out a stubborn resistance. The Third Division is worthy of being a veteran division of the Japanese army, and in terms of heavy weapons, it is equipped with 12 150-caliber field howitzers, as well as dozens of 75-caliber field guns, and even more small artillery pieces of the rest of the wings.

In light weapons, each brigade had a squadron of heavy machine guns armed with eight heavy machine guns, and a high proportion of grenadiers in the troops. In addition, the individual responsibility of the soldiers of the 3rd Division is much higher than that of the newly formed 14th Division, and the gunfire on the position is quite dense, but there are not many Japanese soldiers who have fallen from bullets. On the contrary, it was the accurate marksmanship of the Japanese soldiers that caused the defenders on the position to be shot and fall.

There was not much suspense in this battle, and the new 14th Division was broken by the Japanese after blocking it for a morning, and then the division commander Fan Nanxuan could only order the whole division to retreat. The newly formed 14th Division lost its position in one morning, and not only Han Quanpu, deputy commander in charge of the command of the 72nd Army, did not expect it, but even Wang Lingji, commander of the 30th Group Army and commander of the 72nd Army, did not expect it.

After easily breaking through the defensive positions on the Guiyi South Heights, Lieutenant General Takahashi Tagaji, commander of the 3rd Division, ordered the whole army to launch an attack on the front line of Daniang Bridge, preparing to use the old tactics to divide and outflank the defenders on the positions of Tongzishan and Huyuanshan, which were still blocking the Japanese army. The rapid advance of the 3rd Division disrupted Wang Lingji's defense plan, and he could only order the whole army to abandon the original position and move to the third and final line of positions behind.

The rampant nature of the Japanese army made the divisions of the 30th Group Army feel that they had an opportunity to take advantage of it, and the new 13th Division and the new 15th Division all chose the ground type when retreating, and fought an ambush for the Japanese army, among which the new 13th Division had the best results, and they used the ground type to ambush a cavalry brigade of the 40th Division of the Japanese Army, eliminating more than 300 Japanese troops, killing nearly 100 military horses, and also killing an adjutant lieutenant of the cavalry brigade.

The ambush by the defenders slowed down the pursuit, and the four divisions of the 30th Group were able to retreat to the third line of defense. From west to east, the third line of defense is the Daniangqiao position, the Xujiashan position, the Fulin Town position, and the Jinjing Town position. In order to give the 37th Army and the 53rd Army behind them more time to prepare, Wang Lingji, commander of the 30th Group Army, ordered all divisions to make use of the terrain and be sure to hold their positions for 48 hours.

In order to deal with the 3rd Division, which was the most ferocious of the Japanese offensive, Wang Lingji strengthened the artillery battalion, the only artillery unit of the group army, in the direction of the new 14th Division, and considering that no Japanese troops were found on the front of the new 15th Division, he transferred two regiments from the new 15th Division to support the new 14th Division. The reason why the Japanese army was not found on the front of the newly formed 15th Division was because the 4th Division, which was originally fighting with them head-on, had not yet been able to cross the Miluo River and was still on the north bank of the Miluo River!