The water level of the Xinqiang River was only less than one meter, and the Japanese army did not need to build a bridge at all when crossing the river in the heavy rain at night, and they could directly wade in vain. The three infantry wings of the 40th Division lined up in the middle reaches of the Xinqiang River, and from west to east were the 236th Wing, the 235th Wing, and the 234th Wing. The 40th Division faced the defensive positions of the 134th Division of the 20th Army.

As soon as the Japanese army began to cross the river, it was discovered by the forefront of the 20th Army, the 134th Division had only one battalion and three companies at the forefront, and in the face of the three Japanese wings crossing the river at the same time, although they also desperately resisted, but in the night in the heavy rain, the visibility was too low, and the Japanese army was too numerous and the artillery fire was fierce, the 40th Division did not make much effort to break through the most forward defense line of the 134th Division, and most of the officers and men of the 134th Division were martyred, and only a few dozen people withdrew.

The 6th Division of the Japanese Army was engaged in the section from the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway Bridge to the east to Xinqiang Town, and from west to east was the 45th Wing, the 13th Wing, and the 23rd Wing. The 45th and 23rd Wings, consisting of two flanks, first attacked under the cover of artillery fire, opposite them the defensive positions of the 133rd Division.

The 133rd Division's forward position here is more favorable than that of the 134th Division, and there are several strong fortifications and firepower points to rely on. The 133rd Division invested four companies, led by Wang Chaokui, commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 398th Regiment, and stationed at four fortified firepower points to put up stubborn resistance to the attacking Japanese 6th Division.

After the Japanese surrounded several firing points with numerical superiority and cut off communication between them, Wang Chaokui did not command his men to retreat, but let the four companies fight separately. Holding out until dawn, most of the officers and soldiers at the four firing points were killed, and then Wang Chaokui had to order a retreat. In order to cover the retreat of most of the officers and soldiers, Wang Chaokui personally led people to break the rear.

After the Japanese army paid a lot of casualties in front of the four firepower points, they captured the fortifications of the four firepower points, and were preparing to pursue in depth, when they met Wang Chaokui's broken troops, after a hand-to-hand fight, Wang Chaokui and his soldiers were all martyred, and they also delayed the attacking Japanese army for more than half an hour, covering the successful retreat of more than 100 officers and soldiers.

More than 40,000 men from two divisions of the Japanese army all crossed the Xinqiang River on the morning of the 25th, the two divisions of the 20 th Army retreated to the second position, the main forces of the 134th Division and the 133rd Division resisted the Japanese army on the line of Guanwang Bridge, Chenjiaqiao, Sanjiangkou, and Yangjiaoling, and the 1st Division of the 133rd Division still insisted on attacking and harassing the Japanese troops who had crossed the Xinqiang River on the south bank of the Xinqiang River.

On this line of positions, the 20th Army was still relatively well prepared, not only was the location more favorable, but the fortifications were also relatively complete. The two divisions of the Japanese army divided into two directions and launched a fierce attack on the defensive positions of the 133rd Division and the 134th Division. What the Japanese army could rely on was a much stronger artillery superiority than the 20th Army and a numerical superiority.

Under the overwhelming artillery bombardment, the 134th Division's positions were destroyed one after another, and the officers and men could only counterattack the attacking Japanese troops in the shell craters. The 20th Army was not like Wang Haitao's 90th Army, which was equipped with dozens of light and heavy machine guns in a single battalion, and the soldiers had either semi-automatic rifles or submachine guns in their hands. After the only few heavy machine guns were destroyed by the artillery of the Japanese brigade, only a few light machine guns and medium rifles in the hands of the soldiers could be used to stop the Japanese attack.

In the face of the Japanese army's movement, it was an infantry brigade of thousands of people's crowd-style charge, and the 134th Division was really difficult to resist, and the officers and men of the 34th Division still showed the tenacity of the Chinese soldiers and the bloody nature of the Sichuan army. Even so, the positions are still being lost piece by piece.

The second line of the 133rd Division was located in a mountainous area, and the situation of the 133rd Division, which occupied a favorable location, was slightly better than that of the 134th Division, but although the 6th Division of the Japanese Army was a rebuilt division, its combat effectiveness was not as strong as that of the 6th Division during the Songhu War, but it was also composed of reserves, and the soldiers had also undergone several years of training, and it was by no means comparable to a division composed of new recruits.

Coupled with the superiority of weapons that were stronger than those of the 40th Division, the 133rd Division also had a hard time resisting. It is said that it is a mountainous area, but it is just some small high ground less than 100 meters high, and before each attack, the Japanese army will repeatedly bombard the defenders' positions with powerful artillery fire, and the defenders on one position may suffer one-third or more casualties in the bombardment of Japanese artillery.

With the dozen or so small-caliber mortars that only one regiment has, it is impossible for them to engage in any artillery battle with the Japanese army, and they can only put a few artillery guns on the Japanese infantry when the attack is at its most critical. In this way, these mortars were also targeted by the Japanese artillery, and after a day's battle, the mortars of the 133rd Division were almost lost.

In a full-day attack on the 25th, the Japanese occupied most of the second line of positions of the 20th Army. After the situation was reported to General Yang Sen, commander of the 27th Group Army, General Yang Sen was also very surprised by the attack power of the Japanese army, and the order given by Commander Xue Yue was to hold the position between the Miluo River and the Xinqiang River for seven to ten days, and after only two days, the second position of the 20th Army had been basically lost, and there were still two positions behind, but if the battle continued like this, it would take three days at most, and the Japanese army would hit the Miluo River, what should I do?

General Yang Sen thought about it for a moment and decided to use the 58th Army to reinforce the third line of positions in advance, while the 20th Army had to hold the third line of positions for 48 hours. After giving the order to the two army commanders below, General Yang Sen immediately sent a telegram to General Xue Yue, commander of the Ninth Theater, saying that the Japanese army had launched a frontal assault on the position of our 20 th Army with more than 40,000 men in two divisions and regiments, and that although our 20 th Army had resisted bravely, there was a huge gap in strength between the two sides, and now that the 20 th Army had retreated to the third position, it would be difficult for the 27 th Group Army to complete the task of guarding the position between the Miluo River and the Xinqiang River for seven to 10 days.

General Xue Yue didn't expect the 27th Group to be able to block the Japanese attack, and he also hoped that after leading the Japanese army into depth, the 27th Group Army would be able to close the door and give the Japanese army a hard blow during the counteroffensive. Therefore, General Xue Yue once again gave General Yang Sen the order to retreat to both sides and give way to the front after holding out for another two days.

When General Yang Sen received the new order, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and immediately gave an order to the commander of the 58th Army to use only the new 11th Division to reinforce the 20th Army, and the other two divisions continued to be covert and waitby. On the night of the 25th, the 20th Army received an order to abandon the second position, and the whole army withdrew to the third position on the first line of Xiagaoqiao, Yingzhu Mountain, and Guhua Mountain, and held the position for 36 hours.

The 20th Army quietly withdrew from the second line of positions at night, and by this time the two divisions of the 20th Army had already lost a third of its officers and men. On the third line, the 133rd Division and the 134th Division ushered in a new round of attacks by the two divisions of the Japanese army after a short rest. The 40th Division of the Japanese Army divided its troops into two columns, the left column was the 234th Wing, the right column was the 236th Wing, and the 235th Wing was covering the rear on the left side. The reason for this dispersion was that the frontal attack surface was widened, and the Chinese troops were found to be active on the left side (part of the 133rd Division remained on the south bank of the Xinqiang River).

The 6th Division used the 23rd Wing and the 45th Wing to attack the position of the 133rd Division in Guhua Mountain. On the Xiagaoqiao position, the 58th Division of the 20th Army, which was left as a reserve, was already guarding here, while the rest of the 134th Division was guarding the Yingzhu Mountain position. The left column of the 40th Division of the Japanese Army was facing the Yingzhu Mountain position, and the right column was facing the Xiagaoqiao position.

Yingzhu Mountain is a 70-meter-high earthen mountain, and the north-facing side has artificially dug out a section more than 10 meters high, and this vertical section has become a barrier to stop the Japanese army's advance, and the defensive position of the 134th Division was built from above this section. This section more than ten meters high really cost the Japanese army a lot of effort.

The 234th Wing of the Left Column of the 40th Division arrived at the Yingzhu Mountain position, and when the wing commander Shigematsu Jie Daisaku observed the situation of the defenders' position, his brows furrowed when he saw this section. Shigematsu immediately ordered the mobilization of all the artillery fire of the wing to fire at this section first. The 234th Wing had only 12 Type 92 infantry guns and 18 82-caliber mortars, and the destructive power was limited.

After the section collapsed, it became a dirt slope, and Shigematsu Kaidaisa saw that the dirt slope was not wide, and it was useless to attack the attacker, so he sent an infantry squadron to attack the mountain under the cover of artillery fire. As soon as the infantry squadron of the Japanese army stepped on the dirt slope that had been blasted out, they couldn't help but cry out bitterly. The soil slope that had just collapsed was loose and slippery, and the Japanese stepped on it, and the soil could not reach the knees, and it was very difficult to climb up three steps, and if you were not careful, you could slide back two steps.

This infantry squadron climbed up with great difficulty, and finally climbed up more than halfway, and two light machine guns on the defender's position were fired, and two light machine guns and dozens of rifles were enough to seal this dirt slope, and the Japanese soldiers who were struggling to climb up were suddenly swept down a dozen times, and the rest of the people were lying on the dirt slope. As soon as Shigematsu saw that the defenders were firing, he hurriedly commanded the heavy machine guns to suppress and return fire, and the two sides fired one high and one low.

The defenders were condescending, even if the firepower was inferior to the Japanese army, but the blockade of the soil slope could still be done, the attacking infantry squadron, it took more than half an hour to fail to attack the soil slope, but dozens of people were killed and wounded, Shigemomatsu Jie Daisa saw that this could not be done, so he ordered the attacking infantry squadron to withdraw first. The infantry squadron withdrew under the cover of artillery fire, and Shigematsu Jiedasa ordered artillery fire to bombard the defenders' positions on the dirt slope.