Chapter 332: Annihilating the Enemy on the Old Mountain
readx;? After receiving Wang Haitao's order, the troops in the city continued to drive outside the city, and the city of Anqing was empty, and even the guard regiment only left a guard company, and the rest of the people were led by Tangshan Leopard to fight an ambush. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info Wang Haitao could only bring the provisional 168th Division, which was training intensively, to take over the city defense of Anqing City.
Although the provisional 168th Division has only more than 4,000 people, and the training has not yet been completed, there will be no battle in Anqing City for the time being, and Wang Haitao really has no soldiers available, so they can go up. If you want to completely annihilate the Japanese army's Hatian detachment, then the 130 heavy artillery battalion must be used. The heavy artillery on the old mountain was all in the direction of the Yangtze River, and it was no longer possible to strike at the Botian detachment.
Wang Haitao looked at the map for a long time and chose Boulder Mountain, which is 15 kilometers away from Laoshan Town, as a heavy artillery position. The elevation of the boulder mountain is 426 meters, it is a stone mountain dominated by limestone, and there is no road to go up the mountain, and some are just mountain roads taken by mountain people. Under normal circumstances, the heavy artillery of the heavy artillery battalion could not be transported up the mountain at all.
Wang Haitao likes that the distance here is appropriate, the vision is very good, standing on the top of the mountain, you can clearly observe the movement of the old mountain town after using the cannon to the mirror. As for the matter of transporting cannons up the mountain, it is difficult to have Wang Haitao, who has an artifact like a storage ring. Wang Haitao found an opportunity to put all the twenty heavy guns and the required shells of the 130 Heavy Artillery Battalion into the storage ring.
Then he transferred the guard battalion of the 278th Brigade to serve as the guard of the military headquarters and the headquarters, and he took the guard company and all the officers and men of the 130th Heavy Artillery Battalion and set off for Boulder Mountain. For Su Zuxin, who Wang Haitao often left the military headquarters and had already been accustomed to it, they took the initiative to undertake the affairs of the whole army, but fortunately, the war had just begun, and there were not many things.
Wang Haitao and the others climbed the boulder mountain and chose a suitable place facing Laoshan Town as a heavy artillery position. The officers and men of the heavy artillery battalion were all busy, leveling the ground, setting up gun emplacements, and doing simple bunker fortifications, one by one, in an orderly manner, while the guard company brought by Wang Haitao began to pull up a cordon from the mountainside and served as the guard of the heavy artillery battalion.
After everything was done, Wang Haitao took out twenty 130 heavy cannons and shells from the storage ring, and then the soldiers placed the cannons on the gun position. The observer selects the observation point and measures the azimuth coordinates in front of Laoshan Town. Everything was done, and Wang Haitao and the soldiers waited on this boulder mountain for the arrival of the Japanese army's Botian detachment.
Wang Haitao was standing on a mountain rock and observing the ground under the mountain with a telescope, Wu Youbao, the commander of the heavy artillery battalion, came over, Wu Youbao handed Wang Haitao a cigarette and asked: "Military seat, why hasn't this little Japan come yet?" Wang Haitao did not take the cigarette, and continued to hold the telescope to look at the ground under the mountain, while replying: "What? Wait for the hurry? I can't eat hot tofu in a hurry, and I will always come when I should come." ”
Wu Youbao asked again: "Junzao, what kind of Botian detachment won't slip away, right?" Wang Haitao replied: "There is a reconnaissance group watching, and it is not so easy to slip away." Suddenly, Wang Haitao seemed to have discovered something, and while pointing ahead, he said to Wu Youbao: "Battalion Commander Wu, look over there, the road sandwiched between the lake. ”
Wu Youbao also raised his binoculars when he heard this, and looked in the direction pointed by Wang Haitao, at the foot of the mountain, more than ten kilometers away, there was a section of road just sandwiched in the middle of the lake, and it was more than two kilometers long. Wang Haitao said: "This is a good place to block the attack, and it only needs to build a defensive position at the mouth of the road by the lake, which is enough to block the advance of the Japanese army." I just don't know if it's too late?"
As Wang Haitao was talking, a team of people appeared in the telescope, judging from the military uniform, it should be his subordinates. These people came to the mouth of the road by the lake, and really began to repair the fortifications. Wu Youbao also saw it from the binoculars and said, "Junzuo, you see that there are really people who want to go with you and repair the fortifications." ”
Whether it was Xiang Wenbin, the head of the 573rd Regiment, or Liu Yuzhu, the head of the 570th Regiment, their actions were affirmed by Wang Haitao. Wang Haitao called the telegraph operator of the heavy artillery battalion and asked him to send a telegram to Tang Xiaoshan of the reconnaissance regiment, asking Tang Xiaoshan to delay the Botian detachment for one to two days as much as possible, so as to buy some time for the defenders to rush to repair their positions.
So when Hakata Shigeichi led the Hatada detachment to a place ten kilometers away from Laoshan Town, he found a defensive position with defenders. This defensive position was still the 573rd Regiment arrived in Laoshan Town, met Liu Yuzhu with Wen Bin, and transferred the number to Wang Haitao's battle plan, and then inspected the ground with Liu Yuzhu and the others, and only then did they discover this excellent position to block the enemy.
In the past, the garrison task of Laoshan Town was mainly to prevent the Japanese army from sneaking up on the Laoshan Fort, and the position was mainly facing the Yangtze River, and there were really not many fortifications on this side of the highway.
The good thing about building fortifications by the lake is that the front does not need to be as wide as it is, as long as it can ensure that the road is blocked ten meters wide. The bad thing is that the water surface here is too shallow, and the water will come out when the trenches are dug more than a meter deep, and there is no way to dig the anti-artillery holes. As soon as Xiang Wenbin and Liu Yuzhu discussed, the fortifications were repaired as taught by the military seat, and the trenches were dug into a "Z" shape in many places, and the corners were used to avoid shrunnel from the shells. In addition, it is necessary to dig a few more trenches, and there must be depth as the military seat said.
When the two regiments worked together to repair the trenches, the Japanese were only ten kilometers away from their positions. After receiving the report, Xiang Wenbin immediately ordered the troops to enter the position. According to the plan, the firepower on the first line of positions should be strengthened, but not too many troops could be put in, so there were only one company of the first battalion and one company of the 573rd Regiment on the first line, but more than 10 light and heavy machine guns were placed.
The Hatata detachment was the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Wing, and when the captain of the brigade, Toshichi Nakasa, Tanaka, saw this winding road sandwiched in the middle of the lake, he knew that this should be a good place to block the attack, so he immediately sent a squad to explore the way. It didn't take long to hear a gunshot in front of him, which made Tanaka Toshitomi's heart chill.
When the leader of the pathfinder team came to report that the Chinese had arranged a defensive position on the road in front, he led the team to try to attack, and found that the Chinese had only more than 100 people in the defensive position, which was estimated to be a company. At this time, Tanaka Toshitomo was both happy and angry, happy that the Shina people only had one company of more than 100 people on this important position, and angry that the Shina people dared to block the attack of their own detachment of tens of thousands of people with more than 100 people.
Toshiyuki Tanaka immediately arranged a dozen mortars and four 92 infantry guns in the brigade to build an artillery position, and then had a squadron of soldiers attack the defenders' positions. Just now, when a Japanese squad attacked, the commander of a company didn't even use a heavy machine gun, but just used four light machine guns to strafe for a while, knocking down several Japanese soldiers, and then the Japanese withdrew.
This time it was different, first a shell exploded on the position, and after ten minutes of shelling, a squadron of nearly 200 Japanese troops launched an attack on the position. Because the width of the road was there, the soldiers of this squadron could not form an offensive formation, and could only advance in a row of several people. Upon advancing to a distance of 300 meters from the position, two heavy machine guns were erected on both sides of the road.
After another 100 meters, heavy machine guns, grenadiers, and Type 38 rifles in the hands of the soldiers all opened fire. Bullets flew over the position "whoosh, whoosh", and the soldiers of the first company lay tightly on the edge of the trench, and the commander of the first company said: "Calm down, put little Japan closer and fight again." The soldiers clenched their weapons and aimed their guns at the attacking Japanese troops.
When the Japanese advanced to only a hundred meters from the position, the commander of the first company shouted: "Fight!" The shell gun in his hand was the first to fire. Light and heavy machine guns and rifles that had been waiting on the position for a long time also fired at the same time, and bullets flew towards the Japanese troops like a rain of bullets, and the rows of Japanese soldiers walking in front were immediately knocked to the ground.
At this time, the Japanese troops behind were busy lying on the ground, and the light machine guns and grenadiers were desperately hitting the position. The commander of the first company saw that the Japanese troops were lying down, so that the heavy machine guns and several light machine guns stopped firing, and only two light machine guns were retained to suppress the Japanese troops. Seeing that the firepower on the position was weakened, the Japanese troops in front got up again, bent down and continued to attack while shooting.
The Japanese army advanced more than 20 meters, and the road was a little wider, and when they saw that they could break out of the intersection with another 20 meters, they couldn't help but speed up their pace. When the commander of the first company saw that the Japanese troops were coming up again, he hurriedly ordered the fire to be fully fired, and the casualties of the Japanese troops were large, and the bullets of the heavy machine guns could often penetrate the bodies of two or three Japanese soldiers.
The attack lasted an hour, with a squadron of Japanese casualties two-thirds, and the remaining dozens of soldiers fled back in disarray. The whole offensive process, the captain of the brigade, Toshitomo Tanaka, saw clearly with a telescope in the back. Toshitomo Tanaka was quite surprised that there were so many machine guns on the defenders' positions. He already understood that this intersection was not so easy to attack.
Toshitomo Tanaka did not organize another attack, but went to report to the captain of the wing, Sato Katsuda. When Sato wanted Osa to learn about the battle, he thought that the number of artillery in one of his own wings was not enough to destroy the positions of the Shina army, and if he wanted to take the positions of the Shina people, he had to use the artillery of the mountain artillery wing.
After hearing this, Major General Shigeichi Habata called the wing commander of the mountain artillery wing, Nakajima Yoshiyoshi, and ordered Nakajima Yoshichi to shell the defensive positions of the Shina people. At this time, Hakata Shigeichi thought that it was not yet time to use large-caliber howitzers, and that a few dozen mountain guns of the mountain artillery wing would be enough to destroy the positions of the Shina people.
The Japanese artillery positions had already been built, and the shelling could begin as long as the azimuth coordinates of the target were corrected. After confirming the target, Nakajima gave the order to open fire. The shells fired by the 36 Type 94 75-mm mountain guns accurately landed on the position of the first company, and a cloud of gunpowder smoke and fire exploded on the position.