readx;? Two days after Wang Haitao returned to Nanjing from Jurong, a telegram from Tang Xiaoshan was sent to Wang Haitao, detailing the Japanese army's offensive line. www.biquge.info The Japanese army was divided into three routes, left, center, and right south of the Yangtze River to attack Nanjing, and on the left was the Japanese 16th and 182nd divisions and an independent heavy artillery brigade, which marched west along Changzhou to attack the Zhenjiang line; in the middle was the Japanese 3rd and 22nd divisions attacking Liyang, After capturing Wuhu, the Japanese 114th Division on the right turned to Huzhou and then advanced to Hangzhou and other places, and instead of him, the Japanese 101st Division and the 9th Division and a heavy artillery brigade attacked and advanced in the direction of Ma'anshan.

In addition, Japanese chariot units were found in the city of Wuxi, which may join the attack on the city of Nanjing, and after the Japanese captured the Jiangyin fortress, the Japanese warships were also going up the river. At the end of the telegram, Tang Xiaoshan also reported to Wang Haitao the good news, that is, after ambushing several Japanese supply lines, the reconnaissance regiment captured two truckloads of heavy artillery shells and now transferred them to Zhenjiang.

Tang Xiaoshan's telegram made Wang Haitao's attack on the Japanese army more clear, and Wang Haitao had done all the preparations he should have done, and at this time he could only look at the performance of the defenders in a few places. Wang Haitao sent a telegram back to Tang Xiaoshan, asking the reconnaissance group to persist in harassing the attacking Japanese troops in the periphery of Nanjing, and constantly ambushing the Japanese supply lines to delay the Japanese attack. If the troops need to replenish ammunition, the military can go to the base in the Jurong Mountains for rest and replenishment.

Soon after receiving Tang Xiaoshan's telegram, the 112th Division of Ma'anshan and the 103rd Division of Zhenjiang received telegrams one after another, and the outlying positions in both places were engaged in fire with the advance of the Japanese army. Huo Shouyi, the commander of the 112th Division, placed the first line of defense in the town of Dangtu between Wuhu and Ma'anshan. The Ningwu Highway passes through the middle of Dangtu Town, and in front of Dangtu Town is a mountain more than 100 meters high, and Ningwu Highway passes through the foot of the mountain.

In Dangtu Town, the first battalion of the 667th Regiment was defended by the city wall, and two battalions were on the hill by the side of the road to form horns with Dangtu Town. The regimental headquarters and guard company of the 667th Regiment were set up in Dangtu Town, and the regiment commander Wan Yi sat at the regimental headquarters to direct the battle. The heavy weapons received from Wang Haitao were also distributed to part of the 667th Regiment, and the only six mortars in the regiment were arranged by Wan Yi on the top of the mountain at this time.

The height of these mountains around Nanjing is not too high, basically at a height of one or two hundred meters, but the vegetation is dense and the slope is very large, and if there are troops hidden on the mountain, it is difficult to find it under the mountain. The officers and men of the two battalions of the 667th Regiment set up several positions from low to high on this mountain, and these positions were basically formed by using the original various terrain types and some rocks and then building them manually, and they were relatively solid and very well concealed.

At 9 o'clock in the morning of that day, a brigade of the 95th Wing of the 6th Infantry Brigade of the 9th Division of the Japanese Army appeared in the sight of the defenders. At this time, the 9th Division of the Japanese Army was supplemented in Japan, and still had the 6th and 182nd brigades under its jurisdiction. After the 35th Wing of the 6th Brigade was revoked, a 95th Wing was formed.

The commander of the division was Nobuyo Ide, who had just been promoted to lieutenant general, the commander of the 6th Brigade was Major General Kazuo Isa, and the commander of the 7th Wing was Nakamura Sadaji Osa, and the commander of the 95th Wing was Tsudai Kosuke. The brigade commander of the 18th Brigade was Major General Hitomi Hideyama, the commander of the 19th Wing was Matsuda Shigeji Osa, the commander of the 36th Wing was Wakiita Jiro Osa, and the commander of the 9th Mountain Artillery Wing directly under the division was Seriyama Toru Osa.

Seeing the Japanese troops, the officers and men of the second battalion and the first company on the first line of positions halfway up the mountain immediately entered the position, and their light and heavy weapons were aimed at the Japanese troops on the march. The attention of the reconnaissance detachment at the forefront of the Japanese army was attracted by the defensive position under the city wall, and they only carried out a fire reconnaissance on the nearby hill and did not pay any more attention.

When the captain of this brigade heard the report that a defensive position had been built under the city wall of Dangtu Town, and that there were some fortifications such as bunkers, he ordered his troops to deploy in an attack formation one thousand meters away from Dangtu Town, and the four 92 infantry guns of the brigade also set up artillery positions 1,500 meters from the city wall.

The infantry set up a heavy machine-gun emplacement with eight heavy machine guns six hundred meters from the city wall, and several mortars from the brigade were lined up here. This heavy machine gun position was just below the position of the 1st Company of the 2nd Battalion on the mountainside, and the distance in a straight line was less than 100 meters.

Half an hour later, the four Japanese 92 infantry guns that had been prepared launched an artillery bombardment of the defensive positions under the city wall, and at the same time as the shelling, a Japanese squadron also went out along the road to a position only 200 meters away from the position, ready to attack. Ten minutes later, the shelling ended, the heavy machine guns on the heavy machine gun positions began to fire at the defenders' positions, and the infantry also began to attack under the cover of heavy machine guns and several mortars.

When the infantry of this squadron advanced only a hundred meters from the position, two heavy machine guns in the bunker on the position fired, and the two heavy machine guns blocked the entire road with crossfire, and a dozen Japanese soldiers in front fell to the ground. The commander of the first company of the second battalion halfway up the mountain saw that the position under the city wall was starting, and he also shouted: "Fight! Hit hard!"

With his shouts, the light and heavy weapons on the position began to attack the Japanese heavy machine gun positions and mortar positions. When the Japanese troops reacted and began to shoot halfway up the mountain, the entire heavy machine gun position and mortar position were already full of dead and wounded, and hundreds of officers and men of the Japanese machine gun squadron and mortar squad fell in a pool of blood.

Without the threat of heavy machine guns and mortars, all the weapons in the hands of the fighters in the positions under the city walls opened fire, and the attacking Japanese squadron heard the sound of gunfire behind them, and did not care about the attack, and hurriedly withdrew. When the captain of the Japanese army saw the scene in front of him, he was furious and called the captain of the reconnaissance detachment over, and he was slapped in the face a few times.

The machine gun squadron and mortar squadron of this brigade were completely lost, and the attacking infantry squadron also suffered dozens of soldiers killed and wounded, which can be described as heavy losses, and the loss of heavy machine guns and mortars made the infantry lose their support weapons, and they could not launch another attack.

It was almost noon when the brigade commander of the 6th Brigade led the troops here, and the captain hurried to see the brigade commander, Major General Izuo, and when the captain reported the situation to Isa, he was also slapped several times by Major General Izuo, who was also annoyed. After beating and scolding, Major General Izuo personally led a group of his men to the front line and observed the shape of the ground with a telescope.

Izuo Kazuo saw it for a long time, and now the defenders of Shina on the hill and the defenders in the city are supporting each other and relying on each other, and only by capturing a position first can it be possible to capture the entire defensive line, and the first thing that should be captured is this hilltop position. However, this hill is not only densely wooded, but also has a very steep slope, and it is not easy to attack from the back.

After seeing this, Izuo ordered the leading brigade to try to attack the hill once, so that the defenders could expose the fire points on the position, so that he could use his artillery to destroy them. The group leader was given the order to have several squadrons under his command attack the hill at the same time.

The officers and men of the 667th Regiment guarding the hill had long been prepared for the Japanese attack, clearing out the weeds and trees that could be concealed within 70 meters in front of the mountainside position, and taking advantage of the terrain to artificially dig a wall nearly three meters high 70 meters away.

When these Japanese soldiers climbed in front of the broken wall, they were dumbfounded in the face of the nearly three-meter-high broken wall, and they wanted to climb up, almost 90 degrees of slope, no ladder, no foothold, how to climb?

When the captain came up and saw this, he had to ask some of the soldiers to make a path on both sides of the wall so that they could bypass it, while the other part of the soldiers made wooden ladders made of trees and thick rattan to see if they could climb the wall. The soldiers who opened the way to the two sides were all complaining, there were no easy tools, and it was difficult to use bayonets to open the way in the face of thicker trees, and the soldiers who made the wooden ladder quickly made more than ten wooden ladders, but the Japanese soldiers who climbed up the ladder just came out, and a row of guns on the defender's position knocked these soldiers off the wooden ladder.

When the captain heard the gunshots, he knew that the top of the broken wall was the position of the Chinese army, but how could he find out the point of fire if he couldn't see the position? The captain concentrated dozens of grenadiers, let these grenadiers fire at the broken wall at the same time, and then blocked the sight of the defenders with gunsmoke, and let the soldiers who had already climbed the wooden ladder rush up the broken wall.

This method had some effect, and dozens of soldiers rushed up the broken wall in a row, but at this time, the captain heard the sound of machine guns on the defenders' positions on the broken wall, and the gunfire lasted for about ten minutes, mixed with the screams of the soldiers after being shot. After about ten minutes, the gunfire stopped, and there was no movement on the broken wall, and the captain knew that the dozens of soldiers who climbed up should all be shattered.

None of the several methods could achieve the goal, and seeing that it was getting late, the captain withdrew down the mountain with the remaining soldiers and went to report the situation to the brigade commander, Major General Kazuo Isa. At the same time that the 9th Division was attacking Dangtu Town, the 22nd Division of the Japanese Army had been attacking the periphery of Liyang County for several days, and the most headache of the 22nd Division in a few days was the mines in front of the defenders' positions. In a desperate situation, the commander of the 22nd Division, Lieutenant General Jiichi Tsuchihashi, could only order to disregard the casualties, use soldiers to wade out of two offensive routes, and then use the tactics of crowds to capture the defenders' position on the west side of the river.

The Japanese army paid the price of nearly 1,000 casualties after capturing the position, and Fu Bingxun's 561st Regiment on the position only lost more than 200 people, but the loss of the first line of position still made Fu Bingxun's heart very uncomfortable.