After Okamura Ningji waited for the 18th Division and the 106th Division to return to Hefei, the 101st Division and the 5,000 Japanese troops replenished from the Japanese mainland, as well as a large number of weapons and equipment, and military supplies also arrived in Hefei.

After nearly a month of hard fighting, Wang Haitao's 90th Army annihilated more than 20,000 Japanese troops, but it also suffered a lot of losses, and the four divisions under the name of the 90th Army fought with the Japanese army, except for the 90th Division, which only lost more than 1,000 people, only the 273rd Brigade of the 91st Division still had combat effectiveness, and the 92nd Division also lost nearly 2,000 people. The 93rd Division also lost several thousand troops on the Huaining line. As for the provisional 168th Division, it also lost nearly 1,000 men this time. Together, the 90th Army lost nearly 10,000 men and horses.

Wang Haitao was in the headquarters in Anqing looking at the information sent from all over the place, and Zhao Meiling, director of the confidential office, personally walked into Wang Haitao's office with a telegram. Zhao Meiling, director of the confidential office, saluted Wang Haitao with a happy face, and then said: "Report to the military seat, the Chongqing General Headquarters is calling." Wang Haitao took the telegram and looked at it at a glance.

This telegram was sent by the Chongqing General Headquarters to Wang Haitao's 90 th Group Army Headquarters. In the telegram, the ACCCTU first expressed his commendation and condolences to the 90th Group Army for holding back the enemy in Anqing for nearly a month, not only destroying a large number of Japanese troops, but also gaining time for arranging the overall defense line of Wuhan in the rear. In the end, the telegram told Wang Haitao a good news, that is, the overall defense of Wuhan has basically been put in place.

Now, starting from the Madang Fortress behind him, two theaters, 14 group armies, and 50 armies, with a total of 1.1 million troops, have been holding on to a large area of land from Nanchang to Wuhan to Xinyang. In the Jiujiang area, there were also three armies, the 31st Army, the 68th Army, and the 84th Army. In addition, General Sun Lianzhong's Third Corps had been stationed between the northern foot of Dabie Mountain and the Huai River, and sent Song Xilian's 71st Army and the 114th Division of the 51st Army to garrison the Yeji and Fujin Mountain positions.

This telegram made Wang Haitao breathe a sigh of relief, without the task of defending Yeji and Fujin Mountain, he could withdraw the 91st Division to Qianshan to rest, which also made his troops more concentrated, and he was more sure to block the attack of Okamura Ningji's 11th Army. Thinking that the 91st Division could be withdrawn, Wang Haitao also had a smile on his face.

Wang Haitao's smiling face made Zhao Meiling, who was looking at him, also look a little dazed, and at this time, Wang Haitao's voice woke up Zhao Meiling who was in a daze, and Zhao Meiling's face couldn't help but turn red. I only heard Wang Haitao say: "Director Zhao, this is really good news! Call back to Chongqing, the 91st Division of the 90th Group Army should be handed over to the Yeji and Fujinshan positions at any time to the 71st Division of General Song Xilian. And we should make every effort to block the attack of the Japanese 11th Army and live up to the trust of the party-state. ”

Three days later, Song Xilian's 71st Army and the 114th Division of the 51st Army arrived in Yeji. Guo Rudong, commander of the 91st Division, and Yang Jie, commander of the 168th Division, jointly handed over the two positions of Yeji and Fujinshan to General Song Xilian, and in accordance with Wang Haitao's instructions, transferred to General Song Xilian the Japanese artillery captured in the last battle, as well as a batch of light and heavy machine guns, and other heavy weapons.

General Song Xilian, who had been with Wang Haitao for half a year in the defense of Nanjing, was very aware of Wang Haitao's behavior, so he generously gave himself so many heavy weapons, especially dozens of mountain artillery, and dozens of mortars. Although the current 71st Army still has only two divisions, the most elite German 36th Division is more than a little stronger than in history.

The 36th Division in history has gone through two major battles of the Battle of Songhu and the Battle of Nanjing, the veterans have fought hard, and the German-style guns have also suffered serious losses, and when they arrived at the Battle of Wuhan, there was no combat effectiveness of the German Ace Division, and now the 36th Division not only retains most of its strength, but also supplements some of the German-made new weapons through Wang Haitao, and in the National Army, in addition to a few divisions of the 90th Army, it is still the top German ace division. Moreover, this time, Wang Haitao sent the artillery that was most lacking in the national army, which invisibly increased the strength of Song Xilian's 71st Army.

With Song Xilian's 71st Army holding Dabie Mountain, Jinzhai County was irrelevant, but in order to support General Song Xilian when necessary, Wang Haitao still ordered Yang Jie's provisional 168th Division to garrison Jinzhai County. The 91st Division withdrew to Qianshan County for rest, and the 572nd Regiment returned to Anqing City for reconstruction. Wang Haitao is rearranging the defense line here, and Commander Okamura Ningji can't help but increase his troops here in Huaining County again.

In addition to sending the 101st Division to the Huaining front, the navy also formed the Yangtze River Fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Kawakoshiro, with more than 120 large and small ships under its command, and prepared to launch another attack on Anqing, Jiujiang, and Wuhan through the Yangtze River. In the past nearly a month, Japanese ships would come from time to time to attack the positions of the Laoshan fortress, especially on several occasions when the marines went ashore on the river near the Laoshan and tried to sneak attack the Laoshan fortress with infantry, but these attacks were all repelled by the defenders. The successive defeats caused the Japanese navy to lose face, and only then did the Third Fleet be formed to attack the Laoshan fortress.

The Laoshan Fortress relied on the powerful firepower of 20 German-made 150 heavy guns to compete with the naval guns on the Japanese warships, thus firmly holding the Yangtze River and making it impossible for the Japanese warships to pass smoothly on the Yangtze River. In addition, during this period of time, the 570th Regiment guarding the Laoshan Town at the foot of the mountain continued to improve and strengthen the fortifications, and at this time the entire Laoshan Town has been built into a military defense base, according to the words of the regiment commander Liu Yuzhu, that is, the Japanese army came to a division, and the 570th Regiment was also confident to hold on for more than half a month.

On this day, the Japanese Third Fleet sent a mixed team to Laoshan Fortress, and this time under the command of Vice Admiral Kawakoshiro, the Japanese army adopted a three-dimensional attack by sea, land, and air. On the river, the heavy cruiser Kaohsiung was the flagship, the light cruisers Tenryu and Tatsuda were the main ships, and the four Shirayuki-type destroyers: Shirayuki, Hatsuyuki, Isoba, and Uraba were auxiliary ships, as well as eight river gunboats.

On land, 4,000 marines landed from the riverside more than 10 kilometers away from Laoshan Town, and the commander was Captain Yoshio Takeshita, and the strength of this Marine Corps far exceeded that of a wing of infantry, not only with a large number of light and heavy machine guns, but also with 24 105 mm howitzers, 12 37 mm rapid-fire guns, 36 150 caliber heavy mortars, and eight light combat vehicles.

In the air, a flying regiment of 97 bombers and 40 fighters took off from two aircraft carriers. The lineup of this attack can be described as luxurious, and the purpose is to destroy the defenders' Laoshan fortress in one fell swoop. In the previous battle, the Laoshan Fortress damaged a number of naval warships, which made the commander of the Japanese Navy's Third Fleet, Vice Admiral Furukawa Kiyoshi, angry, and ordered the Yangtze River Fleet to destroy the Laoshan Fortress at any cost.

On the river 15 kilometers away from Laoshan and Laosai, the Japanese mixed combat team once again encountered the blocking and artillery bombardment of the Laoshan Battery, and the three Japanese cruisers were not to be outdone and immediately counterattacked, while the small-caliber naval guns on the destroyers could not hit the Laoshan Fort at all at this distance, so they could only move in a zigzag shape on the river and strive to get close to the Laoshan Battery.

The Hanoi gunboats were not tasked with attacking Lao Son Fort, but to assist the Marines in launching artillery strikes on the defenders' positions in Lao Son Town, so all eight Hanoi gunboats moved along the Yangtze River in the direction of Lao Son Town. Not long after the artillery battle between the two sides began, the first batch of 32 Japanese bombers, escorted by 20 fighters, flew over the Laoshan Fortress.

When Wang Haitao built the Laoshan Fortress Fort, he took into account that the Japanese army would send a large number of planes to bomb it, so the forts were built after hollowing out the mountain wall, and the plane's bombs could only be thrown on the mountain, and they could not hurt the heavy artillery and artillery in the cave at all. And the Japanese warships and batteries did not have the upper hand in the artillery battle.

The hole in the fort is not big, and it is separated by more than ten kilometers, and it is basically impossible to accurately hit the shells into the gun position from the warship, and the area covered by the shells is considerable if the twenty heavy guns on the fort fire a salvo, although there are few direct hits, but even the near miss will bring some damage to the warship, especially the damage to the sailors on the warship.

The planes circled over the Laoshan fortress for a while, and could not find a target to drop bombs, so some of the planes dropped their bombs on the peaks of Laoshan Mountain, while the other part of the planes simply dropped their bombs on the defenders' positions in Laoshan Town. After the artillery battle between the two sides lasted for more than half an hour, the Japanese marines also arrived in front of the defensive positions in Laoshan Town.

The Japanese marines also followed the Japanese Army's offensive habits, first concentrating artillery fire on the defenders' positions, and then the infantry attacking under the cover of heavy machine guns, mortars, and rapid-fire guns. The first line of position of the defenders of Laoshan Town was a row of bunkers outside the walls of Laoshan Town, and there were more than a dozen bunkers, each bunker was a squad of fighters, equipped with a heavy machine gun, a light machine gun and several rifles.

These bunkers were carried out under the dense artillery bombardment of the Japanese army, and although a few bunkers were damaged, they were generally intact. As soon as the Japanese infantry attacked, the fire in the dozen bunkers was fully opened, and the rain of bullets formed by so many light and heavy machine guns suppressed the Japanese army to take a step forward. Yoshio Takeshita, the captain who commanded the attack in the back, also frowned when he saw the defenders' firepower so ferocious in the telescope.

Yoshio Takeshita let the infantry who could not be attacked retreated, and once again commanded the artillery to begin to desperately shell these strong fortifications on the defenders' positions, this time the shelling even joined the naval guns on the Hanoi gunboats on the riverside, these Hanoi gunboats were equipped with 80 mm caliber anti-aircraft guns, at this time the strike bunker was flattened, the power was not as strong as a 105 caliber howitzer, but the armor-piercing shells were very penetrating, and the shells often penetrated the bunker and exploded in the bunker.