Chapter 183: Defend to the death

The sound of artillery was everywhere. Qingdao, a fortress city that had experienced the second bloody fire, was already in the dark and daytime. The ammunition that the Japanese army had worked hard to transport was poured on the heads of the National Defense Army defenders in front of them. The Japanese army formed a larger attack on Qingdao. The 18th Division was in the north and attacked towards Laoshan. The Guard Division was in the west and launched waves of attacks along the direction of the Chinese army attacking Qingdao. The Sixth Division was guarding along the Jiaoji Line, but

Is it the main force or to draw an elite detachment, with the 23rd Regiment and the 45th Regiment as the base, with all the artillery troops in the division, attacking in the southwest. The Japanese fleet, except for the First South Detachment Detachment, had been transferred. The rest of the warships had broken through Jiaozhou Bay and directly supported the front-line operations with artillery fire. This attack on Qingdao was far more than the German garrison, and it was a group on all sides. The fierce and cruelty of the war was ten times higher than that of the previous one. Both sides suffered the greatest casualties.

During the period when Qingdao was not attacked by the Japanese army, the defenders had strengthened and restored the fortifications as much as possible. It would be better if Laoshan was covered in the north, and the fortifications were restored to the southwest, and a large number of strengthenings were made. The defenders reduced the two infantry regiments of the Independent Brigade of the Ninth Division, two infantry regiments of the 17th Brigade of the Ninth Division, all the 18th Brigade, and all the 105th regiments of the 18th Division, plus the attached artillery engineering team. The defenders had a total of more than 29,000 people. They were commanded by Lin Shuqing, the commander of the Ninth Division. The military capital reserves were strong. Moreover, these were the backbone forces of the National Defense Forces, and they had the determination to sacrifice to the end for the overall situation of the war. Therefore, this war became the most cruel offensive and defensive war in the Far East.

Since late August, the Japanese army launched a tentative attack with part of the Guard Division. They reconnaissed the garrison weaknesses of the defenders and exploring the firepower equipment. The Japanese attacks and combat were as fierce as ever. In addition, the progress of the west side of the Jiaoji Line was progressing smoothly. The arrogance was also extremely high. No matter what the weather was, no matter how weak the firepower supported them to attack was still quite weak. They still adhered to the tradition of the so-called imperial army and launched waves of human wave attacks. On the entire Qingdao garrison line, yellow waves were seen rising and falling one after another. Attacks were not too late.

Under the impact of the division, the defenders gradually gave up the outpost positions on the west bank of the Tongbo River and retreated to the main position of the fortress area east of the Tongbo River. The Guards Division, in the outpost battle alone, suffered more than 3,000 casualties due to the superior firepower of the defenders. Lieutenant General Wuliang Yamane repeatedly asked the dispatching troops to concentrate the main force and jointly attack Qingdao. The telegram recognized the tenacity of the Chinese defenders, but optimistically expected that if the three divisions took action together, it was estimated that the city of Qingdao could be fully captured in early September. The situation of the dispatch of troops was determined.

The heavy-hearted General Masahito of Teraenuchi kept observing the movements of the Chinese army west of the Jiaoji Line. Finally, after the Sixth Division defeated the large forces gathered there, forcing them to blow up the railway, burn the warehouse, and continue to retreat westward, he finally felt relieved and issued a general attack order. Without transportation lines and supplies, the Chinese army would no longer have the ability to counterattack from the west! The Qingdao defenders were also in the most dangerous and tense moment because of the issuance of the Japanese general attack order.

As soon as the top of the trench was blown up, a telescope was seen stretching out. The owner of the telescope was an army lieutenant officer, the chief officer of a fortification in a company of Xiaozhanshan positions. At dawn, he was caught in a concentrated fire from the Japanese army. Then a large group of Japanese soldiers rushed towards him. The barbed wire in front of his position had been blown up. After suffering heavy casualties, the Japanese devils rushed into the trenches and fought. The reserve team was transferred to the battalion to counterattack, and finally beat the devils back down.

There was a platoon of reinforcements in the entire company, but there were only sixty people now. The first- and second-C mortars and a Maxim heavy machine gun were all destroyed. There was only one Lewis machine gun. The trenches were covered with blood. The corpses of the Japanese in front of the position were yellow, and their high-top and large-brimmed hats were even rolled everywhere. The corpse of a Japanese lieutenant was lying on the remaining piles of the barbed wire, and the lower half was blown away. However, his face was surprisingly unharmed, and his eyes were staring at him without any vitality.

The lieutenant didn't feel strange at all. He had been fighting like this fiercely for days. The man had already been numb. He took out half a pack of muddy cigarettes and picked up one and stuffed it into his mouth. He sucked heavily, and the blue-gray smoke slowly floated above his head. Several sporadic shells fell around him, and he didn't even have the intention of dodging. The Japanese opposite the Tongbo River were also in a mess. Several large wooden racks burning bodies were burning, and the black and gray smoke rushed to the sky. The unique stench on the battlefield filled his nose. He angrily sprayed a cigarette: "File the bones and raise the ashes, you should end up like this!"

A company commander climbed over in the trench: "Company Commander, the phone line is connected. The battalion commander wants you to listen to the phone!" The lieutenant was stunned, and then stuffed the cigarette from his mouth into the messenger's mouth. He ran along the trench to the place where the phone was released, picked up the machine and blew it twice: "Battery Commander, I am Huang Ying, do you have any instructions?" Jizi's phone was very loud, and the battalion commander was almost shouting: "How is your company? What is the situation on the front line? Do you need to replenish it? Your company can change defenses until dark! You can change defenses!"

Company Commander Huang Ying squatted down and smiled bitterly at the phone: "We have sixty people in our company, and there are ammunition. The position is quite stable, and the left-wing Lao Lu seems to have been broken through. The Japanese have not moved yet. They will develop to us at night. Battalion Commander, you bring some explosives and augmented grenades, and I will draw people to lift their turtle cover. As for changing defenses, where to change defenses? In which direction there are no Japanese? Thank you for your kindness, I am going to die here! These ghosts that fell from heaven

The son is several times that of the entire company. It's worth it!" The battalion commander is a classmate of Huang Ying's quick-study second phase of the Jiangbei Official School. The two have a good relationship. He heard him silent on the phone: "Okay, we are fighting for the devils and waiting for the counterattack of the army! The man died in front of the formation and got what he wanted. You told the soldiers that there are no cowards in our Ninth Division! Brother, let's make an appointment. If you die, I will take care of your father for you. If I die, you must remember that my elder brother has an old lady!"

Huang Ying smiled silently, and a shell passed over his head and happened to hit a steel-cement machine gun firing nest. The broken dust fell one after another. He squatted down and said loudly: "Battalion Commander, the Japanese have fired artillery again. It seems that they are planning to come up to die again. The gap in Lao Lu, please pay more attention to the camp! That's it!" He put down the phone, straightened his body in the trenches, grabbed the telescope and looked at the situation around him. The attack team of the Japanese on the west bank of the Tongbo River began to gather again. Several small cannons used by infantry were also moving forward, probably by the brother of the artillery observation center.

Brothers set their sights on them, and they fell from side to side, and a trot and several artillery soldiers were immediately bombed into the sky. On their left, the Japanese gathered more and seemed to be ready to develop an offensive there. These Japanese were also tired and haggard. The transportation line could not even guarantee the delivery of ammunition, let alone food! They harvested the wheat seedlings in the fields themselves, and cooked them whole. The number of Japanese patients increased a lot these days. But they still insisted on the offensive. The more tenacious such an enemy, the more the enemy our nation is!

The Japanese artillery fire began to get more and more urgent, and smoke rose in the west. There were several powerful groups of Japanese artillery guns, and the mountain artillery was like machine guns. The shells fell down from their left and right. Soldiers were constantly hit by shrapnel and fell into the trenches. Their counterattack artillery fire also opened fire. Most of these firepower seized into the hands of the German army, and the ammunition was ten times more than that of the Japanese. They swept through the ranks they were gathering like a wind. Many Japanese were attacked before they even launched the attack.

The camp was stormed. But there were countless people hidden in the Japanese trench lines. The front was blown away and flesh and blood. Some people kept jumping out from behind. They formed waves of scattered soldiers and stepped into the Tongbo River. This was the range of the infantry's fire. The crawler gun fired at the entire front and mortars of sixty millimeters on the entire front line opened fire together. Only the brother on Huang Ying's left even had a position and did not fire. There was a slightly higher protrusion, which was not for the Japanese to occupy!

Huang Ying became more and more uneasy as he thought about it. He waved his hand and pulled out more than twenty brothers from the line of fire, each of whom brought four grenades and moved to the left wing along the trenches. Sure enough, Lu Changyou Company's position was broken through by the Japanese! The Japanese who occupied about a small team of positions finally began to fire and suppress the two wings to meet the follow-up of the reserve team. Huang Ying and his friends were also noticed moving forward, and the bullets flew around him. Huang Ying was hit by a bullet in his thigh, and he still lame his leg and rushed forward with the soldiers. The dirt beside him kept ringing, and the soldiers fell down. A dozen people finally touched the trenches, and the ten grenades flew out of their hands. Then they fought with the screaming Japanese in a group!

At this time, the Japanese who were rushing towards him with their heads down, focused their impacts in this direction. Although they suffered heavy casualties in the Tongbo River, they still couldn't wait to fill in this breakthrough! There was something wrong on both sides, and the side firepower was concentrated. The Japanese's dense storm formation died layer by layer. The shells exploded in the crowd, making gaps of all sizes. However, the Japanese team was still surging upwards like a fierce wave!

The soldiers on both sides of the trench also rolled into a ball, choking their necks and digging their eyes, bayonets and engineers slashed on each other's flesh and blood. Grenades hit people's heads. Sometimes, some people pulled the grenades, and with an explosion, they fell down the surrounding people. Everyone showed their greatest ferocity and tried to kill the people in front of them. The Japanese were the remnants of a small team. The last time they rushed into the position of Lu Changyou Company, the guards were killed and injured. The Japanese echelon who followed up were also blocked by artillery fire.

After intercepting it, they nailed it here, waiting for the reception troops to come up. As a result, Huang Ying and the others were waiting for it! The subsequent Japanese finally rushed up, and the reserve team drawn by the regiment battalion rushed in. A small trench became a scene like Shura hell. Dead officers from both sides were stacked. A counterattacking force officer was nailed to the ground by a bayonet, but they still forced to fire a green signal flare. The signal flare meant that when it was the most critical time, fire at me!

More than ten mortars were prepared on the second line. The gunners were crying and red with their eyes loaded shells and fired. The dense mortar fire exploded in this area, and the cast iron shell fragments roared in the trenches. The officers and soldiers entangled on both sides fell one after another. This breakthrough was completely a place of death! Gao Kai, the commander of the Second Regiment of the Independent Brigade of the Ninth Division who was guarding this front, reported the battle situation to the back: "My regiment can withstand it! There are no soldiers anymore! The staff and staff members all used bayonets to counterattack! Send reinforcements to me and ask for reinforcements!"

There were reinforcements at this time? The whole line was fighting fiercely. Since the Japanese general attack, they had piled up with corpses and blood! The guards of the National Defense Forces were also injured and killed on the front line! More than half of the five or six infantry regiments unfolded on the front line. One of the officers had died and promoted a group of officers on the front line. Some regiments had changed twice! When the sound of artillery did not stop on the entire front line, the Japanese attack did not stop day or night. At this time, they could only grit their teeth and hold on! A clear voice from Zhang Xiongfu came from the telephone: "No reinforcements! No reinforcements! If the front line is exhausted, you will go up, you will go up! If you lose your position, you will be beheaded, you will be beheaded!" Gao Kai fell off the phone with red eyes and rushed out of the cover and looked at him.

The entire line of his regiment, which had already become a fire dragon, was on the entire line. The sound of the officers and soldiers shouting and the screams of the dying people had already resounded through the sky. On the other side of the Tongbo River, the Japanese infantry were still rushing towards the other side of the river endlessly! An orderly soldier dragged Gao Kai back to the cover, and then several shells fell from where he had just stood, and the smoke column and dust aroused a long time ago. He picked up the phone and wanted to get to the group of artillery affiliated to the regiment: "The firepower was concentrated to fire at the position of the 2nd Battalion and the 3rd Company, to level it, and to completely flatten it!" Suddenly, field artillery and heavy artillery also joined the death chorus. The Japanese army's dense storm formation crowded there was finally defeated in the same dense rain of bullets. The Japanese's determination to fight to the death could not resist the steel and collapsed downwards.

After three days of general attack, the Japanese army still did not occupy a bridgehead position on the west bank of Tongbo River. However, the front-line defenders were at the end of their strength. During this offensive and defensive battle, Company Commander Huang Ying, 1st Company of the Second Battalion of the Defense Army, took the initiative to support friendly and neighboring positions and dragged the attacking Japanese army. He won time for artillery blockade breakthroughs. Company Commander Huang Ying was seriously injured and sent him to the death. After winning the first-level Youth Medal of Honor, he died and pursued Major Jin. The battalion commander Yang Tianxiao, who agreed with him to support each other, was also seriously injured and disabled when the battalion command post was blown down by artillery shells in the subsequent war. After demobilization, he supported Huang's father for life.

On the west bank of Tongbo River, the command post of the 9th Division when it attacked Qingdao has now become the front-line command post of the Guard Division. Lieutenant General Yamane Wuliang had always set up a command post in Chengyang. Every day, he was busy meeting reporters from China, or chatting with British observers stationed in the division. After the general attack was launched, he finally came to the front line for command under the strict order of Masato Inui. In the telescope, he could only put down the telescope and remain speechless for a long time. After a while, he asked around him that there was already smoke and mud around him.

Major General of the 1st Brigade Commander of the Turkish Guards, Major General Akiyama Yokogu: "Which unit is the Chinese defender on the opposite side?" Akiyama Yokogu also looked at the war on the opposite side with red eyes for a long time. In the middle, he also issued an order to strengthen the attack and consolidate the breakthrough. He drove the officers and soldiers of the 1st Brigade of Guards to die. Finally, amid the dense artillery fire of the defenders, the emperor's personal soldiers finally retreated. I wonder how many squadrons were wiped out during this attack!

He lowered his head and answered the inquiry from the division commander: "The Chinese army defended in person for one regiment for the Independent Brigade of the Ninth Division, and two regiments of the 18th Division were prepared in the rear. The headquarter of Qingdao Fortress District confirmed the numbers of these three regiments. They are all elite main forces of the Chinese army, Yuchen's backbone...... The attack on the low-level position is not good, so please punish the division commander."

Yamagen Wuliang patted the shoulders of his subordinate who had already become unbearable: "Qiushan...... Our army lacks supply and ammunition. We use the flesh and blood of the imperial soldiers to attack the strong fortress bases of enemy fortifications. These prices are inevitable. You don't have to blame yourself. The Chinese army has been burning their boats this time! They have no place to retreat, and they are the main force of the Chinese army, which has always regarded themselves as ace. It is predictable to insist on resistance. But now the fortress area is constantly destroyed by our navy's heavy artillery, and their reinforcements in the west are also expelled from afar. Isn't there a saying in Chinese military art that "there is no need to save the army, and there is no need to defend the city"? Such resistance will not last long. At that time, we will use the heads of the Chinese army's guards to commemorate the souls of the dead of our division's death! Such fierce battle will be an immortal honor in the history of my guard division!"

Major General Akiyama Yogu blinked his eyes and looked at the division commander who was dressed in neat clothes and said beautiful words. Even in the battlefield, his collar was spotless. He stayed on the front line for an hour or two every day, and then took a bus to a dozen miles behind the front line to rest. His colleagues, the commander of the Sixth Division, and Lieutenant General Kamio Mitsumon, the commander of the 18th Division, were both on the front line, but they were both food and accommodation! Listening to his heroic prophecy,

Qiushan Haogu had to lower his head deeply to express his respect. Will such a Chinese army really collapse soon? All he had was suspicion. The only thing that made him optimistic was that although the imperial army was in a tough battle in front of Qingdao Fortress, the flanks on the west side of the Jiaoji Line were still very safe. If you persist in fighting, the fortress would eventually fall into the hands of the Japanese army! As for the casualties, did their original mission be to sacrifice their lives for His Majesty the Emperor and the Empire!

Of course, Lieutenant General Takera Yamane's prophecy was not realized, and the war still developed more cruelly and fiercely. Countless Japanese officers and soldiers fell down in the increasingly fierce offensive and defensive battles. Qingdao became the meat grinder in the minds of surviving Japanese officers and soldiers, and the monster that swallowed the essence of the Japanese army. The defenders held on the utmost perseverance. How could these defenders without hope have such great determination? This is a problem that Japanese front-line soldiers were puzzled by the war on the front. Under such cruel meat-bomb attacks, the war on the front finally made slow progress. The front-line line had been overcome by Lieutenant General Kamio Mitsumon, and the defenders on the north line retreated to the Dongshan area. The front-line position on the south and southwest of Qingdao was flattened by shells, or was filled with corpses. The Japanese army had approached several major fort areas.

However, the Japanese attacking troops were at the end of their lives. Almost all the shells were exhausted, and the beaches on Huangdao and the North Line were exhausted, but they could not meet the huge ammunition consumption on the front line every day. The food supply of the front line soldiers was completely suspended, and the front line troops were required to collect food on the spot and ensure the supply of ammunition. However, the residents had already fled, so where could they be requisitioned? They could eat whatever they found. The wheat seedlings in the fields, dead horses, and after they captured the positions of the defenders, they snatched the biscuits and cans soaked in the blood of the Chinese soldiers. A large number of wounded people were sent back, but there was also a shortage of medical treatment and medicine. In addition, the large number of patients increased due to the lack of supplies. The Japanese medical system was also on the verge of collapse. A reporter from the Japanese army accompanied the army mourned in his diary.

"Although there is a joyful atmosphere in the country to celebrate victory, I, on the front line, know what kind of Avici hell the whole army is in! Yesterday I only ate two salt biscuits and a long-lasting black plum. I strongly miss my life in Japan. The infantry on the front line still risked their lives to attack under such circumstances! The resistance of the Chinese army is still stubborn, they have sufficient ammunition, and the wounded soldiers from the front line are mostly a kind of curved cannon killing, but the Japanese army, which boasts that the number one in East Asia, does not have such weapons! For eighteen years, the Chinese army has been in charge of military operations, and this battle has been admired by our officers and soldiers. However, the senior leaders of our army are still complacent and busy with factional struggles. This war may lead to the final victory. However, the army will not change its mind, or will be surpassed by the Chinese army soon!"
Chapter completed!