January 7, 1939!

The 9th Japanese army officially launched a fierce attack on the 4th Army Defense Zone!

Especially in the Zhangjiashan area where the 55th Division was stationed, the Japanese army actually assembled 24 mountain cannons and more than a dozen infantry cannons, and even more than ten mortars were bombarded at the positions under the 55th Division!

The 55th Division had only 6 mountain cannons and 24 mortars in the entire division, and the heavy firepower was completely crushed by the Japanese army. If it weren't for the geographical advantage of the high ground, it might have collapsed across the board just in front of the Japanese army's official attack on the first day.

An infantry battalion commander suffered too much damage due to the Japanese army's crazy artillery attack. Without receiving the order from the regiment and brigade headquarters, he ordered his subordinate troops to withdraw from the front-line trenches and hide on the back of the mountain.

As a result, when the Japanese army attacked tentatively during the gap between shelling, they did not send out a signal in time when they observed the death of the post, resulting in the brief loss of the position of the camp.

Although the infantry battalion commander immediately led his troops to counterattack and drove an infantry squadron occupying the position back out of the position at the cost of nearly 300 casualties, the thrilling situation really shocked the white-haired general who was in charge of Monan Town and was sweating in a cold sweat.

Because of the strategic depth problem of only 20 miles in the middle section of Zhongtiao Mountain, the 4th Army had to adopt chain defense. More than 30,000 people from the four infantry divisions of the entire army were almost distributed on the hills and high grounds of large and small hills at the forefront of the mountainous combat against Japan, forming a chain of 25 miles wide, firmly locking the various routes that the Japanese army siege in a semi-arc manner.

There are not many benefits, but there are many disadvantages. If any important high ground located in this chain is broken, the Japanese army's ability to penetrate the enemy's formation is obvious to all. A gap may cause the entire line to fall into a passive position.

After General Yang had to temporarily avoid overseas due to the Chang'an incident, the commander of the 4th Army, named Sun, was now a banner figure in the Northwest Army. With his experience, how could he not know the shortcomings of this width enough but not deep enough to be a thin line of defense, but that was forced to do so.

The Japanese army advanced in multiple directions, and its forces were almost the same as those of the 4th Army. The only place in front of the 4th Army was to deploy multiple points of defense and defend multiple places.

To put it bluntly, the only way is to set up a formation to fight to the death.

This was the first day, and the Japanese army almost captured one of the important high grounds. How could they fight later?

The strict military order represents the ruthlessness. The major infantry battalion commander who led the army to several places was killed on the spot by his regiment commander with tears in his hands to prove military law. However, the record in the division's battle report shows that the major of the army died on the battlefield and died for the country.

Although his subordinates were resentful because of the unfair treatment, no one of the other subordinates dared to disrespect the military order after receiving the news. Even if the Japanese army's artillery fire was overwhelming, they still stood in the trenches.

Whenever the Japanese infantry advances to within 200 meters of range, the soldiers fight back bravely!

According to the Japanese internal war report, on January 7 alone, the artillery soldiers under the Nakamura Masao Nakamura's subordinate artillery fired about 1,500 shells of various types, and the infantry gang invested more than 3,000 infantry attacks 4 times.

Such a fierce offensive was repelled by various units of the opposite Chinese army.

The Chinese war report shows that the 55th Division's three infantry regiments on the front line had lost more than 6,000 people before 4 pm, with a combat loss rate of 25%!

The 102nd Regiment of the 17th Division, which was originally used as a reserve, had to rush to the Zhangjiashan battlefield at dusk on this day under the order of the military headquarters.

On the first day of the official war, the 38th Army used one of the most important reserve teams in its hands.

The white-haired general's face was as cold as the battle at the Niangzi Pass last year. The fierce battle was only one aspect, and what made the veteran feel the most painful was that the Japanese army had not really shown all its strength. For example, the Japanese fighter jet group had not appeared yet, and the infantry had only used an infantry corps, but his 38th Army was forced to show a trump card early.

How to fight the battle next?

The name of the Fifth Division’s “Steel Army” is indeed well-deserved!

However, the battlefield this day is not completely bad news!

For example, the 4,000 new Sichuan Army soldiers led by Tang Dao and his 1,200 baggage troops were deployed in Sizhou Mountain, but they were facing a detachment composed of more than 10,000 troops in the old Japanese A-type division. Whether it is combat experience or force, Tang Dao belongs to them at an absolute disadvantage.

No matter how much he trusts Tang Dao, he couldn't help but be cautious at this moment. The 46th Independent Brigade of the 17th Division was the last trump card in the hands of the white-haired general, and his base was only 2,500 meters away from Sizhou Mountain and could arrive within 30 minutes.

But what is miraculous is that nearly 10,000 troops from the 55th Division fought extremely hard, but the Sizhou Mountain position was as stable as Mount Tai. It sounded like the sound of gunfire, but Tang Dao's telegram reply to him was always the four words "The position is okay!"

The white-haired general was really a little worried, and asked the 46th Independent Brigade, which was closest to him, to send a regiment commander to the defense line to take a look. The reply message was roughly the same as what Tang Dao said, except that he added, "Although the Japanese invaders' artillery fire was sharp, the Sichuan army's fire was not weak when it came back!"

Yes, on January 7th, the West Turkish detachment of the 4th Division did not lose its chain as rumored. Their artillery fire was so fierce and the combat literacy displayed by the artillery soldiers that Tang Dao was also impressed.

First, the 4th Division used 16 75 mountain cannons and 4 105 howitzers to launch artillery bombardments towards the six hills that stopped them from advancing and about 3,000 meters of mountains. The shelling continued from early morning to dusk.

This is very different from the Japanese army's inertial pattern of "the cannons were rushing into the cannons, but they could not rush in and bombard them!". During the whole day, the Japanese, who had always had to "put their fingers on their eyes and even had to add fingers" turned into a super prodigal son, shooting at least 2,000 shells into the position.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content later! This does not include the output of small-caliber guns such as infantry cannons and Type 90 mortars.

Just this statistics, not to mention that it was beyond Tang Dao's expectations, even Masao Nakamura had his pupils shrank when he heard it.

This time, Shiro Itagaki gave him enough support. Not only did he give him two artillery brigades, but he even used most of the baggage corps to help him transport all kinds of military supplies. He used trains and cars to transport 6,000 pieces!

The amount of shells stored was almost three times that of the detachment that attacked Xuzhou in May last year, which shows how much Shiro Itagaki attaches great importance to this battle.

Of course, Masao Nakamura didn't know that Shiro Itagaki attached more importance to the KUAKA Detachment, which was ordered to deal with the main force of the Four Lines Regiment. The artillery he carried not only included 75 mountain cannons, but also two artillery squadrons with 8 105 howitzers were on standby in a small town 6 kilometers outside Shunwangping.

For this battle, Shiro Itagaki almost emptied the assets of the Westward Arrival Corps, invested 10,000 shells, and also rushed to transport 5,000 shells of various types from Pingbei City. The total number of 15,000 shells was only for use by various units of the Westward Arrival Corps. The strong firepower was not inferior to the Xinkou Battle in the past.

But compared with the 4th Division of the rich, it is really nothing.

In just one day, the 4th Division, a detachment of more than 10,000 people, fired nearly 3,000 shells of various types. At this consumption rate, five days later, the various artillery of the 4th Division can be announced to withdraw from the battlefield.

Regardless of the durability, just the strength of the rushing and collision, the Fifth Division is just a soft spot compared to the 4th Division!

Secondly, the 4th Division even pushed its infantry artillery to 1,200 meters from the front of the position where the Tang Dao belonged, and did not conduct any firepower tests, but just approached all suspicious targets!

After arriving at the position, more than a dozen heavy firepower points built under the command of Tang Dao were destroyed in this way. Fortunately, both the baggage soldiers and the Sichuan army fought with Tang Dao, and they were still familiar with the style of Tang Dao. When the Japanese artillery fire came, except for some observation posts hiding in the trenches, most of the officers and soldiers hid behind the mountain or in caves that Zhongtiao Mountain itself had.

Here we have to mention the characteristics of Zhongtiao Mountain. The Zhongtiao Mountains live between the Huashan Mountains and the Taihang Mountains. The mountain goes northeast and has an altitude of 1,200 meters to 2,300 meters. It is a steep northern slope and gentle slope. This terrain is undoubtedly more beneficial to the defense. The mountain dew rock layers include gneiss, quartzite, dolomite and volcanic rock systems, which are very different from the hard Zhangshi rocks in the Taihang Mountains and ferrosilicon. In addition, there is a large amount of loess covering, which makes the Zhongtiao Mountains have the most luxuriant vegetation coverage in Jin Province. Even after undergoing large steelmaking in the future, there are still active and large primeval forests.

Such geological structures have made Zhongtiao Mountain have many natural caves, which saves a lot of effort from the defense party, and at least reduces the large-scale excavation of anti-aircraft caves.

Of course, there are pros and cons. The thick loess layer makes the trenches deeper and longer, but the fragile rock layer cannot withstand the fierce artillery fire, which is far more likely to collapse than the trenches built in the Taihang Mountains.

But no matter what, in terms of terrain and geology, Zhongtiao Mountain is actually more suitable for defense operations than Taihang Mountain, but that is only tactical. From a strategic perspective, its mountains are not wide enough and lack sufficient depth. Once a key defensive position is broken, and the space for mobile combat is gradually lost, it will be over.

However, for now, no matter how fierce the artillery fire of the 4th Division was, it was impossible to break open the cave and kill the Chinese officers and soldiers hidden in it.

Whenever the 4th Division attacks with infantry, the more than 80 heavy machine guns deployed by Tang Dao on the entire defense line will definitely let the vendors know what flowers are like and why they are so red - it will be dyed red with blood.

But Tang Dao waited for most of the day, and the 4th Division had no intention of dispatching infantry, just to spend money and spend money.

Tang Dao was too patient, so he didn't hide it and pushed the infantry cannon to the forefront in awesome way, right! Let's see how powerful our mortars are.

Have you ever seen the grand occasion of more than 30 mortars gathering fire? In ordinary Chinese troops, it is a heavy firepower that only five infantry regiments can have, but in the Sichuan Army’s new regiment, that is only half of it.

The army colonel who rushed to the Sizhou Mountain position to look at the white-haired general happened to witness this grand occasion and finally understood why Tang Dao was so confident that he dared to use 5000VS10000.

However, when the Sichuan Army recruits first fought back, he did not think so.

Only those mortars with raw melon seeds, they didn't know where they had been flying for several rounds of shelling. Even he could judge the approximate location of the Japanese infantry artillery position by the strong smoke rising above the woods, but those recruits without military ranks were just not accurate.

But more than 100 artillery shells were bombarded in succession, and it was enough to scare people. The Japanese infantry artillery was half silenced, and they were obviously scared and quickly moved their positions.

The crappy performance of the new recruits did not discourage them. Since the commander said that he wanted to draw a base, he had to finish this base, which was 25 rounds per gun.

It’s a thing that cannon! In fact, it’s the same principle as playing mahjong. You need both skills and luck!

As the number of consecutive rounds of artillery fire failed to hit the target, the luck of the raw melon seeds who had fired a lot of shells came.

The explosion in the dense forest kilometer away resounded through the sky, and the fireworks rising were more than 30 meters high. The brilliant firelight stinged the eyes of the Army Colonel who was holding a telescope in the observation center hiding a thousand meters away.

Obviously, this was a hit, and it was very likely that it was the Japanese artillery shell storage point. Once it exploded, there would be no living person within a radius of hundreds of meters.

"I hit it! I hit it!"

Xia Dayu, who turned into an artillery observer, shook the red flag on the top of the mountain, which was simply the best stimulant for new recruit artillerymen.

Even if luck comes, it may be that the more you fight, the smoother you fight, more than 700 shells were shot out, and the dense forests thousands of meters away were blown into a sea of ​​fire. Some were mortar shells were blown up, and some were created by the Japanese army's own shells.

"Baga! The opposite of Chacha is the unit of the 4th Army of China. Why do they have so many mortars? The stupid intelligence department, can't they even handle such small things?" Okamatsu Yukinosuke angrily criticized friendly forces in his field command post 4,000 meters away from the front line.

Can you not be angry? In order to reflect the bravery of the 4th Division, Major General Yukinosuke Okuba spared no expenses and killed one-third of the ammunition carried by the detachment in one day. Many of them were stocks that the 4th Division had falsely reported consumption and secretly stored over the years.

That was all small money. I originally took it out to find a suitable buyer, but it was enough to let the generals of the division and the generals assisted everyone in a small family, but now it has turned into a splendid fireworks in the mountains and forests of the Chinese.

This has already made Major General Yukinosuke feel so painful that he is so tired.

But for the glory of the "Unsincere Imperial Army", Okuba Yukinosuke had to abandon the little one and protect the big one!

Besides, if this is not the case, he would have to order the infantry to assault. If there were a large number of casualties, he, the major general of the Imperial Army, would not be able to face the elders and villagers in Osaka.

Osaka people have always paid attention to the plot of fellow villagers, from privates to him as the Major General, the commander of the brigade, who is not living in the same city? Even if it is a little farther away, it is just a small place in Osaka, which is only dozens of miles away!

The result was that he made such a great sacrifice, and the Chinese actually gave him a move to "counter violence with violence".

I don’t know how effective my shelling was, but the losses caused to him by the Chinese were clearly reported to him first.

Two shell storage sites were destroyed, four infantry cannons were blown up, more than 80 imperial soldiers died, and more than 40 were injured. The result of embarrassing and losing money was the biggest loss of the 4th Division in the past two years since entering China, no one!

All of this was the fault of the intelligence department of the Front Army. The Japanese Army Major General almost found the right target to blame him when he saw the list of war damages.

Moreover, Yukinosuke Okuba didn't just say it, but did it when he thought about it, and directly generated electricity to the division headquarters far away in Pingbei City, denounced the inaction of the Front Army's intelligence department so fiercely, just like the colonel-level intelligence chief slept with his wife while he was out to fight.

Even the lieutenant general commander of the 4th Division had to patiently appease his good brother and clearly stated that this had nothing to do with the tactical arrangement of Big Bear Jun. The mistake was that the intelligence department of the Front Army has not yet provided a complete Chinese military sequence, which led to the inability of the imperial warriors to know themselves and their enemies, and thus suffered this unexpected loss.

Masao Nakamura: Are you serious? Less than a hundred people died, like a wronged child, and they asked adults to complain and support. Who should I find in Baga’s Fifth Division lost more than 300 people on the first day?

Yukinosuke Okuba: I love you to find who you are, I love soldiers like my son! This is the most important potential for becoming a famous general!

This kind of dialogue may not have been recorded, but the cliff was sprayed in the air during the cold night on January 7th.

Of course, this lieutenant general of the army is not as "brainless" as his good brothers. After he defeated the war, he shifted all the blame to the Front Army Commander. He also hoped to turn the 4th Division into a public security army stationed in various occupied areas with his thick legs!

The 4th Division was united and never was a empty talk.

But the Japanese lieutenant general finally called General Shanshanyuan himself to ask him to help find out the general situation of the enemy facing the 4th Division.

No one knew about Shanshanyuan's inner activities at that time, but according to internal personnel of the Japanese North China Front Command, General Shanshanyuan, the Excellency General Shanshanyuan scolded Fujiwara Jao Nakasa, who was then the deputy section chief of the intelligence department and the captain of the special attack team of the front army, with a cold face.

Poor Fujiwara Jazuo Nakasa was still limping on one leg at that time and was still recovering from injuries most of the time. However, after the intelligence department head went out for the field, he reluctantly took over the work of the intelligence department...

During the war, the aristocratic status was not so good now, and that might be the conclusion drawn by internal personnel of the North China Front Army from this incident.

In fact, they didn't know that this was also the statement made by Shanshan Yuan after taking the opportunity to say that the Fujiwara family did not completely stand on their own side in the establishment of the Westward Advance Corps.

Politics, there are compromises and disputes!

Fujiwara Zhanyu, who looked decadent and confused, could only endure the saliva of Shinsanyuan and rush back to the office to work overtime until late at night.

However, I was busy for the middle of the night and still couldn't find out that it was the unit belonging to the 4th Army of the Chinese side.

Fujiwara's battle with Okazunata was in vain.

Yukinosuke Okuba was very single and ordered the next day: "The enemy's situation is unknown, and he ordered the frontier infantry to launch an attack 800 meters away. Without a military order, he must not cross the line!"

Could it be that all the soldiers of the 4th Division are heavy machine gun shooters?
Chapter completed!