Although there were hidden concerns, there was really no suitable location in this area, so after struggling for a while, Lai Guyinan still chose Changle Village as the location of his frontline headquarters.
Of course, Changle Village has a permanent population of five to six hundred people, so the village is quite large. Not to mention mortars, even if you use mountain cannons for cluster bombing, you may not necessarily use the small room in the east of the village as a temporary headquarters.
How is the hospital?
What's more, the small courtyard with the screen is considered a wealthy household in the village. The courtyard walls and houses are all made of blue bricks. The structure of the house is strong, and the surrounding windows are covered with wool felt soaked in water, which is both bulletproof and bulletproof.
Unless you are very unlucky, the people inside the house are still very safe.
On this point, after Yamashita arrived, he still greatly appreciated Yoshio Yoritani.
Changle Village is no longer the headquarters of the First Infantry Battalion of the Second Mixed Brigade, but the frontline headquarters of the entire Second Mixed Brigade.
This is because the strength of the Second Mixed Brigade that has gradually arrived in the Zhuozhang River area has reached more than 4,000 people, consisting of two infantry brigades, an engineering squadron, a baggage brigades, a tank squadron, and two cavalry squadrons.
Of course, apart from these conventional arms, the one that gives Yamashita the confidence to break through the current Chinese defense line is the artillery brigade directly under the brigade.
The artillery brigade of the Second Mixed Brigade is not an ordinary artillery brigade. An artillery brigade has 24 75mm mountain guns, which is twice the number of artillery equipped by an ordinary artillery brigade.
Yamashita didn't believe what kind of Chinese could withstand the attack of his 24 mountain guns, which exceeded the impact of 14 Type 94 armored vehicles.
Theoretically speaking, if there are no strong cities and strong walls, and there are not enough anti-armor weapons, the Chinese army will never be able to stop it.
This has long been proven by facts as the over 200,000-strong army on the North China battlefield was defeated again and again.
The Japanese army on the North China battlefield even used an infantry brigade to attack the hastily deployed defense line of a Chinese infantry regiment. However, this infantry regiment only persisted for less than half an hour before being completely defeated.
And that was when the Japanese army did not dispatch armored vehicles and aircraft. They had already destroyed all the Chinese heavy firepower points with just mountain artillery and infantry artillery.
Therefore, even though he knew that the Chinese had the luxury of using mortars to hoist the imperial infantry digging trenches, Yamashita still arrogantly entered Changle Village under the protection of cavalry, and in that small courtyard, he began to issue an order
Military order.
Yamashita made full preparations, using the two most elite infantry brigades as his sharpest spears, gathering 14 of the 18 94 armored vehicles under his command, and supplemented them with a baggage brigade of nearly 1,000 people.
The barrels of the 24 75mm mountain guns have been raised high and aimed at the other side of the Zhuozhang River.
Yamashita also took great pains to protect the security of the artillery brigade. One of the two cavalry squadrons dismounted and served as the guard of the artillery brigade. He even sent the most trusted and elite guard squadron around him.
As the last line of defense for the brigade headquarters, the escort squadron has more than 350 personnel and is equipped with 7 heavy machine guns alone. It is one of the few Japanese troops that equips heavy machine guns at the squad level.
With this 450-man defense line, the Chinese would basically have nothing to worry about unless they had more than one infantry regiment attacking them.
Moreover, on the rear wing of the entire forward army, there are still three under-equipped infantry brigades and half a heavy supply brigade. The straight-line distance between the forward and the rear wing is about 4 kilometers, which also ensures that 24 75mm mountain guns can attack two infantry brigades at any time.
Friendly forces in the direction provided fire support.
Yamashita was very shrewd. Before arriving, he was well prepared in case the Chinese defense line at Zhuozhang River could not be defeated in the shortest possible time. After all, it was already 4:30 pm after a 7-hour march from around 9 am.
At the end of May, although it got dark late, there was still not much time left for him.
Therefore, even though he adopted a desperate attitude of attacking to the death, Yamashita still left himself a huge room for tactical maneuver. The positions enclosed by the forward and rear wing armies were as high as more than ten square kilometers.
If the Chinese want to surround them, they will need a longer attack line. Inevitably, the troops will be weak at one or even many places.
"Yamashita, that's awesome!" Brigadier Cheng, who was lying in a bunker in the mountains, looked at the Japanese army's movements with a telescope and sighed solemnly.
"Brigade Commander, the Japanese army doesn't seem to pay much attention to flank protection! They have concentrated a large number of troops on the Zhuozhang River line. Aren't they afraid that we will rush out of the mountains and steal their retreat?" followed Brigadier Cheng Cheng.
A young staff officer behind him asked subconsciously.
But the expression of an old and prudent major next to him changed slightly, but his expression soon returned to normal.
Brigadier Cheng did not answer. Instead, he glanced back at the young staff officers following him, handed the binoculars to the major, and said in a calm tone: "Xiao Zhou, take a look, and then tell me your opinion."
After all, Wang Xiaoqiang of the 772nd Regiment was thick-skinned and took over the Zhuozhang River defense line task, which was regarded as the main attack. In order to ensure that the Japanese army's escape route to the north was blocked, the brigade headquarters even assigned most of the guard battalion's troops to them;
The 771st Regiment deployed defenses at various heights on the mountains flanking Changle Village. Firstly, it was ready to attack the Japanese troops from the flanks. Secondly, it was also to prevent the Japanese troops from jumping over the wall and entering the mountains from here. The supplementary regiment deployed defenses further away on the rear flanks, also with the intention of attacking the Japanese troops from the flanks.
The idea of threatening the Japanese army's flanks and rear at any time.
In order to strengthen the combat effectiveness of each regiment and better coordinate the heavy fire support, the deputy brigade commander, chief of staff, and director of the political training department of the 683 brigade were all sent to the three regiment headquarters to cooperate with the three regiment commanders to command operations.
As the top commander of the 683rd Brigade, Brigadier Cheng seems to be the most idle person on the entire battlefield. Brigadier Cheng is very similar to Tang Dao in that he will not just watch his subordinates fight on the front line, but he is
Sitting in the rear field headquarters and relying on telephones and radios to direct operations, he had to go to the front lines to personally observe the deployment of the Japanese troops.
Wherever the top officer is, there is the brigade headquarters. Naturally, several staff officers in the headquarters followed Brigadier Cheng with radios.
Don't think that the staff officer is a sinecure. In the 683 brigade, everyone knows the temper of the brigade leader. Only officers he likes are qualified to be members of his staff. Once the time is right, they will be delegated to important positions.
Let them express their opinions according to the battlefield situation, which is basically an assessment of them again and again.
In other words, these young officers following Brigadier Cheng are the reserve cadres of the 683 Brigade.
However, Brigadier Cheng asked the major officer to speak first, but the others were not too surprised.
On the one hand, this man is the chief of the operations section of the General Staff Headquarters, and on the other hand, they all know how much the brigade chief appreciates him.
"Brigadier Commander, the Japanese don't seem to have a tight defense on the flanks. Look, here and here, there is a 4-kilometer-long defense line. They only deployed a few hundred people on the defense line. It seems that we only need to attack from the flanks.
You can block their main force, and even if it doesn't work, you can cut the hundreds of people on their flanks into pieces and eat them in one bite." Colonel Zhou stared at the blurry figure of the Japanese army hundreds or even kilometers away.
, but his eyes were somewhat solemn.
"However, I have reason to suspect that this was done deliberately by Yamashita."
"Oh? How do you say that?" Brigadier Cheng asked with a faint smile.
"If our brigade and friendly forces surrounded an infantry regiment, and the strength ratio was as high as 10 to 1, then the Japanese army would undoubtedly poke their necks into our bayonets.
Unfortunately, that is not the case now. The Japanese troops in the Changle Village area number in the thousands. If we use the infantry battalion as a unit to rush out of the mountains in an attempt to cut off the Japanese army, then the Japanese army in the Changle Village area will most likely attack us with superior strength.
We will launch a counterattack, and even the Japanese troops who are still staying behind to guard against our friendly forces will gather their forces and come.
It is very likely that the troops from our brigade will evolve into fighting more with less. At that time, will the 772 regiment on the Zhuozhang River defense line watch the friendly troops being besieged while they can only stay in the trenches, or will they survive the siege?
Will the Zhuozhang River save the friendly troops from fire and water?
Perhaps that is what Yamashita wants most. It may take time for him to conquer the defense line composed of rivers and trenches, and he will pay a lot of casualties, but in this kind of field battle without fortifications, the Japanese army is extremely confident.
What's even more frightening is that if the flanking troops are missing because of accidentally stepping into this trap, I'm sure that Yamashita will organize his main force and no longer take the Zhuozhang River as the main target. Instead, he will occupy the high ground here first and then deploy others behind him.
The strength of the wing troops will supplement the strength of the Japanese troops attacking our Zhuozhang River, so that even if we cannot break through our defense line, we can still form a stalemate on the battlefield within a few days." Although Major Zhou is young, he faces the brigade commander's challenge.
When asked, the answer was extremely confident.
The face of the young staff officer who just asked the question turned slightly red. He had been following the heads of the headquarters before. He was sent from the headquarters two months ago. In layman's terms, he came down to be gilded. He originally thought that he had gained a lot of knowledge after following the heads of the heads for a long time. In addition to being familiar with a few
As a brigade, the head of the regiment is quite fond of him, but the rest of the people are not.
Especially the young commander of the combat unit, who is not two years older than him, but already holds the rank of major, and is usually valued by the brigade commander.
As a result, after this analysis, anyone with a little bit of brains will know that what they said may be the truth.
They are targeting the Japanese, but the Japanese are not easy to mess with. They have also dug a hole for them to jump into.
This is the battlefield. It does not mean that you can be sure of victory if you form an encirclement. It depends on whether you are surrounding a sheep or a wolf.
There is no doubt that the Japanese are more ferocious than jackals, tigers and leopards, and they must not be ignored until the last moment.
"Okay! Xiao Zhou, you said it very well. Although I can't guess all of Zhongshan Shimo's thoughts, it should not be far away! It seems that our small combat unit can no longer accommodate a giant Buddha like you!" Cheng Lu
Chang laughed, patted the young and experienced chief of the combat unit, and joked while encouraging him. "Fortunately, that guy Tang Dao asked your name at that time, but I rejected it. Otherwise, I would regret it to death?"
‘Even the Tang leader knows about him (himself)?’ All the staff members, including the staff officer surnamed Zhou, looked at each other at the joke made by their brigade commander.
Although the staff officers are all close confidants of the leaders at the brigade and regiment levels, they follow the leaders anytime and anywhere. To put it more vividly, they are probably the wives of the leaders, and they probably don't meet the leaders as much as they do.
But they are not as outstanding as front-line officers. What is the most important thing for soldiers? In addition to military exploits, what is more important is military exploits!
These are not things that the chiefs at all levels can give them. After all, they are just the auxiliaries of the chiefs at all levels. The victory in the battle is because the chiefs commanded well and the frontline soldiers were brave. They really don't have much to do with them.
Unexpectedly, Tang Dao, who had openly cornered the 683rd brigade by sending weapons, actually knew about this young staff officer. That was really strange!
Brigadier Cheng looked at the reaction of the staff and laughed without going into details. He was mainly afraid of scaring these young people.
You know, Tang Dao wanted to use 2 anti-tank guns and 6 heavy machine guns to poach people at that time. The price was higher than those of the main battalion commanders, and he promised to make this the deputy chief of staff of his four-line regiment.
, he was almost moved at that time. After all, he even gave away the commander of the main force. What could be dissatisfying about a small combat unit commander in exchange for so much firepower?
Besides, when the Fourth Army Regiment completely changes its banner and becomes the 80th Army in the future, wouldn't it be enough for him to find a way to transfer it back?
However, Brigadier Cheng Da, who was very excited, finally resisted such a huge temptation. Tang Dao had always had a very vicious vision. The higher the price paid, the greater the profit would be in the future.
What's more, he was originally very optimistic about the chief of the combat unit next to him and wanted to reuse him for a long time. Tang Dao said this, maybe he hadn't tapped into his full potential yet.
Now it seems that he was right to be more cautious. Major Zhou almost said everything he wanted to say, and even made Yamashita's final plan clear. What kind of battlefield insight is this?
The analysis by Brigadier Cheng Da and Major Staff Officer was accurate. Yamashita, who arrived at Changle Village, observed the battlefield and decisively revised his previous battle plan.
Attacking the enemy by force was still the first choice of tactics, but in order to ensure absolute safety, he focused his attention on the high ground on the flanks of the battlefield.
A forceful attack would definitely not work. The nail-pulling battle two days ago had already beaten him to death, so it would be better to show the enemy's weakness and then lure the snake out of the hole. Only in this way would he have the opportunity to conquer the high ground on the flanks at the minimum cost.
With those high ground as cover, even if he could not break through the Zhuozhang River defense line in a short time and the Chinese troops surrounding him gathered more and more, he could still ensure that his position would not be broken for several days.
There are still 20,000 people in the 108th Division in Liao County and Licheng. He doesn't believe that those idiots can't arrive here to rescue him in a few days. Once the 20,000 troops arrive, I'm afraid the Chinese are not thinking about surrounding and killing his second mixed brigade.
They were in a group, but they were thinking about how to escape.
It has to be said that Yamashita is indeed an excellent army general. He never sticks to his own opinions, but adapts to the battlefield situation at any time. This is actually the best plan he can make when he is in trouble.
It is very dangerous to put all your hopes on one road.
It's a pity that he met one of the best students trained in China's highest military academy, and beside him, there was a young soldier who would be very dazzling among China's bright generals in the future.
Yes, others don't know it, but Tang Dao knows that this seemingly ordinary Major will be sent to the supplementary regiment as deputy chief of staff in a short time by Brigadier Cheng.
After being given the opportunity to flex his muscles, this deputy chief of staff, who to outsiders looked like nothing more than a gold-plated deputy chief of staff, won consecutive battles. In just half a year, with a convincing record, Brigadier Cheng was directly transferred back to the brigade headquarters to serve as the deputy chief of staff of the 683rd Brigade.
Long, only one step away from the head of the brigade.
In half a year, he was promoted from the chief of a small unit to the deputy chief of staff. It was a rocket-like promotion, but this man used victory after victory to repay the old chief who promoted him. Even the man far away in the northwest
Speaking of this, I also praised Brigadier Cheng, saying that he has a keen eye for recognizing talents.
In the future, his military position will be alongside the current commanders of the two main regiments of the 683rd Brigade.
However, Tang Dao's failed act of poaching was a 'bad thing'. Chief Zhou, who was supposed to be released two months ago, was kept by Brigadier Cheng for two more months until the Battle of Southeast Shanxi.
The combat troops were released only at the end.
Of course, the deputy chief of staff who was sent out this time was not the deputy chief of staff of the supplementary regiment, but the chief of staff of the newly established independent regiment that had not yet formed combat effectiveness.
He just doesn't know what kind of bright light this Chief of Staff Zhou can emit after gaining a wider space in this time and space. This is not what Tang Dao can know.
Destiny is a stroke of the Creator's hand. No one can guess. The only thing that can be determined is that it is gold, and it will shine wherever it is.
On the battlefield, artillery is already rumbling!
The Japanese army's first wave of probing attacks on the Zhuozhang River defense line officially started at 5:40.
It was still an hour and a half before dark.
The forward of the Fourth Army Regiment was already less than 4 kilometers away from the Japanese rear wing.
Tang Dao had successfully reunited with the regiment headquarters four hours ago.
"Don't give the Japanese army time to breathe. Order the artillery battalion to speed up the march and find a suitable position. I want to make Yamashita despair at this dusk. If you want to sleep well at night, don't even think about it!" Tang Dao received a message from the 683 Brigade Headquarters.
After telegraphing the start of the incoming Japanese attack, his eyes were as bright as lightning, and he issued combat orders firmly and coldly.
The artillery battalion of the Sixing Regiment now has heavy mortars and no less than 20 mountain artillery pieces from the Japanese army.
This time, Tang Dao didn't use surprise to win. Instead, he used a simple and crude stick to serve, leaving the little flowers behind Yamashita to block the enemy.
This group of Japanese soldiers who were already lying down in a simple trench less than 70 centimeters deep were stabbed so unreasonably by Tang Tuanzuo, their souls were really in a state of ecstasy.
