If it weren't for the cold autumn wind that was still blowing on the wet face of the Japanese Army Major General, reminding him of the coldness of the world, Ushijima Mitsuru might have thought that he was still in a nightmare.
It's not a nightmare, why would Mao become like this?
Three hours ago, he was still thinking high-spiritedly about how to destroy the Chinese army that had reached its end. He was also thinking about how to make the skull of the Chinese commander he hated so much into a souvenir and hang it in his military tent.
, and still thinking about being promoted to lieutenant general and division commander, and marching southward to establish immortal achievements.
But now it has only been a mere three hours, and those ambitions have drifted away in the wind. How come the thousands of troops under his command have almost disappeared?
The gap between fantasy and reality was so huge that the Japanese Army Major General, who had always thought highly of himself, stood still in the autumn wind for more than ten minutes.
It wasn't until the artillery fire that ravaged the wilderness continued to spread unnecessarily that Ushijima Mitsuru turned his horse's head melancholy and fled further into the wilderness with his escort squadron.
The long gathering siren rang out in the wilderness, but the number of Japanese troops who could come to join the sad Japanese Army Major General was far fewer than he imagined.
It's not that they were all killed by these consecutive rounds of artillery fire, but that most of the Japanese troops were in a panic and tried to avoid the shells that might fall on their heads first.
In addition to the direction of the 6th Heavy Artillery Brigade, there were small groups of the 36th Infantry Brigade in the other three directions. The furthest unit even reached the defense area of the 18th Division.
If the sentry of the 18th Division had not repeatedly confirmed in Japanese and even asked the opponent's name several times, an infantry team responsible for stationing in the area would have definitely summoned its main force to kill the group of more than a hundred people.
The human's 'khaki' was destroyed as a Chinese infiltration force.
Otherwise, who can believe this group of guys who claim to be the 36th Infantry Brigade of the 6th Division? When did the imperial infantry become so embarrassed?
But this is the fact. Faced with the same yellow shit under the searchlight, the infantrymen of the "Strongest Division on the Surface" who took the initiative to throw away their firearms have no arrogance like the strongest division. Their arrogance was annihilated by the bullets and artillery fire of the Chinese soldiers.
On that small position, at this moment they just wanted to live, even under the protection of the new division, which they usually didn't like very much.
The Japanese artillerymen, including Komura Mingichi, have probably never felt so comfortable. Tang Dao ordered them to bring up to 900 rounds of artillery shells.
That means that a cannon needs to fire 150 rounds, a battle-level amount of ammunition.
For three whole hours, the sound of artillery fire from the position of the 6th Heavy Artillery Brigade never stopped.
Because the coordinates of the artillery bombardment transmitted to Tang Dao's headquarters were not only in front of the blocking positions of the two guard battalions, but also the infantry regiment blocking the advance regiment's defense route back to Jiashan.
More than 2,500 infantrymen built simple field positions along seven or eight kilometers of wilderness, waiting for the advance group to rush in. Instead, they were attacked by at least 3,000 Chinese infantrymen from two infantry regiments from the direction of the Jiashan defense line.
Originally, based on the strength of the infantry regiment, not to mention the two Chinese infantry regiments, even an infantry brigade, they were confident of killing it. Otherwise, Ushijima Sadao would not have easily placed an infantry regiment in his own formation.
six kilometers away.
However, the Chinese launched the attack before nightfall. After the Japanese troops counterattacked and wanted to attack them, the Chinese who launched the attack actually retreated and established a field position 800 meters away. In turn, the Japanese troops who attacked them were
A bit numb.
Without enough artillery support, if they want to break through the Chinese army's positions, they must have the courage to pay a sufficient price, not to mention it is already night, and the losses will be even greater.
When the bad news came from the 6th Heavy Artillery Brigade, the Japanese army finally knew the purpose of this group of Chinese, which was just to drag them away.
Just knowing that, the infantry regiment could only stare.
The three to four thousand Chinese people in front of you can be said to be too few or too many. As long as they dare to send out troops to support you, they will dare to attack you. If they draw less, it will be useless. If they draw too much, you will suffer. In the end, you can only take care of yourself first.
Speaking for myself, the 6th Heavy Artillery Brigade will be handed over to the 36th Infantry Brigade for rescue.
By daylight, with the help of artillery and bombers, it shouldn't be difficult to defeat the Chinese army in front of us.
But the result was that the Japanese troops in this unit did not wait for their own artillery, and were hit hard by a heavy artillery piece late at night.
At that moment, the Japanese infantry regiment on the position was absolutely confused.
When did the Chinese also have such heavy artillery? Didn’t they all agree that it was the patent of the empire?
Are the Chinese about to launch an attack?
The captain of the Japanese infantry regiment, who had never been beaten up by the Chinese army, obviously reacted much slower than Setouchi, and even issued a military order that all military units were not allowed to leave their positions.
Little did he know that opposite him, the Chinese troops of two infantry regiments had quietly withdrawn from their positions twenty minutes before the artillery fire came, and then ran away as fast as possible.
Is it possible not to run?
Tang Dao said in the message sent to the headquarters: "Because the distance of the artillery strike exceeds ten kilometers, and due to calculation errors in data such as direction, our army cannot guarantee the impact point of the artillery shells. The only thing that can guarantee is the intensity of the artillery fire. Please ask the area
Our troops will evacuate as quickly as possible!"
One party flees in advance, and the other party insists on standing firm. The outcome of both parties can be imagined.
According to the battle report of the 18th Division after the war, the order of the captain of the infantry regiment caused his infantry to endure Chinese artillery fire on the position for about an hour.
The most terrible thing is that in the later stage, the crazy Tang Dao Department was no longer satisfied with the 6 heavy cannons controlled by the Japanese artillery troops. Cheng Tietsou led dozens of people to attack Komura Mingyi and others who completely tore off their underwear.
Under the careful "teaching" of the Japanese army, another six 150-meter heavy artillery pieces were controlled.
It is the first time for Chinese artillerymen to see heavy artillery. It is no problem for the Chinese artillerymen to lay the cannon flat and hit a few hundred meters. But if they want to hit a target ten kilometers away, they will naturally have no accuracy at the beginning. They basically just blow up soil for fun, and there are even a few
The launch was several kilometers away, and it almost failed to send away a wave of Chinese infantry platoons that were encircling the flanks.
However, the Japanese 'instructors' were very good and the Chinese students worked very hard. It took them twenty minutes to finally adjust the aim and gradually drop the shells onto the Japanese positions.
Twelve heavy artillery pieces plowed the ground back and forth on the Japanese infantry regiment's position without sparing their shells.
During this more than an hour of shelling, although the unit was not said to be directly defeated, the battle damage was probably unprecedented since the establishment of the infantry regiment, and was even greater than the losses of many front-line troops who fought fiercely on the Jiashan defense line for a week.
Even bigger.
Using simple field positions and 150 heavy artillery to resist, Ushijima Sadao almost got sent away by his idiot when he received the news.
But this was not the final tragedy. When the artillery fire stopped, the Japanese front-line infantrymen who had been blown away by the bombing had not yet recovered. They were horrified to find that the movement on the opposite Chinese position seemed to be getting louder again. They were about to attack.
Rhythm.
The two sides fired illumination bombs at each other, illuminating the battlefield that was already covered with bomb craters. The dark gray and dark blue of the Chinese army reappeared in the field of vision of the Japanese commander's telescope.
The Japanese soldiers, who cheered up, lay down in the trenches, ready to take rifles and machine guns to severely punish the Chinese who dared to come.
Is it great to have heavy artillery? I have a samurai spirit that regards death as home.
However, having heavy artillery is really awesome.
Five minutes later, the Japanese, who had not waited for the Chinese infantry to attack, waited for a new round of artillery fire.
What returned was just a Chinese infantry company with artillery observers. They just came to observe the battlefield. They didn't expect that the Japanese were so awesome and were still alive and well after being bombarded for so long.
If one meal can't solve the problem, then two or three can be used.
Anyway, Tang Dao still had plenty of artillery shells captured from the 6th Heavy Artillery Brigade, and the night was still long enough.
Just think of it as training for artillerymen.
It’s rare to have such a good ‘instructor’, so many artillery shells, and such a resistant target.
The tragic Japanese troops on this position were bombed for another half an hour.
