Not just Chinese soldiers, but all Chinese people.
In fact, not only the people disappeared, but also all the livestock disappeared.
If it weren't for the air of life left in those empty stone houses that couldn't be moved, it would seem that the place where two units of the 108th Division passed was the legendary no man's land.
The 108th Division spent a lot of effort to penetrate deep into the mountains. It was like a demolition team of 20,000 people. The only job it could do was to burn down houses.
He punched hard, but it hit a pile of cotton. No matter how hard he thought, he felt uncomfortable.
Xiong Yuan and the 20,000 Japanese troops may have never dreamed that as early as half a month ago, at the general staff meeting in the southeastern Shanxi region held by the boss of the 80th Army, the general who temporarily served as chief of staff proposed a genius strategic idea and won the
received the unanimous approval of all the generals present.
‘Peripheral harassment, contracting and fighting to the death, and the people holding on to the wall and clearing the country!’ are the three major policies of this strategic concept.
Regardless of the military's fighting methods, all the people in the anti-Japanese base areas carried all the living materials they could take away and hid in the uninhabited mountains. They would rather live a harder life, even if they dig wild vegetables and eat tree bark, it would be better than dying in Japan.
Bullets and bayonets are easy to remove.
Among them, the implementation at the station where the 921st Division is located is particularly thorough.
In the past six months, the 921 Division has been getting along well with the local people. At least 20,000 new recruits came from the garrison. It has also trained a large number of garrison soldiers. It can be said that they are like one body.
After the military order was given, the people around the garrison resolutely carried out the military order no matter how reluctant they were to leave their homes. From eighty old women to infant children, including chickens, ducks, dogs, sheep, pigs, and donkeys, they all evacuated to Wuhan with the help of the militiamen.
People are deep in the mountains.
Not even a grain of rice or a handful of noodles was left at home. The entire retreat took more than ten days. The Japanese troops who brazenly broke into the hinterland would be in trouble if they could see a single human hair.
Of course, he was not the only Japanese general who had the same depressed mentality as Xia Xiong Yuan.
The mentality of Major General Yamashita of the Second Mixed Brigade at that time was about to explode.
As a young general who has received a lot of praise within the Japanese Army base camp, his ambitions are much greater than his current military position. He is eager to show off his talents in this war. The Army Lieutenant General also
But it's just a transition, a general or even a marshal is what he really wants.
In fact, in the past time and space, Yamashita's ambitions were realized during the war.
Due to his outstanding performance in the North China War, after Saburo Okamoto was transferred, Yamashita was promoted from major general to lieutenant general and served as the chief of staff of the North China Front. Later, because of his role in suppressing the anti-Japanese armed forces in eastern Hebei and central Hebei, this person became
The Chief of Staff of the Japanese North China Front massacred tens of thousands of anti-Japanese soldiers and civilians in an extremely brutal manner and caused countless tragedies.
The famous "Wangxinzhuang Massacre" in which more than 200 people were killed with poison gas at one time was exactly his instruction.
Through cruel means, although the anti-Japanese armed forces in the two places are still active, their destructive power is no longer as good as before. Yamashita's name has become even more famous within the Japanese army base camp, and he is regarded as a late blooming general.
When the Pacific War broke out in 1941, Yamashita, who was already 56 years old, was transferred to Japan's 25th Army as commander, responsible for the war in Southeast Asia. In only 70 days, it swept 650 miles of the Malay Peninsula, and the sun never set on the Empire.
The general led the 130,000 defenders to surrender to the army commander, thereby creating the largest land victory in the history of the Japanese army.
On the Chinese battlefield, there were no fewer than ten battles involving more than 600,000 troops from both sides, but the Japanese army had never achieved such a brilliant victory.
With such a victory, Yamashita gained the reputation of the "Malay Tiger" and was promoted to Army General in July of that year. This was only three years after he was promoted to Lieutenant General. This was also Yamashita's most glorious moment.
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The second mixed brigade encountered a different predicament than the 108th Division. The Japanese army's three divisions and one mixed brigade were divided into ten groups and four directions. The 108th Division's soldiers were divided into two groups from south to north and punched into the air. 16
The division is divided into four routes from east to west, while the 109th Division is divided into three routes from west to east. The last one from north to south is of course the Yamagata Division of the Second Mixed Brigade that is combined into one.
To put it bluntly, the Second Mixed Brigade is the weakest of the four major offensive directions of the Japanese army, but it is also the one with the strongest total strength, because they are the only one who has not divided its forces.
The 16th Division and the 109th Division hit the iron plate. They encountered the main force of the 80th Group Army and the first part of the Shanxi-Sui Army respectively.
For example, the 16th Division was blocked by the main force of the 80th Army. The defense line was said to consist of three infantry brigades, but in fact it had nearly 40,000 troops, which was comparable to an infantry corps in strength.
The 16th Division fought extremely fiercely, and the 109th Division in the other direction also had a hard time. The division originally planned to engage in a flanking attack with the 16th Division to defeat the main force of the 80th Group Army that was blocking the 16th Division. Who knew that this would happen?
It's not all the strength of the Eightyth Army.
The Eightyth Army actually has more than 10,000 troops scattered in the mountains, and has a large number of mortars and a small number of mountain artillery. The Jinsui Army, which also has a strength of nearly 10,000 people, also has more than 12 mountain artillery and 20 mortar guns.
Cannon fire.
Although the Chinese army with more than 20,000 troops has no advantage in strength, it relies on these heavy firearms to hold back the 109th Division in the mountains. Every step forward has to pay a sufficient price.
In two days, the three-pronged army of the 109th Division only advanced less than 6 kilometers, but the battle losses exceeded a thousand people.
The Japanese troops on the east and west routes were completely locked in a bitter battle.
It stands to reason that the Chinese army, which has deployed at least half of its strength, will not pose much of an obstacle to the Second Mixed Brigade, especially since the 108th Division has already entered the 921st Division of the 80th Group Army and cannot even burn down a house.
There are not many Chinese troops attacking thirty villages.
But to Yamashita's expectation, the Chinese seemed to have used all their forces to deal with him. There were actually two Chinese infantry divisions with nearly 30,000 people fighting against him on the defensive line.
In that desperate scene, Yamashita was really drunk.
The Chinese used hilltops to build positions and then formed a criss-cross defense line. On each hilltop, there was basically an infantry company stationed. It seemed that there were not many soldiers, but if the Japanese army wanted to pass through its range, they had to
Conquer this mountain.
This resulted in the Second Mixed Brigade having to pull out these hilltop positions like nails.
However, the combat effectiveness of a hundred-man position is really limited, but they are also fully armed soldiers. Especially after two consecutive rounds of ammunition replenishment, the average amount of ammunition carried by each Chinese soldier is close to 100 rounds. Ammunition is no longer scarce, at least for them.
Before dying in battle.
However, there was also a situation where the fighting was too fierce and the Chinese soldiers who were surrounded by an infantry group on the hilltop fired desperately for 6 hours before running out of ammunition.
What shocked the Japanese army was that, just before the position was lost, the Chinese soldiers were still fighting back with everything they could, including primitive weapons like stones.
And this cannot be regarded as their last desperate blow.
They also have cannons.
Yes, China does not only have pure infantry. Under the cover of the densely populated hilltop positions, there are also an unknown number of mortars and mountain artillery hidden in the mountains. Whenever a red flare is fired from the hilltop position, artillery fire will cover the hilltop position.
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The Japanese army may not have killed many people when they conquered the hilltop, but this tactics of killing everyone by sending signals and then covering them with artillery fire caused the Second Mixed Brigade to suffer a lot.
It took two days to clear out nearly ten highlands and kill more than a thousand Chinese soldiers. However, the result was that the Second Mixed Brigade suffered over a thousand casualties.
"Damn it, what kind of tactics is this?" From the brigade commander Yamashita to the captain-level infantry squadron leader of the Second Mixed Brigade, everyone was stunned by this completely exchange-style fighting method.
If they could live for more than ten years and see the battlefield called the 'Tie Yuan Blockade Battle' on the northern ice field, they would know the name of the tactics they are currently facing.
Falling Star Tactics!
It has a nice name, but its tactics are extremely cruel to both the enemy and ourselves.
Under the guidance of such tactical thinking, all defenders are like thrown stars, where they land is their position.
There is no such thing as evacuation. Whether you want it or not, you must live or die with your position, because the enemy will surround you and not give you any way to escape.
The only thing the defenders can do is to empty all their bullets and throw all their grenades before the end of their lives, just so that their death will not be such a loss.
The attackers are also troubled. They have to fight one position after another. If they don't conquer these small but connected positions, they will never reach the position they want to reach.
On that ice sheet, a heroic Chinese infantry army of 24,000 people covered a 25-kilometer defense line like scattered stars, and withstood the attack of 47,000 people from the coalition led by the beautiful country.
In the end, the defenders wiped out 21,000 enemies at the cost of nearly 20,000 battle losses, and completed the military order of the headquarters to defend for half a month.
How severe the trauma of this battle was to the infantry army can be seen from the fact that an infantry regiment with a full strength of 2,760 before the war, including cooks, cooks, and signals, only had 266 people left.
But they held the line of defense and won a strategic victory.
Now in the mountains surrounding the main road accessible to large vehicles, the Chinese army has deployed this desperate tactic in advance.
Just like what General Zhao Shoushan of the 17th Division said before taking the oath to fight, standing in front of his 8,000 regrouped soldiers: "This battlefield is no less dangerous than Bululing. If you want to survive, you want to be more dangerous."
Many Chinese people have survived. There is no need for the Japanese to kill us. We will put our lives on the edge of the knife first.
I cannot guarantee how many of our brothers will survive in this battle, but I can guarantee that no matter how many brothers the Japanese kill in this battle, we will repay them twice as much."
When General Baitou said this, he was not just talking nonsense. He also had some confidence.
Of the 24 mountain cannons on Tang Dao's arms list, six were allocated to his 17th division alone. In addition, they were equipped with 3,000 rounds of artillery shells. Each gun was equipped with 500 rounds of ammunition. Even if one gun only killed one Japanese,
It can also kill 3,000 Japanese devils.
In addition, the 17th Division also allocated 25 of the 100 mortars. Basically, each of the three infantry regiments can equip 6 mortars, which can also ensure an additional 7 mortars for the artillery battalion directly under the division.
In this case, the artillery battalion of the 17th Division that he has just renovated, plus the previous ones, will have 12 mountain guns and 15 mortars, plus 18 mortars fully equipped with three infantry regiments.
It has a total of 45 artillery pieces, and its combat power even exceeds that before the Battle of Niangziguan.
As a friendly force, the 104th Division of the 22nd Group Army was also assigned 6 17-year-old mountain guns and 25 mortars.
In this mountainous area alone, where 20,000 troops were dispersed, the two divisions deployed a total of more than 80 artillery pieces of large and small calibers.
If the Japanese commander could know the number of the opponent's artillery pieces in advance, it is still unknown whether he could attack with all his strength from the very beginning like this.
Anyway, after two days of fighting, the two infantry divisions, which did not use their full strength, used a total of more than half of their mortars and nearly half of their mountain artillery, and they had already completely beaten the Second Mixed Brigade.
The reason why all his strength was not exposed was because the big pie thrown by Tang Dao was too tempting.
"This attack by the Japanese army must be in units of 10,000 people, and at the most it will be 7,000 or 8,000 people. Even if they gather heavy troops to surround them, the Japanese have planes and will definitely cover their evacuation with all their strength. Tens of thousands of people will fight tooth and nail. We don't have enough troops.
We can't stop them. But with a troop whose troops are gradually being depleted and whose ammunition and food supplies have been seriously consumed, how many officers are there that we can eat them?" When Tang Dao threw out this bait, there was no one left.
One can resist this temptation.
In the Battle of Xuzhou, the Fifth War Zone, which had laid out the overall situation for nearly two months, used this move to encircle and kill two detachments of the Japanese army. I heard that the medals of the participating troops were all carried out in boxes, and they were all from the Chinese army. Others could do it.
Why can't they do it?
However, the plan was not as fast as the change. Originally, the total strength of two divisions, one brigade and one regiment exceeded 40,000, which could completely block the enemy coming from one direction and severely damage it. However, at the military meeting of the theater staff, the 683 brigade was entrusted with important tasks by the commander.
, will serve as the main force to resist the enemy coming from the direction in which the Japanese army has invested the most troops.
Then two divisions and one regiment can only be responsible for doing this job. Otherwise, Tang Dao would not be forced to use the "starfall tactics" used by Chinese soldiers to fight to the death on the northern ice fields.
The two infantry divisions must show their courage to stop and consume the Japanese army for at least five days.
Now, two days have passed, and there are still three days left before the mission is successfully completed.
At the end of the day's battle, looking at the vast mountains in the dusk, Major General Yamashita, who was already past the age of destiny, felt that the veins on his temples were bulging, as if blood would spurt out of them at the next moment.
If he continues to fight like this, let alone invade the Chinese hinterland and successfully join the 109th Division, his original 7,000 infantrymen will be wiped out in another five days of fighting. If another new force of the Chinese army comes by then,
His second mixed brigade may be completely wiped out in this mountain.
But can he retreat? Major General Yamashita recalled the encouragement given to him by Commander Sugashimoto before leaving: "Okamoto-kun was originally an elite of the Kwantung Army, and he also intends to return to the original army to serve. If nothing unexpected happens, then he will
In two or three months, the position of chief of staff of the North China Front will be vacant."
Although Yamashita knew that this was most likely a cake drawn by this big boss for himself, this cake was very attractive to him. He had been a major general for three years. If he did not become a lieutenant general, he might not be able to do so by the end of the war.
There is no way to be promoted to the rank of general, he must seize this opportunity.
If you want to seize this opportunity, you must gain enough military exploits in this battle. Yamashita knows it very well. Don't look at what Yuan Shanshan said to him. I'm afraid this old fox has said the same thing to several people.
Those lieutenant general division commanders may not be interested in this merely transitional position, but they also have major general brigade commanders under their command, and no one does not want their hard-core subordinates to take a further step forward.
The situation at this time is that it is difficult to move forward and it is impossible to retreat.
"Baga! Damn Chinese, I'm going to kill you all." Yamashita angrily pulled out his saber and slashed at a small tree next to him as thick as a human arm.
These actions fully demonstrate that Yamashita has not completely lost his mind at this time. He at least knows how to choose a thinner tree and chop down a tree as thick as a human waist. The tree will be fine, but his knife will break.
Because Yamashita actually knew very well in his heart that he had already made a decision.
For the sake of the future, he must advance. No matter how many soldiers are injured or killed, the Second Mixed Brigade must continue to fight.
As for the final result, he can only hope that Amaterasu will bless the other three armies to successfully complete their pre-war arrangements, especially the nearly 20,000-strong 108th Division that has not been blocked so far. If they can survive in the mountains
Finding a road through the enemy's rear and bypassing the enemy's rear can also relieve him of his current predicament.
But it can only be said that he thinks too much.
This unlucky kid from the 108th Division suffered a horrific "biochemical warfare" attack.
