The sound of artillery outside Tunliu City was loud. After the infantry of the 1st Brigade launched a charge, in order to prevent reinforcements from the Eighth Route Army troops in the city, its artillery troops extended their artillery fire to cover the middle area from the city gate to the positions outside the city.
"Brothers, the brigade commander said that if we take over the Eighth Route Army position opposite, we will reward each of us with 20 yuan. Come and charge for me!"
Under a heavy reward, there must be brave men. The 20 ocean dollars is not legal tender, but real hard currency. More than 500 national soldiers formed a skirmish line, taking turns to cover and rush to the independent regiment's position.
Although there were no major casualties among the soldiers of the Independent Regiment on the position, the sound of exploding artillery shells made them dizzy and tinnitus. They endured their physical discomfort and filed out of the artillery hole.
Just when the soldiers of the Nationalist Army were less than a hundred meters away from the position, more than a hundred fresh troops emerged from several tunnels connecting the positions outside the city. Some of these soldiers were armed with submachine guns, and some were equipped with two short guns.
Seeing the national army officers and soldiers getting closer and closer, the leading company commander gave an order, and rapid gunshots appeared on the position. Under the intensive bullet strikes, the leading soldiers fell one after another, and some veterans behind them fell to the ground in an instant.
on the ground.
"Pa!" Chu Yunfei slapped his hands on the table. Obviously, he was not satisfied with the battle situation ahead. The attacking troops suffered a lot of casualties. He expected that the Eighth Route Army would come out of the city for reinforcements, but he did not expect that the independent regiment would enter and exit through the tunnel.
"Brigade, I heard that the US military has done a lot of research on infantry and artillery coordination, and the expeditionary force trained by it has also made great progress. Often the coverage of artillery fire is less than 50 meters away from the infantry. Maybe we can give it a try!" Fang Ligong
said.
Chu Yunfei boasted that he was a good leader in peacetime, but he did not dare to try this method easily: "Which of our infantry or artillery can reach the combat level of the expeditionary force? If this round of artillery shells passes, the Eighth Route Army may not be defeated."
If they are defeated, the attacking troops will definitely run back crying."
The commanders and fighters of the Independent Regiment did not rush out of the trenches to launch a charge. After all, the enemy still had a numerical advantage, but the offensive troops of the Solitary Brigade also did not dare to launch a charge.
The battle situation suddenly came to a stalemate, and soldiers from both sides started shooting at each other. The gunfire never stopped for a moment, but there were few casualties.
"In this case, brother Ligong, order the attacking troops to drag this group of Eighth Route Army to death. The artillery troops will move south and bombard the positions south of Tunliu City. I want to see if Kong Jie has any reserve troops!" Chu Yunfei said.
The words are divided into two parts.
"General, we received a call from the 89th Division stationed in Lingchuan. An Eighth Route Army unit from Lin County attacked Hucheng Town at 1 o'clock today. More than 60 officers and soldiers in the garrison died, and the rest fled to Lingchuan County!" came to report the battle situation!
It is Tan Tianjue, chief of staff of the 27th Army.
"Okay, okay, the Eighth Route Army counterattacked very quickly. The Eighty-ninth Division is unwilling to fight against the Eighth Route Army, but will the Eighth Route Army care about this?" Fan Hanjie said.
"The left and right are just a partial division of the Eighth Route Army pretending to be impressive. Let Shu Rong be informed and let him handle it on his own, but the commander of the troops stationed in Hucheng Town needs to be sent to the Military Law Office!"
Fan Hanjie saw through the plot at a glance. The main attack center of the national army was in the north. After all, that was the core of the Eighth Route Army base area. Lin County in the east of Lingchuan and northern Hui County were not of much value.
The voices within the 24th Group Army were not unified. Shu Rong, commander of the 89th Division, and Chen Sunong, commander of the 8th Preliminary Division, were the representative figures. Although they did not dare to openly disobey Chiang Kai-shek's orders, they complained quite a lot in front of Fan Hanjie. Fan Hanjie
Jie was also worried that these two divisions would not be able to produce enough work, so he did not use them as the main front-line offensive force.
Tan Tianjue quickly sent someone to convey the order, but he seemed to have something to say. Fan Hanjie saw that he was hesitant: "Tianjue, there are no outsiders here, feel free to say anything you want!"
"Chief Officer, our army has the upper hand in this battle and achieved a good result within half a day by virtue of its strength advantage. But to what extent we should fight, you should make a decision early!"
Tan Tianjue's words stopped short, but Fan Hanjie understood clearly and said half-jokingly: "I heard that someone gave advice in front of the principal and ordered our army to destroy the command structure of the Eighth Route Army's Tainan base area in one fell swoop, and even set targets.
For the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army!"
"Some people in the rear always set lofty goals, but ignore the difficulty in actual implementation. Is it possible that our army has wings and can fly to the Eighth Route Army command organ? In the end, the battle plan failed, but the responsibilities were passed to each other!"
Fan Hanjie always mapped: "Our army nominally occupied the Changzhi area before, but only occupied the capital Changzhi and Huguan, Lingchuan, Gaoping and Changzi areas. If the Eighth Route Army wants to launch troops, it can follow the Handan-Changzhi Highway and approach the capital of Changzhi.
, which really made us feel like we were stuck in the throat, and we had to deploy a heavy troop group on the north side."
"If we can capture Tunliu, Licheng, and Pingshun this time, our army will gain strategic depth and have more room to maneuver in future battles with the Eighth Route Army. At the same time, the Eighth Route Army in Lin County and Huibei will be cut off from its main force.
After the fighting on the battlefield is over, the Eighth Route Army in the area can be wiped out with a wave of hands."
In an instant, it was getting dark, and Zhou Weihan reported that the 92nd Army of the Chinese Army had successfully passed the Longhai Railway, but its main force avoided Dangshan Mountain.
"The 92nd Army did not enter Dangshan from Xiayi, but crossed the Longhai Railway from the northwest to Dayangji in the southeast of Yucheng. Apparently the 92nd Army was well prepared and worried about repeating the experience of the 142nd Division being surrounded by our army in Dangshan.
, so I took the initiative to spare Yuan Dao!"
"However, although we avoided the main force of our army in the early stage, if we want to march into Shandong, we must pass through Weishan Lake and eventually return to the original road!" Zhao Bingzhang said.
Zhou Weihan was not so optimistic. The Fifth Column was the defender, while the 24th Group Army was the attacker and had innate initiative. The reason why the 142nd Division was surrounded in Dangshan was because that was the route agreed upon by both parties.
Now, after being reminded by the vanguard of the 142nd Division, the 92nd Army adjusted its marching route and actively avoided the main force of the Eighth Route Army in Dangshan.
"That's not necessarily the case. What if the 24th Group Army is stationed in Shandong? What if it's just a word? What if the national army's target is our Hebei, Shandong and Henan base areas?"
"Look, the distance from Kaifeng to Dangshan is a full 250 kilometers. Such a long defense line only needs three military divisions in northern Henan, southwestern Shandong and Huxi!"
"Strategically, our army is passive, while the enemy takes the initiative. Kaocheng, Caoxian, Shanxian, and Fengxian are lined up in an east-west direction. Dangshan is in Shanxian, and Fengxian is in a protruding position to the south, which is arranged as the tip of a cone.
Our column's 16th brigade, the guard regiment and the brother troops of the fourth teaching brigade are the front-line arrangements."
"In addition, the 13th Brigade is deployed in Kaocheng, at the junction of Caoxian County, to assist the Henan Northern Army Division troops in the west to guard against the Japanese troops of the 35th Division, the 14th Brigade is in Shanxian County, and the 15th Brigade is in Fengxian County. This is a second-line arrangement!"
"But the problem now is that the enemy is very likely to go north from Yucheng and choose to march from the junction of Caoxian and Shanxian. In this way, our military region command organization will be exposed to the enemy, and the battlefield is likely to shift."