In fact, on the day Fengjiang was bombed, some parts of the Dahua Empire were also visited by Tang aircraft. Those aircraft were not long-range strategic bombers, but tactical bombers.
Butcher and Stuka took off frequently to conduct reconnaissance and bombing on the central and northern borders of Dahua and Tang, destroying all targets they could find.
The buzzing reputation of the Stuka dive bomber echoed in the sky, frightening the soldiers of the Chinese Empire who saw this type of aircraft for the first time.
It was also the first time they knew that dive bombing from the sky was so deadly. They huddled in the trenches like rats hiding in burrows.
But for them, the disaster soon passed, the clouds thickened again, Tang Jun's plane disappeared again, and everything seemed to be back to a day ago.
The soldiers of Dahua rejoiced. They repaired the destroyed trenches and fixed fortifications, and collected the bodies of their comrades.
The commanders of the Dahua Empire forces in the southern region also began to realize the seriousness of the problem. Because the rain in the past two days was obviously much less than the previous few days.
Today's sky is always gloomy, but it doesn't rain much anymore, so they all know that the locust-like Tang Air Force is about to start dispatching.
So they began to accelerate their attack on Xicong, desperately pushing their troops to the gates of Xicong. Two days after capturing Lijiacun, the forward troops of the Dahua Empire reached the outskirts of Xicong.
Dozens of Dahua Type 1 tanks were destroyed by the Tang Army's No. 4 assault gun during the attack and were paralyzed on the offensive road. The Dahua Army retreated about one kilometer, and then launched another attack.
The Tang army quickly retreated to the outskirts of Xicong and deployed its defense line based on the houses there. The Dahua army rested for a night and began the attack at dawn the next day.
A battalion of Dahua troops tentatively approached the edge of the city under the cover of seven or eight tanks. It was still a cluster of tile-roofed houses, but further away, four- or even eight-story high-rise buildings in Xicong could be seen.
The Tang army's snipers and infantry repelled the attack. The Dahua army had to retreat to the place where they launched the attack after leaving more than a hundred corpses.
But at noon, they started the attack again, this time investing about 2 regiments of troops. Thousands of people, under the cover of hundreds of tanks, once again approached the edge of Xicong city.
Different from the last trial attack, this time the Dahua army hopes to establish an offensive bridgehead on the edge of the city. They hope to occupy an urban area and prepare for the subsequent street fighting.
But they were repulsed. Although they invested more than 2,000 offensive troops at one time and used a regiment of tanks, they still failed.
During the attack, the Dahua army saw a brand-new equipment of the Tang army, a fantasy weapon that was so terrifying that it was unreasonable.
That's right, when their tanks were about to rush into the edge of the city, they encountered a hidden Tang Army anti-tank position.
In other words, in fact, it was not an anti-tank position, but an anti-aircraft position... When the enemy tanks rushed up, the anti-aircraft artillery soldiers regarded the Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft gun as a flat-fire cannon and aimed the muzzle at those
Dahua 1 tank.
At an extremely close distance, the anti-aircraft gun suddenly opened fire and started strafing at an anti-aircraft rate of fire. The two dozen tanks on the other side did not even notice where the enemy was, and they were all destroyed by the shells coming from the side.
Within about five minutes, more than twenty aggressive tanks were wiped out. The attacking Dahua army instantly lost the will to continue fighting and had to withdraw from the battle.
The fierce battle continued in the afternoon. This time the Dahua army invested some artillery and once again sent two regiments with more than 2,000 people to attack.
The two sides collided again, and the Tang army once again defended its position. If you think that the Xicong defense line carefully laid out by Tiger will lose its outer defensive positions on the first day, then you are underestimating the Tang general.
After a day of fierce attacks without any results, Qian Jinhang, the frontline commander of the Dahua Empire who rushed to the front line, also realized that it was impossible to capture Xicong by relying on brute force.
So he did not continue the attack rashly the next day, but waited for subsequent reinforcements to arrive one after another. The number of Dahua troops was increasing, and there were more and more heavy weapons and equipment.
Just when Qian Jinhang felt that he had assembled enough troops to try to attack, the Tang Army's artillery fire accurately flooded his troops' station.
The coordinates that had been measured long ago, combined with the observation post's accurate parameter report, Tang Jun used textbook-style artillery coverage to educate his colleagues in the Dahua Empire.
After Qian Jinhang witnessed the artillery fire cover of the Tang army with his own eyes, he also intuitively realized how huge the artillery gap between the two sides was.
Although the Tang army's momentum was not large, the artillery shells fired were not too many, and there was no sense of oppression that would destroy the world. However, the impact of the artillery shells was extremely precise, and the area covered was extremely valuable. It could be said to be a precise acupuncture point.
After this round of shelling, Qian Jinhang had to postpone the attack again and waited for two more days before he barely had the capital to attack.
The Dahua army learned wisely this time, because they were destroyed by dozens of tanks and cars in the last bombardment, killed more than 500 people, and directly scrapped two regiments... So this time they were stationed dispersedly and concealed
After advancing to the vicinity of the Tang Army's position, the attack began.
The infantry of the three regiments rushed towards their target under the cover of more than a hundred artillery pieces. The Tang defenders also quickly began to counterattack. Both sides showed their magic on the defense line on the edge of the city. In the end, the Dahua army captured a
The small piece of ruins can be regarded as a forward position on the outermost edge of Xicong City.
But then Qian Jinhang, who had been supervising the battle on the front line, realized that this might be an insidious trap left by the Tang army for the Dahua army.
Although the Dahua troops captured an advanced position, the reinforcements sent to this position and the efforts to transport logistical supplies were all hit hard by the firepower from both wings of the Tang army.
If the Dahua Army wants to send a box of bullets to this bridgehead, it will lose seven or eight people on the way, and it may lose two boxes of bullets!
Therefore, Qian Jinhang had no choice but to bite the bullet and launch an offensive operation to expand this bridgehead the next day.
After losing a regiment and thousands of men, he seized the flank defensive position of the bridgehead and finally established his foothold.
But the ensuing artillery fire coverage caused the Dahua Empire's offensive troops to pay a heavy price!
With every step forward, the Dahua Empire had to pay a heavy price. They were still fighting hard outside Xicong. They had just captured dozens of buildings and surrounding ruins, and they had already paid a price of more than 4,000 people.
This is not good news. Although the Dahua Empire's army has an absolute numerical advantage, this rate of loss is simply unbearable.
In two weeks, the attacking Dahua army has lost more than 40,000 troops, which accounts for almost one-tenth of the total strength of the entire offensive force!
What is this concept? This is equivalent to saying that in fact, at least half of the troops in Qian Jinhang's hands have been lost, which can be described as heavy! These troops have little combat power left and are in urgent need of replenishing soldiers and weapons and equipment.
And this was just the loss of soldiers. Taking into account the loss of cars, tanks and artillery, Qian Jinhang had an even bigger headache.
From the beginning of the battle until now, the Dahua Empire has lost nearly 200 artillery pieces of various calibers, some of which were damaged by the Tang army and others were destroyed by the Tang army.
The situation is similar for cars. More than 500 cars of various models were damaged on the road, and another 200 were barely used with malfunctions, and there was a risk of damage at any time.
The muddy roads forced the army of the Dahua Empire to face a situation where a large number of cars were damaged and paralyzed. Their cars were originally unreliable, and now they can be seen paralyzed everywhere on the road.
Not to mention tanks. In the battle for Lijiacun, the Dahua Empire lost more than 110 tanks, not counting the more than 100 tanks that were paralyzed on the offensive road due to malfunctions. In the Dahua Empire's several days of offensive near Xicong,
200 tanks were lost!
Yes, this number is the total tank equipment of two armored divisions! In other words, two tank divisions of the Dahua Army have "evaporated" without knowing it.
Walking at this speed, Qian Jinhang felt that he might become a polished commander before he saw Sishui.
But he had no choice. The Dahua Empire's strategic decision was to capture Xicong. At this moment, Xicong was in front of him, and he had no reason not to capture the city.
As a result, the Dahua army launched an attack again. They moved forward desperately along the streets, repelling the Tang army troops on both wings, and captured more suburban buildings.
Every house had to be fought over, and every house that seemed to be relatively intact was turned into ruins.
The grenade was thrown from this room into the adjacent room by the soldiers. After the earth-shaking explosion, the two sides fired wildly across the wall between the kitchen and the living room.
On the highway in the large city, the tanks of the Tang Army and the tanks of the Dahua Empire met in a narrow road. At an intersection, the two sides fired at each other to destroy their opponents, leaving only the remains of the two tanks burning in the middle of their respective roads.
The fighting lasted from morning to midnight, and then stopped for less than two hours before starting again.
Before the soldiers of the Dahua Empire who captured a block could gain a foothold, the Tang army's counterattack came. Soon the soldiers of the Dahua Empire were driven out of the street, and the Tang army occupied the area again.
The Dahua Empire flag full of bullet holes was thrown at the feet of the Tang army soldiers, and a red dragon flag full of bullet holes was raised again. All this has just begun!