Although he had to enter the mountain, at the last moment, Li Shouxin still played a trick. He used the Sixth Division, which was a direct descendant of King De and also his hometown, on the front line, and the three divisions that entered the mountain first The only force he had was not his direct lineage, but the fourth division he had collected from the remnants of the so-called Han Rebel Army, one of the defeated Suiyuan puppet troops in the Shanghua Battle.
The Second Division, one of the main forces of his direct lineage, was placed at the end of the entire march, so that it could be quickly withdrawn if necessary. As for the First Division, which was his starting point, he placed it at the end of the entire march. Protect his position, and his headquarters will not easily enter the mountain.
In other words, he is using the Sixth Division to help him. If there are gunshots after the Sixth Division enters the mountain, it means that there is really an ambush in the valley. The distance between marching troops is five hundred meters, which is enough for the others behind. The troops have responded well. As long as the other troops are saved, they will not be too passive and will still have the opportunity to counterattack. The most fundamental thing is that even if they suffer losses, they will not hurt their own fundamentals.
The opponent only has the strength of a reinforced battalion. Tanks are not used at all in this kind of terrain. They rely solely on infantry to set up ambushes. The most they can do is start at the break of the valley and let the Sixth Division go to the road. If there is really an ambush , your own troops behind can also quickly withdraw.
As for the last sentence, although Li Shouxin said it with murderous intent, his words were mostly addressed to Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa and the division commanders of the Second Army present. As for his own direct lineage, he was If he was asked to kill the two division commanders of Brother Baobao, he would find a way to exonerate them. As far as he was concerned, the worst he could do was to push out one or two regiment commanders to take the blame.
His abacus was very good, and he would use other people's troops to help him get there, but the commander of the Sixth Division who was sent to lead the battle over there, and several other members of the Second Army who participated in the battle, But the division commander didn't do anything anymore. What a joke, let's go and die while your troops watch the battle from behind. That's such a good thing. If there really is an ambush, we will be the ones who die.
Regarding his arrangement, several division commanders of the Second Army, including Wang Zhenhua, who had just been transferred from the position of commander of the 3rd Division to the 4th Division just before departure from Li Shouxin's direct lineage, were firmly opposed to this arrangement. Li Shouxin's deployment They knew the plan very well, which was to let the Second Army's divisions and his motley Fourth Division serve as scapegoats.
Li Shouxin was being cunning, but although several division commanders were not as smart as him, they were not stupid either. They were all firmly opposed to his plan to kill others, especially the division commanders of the Second Army, who were extremely resolute in their opposition. Several division commanders firmly disagreed with his arrangement, and the scene suddenly turned cold.
Let's talk about Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa. This pure Japanese soldier was more decisive. Seeing the stalemate, he simply came up with an even distribution. Since Li Shouxin had already decided that the Sixth Division would lead the battle, it would be better to change his position. He, a Mongolian autonomous man, The commander-in-chief of the army still has to give some face to him.
As for the next march, Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa's deployment was very balanced. Behind the Sixth Division, the Fourth, Seventh, Second, Eighth, and First Divisions followed suit. As for the artillery and the general headquarters, they did not need to be protected by the Mongolian army. The commander-in-chief and his own safety are all protected by the Imperial Japanese Army, and Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa repeatedly emphasized that this plan is an order of the Imperial Japanese Army, and anyone who violates it will be violating the order of the Imperial Japanese Army.
It's not that Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa is a master of peacemaking, but he really doesn't have the patience to deal with the Chinese people's ability to argue for a long time about anything. A question of whether to enter the mountain and when to enter the mountain. I've been tearing my skin off for most of the day.
If I had been at fault for a long time because of the marching order, I would probably have exhausted my patience by then, and I might have taken out my gun and killed all the guys here who have been fighting each other all day long, even though I have always been cautious about this kind of situation. He was deeply disgusted, but Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa also knew that the initiator of this situation was none other than the Japanese army themselves.
The empire has always adopted a divide-and-conquer approach to the puppet regimes established in China to prevent these puppet regimes from becoming bigger and in turn biting the empire. This approach was also adopted with regard to the puppet armies, and it seems to be even more serious when it comes to the puppet armies. , almost every system of the army in China has its own puppet army.
Not counting the Manchukuo Army in the Northeast, the Peaceful Founding Army in Central China, and in North China alone, there are the original Chinese garrison troops, the security forces currently supported by the North China Front Army, the Xingya Allied Army supported by the First Army in Shanxi, and the Tianjin Secret Service. Later, the Mongolian Autonomous Army supported by the Mongolian garrison, and even the subordinates of each division, garrison brigade, and even each regiment also formed local puppet armies such as police corps.
When the Japanese army fought against the Chinese government forces, they seized mountains of weapons and equipment. To form these puppet troops, the empire did not need to provide weapons. In addition, the empire's military strength was limited, and China's territory was too vast, so it was completely dependent on the Japanese army to occupy it. , then the Japanese army would have nothing to do. Just maintaining the security forces in the occupied areas may not be enough, so the Japanese army in various systems within the pass have formed their own puppet army systems to act as thugs for themselves.
Although after the establishment of the new Nanjing government, most of these puppet troops nominally belonged to the Nanjing government, in fact, most of these puppet troops still acted on their own, each taking orders from the original Japanese military system. What should the names of most of the troops be? No matter what the name is, even the original flag and cap badge have not been replaced.
The army's doing so indeed saved the empire a lot of manpower, freeing up its hands to attack cities and defeat the Chinese government forces. However, it also resulted in many factions of these puppet armies. When they cooperated, they were as scattered as their citizens. In addition, the empire's opposition to The consistent divide-and-rule method adopted by these puppet armies has further intensified the internal fighting among these puppet armies.
If they were allowed to argue about something like today, they might continue to argue for a whole day. They were not in a hurry, but the development of the war situation could not be delayed indefinitely here. Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa, who had really lost his patience, Let's just make an even distribution. You don't have to compete with each other anymore. I'll do it for you.
Although the commander of the Fourth Division and the three division commanders of the Second Army were still quite dissatisfied with Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa's evenly distributed deployment, after Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa said these words, the murderous expression on his face and the Japanese soldiers behind him With the saber drawn out, no one dared to raise any objections.
As for Li Shouxin, although he was also dissatisfied with Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa's deployment, he put his starting capital at the end and did not change the marching distance, which meant that if there was an accident, the division could quickly If you withdraw, you won't suffer much loss.
For him, as long as the First Division is preserved, even if the other divisions are lost, he will still have the capital to make a comeback. Since the First Division, his starting point, can be guaranteed, for Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa's deployment , he had no objections.
After the combat meeting was over, he reciprocated Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa's kindness and secretly gave Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa a huge cat's eye diamond to show his care for him in the deployment and to express his gratitude. Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa naturally understood this cat's eye diamond and accepted it without any hesitation.
It was just that the two people who tacitly understood each other did not expect that in this battle, which was not large in scale and did not last long, the first division that was originally used to finish the battle would be the hardest hit. During the bombardment, more than 2,000 people from the first division who were gathering suffered losses of more than 80%.
This loss was the largest loss among the several divisions that participated in the war, except for the Sixth Division, which led the charge and almost wiped out the entire army. Li Shouxin's original attempt to keep his old capital not only failed, but also lost his wife and troops. , along with all the artillery that was finally defrauded from the Japanese, was lost. Of course, this is a story for later. At least for now, he was barely satisfied with Lieutenant Colonel Tokugawa's deployment.
Although these puppet Mongolian troops were not completely obedient to the Japanese like the puppet Manchurian army, after years of training by the Japanese army, they were still in good shape. At eight o'clock in the morning, the participating divisions were assembled on time and lined up in the Huanggangliang Valley. Outside the pass, looking at the somewhat chaotic formations of the divisions, Li Shouxin waved his hand. As the vanguard of the entire army, the Sixth Division, no matter how reluctant it was, had to move in on time under the guns of the Japanese supervising the battle.
Knowing that the Japanese and puppet troops outside the mountain had finally begun to take action, Yang Jicai, who had been waiting for them for a whole day and night, did not show anything on the surface, but he was somewhat happy in his heart: "This big fish that I have been missing for so long is finally here." I took the bait, and it seems that my judgment was still very accurate."
After feeling secretly happy in his heart, he was still followed by calmness. Although it was his first time to command troops above a regiment in combat, the joy in Yang Jicai's heart was only short-lived. For him, he knew that he must be calm now. After thinking about it, Yang Jicai grabbed the walkie-talkie and ordered that no shots should be fired without orders.
Li Shouxin's judgment was correct. His troops were indeed insufficient to deploy along the entire valley. As for the mountain pass, except for a small number of security forces, he could not deploy too many troops. However, his judgment was different from Li Shouxin's. , Yang Jicai deployed his troops mainly in the second half of the valley, not in the middle of the valley. If he placed the main troops in the middle, how could he attract more Japanese and puppet troops into his fire ambush circle.
Yang Jicai deployed the four infantry companies in his hands in a cross pattern on the gentle slopes of the mountains on both sides of the ditch bottom. His plan for the fire ambush was also very simple. Within four hundred meters, automatic rifles and squad machine guns were handed over to the infantry. Recoilless rifles and rocket launchers, between 400 and 1,000 meters, are given to general-purpose machine guns and 12mm anti-aircraft machine guns, 60mm mortars, and Soviet-made light and heavy machine guns. As for those beyond 1,000 meters, they are given to 14mm anti-aircraft machine guns. and twin twenty-three millimeter anti-aircraft guns.
Four 75mm self-propelled artillery and 82 mortars are responsible for suppressing the mountain artillery and mortars of the puppet Mongolian army. As for the four 107 rocket launchers, they are responsible for attacking the marching columns of the Japanese and puppet troops and the troop assembly areas.
Carry out fire coverage. As for the tank company, it is organized as a platoon. After receiving the order, it rushes into the valley and uses collision tactics and machine guns to counterattack the Japanese and puppet troops.