Although the largest capital in building the fortress group is human capital, it can be said to be almost free under the premise that the Japanese army plundered laborers from the mainland on a large scale and brutally enslaved prisoners of war, but steel bars and concrete still require money to produce, and additional Weapons and equipment also require money to purchase.
Japanese capitalists are not philanthropists either. They supported you in starting the war in order to make war profits, not to take advantage of you for free. After several quarrels, the two parties finally settled under the so-called holy judgment of the impatient Emperor. A nondescript result was produced.
Whether the function of the fortress is increased or changed, the Kwantung Army can proceed according to the actual situation. However, the Ministry of War's allocation for the fortress project remains unchanged, and the second phase of the project in the original plan cannot be stopped. It must be completed in It was completed four or three years ago as planned.
The required number of laborers can be coordinated between the North China Front Army and the Kwantung Army. Raw materials can also be allocated from the steel plants in Manchuria as needed according to the original plan. However, there is one thing. All overrun costs will be borne by the Kwantung Army itself, and the Army Ministry will There will be no increase in prices, and there is one thing: Manchukuo exports at low prices every year, which is almost equivalent to nothing. At present, the quantity of coal and grain that Japan urgently needs for war preparations cannot be reduced in any way, but must be increased according to the situation.
Funding was stuck, but the largest fortress groups in the entire Manchukuo were all in the so-called East Manchuria area where banditry was most serious. After careful calculation, the Kwantung Army discovered that if they wanted to improve the functions of these fortress groups, Adjustment, from mainly offensive to both offensive and defensive, the amount of the project is not that small, and the cost will also rise significantly. If the construction is started at the same time and all the additional funds are borne by the Kwantung Army, the Kwantung Army will go bankrupt.
Although the Kwantung Army forcibly allocated some funds from the so-called Manchurian treasury, which was actually the Kwantung Army's small treasury, and reduced the construction volume of several other fortress groups to save money, this funding could only maintain Hulin Fortress and Dongning Fortress are the two most important fortress groups in Northeast Manchuria.
According to the current budget, without additional appropriations from the Army, it is necessary to complete the modification of these fortress groups whose main projects have been completed, and to undertake a large number of Japanese immigrant resettlement work. The deformed economy of the Puppet Manchukuo State will It was unaffordable in any case. As long as it was unaffordable, the Kwantung Army Headquarters had no choice but to start with key fortresses.
As for other projects, we can only stay at the construction according to the original plan. Even the second phase projects of some secondary positions such as Honey Mountain Fortress Group and Banjiehe Fortress Group can only be temporarily interrupted. In this way, The other defense fortifications that the Honey Mountain Fortress Group was originally planning to build in the spring of this year were suspended because only the laborers arrived and the raw materials were still far away.
The change in the situation has caused the second phase of the Honey Mountain Fortress Group to be actually planned to be built. When Wu Ruofu attacked the Camel Peak line along the 458th Highland, except for some anti-slope positions on the 458th Highland, all along the The Japanese defenses along the ridge have not yet started.
However, the Japanese are not fools after all, let alone blind. When Wu Ruofu touched the foot of Camelback Mountain, his good luck ended. The Japanese army had not had time to build protective fortifications on the ridge from the 458th Highland to Camelback Mountain, but this does not mean that There are no fortifications built on Camel's Hump.
The fortifications on Camel Peak and 458 Highlands are actually a whole. Not only are the two mountains connected by ridges, but there are also secret underground passages built in the ridges to connect the two mountains. Although there are no fortifications built on the ridges, However, the frontal fortifications of Camel Peak have been completed. These fortifications and the anti-slope positions on the 458th Highland can form a relatively rigorous defense network between the two mountains.
When Wu Ruofu led two companies to touch the leg of Camel Peak, they were discovered by a Japanese guard position on Camel Peak. The Japanese troops on Camel Peak were also unambiguous. They found someone on the ridge rushing towards their position and paid attention to it. The defensive posture must not be exposed. All fire points on Camel's Peak opened fire at the first opportunity, with the intention of blocking the ridge passage between the two mountains.
They also sent some troops to launch a counterattack along the ridge against the roundabout troops led by Wu Ruofu, trying to eliminate these enemy forces that had penetrated into their own defenses in one fell swoop, so as to prevent the already tight defenses of the 458 Highlands from being attacked from the front and back and ultimately defeated.
Although they knew the seriousness of the enemy force that had penetrated into their own territory if they could not be eliminated as quickly as possible, the Japanese army already seemed to be obviously lacking in strength at this time. Even when facing an opponent that penetrated deep into its defenses, the force it sent was only composed of A makeshift squadron of infantry and engineers.
Seeing the Japanese counterattack troops, Wu Ruofu immediately left behind the heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft machine guns, and detached a company, led by a deputy battalion commander who coordinated with him, to block the Japanese counterattack troops and cover the attack on Camelback, while he commanded another company. The company's strengthened mortars ignored the fire resistance of the Japanese troops on Camel's Peak, and under the cover of the mortars, they forcibly launched an attack on the mountain.
Facing the Camelback Peak, although the scale was not as large as that of the 458 Highlands, there were still a large number of bunker groups and permanent fortifications mainly located on the mountainside. Wu Ruofu divided the company in his hand into several combat groups, each of which Each team strengthens a rocket launcher and a light machine gun.
Adopting frontal attack tactics, using rocket launchers to first knock out the poorly protected Japanese civil fortifications and bunkers, the infantry then used the resulting shooting blind spots to launch attacks, while the mortars concentrated their firepower to blockade the Japanese permanent fortifications. If you can't blow it up, you have to use artillery shells to block its firing holes.
However, unlike the frontal offensive, which mainly targeted the Japanese bunkers and permanent fortifications, before rushing up the mountain, Wu Ruofu told him that if he rushed up the mountain, he would look for the ventilation holes of the Japanese underground fortifications. After finding them, he would use grenades, incendiary bottles and explosive packs to attack them as much as possible. Destroy these vents.
In Wu Ruofu's view, as long as the vents that ventilate outside the mountain can be destroyed and the source of air in the mountain can be cut off, even if the shrinking turtles cannot be forced out of the mountain, the combat effectiveness of the opponent will be greatly weakened. A graduate of the Puppet Manchukuo High School Naturally, he was no stranger to the importance of air. As for the permanent artillery fortification groups on the top of the mountain, Wu Ruofu never thought of fighting hard to capture them.
The reinforced concrete outside the permanent artillery fortification groups is thicker than that on the front of the 458 Highland. Even if he piles all the explosives on hand, he may not be able to destroy it. Instead of wasting his efforts, it is better to put all his energy into it. All of this is placed on the Japanese infantry. As long as the infantry is defeated, how long can the artillery without cover last?
Although the fight was very difficult and it was not as easy as the frontal offensive, the main firepower of the Japanese army was still concentrated along the 458 Highlands. The pressure on the Camel Peak line was much less, and the counterattack intensity was far less than that of the 458 Highlands. The Eighth Highland is huge, and the company commanded by Wu Ruofu used the cover of the terrain to attack the mountainside of Camel's Peak bit by bit.
According to Wu Ruofu's order, after rushing up the mountainside, the attacking troops put their main force on the vent holes of the Japanese mountain fortifications. After finding one, they blew open the fence with grenades, no matter how big or small it was, it was a bundle or several. A bundle of cluster grenades and a few Molotov cocktails.
Because it is in a relatively hidden second-line position, the ventilation holes of the first-line mountain fortifications at Luotuofeng are not all built on the reverse slope like the 458 Highlands. Instead, they are all built in the front shelter of the mountain. To prevent rainwater and the entry of snakes and insects, these vents are generally built higher than the ground, so it is not difficult to find these vents.
It didn't take long. Except for a few vents around the Japanese Yongbei fortifications on the mountainside, most of the vents in the Japanese underground fortifications on the front of Camelback had been destroyed, and not much was left.
Seeing that the battle was progressing smoothly, Wu Ruofu naturally breathed a sigh of relief. Wu Ruofu, who was about to order his correspondent to turn on the walkie-talkie to report the victory to Commander Du, did not expect that at this moment, he and his subordinates who were in the middle of a fierce battle would be attacked by someone, even under the Camel's Hump. Something unexpected happened to the Japanese troops inside the fortifications.
Sometimes, luck often comes suddenly to a certain person or a certain group of people. Just two minutes after a soldier dropped two bundles of cluster grenades in the air at a new discovery near the top of the mountain, a fierce battle was going on. Suddenly, violent and dull explosions came from inside the Camelback Mountain.
Along with this violent explosion, the entire Camelback Mountain seemed to have suffered a high-intensity earthquake, and the entire mountain shook violently. Just now, the Japanese army's permanent fortifications group, which was still resisting frantically, was flaming everywhere, and The remaining bunker groups that had not yet been destroyed all fell silent within a short period of time, and no more shots were fired.
Compared to most of the Japanese bunkers that collapsed, during this period of violent explosions like earthquakes, the heavy artillery fortifications on the top of Camelback Mountain presented another shocking scene. The bunkers originally required hundreds of kilograms of explosives to blast. The skylight was opened directly, and several heavy cannons in the bunker were also lifted into the sky amidst the violent explosions.
The artillerymen in the bunker who were desperately shooting at the 458th Highland were reduced to parts like their equipment in the explosion. Broken limbs and artillery parts were blown up all over the mountain, and even from the bunker After being blown up to the sky, a thigh fell back to the ground and landed in front of Wu Ruofu.
Compared with the destruction of the Japanese military fortification group, the mountain where the explosion of tens of thousands of tons of various ammunition directly occurred, during this period of violent explosions, a large crater with a depth of nearly a hundred meters and a depth of thirty or forty meters was formed. The hillsides were covered with hillsides, and wherever the Japanese army built underground fortifications, large-scale collapses were inevitable.
As for the other side of the mountain, a large-scale landslide simply formed. Half of the mountain collapsed in the explosion. The entire Luotuo Mountain landscape has undergone fundamental changes with this man-made earthquake. If If you are not familiar with it, I am afraid that no one would think that half of the mountain in front of you has collapsed.