Chapter 3 Bloody Battle at Xifengkou (Second Meeting)
"Ono-kun, go back and report quickly. Xifengkou has been occupied by the Chinese. Tell the brigade commander that our plan to quickly capture Xifengkou cannot be realized." In the crowd of Japanese soldiers at the foot of the mountain, a second lieutenant said to another second lieutenant. , then he said to his subordinates who had gathered around him: "His Majesty's warriors, dismount, let us show the Chinese people what a true warrior is."
"Hai." The Japs responded loudly, dismounted calmly, formed a skirmish line, and counterattacked towards the fastest mountain on the left.
Next to Yang Kanglu, correspondent Xie Changhe saw several Japanese soldiers turning their horses and running towards the road they came from. He hurriedly reported to Yang Kanglu: "Batalion Commander, there are Japanese soldiers who want to escape."
Yang Kanglu shot down a Jaap with one shot. He turned around and looked around. He shouted anxiously to the snipers behind him: "Zhang Dabazi, the Japs who reported the news will be handed over to your sniper squad. Don't let any of them go." Grandma, even if you are gone, you won’t be the squad leader anymore.”
Zhang Dabazi was a tall and thick man. Hearing this, he grunted and lay down more firmly. His left eye suddenly narrowed. A few seconds later, a puff of light smoke came out of the muzzle of his sniper gun. Then, the Japanese second lieutenant who was running at the front of the Japanese escaping queue trembled, and the next moment, he fell off his horse.
Not knowing that its owner was dead, the horse galloped away, leaving the second lieutenant stunned on the mountain road and dragging out a long, blood-red "一".
With the squad leader as an example, the other sniper squad soldiers began to demonstrate their sniper skills. Amidst the gunfire, none of the thirteen Japanese who rushed out one after another could escape, and they were all killed with one shot.
One of He Zhengsheng's purposes for arranging this ambush was to annihilate this group of Japs. The other was to prevent the Japs brigade from knowing the specific situation on their side of Xifengkou, so as to delay the attack a little longer so that the enemy could come back later. Tanks and self-propelled artillery units followed,
The Japanese army attacking Xifengkou consisted of a brigade and a cavalry regiment, with a strength of about 15,000. However, He Zhengjiang's regiment only had about 1,200 men at full strength, so 1,200 fought against 15,000. Thousands of people, and the Japanese army is known as the second strongest in the world. Ouyang Yun is not arrogant to this extent. All he thinks about is to delay for a while, so that the situation in Peking can be stabilized and the large troops can be mobilized.
If the He Zhengjiang Regiment wanted to achieve this strategic goal, it would be impossible without the support of artillery and tank troops. You must know that during the 33-year Great Wall War of Resistance, 350,000 Chinese troops went into battle, but they were still defeated. The Japanese army of 50,000 was defeated.
In the headquarters of Xifengkou Pass, He Zhengjiang watched the battle at the foot of the mountain through his telescope and sighed: "It's a pity that there is not enough time. Otherwise, if some mines were planted, this battle would be much easier to fight."
The speaker was unintentional, but the listener was intentional. Guo Changjiang, the regiment chief of staff next to him, listened and said: "With the powerful firepower of the 'Wei Qing Style', it shouldn't be a problem to eliminate this group of cavalry who are not good at gunfights. The Japanese army is still behind." , after we clean up the battlefield later, we might as well lay more mines."
"Good idea." He looked at the several peaks in front of Xifengkou, paying special attention to the mountain that had been used as an artillery position by the Japs. He Zhengjiang said: "We only have one regiment of troops. If we want to comprehensively It’s not realistic to defend every section of the road. It seems we have to sit on these ‘booby traps’.”
Influenced by the later movie "Landmine Warfare", Ouyang Yun attached great importance to the development and application of landmines, and also set up special courses in military schools. However, perhaps because of different encounters and different dominant ideas in combat, it did not attract the attention of the trainees. The attention of the army officers, especially the lower-level officers, now, due to the problem of small troops, He Zhengjiang and Guo Changjiang accidentally remembered the role of landmines, and applied the powerful and strange power of landmines in the subsequent battles, thus making The vast majority of front-line officers have begun to pay attention to mine warfare. For the Xuebing Army, this is an unexpected gain from the Xifengkou battle.
The power of the "Weiqing-style" assault rifle has been fully highlighted after the two Wen'an battles and the Tianjin victory. Now, not only the 59th Army and the Guangdong and Guangxi armies have begun to purchase and equip them, such as Fu Zuoyi and Han Fuqubu, but also If you want to buy this kind of gun that can shoot continuously, of course, because their relationship with Ouyang Yun is not close, so Xuebingjun himself has not completed all the changes, so he can only wait patiently.
The battle at the foot of the mountain lasted for about twenty minutes. In the end, with the Xuebingjun sparing no effort in bullets, not a single squadron of Japanese cavalry could escape, and they were all killed.
After that, after simply cleaning the battlefield, He Zhengjiang continued to send out reconnaissance troops to find out the marching speed of the Japanese, and at the same time began to mobilize the entire regiment to lay mines in a large area. Among them, on both sides of the mountains where the battle just occurred, there were even more mines. Many booby traps have been laid, as well as serial mines that can be controlled artificially.
After laying all the mines on hand, He Zhengjiang's long-awaited tank troops and self-propelled artillery troops arrived. According to the order of the military headquarters, these two troops were also commanded by He Zhengjiang. He was working with the tank battalion. After discussion, Battalion Commander Hu Li and Battalion Commander Wang Dahai of the self-propelled artillery battalion lined up all the tanks directly in the open space in front of Xifengkou, then integrated the self-propelled artillery with the artillery battalion of the regiment, and lined up the self-propelled artillery in front. , placed at the forefront of position No. 2 close to position No. 1,
After finishing the deployment of troops, another half hour passed. As the investigators who went to detect the movements of the Japanese army returned one after another, the war was finally about to begin.
As for the Japanese Ninth Division, the person in charge of the command was not the division commander, Lieutenant General Yoshitaka Ryosuke, but Major General Nobutoki Ide of the 18th Brigade and the division chief of staff, Hiroso Nakagawa. Among them, the Ninth Cavalry Regiment was Directed by Hiroshi Nakagawa himself,
When a cavalry squadron responsible for exploring the road failed to return for a long time, Nakagawa Hiroshi felt that something was wrong. The battle plan formulated by the Kwantung Army Staff Headquarters originally called for taking Xifengkou directly, and then fully controlling it, and then using Xifeng Xifengkou was used as a base to advance towards Peiping. Now Xifengkou is in the hands of the national army. Regardless of whether Yoshitsune Ryosuke and Nakagawa Hiroshi are willing or not, this direct attack can only turn into a forced attack. What is terrible is that because the Xuebing Army controls Through various methods adopted by Jicha after that, the intelligence system run by the Japanese army during Kenji Doihara's era was almost completely destroyed. Now the Japanese are blind in Jicha. Therefore, although Nakagawa Hiroshi already knew about Xifengkou It must have been occupied by the Chinese army, but we don’t know who the opponent really is.
The cavalry unit commanded by Nakagawa Hiroshi was originally known for its speed, but because he didn't know what happened at Xifengkou, he didn't dare to rush forward so recklessly. After all, the cavalry was only suitable for pursuit and battlefield. One-sided breakthroughs and attacking difficulties are not its strengths.
Once Nakagawa Hiroshi became cautious, the speed advantage of the cavalry was lost. This gave He Zhengjiang more time to prepare, and also allowed him to calmly complete laying mines and arranging troops.