Not only at Guanghuamen, but also in several other main directions of attack, the Japanese army also failed to make any progress.
What is different from that time and space is that the order of the Japanese troops that besieged Nanjing has changed. Among them, Nakajima Imomago's 16th Division was not incorporated into the Shanghai Expeditionary Force, but stayed in North China to fight, and his replacement It was the 101st Division. In other directions, the Yamada Detachment suffered a heavy blow in Pukou and was recalled to Shanghai for reorganization. Its combat position was replaced by the 11th Division. In the direction of Yuhuatai and Zhonghua Gate, the main attack was the 3rd Division. The 114th Division attacked Tongjimen and Wudingmen. As for the 6th Division, which Ouyang Yun hated the most, it still followed the historical path and mainly attacked Jiangdongmen, Sanchahe, and Huashen. temple,
The Japanese troops only knew the day before yesterday that the main force of the Nationalist Army had withdrawn south, and the only two remaining reorganized divisions of the Sichuan Army were left in Nanjing, followed by the Xuebing Army and the former Nanjing Garrison.
This information has just been detected. Except for the 9th Division and the 11th Division, which had suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Xuebing Army, the other Japanese troops were very excited and thought that the time had come to grab the credit, so once they received the attack The orders from Nanjing rushed towards Nanjing without exception, fearing that the honor of being the first to invade Nanjing would be snatched away by other troops.
The Japanese army's underestimation of the enemy gave the defenders the opportunity to expand their results. In fact, except for the 9th Division, which suffered the greatest losses due to accidents, in other directions, except for the 11th Division, all other Japanese divisions suffered A heavy blow. Among them, Hisao Tani's 6th Division actually lost an entire brigade in the direction of Jiangdong Gate.
The tenacity of the defenders obviously exceeded the expectations of the Japanese army. Not long ago, the Chinese army was defeated with a single blow when it encountered the Japanese army. They were just running for their lives. Why did they become so weak after entering Nanjing in the blink of an eye? They became fierce, which puzzled the Japanese division-level commanders headed by Hisao Tani. They recalled the instructions from the base camp about being wary of the cadet army. After being angry, they calmed down and did the same thing as Yoshihashi Ryosuke. Choose to start a crazy bombardment, hoping to rely on the far dominant artillery to defeat the defenders' fortifications and will in one fell swoop to reduce the casualties of the soldiers as much as possible.
This round of shelling lasted for more than an hour, and then twelve Japanese planes conducted saturation bombing on the garrison positions at Guanghuamen and Jiangdongmen until the garrison positions behind the two city gates were reduced to the ground. , then Shi Shiran left Nanjing,
The hour-long artillery bombardment and continuous bombing indeed dealt a huge blow to the defenders. Taking Guanghuamen as an example, the fortifications on which Yang Chengjun's Xuexing Company and Fan Neng's Sichuan Soldier Company relied were completely destroyed. Nearly two hundred people were killed. In the end, only thirteen people including Fan Neng survived. Six of them were seriously injured.
As for the machine gun company in the residential area behind the fortification, although it retreated in time, more than thirty people were still killed...
Although Ouyang Yun had made calculations and psychological preparations for the losses in the Nanjing defensive battle, such a scale of bombardment was not something he could bear. He was even a little afraid. If the Japanese army insisted on this combat method, he would really be necessary. Do you stick to it?
Not everyone in Nanjing is willing to evacuate. Some of them are naturally prepared to become traitors. Others, especially the elderly, are unwilling to evacuate because they are nostalgic for their homeland. Ordinarily, for such people, the officers and soldiers who carried out the evacuation work should mainly focus on persuasion. However, the officers and soldiers who carried out the evacuation work were the former Nanjing Garrison. The officers and soldiers of these troops were accustomed to being arrogant and domineering, and would not be considerate of the people's sentiments and adopt gentle methods. All I know is that blindly being strong will arouse the resentment of the people, and even some citizens who were originally willing to evacuate will not evacuate because of this.
The reason why Ouyang Yun asked these two divisions affiliated to the Central Army to perform this task was originally because they had the lowest combat capabilities and could not take on front-line operations and perform evacuation tasks. It happened to be that the people were put to their best use. Who knew what would happen? This kind of thing happened, which brought the evacuation work to a deadlock. At about 11 o'clock at noon, he learned the news from Wu Keren, who was in charge of the work. In desperation, he had to ask the troops responsible for the second line of defense to also mobilize manpower. Join this work in order to complete the work of persuading people to leave as soon as possible,
The continuous artillery shelling and bombing by the Japanese army completely destroyed the first line of defense established by the defenders. The bombing had just stopped, and the Japanese planes had not yet left the sky above Nanjing City, and their ground attack began again.
At Guanghuamen, Xie Changan and Zhu Zaiting had just rescued Fan Neng and other surviving officers and soldiers from the first line of defense, and the Ninth Division launched another fierce attack.
This time, it was still a Quilo and three armored vehicles that opened the way. A squadron of Japanese soldiers followed behind and rushed into the Guanghua Gate cautiously.
The cluster of residential buildings behind the first line of fortifications served as the second line of defense for the defenders. However, there were few cement buildings in this residential area, so after the continuous shelling and bombing, they basically collapsed and turned into ruins. This ruins even blocked the entrances of two air-raid shelters, and in these two air-raid shelters, a full battalion of defenders was hidden.
As soon as the bombing stopped, Zhu Zaiting and Xie Changan, after receiving the report from the lookout post, immediately asked Fang Dake to lead the remaining two companies of his battalion to excavate the two air raid shelters. In order to prevent the Japanese from attacking at this time, Qian Guangming Then six tanks were dispatched to surround Guanghua Gate in a fan shape.
As soon as the Japanese Chilo tank showed up, the two of the six Jiguang tanks closest to Guanghua Gate opened fire at the same time, making two loud "boom" noises. The Chilo was immediately surrounded by fireworks, and then turned into a burning pile. of scrap metal,
So, just like the first attack, the Japanese army was once again destroyed by Chilo, and the follow-up troops were blocked outside Guanghua Gate. Two artillery shells destroyed Chilo. From the perspective of saving shells, the six Jiguang vehicles stopped driving. He ran away, and at the same time asked the machine gunner to block the Guanghua Gate with bullets. With the cooperation of six general-purpose machine guns, the Guanghua Gate was immediately sealed tightly. This time the Japanese attack was also contained.
This is the case with Gwanghwamun Gate. In other directions, except for the direction of Shogunate Mountain, where the defenders had to rely on strong fortifications and exchange fire with the Japanese troops, the scene at Gwanghwamun Gate was played out without exception.
The attack was repelled again. What was annoying was that the Chinese were actually carrying out rescue work more than 300 meters away from Guanghua Gate. This made Yoshizhu Ryosuke so angry that his teeth itched. He thought, if he had A squadron of Type 99s would be fine. Compared with the Jiguang tanks of the Xuebing Army, the Chilo is too fragile. Even the frontal armor can't block the opponent's shot. Before the Type 99 tanks appeared, , the Jiguang type tank is an insurmountable steel trench for the Japanese army. The timely appearance of the Type 99 gave great confidence and expectations to generals like Yoshihashi Ryosuke who had fought against the Xuebing Army, but Pukou Ichi During the war, a regiment of Type 99 tanks that the empire had devoted all its efforts to create was actually wiped out in one battle. This made the Jiguang tank once again become a lingering shadow hanging over Yoshihashi Ryosuke's mind. "Division" Your Excellency, Commander, do you want the heavy artillery regiment to conduct shelling again?" The chief of staff of the 9th Division walked up to Yoshihashi Ryosuke and asked,
Without the Type 99, the only weapons the Japanese army could use to deal with the Jiguang tanks were heavy artillery and heavy attack aircraft. However, since the fierce shelling and bombing just now failed to deal with the Jiguang tanks in Guanghuamen, the Chinese must have There are good evasive methods, Yoshihashi Ryosuke thought, and did not adopt the advice of the chief of staff, "Let's withdraw the troops first." After saying this, he stared at the Nanjing city wall standing in front of him and frowned. Think deeply,
On the first day of the battle, the most thrilling places took place on the water surface of Xiaguan and Zhongshan Pier.
Because the Japanese Third Fleet suffered a devastating blow at Jiangyin Fortress, Ouyang Yun dared to implement the evacuation plan. However, because the Chairman felt sorry for the navy, he ordered all the navy's ships to evacuate to Hankou. This resulted in the complete destruction of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Therefore, in Pukou, the Xuebing Army was wary of the few Japanese gunboats and stayed away from the river to fight. For the same reason, he had to allocate part of the few artillery units to garrison Zhongshan Pier in order to To guard against the Japanese gunboats, which are not very powerful; at the same time, all air defense forces are deployed here to prevent Japanese fighter planes from indiscriminately bombing, in order to protect the evacuated people as much as possible, and to make the objective conditions of the Nanjing Massacre no longer possible. exist,
Even if the Nanjing Massacre really happened, it would be in the future. This posed a problem for Ouyang Yun, that is, he could not be humane to others. Therefore, when Zhu Zaiting asked him why he did not use artillery to suppress the Japanese artillery fire, he had to Make that explanation,
The artillery stationed at the Zhongshan Pier has only one self-propelled artillery regiment, all with gun diameters above 120 mm, in order to threaten the Japanese gunboats. It is naturally not enough to rely on more than 20 artillery pieces from this artillery regiment, because no matter the caliber of the shore artillery, The range is still incomparable with that of naval guns. Therefore, the self-propelled artillery regiment can play a role only when the Japanese gunboats are unprepared. Once the Japanese gunboats are prepared and out of the shelling range, the self-propelled artillery regiment can only watch helplessly. As the Japanese gunboats wreaked havoc, in order to minimize the threat from the Japanese gunboats to the evacuated people, Ouyang Yun gritted his teeth and turned the officers and soldiers of a squadron of the Dadao Regiment into the Water Ghost Team. Their combat mission was to find opportunities to board the Japanese gunboats. Blow it up or simply capture it,
Not many people know about Ouyang Yun's decision, only the senior generals of the Xuebing Army. Among them, even a well-known patriotic general like Li Hanhun can't help but raise questions. In his opinion, people will definitely die in a war. , and is it worth sacrificing elite warriors like Lang Ya to save powerless civilians?
Ouyang Yun actually had no way to answer this question because he could not balance the interests involved. However, once the five bloody characters "Nanjing Massacre" came to his mind, he felt: Even if it is not worth it, he should go Do,
Everything is just to avoid this tragedy from happening. As a time traveler, it seems that he can only do this.