At this moment, Ouyang Yun did not guess the true combat intention of the Japanese army. He instinctively thought that the Japanese were coming for him, but this was due to a narcissistic complex. He subconsciously believed that he was the only one with enough weight to allow the Japanese army to take action. What about this strategy of heavy siege?
After the annihilation battle at Pukou Pier, the 26th Division immediately began to retreat. At the beginning of the retreat, Liu Yuqing stayed with the vanguard. After receiving the order, he immediately led the troops to retreat. The 26th Division quickly moved towards Chuxian County. Soon, he and Ouyang Yun noticed something was wrong with the Japanese army.
Because, after discovering them, these Japs did not catch up with them, but headed towards the Wujiang River.
Seeing this, Ouyang Yun immediately shouted: "Stop, stop, stay where you are." Then, he led people to find Liu Yuqing and said: "Mr. Liu, it seems that the Japanese's target is not us. If I can guess Yes, they should be going to Wujiang to rescue the 18th Division."
Liu Yuqing said: "The Japanese are right to do this. It can be said to kill two birds with one stone. They can not only save the 18th Division, but also occupy the Wujiang River and cut off our retreat. If what I expected is true, after occupying the Wujiang River, they will definitely The troops were divided into three groups, one group attacked Chuxian County, the other group stayed behind at Wujiang River, and the other group attacked Hexian County."
Ouyang Yun: "I just sent electricity to Shan Renxiong and Fang Shuhong, asking them to join us immediately. We finally got the opportunity to surround the 18th Division. If we can't eat it in one bite, how can we be worthy of those brothers who died in Nanjing."
Liu Yuqing was a little worried: "The Japanese army still has four divisions in Nanjing. If all four divisions land here, our troops are no match at all. I'm just worried that we can't steal the chicken but lose the rice."
"How will you know without a fight?" Ouyang Yun said resolutely,
"Okay, let's fight."
In Bailinpu, the Japanese army retreated in panic. The formation was no longer as rigorous as it was at the beginning. The 18th Division was short of transport trucks. Therefore, all auxiliary arms, including the 12th Engineer Regiment and the 12th Transport Regiment, were all on foot. As the main force, the three regiments 55, 56, and 124 that accompanied the army were all on board. Among them, the 55 and 56 regiments located in the middle and rear ranks of the large army suffered heavy losses because they were under the focus of the two heavy artillery regiments.
The walking formation of the 18th Division includes the 12th Engineer Regiment and the 12th Baggage Regiment. Among them, the Baggage Regiment is placed in the penultimate column of the team because it is responsible for taking care of the packhorse convoy, while the 22nd Cavalry Regiment is As the rearguard unit responsible for the rearguard, Ushijima Sadao's arrangement was originally quite appropriate, but now because of his retreat order, the entire team fell into chaos.
After giving the order to retreat, the 22nd Cavalry Brigade ran very fast. Of course, no matter how fast they ran, they were only the first to enter the ambush of the 60th Division.
The road from Bailinpu to Wujiang is said to be a provincial road. In fact, it can barely pass two trucks at the same time. On both sides of the road, outside the road guard forest, there is a ditch about one meter wide, and on the other side there is a ditch about one meter wide. It is directly connected to the rice fields. There are more than 500 livestock in the 12th Regiment of the Heavy Troops. Almost each of these livestock is pulling a cart. As a result, it is difficult to quickly complete the U-turn under such road conditions. a difficult task,
The 55th Regiment and the 56th Regiment suffered heavy casualties, which made the brigade commander of the 23rd Brigade Ueno Kamura extremely angry. The Xuebing Army's artillery fire was sharp and blew up no less than fifty trucks into roadblocks. In this case , Major General Ueno made a decisive decision and immediately ordered everyone to get off the vehicle and retreat towards Bailinpu on foot. However, the road was blocked by the packhorses of the 12th Regiment of Heavy Troops. There were more and more people and the road became more and more crowded. The order was It was getting more and more chaotic, but he still couldn't pass quickly. In desperation, he had no choice but to give an order to Colonel Masumi Kawauchi, the captain of the baggage regiment: "We don't want the baggage anymore. Let's withdraw to Bailinpu first."
Kawauchi Masumi did not dare to disobey, so he had to order to abandon the baggage and go into battle lightly. In this way, after being blocked for more than 20 minutes, Ushijima Sadao's retreat order was effectively implemented. At this time, the third man in charge of the rear was The Okayama Brigade under the 124th Regiment has been eaten up by the cooperation between the Xuebing Army tank unit and the 117th Division and the 103rd Division.
The commander of the 124th Regiment, Lieutenant Commander Xiaojie Fangsong, had no choice but to leave a brigade again to take on the sniper mission.
At this moment, the 22nd Japanese Cavalry Brigade was almost passing the 60th Division's ambush area.
Lin Baiyin had a big appetite. Now that the Japanese army was defeated, it was the time when they were at their weakest. As the saying goes, killing you while you are sick, Lin Baiyin felt that even if the entire 18th Division entered the ambush phase, he would be able to inflict heavy damage and persist. When the third division encircled him, it was a pity that the heavy Japanese troops held him back and blocked the road for more than 20 minutes. In this way, when he felt that it was impossible not to fight, the ambush section only poured in. More than two thousand Japs,
Lin Baiyin took the binoculars and looked forward and backward. He regretfully picked up the walkie-talkie and called the artillery. Then, before the artillery could show off its power again, he shouted loudly: "Hit." He took the lead and fired a shot.
Although the 18th Division suffered an ambush and the 55th and 56th Regiments suffered heavy losses, the 22nd Cavalry Battalion was not even exposed to the smoke because it was at the back of the team. Therefore, Lieutenant Colonel Koike Masaji, the captain, was still It was a pity that he had lost an opportunity to show his bravery. When he received the order to retreat, although he resolutely carried out the order, he was a little absent-minded. At one point, he even asked the troops to slow down and wait to prevent the division from retreating. The commander suddenly took back the order, but he ran too far and was about to lose another chance to fight.
His carefree state of mind did not last long. Soon, he felt something abnormal from the sound coming from behind. From the explosion, he could tell that the enemy's artillery was quite large; In the shouts of killing, he could hear that there were many enemies, and he concluded that this should be a long-planned ambush by the Chinese. This made him immediately become cautious and began to worry about Bailinpu's safety. So he immediately ordered a full-speed evacuation. Of course, it was already too late.
The sky gradually brightened in the east, and the field of vision gradually became clearer. This gradually replaced the reeds in the rice fields, making Xiaochi suddenly feel uneasy.
This is a good place for an ambush. This thought came to his mind. Suddenly he heard shouts of killing. Then, his forehead hurt and his vision went dark. He was thrown off his horse and was dragged by his horse. of a corpse,
However, calculated deliberately and unintentionally, although the Sixty Division left two regiments in Pukou, which directly reduced its combat strength by one-third, after all, there are still more than 4,000 people, and the Japanese are only more than 2,000. Here, More than 4,000 people suddenly launched an attack on the nearly 3,000-meter-long ambush line. Only one round of shooting and bombing caused more than half of the damage to the two thousand or so Japanese soldiers.
As soon as the gunfire rang out here, Ushijima Sadao's face turned pale with shock: "Ba Ge, where did these Chinese people come from? Isn't the main force of the Xuebing Army attacking Dangtu? Could it be that they are Chinese people from Jiangpu? That's not right. They only have so many people in total. How could they mobilize such a large force to ambush our army?" When he first learned that he was being ambushed, Ushijima Sadao was unhappy but did not panic too much. Thinking about it, it was It doesn't matter if they are ambushed. As long as they can retreat to Bailinpu, they can get support from the sky once they hold out until dawn. By then, the Chinese artillery and tank troops will have no advantage. In this way, they can hold on. It's not a problem. They can even hold back the current enemy. At that time, as soon as the support troops from Nanjing City arrive, they can bite the enemy back. Who knows, but now another one will come out from behind. The army was obviously ambushed there early, which forced him to consider the worst case scenario.
The back road was cut off, and we were surrounded on three sides. If we wanted to break out of the encirclement, we could only walk through the rice fields to the north of the road. That was the direction of Da'annan. However, the Chinese artillery fire flew from there. According to common sense, , there must be troops guarding the artillery there, so it is still unknown whether a gap can be opened from there. It seems that there is only one choice now, continue to retreat towards Bailinpu, and at the same time let the Nochi Junhao brigade staying at Bailinpu come to respond. ,
The besieged Ushijima Sadao began to fight for his life, and Wu Keren who surrounded them was also in a dilemma at this moment.
The 18th Division entered the encirclement a little late, which directly caused the plan he and Ouyang Yun agreed to resolve the battle before dawn to come to nothing.
The Japanese aviation force is always a sharp sword hanging over the head of the Nanjing garrison. Once dawn, this sword will appear. By then, even if the 18th Division can be completely annihilated as expected, the second sequence will be completely wiped out. Exposed in front of the Japanese army, even if the Japanese army cannot immediately commit ground troops, as long as it is bitten by the Japanese reconnaissance plane, the second sequence may be in danger of being surrounded by heavy Japanese troops at any time before night comes. After all, Bai Lin The shop is only a short distance away from Nanjing, and the Japanese army has full initiative in the Nanjing area on land, sea and air, so it is not a problem to mobilize troops quickly.
Wu Keren was thinking about it. After a staff officer hung up the call from the frontline troops, he reported to him: "Military seat, the little devils have strengthened the frontal forces. The 60th Division has suffered heavy casualties. Commander Lin asked for instructions whether to let them go first." Go to Bailinpu and then surround them on all sides, slowly consuming the Japanese army's combat power."
Wu Keren immediately denied it without thinking: "No, tell Commander Lin that we must resist. The longer it takes, the worse it will be for us. Once Pukou Pier is breached by the Japanese army, Japanese troops will continue to cross the river. By then, Let alone continue to besiege the 18th Division, we may even be counter-surrounded. Tell Commander Fu and Commander Lin to immediately launch a fierce attack before the little devil's fighter planes join the battle. We must eat up the 18th Division as soon as possible, otherwise, Not only us, but the entire Nanjing garrison will be passive." After that, he added: "Whoever calls again, they will reply according to my instructions just now. I will go to the front line now."