Zhao Deming and Wu Yushu were very lucky. There were 1,153 people in the Geng Police Biao Group. In the end, less than 50 people were rescued by Huang Xiang Group. They were two of them. Geng Police Biao paid the price of one regiment in exchange for He acquired eight Chilo tanks, four Bean tanks and more than 400 Japs. It seemed worthless but it was of great significance. Kei Setani lost the Chilo tank, a powerful offensive weapon, and was defeated by the counterattack of the 132nd Division. His plan to speed down the west gate and then go straight to the south gate was disrupted.
"Fire the guns, fire the guns, burn Taierzhuang to the ground for me." Angrily, Setani Kei ordered the artillerymen to fire wildly. Amidst the rumbling sounds of running, one after another explosions resounded through the third line of defense in front of the west gate. Zhao Dengyu saw that the situation was wrong, and Immediately ordered Huang Xiang's regiment to withdraw to the west gate.
This round of shelling lasted for about forty minutes, and the third outer line of defense that the 132nd Division had worked so hard to build was razed to the ground. Just after the shelling ended, Akashiba Yaezo was slapped twice by Kei Setani. Once again, he led the army to attack the west gate. A large group of Japanese soldiers under the command of Akashiba Yaezo quickly rushed forward in a skirmish formation. A chilling atmosphere enveloped the entire west gate front.
"Get ready to fight." "Brothers, cheer up, the Japs are coming." "Get ready to kill the Japs."... Officers at all levels in the Huang Xiang Regiment shouted one after another, and the soldiers got up from the artillery pits and shook their heads. Shaking the dirt off his body, he set up the gun, pulled the bolt, unscrewed the grenade caps and placed them neatly at hand, ready for battle.
The continuous bombardment caused Huang Xiang's regiment to lose half a battalion of elite soldiers before they started fighting the Japs. This made regiment leader Huang Xiang itchy with hatred. He looked at the shadowy figures in the darkness not far away, with a green light in his eyes. flashing,
A few miles away, in the direction of the northwest gate, there was a roar of gunfire. It was the Japanese 5th Division that was fighting fiercely all night with the 31st Army. The afterglow from the flares rising from time to time on the battlefield and the fire caused by the explosion illuminated the west gate. The tall buildings nearby were constantly bright and dim, which made the Japs of the Setani detachment and the officers and soldiers of the 132nd Division even more nervous.
Wu Yushu carefully unscrewed the cap of a grenade and said softly: "Why don't you guys fire flares? It's more comfortable to fight in the light than in the dark. The Japanese won't want to carry out a sneak attack."
Zhao Deming chuckled: "Why, I'm scared."
"Only ghosts are afraid. I just want to see clearly so that I can know whether I have avenged the whole group before I die."
Zhao Deming became serious: "Xiao Wu."
"Platoon commander,."
"Don't always think about death. You know, this is taboo on the battlefield."
"Ha, Platoon Commander, you are still superstitious."
"Fight." Zhao De clearly had his back to the battlefield, but when a flare suddenly rose above the battlefield and Huang Xiang just shouted "Fight," he suddenly shouted loudly, then quickly turned around and threw a grenade. ,
The sudden light from the flare made Wu Yushu's eyes, accustomed to darkness, blur for a while. But by the time he saw what was ahead clearly, the battle had already become intense.
The special ammunition of the 132nd Division and the 38th Division is not short of flares due to the support from the Cadet Army.
Setani Kei and Akashiba Yaezo didn't know this. They launched the attack in the dark just to bully the 132nd Division for not having a flare so as to catch the Chinese by surprise. They miscalculated again. Huang Xiang asked the guard platoon leader Huang Dan to prepare a flare early. , just waiting for the Japs to enter the optimal shooting range, the flares were launched into the air, and the Japs who were already thirty or forty meters away from the west gate were completely exposed to nearly a thousand officers and soldiers of the Huang Xiang Regiment. The intensive gunshots immediately rang out like beans, and then There was a series of explosions of grenades, followed by the sound of mortar shells tearing the air, and the Japanese troops fell.
"Attack, attack." Akashiba Yaezo shouted loudly, raising the command sword in his hand and pointing directly at the west gate.
Huang Xiang's regiment fired the first round of volley, and more than a hundred Japanese soldiers fell down. The remaining Japanese soldiers were aroused by the blood of their companions and rushed forward, howling and screaming. The two sides fought hand-to-hand.
Zhao Dengyu watched all this silently and said: "Huang Xiang is becoming more and more courageous. He actually puts himself at such a close distance. What will happen if the Japanese break through?"
Chief of Staff He Jifeng, Li Jintian, and Brigadier Xiao Tiao of the 4th Brigade stood quietly aside. Li Jintian said: "Don't worry, Huang Xiang will not do this if he is not absolutely sure."
Huang Xiang naturally had a reason for doing this. The desperate counterattack of the Geng Police Biao Regiment gave him inspiration. Fighting with the Japanese at close range is sometimes more effective than shooting at each other. Think of it as the reason why the 29th Army was able to achieve the victory at Xifengkou. Relying on the big sword team's raid at night, he made up his mind to replicate this miracle tonight. The Japs in the Segu detachment did not wear iron neck protectors, which was just convenient for beheading. Huang Xiang believed that, As long as you can behead more than 200 people in one battle, the little devil will not be able to organize a decent attack tonight. You can continue to attack, but you have to touch your neck first. The little devil is afraid of being beheaded, so I will I want to cut you to the core and make your calves tremble when you see the big blade.
The little Japs were placed too close, thirty or forty meters away, and they arrived in a few seconds. Huang Xiang only had time to organize his men to fire two rounds of volleys. After throwing two rounds of grenades, one of the Japs jumped on top of the fortification and was blown up. On the sandbags that were intertwined with teeth, Huang Xiang stood firm and shouted: "Brothers, you have copied the guy and chopped off his head." He took the lead in inserting the pistol back into the holster and pulled out the broadsword on his back. The 57th Army and the Xuebing Army In some respects, it is no different from other domestic troops. Everyone will have a big knife on their back. The Japanese on the opposite side roared and jumped down from the fortification that was no more than a foot high. The bright spear pointed directly at Huang Xiang's heart. He glared from left to right and shouted: "Mine." He raised his knife and hit the spear to the side, and then he pulled it away. The white light and the bloody light met, and the Japanese was chopped off from the left shoulder. The carotid artery, chest and abdomen were cut open at once. opened,
"Kill." Huang Xiang shouted loudly, twisted his waist to get rid of the fallen corpse of the Japanese, and jumped onto the fortification.
His two personal guards looked at each other helplessly and followed him from left to right.
This was the only Japs that Huang Xiang chopped off tonight. From then on, his two guards and four shell guns fired left and right, not allowing a Japs to get within ten meters of him. He was so angry that he roared but was helpless.
Zhao Deming and Wu Yushu did not respond to Huang Xiang's call. They wanted to chop off the Japanese's head with joy, but their swords had long been lost. Without the swords, the two of them just stayed in that section. Behind the dilapidated wall lies a cold gun,
Hand-to-hand combat is the bloodiest. Although the broadsword tactics of the 29th Army are designed to defeat the Japs' assassination techniques, they are not invulnerable. In a melee with two thousand people, often, you can cut down a Japs with just one sword, and you will also have an extra spear stabbing you. Flares were raised one after another. What the commanders on both sides saw through their telescopes were often two soldiers from both the enemy and ours falling to the ground at the same time. Sometimes, some people would pull off the grenades before they died, which directly led to the collective martyrdom of those around them.
The people in front were fighting with swords and bayonets, while the people behind were shooting with guns. The Huang Xiang group was doing the same, and the Japanese were doing the same. Occasionally, there were people holding light machine guns and shooting wildly, sweeping away a large area.
The two sides fought bloody battles for nearly half an hour. In the end, the Japanese army quickly retreated after leaving more than 300 corpses. Huang Xiang did not dare to pursue them. Before entering the battle, Akashiba Yaezo absorbed the previous lessons and deployed one on each side. The heavy machine gun fired at the target, and the machine gun bullets came like a downpour. Huang Xiang had no choice but to retreat to the fortifications. The first thing he did when he returned to the fortifications was to tell everyone to take cover quickly. Huang Xiang had been dealing with the Japanese army for several years, and he had no choice but to retreat to the little Japanese. That routine was familiar to me, and I knew that the next step would definitely be an artillery attack.
Sure enough, just as the Japanese troops withdrew from the battlefield, the rumble of artillery started.
As soon as the Japanese troops withdrew, Zhao Deming returned to his pre-war state and continued to sleep against the wall. Wu Yushu seemed a little excited. He just took the time to fire a cold shot and actually killed six Japanese. "Platoon leader, I'm over quota. I killed six Japanese, plus the first four, a total of ten." He said excitedly, forgetting everything.
Suddenly, Zhao Deming's ears pricked up, and he jumped into the air and rushed toward him.
Wu Yushu was caught off guard and was pinned under him. The sound of a sharp cannonball tearing the air penetrated his eardrums. He immediately chose to remain motionless obediently.
With a "boom.", the shell exploded less than two meters away from him. The air wave knocked down the half of the wall Zhao Deming was leaning on, and the flying bricks and tiles hit him all over his head and face.
Explosions rang out one after another, and screams were heard from time to time in the continuous fire. Wu Yushu was shaken by the explosions, his ears were ringing, and his head was swollen. It took five minutes to wake up and feel the pain on his body. Heavy, a bad feeling arose in his heart, and he pushed Zhao Deming with his backhand: "Platoon leader, platoon leader."
Zhao Deming was motionless. He might have wanted to move, but dozens of shrapnel tore his back and cut off the back of his head. He was already dead.
Wu Yushu turned over hard and touched Zhao Deming with both hands. His hands were full of blood and sticky minced meat. He immediately burst into tears: "Platoon leader, platoon leader." He knelt on Zhao Deming's head. Next to him, he held his face with both hands, trying hard to let him breathe again, but it was in vain. His tears fell like heavy rain, and a few minutes later he suddenly raised his head and howled to Sirius: "Ah,."
This round of shelling only lasted for a quarter of an hour, but the blow to Huang Xiang's regiment was no less than the previous round of forty-minute saturation bombardment. After this round of shelling, the number of people alive in Huang Xiang's regiment dropped sharply, from less than 700 It became four hundred, including more than a hundred wounded,
Witnessing the miserable scenes on the front line and the huge sacrifices of his men, Li Jintian couldn't bear it any longer. He asked Zhao Dengyu: "Military seat, where are the artillery of the First School Division and the Mountain Division? I have endured it for a long time. Don't they also belong to us?" Are they from the 57th Army? Why can't we see them on the battlefield? If they had fought back after the first round of artillery bombardment by the Japanese, with the power of their artillery, they would have been able to destroy the Japanese artillery, and then we would not have had such heavy casualties. Military seat, military seat, we are not afraid of death, but without artillery, this battle really cannot be fought. Could it be said that the lives of our Northwest Army officers and soldiers are cheaper than those of the cadet army?"
He Jifeng and Zhao Dengyu had a look of pain on their faces. He persuaded Li Jintian and said: "Old Li,..."
Li Jintian glared at him and asked Zhao Dengyu: "Military Commander, I also know that Commander Ouyang is kind to our army. You and the commander-in-chief cannot force Guo Da and Huang Haifu too much due to human feelings, but these two people do It's too much. They will take advantage when there is an advantage, but they will step aside when it comes to dirty work. If the hundreds of thousands of troops gathered in Xuzhou are like them, I don't think this war will be fought."
He also said that Zhao Dengyu finally broke out: "That's enough."
His voice was stern, and a miserable expression suddenly appeared on Li Jintian's face. Zhao Dengyu had originally scolded him severely, but when he saw his expression through the weak lantern light, he knew that he was also distressed by the heavy casualties of his subordinates. He sighed and changed He said in a tone of voice: "Old Li, you are really paranoid. The reason why the artillery of the 1st Xue Division and the Mountain Division has been stationary is Commander Li's idea. You know clearly that although we have accumulated heavy troops in Xuzhou, the artillery But it is a weakness. All the artillery combined is only the size of two brigades, including the two artillery regiments of the Cadet Army. Commander Li means that the battle of Taierzhuang has not yet reached the most critical moment, and the main force of the Isoya Division has not yet reached the critical moment. There are 27 divisions that have not yet entered the battlefield. Therefore, in order to prevent the Japanese army from using aviation to prematurely destroy our artillery units, we can only choose to deliberately hide them in the hope that they will play a key role in the decisive moment in the near future. You asked Guo Da: Why Huang Haifu didn’t join the battlefield? This matter is a secret. I can’t tell you the truth yet, but within two days at most, you will definitely see the Xuebing Army on the Taierzhuang battlefield. Lao Li, Commander Li’s combat intentions, Can't you see it yet? He wants to turn Taierzhuang into a meat grinder. Commander Li has no choice but to do this. Who calls our country weak? We have been defeated again and again on the main battlefield. Even the capital has been destroyed. The Japs have taken over, and the situation is extremely critical. Everyone knows that we, Chiang Kai-shek, and the central government have been refusing to deal with it. But why do we still resolutely engage in this defense war? Because we all know that the country and the nation have reached the end of the war. At this critical moment of life and death, we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted. The Japanese army threatened to destroy China in half a year. This is not alarmist. With the speed at which the Japanese army conquered Jiangsu, Zhejiang and North China, if we don't work hard, the Japanese army's boast will really come true. possibility. Therefore, even if we know that Taierzhuang will become a meat grinder, we must invest in it without hesitation. Why, because only in this way can we delay the Japanese offensive, consume their effective strength, and obtain as much combat readiness as possible for the rear. Time, Lao Li, Geng Jingbiao is your subordinate, and he is also my subordinate. If you feel sorry for me, my heart will not feel sad anymore. Let me tell you, seeing my brothers bathing in blood in front, my heart feels like it has been torn apart. , but what can I do? I can only tell you that even if there is a mountain of swords and a sea of fire ahead, you can only continue to go up. If you go up first, if you lose it, then I will follow. If I lose it, the army will continue to go up. Even if We won’t hesitate to destroy the 132nd Division or the 57th Army.”