What Ouyang Yun wanted, Okamura Neiji could not fail to consider. However, he was worried about the existence of the Jiangnan Chencheng Corps. From the beginning, he never thought of devoting the main force to the Hukou battle. Okamura Neiji's concerns were There is a certain truth. Although Jiujiang was captured, it seemed to have opened a hole in the Chinese army's Jiangnan defense line. But looking at it from another angle, the current situation of the 106th Division is equivalent to sending itself into the Chinese army group. During the siege, you must know that the current Jiangnan area in Changsha has assembled several divisions of the Central Army with nearly 200,000 troops. If the Madang Fortress cannot be captured, the Yangtze River Fleet will not be able to move up to the river near Jiujiang. cannot provide strong support. In addition, the Anqing Airport was destroyed by a sneak attack, and the Japanese army in Jiujiang lost the support of the Second Air Corps. Therefore, once it encounters a ground attack by the Chinese army, it will have to fall into a situation of fighting alone. This situation is Okamura Neiji tried his best to avoid it. Therefore, he did not dare to make a desperate move and create an opportunity for Chen Cheng's regiment to wipe out the 2nd Army. Okamura Neiji placed the 112th Division in Huangmei, not so much to strengthen the offensive against Hukou. , it is better to say that he arranged a back-up plan because he was worried about Chen Cheng's regiment sneak attack on Jiujiang.
The offensive and defensive battle at Hukou started after a burst of rumbling artillery fire. After a quarter of an hour of indiscriminate bombardment by the heavy artillery regiment of the 106th Division on the Shizhongshan position on the front line of Hukou, the Japanese from three brigades launched an attack in nearly a hundred small boats. During the landing operation, the quarter-hour-long shelling almost destroyed all the solid fortifications on the Shizhongshan position, and several trenches along the river were riddled with holes and completely useless.
The 123rd Regiment of the 12th School Division is currently on duty at the Shizhongshan position. There was no warning for the Japanese artillery bombardment. When the gunfire sounded, many students were busy reinforcing the fortifications. Therefore, the first round of shelling caused them a lot of damage. There were many casualties, and at least one platoon of officers and soldiers fell in the artillery fire, losing their young lives. When the artillery sounded, Wu Gang, the leader of the regiment, had some doubts at first: "You bloody devils, they are going to attack Hukou." ." When the gunfire rang out again, he immediately issued an order for all officers and soldiers to enter the anti-gun caves to evade. However, due to the soft soil near the river, it was impossible to dig too deep anti-gun caves. However, the solid mountain fortifications were far away from where they were now. The trenches were relatively far away, so although the students entered the artillery holes in time, after this round of artillery fire ended, the 123rd Regiment still lost more than a hundred officers and soldiers, and nearly a hundred more because they were too close to the explosion point. And was temporarily deafened by the shock,
When the artillery fire stopped, Wu Gang was still lucky at first, thinking that this was just to harass the shelling. However, soon, the observation post shouted through the walkie-talkie that he gave up this idea, "The eyes call the head, the eyes call the head, the Japanese army carried the ship Breaking out of their hidden positions, they seem to be launching a landing operation." On the other side, almost immediately after the shelling stopped, a large group of Japanese troops appeared like magic on the originally deserted river beach. There were more than a dozen or even more of these Japs. Dozens of people carried wooden boats of different sizes, fishing boats and other boats to rush towards the Linjiang mouth of Panyang Lake. The Japanese who rushed at the front had already put the boats into the water and immediately began to board the boats.
Wu Gang climbed out of the air-raid shelter. He squatted on the edge of the bombed-out trench and raised his binoculars to look at the mouth of Panyang Lake. His expression quickly changed. He then dropped the binoculars and ran towards the communications platoon not far away. The platoon leader of the communications platoon, Li Xiaoyong, had already been prepared. When he saw him coming, he immediately handed the microphone to him and said: "We have been connected to the brigade headquarters. You can just speak directly, regimental commander."
The headquarters of the 34th Xuexue Brigade is located in Yanlie Mountain, five kilometers to the left of Shizhong Mountain. Yanlie Mountain is also adjacent to the river, so when the round of artillery sounded just now, the brigade commander Meng Kailan had already heard the sound. Through the telescope, he saw everything happening on the river beach opposite Shizhong Mountain, and then ran back to call the division headquarters and reported the situation to Ye Zhao.
Wu Gang called the brigade headquarters, first to report the situation, and then to request artillery support. He believed that if artillery was used to saturate the Japanese landing troops at this moment, it would definitely be a profitable business.
Meng Kailan held a phone in one hand and did not dare to make the decision without authorization. He immediately conveyed Wu Gang's request to Ye Zhao, hoping that the heavy artillery regiment directly under the division could seize the opportunity to fire to annihilate the Japanese army crossing the river. The Japanese army's attack was sudden and Ye Zhao was not prepared at all. No, he originally thought that because of the various gestures made by the headquarters at Hukou, even if the Japanese army wanted to attack, they would attack Duchang from Xingzi first. However, he did not expect that the Japanese army would open fire on Hukou first, just like the 12th Division. If a regiment's artillery unit fires at this time, although it can cause huge casualties to the Japanese army, if it is locked first without locking the Japanese artillery position, it will inevitably suffer a big loss in the artillery battle that will definitely occur soon. Since he could not go into battle immediately, he gave Meng Kailan an order to resolutely repel the first wave of Japanese attacks at all costs. Then, realizing that the incident was serious and might affect the Madang strategy formulated by the Commander-in-Chief, he gave Ouyang Yun went to the phone, emphasizing the fierceness of the Japanese attack and hoping to get some support. The 12th Xuexi Division was transferred to the chariot unit. Now there are only eight infantry regiments left, and they have to defend Hukou and Du. Chang, the front line is quite long, and the distribution of troops is slightly insufficient. He is very worried that once Hukou is the main direction of the Japanese army's attack, because the troops spread out over a wide range and cannot support each other, they will probably be wiped out by the Japanese army. Once Hukou is lost, Ma Dangke will be attacked from both sides or even surrounded. This responsibility is not something he can afford.
Ouyang Yun's reply arrived quickly. As expected by Ye Zhao, there were no reinforcements. Fortunately, he was allowed to adjust the defense at will according to the situation. When Ye Zhao got the telegram, Wu Gang was already organizing a mortar attack. The enemy ships on the lake were bombarded,
The point chosen by the Japanese army to cross the lake was very good. The lake surface was only about one kilometer. Such a short distance could be crossed in about ten minutes if there were no obstacles. In the first attack, the Japanese army dispatched three brigades with more than 3,000 Japanese soldiers. It was obvious that they planned to make a big move. Next, in the era of cold weapons, the art of war included the tactic of attacking halfway across the river. In the era of hot weapons, the troops crossing the river were still the most vulnerable during the process of crossing the river. This time was the best defensive opportunity for the defender to take advantage of. Wu Gang Seeing that the artillery support was delayed and the Japanese troops were getting closer and closer to his defensive position, he immediately mobilized the entire regiment's mortars to bombard the boats crossing the lake without thinking.
"Empty" gunfire sounded, and then water columns exploded one after another on the lake. If you were lucky, they would directly hit the enemy ship. Suddenly, a piece of flesh and blood and sawdust flew across, screams sounded, and suddenly, water mist and gunpowder smoke submerged the entire lake,
It was Shanchiyuan who directed the first round of the Japanese attack. Shanchiyuan was holding back his energy and wanted to show off in front of Nakajima. It would be best if he could be reinstated after this battle, so he acted extraordinarily. Fighting for his life, he stood on the front deck of a slightly larger fishing boat, holding on to the handrail specially erected for this lake crossing operation, and watched one fishing boat after another being shattered in his field of vision, and one soldier after another After being bombed and falling into the water, he remained unmoved and calmly shouted: "Don't worry about them, speed up and charge forward. If you charge forward, you will win. His Majesty the Emperor will bless us."
After Nakajima Qingcun successfully defrauded Jiujiang, he knew that sooner or later his headquarters would launch the Hukou War, so he began to prepare and organize the materials and vanguard troops needed for the landing operation from that night on. The Japanese of these three brigades were from this division. The regiment has the highest proportion of soldiers who are skilled in water, but even so, one-fifth of them are still out-and-out landlubbers. It is extremely risky to let landlubbers ride on such a small fishing boat that requires high operating skills to conduct a landing battle. , and in order to minimize non-combat damage, Nakajima asked his men to set up comprehensive handrails for each ship. I have to admit that these handrails did allow the Japanese army to reduce non-combat attrition. More importantly, those landlubbers had these The handrails allow them to stay on the ship safer, so the psychological shock is less severe, which to a certain extent ensures their combat effectiveness after landing. However, those landlubbers who fell into the water because the ship was bombed will have a tragic end. , I saw some devils struggling desperately in the water one moment, and the next moment only two hands were left scratching on the water. The next moment, after a string of bubbles, these devils sank to the bottom of the lake, and became Pan Yang from then on. An innocent soul in the lake,
The 123rd Regiment had a total of more than thirty mortars. These guns fired at the same time. Although as the enemy got closer and closer, they gradually fell out of range, so that each gun could only fire about ten rounds of grenades, but they still gave The Japanese army caused a lot of trouble. More than 20 ships were directly hit. Therefore, more than a hundred Japanese were directly killed, and an unknown number of people fell into the water.
Ten minutes seemed like a long time, but on the battlefield, it went by in a blink of an eye. Wu Gang had been nervously watching the progress of the Japanese troops crossing the river, and saw that the front boat was only more than 200 meters away from the river beach. , he issued the order for the mortar troops to retreat, and then personally led the machine gun company of the entire regiment to block a trench at the forefront of Shizhong Mountain.
This trench was severely damaged in the previous shelling and can no longer provide much protection. However, against the landing battle, because the Japanese troops had to disembark, it can still be used as a solid line of defense.
The machine guns of the Xuebing Army are well equipped. Each squad has one. The entire regiment adds up to nearly a hundred machine guns. Nearly a hundred anti-cancer machine guns fire at the same time. Its firepower density is even greater than that of the first wave of attacking Japanese. There are only more than 3,000 people. Even if there are twice as many, they will not be able to rush up in a short time. Moreover, in order to ensure the safety of the machine gunners and prevent the Japanese sharpshooters and mortars from playing a role, Wu Gang will also use snipers in the regiment. The soldiers organized themselves and established a sniper position on a high ground more than 200 meters behind the machine gun position. As for the remaining officers and soldiers, they were under the command of deputy commander Jiang Youwei and would launch a charge at the appropriate time to completely crush the enemy. The Japanese army’s plan for this round of landing operations,