Just as the fire in Sanhe County was blazing into the sky, and the Japanese troops in the county were running around like headless flies, Lieutenant General Kuroiwa Yoshikatsu, the commander of the 24th Division with the Japanese division headquarters in Xi Taiping Village, also received the emergency report and quickly dispatched
The 32nd and 89th regiments and three Manchurian divisions went north to support.
Kuroiwa Yoshikatsu is an anomaly in the Japanese army who has been promoted rapidly. He was promoted to major general during the February 26th Mutiny last year and served as the commander of the Japanese Infantry Brigade. This year, the base camp has expanded its divisions to meet the needs of the Chinese war. He and this
Ma Masaharu, like Ishikawa Koichi, was quickly promoted to lieutenant general and held the prestigious position of division commander.
Kuroiwa Yoshikatsu's policy in leading troops is not to seek merit but to seek no faults, so that the battle will be smooth and stable. Therefore, in the past few days of fighting, he did not greedy for merit, fought steadily, and pushed towards Sanhe County step by step, cooperating with twenty
The 27th Division and the 27th Division together destroyed the Chinese *** troops stationed in the south of Sanhe City and quickly retreated. Naturally, they planned not to directly confront the Anjia Army and it was the best policy to preserve the strength of the division.
Now that I heard the lively fighting on the front line, the artillery fire of the Chinese Army was suppressed by the artillery regiments of the 3rd Field Heavy Artillery Brigade, the 110th Division, and the 116th Division. Kuroiwa Yi
Feeling that victory was certain, the time had come for the troops to fight, so they sent out troops to pick the fruits of victory.
But even so, he still left a regiment to protect his own safety, and would never put himself and the division headquarters in danger easily.
...
Listening to the Japanese army's overwhelming artillery attack, Hu Jialin in the temporary headquarters of Lingshan Temple looked as usual. He didn't even care that the lantern placed on the table fell to the ground, broke the glass shield and went out, and personally dictated the order to the communications staff:
"All the officers and soldiers of the 170th Division, the Corps Headquarters, the 17th Army Headquarters and the *** Division, the 17th Division, and the 40th Division are in dire straits. There are Japanese troops in front, behind and on our left and right. The Xigui Division will destroy them at all costs.
The Japanese artillery gave the legion a chance to break through. The legion commander: Hu Jialin."
Zhang Chengzhu on the side sighed: "The 170th Division is a mixture of the Engineer Regiment and the New Corps. The entire division only has fifty mortars in total. It is really difficult for them to find a way."
Huang Zhi said helplessly: "At this time, we can only treat a dead horse as a living horse. It really doesn't work. We fired all the artillery shells and tried to rush through the iron barrel array set up by the Japanese army. If we couldn't rush down, we had to abandon everything and get under the
Entering these rolling mountains to fight guerrillas..."
Huang Zhi's words caused everyone to laugh bitterly. Everyone knew what Huang Zhi meant by leaving everything behind. Not only could the ammunition and food supplies not be taken away, but there was probably no time to collect and rescue the sick and wounded. Under the siege and interception of the Japanese army,
, no one can predict how difficult it will be to fight guerrillas in mountainous areas where people and land are unfamiliar.
The staff took action one after another and formulated various plans, striving to take all the most difficult situations into consideration and achieve minimal losses during the retreat.
...
During the Anti-Japanese War in Shanghai in 1932, Suikang was the colonel of the Engineer Regiment of the *** Division. He was an old brother who came out of the Third Company of Engineers. Before being promoted to the commander of the Engineer Regiment, he also attended the old Nanchang Military Academy and the Central Military Commission.
Further studies at the military academy. Ever since he was ordered to form the 170th Division last month, Suikang has been worried about the combat effectiveness of his division.
However, Suikang did not rely on the fact that he was an old man in the Anjia Army, so he asked An Yi and Hu Jialin for guns and cannons. He was good at blasting and determined to solve these problems by himself. Since the army was expanded from the Engineer Corps, 17
The most indispensable thing for the 〇 division was all kinds of explosives, so Suikang started thinking about this.
Suikang had long heard that the Xufu Arsenal produced an anti-tank weapon called a rocket launcher, which was somewhat similar to the fireworks set off on festivals, so he wondered whether he could produce and install it himself. He told Chang Baofang, the supervisor of the Xufu Military Depot,
, Hu Zhijie, deputy director of the Ordnance Research Institute, and other senior brothers called to inquire about the details. They soon understood the principle of this weapon and quickly came up with an idea.
In Suikang's view, rockets are nothing more than relying on the projectile itself to eject gunpowder gas to generate reaction force to push the projectile forward. There is not much demand for the gun barrel, as long as a few guide rails are designed to determine the shooting direction.
Suikang did it as soon as he thought of it. He immediately worked with the officer in charge of military logistics in the division to make a primitive "bazooka" from the shells of canned Nanyang fish and meat. This thing didn't look very beautiful, and the warhead was a large iron head.
Behind the can is a slender iron rod made of iron pipe, and on the butt are four tinplate wings to keep the shell stable during flight. However, this test failed. This simple rocket flew out of a hundred
Yu Mihou fell to the ground and exploded, almost injuring one of his own.
Suikang was not discouraged, and after many experiments and improvements, by the time the rocket was finally finalized, the shell of the projectile had changed from iron to a paper frame made of wood chips with a layer of oil paper on the outside.
It is seven small bamboo tubes tied together, filled with powder ground from nitrocellulose, and the tail is three inclined stable spiral plates to ensure the stability of the rocket during flight and the accuracy of the strike. This kind of rocket
The maximum range of the bomb reached 2,200 meters, and the error was reduced to 30 meters. In order to increase the lethality, the paper bomb was filled with picric acid explosives and iron ball bullets. When it exploded, the iron balls flew horizontally, greatly
Increased lethality and killing area.
With this good start, the enthusiasm for invention of the officers and soldiers of the 170th Division was stimulated. A major staff officer named Zhang Fengyun who had returned from studying in Germany made twelve "bazooka" frames with iron rails.
Just throw this rack on the truck at will and follow the troops. When needed, place the iron rack on the ground, adjust the angle, and fire it.
When Suikang saw that this thing was good, he asked the munitions department to urgently make fifty more. The "bazookas" all used cluster bombs. A single salvo of fifty cannons could fire out six hundred rockets in one minute. That's so many
Explosives and small steel balls are enough to create extremely terrifying area-wide lethality.
Not long after the rocket was successfully developed, Zhang Fengyun, who was inspired by the rocket, came up with another new weapon.
As a logistics unit responsible for supplying supplies to the troops, the 170th Division naturally had a large number of empty oil barrels. Based on the principle of rockets, Major Zhang Fengyun converted those oil barrels into "explosive package ejector", which were firmly secured by wires.
The bottom of the oil barrel tied to prevent explosion is filled with a large amount of gunpowder as a propellant, and the top is covered with an explosive bag. After the gunpowder is ignited, the explosive bag tied with copper wire is thrown out, and the fuse on the explosive bag is ignited at the same time.
In the first experiment, a ten-pound explosive package was thrown nearly three hundred meters away, with an error of only twelve meters. The effect was extremely good.
In subsequent improvements, the explosive packs were bundled into the shape of a cannonball with a sharp front and a round back. The propellant and explosive charges were scientifically improved, and a sight was added to the top. Major Zhang Fengyun even summed up a set of calculations
After standardizing the shooting formula of the projectile trajectory, a skilled gunner can reduce the error to five meters within four hundred meters.
This accuracy is already very impressive. Based on the standard projectile explosive package of ten kilograms, within ten meters of the impact point, even if there are strong fortifications, the people inside will be killed by the huge explosion shock wave.
After having these two weapons, Suikang felt that his waist as a division commander was much thicker, and he was no longer so worried about the team going to the front line to fight the Japanese with real swords and guns, so after receiving Hu Jialin's order, he immediately
An emergency military meeting was held at the Earth Temple in the south of Dasungezhuang Town, five kilometers west of Mafang Town.
"The commander's words have been made very clear. Destroy the Japanese artillery at all costs. Even if our unit dies to the last man, we will kill the Japanese artillery in front." He has been promoted to division commander and promoted to lieutenant colonel.
Zhang Fengyun said with enthusiasm.
Deputy Division Commander Fang Tianming nodded: "We must fight, but the question is how? Our goal is to eliminate the Japanese artillery in front. As long as we can do this, no matter what sacrifice we make, it will be worth it. On the contrary, if we pay
If you sacrifice but get nothing, then the gain outweighs the loss.”
Zhang Fengyun said disapprovingly: "Let's bombard him with rockets. I don't believe that such intensive firepower can't destroy the Japanese artillery positions."
Chief of Staff Li Tong, who had been thinking calmly, laughed: "Feng Yun, I think you are very confident recently... You have to know that our rockets have a range of only 2,200 meters, and your super-large caliber
The artillery's range is only four to five hundred meters. Don't let the Japanese's artillery fire take care of us before we can deal with them."
Suikang nodded: "We need to make a careful calculation, not only to give full play to the strengths of our two secret weapons, but also to avoid unnecessary losses. Everyone had better be quick, the military commander and the commander are still waiting for our good news.
.”
Although Fang Tianming served as Xia Jian's adjutant for a long time, he did not like Xia Jian who liked to fight and rush in his work. He thought for a while and said:
"The current situation is that the enemy is strong and we are weak. If we adopt a head-on approach, it will obviously only benefit the Japanese. My opinion is to attack in the east and attack in the west. Divide our fifty mortars into two parts and send two regiments to attack them.
The enemy's flanks carried out feint attacks to attract the attention of Japanese artillery fire and infantry. Our main force took advantage of the temporary confusion of the Japanese army and sneaked to 500 meters in front of the Japanese artillery position with rockets and explosive pack ejector to carry out a sudden and precise strike.
.As long as the Japanese army does not discover us at the first time, we will have a great chance of completing the important task entrusted to us by the army."
"right!"
Li Tong nodded: "In order to make the feint look more realistic, we might as well take out some of our gunpowder and detonators to create some pyrotechnic effects and try to make the battle more lively. Unfortunately, there are no firecrackers, otherwise we would light them and throw them in
The sound inside the oil barrel was not much different from the sound of a heavy machine gun."
"We have firecrackers."
Lieutenant Colonel Yu Wenjie, the chief of the training and political affairs section who had been silent all the time, said with a smile: "In order to make the celebration ceremony for the recovery of Jidong more grand, the theater headquarters issued some... silly weapons to all the troops.
I know how to do these face-saving tricks, but now I can use them to scare *** people, so it’s worth it.”
"Okay, that's it!"
Suikang stood up and said, "Old Li, Old Fang, the task of feigning attack will be left to you. You have been following Commander Yin and Commander Xia for a long time. You have rich combat experience and know how to attack the enemy while protecting yourself. I will lead the main force myself.
Go up and blow up the Japanese artillery positions. If you don't succeed in this battle, you will be benevolent. Let's work hard!"
"yes!"
All the generals stood together and saluted, their faces full of perseverance.