Because the pontoon bridge was not erected, the army group on the right had to rely on infantry to advance forward for the time being. Even so, on the first morning of the war, the troops on the right still advanced an average of 20 kilometers. The furthest advance
Division, their light motorized vanguard has penetrated 40 kilometers and is approaching the outer suburbs of Chuzhou.
As of 12 noon, within the first seven hours of the war, the Right Group Army had captured Pukou Town, Liuhe County, Yizheng County, Gaogang County, Taixing County, Jiangdu County, He County, Wuwei County, Lujiang County,
Hanshan County, in addition, has also captured more than 80 small towns, more than 300 natural villages and residential areas. The major targets currently being attacked and about to be attacked include Yangzhou, Chuzhou, Chaohu, Hefei, Gaoyou, Xinghua, and Dongtai
.
But the left army group is completely different. This is a completely land battlefield, and the two armored divisions and the two mechanized divisions can drive straight in. The only thing that hinders them is the minefields on both sides on the border.
However, although the minefields on the Ming army's side are dense, there are several passages in the middle for the troops to pass through. The minefields on the Qing army's side are not dense, the level of layout is not high, and there are no patches of concrete anti-tank obstacles.
There were only overlapping stretches of barbed wire. With engineers and mine-clearing tanks clearing the way, the Ming Army's leading infantry troops crossed the border as if they were playing, and immediately opened the way for the People's Guard Armored Division behind them.
The right army group is the main attack direction of the war. It is responsible for the important task of recovering North China and Shandong and approaching Beijing. Moreover, the main route is the thousands of miles of plains. Their mission is to "advance! Advance! Advance again!", so they are heading toward Xiaoqiang.
In the arrangement, this armored division was the "positive" and Guderian was appointed as the commander of the three armored divisions on the right.
The left group army group is the auxiliary attack direction of the war. It is responsible for advancing into Guanzhong, regaining the Three Qin Dynasties, and then heading north to fight against Shaanxi and Shanxi. There should not be tough battles along the way like Shandong, Henan, and Zhili, but there are many mountains along the way.
, complex terrain, battles under special conditions
The technical requirements are relatively high. Therefore, in Xiang Xiaoqiang's arrangement, this armored division was called "Qi", and Rommel was appointed as the commander of one of the armored divisions. He was expected to display his true qualities as a "fox" in this complex situation.
Show off your skills in the environment and give your enemies one "surprise" after another.
…
Xinye County, 50 kilometers north of Xiangfan, was also an important military town for the Qing army north of the Ming army's Yangtze River defense line, equivalent to Pukou. The two cities of Xiangfan and Xinye have been facing each other for many years, with one in the south and one in the north. They have been necessary for military strategists since ancient times.
Fight for land.
Xinye County has been famous in China for thousands of years because of legends such as "Three Visits to Thatched Cottage" and "Burning Xinye". And Xiangfan, known as "Xiangyang" in ancient times, is a heroic city. In the late Southern Song Dynasty, the Mongolian army besieged Xiangyang many times, and the soldiers and civilians of Xiangyang
Despite holding on desperately, the Mongolian army could not conquer it for a long time. When the entire Southern Song Dynasty was in defeat, Xiangyang Gucheng actually held on for six years under the siege of the Mongolian army's absolutely superior force, becoming a banner of the Southern Song Dynasty's resistance to the Yuan Dynasty.
Finally, in 1273 during the era of Kublai Khan, the Mongolian army invaded Fancheng. The guard general Niu Fu and the partial general Wang Fu started a street battle with the Mongolian army. In the end, the two men preferred to die rather than surrender. They both rushed into the sea of fire and burned themselves to death. Subsequently, the Mongols
The army surrounded the isolated city of Xiangyang on three sides. Xiangyang had no reinforcements outside and no food and grass inside. It lasted six years and finally fell.
...But the young people of later generations learned about this heroic history of the Chinese nation not from history textbooks, but from Hong Kong martial arts novels. This includes Xiang Xiaoqiang.
Today, 663 years later, this ancient battlefield was awakened.
The Ming army began to advance northward from the northern suburbs of Xiangfan. Two armored divisions and two mechanized divisions of the People's Guard rushed at the front, followed closely by 19 motorized infantry divisions, advancing along both sides of the Baihe River. Two
I rushed through Shuanggou Town, Guyi Town, Huangji Town, Zhuji, Chenghe Town, Shiqiao Town, Zhangji Town, Xueji Town, Liuji Town, Wangzhuang Town, Cangtai Town, Longtan Town, all the way to the
At the foot of Xinye County, 50 kilometers away.
In the first few hours of the war, compared to the right army group, the performance of the left army group (which could almost become a performance) could become a model of "blitz warfare" and more in line with the standard of blitz warfare in Xiang Xiaoqiang's mind.
On the broad plains on both sides of the Baihe River, scattered remnants of the Qing army discarded their helmets and armor, and fled in front of them. Helmets, rifles, and machine guns were scattered all over the ground. From time to time, an abandoned cannon could be seen. A tank of the Ming army
It puffed out green smoke and roared as it rushed forward. The machine gun in front of the vehicle "click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click." It captured the fleeing Qing soldiers in front, and fell to the ground one after another.
Wherever the armored troops of the Ming Army passed by, in addition to the corpses of numerous soldiers, there were countless flattened helmets, broken rifles, broken sandbags leaking yellow sand, and 37mm cannons crushed into discus.
The leading tank troops of the People's Guard were arranged too densely, and Xiang Xiaoqiang gave them a fatal order, which was to "just move forward, don't stop and meddle in other people's business. Follow-up troops will clean up the areas where they were defeated, and push forward quickly, and the right
"The main thing is to encircle the troops and put the millions of Qing troops in the middle into pockets." Therefore, the armored troops of the People's Guard did not stop at all. They looked at the weapons, equipment, and supplies of the Qing troops on the ground and did not even try to seize them.
, everything in the way will be rolled over directly.
Most of the corpses of the Qing soldiers who were killed were missing. Tanks and armored vehicles were packed tightly together, and it was impossible to stop to collect their bodies. After the leading armored troops passed by, most of the corpses of the Qing soldiers were too miserable to look at.
. Each corpse was run over by two or three caterpillar tracks, mixed with the soil, and became pieces of flesh in the clothes.
Two hours into the battle, the tracks of most of the vanguard tanks were covered with a mixture of Qing army's blood, flesh and soil.
From the large speaker on the roof of the command car, the military song "Man Jiang Hong" of the Ming Empire was played loudly:
"The anger is soaring, and the misty rain stops at the place where the waves are flowing.
Look up, look up to the sky and roar, with strong feelings!
Thirty years of fame and dust, eight thousand miles of clouds and moon!
Don't wait any longer. The young man's head will turn gray, and there will be no sorrow!
The shame of Jingkang has not yet been resolved, and the hatred of the ministers, when will it be destroyed?
Driving a long car, crossing the gap in Helan Mountain!
The ambition is to eat the meat of Huns when they are hungry, and they are laughing and talking about drinking the blood of Huns when they are thirsty!
Let’s start from scratch, clean up the old mountains and rivers, and build the Heavenly Palace!”
…
Judging from the scraped flesh and mud on the tracks of the Ming army, it really corresponds to the lyrics of "driving a long chariot to break through the gap in the Helan Mountains" and "the ambition is to eat the meat of Huns when hungry, and to drink the blood of Huns when they are thirsty".
In each tank, the Ming Army tank soldiers were shaking their heads in the bumpy car body, singing in unison along with the military songs on the radio, and their blood surged with excitement. When they got to the point where they were enjoying themselves, they would stomp their feet and beat the time in the steel cabin.
The machine gunner stamped his feet, sang, and pressed forward against the narrow observation window to search for clearing soldiers. When he saw them, he shot them down...and then shouted "hit!" or "missed", and then
Several people in the tank would cheer or boo at the same time. After the beating, several people would continue singing...
The soldiers in the tank had a very narrow field of vision, and could only see a little ahead, and did not react much to the bloody ground around them. But the tank commander, who was half exposed on the turret, was different. They also sang along with the military songs, but the ground around them
They could clearly see the piles of corpses mixed with brains and meat paste. The young commanders also sang along, tapping the beat on the roof of the car with the handle of a submachine gun, and occasionally sticking their heads out to vomit.
After vomiting, I started singing excitedly.
The soldiers of the Ming army in the open armored vehicles all climbed up the armor baffles to look out. They also vomited while looking out, and then after vomiting, they sang with high morale. Over and over again, singing over and over again...
It's disgusting, but it's so enjoyable.
…
There were still living prisoners, but there was no time to gather them.
When the Qing soldiers who couldn't run stopped, threw down their guns and raised their hands to surrender, the commanders on the turret waved their submachine guns and shouted at them:
"Don't block the way, go aside!"
"Wait here and surrender to the infantry behind!"
"Drop the gun!"
"Hey, where are you standing? Move over!"
"Damn it, you don't have eyes! I want to run you over to death!"
Between Daba Mountain and Dabie Mountain, the Xiangfan Plain, which is dozens of kilometers wide, is full of this strange scene. Amid the roaring army of tanks and armored vehicles, loud military songs are flying everywhere. Countless scattered Qing soldiers are crowded in.
In the middle, with hands raised, while the Ming soldiers in the car were shouting and honking impatiently, they were moving cautiously here and there, for fear of being in someone else's way, and for fear of being run over, like a group of docile sheep.
…
In Xinye County, a group of majors, captains, and lieutenants of the Qing Army crowded on top of the city, staring dumbfoundedly at the tanks roaring past a few hundred meters below the city. Some tank commanders on the turrets even waved to them with a smile.
Salute.
These middle and lower-ranking officers of the Qing army were all stunned. They had never seen so many tanks at one time...and they were tanks painted with the Ming army logo.
Around you, some soldiers enthusiastically handed over their rifles, meaning: Sir, at such a close distance, please show your skills. We support you in spirit.
A group of middle- and lower-level officers were so frightened that they almost went crazy. They grabbed the phone and shook it vigorously, shouting "Hey, hey, hey," but they couldn't get through anywhere. Commander, commanders, and those officers ran away yesterday.
I went to Nanyang City in the north to eat, drink, have fun, and find a girlfriend. According to my usual experience, these guys will not come back until noon on Monday...
However, looking at the densely crisscrossed concrete trenches below the city, they are now empty, without a single defender. On the artillery positions, those forbidding cannons on the semi-sunk concrete gun mounts are still covered.
Gun jackets, groups of artillery soldiers holding up their trousers and tops, crowded around the cannons, watching the tanks roaring past a few hundred meters away, they were all hesitant to take off their gun jackets.
But soon, the Ming army made a decision for them.
A light tank drove away from the team, puffing smoke from its rear end, and drove over very nimbly, crossing several trenches, and finally stopped in front of a group of bewildered Qing soldiers.
"when!"
The top cover was opened, and a Ming army commander came out, condescending and asked arrogantly:
"What's going on, are you surrendering? Go and tell your commander. If you want to surrender, just throw down the false Qing flag on top of the city, replace it with a white flag, and then concentrate all the weapons outside the city. We have special troops coming from behind to accept the surrender.
If you don’t surrender, just say you don’t surrender, and we will send planes here..."
Then he looked at his watch and continued:
"...We will mobilize the plane and we can shoot it down at no later than one o'clock in the afternoon. How about surrendering? I'll give you ten minutes."
…
So, five minutes later, all the troops stationed in Xinye of the Northern Qing Dynasty surrendered. On the morning of the first day, the first hostile military town encountered by the Ming army on the left offensive was captured without a single shot.
Immediately afterwards, the army did not stop, all the officers and soldiers had lunch in the car, and the torrent of steel continued to surge toward Nanyang, 50 kilometers north.