Age of Conquest Reborn

Chapter 556: Desperate Rescue

Isotani Rensuke's First Army in Xiao County was surrounded by the Gui Army and Sichuan Army commanded by Xuzhou Theater Commander Li Zongren, and five brigades commanded by Tang Qiusheng, deputy commander of the ** Division, totaling nearly 300,000 troops. The Japanese North China Expeditionary Force

Commander Xiangyue

Qingsi, anxious and anxious, begged Prince Hanyuan Gong Zairen, the chief of general staff of the Japanese base camp, to condescend to take up the post of commander of the Cangzhou Front Army, unified command of the 330,000 Japanese troops in the direction of Cangzhou, move south to Xuzhou, and break the siege of the First Army.--%.net

Reinforcement is like putting out a fire. As soon as Zai Ren arrived in Cangzhou, he immediately ordered all the Japanese troops to mobilize and launch an attack in the direction of Dezhou to open the passage south to Xuzhou. On the evening of December 23, the Japanese army, which never launched attacks at night, went against the norm.

As soon as darkness broke out, fierce fighting broke out across the entire Cangzhou line. The Japanese army divided into five groups and launched fierce attacks on the troops commanded by Liu Tiehan in Damazhuang, Fengjiakou, Jiedi, Nanpi, and Huaizhen lines.

The front, which is more than a hundred kilometers wide, is full of artillery smoke. In the dark night, the figures of soldiers on both sides flash from time to time in the flames of exploding artillery shells. If you look down from a high altitude, you will see a line of defense spraying fire, blocking several arrows in front of you.

, unable to take another step forward, the battlefield in southern Hebei, which had been silent for a long time, became noisy again.

A full-scale war broke out on the Cangzhou front line. As Tang Qiuli expected, Isotani Rensuke's First Army was surrounded, and the Japanese army in Cangzhou would fight tooth and nail. He sent a telegram to Liu Tiehan to ask about the fighting situation in Cangzhou. In fact, he was considering,

Should Tang Qiusheng's troops be withdrawn from the battlefield in Xiao County and strengthened on the Cangzhou front line? After all, compared with the Japanese army, Liu Tiehan's troops did not have an advantage.

The reason for this consideration is that Tang Qiusheng's troops were placed on the outskirts of the Xiaoxian encirclement by Chief Li, more than ten kilometers away from the battlefield. In front of them were Liao Lei's 21st Group Army of the Gui Army and the Sichuan Army's 230,000 troops.

The troops surrounded Xiao County like an iron barrel. Let alone participating in the attack on Xiao County, it was difficult to even see the shadow of Xiao County.

Li Zongren's reason was that Vice Chairman Tang's troops had just finished the Battle of Tongshan and were quite tired. From the perspective of caring for friendly forces, it was not appropriate to let the troops who had fought hard fights continue to fight. Therefore, Vice Chairman Tang

Putting the troops on the second line also means that they can rest assured and rest. The attack on Xiao County will be completed by the Gui Army and the Sichuan Army, which have not participated in the battle. Finally, Tang Qiuli was asked for his opinion and asked whether it was appropriate to do so. Please

Vice Chairman Tang’s instructions.

Li Zongren's reasons are very tenable and his words are beautiful, but they can't be put on the table. Tang Qiuli, who has been a man for two generations, can see through it at a glance. Isotani Rensuke is now familiar with it.

The persimmons fall off as soon as they are touched. Brother Qiu Sheng's troops have already made a huge bargain in Tongshan. With this last bite, he cannot let his troops take advantage of them. Besides, Li Zongren has plenty of capital in his hands.

Tang Qiuli shook his head with a wry smile. Mei Ting next to her raised her beautiful eyebrows and looked at her husband. Tang Qiuli handed Li Zongren's telegram to Mei Ting. After reading it, Mei Ting smiled. She understood her husband.

She shook her head with a wry smile and looked at him jokingly. Tang Qiuli shrugged and spread his hands in a helpless gesture. Mei Ting almost doubled over with laughter. The happy air flowed in the room.

Now that Li Zongren said and did this, what else could Tang Qiuli do? He called back and completely agreed with Commander Li's arrangement, and finally wished him a great victory in Xiao County. He just felt a little regretful that he could not use his own troops to achieve the result himself.

Isotani Rensuke and his First Army avenged Su Jingfeng and Zhang Zizhong. In this way, Tang Qiusheng's army became a piece of cake, and he considered transferring to the direction of Cangzhou.

The staff officer sent Liu Tiehan's reply, and his tone was very relaxed. Because he had long expected the Japanese army's actions, the troops relied on strong defenses to inflict great damage on the Japanese soldiers exposed in the wild, and took advantage of the Japanese army's weakness of not being good at night fighting.

, dispatched four brigades of troops, slipped into the gaps in the Japanese offensive formation, and separated several Japanese regiments from the larger army. They are now encircling and annihilating them.

At present, the Cangzhou front is stable, and I still have four brigades of reserves that are not being used. The Japanese army must not advance even half a step. I ask the division commander not to worry, but to consider transferring the troops from Xiao County back to the Taihang Mountains to strengthen the troops there.

, Liu Tiehan's suggestion also hit Tang Qiuli's mind exactly.

After reading Liu Tiehan's telegram, Tang Qiuli applauded the case, which shocked Mei Ting. She glared at him angrily, as if she blamed him for being surprised. Tang Qiuli secretly sighed, Brother Tiehan is commanding a large army.

In combat, he became more and more skillful and bold. He carried out local counterattacks while defending, and managed to bite off a few pieces of meat from the dense Japanese troops.

This requires taking great risks, involving the cooperation of the troops, timing and other aspects. If the battle cannot be ended quickly, the intervening troops will be made dumplings by the Japanese army and fight until dawn. Just like Liu

Tiehan said that the Japanese army of more than 300,000 did not advance even half a step, not counting scattered casualties, and was even eaten up by the squadron's organized troops, including several regiments.

Zai Ren really couldn't attack, he tried his best, and the Japanese soldiers also tried their best. However, what they encountered was the troops of the Japanese Army, an iron plate that was impenetrable, and a bronze copper plate that caused head injuries and bleeding when they hit it.

Wall, Zai Ren had no choice but to order the troops to retreat to the starting point of the attack and adjust their deployment. During the retreat, the Japanese troops were pursued across the board by the Japanese division troops, and the retreat turned into a chaotic rout.

After fighting all night, the Japanese army did not gain any advantage. There were corpses everywhere, and they were beaten back to Cangzhou by the troops of the Japanese Army. As the saying goes, they returned again.

Not only that, Emperor Hirohito was shocked and extremely angry when he learned that the First Army of Isotani Rensuke was surrounded by superior Chinese troops in Xuzhou and faced the danger of annihilation. This was a force he had high hopes for, and the base camp was exactly

follow him

With the intention of attacking Xuzhou in the east, and then moving south to Songhu, it was formulated that if Xuzhou was destroyed by the Chinese army, wouldn't it mean that the Japanese emperor was a fool who did not understand military affairs and commanded blindly, which cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of imperial soldiers?

?

He ordered Shanghai to dispatch troops to launch an attack outside Songhu and around Hangzhou Bay. No matter which direction a breakthrough was made, the goal must be to relieve the siege of Jigu Lianjie. As a result, the war in the south broke out again. Hundreds of thousands of central troops and soldiers from

The Japanese troops at sea started fighting, and the Japanese navy's large-caliber naval guns blasted the Central Army's positions into flames.

Then, a large number of Japanese troops began to land on the beach. The Central Army troops, which had already competed with the Japanese troops several times, under the command of General Zhang Zhizhong, the commander-in-chief of the Songhu Theater, followed the prescriptions and drove the Japanese troops back to the sea again and again, taking off from the aircraft carrier.

Japanese aircraft also arrived to assist in the battle. The Chinese Air Force, which took off from Hangzhou Jianqiao Airport, faced the Japanese aircraft. The two sides started a fight in the beautiful sky of Jiangnan.

From the sky to the ground, the battlefield in Jiangnan was filled with fireworks and gunpowder smoke. The Japanese army tried their best, but could not obtain even a landing site on the beach. General Zhang Zhizhong became more and more relaxed as he fought. In addition to the frontline troops, he also had five

The division's reserve team can be deployed on key battlefields at any time. The Jiangnan offensive launched by the Japanese army, aimed at rescuing Isotani Rensuke's First Army, ended with the final retreat to the sea.

On the front line of Datong, Shanxi, the Japanese army, which was already at a disadvantage, suddenly launched an aggressive attack like crazy. At first, it caught the Jin army by surprise, and pushed the front to the Tianzhen area. Due to limited troop strength, the Japanese army's

The attack momentum slowed down, indicating that the follow-up was weak. The Jin army took advantage of its superior strength to launch a full-scale counterattack, forcing the Japanese army to retreat continuously, and finally withdrew from Shanxi.

For some unknown reason, the Jin army, which had already gained an absolute advantage, did not pursue further pursuit. Otherwise, Huai'an, Zhangjiakou and other places would have become the pockets of Zhao Chengshou, the commander-in-chief of the Jin army in Datong. The Jin army's counterattack force stopped at

On the west bank of the Nanyang River, the Japanese commander who was so shocked that his forehead was covered with cold sweat breathed a long sigh of relief.

On the front line of Shanxi Niangziguan, the Japanese army also took the initiative to attack, constantly attacking the positions of Feng Jiwu's Niangziguan garrison. This move played into Feng Jiwu's plan. He was very worried. Hundreds of thousands of troops were consumed by the Japanese army.

If he had commanded the main brigade of the Jin Army, he would have driven the Japanese troops on the opposite side back to Shijiazhuang. But looking at these soldiers, Feng Jiwu had no courage, so he had to intensify training of the former Jin army every day.

soldiers.

The Japanese attack did provide him with an opportunity for actual training. He adopted the method of two battalions of the Jin Army and one battalion of the Jin Army to form a combat regiment. He used the Japanese troops for training to continuously carry out counter-attacks, or interspersed

Although the result of the attack was not great, more than 4,000 Japanese troops were killed piecemeal.

On the battlefield of Wuxiang, Shanxi, the Japanese troops under Yamaguchi had not received any new orders from Commander Xiangyue Qingji. They were spending nearly 200,000 Jin troops here under the personal command of Yan Xishan. Yamaguchi was quite complaining about this.

I think the commander has forgotten about himself. Wuxiang has been unable to be captured for a long time, and it is no longer possible to attack Taiyuan northward.

Yamaguchi is also aware of what happened to the First Army of Isotani Rensuke. Now, the situation on the Wuxiang front line is not very good. That damn China devil Tang Qiuli is just behind him, and pounces on him from time to time.

After taking a bite, he also sent out cavalry troops to constantly harass his transportation lines, causing the soldiers to eat porridge for several days.

Yamaguchi became more and more aware that the stalemate in Wuxiang was definitely not a good sign. Once Tang Qiuli freed up his hands to mobilize troops, there was no guarantee that he would not become the next Isotani Rensuke. It was not easy to receive the invitation from Seiji Kozuki.

The order was to let him continue to attack Wuxiang.

I almost cried at Yamaguchi. I was able to defeat it. Why am I so distressed, squatting in the mountain with the biting cold wind, unable to advance or retreat? I had no choice but to carry out the order. The Japanese soldiers, who were complaining endlessly, launched the new attack without any confidence.

Yan Xishan, who was confident about the attack, commanded his troops to attack head-on, but Yamaguchi did not take any advantage.

Around this inconspicuous little place in Xiao County, the two fronts, the north and the south, were all in a mess, with only one purpose: to rescue the besieged Isoya Rensuke. All the Japanese troops were working hard for this goal, and to trap the isolated city of Isoya.

Lian Jie is proud enough that he mobilized all the Japanese troops in China by himself.

(To be continued)