Age of Conquest Reborn

Chapter 689 Wubao Ferry

Okamura Neiji assembled 100,000 troops, divided them into two places, and personally commanded one group of 60,000 people. They set out from Taiyuan and approached the east bank of the Yellow River from Liulin, Shanxi. Opposite was the Wubao Ferry, and the other line was from Fengling to the west.

Crossing the Yellow River and capturing Xi'an, the journey is long.

At the same time, the journey from Taiyuan to southern Shanxi was more than ten days. Okamura Neiji could not wait for the two places to launch attacks at the same time. His intention was to attack Liulin fiercely, attracting the main force of Tang Qiuli's river defense troops here, and preparing for the wind.

Create favorable conditions for the troops in the Lingdu direction.{}

When he arrived at the bank of the Yellow River, he also saw the surging water and counted the troops. He was shocked. Along the way from Taiyuan to Liulin, he was constantly harassed by small groups of troops of the ** Division. The main force did not stop and continued to divide its troops to pursue and suppress them.

He spread his troops like sheep dung all the way to Luliang Mountain, and actually used more than 10,000 men. The troops he could use to attack Wubao Ferry were only more than 50,000 men.

He thought about it again and again, thinking that this was Tang Qiuli's strategy to induce him to divide his troops to reduce the frontal pressure on Wubao Ferry. He contacted the scattered troops and got basically the same reply. He fought fiercely with the scattered armed forces of the ** division in the Luliang Mountains.

Unable to escape for the moment, after annihilating the Chinese armed forces, return to the team as soon as possible.

This is indeed the case. Tang Qiuli ordered more than twenty companies to go deep behind enemy lines to delay and distract the Japanese troops. They were all in the Luliang Mountains, dealing with Japanese troops whose strength was more than twice his own. They had to fight countless encounters every day.

More than five thousand troops, and more than ten thousand

The Japanese army is fighting, and it is behind the enemy's rear. The Japanese army can mobilize nearby troops to support at any time. The pressure faced by the ** division troops can be imagined. They are sluggish, exhausted, and the task of spreading the Japanese army's strength has been completed, but it also gives

It has brought difficulties and dangers to itself.

Okamura Neji's mood relaxed. The more Tang Qiuli did this, the more it showed that he had no troops to defend the river. Through the telescope, there were no obvious fortifications or various kinds of defenses at Wu Fort on the other side of the river.

It’s like I didn’t see various firepower points such as bunkers.

The soldiers on the other side were calm as if they were under pressure. Okamura Neji was a little confused. It would be normal for him to feel like he was facing a formidable enemy when he saw the strict barriers on the other side. This situation made him somewhat confused, but he never believed it.

There are no defensive troops at Wubao Ferry.

Okamura Neiji sneered. It was still Tang Qiuli's trick, and he was trying to make things mysterious. Then he would use cannons to let the Chinese people understand what the invincible Imperial Japanese Army was. He ordered the artillery to immediately bombard Wubao on the other side, destroying all the people.

Destroy all sighted and suspicious targets to create a landing site for the troops crossing the river.

Two field artillery regiments and hundreds of artillery shelled simultaneously. The roaring metal projectiles tore through the air, carrying a harsh scream, crossing the wide river and landing at Wubao Ferry. The fire was shining, the gunpowder smoke was filled, and the huge

Pillars of smoke billowed up, the few buildings turned into ruins, the ground trembled, deafening explosions echoed in the open fields, and Fort Wu was enveloped in a sea of ​​fire and gunpowder smoke.

The violent artillery fire stopped for more than an hour, and Okamura Neiji was very satisfied with the effect of the artillery fire. He saw with his own eyes that as soon as the artillery fire stopped, countless Chinese people panicked and ran back, even in areas that had not been bombarded.

, there are also people who are working hard

When they ran away, looking at their clothes, they were very messy. They were not regular troops at all. This was what Tang Qiuli called the river defense troops. They were the armed civilians from Dingbian who were inspired by him. They were a ragtag group. The sarcasm at the corner of Okamura Neji's mouth became even more

It’s thicker.

Two regiments of Japanese troops, as the first wave of cross-river attack troops, rode in assault boats and rubber boats and dropped off dumplings like dumplings to the shore. The river became lively, and the powered assault boats soon sailed to the center of the river.

, followed by hundreds of rubber boats, Okamura Neiji suddenly became nervous. The troops crossing the river were the most vulnerable to attack. When the assault boats arrived at the shore, Japanese soldiers had already begun to board the west bank, and there was only extremely weak sporadic firepower to fight back.

.

There was no threat to the Japanese soldiers who landed on the beach. The Japanese soldiers established a stable landing point on the west bank. Light and heavy machine guns, mortars and Type 38 rifles began to suppress fire. Then, Japanese soldiers in rubber boats also boarded.

On the West Bank, more than 5,000 Japanese soldiers swarmed onto the West Bank like sheep and began to move in depth. The gunshots of resistance disappeared. The Japanese soldiers pursued them and soon disappeared behind the hillsides of the West Bank.

Okamura Neiji nodded with great satisfaction: "Yo Xi" ordered the second echelon to start crossing the river. This time, he used the strength of four regiments. Preliminary calculations showed that the strength of the two waves of landing troops has reached

With about 15,000 people, they can completely control the landing point and expand the results. Although the fighting situation of the first wave of landing troops cannot be seen, judging from the sound of gunfire, the fighting is not very fierce. This shows that Tang Qiuli

The so-called river defense troops have extremely weak combat effectiveness.

The second wave of river-crossing troops, consisting of more than 10,000 Japanese troops in four regiments, has reached the middle of the river. Okamura Neji walked down the hill. He was preparing to follow the third wave of river-crossing troops across the Yellow River. The generals of the Empire of Japan,

It is customary to visit the front line in person,

Suddenly, a thunderous loud noise sounded in the sky, and a piercing scream came closer and closer. In an instant, black shells fell in groups on the river, falling on the queue of Japanese assault boats and rubber boats crossing the river.

Here, the water column rises to the sky.

Okamura Neiji's face suddenly turned extremely pale. His first reaction was that he had been fooled. Artillery shells fell like raindrops on the heads of the Japanese troops crossing the river. With such dense artillery fire, at least four artillerymen

The regiment was firing a volley, which Okamura Neji rarely saw. He blew up a wall of water columns on the water. He saw with his own eyes that the outstanding people of the Japanese Empire, the brave soldiers under his command, were helpless.

are struggling in vain.

The shells fell, and the Japanese assault boats and rubber boats were like paper toys, being overturned by the huge gun rising from the sky. The soldiers who fell into the water only had time to stretch out their hands in vain, and were whirlpooled.

billowing yellow

The river swallowed up the assault boats and rubber boats that were directly hit by the shells, and immediately exploded into pieces. Mixed with the corpses of the soldiers, they were first thrown high with the water column, and then fell heavily to the river, rolled, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Okamura Neji watched helplessly as the soldiers were swallowed up by the river in front of his eyes, but he could do nothing. He murmured to himself, "Massacre, this is a massacre." His eyes seemed to be dull, the corners of his mouth twitched violently, and his heart tightened, accompanied by needles.

Stinging pain,

He suddenly shouted crazily: "Artillery fire back immediately." A mouthful of scarlet blood suddenly sprayed into the air, and he fell on his back. Before losing consciousness, he only heard the panicked shouts of his subordinates, and then his vision went black and he fell into

In the boundless darkness.

The Japanese artillery began a frenzied bombardment. This time, the other side was no longer silent. The Japanese artillery fired a single shell and attracted countless counterattacks. Okamura Neji did not see that his artillery position had been bombarded by volleys of shells.

Shrouded in the flames of the explosion, and the intensity of the artillery fire from the Army Division was beyond his imagination. His own artillery was completely suppressed and was unable to provide fire cover for the unlucky soldiers on the river.

Okamura Neiji hasn't seen yet. On the other side where the gunfire has disappeared, behind the hillside, the gunfire has become fiercer. There are also the short "dong dong" sounds made by countless mortars. What happened there? Everyone is awake.

The Japanese generals did not know that they were busy treating coma.

Your Excellency, the commander who was fascinated by the past, but this is also lucky for Okamura Neiji. Otherwise, he would have seen his carefully planned plan of crossing the river to the west and attacking Shaanxi failed from the beginning, and also injured countless soldiers.

If you are unlucky, you may vomit blood and die.

The red sun was setting in the west, and the fighting had stopped. The endless rolling water of the Yellow River had taken away all the sins. As long as the smoke of gunpowder that could not be blown away by the spring breeze was still faintly diffused in the air, Okamura Neji slowly opened his eyes.

Tiredly, he asked the chief of staff waiting beside him: "Xiwei

Sir, what are the casualties of the troops?" Chief of Staff Nishio lowered his head deeply, as if he did not dare to look at the commander's expectant eyes. Neji Okamura's heart suddenly sank. From Nishio's expression, he would not get any good news.

, he asked further, but Nishio still didn’t answer.

Neji Okamura suddenly raised his voice and asked: "Nishio-kun, I want to know the real situation." The vicious voice was sinister and ferocious, with a hint of madness and despair of losing money in gambling. Nishio's body trembled and he replied in a low voice: "Commander

official

Your Excellency, only more than 4,000 of our second wave of troops crossing the river were able to return, and the rest were in pieces. Half of the artillery regiment lost its combat effectiveness." Nishio's voice seemed to come from an ethereal place, clear but not real.

.

Okamura Neiji closed his eyes in pain. He believed that Nishio was telling the truth. Everything he saw before he fell into coma gave him a premonition, but he was unwilling to accept it. He opened his eyes suddenly and asked eagerly: "

What is the situation of the two regiments that have successfully crossed the river?" Nishio seemed to be unable to bear to attack them again.

The commander, who had suffered a lot of frustration, had to answer, "Your Excellency, Commander, after the shelling of the Chinese army began, there seemed to be fierce fighting on the west bank, which lasted for about four hours. Both the Nomura Regiment and the Oshima Regiment were

We have lost contact with the headquarters and no scattered soldiers have returned. I'm afraid..."

Nishio didn't say the second half of the sentence, but Okamura Neji knew better than Nishio that the two regiments must have been in trouble, and they were all broken into pieces. In just one day after the war started, he lost more than 10,000 soldiers.

, half of the regiment's artillery, such losses were all caused by that Chinese devil Tang Qiuli.

Okamura Neiji felt that his chest was congested, and he couldn't take a breath. The veins on his forehead jumped from the pressure, and he said bitterly: "Tang Qiuli." His throat felt sweet, and there was a mouthful of blood. He couldn't help it.

When it spurted out, Nishio was stunned, and then he jumped up and shouted to the military doctor. This was the second time that the commander had vomited blood. Okamura Neji heard Nishio's changed tone, clenched his fists, and then again

Passed out.

(To be continued)