Rise From Eight Hundred

Tang Dao received Leng Feng's battle report in the afternoon of the same day, and was naturally very satisfied with the results of the battle. He ordered Leng Feng's troops not to rush to the Zhongtiaoshan war zone.

As a surprise force, the main force of the Sihang Regiment has been exposed and has lost its surprise effect. It is better to operate near Shunwangping, so that the Japanese army has to withdraw troops to guard their own retreat to avoid being cut off by Leng Feng's troops.

In fact, this is also the case. After receiving the order of the Kunisaki Detachment to retreat to Shunwangping, the Japanese army immediately mobilized troops. An infantry brigade of the 3rd Division, which had been hidden by Itagaki Shiro, was divided into several places to firmly guard the traffic arteries leading to the front line.

If this infantry brigade is put into the battlefield, it will undoubtedly increase the pressure on the front line.

In other words, although Leng Feng's troops only fought one battle, they repelled a main infantry brigade of the 5th Division and tied down an infantry brigade. Even if they did not achieve greater results, it was equivalent to exchanging a Japanese infantry division, and they also almost perfectly achieved the strategy of coming to Zhongtiaoshan from a distance of hundreds of miles.

But this is still not enough for the Zhongtiaoshan war zone at this time.

Tang Dao, who had just returned to his defense zone, soon became gloomy. The joy of negotiating an agreement with the 4th Division's Western Assault Detachment and Leng Feng's repelling of the Kunisaki Detachment disappeared in an instant.

There was a big flaw in the defense line.

The Japanese army was powerful only on one hand, and more importantly, the Chinese side had a "pig teammate"!

The Fifth Army's main position was too close to the Japanese army's traffic line, so the Japanese army could fully exert its heavy firepower advantage. That was fine, but what was incredible was that its army headquarters actually put its weakest 43rd Army on Henggao Avenue and its strongest 12th Army on the front of Tangwang Mountain, which was easy to defend and difficult to attack.

What was this for? Anyone with a discerning eye could see that they were trying to preserve their strength.

It would be fine if they were just selfish, but what was more fatal was that they actually ignored the gap between them and the 4th Army, causing a Japanese army to bypass the front defense line of its 12th Army and enter the Zhongtiaoshan defense zone. The strength of the troops was unknown.

‘Deep and roundabout’, this tactic instantly appeared in Tang Dao’s mind.

Although the Japanese tactics are often rigid, that is because they have strong enough heavy firepower support, and they can rush in and get it done, but once they encounter a tough situation, their brains are also very active.

Tang Dao really wants to withdraw troops to plug the gap immediately, but unfortunately he has not only reached an agreement with Okuma Yukinosuke, but the two sides will stage a rivalry on this battlefield, and agreed that neither side can withdraw troops to reinforce other positions, otherwise it will take the initiative to tear up the agreement.

This is inevitable. Ten thousand against five thousand are ‘difficult to distinguish’. If Sizhou Mountain can still withdraw troops to reinforce other places, the Western Assault Detachment will not be able to explain to the superiors at all. Even if there are mountains of gold and silver, it is probably not as important as brains.

Of course, more importantly, Tang Dao does not trust Okuma Yukinosuke.

Although the two sides seemed to be saying hello to each other at noon, if we put aside their nationalities, they almost became sworn brothers, but Tang Dao has always been extremely wary of that "Majin Buu".

A person who can even sell out national interests has a very low bottom line!

All people and things are only valuable in his eyes. If he knew that the opponent's defense line was insufficient, it would not be impossible to tear up the so-called verbal agreement and swallow the opponent in one bite to win military merit.

Even the Chinese secret negotiations would be boasted by him as "tactical deception".

And the 4th Division is by no means as bad as the wild history jokes. Its combat effectiveness may not be as good as the 5th Division, but it is definitely not weaker than the old divisions such as the 3rd Division and the 6th Division.

Tang Dao's worry is not without reason.

At 3 pm on January 10, Itagaki Shiro suddenly increased his troops. The original two detachments and one infantry regiment of the Central Attack Group led by Masao Nakamura had nearly 30,000 troops. By the evening, the number had reached nearly 40,000, almost equal to that of the 4th Army plus the Tangdao Division.

That was an infantry brigade of the 105th Division that had been staying in the suburbs of Yuncheng with more than 7,600 people. Although it was not the last trump card in Itagaki Shiro's hand, it also showed that after the defeat of the Kunisaki Detachment, the furious Itagaki Shiro finally showed 90% of his strength.

Almost all members of the 5th Division went into battle.

The bad news came. At the suggestion of Masao Nakamura, the highest commander of the Japanese Central Attack Group, the infantry brigade of the 105th Division replaced the 4th Division's Western Assault Detachment to continue attacking the Sizhoushan defense line.

The reason was that Major General Okuma Yukinosuke of the Western Assault Detachment had been shouting that his troops had suffered too much loss in the battle in the past two days and needed to rest. Even if Okuma Yukinosuke didn't want to, he couldn't swallow back what he had said.

However, Okuma Yukinosuke probably still thought about the treasure of "penicillin". Before the night shift, he still sent a message to Tang Dao in the way he had agreed with Tang Dao.

That is to say, the more than 5,000 officers and soldiers under Tang Dao will face a full-strength infantry brigade, and it is also the direct troops under Itagaki Shiro. The pressure is not ordinary.

Let alone wanting to withdraw troops to block the gap, even if Tang Dao can hold this line of defense with new recruits and baggage soldiers, it is the greatest success.

Tang Dao knows that asking for help from the white-haired general of the 38th Army at this time will only cause trouble for him.

When the Japanese army broke through the defense line between the 5th Army and the 4th Army in the afternoon, the white-haired general had already sent out his last reserve, the guard battalion directly under his army headquarters.

The head of an army in Mo Nan Town only had a guard platoon around him at this time.

But in order not to shake the morale of the army, even if Tang Dao sent a telegram to persuade him to leave and go to the Independent 46th Brigade to temporarily avoid the Japanese army, he still sent a telegram to refuse.

"With the enemy at hand, all officers and soldiers of the 38th Army will not leave the front line. How can Zhao leave his post without permission? The devil wants my life, and here is my head, come and take it!"

Faced with the stubbornness of the white-haired general, Tang Dao was helpless.

Tang Dao certainly knew that the white-haired general had his reasons.

The 38th Army was a newly formed unit, and the 17th Division was his old unit, so it was naturally prohibited to follow orders, but there were also two new units, the 96th Army and the Independent 46th Brigade.

Mo Nan Town was originally the rear. Once a possible crisis occurred, the military headquarters immediately evacuated. What would the army and brigade that were still fighting desperately think?

If you can take a step back now, you will take ten steps and a hundred steps back in the future! Why, your life is life, but our lives are not life?

Suspicion is poison, especially in such a cruel battlefield where people's lives are constantly being filled, it will be infinitely magnified.

If the white-haired general still stood firm in the face of the crisis, even if he died on the battlefield, he would have fulfilled his oath before the war and would only make the three armies fight for their lives.

Just like General Zhang on the Zaoyi battlefield in the past time and space, he could obviously leave, but he chose not to leave, preferring to die to show his determination.

His inner thoughts were nothing more than that, you soldiers can die, and I, a general, can die as well.

But no matter what the white-haired general thought, Tang Dao could never watch the crisis coming and let this commander be put in danger.

Fortunately, he had already taken precautions and placed Long Yan and a communication team in Mo Nan Town. On the surface, it was to try to maintain contact between the Sizhoushan Defense Zone and the 38th Army Headquarters, but in fact it was just Tang Dao's last resort.

Long Yan looked like a straightforward man, but in fact he was very thoughtful. Tang Dao issued a secret order that if the Japanese soldiers really passed through the defense line and forced Mo Nan Town, Long Yan would take them away even if he violated the order of this general.

Tang Dao's worries unfortunately came true on January 11.

Under the command of Masao Nakamura, the Japanese army launched an all-out attack with more than 30,000 troops, and the 4th Army and the Tangdao Division had to fight with all their strength.

On this day, the Japanese army not only used 105 howitzer heavy artillery, but also dispatched 4 waves of bombers with a total of 48 sorties to bombard the defense lines.

The Sizhou Mountain defense line, which had finally been quiet for two days due to the existence of the 4th Division, received special care, and 20 heavy bombs fell on the defense line.

If it weren't for the extra two days of breathing time, under the leadership of the Sihang Regiment's baggage soldiers who had seen the cruelty of the battlefield, more than 5,000 Chinese soldiers dug thousands of meters of 2-meter-deep trenches and many anti-artillery holes in the mountains.

It is estimated that these 20 heavy bombs alone can take away several infantry companies!

Even so, in the nearly 1-hour bombing, hundreds of officers and soldiers died before they even saw the infantry of the 105th Division.

Under the cover of artillery fire, the 105th Division launched a full-scale attack at 8:20 in the morning. In the first round of firepower probing alone, three infantry squadrons were mobilized. After the recruits had to use some heavy machine guns for fire suppression, the Japanese army mobilized more than 10 infantry squadrons to enter the front line, and no less than 5 followed closely behind.

The attack of 3,000 infantrymen made the hillside look yellowish, which made people shudder.

If it were the four main infantry battalions of the Four-line Regiment, let alone 3,000 Japanese soldiers, even if there were twice as many, they would not be afraid of the Tang sword.

Unfortunately, it was not!

If the recruits had not fought in the Tongguan battlefield and had some battlefield experience, they would probably have collapsed psychologically in the crazy artillery fire and bombing of the Japanese army.

At this moment, they can still insist on hiding in the trenches and pointing their guns at the bottom and firing back under the heartbreaking and roaring orders of the platoon leaders. It is already very remarkable for them.

However, the poor shooting skills and the lack of courage to raise their heads and aim at the advancing Japanese army calmly made the Japanese infantry approach 200 meters from the front of the position in the second wave of attack.

The baggage soldiers of the Four-line Regiment, who were intertwined with the recruit company on the defense line, showed enough courage. Many of them, encouraged by the veteran squad leader, stared at the Japanese army's gunfire and rain of bullets and tried their best to aim and shoot.

Obviously, not only in courage, but also in shooting skills, they could not be compared with the regular army of the Four-line Regiment, nor with the Japanese veterans of the 105th Division.

Even with the protection of the trenches, nearly a hundred baggage soldiers were killed or injured in this cruel shooting.

The probability of death is even greater than that of injury when being targeted by Japanese veterans.

However, less than a hundred Japanese infantry fell, and this was when the Chinese side had fortifications and geographical advantages. If they were pulled to the plain field battlefield, with the nearly one-to-one casualty ratio in front of them, even if Tang Tuanzuo had three heads and six arms, it is estimated that this battle would also end in the annihilation of the entire army.

Fortunately, the new recruits and the baggage soldiers still had a large number of heavy machine guns!

Seeing that the infantry alone could not suppress the Japanese infantry who had advanced less than 200 meters, Tang Dao calmly ordered the heavy machine gun fire points 1 to 20 to open fire.

At this time, there were a total of 60 Min-24 heavy machine guns and 10 Maxim heavy machine guns carried by the baggage company on the defense line, which were organized by Tang Dao into numbers 1 to 70 and distributed behind each position.

The 20 heavy machine guns that opened fire were only about one-third of all the heavy machine gun fire points in the entire army.

Tang Dao cannot expose all its firepower points right at the beginning. The Japanese army has countless infantry guns and mountain guns staring at the defense line. Although the Japanese army used more than 2,000 infantry to attack, they actually used their strength to pressure the defenders to use heavy firepower.

To put it bluntly, the Japanese army used human lives to exchange for heavy firepower points that could suppress the infantry. Once these heavy firepower points that could cause a large number of casualties to the infantry were killed, that was when they launched the final general attack.

If any of the four major infantry battalions were here, the simple and direct pressure attack test of the Japanese army would not have much effect at all. The rifles and submachine guns used by the elite infantry alone could make the Japanese infantry pay a heavy price.

But now Tang Dao has no elite troops under his command, and they are not even ordinary.

Therefore, Tang Dao can only play the most cruel tactic on the battlefield with the Japanese army-a war of attrition!

The Japanese army consumed the lives of the infantry, and Tang Dao consumed its own heavy firepower points.

This extremely cruel battle was actually to see how many lives of Japanese infantrymen the Chinese 70 heavy machine guns could exchange for. The one who could hold on to the end would be the winner.

The cruel battle that made the eyes of Tang Dao red lasted for a whole day.

Near dusk, the gloomy weather suddenly cleared up, and a setting sun fell into the mountains.

The clouds in the sky were gorgeous!

The eyes of officers and soldiers on both sides and even the commanders were all red.

Perhaps it was not just from the sunset, but the battlefield stained red by blood.

The hillside was covered with khaki corpses of the Japanese army. From a distance, they looked like a group of insects. There was no need to count them. Just a preliminary estimate showed that there were more than 600 Japanese corpses left on the hillside.

These were just the dead. If the injured were counted, the infantry brigade of the 105th Division suffered more than 1,500 casualties on that day alone.

An army composed of new recruits and baggage soldiers achieved this result in just one day, which is definitely enough to be proud of.

But no one on the Chinese side, including Tang Dao, could laugh.

Because their casualties were also heavy!

More than 800 soldiers were dead, and most of their cold bodies did not even have time to be transported to the rear, and were piled up at the end of the trenches on each line of defense.

The remains that were forced to be piled up layer by layer were like stacked sleepers, and their stiff faces were gray, but still not as gray as many of their eyes that had not yet closed.

Many soldiers couldn't help crying when they saw this scene, crying for their fellow countrymen and for themselves.

Because no one knew whether it would be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, they would become one of them.

Even the company and platoon leaders couldn't hide their sadness and fear in their eyes, but Tang Dao, for the first time, did not blame anyone, but gently patted the shoulders of those young people who were crying as he walked through the trenches.

Whether it is sadness or fear, this is the battlefield, a place so cruel that people have to abandon their humanity.

The recruits must learn to face death, not only of their comrades, but also of themselves.

The 70 heavy firepower points on the entire battlefield suffered the greatest losses in the battle that day, with as many as 42 destroyed by the Japanese army's superior artillery fire.

Of the more than 800 officers and soldiers killed in the battle, nearly 300 were soldiers in the heavy machine gun firepower group!

Most of them died under the artillery fire of the Japanese army, but more than a dozen died under the guns of the supervision team.

As soon as the military order was issued, any shooter who did not dare to operate the heavy machine gun to fire would be executed on the spot by the supervision team wearing red ribbons patrolling on the battlefield.

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary things. The harsh and cruel military law seems cruel, but it prevents the collapse of the entire defense line.

It was under such high pressure that more than 5,000 recruits and baggage soldiers survived this day, otherwise the remaining more than 3,800 people would not be able to see the moment when the red clouds filled the sky.

Of course, the two mortars that were kept at the bottom of the box were used by Tang Dao at 5 pm, which was also the key to the Japanese army's final choice of withdrawal.

The explosion of a large shell weighing nearly 40 kilograms less than 150 meters in front of the trench was absolutely a force that destroyed the will of the Japanese army.

The dozen large craters with a depth of 5 meters and a diameter of 3 meters in front of the trench were the masterpieces of the mortars.

The Japanese soldiers who were hit by the shells directly, whether they were lying down, kneeling or bending over, were all dead.

The Japanese infantry with a diameter of 50 meters near the impact point was not much better. No matter they were strong or weak, or they desperately lowered their bodies and wished to bury their heads and faces in the soil, they would be mercilessly blown up like leaves by the huge shock wave, and then smashed hard on the ground.

Often one shell could take away half of the infantry squad. Even the cruel Japanese army was completely scared under such exaggerated large shells from the Chinese side.

The battlefield gradually sank into darkness and fell silent. The Chinese and Japanese sides hidden in the darkness were like two ferocious beasts, licking their wounds and waiting for the light to arrive again.

Fight again!

Just as the Japanese brigade commander, a major general, wrote in the battle report with a sullen face 2,000 meters away: "The Chinese are stubborn, but the return of 763 imperial officers and soldiers has forced them into a desperate situation. Tomorrow we will fight again and completely crush all their stubbornness."

The Japanese were still trying to hold back their grief and accumulate strength, but Tang Dao received the bad news he didn't want to hear in the evening.

The gaps that the pig teammates did not block led to more than 2,000 Japanese troops entering the defense line!