Rise From Eight Hundred

The Japanese troops approaching the 3rd Battalion's position at Zhujiaping are the 231st Infantry Regiment of the 39th Division!

If the 232nd Japanese Regiment, which was successfully ambushed and almost completely wiped out by the Mountain Infantry Company, was one of the culprits that led to General Zhang's death, then the 231st Infantry Regiment was the main culprit.

According to the description of the guard who rescued General Zhang's body, it was the 231st Infantry Regiment that broke through the defense line on that day. General Zhang had to lead the guards and the civilian staff of the headquarters to fight with them, and was eventually shot in the chest and died!

You say, when Tang Dao heard that the main culprit who caused his elder brother's death arrived in front of his own position, how could he not be angry?

"Li Jiujin, this battle not only has to stop the 231st Regiment, but also find a way to delay them for me, and leave them all here for me!" Tang Dao directly called Li Jiujin.

"Yes! The 3rd Battalion guarantees to complete the mission!" Li Jiujin patted his chest and promised.

However, after hanging up the phone, Old Li was far from as relaxed as he had promised Tang Dao. The brows of the old soldier who was always carefree were tightly furrowed.

The Japanese army that was rushing towards the position of the 3rd Battalion from 15 miles away said it was the 231st Infantry Regiment, but in fact its scale was far more than a regiment.

It turned out that the 39th Division was one of the main divisions in the 11th Army, and the division commander Murakami Kisaku was a personal friend of Yokoyama Isamu, and was highly valued by Yokoyama Isamu. In this Shipai operation, Murakami Kisaku was designated as the highest commander on the front line.

Murakami Kisaku, the highest commander on the front line of the Japanese 11th Army, also had his own little tricks in mind. From the perspective of tactical deployment, the central position of the Shipai Fortress must be broken. The Chinese side placed a main infantry division there to wait for it, which was naturally the hardest bone to chew.

Therefore, Murakami Qisaku divided his 39th Division into three parts, with two main infantry regiments entering from the mountainous area to attack the flanks, and one main infantry regiment attacking the front of Shipai Fortress. This would not give people a chance to criticize him, but also reduce the loss of troops in the 39th Division.

Among the 231st and 232nd Infantry Regiments, Murakami Qisaku made another choice, choosing to bet on the 231st Infantry Regiment, so he assigned the division's artillery regiment, engineering regiment, logistics regiment, and field hospital to the 231st Infantry Regiment.

To put it bluntly, the 232nd Infantry Regiment that entered the battlefield from the Changyang direction and the 233rd Infantry Regiment in front of the Shipai Fortress really only had one infantry regiment, but the 231st Infantry Regiment brought an artillery regiment with 36 mountain guns and more than 900 artillerymen, plus more than 500 engineers, more than 2,000 baggage soldiers and other auxiliary arms. Whether it is the strength or the diversity of arms, it is equivalent to a small-scale detachment.

Its troops that can participate in the battle are as high as 6,000 people!

In the past, the strength of a battalion of the Four-Line Regiment plus reserve soldiers could reach 2,000, and it was mainly defensive, so it was not afraid of 6,000 Japanese troops. But now, for the expedition, each battalion has been compressed to about 900 people, and the strength ratio is 1:7.

That's not all. Tang Tuanzuo's requirement is not only to stop, but also to delay this Japanese army. It is obviously to prepare for the annihilation of this Japanese army. This difficulty is simply hell-level.

"Let all the company and platoon leaders come to the battalion headquarters for a meeting. How to fight this battle? I will also brainstorm!" After thinking for a moment, Li Jiujin directly ordered the signalman beside him.

Three cobblers are better than one Zhuge Liang. Old Li, who has no tricks, believes that these guys under his command can always come up with a trick.

The company and platoon leaders of each company really trotted all the way from the trenches. This has little to do with the military order of the battalion commander Jiujin. In fact, the Japanese are only 10 miles away from the battlefield. Seeing that the battle is about to start, how can these grassroots commanders not stay on the position?

The regiment headquarters has military regulations. During wartime, no matter the battalion, company, or platoon, if the chief officer is not at the command center or the battle station, he will be punished according to military law for desertion without permission.

"My battalion commander! What are you going to do? The Japanese are coming soon."

The first captain to arrive was a veteran who had been with Li Jiujin for more than 4 years. He had fought in the Battle of Shanghai, the Sihang Warehouse, Songjiang, Guangde, and North China. Li Jiujin was a cheerful person. The two of them were like brothers and were used to being casual. But he started to complain.

"Zhang Dabiao, stand at attention!" Li Jiujin glared.

The captain was startled and stood at attention quickly.

"Tell me, am I the battalion commander or is your kid the battalion commander!" Li Jiujin glanced at his old comrade.

"Of course it's you, Li Jiujin, the battalion commander!" The captain flattered with a drooling face.

"Then I asked you to come to a meeting, and you're still complaining. The Japanese are coming, and there's still more than ten miles to go! With the short legs of the Japanese, they can't get here in an hour, so why are you so anxious!" Li Jiujin scolded angrily.

"The battalion commander is right, I was wrong! Come on, battalion commander, have a cigarette to calm down." The captain quickly admitted his mistake and took out a cigarette.

"Okay, it's good to know that you are wrong. The commander of the regiment just gave an order. You kid, think about how to complete it and come up with a good idea. This matter will be treated as if it never happened." Li Jiujin took the cigarette and nodded with satisfaction.

Finally found an unlucky kid to help him think, how can the old soldier not be satisfied?

The captain originally thought it was nothing, but when the battalion signalman told him the content of the order, his face turned bitter.

"Battalion commander, can you give me the cigarette back so that I can continue to stand?" The captain asked in a low voice with a bitter face.

"This is the task assigned to me by the commander of the regiment for the entire 3rd Battalion. You have to think about it even if you are standing." Li Jiujin almost let out a puff of cigarette from his ear.

The dozen or so captains, lieutenants, and second lieutenants who came squatted in the air-raid shelter of the battalion headquarters, which did not even have a chair. Each of them lit a cigarette and thought hard.

These fearless veterans were sure to stop 6,000 Japanese devils, but it would be too difficult to hold them back.

It is difficult for a good cook to cook without rice. Three infantry companies have to defend a defense line of 3,600 meters with a total of 15 high grounds, which is the limit. If more troops are sent out, how can they defend?

Besides, there are 6,000 Japanese troops. How many troops do you need to send out to harass them in order to hold them back?

From the perspective of military strength, this is an unsolvable problem!

Time passed by minute by minute, but no one could come up with constructive suggestions. Li Jiujin, who was originally calm, looked at his pocket watch, and his eyes were filled with anxiety.

"Battalion commander, I have a question!" Boss Cao, who had already been promoted to the rank of second lieutenant, stood up and asked.

"Old Cao, you say." Li Jiujin nodded.

"The commander of the regiment asked us to find a way to delay this group of devils. Is he trying to kill them all?"

"Right? That's what he meant. I know the commander of the regiment too well. He is probably putting up small flags on the sand table at this moment. Once the time is right, the mountain infantry company, the reconnaissance company, the two main companies of the 4th Battalion and even the guard company will be put into the battlefield. No one of the devils he wants to kill has escaped so far.

But the difficulty lies in how can we prevent this group of devils from running away after being hit!"

"That's it. Since the commander of the regiment means to kill this group of devils, then we might as well kill them here." Boss Cao's single eye was full of cold light.

"What do you mean?" Li Jiujin didn't come back to his senses for a while.

"We have seen many creatures like the little devils. The harder you hit them, the less they will leave. They always want to get back at each other. Then in the first wave of general attack after they have tested the firepower point, we will use the "sledgehammer" tactics formulated by you, the battalion commander, to kill them all at once. If they retreat, they will lose. If they don't want to lose, they can only fight us here. We will beat them half crippled directly, and it will be too late for them to leave." Boss Cao said.

"Old Cao is right! What's the point of delaying? Just kill the little devils here and it's over. Anyway, the commander wants to achieve this effect." The captain slapped his thigh.

"Haha! Old Cao, you are good! Solve the problem directly, don't play those twists and turns." Li Jiujin also laughed.

Boss Cao's words can be said to be a wake-up call. Tang Tuanzuo asked to delay the Japanese army, isn't it just to kill this group of Japanese troops! As long as they can be killed, the process is not important. What Tang Tuanzuo wants is the result.

Since this is the way to go, there is no need to keep the trump card that was originally planned to wait for the Japanese army to attack with all their strength. As long as they dare to launch an attack of a thousand people, they will be stunned at once, and they will be forced to stay here with a large number of casualties.

Moreover, isn't it said that the 39th Division is the elite of the Japanese 11th Army! They once defeated the Chinese 33rd Army in the Zaoyi Battle, and even General Zhang died on the front line against them. They can't be scared away by the large number of casualties! This is not in line with the temperament of the elites of the 39th Division.

Don't say, this group of "stupid cobblers" in the 3rd Battalion really grasped the Achilles' heel of the 231st Infantry Regiment.

Since the 232nd Infantry Regiment was completely wiped out the day before yesterday, there are only two or three kittens and sick cats left in the entire regiment. The responsibility of maintaining the honor of the entire 39th Division fell on the strongest 231st Infantry Regiment.

"In this battle, we must win and not lose, even if we have to fight to the last soldier!" This was the military order from Murakami Kisaku to Colonel Masayoshi Yamada, the commander of the 231st Infantry Regiment.

If the losses were small, Colonel Masayoshi Yamada might still think of finding another way to bypass the Zhujiaping battlefield, but if the losses were large, Yamada Masayoshi would have to fight to the death with the 3rd Battalion.

Yamada Masayoshi was able to lead the main force of the 39th Division to the battle, so he was certainly not a person with a brain defect.

In fact, the reason why Yamada Masayoshi, who came from a poor family, was second only to the division commander Murakami Kisaku in the 39th Division was entirely due to his accurate judgment of the battlefield.

Just like the battle in the Zaoyi Campaign that surrounded the 33rd Army Headquarters, it was entirely because of Yamada Masayoshi's emphasis on radio wave detection that he was able to determine that the 33rd Army Headquarters was actually on the front line.

If that was the case, it would not be enough to kill the general who had at least 4,000 troops and an elite guard battalion around him. After using two infantry regiments to encircle him, Yamada Masayoshi boldly used the infantry battalion level to penetrate the Chinese position, and finally separated the main force of the infantry and the commander, which forced the general himself to go to the front line with a gun and eventually led to the tragedy.

From a certain perspective, Yamada Masayoshi and the 231st Infantry Regiment were the most fierce enemy forces that the Four-Line Regiment had to face.

Therefore, when the 231st Infantry Regiment arrived at Zhujiaping, it first discovered through observation and scouts that there were sufficient infantry defense positions here, and did not rush to launch an attack.

Instead, it built a field position in the opposite mountain with the intention of fighting a protracted war, and it was like this throughout the day.

This made the officers and soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, who were full of energy, want to hit the iron fist hard, but it hit nothing!

Even on the second day, the 231st Infantry Regiment only sent three infantry squads to attack the three small hills at the forefront.

There were only 150 Japanese troops in total, with a sparse formation, and the attack was not very active. Once they encountered Chinese shooting, they immediately crawled on the slope and retreated.

The distance between the two sides never narrowed to more than 200 meters!

Then, after two or three hours, an attack of similar scale was launched again. Once they were attacked, they retreated immediately without any hesitation.

During the whole day, the attacks were never more than 3 times, and the intensity was so low that even the artillery they were assigned did not participate.

The maximum intensity of the artillery bombardment was that the 70mm infantry gun deployed 1,000 meters away symbolically fired more than a dozen shots at the hilltop being attacked.

This made the officers and soldiers of the 3rd Battalion extremely uncomfortable. This was completely different from the Japanese troops they encountered in North China. These devils were just like playing house, and they did not even intend to test the firepower.

During the whole day of fighting, the Japanese casualties never exceeded double digits, and only a few Chinese soldiers were injured by stones blown up by infantry shells. Except for a little pain, it did not affect their participation in the battle.

You want to say that they were deliberately setting up a false formation! Not really, it is visible to the naked eye that the trenches dug by the Japanese army on the opposite mountain are at least more than 2,000 meters long, and teams of Japanese soldiers have entered them, with at least a thousand people.

No one knows what the Japanese commander on the opposite side is up to. Li Jiujin didn't think so much. No matter what tricks the Japanese army played, they would eventually have to pass through this mountain area, otherwise they would have to continue to detour in the mountains. Those mountain streams with a width of more than 20 meters are natural barriers for an army towing artillery.

To put it bluntly, no matter how many strategies there are, they will have to be proven in the end.

In addition to the strange silence on the Zhujiaping side, the battlefield on the Niuchangpo side, 5 kilometers away, is already in full swing.

The enemy facing the 2nd Battalion was no weaker than the 3rd Battalion. It was the famous Nogou Detachment of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army.

The Nogou Detachment was drawn from the 5th Division of the Japanese Army, code-named "Guang", and commanded by the detachment commander, Major General Nogou Shikihiko, commander of the 51st Infantry Brigade. It had two independent infantry battalions with 3,300 infantry troops, and another reinforced artillery battalion and a number of baggage soldiers and engineers, with more than 20 artillery pieces of various types.

Although the infantry force was less than that of the 231st Infantry Regiment, the combat effectiveness of the 5th Division was self-evident. Even among the 17 permanent divisions in Japan, it was also the best.

Therefore, the Nogou Detachment did not take the place in front of it seriously at all. After spending half a day testing the firepower points of the 2nd Battalion's position, it started the crazy attack mode.

More than 20 artillery pieces fired at the same time, blasting the four high grounds that were the focus of the attack into smoke. More than 700 infantrymen launched the attack accompanied by the continuous artillery fire.

At the closest point, the Japanese artillery shells were only 120 meters away from their own infantry, which was the limit of infantry-artillery coordination in this era.

Even the Four-Line Regiment stipulated that the artillery fire covering the infantry's advance should not be less than 150 meters, unless it was a life-and-death crisis and needed to fight for its life.

But the Nogou Detachment did so, and even covered its own infantry to within 120 meters of the high ground trench, which was already an extremely dangerous distance.

If the officers and soldiers of the 2nd Battalion did not get out of the anti-artillery hole, the Japanese infantry would only need 30 seconds at most to enter the attack range of throwing grenades.

This also forced the 3 80mm howitzers that had been hidden in the 2nd Battalion Artillery Company to fire at the front of the position, and the 4 150 heavy mortars also began to fire, which stopped the fierce assault of the Japanese army.

"The Chinese heavy firepower is not weak, but what's the use of it?" Nogou Shikihiko, who arrived at the front line in person, did not feel frustrated because of the setback in his first round of fierce attack, but felt relieved.

Nogou Shikihiko's fighting style is a bit tough, but not mindless. He used the lives of nearly 100 Japanese infantrymen to test the strength of the Chinese heavy firepower, which is what he wants most.

He does not regard the lives of ordinary infantry as grass, but he wants more of his subordinates to return home alive, find the location of the Chinese heavy firepower and eliminate it, which is his real purpose.

Because, in addition to enough artillery, he also has enough air support.

After testing the artillery behind the high ground, a fleet of 24 Japanese fighter planes flew over the Niuchangpo battlefield and carried out saturation bombing.

The Japanese naval aviation forces who have been hit repeatedly are probably also very frustrated and want to vent their anger on this mountain forest. In addition to heavy bombs, the bombs they dropped also include many incendiary bombs and poison gas bombs.

However, the anti-aircraft battalion of the Fourth Regiment did not tolerate them. Eight 40mm anti-aircraft guns kept firing, shocking the previously confident Major General Nogou to the point that he could swallow a watermelon.

The Japanese naval aviation, which had been beaten up here, did not dare to enter the medium and low altitudes at all. The dense fire nets at medium and low altitudes a few days ago were still vivid in their minds. After dropping bombs at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters, they flew away immediately.

Of course, let alone the accuracy, there was even a 250-pound bomb that hit the position of the Nogou detachment. If the trenches of the Nogou detachment had not been dug deep enough, an infantry squad would have been finished.

But that also caused 10 deaths and 18 injuries in the Nogou detachment, and half of the infantry squad was also written off.

"The first blow is a great victory, the second is weak, and the third is exhaustion!" 5 kilometers away, Masayoshi Yamada told his subordinates in his headquarters his tactical guiding ideology. "When the Chinese saw us coming, they tried their best to fight with us, but I won't. I want to consume their desire for fighting!"

This ancient Chinese tactical concept, which originated from "Zuo Zhuan", was unexpectedly used by a Japanese officer on the Chinese battlefield more than 2,000 years later.

Although it is not known whether it will be useful in the end, many officers and soldiers on the 3rd Battalion's position were indeed very unhappy with Masayoshi Yamada's delaying war. It was cold in winter, and they had to stay in the cold trenches for eating and sleeping. They all wanted to finish the work early, but the Japanese inexplicably did this.

This made him even more angry, just waiting for the Japanese to come up and shoot him!