Rise From Eight Hundred

The 108th Division ran very resolutely!

It's not that there's really not enough military rations, it's that the 683rd Brigade of the 80th Group Army has made some changes.

This conclusion was discovered at noon on the sixth day after the 16th Division violently attacked the 20-kilometer-long defense line deployed by the Chinese army in the mountains.

After a certain unit of the 16th Division managed to capture a high ground in the area's defense line after suffering heavy casualties, after checking the armbands of the fallen on the position, they were surprised to find that their opponents had changed.

The 16th Division, which has been fighting in Jin Province for a long time, can be considered an old rival with the Eightyth Army. It has long understood the habits of the regular army and militia under the Eightyth Army. The regular army has armbands with the words "Eighth Route Army and its division," The brigade still has military years, but the militiamen don't have this kind of thing.

A few days ago, by inspecting the armbands on the remains that the Chinese army had no time to carry away, the 16th Division determined that the enemy in front of them was the 683rd Brigade, the main force of the 921st Division. However, only a few days later, it was replaced by someone from the 511th Division, another main division of the 80th Army. department.

The 511th Division is another main division of the 80th Group Army. It has been fighting with the 5th Division in northwestern Shanxi for a long time. However, the 80th Group has to resist the imperial army this time, so it is not unusual for them to appear here.

But this news reached the ears of Nakano Kosan, the current top commander of the 108th Division, and the major general brigade commander immediately broke out in white sweat.

The 683rd Brigade was not on the enemy's defense line, so where were they?

After seven days of fighting, the Japanese army has found out that the Eightyth Army's available troops now far exceed those before. There are at least 50,000 to 60,000 people. With the addition of the Jinsui Army and the Central Army, they have completely left two men. Thousands of people came to serve as reserves.

It is difficult for an infantry brigade with no more than ten thousand people to pose a threat to the 108th Division, but what about the two infantry regiments and an unknown number of militiamen, as well as the four-line regiment that has never appeared?

Given the current situation of the 108th Division, the consequences will be...

It’s scary to think about it!

As a result, the most bizarre scene in the Battle of Southeast Shanxi occurred.

After getting Xiangyue Qingshi's approval, the 20,000-strong army of the 108th Division, which had only withdrawn a dozen kilometers, actually began to run wildly with short legs.

In just one afternoon, 20,000 Japanese troops marched 30 kilometers.

It was in the mountains, not in the plains, and it also carried all kinds of baggage and wounded people. The 108th Division's retreat definitely created a rare field march record in the history of the Sino-Japanese War.

At this speed, not to mention the Japanese soldiers themselves were dumbfounded, even members of a certain regiment were stunned.

His scouts hiding in the mountains almost missed catching up with the Japanese army. Although the mountain roads in the mountains were more rugged than the main roads where the Japanese army was, they were single soldiers and they were all trained mountain scouts. They almost missed it. Er lost the whereabouts of the main force of the 108th Division.

That should also be the most peaceful night the 108th Division slept. They were so damn good at running away that the two most elite reconnaissance squad officers and soldiers sent by Tang Tuanzuo almost died from exhaustion. leg.

This time, their main task was to track the movements of the Japanese troops and observe the geographical environment of the area. They would only continue to harass the Japanese troops under suitable conditions.

Therefore, the frantic retreat of the 108th Division unexpectedly created a good period of repair time for itself.

The next day, the 108th Division got up at 5:30 a.m. to bury pots and cook, and officially set off at 6:10 a.m. It was not until 4 p.m. that the entire army ran another 50 kilometers.

The march lasted a total of 14 hours. In a state of low morale, they marched 80 kilometers with a large amount of baggage and fully armed. With their marching speed alone, they killed a number of standing divisions in an instant.

Had it not been for the retreat, the cliff would have been recorded in the history of the Japanese Army.

But this run really avoided a big defeat.

According to the Chinese battle report declassified after the war, the boss of the Chinese 80th Group Army designed a battle plan with the joint advice of the two deputy directors of the Southeast Shanxi Theater Staff Department.

The most important part of the battle plan was the secret deployment of 28,000 people from the Central Army's 3rd Army into southeastern Shanxi. The original defense area was replaced by 18,000 people from the Shanxi-Sui Army Guard Division under the Shanxi old man who had been unwilling to dispatch. This change of defense was top secret, and it was known that there would be no more than five people. In addition, the Japanese army pressed heavily on the border, and the Chinese army mobilized frequently along the defense line around Linfen. Besides, the Japanese army dispatched this time was sufficient. More importantly, the Second Theater Command had important personnel. The department's hasty withdrawal gave the Japanese troops a psychological guidance. In this battle, the Chinese themselves showed signs of giving up.

As a result, the Japanese latent spies missed this top-secret information.

This led to the fact that neither the North China Front Army Headquarters nor the East Route Army Headquarters in Lucheng even realized that the Chinese army in southeastern Shanxi had as many as 130,000 troops, nearly twice as many as the Japanese army.

Perhaps, these 28,000 more people still cannot stop the siege of the Japanese invaders' three divisions plus a mixed brigade.

However, if the 28,000 troops were used at a critical moment, it would most likely be fatal to the Japanese army that was caught off guard.

Of course, the boss of the 80th Group Army has always regarded the 28,000 people secretly transferred as his last trump card. Even if the 16th Division gathered nearly 20,000 infantrymen, more than 60 artillery pieces, and nearly a hundred aircraft sorties, During the attack, an infantry corps remained stationary as its final reserve.

In the most dangerous position, all the units of the Eightyth Army fought desperately to fight against it.

That was the boss guarding against the 20,000 troops of the 108th Division that broke into his hinterland. If they turned around, the 3rd Army would become the last shield of tens of thousands of troops.

But the war situation was so changing rapidly. The 20,000 troops of the 108th Division were exhausted by the harassment of a small reconnaissance company of Tang Dao. After a hard fight with two infantry regiments, they chose to withdraw.

Even two days ago, the boss of the 80th Army Group quickly invested his last reserve, replaced the first infantry brigade under his command, and ordered an infantry division under the 3rd Army to march to Wuxiang at night.

The troops quietly surrounding the 108th Division were not a brigade and a regiment plus some militia as Nakano Xiaosan thought. The regular army alone had a strength of 25,000. If the four-line regiment that had never appeared was added, it would exceed 30,000 troops.

If the 108th Division had not run so fast, and the 1st Division and the 1st Brigade, which had already decided not to conceal their whereabouts, had caught up with them, it would be hard to say what would happen to the 108th Division, whose morale had already been extremely low.

After all, in the past time and space, the famous Battle of Changle Village was when the 117th Infantry Regiment under the 108th Division was caught up and surrounded by a division of the 921st Division during its evacuation! After a day of fierce fighting, if there had not been Japanese reinforcements in Liao County, the final outcome of the 117th Infantry Regiment might not have been only 2,200 casualties, but the entire army would have been annihilated.

But in this time and space, history took a small turn. The 108th Division had been chilled by the 683rd Brigade and the 4th Brigade because of the last battle of Shentouling. When they heard that the 683rd Brigade had disappeared and the 4th Brigade was still hiding, they immediately took their short legs and burst out the limit of human potential, escaping 80 kilometers in a day and a half.

This is a typical paranoia, but Teliang actually made a mistake and escaped.

Hearing that the 108th Division had crossed the Zhuozhang River, Brigade Commander Cheng cursed Tianliang for a long time during the march, but he could only helplessly order to stop the march.

He knew that the Zhuozhang River was the only way to stop the Japanese army. Once the Japanese crossed the river, there would be no other suitable position to stop the Japanese army from charging desperately.

After all, there were 20,000 fully armed Japanese troops, not 20,000 pigs. If you really want to surround them to death, you need at least 60,000 people, not the current 30,000.

In fact, including the general of the 80th Army, they all planned to save Zhao by surrounding Wei, surrounding the weakest 108th Division, forcing the Japanese army to withdraw troops from other fronts to assist, so that they could use the reserve troops to deploy along the way, thereby reducing the pressure on the second line of defense.

On the fifth day of the Southeast Shanxi Campaign, various units on the north and south lines had already asked the headquarters for help.

The head of the 80th Army Group knew that this time, they were not afraid of fighting. For the battle in southeastern Shanxi, the commander Yan issued a death order to the participating armies of various factions: if the army commander dared to retreat, he would be shot; if the division commander said he would retreat, he would be killed; if the brigade commander said he would retreat, he would be beheaded!

One shot, one kill, one behead, three orders to kill were issued, even if they might not come true in the end, no one dared to touch this brow.

The Second War Zone fought with the Japanese army for half a year and has been retreating, from the still prosperous Yuancheng to the majestic but barren Taihang Mountains and Zhongtiao Mountains. The two largest mountain ranges in Shanxi Province became the last barrier of Shaanxi Province and the last fig leaf for hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers in the Second War Zone.

If even this fig leaf was torn off by the Japanese, the old man in Shanxi, whose buttocks were exposed to the people of the whole country, would be so determined that he might do anything. Moreover, the old man was very good at finding scapegoats. He had used the head of a lieutenant general division commander as a scapegoat before.

The battle was indeed too hard.

Not to mention the Sichuan Army 104th Division fighting with the Second Mixed Brigade and the Northwest Army 17th Division which had not yet recovered, nor the main force of the 80th Army Group fighting with the 16th Division, but only the three divisions of the Shanxi Suiyuan Army and the Central Army fighting with the 109th Division, the second-line division.

Nearly 40,000 people fought in a huge defense line of 56 highlands with a total length of 18 kilometers, and the 4 infantry regiments, a tank battalion, an artillery regiment, a cavalry regiment and some engineers and baggage soldiers of the 109th Division, totaling 22,000 people.

The ratio of the forces of both sides was about 2 to 1. Apart from the advantage of terrain, the two infantry divisions of the Shanxi Suiyuan Army were equipped with 36 Shanxi-made 75-meter mountain guns and 60 82-meter mortars, and more than 160 heavy machine guns. The infantry division of the Central Army was also not bad, with 12 75-meter mountain guns, 28 mortars, and 70 heavy machine guns.

Calculated in this way, there were 48 75-meter mountain guns alone, which was not weaker than the Japanese army at all.

However, the 109th Division learned the lesson of the last rescue in Shecheng. Despite the difficulties of the road, it also brought a tank brigade. If the road was not wide enough, it would pave the way with engineers' blasting, and forced 10 89 tanks to reach the front line.

Together with 30 Type 94 light tanks, the Japanese army deployed a steel army on the attack line that made the Chinese army despair.

Mountain artillery and mortars fired shrapnel shells, which were mainly used to kill infantry, but had little damage to Japanese tanks. In mountain warfare, the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army and the Central Army abandoned the heavy 37mm anti-tank guns.

So, they could only watch helplessly as the Japanese used the Type 89 tanks as mobile artillery platforms and used short-barreled tank guns to eliminate the heavy firepower points on the defense line.

Without the fire suppression of heavy machine guns, the Japanese army used infantry to carry out repeated charges and used artillery fire to cover the artillery fire. In addition, the air superiority was completely lost. The Japanese bomber formations in the sky could even unscrupulously dive bomb the discovered artillery positions, causing many artillery positions to be destroyed. It was destroyed before it could use up all the shells.

Nearly half of the 48 75mm mountain guns were destroyed on the third day of the battle, which did not show the strength that the artillery group should have.

In the first three days, the three infantry divisions suffered more than 4,000 battle losses. On the fifth day, the 109th Division still attacked like crazy, with battle losses approaching 10,000.

Twenty-five percent of the battle damage would have collapsed long ago in normal times, but under the threat of death orders, not a single infantry division dared to retreat even half a step, and they were still gritting their teeth and holding on.

But asking for help is inevitable.

But as the Chinese commander-in-chief of the Southeast Shanxi Theater, the boss of the 80th Group Army was powerless. The 80th Group Army under his command had to use all its main forces to withstand the attack of the 16th Division. The 28,000-strong Third Army It is already the last reserve team in the entire southeastern Shanxi.

If it is put into battle at this time, it means that the decisive battle in southeastern Shanxi will begin in advance, which is not in line with the battle plan previously set by the theater staff.

This time the Japanese invaders launched a large-scale attack. From the way their troops were divided into ten groups, their intentions were clear. It would be best if they could annihilate the Chinese army on a large scale. If not, they would destroy the people and property in the Taihang Mountains. , weapons and other methods to destroy the combat potential of Taihang Mountain.

In other words, what the Japanese army wants this time is not necessarily the present, but definitely the future.

Yuan Shanshan is an extremely difficult opponent.

But the Japanese army also had their shortcomings. Due to the special nature of mountainous operations, their logistical support, which was not very strong, was even more stretched.

Therefore, all Japanese troops participating in the war mainly carried their own troops this time, and a large number of baggage troops followed the main force of infantry, but this was not endless.

Through calculation, if the Japanese army can maintain sufficient supply of supplies for this battle in southeastern Shanxi, the longest duration is half a month and the shortest is ten days.

In other words, if a decisive battle is to be fought, it would be better to wait eight days after the battle begins.

But now it is only the 5th day, and the last force on hand is about to be put into the battlefield, and the Japanese army may also have a camera reaction.

For example, if the 108th Division has arrived in Yushe, Wuxiang and other places, if the 20,000 Japanese troops turn their guns and march in any direction, what troops will the entire southeastern Shanxi use to resist them?

"If you are really unable to defeat the enemy, the headquarters authorizes you to wait for the camera to evacuate, but it is limited to 20 kilometers behind the defensive line. Lay up defenses and blockades at every level. Do your best to hold off the enemy invaders and contribute your own strength to the final decisive battle in southeastern Shanxi. Even if it’s the last drop of blood!” After thinking about it again and again, the then commander-in-chief of Southeast Shanxi issued such a military order to the three infantry divisions.

Although it was not a military order to fight to the death, in the eyes of the three lieutenant generals and division commanders whose faces were full of bitterness, it was actually no different from a military order to fight to the death.

However, it gives them some room for flexibility and maneuver. The depth of 20 kilometers is their limit.

At any rate, it gave them a breathing space. They didn't need to fight for every inch of land, they just needed to delay it for another three to four days.

But compared to them, the other two directions have fired real fire.

The 80th Army will not give up an inch of ground. If a high ground is lost, it will immediately gather all the artillery it can muster to blast the high ground, and immediately organize death squads to charge and take back the high ground.

It is completely normal for a highland to change hands seven or eight times.

In such a tragic battle, even an arrogant commander like Lieutenant General Nakajima Kongoro of the 16th Division could only vent his anger on the battlefield by personally killing an Army Major and an Infantry Lieutenant.

On the surface, Nakajima Kongo appears to have a handsome face and the style of a Confucian general, but as long as you know that the 16th Division under his command massacred Chinese soldiers and civilians in the Battle of Jinling to gain the top spot among the seven divisions of Jinling City, you can know that he is How cruel and cruel.

But even with such a cruel person and such a cruel division, they furiously attacked the defense line for several days and still couldn't make an inch of progress. You can know how fierce the fighting between the two sides was.

The 80th Army reported 9,400 casualties after the war, but in fact, in order to avoid exposing its true strength to others, this was a simplified and shrunken number.

However, the 7,000 casualties of the 16th Division after the war were real. In one battle, the elite of a main division was deployed, and there were hundreds of fighter planes to assist. The strength of two infantry regiments disappeared. This cliff It was a complete failure.

Of course, I am afraid of comparison in everything.

Just like someone who only scored 30 points in an exam, it feels very embarrassing. But if there are still people who only scored a few points, would the shameful feeling be much better? You taste it, you taste it carefully!

Anyway, Nakajima Kongo is the kind of person who is disgraced, but can still "return to the court".

But some people are destined to be unable to see the beautiful cherry blossoms.

For example, I was still waiting for the 108th Division to rendezvous, but I was waiting for news that the 108th Division had strode away in a day and a half and successfully "jumped out of the encirclement of the Chinese army".

After fighting fiercely for six days and nights, they had exhausted all their potential in the 'Battle of Starfall'.

Guns and blood are more terrifying than poison.

‘The Starfall War has successfully completed its mission. The Chinese people will not forget the great achievements of the brothers of the Sichuan Army and the Northwest Army. Tang Dao pays the highest tribute to the two commanders and the soldiers of the two divisions! ’

Tang Dao sent a telegram to the two lieutenant generals and division commanders with solemn expressions on that starry night.

‘The Starfall War’ is over, and the ‘Sunset War’ is on!

. . . . . . . . . . . .

PS: The first month of the new year ended so unexpectedly. This also means that Fengyue will go to work again from the beginning of February. This is really a sad thing. Because of the mask incident last semester, the teaching tasks this semester may be heavier, but Fengyue still guarantees that the new science fiction book "I Can Bury Everything" and this book will be updated. At most, I will stay up late to work! I hope that book friends will subscribe and vote for Fengyue for her hard work. Fengyue thanks!