Rise From Eight Hundred

The mountain road is difficult to travel!

Although Tang Dao and his group are all riding two horses, they can't travel very fast.

And the road is not so peaceful.

It's not that there are Japanese, but there are too many bandits.

This is different from southeastern Shanxi.

After all, there are more than 100,000 regular troops stationed in the mountains of southeastern Shanxi, and bandits have almost no living space.

In eastern Shanxi, which is already a Japanese-occupied area, the Japanese army occupies the county town, and the management outside the city is completely out of control.

During the three-hour march, Tang Dao felt at least more than ten covetous eyes through the bushes watching him and his comrades who were divided into three groups.

However, the bandits were also very perceptive. Looking at the dozen regular soldiers in military uniforms carrying guns and cannons with murderous intent, no one dared to jump out to test the strength of Tang Dao's elite team.

Bandits were rampant, which was a major feature of Shanxi Province, which was occupied by the Japanese army at that time. Most of them were poor people who could not survive, so they simply went up the mountain to become bandits to rob houses.

Especially in the nearly one year since the Japanese invaded Shanxi Province, the number of mountain bandits has increased sharply. In a small mountain town with a radius of only dozens of miles, there were no less than five bandit problems.

However, the most headaches for these endless bandits were not the Chinese mountain people, but the Japanese.

Because the bandits who were born in the mountains also knew that leeks could not be dug up by the roots, so whenever they went down the mountain to rob the mountain people, they would rob them slowly, and basically leave some food for the ordinary mountain people.

Even if they robbed a "big family", they could give some to the mountain people. If there was a situation, some mountain people would inform them. In just this year, bandits in many places actually formed a deformed "symbiotic" relationship with the mountain people.

Of course, most of these local big families were surnamed Ri.

In fact, in this area of ​​Shanxi Province, the rich people had long been scared away by the war. Apart from the Japanese transport team, who else could have so much white rice and flour?

Therefore, the Japanese encountered endless small-scale attacks in the mountains. In the first half of 1938, the recorded losses accounted for one-third of the total transportation volume.

Of course, a considerable part of them were the masterpieces of the 80th Army Group. Their characteristics were that they wanted to rob supplies and kill people, and even picked up all the shells for you. Just check the scene except for the corpses, you can know that it was done by them.

Bandits are different. They rarely aim to annihilate the enemy. As long as you lose the supplies and run away, the chance of survival is greater than 80%.

But compared with the 80th Army Group, which frequently launched attacks, bandits actually gave the Japanese a headache. Their so-called bandit nests or hilltops were just some straw huts. If you want to gather heavy troops to encircle and suppress me, I will give it to you. At most, I will let you burn it to vent your anger, and wait for you to leave, hey! I'll come back again, and if you come again, I'll run away again...

Bandits are not like regular soldiers. They don't have any heavy weapons or baggage. All they have is a bag of rice, a bow or a machete. Those who have dozens of bird guns or more than ten rifles are the F4 among bandits!

What? Such bandits have no deterrent power? When you walk on a mountain road, there are cliffs on one side and peaks on the other. Let alone rifles and machine guns, even if some rocks roll down, you will be in trouble.

Moreover, the bandits can survive in such poor mountains and bad waters, so their brains are good enough. They can send out any "scouts" for dozens of miles. Maybe your transport team of dozens of people has just left the city, and the bandits will target you, and then the bandit army will start looking for a suitable position to knock you out.

In short, it's just one sentence: do what you can do, hide what you can't do, face is not important at all compared to life.

The mountain bandits are like rats living in the underground tunnels of the city. They live in poor conditions, but they don't care about the cold or the raw food. No matter how fierce the Japanese are, as long as there are supplies, they are a bowl of food.

In the land of eastern Shanxi, in addition to the resistance army that makes the Japanese exhausted, the mountain bandits have become the second biggest force that gives the Japanese a headache.

Fortunately, these mountain bandits who silently watched Tang Dao and his party leave did not want to kill the fat sheep. Otherwise, Tang Tuanzuo, who was inexplicably anxious in his heart, would not have the mind to show mercy to them because they are from the same clan.

Tang Dao arrived at the front-line command post located in the headquarters of the 921st Division at 2:30 pm.

The front-line command post is located in a small mountain village, with as many as five guards, but this is normal. After all, this is wartime, and Tang Dao didn't think much about it.

Until he saw the brigade commander Cheng who came out of the village, his former cheerful smile was gone but his face was full of seriousness, Tang Dao couldn't help but feel a little nervous.

"Go in and tell them that Commander Zhao of the 17th Division also arrived half an hour ago. Commander Li of the 104th Division is still on the way. Commanders Tang of the 12th Division and Dong of the 101st Division did not arrive because they were far away, but both sent telegrams to express that they would accept all military orders from the front-line headquarters." Brigade Commander Cheng walked quickly to the headquarters with Tang Dao, while briefly introducing the situation.

Tang Dao's face was calm, but he knew in his heart that the situation might have really changed.

Sure enough, when they walked into the main hall of the mountain village courtyard, Commander Liu, the commander-in-chief of the front line, leaned over to look at the map and whispered something to Commander Zhao beside him. The faces of the two famous generals were solemn.

"Chief, Tang Dao, the commander of the Four-Line Regiment, is here to report!" Tang Dao saluted.

The two generals raised their heads at the same time, trying to smile on their serious faces, and raised their hands to return the salute.

They are all old acquaintances. Whether Tang Dao calls him "chief" or "chief", Zhao will not care at all.

Do you really think that Tang Dao can sell him style support just because he is a friendly army? Many of the reasons are self-explanatory.

"Captain Tang, you are finally here, sit down!" Liu pointed.

"Chief, what happened?" Tang Dao pulled out a chair and sat down, and asked directly without beating around the bush.

"The Japanese army has made unusual movements!" Liu did not hide it.

"Three and a half hours ago, our intelligence personnel in Changzhi City urgently reported that the 3,000-plus Japanese 108th Division stationed in the city suddenly went out on a large scale, and even used Type 89 tanks."

Tang Dao did not express his opinion, and continued to sit upright and wait for Liu's introduction. In his judgment, this intelligence would never make this super warrior who had experienced hundreds of battlefields so grim, and there should be more updated intelligence later.

"At first, I also thought that the Japanese army chose to call on the 108th Division because of the threat to Shimen, either to attack Wei to save Zhao, or to support Shimen from HD and other places along the Pinghan Line to the north. We have deduced this situation before the war, and the 104th Division or the 17th Division can temporarily block it." The solemnity on the face of the division commander Liu became more intense.

"But an hour and a half ago, a senior intelligence officer stationed in Shimen who held an important position in the puppet army did not hesitate to expose himself and sent a telegram that had not been completed by a secret radio station..."

Tang Dao's eyes were solemn.

The word "not hesitate to expose" already explained a situation. This intelligence was extremely urgent. If it was not sent, countless people would die. The fact that it was not sent in full showed that the intelligence officer had been exposed.

Yesterday, the Sihang Regiment approached the city of Niangziguan. Under the great threat of the Japanese army in Jingxing and Shimen, the whole city was naturally under martial law, and vehicles searching for radio signals were non-stop day and night.

Even a fool knows that sending radio waves at this time is undoubtedly suicide, let alone a trained senior intelligence officer?

"Look for yourself!" Commander Liu took out the translated telegram from his jacket pocket and put it on the table and pushed it towards Tang Dao, his eyes unable to hide the pain.

"The Japanese troops of the 20th Division of Shimen have made unusual movements, gathering a large number of soldiers, and armored vehicles and artillery have also begun to equip oil for transportation. They are not defending the city, but are actually attacking! ... Goodbye!" Tang Dao read it softly, his face full of solemnity, and he stood up involuntarily.

Not only is this intelligence important to all the attacking troops, but also the spirit of this senior intelligence officer who is willing to sacrifice.

The last goodbye was obviously the code sent in a hurry by the Japanese army after they had located his home and were beginning to break the door.

Even if the soldiers died in battle, they still had the opportunity to shoot hot bullets at the enemy with the guns in their hands, but people like this unknown intelligence officer who lurked in the enemy camp may not know their names until they die.

When they were alive, they stood in the contemptuous eyes of their own people, and when they died, they had no glory.

Or, their greatest wish is to have the opportunity to engrave their deeds on the tombstone!

The intelligence may not be detailed enough because it was written in a hurry, but it is enough, enough for the excellent Chinese commanders to judge the storm coming.

Because, no matter who it is, even a guy as stubborn as Itagaki Shiro, facing tens of thousands of Chinese elites rushing over with a fierce momentum and only more than 80 kilometers away, he will never give up the advantage of the city wall and run to fight a field battle.

The commander of the 20th Division, Kawagishi Saburo, is not a general-level player, otherwise in the famous Niangziguan defense battle last year, the 20th Division’s nearly 30,000 troops would not advance an inch for half a month.

The 20th Division made such an adjustment, which only proved one thing, that the main force of the Japanese army had come to support, and they wanted to eat up these tens of thousands of Chinese troops in one fell swoop on the plain.

In just one night, they were able to get support, which also ruthlessly explained to the several Chinese commanders present a fact that the Japanese North China Front Command may have known the tactical intentions of their troops long ago.

Otherwise, even the German Empire, which is moving towards mechanized troops, would not have deployed tens of thousands of people and equipment to a hundred kilometers in such a short time.

Needless to say, it was another damn intelligence leak, and it came from their powerless high-level. Tang Dao and Brigadier General Cheng looked at each other, their eyes bursting with anger, those guys who were more likely to cause trouble than to do anything.

"It's useless to talk about those things. Now, the blood of the martyrs cannot be shed in vain, and we cannot live up to the sacrifice of the martyrs. Commander Tang, you are the deputy director of the General Staff. How should we fight this battle next? You have to make reasonable suggestions." Commander Liu put his hand on the simple combat table and looked at Tang Dao.

Although he couldn't see through his calm eyes behind the thick lenses, Tang Dao could feel his expectations.

Tang Dao understood that this intelligence came too suddenly, and even this veteran who had experienced hundreds of battles couldn't help but feel a little confused at this time.

It's not panic. The more battles you fight, the more you understand a truth. No matter how bad the situation is, the worst thing is to "fight the enemy with the generals and cover the water with the earth"!

The famous general in front of Tang Dao even had several experiences of being surrounded by enemy forces more than ten times his size. In the future, he even had a famous scene of cutting off his own retreat and advancing thousands of miles under the siege of hundreds of thousands of enemy troops. In comparison, the scene of tens of thousands of Japanese troops sneaking in was not the most dangerous one.

In fact, when the famous general talked about the battlefields he had experienced in the future, this battle was ranked in the top three. On the contrary, he kept silent about those grand battlefields where he commanded hundreds of thousands of troops to annihilate the enemy.

In the words of the old man who was almost blind at that time: The most exciting battle in my life was against the Japanese pirates, and the rest is not worth mentioning!

As for the counterattack in eastern Shanxi, the old man talked about it for more than half an hour, and the secretary took ten pages to record it. It shows the importance and deep memory of the counterattack in eastern Shanxi in the old man's heart.

Because the Japanese army that attacked the Chinese army at that time was not tens of thousands as they think now, but close to 100,000.

According to post-war statistics, the 18th Division of the Japanese invaders was fully staffed. Except for less than 2,000 people left on the south bank of the Yellow River to confuse the Chinese army, the remaining 26,000 people all rushed to eastern Shanxi!

Although the two infantry brigades of the 20th Division lost more than 3,200 people in the previous battle, as a Type A division, they still had 26,000 troops. In addition to leaving a certain number of troops to defend the city, the troops that Kawagishi Saburo led to eastern Shanxi were as high as 21,000!

The newly formed 21st Division is a Type B Division. Its main infantry regiment is not a four-regiment system like the Type A Division, but a three-regiment system, which is relatively rare in the early stages of the war. However, with auxiliary forces such as cavalry, artillery, and baggage, the fully equipped and fully staffed state is as high as nearly 20,000!

What is even more deadly is the Sakamoto Detachment of the Fifth Division from Yangquan. Although its main core is only two infantry regiments, it is the most elite field force of the Japanese North China Front Army.

In the Battle of Xingkou a year ago, the commander of the Fifth Division, Itagaki Shiro, led his own Fifth Division of 50,000 people plus two mixed brigades, a total of more than 70,000 people, to rush to Shanxi Province, and broke through the defense line set up by more than 200,000 Chinese troops, and finally lost the original city.

Don’t think that the Chinese army at that time was incompetent. In addition to the elite troops of the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army, there were also the elite troops of the Central Army and the 80th Army Group that had crossed the Yellow River. The 511th Division of the 80th Army Group became famous for killing a baggage brigade of the 5th Division at Pingxingguan with a loss of nearly 1:1!

And the Sakamoto Detachment, either to maintain the honor of its "Steel Army" or to add more glory to its iron-headed division commander, actually brought a whole artillery regiment, a tank battalion, a cavalry regiment, a baggage regiment, and other auxiliary arms. The total strength of the army reached 14,000, which was almost the strength of a newly formed 21st Division!

The ability to deploy so many troops is also related to the special organization of the Fifth Division. The Japanese regular divisions basically have a reserve division. For example, the reserve division of the First Guard Division is the 101st Division, and the 108th Division is actually the reserve division of the Eighth Division. Similarly, the 109th Division is the reserve division of the Ninth Division.

But the 105th Division rarely appears alone, because from the day it entered North China, the 105th Division was under the command of the Fifth Division. Its total strength of 55,000 troops is equivalent to an infantry army with three infantry divisions in the Chinese army.

Therefore, the Fifth Division actually has two artillery regiments, each with 48 artillery pieces, 12 105 howitzers and 36 75 mountain guns or field guns. Although the 18th Division and the 20th Division only have one artillery regiment each, the number of artillery pieces is the same. Only the Type B division of the 21st Division is equipped with 36 75 mountain guns or field guns.

The Japanese troops that were dispatched on the surface alone were as high as 80,000, which was more than the 75,000 or nearly 6,000 Chinese troops in eastern Shanxi at this time. This did not include the 14th Division of Henan Province, an infantry brigade that was actively deployed and ready to support at any time, and the 108th and 109th Divisions that were gathering troops!

This was the first time since the war between China and Japan that the Japanese army surrounded the Chinese army with superior forces, commonly known as making dumplings!

It can be said that under the active planning of Shanshan Yuan and Okabe Saburo, who had seen the cards, eastern Shanxi had become a dead end!

Including after the battle situation became clear two days later, the stingy old man who learned the news also sat in his quiet courtyard and sighed to the sky: "My elite troops in the second theater of war were all lost in this battle!"

But the battlefield is ultimately fought by people, not just by comparing the strength of troops. The previous Battle of Songhu and the Battle of Pengcheng have proved this with bloody facts.

"Captain, can we withdraw immediately?" Tang Dao asked directly in response to the expectations of the two division commanders.

Commander Liu was silent for a moment, then shook his head and said, "I'm afraid not! This time, the Military and Political Department issued a secret and strict order, ordering our Second War Zone to contain the Japanese North China Front Army at all costs to achieve the strategic goal of fighting in Central China and the Japanese Central China Expeditionary Force. From a strategic perspective, I'm afraid that tens of thousands of our troops will be sacrificed, but it's worth it to meet the requirements of the headquarters."

The implication is that from a strategic perspective, the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers can all be sacrificed, which is very cruel, but also very realistic.

In the current Jiangxia Battle, China has invested 14 army groups with about one million troops, and the Japanese army has also invested 370,000 troops. Compared with the huge forces of 1.4 million invested by both sides, the lives of only 70,000 people are really not that conspicuous.

Even from this perspective, if the counterattack in eastern Shanxi really attracted the Japanese army, that would be what the Chinese command would prefer to see. Regardless of the final fate of the more than 70,000 Chinese officers and soldiers of the Fifth Division and the First Regiment, this counterattack has achieved its strategic goal.

Retreat is impossible!

If the other infantry divisions retreat, perhaps only the officers at the division, brigade, and regiment level will be dealt with by military law. But if the Eightyth Army cannot do this, it is possible that all the reputation gained during the war of resistance in the past year will be in vain because of this retreat!

Even if all the five main regiments of the 921 Division are exhausted, they will not be able to retreat! As the frontline commander of the Jindong counterattack, Commander Liu knew this very well.

"It is difficult to disobey military orders and we cannot retreat! Moreover, the Japanese army has already moved at this time, and the retreat may be blocked. Even if we risk the commander's beheading to retreat, we can only retreat deep into the mountains, and many heavy equipment must be abandoned. , It will undoubtedly break his arms and legs, what's the use of retreating?" Tang Dao's eyes flashed, and he slapped the table decisively.

"Then there is only war!

If you want to fight, I will fight!

Change the offensive battle into a defensive battle!

If you want to eat our fifth division, that little devil will have to sacrifice more lives in exchange for it! "

"If you don't want to die, you can only fight to the death!"

The deafening sound of Tang Dao lingered in the simple mountain village hut.

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ps: Yesterday was Mother's Day, so I took my parents and their friends out for a trip. Just after returning home in the evening, I met a classmate who wanted to treat me to a treat. As a result, poor Fengyue was knocked down by a group of classmates who made careless friends and drank alcohol with malicious intent. , as heroic as Fengyue, but drank at least three bottles of beer...

So, there was no update yesterday, and I didn’t even ask for leave. I’d like to explain it here today!