Rise From Eight Hundred

With the arrival of the two commanders who had finished the mobilization meeting, the main personnel of the front-line command of the Jindong counterattack war were basically gathered, except for the two commanders of the 12th and 101st divisions who could not arrive.

The main tone of this battle about the Japanese army gathering heavy troops to counterattack the Jindong army was completely set in less than 1 minute.

It was still the point of view expressed by Tang Dao and Commander Liu before. Whether from a strategic level or a tactical perspective, in this battle, 75,000 Chinese soldiers cannot retreat! There is no way to retreat!

If you can't retreat, you can only fight!

After receiving the order from the front-line command to fight to the death, the 12th and 101st divisions each sent a telegram 30 minutes later.

Obviously, they did not blindly obey, but also went through a certain ideological struggle and even immediately convened a short meeting of the main members of each division.

The two did not live up to the historical evaluation of them. They made a great choice!

In this world, most people will choose the former when facing life and death choices. Only when they are the most brave and fearless and have some ideals will they make a choice that goes against human nature.

These people are undoubtedly the best group of people in China during this period.

Fortunately, there has never been a lack of such excellent people in the thousands of years of Chinese history. This may be one of the reasons why Chinese civilization has survived for thousands of years!

The one-hour meeting at the front-line command center discussed the issue of how to fight. Except for Tang Dao, who is only in his early 20s, who is not a veteran who has been in the army for 20 years?

But Tang Dao is young, and many battlefields he has experienced are not encountered by many 20-year veterans. Whether it is the defense of Sihang Warehouse or the defense of Songjiang facing the siege of 100,000 Japanese troops, they are almost all desperate battles.

Therefore, given that Tang Dao has experience in this area, in the end, 90% of the questions about how to deploy the defense line in this mountain defense battle are based on Tang Dao's opinions.

Tang Dao may not have the experience of these veterans in mountain defense battles, but Tang Dao has a vision that transcends this era for nearly a hundred years. In the tactical "database" in his mind, there are battlefield experiences of success or failure that these predecessors have exchanged for their lives and blood.

For example, the Chinese army fought a three-year battle with a powerful enemy on the northern ice field, using the mountains to fight one blocking battle after another, tunnel battle, penetration battle, and raid battle that amazed the younger generations!

In Songgufeng, Wusheng Mountain, Changjin Lake, Iron Won, Hwacheon... Every battle that took place on those familiar place names is enough to be selected for the classic battle teaching of the top military academies.

The suggestion given by Tang Dao is exactly the model of the Hwacheon blocking battle, which is known as one of the two most classic blocking battles on the ice field.

History says "There is Iron Won in the West and Hwacheon in the East"!

It was also the victory of the blocking battle, which was known as "only winning and not losing, the closest American cowboys to defeating China", that basically laid the foundation for the final tie in the ice field battle.

If this battle is lost, not only will the elite infantry division surrounded by heavy siege be eaten by the American cowboys, but the connection between the eastern line and the central and western lines will also be cut off, and a corps of 100,000 troops that are actively retreating northward will also be surrounded by the US army.

Tang Dao will always remember the excitement when he heard the white-haired professor explaining this classic blocking battle in the military academy, so much so that tears welled up in his eyes!

At that time, Tang Dao, who was still studying in the military academy, was still very young, and was almost completely immersed in the amazing tactical cases of his predecessors. It was not until a long time later that he learned that the white-haired old man’s father, two uncles and a cousin all died in the 13-day blocking battle.

Since then, he is the only male child left in the family who is less than three years old!

No matter how wonderful the tactics are, they cannot be realized without enough resolute sacrifices. That war was won by China with the lives of 400,000 Chinese soldiers.

Now, the lives of 75,000 Chinese soldiers are placed in this vast mountain in eastern Shanxi. If the Japanese want them, come and take them!

First of all, the Japanese army will come from three directions, so we will attack them in three directions!

On the front battlefield from east to west, except for a few mountain roads that can only be walked, the army wants to enter the towering Taihang Mountains, only Niangzi Pass!

And if you want to attack Niangzi Pass, in addition to the front, Falu Ridge is a must-defend place!

There will be a very critical defense line in these two places. It is estimated that the incoming enemy will not be less than a complete division. The commander Zhao of the 17th Division has the intention to fight Falu Ridge again, so the 17th Division will defend the Falu Ridge area 8 kilometers away from Niangzi Pass.

After all, the commander Li of the 104th Division did not snatch the Tang Dao. In fact, when the Tang Dao completely displayed his artillery and air defense strength of the four-line regiment with 12 mountain cannons, 12 150 heavy mortars, 24 machine guns, and 24 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine guns, whether it is the 104th Division, the 17th Division, or the 921st Division, they can only follow behind.

It can be imagined that the Japanese army will use planes and heavy artillery to bombard and shell the main position of Niangzi Pass day and night! Except for the Four-Line Regiment, no one can really say that they can definitely defend this life-and-death defense line for the entire army.

Once the Japanese army breaks through Niangzi Pass, the hinterland of Taihang Mountain will be opened, and the Japanese army can completely penetrate the other two defense lines, and then they can really bite them off piece by piece like ants moving bread.

Therefore, the defense line of more than ten kilometers in the Niangzi Pass area was handed over to the Four-Line Regiment and the 17th Division!

From south to east, the Japanese 18th Division was eyeing them covetously, and there were even parts of the 20th Division and even parts of the 108th Division. It was obviously extremely difficult for the five infantry regiments of the 921st Division to deploy a defense line of more than 20 kilometers.

Therefore, Li, the division commander who had not snatched the Tang Dao at Niangzi Pass, decided to defend this defense line with the 921st Division.

But this route was also not very optimistic. The Japanese army's strength was not yet clear at this time, but it was estimated that it would not be less than 30,000, or even more.

"I'm not afraid of him. At most, I will use the nail-scattering tactics. If the Japanese want to break my defense line, I will have to swallow them one by one." Li, the division commander, bit his back teeth, and the veins on his forehead jumped, almost expressing his determination with a ferocious face.

The "Starfall Tactics" was taught to him by Tang Dao and used in the last battle in southeastern Shanxi. It took six days to completely grind the spirit of the Second Mixed Brigade, laying a solid foundation for the final destruction of the Second Mixed Brigade.

However, the casualties were extremely painful!

After the battle, only half of the 8 infantry companies were left. If the timeline was extended, he didn't know whether the troops could hold on.

"This time! Don't risk your life with them. If you really can't hold on, retreat and wait until night, and then counterattack. Commander Li, don't forget that you have mountain artillery and shells in your hands now! We are afraid of the devil's shells, but the devil is not afraid of our shells?" Tang Dao laughed.

"Hey! What tricks do you have? Don't hide them. Tell me quickly!" Li Shizhang immediately became interested.

That's not because of blind optimism about Tang Dao, but because it contains the unique Chinese wisdom of "retreat to advance".

What Tang Dao said about "losing the position and then counterattacking to take it back" is a typical way of fighting in the ice field. It is not terrible to lose the surface position on the mountain. Every night, you have to rely on counterattack to take it back. In the night battle, without the support of fighter planes, the American cowboys have almost no ability to defend their positions. If they don't run, they will either be killed by the artillery fire organized by the Chinese side or killed by countless counterattack forces in the form of infantry squads.

So much so that in the end, the US army did not dare to station too many troops on the high ground that had just been seized to save troops, but this caused a more bad result. The fewer soldiers, the easier it was to lose! The next day, the attack was reorganized and a new round of attrition war continued.

In the battle in the mountains, if you don't seize the high ground, what's the point of attacking!

Of course, this was caused by the disparity in equipment between the two sides at that time. During the day, the firepower of the American cowboys was too fierce. Five hundred-pound bombs were thrown like free, and the 150-caliber howitzers did not stop during the day.

The Chinese army had no choice but to take such a "retreat to advance" measure to avoid soldiers being completely exposed to heavy firepower.

Compared with the American cowboys, the Japanese firepower is nothing! But it is much more fierce than the Chinese army, and this combat mode can also be used as a reference.

Although the heavy firepower of the 104th Division and the 921st Division is still not as good as that of the Japanese army, the 104th Division currently has 8 mountain guns, which is considered a mountain artillery battalion. Each infantry regiment has 6 82 mortars and 7 37mm anti-tank guns that can break armored fortifications; for the 921st Division, the 80th Army allocated a reinforced artillery battalion with 16 mountain guns to them. Not to mention, the 683rd Brigade also has a Liao-made 150 heavy mortar battalion equipped with Tang Dao for him, plus a bunch of Oerlikon 20mm machine guns eliminated by the 4th Regiment. If they focus their fire on a few hills, the Japanese will be blown up!

Of course, there is no need to explain the Tang Dao in detail. Old generals like Lao Li, Division Commander Liu, and Brigadier Commander Cheng, who have much more battlefield experience than the Tang Dao, can immediately learn from one example and make adjustments according to the battlefield situation.

As long as the defense line is not completely breached and the Japanese army is not allowed to form a split and encirclement, it is not terrible if one, two, or even ten high grounds are occupied. They can be taken back. If things go wrong, Brigade Commander Cheng, who invented the genius tunnel tactics, will come up with some other new tricks. That is not something that the Tang Dao can predict.

This thing is like writing a novel. The article is natural and the hand is occasionally found. The wonderful sentences or chapters and paragraphs can rarely be said to be conceived in advance. They all come out while writing.

The same is true on the battlefield. There has never been a general who said that I have thought about fighting like this for a long time, but the enemy will not fight according to your idea, right? It is a fight between you and me. Due to the commander's inspiration, or even due to the amazing battle of a unit or a soldier, a wonderful tactic is inadvertently completed.

In addition to these two lines of defense, another important line of defense is of course the rear wing of eastern Shanxi.

The 12th Division and the 101st Division are currently no more than 10 kilometers apart, and just 15 kilometers away from the rear wing. In addition, the strength of the enemy troops coming before is unknown, but it is most likely a part of the Fifth Division.

Commander Liu originally intended to use one of the divisions to counterattack, and to withdraw another division as a reserve to support the other three lines of defense.

This kind of thinking is normal. In any battle, the commander will leave a reserve, which can not only replenish the troops that have suffered heavy losses on the front line, but also rotate the troops that have stayed on the front line for too long.

The battlefield is in a highly tense state. Not to mention the daytime combat time, even at night, in order to prevent the enemy from sneaking at night, even if there are sentries, the officers and soldiers on the position would like to turn a blind eye when they sleep. The huge mental pressure is difficult for ordinary people to understand.

No one knows how many days this battle will last. Soldiers are human beings, not iron. Rotating soldiers down to rest, even eating a hot meal and having a good sleep, is also a way to maintain continuous combat effectiveness.

But Tang Dao raised objections!

If it is part of the Fifth Division, it will be difficult to resist with an infantry division and four infantry regiments of 10,000 people. Instead of waiting for them to suffer heavy losses and then dispatching reserve troops to replace them, it is better to put them on the defense line from the beginning, at least firepower points and various fortifications can be deployed in advance.

And the reason why Tang Dao finally persuaded Commander Liu was that the Fifth Division, since entering the Chinese battlefield, except for the battle of Taierzhuang, where the Fifth War Zone used the enemy to go deep and then gathered heavy troops to surround and kill nearly 10,000 people, has not been defeated in other battlefields. From their division commander Itagaki Shiro to a small private, their noses are all upturned and arrogant.

They are very likely to choose to confront the Chinese army on the defense line with an infantry regiment and artillery, and then use another part to bypass the enemy and intersperse to find opportunities.

The rear wing defense line in eastern Shanxi requires not only sufficient width but also sufficient depth, which requires sufficient troops to complete the deployment.

Two infantry divisions with more than 20,000 people can complete this important task.

The Japanese army is aggressive and its troops are definitely greater than those in eastern Shanxi, so it is necessary to gather the strength of the entire army to give them a head-on blow first!

As for the reserve forces, the commanders of the divisions, brigades, and regiments on each defense line will formulate plans according to the battlefield situation.

In the end, both Division Commander Liu and the Chief of Staff agreed with Tang Dao's plan!

Next, the front-line command sent a telegram to each division headquarters to inform the front-line command staff of the decision, stipulate the defense zone of each division, and then each division will allocate high ground to its brigades, regiments, battalions, and companies, and formulate high ground numbers for the front-line command headquarters.

At the same time, the front-line command also sent a telegram to the general command headquarters in the rear to report its decision. The communication company staff became the busiest group of people at this time, and radio waves were constantly sent out from this inconspicuous mountain village.

More than 75,000 soldiers from the First Regiment of the Fifth Division of Jindong moved quickly. According to the areas planned by the front-line command and the divisions, brigades, regiments, and battalions, they occupied the high ground, frantically built fortifications, set up fire points, and dug tunnels.

Yes, digging reverse slope tunnels was originally a must for the mountain warfare of the Four-Line Regiment. Later, it was learned by Brigade Commander Cheng, and then passed on to the 17th Division and the 104th Division. Division Commander Liu did not hide it and ordered the 101st Division and the 12th Division to invest manpower and material resources to build these tunnels that can avoid the Japanese heavy artillery and bombs.

Even if the tunnels deep underground cannot be built due to time constraints, trenches deeper behind the ridge can always be built!

The reverse slope tunnels that have been through countless actual battles are the most suitable tactics to reduce casualties from artillery fire, nothing else!

And the time left by the Japanese army for everyone may be less than two days!

The news that nearly 100,000 Japanese troops would surround them completely stimulated all the participating troops. From the colonel to the private, they all participated in the vigorous construction of fortifications.

After receiving this news, the officers and soldiers of the Sihang Regiment, who were already sweating and frantically building, could not help but secretly congratulate themselves for their good habits, which gave them at least four more hours.

The officers and soldiers of the 921st Division also began to congratulate their superiors for their wisdom. They had dug up a lot of railways before, not to mention taking away the rails. The leaders of each regiment and battalion also asked them to take away a lot of "black, thick, and heavy" sleepers. One of them weighed dozens of pounds or even hundreds of pounds. It was tiring to cut firewood and burn it. However, many people secretly complained that the leaders did not care about the lives of the people below.

Now, although there is no shortage of trees in Taihang Mountain, you have to cut them now, right? Besides, not all wood is suitable for fortification. Some wood is too soft and can be penetrated by bullets. When the air wave of the shells comes, it will be blown away directly, so it takes time to find them.

The sleepers used as cushions for trains on the gravel are different. The sleepers need to be flexible and elastic enough. They are generally made of pine wood and treated with anti-corrosion. With sandbags and rails as the skeleton, a semi-sunken fortification that can resist infantry artillery can be completed in a short time.

After the war, many war history commentators would rather ignore the contribution of the 921st Division in the forced Jindong Defense War than to mention its brilliant tactics of interspersing counterattacks in the defense war. They also emphasized the advance foresight of carrying more than 1,000 sleepers and nearly 20 tons of rails.

It seems that the 921st Division had already foreseen the difficulties that would be encountered in this counterattack, and turned more than 10,000 people, more than 200 war horses, and more than 800 pack horses into a large "baggage team".

It was this batch of important materials that enabled them to build an 18-kilometer steel defense line in the mountains in two days, with 130 underground tunnels and 260 semi-sunken bunkers, which saved at least thousands of Chinese officers and soldiers from artillery fire and Japanese bombing!

Of course, that's all later!

After attending this important military meeting, Tang Dao didn't even have dinner, and took Niu Er and others who had been waiting outside the courtyard to say goodbye to several superiors.

Everyone in the Four-Line Regiment was still looking forward to his return. Although Lei Xiong and Ye Chenghuan should have completed the deployment of each battalion and company, he, the chief officer, still had to consider it again based on the terrain and geography.

After all, he knew the personality characteristics of the battalion, company, and platoon leaders of the Four-Line Regiment best, and Lei Xiong, who had always been casual and a little careless, didn't pay attention to these.

Several officers knew that Tang Dao was eager to return to the team, so they didn't force him to stay. Although they were all very busy, they still sent Tang Dao out of the courtyard together.

Tang Dao got on the horse and was just about to squeeze the horse's belly to urge the horse to go.

"Brother Tang, wait!" With the shout, Brigade Commander Cheng, who had disappeared for a while, hurried over from the other side of the village.

"I knew you were in a hurry to leave. Fortunately, I asked the kitchen team to prepare roujiamo for you in advance!" Brigade Commander Cheng smiled as he approached.

There were also several soldiers carrying baskets behind, and the baskets were filled with steamed buns. Although it was called roujiamo, it was not as delicate as the roujiamo of later generations. The meat was not only fat and lean, but also chopped into minced meat, that is, a big piece of fat meat was sandwiched in the bun.

But in this wartime, it was a rare delicacy!

"You don't have to get off the horse, I'll bring it to you right away. It's getting dark, isn't it?" Brigade Commander Cheng saw that Tang Dao and others were about to get off the horse, and hurriedly stopped them.

With a wave of his hand, several soldiers took three for each person, stuffed them into their clothes and that was it. If you want to eat, just take it out and eat it.

The elite of the Four-line Regiment, who fought their way out of the millions of troops and didn't wash their faces or brush their teeth for half a month, didn't have so many rules!

Brigadier Cheng, who personally handed Roujiamo to the officers and soldiers of the Four-line Regiment, was busy all the time. He didn't look like a general, but like a big brother who was going to see his brothers off.

It's just a farewell, I don't know if I can see you again!

So, don't say goodbye!

"Brother Cheng, I'm leaving, take care!" Tang Dao's nose was slightly sour, and he saluted Brigadier Cheng while sitting on the warhorse!

"Sir, take care!" Niu Er and others raised their hands to salute!

With Tang Dao's "Go", the thunderous hoofbeats of more than 20 war horses resounded through the valley!

"Brother, take care!" Brigadier Cheng returned the salute and waved goodbye to the horse team that had already rushed forward.

At this time, the sun was about to set, and the sky was full of red clouds!