Rise From Eight Hundred

The morale of the 4th Battalion was not low due to the heavy casualties, but it was different with the Japanese army.

Originally, before arriving, in order to boost morale, the 108th Division headquarters issued an extremely rare enemy situation report. Even the lower-level Japanese soldiers knew that the opponents they were about to face would not exceed a thousand people at most.

But they are an army of more than 8,000 people. Not only do they have tanks and artillery, but they also have drones coming to help. The old rival 921 Division also has all its main forces but not many troops in southeastern Shanxi. We also have an army of more than 10,000 people to encircle and suppress them. .

The 80th Group Army is very scary, but there is still the 109th Division to provide full support. The two divisions are fighting in the southeast of Shanxi where the main force is not present. On their own side, it is 8,000 versus 1,000. In the Chinese words, it is hand-to-hand. A matter of pinching.

This can be regarded as an innovation by Xia Xiong Yuan to break the tradition of the Japanese Army. Before anyone left the barracks, he informed everyone: Don’t panic, we are either going to fight in a team this time, or we are going to fight a few wild monsters, while accumulating military merit. I can still make some money and come back to Missi Missi.

you do not say! Although no document has been issued, the news from Zuo Guan, the infantry battalion captain, is: This time when entering the enemy-held area, all Chinese are enemies and can be killed and plundered!

The opponent has a small number of people, and after breaking through its base area, it can still burn, kill and loot at will. Isn't this irritating to the eyes of the 108th Division?

These low-level soldiers are not just scum in Japan. It is not advertised every day in China to dig for gold in this treasure land of China. Do you think that brainwashing alone can make them die? Coming to China to make a lot of money and improve the lives of themselves and their families are the big thoughts hidden in the hearts of many Japanese infantrymen.

Human beings themselves are profit creatures!

There are actually many intelligent people in the world who can clearly understand the word fame and fortune. However, human society is like a whirlpool. How many people can escape from it?

Xia Xiong Yuan used this move to boost the morale of the entire division. In fact, it can also be seen from the side that the 108th Division is afraid of the Si Xing Regiment, an opponent who unexpectedly entered the Taihang Mountains.

However, the morale that had been artificially raised with great effort had not been maintained at the high point for several days. In the past two days, the officers and soldiers of the 4th Battalion were hit hard with a stick.

In just one position, 400 infantrymen were injured or killed. A 'Glory Special Attack Team' formed by Brigade Commander Kuyeda Shiro, who personally went to the forward position to supervise the battle, saved more than a dozen wounded soldiers and more than 130 others. Now everyone is lying on the hillside to bask in the sun.

Shiro Kuyeda, who was quite serious and cruel by nature, looked at the retreating infantry with no expression on his face for nearly 20 minutes. Several left and young left officers around him remained silent for fear of this major general who had just taken office. The brigade commander would cut them to make way for the cronies he had cultivated.

Yes, the good days of the 108th Division, which has been making great progress on the battlefield in North China since April, are over.

Since the battles of Licheng and Shentouling, the 108th Division has been losing troops and generals and has never looked back.

Until the end of the Battle of Southeast Shanxi, the front army headquarters asked the division and regiment headquarters to report the battle losses of various materials and personnel. Xia Xiong Yuan, who was already so overwhelmed that he was struggling to move forward, did not dare to hide it anymore and could only report the truth.

In less than 4 months, the 108th Division lost one person each from the left and middle left, and four from the left, 5,600 officers and soldiers below the rank of left officer, 4,500 wounded, and countless supplies of all kinds.

Good guy, Yuan Shangshan and Saburo Okamoto were both shocked at that time.

If they were not the commander and chief of staff, they would even think that the 108th Division had participated in some large-scale battle, otherwise half of the division would have been wiped out?

You know, in the Battle of Songhu, where both sides invested millions of troops, more than 1,000 aircraft, and various heavy artillery to assist, the East China Expeditionary Force only suffered less than 50,000 casualties in total.

These two don't know what the life of the 108th Division is like. In larger battlefields like Licheng, Shentouling, and Xiangtangpu, the Four Lines Regiment will join forces with the 921st Division to attack them. Usually, the two sides stop fighting each other. At that time, the troublesome guy from the 683rd Brigade was hitting here and there with a hammer and a stick.

Ambushing a patrol team today, attacking a transport team tomorrow, and even being bold enough to sneak into the city and assassinate senior local garrison officers and Chinese affiliated with the Imperial Army.

There were many casualties in the war, but this piecemeal approach was even more troublesome. In the past four months alone, nearly a thousand casualties were caused by the 683 Brigade using this method.

This resulted in the 108th Division having to stick to the city, and the suburbs 3 kilometers outside the city were basically out of control. If the transportation was less than one infantry squadron to protect it, they basically did not dare to leave the city, and could only barely maintain the traffic lines. The front army headquarters The so-called strategy and tactics of blocking the mountainous areas of southeastern Shanxi from the direction of the occupied area are basically just strings tied to chicken butts ----- bullshit!

But for a leader like Yuan Shanshan, he doesn't care how miserable his subordinates are. He only knows that his subordinates didn't do a good job. The 108th Division is already in such bad shape, how could it not make adjustments?

The lieutenant general division commander and other important generals in the army need to be adjusted and appointed in the base camp. He, the general commander, cannot move, but he can move the major general level. In a fit of anger, he adjusted two of Xiong Yuan's subordinates in August. The position of the heavy general.

To put it bluntly, two major general brigade leaders and four major left wing captains were replaced, which basically eliminated Xiong Yuan from the perspective of infantry command.

Both major generals of the army were promoted from the commanders of the left corps or the chief of staff of the divisions that were close to Kumamoto. In order to establish their prestige, they also warned the left officers of the infantry brigade in both open and covert ways that the brigade would make internal position adjustments in the fall.

‘What the front army headquarters wants is imperial soldiers who can fight, not those who just sit there and do nothing! ’ Kumeda Shiro kept mentioning this at various meetings of the brigade.

Everyone knew that he was using the tiger skin of the front army headquarters to establish his own authority, but all Japanese officers also knew that the front army headquarters was extremely dissatisfied with Lieutenant General Kumamoto, and it was only a matter of time before he was transferred, so they could only follow their new boss.

It’s just that now that the battle has become like this, the new boss looks very unhappy! Didn’t you see that he smiled after not saying a word for 20 minutes with a sullen face?

No, where is the funny point? What’s the matter? Too many dead soldiers will reduce the burden on the baggage troops with relatively abundant supplies?

Thinking of this, the Japanese left officers looked at the brigade commander who turned his head and raised his mouth slightly, and were stunned!

"Haha, you don't need to be nervous. I have seen the spirit of the officers and soldiers of my 104th Brigade who are not afraid of hardships and sacrifices in the past two days. I will also report it to the division headquarters and the front army headquarters." Kumieda Shiro tried his best to soften his tone. After boasting about himself, he sighed slightly.

"Before I came to the brigade, I heard about the reputation of our opponent. In this confrontation, it is indeed well-deserved. This unit is not only well-equipped with weapons and equipment that are not inferior to our Imperial Army, but the most commendable thing is its tenacious fighting spirit. If all Chinese troops are like this, I can almost assert that even with the current strength of the Imperial Army, it cannot win this war."

These words are a little subjective, and even a little bit of boosting the morale of others and destroying their own prestige, but these left officers all nodded slightly.

Indeed, the Four-Line Regiment was the strongest Chinese army they had encountered since entering China. A small infantry regiment actually made a division inform them in advance that they were short of manpower, and nearly 10,000 troops dared to enter the mountains in a heroic manner. This was a treatment that only the strong could and deserved.

"Fortunately! They only have one such infantry regiment. Of course, such an army is not replicable. With their equipment and firepower, let alone a front army, even a group army cannot be maintained for a long time with the current national strength of the Chinese." Kumieda Shiro did not look like a major general brigade commander at this moment, but rather like a general commander of a front army.

Of course, what he said was right. With the current large-scale equipment of the Four-Line Regiment of submachine guns, semi-automatic rifles, 12.7mm heavy machine guns, and various mortars and mountain cannons, there will be a large number of MG42 light and heavy machine guns and even 107 rocket launchers in service in the future, and the required ammunition will be a terrible number.

If this kind of equipment is expanded to a group army of about 50,000 people, it will be an astronomical figure that will give you a headache, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people at the front level.

Not to mention that China today cannot afford it, even Japan, which has accumulated strength for hundreds of years, cannot afford it either, otherwise they would not have insisted on equipping the entire army with single-shot bolt-action rifles as the main force.

War is the biggest money-eating beast!

Once the war starts, the soldiers on the battlefield will see artillery fire and rain of bullets, but in the eyes of the rulers, they will just throw money in desperately, and if billions or hundreds of billions are not enough, then hundreds of billions or trillions.

For the superiors, the lives lost in the war are actually the cheapest!

And the so-called justice or injustice is nothing more than the writing of the victor.

To be just, you must win the final victory!

This is tragic, but it is true!

However, Kumieda Shiro misjudged a little. Most of the sources of funds for the Four Lines Group were not asked from government departments, but self-created.

The little butterfly from the future may not be able to conjure up aircraft carriers and J-20 fighter jets to win the Patriotic War by crushing this era, but he has a vision and pattern that surpasses this era for nearly a hundred years, and even knows the direction of the future world pattern.

Just like in the college entrance examination, everyone will study hard all the knowledge points given in the textbooks, and then wait for good luck, but Tang Dao, the candidate, already knows those knowledge points that will inevitably appear on the test paper, and does not need to know the original questions, and the scope of study is also narrowed a hundred times.

The patent of penicillin alone is enough to bring Tang Dao billions or even billions of US dollars in revenue. In this era when aircraft carriers only need 40 million US dollars to manufacture, this fund is enough for Tang Dao to build an unprecedented aircraft carrier fleet.

Of course, at this time without control of the port, Tang Dao can only think about this beautiful dream, but it is still possible to build a strong army on land.

Especially in the future Pacific War, after the China-Myanmar Highway is built, as long as the victory in the southwest jungle war can be won, a steady stream of materials will enter China from that blood transfusion channel.

A certain boss, under the banner of "I will help you hold back the main force of the Japanese Army", shamelessly obtained aid, and the Tang Dao Society used cash to hit the American cowboy's arsenal and started working.

Like Kumieda Shiro, the Japanese Army officers who hold the uniqueness of the Four Lines Regiment will be doubted by the unprecedented rain of bullets by the Tang Tuanzuo in the future.

Really, they are too superficial!

But don't people like to indulge in their own imagination?

"Your Excellency the Brigade Commander's view on the pattern of this national war has opened the eyes of the subordinates, which is indeed worth celebrating!" A captain of the Great Left League complimented cautiously.

Kumeda Shiro is a general, and has entered the ranks of senior officers. Da Zuo is only the highest level of mid-level officers. It seems that there is only one level difference, but there is a world of difference.

His attitude is cautious, but his subtext is to remind his immediate superior that winning the entire war is the business of the imperial headquarters, and we are still struggling to chew the hard bones of the thousand people we are facing! You should take care of the present first!

Glancing at this unpleasant fellow, knowing that he was dissatisfied with his transfer of the backbone of his flag guard squadron to be a member of the ‘Glory Special Attack Team’, Kumeda Shiro’s face straightened: “Of course, it’s not just that. Although my brigade has not made any substantial progress in the battlefield in the past two days, I can fully determine that this is the last remaining force of the Four-Line Regiment.”

Pointing to the ‘Door Bolt’ position a thousand meters away, his eyes became cruel: “The current battle for the No. 1 position is so fierce. The commander of the Four-Line Regiment must know our intentions, but the troops on their positions have only decreased, not increased. Even when my Glory Special Attack Team was carrying explosives and blew up their trenches, the defense of the position was in danger, and the troops did not increase. You can tell me what this shows?”

“This shows that the Chinese troops are almost exhausted. This is their last strength. Your Excellency the brigade commander has a unique vision that is admirable!” A Japanese young left-winger suddenly realized, his eyes full of joy.

A flatterer! Several Japanese left-wing officers around him roared in their hearts.

But they were more annoyed, annoyed that they were shameless and flattered him first.

"Youxi! Kazama-kun's answer is correct." Kumieda Shiro praised the infantry captain who tried his best to get close to him with a gentle face. "A true famous general never achieves victory over the enemy by superiority in manpower and equipment, but is good at finding opportunities from setbacks and winning the final victory. Kazama-kun, you have the potential."

The Japanese army is divided into two major factions, one is from civilians and the other is from nobles. The reason why the nobles can be called nobles is naturally a minority. In order to make the troops have sufficient combat effectiveness, the Japanese high-level had to promote a large number of generals from civilians, but those low-level officers with noble titles did not think so. It is not uncommon for officers with low ranks but noble titles to remain arrogant in front of their superiors.

The name Fengjian Wuhen is very beautiful, much better than his surname Kumieda, which is obviously of humble origin. The most rare thing is that this person, who was born in a small noble family, can still bow to his superior of humble origin. Kumieda Shiro naturally extended an olive branch without hesitation.

"Thank you for the praise from the brigade commander, I don't deserve it!" After the praise, the Japanese Army Shao Zuo immediately stood at attention and bowed his head respectfully, but a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

He didn't think much about whether he could become a famous general, but he definitely held on to the big and thick leg of the major general brigade commander.

There are so many imperial nobles in the army, but whether they can be promoted is not just about having a noble status. The opinions of the superiors are very important. When he becomes a general one day, the promotion from baron to viscount is basically a foregone conclusion.

For the honor of the family, what's wrong with temporarily bowing to civilians? The Japanese Army Shao Zuo is definitely a pragmatist.

"So, under such circumstances, what do you think we should do now?" Kumieda Shiro continued to throw the question to his left officers.

"My brigade should continue to maintain the offensive, not only to continue to consume their limited military strength, but also to continue to oppress their psychology. Isn't there a proverb in the empire! No matter how hard the rock is, it will be damaged by wind, frost, ice and fire! No matter how tall the mountain is, it can't withstand the vicissitudes of life! The enemy is a stubborn stone, so we are willing to be the wind, frost, ice and fire for the brigade commander, and destroy it!" Another Japanese army officer quickly joined in.

Damn! The Japanese army officer who asked the question earlier almost broke the defense. If it were another occasion, he would definitely take out the knife hanging from his crotch, no, the knife hanging on his waist and stab his two shameless infantry captains to death.

It's just a shameless mother opening the door to shamelessness. Shameless to the extreme, such shameless words as willing to be the wind, frost, ice and fire for the brigade commander are all at hand. Why don't you say that you will bring a wave of ice and fire for the brigade commander?

But what can I say! The look in his eyes was the same as that of his subordinate, Shao Zuo, who wanted to fight for you.

"Youxi! As long as you are determined, our brigade will win this battle!" Kumieda Shiro looked around and nodded with satisfaction.

"Moreover, the key to winning this battle is not only on the front line. Maeda's battalion has detoured 20 kilometers in the past two days and finally found a mountain range that can be passed by light infantry. I have already sent two additional infantry squadrons to march to their area at noon.

Gentlemen, do the Chinese still have the spare strength to send troops to stop our army's more than 1,500 light infantry from attacking their rear wing?"

"Your Excellency the brigade commander has made every plan, and the empire's military fortune is prosperous!" The last Japanese army Shao Zuo finally flattered him fiercely.

Anyway, they are all shameless, so one more is nothing?

As for his own left-wing commander, under the brigade commander of the major general, he just knows how to pose after patting his buttocks, right?

The Japanese were not stupid. After two and a half days of fighting, they finally found an opportunity to break through the 4th Battalion's defense line, or hope for the future.

If the battle continues as it is now, the 4th Battalion's strength will be consumed to a certain extent. Whether in terms of strength or psychology, the isolated army will be the first to collapse.

The 104th Infantry Brigade, which has an absolute advantage in strength, will definitely be the victorious party.

Not only the Japanese understand this principle, but Shangguan Yun also knows it.

Including the two baggage platoons and an engineering squad assigned to the 4th Battalion, the total strength of the 4th Battalion is less than 1,500, and the two and a half days of fighting suffered more than 300 casualties. At this level of consumption, it can last for up to 5 days, which is a situation where the entire army is annihilated. .

"Telegraph the station and order them to initiate a full evacuation. All the officers and soldiers of our 4th Battalion are determined to fight until the last soldier survives and dies with the position, and we will buy them 90 to 100 hours at most! At the same time, we ask them to take away the seriously injured people who have been transported back, so as to I hope the regiment can rebuild the 4th Battalion someday! This is my only request, Shangguan Yun." Shangguan Yun calmly issued the military order after returning to the headquarters.

"So...battalion commander, where is the regiment headquarters?" the communications platoon leader asked.

"Let's not talk about it for now! The regiment headquarters is fighting with a Japanese division, which is very stressful, but you can draft a message first and say sorry to the regiment commander and the officers. The 4th Battalion was gone just after it was built. In addition, Tell the regiment that the most glorious thing in Shangguan Yun’s life is to be his company commander.”

The Army Major who calmly chose to hold on to his position even if his entire army was wiped out was filled with immense pride!

His pride comes not only from the fact that he once had an outstanding and brilliant subordinate named Tang Dao, but also from the group of brothers he has now.

Before issuing this order, the four company commanders and more than a dozen platoon commanders under his command expressed to him that they would not retreat until death!

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

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