Rise From Eight Hundred

Except for the more than 100 wounded soldiers and 200 Japanese soldiers escorted by them who were sent back to Changyang County on the afternoon of the first day, the 232nd Infantry Regiment of the 39th Division, which set out from Changyang, had more than 3,400 soldiers, 3,082 of whom were killed and 83 captured.

The Japanese army knew the specific losses of their infantry only when the Chinese side broadcast to all Chinese people at 9 pm that day.

An infantry regiment and a naval aviation squadron disappeared in the most beautiful mountains in China. The commander of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army, Isamu Yokoyama, and the commander of the Japanese Navy, Ao Hasegawa, collectively vomited blood!

However, the loss of an infantry regiment of 3,000 people was obviously affordable for the 11th Army of Japan, which had more than 100,000 soldiers.

The Japanese army attacking from the Changyang direction suffered a setback, but this did not mean that the Japanese army that surrounded them from other directions stopped.

January 18!

Lieutenant General Isamu Yokoyama, commander of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army, personally flew to Yiling, which was equivalent to supervising the battle on the front line. The commander of the 39th Division, Murakami Kisaku, served as the first-line commander. He personally boarded the Murasame light destroyer and led the 233rd Infantry Regiment, another main infantry regiment of the 39th Division, and an infantry brigade of the 13th Division. Under the air escort of dozens of fighter planes, they marched to the front of Shipai Fortress.

If you think that these Japanese troops of only 10,000 people are the main force of Isamu Yokoyama's attack on Shipai Fortress, you are wrong.

Although these three infantry regiments are all elite in the 11th Army of Japan, they only account for a small part of the Japanese troops deployed to attack Shipai Fortress.

In addition, more than 40,000 Japanese troops from the Nogou Detachment, the Hariya Detachment, the 231st Infantry Regiment of the 39th Division, the 3rd Division and the 40th Division surrounded Shipai Fortress from three directions, which is the real main force of the Japanese army.

In this combat zone with a straight length of about 200 kilometers and a width of about 60 kilometers, China deployed a total of 13 divisions and 3 independent brigades in the Sixth and Fifth War Zones, with a total force of nearly 150,000.

Although the Chinese force is more than the Japanese force of 120,000, at least five divisions were forced to retreat after being severely damaged in the early operations of the Japanese army against Shipai. Only one main infantry army and three divisions and a special forces regiment in the area of ​​100 kilometers around Shipai are still holding their positions. The overall defense force will never exceed 70,000.

70,000 to 50,000, the force is still not weak, but the heavy firepower is still far inferior.

From the river alone, the Japanese army deployed 4 light destroyers and more than a dozen gunboats. Not to mention the 140mm naval guns equipped on the destroyers, the 780-ton Ataka gunboat is equipped with two 120mm naval guns.

The smoke stirred up by the artillery fire on the Chinese positions of the Shipai Fortress from the river is so smoke that it can be said to cover the sky and the sun.

On the other hand, the only thing that the Chinese side could effectively counterattack was the six 190mm river defense guns owned by the fortress, while the main divisions like the 11th Division only had 12 75mm mountain guns.

Not to mention other infantry divisions, some of which did not even have mountain guns, and only had a small number of 82 mortars to support the facade.

Among the 60,000 to 70,000 Chinese troops, only the Four-Line Regiment had heavy firepower that completely surpassed the Japanese army.

At noon on the 18th, the Japanese army launched a landing battle on the front position of the Shipai Fortress. Dozens of naval guns fired together, blowing up the positions of Shipai with smoke.

In the sky, the Japanese Navy even took out all its strength, with more than 40 fighter planes flying up and down, dropping all kinds of heavy bombs into the mountains and forests where Chinese soldiers might be.

China's six river defense guns also fired back angrily, blowing up the river surface with water columns more than ten meters high, and scorching the river beach where the Japanese infantry were landing.

An infantry company responsible for defending this place also fired hard in an attempt to prevent the Japanese infantry from landing smoothly.

However, due to the terrain and the tactics of the division commander surnamed Hu to shrink the defense, the bullets fired by the 5 machine guns and 130 soldiers deployed on this Tianxiantai were not enough to stop thousands of Japanese soldiers from jumping into the icy and waist-deep river and advancing to the landing site.

The Japanese army suffered more than 200 casualties, and most of them successfully landed on the river beach. This loss was completely within the acceptable range of Lieutenant General Murakami.

The most brutal battle broke out at 3 o'clock in the afternoon of that day!

Tianxiantai is a mountain with three vertical sides. There is only one place that can be climbed up the mountain by a small path. Two machine guns blocked the only way to the mountain. Even if there were thousands of Japanese soldiers, they could not climb this high ground before the Chinese infantry company ran out of ammunition and food.

And the Japanese army could not bypass this area where deadly bullets could be fired at any time.

Therefore, the Japanese army first detoured to the rear of Tianxiantai, completely cutting off the retreat of the Chinese defenders in Tianxiantai, and then covered Tianxiantai with artillery fire, and used 12 bombers to bombard the place in turn.

According to post-war statistics, on that day, the Japanese army poured more than 790 artillery shells and 38 aerial bombs on the mountain of Tianxiantai, which was only 8,000 square meters in radius, and even steel would be blown to ashes.

But what was unexpected to the Japanese army was that even under such an intensity of artillery fire, the gunfire on the mountain peak never stopped until night fell that day.

In order to prevent this major threat from launching another attack at night, the Japanese army waited until the early morning of the 19th, sent an infantry squadron to attack Tianxiantai and completely occupied this extremely soft high ground, and then the main force advanced to the core defense position of Shipai Fortress.

More than 200 Japanese troops did not encounter much resistance in the early morning of the 19th. The main reason was that after half a day of heavy artillery and aircraft bombing, there were few living people on the Tianxiantai Highland where all fortifications were destroyed.

Even those who were alive were seriously injured!

According to the oral account of Edogawa Kojin, a sergeant of the 8th Infantry Battalion of the 233rd Infantry Regiment, who did not participate in the meat grinder battle inside the Shipai Fortress due to injuries after the Battle of Shipai, about his ascent to Tianxiantai:

This beautiful mountain overlooking the river and the river beach has no green, but only scorched earth, and the soil here is obviously much softer than other areas. If you step on it, the dust can reach your ankles.

I didn't think anyone would be alive here, but I was wrong. Just when my colleagues and I were still looking around in confusion, a bullet burst out of the soil and shot Nomura.

I still remember his bewildered look at his chest. Like me, he didn't believe that there would be enemies here, but the blood flowing from his chest told me that this was the truth.

Someone, hiding in the mud, launched this fatal attack.

My colleagues and I angrily fired bullets at the target whose position had been exposed. In the mud more than 30 meters away, a figure was quietly crawling, and the blood on his body was constantly splashing under the bullets.

Someone walked over and carefully turned over the body with a bayonet. Many imperial officers and soldiers were stunned on the spot.

It should still be a teenager, only about 15 or 16 years old.

But what shocked me so much that I couldn't speak for a long time was not because the body was young, nor because the body was only 2 meters long at most, but because his legs had been blown off in the terrible bombardment yesterday.

Rather, there was no fear on the extremely dirty face of the corpse, but tranquility and peace. I could even feel that he was laughing!

His legs were broken, he must be in pain. Before he died, he was hit by at least 20 bullets in his body. What a pain it was, so what was he laughing about?

It's hard for me to understand, maybe he is a lunatic!

Sergeant Edogawa Kojin could not understand the peacefulness on the face of the Chinese young soldier when he died, but he had to be grateful to the Chinese young soldier who made the last resistance on the Tianxiantai position.

Because when the Japanese army turned over his body with a bayonet, they did not notice that he was holding a string in his hand.

And as the string was pulled, smoke began to rise from the dust in the area six meters away from the young soldier's body.

Those were three grenades tied together!

Five seconds later, the grenade exploded, and 5 Japanese infantrymen who were walking towards here were killed and 6 injured on the spot, including Sergeant Edogawa Kojin who had just woken up from the shock.

The Chinese young soldier achieved the miracle of 1 for 6 at the moment of death. Do you think he should laugh?

Edogawa Kojin certainly would not understand the calmness on the face of the last Chinese soldier who died on this position. It was not because he finally completed the feat of 1 for 6, but because he finally reunited with his comrades in another world.

When the Japanese army's overwhelming artillery fire attacked, as the youngest soldier in the infantry company, he was protected by a group of uncles and brothers. Before the company commander died, he ordered him to sneak down the mountain at night to escape from here and report the battle situation of the infantry company to the regiment headquarters.

Brothers can die, but they cannot die in vain. At least the superiors must know that they died bravely. This was the last explanation of the infantry company commander to his brothers in the whole company.

Unfortunately, this only seedling who was saved from the artillery fire by the whole company using his body as a shield, ultimately failed to escape the bad luck. A shell fragment cut off his leg, so he could not escape the position anyway.

The young soldier blocked his broken leg wound with mud, tied the last three remaining grenades on the entire position together, made a mine with a rope, and then buried himself in the soft mud that was blown up.

And successfully killed a Japanese invader.

However, the young soldier did not expect the Japanese army's counterattack to be so swift. More than 20 bullets hit his body, and several of them hit his arms, breaking his tendons and bones, so that he had no strength to pull the rope at the last moment of his life.

But it doesn't matter. At the moment when his bright eyes sank into darkness, the young soldier seemed to see his comrades smiling and walking towards him.

It's great to still see you! The young soldier exhaled his last breath with satisfaction.

Really, everything else is no longer important. What's important is that we are together!

After the Battle of Shipai, the division commander surnamed Hu stood on this position full of the remains of his officers and soldiers, and he couldn't let it go for a long time.

That was the only infantry company of the Chinese troops that was killed in the Battle of Shipai. Even the signalmen and cooks didn't survive.

The Chinese infantrymen used the ground to deal with the three-dimensional attack of the Japanese army by land, sea and air. Of course, they were defeated. No matter how tragic it was, it couldn't stop the Japanese army from successfully landing on the river beach and advancing the line of troops to the Shipai Fortress.

Where are the Chinese air force that mobilized dozens of fighters and bombers?

The Chinese Air Force actually joined the war!

However, this time the Chinese Air Force did the opposite. Instead of flying directly over the Shipai Fortress to defend the airspace, it dispatched more than 30 fighters and bombers to bomb the airports in Yiling and Jingmen at around 4 pm.

This tactic of "you fight yours, I fight mine" was proposed by Zheng Shaoyu. He judged that the Japanese army would definitely deploy more air power over the battlefield. It was not because they were afraid of a head-on confrontation, but because the Chinese Air Force had so little resources. If they fought hard in this battle, what would they do in the next six months?

So, a group of aircraft led by him took advantage of the Japanese fighter planes showing off their power on the Shipai battlefield and directly made a big arc and bombed the Yiling Airport occupied by the Japanese army.

Many Japanese planes that had dropped all their bombs were originally going to reload at the Yiling Airport and return to the battlefield, but they were forced to return to the Jiangxia Airport hundreds of kilometers away.

This invisibly prevented the Japanese fighter planes from returning to the battlefield to drop bombs again, and even two Zero fighters had to make an emergency landing in the farmland of the Jianghan Plain due to lack of fuel.

Moreover, Zheng Shaoyu's prediction was very accurate. In order to seek a decisive battle with the Chinese Air Force, the Japanese Navy deployed more than 50 fighters this time. In addition to the fighters participating in the attack on the enemy, there were 12 Zero fighters hovering at an altitude of 4,500 meters.

If the Chinese Air Force really wanted to fight hard with it, it would lose at least 20 fighters in this battle. This would definitely hurt the Chinese Air Force, which was responsible for providing air support to the 5th War Zone, the 3rd War Zone, the 9th War Zone and the defense of Sichuan Province.

Although the Chinese defenders in Shipai bore all the pressure on the first day, the airports in Yiling and Jingmen were all successfully bombed by the Chinese Air Force, which also caused the Japanese Navy Air Force to take off from Jiangxia Airport 600 kilometers away in the middle and late stages of the Shipai Defense War. Not only did the air attack time have to be shortened, but the frequency and efficiency of the sorties were also reduced accordingly.

It can be said that although the Japanese army won a comprehensive victory at the landing site on the 18th, and more than 9,000 Japanese infantrymen were stationed in front of the Shipai Fortress, in fact, the Chinese and Japanese sides fought back and forth on this day.

The two infantry battalion commanders guarding the two airports were scolded by General Yokoyama, who lost two airports.

The two Japanese Army Majors were actually very aggrieved. The 25mm twin-mounted machine guns they were equipped with could only reach an altitude of 2,500 meters at best, but the Chinese planes stayed in the 3,000-meter area. What else could they do except watch the bombing?

"The Chinese Air Force is so abominable. If they have the ability, why don't they bomb the navy's warships!" The two Japanese Army Majors, who were scolded by their superiors and almost stuffed their heads into their crotches, complained in their hearts.

Airports are valuable, but warships are equally valuable. They can transport infantry, have large-caliber naval guns to provide fire support to the ground, and can even defend against air attacks.

On a 780-ton gunboat like the 'Antaku', there are three 40-fold 76mm three-year-old 76mm guns, with a firing height of 6,800 meters, which is an absolute anti-aircraft weapon.

The Chinese planes went to find their bad luck and cut off the retreat of more than 10,000 infantrymen who had landed. What a good tactic!

The aggrieved Japanese Army Major’s wish came true.

At 10 a.m. on the 19th, 16 wildcat fighters of the Chinese Air Force visited the sky above Shipai. Instead of bombing the Japanese infantrymen who had already landed, they attacked the Japanese naval fleet anchored by the river.

The most common mode for aircraft to attack ships is to drop bombs and torpedoes. Wildcat fighters are all land-based. The Chinese Navy, which has basically lost all its ships, has no torpedoes, so it is naturally the most conventional bombing.

Seeing more than a dozen fighter planes swooping down from the sky along the Yangtze River, more than a dozen warships of the Japanese Navy, large and small, panicked.

Although destroyers and larger gunboats are equipped with anti-aircraft guns, those things can hit planes but not bombs dropped.

Let alone a 500-pound bomb, even a 250-pound bomb would severely damage a destroyer.

The Japanese naval warships fled in a swarm, fighting back and maneuvering to evade on the relatively wide river.

The 16 wildcat fighters all started dropping bombs from an altitude of about 2,800 meters. After dropping bombs, they did not linger in the battle and immediately turned and flew away.

Their purpose was not to fight the Japanese fleet desperately. Their main goal was to bomb if they could, and to scare you to death if they couldn't, so that you would not be able to comfortably anchor and provide artillery support to the Japanese infantry on the front line.

The young Chinese Air Force, who used increasingly cunning tactics, once again won military exploits.

The four main light destroyers of the Japanese Navy escaped this round of air raids, and no officers or soldiers were killed or injured!

But there are always unlucky ones. The stern of a 670-ton gunboat was unfortunately hit by a 250-pound bomb. The huge bomb smashed through the stern deck and exploded inside the cabin.

The powerful bombs directly tore the tail of the gunboat and killed nearly half of the sailors on the gunboat. Soon, the gunboat, which was seriously flooded, sank.

Many Japanese soldiers struggled in the cold river water and were rescued by other gunboats, but due to hypothermia caused by low temperature, nearly one-third of the Japanese navy sank before the rescue arrived.

Another gunboat ran too fast and too fast, unfortunately hit the tail of a friendly ship, and directly hit the gunboat and lost two-thirds of its propulsion. In the end, it could only be towed back to Yiling by a transport ship.

Two days before the war, the Japanese army completed the most critical tactical goal of frontal assault on the battlefield in front of Shipai, but the Chinese Air Force lived up to expectations and reduced the pressure on the Chinese infantry in Shipai Fortress, and the Four-Line Regiment also welcomed their opponents.

When receiving the Japanese army number sent by the reconnaissance company, Tang Dao's eyes turned red!

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