Rise From Eight Hundred

At about 4 p.m., the Japanese army finally couldn't bear the huge casualties and chose to retreat.

From the morning of November 8 to the afternoon of November 9, the 10th Army deployed a total of three infantry brigades and one mixed brigade. Not counting the auxiliary arms such as artillery, armored troops, aviation troops, and engineers, there were nearly 30,000 people directly used for the front-line siege.

In the East City alone, 7 infantry battalions with more than 7,000 people were deployed. Such an intense attack war can be regarded as a large-scale attack even in the Battle of Songhu.

However, Songjiang City is still in the hands of the Chinese.

The 10th Army was not only futile, but also suffered heavy losses.

The 13th Infantry Brigade in Nancheng suffered more than 1,000 casualties in two days, and almost an infantry battalion was written off, which made Ushijima Mitsuru so angry that his nose was crooked.

But for Kunisaki Shigeharu and Suematsu Shigeharu, the 13th Infantry Brigade was absolutely Versailles.

Just a few thousand people, your Major General Ushijima Mitsuru's nose is crooked, so if we are like this now, will Xiaojiji be angry?

Songjiang Xicheng was originally the main attack direction of the 10th Army, but I didn't expect that a small warehouse city plus the outer city block almost beat a mixed brigade and an infantry brigade into a dog.

The Chinese are like stones in the pit---stinky and hard. They fought against them for two days, and their hearts, livers and lungs were almost rotten.

It's hard to wait for the Chinese to run away! And they came back again.

I haven't even seen what the city wall looks like! The Kunisaki Detachment and the 114th Division, which were the main attackers, had a total of more than 20,000 Japanese troops, and 3,000 to 4,000 people were worn away.

But this can only be regarded as the beginning of a nightmare.

After experiencing painful torture, when they really started the city attack and defense, whether it was Suematsu Shigeharu or Kunisaki Shige, they finally knew what it meant to be a dog biting a hedgehog, not eating meat but chewing a mouthful of blood.

After two days of fierce attack under the cover of aircraft and artillery, the infantry brigade of the 114th Division was almost half-crippled, and the Kunisaki Detachment suffered more than 800 casualties again, so that in the afternoon of November 9, the 114th Division began to work without effort and entered the active paddling stage.

The Kunisaki Detachment was naturally not stupid. A bunch of scumbags actually wanted me, an elite, to be a shield for you? Dream on!

Anyway, it was not our Fifth Division who was beaten in Dongcheng.

We must paddle together!

The two Japanese troops tacitly "swung the oars" together on the edge of the moat, which was what the Chinese defenders wanted.

The Japanese attacked desperately in the past two days. Not only did the Japanese die, but they also died with them.

After more than a dozen rounds of siege, the group of lieutenant generals and major generals stationed in Xicheng were almost beaten to tears.

More than a thousand bodies were carried to the rear, not to mention the hundreds of seriously injured. A whole infantry regiment disappeared in the two-day battle.

The Chinese and Japanese sides in Xicheng actually started a tacit war with each other since the afternoon.

Bullets and shells were fired back and forth, but it was just a lively fight. The Japanese army did not rush up, and the Chinese did not raise their heads. They hid in the trenches and at most stretched out their arms to shoot out.

The casualty rate of both sides dropped rapidly.

You two idiots are really dogs! Sakai Tokutaro, who knew the truth of this day in the future, could only use this sentence to describe his two stupid colleagues.

But whether it was Ushijima Mitsuru with a crooked nose, Kunisaki Zheng with a haggard face, or Suematsu Shigeharu who had been crying for a long time, if these three met Major General Sakai Tokutaro of the 11th Infantry Brigade, they would probably give a heartfelt comforting look, and then take the initiative to stay away from this guy.

The reason for the sincere comfort is that Tokutaro Sakai is an unlucky guy; and the reason for staying away from him is that he is really unlucky, so unlucky that people feel that it is safer to stay away from him.

Compared with the unlucky Tokutaro Sakai, their losses are not worth mentioning.

Two days ago, the 11th Infantry Brigade still had two fully staffed infantry regiments and three reinforced direct infantry squadrons, with 8,000 infantrymen alone.

The term "strong soldiers and strong horses" may be tailor-made for them.

What about now? Let's put together all the wounded who are still in the hospital and see if we can put together an infantry regiment!

That means that the 11th Infantry Brigade, which seemed to have transformed from a secondary attack to a main attack, can almost be reorganized into the 11th Infantry Regiment.

Nearly 5,000 casualties were reported by Tokutaro Sakai after two days and nights of siege.

Compared with the Kunisaki Detachment and the 114th Division, which were hit to the heart and lungs, the "strongest division on the surface of the earth", which represented the strongest combat power of the 10th Army, was hit on the balls by the solid Matsue Castle, and the yolk was almost pushed out.

Of course, this kind of heart-wrenching and terrible war losses have not been unheard of in the history of the Japanese army.

In the third month of the Battle of Songhu, the 200,000 troops of the Songhu Expeditionary Army were reduced to 150,000; in the former Russo-Japanese War, more than 40,000 people died in the week-long fortress siege, and even one and a half of Nogi Maresuke's three sons died in the battle.

However, even the lieutenant general division commander became the prey of the Chinese and turned into a cold corpse, which is a bit too much.

Moreover, right next to Sakai Tokutaro, he was shot in the head by a Chinese cold gunman.

Do you think this unlucky child Sakai Tokutaro is really unlucky? Or is he a lucky man?

At least he is alive, which is lucky!

But if he was lucky, why was his colonel commander also killed? And he was humiliated by a Chinese who sneaked into the headquarters and cut his throat in front of his subordinates.

This is a person who is unlucky both above and below.

What's more terrible is that he is unlucky even among his colleagues of the same level. If he hadn't sent a telegram in the middle of the night, would Tanabe Shigetake have rushed over in a hurry? If he wasn't riding a horse, would he have been thrown off the horse by the gunshot and died alive?

Moreover, what's more mysterious is that Tanabe Shigetake didn't die at that time, but died when he was about to reach the field hospital of the 11th Infantry Brigade.

I'm afraid he was suffocated by the bad luck of this guy Tokutaro Sakai!

It is said that from then on, when the 10th Army Headquarters held a combat meeting, the area within two meters around Major General Tokutaro Sakai must be a blank area.

There is an old Chinese saying: Even if you don't believe in ghosts and gods, you have to believe in fate!

This guy is definitely unlucky.

The Japanese army, which had suffered heavy losses, probably had not recovered. From 4 pm to nightfall, the Japanese army that surrounded the city on three sides did not launch any more attacks.

The Japanese army, which was eager to attack the north city, finally evacuated.

The Japanese infantry did not attack, but that did not mean that the Japanese artillery and aviation were idle.

After confirming that it was impossible for them to evacuate the city, the Japanese heavy artillery brigade and the light destroyers that stayed on the Huangpu River used artillery shells to help their compatriots seek justice.

I don’t know if it was because the unlucky child Sakai Tokutaro was crying and couldn’t bear to watch, but the commander of the 10th Army, Yanagawa Heisuke, who arrived at the battlefield in the afternoon, actually ordered the heavy artillery brigade to bombard at all costs.

Sixty heavy artillery and more than eighty artillery of various types threw nearly 4,000 shells into Songjiang City, including sulfur bombs that helped combustion, high-explosive bombs, and even mustard gas bombs.

It seemed that they would send the entire city of Songjiang away with artillery alone.

Fortunately, when the Japanese army issued a retreat signal and began to withdraw from the battlefield, the 108th Division Command on the East City front also issued an order that the infantry should not pursue the enemy.

Although the Japanese army in the city was at a disadvantage, it was far from the standard of retreat. Many troops actually chose to leave the battlefield and let their colleagues leave the battlefield.

From this point of view, the Sixth Division is definitely a strong army that cannot be ignored.

When the troops that surrounded the Japanese army launched the final attack on them, the Chinese soldiers on the battlefield were more focused on cleaning the battlefield and looking for wounded and dead bodies.

Because everyone knew that after losing these meat shields, the Japanese army, eager to retaliate, would sooner or later bombard the city.

In front of people, equipment and other things can be ignored.

The soldiers of each unit basically cleaned up the battlefield in half an hour, carrying their brothers who were still alive or dead to the air-raid shelters or anti-artillery locations.

Even the few Japanese troops who were still resisting were ignored.

Because when their own shells hit, their chance of survival would not exceed 5%.

Indeed, there were at least 80 or 90 Japanese soldiers resisting in the city, but when the shells bombarded them, they were basically all dead.

According to the records of the 11th Infantry Brigade, there were only five Japanese infantrymen who returned to the barracks under the cover of night after the bombardment.

This shows the intensity of the Japanese bombardment.

However, the mood of the Japanese infantrymen outside the city was not beautiful at all when they saw their own artillery showing off again.

Facing such an offensive by the Japanese army, the Chinese defenders finally did not silently endure the artillery this time. All the artillery that could still fire, whether it was mountain artillery, field artillery or large-caliber mortars, also launched a counterattack.

However, it was not a direct fire with the Japanese artillery group.

The Japanese heavy artillery brigade was still ten kilometers away, and the mountain artillery and field artillery were at least five kilometers away. Not to mention that they did not know the coordinates, even if they knew, the range of the Chinese artillery was shorter, so they could only stare blankly.

But the Japanese infantrymen were outside the city!

You hit me, but I can't catch the infantry and hit them!

Moreover, it is unknown what kind of mentality Lieutenant General Wu has. All the artillery that can fire is collectively pointed to the east.

That is the position of the 11th Infantry Brigade.

You have to catch someone and strangle him, right?! Standing in the division headquarters two kilometers away, Sakai Tokutaro looked at the continuous explosions of bullets on his own position, and I don’t know what kind of mood he was in.

They all say that he is too unlucky! The Japanese commanders in other directions collectively felt that this was very reasonable.

There is an old Chinese saying: It is better to break one finger than to hurt ten fingers!

Lieutenant General Wu’s move was naturally because the casualties of the Dongcheng defenders were too great, and he felt that he would not be able to get over it if he did not cause trouble for the 11th Infantry Brigade. He also wanted to break the 11th Infantry Brigade in one fell swoop.

The Battle of Songjiang on November 9 ended in the wrath of the God of War that both sides could have.

But the Sihangying Camp, 40 kilometers away, ushered in their first ground battle at this time.