Rise From Eight Hundred

The Chinese disappeared.

Not only the Chinese soldiers, but all the Chinese.

In fact, not only the people disappeared, but also all the livestock.

If it weren't for the breath of life left in those empty stone houses that could not be moved, it seemed that the place where the two divisions of the 108th Division passed was the legendary no-man's land.

The 108th Division spent a lot of effort to fight into the depths of the mountains, as if it was a demolition team of 20,000 people. The only thing they could do was to burn houses.

A fierce punch, but it hit a pile of cotton, how to think about it is uncomfortable.

Xia Xiongyuan and the 20,000 Japanese troops might not have dreamed that as early as half a month ago, at the staff meeting of the southeastern Shanxi region convened by the head of the 80th Army Group, the general who temporarily served as the chief of staff proposed a genius strategic concept and won the unanimous approval of all the generals present.

'External harassment, shrinking to fight to the death, and the people fortifying the walls and clearing the fields! ' is the three major principles of this strategic concept.

Putting aside the army's combat methods, all the people in the anti-Japanese base area took all the living supplies they could take away and hid in the uninhabited mountains. They would rather live a hard life, even if they had to dig wild vegetables and eat tree bark, it was better than dying from Japanese bullets and bayonets.

Among them, the 921st Division's garrison was particularly thorough.

In the past six months, the 921st Division has gotten along well with the local people. At least 20,000 new recruits are young and strong from the garrison, and a large number of garrison militias have been trained. It can be said that they are like one body.

Once the military order was issued, the people around the garrison were reluctant to leave their homes and resolutely executed the military order. From eighty-year-old women to infants, including chickens, ducks, dogs, sheep, pigs, and donkeys at home, all retreated to the uninhabited mountains with the assistance of the militia.

There was not a single grain of rice or a handful of noodles left at home. The entire retreat took more than ten days. It would be a miracle if the Japanese army that broke into the hinterland could see a single human hair.

Of course, there were more Japanese generals who shared the same depressed mentality as Shimokumamoto.

Major General Yamamoto, then commander of the Second Mixed Brigade, was also about to explode.

As a young general who had won much praise within the Japanese Army Headquarters, his ambitions were much greater than his current military position. He was eager to show his talents in this war. Lieutenant General of the Army was just a transition. General or even Marshal was what he really wanted.

In fact, in the past, Yamamoto's ambitions were all realized in the war.

Due to his outstanding performance in the war in North China, after Okamoto Saburo was transferred, Yamamoto was promoted from Major General to Lieutenant General and served as Chief of Staff of the North China Front Army. Later, because of the battlefield of suppressing the anti-Japanese armed forces in East Hebei and Central Hebei, the Chief of Staff of the North China Front Army of Japan massacred tens of thousands of anti-Japanese soldiers and civilians in an extremely brutal way, creating countless massacres.

The famous "Wangxinzhuang Massacre" killed more than 200 people with poison gas at one time, which was at his instruction.

With the cruel means, the anti-Japanese armed forces in the two places are still active, but their destructive power is no longer as strong as before. Yamamoto's name has become more famous within the Japanese Army Headquarters and he is regarded as a late bloomer.

When the Pacific War broke out in 1941, Yamamoto, who was 56 years old at the time, was transferred to the 25th Army of Japan as the commander, responsible for the war in Southeast Asia. In just 70 days, he swept 650 miles of the Malay Peninsula. The British Empire's garrison led 130,000 defenders to surrender to the army commander, thus creating the largest land battle victory in the history of the Japanese army.

On the Chinese battlefield, there were no less than ten battles between the two sides with more than 600,000 troops, but the Japanese army had never had such a glorious victory.

Yamamoto, who won such a victory, was thus awarded the reputation of "Tiger of Malaya" and was promoted to Army General in July of that year. At this time, it was only three years away from his promotion to Lieutenant General. This was also the most glorious moment for Yamamoto.

The dilemma faced by the Second Mixed Brigade was different from that of the 108th Division. The three major divisions and one mixed brigade of the Japanese Army were divided into ten routes and four directions. The 108th Division was divided into two routes from south to north and punched into the air. The 16th Division was divided into four routes from east to west, and the 109th Division was divided into three routes from west to east. The last route from north to south was of course the Yamamoto Division of the Second Mixed Brigade.

To put it bluntly, the Second Mixed Brigade was the weakest of the four major offensive directions of the Japanese Army, but it was also the route with the strongest total force, because they were the only ones who did not divide their forces.

The 16th Division and the 109th Division were like hitting a wall, encountering the main force of the 80th Army and part of the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army respectively.

For example, the 16th Division encountered the main force of the 80th Army. The defense line was said to be three infantry brigades, but in fact it had nearly 40,000 troops, and its strength was comparable to that of an infantry army.

The 16th Division fought fiercely, and the 109th Division in the other direction was not doing well either. The 109th Division originally planned to attack from the front and back with the 16th Division to defeat the main force of the 80th Army that was blocking the 16th Division, but it was not all the strength of the 80th Army.

The 80th Army actually had more than 10,000 troops scattered in the mountains, and had a large number of mortars and a small number of mountain cannons, while the Shanxi Suiyuan Army, which also had nearly 10,000 troops, also had more than 12 mountain cannons and 20 mortars.

Although the Chinese army with more than 20,000 troops had no advantage in terms of manpower, it relied on these heavy weapons to hold the 109th Division in the mountains, and every step forward had to pay a sufficient price.

In two days, the three armies of the 109th Division only advanced less than 6 kilometers, but the casualties had exceeded 1,000.

The Japanese troops in the east and west were completely trapped in a bitter battle.

In theory, the Chinese army, which had already allocated at least half of its troops, would not cause too much trouble to the Second Mixed Brigade, especially since the 108th Division had already entered the 921st Division of the 80th Army, burning houses in no less than 30 villages, and there were not many Chinese troops harassing.

But what was beyond Yamamoto's expectation was that the Chinese seemed to have used all their troops to deal with him. There were actually two Chinese infantry divisions with nearly 30,000 people fighting with him on the defense line.

That desperate scene really made Yamamoto drunk.

The Chinese used hills to build positions and then formed a criss-crossing defense line. There was basically an infantry company stationed on each hill. It seemed that there were not many soldiers, but if the Japanese army wanted to pass through its range, they had to conquer this hill.

This led to the Second Mixed Brigade having to remove these hill positions like pulling out nails.

The combat effectiveness of a position of only a hundred people is really limited, but they are fully armed soldiers, especially after two consecutive ammunition replenishments, the average ammunition carried by each Chinese soldier is close to 100 rounds, and ammunition is no longer scarce, at least before they die in battle.

But there was also a situation where the Chinese soldiers on the hilltop surrounded by an infantry battalion shot desperately for 6 hours because the battle was too fierce.

But what shocked the Japanese army was that the Chinese soldiers were still fighting back with everything they could use, including primitive weapons such as stones, just before the position was lost.

And this cannot be regarded as their last desperate attack.

They also have artillery.

Yes, the Chinese are not just pure infantry. Under the cover of the densely distributed hilltop positions, there are also unknown numbers of mortars and mountain cannons hidden in the mountains. Whenever the hilltop positions fired red signal flares, there will be artillery fire covering the hilltop positions.

The Japanese army might not have lost many people when conquering the hilltop, but it was this kind of tactics of mutual destruction, where one's own people gave a signal and then covered the hill with artillery fire, that made the Second Mixed Brigade suffer a lot.

It took two days to eliminate nearly ten high grounds and kill more than a thousand Chinese soldiers, but the result was that the Second Mixed Brigade suffered more than a thousand casualties.

"Damn, what kind of tactics is this?" From the brigade commander Yamamoto to the captain-level infantry squadron leader, the Second Mixed Brigade was stunned by this completely exchange-style fighting style.

If they could live for another ten years and see the battlefield called "Iron Yuan Blocking War" on the northern ice field, they would know the name of the tactics they are facing now.

Falling Star Tactics!

It's a nice name, but it's an extremely cruel tactic for both the enemy and us.

Under the guidance of such tactical thinking, all the defenders are like thrown stars, where they fall, there is the position.

There is no such thing as evacuation. Whether you want to or not, you must live and die with the position, because the enemy will surround you and leave you no way to escape.

The only thing the defenders could do was to use up all their bullets and throw all their grenades before their lives ended, just to make sure that their death was not so unfair.

The attackers were also distressed. They had to fight one position after another. If they did not conquer these small-scale but connected positions, they would never reach the position they wanted to reach.

On that ice field, a brave Chinese infantry army of 24,000 people covered a 25-kilometer defense line like scattered stars, and withstood the attack of 47,000 coalition forces led by the United States.

In the end, the defenders annihilated 21,000 enemies at the cost of nearly 20,000 casualties, and completed the headquarters' half-month defense order.

How tragic the trauma of the infantry army was in this battle can be seen from the fact that there were only 266 people left from a fully staffed infantry regiment of 2,760 people before the war, including cooks, cooks, and communications soldiers.

But they held the defense line and won a strategic victory.

Now, in the mountains surrounding the passable road, the Chinese army put this desperate tactic on the line in advance.

Just like what General Zhao Shoushan of the 17th Division said before his 8,000 soldiers who had regrouped before swearing to go to war: "The danger of this battlefield is no less than that of Falu Ridge. If we want to survive and let more Chinese survive, we don't need the Japanese to kill us. We must put our lives on the edge of the knife.

I can't guarantee how many brothers can survive in this battle, but I can guarantee that in this battle, no matter how many brothers the Japanese kill, we will return them twice as much."

General Bai Tou said this, he was not talking nonsense, he also had some confidence.

Of the 24 mountain cannons on the Tang Dao munitions list, six were allocated to his 17th Division alone, and 3,000 rounds of shells were also equipped, with 500 rounds of shells for each cannon. Even if one cannon only killed one devil, it could kill 3,000 Japanese devils.

In addition, the 17th Division was also allocated 25 of the 100 mortars. Basically, each of the three infantry regiments can be equipped with 6 mortars, and the division's direct artillery battalion can also be guaranteed to increase by 7.

In this way, the 17th Division artillery battalion, which he had just repaired, plus the previous ones, will have 12 mountain guns and 15 mortars. In addition to the 18 mortars of the three fully equipped infantry regiments, the 17th Division has a total of 45 artillery pieces, and its combat power even exceeds that before the Battle of Niangzi Pass.

As a friendly force, the 104th Division of the 22nd Army was also allocated 6 Jin-made 17th-year mountain guns and 25 mortars.

In this mountainous area where 20,000 troops were deployed, the two divisions deployed a total of more than 80 artillery pieces of various calibers.

If the Japanese commander could know the number of the opponent's artillery pieces in advance, it is still unknown whether he could attack with all his strength from the very beginning like this.

Anyway, after two days of fighting, the two infantry divisions, which did not use their full strength, used a total of more than half of their mortars and nearly half of their mountain artillery, and they had already completely beaten the Second Mixed Brigade.

The reason why all the strength was not exposed was because the big pie thrown by Tang Dao was too tempting.

"This attack by the Japanese army must be in units of 10,000 people, at least seven or eight thousand. Even if they gather heavy troops to surround them, the Japanese have planes and will definitely cover their evacuation with all their strength. Tens of thousands of people are desperately trying. We don't have enough troops. We can't stop them. But with a troop whose strength is gradually being depleted and ammunition and food supplies are severely depleted, how sure are we, officers, that we can eat them?" When Tang Dao threw out this bait, there was no one left. People can resist this temptation.

In the Battle of Xuzhou, the Fifth War Zone, which had laid out the overall situation for nearly two months, used this move to encircle and kill two Japanese detachments. I heard that the medals of the troops who participated in the war were all carried out in boxes, and they were all from the Chinese army. If others can do it, why can't they?

However, the plan was not as fast as the change. Originally, the total strength of two divisions, one brigade and one regiment exceeded 40,000, which could completely block the enemy coming from one direction and severely damage it. However, at the military meeting of the theater staff, the 683 brigade was entrusted with important tasks by the commander. , will serve as the main force to resist the enemy coming from the direction where the Japanese army has invested the most troops.

Then two divisions and one regiment can only be responsible for doing this job. Otherwise, Tang Dao would not be forced to use the "starfall tactics" used by Chinese soldiers in a decisive battle on the northern ice sheet.

The two infantry divisions must show their courage to stop and consume the Japanese army for at least five days.

Now, two days have passed, and there are still three days left before the mission is successfully completed.

At the end of the day's battle, looking at the vast mountains in the dusk, Major General Yamashita, who was already past the age of destiny, felt that the veins on his temples were bulging, as if blood would spurt out of them at the next moment.

If he continues to fight like this, let alone the invasion of the Chinese hinterland and the successful rendezvous with the 109th Division, his original 7,000 infantrymen will be wiped out in another five days of fighting. If another new force of the Chinese army comes by then, His second mixed brigade may be completely wiped out in this mountain.

But can he retreat? Major General Yamashita recalled the encouragement given to him by His Excellency Commander Shigemoto Gento before leaving: "Okamoto-kun was originally an elite of the Kwantung Army, and he also intends to return to serve in the original army. If nothing happens, in two or three months, North China will The position of chief of staff of the front army will be vacant."

Although Yamashita knew that this was most likely a cake drawn by this big boss for himself, this cake was very attractive to him. He had been a major general for three years. If he was not promoted to lieutenant general, he might not be able to do so by the end of the war. There is no way to be promoted to the rank of general, he must seize this opportunity.

And if you want to seize this opportunity, you must gain enough military exploits in this battle. Yamashita is very clear. Don't look at what Yuan Shanshan said to him. I'm afraid this old fox has said the same thing to several people.

Those lieutenant general division commanders may not be interested in this just transitional position, but they also have major general brigade commanders under their command, and no one does not want their hard-core subordinates to take a further step up.

The situation at this time is that it is difficult to move forward and it is impossible to retreat.

"Baga! Damn Chinese, I'm going to kill you all." Yamashita angrily pulled out his saber and slashed at a small tree next to him as thick as a human arm.

These actions fully demonstrate that Yamashita has not completely lost his mind at this time. He at least knows how to choose a thinner tree and chop down a tree as thick as a human waist. The tree will be fine, but his knife will break.

Because Yamashita actually knew very well that he had already made a decision.

For the sake of his future, he must advance. Regardless of the number of casualties among soldiers, the Second Mixed Brigade must continue to fight.

As for the final result, he can only hope that the God Amaterasu will bless the other three armies to successfully complete their pre-war arrangements, especially the nearly 20,000-strong 108th Division that has not been blocked so far. If they can survive in the mountains Finding a way out of the enemy's rear and bypassing the enemy's rear can also relieve him of his current predicament.

But it can only be said that he thinks too much.

This unlucky kid from the 108th Division suffered a horrific 'biochemical warfare' attack.