The mountain road is difficult to navigate in the rugged area!
Even though Tang Dao and his team are one person and two horses, they can't be very fast.
And it wasn’t that peaceful along the way.
It's not that there are any Japanese, but the number of bandits is staggering.
This is different from Southeast Shanxi.
After all, there are more than 100,000 regular troops stationed in the mountains in southeastern Shanxi, leaving little room for bandits to survive.
As for eastern Shanxi, which was already part of the Japanese-occupied area, the Japanese army occupied the county seat, and management outside the city was completely out of control.
During the three-hour march, Tang Dao felt at least more than ten coveted eyes looking at him and his comrades who were marching in three groups through the bushes.
It's just that the bandits are also very discerning. Looking at the dozens of regular soldiers wearing military uniforms and carrying guns and cannons, no one dared to jump out and test the strength of Tang Dao's elite team.
Bandits are rampant, which can be regarded as a major feature of Jin Province, which was occupied by the Japanese army at this time. Most of them were poor people who couldn't survive, so they simply went up to the mountains and became bandits, robbing homes and houses.
Especially in the nearly one year since the Japanese invaded Jin Province, the number of bandits has increased sharply. In a small mountain town with a radius of only a few dozen miles, there are even more than five bandit infestations.
However, it is not the Chinese mountain people who are troubled by these endless bandits, but the Japanese.
Because the bandits who were born in the mountains also know that you can't dig up the roots of leeks, so whenever they go down the mountain to rob the mountain people, they just do it casually and basically leave some food for the ordinary mountain people.
Even if they rob a 'big house', they can give some money to the mountain people. If there is any situation, some mountain people will even tip them off. In just this year, bandits in many places have even cooperated with them.
The mountain people formed a deformed 'symbiotic' relationship.
Of course, most of the wealthy families here have the surname Ri.
In fact, in this land of Jin Province, the wealthy people have long been scared away by the war. Apart from the Japanese transport team, who else has so much white rice and flour?
Therefore, the Japanese army encountered numerous small-scale attacks in the mountains. In the first half of 1938, the recorded losses accounted for one-third of the entire transportation volume.
Of course, a large part of them are the work of the Eightyth Army. Their characteristic is that they have to rob supplies and kill people. They even pick up all the bullet casings for you. Just check the scene where there are corpses everywhere, and you will know that it is
They did it.
Bandits are different. They rarely aim to annihilate the enemy. As long as you lose your supplies and run away, your chance of survival is greater than 80%.
But compared to the 80th Army, which launched frequent attacks, the bandits actually caused more headaches for the Japanese army. Their so-called bandit dens or hilltops were just straw sheds. If you want to gather heavy troops to encircle and suppress me, I will leave it to you.
At most, it will make you angry and vent your anger. When you leave, eh! If I come back again, if you still come, then I will run away again...
Bandits are not like the regular army. They don't have any heavy weapons or baggage. They carry a bag of rice, a bow on their back or a machete on their back. That's all they have. They can have dozens of blunderbuss or more than ten rifles.
They are all F4 among bandits!
What? Such bandits have no deterrent effect? When you are walking on a mountain road, there are cliffs on one side and mountains on the other. Not to mention rifles and machine guns, just rolling down some rocks will be enough for you to drink.
Moreover, if bandits can survive in such poor mountains and harsh waters, they must have good brains. They can send out "reconnaissance troops" for dozens of miles. Maybe your transport team of dozens of people has just left the city.
People will be keeping an eye on you, and then the bandit army will start looking for a suitable location to beat you.
In short, it's just one sentence: if you can do it, do it, if you can't do it, just hide. Compared with life, face is not important at all.
Bandits are like rats living in urban underground tunnels. Their living conditions are harsh, but they are not afraid of being cold and cold. It doesn't matter whether the Japanese are ferocious or not. As long as they have supplies, they are just a meal.
In the area of eastern Shanxi, in addition to the resistance forces that the Japanese struggled to deal with, bandits became the second most troublesome force for the Japanese.
Fortunately, these bandits who silently watched Tang Dao and his entourage leave had no intention of slaughtering the fat sheep. Otherwise, Tang Tuanzuo, who was inexplicably anxious, would not have shown mercy because they were members of the clan.
Tang Dao arrived at the frontline headquarters at the 921st Division headquarters at 2:30 p.m.
The frontline headquarters was located in a small mountain village, with as many as five lines of warning, but this was considered normal. After all, this was wartime, so Tang Dao didn't think much of it.
Until he saw Brigadier Cheng coming out of the village, his cheerful smile was gone but his face was full of seriousness. Tang Dao couldn't help but feel a little thump in his heart.
"Go in and say that Commander Zhao of the 17th Division also arrived half an hour ago, Commander Li of the 104th Division is still on the way, and Commander Tang of the 12th Division and Commander Dong of the 101st Division did not arrive because of the distance, but both of them sent messages to express their acceptance.
All military orders from the frontline headquarters." Brigadier Cheng walked quickly to the headquarters with Tang Dao and briefly introduced the situation.
Tang Dao's face was calm, but he knew in his heart that the war situation might really change.
Sure enough, when he walked into the main room of the mountain village courtyard, Commander Liu, the commander-in-chief of the front line, bent over the map and whispered something to Commander Zhao next to him. The faces of the two famous generals were solemn.
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"Chief, Tang Dao, the leader of the Fourth Army Regiment, is here to report!" Tang Dao gave a military salute.
The two generals raised their heads together, trying hard to smile with their serious faces, and raised their hands to return the salute.
They are all old acquaintances. Whether Tang Dao calls him "Sir" or "Head", Mr. Zhao won't care at all.
Do you really think that Tang Dao can just be a friendly force and provide support like a seller? Many of the reasons are self-explanatory.
"Commander Tang, you are finally here, sit down!" Commander Liu stretched out his hand.
"Chief, what happened?" Tang Dao opened his chair and sat down, and asked directly without mincing words.
"Japanese troops, there is something strange!" Commander Liu did not hide it.
"Three and a half hours ago, our intelligence personnel in Changzhi City urgently reported that more than 3,000 people from the Japanese 108th Division stationed in the city suddenly mobilized on a large scale, and even used Type 89 tanks."
Tang Dao did not express an opinion and continued to sit upright and wait for Master Liu's introduction. According to his judgment, this information would not make this super general who has experienced hundreds of battlefields large and small look so grim. There should be more updated information later.
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"At the beginning, I also thought that the Japanese army was threatened by Shimen, so they chose to use the 108th Division to either encircle Wei and rescue Zhao, or to move north along the Ping-Han Line from HD and other places to support Shimen. We had deduced this situation before the war, and the 104th Division might
Even the 17th Division can temporarily block it." Commander Liu's face became more solemn.
"But an hour and a half ago, one of our senior intelligence officers stationed in Shimen who held an important position in the puppet army did not hesitate to expose himself and sent an unfinished message through a secret radio..."
Tang Dao's eyes were solemn.
The word "exposure" already illustrates a situation. This information is extremely urgent. If it is not sent out, countless people will die. And if it is not sent out, it also shows that the intelligence agent has been exposed.
Yesterday, the troops of the Four Troops came to Niangziguan City, Jingxing, and Shimen. Under the great threat from the Japanese troops, the whole city was naturally under martial law, and vehicles searching for radio signals kept going day and night.
Any fool knows that sending out radio waves at this time is undoubtedly suicide, let alone a trained senior intelligence agent?
"See for yourself!" Mr. Liu took out the translated telegram from his coat pocket, put it on the table and pushed it towards Tang Dao, unable to hide the pain in his eyes.
"The Japanese troops of the 20th Division of Shimen made a sudden move and gathered a large number of soldiers, armored vehicles, and artillery. They also began to equip oil for transportation. Instead of defending the city, they actually took on an offensive attitude! ... Goodbye!" Tang Dao finished reading softly,
His face was full of solemnity and he stood up involuntarily.
Not only was this piece of information important to the entire attacking army, but it was also the spirit of this senior intelligence officer who was willing to sacrifice.
The last goodbye was obviously a hastily sent telegram after the Japanese troops had located his home and were beginning to break down the door.
Even if a soldier dies in battle, he still has a chance to shoot hot bullets at the enemy with his gun, but for people like this unknown intelligence agent lurking in the enemy camp, no one will know their names until they die.
who.
When they were alive, they stood in the eyes of their own people who looked down upon them. When they died, they had no glory.
Or, their greatest wish is to have their deeds engraved on their tombstones!
The information may not be detailed enough because it was written in a hurry, but it is enough, enough for China's extremely excellent commanders to judge the oncoming storm.
Because, no matter who it was, even a guy as strong-minded as Shiro Itagaki, facing tens of thousands of Chinese elites rushing towards them with great momentum and only a distance of more than 80 kilometers, they would never give up the advantage of the city wall to fight in the field.
The commander of the 20th Division, Saburo Kawagishi, was not even a general-level player. Otherwise, in the famous Niangziguan defense battle last year, the nearly 30,000 troops of the 20th Division could not advance even an inch for half a month.
The fact that the 20th Division made such an adjustment only proves one thing: the main force of the Japanese army has come to support them, and they want to eat these tens of thousands of Chinese troops on the plains in one fell swoop.
In just one night, they were able to obtain support, which ruthlessly explained to the Chinese commanders present the fact that the Japanese North China Front Army Headquarters might have known the tactical intentions of their unit.
Otherwise, even the German Empire, which was moving towards a fully mechanized army, would not have been able to send tens of thousands of people and equipment hundreds of kilometers away in such a short period of time.
Needless to say, it was another damn intelligence leak, and it also came from their helpless senior management. Tang Dao and Brigadier Cheng looked at each other, with anger bursting out of their eyes, those guys who failed to succeed but failed to succeed.
"It is useless to talk about those things. Now, the blood of the martyrs cannot be shed in vain, and we cannot live up to the sacrifices of the martyrs. Commander Tang, you are the deputy director of the staff department. How should we fight this battle next? You have to make reasonable suggestions.
." Master Liu put his hand on the simple combat table and turned his gaze to Tang Dao.
Although he couldn't see through his calm eyes behind the thick glasses, Tang Dao could sense his expectations.
Tang Dao understood that this information came too suddenly, and even this veteran general couldn't help but feel a little confused at this time.
It’s not that I’m panicking. The more I fight in battles, the more I understand the truth. No matter how bad the situation is, the worst possible outcome is that ‘the soldiers will come to cover up the water and the soil will cover it up’!
The famous general in front of Tang Dao even had the experience of being surrounded by ten times more enemy troops several times. In the future, there was a famous scene where he cut off his own retreat and advanced thousands of miles while being chased and intercepted by hundreds of thousands of enemy troops. In comparison,
, the scene of tens of thousands of Japanese troops sneaking in was not really the most dangerous one.
In fact, when the famous general talked about the battlefields he had experienced in the future, this battle was ranked in the top three. On the contrary, he kept silent about those grand battlefields where he commanded hundreds of thousands of troops to annihilate enemies at every turn.
In the original words of an octogenarian who was nearly blind at that time: The most exciting battle in the rest of my life is the battle against the Japanese pirates, let alone the others!
As for the Jindong Counterattack, the old man kept dictating it for more than half an hour, and the secretary took ten pages to complete the record. This shows that in the old man's mind, the importance of the Jindong Counterattack was
and deep memories.
Because the Japanese troops attacking the Chinese army at this time were not tens of thousands as they think now, but close to one hundred thousand.
According to post-war statistics, the Japanese 18th Division was at full strength. With the exception of less than 2,000 troops left on the south bank of the Yellow River to confuse the Chinese army, the remaining 26,000 troops fled to eastern Shanxi!
Although the two infantry brigades of the 20th Division lost more than 3,200 people in the previous battle, as a Category A division, they still had 26,000 troops. In addition to leaving a certain amount of troops to defend the city, Saburo Kawagishi sent his troops to
The number of troops reaching Shanxi Province was as high as 21,000!
The newly formed 21st Division was the B Division. Its main infantry regiment was not like the four regiments of the A Division. Instead, it was a three regiment that was relatively rare in the early stages of the war, but with the addition of cavalry and artillery supplies and other auxiliary units.
The troops, at full strength, amount to nearly 20,000!
What's even more terrible is the Sakamoto detachment of the Fifth Division coming from Yangquan. Even though its main core is only two infantry regiments, it is the most elite field force of Japan's North China Front.
In the Battle of Sarangoku a year ago, the commander of the Fifth Division, Shiro Itagaki, led his 50,000-strong Fifth Division plus two mixed brigades, a total of more than 70,000 people, to kill Jin Province, and penetrated 20
The defense line set up by more than ten thousand Chinese troops eventually lost the original city.
Don’t think that the Chinese army at that time was incompetent. In addition to the elites of the Shanxi-Sui Army, there were also elites from the Central Army and the 80th Group Army that had crossed the Yellow River. The 511th Division of the 80th Group Army was almost 1:1 at Parallel Pass.
He killed a large baggage detachment of the Fifth Division with huge battle losses and became famous all over the world!
And the Sakamoto detachment, either in order to maintain the honor of its "Steel Army" or to add luster to the face of its iron-headed division commander, actually brought an entire artillery regiment, a tank brigade and a cavalry.
Regiment, a baggage regiment, plus other auxiliary arms, the total strength of the army is as high as 14,000, which is nearly as strong as a newly formed 21st division!
The ability to mobilize so many troops is also related to the special organization of the Fifth Division. The Japanese permanent divisions basically have a reserve division. For example, the reserve division of the 1st Guards Division is designated as the 101st Division.
The 108th Division is actually the reserve division of the 8th Division, and by analogy, the 109th Division is the reserve division of the 9th Division.
But the 105th Division rarely appears alone, because from the day it entered North China, the 105th Division was under the command of the 5th Division. Its total strength of 55,000 troops is equivalent to an infantry division of the Chinese army with three infantry divisions.
military.
Therefore, the Fifth Division actually has two artillery regiments. Each artillery regiment has 48 artillery pieces, 12 105 howitzers and 36 75 mountain guns or field artillery. The 18th Division and the 20th Division
Although there is only one artillery regiment each, the number of artillery pieces is the same. That is to say, a B division such as the 21st Division is still equipped with 36 75mm mountain guns or field guns.
The number of Japanese troops dispatched on the surface alone has reached as high as 80,000, which has exceeded the 75,000 Chinese troops in eastern Shanxi at this time and nearly 6,000 troops. This does not include the active deployment of troops and generals who can be deployed at any time for support.
An infantry brigade of the 14th Division of Henan Province and the 108th and 109th Divisions are gathering strength!
This is the first time since the war between China and Japan that the Japanese army encircled the Chinese army with superior force, commonly known as making dumplings!
It can be said that under the active planning of Yuan Shanshan and Saburo Okabe, who have seen the bright cards, Jindong has become a dead end!
Even after the war situation became clear two days later, the stingy old man who learned the news also sat blankly in his quiet little courtyard, looking up to the sky and sighing: "All the elites in my second theater will be lost in this battle!"
But the battlefield is ultimately fought by people, not just by comparison of military strength. The previous Battle of Songhu and Battle of Pengcheng have proven this with bloody facts.
"Chief, can we withdraw our troops immediately?" Tang Dao asked directly in response to the expectations of the two division commander-level generals.
Commander Liu was silent for a moment, shook his head and said: "I'm afraid not! This time is a secret order from the Ministry of Military Affairs, a strict order, ordering our Second Theater Zone to contain the Japanese North China Front Army no matter what, in order to achieve the strategic goal of fighting between the Central China Region and the Japanese Central China Expeditionary Force.
From a strategic perspective, I am afraid that tens of thousands of our troops will be sacrificed, but it is worth it if we can meet the requirements of the headquarters."
The implication is that from a strategic perspective, the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers can be sacrificed. This is cruel, but also very realistic.
In the current battle of Jiangxia, China has invested 14 army groups with about one million troops, and the Japanese army has also invested 370,000 troops. Compared with the huge troops invested by both sides, which totaled 1.4 million, a mere 70,000 lives were lost.
It's really not that conspicuous.
Even from this perspective, the Jindong counterattack really attracted a large number of Japanese troops, which is what the Chinese command would rather see. Regardless of the final fate of the five divisions and one regiment of more than 70,000 Chinese officers and soldiers, this counterattack
The strategic goal has been achieved.
It is impossible to retreat!
If other infantry divisions retreat, perhaps only officers at the division, brigade, and regiment levels will be dealt with by military law, but not the Eightyth Army. It is possible that all the reputation gained during the war of resistance in the past year will be in vain because of this retreat!
Even if all the five main regiments of the 921 Division were exhausted, they would not be able to retreat! As the commander-in-chief of the front line of the Shanxi East Counterattack, Commander Liu knew this very well.
"It is difficult to disobey military orders and we cannot retreat! Moreover, the Japanese army has already moved at this time, and the retreat may be blocked. Even if we risk the commander's beheading to retreat, we can only retreat deep into the mountains, and many heavy equipment must be abandoned.
, it will undoubtedly break his arms and legs, so what's the use of retreating?" Tang Dao's eyes flashed with light, and he slapped the table decisively.
"Then there is only war!
If you want to fight, I will fight!
Change the offensive battle into a defensive battle!
If you want to eat our fifth division together, that little devil will have to sacrifice more lives in exchange for it!"
"If you don't want to die, you can only fight to the death!"
The deafening sound of Tang Dao lingered in the simple mountain village hut.
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ps: Yesterday was Mother's Day, so I took my parents and their friends out for a trip. Just after returning home in the evening, I met a classmate who wanted to treat me to a treat. As a result, poor Fengyue was knocked down by a group of classmates who made careless friends and drank alcohol with malicious intent.
, I am as heroic as the wind and moon, but I drank at least three bottles of beer...
So, there was no update yesterday, and I didn’t even ask for leave. I’d like to explain it here today!
This chapter has been completed!