At around eight o'clock in the morning, Lieutenant General Dohashi Ichiro, the commander of the Twelfth Army, was still asleep and was awakened by his staff.
"I need you to give me a reasonable explanation!" Dohashi Ichiro glared at the staff officer in front of him fiercely.
"Your Excellency, Commander, something serious is going on. Just now, the 16th Division and the 108th Division sent an urgent message. They were attacked by the Chinese army on the second floor. Now the troops have been defeated."
"Nani?"
Douhashi Ichiro almost made his eyes bulge out of his head. The army of the Empire of Japan was attacked by the Chinese army? Are you sure you are not joking with me today?
Seeing Douhashi Ichiro's expression, the staff also knew that the matter was indeed a bit ridiculous, but this telegram was jointly sent by the two division commanders Ishihara Kanji and Iwase Takehiko, so there is no doubt about its authenticity.
In order to dispel the commander's doubts, he handed the telegram to Dohashi Ichiro.
"Huhu..."
After reading the telegram, Ichiro Dohashi almost lost his temper. In this telegram, Kanji Ishihara and Takehiko Iwase reported in detail how they were attacked.
What made Ichiro Dohashi couldn't believe his eyes was that the casualties of the two divisions were ridiculously high.
The 108th Division suffered more than 6,000 casualties. In the end, only a little over 10,000 people escaped from the 18,000-strong division, and the 16th Division was even worse.
The 16th Division is a standard packhorse division and adopts the 4-4 system. The division has two brigades, which have two infantry regiments. The division also has an artillery regiment and a baggage regiment.
, an engineer regiment, a cavalry regiment (four cavalry squadrons and a machine gun squadron) and other units.
The artillery wing has thirty-six field guns and twelve 120mm howitzers, and the infantry wing has one wing artillery squadron and one rapid-fire artillery squadron (four 37mm rapid-fire cannons), with a total strength of about 25,000 people.
But such a division actually lost nearly 20,000 people in this attack. In other words, only more than 5,000 people escaped. To put it more harshly, the 16th Division was already in the ranks of the Japanese Army.
Removed from the list.
The 16th Division and the 108th Division encountered an armed militia from Shanxi on their way to reinforce Shanxi. Dohashi Ichiro knew about this. Originally, he was still worried about the two divisions being attacked by a local militia.
He was dissatisfied after being sniped for several days, but because the relationship between Ishihara Kanji and Commander Tada Shun was very good, he didn't want to anger Tada Shun because of this trivial matter, so he turned a blind eye.
He originally planned to send a telegram to reprimand the two men in two days, but before the telegram was sent out, he received the sad news that the two divisions had been severely damaged.
"Your Excellency, Commander, what should we do now?" The staff officer also knew that the matter was serious and asked in a panic.
"What else can we do?" Dohashi Ichiro glared at the staff officer, "Immediately report to the front army headquarters and report this incident in detail to Commander Tada Shun.
Didn’t the Third Tank Group, which reinforced the 16th Division and the 108th Division the day before yesterday, have already set off? Immediately send a report to Major General Kurosawa Kenichi, asking him to speed up the reinforcements and make sure to reach Qingyuan River before this evening.
, take over the 16th Division and the 108th Division, especially Ishihara Kanji and Iwase Takehiko, they must not make any more mistakes."
"Hi!" The staff officer nodded seriously. He understood what Dohashi Ichiro meant. The disastrous defeat of the two divisions was definitely a major event that shocked the country. If there were problems with the two division commanders, he, the commander of the Twelfth Army,
I'm afraid the officer will have to be laid off. The base camp will not be tolerant of defeated generals.
"Wait a moment."
Just when the staff officer turned to leave, he was stopped by Ichiro Dohashi again, "Immediately send a report to Commander Tada, requesting the dispatch of Troop 8604, and ask them to go to Qingshui Garden to conduct an on-site investigation to find out what the Chinese are using."
What is it?"
When he first heard the word "unit 8604", the staff officer couldn't help but shudder, then he responded with a trembling voice and turned around and went out...
Just when Doqiao Yilang was busy mobilizing troops and generals to pick up the remnants of the 16th Division and the 108th Division, Gao Hongming, who had led his troops to defeat the two divisions, ordered to stop the charge and began to clean up the battlefield.
Although many people were puzzled by this order, the military orders were overwhelming. Since Gao Hongming gave the order, they had no choice but to carry it out. Anyway, they had killed enough today.
While cleaning the battlefield, they received a big surprise. They actually captured three Japanese army flags.
These three regiment flags are respectively the 9th Infantry Regiment and the 20th Infantry Regiment belonging to the 19th Brigade of the 16th Division, and the 222nd Regiment of the 108th Division.
This was a huge harvest. Being able to capture these three regiment flags also meant that the three regiments would disappear from the Japanese organization, not to mention the weapons and equipment that were scattered all over the mountains and plains.
However, what bothered the soldiers of the Liantai Militia was that there were so many weapons left on the battlefield that they had to be careful when seizing the weapons, for fear of accidentally tearing the protective clothing, which would cause trouble.
The battle only took more than two hours, but cleaning the battlefield took them more than half a day. They finally withdrew to the starting position in the afternoon, and after a series of disinfection treatments, they dared to take off their protective clothing.
Moreover, this batch of protective clothing can no longer be used after use and can only be burned on the spot.
On October 6, 1940 AD, a clearly coded telegram shocked the whole of China... no... it shocked the world.
This clearly coded telegram was sent by Gao Hongming, the leader of the Shanxi Liantai County Vigilante League. The telegram is as follows.
"Compatriots, Hong Ming was originally a student at a normal school. After graduation, he returned to his hometown and originally wanted to inherit the family business and live a stable life. However, when he returned home, what he saw was the tragic news that his late father had died at the hands of the Japanese invaders.
Out of anger, he formed an armed militia. After more than half a year of fighting, it was relatively unknown. This time, Hong Ming led his troops from Shanxi. They were originally ordered to support the Eighth Route Army in the Hundred Regiments War, but unexpectedly they encountered an enemy on the way.
The Japanese 16th Division and the 108th Division.
The two sides fought fiercely for several days, but they never thought that during the artillery battle today, a shell hit a gas bomb storage place in the Japanese artillery regiment, causing massive casualties to the Japanese army. For this reason, Hong Ming was deeply excited.
I regret that I did not expect that to this day, the Japanese invaders would still carry such a large number of poison gas bombs with their troops.
For this reason, Hong Ming couldn't help but wonder, Japan keeps claiming that it is a civilized country, but it carries poison gas bombs with its army and is ready to use them at any time. Its ulterior motives are really outrageous.