The first thousand one hundred and twenty chapters
The Japanese aircraft formation bombed Baoying indiscriminately, and thick smoke shrouded the entire city. When the Japanese aircraft disappeared from the horizon, the brothers looked back and saw that the entire Baoying had been turned into ruins and rubble.
"Little devil, I am your ancestor!"
Seeing the newly conquered city turn into this miserable situation in an instant, the brothers' eyes turned red and they roared in anger.
"If you're brave enough to fight with a bayonet, a coward without courage knows how to bomb! You coward!"
"Come back! Don't run away if you have the guts!"
A brother pulled the trigger in the direction of the Japanese plane, and the roaring bullets penetrated into the sky with the anger of the brothers.
The brothers outside the city were yelling angrily, while the survivors of the bombing in the city were crying for their parents and digging through the rubble for their relatives who were buried in the collapsed houses.
Many dust-covered survivors stood on the street as if they were in a daze, looking at their homes in ruins, and soon began to cry loudly.
"Mother, mother!"
"Child, my child..."
Both men, women and children were shouting and crying, and the ruins shrouded in gunpowder were filled with soulless people.
Yang Ling also didn't expect that the little Japs were so heartless that they carried out indiscriminate bombings on the residential areas of Baoying, not even sparing the innocent people. He was so angry that he gritted his teeth! He wished he could shoot down all the Japs planes.
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But when I think about the Japs’ burning, killing, and looting in Nanjing, Wuhan, and Xuzhou, countless innocent people fell under the Japs’ butcher’s knives. They had already killed many people, but now they are just continuing the atrocities and adding a blood feud!
"Second and fourth battalions, the medical team goes into the city to rescue people! First and fifth battalions can go south to fight!"
Facing the city that was bombed into ruins and the innocent people who suffered heavy casualties, the Northern Jiangsu Corps, which was about to go south to fight, had to detach a part of its officers and soldiers to go back to the city to rescue people from the ruins.
As soldiers, they protect their homes and country for the common people, but now the common people are suffering heavy casualties from the Japanese bombings right next to them, and every brother is filled with raging anger.
Groups of officers and soldiers rushed into the ruins of Baoying and began to rescue people. Deputy Captain Yuan Guangtao stayed behind to rescue the injured people and help them settle down.
Yang Ling personally led the blacksmith's first battalion, and Liu Zhi's fifth battalion went south with overwhelming fury to face the Japanese troops advancing north.
While the formations of Japanese soldiers were bombing innocent people in Baoying County on the northern battlefield, the Japanese soldiers on the southern front were advancing northward along the highway.
This time the Japanese were out in force. Only one Beiye infantry brigade stayed near Gaoyou to guard against the guerrilla forces in Dongtai and Taizhou directions, while the other four infantry brigade and one artillery brigade pressed north across the board.
Since last winter, the Northern Jiangsu Corps has successively captured Huaiyin, Jieshou, and Gaoyou. Its strength has grown rapidly, and now it has captured Baoying with a feint.
Although there are still many Chinese corps in the Jiangsu area of the Sulu theater, and some are stronger than the Northern Jiangsu Corps, the series of attacks by the Northern Jiangsu Corps have made the Japanese angry.
So now the North Jiangsu Corps has become a thorn in the side of the devils. They are now going to kill the chickens to scare the monkeys, and completely eliminate the North Jiangsu Corps that has disgraced them, in order to regain their face, and at the same time give those vacillating branches the opportunity to win.
The team put pressure on them to join the puppet government in Nanjing.
"Destroy the Northern Jiangsu Corps within half a month, otherwise you will be punished under military law!"
The Japanese Central China Expedition Army Headquarters in Nanjing also issued a death order to the Japanese detachment leader Touichi Watanabe, asking him to eliminate the Northern Jiangsu Corps within a time limit.
The previous leader of the Japanese detachment took responsibility for the fall of an infantry brigade under his command into the hands of the North Jiangsu Corps, and committed suicide by disembowelling himself, preventing the base camp from pursuing him.
Now the leader of the detachment, Touichi Watanabe, does not want to repeat the mistakes of his predecessor, so this time he has mobilized almost all combat troops, in order to press northward with thunderous momentum and completely eliminate the Northern Jiangsu Corps.
The Japanese's Yamazaki Infantry Brigade serves as the vanguard of the whole team. More than a thousand Japanese armed to the teeth rode on three-wheeled motorcycles, four-wheeled trucks and bicycles, and moved northward at lightning speed, aiming directly at Jieshou. .
As soon as the Japanese moved in Gaoyou City, Shen Biao, the commander of the third battalion in charge of the feint attack on the southern front, got the news, and immediately received a telegram from the headquarters of the North Jiangsu Corps, which was to stop the Japanese advancing northward at all costs. Heading south, the main force moves south to fight and gain time.
The commander of the third battalion, Shen Biao, was also a veteran who was among the dead, so he naturally knew the significance of this order.
If they failed to hold back the Japs, once the Japs broke through the front line of Jieshou, the main force of the Jiangsu North Corps, which came south from Baoying to fight, would have to fight the Japs in a flat field.
And as long as they block the Japs, when the main force heading south enters the pre-built field fortifications, relying on the huge in-depth defense system, they can drag the Japs to death.
Therefore, whether this battle can crush the powerful offensive of the Japanese soldiers depends on whether they can hold back the Japanese soldiers and buy time for the troops heading south to set up a defensive line.
"The Eighth Guerrilla Detachment has been reorganized."
"The Eleventh Guerrilla Group is back and established."
"The 51st Guerrilla Combat Team is back under construction!"
"The 44th Guerrilla Group is missing..."
"The 61st Guerrilla Group lost six people."
"The 32nd guerrilla unit was completely wiped out..."
The staff of the battalion headquarters continuously reported the names of those who had returned to the army or were missing to the third battalion commander Shen Biao.
In order to achieve the effect of a feint attack on the southern front, half of the brothers from their third battalion were spread out as a combat team and launched a fierce offensive against the Japanese and puppet troops within a radius of twenty miles.
But now that the military operation of the feint attack has ended, less than half of the people have been able to come back and return to work smoothly. Most of them are like stones sinking into the sea, and there is no news about them anymore.
If the battle was won, these dispersed troops might be able to gather back, but now the Japanese army has marched northward in mighty force.
Regardless of whether those brothers are dead or alive, Shen Biao has no time to wait for those brothers who have not yet returned to the army. He has to complete the difficult blocking task with his remaining troops.
"How many combatants do we have in total now?"
Shen Biao didn't have the time to listen to those lists and directly asked the battalion staff directly.
"Less than six hundred..." The staff officer's expression was also extremely solemn.
"Battal Commander, there are five to six thousand Japs," the staff officer reminded with a pale face.
"Aren't there just five or six thousand Japanese? Tell me brothers, don't kill more than anyone else. Just kill ten of them per person is enough. Our three battalions are all tough-minded heroes! How can we be afraid of the little dwarf?"
"Six hundred heroes can hold off the Japanese for a day."
Shen Biao stood up confidently and ordered: "Order the troops to immediately enter the blocking positions, consume layer by layer, flank the Japanese, and slow down the Japanese's northward advance."
"yes!"
"Why don't we wait for Deputy Battalion Commander Luo and the others?" the staff officer turned around and asked after taking two steps.
Shen Biao waved his hand carelessly and said: "Don't wait for them. If they catch up, they can still eat meat. If they can't come back, then just wait and drink soup."
Deputy Battalion Commander Luo Feng led his troops to launch a feint attack on the Japanese. He hasn't come back yet, which means the situation is definitely in danger. But now that the enemy is approaching, Battalion Commander Shen Biao knows about it, but he can't reveal it to affect the morale of the army.
"Lao Luo, you managed to hide yourself and let me carry thousands of Japanese soldiers by myself. You are so fucking unjust."
After the staff members left, battalion commander Shen Biao murmured to himself, his face no longer as confident as before. He knew that this was a battle to the death.