The Japanese Western Front Command Headquarters 2,000 meters away.
"Baga! You are losers and a disgrace to the Imperial Japanese Army!" Tokutaro Sakai looked at the casualty report placed on the simple field desk and faced a group of officers and subordinates of the 13th Infantry Regiment standing in front of him.
Swearing loudly.
Major General Tokutaro Sakai, who joined the front-line combat force as an instructor at the Army University, is actually a rare scholar general in the Japanese army. He has a mustache and is very gentlemanly. Even with the tyranny of Hisao Tani, the division chief,
He was decisive and admired this rather unusual brigade commander in the Sixth Division, calling him a very temperamental imperial general.
However, even such a well-known Confucian general with a professorial background, because of the casualty report of frontline officers and soldiers, scolded a group of lieutenants, majors, and captains led by an army colonel, and even lost their jobs. This is a disgrace to the Imperial Japanese Army.
Words like "" are used, which shows the heavy casualties suffered by the Japanese army on the front line.
The Chinese defenders, who had geographical advantages and sufficient firepower, suffered more than 250 casualties, let alone the Japanese troops who were on the offensive.
One side of Cangcheng is a wilderness, and the other three sides are surrounded by endless residential buildings. Moreover, there is a small moat surrounding the city with an average width of more than 13 meters. Even if the Japanese army can attack the city wall, they still have to cross it.
The moat is only there, so it can definitely be regarded as a stronghold that is easy to defend but difficult to attack.
However, Kura Castle, which has incomparable geographical advantages, does not pay much attention to the Army Major General Tokutaro Sakai. In his view, no matter how strong the castle is, it must have enough firepower to defend it. He has three
The infantry brigade has more than 3,000 soldiers, 36 heavy machine guns, and more than 16 artillery pieces of various types. It would be a joke if such a small castle cannot be defeated.
Moreover, he must capture this small castle. After close inspection, he found that this castle is nearly 2,000 meters away from the main city of Songjiang. If he wants to attack the west gate of the main city of Songjiang, he must deploy his forward position in front of the west gate.
The 500-meter area, however, is within the range of the heavy machine gun. The Chinese defenders hiding in Cangcheng can completely fire at their main positions with heavy machine guns.
Although there are endless rows of Chinese residential buildings as cover, no one wants to have people hiding behind to stab them when they are attacking with all their strength. Especially knowing that the Chinese have 20 guns that can make even strong gunboats riddled with holes.
When it comes to millimeter machine guns, if that thing hits you from 1,500 meters away, even if it doesn't kill you, it can still kill you alive with shells.
Therefore, after spending three reconnaissance teams to basically detect the Chinese firepower, and estimating that the Kura Castle defenders would never exceed 600 troops, Sakai Tokutaro sent an infantry brigade to launch a strong attack, and all his artillery was deployed.
In the first round of attacks, he planned to strike down in one blow.
Sakai Tokutaro, who was an instructor at the Army University, is indeed very powerful. Based on the size of Cangcheng and the total strength of an infantry corps in the Matsue Chinese garrison area, he almost accurately estimated the strength of the Chinese garrison in Cangcheng. His only judgment
The mistake may have been that he overestimated the damage caused by his own artillery fire to the Chinese defenders in Cangcheng. That was because he did not know that there was a century-old urban underground engineering pipe network built in advance by Chinese businessmen in Cangcheng.
The artillery group of the Sixth Division, headed by 12 105 howitzers, bombarded Cangcheng indiscriminately. Although it even collapsed a city wall several meters thick, it was extremely lethal to the Chinese defenders in Cangcheng.
After being bombarded by more than 400 rounds of heavy artillery shells, the total casualties of the Chinese defenders in Cangcheng were no more than 6. This was far from the estimate of more than 200 enemy casualties by this professor-type army major general with rich teaching experience.
count.
In this person's opinion, the total number of Chinese troops stationed will not exceed 600. After the bombardment, there were more than 200 casualties, but only 400 people. He dispatched a fully-equipped infantry brigade of 1,100 people, which was nearly three times the strength of the Chinese defenders. It was completely killing chickens.
It's like using a knife.
However, the lion and the rabbit also attacked with all their strength. The Japanese Army Major General, who was familiar with the art of war, did not take it lightly. In order to capture this stronghold in front of Matsue Castle in one go, he invested more than a dozen artillery pieces and dozens of weapons that his brigade subordinates could command.
grenadiers, dozens of heavy machine guns and five light tanks. With such superior firepower, it can be said that even if it faces a fully equipped Chinese infantry division, the 11th Infantry Brigade can win the final victory.
But the facts dealt him a heavy blow. Forty minutes had passed. Not only had Cangcheng failed to be captured, but his soldiers did not even have the chance to build the 20-meter-long wooden ladder that the engineers had built out of wood for the infantry to step on.
Sent under the moat of this small castle, the casualties reached a shocking number of more than 390 people. That was the strength of nearly two infantry squadrons, which also meant that the 9th Infantry Brigade of the 13th Infantry Regiment he sent instantly became
A 3 squadron-type "infantry squad".
Not to mention, when more than three of the five 94 "Little Doudin" tanks were damaged by the Chinese defenders' 20mm machine guns, he reluctantly transferred three 89 medium tanks from the division and regiment headquarters to participate in the second round of attacks.
, and before they reached the moat, the thousands of people who participated in the attack retreated in embarrassment.
The battle damage of two 89 tanks plus nearly 200 casualties stung this man who could no longer hold back the anger in his chest. That meant that the 13th Infantry Regiment under his direct command had not even reached the foot of Songjiang City.
The battle casualties were nearly 600. If this rate of battle losses were followed, let alone leading the army to attack Suzhou and encircling the hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops in Songhu after capturing Songjiang, just by chewing the hard nut of Songjiang, the first
I'm afraid there are only two or three big cats and kittens left in the Sixth Division!
When the time comes, will it be His Excellency Lieutenant General Hisao Tani, brandishing a pistol, and commanding him, a major general, to lead these stupid pig-like colonels and lieutenants to charge against hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops?
"Hi! Your Excellency, the brigade commander, taught you a lesson!" Colonel Okamoto Yasuyuki, captain of the 13th Infantry Regiment, bowed his head in shame to accept the scolding from his immediate superior and others. "Our army suffered heavy losses in these two rounds of attacks.
, the Chinese Army is not much better, they must be at the end of their battle. On behalf of the 13th Infantry Regiment, I request the Brigade Commander to give you another chance. This time, our Regiment will definitely be able to enter the city, and it will definitely be called the chicken in the city.
Dogs don’t stay.”
"Stupid!" The furious Sakai Tokutaro did not give any face to his capable officer. Faced with his request to fight, he angrily rebuked with a frosty face. "Through two rounds of attacks, you have not discovered that this Chinese group has no power at all."
Do you leave any escape route for yourself? The battle between trapped beasts is still terrifying. Our Sixth Division has a more ambitious goal to accomplish, so how can we waste the precious lives of the Imperial Warriors in this place?"
Yes, after experiencing two rounds of attacks, the Japanese Army Major General suddenly realized that the Chinese defenders in Cangcheng had everything, including people, light and heavy machine guns, and even mortars and machine guns, but they did not leave any
Any way out, this is obviously a posture of fighting to the death with the enemy who attacks them. According to the previous battle damage ratio, even if this small castle is captured in the end, the infantry regiment and an infantry brigade under his command will be gone.
, and then attacks Songjiang City, which has more defenders, how many people will he have left?
Maybe, the scene where Hisao Tani led him and several other officials to charge might actually happen.
Cangcheng cannot be attacked by infantry. It must be bombed by the division's artillery group, or by naval carrier-based aircraft after the weather improves. He does not believe that the Chinese can survive under that intensity of artillery fire. Although he
He was once extremely confused that after the last round of terrible shelling, the number of Chinese troops who appeared on the city wall was much larger than he expected. For this, the confused Japanese Major General Brigade Commander could only attribute it to the Chinese
The commander was so cruel that he sent more than two infantry battalions into this deadly place.
"What do you mean, brigade commander?" All the Japanese officers looked at each other in confusion.
It’s you who fight, and it’s you who don’t fight. Should I fight now or not?
"The 9th Infantry Brigade, which suffered heavy losses in the attack just now, is building a field position 500 meters away for repairs and monitoring the Chinese troops here. If there is any change, you can launch an attack. If it cannot retreat, then
Hand over to our army's heavy artillery and aviation bombardment. Mr. Okamoto, you lead the 13th Regiment Headquarters and the 11th Infantry Brigade to march towards the west gate of Matsue Castle 1000 meters away from the right side of this place. I will lead the brigade and regiment headquarters and the 10th Infantry Brigade from here.
1000 meters to the left, we want to march towards the west gate of Matsue Castle. Remember, before the main force marches, send out a search vanguard team to prevent the Chinese from using the houses and streets here as cover to attack our army." Sakai Tokutaro issued a military order.
.
The Japanese major general who was unwilling to lose more troops in Cangcheng had no choice but to finally give up on this hard nut and instead marched to Songjiang City first. As for whether the Cangcheng defenders behind him would use heavy machine guns or machine cannons to blackmail them.
That can only be put aside for the time being, and I hope that when the heavy artillery of the imperial artillery roars, they can blow up those tenacious and terrifying Chinese people into ashes!
Although the Japanese Army Major General also knows that this possibility is unlikely, the distance of 1,500 meters can still guarantee that the Chinese bullets will not be so accurate! Maybe he knows that he will be stabbed again and again with a big stick in the back.
It's shameful, but it's much better than hundreds of imperial warriors dying in this place of little significance! This is the reason why the Japanese Army Major General kept convincing himself to give up attacking Cangcheng and instead attack Matsue directly.
To put it bluntly, this is typical self-deception and relying on luck.
After all, this commander who came from an academy is not as good as Hisao Tani, who was born in the wild but has been fighting on the front line and was promoted to lieutenant general. If he were here, even if he had to pay the price of an infantry brigade, he would grit his teeth and attack first.
Cangcheng.
One, no, a group of guys who can fuck behind you at any time, can really make you hurt so much that you can't control yourself.
Don’t believe me? Try pushing it to the end. What’s more, when you use machine guns and mortars, the shells are cold first and then the shells are hot. It’s so refreshing.
However, the predictions of this academic Japanese Army Major General were very correct, which was his advantage.
For example, he said that there would be Chinese people attacking them based on the continuous houses and streets and alleys. That was completely correct. From the beginning, whether it was inside or outside the city wall, as long as it was the territory of Songjiang City, it was the 43rd Army.
and the battlefield of the Songjiang Security Group.