Chapter 1359 The price of looking at people with old eyes!
The reconnaissance plane, which was conducting almost 12 hours of non-stop reconnaissance in the 30-kilometer area around the battlefield, suddenly sent a piece of news to Saburo Okabe, who had already begun to consider how to evacuate the Purple Mountain battlefield decently, at 9 o'clock in the morning that made him frown.
Only 10 kilometers away from the Zishan battlefield, a large number of soldiers wearing camouflage uniforms suddenly appeared.
This Japanese Army Air Force pilot was very conscientious and risked being shot down by Chinese anti-aircraft artillery. He lowered the altitude to 1,000 meters and finally determined that the force was definitely not less than 1,000 people.
Although the Japanese Army Aviation Corps of the North China Front did not send out bombers to bomb the Zishan area after their defeat in the ground-to-air battle on the first day, under the strict orders of Commander Duo Tianjun, they still conducted 10 reconnaissance sorties per day.
Patrolling and reconnaissance around the Zishan War Zone.
Because, the Southern Hebei region is not only affiliated with the Four Lines Regiment, but also the 80th Group Army, which has a much larger force.
Both Duo Tianjun and Okabe Saburo know very well that no matter how powerful the Four Lines Regiment is, it is just an infantry regiment and can only defend at most. However, the Eighty Group Army is different. It is a large-scale army with nearly 100,000 troops.
Military group.
What made the Japanese commanders even more miserable was that a group army with such a huge force never had a head-on confrontation with the Japanese North China Front, but always broke it up into pieces and carried out surprise attacks.
Ever since the Japanese troops stationed in North China, being quietly beaten was a common occurrence. There was no attack by members of the 80th Group Army that week. For the Japanese troops stationed in North China, it was simply unbelievable.
Although the losses are not big each time, it can range from hundreds of people to hundreds of people, or even only a few people injured, but you can't stand up to such piecemeal losses accumulated over time!
According to internal statistics from the Japanese North China Front Army Headquarters, since the launch of the attack on Pingbeicheng in July 1977, the divisions stationed in North China have lost approximately 100,000 personnel in various battles at the brigade level and above.
To be honest, this kind of loss is already too large for a front army, but considering that the size of the Chinese army often exceeds 200,000 people, and the time span is as long as two years, this is still within the acceptable range.
But in fact, after careful statistics of personnel losses, it was found that in two years, the battle losses of each division exceeded 140,000, which means that in addition to the 100,000 people lost in large-scale battles, there were about 40,000
Human losses occur during daily security maintenance or operations to clear out rebels.
And these are basically the masterpieces of the 80th Group Army, which also means that the 80th Group Army, which has only participated in two large-scale battles, quietly ate up nearly two B divisions of the Japanese North China Front Army.
They have such a record, but they are not impressive at all. Even their opponents are not alert. If the 80th Army continues to do this and the time span is extended for a few more years, then won't they be able to defeat half of the front army?
Swallow.
This is undoubtedly a statistical result that makes the top brass of the Japanese North China Front Army, headed by Duo Tianjun, feel chilled in their chests.
As early as November 1939, when Duo Tianjun returned to Japan to seek support from all parties, the Fourth Army Regiment and the Eightyth Army had already been listed as two major dangers in North China and must be eliminated.
It is precisely because of this that several big bosses at the Japanese Army Base Camp agreed to second the First Division of the Kwantung Army to the North China Front Army, so as to gather heavy troops without using the main divisions on the Zhongtiao Mountain, Yellow River, and Taihang Mountain front lines.
In southern Hebei, we attacked two major problems.
Although the 1st Division and the 3rd Division had more than 40,000 troops, they tried their best to attack the Purple Mountain defense line in the early stage, but in fact, Saburo Okabe always had a reserve force of nearly 11,000 troops and more than 40 tanks.
To put it bluntly, Duo Tianjun, who was stationed in Pingbei City, and Okabe Saburo, who led his troops, were on strict guard against the 80th Army.
It was expected that Zishan would have a hard time chewing this tough nut, but if an enemy appeared in the plains, Saburo Okabe, who owned more than 60 tanks of various types, would have enough confidence to defeat them.
It can even be said that attracting and annihilating members of the Chinese 80th Army Group was part of the Zishan Operation Plan.
But as the war progressed, the defense line of the Four Elements Regiment in the Zishan area was no longer a tough one, but a porcupine covered with spikes. The skin had not even been chewed through, but his face was pricked with blood. Don't fight too hard.
Frustrated.
Saburo Okabe, who was gradually getting stronger, had long since forgotten the battle plan of attracting and annihilating the First Division of the Eightyth Army. Even the reserve team had deployed four infantry brigades to the Purple Mountain battlefield.
That is to say, the Zishan area is really not suitable for armored warfare, so there are still more than 40 tanks of various types placed in the plain area for defense.
Then, at this time, another serious enemy finally appeared near the Zishan War Zone.
Although this was within the original plan of Jun Taten and Saburo Okabe, at this time, Saburo Okabe was not happy about his opponent's intentions at all, but felt inexplicably confused.
Although the report sent by the reconnaissance plane pilot showed that about a thousand troops appeared in the mountainous area 15 kilometers away, Saburo Okabe, who had served as the Chief of Staff of the Front Army in North China for two years, still had a strong attitude toward the Eighty Group Army, an old opponent.
familiar.
What is the greatest characteristic of the Eightyth Army? Is it poor equipment? Or is it the determination of the soldiers?
neither
He likes to bully others!
Based on the battle reports of the 80th Army in the southeastern Shanxi, northwestern Shanxi, and southern Hebei regions, it can be concluded that the 80th Army either does not fight, but once it takes the initiative to fight, it will basically have several times the strength of the empire.
At this time, there are at least 30,000 imperial troops on the Zishan battlefield. The 80th Army has taken the initiative to show its presence. How many troops will they get?
Just thinking about the overwhelming dark gray with branches stuck on his head, Saburo Okabe couldn't help but feel chills in his vest even though he was at the headquarters 12 kilometers away from the front line.
"Send a message to Commander Kaoru Kataoka of the Army Aviation Corps and ask him to send out more reconnaissance planes to detect the enemy's incoming direction and approximate troop strength. This is related to the honor and disgrace of the North China Front Army, the Kwantung Army and even the Imperial Army. Please!"
While Besaburo ordered some troops to be transferred from the front line to the side and rear flank defense lines that had been established on the plain, he asked his chief of staff to immediately send a telegram to the Army Aviation Corps of the North China Front.
In fact, at this time, Saburo Okabe still looked like a general. Apart from having a slight headache, he still maintained the composure of an army commander.
No matter how powerful the Eightyth Army is, they are only good at small fights after all, and have never proven themselves on a battlefield with tens of thousands of people. Their weapons and equipment and the individual quality of their soldiers are also poor among the Chinese military.
According to Saburo Okabe's estimation at this time, more of the 80th Army Group coming from the Taihang Mountains may be able to break the siege of Zishan Mountain. Maybe the Four Elements Regiment at this time will also be at the end of its war effort.
After all, the First Division and the Third Division are both the first-class permanent divisions of the empire. They are exhausted from fighting and have the idea of temporarily evacuating. There is no reason why the Four Elements Regiment on the defensive side should be intact.
It is normal for Saburo Okabe to have this idea. In the minds of the Japanese generals at this time, upgrading the infantry regiment of the Four Troops Regiment into an object that can only be eliminated by an imperial division would be very embarrassing to the Four Troops Regiment. If replaced by
In the past, it was a big joke that an infantry brigade failed to defeat a Chinese infantry regiment.
The easy occupation of the three northeastern provinces and the opening of the two major gateways to northern and southeastern China without much effort did give the Japanese army generals great confidence. Even though the Fourth Army Regiment had continued to cause losses to the Japanese army in the past two years,
Also because the Four Lines Regiment always operates jointly with other friendly forces in China's Second Theater, these two reasons also caused the Japanese generals to form a sufficiently wrong understanding of the Four Lines Regiment.
Tang Dao and the Four Lines Regiment he led were only tactical enemies of Japan's North China Front and could not rise to the level of a strategic threat.
Wrong perception will of course lead to wrong judgment!
Therefore, Saburo Okabe lost the most precious 4 hours.
In fact, Saburo Okabe did not take it lightly. On the plain defense line northwest of Zishan, three infantry brigades and two armored squadrons were deployed. Several remaining 105 howitzers were also transferred to their use, and there was even one
A heavy artillery squadron with four 150mm howitzers, escorted by an infantry squadron, moved towards the area.
With the support of this kind of troops and heavy firepower, not to mention a few thousand troops, even a Chinese infantry division of 50,000 people could not open this line of defense to threaten the Japanese infantry who were attacking Zishan.
Even in the opinion of Major General Hattori Akitaro, the commander of the 1st Brigade, he might be able to lead a counterattack and use the powerful strength of his 40 tanks to wipe out the opponents who dare to invade on the plains.
Lieutenant General Saburo Okabe guessed the beginning, but not the end.
At 1 p.m., Japanese reconnaissance planes finally determined through intensive reconnaissance that the number of Chinese troops entering the plains from the Taihang Mountains would not be less than 50,000. Their direction was exactly the flank and rear flank of the northwest attack group of the First Division.
Saburo Okabe had no idea how to deal with the characteristics of his old rival, the Eightyth Army. He was worthy of being a famous general who had served as the chief of staff of a front army lieutenant general.
But what neither Duo Tianjun nor Okabe Saburo could have guessed was that the 50,000-strong army that was about to enter the battlefield was no ordinary Chinese army, nor an ordinary Eighty Group Army.
That was China's first infantry brigade on the North China battlefield, and even on the entire Chinese battlefield - the 683rd Brigade of the 921st Division.
Brigadier Cheng Da personally led the four main regiments of the teaching regiment, 771st regiment, 772nd regiment, independent regiment, as well as the security battalion and artillery battalion directly under the brigade headquarters to go into battle.
It doesn’t matter that the four main commanders will all be shining generals in the future, even the battalion commander will have at least one star.
The commanders are all veterans who have fought fiercely on the battlefield for more than ten years, not to mention him. After all, no matter how rich his combat experience is, if you give him a fire stick, he will not be able to defeat a kid holding a pistol, right?
But today's 683 brigade, except for the supplementary regiment and other units, which are all equipped with Japanese weapons, the rest of the main forces are all equipped with German weapons.
The artillery battalion directly under the brigade headquarters now has 12 Bofors 75mm mountain guns and 12 Type 41 mountain guns, a total of 24 artillery pieces with a range of more than 6,500 meters. Not to mention that at the infantry regiment level, it is equipped with 150 heavy guns and 37mm guns.
Rapid-fire guns and 82-meter mortars have been equipped at the battalion and company levels.
That's all. The 6 Maxim heavy machine guns originally equipped for the battalion level were going to have a fierce battle with the First Division this time. Tang Dao spared no expense to come up with 72 MG42 heavy machine guns and 200,000 rounds of ammunition for each unit.
The infantry battalion added 6 machine guns.
If you add in the six 20mm twin-mounted machine guns equipped in the infantry regiment, the four regiments have 24 anti-aircraft machine guns for air strikes.
If the First Division used the same energy as the Four Lines Regiment to deal with this elite group of the 80th Army, whose combat power was comparable to that of the 88th Division on the Songhu battlefield, and dispatched dozens of fighter planes to bombard them wildly, they might not be able to fight back.
It can cause some big trouble for the 683rd Brigade.
Unfortunately, the tragic ground-to-air battle on the first day of the Battle of Zishan has chilled the hearts of Japan's North China Front Army Aviation Corps. The 97 heavy explosives that were just equipped with the Army Aviation Corps now only have two or three big cats and kittens left.
No one would take these imperial weapons, which would have to wait at least half a year for replenishment, to waste them in Zishan, a place full of anti-aircraft and anti-aircraft guns.
Even if they were to be dispatched, at most only small aircraft such as the 96 Land Attack would be available, and the number and scale would never be the same as before.
It's like a fight between two people. You jumped into the air and performed a cool roundhouse kick, only to be kicked backwards by your opponent with a non-fancy whip kick. You almost lost your egg.
The eggs are blown, so I ask you if you still dare to show off this trick again?
Anyone who has been beaten will remember the pain of being beaten!
What's more, for Hattori Akitaro, who once rose to the rank of Lieutenant General Commander of the First Division in time and space, he is just a bunch of bullies. If you want a machine, the tracks of the tank are enough to crush them until they are bloody.
Flying.
The forward 772 regiment of the 683 brigade was still building field trenches a thousand meters away from the Japanese defense line. The threatened Japanese infantry turned mainly against the enemy, with 6 Type 97 medium tanks at the head, 16 Type 97 light tanks on the wings, and 4 infantry squadrons close by.
Under the cover of tanks, 800 people launched an attack on the 772nd Regiment.
To say that the weapons and equipment of the Kwantung Army are indeed superior to those of the North China Front Army, the current tank squadrons of Japan's North China Front Army divisions are generally still dominated by the old Type 89 and Type 94 Xiaodouding, and the Kwantung Army's tanks confront Mao Xiong.
The squadrons have all been re-equipped with the Army's Type 97, which was only started to be equipped in 1937.
The Type 97 tank is a masterpiece of Japanese military industry. The light tanks are equipped with a 37mm cannon and the armor thickness is 16MM. The medium tanks are equipped with a 57mm howitzer and two 7mm machine guns, and the front armor thickness is 25MM.
Although it couldn't beat Mao Xiong's T-tank, against a group of Chinese pure infantry, Major General Hattori Akitaro voted with his feet.
This may also be the first time that so many steel behemoths have been deployed on the battlefield in China's southern Hebei Plain at once. The 1,500-meter-wide battlefield seemed to be trembling under the huge roar of tank engines.
The officers and soldiers of the 772nd regiment, lying in a trench that had only time to dig more than half a meter deep, looked at the 22 steel monsters dragging thick black smoke and roaring violently hundreds of meters away, with inevitable fear in their eyes.
Many of them have dealt with this kind of steel monster. Not to mention machine guns and rifle bullets cannot penetrate the iron shell of that thing. Even if grenades are tied together, it is difficult to blow it up. In many cases, they spend a lot of time.
With the lives of more than a dozen or even dozens of people, they finally threw the grenade cluster under the tank, but sadly found that it could only break its tracks. Even if it lost its mobility, the machine gun or tank gun it was equipped with was still intact.
It can provide terrible fire support for Japanese infantry.
It is precisely for this reason that they will never easily launch an attack on the Japanese army without gathering several times the strength of the Japanese army.
Because the Japanese consume ammunition, and they need to consume lives.
I don’t know how many elite soldiers who crossed the snow-capped mountains and grasslands fell under the firepower spewed by this steel monster of the Japanese army.
They were not afraid of sacrifice, but they were powerless in the face of the Japanese equipment that was several levels ahead of them.
The commanders at all levels with combat experience in the 772 regiment also had solemn eyes. They had no time to think about sacrifice. They were just frantically calculating in their minds how much loss they would have to pay to kill these broken iron shells.
Some battalion commanders even estimated that he would need to devote at least one infantry company to this battle. He even asked each company and platoon to put the death squads that had been formed before the war on the front line.
Each suicide squad member has an explosive pack and 6 grenades strapped to his body, so that he can turn himself into a large running bomb at any time.
There is no way. Although the troops are now equipped with shotguns instead of cannons, heavy machine guns and mortars, those things are useless against the Japanese, who have a broken iron shell. In the end, they have to use bravery and sacrifice to solve these problems.
question.
Only Wang Xiaoqiang is smiling!
"You bastard little devil, you thought I was the old millet with a rifle! I didn't rush to beat him, I was already snickering, and dared to leave the trench to beat me.
Order the battle defense artillery company and the heavy force company to be prepared for me. When we reach nearly 500 meters, I will do my best.
However, we cannot imitate those losers from the Four Elements Regiment. We don’t have that many squanderers. My request is to shoot accurately without wasting the shells. Whoever is so good will let me off the hook at this time. This battle will be fought.
After that, I'll wash my socks.
I sent a message to the brigade artillery battalion to request artillery support. The whole battalion followed my order and started shelling. The target was 400 meters in front of my position!
In addition, I sent a message to the headquarters of the Fourth Army Regiment. I have already sent the coordinates of the Japanese army. I am here to help them this time. They have to get some artillery shells to support us no matter what. Otherwise, I will wait for him after the battle.
If you don't leave and don't give me good food and drink, I will go around saying that he is not authentic in Tang Dao."
"Why don't you send a telegram to the chief to report first? Also, Captain Tang, could you please word it a little bit to prevent others from talking about us?"
The regiment chief of staff standing next to Wang Xiaoqiang had a wry smile on his face. As the regiment leader, he really did not regard himself as an outsider. Not only did he directly send a telegram to the brigade artillery battalion to obey his command, he also sent a telegram to the four-line regiment who was fighting in full swing on the Zishan battlefield.
To provide artillery support here, God knows whether the brigade commander and Commander Tang would give him a big look.
"Hehe! Listen to me, just say what I said. As long as the war goes well, the chief will not be offended. Tang Dao, he will still do this to me. You are too polite to him.
, but he is still a little unaccustomed to it, and I am afraid that I have fought too many battles and my brain has been damaged." Wang Xiaoqiang couldn't help laughing when he saw his chief of staff looking embarrassed.
What is meant by roughness but fineness? The Tang Dao made the mad warrior understand thoroughly, and the same was true for this famous warrior who had his own rift in his heart.
In this world, there is no one who can become a warrior just by relying on the word "brave"!
Meeting Wang Xiaoqiang is destined to be Hattori Xiaotaro's disaster!
