Rise from eight hundred.

Chapter 1424 An enemy is coming from afar!

除了第一天下午被送回长阳县的百余伤兵和护送的200日军，第39师团232步兵联队由长阳出发的3400余人，战死3082人，被俘83人。

The Japanese army knew that the specific losses of its infantry were actually reported by the Chinese side at 9 o'clock in the evening that day to all the Chinese people.

An infantry regiment and a naval aviation squadron disappeared into the most beautiful mountains in China. The commander of the Japanese 11th Army, Yokoyama Isamu, and the Japanese Navy Commander, Hasegawa Ao, collectively spat out a mouthful of old blood!

However, the loss of an infantry regiment of 3000 men is obviously still affordable for the Japanese 10th Army, which has more than 11 troops.

The Japanese army attacking from Changyang direction was frustrated, but this did not mean that the Japanese army encircling them from other directions stopped.

1 Month 18 Day!

Lieutenant General Yokoyama Isamu, the commander of the Japanese 11th Army, flew to Yiling in person, which was equivalent to supervising the battle on the front line. The commander of the 39th Division, Murakami Kaisaku, acted as the front-line commander and personally boarded the light destroyer Murasame to lead the The 39rd Regiment, another main infantry wing of the 233th Division, and an infantry brigade of the 13th Division, under the aerial escort of dozens of fighter planes, headed towards the front of Shipai Fortress.

If you think that this Japanese army of no more than 10,000 people is Hengshan Yong's main force in attacking Shipai Fortress, you are totally wrong.

Although these three infantry regiments were all elite members of the Japanese 3th Army, they only accounted for a small part of the forces deployed by the Japanese army to attack Shipai Fortress.

另外由野沟支队、针谷支队、第39师团231步兵联队、第3师团以及第40师团的各一部总共超过4万日军由3个方向向石牌要塞合围而来，才是日军真正主力。

In this combat area with a linear length of approximately 200 kilometers and a width of approximately 60 kilometers, China has deployed a total of 13 divisions and 3 independent brigades in the Sixth and Fifth Theater Zones, with a total strength of nearly 15 troops.

Although the Chinese military strength is greater than that of the Japanese army, which has invested a total of 12 troops, at least five divisions were forced to retreat after the Japanese army suffered heavy losses in the early operations against Shipai, leaving only an area of ​​less than 3 kilometers around Shipai. A main infantry corps, three divisions and a special forces regiment are still holding their positions, and the overall defense strength will never exceed 7 people.

7 vs. 5, the military strength is still not weak, but the heavy firepower is still far inferior.

From the river surface alone, the Japanese army invested 4 light destroyers and more than a dozen gunboats. Not to mention the 140mm naval guns equipped on the destroyers, the Anzhai gunboat, which has a tonnage of only 780 tons, is equipped with two 120mm guns. mm naval gun.

The smoke caused by the artillery bombardment on the Chinese positions in Shipai Fortress from the river could be described as covering the sky.

On the other hand, the only thing that China can effectively counterattack is the six 6-caliber river defense guns owned by the fortress, while the main division like the 190th Division only has 11 12-mm caliber mountain guns.

That's not to mention other infantry divisions. Some infantry divisions don't even have mountain artillery, and only have a small number of 82 mortars to support their appearance.

Among the 60,000 to 70,000 Chinese troops, the Si Xing Regiment was the only one with heavy firepower that completely surpassed the Japanese army.

At noon on the 18th, the Japanese army launched a landing battle on the front position of Shipai Fortress. Dozens of naval guns blasted all positions in Shipai into smoke.

In the sky, the Japanese Navy used all its strength, with more than 40 fighter planes flying up and down, dropping all kinds of heavy aerial bombs into the mountains and forests where Chinese soldiers might be.

China's six river defense guns also opened fire in return, splashing water columns more than ten meters high on the surface of the river, and charring the river beach where the Japanese infantry were landing.

An infantry company responsible for defending this area also fired hard in an attempt to prevent the Japanese infantry from landing smoothly.

However, due to the terrain and the defensive tactics of the division commander surnamed Hu, the five machine guns and bullets fired by 5 soldiers deployed in this place called Tianxiantai were not enough to stop thousands of Japanese troops from jumping into the cold and waist-deep river. Advance towards the landing site.

The Japanese army suffered more than 200 casualties, and most of them successfully landed on the river beach. This loss was completely within the acceptable range of Lieutenant General Murakami.

The most brutal battle broke out at three o'clock in the afternoon that day!

Tianxiantai is a mountain with three vertical sides. There is only one place that can be climbed up the mountain by a small road. Two machine guns are used to block the only way to the mountain. Even if there are thousands of Japanese troops, the Chinese infantry company will not run out of ammunition and food. , and there is no way to climb this high ground.

And it was impossible for the Japanese army to bypass this area where deadly bullets could be fired at any time.

Therefore, the Japanese army first detoured to the rear of Tianxiantai, completely cutting off the retreat of the Chinese defenders of Tianxiantai, and then covered Tianxiantai with artillery fire of various types, and used 12 bombers to bombard the place in turn.

According to post-war statistics, on this day, the Japanese army dropped more than 8000 artillery shells of various types and 790 aerial bombs on the hilltop of Tianxiantai, which was only 38 square meters in radius. Even steel would be blown to ashes.

But to the surprise of the Japanese army, even under such intensity of artillery fire, the gunfire on the mountain peak did not stop for a moment until nightfall that day.

In order to prevent this serious enemy from launching another attack at night, the Japanese army waited until the early morning of the 19th to send an infantry squadron to attack Tianxiantai and completely occupy the high ground that had been extremely soft by the bombing. Then the main force moved towards the core defensive position of Shipai Fortress. Advance.

The more than 200 Japanese troops did not encounter much resistance in the early morning of the 19th, mainly because after half a day of heavy artillery and aircraft bombing, there were few living people on the Tianxiantai Highlands where all the fortifications had been destroyed.

Even those who are alive are seriously injured!

According to the oral account of his ascension to Tensendai by Sergeant Edogawa Komon of the 233th Infantry Battalion of the 8rd Infantry Regiment, who did not participate in the meat grinder battle inside Shipai Fortress after the War of Shipai due to injury:

On this beautiful mountain peak overlooking the river and river beach, there is no green at all, it is all scorched earth, and the soil here is obviously much softer than in other areas. When you step on it, the dust can reach your ankles.

I didn't think anyone would be alive here, but I was wrong. Just as my colleagues and I were still looking around blankly, a bullet burst out of the soil and hit Mr. Nomura.

I still remember his confused look as he looked at his chest. Like me, he didn't believe there would be enemies here, but the blood flowing out of his chest told me that this was a fact.

Someone actually hid in the soil and launched this fatal blow.

My colleagues and I angrily fired bullets at the target whose location had been exposed. In the soil more than thirty meters away, a figure was crawling quietly, and the blood on his body continued to splash under the bullets.

Someone walked over and carefully opened the body with a bayonet. Many imperial officers and soldiers were stunned on the spot.

He should still be a teenager, no more than fifteen or sixteen years old.

But what shocked me so much that I didn't speak for a long time was not because of the young age of the corpse, nor because the corpse was only 1.2 meters long at most, but because his legs had long been broken off by the horrific bombardment yesterday.

Instead, there was no fear on the extremely dirty face of the corpse, but tranquility and serenity. I could even feel that he was smiling!

His leg was broken, and he must have been in pain. He was hit by at least 20 bullets in his body before he died. It was so painful, so what was he laughing about?

It's hard for me to understand, maybe he is a madman!

It was difficult for Sergeant Edogawa Kokon to understand the tranquility on the face of the young Chinese soldier when he died, but he had to be grateful to the young Chinese soldier who made the final resistance on the Tensendai position.

Because when the Japanese army opened his body with a bayonet, they did not notice that he was holding a thread in his hand.

As the thread was pulled, smoke began to rise from the dust six meters away from the young soldier's body. Those are three grenades tied together!

Five seconds later, the grenade exploded, killing 5 Japanese infantrymen and injuring 6 others on the spot, including Sergeant Edogawa Koima, who had just woken up from the shock.

A young Chinese soldier achieved a miracle of 1 for 6 at the moment of death. Do you think he should laugh?

Of course Edogawa Kokon would not understand the calmness on the face of the last Chinese soldier who died in battle. It was not because he finally completed the feat of one for six, but because he finally and his comrades were on the same battlefield. Another world reunited.

When the Japanese army's overwhelming artillery fire hit, as the youngest soldier of the infantry company, he was protected by a group of uncles and eldest brothers. Before the company commander died, he even ordered him to use his time to sneak in at night. Go down the mountain to escape here and ask him to report the battle situation of the infantry company to the regiment headquarters.

Brothers can all die, but they cannot die in vain. At least they must let their superiors know that they died heroically. This was the infantry company commander's last confession to his brothers in the company.

It's a pity that the only Miaomiao who was rescued from the artillery fire by the whole company using his body as a shield could not escape the bad luck in the end. A shrapnel from the artillery shell cut off his leg, so he could not escape from the position no matter what.

The young soldier blocked the wound on his broken leg with soil, tied together the last three remaining grenades on the entire position, and used the rope to make a torpedo, and then buried himself in the soft soil caused by the bombing.

And, successfully killed a Japanese invader.

However, the young soldier did not expect the Japanese counterattack to be so swift and violent. More than 20 bullets hit his body, and several of the bullets even hit his arms, causing tendons and fractures. He had no strength to pull the rope at the last moment of his life.

But it didn't matter. At the moment when his bright eyes sank into the darkness, the young soldier seemed to see his comrades walking towards him with a smile.

It’s great to see you all again! The young soldier exhaled his last breath of contentment.

Really, nothing else matters anymore, what matters is that we are together!

After the battle of Shipai defense, the division commander named Hu stood on this position littered with the remains of his own officers and soldiers, and could not let go for a long time.

That was the only infantry company among the Chinese units in the Shipai Defense War whose entire structure was killed. Not even the communications and cooking soldiers survived.

The Chinese infantry used the ground to deal with the three-dimensional three-dimensional attacks of the Japanese army, land, sea and air. They were naturally outmatched. No matter how brutal they were, they could not prevent the Japanese army from successfully landing on the river beach and advancing their troops towards the Shipai Fortress.

Where are the Chinese Air Force, which has mobilized dozens of fighters and bombers?

The Chinese Air Force actually joined the war!

However, this time the Chinese Air Force did the opposite. Instead of flying directly over Shipai Fortress to defend the airspace, at around 4 p.m., it dispatched more than 30 fighters and bombers to attack Yiling and Jingmen. Two airports were bombed.

This "you fight yours, I'll fight mine" tactic was proposed by Zheng Shaoyu. He judged that the Japanese army would definitely invest more air power on the battlefield, not because they were afraid of a head-on confrontation, but because the Chinese Air Force only had such little financial resources. If this If we fight hard in one battle, what should we do in the next six months?

Therefore, a fleet of aircraft led by him personally took advantage of the Japanese fighter planes to show off their power on the Shipai battlefield, directly made a large arc, and blew up the Yiling Airport occupied by the Japanese army.

Many Japanese planes that dropped bombs were originally supposed to be reloaded at Yiling Airport and put into the battlefield. As a result, they lost their homes and had to return to Jiangxia Airport hundreds of kilometers away.

This virtually prevented Japanese fighter planes from returning to the battlefield to drop bombs. Two Zero fighter planes even had to make an emergency landing in the farmland of the Jianghan Plain due to lack of fuel.

Moreover, Zheng Shaoyu's prediction was very accurate. In order to seek a decisive battle with the Chinese Air Force, the Japanese Navy deployed more than 50 fighter planes this time. In addition to the fighters participating in the enemy attack, there were 4500 Zero fighter jets circling on alert at an altitude of 12 meters.

If the Chinese Air Force really fights with it, it will lose at least 20 fighter planes in this battle. For the Chinese Air Force, which is responsible for providing air support to the 5th Theater, 3rd Theater, 9th Theater and the defense of Sichuan Province, Absolutely gut-wrenching.

Although the Chinese defenders of Shipai withstood all the pressure on the first day, the Yiling and Jingmen airports were all successfully bombed by the Chinese Air Force. In the middle and late stages of the Shipai defense battle, the Japanese naval aviation had to fly from 600 kilometers away. Taking off from Jiangxia Airport, the air attack time had to be shortened, and the frequency and efficiency of dispatches were reduced accordingly.

It can be said that despite the fact that the Japanese army won a comprehensive victory at the landing site on the 18th, with more than 9000 Japanese infantry troops stationed in front of the Shipai Fortress, in fact there was a lot of fighting between China and Japan on that day.

Yokoyama, who lost two airports, scolded the two infantry captains guarding the airport bloody.

The two Japanese army majors were actually very aggrieved. The 25mm twin machine guns they were equipped with could break the sky to a height of 2500 meters, but the Chinese's aircraft were stuck in the 3000-meter area. They could only watch helplessly. What else can you do if your house is being bombed?

"The Chinese Air Force is so abominable. If you have the ability, why don't you blow up the warships of the Navy and Maldives!" Two Japanese Army majors, who were scolded by their superiors so much that their heads were almost stuffed into their crotches, resented in their hearts.

Airports are valuable, but battleships are equally valuable. They can transport infantry, have large-caliber naval guns to provide fire support to the ground, and can even provide air defense.

像‘安宅’号这样780吨炮舰上，就拥有3座40倍76 mm的三年制76 mm火炮，射高能达到6800米，绝对的防空利器。

The Chinese planes went to find their bad luck and cut off the escape route for the landing of more than 10,000 infantrymen. Taka's tactic?

The wish of the extremely aggrieved Japanese Army Major came true.

At 19 a.m. on the 10th, 16 Wildcat fighter jets of the Chinese Air Force visited the sky above Shipai. Instead of bombing the Japanese infantry that had come ashore, they attacked the Japanese naval fleet anchored by the river.

The most common mode for aircraft to attack ships is to drop bombs and torpedoes. Wildcat fighter jets are all land-based. The Chinese Navy, which has basically lost all its ships, has no torpedoes, so naturally it is the most conventional method of dropping bombs.

Seeing a dozen fighter planes rushing madly from high in the sky along the direction of the Yangtze River, the Japanese Navy's dozen or so warships, large and small, panicked.

Although destroyers and larger gunboats are equipped with anti-aircraft anti-aircraft guns, they can hit aircraft but not dropped bombs.

Not to mention a 500-pound aerial bomb, even a 250-pound aerial bomb would cause serious damage to the destroyer.

The Japanese navy warships ran away in a swarm, trying to fight back and maneuver to avoid on the relatively wide river surface.

The 16 Wildcat fighter jets all started dropping bombs from an altitude of about 2800 meters. After dropping the bombs, they did not hesitate to fight and immediately turned and flew away.

Their purpose is not to fight the Japanese fleet. Their main goal is to blow up if they can. If they can't blow up, they will scare you to death, so that you can stop and anchor comfortably to provide supplies to the Japanese infantry on the front line. Artillery support.

The young men of the Chinese Air Force, who are becoming more and more cunning in their tactics, have once again achieved military success.

The four main-class light destroyers of the Japanese Navy escaped this round of air attacks, and no officers and soldiers were injured or killed!

But there are always unlucky ones. The stern of a 670-ton gunboat was unfortunately hit by a 250-pound aerial bomb. The huge bomb smashed through the stern deck and exploded inside the cabin.

The powerful aerial bomb directly shredded the tail of the gunboat and killed nearly half of the gunboat's sailors. Soon, the gunboat, which was seriously flooded, sank.

Many Japanese soldiers struggled in the cold river water and were rescued by other gunboats. However, due to hypothermia caused by low temperature, nearly one-third of the Japanese navy sank to the bottom before rescue arrived.

There was also a gunboat that ran too fast and too fast, and unfortunately hit the rear of a friendly ship. The gunboat was directly hit and lost two-thirds of its propulsion. In the end, it had to be towed back to Yiling by a transport ship. .

In the first two days of the war, the Japanese army completed the most critical tactical goal of a frontal attack on the battlefield in front of Shipai. However, the Chinese Air Force lived up to expectations and reduced the pressure on the Chinese infantry in Shipai Fortress, and the Four Rows Regiment also ushered in their opponents.

When he received the Japanese military number from the reconnaissance company, Tang Dao's eyes turned a faint red!

(End of this chapter)