Rise from eight hundred.

Chapter 1506 Playing tricks?

It is true that China has already gained air superiority, but the Japanese army is not a pushover.

As the 5th Air Corps surrendered, the China Expeditionary Army Command urgently borrowed three air defense battalions from the Kwantung Army to arrive in central China, and transported them to the outskirts of Hengyang on the eve of the Chinese airdrop.

That is a ground-based anti-aircraft artillery group consisting of more than 70 20mm anti-aircraft machine guns and 16 75mm anti-aircraft guns. Although it cannot completely prevent bombers from dropping bombs at high altitudes, it still maintains a certain deterrent effect in the air.

For example, on the night of June 6, under the coordination of the Air Force Liaison Office headed by Lin Heng in Hengyang City, 24 transport planes roared in from the direction of Guilin and entered low altitude only when they were 10 kilometers away from Hengyang City. They planned to airdrop supplies over Hengyang City, which had entered a blackout and was pitch black on the surface but had already given lighting instructions.

As a result, after hearing the roar in the sky, the Japanese army immediately turned on the air searchlights and launched intensive missiles at medium and low altitudes, forcing the transport aircraft group to fly back to an altitude of 2500 meters and drop airdropped supplies relying on the extremely weak light guidance on the ground.

  The direction in which the supply packages dropped with parachutes from this altitude will fall depends entirely on God's will. If the wind direction changes, who knows where these supply packages will drift to?

After all, the total area of ​​Hengyang City is less than 3 square kilometers. Together with the positions controlled by China outside the city, the total area will never exceed 6 square kilometers.

Moreover, the Japanese army surrounded the city too tightly. The positions of the two armies in the suburbs were intertwined, and some positions were no more than 300 meters apart. Soldiers on both sides did not dare to walk upright in the trenches, for fear that they would be targeted by the enemy infantry if they showed their heads.

Sure enough, the wind direction was from west to east that night, and a large number of supply packages swayed over Hengyang City, and fell into the Xiangjiang River right under the noses of the Chinese military and civilians, and floated downstream along the surging river.

This was still good. Some of the bullets even fell directly on the positions of the remnants of the 3th Infantry Regiment of the 6rd Division, which made Colonel Matsukami Yoshimasa, who was worried about food, very happy.

He originally thought that Amaterasu had given up on this unfortunate child of his. It turned out that this was what the so-called good times come after bad times! The two thousand remnants of his army only had two days' rations left, but thousands of kilograms of rice and flour fell from the sky. This was really the legendary gift from heaven!

More than a thousand men from the 190th Division on the other side of the river watched helplessly as huge packages of supplies fell on the Japanese, and they almost exploded with anger.

"The Air Force is afraid that they won't be able to feed the damn Japs!" Yang Jihe, the already hot-tempered commander of the 1st Battalion, simply started cursing in the trench.

"Shut up, everyone can make some mistakes. What's so bad about you is that you forgot how you clapped your hands when the Air Force planes blew the Japanese ships to pieces that day!" The colonel, who was also preparing to give orders to the officers and soldiers to go out of the position to pick up supplies in the trench, scolded his number one general.

The regiment and battalion commanders couldn't help but curse Liang, which showed how angry they were about the act of actively "aiding the enemy" with airdropped supplies.

After communicating with Guilin Airport, it was found that only 12 tons of supplies could be picked up inside and outside Hengyang City, which was just over half of the total airdropped supplies. That also meant that nearly half of them fell on the Japanese positions.

When the result came out, not only did the soldiers and civilians in Hengyang City feel extremely aggrieved, but even that person was extremely furious.

But even so, supplies still had to continue to be airdropped. For Hengyang City, which still had 12 people, 7 tons of food was only two days' rations.

In order to make Fang Xianjue firm in his determination to hold on for another 10 days, he not only called the Air Force Command every day to inquire about the day's airdrop plan, but also simply sent his major general aide to Guilin to personally serve as the chief of the logistics department specially established for the Hengyang airdrop.

  This kind of treatment had never been seen before. The soldiers and civilians in Hengyang city were deeply moved. Fang Xianjue, the supreme commander, had tears in his eyes and stated in public that if the teacher gave such strong support to the Hengyang defenders, what would happen if they could hold out for another 10 days, let alone a hundred days?

Tang Dao almost rushed forward to cover the mouth of the army lieutenant general who was obviously too emotional. The truth was, in the past he said that he would fight for another two months, and it turned out that they really fought for almost two months. If the city had not been exhausted and even a few bullets could not be found, the remaining 13 days must be gathered together.

Now that the FLAG of the hundred days has suddenly been inserted, even a fierce man like Tang Datuanzuo can hardly bear it.

However, with the experience of the first day, the commanders of the Hengyang Command realized that ground communication alone was not enough. If the aircraft wanted to drop accurately at an altitude of several thousand meters, they must have sufficiently clear ground instructions. Moreover, such clear ground instructions could only be discovered by the high altitude and not by the Japanese army, otherwise the Japanese artillery would not be able to resist.

Therefore, after Tang Dao and Lin Heng discussed it, they used dozens of "Wind-killing" lanterns to form a "shape" with a diameter of more than ten meters in a wide area in Hengyang City, so that the transport planes could be clearly seen in the air and aim at this light for airdrops. In this way, even if the wind direction changes, it can be ensured that most of the supplies will fall into the area controlled by China.

In addition, in order to prevent the light from being seen by the Japanese army and causing artillery fire, Tang Dao suggested changing the airdrop from night to dusk. Such lighting conditions could ensure that the Japanese reconnaissance balloons stationed 10 kilometers away would not be able to see the airdrop mark clearly.

Then, every dusk, the commanders in Hengyang were like young people in love, nervously checking their pocket watches while waiting for the transport planes to arrive, while the officers and soldiers looked eagerly at the sky.

As the white parachute bags slowly floated down from the dim night into the city of Hengyang, the men who usually would not shed tears even when being pierced by bullets suddenly burst into tears of happiness.

But don't think that these airdropped supply packages only contain food. In order to motivate the 7 soldiers and civilians in Hengyang City to continue to hold on, he put a lot of thought into it. Under the advice of his think tank, Guilin City mobilized a large number of manpower as early as half a month ago to search for the 10th Army that retreated to Guangxi Province and the families of the civilian workers who stayed behind, and then asked them to write letters to their relatives who were still in Hengyang City.

Those who can write can write by themselves, and those who cannot write can have family members dictate or young students write for them. Not to mention distributing 5 kilograms of rice and flour with one letter, even if nothing is given, the family members who miss their loved ones must tell their parents about their current situation!

Although this is only a one-way connection, it is definitely the greatest psychological comfort for the Chinese soldiers and young and strong civilians who are still in Hengyang City.

On the evening of the 24th, a large package filled with 3000 family letters was dropped off at the 190th Division's position. After being delivered to the headquarters personally by Rong Youlue, it was immediately distributed to various units the next day according to the numbers and names on the letters. Hundreds of them were from civilian laborers.

"Son! You don't have to worry about me. Although I don't live well here, the weather is hot. As long as it doesn't rain, we can still survive. I have the bronze medal you brought back last time. Wherever I go, there will be people to give me food, so I won't starve.

I am just worried about you! I know your temper best, but it is easy to break. Son, remember what I said. I am waiting for you to come back, even if you are missing some limbs. I was able to raise you before, and I can raise you in the future.

Well, let’s stop here. I have said so much, but I don’t know if the little scholar has understood it.”

"Mom!" A bearded major battalion commander of the 10th Reserve Division knelt on the ground and kowtowed hard towards the southwest, tears streaming down his face.

As a son, how could he not be sad when he received this letter? Although he was already a major officer and his salary was not low, he had to bear the pain of sending his old mother, wife and children on the train to escape. He left in a hurry and only took more than 20 silver dollars with him.

  The number of refugees heading to Guilin this time was as high as tens of thousands, plus the number of those who fled from Tanzhou was at least hundreds of thousands. The sudden increase in population naturally caused prices there to soar, and accommodation and food might not even be guaranteed. The old lady, who was usually quite decent, could only take the medal of loyalty and bravery he left at home to ask for food from others. How could he, as a son, not be sad?

Especially the sentence "I was able to raise you before, and I can raise you in the future, even if you lose your arms and legs, as long as you can come back."

This is mother!

She didn't say anything about national sentiment. She knew what her son was going to do and she would not stop him, but she hoped that her son could come back alive.

The officers nearby were all very sad, but they didn't know how to persuade him.

"My son's father, the bosses found me and asked me to write you a letter. I can't write or speak, but I just want to tell you that my son and I miss you. Our family can't be together without you. But I also know that you stayed in Hengyang to fight the Japanese so that we could survive. I promise you that no matter what, I will definitely raise the children. When the children grow up, I will go find you."

Luo Dahu was one of the hundreds of lucky ones. When he received the letter sent by his wife that was written by someone else, this big, rough man also had tears in his eyes.

He cried, not because he was moved, but because Commander Fang really kept his promise and transported the elderly, the weak, women and children to Guilin by train. No matter what, in such chaotic times, as long as they were alive, they were happy.

As a husband and father, his request was simple: to find a way to survive for his wife and child.

Just for this reason, he stayed in Hengyang. Even if he lost more than a hundred pounds, it would not be a loss!

The think tanks under his command were indeed thinking very hard. This support, both material and spiritual, really boosted the morale of the military and civilians in Hengyang City. Every day, the military and civilians inside and outside Hengyang City were eagerly waiting for the arrival of the transport planes.

But the good times didn't last for two or three days. The Japanese army gradually figured out the pattern of the Chinese airdrops. When the Chinese transport planes arrived and started to drop, several Japanese fighter planes also quietly flew over. The Japanese planes did not attack the transport planes that were starting to rise, but used the fire lights on the ground that had not been removed in time as a mark, dropped a wave of bombs on them, and then turned around and ran away.

This wave of bombs caused considerable damage, resulting in dozens of casualties.

Later, the cunning Japanese army came up with a new trick. During the airdrop period, they also copied the method and used lanterns to make a circle on their own positions. It looked very similar from the sky, so several transport planes dropped the supplies directly in this way, and the supplies naturally became the spoils of the Japanese army.

  Fang Xianjue and others in the city were so angry that they jumped up and down, but there was nothing they could do!

Fortunately, those letters were basically from various units of the 10th Army, and the news that the Hengyang defenders were mainly composed of the 10th Army had already spread at home and abroad, and the serial numbers were no longer considered secrets, otherwise those letters would have been picked up by the Japanese army and leaked.

However, the Japanese army also felt like they had found a treasure. At least through these letters they knew clearly how many infantry regiments the 10th Army in Hengyang City now had. Before, they could only rely on estimates.

It's not that the Japanese intelligence personnel were not capable, but the strength of the Chinese infantry divisions has always been a mystery. In order to quickly replenish their troops, some infantry divisions directly captured young and strong people from the countryside. Such illegal operations often resulted in many more personnel than the establishment. Others abided by the rules and principles and just waited for normal replenishment from above, but were often not welcomed by their superiors, and the replenishment was very slow, and the troops were much less than the normal establishment.

This phenomenon, which was quite common in the Chinese military, caused great headaches for the Japanese intelligence department, and unexpectedly became a means of keeping military secrets.

But this time, through the large number of letters from military families dropped on the battlefield, the 11th Army roughly knew that the 10th Army had a total of 8 regiments in the city, plus the Four-Bank Regiment and the Hengyang Guard Regiment. Assuming an average of 2000 people in each regiment, if Yokoyama Isamu's Kikuka was in trouble, that would be 2 people, no less than people.

No wonder the 116th and 68th Divisions, the 6th Infantry Regiment and other elite imperial troops had such a hard time fighting. While waiting for the arrival of logistics and supplies, Yokoyama Isamu also began to think about how to send more troops to Hengyang.

This undoubtedly raised the difficulty bar to the maximum in the already hellish level of the Hengyang Defense War, but it also caused a misunderstanding for Yokoyama Isamu and Shimanuki Takeshi, that there were only more than 2 people in Hengyang City.

As for the hundreds or even thousands of civilians, in the eyes of the elite of the Imperial Japanese Army, what were they? They were just a bunch of chickens and dogs.

The Japanese Army Lieutenant General and the Japanese Army Colonel never dreamed that it was not a few thousand people, but nearly 50,000 people.

If 50,000 sheep were running wildly, even wolves would have to retreat, let alone 50,000 young and strong men with hands and feet and enough strength? If they were pushed to the limit, even if they were five for one or even ten for one, they could still make the Japanese bloody.

Not to mention that the "intelligence" accidentally obtained by the Japanese army was destined to become a double-edged sword for them, let's just talk about the matter of snatching airdropped supplies.

Although the Japanese army frequently used tricks and sabotage, or parachutes drifting randomly due to changes in wind direction and many other unexpected factors, which enabled the Japanese army to earn a lot of food every day, apart from the weather reasons that prevented planes from taking off and landing normally and suspended airdrops, the rest of the time they were desperately dropping food into Hengyang city every day.

To this end, the entire Guangxi Province was raising food to send to the front line, and a lot of it was even transported from Sichuan and Yunnan provinces by special planes.

According to the aide-de-camp, how much food was snatched away by the Japanese devils was a matter for the Air Force and God. He was only responsible for ensuring that the soldiers and civilians in Hengyang City had enough to eat before going to the battlefield while resisting the devils' attack.

The emperor is not short of hungry soldiers!

  There's nothing wrong with what he said, but it's not a good idea to keep aiding the enemy, right?

It still had to be the Tang sword, and he thought of a clever trick.

Private Shioya Cangkong of the 116th Division became one of the victims of this trick of Tang Tuanzuo.

The 133rd Infantry Regiment to which Yan Gu Cang Kong belonged was basically destroyed in the Battle of Huangchaling. The entire infantry regiment had 3870 people at full strength. After the battle, including artillery, logistics and other arms, there were less than 900 people left, with a casualty rate of up to %. To say that they were destroyed is a compliment.

The 133rd Infantry Regiment was ordered to withdraw to 10 miles away from the front line to rest and wait for the arrival of a new reinforcement brigade to replenish their troops and fight again.

The Japanese private was very grateful that he survived. The half month of rest was also the most comfortable time for him. His only regret was that he could not eat enough.

The rations of the imperial officers and soldiers on the front line must be guaranteed, and the rations of those who are resting and the logistics soldiers are only half of the usual amount.

But fortunately, Amaterasu appeared, and a parachute slowly descended from the sky. Under the parachute was a big bag full of white rice.

The commander of the regiment immediately asked the cooks to cook the rice and make rice balls for everyone to eat.

Then, at noon that day, the poor Japanese private collapsed.

He took off his pants seven times in just one hour. With such a frequency of diarrhea, even someone as strong as an ox would not be able to withstand it, let alone a short-stalked bean sprout like Yan Gu Cang Kong!

What does it mean to be in ecstasy? The Japanese second-class soldier, who had given up wearing pants and sat on the edge of the field with his bare buttocks, had a deep understanding of this. He had even given up the habit of wiping his private parts.

Because, it's useless and it will happen again soon.

  So insisting on that is just like taking off your pants to fart, so leave it at that!

The corpses scattered all over the ground did not bother the Japanese privates much, but the smell of "manure field" everywhere left an indelible shadow in their lives.

But the hundred or so people in the infantry battalion where Yan Gu Cang Kong was located were still safe. After all, they were just suffering from diarrhea and dehydration. It was painful, but it was not to the point of killing them.

The other infantry battalion was in a miserable state. Fifty or sixty of them were foaming at the mouth. The military doctors arrived but were helpless and could only watch these guys go to see Amaterasu in agony.

The Japanese Army Colonel quickly ordered the sealing of the food airdropped by the Chinese and reported to his superiors that the rice dropped by the Chinese was poisonous.

But it was still too late. More than a thousand Japanese soldiers suffered from diarrhea after eating the rice "sent" by the Chinese that day, and more than 200 died of poisoning.

  Although there were some Japanese soldiers who were not hurt at all, this really scared the Japanese army. This thing has a probability, but who knows if they will "win"?

As for testing, forget it! Do you really think that if it is poisonous, you can just use a silver needle to test it? That requires professional personnel and professional testing equipment, as well as enough time. If you have that time, it is better to starve it.

Not only did they not dare to eat the food that was left behind, many Japanese soldiers did not even dare to touch the food that they had happily looted before. God knows if the Chinese had any bad intentions in the past?

Anyway, given the two options of eating half full or living well, the Japanese army readily chose the former.

Why weren't the Chinese afraid of being poisoned? The Japanese knew there was something fishy going on, but they couldn't figure out what the trick was.

In fact, it is very simple. Each food package has a four-digit number. Tang Dao agreed with the major general's aide through the radio that the sum of the numbers is 4, such as 14 or 0077. The rice is specially processed. As for whether it is a laxative or poison, it depends on what medicine is available.

Anyway, the main point is either to kill you or to disgust you to death.

All the departments in Hengyang City issued orders that all packages with numbers adding up to the number of "dead" should be destroyed on the spot and not be touched.

Of course, the number of food packages that were deliberately sent to deceive the Japanese was not large, accounting for only one-tenth of the total.

  After all, the main purpose of the airdrop is to increase food reserves in Hengyang City, right?

In view of the current situation, the order of 'hold on for another 10 days' has long been changed to 'hold on for another 20 days'!

(End of this chapter)