The sky in northern China is always brighter than in the south.

Especially at 6 o'clock in the morning before dawn, the sky is still dark, but in Jingcheng County, half of the sky is lit up by firelight.

The 4 41 Type 41 mountain guns of the artillery squadron of the 77th Wing of the 39th Brigade of the 20th Division and the 12 75-caliber field guns of a field artillery brigade assigned to them by the division had already rained more than 200 rounds of shells on the positions of the 17th Division.

The Japanese army's current way of fighting against the Chinese army was very simple and rude, the artillery bombarded the infantry attack, and the infantry attack was blocked, and the artillery bombardment continued, and the huge weapon gap between the two armies made the Japanese army almost invincible in the early stage of the war.

Numbers and courage did little in the face of the artillery fire that lit up half the sky. The 77th Wing was placed at the front of the 17th Division's position with only two infantry squadrons of 400 men, and although they were facing a line of more than 2,000 men from one regiment of the 17th Division, the 77th Wing had already decided that it was sufficient.

In his opinion, not to mention an infantry regiment in the Chinese district, it is a division, and he and the 77th Wing under him have also been defeated in frontal offensive and defensive battles.

Not counting the artillery attached to the division, his 77th Wing was equipped with 4 75mm mountain guns, 10 70mm infantry guns, and 6 37mm anti-tank rapid-fire guns, which were enough to send a Chinese army division armed with only five or six mountain guns to hell.

And his confidence doesn't just come from the comparison of data. In fact, in the nearly three months of fighting that entered Pingjin and other places in China, more than 150,000 Chinese troops, whether it was the Chinese 29th Army or the so-called Central Army in China, were defeated and retreated in the pursuit of their more than 50,000 men.

Come to think of it, there will be no exceptions this time. Looking at the battlefield in the distance, which had been raging with fire and gunpowder for half an hour, the moment the light of dawn appeared, Liden Xingda gave the order for the infantry to charge.

Two infantry squadrons began to charge along the 2-kilometer-long line of the 97th Regiment of the 17th Division, and because of the confidence in the half-hour artillery fire of their own 16 mountain guns and field artillery, Liden Xingyi did not even send two flanks to attract Chinese fire.

Then he was punished. Although the 17th Division's mountain artillery battalion of 12 75-mm mountain guns was not deployed to the front line to support them. However, in order to increase the cost of the 17th Division's defense at Xuehua Mountain, Liu Tuanzuo quietly brought them 6 82mm mortars.

6 mortars plus the original 6 of the 17th Division, a total of 12 mortars were all organized into a mortar company by Zhao Shoushan to strengthen the defensive position of Jingcheng County, the mortars with a range of only more than 2,000 meters were naturally hidden tightly by Li Weimin, the commander of the 97th Regiment, and the 97th Regiment, which entered Jingcheng County to dig fortifications three days in advance, had already dug an anti-artillery hole that was enough to defend against 75 mm guns, as long as the Japanese army did not use 105 howitzers and aircraft bombs to bombard, it was no problem to resist for a day.

Seeing that the Japanese infantry began to charge, Li Weimin, who was located in the underground bunker headquarters 600 meters behind the trenches on the front line, put down the binoculars in his hand and sneered: "Order, the mortar company fires five rounds at the little devil charge formation, and then immediately moves the position, and all light and heavy machine guns are not allowed to fire and expose without my order." ”

"Bang Bang 。。。。。" With a continuous muffled sound. More than a dozen fireballs instantly burst into the Japanese charging queue.

The line of Japanese troops charging from the forward position of the 97th Regiment was only more than 400 meters, and there was only one Japanese soldier every six or seven meters, so as to prevent the increase in casualties caused by the machine-gun fire that was not destroyed by the Chinese army.

The killing radius of a mortar shell is only five or six meters, and in fact, the killing and wounding of such a skirmish line infantry is extremely limited. However, limited lethality does not mean that there is no lethality.

Even if the Japanese infantry with excellent individual quality heard the familiar sound of the Chinese 82-caliber mortar, they immediately lay down on the spot to dodge, but the mortar shells that flew at a speed of more than 200 meters per second followed, and the fireballs that exploded in an instant and the steel pieces of the shells flying everywhere were not the main cause of the biggest damage, but the huge shock wave formed by the explosion of explosives, which you could not hide by lying on the ground.

Otherwise, what's the use of trenches? What else do you want to do with the gun hole? The cannonballs came, and the big guys all lay down en masse. The only way for the infantry to survive on a battlefield where artillery shells dominate is to pray to the gods they believe in to open their eyes and not to let the shells fall within five meters of their side, and if they are larger caliber shells, they have to go farther.

Obviously, in this regard, the Amaterasu God that the Japanese army believes in is the same as the Jade Emperor Taishang Laojun of China, that is, buddy, my brother's divine powers are limited, and he can't stop the cannon!

In just 30 seconds, 12 mortars fired 60 shells in one go. In the telescope of the carp board, the fireballs that exploded constantly tossed the bodies of their own infantry in khaki uniforms into the air, and then fell heavily.

Hardly to ask about the results, the moment they danced and flew up, the carp knew that these unlucky eggs were dead. In the face of such a shock wave, even steel will twist into a ball.

The Chinese still have so many mortars? The explosion of dozens of shells caused at least dozens of casualties, and this was the result of the Chinese defense line being very wide and the line of stormtroopers being scattered。。。。。。 Liden Xingda knew with his ass that it was very likely that an infantry squadron would not have to go to the battlefield again.

"Yaga! The infantry was ordered to stop the charge, the artillery squadron and the 8th Field Artillery Group continued to shell for half an hour, and the 2nd and 3rd infantry squadrons of the 1st Infantry Brigade of Toba Nakasa were ordered to move to the left and right flanks of the Shina people, and not to charge without my orders. "Liden Xingdazuo is also a veteran, and he immediately realized the mistake he had made.

The Chinese troops on the opposite side were not so vulnerable, they must have built trenches and anti-artillery holes to resist artillery fire in the past few days, and the firepower of a dozen or so mortars was not equipped with ordinary Chinese troops. If you want to lay down the defensive position in front of you, but you don't want to increase casualties, it is not as easy as you imagined.

However, for Liden Xingyi, there was not much frustration, and it was just a small charge that was frustrated. When the sky is bright and their own bombers come to help, the Chinese on the position will know what the gap is.

The battle in Jingcheng County was in full swing, and an infantry wing of the Japanese army was desperately blocked from the county seat. The 102nd Regiment of the 17th Division on Xuehua Mountain is desperately reinforcing its fortifications, just like the defenders of Jiuguan. However, the fire in the county town ten miles away already showed the strength of the Japanese artillery fire, and the fortifications that had been built on the rocks with sacks were nothing more than trophies of the Japanese artillery fire in the face of the artillery fire.

If you want to live, you have to dig, dig in a stone as hard as iron, dig the stone, and hide yourself. More than 2,000 officers and men, from regiment commander Zhang Shijun and below, understood that the brothers of the 97th Regiment in Jingcheng County were exchanging their lives for their time to build fortifications, and every mountain rock they dug was stained with the blood of the brothers.

Xuehua Mountain will be the second line of defense of the entire 17th Division, here, they can die in battle, but they must leave enough little devils to die. Otherwise, my father and mother will cry dry tears and be unwilling.

Sanqin man, even if he dies, he has to drag a cushion on his back.

The 102nd Regiment did not have as many explosives as the independent regiment had in stockpiles, so they could only dig between the mountains and rocks with the pickaxes and shovels that Liu Lang had transferred from the Theater Command from the rest of the armies through personal connections, and even with the permission of Zhao Shoushan, they did not hesitate to use the explosives bags that were not stored much to carry out blasting operations.

The explosives pack can kill the Japanese invaders, but only if the person who can use the explosives pack survives first.

This is the most important suggestion that Liu Lang made to Lieutenant General Zhao after negotiating with Zhao Shoushan, the commander of the 17th Division, without complete fortifications, in the face of the Japanese army's crazy artillery fire, it is only courage, and it cannot reduce the casualties of the soldiers.

Chinese soldiers can die in battle, but they can't just die silently. In the past time and space, the 17th Division, which only used sacks to build fortifications with sand and gravel, killed more than 2,000 people in Snow Flower Mountain alone.

The three anti-aircraft artillery platoons supported by Liu Lang to the 17th Division had already been ambushed in a zigzag shape on the two flanks of Xuehua Mountain and a position on the back of Xuehua Mountain, each anti-aircraft gun position was 2 kilometers apart, and the sky within a radius of 5 kilometers over Xuehua Mountain was all within their firing range.

It is said that it is an anti-aircraft gun platoon, but in fact the number is even close to a company, each 20-mm machine gun is equipped with the main and auxiliary gunners plus observers up to 4 people, and the ammunition crew is more than 10 people, and the number of 4 machine guns is as high as the number of a platoon, plus six anti-aircraft machine guns, each machine gun is equipped with two shooters and four ammunition men. In these three air defense positions alone, Liu Lang supported nearly half of the battalion of 300 people.

If a Japanese bomber enters the airspace of 2,000 meters and is in the center of the three antiaircraft gun positions, then the propeller plane, which has a speed of no more than 450 kilometers per hour, will also be beaten into a burning firebird by 12 20-mm machine guns with a rate of fire of more than 100 rounds per minute and a total of more than 18 "Hitler chainsaw" antiaircraft machine guns with a rate of fire of more than 1,000 rounds per minute.

The 20-mm twin-mounted machine gun, not to mention the most powerful anti-aircraft artillery in the Chinese theater, is also widely equipped with a global perspective. Just from the fact that the Americans equipped their destroyers like hedgehogs with a full 100 guns for air defense at the beginning of World War II, we can know how powerful this small cannon can effectively fire up to 2,300 meters, although the national army only imported 200 guns, and the war broke out.

If China is given another year to import 2,000 doors, the Japanese pilots will have a headache. If the bomb is dropped at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters, the hit rate will not exceed 10%.

The first large-scale battle between the Chinese army and the Japanese was already fought by the 17th Division in Jingcheng County, an important junction between Hebei and Jindong.

At Jiuguan, which is more than ten kilometers behind the first line of defense, the independent regiment that has fired the first shot against the Japanese is catching a few small fish in the net that are still trying to escape.