Under the bombing of the Chinese bombers, in addition to the artillery positions, the large shelter that was built most secluded for the cantonment of reserves was not spared. Several heavy bombs hit the roof of the shelter at the same time, and with an earth-shattering loud noise, more than 500 officers and men who had been holding back their strength were buried alive in the ground before they could release a single shot.

In the same month, Wafangdian became the focus of repeated contention between China and China, and almost all the local villages and towns were razed to the ground by artillery fire. The two armies fought bloodily, with more than 10,000 casualties on both sides, and corpses and bones all over the field. At most, the army suffered more than 8,000 casualties a day, setting a record for the most fierce and cruel war in the history of the Sino-Japanese war.

At the mouth of the Dasha River, the defensive position of the Chinese army.

As night fell, the estuary began to rise at high tide, and the warm water poured into the reeds, and the murky water rattled in the dark night. The tide rose to the bottom of the sandbag-laden position on the south bank, and the officers and men of the "Dragon" special forces silently nibbled on beef jerky and wiped their guns in the dark, preparing for the attack. A few hundred meters on the other side of the river is the position of the army, and dinner is about to be held there, and from time to time in the evening breeze wafts with the roar of my own wah-wah and the smell of barbecue rice balls.

Colonel Liu Zhiyuan, a young special forces commander, led battalion and company commanders to inspect the sortie positions along the sandbag fortifications.

Compared with most of the generals and commanders of the Chinese [***] team, Liu Zhiyuan, who returned to China after graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point for three years, is only 22 years old, and belongs to the youngest officer, but because he is Yang Shuoming's adopted son, under Yang Shuoming's careful teaching, the young bandits of that year have now grown into real soldiers.

The "Dragon" special forces are a fairly well-equipped regular armed force, founded by Yang Shuoming, and their weapons and equipment are the latest in China; unlike some other special forces in the Chinese Army, the members of the "Dragon" unit are younger, and most of the middle and lower-level officers are students studying in the United States. Since the task of the unit is mainly special sabotage operations, and it has not been established for a long time, the officers and men of this unit have not really experienced the battle of artillery fire.

Since the landing operation on the Liaodong Peninsula was related to the overall situation, Yang Shuoming personally ordered the "Dragon" unit to reinforce the brigade battlefield together with other troops, and when Liu Zhiyuan led the "Dragon" unit from Jiangxi to rush to the Liaodong Peninsula where the war was raging, he realized that the real battle would begin here.

According to the order arranged by the above, the defense area of the "Dragon" troops and friendly troops was in Jiuzhai Township, northwest of Dashahe Township. The terrain in this area is flat, the water network is crisscrossed, and the enemy's large corps cannot be deployed, and it is an ideal defensive position that is easy to defend and difficult to attack for straggler warfare, which is taught in military textbooks. However, it was completely unexpected that the first battle of Colonel Liu Zhiyuan's life was so sinister that it almost buried the tempting future future of the future general's continued development in the army.

The enemy quietly began the offensive on a rainy morning.

The cunning Yue himself did not first carry out a massive artillery bombardment, as the squadron usually does, and then began to attack in a skirmish line, and they bared their teeth like the most ferocious wolfdogs and quietly pounced before dawn, which caused the Chinese defenders, who were exhausted by the battle, to relax their vigilance for a while. By the time the first sentry noticed something unusual in the reeds, hundreds of Japanese soldiers had already set up improvised pontoon bridges on the river in pre-connected boats and launched a fierce attack on the Chinese defenders on the south bank.

A regiment of the Chinese Army and the White Russian battalion defending there that day collapsed almost on all fronts. In addition to Liu Zhiyuan's "Dragon" troops retreating to the second line and struggling to support, the positions of the 3rd Regiment of the 5th Division of the Feng Army on his right flank were broken through in many places, and the regiment commander Liu Xingyang was unfortunately killed, and those soldiers and officers of the Feng Army who had not fought in the European theater panicked and fled their positions and retreated.

After learning of the battle situation, Major General Zhang Xueliang, commander of the Fifth Division of the Feng Army, directly called the command headquarters of the "Dragon" unit.

"Head Liu, please be sure to resist it for me." Zhang Xueliang, who was one year younger than Liu Zhiyuan, revealed helpless pessimism in his voice, "You know, if the defense line collapses from us, you and I will have to go to the military court." ”

Although Zhang Xueliang's military rank is much higher than Liu Zhiyuan's, Zhang Xueliang knows what Liu Zhiyuan's identity is, and there is no hint of arrogance in his voice.

"Commander Zhang, rest assured, I promise to recapture the position, and the people are in the position." Liu Zhiyuan gritted his teeth and said, "But the key now is that the gap in my right wing must be closed." ”

"What do you need?" Major General Zhang was silent for a while and asked.

"Do you have any reserves that you can mobilize?" Liu Zhiyuan said, "One battalion is enough." ”

"Well, I still have a little reserve in my hand, I can give it all to you." Zhang Xueliang said, "What can you do about it?" ”

"I plan to blow up the pontoon bridge after dark, cut off the enemy's reinforcements, and then launch a counteroffensive."

"Any more requirements?"

"If I give one or two more battalions, I promise to regain all my positions."

Hearing Liu Zhiyuan's words, Zhang Xueliang couldn't help but be taken aback.

"There is no joke in the army, do you dare to make a military order?"

"Of course!" Liu Zhiyuan was a little annoyed that Zhang Xueliang, who was always willing to soak in the pile of women, asked such a question, but there was no expression in his voice.

The young "young marshal" who had little battlefield experience let out a long sigh on the other end of the phone, "In this way, I will let the Fourth Regiment do its best to contain the enemy." Zhang Xueliang seemed to have made up his mind and said, "...... The 5th and 6th Regiments are temporarily placed under the command of the 4th Regiment, and you must recapture all the lost positions before dawn tomorrow, and there must be no mistakes, otherwise you will be dealt with according to military law! ”

In this way, Liu Zhiyuan was pushed into a desperate situation of breaking the cauldron and fighting against the water.

Many years later, an operational staff officer named Liu Hongbin wrote in a reminiscence: "...... General Liu's peculiarity in warfare was that in any case, he had to control a part of the reserve in his hands to reinforce the most urgent aspects of the war at any time. ”

Although he was born as a bandit, Liu Zhiyuan was, after all, an elite soldier trained by Yang Shuoming himself, and a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, who had studied and studied the modern military tactics of many advanced countries, and had commanded troops to conduct field defense and counterattack exercises in various situations, so he was full of confidence in the battle to regain his position. What's more, now he has no way to retreat at all, and instead of going to a military court, it is better to fight to the death to open a bloody road to the general class.

This is what is often said in the art of war, "put the place of death and then live"! Or to put it another way, "if you don't succeed, you become a benevolent"!

"Brethren, as you have seen, tonight is a critical moment in determining our honor." In the dark, Liu Zhiyuan's voice trembled slightly, "In fact, the number of our army is several times that of the enemy, but our position was still broken through by the enemy during the day. That is to say, if we lose here, the defense line of our army of more than 100,000 troops will begin to collapse from here. ”

The commotion on the position died down, and the commanders and commandos of the various combat units held their breath and listened to the pre-battle instructions of the young commander. In a sense, there is no distinction between officers and soldiers in the middle of the battle, because their interests, circumstances and goals are the same.

Thus, the cohesion of the same hatred and hatred was thus formed.

"In fact, everyone has seen it these days, saying that I am not as terrible as the legend, although they also have aircraft and warships and artillery support, but the strength is not as strong as ours, and at night they are all blind, our weapons are the most advanced in the country, even the Americans say good, we have the best mortars and submachine guns. More importantly, this is a war on our Chinese soil, if we can't defeat the enemy, we don't want to stand up alive on this land! ”

The position was silent, except for the faint glimmer of spears and steel helmets reflected in the starlight of the night.

“…… Now I order, all combat units are ready to attack, good luck to you, and I will personally ask for credit to you after recovering your positions! Liu Zhiyuan looked at the watch with the luminous hands, and waved his hand confidently, "The commando team will set off with me, and if I am unfortunate enough to die for the country, Deputy Commander Cai Jingyuan will command the battle instead of me." ”

The leader is not afraid of death, and the soldiers below naturally have no reason to retreat, not to mention that the Chinese still have a spiritual tradition of patriotism. So that night, thousands of Chinese officers and soldiers who were determined to win bravely rushed to the enemy's position. Liu Zhiyuan personally led the assault team to use thick steel plates as a cover, smoothly advanced along the river embankment to the vicinity of the pontoon bridge of the Yue army, and then dumped several large barrels of gasoline prepared in advance into the river water upstream.

This is an unbelievably brilliant tactic.

The gasoline was soon ignited, and the raging fire flowed down the river, and for a time the river was blazing to the sky, and the improvised pontoon bridge built by the military boats was soon reduced to ashes in the fire, and the officers and men were burned to death. The thousands of soldiers who were cut off from retreat were isolated and helpless, so they had to fight as trapped beasts, and the two sides fought fiercely all night. At dawn the next day, when the commander of the army committed suicide and the last soldier was killed, the "Dragon" unit and the friendly officers and soldiers who cooperated with the attack let out a cheer of victory in the dawn of dawn.

The counterattack planned by Liu Zhiyuan was a complete victory. Subsequently, the Chinese War Department issued an order to commend all officers and men who had made meritorious contributions to the battle. In the more than 40 days since joining the war, the "Dragon" unit has annihilated more than 4,000 enemies, becoming one of the most effective ace units on the front line of the brigade.

Since the beginning of the war with the Chinese army, the squadron, which had the advantage in numbers, carried forward the high spirit of patriotism, insisted on not being afraid of sacrifice, and adopted the method of attacking in turn to consume and disintegrate the strength of the army. By the end of June, the total casualties of the army had reached more than 40,000, and the two reinforcement divisions of the army had suffered heavy losses and were already very damaged, and they had to stand firm and wait for reinforcements under the fire of the Chinese army. The casualties of the squadron also exceeded more than 10,000.

At the beginning of July, the Chinese [***] team once again increased its troops on a large scale on the Liaodong Peninsula. From the 5th to the 8th, a total of 100,000 people from the five elite divisions of the Chinese army arrived at the Liaodong battlefield one after another, with a total strength of nearly 200,000.

In order to resist the attack of the Chinese army, he urgently transferred four divisions from various places and planned to be escorted to Korea by the navy, but due to the blockade of the Chinese navy, it was difficult to carry out reinforcement operations.

China said that the war had once again escalated on a large scale.

Tokyo, the wartime base camp of the Empire.

“…… The total number of troops landed on the Liaodong front has reached more than 300,000 (it seems that my information is wrong), and our Kwantung Army and the reinforcements that arrived later have a total of 100,000 troops to fight against it. According to reliable information, the Chinese side decided to once again send a total of 12 divisions of the Sichuan, Guangdong, and Guizhou armies to launch a combat operation codenamed 'Tianlei' against our army, and the campaign was personally commanded by Yang Shuoming, the border director of the Chinese army......"

Senior General Yusaku Uehara, the chief of staff of the Army, looked at Prince Hirohito, the "Regent Palace", who was pale, and said in a hoarse voice.

As Emperor Taisho's health and spirit deteriorated, after careful deliberation between the cabinet and the elders, Emperor Taisho's son, Prince Hirohito, was appointed as the "Regent Palace" to act as the governor of the country.

Because he watched the opera in the theater the night before, Hirohito of the Regency Palace slept late. The opera is an ancient play that celebrates the spirit of the tradition: revenge, violence, loyalty and patriotism, and self-sacrifice, starring the famous male kabuki. The atmosphere of the theater was particularly warm due to the presence of the Regent's Palace, and many people were in tears. During the performance, the entire cast and audience cheered several times. It was an exciting scene, so the mood under the regent's palace was somewhat infected, and he returned to the palace and lost sleep for a long time, and later wrote a few haiku that were not very smooth in the literature.

Shortly after Hirohito fell asleep, he was woken up by a court official. may be because of the relationship of being suddenly woken up, and the regent's palace was ignorant for a while before he figured out that there was an emergency military situation.

The official briefly told Hirohito about the current state of the war, and the regent's palace couldn't help but be deeply shaken, and his face turned pale, so that the corners of his mouth trembled for a while before he put on his clothes.

If we remove the god-like aura that adores Emperor Samoto's head, people will see that the 124th descendant of the legendary Amaterasu is actually just a man of ordinary appearance and especially short stature. If people look at him a little more critically, they will find that the "next emperor" not only has a narrow forehead, bulging eyes, a pair of irritable noses that often flutter for no reason, but also has a somewhat rickety back, and walks quite slowly, not on the ground to be precise, which is easily reminiscent of a strange tropical fish with a genetic mutation.

Due to the long history of the royal family, in order to maintain the "purity of blood", the palace stipulates that the royal family is not allowed to intermarry with commoners. Therefore, over time, the descendants of the royal family have many suspicious signs of inbreeding, such as short bones, mental retardation, mental abnormality, and so on. Hirohito's father, Taisho Emperor Yoshihito, was exemplified by the "telescope incident". The problem was that inbreeding did not prevent the bloodline from remaining noble, so the emperor's and the actions of the imperial family were still frantically worshipped by the public of Amoto. Moreover, whenever there is a major event, the emperor is always invited to come out and make a "holy judgment" from all sides.

When the conference hall of the wartime base camp appeared under the cloudy regent's palace, the cabinet ministers, noble senators, and military heads who had been waiting here and talking in a panic were all immediately prostrated on the ground, silent.

The acting emperor sat down on a sandalwood chair inlaid with a chrysanthemum relief emblem, leaned over to look around his ministers and generals, and after a few pleasantries, went straight to the point.

And Yusaku Uehara's answer and explanation of the current battle situation obviously shook Hirohito's fragile nerves again.

"The supreme commander of the Chinese army, isn't it General Cai Yi? What kind of person is this Yang Shuoming? I seem to have heard this name before. Hirohito frowned and asked, "The Shina people actually let a civilian official command such an important battle?" ”

"This Yang Shuoming is not a civilian official," Yusaku Uehara replied with some confusion, "The official and military systems of the Shina people have always been chaotic, and judging from his experience, he should still be considered a soldier." ”

"Tell me about him." Hirohito, apparently dissatisfied with Yusaku Uehara's answer, snorted and said.

Yang Shuoming, the word Hanzhi, in his twenties, served as the guard of Ganxi Town, and was later collected by Yuan Shikai into the account, served as the patrol envoy of Nanzhili, and recovered Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan provinces for Yuan Shikai. This person is extremely shrewd, resourceful, good at military strategy and financial management, especially good at commanding large corps movements and attacking fortified battles, and Cai Yi is also known as 'North Cai Nanyang'. It is said that this person has fought against our army in Qingdao and Shandong, and has made war exploits, which shows that although he is not a real soldier, it is also a recognized fact that he can fight. According to the report sent back by our army's intelligence officer, the idea of launching an attack this time was personally proposed by him to the Supreme Command of China in Yanjing. ”

After listening to a brief report from an intelligence officer, Hirohito had a certain understanding of what was actually the most dangerous enemy of the Empire at the moment, and couldn't help but nod his head.

"At present, from the perspective of military strategy, the General Staff Headquarters believes that the imperial [***] team must carry out a surprise large-scale counterattack in order to break the deadlock in front of the Liaodong battlefield, which is becoming more and more unfavorable to the imperial [***] team. Even if we proceed from political strategy and force peace by war, if we do not win one or two big battles, the people of China will definitely not take the initiative to sit down at the negotiating table. Prime Minister Yuan Kei said suddenly.

Listening to Hara Kei's words, Yusaku Uehara was deliberately silent, only those unfathomable eyes silently swept over Hara Kei's face, and then fell back to the ground.

(To be continued)