5.13 The fate of the 10th Artillery Regiment turned around

Hearing the news that Shanghai had completely fallen into the hands of the Japanese army, Commander Huang's mood became a little depressed, although he had long known that this would be the result, but now he was still a little unwilling to accept this fact in front of him. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Shanghai, after all, was the place where he fought for a month, and thousands of officers and soldiers of the 99th Army fell on this land.

It all seemed like it happened yesterday......

Huang Haoran seemed to be able to see the Japanese standing on the streets of Shanghai laughing wildly, while the citizens of the occupied areas could only hide in their homes and wash their faces with tears......

The pace of the Japanese has not slowed down, and Changshu will soon become the new main battlefield.

Because Huang Haoran's previous proposal to garrison troops on the national defense line still left some images in the hearts of the highest authorities, although the troops deployed on the national defense line are not too many, they are much better than the historical situation, and at least these three important national defense lines are no longer in a state of undefense.

The retreating Chinese troops in the Songhu area continue to be chaotic, and they have already paid a heavy price for their panic in the past few days.

The Japanese air force planes were almost overloaded, and they bombarded the roads, bridges, and marching columns on the ground on the Chinese army's retreat route.

How can the defeated army be brave, it is really true. The cowardice of the Chinese troops made the Japanese troops particularly arrogant, and the Japanese planes began to strafe with machine guns after dropping their bombs, and even after their ammunition was exhausted, they were still unwilling to leave, and the pilots of the Japanese Air Force drove the planes close to the heads of the Chinese officers and men on the ground and dived and intimidated, and the air currents formed by the planes passing at high speed even rolled the caps of the Chinese officers and men into the air.

The Chinese and Japanese sides are now in a one-sided posture on the Songhu battlefield, the Japanese are overwhelmed, and the Nanjing government is overwhelmed.

Matsui Ishine has been in a good mood lately, and a subordinate proposed to move his headquarters to downtown Shanghai, but Matsui Ishine refused, and he felt that now was not the time to celebrate.

More than 200,000 Japanese troops in the Songhu area were chasing after the retreating Chinese army, and more than half of the elite troops of the Nanjing government were fleeing.

Matsui Ishine constantly issued new combat orders to various Japanese divisions and regiments in the Songhu area.

He hoped to follow the rout of the Chinese army and conquer the Chinese defense line in one fell swoop.

Although the Japanese intelligence officers in East China said that the defense line of the Nanjing government was absolutely not as impregnable as advertised in the newspapers, the so-called "Eastern Hindenburg Defense Line" was nothing more than the boast of the Nanjing Ministry of National Defense.

Without wind and waves, even if the Chinese put a fifty percent discount on the fortifications would be a huge trouble for the Japanese army.

In particular, the national defense fortifications in Changshu belong to the 99th Army, Huang Haoran's wonderful performance in Chuanshakou still makes Matsui Shigen remember it vividly, and the 11th Division paid a heavy price. Changshu, but the 99th Army has been operating its garrison for more than half a year, and what kind of traps are waiting for the "Central China Front" there.

Matsui Ishine was cautious, but the Japanese generals under his command did not think so, in their eyes, the Nanjing government was already crumbling, and with one more heavy blow, Zhizhi would submit to the feet of the Great Japanese Empire.

How could you miss such a great opportunity to build immortal feats?

The various units of the Japanese army were advancing frantically on the land of East China......

Step by step, they approached the defense line......

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Huang Haoran suddenly remembered a regrettable incident in the great retreat of Songhu in history, and he felt that he should not let this incident repeat itself in front of him, so he called Fan Jie and asked him to arrange to send a small army to carry out a mission near Fangjiayao.

Fan Jie didn't quite understand Huang Haoran's decision, why did he throw his troops into the chaotic whirlpool of Songhu at this time? He wanted his military seat to give him a reason.

Huang Haoran didn't even believe in the reason he gave to Chief of Staff Fan, so naturally he couldn't deceive Fan Jie, although Fan Jie's eyes were full of doubts, but out of respect for Huang Haoran, he still complied.

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On the highway passing through Changshu, a large number of troops passed every day, and the three theaters had discovered that the troops retreating through Changshu were much more efficient at marching than those retreating from other places.

When the traffic in Jiaxing and Wuxian is in chaos, the flow of people on the highway in the direction of Changshu does not seem to have reached the limit.

Commander Gu was surprised and ordered to increase the number of troops retreating from Changshu.

The 19th, 15th, and 21st Group Armies, to which the Left Wing Combat Army belonged in the Songhu area, began to move on the night of the 10th and 11th.

The Left Wing Combat Army first occupied the line of the Xinjing River with one section and covered the retreat of the main force to the Wufu line.

Due to the extremely chaotic situation of the troops of the right-wing combat army, Chen Cheng again ordered the 15th and 21st armies to be postponed until the night of the 12th at 16 o'clock on the 11th to cover the retreat of the right-wing combat army.

At dawn on the 12th, the 15th and 21st armies withdrew to the Xinjinghe position, and retreated to the Wufu line position that night.

On the 13th, the 15th Group Army received information during the retreat that the number of enemy ships on the Yangtze River had increased, and it seemed that there was an attempt to land in the vicinity of Baimaokou and Hupukou, at this time the 21st Group Army had sent troops to occupy positions near Zhitang Town, and the enemy in front of them took advantage of the retreat of the 98th Division to move west along the road, and Luo Zhuoying immediately ordered the main force of the 60th Division and the 98th Division near Taicang to move to Changshu that night.

During the retreat, there were few people on the road, and the troops of more than a dozen divisions were crowded on a road, and enemy planes dropped flares and bombed and strafed, causing panic and chaos among the troops. At the highway junction of Taicang County, according to the original plan, the 98th Division and the 21st Army of the 15th Group Army should go to Changshu to the right, and the other troops should go to Kunshan to the left.

In order to expand the results of the battle, the Central China Front of the Japanese Army used the 16th Division on the 13th to land at Hupukou and Baimaokou near Fushan on the Fu (County) Fu (Mountain) Line.

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On the night of the 13th, by a small river near Fangjiayao.

The 10th Artillery Regiment retreated here after a long march, the officers and soldiers were already very tired, and along the way, the regiment commander Peng Mengzhi kept urging his subordinates to speed up, he knew too well the value of these cannons in his hands.

In 1937, the Nanjing government purchased 24 15-centimeter howitzers from Germany and organized them into a mechanized heavy artillery regiment, which was designated as the 10th Artillery Regiment. All movements, commands, and observations were made according to the standards of the German army, and the artillery was towed by automobiles, making it the newest artillery unit in China.

In China at that time, artillery was a valuable branch of the army.

In March 1935, the Wuchang Xingying set up an artillery sorting office, which was responsible for sorting out artillery. At that time, there were only 457 artillery pieces that could be used by the national army, and they were organized according to the types of artillery used to supplement equipment and horses. Except for the 1st and 2nd Artillery Brigades (75 mountain artillery of the Swedish Bufors type), the 4th Artillery Brigade (75 field artillery of the 38th type of the Japanese Army), the 6th (75 field artillery of the 38th type of the Japanese 38th type), and the 8th Regiment (the 15th howitzer of the 14th type of the People's Republic of China -- the 14th type of the Liao-14 type) remained unchanged, the rest of the units were merged with the Northeast Artillery and reorganized into the 6th and 8th Artillery Brigades. The 6th Brigade has jurisdiction over the 7th and 12th Regiments, and the 8th Brigade (77 Field Artillery of the 14th Civil Brigade-14th Brigade of the Liao 14th Regiment) has jurisdiction over the 15th and 16th Regiments. In addition, it was organized into the 17th Independent Artillery Regiment (14th Civil Type 15th Howitzer - Liao 14th Battalion), the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Battalions of Mountain Artillery, and the 4th, 5th, and 6th Field Artillery Battalions. All of them are horse-dragged mountain artillery and howitzer units.

Later, the General Staff Headquarters divided the artillery regiment under the 32nd Division and reorganized it into the Ninth Independent Artillery Regiment, with one field artillery battalion and one heavy force battalion under its jurisdiction. Soon after, the field artillery battalion was assigned to the divisional artillery, and the heavy artillery battalion was combined with the first, second, and third independent heavy artillery battalions into an independent infantry artillery regiment. At the same time, 28 mountain guns belonging to Guangdong Province (75 mm mountain guns of the French Snyder type) were reorganized into the Ninth Artillery Regiment.

By June 1937, the country was organized into four independent artillery brigades (the first, second, sixth, and eighth brigades), six independent regiments (the fourth, sixth, eighth, ninth, tenth, and seventeenth regiments), three independent mountain artillery battalions (the first, second, and third battalions), three independent field artillery battalions (the fourth, fifth, and sixth battalions), and one independent infantry artillery regiment.

This is the whole family of Chinese artillery at the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War!

The 10th Artillery Regiment was the only modern heavy artillery regiment in the Chinese army with all-German equipment, and the 150 mm caliber artillery was the largest, most powerful and most modern in China at that time.

The 10th Artillery Regiment can be said to be the pride of heaven in the Chinese artillery! The hearts and minds of the highest authorities!

Peng Mengji understood that he had a heavy responsibility on his shoulders, and he had to keep this batch of heavy artillery of the 10th Artillery Regiment no matter what!

However, when they withdrew to the river, they found that the troops who had withdrawn in front had already let the sappers plant mines on the bridge in order to prevent the Japanese from pursuing, and the 10th Artillery Regiment was now unable to cross the bridge at all.

Seeing this situation, Commander Peng immediately cried bitterly, and Peng Mengji said to his subordinates: "We only have such a decent artillery regiment in China, what can we do!?" ”

There is no way to retreat, there are pursuers behind, and the 10th Artillery Regiment is in a desperate situation!

Peng Mengji immediately called the headquarters of the commander of the Third Theater by radio, and heavy artillery units such as the 10th Artillery Regiment were all directly subordinate units attached to the theater, which meant that only the highest authorities and General Gu could mobilize them.

Now Peng Mengji wants Chief Gu to show him a clear way.

The rustling of static electricity on the radio kept ringing, but the voice of General Gu never appeared, the Songhu retreat involved more than 70 divisions, hundreds of thousands of troops, and the commander's department of the Third Theater had already been busy and crazy, and the request for instructions from the 10th Artillery Regiment did not know why it was lost in the sea.

Without instructions from the top, the 10th Artillery Regiment could only make its own decisions.

In order to prevent the Japanese from getting this batch of heavy artillery, Peng Mengzhi decided to push all 24 cannons into the river, and the officers and men of the 10th Artillery Regiment drove the heavy artillery tractor to the river with tears.

Peng Mengji watched the front wheels of the first truck drive into the water, and his tears welled up all at once.

The river beach was stained with weeping officers and soldiers of the 10th Artillery Regiment.

This situation makes people feel sad......

"Captain Peng, stop it! I'm here to help! ”

At this time, a shout suddenly came from the other side of the river, and Peng Mengzhi grabbed a life-saving straw like a man who had fallen into the water, and he immediately ordered his subordinates to stop the action of sinking the cannon.

The person who shouted was Song Lianshan, the commander of the engineering regiment of the 99th Army, who was ordered to rush to Fangjiayao with an engineer company.

The order given by Chief of Staff Fan to Commander Song was very strange, the military headquarters asked them to wait by the small river near Fangjiayao, and if they found that the broken troops had not blown up the bridge, they would take care of the aftermath for them, and if they found that the troops crossing the river had problems before they had finished crossing the bridge, they would help repair them.

Is this going to blow up the bridge or to repair it?

Head Song was a little confused when he heard it.

But an order is an order, and it must be carried out whether you understand it or not.

Song Lianshan led his subordinates to swim upstream from the retreating Central Army ranks, and finally arrived at the small river near Fangjiayao in time.

As a result, as soon as Commander Song arrived, he saw that the 10th Artillery Regiment on the other side of the river was planning to push the howitzer into the river.

Demining, that's our 99 military engineer's forte!

Commander Song himself was an expert in this area, and the German advisers of the 99th Army specially arranged a course for the engineer regiment of the 99th Army to conduct demining training. Ritchie, the German, said that the demining capability of the 99 Army Engineer is considered first-class even in Europe.

So the head of the Song regiment hurriedly shouted to inform Peng Mengzhi on the other side of the river that he must not sink the artillery, and his sappers would not take much time to clear the mines.

The 10th Artillery Regiment survived!

The sappers of the 99th Army took only 30 minutes to completely remove the mines on the bridge deck, and the trucks of the 10th Artillery Regiment hastily crossed the river with heavy artillery.

Peng Mengji couldn't help himself with excitement, he held Song Lianshan's hand and said thank you.

Song Lianshan was a little embarrassed by Commander Peng, and he reminded Peng Mengzhi that it was better to hurry up and take the troops on the road, who knows if the roads and bridges behind would be destroyed by the order of a burnt officer.

Peng Mengzhi was frightened by Song Lianshan's reminder, he listened to Song Lianshan's suggestion, and rushed towards Changshu with his troops, because Song Regiment Commander could only ensure that the roads along the way were smooth, and the 10th Artillery Regiment had just seen a ghost and was of course afraid of the dark, so Peng Mengzhi chose the most secure retreat direction.

At dawn, a whole regiment of howitzer units appeared in front of the largest checkpoint in Changshu.

Huang Haoran stood on a high place and looked at the thick howitzer barrels, and the corners of his mouth unconsciously drooled......

This is a 15 cm caliber German howitzer!

How nice would it be if they were all Lao Tzu?

Didn't Shen Lao Er say that other troops said that the 99th Army was plucked by geese? Lao Tzu recognized this bad reputation today!

Why do you have to "pull" a few 10 howitzers from the 150 artillery regiment!

Peng Mengji suddenly felt a chill in his back......

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In view of the fact that the newly landed troops of the Japanese army might cut off the retreat of the large forces moving along the Beijing-Shanghai Road to the Wufu front, Liao Lei, commander-in-chief of the 21st Group Army, immediately ordered the 173rd and 176th Divisions to rush to the aid of Xujia City, delaying the Japanese advance, and the rest of the 21st Army immediately withdrew to Changshu to cover and meet the friendly forces.

The adjacent 15th Army, taking advantage of the 21st Army's all-out efforts to resist the Japanese army's penetration, began to move to the Wufu Line at 8 o'clock on the 14th.

During the day, the Japanese air force became extremely active, bombing back and forth, almost like sticking to the heads of the Chinese army. The 15th Army was very difficult to operate, most of the troop contacts were cut off, and the location and movement of the various units were not clear.

When the 14th Division retreated to the Qingyanggang Highway Bridge, the defenders of the 87th Division, which had been ordered to organize containment troops here, were about to burn down the wooden bridge.

Once the bridge was destroyed, tens of thousands of people from the 40th Brigade of the 14th Division and other units would not be able to cross the river. So Chen Lie, the commander of the 14th Division, stepped forward to stop it.

Chen Lie telephoned Wu Qiwei, commander of the 4th Army, who commanded the Qingyang Port containment troops in Kunshan, to explain the situation, and expressed his willingness to transfer the division's engineer battalion to install explosives on the bridge, and at the same time send another company to garrison the east bank of Qingyang Port to form a bridgehead and cover the retreating troops across the bridge as much as possible. When you need to blow up the bridge, a little fire is all you need.

Wu Qiwei agreed. Chen Lie sent the Gong Ping Battalion to install explosives to prepare for the bombing of the bridge, and sent one company to occupy the position at the bridgehead on the east bank of Qingyang Port, and then organized the containment troops to cross the bridge. After waiting for 1 day and 1 night, the retreating troops were still not finished, and some of the wounded numbers of the 40th Brigade of the 14th Division had not yet arrived. At this time, the Japanese soldiers mixed in the retreating troops suddenly launched an attack, the company guarding the bridgehead was crushed, and the engineer battalion commander immediately ordered the bridge to be blown up.

After the highway was occupied by the Japanese army, Guo Rugui, chief of staff of the 14th Division and acting commander of the 42nd Brigade, organized sappers to manually detonate the explosives under the bridge, but the Japanese artillery fire was very fierce, and the sappers could not approach, so the bridge was unsuccessful.

Guo Rugui then ordered his soldiers to charge the enemy at the bridgehead, and they rushed many times, but they were all repelled by the enemy's strong artillery fire. In the end, I had to use three mountain guns from the mountain artillery battalion to fire at the highway bridge. It lasted for more than 2 hours, a total of several hundred shells, and because the power was too small, the highway bridge was not blown up, but it stopped the Japanese attack.

Seeing that the highway bridge could not be broken through, the Japanese army smuggled under the highway bridge with several iron-hulled boats late the next night and occupied the village of Chaoxia on the other side of the river. In order to prevent the enemy from continuing to advance, the Chinese army confronted the Japanese near the village of Chaoxia. The 14th Division fought the enemy at Qingyang Port for several days, suffering nearly 700 casualties.

On the 14th, the 16th Division of the Japanese Army, which landed from Hupukou, attacked Fushan with one part, and the main force was directed to Changshu. The vanguard of the Japanese army, which was advancing westward from the Zhichang Highway and the area north of it, entered the vicinity of Xinglong Bridge from Meili Town at 13 o'clock, and traces of Japanese troops had been found in the area of Guli Village.

Luo Zhuoying, commander-in-chief of the 15th Group Army, immediately asked the 13th Division, which had only two battalions to form one regiment, to reinforce the 98th Division; The 60th Division blocked the enemy advancing westward from Guli Village, and the rest of the troops moved to the Wu and Phuoc lines in alternate cover according to the original plan.

At dawn on the 15th, the groups of the 3rd Theater easily entered the Wufu line, and the Japanese army followed, and the Nanjing government spent a huge amount of money to build a national defense line...... (To be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )