9.6 Imperial Army in the Flood

In fact, before the Yellow River was broken, the commander of the 16th Division, Lieutenant General Nakajima Imazo, also received information from the Japanese intelligence agency that the Chinese army was digging the river embankment. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoBut Nakajima Imakago, like Kenji Dohihara, didn't take this information seriously at all! Lieutenant General Nakajima believed that with the engineer wing in his hands, he would be able to solve the problem of passage of the 16th Division.

It wasn't until he saw the anger of the Yellow River with his own eyes that Lieutenant General Nakajima realized how outrageous he was wrong!

Those rivers in the narrow Japanese archipelago are like a few small ditches in front of the great Yellow River! Perhaps only a tsunami can compare to what Lieutenant General Nakajima is seeing now!

In the face of the majesty of the Yellow River, the modern weapons of the 16th Division are not of any use at all!

"Run! Run! Flee east! Lieutenant General Nakajima, who came to his senses, roared desperately on the radio, what battlefield discipline, what telecommunications secrecy regulations, he couldn't care about!

The more than 20,000 Japanese soldiers of the 16th Division now only hate their parents for not having two more legs! If they could run faster with their hands and feet, they wouldn't mind learning from four-legged animals!

In this race against the flood, Lieutenant General Nakajima Imasago has been in danger many times! If it weren't for the fact that the headquarters of the 16th Division was located relatively far back and was equipped with a large number of cars, Lieutenant General Nakajima would have been trapped in the Yellow Flood Area by now!

Compared to the flood and the heavy rain falling from the sky behind the buttocks, what made Lieutenant General Nakajima feel even more unbearable was the fear from his heart! At present, the Japanese officers and men of Nakajima and the 16th Division only know that they can escape to a safe place all the way east, but they do not know how far they have to run to enter the real safety zone!

This rout is like a marathon race with no end, and it is squeezing out all the physical strength of the more than 20,000 Japanese troops of the 16th Division bit by bit! Lieutenant General Nakajima Imago now dreams of hearing the news that the 16th Division is out of danger!

In order to relieve the army's predicament, the reconnaissance planes of the army aviation of the North China Front army also ventured into the sky on such a rainy day, and the task given to the army aviation by General Terauchi Shouichi was to keep an eye on the rushing water of the Yellow River at all times, and then issue a warning to the Japanese troops that might be attacked by floods! General Terauchi Shouichi has already done his best for the 16th Division and the Dohihara Division!

Feeling that the truck suddenly stopped shaking, Lieutenant General Nakajima, who was sitting in the cab with his eyes closed, quickly opened his eyes, and then eagerly asked the driver next to him what was going on!?

Under the gaze of Lieutenant General Nakajima, the "driver" wearing the rank of lieutenant helplessly reported to Lieutenant General Nakajima that the truck they were riding was out of gas!

"Yaga! Why don't you go down and refuel! Don't you know that the flood is behind us! Delaying time is fatal! ”

Due to extreme anxiety, Lieutenant General Nakajima's voice was several octaves higher than usual, and the lieutenant driver said sorry several times in a row and then told Lieutenant General Nakajima that the truck they were riding in was already the last truck of the 16th Division to run out of gas!

Because the retreat was too hasty, the 16th Division discarded a large amount of oil under the city of Zhengzhou. If it weren't for the staff officers of the division headquarters who took some gasoline from the fuel tanks of other trucks and added it to the fuel tank of the truck in which Lieutenant General Nakajima was riding, Lieutenant General Nakajima would have changed to walk a few hours ago!

Lieutenant General Nakajima popped his head out of the cab window and looked behind him, but sure enough, he didn't see a second truck. Due to the depletion of fuel, the 16th Division abandoned not only all the cars, but also the combat vehicles and artillery!

What a good division regiment has now become a light infantry!

"Yaga! So what are you hesitating about! Get out! Bring my warhorse! ”

Annoyed and angry, Lieutenant General Nakajima Imago pushed the car door hard, and then jumped out of the cab, and the guards accompanying both sides of the truck hurriedly led Lieutenant General Nakajima Imasago's war horse, and then helped Lieutenant General Nakajima Imago to climb onto the war horse!

Trekking on dirt roads, riding a horse is not much faster than walking. After slowly advancing for more than an hour, Lieutenant General Nakajima saw an Army Aviation reconnaissance plane appear above his head!

"Smack!" The reconnaissance plane fired a red signal flare, according to the agreement between the Army Aviation and the Army in advance, which meant that a flood was approaching the headquarters of the 16th Division!

"Hurry! Speed up! Throw away everything but food, weapons and ammunition! ”

In the face of danger, Lieutenant General Nakajima Imago suddenly became decisive, and after giving this order, Lieutenant General Nakajima Imago took the lead and threw away his purse!

"Your Excellency, Division Commander! You forgot to order the burning of documents and all paper products! You can't get something into the hands of the Chinese people! ”

Seeing that his chief of staff, Mitsuo Nakazawa, can still think of these things now, Lieutenant General Nakajima Imago can't help but feel a little ridiculous!

"Nakazawa Daisa! Do you think that the people of China will send the navy to the Yellow Flood to get a big deal with the documents we discarded? After soaking in such muddy water for several hours, the paper turns into pulp! Will you still leak information? I advise you to keep some strength forward! ”

The words of Lieutenant General Nakajima Imago made Nakazawa Mitsuo Daisa very embarrassed. Perhaps in order to save his own face, Nakazawa Mitsufu Daisa did not immediately discard the confidential documents of the division headquarters according to the order of Lieutenant General Nakajima Imago, but stubbornly ordered the staff officers of the division headquarters to set fire to them.

"Since you have your ideas, then I'll go first!"

Lieutenant General Nakajima glared at Nakazawa Mifu Osaku with hatred, and then took part of the personnel of the division headquarters on the road first. Thirty minutes later, Lieutenant General Nakajima and his men came to a stone bridge, looking at the rising river under the stone bridge, Lieutenant General Nakajima suddenly felt that he was a little uncomfortable!

Lieutenant General Nakajima, who has always been conceited, will actually be infected with "hydrophobia"!

"Cross the bridge! Cross the bridge now! ”

Lieutenant General Nakajima shouted loudly, and then rode his war horse and rushed onto the stone bridge! The Japanese officers and soldiers of the 16th Division Division Headquarters followed closely in Nakajima, and Lieutenant General Asago rushed up!

When the Japanese officers and soldiers of the 16th Division had passed more than halfway, the stone bridge suddenly made a loud noise! Lieutenant General Nakajima, who was so shocked that he almost fell!

The Japanese officers and soldiers who turned their heads were horrified to find that the bridge had collapsed! The bridge should be broken, to be exact! The Japanese soldiers who had already crossed the river shouted at the Japanese soldiers lying on the broken bridge: "Go back!" "Some of the Japanese soldiers standing on the broken bridge also shrewdly estimated the distance between themselves and the two ends of the bridge, meaning that they wanted to see where they could run! But almost in an instant, the stone bridge that looked so strong was like a pair of huge hands broken, and the Japanese soldiers and war horses on the bridge were thrown into the arms of the rolling flood at once!

The Japanese troops on the east bank watched as their companions were swept into the raging river and soon disappeared! Some of the Japanese soldiers on the broken bridge knew how to water, and after being swept into the water, there were people who surfaced for a while, and Lieutenant General Nakajima saw that the commander of the 22nd Wing of the Field Artillery, Mikuni Naofuku Nakasa, was also among them! After falling into the water, Mikuni Naofuku Nakasa's head kept on the water, and it could be seen that he wanted to swim out of the rapids! Mikuni Naofuku Nakasa fought desperately against the flood, but he couldn't achieve the final victory! He insisted on sleeping more than a hundred meters away from the broken bridge, and then suddenly he was swept to the bottom of the water by a whirlpool, and there was no longer a shadow.

It's still raining! The water level is still rising!

Twenty minutes later, Lieutenant General Nakajima Imago met his chief of staff, Mitsuo Nakazawa, across the broken bridge! The Japanese troops who were blocked by the broken bridge in the west case successively put three rubber boats into the river, but they were all quickly washed downstream by the turbulent river! Gradually, the water level of the river has risen to a level of the riverbank! Lieutenant General Nakajima knew he had to say goodbye to the Chief of Staff!

"Nakazawa! Run to the heights of the upper reaches with your troops! Live as much as you want! ”

On the other side of the river, Nakazawa Sanfu Osaku nodded, he regretted very much at the moment that he did not follow the orders of Lieutenant General Nakajima Imago to discard those documents, and the time spent burning them was now likely to kill him!

With the order of Nakazawa Mifu Daisa, the Japanese troops gathered in the West Case began to scramble to climb the dirt slope around them! At this time, the river has overflowed the shore, and it seems that it is pouring into the lower part of the bank! Soon the vast expanse of land by the river will be turned into an underwater world!

According to the visual inspection of Lieutenant General Nakajima Imakago, there are only two small dirt slopes on the west bank of the river, which are relatively high, and the area is not large, at most three or five hundred people can stand, and the division headquarters and escort troops led by Nakazawa Mifu Daisa are at least more than 1,000 people!

Lieutenant General Nakajima Imago hoped that his chief of staff and his men would escape, but looking at the rising water level, all the Japanese officers and soldiers on the east coast knew that it was impossible!

Now, all you can pray for is a miracle!

"Get out of the way! Let's continue east! Communications Officer! Turn on the radio and call the North China Front Command! Tell them about the predicament that Nakazawa Mitsuo Daisa is facing now! We need sappers! Boats are needed! Airdrop required! The elite of the Imperial Army should not be buried in the belly of a fish! ”

After showing his "friendship" for his colleagues, Lieutenant General Nakajima ran away with the Japanese troops on the east coast! By this time, the river had washed away the wreckage of the stone bridge! The muddy water and the river water that have gathered together on all sides have turned into a rushing stream that can wash away everything! The several infantry wings that are crossing the river downstream are afraid that they will encounter an even more miserable situation than Nakazawa Mifu Daisa!

Compared with Lieutenant General Nakajima's 16th Division, Lieutenant General Kenji Dohihara's 14th Division was lucky, because the area where the 14th Division was located was in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, so the Yellow Flood Area was relatively narrow.

In the area where the 16th Division was stationed, the width of the flood was as low as twenty or thirty kilometers and as high as sixty or seventy kilometers. Almost all of the 20,000 troops under Lieutenant General Nakajima Isago were trapped in the Yellow Flood Zone!

After receiving an urgent telegram from Lieutenant General Nakajima from the shore, in order to rescue the main force of Nakazawa Mifu Daisa and the 16th Division, Major General Machijiri, chief of staff of the 2nd Army of the North China Front, transferred engineers from various army divisions of the 2nd Army to form two bridge-building material squadrons, equipped with 40 folding boats, plus all the 11th Independent Engineer Wing, rushed to the Yellow Flood Area to help the 16th Division evacuate day and night.

It is obviously unrealistic to rely on this small rescue force to rescue tens of thousands of Japanese troops scattered in the Yellow Plain, which dooms all the efforts made by the 2nd Army to be a drop in the bucket!

After several days of rescue by the North China Front, most of the personnel of the 16th Division were still besieged on some high ground in the Yellow Flood Zone! Waiting for Amaterasu's rescue!

Because the Japanese army has long been accustomed to collecting grain and grass on the spot, the amount of food carried by these Japanese soldiers who lost their armor was very small! Coupled with the discarding and consumption of the company on the way to escape, the remaining military food of the 16th Division could not even survive the first day after they were trapped!

I haven't eaten for three or four days, and the muddy river water can't be drunk directly! Hunger, lack of water, mosquitoes and disease made the 16th Division, the beasts who had committed heinous crimes in Nanjing, struggle on the verge of death!

In desperation, the commander of the 1st Army, Umezu Mijiro, had no choice but to order the Provisional Aviation Corps to go all out to ensure the supply of the 16th Division and the 14th Division trapped in the Yellow Flood Area!

Since July 5, a large number of Japanese transport planes and bombers have appeared over the Yellow Plain, and white parachutes with rice, flour, canned food, and medical supplies have floated down from the sky! The Japanese troops trapped in the Yellow Flood finally saw hope for life!

But the good times didn't last long, after the North China Front Army implemented the first round of airdrops, Huang Haoran in Wuhan got the news! Huang Haoran, who wanted to trap all the Japanese troops in the Yellow Flood Area, drove directly to Qian Dajun's Aviation Committee, and then Huang Haoran called the highest authorities in front of Qian Dajun, in which Huang Haoran explained to the highest authorities the interests of the middle, and the highest authorities immediately made a decision on the phone, and the Chinese Air Force was fully invested in the Yellow Flood Area to intercept the Japanese army's airdrop of supplies! Even if the air defense forces in Wuhan are withdrawn, they will not hesitate!

With the dictation of the highest authorities, Qian Dajun commanded the Chinese Air Force to launch a vigorous air battle with the Japanese Army Air Force in the sky above Huang Fang! Since the Japanese Army Aviation had to undertake the task of delivering empty supplies to the Japanese troops in the Yellow Flood Zone, it was in an extremely passive position from the beginning! Under Huang Haoran's instructions, Qian Dajun ordered the Chinese Air Force to ignore the Japanese attack planes and only hit the bombers and transport planes of the Japanese Army Airlines.

From 5 July to 10 July, the Japanese Army Aviation Regiment dropped a total of 121.5 tons of food and military supplies at the cost of losing 11 transport planes, 9 bombers, and 3 attack aircraft. But the 16th Division and the Tufeiyuan Division in the Yellow Flood Area received less than 20 tons!

The shortage of supplies led to a sharp rise in non-combat attrition in the 16th Division and the Tohihara Division! Every day people fall ill from hunger and die of disease! I really don't know how many people will be left when these Japanese troops trapped in the Yellow Flood Zone leave the Yellow Flood Zone!

Terauchi Shouichi, commander of the North China Front, was depressed to find that the "extremely unexpected" hand of the Chinese Air Force actually made the timetable for the Japanese Army's recovery to be postponed for several days!

Lieutenant General Nakajima, who escaped death from the Yellow Flood Zone, withdrew until Zhecheng and Luyi before stopping! The flood caused by the digging of the Yellow River and the over-expansion of the Yellow Flood area left a deep impression on Lieutenant General Nakajima! Those muddy floods can almost block people's ears and noses, and the 16th Division does not know how many officers and soldiers have been buried in the ground by this muddy water! Maybe it has now become a feed for fish and shrimp!

After a day of respite, Lieutenant General Nakajima rushed back to rescue his troops with the sappers who had arrived from Xuzhou in wooden boats and rubber boats! Looking at the beggar-like Japanese soldiers who had been brought back from the Yellow Flood Area one by one, and the Yellow Flood Area, which was more than 400 kilometers from north to south and 30 to 80 kilometers from east to west, outside the side of the ship, across the hinterland of the Central Plains, Lieutenant General Nakajima Imago suddenly felt a little tired, and even began to be pessimistic about the future of this war.

The Yellow Flood Area has become a natural barrier for the Chinese army! It is absolutely impossible for the mechanized units of the Japanese army to pass through the Yellow Flood Zone! And if it loses its heavy equipment, what advantage does the imperial army have in front of the Chinese army?

As more and more officers and soldiers of the 16th Division were rescued, Lieutenant General Nakajima Jingo discovered something that shocked him even more! That is, in addition to the extremely poor physical and mental state of these Japanese officers and soldiers who escaped death, they also generally developed a war-weary mood!

Although Lieutenant General Nakajima was very reluctant to believe it, he had to admit that the 16th Division, which was still showing off its might in Nanjing a few months ago, lost not only equipment and elite soldiers after being soaked in this great flood!

The courage of the 16th Division has disappeared in this yellow flood!

This force is no longer able to fight! It will take at least a few months to repair the psychological wounds of these officers and soldiers!

It seems that the Imperial Army must stop its advance!

On the night of 10 July, Lieutenant General Nakajima sent a secret telegram to General Terauchi Shouichi, commander of the North China Front, in which he wrote: "The Wuhan government has now diverted the water of the Yellow River to form a new natural frontier, and in fact has cediced North and East China to Japan. At this time, the Japanese Empire should immediately withdraw its troops and turn to the country of building the imperial road! ”

Admiral Shouichi Terauchi's call back to Lieutenant General Nakajima Isago was very simple:

"In view of the commander of the 16th Division, Lieutenant General Nakajima Imasago has made outstanding achievements on the Chinese battlefield! He was specially promoted to the commander of the 4th Army in Mongolia! The post of commander of the 16th Division was taken over by Lieutenant General Keisuke Fujie! ”

After reading the telegram, Lieutenant General Nakajima Imago breathed a sigh of relief! He's finally able to get out of this damn yellow pan!

What makes Lieutenant General Nakajima even happier is that Mongolia does not have large rivers! (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.) )