Chapter 635 Shijiazhuang Offensive and Defensive Battle

Shijiazhuang, an important strategic point in central and southern Hebei, fell into the hands of Tang Qiusheng's troops of the Sulu Mobile Corps of the Independent Division, and the battle was to attack the weak link of the Japanese defense, and the commander of the corps was not very satisfied with the appearance of the two brigades responsible for capturing Shijiazhuang, and he found that as the battle became bigger and bigger, the commanders at all levels, especially the commanders at the brigade level, were enthusiastic about the operation of the large corps, and they always felt vigorous and brilliant, and they had almost forgotten the ability of the independent division to start in the northeast.

With the strength of nearly 25,000 men of the two brigades and a large amount of artillery fire, the attack on Shijiazhuang, which was defended by only one wing of less than 4,000 Japanese troops, was in a state of stalemate, and it took nearly eight hours to take the battle, which was far from meeting his requirements, so although the battle was over, he was still very dissatisfied, and if the attack on Shijiazhuang was completed by the special operations detachment of his cousin Tang Qiuquan, it would only take four or five detachments and no more than four hours to end the battle.

Tang Qiusheng is a very thoughtful person, has been sharing heavy responsibilities for his younger brother, as the strength of the independent division continues to grow, the problems exposed, let him feel uneasy in his heart, feel it is necessary to have a detailed and in-depth talk with Qiuli, however, now he has no time, the 150,000 Japanese troops reinforced from the direction of Beiping and Tianjin, have approached the periphery of Shijiazhuang.

If this Japanese army is repelled or severely damaged, his corps can have two attack targets to choose from, one is Beiping and the other is Tianjin, and he can also sweep away the Japanese periphery troops in the periphery of Pingjin, including Chahar, Rehe, and eastern Hebei, and echo Liu Tiehan's troops in the direction of Cangzhou, and he smiled knowingly in the headquarters in Shijiazhuang.

Qiuli's strategic intention was to take advantage of the fact that the main mobile forces of the Japanese army in North China were trapped in the Taihang Mountains, to smash the Japanese strategic rear in North China, to mobilize Okamura Ninji to return to Pingjin, and to choose a favorable opportunity to annihilate one or several of the Japanese forces in the process of moving, so as to change the contrast between the forces of the enemy and us in North China, and lay the foundation for the next strategic decisive battle with the Japanese army in North China.

This is also Tang Qiu's departure from his task, the staff officer came in and interrupted Tang Qiusheng's memories, the troops of the four brigades of the Niangziguan Garrison Corps belonging to my corps have arrived, and the brigade commanders are waiting outside the headquarters for the commander to summon them, and they will receive the task, which will come quickly, Tang Qiusheng thought in his heart that with the strength of nearly 50,000 people in these four brigades, the Battle of Shijiazhuang would be much easier to fight, and with 190,000 people to meet the 150,000 troops of the Japanese army, it is to fight and consume, and it can also wring out the blood of the Japanese army.

In Tang Qiuli's words, the Sulu Mobile Corps, don't care when the sky falls, and want to nail it in Shijiazhuang like a nail, attracting more Japanese troops to come and fight, I don't believe that Okamura Ningci saw his lair being occupied, and he could still sweep the Taihang Mountain base area with one mind, in a sense, this is also a small-scale decisive battle between the independent division and the Japanese army in North China, so Tang Qiusheng left all the four brigades assigned to him as strategic reserves.

After listening to the task assigned by Tang Qiusheng, these four brigade commanders under Feng Jiwu glanced at each other, no one spoke, and their expressions were obviously dissatisfied, if their commander Feng Jiwu had arranged the task like this, he would have shouted a long time ago, why did the other brigades do it face-to-face with the little devils, we sat on the cold bench, in terms of combat effectiveness, we were a little worse than them?

On 6 April, the Japanese troops reinforced from the direction of Pingjin began to attack the positions on the outskirts of Shijiazhuang, and the battle began to heat up, and the Japanese troops who received the order from Okamura Ninji to recapture Shijiazhuang at any cost were to be recaptured, and at the same time the forces of more than a dozen wings were deployed to fiercely attack the positions of the Sulu Mobile Corps from the northeast direction, on a frontal area as wide as more than 40 kilometers, and the troops dispatched by the first attack wave amounted to more than 40,000 people.

The artillery of the Sulu Mobile Corps did not let the Japanese artillery run rampant for long, and a burst of shells smashed on the Japanese artillery positions that exposed their positions, and the Japanese artillery did not care about bombarding the positions of the Chinese defenders, diverting targets, and starting an artillery battle with the artillery of the independent division.

The Japanese infantry who lost their fire support, under the intensive automatic fire strike of the Sulu Mobile Corps, suffered heavy casualties, corpses were scattered all over the field, the first wave of attacks was crushed without much effort, the Japanese infantry who participated in the attack, less than 30,000 people could go back, and the Japanese commander who commanded the attack was beaten to the brink of gold, and the battle was dusk, the Japanese army was shocked, and the blocking position of the Sulu Mobile Corps was not lost, and the Japanese army stopped at the periphery of Shijiazhuang.

In a day's artillery battle, the artillery of both sides fired real fire, the sky was densely fluttering with metal projectiles that pierced the air, the rumbling sound of artillery was endless, and the Japanese artillery, which was almost equal in number of artillery pieces to the Sulu Mobile Corps, was finally beaten honestly, and of the eight Japanese field artillery wings that were attached, there were five of them that were incomplete, and according to the aftermath of the Sulu Mobile Corps Operations Department, on this day, the two sides fired nearly 200,000 rounds of shells of various calibers.

Such a large-scale artillery battle was rare in the North China battlefield, and it left a deep impression on the soldiers of the Chinese and Japanese sides who participated in the battle.

The number of artillery pieces lost exceeded 160, and the number of artillery killed reached 1,800, after which, the Japanese artillery no longer dared to blatantly provide fire support for the infantry attack, so they could only secretly fire a few cannons and quickly transfer their positions, so as not to be retaliated by the artillery of the Sulu Mobile Corps.

The Japanese infantry, which had lost the suppression and cover of ground artillery firepower, suffered from the firepower of the Chinese army's automatic weapons, and the Type 38 rifle that fired a single shot, and the Suomi submachine gun that faced the heavy rain of dense firepower were not opponents at all, and the Japanese soldiers who fired only one shot would be greeted by more than a dozen bullets, and the Japanese soldiers who fell to the ground were not wounded at all, and they were all beaten into sieve eyes by bullets.

And the soldiers of the independent division fought extremely smartly, outside the range of the submachine gun, let the Japanese soldiers' 38 big cover hit the trench dusty, and when the Japanese army launched a skirmish line and accelerated the charge, they suddenly opened fire together, a rainstorm of bullets, like a three-dimensional metal wall, knocked the Japanese soldiers into flesh and blood, from the front of the Chinese army to the range of the Suomi submachine gun, constituted a death barrier, all the Japanese soldiers who entered, none of them could go back alive.

The front line was lively, but Zhou Yushan, deputy director of the logistics department and commander of the transportation headquarters of the independent division, was busy, and more than 800 trucks were transporting materials and ammunition to the front line day and night.

He set up a transportation line from Shijiazhuang to Dingbian via Taiyuan, and the trucks were not empty back and forth, and what was transported back to Dingbian were the wounded and Shijiazhuang's materials, the machinery and equipment of factories and mining enterprises, and the things that could be used, and it was Zhou Yushan who implemented Tang Qiu's Sanguang policy most thoroughly, and in his words, not a single nail was left for the Japanese, and he was deeply affected by the logistics minister Zhang Quanhui's life, and Zhou Yushan and his soldiers almost moved Shijiazhuang to nothing.

In particular, the Japanese made a lot of efforts, and all the machinery and equipment in the Jingcheng mining area that had just been restored to the appearance of the point were cheaper than Zhou Yushan, and later, they simply transported a large amount of coal to Dingbian, and at the end, a large number of explosives were buried in various mines and roadways, and the Jingcheng mining area was reduced to ruins in the violent explosion with a press of the electric door.

After the war, Tang Qiusheng said to his subordinates with emotion: "Without the logistical support of the transportation headquarters, our corps will fight much harder, at least, the nearly 100 tons of ammunition consumed every day is a big problem, and there are so many wounded." ”

More than 100,000 Japanese troops fought for three days on the outskirts of Shijiazhuang, and were beaten to the point of bleeding by the Sulu Mobile Corps, and thousands of people did not feel like they had not fought every day, and the Japanese commanders were frightened, and the artillery fire continued to cover the sky, and everywhere was filled with the smoke of gunpowder that did not disperse all day long, and in the early spring of April in North China, there was no smell of spring at all, and the heavy smell of blood and the pungent smell of gunpowder smoke filled every cell in the bodies of the commanders and soldiers on both sides.

On the fourth day, he took out the trump card in his hand, the only tank brigade, and launched the largest attack since the beginning of the war, no way, the damned Commander Okamura Ninji, sent another telegram urging, in addition to scolding the front-line commander for his incompetence, he also gave a limited order, if there are three more days, Shijiazhuang cannot be recovered, and all senior officers above the rank of major general will be dismissed on the spot and sent to a military court, or they will be disemboweled to apologize to the emperor

Hundreds of tanks, covering tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers, frantically attacked the forward positions of the Sulu Mobile Corps, the Japanese commander went crazy, he didn't want to die, that was the only way to let the soldiers die, this was in the North China battlefield, the Japanese army used the most armored forces, and it was also the most concentrated, the tank crushed the ground dust that had thawed, mixed with the smoke emitted by the tank engine, and the rolling dragon pressed towards the forward position of the Independent Mobile Corps.

Tang Qiusheng had already moved his headquarters from the urban area of Shijiazhuang to Wuji, which was only a dozen kilometers away from the first-line defensive position, and he saw through the psychology of the Japanese commanders, and was anxious to recapture Shijiazhuang.

Fighting in this way, killing and injuring a large number of Japanese troops exposed in the field was also one of the main points of the combat plan formulated before the war, and for this reason, he sternly rejected the repeated requests of the brigade commanders on the front line to carry out counter-assaults, but the time had not yet come.

(To be continued)