Chapter 3: Invincible (9)

It's not ammunition, it's really not the ammunition that Mobi wants, a large cart of cotton clothes and quilts, no wonder the car is light and floating. The remaining ten devils would rather strip their clothes on the dead corpse than pick up their clothes in the car, Mo Di had a sense of awe for the Japanese soldiers for the first time, this kind of soldier is very terrifying!

Seeing the clothes of this cart, Mo Di remembered that the Winter Clothes Festival had just passed, and there would be light snow in a few days, and these clothes came at the right time, even more so than ammunition.

"The boss is in good health!" Even Huang Tianhua had to admire, Mo Di put on the winter coat of the Japanese army, that is called a suit, that is called a suitable, the length and size are fat and thin, and it is custom-made. Look at yourself again, put on the winter coat of the Japanese army, that is called an uncomfortable, that is called an awkwardness, the shoulders are not shoulders, the hands are not hands, I am not too big, but I blame this devil's clothes are too small. Mo Di still came up with an idea, let the soldiers cut the lower part of the sleeve and shoulder junction of the Japanese cotton jacket, so that the hands can wear it, and they can also be lifted up without affecting their movements, and the clothes are shorter, so as not to expose the belly. As for the pants, they are really short, but it is not a big problem to wear them inside, not to mention the leggings, so don't be too particular.

Two thousand Japanese steel helmets, the enemy made people use white paint to draw a national emblem of the Republic of China above each of the ears, the black blue sky, the bleak white sun, from a distance, it is a target. gave this thing to Zhang Guangwei of the 172nd Division, and exchanged it for a lot of good things, including fruit candy from Liuzhou, Sanhua wine from Guilin, sweet sauce from Nanning, and fragrant sour ginger from Yishan...... Seeing these Guangxi specialties, Mo Di once again firmly believed that compared with the 7th Army, the 176th Division expanded by the 19th Route Army was raised by Xiao Niang.

The little lady raised the little lady, and the little lady raised the same life, but next time let Lao Tzu be the cannon fodder of the 7th Army, no way!

Tell Xu Ping and Xu Le to strengthen the robbery of this line, and make a point a point, and a corner a corner. Huang Tianhua said that this would provoke the Japanese army, and if it was not done well, the Japanese would change the direction of their main attack from the east of Taihu Lake to the west of Taihu Lake. Mo Di laughed, even if it was changed to Taihu West, it didn't matter, there was the 7th Army of Steel on top.

Just after Xu Ping and his gang robbed a cart of ammunition and a cart of medicines, the Japanese army's attack to the west of Taihu Lake began, not because of Xu Ping's robbery, but because the Wufu line in the north had been lost, and it became a strategic necessity for the Japanese army to go straight up to Mashan from the west of Taihu Lake and go around to the back of the Xicheng line.

On November 19, all of the 18th Division of the 10th Army and one of the 114th Division set off from Pingwang, the target, Huzhou.

The last time Xu Ping passed through the defense area of the 172nd Division was on the evening of November 19, 1937, when he disappeared from the western avenue after informing Zhang Guangwei: "The Japanese have begun to attack."

"Ask the military department, what should we do?" Mo Wei said to Huang Tianhua.

Huang Tianhua smiled bitterly, his boss, it seems that the anger from the last time has not disappeared, although it is a request for instructions, it is actually negative qi. Not long after, the division headquarters called back: withdraw from Changxing and retreat to the area of Tashan, the 176th Division has arrived at Xiaofeng, don't fall in love with the war, get out of the way, and retreat to the mountains. Mo Di asked the telegraph operator to send a telegram to Zhang Guangwei: I have retreated, and I am asking for more blessings. In his opinion, Zhang Guangwei should be this consumable in the war machine.

Holding the invincible telegram, Zhang Guangwei smiled bitterly and handed the telegram to Cheng Shufen, after Cheng Shufen read it, he said with a smile: "A good general must not hurt his wisdom, this time it was Li Pinxian who did something wrong." After reading this, Chen Dadun, chief of staff of the division, said with a smile: "I thought that there was a strange army that could penetrate the enemy's soft underbelly when necessary, and it seemed that I couldn't count on it. ”

The 172nd Division was talking about the invincible, and the others were also talking about the 172nd Division at the same time. Chief of Staff Huang Tianhua believes that with the addition of three new brigades, the 172nd Division and the 170th Division together have more than 30,000 people. Mo Di took out the hard copy in the suitcase, turned the page inside, and said: "The opponent is the 18th Division, this is not the standing division of the Japanese army, I don't have his information here, it should be a new division established after the 77 Incident, and the 114th Division is the same, I can only make predictions according to the previous news." Most of the non-reserve divisions belong to the B division, which is also known as the pack horse division, and has jurisdiction over 2 brigades (2 infantry wings per brigade), 1 company of engineering, 1 artillery, and 1 regiment of baggage, a total of 7 wings, plus non-combatants from the division headquarters and two brigade headquarters, a total of 24,000 people. There were nearly 50,000 men in the two divisions, and according to Xu Ping's information, the 114th Division had only one wing of about 5,000 people to follow the 18th Division, and the others entered Wuzhong, in this case, the total number of enemies should be about 30,000, and there were at least 36 75 mountain guns. In Nanxun and Wuchuan, the Seventh Army has no danger to defend, no terrain to follow, and I estimate that the Seventh Army will be defeated in a week at most. ”

Sure enough, as Mo Enemy expected, the Japanese attack on the southern front lasted less than a week, and the Japanese army occupied Changxing. The 170th Division and the 172nd Division fled in disarray, and also folded a major general, Xia Guozhang.

Watching the defeated team retreat from the front to Guangde, Mo Di went from Tashan Village to Si'an and met Zhang Guangwei.

Zhang Guangwei told him that in this battle, the preparation of the 7th Army can be described as quite sufficient, although it was a blocking battle, it had been arranged as a large-scale battle, and it turned out that its combat strength was too much worse than that of the Japanese army. The military literacy of the Japanese army was calculated, and the artillery of the Japanese army was estimated, but the tanks and aircraft of the Japanese army were not estimated.

In Zhang Guangwei's telling, Mo Di knew the whole story.

On the 19th, Xu Qiming, deputy commander of the 7th Army, returned to Wuxing and commanded the operation with full authority, under the planning of Cheng Shufen, Zhang Guangwei, Luo Huo, and Xia Guozhang, the Seventh Army set up four lines of defense in Nanxun, Shengshan, Wuxing County, and Lijiaxiang in the rear of Wuxing, respectively, Xia Guozhang guarded Nanxun, Luo Huo guarded Shengshan, Zhang Guangwei guarded Wuxing, and Cheng Shufen guarded Lijiaxiang. All the soldiers and horses are in place, just waiting for the enemy to attack.

At dawn on November 20, the 18th Division's attack on Nanxun began.

The first to appear was not Japanese soldiers, but planes, heavy artillery and tanks, which rained down tons on the positions of the 7th Army. Shrapnel whistled, pillars of smoke soared into the sky, and the entire defense line was like a sea of fire. When the 170th Division took over the position of Li Wenbu of Hu Zongnan's 1st Army a month ago, the opponent had been fighting with Li Wen for a long time, and the heavy artillery shells had already been exhausted, so they did not taste the true power of steel. In addition, the major airports in Shanghai had already fallen into the hands of the Japanese army, not only all the Hongqiao airports in Longhua were used, but also all the small airfields such as Wang Bingong University were also used by the military, and the Japanese army aviation units had a foothold in Shanghai, so the heavy artillery and air force became the protagonists of the Japanese attack.

The 170th Division had never encountered such a strong and crazy enemy, the bunkers collapsed, the trenches were blown up, and they were nailed to Nanxun with only flesh and blood. The two sides fought fiercely until dusk. The casualties were serious, and the 170th Division was transferred to Nanxun Town, where it continued to engage the enemy with night battles and street battles.

On the 22nd, the Japanese attacked the mountain with more intensive artillery fire, and the planes shuttled and strafed at low altitudes, dived and dropped bombs, and the thick smoke raised by * obscured the sky and the sun. Ascension, a hillock with a relative height of less than 40 meters, completely withstood the Japanese tanks. The tanks descended the road, ran directly into the mountainside, and even rushed to the forward positions to open fire.

The Battle of Ascension was a battle fought by the 170th Division with the strength of the whole division, and they swore to stick to their positions, "not giving up an inch of land, and fighting for every inch of land"! Even if they were buried in a trench by the explosion, even if they were blown up to the point of flesh and blood and broken arms and legs, as long as they still had a breath, they would stand up resolutely, grit their teeth and get up, pick up their guns, and shoot at the devils. There are planes on it, artillery in the distance, tanks in the distance, and ants in the Japanese army...... The whole division was undaunted and fought to the death. Major General Xia Guozhang, deputy commander of the division, was unfortunately attacked by Japanese aircraft and died in battle. At 17 o'clock on the same day, the ascension was lost, and the front was transferred to the third line of defense.

The main position of the third line of defense is built under Wuxing City, which is known as the "Silk House" in the ancient city of Jiangnan, and clearly smells the bloody wind that is approaching day by day. The deputy commander of the 172nd Division stood at the head of Wuxing City, still holding the telegram given to him by Mo Di in his hand, and he knew that this time he had become the consumable mentioned before.

His troops are mainly recruits, the only thing he can rely on is this not tall city, he doesn't know how to fight if Mo Di is here, maybe Mo Di will not stand in the city and defend, maybe this waterway in all directions is Mo Di's real tool to kill the enemy, however, in the face of a powerful enemy, Mo Di's practices are still effective!

Before he could figure it out, the battle had begun.

At dawn on the 24th, the Japanese army concentrated more than 30 bombers and cooperated with ground forces to launch a fierce attack on the 172nd Division's peripheral positions on the north side of Wuxing City. Planes, tanks, and heavy artillery bombarded in turn, and then the infantry flooded in. The position was repeatedly contested, changed hands several times, and many fortifications were in ruins. Heavy losses in personnel. The commander of the 510th Brigade, Qi Daozheng, asked for reinforcements, but all he got was Xu Qiming's words: There are no soldiers to help! Wei Jiansheng, the commander of the 1043 Regiment, died in the artillery fire.

At dusk, the Japanese invaded the east gate after paying a huge price.

Taking advantage of the night, the remnants of the 7th Army retreated to Lijia Lane. Lijia Lane is even more dangerous to defend, under the crushing of the Japanese tanks, Lijia Lane is like a flat ground. At the same time, the 102nd Infantry Wing of the 114th Division joined the battle formation, and Lijiaxiang was attacked on three sides, so it could only fight and retreat, and moved to the direction of Si'an (belonging to Changxing County), and transferred to Lang (Xi) and Xuan (City) in southern Anhui, and withdrew to Nanjing.

Mo Di looked at the troops in front of him, the 170th and 172nd divisions, each division had only two regiments left, each regiment was less than two battalions, more than half of the soldiers were killed and wounded, and there were really a lot of casualties.

Zhang Guangwei asked Mo Di to retreat to Guangde with them, Mo Di shook his head and said, "Shangfeng asked me to retreat to Tashan, and I will go to Tashan." Zhang Guangwei said that as soon as he retreated, Tashan became the forefront, and relying on such a group of people to deal with the upcoming Japanese army was tantamount to hitting a stone with an egg. Mo Di smiled and said: "I was just ordered to retreat to Tashan, and I was not ordered to block the incoming enemy, I can't be provoked, I can't hide!" ”

Zhang Guangwei didn't speak again, he knew that the little regiment commander in front of him was no longer the orderly soldier of the year, but had grown into a general with independent thinking ability.

Let Wei Zhigao, the engineer company of Qin Jishi of the Logistics Department, send all the trucks of the whole regiment to pull the wounded of the 172nd Division and send them to Guangde, and then send Zhang Guangwei on the road, Zhang Guangwei said: "Tianzong, thank you, I will repay you sooner or later for your kindness." ”

Looking at the back of the 7th Division, Huang Tianhua said to the enemy: "Boss, the entire South Road, now we are the closest to the enemy!" ”

"Hehe, I'm afraid!" Mo Di asked.

"Not really." Huang Tianhua said: "It's just that my heart is a little empty. ”

Mo Di nodded and said: "That's right, it's a good thing to have a weak heart, you won't make a mistake, but it's not necessary to be afraid, to be honest, I'm also weak-hearted." "Let Xu Ping send spies to inspect the Changxing area. Mo Enemy predicted that the destination of this group of Japanese troops was Nanjing, and the best route to Nanjing from here was to take Yixing, rather than go around Si'an to Guangde, so this direction should be relatively safe. If there is really an enemy coming, it will only be a small army, if you win, you will fight, if you can't win, you will leave, Tianmu Mountain in the south is a very good place, it is great to go there to be the king of the mountain.

Knowing Mo Di's true thoughts, Huang Tianhua's confidence also hardened.