Chapter 70 "Unfortunate" battle

There was a momentary silence on the battlefield again.At dawn, Tian Shaoyou, the artillery platoon leader, walked out of the shelter and went to the observation post on the city wall to observe the enemy's situation.As soon as he adjusted the focal length of the cannon to the mirror, he began to turn the lens to observe. The Japanese sniper aimed at him. With a "snap", a bullet went straight through Tian Shaoyou's head. Tian Shaoyou was shot and died, which was the prelude to another Japanese attack.Following the South Gate, the three suburban strongholds in the east, west, and north have also withstood tests to varying degrees.The two sides fought fiercely all day long, and both suffered heavy casualties.After the death of the joint commander of the cloth army, the third captain, Shimamura Changhei, was also killed. At the same time, the battalion commander Guo Jiazhang of the 169th regiment and the battalion commander Deng Hongjun of the 170th regiment died in the battle.

What Yu Chengwan adopted in Changde was a tactic similar to that of the Stalingrad Defense War, that is, to resist layer by layer in the ruins and fortify step by step.Seeing that the outskirts of the city were difficult to defend, the main force of the 57th Division took the initiative to retreat, and burned down some houses in the outskirts of the city before retreating, using fireworks to prevent the enemy from pursuing. As night fell, the 57th Division had retreated to the core position of the city wall, and the Japanese 3rd Division, 40th Division, 68th Division, and 116th Division also advanced to the vicinity of the city gate. , and actively looking for opportunities to enter the city.

During the gradual fall of the outer positions, Yue Qilin and other county government staff and some people who could not escape were captured or killed one after another.Seeing these situations, Yu Chengwan repeatedly persuaded Dai Jiufeng, the magistrate of Changde County: "Your broken guns and the police are of no use in defending the city. Why bother to stay in the city and make unnecessary sacrifices? It is better to cross the Yuanjiang River in the middle of the night to break through the encirclement." go out." Under Yu Chengwan's persuasion, Dai Jiufeng led the police across the Yuan River and retreated.Unexpectedly, they encountered the Japanese army on the way. Dozens of policemen fought hard and died. Dai Jiufeng only escaped with his body. Afterwards, he was highly praised by Wang Yaowu and was transferred to the 74th Army.

The soldiers who remained in the city continued to fight.Their hearts are still full of hope, because everyone knows that the brothers and divisions of the 74th Army on the south bank are desperately attacking north to cope with the city defense battle. move closer.In addition, the planes of the Sino-US joint air force began to drop ammunition, food, medicine and other materials into the city. Although the materials dropped were limited, many of them were thrown into the river by mistake, but some urgent needs of the defenders were relieved to some extent. What the 57th Division is about to engage in is a battle that the Japanese call "a miserable battle."Since a considerable part of the force had to be spared to block the Chinese reinforcements around Changde, except for the 116th Division of the Japanese Army, which could go all out, the rest of the Japanese divisions could only participate in the siege in the form of a brigade. Therefore, after entering the siege stage, Hengshan Yong still appointed Yan Yongwang, head of the 116th Division, as the siege commander to conduct unified command and dispatch of the siege operations.

The three main regiments of the 116th Division of the Japanese Army were named after the former captain, namely the Fushang Troop (109th Troop), the Heer Troop (120th Troop) and the Kurose Troop (1st 33rd Regiment). On November 26, Iwanaga Wang transferred the main force of the cloth troops attacking the North Gate to the East Gate, and cooperated with an infantry brigade of the 68th Division to attack the East Gate. The defenders planted many landmines on the road leading to the east gate, and at the same time relied on civilian houses to fight tenaciously.The closer the Japanese army got to the city wall, the more intense the defenders' resistance was. As a result, they didn't dare to walk at all, and could only advance house by house by destroying houses.In this way, when the clothed troops reached a place about 100 meters away from the east gate wall, they could no longer move.

On that day, Iwanaga Wang sent Heer's troops to the west gate and Kurose's troops to the north gate to attack the city respectively.The north gate was originally within the attack range of the cloth troops. After the main force was transferred to the east gate, there was still a brigade left to attack on the spot. From time to time, mortars were used to bombard houses outside the city." Three begs are worse than one steal, so the captain of the 1st, 33rd and 3rd Regiment Heisei Isao decided to use the regiment's artillery as a cover to launch a night attack on the north gate.At that time, it was rumored that He'er's troops had broken into the west gate. Kurose estimated that the resistance of the defenders at the north gate would also be weakened, and there was no reason why the night attack would not be successful.

At 8 o'clock in the evening, the Kurose troops entered the assault preparation position, and the regiment artillery, which had been pushed close to the outer trench, shelled the defenders' positions in the outer trench in advance through the houses.To Kurose's surprise, the defenders were still strong in defense, and the firepower of the mortars was not even much worse than that of his regiment artillery. The Japanese soldiers who tried to rush to the bridge of the city gate suffered heavy casualties, and the night attack ended in failure. . The tenacity of the north gate defenders showed that they were not restrained or influenced by the Japanese troops from other directions.Kurose had to doubt the authenticity of Heer's troops breaking into the west gate. He wanted to surprise Iwanaga Wang, but at this time he couldn't care less.

I made a call to the command post of the division and regiment, and the answer there was very straightforward: the so-called occupation of Ximen is purely a false report!