Chapter 11 Chapter Eleven: The Dragon Fights in the Wild (1)

Although the performance of the Kumamoto Division in Jiangbei was somewhat disappointing, the occupation of Jiujiang in a short period of time still made Neiji Okamura, commander of the 11th Army, feel very good. When he was still at the mouth of the lake, he knew that the troops were advancing smoothly just by hearing the gunshots on the other side of Poyang Lake. Did all this indicate that his second trip to China would be smooth sailing? There is a desire to rise up. The first four characters in Chinese are Yuan, Heng, Li, and Zhen. None of them are unlucky, and none of them are incomprehensible. These four characters can just be used to sum up Okamura's mood at this time.

On the day when he was about to leave Hukou, Okamura climbed to the top of the famous Shizhong Mountain. Shizhong Mountain is the famous mountain that Su Dongpo once verified.Back then, the great writer took a small boat and moored under the cliff at night, and finally discovered the secret of the rocks ringing like bells. Now Okamura seems to have found the feeling of winning a battle in Central China. Across Poyang Lake, you can overlook Mount Lu, and Okamura feels relaxed and happy. Give me a pen and paper, I want to sketch. Perhaps in Okamura's heart, Lushan, Wuhan, and even the whole of China are just things in his pocket, and it's just a matter of getting them sooner or later.

Seeing this scene, all the subordinates scrambled to step forward and pat their buttocks: Your Excellency, Commander, is still so elegant when the army is in a hurry, which is really the demeanor of a general. Okamura is considered a "China hand", but I don't know if he has read another sentence in the book, that is: straight, square, big, no disadvantages if you don't practice it. Are you upright?Are you upright?Are you ambitious?If these are not available, sooner or later you will still be unlucky. Japan is an unjust war against China, and Okamura is of course an unjust general!That being the case, don't wishful thinking that there will be a wonderful ending.

Sure enough, it didn't take long for Okamura to find himself in an embarrassment. secret weapon From Hukou to Jiujiang, fortified walls and wilderness were implemented. Most of the Chinese residents were evacuated and their houses were destroyed. Even Okamura himself lived in a dilapidated house. It's okay to live poorly, the key is the lack of food.I thought that I could find something to eat in Jiujiang City, but after entering, I found that the warehouse was completely empty. Troops cannot fight without military rations, and if they cannot be collected from the front, they can only be collected from the rear.At that time, the occupied area was still in a mess, and there was no supply capacity. All supplies had to be transported thousands of miles from the Japanese mainland, which greatly limited the attack distance and combat capability of the Japanese invading army.

What made Okamura even more speechless was that after he entered Jiujiang, the first order he issued was not how to fight and pursue, but to "eliminate cholera." Jiujiang found signs of cholera.How could Okamura not know the terrible extent of this epidemic, he felt like an enemy. In the past, similar orders were drafted and issued by the staff in charge of logistics, but this time Okamura drafted it himself, and put the words "combat order" on the order number to show his importance. Just after the order to "eliminate cholera" was issued, the navy came to join in the fun again.

To be precise, it is the Naval Air Force. These people don't know that Jiujiang is completely occupied by the army.Don't you want to cooperate?On the second day after the latter successfully landed, they also dropped several bombs. As a result, more than 70 people were killed or injured by the Taiwan brigade. The Japanese navy and army can really be called a pair of enemies.It doesn't matter if the navy doesn't show up, there is almost nothing that won't damage the army once it shows up.Thinking of the invasion and occupation of Jiujiang, so many people died all at once. According to the previous situation, the army had to fight the navy.But when the lawsuit came to Okamura, he had no choice but to admit that he was unlucky—the commander of the Navy Fleet was his former savior, and he couldn't be too angry. As a result, the other party said "mistakenly bombed" and the matter was settled.

Mistakes are like gushing water, endless. When the Chinese defenders retreated, two mountain cannons were not taken away in time.The transport team of the Taiwan Brigade saw it, and fiddled with it. Accidentally, they pulled the rope on the cannon, and the cannonball came out of the barrel and flew straight to the Japanese position. Before the army could react, the plane of the Naval Air Force, which was patrolling the sky, swooped down first, treating the transport team as the Chinese defenders and bombing them randomly. Seeing that the "accidental bombing incident" owes your army favors, isn't this just a good time to pay it back?

The transportation team was inevitably killed and injured. Okamura couldn't laugh or cry when he knew about it. In addition to smacking his mouth, he had to "thank the aviation fighters for their heroic actions." A good start has turned into one bad luck after another, which is really not auspicious.However, Okamura believes that these are temporary and the future will remain bright. According to the conventional style of play, after occupying Jiujiang, the Eleventh Army should continue to go up the river and attack Wuhan with all its strength, but Okamura deployed a bigger game while sending the Taiwan brigade westward.

He will go down from Jiujiang, along the Nanxun Railway (Nanchang to Jiujiang), and fight all the way to form a strategic siege of Wuhan.If things go well and the troops are sufficient, the Eleventh Army can directly attack Changsha and blockade northern Hunan. This is called a large encirclement.Even if you encounter obstacles and insufficient troops, you can still take Nanchang and blockade southern Hubei. This is called a small encirclement. No matter what kind of encirclement, it may make the hundreds of thousands of Chinese defenders around Wuhan shudder, and even shake their will and collapse without a fight.

Copy attack, copy attack, copy attack, from the Battle of Songhu to the Battle of Xuzhou, the Japanese generals who were good at attacking copied this pattern time and time again, and they succeeded again and again. Okamura believes that this time will be no exception. The first to feel this threat was Chiang Kai-shek. The lessons of the past are unforgettable, and Wuhan must not become the second Nanjing.While issuing proclamations to persuade the people to evacuate and evacuate, he began to nervously ponder over offensive and defensive strategies. Chiang Kai-shek must come up with new offensive and defensive strategies

Okamura's shots are seasoned, but they are not invulnerable. The problem is that the shots are not firm and thorough enough. If you think about it in another way, the Eleventh Army should concentrate all its main force to the south of the Yangtze River, because even if there is no large or small encirclement, as long as the back road is cut off, Wuhan will not be able to defend. Okamura still left the teacher group like the Kumamoto Division on the north bank, which led to the dispersion of troops. As a result, the strongest troops in their hands were entangled there, unable to advance or retreat. On the one hand, it is necessary to implement a roundabout encirclement, but on the other hand, the power is not used so thoroughly and not concentrated, which gives his Chinese opponents a chance. Since the Battle of Wuhan, the battle situation has not been good. If someone can help Chiang Kai-shek to do fortunetelling at this time, his hexagrams should be in a mess, almost all "yin" from head to toe, without "yang". Time for some masculinity to perk up your spirits.According to the theory in ancient books, when yin is at its peak, "when it is prosperous, there must be competition, so there are war elephants."Chiang Kai-shek wants to fight, but instead of fighting on the inside and the core area as before, he wants to fight on the outside. There is also a lecture on this in the book, which is called: When a dragon fights in the wild, its blood is black and yellow. The commander of the "Iron Army" lost his prestige due to the First Battle of Jiujiang, so Chiang Kai-shek pinned his hopes on Xue Yue. Xue Yue has his natural advantages in fighting in Central China.Speaking of it, I have to thank the Central Red Army for this. If it hadn't been for the "Long March" that followed the Red Army back then, there would never have been such a big harvest. Xue Yue often claimed that the Red Army marched for 25,000 miles, but he pursued it for 30,000 miles.During the 30,000-mile journey, he gave up horses instead of riding, but wore straw sandals barefoot, and walked in front of the soldiers. None of the officers and soldiers dared to complain when they saw this. After walking the Long March, Tiger Cub has become an out-and-out "Southwest Link".Among a group of senior generals, no one is more familiar with the geography and character situation of Hunan and Jiangxi than him.In this regard, Zhang Fakui is indeed incomparable. Bai Chongxi found the secret weapon of Dabie Mountain in the north of the Yangtze River, and Xue Yue took a fancy to another mountain——Lushan Mountain.Few experienced generals are not familiar with this mountain, because Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Cheng have held various training courses for officers in the mountain many times. Lushan is about to go crazy. little advantage At first, Okamura had only two troops in Jiujiang. Except for the Taiwan brigade advancing westward, there was only the 106th Division. Although the 106th Division was a newly formed division, it did not disappoint Okamura during the First World War in Jiujiang, but it was different when entering Lushan Mountain, especially at a place called Jinguanqiao (now known as Jinqiao). The bad luck finally started. The person who brought bad luck to the 106th Division was called Li Jue. If we believe in the theory of reincarnation, then Li Jue's reincarnation is not bad, but very bad. He was born in Changsha, Hunan Province. His father died in a foreign land when he was two years old, leaving only orphans and widowed mothers, struggling to survive.Under such circumstances, the widowed mother always hoped that the orphan would have a future, so that one day he would jump out of the dragon's gate and revive the family business.The sad thing is that Li Jue is not that kind of very smart kid. Although he sits upright and serious in class every day, his studies are still a mess, and the report cards are all shocking red lanterns. The environment is bad, the talent is low, God is so unfair, everything that should be deprived is completely deprived, it seems that if you don't end up in the end of everyone, you will never be reconciled. But the experience of this Hunan native tells people that as long as you have a little advantage and stick to it, you have the possibility to change your own destiny. Li Jue's strengths, in the minds of many people, may still be flaws: honesty and honesty. Li Jue did not make progress in a serious school, so Li Jue went to a military academy, and then joined a class of classmates to join Tang Shengzhi, a fellow from Hunan, and was assigned to be a platoon leader.These people are young, and the soldiers are much older than them, so it is naturally difficult to convince the crowd at first. Tang Shengzhi then said to them, there is no hair on your mouth, and you can't do things well. Your problem is still the lack of beards. You should be like me. Look, there are two mustaches on your lips. Which soldier dare not be convinced? But beards can grow in a short period of time, everyone is still very distressed by this. Tang Shengzhi saw what they were thinking, and advised the fledgling student officials in front of him: If you want to be a military officer, you still have to train among the soldiers, not afraid of hardship, and not putting on airs. Just like the truth that the teachers in the school say so earnestly, the words are good words, but no one listens to them. Tang Shengzhi shook his head, and said casually: "It's really not possible. Let me teach you a way. Use the boiled old ginger to burn your lips, and you can burn your beard." This was originally a joke, but most of the student soldiers laughed it off after hearing it. Li Jue was the only one who believed it. After that, he did exactly the same thing. Of course, he couldn't get anything out except burning himself. The key point is that Li Jue believed in Tang Shengzhi's advice and followed suit, and this quickly won the support and support of the soldiers. The visible beard was not permed, but the invisible beard grew.Among those student officials, Li Jue was later mixed up. Loyalty and honesty are actually a treasure. Li Jue's 19th Division is the most representative unit of the Hunan Army. Although it is only a Type B division, it was one of the top ten divisions with the best performance in the Battle of Songhu. If there is any secret to the success of this army, apart from the fact that they have inherited the historical advantages of being particularly capable of fighting in the Hunan Army, they should also be counted as being willing to fight honestly and never playing tricks. In the Battle of Jiujiang, in addition to being ordered to block the landing enemy, the 19th Division was also responsible for covering the retreat of the main force of Zhang Fakui's corps. It can be said that they did all the hard work, and these Hunanese did not complain at all. On July 31, the 106th Division went down from Jiujiang to attack the Jinguanqiao position. It turned out that Li Hanhun's 155th Division of the Cantonese Army was defending Jinguan Bridge, and Li Jue's 19th Division was just the reserve force of Li Hanhun's Army. Some can't support it anymore.Seeing this situation, Li Hanhun, as the commander of the army, temporarily ordered Li Jue to take over Jinguan Bridge and transferred the Cantonese Army to the reserve team. It's normal to be dissatisfied with other people-oh, you know how to protect your direct descendants and push us to die? Without saying a word, Li Jue led the 19th Division into the position. mountain warfare specialist After arriving at the position, Li Jue took a look and finally understood where the Cantonese army was at a disadvantage: they couldn't fight mountain warfare. Li Hanhun's feeling seemed to be still in the Eastern Henan Plain. He deployed all his troops in one main position. If the opponent only fell into a shell, he didn't know how many people would be injured or injured. It took a long time. , of course I can't hold on. Fighting mountain warfare is precisely the strength of the Hunan Army. Li Jue immediately made a modification. He changed the original main position to an advanced position, and established a new main position at a high place. The horns form a crossfire network that can support each other. On August 3, under the command of Lieutenant General Matsuura Junrokuro, the head of the division, the 106th Division launched an aggressive attack on Jinguanqiao again. Matsuura, who was kept in the dark, didn't know that the defenders had changed, and the position had also changed. He still bumped into what he thought was the "main position" in a daze as before, but the real main position next to him broke out. , beat the charging Japanese army half to death. Discovering that Li Jue had a hidden position in addition to the "main position", Matsuura used a small force to feign an attack to scout out the location of the main position. This is a process of fighting wits and courage. The enemy changes and we also change, and we have to change quickly. If we are too late or one step too late, we will fall into his tricks. Li Jue is usually loyal and honest, but he is also clever in war.He immediately made adjustments and established a third position—the mortar position—at a place on the side called Jiwo Ridge. Matsuura issued repeated orders in front, asking his subordinates to pay attention to the two frontal positions, one high and one low, one hidden and one visible, but they never expected that there were dense firepower points on the side that made them even more shuddering. Often when the Japanese invading army concentrated on rushing forward, the mortar shells on the nearby mountains would rain down from the sky, hitting these Japanese soldiers by surprise, and the casualties of the attacking troops were horrific. There were corpses lying all over the mountain. In order to snatch these corpses and their weapons, the two sides fought again and again. In the end, the corpses piled on top of each other. The cruelty made the new division from Kumamoto horrified. We were considered villains in our hometown, but we never heard anyone say that there is such a vicious battle waiting for us in "China". Li Jue once attacked a military depot of the 106th Division. The place is not so much a military depot as a mortuary. It is not only full of dead Japanese soldiers, but also sacks filled with palms. If you can't get it back, you chop it off with a knife, and bring back the palm to replace the whole body. Thinking about these devils, it’s true, so what’s the matter if they’re not completely dead, or pretending to be dead, can you still connect the palm of someone else? Due to repeated setbacks, Matsuura thought of special tactics again.Although the mountains are no more difficult than the plains, and it is more difficult for special forces to use them, he still tried his best to use mountain artillery and aircraft to bombard the advancing positions in an attempt to remove obstacles. In positional warfare on the plain, if you don't have special forces to fight against, this one-sided style of play will shock the defenders a lot. However, this time Matsuura was disappointed. The special tactics on the mountain were not completely ineffective, but the effect was far from what he expected. Special forces are not effective in mountain combat After the war, Li Jue was known as an expert in mountain warfare, but his construction of mountain fortifications actually benefited from the guidance of Soviet military advisers.At that time, the Soviets had gradually replaced the Germans. From the beginning of the legion, there were generally Soviet advisers, and of course the Li Hanhun Legion also had them. Under the guidance of foreigners, Li Jue did not make the fortifications into a line like on the plain, but dug them into a large number of "single clay pot bunkers" distributed like raindrops. Whether it is a mountain cannon or an aircraft, it is very difficult to find these scattered "clay pots", let alone hit them directly. It is difficult for you to hit them one by one, but the power of the "clay pot" is by no means inferior to the three positions. These single-person bunkers are all connected by communication trenches, and they can easily come and go freely, so that they shoot obliquely and sideways at each other, which is actually countless small cross-fire networks. Even if the assault troops of the 106th Division managed to avoid the attack from the main position and the side positions, as long as they were close to the advancing position, nine out of ten they would have to be caught in those dense nets. It would be a disaster if they entered the net. With no fortifications available for cover, it would be difficult for these unlucky bastards to find a blind spot where they could avoid bullets, and they almost became a living target for the opponent. After the war, Okamura specially sent engineering experts to conduct a detailed investigation of the Jinguanqiao position.Faced with the complex and ingenious formation of positions, this engineer expert was also amazed, thinking that it is not accidental that the 106th Division has never been able to achieve a breakthrough. Fighting until late August, the 106th Division still could not occupy Jinguan Bridge.The division had nine infantry brigades with about 16,000 people participating in the battle. In the battle of Jinguanqiao alone, 8,000 people were killed, which was equivalent to half of the officers and soldiers being cut off. Nine captains, five casualties, three regiment captains, two casualties.For the other squadron leaders and squad leaders, the number of casualties also reached more than half. The newly formed division is different from the standing teacher regiment. Only the captain and the regimental captain are active officers, and the officers below the captain are all veterans. In this way, every time a battle is fought, the captain and the regiment leader must go to the front to directly command. Otherwise, the veterans and recruits below will not be able to bring along.This is also an important reason why so many middle and senior officers of the 106th Division died in battle. When the captain is dead, of course veterans can still be used to fill the gap, but the ability of veterans to command operations cannot be compared with active officers after all.According to Okamura himself, if the commander of the infantry brigade of a newly formed division is lost, its combat effectiveness will at least drop to less than half. Some well-educated Japanese soldiers like to keep diaries. A guy who graduated from a junior college described it this way: Mount Lushan is a scenic spot in "China", and it is hard to see the true face of Mount Lushan, and its reputation is well-deserved. The "Imperial Army" was strongly resisted by the 19th Division of the "China" Army's elite troops. There was an unprecedented fierce battle. Many squadron leaders and squad leaders died. The battle is still going on hard, and the hope of reuniting with their families is slim. This guy is of course dead, and the diary was found in his pocket.