Chapter 48 Birds can't fly

The command post of the 74th Army is on the south bank of the Jinjiang River.Chen Yu, chief of staff of the army, had not passed through many battles. Seeing this situation, he urged Wang Yaowu to withdraw from Shanggao, and at the same time called the headquarters of the 19th Army Group, demanding that he abandon the implementation of the Shanggao defense battle. Chen Yu had a stubborn personality, and the staff officers of the group army could not persuade him, so they had to report to Luo Zhuoying.Luo Zhuoying ran over to answer the phone after hearing this, and scolded Chen Yu sharply.Afterwards, he was still afraid that Wang Yaowu would waver in his determination, so he sent Lieutenant General Zhang Xiang to the Seventy-Fourth Army, in the name of consolation, but in fact as supervision.

Wang Yaowu knew what Luo Zhuoying was thinking, so he quickly called Luo Zhuoying: "Please trust me, Commander-in-Chief, I can carry out your orders!" Luo Zhuoying seemed to have swallowed a reassuring pill after hearing this.He encouraged Wang Yaowu: "A soldier's career is on the battlefield, and his merits and demerits are also on the battlefield." He also said: "War is the bounden duty of a soldier, and it is especially necessary to win a war." Knowing that the vast area south of the Jinjiang River was empty, without a single soldier guarding it, Luo Zhuoying temporarily assigned four Jiangxi security regiments to Wang Yaowu for defense.

Although the Jiangxi security regiment has the advantage of being familiar with the local terrain, it has always been stationed in the rear and rarely participates in actual combat on the front line. Moreover, it will take some time for them to reach the front line, so there is no delay.The one sent by Wang Yaowu to rush to the emergency rescue of Huayang was the 51st Division's Field Regiment, which was controlled near the military headquarters. The Yebu regiment ran forward at a speed of fifteen miles per hour, took a shortcut to Huayang within the time limit set by Wang Yaowu and built simple fortifications.The Japanese army also tried to seize Huayang by marching in a hurry to gain the initiative in the battle, but they were 40 minutes late, so they had to follow behind and miss out.

The 20th Brigade of the Japanese Army is a mixed infantry and cavalry unit. Under the cover of six bombers, the incoming Japanese army led by five cavalry squadrons, followed by infantry. Yangzhen launched a fierce attack on the forward position. The south bank of the Jinjiang River is mainly a flat plain with a width of three to four kilometers and a long and narrow field. On both sides are rolling mountains and hills. The situation is dangerous and difficult to attack.The field repair regiment had done terrain reconnaissance in advance, and had already set up a machine gun position at Huayang Peak, which the Japanese army must pass through. The Type 24 heavy machine guns had long been ready for battle.

The Type 24 heavy machine gun used by the Chinese army is imitated from the Maxim machine gun. It has inherited the features of Maxim's stable performance and powerful power, and can continuously fire about 600 rounds of ammunition.Although the Japanese infantry and cavalry came up with great momentum, they were unable to seize the commanding heights, so that their movement was completely exposed to the effective shooting range of the heavy firepower of the 74th Army, and they could not rush into Huayang Town at all. In terms of actual combat performance, the Type 24 heavy machine gun surpasses the Japanese Type 92 heavy machine gun in all aspects. However, because it is a water-cooled machine gun, it will generate water vapor when shooting, which is easy to expose the target. Japanese aircraft, small steel guns, etc. , infantry artillery can quickly carry out precise strikes on it.Under the wild bombardment of Japanese planes and the fierce bombardment of artillery, dust was flying on Huayang Peak, and the sound of explosions was deafening one after another.

Machine gun platoon leader Zhou Yang was injured in many places, and he still refused to withdraw from the line of fire until he died in battle.When his body was carried down, the military uniform all over his body was stained red with blood.Encouraged by Zhou Yang, none of the machine gun platoons he belonged to wavered or retreated, and most of them died heroically in the end.After the war, the Military Commission specially named the highland where Zhou Yang died in battle as "Zhouyang Mountain". Persisting until noon, the Japanese army finally couldn't bear it anymore.Due to the exhaustion of fuel and ammunition, the plane disappeared in the sky first, and the infantry and cavalry also froze fiercely, their momentum exhausted, and they all lay dormant on the ground.Upon seeing this, the wild patch group immediately turned from defense to offense and launched a counterattack across the board.The Japanese army was forced to flee to the north, and the Yebu Regiment captured six Japanese soldiers alive in addition to capturing a lot of supplies.

The insistence of the field repair regiment bought precious time for the main force of the 51st Division to regain the initiative.In order to be able to conduct effective command, all the commanders of the 51st Division have packed their luggage and put on a shoulder pole. Once needed, they can pick it up and leave at any time.When the battle was at its most intense, the phone at the frontline command post kept ringing. Li Tianxia held the phone in her left hand and pressed the military map on the square table with her right hand, giving orders to the frontline.When he saw local laborers walking into the command post, he didn't put down the phone, but stood up and gave a simple welcome.

The 51st Division desperately resisted the enemy. Although blood and flesh were flying everywhere and suffered heavy casualties, they still did not retreat an inch.Fierce battles destroyed almost all buildings on this battlefield.Liu Duoquan, the commander of the Northeast Army who cooperated with the 51st Division to stop the enemy, tried to find a house as a command post but couldn't find it. In the end, the local Jiangxi Defense Corps gave up a small and dilapidated old house.At the end of the battle, some people walked through the battlefield that had been cleaned. They could not see a living person or a house along the way. All they could see was the corpse of a civilian husband who had been shot dead by the Japanese army and had not yet been buried.That is really the scene described in the Tang Dynasty's "Diao Gu Zhan Wen Wen": "The birds can't fly down, and the beasts perish."

As a result of blood and blood fighting, the 51st Division turned defeat into victory.The plan of the 20th Brigade of the Japanese Army to encircle Shanggao from the south bank was thus shattered, and the entire battle situation turned from imbalance to temporary stability again. In terms of scale, the defense of Huayang and even the battle for the south bank of the Jinjiang River are at best an appetizer, and the defense of Shanggao is the real meal. Luo Zhuoying made the 74th Army stick to Shanggao, originally to achieve the effect of "magnet warfare", that is, the closer they are drawn, the closer they are, and the closer they are, the tighter they are.This effect was basically achieved. The 34th Division of the Japanese Army only entered Shanggao, but forgot that its right back was becoming very dangerous due to the premature withdrawal of the 33rd Division.

Luo Zhuoying observed the entire battlefield situation and believed that the time had come for encirclement and annihilation in the "retreat decisive battle", so he ordered the 9th Pre-Ninth Division and the 19th Division of the 70th Army on the North Road, which was responsible for the flanking mission, to go south quickly. The Japanese reconnaissance plane could see clearly in the sky, and the 3rd Flying Regiment under the direct command of the 11th Army Headquarters hurriedly reported to the 34th Division.Major General Endo Saburo, the head of the flight regiment, threw the requirements to Dahe from the plane, telling Dahe that he must occupy Shanggao as soon as possible, and that he must return immediately after the occupation, because if there is any further delay, "the enemy army (the Chinese flanking attack under the guideline) troops) would threaten the security of the rear".

In fact, Dahe has already felt this threat.The 34th Division's divisional command post, field hospital, and supply units were all attacked from the side by the 70th Army as they moved to the front line. Dahe knew that time was getting worse and worse for him, and the best solution was to drill a gap from the front of Shanggao.So he personally rushed to the vicinity of Bi's house, south of Guanqiao, to supervise the battle, and commanded the troops to launch a general attack on Shanggao. After a see-saw-like battle, the 34th Division of the Japanese Army rushed across Shanggao Avenue and went straight to Jingshan Mountain, which is only three kilometers north of Shanggao City.