Chapter 51 Japanese Nuzuka

Luo Zhuoying concentrated the superior forces of nine divisions in total, encircling the Japanese army from the north and the south.At two o'clock in the middle of the night, the 57th Division took the lead in counterattacking, and drove the 34th Division out of its original position with hand-to-hand combat. After dawn, the Japanese army tried to regain the position under the cover of aircraft, but was repelled by the 57th Division.After hitting a wall, the 34th Division of the Japanese Army made another violent assault on the side of the 72nd Army, and the two divisions of the 72nd Army were beaten back four or five miles.

After receiving the report, Luo Zhuoying looked at the map first, and then asked Lan Jieyu, the staff officer of the headquarters: "How do you see the situation?" Lan Jieyu thought for a while and said, "This is the enemy who is about to run away. Before retreating, we must first strike and charge for a while, and then leave the position. This is the enemy's usual technique." Luo Zhuoying pondered and asked again: "Will (the 34th Division) send another troop to cross the Jinjiang River in the south, so as to detour to the upper side?" At this time, the frontline troops had seized the confidential document sent to Dahe by Endo Saburo, the head of the 3rd Flying Regiment, so Lan Jieyu replied in an affirmative tone: "That will never happen. Look at the letter that Endo sent to Dahe." I believe he is lost, he must be in a hurry to escape. It is very possible that Dahe was also shot dead by us."

The encirclement continued to tighten.Zou Jiyan's 107th Division belonged to the second batch of attack troops. The task was to intercept the Japanese army's attack in the northwestern direction of Jiangxi. However, the Japanese 34th Division had indeed become a frightened bird, as Lan Jieyu said.The fierce attack on the 72nd Army was just a habitual feint before escaping, and it was impossible to separate forces to attack the northwest of Jiangxi. Therefore, the 107th Division did not need to perform interception tasks, but directly marched towards Xiapi Bridge. The large forces of the 34th Division of the Japanese Army had already withdrawn from Xiapi Bridge, and the remaining cover troops were basically wiped out by the 74th Army and other departments. The 107th Division had no more battles to fight.Zou Jiyan’s battalion captured more than a dozen Japanese soldiers who had been scattered and slightly wounded not far from the city, and seized more than 20 long and short guns, several boxes of complete ammunition, and a batch of military supplies such as canned food and cigarettes.As for abandoned odds and ends and gun casings, they are everywhere, and no one cares about it anymore.

During the search, Zou Jiyan also found that the paddy fields and hillsides on both sides of the road were full of chaotic and disorderly traces of people and horses.Due to overcrowding, the original narrow path was stepped out into a wide road.This is a phenomenon rarely seen in previous battles between the enemy and us, which shows the panic and embarrassment of the Japanese army when they broke through the encirclement. Lan Jieyu was ordered by Luo Zhuoying to inspect the battlefield. For the first time in his life, he saw the real scene corresponding to the "corpse pillow" in the ancient book.The corpses on both sides of the avenue were unclear. Groups of wild dogs were tearing at the corpses. They stared at the big blood-red eyes, and they were not afraid of living people and did not know how to avoid them.There were blood and purple blood stains everywhere on the road for dozens of miles.

The Japanese army generally does not leave the corpses of their own soldiers on the battlefield, but drags the corpses back for cremation and informs their families in the country.But in the case of the army being defeated like a mountain, it is impossible to grab the complete corpses, and many corpses can only be thrown on the battlefield.The way they thought of was to cut off one arm and take it away. Later, they felt that it was too heavy and inconvenient to carry, so they cut off the five fingers of the right hand. Later, even this was too troublesome, so they only cut off a thumb, and at the same time took off the body worn by the deceased. The ID card marked with name and unit number should be taken away as proof of death in battle.

Many enemy corpses with broken arms or missing fingers can be seen on the battlefield.After interrogating the prisoners, it was also proved that the 34th Division of the Japanese Army did indeed do this when escaping.The people who cleaned the battlefield buried all the corpses of the enemy, which was called the "Japanese Nu Tomb", which is far away from the tomb of the 74th Army's fallen soldiers. Lan Jieyu stayed at Xiapi Bridge that day and couldn't sleep all night.As long as the young staff member closed his eyes, all the dead people and horses would appear in his mind, especially the shrill screams of the eagles pecking at the dead horses and flying and landing, which made him restless.

On one side is the cruel scene of life and death, but on the other side there is the sound of gurgling water under the Xiapi Bridge.Noise and tranquility, battlefields and fields, war and peace are sometimes only separated by a thin line. Lan Jieyu wrote an impromptu poem while expressing emotion: "The third watch water at the bottom of the Xiapi Bridge can be heard on the pillow." At this time, not only did the fire show no signs of extinguishing, but it would continue to burn. At Guanqiao and Sixi, where the 34th Division of the Japanese Army hastily retreated, the God of War was wearing armor and holding a halberd, singing in the wind.

On March 25, amidst the earth-shattering shouts of killing, Zhang Lingfu commanded the 58th Division to storm Guanqiao.The 34th Division of the Japanese Army was eager to escape and released poison gas again. However, the weather conditions that were indispensable for this poison gas battle did not help them. The poisonous gas dissipated in the wind and rain, completely useless.In desperation, the Japanese army had no choice but to bury this batch of poison gas bombs that were edible but inedible and cumbersome.After liberation, people unintentionally dug up more than 200 rusty gas bombs in Guanqiao, poisoning more than 1,000 local migrant workers.

The heavy rain not only made the gas bombs useless, but even the planes that served as bodyguards for the ground troops could not show up.God helped me. The 58th Division marched forward bravely in the rain. Together with friendly troops, they went down to many positions on the periphery of Guanqiao, and pressed the Japanese 34th Division tightly to the core position of Guanqiao. The range of the heavy machine guns of the Chinese army in the north and the south happened to intersect with Dahe's temporary command post, Bijia.In the face of such a dense firepower network, the 34th Division of the Japanese Army could not break out of the siege by its own strength, and the food, fodder and ammunition of the troops were gradually exhausted, falling into a situation of "soldiers with no food".