Chapter 71 Achilles' heel

At 8 o'clock in the evening on November 27, Company Commander Wang Jianqiang of the 171st Regiment of the 57th Division inspected the South Gate position.At the end of the inspection, when he returned to the command post, he suddenly felt a strong vibration, and then heard the sound of dense guns.It turned out that the Japanese army was using the Type 92 infantry artillery to shoot destructively at the light machine gun bunkers on the defensive position. The Type 92 infantry artillery was called the "Big Group Artillery" by the Japanese army.It is small in size, flexible and convenient to move, and can be directly used to destroy bunkers and firepower points that hinder the advancement of infantry.At the same time, there was the whistle of light and heavy machine gun bullets, which were mixed with a large number of red, green and blue tracer bullets.In the dark, the tracer bullets flicker and flicker. After the human eyes are stimulated, everything can be blurred, and it is difficult to find the enemy.For insufficiently trained supplementary recruits, it can pose no small psychological threat.

Wang Jianqiang realized that the enemy was "building plank roads openly and crossing Chen Cang secretly", the fire attack was fake, and the sneak attack on the south gate was real.Sure enough, someone came to report that Japanese soldiers were climbing the city wall with long ladders. Wang Jianqiang immediately led four veterans to the top of the city.At this time, the Japanese army also just infiltrated, and the two Japanese soldiers who climbed up met Wang Jianqiang on a narrow road, and both sides fired at the same time.Although Wang Jianqiang knocked the opponent down with a pistol first, he was also shot in his left leg and fell to the ground immediately.

Immediately afterwards, another four or five Japanese soldiers rushed towards him.The pistol was empty, and it was too late to change the bullets. In desperation, Wang Jianqiang rolled down from the top of the city recklessly. This is a last resort choice, but fortunately there is no fall.The shot leg was still bleeding, but at the time it was impossible to bandage it, so Wang Jianqiang took off the leggings himself, tied the thigh tightly to stop the bleeding, and then directed the whole company to continue blocking the attack. Du Ding, head of the 171st Regiment, arrived after hearing the news. Together with the company commanders, he organized troops to surround the enemy from three sides of the city, and finally wiped out all the Japanese troops who had sneaked into the city.In this battle, the 171st Regiment suffered heavy losses, and the casualty rate of Wang Jianqiang's company alone was as high as 80%.

That night, Heer's troops also carried out a sneak attack at the west gate, but it was a pity that they lost troops and lost generals. Except for the death of Captain Ge Yekuang of the third brigade, all the officers of the squadron belonging to the brigade were either killed or injured. When the Japanese army's siege of Changde City was almost at a stalemate, Kurose finally discovered the biggest weak link in the city defense after many investigations. Before the war, in order to clear the shooting area, the 57th Division demolished tens of thousands of houses outside the city. However, because they had to rely on the houses for defense, the houses were not completely demolished.When the strongholds on the outskirts of the city were abandoned, these houses were about to be burned down, but the walls in the northwest of the city, especially some houses, were not completely destroyed, which allowed the Japanese army to use the walls as a cover to approach the outer trench relatively easily.

On the other hand, due to over-reliance and belief in the hindering effect of the outer trenches, the troops defending the northwest of the city focused on the defense near the city gate, while ignoring the defense of the outer trenches farther from the city gate. There is no doubt that this is the "Achilles heel" of Changde City Defense.As if he had found a treasure, Kurose hurriedly reported to the head of the division, Yan Yongwang, and at the same time suggested that the attack of the 116th Division should be focused on the northwest corner of Changde City.Iyanaga Wang adopted his suggestion, and then assigned the regiment artillery (that is, the mountain artillery) and the rapid-fire artillery (that is, the infantry artillery) to the Kurose troops.

Kurose's troops suddenly gathered in the northwest of the city, and did not say hello to the aviation soldiers. As a result, the Japanese plane mistook them for the Chinese army and threw a bunch of bombs down.Before Kurose's troops attacked, there were a large number of casualties. They were in chaos for a while, and finally calmed down. Bad luck is bad luck, but the attack point that Kurose found is obviously appropriate. At dawn on November 28, the regiment artillery and rapid-fire artillery fired at the firepower points of the defenders at the shortest distance, destroying the bunkers one by one, and most of the soldiers in the bunkers were buried.

According to the guidance of the signal flare, the destructive shooting of the artillery fire was immediately converted into supporting shooting, and the Japanese army began to forcibly cross the outer trench, which is the moat. The moat is fifteen to twenty meters wide and cannot be waded in vain.The Kurose troops first used rubber boats and civilian boats looted nearby to carry out a forced crossing. After crossing the outer trench, they immediately attacked the defenders' positions in a dense formation. At this time the defenders had suffered heavy casualties.In the squad of the 171st Regiment Li Chao belonged to, seven people including the squad leader were killed in battle, and the fortifications were also greatly damaged.Li Chao was appointed as the acting squad leader. His left eye was wounded by a bullet casing and blood flowed out, but he still fought bloody battles with other brothers and repelled the enemy's charge again and again.

The 171st regiment came to the front to supervise the battle in person. Seeing that the Japanese offensive was getting more and more fierce, and most of the defensive positions on the city wall were destroyed, it was difficult to hold on, so they ordered the troops to withdraw into the city and prepare for street fighting. At eleven o'clock in the morning on November 28, the Kurose troops finally broke into the city from the north gate after paying a heavy price of casualties.The Kurose Troop was commended for this and was awarded a certificate of merit by the Japanese Eleventh Army Headquarters.