Chapter 84 every inch of land

On September 15, the 37th Division of the Japanese Army arrived at the bank of the Zijiang River in the northeast of Shaoyang. The 171st Regiment of the 57th Division was in charge of defending Shaoyang City, which was the main force in the defense of Changde.The head of the regiment, Du Ding, survived the catastrophe and was recognized as a brave and skilled general.In addition, a military artillery company was also left behind to guard Shaoyang. The defense of Shaoyang was not only a defense, but also a defense. Its characteristic was that the troops available for defense were limited and could not be deployed at will. Facing a vast watery area, it was difficult to use tactics such as attacking, containment, and feinting. Multi-directional attacks can be carried out from the water.

This is a disadvantage. The advantage of the 57th Division is that since the Battle of Wuhan, the main battlefield of the Chinese and Japanese armies has never left the rivers, lakes and ponds.In the case of landing battles on the water, under normal circumstances, the Japanese side forced the crossing and the Chinese side attacked. The Chinese army has therefore accumulated rich experience in anti-landing warfare. As long as the Japanese army is active on the water, the first-line defense force can send an observer to visually measure the distance between the enemy and ourselves, so as to provide a basis for commanding shooting.

Usually when the Japanese army enters within a distance of 1500 meters, the artillery company will start shooting.At the same time, in order to prevent the Japanese army from bombarding one's own forward positions and reduce unnecessary losses, it is best for the first-line infantry to temporarily retreat to the pre-constructed second-line positions in squads.When the observers observe that the Japanese army has advanced to around 400 meters, they will jump to the front to fight. The favorable timing for the infantry to shoot should be when the Japanese army dives directly into the water and directly attacks the blocking position. The cross-fire network formed at this time will cause the greatest damage to the Japanese army.Even if one of the blocking positions is breached, don't panic too much. If the defenders on both sides of the breakthrough can be commanded properly, they can immediately block the follow-up enemies with firepower.

During the landing and anti-landing battles, the bank of the Zijiang River was filled with fierce gunshots and shouts of killing all day long.The forced crossing of the Japanese army was repeatedly repelled. The defenders sank seven motorboats and killed more than 400 Japanese soldiers.After more than a week of fierce fighting, the Japanese army was able to land in the east of Shaoyang City, and then captured the security positions in the east and south of the city. Every highland outside the east gate was fully utilized by the 171st Regiment to build several dotted strongholds, each of which supported independently and supported each other, and weakened the enemy's vital strength by means of consumption and stagnation. .

Seeing that the attack was blocked, the Japanese army began to fire incendiary bombs and poison gas bombs. More than a dozen places inside and outside the city were ignited by the fire. The whole city was full of flames and poisonous gas.Shaoyang is an ancient city with a history of more than 2,000 years. In an instant, like Changde and Hengyang, it changed from a complete and prosperous town to a devastated and unbearable rubble field. As of September 27th, the 171st Regiment had killed or injured more than 600 people, including the second battalion. As the night darkened, the defenders outside the city began to withdraw into the city in an orderly manner.The 225th Regiment of the 37th Division of the Japanese Army found that there was silence in the defensive positions outside the city. They searched and advanced, but they did not see a single defender when they reached the edge of the city, so they took it for granted and reported to the division, saying: The Chinese army has abandoned the city.

After fighting for so many days without being able to capture Shaoyang, the head of the division was almost out of anger.As soon as he received this report, without further investigation and verification, he sent a report to Isamu Yokoyama: "Baoqing (Shaoyang) was occupied on the evening of the 27th." At the moment, the 225th Regiment and the 226th Regiment of the Japanese Army marched into the city from the east gate in a grand manner, but what they did not expect was that the 171st Regiment did not leave at all, but occupied a new defensive position After that, an ambush circle was set up in the city on the spot.

In terms of purely annihilating the enemy, street fighting is more advantageous than surface annihilating, because the Japanese army's artillery superiority is bound to be limited to a certain extent.At the same time, the street combat experience of Chinese commanders like Du Ding is no less than that of anti-landing warfare. Street fighting emphasizes that every inch of land must be fought for.Every house, every alley, and every street must be controlled as a defense zone.The firepower configuration is also very particular, not a balanced distribution, but a multi-level configuration based on the height, strength, and front-to-back relationship of the building, so as to make the fire net three-dimensional.

In this configuration, heavy machine guns should be arranged at the lowest point, and special shooters, that is, snipers, can be placed in positions that do not attract the attention of the enemy, and within the effective range that the shooters can control by themselves, they can attack Japanese officers, observation points, and signal soldiers. Cold shot to disrupt its chain of command. The Japanese army who entered the ambush circle was caught off guard and was killed and injured in a large number in the street fighting. The telegram sent by the division headquarters to Isamu Yokoyama became a big joke.

The 37th Division of the Japanese Army could only return to the starting point and continue the siege. On the night of September 28, the South Gate was breached by the Japanese army, and more than 800 people broke into it in one night. The Chinese officers and soldiers guarding the South Gate immediately fought hand-to-hand with the Japanese army. Most of them perished with the enemy in the battle. With more and more Japanese troops in the city, the street fighting became more intense.On the front, there are enemies among the enemies, and there are enemies among us, interspersed with each other, and each fights for itself.At this time, the telephone line was cut off, and the command was inconvenient. Soldiers on both sides fought and fought house by house. Close-range firepower, hand-to-hand combat, and grenade warfare dominated the entire battlefield.Although the 171st Regiment suffered heavy casualties, they still steadfastly guarded some strongholds in the city, refusing to give up a single room or a single wall.

On September 30, the battle was already heating up.The next day, the deputy head of the 171st Regiment fought desperately with the Japanese army with grenades. Even the artillery company, which had run out of shells, was formed into a commando to launch a counterattack against the enemy. In the early morning of October 2, there was only one corner of the defenders' position left, and they could no longer hold on.Du Ding, the head of the 171st Regiment, led 150 remnants of the remnants to break through the siege, one way out of the west gate and the other way out of the southeast gate. Both routes were able to successfully protrude out of the city and join the main force.

After the defense of Shaoyang, Yokoyama transferred the 37th Division to the south to attack Guilin, and the Shaoyang area was transferred to the 116th Division of the Japanese Army.By December 10, Guilin and Liuzhou fell successively, and the mainland communication line was completely opened up. "Operation No. 1", that is, the battle of Henan, Hunan and Guangxi, came to an end. After entering the autumn of 1944, the situation of the international anti-fascist war has tended to improve significantly.But against such a general background, the Chinese army suffered an extremely disastrous defeat. Fifty to sixty percent of the regular troops participating in the battle were completely defeated, and the combat effectiveness of the remaining troops became weaker and weaker. Everyone lost confidence because of this. This is the most desperate period of time on the frontal anti-Japanese battlefield.At an army meeting, Chiang Kai-shek said with great pain: "I am 58 years old this year, and this year is the greatest humiliation I have suffered in my life when I reflect on myself!"