Chapter 26 The twenty-sixth chapter of the flag in the flames (2)

office rules For defeating Tang Enbo, Okamura can be said to be overjoyed, even more proud than when he captured Wuhan or planned the Nanchang Battle. "My battle is enough to make Tang Enbo never stand up." However, someone next to him sang against him, and the person who sang against him said, "No, the main force of the Tang Group has not been eliminated, but has just hid in the Funiu Mountains." This is really hard to listen to. Doesn't it mean that I'm busy? At first glance, it was Eitaro Uchiyama, commander of the 12th Army who was speaking. Nei Shan used to give people the impression that he was that poor guy who was hiding in Yichang City and was beaten to death by Chen Cheng.Now not only can he be on his own, but he can also defeat Tang Enbo, who even Okamura is frightened by.

When a person starts to drift off, he doesn't know who he is anymore.Okamura said this, but he just said that. On May 10, Okamura issued an order to Uchiyama to besiege Luoyang, which is not only an important town in Henan Province, but also the seat of the First Theater Command. Originally the Twelfth Army was supposed to concentrate on encircling Luoyang, but Nei Shan made his own decision and transferred a division to the west of Henan, saying that they were going to pursue Tang Enbo in the Funiu Mountains. "Did I tell you, Tang Enbo's main force is still there, so how can you not chase after him?"

There are only four divisions in the Twelfth Army. Doing so will definitely disperse the strength, but old Okamura has nothing to do with his subordinates disobeying orders.After all, Uchiyama is no longer the head of the "weakest division" during the Wuhan battle, so you can swing it around as you like. Whether the "North China Front Army" can make contributions in "Operation No. 1" depends entirely on the Twelfth Army. Okamura had no choice but to find a way by himself. In addition to temporarily transferring eight infantry brigades from the Yoshimoto First Army stationed in Shanxi to the south to join the battle, he also sent the 63rd Division directly under the general to Luoyang to make up for the lack of troops.

Uchiyama thought that Okamura was kind, but when he received the next order, he was very angry. The first army is in the west, and the twelfth army is in the south. One family is responsible for blocking one side, so they can only watch.To the north of Luoyang is the Yellow River, which is a Jedi, and the final offensive side is reserved for the 63rd Division, and the commander of the division, Lieutenant General Ye Changde, became the commander of the siege. After all, no one is a saint, and the two office rules will not change anytime anywhere.The first rule, the boss is always right; the second rule, if the boss is wrong, follow the first rule.

Okamura's so-called mind is purely pretending. If you provoke him and don't give him face, he will also feel very uncomfortable, and he will also give you some small shoes to wear, but it will not be as ugly as Terauchi Shouichi. ——You little house sparrow really think you can beat my old house thief? Okamura really took great pains in order to publicly support the wild deputy and secretly demote Uchiyama. The outside of Luoyang city was already tightly blocked. Cooperate, jump up and down like a full-time babysitter, very busy. There are thousands of troops outside Luoyang City, but there are only three divisions of Wu Tinglin's 15th Army inside the city.

The Fifteenth Army is essentially a miscellaneous army. It used to have only two divisions under its jurisdiction, both of which retreated from Zhongtiao Mountain. Since then, the soldiers and weapons have not been replenished. In order to defend Luoyang, the first theater was temporarily deployed An infantry division of the Central Army system came. It seems that the strength of the Luoyang defenders does not seem to be very good. The reason Okamura is so aggressive is because he deciphered the telegram sent by Chiang Kai-shek's command to Jiang Dingwen, which clearly requested to stick to Luoyang.

Okamura is very aware of the discipline of the Chinese army. Wherever the regulations must be adhered to, the chief general must fight to the end, and he will never evacuate easily without a clear order from his superiors. You can't easily retreat from a frontal battle This will inevitably increase the difficulty of attacking the city. At the same time, as a China expert, Okamura is also different from ordinary Japanese generals. He knows that Luoyang is a famous cultural city, and he is worried that destroying this city will affect his reputation as a refined general. Therefore, he first adopted the method of encircling but not attacking.

No matter how long you defend, you always have to withdraw, and it must be backward, that is, to the west. Okamura's eight brigades of the First Army in advance in the west of Luoyang City are waiting to collect the net there. Okamura knew that Wu Tinglin would not surrender, nor would he retreat early, so he wanted to use psychological warfare to "invite the king into the urn". He notified the wild deputy to attack Luoyang after ten days of siege. According to Okamura's instructions, during the siege, the Noble Deputy first asked the monks of Baima Temple in Luoyang to deliver letters, then used a loudspeaker to shout out, and even sent planes to drop leaflets, and in turn "advised" the defenders not to resist and to surrender in Kaesong.

Wu Tinglin ignored it at all, neither surrendered nor evacuated as Okamura hoped, but set up the main battlefield at Mangshan in the north of the city. Don't you keep saying you want to protect the ancient city?Alright, let's talk about the 300 rounds of the battle on the outskirts of the city. The field deputy looked amused, this fool, I was afraid that the siege would be difficult, but he still wanted to go out of the city to fight a duel, with your small appearance, can you stop me so many soldiers? Opportunity, if you don't seize it, it will be too late. Older gingers are more spicy

On May 19, Ye Fu couldn't wait to launch an aggressive attack on Mangshan in advance without waiting for the ten days to expire. On this day, the field heavy artillery on the ground and the bombers in the sky joined in the fun, and the 63rd Division also clamored and climbed up the mountain, as if they could take down Mangshan Mountain immediately. At the end of the day, not only did the Mangshan position remain motionless, but the Japanese army also suffered heavy casualties, and an infantry brigade was almost broken up. Okamura can be called extremely cunning, and Ye Fu is also a cheap guy, but they were all fooled by Wu Tinglin.

Wu Tinglin is a veteran. He came out to play in the early days of the Republic of China. He has fought more battles than bridges.The wisdom of others is called true wisdom. They tell him how to survive every single thing, and none of them are memorized alive from the books in the military academy. The Mang Mountain position where he lured his deputy to a duel was not an ordinary position. After six years of painstaking efforts, the place was guided by American military advisers. There are quite a few reinforced concrete bunkers on the mountain, and each bunker can accommodate dozens of people. It is also possible to cross-match between forts and forts by phone. When the 63rd Division attacked, they could only move upwards from the villages or wheat fields, and had to pass through barbed wire and minefields in the middle, but the defenders in the bunkers on the mountain felt at ease and swept them all over. Okamura couldn't hold back his face anymore, just like how he treated the "weakest division" back then, the first thing he reviewed was not whether his tactics were right, but whether the soldiers were working hard. The aides are familiar with this habit of the general, and immediately pointed out that the 63rd Division is a "crash division" based on a mixed brigade. Before that, it could only serve as the security team in the Beiping area. Not to mention any formal combat experience. Okamura went down the donkey along the slope, and transferred two infantry brigades from other "non-accelerated divisions" to Luoyang, and returned to the field as deputy commander. Ye Fu failed the test on the first day, and he was very anxious, wishing to open his head and get some clever ideas from it. If Mangshan can't be attacked, we might as well attack Luoyang City. Wu Tinglin placed the strongest infantry division of the direct line army in Luoyang City, and there were also various blockhouses built on the top of the city, and there were traffic trenches outside the city. More than 700 Japanese soldiers were killed, but they still failed to enter the city. Ye Fu was like a headless fly, seeing that he couldn't enter the city, he turned his head and went to climb the mountain again. Unable to climb up, he wanted to play a trick of ground-air coordination, but in a panic, the bomber did not bomb the defenders, but dropped the bomb into his 63rd Division position. The commander also had a problem, this time even the staff couldn't wait, and directly suggested that the wild deputy should be replaced. The reason, of course, is that I have a problem—Originally, Deputy Ye was just the captain of the garrison in the Kwantung Army, and was responsible for going around in circles with guerrillas like the Northeast Anti-Japanese Army. The wild deputy became a dou who couldn't afford it, so Okamura had to let Uchiyama take charge of the command again. On the surface, Okamura put all the blame on the poor Yefu, but he knew very well in his heart: Luoyang is not so easy to attack whoever it is. In fact, before the war, he used aerial photography, ground reconnaissance and other methods to study Luoyang's defensive positions, and he knew the strength of the city. We still have to use that trick to let the third chariot division fight with us. A few days later, with the help of the roundabout attacks of the "Tiger Division", the Japanese army has gradually occupied many key points of the Mangshan position. Seeing that the situation was not right, Wu Tinglin quickly ordered the fifteenth army to withdraw into the city. When Uchiyama besieged Tang Enbo, he was not yet proficient in the coordination tactics of infantry and vehicles, and after suffering a loss, it seemed like that. There are many anti-tank trenches built outside Luoyang City. The Japanese army used tanks to cover the infantry. Using this cooperation between infantry and tanks, the "Tiger Division" was able to rush into the city after the city wall was also blasted. On May 24th, the Fifteenth Army had reached the most dangerous moment, and the city was destined to be unable to defend it. Without anti-tank guns, street fighting could not last long, so the only option was to evacuate Luoyang City. Okamura was so excited that he predicted that Wu Tinglin would definitely retreat to the west, so that he would fall into the ambush circle of Yoshimoto's First Army. But unexpectedly, Wu Tinglin chose to break through to the southeast. The southeast is the rear of the Japanese army, where there are all rear hospitals and military depots, at most they are just some small troops, while the main force of Wu Tinglin's 15th Army is still strong at this time, and it is very powerful, and all these bits and pieces were wiped out in one rush. The place they are going to is Dengfeng, where Tang Enbo's broken halberd was. It used to be the most dangerous place, but now it is the safest place. After entering the Dengfeng Mountains, Wu Tinglin gathered his troops, and then went west to find the large troops in the First War Zone. When the Fifteenth Army arrived in the west of Henan, some friendly troops looked down on them due to their disorganized ranks and messy guns, and they were not allowed to pass through the road, but let them walk on the river beach by detour. General Wu was very angry and said loudly: "As long as there is a road on the river beach, the living will not be suffocated to death." After speaking, he took the lead and strode towards the river beach. Wu Tinglin defended Luoyang with a single army, persisted for nearly a month, and was able to keep the main force basically intact, relying entirely on the wisdom, calmness and responsibility of a passionate veteran soldier, which was unmatched among the armies in Henan at that time. backbone corps After seeing Wu Tinglin, Jiang Dingwen, the commander-in-chief of the first war zone, was filled with emotion. He praised the 15th Army for its great achievements in the defense of Luoyang and should be respected. Later, Jiang Dingwen's words sounded meaningful: "I, Jiang Dingwen, are guilty. I am sorry for the country and should be condemned." The first war zone is a big war zone, and there are as many as seventeen light troops. Among them, Tang Enbo commands half, and Jiang Dingwen commands the other half. The first half is the Tang Group or troops under his name, and the second half is mainly miscellaneous. The army, because Tang Enbo is known for being good at "annexing" miscellaneous names, these miscellaneous names are afraid of him and refuse to be led by him, but would rather be controlled by Jiang Dingwen. Originally, the two halves could cooperate well, and the situation would be very different, but Tang Enbo was the same as when he was in the fifth war zone. He was very straight, but he had a bad temper. The miscellaneous players have another set of thoughts. Thinking about the sky falling, there will always be a tall guy like Tang Enbo to support him. That strong guy is the absolute protagonist in the big drama, and he can only play a supporting role in the drama, so he is very happy , Even when Tang Enbo was besieged in Dengfeng, the other half of the troops under Jiang Dingwen's jurisdiction all sat and watched and refused to rescue him. They have all forgotten an old Chinese saying, "Under the overturned nest, there will be no eggs." When Tang Enbo was defeated and left the Funiu Mountains, the innocent collapsed, everyone was defeated one by one, and no one survived the defeat. At this time, it was too late to regret. On May 21, Li Jiayu, commander-in-chief of the 36th Army, was killed in an ambush by the Japanese army, becoming the second commander-in-chief of the army to die in battle after Zhang Zizhong. After the Battle of Central Henan, Jiang Dingwen was dismissed for his defeat. Seeing that the first war zone was in trouble, Hu Zongnan, the deputy commander of the eighth war zone, immediately mobilized five armies to deploy a third line of defense at Lingbao, which is the gateway to Tongguan. From May 27 to June 1, Hu Zongnan not only held the Yellow River defense line, but also launched a counterattack across the board, annihilating a brigade of the Gibbon First Army. The Yoshimoto First Army originally stationed in Shanxi was not included in the Henan Central Battle plan, and the eight brigades temporarily allocated only wanted to ambush the defenders in the west of Luoyang and get some off-the-shelf bargains. Not to mention waiting, and then attacking the Yellow River defense line and losing another brigade, completely losing his wife and losing troops, which made the commander, Lieutenant General Yoshimoto Sadaichi, furious. If Hu Zongnan is not defeated, I will not return to Shanxi! With the manpower of Yoshimoto's first army, it is still uncertain, and the "North China Front Army" needs to send reinforcements. However, the battle in central Henan lasted for more than a month. Yoshimoto didn't feel tired after that, but Uchiyama was exhausted. It is impossible for the Twelfth Army to follow along and join in the fun. After much deliberation, Okamura could only use the third tank division again. In the two battles of Dengfeng and Luoyang, Okamura relied on the chariot divisions to quickly reverse the situation. This time he and Uchiyama thought that once the tanks and chariots arrived, good luck would come naturally, but the tenacity of the "backbone corps" Being good at fighting made the "Tiger Division" make a fool of himself. During his stay in North China, Okamura noticed the difference between the Eighth Route Army led by the Communist Party and the Kuomintang army.To be specific, the Eighth Route Army has a large army and a small army at about the same level, and one is stronger than the other. There is no one who is particularly weak, but the Kuomintang army is a hodgepodge. Among the Chinese armies that have dealt with Okamura, the strongest are the three "backbone corps", namely Wang Yaowu's 74th Army, Tang Enbo's 13th Army and Hu Zongnan's First Army. In other words, as long as you destroy any of these three armies, the other armies in the area are nothing to worry about. Among the first-year students in Huangpu, Hu Zongnan was the first person to be promoted to a senior official at the theater level. He did have difficulties in training and running the army. They were almost wiped out in the battle, but after a few years, they were able to come up with a new first army, and it could also be ranked among the top-ranking troops. Relying on Lingbao Mountain, Hu Zongnan's First Army used landmines and anti-tank guns to block the Third Tank Division. One-third of the division's tank tanks were destroyed, making it difficult to move forward for a while. The Japanese infantry brigade attacking with the tanks lost half of their cover after losing cover. The brigade commander was killed or seriously injured, and was replaced three times in one day. In the end, there was really no suitable candidate, so the artillery squadron leader had to be the temporary commander. Landmines not only bombed tanks, but also infantry, not only ordinary infantry, but also officials.Major General Chiyota Kimura, the brigade leader under Yoshimoto, accidentally stepped on a landmine, and his whole body was blown up like the scene of a car accident, and he died on the spot. Tank grouping can play a key role in plain warfare Commander Yoshimoto was unable to get off the tiger, so he simply suggested to Okamura to mobilize a large number of troops to launch a large-scale attack on Shaanxi in an attempt to occupy Tongguan to Xi'an. Okamura felt concerned. When he got the "No. 1 Operation" order, he kept muttering, how could he attack Henan instead of Shaanxi? But his consent alone was useless, it had to be approved by the commander of the "China Dispatch Army" in Nanjing, but Hata Shunroku's answer was absolutely not. Since reinforcements cannot be obtained, the "Tiger Division" is the only hope. Yoshimoto Sadaichi personally went to the command post of the tank division and forced the tank soldiers to come up with a way to open the situation. There is a way, that is to reselect the route and bypass the minefield. On the evening of June 10, with the change of the offensive route of the Third Chariot Division, the battle situation in Lingbao changed rapidly, and many positions of the defenders were breached by the Japanese. On June 11, Yoshimoto's First Army launched an aggressive attack across the board under the cover of tanks along the gap. The troops in the Eighth Theater were forced to withdraw to Tongguan, and the Japanese army was unable to pursue it. The Battle of Lingbao ended.