Chapter 6 Chapter 6 Character is Destiny

The failure of the first round of bombing has always made Chennault bitter. The bomber pilots taught by the Italians are so poor that it seems that they will not be able to make up for it in a short time. However, the Air Force has no other way to attack except bombing. The most spiritual ones are undoubtedly the group of fighter pilots who gathered together for class, or let them go? This is not Chennault's whimsy, because the Eagle fighter can indeed be used as a bomber. Japanese bombers mainly focus on bombing, followed by combat, while Eagle fighters mainly focus on combat, followed by bombing.

Chennault wanted to reverse the order of the Eagle fighter jets, changing the order to bombing first and combat second. There are more and more Japanese warships moored on the Huangpu River. The naval guns formed a fire barrier, and they couldn't get in during the day, only at night. In addition, because the fighter jets could only carry small bombs, they had to conduct dive bombing. , otherwise it has no effect. But dive bombing at night, not to mention fighter jets, even bombers rarely do this, because it is very dangerous. Chennault was no ordinary man: I created it, and there it was!

He drew the outline of a warship on the ground at Nanjing Airport at night and told the fighter pilots that this was the imaginary Japanese destroyer. Over Nanjing Airport, the pilots performed three drills in a row, memorizing all the tips taught by Chennault in their hearts. Liu Cuigang led the formation of fighter jets, under the cover of night, and began to attack the Japanese fleet on the river. After discovering that the Chinese fighter planes were attacking, the Japanese fleet was in a hurry, with searchlights and anti-aircraft guns, but almost none of the shells could hit the fighter jets.

The reason is that during the exercise, Chennault set a height for the fighter: 3,500 feet. At such a height, light anti-aircraft guns cannot reach it, and heavy anti-aircraft guns are too close, which is equivalent to a shooting dead angle. Of course, the fighter plane has to descend, otherwise it will not be able to conduct dive bombing, and during the descent and dive, if the opponent hears the sound of the aircraft engine, it will inevitably be shot. Chennault's trick is to hold your breath, close the throttle when the Japanese ship appears on the trailing edge of the wing, and dive vertically!

At this time, count in your heart, one, two, three... count to fifteen, immediately change the vertical to horizontal, and dive to drop the bomb. After the bombing is over, turn on your horsepower, stick to the ground and escape. This set of procedures focuses on a fast word, fast dive, fast bombing, and fast start. If it is slower or the technical movements are not coordinated, the pilot and the plane will be in trouble. Therefore, ordinary bomber pilots can't play, and must rely on experts like Liu Cuigang. Liu Cuigang led his team to the river to "have a banquet" almost every night. Similar procedures naturally had to be repeated again and again, but the Japanese ships never really understood Chennault's tactic, nor could they take any effective precautionary measures.

Among the Japanese ships, the most concentrated attack by Chinese fighter jets was the 3rd Fleet flagship "Izumo".Once three 500-pound bombs were dropped, and the "Izumo" caught fire immediately and caused a violent explosion. However, what puzzled Chennault was that three days later, the "Izumo" returned to its original mooring point intact, without even a scar. Is this the King Kong ship? Chennault went back and looked through the information. It turned out that the "Izumo" was obtained by Japan from the Russians during the Russo-Japanese War. It was not one ship, but two ships, and they were exactly the same, and they were sister ships.

He then concluded that one of them must have been sunk, and that what appeared now was only a stand-in. After the Anti-Japanese War ended, Chennault specifically consulted the Japanese information, and he found that the sister ships had changed from two to one very early, thus confirming his conclusion. Thanks to the support of the air force, Zhang Zhizhong was not under too much pressure from the Japanese naval guns in the second general offensive, and the "Iron Fist Plan" he implemented really hurt Hasegawa Kiyoshi. For this reason, the 3rd Fleet Command sent two urgent telegrams to the Navy Command, requesting that reinforcements be dispatched quickly.

On August 18, the United Kingdom put forward a mediation suggestion, and the Chinese command issued a suspension order to Zhang Zhizhong for the third time.At this time, the Japanese High Command had approved the plan to continue to increase troops, so it quickly rejected the mediation. On August 19, Zhang Zhizhong launched the third general offensive, gradually pushing the Battle of Songhu to a climax. This time Zhang Zhizhong decided to start the attack from the Yangshupu Concession, and he completed his work in one battle. Yangshupu is between Hongkou and Huangpu River. If you can go all the way from Yangshupu to Huishan Wharf by the Huangpu River, along this route, you can make Hongkou sandwich biscuits together with Zhabei.

However, this general attack can be regarded as the most difficult of the three general attacks. The Japanese naval command transferred the navy used for the northern operations back to the south. The two marine brigades originally planned to land in Qingdao landed in Shanghai. With the big stronghold as the center, numerous obstacles have been set up. The bones in the front have not been gnawed, and the meat will be eaten later, so the difficulty factor is undoubtedly doubling.Especially for those big strongholds, after the "January 28th" battle, they were reinforced layer by layer with reinforced concrete, and there are even tunnels underneath, which is really not ordinary difficult to chew.

To deal with this kind of thing, flesh and blood is not enough, you have to use diamonds.Zhang Zhizhong asked the Chinese command to mobilize special forces to participate in the war. The first batch of soldiers to enter Shanghai were the chemical troops, more precisely the projectile artillery chemical troops. In terms of chemical warfare, it was the Japanese who used it most brazenly.From "September 18th" to "January 28th" and then to the Great Wall Anti-Japanese War, the Japanese chemical weapons were almost everywhere, and later there was the creepy 731 germ warfare.

However, little Japan dared to release poison gas only to the Chinese. When standing in front of them were foreigners from the West, they didn’t even dare to move their fingers, because the latter’s ability in chemical warfare is even better. I also let it go, but the Japanese army suffered a disadvantage, so they dare not let it go. We'd better retaliate with an eye, and let him smell it. Unfortunately, we are not as bad as them, and we can't do such "scientific research" that hurts nature. At the same time, due to the restrictions of the "Geneva Convention", we can't get gas shells. . The weapons of the Chinese chemical soldiers are called projectile cannons, also known as Livins projectile cannons.This gun was originally used for projecting gas bombs, but since gas bombs were not available, it could only be used for another purpose-to throw incendiary bombs, which could be obtained through imports. As early as when Zhang Zhizhong launched the second general offensive, since ordinary artillery could not help the big stronghold, he thought of using a flamethrower, and the projectile cannon is equivalent to an improved flamethrower. The projectile guns began in World War I. At that time, the flamethrowers were just put into use. They were all very stupid and had a very short range. When the soldiers moved the large oil tanks to the front line trenches, they did not kill the enemy, but they were exhausted first. . Under such circumstances, a foreigner named Li Wensi built this kind of projectile cannon, instead of using oil tanks, he used oil barrels to project the oil barrels out. This will solve all the problems. Although the impact point is not as accurate as ordinary artillery, it has a large coverage. Once it explodes, burning flames are everywhere, and the effect is much stronger than ordinary flamethrowers. For Zhang Zhizhong to dispatch is a projectile artillery chemical unit, with a total of 12 projectile artillery and more than 300 officers and soldiers. In Yangshupu, there was a large Japanese stronghold with a seven-story building. Zhang Zhizhong asked the chemical soldiers to remove it. The projectile gun has a strange appearance and is different from ordinary guns. It has no gun mount, but only a circular base. When firing the gun, most of the body is buried in the fortification, and then the guns are connected together with wires. To release, press the button. It can be done with a button, and it looks quite modern. After Zhang Zhizhong gave the order, the first shot missed, which was expected, because the distance and azimuth had to be corrected. The second time, the incendiary bomb went straight to the fourth floor of the tall building. Immediately, thick smoke billowed in the building, and the electric light effect created by the incendiary bombs was really extraordinary.The marines who had fought back with guns just now finally realized how powerful they were, and escaping for their lives became a major event. As soon as the chemical soldiers succeeded, they were very excited, and then they fired three salvos in a row.Where the fireworks filled the air, tall buildings collapsed with a bang, and the Japanese army's corpses were scattered on the ground. Every newspaper in Shanghai reported the news on the front page, which was a great shock to the marines. After the chemical soldiers, Chinese tank soldiers also appeared on the beach. Since the "January 28th" Songhu Battle, I have only seen Japanese tanks and never seen what our tanks look like. This is really fresh. During the Great Wall Anti-Japanese War that year, Xu Tingyao, the commander of the 17th Army, was greatly stimulated by the Japanese special forces.Soon after the war, he wrote to Chiang Kai-shek, suggesting to form his own tank force. With the approval of Chiang Kai-shek, Xu Tingyao was in charge of forming the Armored Corps, which was the first and only tank force in China at that time, and Xu Tingyao was called "the father of the Chinese Armored Corps". The Armored Corps dispatched two chariot companies from Nanjing to Zhang Zhizhong to clear the solid obstacles on the road. The commander of the chariot company was also a student of Whampoa, but he dared not enter Yangshupu after observing the situation on the battlefield. "The car is too bad" (not a heavy tank), the Japanese army's firepower is too strong, and the infantry has not practiced the coordinated tactics of infantry and vehicles. The tank will lack protection along the way, which is too dangerous. At this time, Zhang Zhizhong wanted to penetrate Yangshupu, so of course he couldn't agree. I finally invited you to Shanghai, but I dare not or don't want to fight, how can I do it. You must break in, or don't come to see me! The company commander drove the tank and led the charge. With the steel scavengers, the troops advanced much more smoothly. When they rushed to Huishan Wharf, due to the increasing firepower of the Japanese army, the company commander's car was destroyed and killed, so Zhang Zhizhong had to order to retreat. After the third general attack, although Zhang Zhizhong initially penetrated Yangshupu, Hasegawa Kiyoshi soon made a comeback after receiving reinforcements again. The reinforcements this time were two marine brigades transferred directly from China, and the total number of Shanghai marine brigades soared to 10 brigades, with a sudden increase of 2,400 troops, so they regained control of Yangshupu. On August 20, Zhang Zhizhong took advantage of the moonlight to rush to the front line and supervised the ministries to launch the fourth general offensive. Just like Tang Enbo dispatched Luo Fanggui, Zhang Zhizhong also summoned a giant spirit god who opened the way this time, who is also the leader of the regiment, named Hu Jiaji. Hu Jiaji graduated from the Engineering Department of the Whampoa Military Academy. The engineering major is very important, but it is also very unpopular. If you don’t have your own routine, it is difficult to get ahead. Hu Jiaji's routine is to go all out. The so-called Whampoa spirit, in the final analysis, is the spirit of desperation, so the elimination rate of Whampoa students who have just graduated on the battlefield is very high, because they all need to charge with guns, but it will be much better when they are officers at the company level. The head of the regiment and even those at the brigade level like Guan Linzheng and Huang Meixing, no matter how fierce they are, they only need to rush with the team when the situation is particularly critical. Hu Jiaji was already the commander of the regiment, but he never stayed behind to command any battles, and always rushed to the front with a gun. The leaders will train you when they meet. How can you do this? When there is a war, you will be the first to ascend to heaven. Who will command the troops in the future? Hu Jiaji's attitude is very honest, I was wrong, and I will change it next time. Same as usual next time. What is strange is that this desperate Saburo does not die every time, but is still alive and kicking. He was stuck on the road in Yangshupu, and a rain of bullets hit him. The troops were killed and wounded. Head Hu did not die, he was still at the forefront.But two of his guards, one killed in battle and the other hit twice, continued to run. Can you not run, his regiment leader, he has already been shot five times! Hit five bombs, but it's not a vital position, so what to do if you don't rush. So he went through five passes and killed six generals, and went straight to Huishan Wharf. The Japanese soldiers guarding the pier had never seen such a desperate person before, but they didn't know what to do when they saw a blood man rushing towards them with a group of people who seemed to have just been liberated from hell. Unable to sustain it mentally anymore, they had to flee to the public concession on the Bund. The British army immediately came up with guns: yes or no? Yes, well, surrender your guns. There are no devils in front, but there are iron gates, and they are very strong and cannot be opened. Hu Jiaji saw it, this is easy to handle, just climb over, look at me. He turned over and crawled over, like that, no one would have thought that he had already been hit by five bullets. The head of the regiment set an example, and other officers and soldiers followed suit. But it's useless after you go in, because you can't hold it, and the Japanese ships on the river will cause casualties as long as they hit you with a few shots. He couldn't die in vain, so after Hu Jiaji finished smashing and looting, he led his people back. After he came back, he couldn't help him. He was shot five times, so he pulled the line of fire and treated him. From Yangshupu to Huishan Wharf, the road has been swept again, but this does not mean that it can be counted after sweeping. Hase Chuanqing has the advantage of firepower and can still counterattack and count. In fact, this road has become a life and death line. If Zhang Zhizhong firmly controls this place, the two enemies of the Hongkou and Yangshupu concessions will not be able to assist each other, and they will become one piece in the east and one piece in the west, and will have to gradually shrink into their respective isolated strongholds, which is tantamount to waiting to die. In order to fight for the line of life and death, Zhang Guchuan came in the daytime, and Zhang Zhizhong attacked at night. Faced with the tossing and turning of the Chinese army after nightfall, the marines were terrified, and when they couldn't stop them, they were forced to set fires as barriers. Some streets burned for three days and three nights. What's more, ever since the Japanese army stationed at Huishan Wharf set a precedent of fleeing to the Bund, everyone rushed to follow suit. There were three groups of people who did so, and as many as four to five hundred Marines surrendered to the British army. After being disarmed, they were all locked up in the Bund Park. Since the start of the Battle of Songhu, Zhang Zhizhong has mainly used three German weapon divisions, repeatedly double-teaming, until the last big stronghold that the Japanese army can shrink back, there are only two remaining, one is the Japanese Marine Corps Command in Hongkou, and the other is the Japanese Marine Corps Command. It is the Gongda Spinning Mill in Yangshupu. Apart from these two places, the Marine Corps has little room in Shanghai. From August 13th to 23rd, known as the ten-day siege in history, Zhang Zhizhong reached the peak of the active attack step by step. No need to lift the threshold On August 23, the Japanese army landed at Chuanshakou, which marked that the Chinese army would turn from offense to defense. The army that landed was the 11th Division of Zentsuji, one of the two standing divisions of the "Shanghai Expeditionary Army" newly established by the Japanese High Command. Like Shirakawa Yoshinori back then, the new dispatched army commander is also a veteran soldier. General Matsui Iwane, graduated from the 18th term of Lu University, and Shigeru Honjo is Lu Shi's classmate. Matsui's father was a sinologist who studied ancient Chinese, and he was expected to inherit his father's career and learn something, but what this kid likes is fighting and killing, and he has embarked on a completely different path since then. Sinology, he also studied later, but unlike his father, he did not study ancient Chinese, but how to invade China, which is what he called "brother beating brother". He is the leading "China hand" of the older generation of Japanese generals, and the new generation of "China hands" such as Itagaki and Doihara have learned from him.However, the same "China hands" have different "professional directions" due to their different resumes.For example, Matsui once served as a military attache in Shanghai, so he is more familiar with the geography of central China and Shanghai than others. When the Battle of Songhu broke out, Matsui had been retired for two years and was suffering from lung disease, but because of this background, Lu Xiang Sugiyama immediately fell in love with him when he was considering candidates for the commander. To attack Shanghai, Matsui had two options. One was to go ashore from the Huangpu River and join the urban battle, which would directly break the siege of the marines; the other was to land from the suburbs and encircle the city. In the "January 28" battle, Bai Chuan chose the latter, and Matsui, Xiao Gui, and Cao Sui followed suit. The reason why the Japanese army was able to come and go so freely, and board wherever they wanted, was that the Chinese Central Navy was ineffective. The main body of the so-called Central Navy is the Fujian Navy.Most of them are Fujianese, who have stayed abroad and traveled abroad, and they especially worship the Royal Navy.After he came back, he couldn’t change his demeanor in front of the people of the country, and he always spoke with a London accent, which is very respectable, and kept saying: when my brother was abroad... Almost everyone who has dealt with the Central Navy can't stand the spectrum of these British gentlemen, and the one with the biggest spectrum here is the Minister of the Navy, Chen Shaokuan. At the meeting presided over by He Yingqin, Minister of Military and Political Affairs, as long as Chen Shaokuan failed to meet any of the requirements, he would not talk nonsense with you, and left on the spot with his purse in his arms, leaving you on the spot in a daze. In front of Chiang Kai-shek, Chen Shaokuan once demanded a "minimum" build of an aircraft carrier for the navy.The cost of an aircraft carrier alone is 20 million. If maintenance and other things are added, it will reach 100 million. Many people, including Chiang Kai-shek, were shocked and speechless after hearing this. Chen Shaokuan saw that he was reluctant to build an aircraft carrier for me, so what can he do, resign and leave! The Central Navy is an independent kingdom established by relying on technical barriers. If Chen Shaokuan wants to give up his picks, it is tantamount to saying that the entire navy will have to give up his picks.Where can Chiang Kai-shek be released? In desperation, he simply pulled the fudge away, saying why only one ship was built, we don't want to build it, and we need to build three ships, but the time will be a little longer, at least five years. Even if you sold the Nanjing government for the three aircraft carriers, you wouldn't be able to get so much money in exchange.But Chen Shaokuan believed it, and he was busy working on it in a serious manner, waiting to reap the benefits of everyone. How could Chiang Kai-shek have a way to build an aircraft carrier for him, so he had a headache for several years, and almost hid Chen Shaokuan whenever he saw him. It was the performance of the Central Navy itself that rescued Chiang Kai-shek. In the "January 28th" battle, the Central Navy did not fire a single shot, and the Japanese Navy "if you don't hit me, I won't hit you", which aroused public outrage.After the battle, some people even proposed to impeach Chen Shaokuan, so the latter stopped chasing Chiang Kai-shek for an aircraft carrier. It should be so good, it should have a few tricks, but after the "August 15th" Songhu Battle, people discovered that the Navy's cattle are only powerful in front of the Chinese people, and they are not good at all in real wars. Chen Shaokuan adopted self-mutilation defensive tactics that could not be more negative. He dismantled the Central Navy in half, scuttled one half and used it to block the Jiangyin waterway, and shrank the other half at his door. The Japanese navy sailed from the ship to Shanghai. How many bombs were dropped, and where the Japanese army landed from, seemed to be deaf and blind. You just go up and block it! The one who flashed his sword on the Songhu battlefield was precisely the lightning type that the "British gentlemen" looked down upon the most. The Dianlei Department, also known as the Dianlei School, is the work of Chiang Kai-shek himself. It is a small navy based on the Whampoa model. Just like the Whampoa Military Academy usually attends classes, but can fight when it is drawn out, the Dianlei Department also integrates the army and the school, and has a resounding title: the Whampoa Military Academy of the Navy. From the perspective of Chen Shaokuan's Fujian Central Navy, these people from the Dianlei Department are really scumbags. They don't even have a serious big ship, and they only play with small things like mines and torpedoes. What makes them even more unacceptable is that the students taught by this school are simply a bunch of Lower Liba people who don't even know the basic etiquette of the navy. So what does Dianlei School practice? Simple, Whampoa spirit! The Whampoa spirit that Dianlei usually understands is holding Lei, shouting in his mouth, charge, and then rushing forward regardless of his life. Listen to the names they gave to the torpedo boat squadron. There are four squadrons in total, named after four heroes: Wen Tianxiang, Shi Kefa, Yue Fei, and Yan Gaoqing. It's no wonder that the "British gentlemen" of the Fujian family shrugged helplessly: Do you think this is on land?What a fool. But the fools in the world are often stubborn, and stubborn people are often better. Just when the "gentlemen" could only rattle and chisel the ship, the Lightning Thunder set up anti-aircraft machine guns and shot down a bomber of the Kisarazu Air Force. This is the first Japanese plane laid down by the Navy, but it has nothing to do with the Central Navy. In addition, the Dianlei Department also sent two camouflaged torpedo boats to attack the "Izumo" at night—that is, the fake sister substitute that Chennault said. Although the fake "Izumo" was not sunk, this is the first time that the Chinese navy has actively attacked a Japanese ship.This move is enough to compare the "gentlemen". There are no ships in the Dianlei system, but if there are ships, at least the Japanese will not be allowed to do whatever they want on the coastline, right? Of course, Chen Shaokuan also had his own ideas. His wishful thinking was that when the Japanese fleet attacked him, the two sides would fight ship to ship, gun to gun, and have a gentlemanly duel. It's a pity that people's brains turn much faster than the minister. Since you are all squeezed into a small corner, why do you still need ship battles? Airplane bombs can reimburse you. As a result, the Central Navy became a deadly target in other air strikes. Chen Shaokuan's main fleet was finally wiped out, and the only naval battle in the War of Resistance ended right after it started. Its failure did not make us feel any better than the Sino-Japanese War.After all, in that naval battle that humiliated the Chinese people, many Japanese ships were sunk and damaged by counterattacks, but this time there were none. Facts have proved that the usual self-styled and self-important yamen-style military philosophy has indeed greatly imprisoned the minds of "British gentlemen" such as Chen Shaokuan, making the dignified Central Navy no longer know how to fight. Jin army. Of the three major military branches in China, only this one had the lowest threshold, and Matsui stepped over it without even lifting his feet.