The Iron-Blooded Army of Beacon Fire

Chapter 129 The Mighty General Hao

After Shinohara Seiichiro's large-scale troop increase, the situation on the battlefield actually entered a very strange state. The three infantry divisions of the No. 14 Army were fighting against the Shinohara Corps. On the Western Front In the mountainous area, the No. 80 Third Division and No. 80 Fifth Division of the Fourteenth Army were fighting each other with the Shinohara Corps' Infantry No. 30 Regiment. An infantry regiment contained a Chinese army that was four times its own size.

In the plains, the No. 14 Army was only equipped with the [-]th Division, but the Japanese army concentrated on an infantry regiment, two detachments that strengthened the infantry brigade level, a cavalry regiment, an engineer regiment, a tank brigade, and a The total strength of the mountain artillery squadron, a light howitzer squadron, and a siege cannon squadron can be said to be strong.

The troop allocation situation of both sides presents a very strange upside-down state. Among the defensive positions along the entire line, the one with the greatest pressure is the Chinese army in Yanzhuang. Yanzhuang is like a nail, free from the forces of the [-]th Division. Outside the main position, the Chinese army guarding here actually has less than half an infantry regiment.

Not counting the various special forces assigned to both sides, the Yanzhuang defenders only have one and a half infantry battalions in terms of infantry. The Japanese army has five infantry brigades. The Japanese army has almost five times as many infantrymen as the national army. , a decisive battle that truly breaks the situation is coming.

Just when the Japanese army was dispatching troops, He Wei was sitting in the command post irritably. In the early morning annihilation battle, there was no doubt that the sixth company completely wiped out the invading Japanese infantry squadron, and it was a true victory. An entire Japanese infantry squadron was wiped out, not a single person was left alive, the sixth company did not capture a single prisoner, and the Japanese squadron leader Asai Kensei's head was missing.

At the last moment of the battle, the three platoon leaders He Wei, Hu Zhaowu and Fang Jing fought with Chaojing Xianzhang, staged a three-hero battle against Lu Bu. In the end, Chaojing Xianzhang was still unable to defeat three enemies one by one, and was defeated by Hu Zhaowu one after another. He Wei was stabbed by Fang Jing's bayonet, and He Wei seized the opportunity and chopped off Asakai Xianzhang's neck, and used the captured Japanese corporal sergeant's command knife to chop off Asai Xianzhang's head.

The complete annihilation of a Japanese squadron and the killing of the Japanese squadron leader seemed to be a very good result. However, when the battle damage statistics were calculated, He Wei was quite depressed and even regretted whether he should have spent so much time organizing this battle. .

Although a squadron of the Japanese army was killed, the sixth company suffered a lot of casualties because the battle relied on hand-to-hand combat. He Wei's first platoon was not bad, because He Wei had adjusted through pre-battle assault training and reorganization before the war. Various tactical methods improved the overall assassination skills, so the casualties in one platoon were not large, with a total of 11 dead and wounded in the entire platoon.

The second and third rows are much more miserable. Although the morale of the brothers in the second and third rows is high and they are not afraid of death, after all, their stabbing skills are far inferior to those of the Japanese army. Some things cannot be exchanged for courage, so this The two platoons each suffered more than 20 casualties, and the entire company suffered nearly 60 casualties, with more than half of the second and third platoons suffering casualties.

When the clerical sergeant handed the statistical schedule to He Wei, He Wei couldn't help but feel heartbroken. The result of annihilating a squadron with nearly 60 casualties seemed to be a very cost-effective deal, but He Wei was unmoved. After all, the battles he organized before had achieved very high results with very few casualties. After doing this, his sixth company also became a lame company.

When He Wei reported the situation to Chen Zhen, Chen Zhen was very happy. When he heard that He Wei had killed another Japanese infantry squadron, Chen Zhen was overjoyed. When he learned of the casualties of the Sixth Company, Chen Zhen called He continued to persuade He Wei, saying that with the loss of 60 people, it was very worthwhile to kill a squadron of Japanese troops in close combat within the position, and Chen Zhen had to personally take the final weapon in his hands. A platoon of reserve personnel came to the Sixth Company's position He Wei to replenish a batch of ammunition, and this platoon of people had to be replenished to the Sixth Company on the spot to make up for the shortfall caused by the Sixth Company's casualties in the annihilation battle.

The platoon of soldiers in Chen Zhen's hands are all the brothers left after the continuous reduction of the 300th and [-]th companies. If this group of soldiers is added to the [-]th company, this means that the [-]nd Battalion and the [-] infantrymen Two of the companies had all suffered casualties, and more than [-] brothers remained on this land forever.

War is so cruel.

"Sir, Tuan Chen is here."

While He Wei was still immersed in the irritability caused by the casualties, there was a commotion outside the command post. The quartermaster sergeant came in. Behind him, Chen Zhen also came, but his face was sad, and his emotions seemed to be completely gone from those on the phone. Heroic and impassioned, but a little sad and decadent, Chen Zhen walked into the command post, nodded to He Wei, then found an ammunition box and sat down, then took out a piece of paper from his arms and wrote it in front of He Wei's face tore it into pieces. He Wei looked over and saw that it was the document similar to a disclaimer that He Wei had written to Chen Zhen before.

"He Wei, just pretend you haven't written this before. Tear it up. Tear it up. I've brought you the extra ammunition and the platoon of soldiers. They're just outside. You can go back and take inventory."

Not understanding why Chen Zhen would suddenly feel so lost, He Wei asked cautiously: "Sir, what's going on? Is something going on in Zhuangzi?"

Chen Zhen shook his head: "It's not that something happened to me, it's something that happened to the central position of Xinkou. Something big happened."

"What? The position was lost?"

He Wei was startled and jumped up. Hearing Chen Zhen say something happened to the Xinkou Central Position, He Wei's first reaction was that the position had been captured by the Japanese. If the Xinkou Central Position was lost, That's basically not far from a complete collapse.

If this is the case, what He Wei is thinking about now is not to hold the position and fight to the death with the Japanese army, but to immediately pack up his things and prepare to retreat, and prepare to run away early, because once the central position is broken through, the Japanese army that breaks through the position will It can cooperate with the Japanese troops on both wings of the attack to outflank each other, and carry out a two-sided pincer attack on the defenders on the two flanks of Xinkou.

When the time comes, let alone defend the position and maintain the barrier of Taiyuan, the defenders on both wings will not even be able to protect themselves.

"It's not that the position was lost, it was the people who died. Hao Mengling, commander of the Ninth Army, was killed in action, and Liu Jiaqi, commander of the Fourth Division, was also killed."

He Wei looked at Chen Zhen in shock. He knew about Hao Mengling. Among other things, before he traveled through time, when He Wei was in elementary school, the school organized them to go to the cinema to watch movies during the National Day. At that time The movie they watched was an Anti-Japanese War movie called Taihang Mountains.

In the movie, He Wei knew the name Hao Mengling for the first time. Hao Mengling, played by Liu Dekai, a famous actor from Baodao, left a deep impression on He Wei. In the movie, Hao Mengling said the famous sentence " He Wei, who was young at the time, was so excited that he personally led his team to counterattack under the fierce firepower of the Japanese army, and finally died heroically. This was also the first time he learned about this man. A famous anti-Japanese general who died heroically on the anti-Japanese battlefield.

Later, He Wei traveled to Wuhan when he was in college and went to pay homage to General Hao Mengling's mausoleum. General Liu Jiaqi, commander of the Fourth Division who died with General Hao Mengling, was also buried here with General Hao Mengling.

Hao Mengling was born on February 1898, 2 in Zhuanghe Village, Gaocheng County, HEB Province.He only attended private school for three years before being sent by his father to be an apprentice in a grocery store. Later, because he could not bear the abuse by his boss, he defected to the Fengjun Wei Yi Sanbu to serve as a soldier.Wei Yisan saw that he was diligent and studious, so he was sent to the Army Officer Primary School and Baoding Officer School to study.From 18, he served as battalion commander and regimental commander in Wei Yi Sanbu. In 1921, he followed Wei Yisan to Feng Yuxiang's National Army and served as the commander of the No. 1926 Sixth Brigade of the Fourth Army.During the Northern Expedition, due to his bravery in combat, he was promoted to commander of the Second Division of the Fourth Army.After the capture of Zhengzhou, the army was reorganized and he served as the commander of the Fourth Division of the National Revolutionary Army.

After the Central Plains War in 1930, he concurrently served as the commander of the Zhengzhou garrison.Later he was promoted to deputy commander and commander of the Ninth Army.

In 1935, he was transferred to Guiyang, Dushan, Zunyi and other places, and led the Ninth Army to be responsible for the construction of Sichuan-Guizhou and Sichuan-Yunnan highways.

After the Sichuan-Guizhou Highway was opened to traffic, the Ninth Army assumed the responsibility of protecting and maintaining the highway.

In May 1937, he once again requested to be discharged and returned to the field.Still not approved, he was transferred to the general class of Sichuan Army University to study.

When the Marco Polo Bridge Incident broke out in July 1937, Hao Mengling was on his way to mainland Sichuan.After learning the news, he immediately returned to the army from Chongqing and asked to go north to fight against the Japanese. In this Xinkou battle, Hao Mengling was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Central Group and was responsible for guarding the central position of the Xinkou battlefield.

It turned out that Chen Zhen learned the news and story of Hao Mengling's death from the staff of the 54th Division who came to supply ammunition. Just today, Hao Mengling and Liu Jiaqi, commander of the Fourth Lu Division, went to the front line to personally command and deploy the attack on the [-] Highlands. During the counterattack, he also personally led the military headquarters and [-]th Division headquarters personnel to the front line to inspect the battle situation.

Unfortunately, Hao Mengling was shot by a Japanese machine gun during an inspection. He was shot twice in the waist and fell to the ground. By the time his subordinates rescued him and returned him to the 322nd Regiment Headquarters, he was seriously injured and died.

When Liu Jiaqi, commander of the 54th Division, was inspecting the frontline battle situation with Hao Mengling, commander of the 9th Army, he saw Hao Mengling fell to the ground after being shot. Upon seeing this, Liu hurriedly stepped forward and tried to pull Hao into the trench, but unfortunately he was hit three times in the throat and chest. He fell to the ground and died of serious injuries on the way to the military headquarters.

The two generals shed blood on the battlefield like this. Although Hao Mengling's sacrifice was not as heroic as what He Wei had seen in the movie in his previous life, it was still majestic.

He Wei has actually changed a lot of things since he traveled through time. For example, the Yanzhuang position under his feet. According to the normal historical process, this position was voluntarily abandoned by the national army after less than a day of fighting, but now it is firmly defended by him. , and continued to use it as a stronghold to inflict heavy losses on the Japanese army.

Many Japanese soldiers who were living well in the normal timeline were sent by He Wei to meet Amaterasu. He Wei also once thought that if he changed something, would there be any associated butterfly effect? Change the ending of this iron-blooded general?

Unfortunately, today's news of the general's death gives a negative answer to this question.

He Wei could only lament that his current level was too low and he could do too little. It seemed that if he wanted to do more things, he had to work hard to climb up first.

From Chen Zhen's account, He Wei also learned the reason why Hao Mengling went to the front line to organize a counterattack in person, and hearing this made He Wei feel more and more chilled in his heart.

It turned out that the day before, as many highlands in the northeast and southwest of Nan Huaihua were captured by the Japanese army, Hao Mengling personally formulated a counterattack plan against the Japanese army and dispatched the 54nd Brigade under the 21th Division, two brigades from the [-]st Li Xianzhou Division, and Jinsui. Four brigades of the army and two brigades of Fu Zuoyi's department counterattacked with nearly ten brigades.

However, the result of the counterattack was disastrous. Due to improper communication and low visibility in the dark night, the 54nd Regiment of the [-]th Division and the newly formed [-]th Brigade of the Shanxi-Sui Army, which were the first to attack, crowded into each other and stampeded on each other. As well as the tragic situation of killing each other and accidentally attacking each other, the counterattack queue was also discovered by the Japanese army.

The Japanese army concentrated light and heavy firepower and opened fire violently, severely injuring the Chinese troops who were attacking. The fierce fighting lasted all night, and the casualties of the entire Fourth Independent Brigade accounted for two-thirds. The other counterattack troops were also similar. They accidentally attacked each other in the dark night, and communication was poor. .

The friendly forces trampled on each other and attacked and killed each other. After fighting for a long time, many troops discovered that they were not fighting Japanese troops, but friendly troops. Even a major general and brigade commander was killed in the chaotic night attack. In short, the Chinese army was After paying extremely heavy casualties, almost no results were achieved.

Therefore, the next day, the anxious Hao Mengling had to go to the front line to deploy and inspect in person, and then something unexpected happened.

Listening to the failed counterattack of the Chinese army, He Wei had only one word in his mind: miserable, miserable, miserable, still miserable.

For a time, the command post of the Sixth Company was filled with a sad atmosphere. Chen Zhen didn't seem to want to continue to be so tragic. He told He Wei another piece of good news, that is, the artillery unit behind him had been strengthened again.

Under the command of Shi Hongxi, commander of the Fifth Artillery Regiment, the remaining members of the Second Battalion of the Fifth Artillery Regiment have arrived at the artillery position set up outside Yanzhuang. In other words, behind He Wei, there is already a complete Bo The Bofors Mountain Artillery Battalion, if you include the 88mm field artillery battalion of the Jinsui Army, is now behind the Sixth Company. There are a total of eight 75mm Bofors Mountain Artillery and twelve Jin-made Type 88 [-]mm field guns. , it can be said that this is not a weak artillery group.

As for the divisional artillery battalion from the 52nd Division of the [-]nd Army, it was directly controlled by the [-]th Division in the rear, serving as an artillery reserve and reserved for mobile use.

Hearing this good news, He Wei felt a little more at peace in his heart. If his guess was correct, the Japanese army on the opposite side probably didn't know the fact that there were a large number of artillery here. He had been keeping the artillery stationary and secretly hiding his backhand, just to Find an opportunity to give the Japanese a heavy blow. Now, with bad news coming one after another, the situation on the entire battlefield has taken a turn for the worse. He Wei only hopes that his trump card can be played when it is most useful.

(End of this chapter)