Tiger Troops: The 74th Army of the Kuomintang Anti-Japanese Ace

Chapter 23 Death's Paradise (Battle of Changsha, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Western Hubei) (2)
Wang Yaowu didn't know that the No.20 Sixth Army had been defeated by the Japanese army, and he was too busy to take care of himself, so he couldn't cover the 74th Army at all. He didn't even know that Xue Yue's telegram ordering the 74th Army to go to Huanghua Town fell into the hands of the Japanese army , Anan has ordered the Sixth Division of the Japanese Army to prepare to attack the 74th Army.

The first encounter with the 74th Army was not the Sixth Division of the Japanese Army, but the Third Division.The [-]rd Division of the Japanese Army is also a veteran elite division. It was the most popular in this battle in northern Hunan. It has hardly encountered any strong opponents along the way. Anan praised the division as a unit that has made first-class contributions.

The 74rd Division of the Japanese Army had never been tasked with fighting the 74th Army. It was originally going to go straight to Changsha through Chunhua Mountain. The [-]th Army was impartial and broke into its search range.

At 9 a.m. on September 26, when the Ikebe Brigade of the Hanagu advance team (organized by the brigade) of the Japanese Third Division arrived near Chunhua Mountain, it was suddenly shot by bullets from an unknown direction ahead.Due to the hilly land covered by the small pine forest in front, the observation field of vision is not clear, the captain of the battalion, Lieutenant Ikebe Shi, deduced that they might have encountered some of the defeated Chinese remnants, so he immediately ordered the vanguard squadron to attack.

It was only when they fought that something was wrong. The Chinese army on the hill was not only unexpectedly tenacious, but also fierce in firepower. They could even use heavy machine guns for continuous shooting, and the vanguard squadron could not advance at all.

It was the 57th Division that met and exchanged fire with the Chibian brigade unexpectedly. At that time, they had just entered Chunhua Mountain. Knowing that there is a large army ambushing on the mountain, I dare not go up the mountain to search.

Only then did Chi Bian wake up like a dream, knowing that he had encountered the main force of the Chinese army, he really didn't dare to fight, and took advantage of the fact that the defenders had not yet fully deployed, he detoured west.

Naturally, the main force of the Huagu advance team that came later would not retreat so easily. On the east side of Chunhua Mountain, the two armies launched a fierce offensive and defensive battle. The 57th Division was condescending, and the light and heavy machine guns gradually became denser, and the concentrated firepower swept across the Japanese army who was attacking upwards.

If the quantitative comparison is ignored, the Czech-style light machine guns and the 74-type heavy machine guns originally equipped by the [-]th Army surpassed the same type of weapons of the Japanese army in terms of performance.The Soviet-style light machine guns that were added later, from the Maxim-Tokarev light machine gun imitating Maxim, to the turntable machine gun familiar to the Chinese (the official name is the Jeggarev light machine gun), have also been proved to be more powerful in actual combat. Overshadowed the "crooked handle" light machine gun used by the Japanese army.Such a combination of light and heavy machine gun firepower is still very effective in suppressing the frontal enemy. The Zhongchuan Battalion used artillery as a cover to organize several squadrons to attack side by side, and it was difficult to attack for a while.

The only chance is to wait for the machine gun to reload.Taking advantage of this gap, the Wannian Squadron hurled grenades, and Fang charged up and occupied the 3 highland at 25:[-] p.m.

After the fall of the 57 highland, the [-]th Division concentrated fire on the highland with side firepower. At the same time, the death squads also held Czech light machine guns and launched a counterattack against the Japanese army on the highland.

The Zhongchuan Brigade hurriedly used the machine gun squadron to stop it.The overall shape of the Japanese Type 74 heavy machine gun resembles a cockfighting cock, and the sound of the gun sounds like a chicken crowing, so the Chinese call this machine gun "chicken neck". The "chicken neck" uses [-] rounds of ammunition to feed the ammunition, the rate of fire is relatively low, and the continuous shooting ability is far inferior to the Type [-] heavy machine guns that use the belt to feed the ammunition.If you are singled out, the "chicken neck" heavy machine gun will not have the upper hand. Its advantage is mainly due to its large number. Each brigade (equivalent to a reinforced battalion) of the Japanese army will be equipped with a machine gun squadron with twelve heavy machine guns. In this way, among the most elite first-class troops in China, there are only six heavy machine guns in the machine gun company set up in each battalion, which is less than half.

The Type [-] heavy machine gun screamed "clack-cluck" for a long time, repelling more than ten charges initiated by the Chinese side, but in just half a day, the machine gun bullets were actually gone.In desperation, the Japanese army had no choice but to use the best hand-to-hand charge to hold the high ground.

inseparable
At [-] o'clock in the afternoon, the Sixth Regiment of the Japanese Third Division arrived at the west side of Chunhua Mountain.The vanguard squadron sent by the regiment searched and found no trace of the Chinese army, so they reported to the regiment leader: "The enemy has retreated and there is no trace, so continue to advance."

Captain Shigenobu Yoshizuo knew that the advance team of Huagu was fighting on the east side of the mountain. He didn't believe that there would be no Chinese soldiers on the west side, so he carefully observed it with the artillery mirror.

Artillery mirror, also known as scissor mirror, is different from ordinary telescopes. It was originally a binocular periscope used by artillery to determine coordinates, and later also used for infantry search. Its observation distance and field of view are relatively large.Through the artillery mirror, Shigenobu saw the head of a Chinese soldier, and immediately concluded that the highlands on the west side of Chunhua Mountain were also defended by Chinese troops.

The Kato Brigade was ordered to attack the high ground, and soon learned the characteristics of the "Huben Master" who is good at defending.Although the 57th Division has not established a foothold in Chunhua Mountain for a long time, they have already built a fairly solid position in the highland pine forest, and their firepower combination and performance are as brilliant as ever.It was only half an hour after Kato's brigade launched the attack, and there were already casualties. During this period, they once entered the end of the highland. Seeing this, the 57th Division took the lead in charging with officers and drove the Japanese troops down.

The Kato Battalion then joined the reserve team and cut in from the right end of the counter-offensive force. With the commanding squadron leader Shimojima killed in action, after three repeated charges, they captured the high ground at [-]:[-] pm.

So far, Chunhua Mountain has been completely occupied by the Japanese army. Yu Chengwan, the commander of the 57th Division, immediately ordered to occupy Swan Mountain and confront the Japanese army.

When the 57th Division fought fiercely in Chunhua Mountain in the afternoon, the 58th Division marching towards Yong'an Town also encountered trouble.As the vanguard, the 58rd Regiment of the 18th Division originally thought that there would be friendly troops stationed on the south bank of the Laodao River, but they did not expect that there was no one there, so they had to temporarily guard the bridge. The Moriwaki brigade of the Japanese army rushed straight along the bridge.

Only a few leading troops of the [-]rd Regiment entered Yong'an and the bridge, and they had just had time to plant a regiment flag at the head of the bridge. Caught off guard, not only the bridge fell, but the regiment flag was also taken away by the Japanese army.

Seeing that the situation was urgent, the follow-up troops of the 58th Division launched a fierce counterattack, cutting off the Moriwaki Brigade and the headquarters of the Japanese Third Division following the advance.

Just as the fight was inextricably linked, the Tsuchiya Battalion arrived, and the Japanese army's strength was strengthened, and the division headquarters was able to get out of the crisis.At this time, although the fronts between the enemy and ourselves were extremely intricate, Lieutenant General Toyoshima Futaro, the commander of the division, integrated all kinds of information, and still made the conclusion that the Chinese army that appeared in front of him was the main force of the 74th Army.

Toyoshima saw that the defensive posture of the 74th Army was not yet complete, and it was the best time to take advantage of the danger, so he ordered all ministries to "destroy" the 74th Army.

After nightfall, the Huagu advance team first launched an attack on Swan Mountain. The two sides fought fiercely all night, but in front of the "Hu Ben Division", the Japanese army did not take advantage of it, and had to retreat in the early morning of the next day. The 57th Division took advantage of the momentum to launch a counterattack and reoccupied Chunhua Mountain.

At 18 o'clock in the evening, the No.58 Wing of the Japanese Army (including the Mori Waki ​​Brigade and the Tsuchiya Brigade) entered Yong'an, and then continued to carry out a surprise attack on the 58th Division. The [-]th Division relied on the No. [-] Highland, one kilometer south of Yong'an, to hold on tenaciously, and the battle was fierce.

At two o'clock in the middle of the night, under the command of division commander Liao Lingqi, the 58th Division suddenly turned into a counterattack.In an instant, the sound of machine guns, grenades, and bugles pierced the sky and shook the earth, and the officers and soldiers rushed towards the Japanese army like a mountain.

The explosion of grenades and the cold light of white blades, the clanging of guns and the screams of the assassinated before death made this night a paradise for the god of death. The 58th Division launched three counterattacks in a row. Two squadron leaders of the Moriwaki Brigade were killed, and the Japanese offensive was frustrated.

The attack of the main force of the Japanese army is usually carried out in a dense formation within a short distance. Once it is stopped halfway, it will try to keep it as silent as possible and never act rashly.The Chinese army also recognized this tactical feature of the Japanese army, saying that it conforms to the "Sun Tzu's Art of War": "A good defender hides under the nine heavens, and a good attacker moves above the nine heavens."

But now is not the time to be in the middle of the law.The Japanese army broke the routine. Major Moriwaki Tsuneichi personally commanded a small team to join the assault team, braving the rain of mortars and grenades from the 58th Division, and rushed to the high ground desperately.Under the desperate impact of the Japanese army, 58 Highland finally fell.Afterwards, although the [-]th Division launched counterattacks many times, none of them were effective.

Afterwards, with the support of the mountain artillery, the Tuwu Brigade charged at another highland guarded by the 58th Division—the northern platform of No. 58 Highland, and immediately occupied it. The [-]th Division fought back, throwing grenades that fell like raindrops on the north platform. The Seventh Squadron, the backbone of the Tsuchiya Brigade, suffered more than [-] casualties.

The fierce battle that night was basically evenly divided, and no one was able to completely overwhelm the other. However, it is an unavoidable fact that the Japanese Third Division suffered heavy losses. In the No.18 regiment alone, eight squadron leaders were killed in battle, and the brigade and regiment suffered casualties. Up to more than [-] people, most of the officers and soldiers were lost in the battle of Yong'an.

Knowing that the Third Division lost a lot, Anan "deeply sympathized".Under such circumstances, the 74rd Division of the Japanese Army was still struggling to apply to defeat the [-]th Army before pursuing Zhuzhou, but Anan graciously rejected it.

On the other hand, Anan was "extremely euphoric" when the 74th Army appeared in his encirclement like a trap. He wrote in his diary that day: "The No.70 Fourth Army finally entered Yong'an City (that is, Yong'an Township) ) nearby, the opportunity to defeat the enemy has arrived.”

After studying the battle reports of the Third Division, Anan, Kinoshita and their combat staff realized more deeply that although there are many Chinese troops on the Xiangbei battlefield, and some troops have strong fighting spirit, they can play a role in fighting spirit and combat effectiveness. The backbone role is still the 74th Army.Now that we have grasped the exact location of this army, the most urgent thing is to eat it in one bite. Other Zhuzhou, Pingjiang, and even Changsha can be put aside for the time being.

According to the opinions of the staff officers, Anan decided to concentrate the main forces on the battlefield to implement a large-scale encirclement and annihilation campaign.He let the third division of the Japanese army continue to maintain combat contact with the 74th army. The Seventh Army and the No.74 Sixth Army were restrained so that they could not reinforce Chunhua Mountain.

a big gap
The Sixth Division of the Japanese Army had only heard of the 74th Army by name before, and the two sides had never fought face to face. At dawn on September 9, the Songcun Battalion of the avant-garde troops arrived at the bank of the Laodao River. What surprised them was that the Chinese soldiers were already very close to them, but for some reason they never fired a single shot.

The Songcun Brigade sent three infantry squadrons to approach Chunhua Mountain at 1000 meters, 300 meters, and 200 meters. The 57th Division, which had been silent all the time, suddenly broke out and began to shoot intensively with machine guns.The direction of the bullets was very tricky, most of them were oblique and side shots, and there were very few shots from the front. There were many corpses left by the Japanese army in front of the position. Only then did the Songcun Battalion feel that they had indeed encountered a strong enemy.

The weather was good that day, allowing the Japanese army to invest a large amount of aviation troops to cooperate with the Sixth Division and the Third Division to attack the 74th Army, and the battle situation deteriorated rapidly.

At noon of the battle, Wang Yaowu, who commanded the battle in Huanghua Town, discovered a flaw in the Japanese defense line, so he ordered Li Hanqing, the infantry commander of the 57th Division, to lead a field repair regiment to detour to the north of Chunhua Mountain and flank the east to support the 57th Division.

Li Hanqing was ordered to launch a fierce attack on the flank of the Japanese Sixth Division, which disrupted the Japanese army's position at once, but unexpectedly, a group of Japanese reinforcements also rushed to the battlefield at this time, and surrounded the wild men's regiment from behind.

Li Hanqing knew that the battle had reached a critical moment, and if the Japanese reinforcements were not repulsed, not only would the field repair regiment itself be lost, but the position of the 57th Division would also be breached by the enemy.

Under normal circumstances, the Chinese army will use firepower to block the Japanese army at a certain distance when defending, in order to limit the advantage of the Japanese soldiers in the chopping technique. , but the wild patch group has neither enough firepower nor enough numbers, they have no choice but to fight.

Li Hanqing jumped out of the fortifications and shouted loudly: "Brothers, the victory or defeat of the overall situation depends on one action. We can only serve the country with our lives. If you are not afraid of death, follow me!"

Li Hanqing took the bayonet and rushed to the enemy line first. Inspired by his spirit, the soldiers jumped out of the fortifications to fight the Japanese army one after another.In this bloody hand-to-hand combat, Li Hanqing died for the country, and more than a thousand subordinates who fought with him also spilled blood on the battlefield. The scene was extremely tragic and tragic.

After Li Hanqing led his troops to launch a decisive attack, the Japanese army sent a part of the Fourth Division to attack the left flank of the 57th Division, which was equivalent to using two divisions to attack the 57th Division at the same time, but it was precisely because Li Hanqing's troops disrupted the formation of the Japanese Sixth Division. shape, thereby reducing the defensive pressure of the 57th Division.Yu Chengwan readjusted his defensive deployment and withstood the ferocious Japanese offensive at the cost of 3000 casualties that day.

At this time, the Eighth Division couldn't support it anymore. Under the attack of the Japanese Third Division and a part of the Sixth Division, the two regiments participating in the front-line operations suffered more than half of the casualties of the company platoon leader alone, and their strength was severely damaged. greatly weakened.Then, the department was divided and surrounded, commanders at all levels lost control of the troops, and within a few hours of melee, the entire division collapsed.

It was originally two swords, but now one was broken. Wang Yaowu had to throw out the last card and ordered the first division as a reserve team to reinforce Chunhua Mountain and help the regiment directly under the army to contain the remnants of the 58th Division.

When the news that the 74th Army was unfavorable and that the 58th Division had collapsed reached the Chinese command center, not only Xue Yue felt overwhelmed, but even Chiang Kai-shek was shocked, because Chiang Kai-shek had long regarded the 74th Army as the most effective force in China, and never imagined This ace team will face such difficulties.

In order to preserve the 74th Army, Xue Yue had to accept the reality that Changsha might fall.At five o'clock in the afternoon, he issued an order to Wang Yaowu: the whole army retreated to the north of Liuyang River.

With the three divisions already entangled with the Japanese army, it doesn't mean that they can withdraw immediately, at least they have to block the opponent's offensive first. After the 51st Division pushed forward, each regiment occupied key points to block the Japanese army's offensive momentum.In the evening of the same day, the defensive position of the 51st Division was attacked again by the enemy. Division commander Li Tianxia saw that the Japanese army's attack was mainly concentrated on a narrow area that was not wide, so she guessed that the Japanese army wanted to break through a little bit first, and then extend to the whole.In order to prevent the position from being breached, he decided to close the defense line and concentrate the troops from the two sides to the middle.

The 51th Division adjacent to the 57st Division is also shrinking its defenses due to heavy casualties.An old saying goes well: "Disasters often arise from the unexpected, but chaos often arises from the unsuspecting." The two divisions that were still fighting in the same way contracted in unison, forming a large gap at the junction. There is a gap, and it is this gap that brought a catastrophe to the 74th Army.

Under normal circumstances, the Japanese army does not have the habit of fighting or attacking at night, but if they have an opportunity, they will never let it go.At 51 o'clock in the evening, the two regiments of the 57th Division of the Japanese Army used the night as a cover to infiltrate from the junction of the 51st Division and the [-]th Division. They quickly broke through the position of the [-]st Division and divided their interception into several sections.The charge horn of the Japanese army sounded from every hilltop, and the sound of machine rifles was heard endlessly. The divisions, regiments, and battalions lost contact and could only fight on their own.

Li Tianxia ran southward to a private house behind a hill. While he sent the special agent company of the division headquarters to occupy the hill to resist, he asked the communication company to quickly find the various regiments to connect with each other.The communication company searched and found only the heads of two regiments, and the two heads of the two regiments only controlled one battalion.

(End of this chapter)