Chapter 157 Baldhead: You Can Also Micro-Manage the Battlefield?

In the First Army's combat meeting room, Shinozuka Yoshio, a military scholar, wielded the samurai sword bestowed by the emperor frantically.

Even though the quality of the general's sword was quite good, after his chopping, an imperceptible crack still appeared on the blade.

The staff officers did not dare to breathe, and everyone bowed their heads and pretended to be dead. They could only glance at their own general's excellent swordsmanship from time to time, silently waiting for everything to end.

After chopping for a full two minutes, the 56-year-old Shinozuka Yoshio was finally defeated by his own physical strength. The old devil put the samurai sword back into the scabbard while panting.

Although he barely vented his anger, he was still very angry when he thought of Katayama Shotaro.

"What a useless waste, he didn't die earlier or later, but he died at this time. How could the Army University produce such a talent like him?"

Unlike Mizuhara Yoshishige, although it was a pity that a major general from a younger country died, the impact on the First Army was not particularly large. After all, the 8th Independent Mixed Brigade was directly under the North China Front Army.

Even if there is one less brigade commander, there will definitely be someone to fill the position in the future.

Moreover, Hebei Province does not need him to be responsible, and the First Army can only provide auxiliary defense when necessary.

But the death of Katayama Shotaro is different. There are only four independent mixed brigades under Shinozuka Yoshio. The loss of a major general at such a critical moment is completely worse.

But it is useless to complain now. The top priority now is to come up with a plan to rescue.

Everyone present is a senior official of the First Army. Maybe some of them are not good at actual combat, but their strategic vision is definitely good.

Everyone knows that it is no longer a question of whether Lion's Head Mountain can be taken. If effective measures are not taken, Yangquan will probably be occupied by the Eighth Route Army.

Shinozuka Yoshio looked at the trembling staff helplessly. He took two deep breaths and asked a key question to Hideyoshi Kusunoyama beside him.

"Kusanshan, which unit of the Eighth Route Army is the enemy on Lion's Head Mountain? Find out how many people there are?"

Although the Eighth Route Army caught them off guard, the intelligence department of Xiaoshi was not all useless. Kusunokichi pulled out a piece of paper from a pile of documents and began to report.

"It is the 358th Brigade of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army. The intelligence has been verified. As for the number of people, it is not clear yet. We need to contact the 4th Independent Mixed Brigade for this."

It seems that because of guilty conscience, Kusunokichi's head was almost buried in the ground. However, this answer was really outrageous and almost made Shinozuka Yoshio have a cerebral hemorrhage.

The two sides have been fighting for nearly twelve hours, but they only got the enemy's number, and they didn't even know the specific strength of the enemy.

The main reason is that there are not many cards in hand now. Shinozuka Yoshio doesn't even know how many reinforcements he should send.

If this kind of thing happened in the past, this old devil would definitely let those useless intelligence agents go to military court.

Fortunately, there was a person who participated in the battle at the scene, and Asakawa Masaharu was very perceptive. He seized the opportunity to show off, and under the complicated gazes of the crowd, he said:

"Your Excellency, the main force of the 385th Brigade should be on Lion's Head Mountain. Although I can't observe carefully due to the field of vision, I am sure that they are no less than 6,000."

"And when the flying squadron launched the third attack, an enemy reinforcement force joined the 385th Brigade."

After hearing this detailed information, Shinozuka Yoshio took a deep breath to calm his anger. He didn't expect that a small major would bring him a lot of surprises.

But what followed was a deep sense of powerlessness. The number of enemies was too large. Under the current situation, it was impossible to gather enough support troops in a short time.

This old devil never expected that the development speed of the Eighth Route Army could be so fast.

But now is not the time to play badly. Shinozuka Yoshio pulled off his black round-frame glasses. This action seemed to release some seal, and he exuded an amazing murderous aura.

"Send a telegram to the 4th Independent Mixed Brigade, and let Chief of Staff Katsuto Kodera be responsible for the defense of Yangquan County! Even if everyone dies, you must use the bodies to defend Yangquan for me."

"No matter what method he uses, even if he drives civilians to the battlefield, he must hold on until the reinforcements arrive!"

After mentioning the reinforcements, Shinozuka Yoshio suddenly thought of his new favorite general. Compared with Yamamoto Ikki, Asakawa Masaru is obviously a pragmatic person, and he will not think about the decapitation plan every day.

The old man squeezed out a smile and ordered the major:

"Your 29th Independent Flying Squadron will set off immediately! You will have to work hard in the next few days! Do your best to stop the Eighth Route Army and prevent them from attacking the city!"

"Remember! Save your strength! Without the cooperation of ground troops, come back after dropping the bombs!"

"After this battle, I will personally report to Mr. Tada Shun and find a good position for you."

"Hi!"

Everyone present nodded in unison, and returned to their posts regardless of whether they had a task at hand.

Kusunoshi Hideyoshi was responsible for contacting the troops stationed in Mongolia. Apart from his own commander, he was the only one who had the qualification. After all, the other party was the last hope of the First Army, so he must be served carefully.

Asakawa Masaharu returned to the airport at a rapid speed. The major of the Army Aviation had a strong premonition that the day of his promotion and wealth was coming!

Although the current military rank promotion system is also open to ordinary soldiers, most of the military ranks are still occupied by military academy graduates. This is actually something everyone knows.

For someone like him who changed his career halfway, it was not easy to be promoted to Major. Now his boss told him directly that if he didn't fight now, when would he wait?

But reality soon gave him a big fight.

After returning to the airport, Asakawa Masaharu found that both the ground crew and the pilots were standing in the preparation area in a daze.

This scene made him very angry. According to the original plan, the entire flight team should have been on the plane and ready to go at any time.

So the little Japanese came to the team members aggressively and asked:

"What are you bastards doing! Are you gathering here to strike? Didn't I say that the fourth round of attack would be launched immediately?"

Faced with three soul-searching questions, the leader of the ground crew stood up helplessly. He pointed to the empty oil storage area and said:

"Major, we have no aviation oil anymore. The previous three attacks have emptied all the reserves."

"Originally, the next batch of supplies should have been delivered early this morning, but I don't know why there is no news yet."

After hearing this, Asakawa Masaharu was like being poured with a basin of cold water. After being stunned for a while, the little Japanese soldier immediately rode on his three-wheeled motorcycle and turned around to run towards the headquarters.

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Yangquan, the headquarters of the 4th Independent Mixed Brigade.

At this time, Chief of Staff Katsuto Kodera was sitting in the command room with his head down. There were large patches of blood that had not yet dried on his body. Some parts seemed to have pieces of meat hanging on them, and there was a wound wrapped in a bandage on his left cheek.

Because he did not ride in the same car with Katayama Shotaro, the Japanese soldier was lucky to save his life.

However, the landing point of the second shell was not far from the jeep he was riding in. The air wave and shock wave affected the vehicle, and the wound on his face was also left at that time.

After losing his own brigade commander, Katsuto Kodera became extremely uncomfortable. The current complicated situation is not something that a colonel can handle.

Although Katayama Shotaro is a bit stubborn and even stubborn like Halsey at times, he is generally a responsible soldier.

Without him, the morale of the Fourth Independent Mixed Brigade was almost at the bottom.

With only the few soldiers left in the county, even with the military police and puppet troops, he didn't know how to stop the attack of the Eighth Route Army.

Kodera Katsuto also read the telegram just sent from Taiyuan. He could only say that he was well-mannered because he didn't curse. Except for letting him serve as the commander, the rest was no different from taking off pants and farting.

This devil knew that he could only save himself now, so he put into play what he had learned all his life.

The first arrangement was to use the city walls and sufficient ammunition to deal with the enemy. Not to cause any casualties, but to delay the enemy's attack.

If the Eighth Route Army had no way to break through the city walls and gates, then use this advantage to try to hold on until reinforcements arrived.

Kodera Katsuto had only one sentence in his mind, delay! Just delay! I know it's waiting to die, but I just want to delay!

Of course, he also made the worst plan, which was to use the county to fight street battles. After all, no one knew whether the enemy had any hidden cards.

However, considering the mass base of the Eighth Route Army, this tactic would not last long.

Suddenly! When Kodera Katsuto was still thinking hard, a stuttering traitor rushed in from outside the house.

"Mr. Taitai! The Eighth Route Army is here! Not only are there machine guns! There are also mortars! Go and have a look!"

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The 385th Brigade and the New 2nd Regiment were very decisive. An hour after the third wave of air strikes, they immediately launched an attack on Yangquan County.

The reason for being so anxious was mainly because they did not want to give the 4th Independent Mixed Brigade a chance to breathe, and also to capture the county before the enemy planes returned.

After all, the road from Lion Head Mountain to Yangquan is a large plain of four kilometers. If the enemy planes happened to attack during the siege, the soldiers would have no place to hide.

As for tactics, there was no need at all.

In addition to the need for each regiment to assign a company to Brigade Commander Chen, this mission did not involve feints but only main attacks.

Just after counting the three regiments, there are now at most 500 enemies in Yangquan, and that's even counting the puppet army. More than 6,000 people besieging a county town is already a double crush in terms of quality and quantity.

If it weren't for the fact that the devils might attack the civilians in the city in a situation where they were doomed to die, Brigade Commander Chen would not even bother to use the trick of besieging three gates and leaving one.

At the agreed time, the general attack began.

The New Second Regiment, the 769th Regiment and the 14th Regiment rushed to the locations of the three city gates respectively.

Brigade Commander Chen led more than 600 people to ambush at the east gate of Yangquan. There was a mountain road leading to the stone gate, which was the "lifeway" left by the 385th Brigade for the devils.

The first to launch the attack was the artillery.

The empty son Wang Chengzhu led his artillery group and fired a grenade directly at the city wall with the Type 92 infantry gun, but the effect of this artillery attack can only be said to be somewhat average.

As a barreled gun, the Type 92 has a good destructive effect on general civil engineering and masonry fortifications.

However, the initial velocity of the shells was only 198 meters per second, resulting in insufficient penetration. For the city wall with an average thickness of 6 meters, it was completely a tickle.

Considering that the Japanese planes could appear at any time, once the artillery positions were targeted, it would be a loss, so Captain Li changed his tactics.

Unfortunately, Lao Li didn't know that the Japanese aviation had all been grounded due to lack of oil.

Since Yangquan is an important town for the Japanese, a large number of fortifications such as bunkers and artillery towers were built here, and even some trenches were dug on the basis of the moat.

Now the Fourth Independent Mixed Brigade is seriously short of troops, and the fortifications they built outside the city have been used as wedding clothes for the New Second Regiment. The soldiers advanced here with almost no cost under the sparse firepower.

Captain Li did not stay in the command post honestly at this time. He had to argue with Zhao Gang for a long time before he got the opportunity to follow the command of the troops.

However, in order to prevent someone from taking the lead in the charge, the worried political commissar gave a death order to the two guards. Once someone did not abide by the agreement, he would be knocked out and brought back.

Behind a gun tower, Li Yunlong leaned on the bunker and held a telescope to observe the wall of Yangquan. According to the data provided by the headquarters, the wall is 12 meters high, 5-6 meters wide at the top, and 6-7 meters wide at the bottom.

The thickness is greater than the height, which can basically be regarded as stable as a mountain.

Moreover, the materials used are very solid. They are made of loess rammed in layers, and the bottom layer is rammed with soil, lime and glutinous rice juice. Even the inner and outer walls and the top of the entire city wall were built with blue bricks by the ancients.

The intact and neat battlements on it show the tactical characteristics of the cold weapon era.

If you want to break the city wall, you must use explosives to blast it multiple times at one point.

Although the current situation seems difficult, it is all within Li Yunlong's expectations. He even made several versions of the plan on the way to Lion Head Mountain, and there is a tactic that is very suitable for the current situation.

After the three battalion commanders came to their side, the four of them conducted a detailed reconnaissance of the firepower points of the city wall. They carefully recorded each shooting port and drew a detailed location map.

Next is the time for Captain Li to show off.

"There are twelve firing holes on the front wall. We must blockade the firepower and cover the demolition team to approach the wall."

"After you go back, gather the machine gunners in your battalions. Each firing hole must be manned by at least five machine guns. Remember to equip our precision shooters. There are enough bullets!"

"If a bullet is fired from a firing hole on the wall, it will be the responsibility of the shooter who suppressed it. If the infantry does not charge in time after suppressing it, it will be considered desertion."

After explaining the tactics, Li Yunlong stood up domineeringly. He looked to the southwest, as if there was a bald man confronting him in front.

Bald man, watch me.

It's the same battlefield micro-management. Your machine gun can't move five meters to the left.

Here it comes! Please read it!