Chapter 1512 Codename ‘Black Snow’!

That night!

The Laoyashan Field Hospital of the 116th Division of the Japanese Army, located 10 kilometers south of Hengyang City, was attacked!

The 3rd Squadron of the 116th Division Headquarters, which was responsible for the defense of the field hospital, was forced to send a telegram to the division headquarters for help in the third minute after the battle began.

The firepower of the Chinese who sneaked into the area was too fierce. Not only were there a large number of submachine guns and light machine guns, but there were also 3 12.7mm heavy machine guns and a small number of mortars.

The simple fortifications built by the infantry squadron on the mountain could not withstand the continuous attack of such heavy weapons.

Yan Yongwang was shocked and angry, and immediately sent the 133rd Infantry Regiment, which was resting, to support.

Why send the already crippled 133rd Infantry Regiment? The main reason is naturally that the infantry regiment's station is closest to the field hospital, only less than 2 kilometers away. In addition, after 20 days, the 133rd Infantry Regiment, which only had hundreds of infantrymen left, has been replenished and has regained a complete infantry battalion and 3 infantry squadrons.

Not to mention that the 133rd Infantry Regiment, which has nearly 2,000 people, has come out in full force, even if an infantry battalion is sent, it can surround and kill this group of daring Chinese.

But after receiving the order, the commander of the 133rd Infantry Regiment, Colonel Ippei Kurose, who had a big fall at Huangcha Ridge, still decided to fight the rabbit with all his strength.

After the battle of Huangcha Ridge, Ippei Kurose had already used the lives of 3,000 imperial officers and soldiers to test the equipment and actual combat level of the Four Lines Regiment, and had long regarded the Four Lines Regiment as his lifelong enemy.

The possibility that this small group of Chinese troops sneaking out of the Chinese position in Hengyang was from the Four-Line Regiment was higher than 80%. If the troops were not enough, he would feel a little uneasy.

Moreover, the six infantry squadrons he personally led, plus a heavy machine gun squadron and an infantry artillery squadron, totaled 1,500 people, and the proportion of new recruits accounted for 70%.

It must be said that the so-called failure makes one wiser, and the Japanese Army Colonel was already a very wise person.

However, he still underestimated his opponent and was also pitted by his colleagues. The captain of the escort squadron who called the division headquarters for help did not explain his predicament too clearly because of the urgent time.

The Chinese did not just attack with fierce firepower, but before the attack, they had already used individual soldiers to infiltrate and assassinate his defense line in the dark. The entire escort squadron's defense line was already riddled with holes like a sieve before the Chinese used mortars and 12.7mm heavy machine guns to bombard it.

The fact is that after the Japanese army captain sent a panicked distress telegram, a team of five Chinese officers and soldiers had already rushed to the vicinity of his headquarters and threw two explosive grenades into the simple semi-underground bunker.

That was a 0.8 kg explosive grenade specially developed by the Taihang Army Factory, which was specifically used by infantry soldiers to blast armor and fixed targets. The 0.4 kg charge of "cyclone explosives" was enough to blow up a bunker.

Cao Yingchong, who was in charge of this position, did not use the regular field tactics to suppress the enemy with MG42 and 12.7 mm heavy machine guns, and then slowly approached with infantry. Instead, he used firepower to attract the Japanese, and used the individual soldiers to clear the loopholes in the Japanese defense line before the strong attack, and personally led the firepower team to go straight behind the Japanese defense line.

His bold advance this time brought huge benefits. The highest commander of the 116th Division Field Hospital was blown to pieces in this surprise attack, resulting in the complete loss of unified command for the remaining more than 100 Japanese infantrymen.

But what is more fatal is that neither Lieutenant General Iwanaga Wang, who was in charge of the division headquarters, nor Colonel Kurose Ippei, who was leading his soldiers to the field hospital, knew that the battle in the field hospital had already become one-sided.

Tang Dao did not just kill a small Japanese sniper and then launch this surprise attack on a whim.

In the bombing of the Japanese army a few days ago, not only did the field hospital led by Tan Tai Mingyue sacrifice 8 female nurses and 3 military doctors on the spot, but also 7 wounded soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the Four-Line Regiment, the Artillery Battalion, the Reconnaissance Company, and the Mountain Infantry Company, also died in that bombing.

In fact, Tang Dao usually abides by the rules. It is fate for soldiers to die on the battlefield. When comrades and subordinates die in the battle between the two armies, Tang Dao is more sad and less angry.

But the soldier had completed his duty, but lost his life while recovering in the hospital, which was unacceptable to Tang Dao.

That afternoon, Tang Dao asked Gu Xishui and Lu Sanjiang to formulate a revenge plan.

As the saying goes, "It is impolite not to return the favor", the Japanese bombed our field hospital, so the target of revenge must also be the hospital.

For several consecutive days, under the personal leadership of Lu Sanjiang, the reconnaissance company sent 8 groups to sneak out of the position, cross the river from the Zhengshui defense line, and conduct reconnaissance to the rear of the Japanese defense line, and finally found the location of its field hospital in Laoya Mountain.

The field hospital of a division has limited capacity, and there would not be more than 2,000 wounded soldiers here, but the fact is that this field hospital accommodates at least 4,000 people, more than double its maximum capacity to accommodate wounded soldiers.

This also led to the rapid expansion of the scale of the field hospital, and the defense line of an infantry squadron of only 220 people was forced to be stretched very wide.

Even so, the reconnaissance company still spent two days and two nights to make a comprehensive record of the Japanese defense line, and based on the topographic maps of previous reconnaissance, drew extremely detailed maps of Japanese sentries, firepower, etc.

Tang Dao gave the reconnaissance company and the mountain infantry company two more days to familiarize the positions of the Japanese sentry posts and firepower. Only when they were familiar with them did they launch the revenge war codenamed "Black Snow".

The reconnaissance company launched a single or double assassination attack on the Japanese defense line at 2 a.m., and it was not until 15 minutes later that the scream of a Japanese soldier who was pretending to be dead after being stabbed in the chest by a three-edged military bayonet at the last moment of his life alarmed the Japanese defenders.

The reconnaissance company and the mountain infantry company, which had been waiting for a long time, launched a full-scale attack on the defense line of the Japanese field hospital.

The Japanese army captain, who was suppressed by the crazy firepower and couldn't raise his head, didn't know at all when he sent a telegram to the division headquarters that his defense line would be completely broken in 2 minutes.

In the face of the full-scale attack of more than 300 elite infantrymen of the Four-line Regiment who had been preparing for several days, the defense line of the 116th Division Field Hospital was like an eggshell, easily torn to pieces.

There were very few female medical staff in the Japanese army, which also reduced the guilt of the elite soldiers of the Four-Line Regiment who were ordered to retaliate.

They used the simplest method, either throwing explosives in the wounded shed or placing mustard gas seized from the Japanese army and detonating it.

In short, after breaking through the defense line, the time spent in the field hospital did not exceed 10 minutes. The 300 elite soldiers ravaged the area like a group of crazy buffaloes, and then left without any nostalgia.

Attacking the field hospital was only the first step of the "Black Snow" plan, and there was a second wave of operations waiting for them.

According to the analysis of the areas where the various Japanese troops were located, the Japanese troops coming to support must be the closest to the field hospital, which belonged to the Japanese resting station.

After reconnaissance, the group of Japanese troops was the 133rd Infantry Regiment that had fought with the 1st Battalion for several days in Huangchaling. They also shed a lot of blood on the hands of the officers and soldiers of the Four-Line Regiment, so it was just right to kill them again.

Catching rabbits by hunting grass has always been Tang Tuanzuo's specialty.

The 133rd Infantry Regiment was actually not slow. On such a dark night, it took them only 3 minutes to get the order to start the march. The fully armed soldiers ran all the way with flashlights on the 4-mile mountain road, and they ran more than half of it in just 6 minutes.

However, a sentence written by Private Cangkong Yan, who served as the deputy squad leader, in the battle summary after the war can prove that running too fast is not necessarily a good thing.

Yes, although Cangkong Yan was just a new recruit, he had experienced several battlefields in Miluo River, Tanzhou, and Hengyang City South, and he was already a veteran who had experienced war.

The 116th Division is currently extremely short of veterans, so Private Cangkong Yan actually served as the deputy squad leader, which was previously only a sergeant.

Deputy Squad Leader Shioya, who survived the war by chance, concluded: "The defeat of the regiment this time was closely related to the lack of necessary marching reconnaissance due to the consideration of speed."

This sentence directly pointed to Colonel Heiichi Kurose, who personally led the regiment on the march. If it were in normal times, no one would dare to say it. Not to mention a small private like Shioya Kuran Sora, even an army captain would be killed by the Japanese army colonel's random tricks and sent to the front line.

But Shioya Kuran Sora actually said it directly. It was not until sixty years later that Shioya Kuran Sora, who was already old, told the real reason why he was so bold.

After experiencing consecutive defeats and watching his old and new comrades die, he was already discouraged and didn't want to stay on this battlefield at all, and even preferred to die.

The desperate private simply used the method of publicly accusing the regiment's highest commander. Whether he was sent to a military court or continued to be sent to the battlefield as a front-line cannon fodder, he accepted it.

The unlucky but extremely lucky Japanese private didn't know that the person he accused was actually killed on the spot, and the division headquarters was in urgent need of someone to take responsibility for this battle.

The Japanese private's "righteous words" just pointed out a clear way for the anxious Lieutenant General Iwanaga Wang.

What else could be more suitable for the dead colonel to take responsibility for?

The lucky unlucky private, Yutakakura Sora, was not only not killed, but was promoted to a squad leader on the front line, directly skipping the ranks of corporal and sergeant, and became a sergeant, and he could become an army second lieutenant in the next step.

However, Yutakakura Sora, who had failed to achieve his goal, was not happy at all.

Because the 133rd Infantry Regiment spent 20 days replenishing, which was in vain, and was severely damaged again.

The new recruits died, and there was a replenishment division with a number of 20,000 people on the way to Hengyang, but the veterans, who were originally few in number, died again in this battle.

An elite regiment that was originally known as the "tip of the knife" infantry regiment of the 116th Division, after dawn, only had 5 lieutenants and 21 sergeants and sergeants, and no lieutenants. What kind of painful experience is this?

It turned out that the 133rd Infantry Regiment was eager to rush to the battlefield and lacked the necessary marching reconnaissance, which led to an infantry squadron as a vanguard diving into the minefield that the reconnaissance company of the Fourth Regiment had laid in the field in advance.

That was after more than 100 scouts arrived at 12 o'clock and spent nearly an hour laying the minefield on the road where the Japanese army must come to support.

The visibility at night was extremely poor, and many infantry mines did not need to be carefully buried. Simply covering them with soil was considered attentive, and many simply found a pile of dry grass and put it in it.

But this extremely simple minefield became the nightmare of the 133rd Infantry Regiment!

Because most of them were recruits. The three-month recruit training taught them to obey military orders, climb over obstacles, and shoot. There were talented people who could score ten rings at 200 meters.

But the recruits had never seen blood, and had never experienced death in front of them!

"Boom!" An explosion sounded, and the two leading Japanese soldiers flew up in the smoke, and blood was splattered on the soldiers following behind.

The frightened Japanese infantry quickly ran to the fields on both sides of the road and lay down!

Unfortunately, there was also a minefield there. The mines stepped on by the recruits continued to explode. Screams and explosions became the main theme of this area, making the Japanese veterans' desperately screaming "Don't move, lie down on the spot!" warning seem so weak.

The screams and deaths of their companions caused more than 100 recruits to collapse. Some of them ran to the fields on both sides, while others turned around and ran back.

Humans are group animals. Seeing the smoke and screams ahead, and dozens of colleagues rushing towards this side frantically, the Japanese main force's forward column was immediately in chaos.

At this critical moment, the six MG42 machine guns ambushed 480 meters away from the Japanese began to roar.

Those were the Longyan Platoon of the Mountain Infantry Company and the Shen Laoliu Platoon of the Reconnaissance Company. The two platoon leaders, who were praised as the spearhead platoons by their respective companies, placed their most ferocious MG42 machine guns on the two wings of the ambush area to form crossfire.

The G42 was like a pair of scissors composed of metal bullets, harvesting back and forth in the long queue of the Japanese army.

If the Japanese vanguard who accidentally ran into the minefield before was just mentally collapsed, then at this moment, accompanied by a full-powered round of shooting by six "Widow Makers", the recruits of the 133rd Infantry Regiment were directly blown up.

No matter what the squad leader or team leader said, no one could speak, and they all rushed to the rear in a chaotic manner, wanting to leave this damn place as soon as possible.

Even for at least 30 seconds, the 133rd Infantry Regiment with more than 1,500 soldiers did not organize a decent counterattack.

In this situation, not to mention that Colonel Kurose Pingyi, who was caught in it, was confused, even Shen Laoliu and Long Yan, who were 300 meters away, were dumbfounded.

They had fought many battles with the Japanese and had seen all kinds of devils, some were fearless, some were crazy, some were cunning, and some were like psychos, but it was the first time they had seen such weak ones that turned around and ran away when they heard the gunshots.

Could it be that these were not genuine devils, but a group of second devils?

To be honest, the combat effectiveness shown by the Japanese at this time was only matched by some puppet troops on the battlefield in North China.

Of course, the two platoon leaders were also extremely experienced in the battlefield. As soon as they saw the Japanese army's movement, they immediately fired flares, blew the charge horn, and attacked the Japanese army with two rows of troops.

Although this violated the tactical plan formulated before the war, it accelerated the defeat of the 133rd Infantry Regiment, which was mainly composed of new recruits.

The original tactical plan formulated by Gu Xishui was that the two elite infantry platoons of Longyan and Shen Laoliu would rely on the minefield to delay the Japanese army, wait for the other four platoons that had destroyed the field hospital to arrive, and then join forces to attack the Japanese army, and then evacuate to Zhengshui at around 3 am.

At that time, the 2nd Battalion, the mountain artillery company, and the tank company would be responsible for the support on the other side of the river.

Based on the pre-war reconnaissance of the surrounding areas of the 133rd Infantry Regiment, Tang Dao had already judged that the combat effectiveness of the 133rd Infantry Regiment, which was rebuilt by adding new recruits, would not be too strong, but even Tang Dao did not expect that this group of guys would be so weak.

Only two infantry platoons with less than 200 people killed them all, and he, the commander of the Huangchaling front line, didn't fire a single shot.

This battle plan code-named "Black Blood" was not formulated and completed by the Four Lines Regiment alone, and it was also approved by Fang Xianjue, the supreme commander.

'A true defensive battle is to defend and attack at the same time. Just defending is not called defense, it is called passively being beaten!' Tang Dao didn't need to explain much, Fang Xianjue, the famous general, understood the most important core tactical idea of ​​the "Black Snow" tactics proposed by Tang Dao.

This can not only retaliate against the Japanese bombing of their own field hospitals, but also deter the Japanese army, forcing them to strengthen the protection of their artillery, baggage, medical and other auxiliary arms, especially at night, requiring more patrols.

This undoubtedly added a lot of unnecessary expenses and burdens to the Japanese army out of thin air.

As long as it is not good for the enemy, it is good for oneself. The only thing that worries Fang Xianjue is whether the two elite infantry companies that attacked 10 kilometers behind the enemy can return smoothly.

If they were surrounded by the Japanese, they would not be able to deter them, but would lose more than they gain, which would boost the morale of the Japanese army.

Therefore, on this night, the 15,000 Chinese officers and soldiers on the southern defense line of the city were ready to fight. After 12 o'clock, all the magazines and grenades were inserted into their ammunition bags, waiting for the command to launch a counterattack.

Once the Japanese army used its main force to mobilize to the rear, the officers and soldiers on the southern and western defense lines of the city would attack the Japanese positions in the front.

All the field guns and mountain guns in the artillery positions inside and outside Hengyang City raised their muzzles high. Once the military order was issued, they would fire at the predetermined targets with all their strength.

In order to ensure success, Fang Xianjue actually chose to play a big game, and almost all the defenders of Hengyang City went all in.

The most nervous Chinese soldiers at this time were not the two companies on the front line, but Fang Xianjue and several big men around him sitting on Yanhui Peak.

However, all preparations were not used, and even before the main force of the four platoons arrived, Long Yan and Shen Laoliu led more than 170 officers and soldiers to defeat the 133rd Infantry Regiment with 1,500 soldiers.

In this battle, more than 900 Japanese soldiers including Colonel Kurose Heiichi were killed, 4 infantry guns that did not have time to fire were blown up, and 4 Type 91 mortars and 60 shells were seized.

As for the loss of the 116th Division Field Hospital, I am afraid that only the 116th Division knew it best. Due to the urgency of time, the 300 officers and soldiers who looted the Japanese field hospital did not have time to count the results before leaving.

At 5:30 a.m., under the cover of a reconnaissance platoon, more than 300 officers and soldiers successfully crossed the Zhengshui River. A Japanese infantry battalion that received the news was severely beaten by the 20mm machine guns of 12 mountain guns and 24 light tanks, and turned around and retreated.

The Cao Yingchong platoon, which was responsible for the rear guard, almost swaggered back to its own position.

In this battle, the Sihang Regiment only paid the price of 5 deaths and 22 injuries, paralyzed the medical system of the 116th Division, and tied a former defeated general to the pillar of shame in history again.