Chapter 1519 Sunset over a Lonely City (Part 1)

"Platoon leader, do you think we can still return to Taihang Mountain alive? In another month, the fruits on the mountain will be ripe. I haven't eaten mountain grapes for a long time. When I was a child, my parents died. I like autumn the most. I can fill my stomach without hunting."

In Hengyang City, in an underground tunnel where more than half of the building has collapsed, Adong lies in Boss Cao's arms and whispers softly.

Luo Dahu, who is standing aside, looks at his once extremely strong young squad leader with a worried face and does not speak.

Now Luo Dahu is no longer a new soldier. This middle-aged man who has crossed half of China from north to south did not expect that he would become a veteran after only joining the army for 60 days.

Because, in these 60 days, he fought almost every day, from a farmer who knew nothing except a little strength, to a veteran who could use pistols, rifles, submachine guns, machine guns, and even mortars.

He had to know how to use these weapons, because those who knew how to use them died, and those who could not use them would die faster.

Of course, for Luo Dahu, he thinks that the main reason he can survive is not how fast he grows on the battlefield, but more of luck.

Because, his squad 4 is much stronger than him.

For example, the sergeant sharpshooter nicknamed Hawkeye, who has been in the army for 3 years, once shot and killed a Japanese soldier with his naked eye at a distance of 380 meters. There are 4 positive characters engraved on his gun handle, which means that this sharpshooter has shot and killed 20 Japanese soldiers with a confirmed record, and the Japanese killed in rounds of charge are not counted.

According to this calculation, Hawkeye has killed at least 50 Japanese soldiers, but such a terrible sharpshooter also died.

He died in Huangchaling. 50 days ago, when the Japanese army organized nearly 3,000 people to charge Huangchaling on board, he hid in a bomb crater and shot and killed several Japanese soldiers in succession. He was discovered by the grenade launchers behind the Japanese army, and at least 6 grenade launchers were organized to cover the bomb crater where he was hiding.

The Japanese are crazy! At least 30 grenades were used against an infantry firepower point.

He and his rifle were blown to pieces by grenades, and it was Luo Dahu who collected his body. Because the remains were broken into several pieces and there were no bags on the position, he had to wrap him in his own and squad leader Adong's military uniforms and carry him to the rear tunnel.

At that time, because the Japanese army transferred another heavy artillery brigade to implement artillery blockades on the rear of the south position day and night, many stretcher teams and wounded soldiers who came to support disappeared in the terrible artillery fire.

In order to reduce losses, the command had to order that, except for the wounded, the bodies of all the sacrificed officers and soldiers had to be buried on the spot.

In order to prevent the brothers from being destroyed by Japanese artillery fire even after death, the battalion commander Li Jiujin ordered all the bodies to be placed deep in the tunnel. When the position was to be evacuated, the tunnel would be blown down and the remains of the sacrificed brothers would be buried deep underground.

After 10 days of fighting, the tunnel originally used to hide soldiers was filled with no less than 300 bodies.

That was actually still a small number. It is said that in the positions of the 10th Division in the Zhangjiashan and Huxingchao areas, there would be digging sounds every night. They were not digging trenches, but digging pits to bury people.

At least 2,600 people were killed in the 10th Division. It is said that because there were so many casualties, many wounded soldiers refused to be sent back to the city and continued to stay on the front line.

The sergeant squad leader who once threatened Dean Tan Tai with a gun in the field hospital had both legs blown off, but still refused to leave. Finally, the front-line position was broken. When the Japanese infantry stepped over the half-body of the "remaining corpse" and searched forward, a soft "hissing" sound suddenly sounded under the motionless half-body of the "remaining corpse".

That was the sound of the burning fuses of three grenades, which was also the last weapon left for him by his comrades before leaving.

He left the three grenades for himself and three Japanese infantrymen.

There was also Daxiong, who was good at bayonet fighting. He was a big man from southern Hebei and Luo Dahu's fellow villager. He was tall and strong, and could lift a 12.7mm heavy machine gun with one hand. He carried a Type 38 rifle that he had picked up as easily as carrying a bean sprout.

In the first hand-to-hand combat with the Japanese who rushed to the position, Luo Dahu saw him stab five Japanese soldiers with a Type 38 rifle and still had spare strength. He even had no time to pull out the gun, and after rolling on the ground for several circles with a Japanese soldier in his arms, he strangled the strong Japanese soldier to death with his hands.

But such a tough veteran died!

The Japanese heavy artillery suddenly ignored their own soldiers who were more than 200 meters outside the position and brazenly fired at the position. Daxiong was firing on the front line at the time, and the first round of 15 shells hit the trench area where he was.

Although his nearly 190-pound body was hidden in the trench, the blast caused by a heavy artillery shell that exploded less than 20 meters away from him easily rolled up his strong body and threw it out of the trench.

When his body was collected, his body was miraculously intact, but his chest was soft. Luo Dahu, who had enough battlefield experience, knew that the shock wave caused by the shell explosion had broken his sternum, and his heart and internal organs were smashed by the huge force.

The death of two powerful veterans was not the end, but just the beginning.

Although they had been mentally prepared, the cruelty of the battlefield still exceeded everyone's imagination.

The 3rd Battalion fought the Japanese in Huangchaling for 28 days! Even though the main positions such as Zhangjiashan in the rear were successively occupied by the Japanese, the 3rd Battalion still persisted for another 10 days.

During this period, the 4th squad was reduced from a full complement of 20 people to 18 people, then to 15 people, and finally to 9 people.

Luo Dahu didn't know how many rounds of attacks by the Japanese army he had repelled. In the end, he was too lazy to check the time and even forgot how many days he had held on in Huangchaling.

Because the constant death had long become the main theme of this battlefield. Whether on the battlefield or outside the battlefield, corpses and human tissues were scattered everywhere, and life and breathing had become rare things.

Luo Dahu was numb, and he even hoped to die early, but the veterans kept sacrificing, but he miraculously survived in such a battlefield like hell.

He shot the Japanese with a rifle, shot the devils with the pistol left by Hawkeye, and stabbed the chest of the Japanese invaders with a three-edged bayonet.

That was a Japanese, also a young man, only about 17 or 18 years old. Luo Dahu still clearly remembered the look in the eyes of the Japanese soldier when he rushed up the mountain stepping on the corpses of his companions, but was stabbed in the chest with a three-edged military bayonet. There was surprise, reluctance and relief.

Or, for that young devil, for such a bloody battlefield, he had long lost the idea of ​​continuing to live!

Death is a relief for the officers and soldiers of both China and Japan who have been fighting for nearly a month!

Luo Dahu certainly didn't know how many Japanese soldiers the 3rd Battalion killed in the Battle of Huangchaling. This number was not announced by the Japanese even after the war. It was not until after the Battle of the Icefield that the infantry brigade established on the basis of the 3rd Battalion of the Four-Line Regiment shook the world in the Battle of Changjin Lake, and the statistics of Huangchaling in the Battle of Hengyang were turned out by the Americans.

From July 9 to August 6, the remnants of the 3rd Battalion broke through the blockade and returned to Hengyang City. The 3rd Battalion of the Sihang Regiment on Huangchaling first crippled the 27th Division, and then crippled the 3rd Division, killing 9,368 Japanese soldiers, leaving 497 missing and 13,000 injured.

It is said that the US commander was dumbfounded for a long time after seeing this data, and scolded the intelligence officer. If he had known that the infantry brigade had such a brilliant record in the war against Japan, he would not have fought against it with only the 1st Cavalry Division, but at least the 2nd Infantry Division or the 7th Infantry Division of the Army.

You know, according to the 11th Army's battle report, in Huangchaling, the 11th Army deployed a heavy artillery brigade with 24 150mm howitzers, two artillery regiments with 62 75mm mountain and field guns, most of the tank regiment with 31 Type 97 tanks, and the infantry had a total of more than 24 infantry battalions attacking in turn.

If one division was wiped out, another division would be replaced. The total number of Chinese infantry on the mountain, including the support, did not exceed 1,800.

The 11th Army's battle report recorded that they almost wiped out the stubborn Chinese defenders on Huangcha Ridge. Only a small number of Chinese broke through the blockade with the support of artillery fire and disappeared. However, only Luo Dahu and the officers and soldiers of the 3rd Battalion who withdrew to Hengyang City knew it. Together with Tu Yunsheng's independent company, they withdrew 597 people to Hengyang City.

After continuous fighting, the 3rd Battalion was completely crippled. Except for a small number of 60 mortars that were brought back, all howitzers and 81mm mortars, 150mm heavy mortars, 20mm machine guns, 12.7mm heavy machine guns, and all heavy equipment weighing more than 40 kilograms were blown up and destroyed before evacuating Huangcha Ridge.

When the 3rd Battalion entered Hengyang City for the final street fighting, it had become a standard light infantry battalion.

Li Jiujin, the cheerful and optimistic commander of the 3rd Battalion, burst into tears just after saluting when he saw the regiment commander Tang Dao who came to greet him in person.

A middle-aged man in his 40s did not frown during the 28-day bitter battle; he did not hesitate when he personally ordered the destruction of the weapons and equipment that could not be taken away; he personally lit the fuse to blow up the tunnel and buried 800 comrades without shedding a tear

But when he saw Tang Dao, he cried like a child.

"Commander, my 3rd Battalion is gone! My brothers in the 3rd Battalion are almost dead! My heart hurts so much! I can't stand it anymore." Even the strongest soldier couldn't bear to see Li Jiujin kneeling on the ground and crying.

"Blame me, blame me, brother Li, it's all my fault that the 10th Division didn't hold the position. The 10th Division is sorry for you, and let you fight alone." Division Commander Ge Youcai, who came to pick up Li Jiujin and the 3rd Battalion, hugged the crying major battalion commander, and also burst into tears.

But can Li Jiujin and the 3rd Battalion blame the 10th Division?

No.

The 10th Division has done its best.

Their 3rd Battalion was attacked by two Japanese divisions in turn, but the 10th Division was attacked by four Japanese divisions in turn.

In 18 days, the Japanese army successively transferred 3 divisions from the surrounding areas of Hengyang City to participate in the siege of Hengyang, making the number of Japanese troops attacking Hengyang City as high as 7 divisions.

In the periphery of Hengyang City, only 4 divisions and 5 independent mixed brigades with less than 70,000 people were left. In order to prevent the main force of the Chinese army from rescuing Hengyang City, the Chinese Expeditionary Army Command urgently borrowed 2 infantry divisions from the Kwantung Army and arrived in Tanzhou by train.

During this half month, China had more than 300,000 troops outside Hengyang, and also had sufficient air superiority, fully capable of fighting a siege war with a huge disparity in strength.

But what were they doing? Only the 4 infantry divisions of the 27th Army, led by Li Yutang, launched an attack on the Japanese army, and the 3 infantry divisions of the 62nd Army, led by its commander Huang Tao, went deep into Hengyang alone.

However, the Chinese army of less than 70,000 people had already tried their best after breaking through the three blockades of the Japanese army.

The 151st Division of the 62nd Army arrived at Yumu Mountain in the southwest suburb of Hengyang, only 7 kilometers away from Hengyang City. The sound of gunfire and gunfire from the fierce battle with the Japanese army could be heard throughout Hengyang.

But it was just there. Hengshan Yong, who had arrived at the front line of Hengyang to personally supervise the battle, personally ordered to suspend the attack on Hengyang and use the strength of three divisions to attack the incoming Chinese army.

In just one day, two regiment commanders and more than 2,000 officers and soldiers of the 151st Division were killed, and the entire division had to retreat to prevent being surrounded by the Japanese army.

That was also the closest Hengyang City came to reinforcements. By the time the two Kwantung Army divisions arrived, the Japanese troops outside Hengyang had reached 140,000 again, and China had completely lost the opportunity to rescue Hengyang City.

The 300,000-strong army could only watch on the periphery as hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops surrounded Hengyang City and attacked violently, breaking through all the defense lines outside Hengyang City, breaking through Hengyang City's last line of defense, the city wall, and breaking into the city.

Most of the people who were concerned about this war, including Western journalists and American soldiers, thought that the city defense war known as the "Moscow of the East" was coming to an end.

No one would believe that the fewer than 8,000 Chinese defenders in the city could withstand the attack of hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops.

Because at that time, the top commander of the Hengyang garrison sent a telegram to the Military Commission: "The enemy has conquered all positions outside our city. The 10th Division has prepared 7,000 troops. After three rounds of replenishment, there are only 2,000 troops, which is less than the daily number. regiment; the 3rd Division had more than 8,000 before the war, and after 3 rounds of replenishment, there were still 3,000 left; the 190th Division had only 800 men left, and the Hengyang Guard Regiment suffered all casualties in the counterattack on Zhangjiashan, with less than 200 wounded soldiers; the Four Lines Regiment fought hard Under this, the entire army is less than 3,000; we still have 8,000 soldiers in Hengyang that can fight, and we don’t know when reinforcements will arrive.

However, I, the army of Hengyang, are determined to die to serve our country and to repay our dedication to education. See you in the next life! Fang, Zhao, Sun, Tang, Zhou, Rong, Ge Tongkou! "

Perhaps at this time, the only Westerner who still had confidence in the Battle of Hengyang was Stilwell, Chief of Staff of the Chinese Theater.

He told Miss Laura, general manager of Rockefeller's Far East Company: "Although the outskirts of Hengyang are lost, there is still Hengyang City with an area of ​​2.8 square kilometers. Street fighting has always been the most dangerous battle in the military. Commander Fang and Commander Tang are both The most powerful commanders, they have the most elite Chinese soldiers under their command. I don’t think the Japanese can capture this city, even if they are willing to bear more than 100,000 casualties!”

In the eyes of many people, those were just words to comfort Miss Laura, and there was no possibility at all.

But General Stilwell said: "Before the war, the Japanese Army's training and combat effectiveness were unparalleled in the world. When the troops were in formation, everyone from the generals to the nobles fought according to the principles of tactical combat. , not a trace of chaos, making it difficult for the opponent to take advantage of it.

Although there are few outstanding strategists among Japan's senior generals, they rarely make major mistakes in basic principles. This is an extremely rare quality in war.

At that time, the combat capability of a Japanese soldier was approximately equivalent to seven or eight Chinese soldiers. If the Chinese soldiers were slightly stronger in that aspect, maybe the Chinese soldiers' "fearless spirit" was slightly superior, but Japanese soldiers also ranked 100% in the world in this regard. Above the ninety-five troops.

The Japanese army, even on a global scale, has difficulty finding an opponent's army at the tactical level.

I believe that China will never win this war, even if their opponent is an aggressor and is unjust, because the difference in strength is too great. "

Stilwell's evaluation is no longer high, but praise.

But if you think about it carefully, this seems to be the truth.

“However, after the July 7th Incident in 1937, as a military attache of the Embassy in China, I once passed by a mountain and saw a scene, and I changed my view.

Looking from a distance, I found a long thing on the top of the mountain in the distance moving slowly like a centipede. When I got closer, I saw that it was a truck. The front of the truck was damaged after being bombed by Japanese fighter planes. As a result, Chinese soldiers from an infantry regiment used pure manpower to push the freight train from both sides, advancing slowly like a snail! "Admiral Stilwell continued.

"I watched silently for a long time, until the train of trucks weighing thousands of tons gradually disappeared in front of my eyes. I said to myself: This spirit of the Chinese people will definitely enable them to get through the most difficult moments of the war. , and finally conquer Japan!"

"And now, isn't it true? Seven years have passed, and Japan has not conquered this country, and they are becoming weaker and weaker.

Just like now, they used more than 6 times the force, but they still couldn't capture an ancient small city.

I personally think that not only will they be unable to capture this small city defended by the most elite Chinese soldiers, but this battle will become a turning point in history. After this battle, the Japanese Army will no longer have any large-scale offensives on the Chinese battlefield. Basically, became defensive and remained there until the end of the war. "

Admiral Stilwell said loudly to the sad-looking Laura in his office.

His words were also recorded in famous quotations from World War II.

Because he almost 100% predicted the outcome of the war.

Why he said it was not 100% was because he did not say that Japan would surrender unconditionally, and he had no way of knowing that his country would create two big fat bombs.

At this time, Luo Dahu in Hengyang City certainly didn't know that there would be a famous Western general who had such strong confidence in them.

He only knew that Hengyang had reached its last moment.

His Class 4, no, it should be said Platoon 3, has reached the end of its rope.

Before he joined the 3rd Platoon, there were 84 officers and soldiers in the 3rd Platoon. Now, only 16 people in the 3rd Platoon can still be contacted.

His squad leader, A Dong, actually only has half a person left.

Adong's left arm was neatly severed at the elbow by shrapnel from an infantry gun 10 days ago. He was simply bandaged and continued fighting.

Yesterday, his right leg was hit by a grenade again, leaving only a little bit of skin and tendons connected. He gritted his teeth and chopped it off with a knife.

Luo Dahu's originally dark face was now as pale as snow. Luo Dahu, who had been unable to cry a single tear, could only feel worried at this time.

He was afraid, he was afraid that he would have no more comrades-in-arms. Before that, he had already sent away 16 comrades-in-arms with his own eyes.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ps: When I wrote this title, Fengyue was filled with reluctance, but the story has an ending, right?