Chapter 1525 Fight to the Death!
The setting sun, the ruined buildings and the corners!
Fang Xianjue stood erect on the cross street in the center of HY. The blood-red sunset light penetrated through the blue smoke of the city, soaking in layer by layer, and smeared on the ruins either overtly or covertly.
Looking around, around the Chinese Army Lieutenant General, there were piles of rubble. There were corpses everywhere that had been messed up by artillery fire and bombs, including Chinese and Japanese.
The two parties that were once hostile are now silent in the ruins. Whether they are cruel or heroic, they are all silently dying in the decay!
The pungent smell of sulfur lingered in the air for a long time, temporarily covering up the disgusting smell of corpses. The distant explosions of artillery shells and the sound of various types of gunfire still resounded throughout the world.
The sound of gunfire and the ruins illuminated by the setting sun mixed together to form a breathtaking picture, which seemed to sweep the top commander of the Hengyang garrison, who was standing among the ruins with his head held high, into it, killing him and those who died in battle. The more than ten thousand subordinates in this city are sealed in the long river of time.
Perhaps, as the supreme commander who led the entire army to fight in this ancient city for 111 days, Fang Xianjue would rather this moment last forever.
Yes, this is already the third day of the final battle in Hengyang!
In this battle, the whole city of Hengyang left no room. Even the wounded soldiers in the field hospital who could still walk independently took up arms and went into battle.
He, the top commander of Hengyang, had only one guard with a machete beside him. Even the gun he, an army lieutenant general, had given to a wounded soldier who had only one arm and still asked to participate in the battle.
According to Tang Dao's tactical design, in this battle, not only must they counterattack the entire city of Hengyang, but they must also fight their way out of the city and regain some of their positions in the south and west of the city. If the Japanese army wants to counterattack, they must take up positions one by one as they did two months ago. Chew down the position.
This fight lasted nearly 70 hours. All the neighborhoods in Hengyang City had been completely recovered two days ago. These two days were a repeated battle for positions in the suburbs outside Hengyang City.
One day ago, on September 20, Tang Dao led the main force of the Sixings Regiment as the forward, with 6,000 reserves and a wounded battalion totaling 7,900 people, and had already recovered positions such as Yanhui Peak, Huxingchao and Zhangjiashan.
At this moment, the artillery fire in front was trembling. It must be that they were fighting fiercely with the Japanese invaders. I wonder how many of the more than 8,000 people would be able to line up with him after this battle.
The remnants of the three infantry divisions under the 10th Army, together with 9,000 reserves and two sick and wounded soldiers, divided into two groups after recapturing the inner city blocks. They came out from the west and north of the city and fought fiercely with the Japanese army. The farthest positions were It is already more than 10 miles away from Hengyang City!
The strategic goals set before the war have basically been completed!
However, as the supreme commander of the Hengyang garrison, Fang Xianjue was not at all happy!
Because he knew that this was the last brilliance of the Hengyang defenders who tried their best. From this moment on, Hengyang City would no longer be able to give these soldiers a grain of food or a bullet. Their ability to continue fighting would never exceed 3 day.
In the end, it still depends on the actions of the hundreds of thousands of troops on the periphery. If they still hesitate to move forward like they have in the past three months, Hengyang City will fall into darkness forever.
In the darkness when an all-out counterattack was about to begin three days ago, on the platform of the Central Bank, Lin Heng used eighteen piles of bonfires, displayed the words "fight to the death", and sent the final signal of Hengyang City to the transport planes passing high in the sky.
If they don't make up their mind to fight the Japanese troops on the periphery, they will only see the soldiers and civilians in Hengyang City as piles of bones.
From the moment Fang Xianjue personally issued the counterattack order, Tang Dao, the director of the operations department, announced to the commanders of each regiment over the phone: "This battle is a fight to the death. In this battle, regardless of military exploits, losses, and casualties, the entire army will Kill the enemy with all your strength! Kill! Kill!"
"Take up swords and guns,
Head to the battlefield.
Forget us, wife,
Forget us, parents,
The enemy occupied China's land,
The enemy occupied the ancestral temple.
If you lose your land and rivers, where will you be exiled?
Dear compatriots, with our tears,
Holding our swords and guns,
Go to the battlefield,
Kill kill kill! "
I don’t know whether it was the soldiers somewhere who sang the military song, or the roar of the cannon in the distance that caused the confused Army Lieutenant General to have auditory hallucinations. Fang Xiangjue seemed to have heard it for a long time, but in the roar of the cannon, there was no It is impossible to hear the military song of the 10th Army.
This military song was once the military song of the 10th Preliminary Division. When the young man Fang Xianjue was in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, he wrote it under an oil lamp with Sun Mingjin, who had died on the battlefield. Fang Xianjue seemed to see that young and gentle face again. , smiled and shouted to him: "Sir, we will definitely win this war!"
"Ming Jin, can we really win?" Fang Xianjue clenched his fists in pain, lowered his head and muttered to himself.
To this day, he has done everything he can. The brothers under him, as well as the people in Hengyang City, have shed all their blood.
"Buzz!" The roar of the plane echoed across the sky.
The huge transport plane passed over Hengyang City at a height of less than 300 meters from the ground, and a series of umbrella flowers bloomed under the belly of the plane.
However, unlike in the past, this time the transport plane flew far away without dropping the supply package, but instead kept hovering over Hengyang City.
Fang Xianjue raised his head indifferently, confusion flashing in his eyes.
"Report! The Military Commission has issued an order, please sign it personally, Commander Fang!" A medical soldier shouted loudly while running towards Fang Xianjue.
"Report! The Military Commission issued an order. Please open it in person, Commander Fang!" On the other side, a reserve soldier also ran towards this side.
Apparently, in the dropped material packages, there was an identical military order as before.
However, in the past month or so, the contents on them were almost exactly the same: "Reinforcements will arrive tomorrow! Be sure to hold on!"
Sure enough, several envelopes of the same style all had the same sentence written on them: "From Fang Xianjue!"
Fang Xianjue took a deep breath, stretched out his hand to open one of the envelopes, slowly unfolded the folded letter paper, and the words that came into his eyes made this lieutenant general of the army who had experienced countless storms and waves stand there like being struck by lightning.
A few seconds later, this lieutenant general who only frowned when he received the huge casualties of his troops, and who only had a sad look when he saw his trusted general who had followed him for many years dying, actually closed his eyes and looked up at the sky, and two lines of tears rolled down.
Seeing Fang Xianjue like this, several soldiers around him bowed their heads, feeling extremely sad.
Is Hengyang City still abandoned?
"Mingjin, we won, we finally won." Fang Xianjue suddenly shouted to the sky and threw the letter in his hand to the sky.
"Brothers of the 10th Army, brothers of the Four-Line Group, brothers of Hengyang City, did you hear it? We won."
Zhao Zili, who had been following him, picked up the letter that fell on the ground and looked at it. It was written on it: "My 9th War Zone, 3rd War Zone, and 4th War Zone have decided to fight the enemy. After two days of fierce fighting, the main force of the Japanese invaders has fled to Tanzhou. The 27th Army Group and the 74th Army are rushing to Hengyang at night!
Reinforcements will arrive today!"
"We won, we really won!"
No wonder General Fang, who is usually calm and confident, would act like this. Zhao Zili, who suddenly saw this good news, felt his brain buzzing, as if something exploded there.
In a trance, there was a sense of unreality!
In contrast, the sound of gunfire and the earth-shaking shouts of killing that were still resounding in the distance suddenly fell silent.
The Japanese army, which was still attacking fiercely, retreated like a tide. Leng Feng, Li Jiujin and other front-line commanders did not take it lightly. They were still calmly deploying defenses and deploying troops, waiting for the next wave of Japanese attacks.
In this regard, they are already experts. On such a battlefield, how could they not repel seven or eight waves of Japanese attacks in a day?
But this time, they waited for a full half an hour, and did not wait for even a bullet or shell fired from the opposite side, let alone the Japanese.
Looking over with a telescope, all I could see was the charred land and the crooked remaining bushes, and I couldn't see the figure of "shit yellow" at all.
"We have no shells, how come the Japanese have learned to dig holes and hide underground?" Li Jiujin, who was wrapped in bandages on at least half of his body, spat out a mouthful of phlegm, his eyes full of confusion.
The veteran who had been in the army for 17 years had never had his skin scratched in the past 17 years. He could be called the son of luck in the Four-Line Regiment, but he was defeated in the battle of Hengyang.
Of the five fingers on his right hand, only the thumb and index finger were left, and the other three were cut off by a shell.
"God is still good to me. Look, this at least left me a finger to pull the trigger. Otherwise, where would I go to cry if I only had a little finger left?" Li Jiujin smiled and comforted Xia Dayu, who was tearful while bandaging his wound.
But God, who had been kind to Li Jiujin for the past 17 years, was obviously too busy this time. In the following street fighting, Li Jiujin suffered a total of 8 wounds, including gunshot wounds or shrapnel splash wounds on his arms, legs, chest and other parts.
However, the old soldier is really an indestructible cockroach. If someone else had these injuries, even if he didn't die, he would have to stay in the hospital. But this guy just sprinkled some hemostatic medicine and wrapped a bandage, and stayed on the battlefield. Moreover, he stayed there for 50 days, and God didn't take him away.
Even the commander of the Tang regiment hugged him tightly when he saw him, saying that he wanted to get some of his luck as a son of luck. But Li Jiujin never hugged his brothers from the 3rd Battalion, because he was afraid that he was too hard-working and would bring bad luck to his brothers.
Everyone has a different understanding of fate, but it doesn't prevent them from relying on each other like brothers on the battlefield, right?
Li Jiujin and his men didn't wait for the Japanese attack, but waited for good news from the city: the Japanese troops outside were fleeing, and the siege of Hengyang had been lifted!
On a hill 20 kilometers away, which was invisible to the Hengyang defenders who were fighting with all their might, Hengshan Yong was also looking towards Hengyang.
At this distance, the Japanese Army Lieutenant General, who had been ordered by the Japanese Army Headquarters to return to his country to report on his duties, could not see the smoke rising above the ruins at all, but the setting sun still clearly reflected the loneliness in his eyes.
In the Battle of Hengyang, the 11th Army was defeated, a big defeat!
Or, it would be more appropriate to describe it as a complete defeat.
He misjudged the strength and tenacity of the defenders in Hengyang City, and even more misjudged the tolerance of the commander surnamed Xue.
During the 100 days of attacking Hengyang, even though he had transferred almost half of the main force of the 11th Army to Hengyang 60 days ago, he was actually always on guard against the more than 200,000 main forces of the Chinese 9th War Zone that had been stagnant, including the 74th Army, the most elite infantry army of China coming from Guilin, and more than 100,000 Chinese troops coming from Gan Province.
The Chinese main force of nearly 400,000, not to mention the commander of the 11th Army, even the commander of the China Expeditionary Army, Tian Junliu, dared not ignore it. Part of the main force of the 23rd Army in South China has arrived at the border of Guangxi Province, and the North China Front Army has also transferred two divisions to Jiangxia.
Once the Chinese side moves, the China Expeditionary Army can gather more than 200,000 troops in northern Hunan at any time to fight a decisive battle with the Chinese main force.
As a result, to the surprise of Yokoyama Isamu, no matter how fierce the battle in Hengyang was, the 400,000 Chinese troops a hundred miles away from Hengyang seemed to have not seen it. They just confronted the 11th Army with only 80,000 people and had no intention of moving forward. The attack force was not as strong as two months ago, when at least three infantry divisions arrived in the suburbs of Hengyang.
Hengyang is like a huge meat grinder. In order to make all the previous efforts not in vain, Yokoyama Isamu can only be forced to throw many elite troops of the 11th Army into the bottomless pit of Hengyang that seems to never be filled.
Until 40 days ago, Yokoyama Isamu judged that the commander surnamed Xue of the 9th War Zone did not dare to risk losing Guangxi and Yunnan provinces and fight a decisive battle with the Empire. He gambled everything and transferred two more divisions to attack Hengyang.
The 11th Army outside Hengyang was completely reduced to scraps from the main force that was originally intended to find the main force of the Chinese side for a decisive battle. The battlefield of the 11th Army's decisive battle became Hengyang City, which had only more than 20,000 people.
Even Colonel Shimanuki Takeshi, who was good at large-scale operations, could only fight as the boss said in the face of this tactical change that was completely contrary to his expectations.
If Hengyang City, which was three points harder than stone, was not taken, it would be the nightmare of the entire 11th Army, no, it could even be said to be the entire Chinese Expeditionary Force.
In a sense, the symbolic significance of taking Hengyang City is far greater than its practical significance. Even the strategy of opening up the Chinese mainland line had to give way to the prosperity of the Empire's military fortune.
What was the final outcome? The 11th Army's four elite divisions were completely crippled, and two divisions could almost be declared disbanded. The terrifying figures of 60,000 dead and 100,000 casualties were enough to scare any brave general.
Yes, on September 18, when the Chinese Hengyang Command finally unified its thoughts and decided to start a counterattack, the casualty report of the 11th Army was also delivered to Yokoyama Isamu who was at the front line.
As of the morning of September 18, the 11th Army had 54,935 dead, 3,178 missing, and 40,354 injured, including 2 lieutenant general division commanders, 4 major general detachment commanders and brigade commanders, and 7 army colonels. Lieutenant colonels and below were not counted separately.
It's not that they are not qualified, but there are too many people, and one piece of paper can't write them all!
At that moment, even Yokoyama Isamu, who was known as one of the top three warriors of the Japanese Army, felt a little top-heavy and almost fell to the ground.
The total strength of the six divisions that were transferred to participate in the war was only more than 100,000 people, not counting the heavy artillery brigades, tank regiments, and logistics regiments. This means that if two supplementary divisions of 20,000 people had not arrived, these six divisions would have been completely wiped out.
This naturally means that the 11th Army, which was still surrounded in and outside Hengyang City, would never exceed 30,000 infantry alone.
100,000 people! They were consumed by the Chinese in a small city of Hengyang.
Looking at all the battles in the past seven years since the start of the war, including all the battles in which both sides invested nearly one million troops, the Imperial Army has never suffered such a huge loss!
Even in the Battle of Songhu, which was known as the "meat grinder" at the beginning of the war, the Imperial Army seemed to have suffered only more than 40,000 casualties, less than half of this battle.
Even in the Battle of Taierzhuang, which the Chinese called the first victory of the war, the Imperial Army lost only 20,000 people.
Even in the Battle of Wanjialing, which was known as China's most glorious victory in the Jiangxia Campaign, the Chinese side mobilized more than 200,000 troops to encircle the enemy, but only lost 20,000 troops from the 106th Division.
If these two battles were cited as the shame of the Imperial Army, then what was the Battle of Hengyang? Was it the shame of shame? Or the most shameful?
Yokoyama Isamu could almost foresee the day when he was ordered to resign.
But the nightmare was not over yet.
At 10 pm on September 18, the Chinese in Hengyang City, who were already dying, actually launched a counterattack.
Yokoyama Isamu's first reaction was not instinctive anger. It was like a lion on the prairie who spent a lot of effort to kill a bison. He planned to gather his strength and then start eating meat. As a result, the bison came back to life and did not run away. Instead, he poked the lion with its horns and kicked it with its hooves. Do you think the lion should be angry?
Yokoyama Yong was more surprised. He had reason to believe that this was the last fight of the Chinese after they had run out of resources. As long as they could hold off this attack, the Chinese would lose their last spirit and energy, and the battle of Hengyang would finally come to an end.
Yokoyama Yong was undoubtedly very experienced. He almost predicted 90% correctly, but he did not expect that there were still so many Chinese in the city, and he did not expect that even at this time, the Chinese still had a trump card.
The Chinese miniature tanks had appeared on the battlefield before, but no one took this small tank with only a 20mm machine gun seriously.
That thing was just a crunch in front of the Type 97 tank with a 47mm rapid-fire gun. One shot and one could not escape.
But after nearly two months of street fighting, let alone the Type 97 tank, the 11th Army could not even find a few Type 95 light tanks, and the 11th Army had no anti-armor weapons except the 70mm infantry gun that could be used for anti-armor.
It's not that the Japanese military industry is not good, but that the Chinese don't have tanks at all. What's the point of equipping the division with such clumsy and rough anti-armor weapons and equipment?
In this kind of street fighting, the 70mm infantry gun weighing more than 200 kilograms is not so easy to handle. By the time you get the gun mounted and adjust the muzzle, the miniature tanks that are one size smaller than the Type 95 light tanks have already hidden behind the ruins.
16 miniature tanks with more than 10,000 Chinese people, like a torrent, swallowed up thousands of Japanese infantrymen who had paid heavy casualties and finally gained a foothold in more than 40 blocks, in just one night.
If it is said at this time, Yokoyama Yong, who has completely turned from joy to anger, has not given up. After all, he still has a heavy artillery brigade outside the city, and 900 rounds of artillery shells in stock. He can also use heavy artillery to plow the land of Hengyang, a big ruin. In short, he will not let the Chinese have an easy time.
But the 400,000 Chinese troops a hundred miles away actually launched an offensive. The Chinese, who had completely gained air superiority, used more than a hundred fighters and bombers to bombard the positions of the Imperial Army, and at the same time dispatched more than 6 infantry divisions to conduct a tentative attack on the defense line.
From this moment on, Yokoyama Isamu knew that Hengyang, which was so close, would eventually become a place he could not touch this autumn.
This would also become the Waterloo of Yokoyama Isamu and the 11th Army.
The desperate gamble he made 50 days ago lost!
He lost to both the Hengyang defenders and the Chinese commander.
The commander surnamed Xue was really a cruel genius. He actually watched the isolated city of Hengyang constantly wear down the strength of the 11th Army until the 11th Army was exhausted, and then started the peripheral decisive battle.
The point of this decisive battle was also very clever, which made him unable to counterattack. In fact, if he had not sent two main divisions of the North China Front Army from Jiangxia to Tanzhou and deployed defenses in the rear of the 11th Army 10 days ago, the Chinese army of 400,000 only needed to send 100,000 people to penetrate into Biyang and cut off the retreat route from Hengyang to Tanzhou, and the 11th Army would still be in danger of being surrounded.
Yokoyama Isamu decisively ordered that both the imperial army in Hengyang and the surrounding troops must fight for two days without retreating, making it difficult for the Chinese side to figure out the real situation and then withdraw after the offensive slowed down. This was to create space for the troops to retreat and to create time for the two divisions in the rear to consolidate the defense line.
Yokoyama Isamu, who was ordered to resign, made his most wise decision in the Battle of Hengyang. The main force of the Chinese side was indeed bluffed and believed that the Japanese army still had spare strength to fight a decisive battle. The offensive gradually slowed down and mobilized troops in several key directions.
The Japanese army finally found a good opportunity to evacuate, and the Japanese army in Hengyang had already begun to gradually evacuate a day ago.
And the commander, Isamu Yokoyama, for some reason, insisted on evacuating until the last day with the remnants of the 3rd Division, the 68th Division, and the 116th Division.
Today's last round of artillery and infantry attacks was not for any position or victory, but more for catharsis, the last vent of the loser's hopelessness of victory!