Rise From Eight Hundred Chapter 306

Chapter 306 The Fall of Cangcheng

November 7th can definitely be called a disaster day for the Kunisaki detachment.

The planned siege has not even started yet! The Kunisaki detachment had more than 1,200 officers and soldiers killed and more than 900 injured. Almost two infantry brigades can be removed from the detachment sequence.

And how many infantrymen does the Kunisaki detachment have in total? Putting aside the auxiliary arms such as cavalry, artillery, engineering, and supplies, including the two infantry squadrons directly under the Kunozaki Detachment Headquarters, there are only 6 infantry brigades with a total of 7,000 people.

This kind of casualty ratio of nearly 30% is placed in the ordinary army, which basically means that this army has lost its combat effectiveness and can be repaired and replenished.

Not to mention that Kunizaki, who finally watched the statistics of the casualties from each infantry regiment and did not speak for a long time, even the division commander of the 114th Division, Suematsu Shigeharu, did not speak for a long time.

Good guy! The attack on Johto hasn't started yet! The Kunisaki detachment was half disabled. When the whole army actually attacked the city, the intelligence said that Matsue Castle had an infantry force. What kind of harm would it bring to the Imperial Army?

Suematsu Shigeharu gets hairy all over just thinking about it.

Yanagawa Heisuke at the Tenth Army Headquarters located on the south bank of the Huangpu River couldn't help but feel his head hurt when he saw this number.

He is the commander-in-chief of an army of nearly 100,000 people. The seemingly mighty army has frightened the 500,000 Chinese troops in the west of Shanghai. They are trying their best to escape, but this does not mean that they can be ruined by these prodigal sons. !

The 114th Division plus the Kunisaki Detachment lost nearly 5,000 people, nearly two infantry regiments, in just two days. If it continued like this for a few more days, I'm afraid he wouldn't have to worry about huge losses.

Because the army base camp might have told him to pack up and get out.

Perhaps, after Hisao Tani, who is located in the two southwest cities, saw the battle report from the Kunisaki detachment, he was not frightened by the strength of the Chinese, nor did he have a headache. Instead, he dropped a sentence with disdain: "The so-called The Steel Army is just mediocre!”

Hisao Tanani is certainly qualified to express contempt for the Kunizaki detachment.

When encountering an enemy fortress, a determined attack is an essential quality for a strong army. The Kunisaki detachment's execution ability in this regard is like a so-called "steel army".

However, even after paying a terrible number of casualties, but still unable to make any progress, that means the combat effectiveness is no longer good.

You know, for a position with a radius of only tens of thousands of meters, the Tenth Army assembled dozens of artillery to support it. Even Lieutenant Generals like Yanagawa Heisuke, the commander of the army, gave it to the Colonel-class ship stationed in the center of the Huangpu River. Chang sent a call to express his gratitude, and thus received the support of 6 127mm naval guns.

Not counting the artillery shells thrown last night, during this day alone, dozens of artillery fired 3,000 artillery shells at the not-so-large position. That is the density of a shell with a lethality radius of more than ten meters in 20 square meters. .

With such terrible fire support, not to mention a small position surrounded by city walls, even Songjiang City should have been captured!

As a result, the Kunisaki detachment was still timid and chose to call a truce to wait for the arrival of the heavy artillery brigade. What qualifications do such generals and soldiers have to be called the 'Steel Army'?

Sitting in his field headquarters 1,500 meters away from Matsue City, Hisao Tani looked with cold eyes at the sand table on the table that the staff had spent half a day building.

The fighting in the West City was lively, and the Sixth Division, as the main siege force, naturally did nothing.

In this half-day, the two infantry brigades responsible for the two city walls took turns dispatching 10 infantry squadrons with nearly 2,000 infantrymen to constantly test the fire points appearing on the two city walls.

The staff officers of each infantry regiment who arrived at the trenches only 300 meters away from the city wall marked the light and heavy firepower points buried in and on the city wall one by one.

Hisao Tani is not tall, he is lean and lean, and he does not have the civilized beard that the Japanese upper class wears in order to appear "fashionable". He wears a pair of glasses, and looks ordinary from the outside. Like a teacher.

But only those who know this person well will know that beneath this ordinary appearance, there is an extremely tough and vicious heart hidden.

He is said to be tough because he came from a poor background and had no background, but he spent more than 30 years being promoted from an ordinary second lieutenant to an army lieutenant general. He served as a casualty several times, but he came back from adversity several times to serve as the chief of staff of the division. , brigade commander and many other important positions, until he took up the important position of commander of the Sixth Division two years ago.

Without a tenacious personality, it is difficult to achieve this.

He is said to be ruthless because when he served as an instructor at the Army University, he publicized his tactical thinking countless times: plundering, banditry, and bow-hunting during combat are important means of maintaining morale. Ordinary people only regard it as being used to gain a position. However, when he led his army to the North China battlefield, everyone knew that he really thought so and did so.

If Seishiro Itagaki, who wantonly deprived the enemy of his life to frighten his opponent, was a butcher and a devil, then this ordinary-looking teacher was probably a **** dog who despised life even more than the butcher and the devil.

Tani Hisao has a cruelty that the Chinese cannot imagine, but that does not mean that he is reckless and stupid. This man has served as an instructor at the Army University. He is a typical academic, with a careful mind and rigorous military management methods.

He would not fight an unprepared battle. Even if the commander of the Tenth Army, Yanagawa Heisuke, had given him the order to attack, he did not rashly drive his more than 20,000 men to attack the west and south walls for military glory. attack.

The thirty-meter-wide moat and the five- to six-meter-high city wall allowed him to judge that without the assistance of the heavy artillery brigade, he would need to pay thousands of casualties to capture the Chinese position.

So, he is waiting and constantly testing, just like a pack of wolves discovering a herd of buffalo in the wilderness, constantly looking for weaknesses in the herd, waiting for the opportunity to attack the prey.

Once attacking, it is fatal. The wolves will not stop attacking until the prey falls and is torn apart.

Compared to the relatively calm Hisao Tani and the 6th Division, the Kunisaki Detachment and the 114th Division, which had a **** encounter at the Cangcheng and Block positions, did seem to be in a low position.

Lieutenant General Hisao Tani expressed his contempt for the two of them because of this, which is enough confidence.

Of course, the Kunisaki detachment, which made such a heavy sacrifice, still gained something after all. First, they captured Cangcheng not long after noon.

However, it was not that they completely wiped out the Cangcheng defenders, but that the Cangcheng defenders evacuated on their own initiative.

Half an hour after discovering that the Kunisaki detachment had stopped attacking, Tang Dao judged that the Japanese army was probably not really cowed and afraid to attack. They were just waiting for support because of too many casualties.

The armies of the three divisions have already reached the city. They still need to wait for support, which is only their army aviation or heavy artillery brigade.

The aerial bombs hanging on the plane weigh hundreds or even hundreds of pounds. Once those things are dropped in Cangcheng, the underground bunkers that can withstand 75 or even 105 howitzers will become a tragedy.

And the heavy artillery with a caliber of over 200 from the heavy artillery brigade that will definitely appear in Tang Dao's memory cannot be resisted by a hastily dug bullet shelter.

Rather than waiting to be buried by the Japanese aerial bombs and heavy artillery, it is better to preserve our vitality for the time being.

Although the Cangcheng defense battle did not fulfill the originally expected mission of being a nail between the east and west cities, it also gave the Japanese army a head-on blow and put a damper on the arrogance of the Japanese army.

At the same time, it also annihilated a large number of effective forces of the Japanese army. Although its own losses were also considerable, judging from the ratio of losses between the two warring parties, any commander would be happy with this battle.

The war is about industrial strength and wealth.

But on the battlefield, there is only exchange.

Exchange lives.

Whether it is bearable or not, making the opponent pay a greater price at the smallest possible cost is what commanders on the battlefield have to do.

So, Tang Dao, who assessed the situation, sent electricity to the Songjiang headquarters and requested to withdraw from Cangcheng.

Several generals in the Songjiang headquarters also breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, the Cangcheng defenders were not completely wiped out.

For these generals who have experienced countless battles, they are not afraid of heavy losses.

No matter how great the losses of the troops are, as long as China still exists, they can replenish their troops and rebuild.

But if any army wants to rebuild, it must have seeds. If there are seeds, it will still have energy and spirit, and it can continue its combat effectiveness. If even the seeds are gone, the infantry battalion of the 677th Regiment, the guard company of the colonel commander, and One-fifth of the troops of the 43rd Army who came here are gone.

However, it is not that easy to retreat.

Kunizaki, who was beaten all over, was staring at Cangcheng. If there was any change, it would be either guns or cannons, and he would never let the defenders escape easily.

"I need all the artillery in the army to obey my command!" Tang Dao made such an excessive request.

Only one person has that kind of power, not even Lieutenant General Guo, who is the deputy commander-in-chief.

But Lieutenant General Wu fought hard to get Tang Dao and others back to the city. Without any hesitation, he issued a military order that all artillery positions in the army be under the command of Tang Dao.

Then, Tang Dao, who turned into a scout again, allowed all the Japanese infantrymen who were watching the Cangcheng defenders around Cangcheng to understand what artillery superiority meant.

The coordinates in the city were continuously sent back, allowing several artillery groups to accurately throw their shells at the direction of the Japanese infantry as if they had eyes, causing them to flee in panic.

Tang Dao divided the remnants of Cangcheng with less than 200 people into several batches. Each batch carried some seriously wounded people and all wore Japanese military uniforms. When the artillery fire started to cover the Japanese army, they retreated according to the long-planned plan. Route retreat.

The panicked Japanese army may have seen a few khaki figures wandering around the streets, but at that time everyone was rushing to avoid the artillery fire, so why would they pay more attention to others?

By the time the Japanese army figured out something was wrong and no longer used artillery fire to counter-suppress the Chinese artillery positions in the city with little purpose, but instead implemented artillery fire blockade on the residential areas behind Cangcheng, the Cangcheng defenders had already withdrawn. about there.

Tang Dao led Peng Chong and more than 20 security company soldiers to be the last group to evacuate. The Japanese troops who realized something was wrong risked being shelled and pursued aggressively, but Tang Dao and others, who were all armed with submachine guns, beat them hard in the neighborhood. A lesson, what is real street fighting?

The two Japanese infantry squads that were pursuing them were almost defeated by the submachine guns. The 32-round continuous firepower was much more powerful than the 20-round shell gun of the security regiment.

Tang Dao alone, a fierce man, took the lives of more than a dozen Japanese soldiers during the counterattack during the retreat.

Chao Daqiang, who was lurking in the neighborhood and planned to help him, was immediately confused.

(End of this chapter)

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