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On the Langfang front line, Chen Jun, led by the staff of the 19th Army, finally met Cai Tingguang, the commander of the 19th Division. At this time, Cai Tingguang's uniform of a Kuomintang Army major general had been completely blackened by gunpowder smoke, and even his collar badge was

It was dirt, and there was even an obvious scratch on his left cheek. He held his military cap in his hand, a cigarette in his mouth, and frowned as he stared at the wounded and soldier corpses being carried down from the position in trance.

The battle had just ended. Even the men who had been fighting bravely just now, except those who had not fainted from the pain, could not help but groan. Many of them were missing one or two things. Fortunately, it was not the perforation belt on the head and abdomen.

Hole, that kind of thing will be explained directly on the position.

"Hurry up and send them to the hospital behind." Cai Tingguang stepped forward and helped a seriously injured soldier whose left leg was severed by a bullet to be put on a stretcher and sent to the rear. They were all living men, a battle.

Down, there were heavy casualties.

Sporadic gunshots were heard from the firing line, and the sky above the entire position outside Langfang was filled with billowing smoke. Burning trees and buildings could be seen in many places. The ground was devastated, and there was a strong smell of blood and burning meat.

And the pungent smell of gunpowder smoke is unbearable for those who are new to the battlefield.[

The 19th Division had just repelled a fierce attack by the Japanese 16th Division.

A soldier of the 19th Division who was sorting out the belongings of the fallen soldiers caught Chen Jun's attention. The dead soldier was huddled in the trench, his forehead was blown off by a piece of debris, and he was holding a rifle and a bamboo tube tightly in his arms.

Chen Jun walked over and saluted the fallen warrior with a military salute that transcended political differences. Then he bent down and picked up the bamboo tube in his arms. He wiped off the blood that had not completely dried on it, and found two inscriptions carved on it.

Line characters.

"One day our blue sky and white sun flag will fly on the top of Mount Fuji."

Shocked to the extreme. Chen Jun closed his eyes hard, and those two lines of vertical words were like a sharp knife piercing his heart. Although he died in a hundred battles, he was glorious. Such a small soldier had such a monstrous ambition, and he had to

It is said that China has many strong bones, but who dares to say that I, a Chinese man, have great ambitions?

At this time, Cai Tingguang, Gao Feng, Dai Anlan and others also came over and saw the bamboo tube in Chen Jun's hand. They were all silent. A group of senior generals and officers all took off their military caps, stood at attention and spoke with their best

The honorable military salute sent this warrior on his final journey.

"General Cai, I would like to collect this bamboo tube for this tough and good man. I don't know if it is possible."

Cai Tingguang was slightly embarrassed, "He died in the war. According to regulations, the relics of these men who sacrificed their lives for the country must be left to their relatives to claim."

Chen Jun: "I think that if I land in Japan one day, I will fulfill this warrior's wish. I also ask General Cai to be especially kind. After the victory of the war in the future, I will personally return it to the family of this warrior."

Cai Tingguang nodded in acquiescence. Will we hit Japan? At least with the strength of the Japanese army, we can't even think about it. I just don't know.

"General Cai, this is the deputy commander-in-chief of the 19th United Anti-Japanese Southwest Route Army and the commander of the third division, Major General Chen Jun. This is the chief of staff of the third division, Colonel Gao Feng, and this is the commander of the third regiment of the third division, Dai Dai.

Lieutenant Colonel An Lan." The staff officer gave a brief introduction to several people.

Perhaps what happened just now made Cai Tingguang have a good impression of Chen Jun, so he threw away his cigarette butts and shook hands with the three of them. He was a little surprised. This was the first line of fire. It turned out that these senior commanders of the 19th Southwest Route Army were not afraid of death.

"Go to the bunker behind and talk. Otherwise, once the artillery fire comes down, the two anti-Japanese armies will lose a lot of commanders."

Different from his indifference when they first met, Cai Tingguang turned out to be a more talkative person, and he greeted several people back to the temporary command bunker further back.

As soon as a few people got into the low air defense bunker and left the sporadic gunfire behind them, a communications staff officer came to report to Cai Tingguang with a telegram. He just glanced at it and showed a happy face.

, slamming his right fist on the telegram, "It's great, now you don't have to be bombed by Japanese planes every day."

Seeing that several people were a little puzzled, Cai Tingguang didn't care about military secrets. He entered his temporary office cubicle, shook the telegram and said, gesturing for a few people to sit tight, "This is good news. The planes of the two squadrons will go north."

Come to support.”

During the Anti-Japanese War talks on "May 1st Cooperation", the terms regarding the dispatch of the Southwest Air Force to participate in the war were ultimately not adopted. Chiang Kai-shek finally only agreed to use a limited army from the Southwest to fight against the Japanese. As a supplement to the cooperation, Chiang Kai-shek agreed to send his own air force to the north. Chen Jun said:

The matter of May Day cooperation is still clear, and Chiang Kai-shek was not ambiguous at this time. The arrival of more than 40 aircraft from the two squadrons will greatly reduce the air pressure on the Tianjin-Beijing battlefield.

"With the air force, we can still compete with the Japanese army. My third regiment will arrive in Peiping tomorrow morning, and the main force of the third division will arrive within a week." Chen Jun briefly introduced the third division's northward march.

Condition.

Perhaps other generals would look down on a regiment of the Southwest Army, but Cai Tingguang happened to know a lot about the Southwest Army when he was in the south. He knew that one of their regiments at least had the combat effectiveness of a division, so he nodded with relief, "That's good.

, the Japanese army's offensive momentum is too fierce. According to intelligence, all three Japanese divisions have landed, and it is likely to launch a battle of annihilation against the 19th Division in these two days. My brothers and I are not afraid of death.

It doesn’t matter if we enter the 18th Division, what matters is the land of Pingjin and what matters is the hundreds of thousands of Northeastern troops in Jinzhou.”

Chen Jun admired Cai Tingguang for having such foresight. As the commander of the Central Division, he was no mediocre person. He took out his cigarette case, picked out a Chinese cigarette and handed it to him, "My Third Division."

We are not cowardly people. Either we all die together, or we wait for reinforcements and give the Japanese a hard fight. In the collision between the two nations, casualties are inevitable. If we can bring peace and security to the country, then the third division will be dead. I

Chen Jun was buried with them."[

Cai Tingguang punched the table with his fist and said bitterly, "Even if all the ten thousand men in our 19th Division die, they still can't make things easier for the Japanese. I have long wanted to go north to fight against the Japanese, but I didn't expect to face the Japanese here."

.We only need to hold on for two days. An A-class division from Shandong and a B-class division from Zhengding, Hebei will rush to help here and will arrive tomorrow afternoon."

Regarding Chiang Kai-shek's deployment of troops and generals, Chen Jun also heard from Chen Cheng that the three divisions of the Japanese army were large establishments, three standing divisions, each with more than 20,000 troops, and the three divisions were composed of

Even as far away as Nanjing, Chiang Kai-shek was completely shocked by the offensive momentum.

Let’s not talk about the possible follow-up troop increase plan of the Japanese army. The three divisions alone have reached the size at the beginning of the Northeast Jinzhou Campaign. Nearly ten divisions of the Northeast Army are stationed on the front line of Jinzhou, and even with solid fortification defenses, they still suffered losses.

The situation was disastrous, the Pingjin area was dangerous to defend, and there were only simple positions. If heavy troops were not mobilized, the Pingjin area and nearby areas would probably be lost to the Japanese.

This was a huge difference from Chiang Kai-shek's original estimate of a Japanese army with at most one division. Afterwards, he replaced the head of the Central Special Section responsible for intelligence on Japan, and on the other hand, he urgently mobilized troops from Hebei and Shandong.

The two places dispatched the first batch of reinforcements to the army and air force.

At the same time, one division of the Central Division and one division of the First Class Division have been assembled and are preparing to board the train in batches and head north.

A battle is slowly brewing. The premise is that the 18th Route Army of the Kuomintang and the troops arriving early from the southwest can block the Japanese offensive momentum and ensure that Peiping is not lost for at least a month. Otherwise, the battle will be of little significance.

Although he didn’t know how many troops Chiang Kai-shek was planning to mobilize for this very likely battle, Chen Jun could only choose to trust the chairman of the Nanjing Committee. After all, the southwest was too far away. If Chiang Kai-shek continued to passively resist the war, the only result would be three

The division fought against the Japanese army.

Cai Tingguang was surprised that Southwest's reinforcements arrived so quickly. He was relieved when he heard that Southwest used planes to transport the vanguard troops to Taiyuan and boarded the train to head north. Southwest's air force has been famous for a long time.

However, Chen Jun also briefly said that the subsequent troop transportation must not adopt this very capacity-consuming method. The Air Force will give priority to ensuring the logistics supplement of the Third Division. Not to mention other things, the semi-automatic rifles equipped by the Southwest Army use sub-machine guns.

It is a new style, completely different from the new official rifles (Enfield rifles) used by the two central divisions of the Kuomintang. If combat supplies are not transported from Chengdu to Taiyuan north, maybe one day the third division will have to use Enfield rifles in the trenches

Even the older Hanyang made these fire sticks to "shoot" with the Japanese army.

Of course, because the Southwest France is transporting heavy artillery northward, some key supplementary munitions will also be distributed more intensively. In order to solve the transportation problem, the zh-31 transport aircraft is already demonstrating an increase in the maximum weight. Although the standard weight of four tons seems

It sounds scary, but compared to some of the British mainframes that weighed seven or eight tons in the early years, there is still room for improvement.

The battle plan drawn up by the staff general of the 19th Route Army was briefly introduced to the people present. Just like what Chen Cheng and Chen Jun had discussed verbally before, the 19th Division will withstand the fierce Japanese attack tomorrow.

It will be withdrawn as a reserve force, and the 18th Division will make up for it. At the same time, the second-class division from Zhengding, Hebei that will arrive tomorrow will be responsible for the right wing of Langfang, and the third regiment of the 3rd Southwest Division with strong combat effectiveness will be independently responsible for the left defense line.

"The basic situation is this. The 19th Division has suffered heavy casualties, reaching more than 3,000 casualties. It must be withdrawn tomorrow. Commander Chen means that no matter what, to survive tomorrow, all precautions will be taken first, and when reinforcements arrive,

, and then formulate further combat plans.”

Chen Jun nodded, this battle plan is correct. The two divisions of the 19th Route Army only have 20,000 people, plus the 3rd Regiment with more than 4,000 people, it is only a little more than a Japanese division. Counting tomorrow's generals,

The more than 7,000 men from the second-class division in Zhengding, Hebei Province who will arrive will not be able to compare with the Japanese army in terms of head count.

The best approach is to focus on prevention and wait for reinforcements.

At around nine o'clock in the morning, the Japanese army showed signs of launching an attack. Chen Jun stayed at the front line, preparing to see how the Japanese army had changed in recent years. After all, the Southwest Army had too little contact with the Japanese army, and the only small battles were

However, there were small-scale battles during the counterattack against the Japanese landing at Fangchenggang.

Chen Jun called Chen Cheng on the front line.

"Commander Chen, the situation is a bit delicate. I am always worried about whether the reinforcements will arrive on time. If the plan for reinforcements changes, it will be a big deal."

"Well, what you said makes sense. What do you think of Deputy Commander Chen?"

"I suggest that the arsenal in Peiping be opened immediately, local veterans be recruited, and the Tianjin security forces and Peking garrison troops that have been evacuated to Peking be urgently expanded into divisions. In addition, we should also mobilize the power of the people to build the third road between Langfang and Peiping.

Second-line fortifications are prepared to prepare for unexpected events, and they are also organized to handle logistics transportation and rescue of wounded soldiers. If the defense is proper, we will definitely be able to hold back the Japanese army, and then the battle will enter the battle stage. These things must be done in advance."

"This... the arsenals in Peiping are in vain and empty. It seems that we can only go to a few arsenals to find a solution. However, we need to ask the Chairman for instructions. The problem should not be big. As for the rest, I will immediately

Arrange manpower to do it." Chen Cheng was not a pedantic person. The war was urgent, so he readily agreed to Chen Jun's proposal.

At ten o'clock in the morning, the Japanese army launched a fierce attack on the Chinese defenders in Langfang again.

Sure enough, as soon as the Japanese army came up, they came with planes, artillery, armored vehicles, and a whole brigade charging in a skirmish formation. Ships and planes taking off from the sea were as if they were entering the enemy's land, and old-fashioned biplane bombers also dive-bombed fearlessly from high altitudes.[

"Da da da..."

"Bang...bang...bang..."

"Shh...boom"

After several days of fighting, the Japanese army no longer tried to attack as they did at first. After figuring out the depth of the 19th Division, a large-scale attack began. The Japanese army concentrated at least 400 various types of weapons.

caliber artillery violently bombarded the positions of the 19th Division. At least 150 of them were 75mm and above artillery pieces belonging to the artillery wing of the main division.

Although there was no support from naval guns, this intensity of shelling was still something the Kuomintang army had never seen before.

The Kuomintang division before reorganization was the most direct unit of Chiang Kai-shek. Each division only had twenty or thirty old cannons, and occasionally some new cannons. There was also a serious shortage of cannons and artillery accessories.

I don’t know whether the existence of the southwest is a good thing or a bad thing, but for the Kuomintang, with the strong support of the three countries, the military reorganization has indeed seen great results. At least in these years, a dozen main central divisions have consumed the Nanjing government’s huge financial resources

Despite the circumstances, the weapons were still at a considerable level.

Each division has an artillery regiment directly under it, all equipped with 105mm artillery made in the Soviet Union, Britain or France. The two divisions of the 18th Route Army, Chen Cheng's original 18th Division, were equipped with artillery made in France.
To be continued...