Songhu: Never Give Up

Chapter 20: Bloody Battle at Liuhe Town (2)

"Senior, the 88th Regiment of the 527th Division has been ordered to reinforce Liuhe Town. Division Commander Yu has already told us to follow your orders unconditionally and defend our positions to the death. You can arrange the mission!"

Yu Liangzhen's words were beautiful, and Song Yinguo would not be so foolish as to really put the 527th Regiment at the forefront. With this regiment as a reserve, he was much more confident.

The dean of education has already informed him that Commander-in-Chief Chiang of the 527th Route Army has also sent troops to support them. They can only hold out for one more day at most and reinforcements will arrive. Unless it is absolutely necessary, he will not wipe out the th Regiment, otherwise he will have trouble explaining to his old classmates.

Although he was young among the students of the first class, he had a high emotional intelligence and knew everything about the National Army.

Yu Liangzhen gave him a regiment for his teacher's sake. This was a favor, and he couldn't use it all up. If the troops were exhausted, they could be replenished. If he used up his favor, it would be difficult for him to survive in the future. Thinking of this, he said to Zhu Chi:

"Captain Zhu, you have traveled dozens of miles overnight, and the soldiers are very tired. Let's adjust first.
The position can still hold out now, so you should take a good rest. Once the front line is in danger, you will have to take the lead. Do you understand?"

Zhu Chi's emotional intelligence is not low either. Although he wanted to go to the battlefield immediately, he still chose to follow orders and not embarrass his senior.
If the front line really couldn't hold on, Brigade Commander Song would not be polite to him. He didn't send them here just to watch the fun.

Zhu Chi saluted and left. After a forced march of more than 30 kilometers overnight, they really needed to rest.

After Zhu Chi left, Deputy Brigade Commander Liu Baoding came over and said excitedly:
"Brother Yinguo, Brother Liangzhen is very considerate. With this regiment of reinforcements, it won't be a problem to hold out until the Guangdong Army arrives."

"Brother Yizhi, the Japanese have a full division. Even with the addition of the 527th Regiment, it will be difficult to hold the position. Be prepared to sacrifice your lives for the country.
The Japanese want to threaten the safety of our main force from Liuhe Town, so they should cross over the 261st Brigade. As long as the people are in the position, the position will be there!"

Liu Baoding bowed heavily, and everyone in the 261st Brigade had already made up their mind to die.

After receiving the order to rest, Yue Qianli asked Duan Yulin to inform all the brothers to rest on the spot, and he also fell asleep;

It was not his turn as a small company commander to make decisions in a battle involving tens of thousands of people. All he could do was to recover his strength as soon as possible and kill more Japanese devils when it was their turn to fight.

When Duan Yulin returned, Yue Qianli was already snoring loudly. He couldn't help but shook his head, thinking that this buddy was really brave. He admired him very much for being able to sleep so peacefully in the midst of the continuous artillery fire.
He couldn't sleep, as he always felt that the order from the regiment would come down at the next second, so he simply ran back to the troops. As a platoon leader, he had to keep an eye on his brothers.

Yue Qianli slept until noon. Perhaps it was due to telepathy, as soon as he opened his eyes, Duan Yulin rushed in excitedly and said loudly:

"The regiment has issued an order, prepare for battle!"

Yue Qianli jumped up and quickly entered combat mode, shouting at Duan Yulin:
"Then what are you still standing there for? Gather the troops!"

The 527th Regiment finally filled in. When Yue Qianli arrived at the position, he was immediately shocked by the brutality on the battlefield;
History only records a few words about this battle. The 261st Brigade fought fiercely for days and suffered heavy casualties. It only handed over the position to the th Route Army after reinforcements arrived.

The position they took over had been flattened by artillery fire, and the ground was filled with the bodies of soldiers from both sides, lying side by side. This was the tragedy that could only occur after several hand-to-hand combats, and everyone was shocked...

"What are you still standing there for? Repair the position quickly, dig a foxhole first, and then expand to the left and right;

It's just some loose soil, easy to dig, hurry up!"

The Japanese attack had just been repelled, and they were obviously licking their wounds. Only a dozen or so of the original defenders were left; they wanted to stay and fight, but were driven away by Yue Qianli, so they had to leave a few seeds for them!

The Third Company had already formed a habit of digging fortifications. Whenever they set up camp in a place, the first thing they did was to build fortifications, not to mention that they were on a battlefield.

Without the need for the company commander or platoon leader to shout, the squad leader would take the initiative to lead the digging of trenches, first clearing out a foxhole as quickly as possible, so that they would have a place to stay;

Such foxholes can at least protect against the most lethal shrapnel. More than half of the soldiers on the battlefield died from shrapnel injuries from artillery shells.

Then dig inwards on both wings, connecting the two foxholes in a line, so that there is a short trench and room to move;

After the two were connected, a linear trench was cleared, and then they began to dig the second and third trenches, anti-artillery holes and cat-ear holes in the same way. Unfortunately, the Japanese did not give them time to dig out circular fortifications.

Just as the Third Company was struggling to act as groundhogs, a rumbling sound of artillery was heard in the distance. The soldiers hid in the makeshift cat-ear holes one after another. Rows of artillery shells whizzed towards the positions of the 527th Regiment, and a new round of attack by the Japanese began again.

The 75th Division has seized enough beach positions. The mm field artillery group of their division's artillery battalion continuously fired at the defenders' deep positions. This is the last line of defense of Liuhe Town. There is no place to defend further.

The 522nd and 521st Regiments had suffered most of their casualties, so they handed over half of their positions to the 527th Regiment, which held off the landing Japanese troops on the left and right.

Only after the Japs have broken through the defenders’ defenses can they deploy their forces and take advantage of their group. Now they can only deploy one regiment at most.
The 2nd Regiment had suffered more than half of its casualties, so the attack was replaced by the fresh 50th Regiment, which, with the fire support of the artillery battalion, formed a huge inverted triangle attack formation.

The three battalions had two in front and one in the back, with the artillery squadron lagging behind. The entire regiment of nearly 3 people pressed forward and poured densely into the defenders' positions.

The 527st Battalion attacked the left wing of the 400th Regiment. They were arranged into three echelons, front, middle and back. The front was heavy and the back was light. The first echelon was the main force, with about people, and opened up an attack front of about one kilometer.
The third echelon is heavy firepower, including a machine gun squadron, an infantry artillery squad, and an infantry squad. They provide accompanying fire support for the infantry group.

This was the battalion-level offensive tactic commonly used by the Japs. The two infantry guns posed a great threat to the heavy firepower of the defenders, especially the Maxim heavy machine guns.
Fortunately, the 261st Brigade had built heavy machine gun positions in advance, which were built with huge stones according to the terrain, making it very difficult for infantry artillery to destroy them.

The defense of the 527th Regiment was composed of the st and nd Battalions in the front, the artillery company behind, and the rd Battalion as the reserve.

The artillery company was equipped with six 6mm Type 82 mortars, plus six mortars from the three battalion artillery platoons, for a total of 20 mortars for the entire regiment. This was the heavy firepower of the German-equipped division level, which was very different from the four 6mm field guns and a dozen infantry guns and rapid-fire guns equipped by the Japanese regiment level.

When the Japanese infantry groups swarmed towards the position of the 527th Regiment, the regiment commander Zhu Chi gave the order to fire;

The artillery company's six 6mm mortars fired shells at the Japanese at the fastest speed, smashing into their ranks one round after another. Each shell would knock down several Japanese, becoming a nightmare for the Japanese infantry.

The artillery company fired 12 rounds in one breath, with a firing rate of 8 to 9 rounds per minute. They finished the fire within two minutes and then quickly moved their positions, leaving the Japanese field artillery no time to react.

A total of 72 shells caused a lot of casualties to the Japanese First Battalion. The previously rigorous attack formation was also disrupted. The ground was full of corpses and wounded, and it was estimated that they were close to a squadron. The Japanese commander who was watching the battle was so angry that he gritted his teeth and yelled:
"Order the artillery squadron to fire, destroy the Chinese artillery, and kill the chicken!"

(End of this chapter)