pappabearbooks Chapter 292 Annihilating a Division in 3 Days?
Chapter 292 Annihilating a Division in 3 Days?
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The advance troops are less than two kilometers from the front line and are expected to engage in combat within half an hour.
"The Japanese are really giving us face, so many of them have come." Wang Dayong grinned, revealing a set of white teeth.
"Captain, we need to finish this quickly; the longer it drags on, the worse it will be for us."
Li Jianghe looked at the map, tapped the location of Huangkan Village with his finger, and then slowly traced the entire encirclement of the Third Division.
"It's alright. What's the situation up ahead? Have you taken Minshan Township? How's the progress?"
Wang Dayong reported with a mix of excitement and impatience.
"Not yet, about half of them. The Japanese Third Division on the other side are pretty tough fighters too."
"We've organized several rounds of 'Banzai' charges alone, wave after wave, charging forward like mad dogs."
"The barrels of our detachment's vehicle-mounted machine guns were all red-hot, we had to replace the barrels twice, and the ammunition consumption was also very high."
Li Jianghe said, his voice as calm as still water, neither hurried nor agitated.
"Have Yang Ruifu and Lin Yongzhi's troops reinforce their offensive from the flanks and rear, attacking from both sides to divide and encircle them."
"We must annihilate these Japanese devils one by one, taking them piece by piece, and not rushing to devour them."
"Three days. I'm only giving you three days to wipe out this damn Third Division."
"Yes!" Wang Dayong answered loudly, his voice full of confidence.
"But I think two days is enough. Isn't three days a bit too much? It seems like you don't trust us."
"Can't you live without bragging? You've blown the cows of Northeast China to the heavens with your boasting." Li Jianghe laughed and cursed, kicking him in the shin.
Wang Dayong chuckled, rubbed his calves, and didn't flinch, his expression suggesting he was enjoying this "trust."
Zhang Kewei, who was standing nearby, was completely silent after listening to their conversation, unsure of what to say.
Because he felt that the two of them were talking in their sleep, and in the most outrageous way possible.
In three days, they wiped out the 3rd Division, plus two artillery regiments?
That adds up to at least 20,000 people, more than 20,000 elite Japanese troops armed to the teeth.
How many people were in the Third Column? One hundred thousand? Or two hundred thousand?
If he remembered correctly, back in the Taierzhuang area, it took the Fifth War Zone's more than 100,000 troops about half a month to wipe out two Japanese divisions.
That victory was won with lives, every inch of land was soaked in blood.
Li Jianghe's tens of thousands of troops were about to wipe out the entire Third Division, plus two artillery regiments, within three days.
Listen to this, is this even human language? Zhang Kewei thought there was something wrong with his ears, or maybe Li Jianghe's brain was malfunctioning.
But when he looked around at the officers of the Third Column, they all had an expression of taking it all for granted.
It seems that "wiping out a division in three days" is as commonplace as eating a casual meal.
Inside the headquarters of the Japanese Third Division, Yu Chuanxiang looked at the telegram sent by the headquarters, but his expression remained tense.
The telegram contained a message that reinforcements were about to arrive. The handwriting was neat and the tone was optimistic, but after reading it three times, his brows furrowed even more.
The chief of staff, standing to the side, seeing his expression, finally couldn't help but ask in a low voice:
"With nearly 60,000 reinforcements, why are you still looking so worried?"
Yu Chuanxiang did not answer immediately, but instead tapped the location of Huangkan Village on the map heavily with his finger.
"It's not that I'm dissatisfied with the number of reinforcements," he said slowly, his voice carrying an indescribable weariness.
"We are worried about the speed of the Third Column's advance last night. Before reinforcements arrive, we may be wiped out."
The chief of staff paused for a moment, then spoke hesitantly, "It shouldn't be that bad, right?"
"The enemy's forces deployed in Huangkan Village are not too many, at most four or five thousand."
"With so many troops deployed, once our firepower and manpower are deployed, we will definitely be able to completely break through the enemy's defenses in Huangkan Village within two days."
He spoke with great confidence, as if he were bolstering his own courage or trying to persuade Yuukawa Shota.
Yu Chuanxiang took a deep breath, a very deep breath that made his chest bulge, and then slowly exhaled.
"That's exactly what I'm worried about."
"What if the enemy defeats our main force within two days?"
The division chief of staff opened his mouth as if to say something, but swallowed the words back.
No matter how he thought about it, he couldn't believe it. No matter how powerful these enemies were, it was too exaggerated for them to wipe out an entire division in two days.
A first-class division, with more than 20,000 men, is not a shoddy unit, but an elite force armed to the teeth.
Even if the Third Column were incredibly capable, they couldn't have achieved such results; it was beyond everyone's comprehension.
Of course, the current 3rd Division has already suffered some casualties in the previous continuous battles.
Just then, a low buzzing sound came from afar, like a swarm of giant bees flying overhead.
The sound grew closer and louder, causing dust to fall from the ceiling of the command post.
Upon hearing this commotion, the chief of staff of the 3rd Division's eyes lit up, and a long-lost smile appeared on his face.
"Your Excellency Division Commander, listen! It's our air force! They've begun their bombing mission!"
His voice was filled with excitement, like a drowning person grabbing a piece of driftwood.
"With air support now, the enemy is at a significant disadvantage. Let's see how arrogant they can be now!"
The buzzing sound did indeed calm Yu Chuanxiang, who was filled with anxiety and felt he was about to be annihilated by the Third Column, down a little.
He walked to the window, looked up at the sky, and saw more than a dozen Japanese warplanes emerging from the clouds, their wings gleaming in the setting sun.
"I hope so," Yuukawa Shota said, but his tone still carried a lingering worry.
At this very moment, Japanese warplanes had already flown over Mount Lu and were heading south towards Mahuiling Town and Minshan Township.
The pilots followed their previous flight path, maintaining a neat formation, and prepared to bomb the Third Column's positions.
But this flight mission is destined to be different from the previous ones, they just don't know it yet.
Because in previous battles, they were always able to "cleverly bypass" the enemy's air defense positions.
The pilots thought it was due to their superior skills or accurate reconnaissance intelligence.
In fact, these Japanese pilots did not know that it was not because they had bypassed the Third Column's defensive positions.
It was because the third column's air defense positions had not fired at them before, but had simply chosen to remain hidden.
The 88mm anti-aircraft guns were covered with camouflage netting, and the gunners crouched in their bunkers, watching the planes fly overhead without firing.
It was all an act, a performance for the Japanese army to put on a show, to make them lower their guard and think that the Third Column's air defense capabilities were nothing special.
This time, however, things were different. The air defense forces of the Third Column had received a death order—open fire at full speed and leave no aircraft unscathed.
Do not allow any Japanese fighter planes or bombers to enter the airspace above the battlefield.
So when those Japanese fighter planes and bombers followed the "old route" and rushed south of Minshan Township.
The 88mm anti-aircraft gun positions, quadruple anti-aircraft gun positions, and modified anti-aircraft vehicles that had already been deployed on the ground all had their muzzles pointed straight at the sky.
The gunners were shirtless, sweat streaming down their backs, their fingers resting on the firing mechanism, their eyes fixed on the small black dots in the scope.
The moment the Japanese aircraft flew over Mount Lu and rushed toward the battlefield, the anti-aircraft fire roared simultaneously.
"Bang bang bang!!!! Boom boom boom!!!"
High-explosive shells were launched into the sky by the 88mm cannon, and the flames spewed from the muzzle exploded into orange-red flowers in mid-air.
These shells were equipped with timed fuses, and the gunners precisely set the detonation time based on the enemy aircraft's altitude and speed.
The shell detonated with a roar at the designated height, and thousands of fragments inside sprayed out in all directions like a giant shotgun.
The shockwave from the explosion instantly covered an area of hundreds of meters in radius, causing the air to vibrate violently.
The Japanese warplanes in flight were instantly engulfed by shrapnel and shockwaves, like a flock of wild ducks startled by a shotgun.
"Clang! C ...
Fragments pierced the cockpit window, and glass and metal shards mingled together, flying wildly within the cramped cockpit.
The bodies of those Japanese pilots were pierced, and blood gushed from the wounds, splattering onto the instrument panel.
Some fragments are deeply embedded in the flesh and bone, between muscles and bones, causing pain so intense that people almost faint.
"Ah!!!!!" The Japanese pilots let out extremely shrill screams, which echoed through the communication channel.
The entire fuselage of the aircraft was also violently shaking under the raging air currents, like broken leaves caught in a storm, completely out of control.
Other aircraft were hit by shrapnel in their fuel tanks, causing fuel leaks that, upon encountering sparks, triggered secondary explosions.
"BOOM!!!" A huge fireball exploded in the air, and the plane disintegrated in the explosion, turning into countless fragments in a cloud of black smoke.
The wreckage, trailing black smoke, fell to the ground like burning meteors.
In addition, the shells fired by those 20mm caliber machine guns became a nightmare for these Japanese warplanes.
These shells have an extremely high rate of fire, capable of firing more than a dozen per second, with a low trajectory and high accuracy.
A 20mm shell could easily penetrate the aluminum alloy skin of a Japanese warplane, like piercing a piece of paper with an awl.
Some shells shattered the wings, causing the plane to lose balance and begin to spiral downwards. The pilots struggled to pull on the control stick, but to no avail.
Some shells pierced the cockpit, blasting the pilots inside to pieces, almost tearing them in two.
Some shells even detonated aerial bombs mounted under the fuselage; that was true hell.
The explosive power of the aerial bombs far exceeded that of the artillery shells themselves, with flames shooting into the sky and even affecting nearby friendly aircraft, sending debris flying everywhere.
Within the communication channel, screams and cries could be heard, mingling together like a pot of boiling porridge.
"Enemy air defense fire! Increase altitude!!! Increase altitude now!!!"
"Retreat! Retreat immediately!! They're trying to wipe us out!!!"
"No retreat! Everyone, dive bomb! Don't let those army soldiers underestimate us!!!"
A voice that sounded like a commander roared in the channel, its tone full of resentment and anger.
But no sooner had he finished speaking than a violent explosion occurred, and the sound never rang out again.
On the communication channel, voices rose and fell, some shouting, some praying, and some weeping.
The entire aircraft group was thrown into complete chaos by the fierce firepower it had just received, like a swarm of headless flies.
Some planes turned back and fled, some tried to climb, and some kept rushing forward, colliding with each other.
On the ground, the soldiers of the Third Column looked up at the "performance" in the sky, and smiles appeared on their faces.
Those Japanese planes that had been swaggering overhead were now falling like autumn leaves.
With each plane that crashed, cheers erupted on the battlefield, and morale soared to its peak.
Meanwhile, in Minshan Township, the ground advance of the Third Column has been fully launched, like a giant meat grinder starting to turn.
Under the cover of hundreds of artillery pieces of various calibers, hundreds of tanks deployed on the front lines, forming a steel wave.
The roar of the engines blended together, shaking the earth and making the air seem to resonate.
The tanks surged forward like a raging torrent, kicking up clouds of dust as they crashed into the Japanese positions with overwhelming force.
I could only feel the ground vibrating and the sweltering heat that seemed to emanate from the engine.
The Japanese soldiers on the position already felt an indescribable fear and suffocation, as if someone had choked them.
This feeling is different from that at night; during the day, things are clearer, and the fear is more concrete.
At night, the fear was tinged with the unknown; all they could see were perhaps the seven or eight armored vehicles closest to them.
With limited visibility at night, and the distant tanks hidden in the darkness, there was less fear because you couldn't see them.
But things are different now. With good visibility, the Japanese soldiers on the position can clearly see that there are a large number of tanks.
One, two, ten, fifty, one hundred... they were densely packed, filling the entire field of vision.
Their steel bodies gleamed coldly in the sunlight, and their cannons pointed at their positions like a forest.
The oppressive feeling it brought was unimaginable; it felt like a mountain was pressing down on your chest, making it hard to breathe.
Many Japanese soldiers even began to tremble uncontrollably, their fingers stiffened, and their lips turned white.
Some people couldn't even hold a gun steady; the muzzle was drawing circles in front of them, and they couldn't aim accurately at all.
"Deploy the anti-tank artillery! Air support is on its way!! Buy time!!!"
The Japanese commander roared, his voice distorted, sounding like he was shouting or crying at the same time.
Because in addition to the violent noise of enemy tank engines, he could also hear the buzzing of aircraft engines.
Not only the plane engine, he could even see dark shadows getting closer and closer in the distant sky.