Chapter 64 Upstream

  Sun Weiru 38th Army

  Liu Duoquan's 49th Army

  Zeng Wan-zhong's 3rd Army

  The 20th Division governs the 39th Brigade, the 40th Brigade and the 26th Field Artillery Regiment.

  August 1st morning, Quyang.

  Facing the morning sun, looking at the clouds emerging from the western mountainous area drifting down with the wind, Kawabata Sanro was leisurely tasting tea. "Takaashi, what a beautiful scenery, why do you have to run around? There's no task anyway."

  "Commander of the Division, yesterday our main force suffered a defeat..."

  "Don't say anything about losing, it's just that the offense didn't succeed, we can continue today." Kawabata smiled, "Perhaps the commander thought of us coming, and our division might also participate in today's attack."

  "I'm worried about this very point. The 80th Brigade is stationed in Korea, the 79th Brigade has been transferred by the military department to cover the directly affiliated troops; our attacking force is seriously insufficient!"

  "Don't worry, if the commander really remembers us, not only will the 79th Brigade return, but also bring back the Heavy Artillery Regiment and Tank Troops. Do you dare to bet with me on this?"

  "I don't dare!"

  "Hahaha!"

  However, he was half wrong! With the attack order of Kiyoshi Kōzuki, there were only two tank regiments except for the 79th Brigade.

  At 8:50, the 26th Field Artillery Regiment's three field artillery battalions opened fire at close range, starting to clear out the more visible and possible firing points on the "river embankment" over 1,000 meters away. However, there was a real river embankment in front of them, blocking their line of sight, and shells could only hit the bottom of the "embankment" by chance; At 9:15, more than 200 scattered Japanese soldiers ran out of their positions and crossed the river; At 9:30, the Japanese soldiers who had waded through the waist-deep river water reached the south bank without encountering any shelling. However, they did not launch an attack on the "embankment" tens of meters away but instead all fell to the ground behind the embankment; A whistle sounded, and a batch of troops rushed up to the top of the embankment and threw grenades at the Japanese army. The Japanese army on the other side quickly returned fire with artillery; In an instant, both sides suffered heavy casualties.

  At 9:50, the "main play" began, and the 12 105mm howitzers of the 26th Field Artillery Regiment and the 24 150mm howitzers of the 8th Field Heavy Artillery Regiment started a continuous bombardment. The shells concentrated on two points on the "river embankment", wave after wave, causing the two river embankments to collapse continuously; At 10:20, the smoke cleared, and the bomber group of the 6th Flying Brigade appeared in the sky, dropping heavy bombs one after another on the area that had just been bombarded, stirring up piles of floating earth; At 10:45, the smoke cleared again, and Kawagishi Sanroku and Takagi Giza carefully observed the opposite bank. The two designated attack areas "river embankment" had basically disappeared, and even the surrounding tens of meters were blown down several meters, leaving only ruins; At 10:55, after receiving intelligence from reconnaissance planes that repeatedly verified and airdropped communication tubes, Kawagishi issued an order to launch the attack.

  At 11 o'clock sharp, the 1st and 2nd tank regiments, which had been waiting in array for a long time, started their engines, and the deafening roar echoed through the Japanese army's formation.

  In the second line of 'River Embankment' within the 17th Division's frontline command post, Zhao Shoushan smiled and said to Zhang Jujing: "It seems we've hit the jackpot!"

  "Are there no more of them?" Zhang Juejing nodded his head.

  "Don't say that, they only have 6 anti-tank guns, and it's already a stretch to deal with one tank battalion; besides, our deployment is slightly off to the east, so we can only attack from the eastern route; the rest will depend on the brothers' desperate efforts."

  "Right, let's see what kind of grenades and machine guns the war zone has issued."

  "With such a good fortification, the Japanese devils fired so many shells and threw so many bombs but only destroyed such a small area; even if the Japanese devils' tanks broke in, what could they do?"

  At 11:16, the first Type 95 light tank climbed up the south bank of the Dasan River, followed by one tank after another crossing the river embankment. Hundreds of infantrymen and engineers followed under the cover of tanks; a batch immediately rushed to the top of the embankment and threw hand grenades, only to be met with the dual blow of nearby tank guns and machine guns, as well as field artillery and infantry guns in the distance. In an instant, they fell like the Japanese soldiers on the shore.

  As the group of Type 89 "medium" tanks slowly climbed up the bank, nearly a hundred tanks continued forward, soon stopping at a deep trench not far from the "big embankment". Although the trenches had been heavily bombed and collapsed in many places, the tanks still dared not venture out. Dozens of 57mm and 37mm tank guns accompanied by machine guns targeted the top and bottom of the "big embankment" with intense fire, covering the infantry as they crossed the trench.

  At this time, the mortar companies behind the second big embankment began to fire, a row of shells accurately hitting the crowded Japanese army, although the tanks were fine, but shell fragments flew between the tanks, sweeping away large numbers of Japanese infantry and engineers. Taking advantage of this chaos, another batch of soldiers climbed up from the back and threw grenades, a batch of heavy hand grenades poured down, only to be met with the inferior armor of the light and "medium" tanks, which could not withstand it. The lucky ones were blown out with big holes, while the unlucky ones were directly detonated by shells, turning into a ball of fire in an instant.

  However, the losses of the front row of tanks covered the subsequent tanks; under the cover of the field artillery group in the rear, another batch of infantry and engineers crossed the river, again crossing the trench under the cover of tank firepower that dared not advance. At this time, the lower edge of the big embankment continued to emerge with firing points, machine guns sweeping away groups of Japanese soldiers, followed by the firing points being hit and destroyed by tank guns at a distance of tens of meters.

  The two sides repeatedly contested until all the firing points near the gap and the nearby counterattacking officers and men were wounded.

  At 11:55, the first Type 89 tank crossed over the trench that the Japanese engineers and infantry had filled at the cost of hundreds of casualties. Just as the Japanese troops saw the tank climb up the remains of the "Great Dyke" which had been blown down by half, two cannon shots were fired from the bottom of the second dyke more than 300 meters away. Two armor-piercing shells accurately hit and penetrated the 17mm thick main armor of the Type 89, exploding inside the tank and causing it to blow up with a loud bang. The scattered debris knocked down a large number of Japanese soldiers; then came the second, third, and subsequent tanks, which were also hit and destroyed by armor-piercing shells fired from several hundred meters away. The follow-up tanks and infantry were frightened and dared not move, hiding behind the remains of the first dyke.

  The situation on the west side of the 1st Tank Regiment improved, with over a dozen tanks avoiding limited anti-tank gun interceptions and directly crossing the embankment to charge down the slope, followed by large numbers of infantry rushing towards the second major embankment. However, their good fortune ended there, as the area between the two major embankments, which had been bombarded with shells and bombs, suddenly erupted with numerous hand grenades and even hand-held rockets, accurately hitting the densely packed enemy troops, causing continuous explosions that destroyed both tanks and infantry; a small number of surviving tanks and infantry randomly fired without targets, only to be knocked down and destroyed by continued incoming hand grenades, rockets, and bullets from all directions, leaving only a handful of lucky survivors who retreated back to the shore.

  "What the...?!" Having barely endured the 2nd Tank Corps being battered by anti-tank guns, Kawabata was shocked and stunned as he roared at the wretched state of the 1st Tank Corps.

  A loud "boom" sound, and after more than ten minutes of experimentation with the captured hand grenades on the damaged and abandoned tank, Kawabata Bunjiro and Takagi Gishi were left staring at each other in dismay.

  "Report to the commander, the tank unit encountered Chinese anti-tank guns and a large number of new-style anti-tank grenades, resulting in heavy losses; our current force is unable to break through the Chinese army's position, requesting tactical guidance!"

  "Commander of the Division, troops on the south bank..."

  "Order artillery to cover, withdraw all!"

  In the inner courtyard of the General Headquarters of the First War Zone in Shijiazhuang, Zhang Xueliang was pacing back and forth, muttering to himself: "Shenyang, Northeast... 20,000, not even 20,000..."

  I came back to myself from gazing at the clouds in the western sky only to find Zhang Xueliang had changed so much, "Han Ying brother, Han Ying brother."

  Zhang Xueliang grasped my arm tightly, "Tell me, where were you in '31? Why weren't you by my side?"

  It's been 31 years? I couldn't help but laugh and cry, "Han Qing brother, things have come to this, let's start anew and reclaim our old mountains and rivers..."

  "Alright! What's next?"

  "Same here... I'm drinking soda water, what about you?"

  Two hours later, after gathering the necessary intelligence, I followed General Zhang into the conference room. After Young Marshal's passionate speech ended with everyone's warm applause, it was my turn to take the stage: "Now, all three main enemy divisions have temporarily stopped due to their lack of tactics to break through our military positions, but the majority of the enemy's combat effectiveness remains; Moreover, the second echelon of the enemy will arrive in 2-3 days, and when that happens, the attack will inevitably resume, and it must be a cautious and meticulous key strike. This will be a brutal and bloody battle for us! I hope you generals won't become complacent because of our initial victory; Moreover, in these 2-3 days, the enemy will not give up continuing to bomb and shell our military positions to consume our combat effectiveness and destroy our fortifications."

  Although that's what he said, I'm still in a good mood. "General Zhang hopes that this war zone can win a great victory like the Battle of Songhu or at least a victory like the Battle of Chashan. So the acting chief of staff has decided to launch a comprehensive counterattack tonight."

  The whole audience suddenly "exploded"! "What? A full-scale counterattack? Is this nonsense?! Not to mention that most of us are not good at night battles; facing three divisions and nearly 100,000 enemy troops, we can't even move during the day, let alone gather enough troops. How can we launch a counterattack with just a dozen or so front-line regiments? Besides, the enemy is not stupid, they must have anticipated our nighttime attack after yesterday's and today's failures. Are we going to reenact the tragic defeat of the Guangxi Army?"

  "I only said a comprehensive counterattack, didn't I say to commit the main force? Hehe! If our army doesn't make a move tonight, it would be too disappointing for Katsuragi Kei, right? We have to boost his morale after all!"

  "What does 'Zi An' mean?" Zhang Xueliang still couldn't sit still!

  "Since the Japanese army anticipated that our army might launch a night raid, we dispatched dozens of vanguard teams to counterattack and show them; tomorrow, there will be occasional light rain, haha, isn't Han Ying saying that the Northeast Army is ready to fight to the death? How about it? Is the 2nd Cavalry Corps ready?"

  "Of course! Ah!"

  There were also those who had come to their senses among the seated guests. Shang Zhen interjected, "I, Shi Qi of the 14th Cavalry Regiment, am willing to take action together!"

  "General Merchant is willing to join the battle, of course, welcome." I smiled and said, "Now let's talk about specific action plans."