Chapter 67: Raiding Greater Wuhan (8)
He didn't bother to waste another glance on this garrulous special forces member, and with a wave of his hand, he led his own troops in a charge into the train station.
Through the waiting room window, you can see the situation in the station. The station is very quiet, so quiet that it doesn't look like a battlefield where two armies are facing each other at all. The scene inside the station also makes people feel strange! On platform 2, there were twenty or thirty tank cars parked alone, without a locomotive. The platforms around it were empty and deserted, with no vehicles in sight. All the vehicles were parked far away. Moreover, all the searchlights on the station were shining on these tank cars on platform 2. Platform 2 was as bright as daylight, while other places were pitch black.
The doors of the armored train stopped at platform 2 were all open, and inside was dark and empty. Several sections had piles of grain sacks stacked haphazardly near the doors, with some even spilling onto the ground in front of the doors. It was clear that they had been hastily piled up in a state of panic. Many of the grain sacks stacked at the doors had been shot through by bullets, and rice was scattered all over the ground. Moreover, on the ground in front of the doors of each section of the armored train, there were bodies of Kuomintang soldiers lying helter-skelter.
As Wang De was observing the situation, he suddenly discovered that three Guangxi soldiers jumped out of a tank car in the middle. Before Wang De ordered his own soldiers to fire, with three shots of the 38th gun's distinctive gunfire, the bodies of the two Guangxi soldiers who jumped out later were still in mid-air, and their heads seemed to have been hit hard by someone, suddenly tilting back, falling face up on the ground, motionless, apparently dead. The first Guangxi soldier to jump out was an officer holding a short gun, who pounced forward as soon as his feet touched the ground, followed by several agile rolls, and the shot that hit him did not seem to have hit a vital spot. Just as this Guangxi soldier was about to roll off the platform, he could hide under the car at the bottom of the platform, where it was a shooting blind spot. The body of a Guangxi soldier lying on the ground at the edge of the platform caused his agile movement to pause for a moment, and this brief pause cost him his life. Almost simultaneously, several gunshots rang out, and half of the Guangxi officer's head suddenly flew out, and he fell onto the corpse that had caused his fatal pause.
The platform was quiet again, and under the pale light, the twenty or so cars on Platform 2 with their doors wide open, as well as the corpses all over the ground, filled the platform with an eerie atmosphere. This made Wang De, a Hebei man who had personally killed at least a dozen enemies on the battlefield, feel his scalp tingle slightly.
At this time, a lieutenant colonel of the Security Guard Special Forces Brigade with a black base and a white lightning emblem on his left arm came to see Wang De under the leadership of the soldiers of the First Battalion. The rank of the special forces brigade is one level higher than that of the same-level officers in other security guard units. Wang De knew that this lieutenant colonel should be the leader of this reinforced platoon. After saluting each other and reporting their numbers, they exchanged a few simple pleasantries before the platoon leader briefed Wang De on the situation at the station.
Originally, Ye Changgui brought his special forces to Wuhan at 10 pm last night. They disguised themselves as Yang Tenghui's troops and infiltrated Hankou and Hanyang separately. Due to the need for a ferry to cross the river, support was not easy in Wuchang, Jiangnan, so it had to be abandoned. Although the special forces had over 2,000 people, including the 18th squadron and a directly affiliated brigade, after all, Hankou and Hanyang were too large, with too many targets to take care of, and the personnel dispatched to each place were not many. Fortunately, their mission was only to cooperate with and respond to follow-up troops.
Their mission was to seize control of the railway station in a timely manner when the main force launched its attack.
Due to the insufficient troops of the Wuhan garrison, the troops defending Hankou railway station only had half a company, and were easily subdued by a special operations team of over 70 people. They controlled the station's dispatch building, waiting room, entrance and exit channels, and several signal houses inside the station. The only problem was a train carrying military supplies on platform 2, which had an entire company of escort troops on board who remained there throughout. After inquiring with the station master on duty, it was learned that they were originally scheduled to depart at midnight but due to a section of track ahead being bombed by Central Army planes during the day and still under repair, they were waiting for departure instructions, and the escort troops had not disembarked.
The special warfare team, in order to control the sealed train with the Guangxi Army on it, instructed the stationmaster on duty to gradually move away other vehicles parked around him and drove his locomotive away under the pretext of adding water. At the same time, they controlled all the commanding heights in the station, with two submachine guns responsible for sealing each carriage door. Once the Guangxi Army became aware, they would seal the doors and trap them inside. On every commanding height in the station were marksmen armed with Type 38 rifles, who could provide support from above to various locations.
It wasn't until 3 am that the commander of the escort team, Gui Jun, felt something was off because the station was too quiet. Although all passenger and freight trains, including the Pinghan Line, had been suspended due to the war, with only occasional military vehicles passing through, there should still have been patrolling guards and station staff walking around. But now, not a single person could be seen on the platform, except for the lights still on in the rooms of the dispatch building, while all around was dark and gloomy, and this platform was brightly lit.
Both platforms had trains that had departed. Only his, the 7T train, was left standing alone. The more Guizhou Army Commander looked at it, the more uneasy he felt. He immediately sent someone to the dispatch building to ask about the situation.
The original special warfare team was also supposed to send someone to pretend to be a patrol guard for the Gui army. However, they had too few people. Each location was almost empty with just one person left. Two soldiers who were sent to the dispatch building to gather information did not return and there was no news from them. The commander of the Gui army knew something was wrong and immediately blew his whistle, ordering the soldiers to get off the vehicle. As soon as he blew the whistle, he was hit by bullets coming from several directions and died. As soon as the gunshots rang out, the Gui army soldiers who were sleeping in the car grabbed their guns and jumped out of the car. As soon as they jumped out, they were met with a barrage of submachine gun fire and accurate rifle shots. Every time the three guns fired, almost one person fell down. The first ones to jump out were quickly killed under the car. The soldiers behind them did not dare to jump out again and hid in the car, shooting outward. As long as they didn't come out, the submachine gun would stop firing. The Gui army soldiers inside the car took advantage of this and built a barricade using sacks of rice at the doors of several cars, setting up machine guns to fire outward. It was fine if they didn't shoot, but as soon as they started shooting, the shooters were immediately killed by the rifles outside. The Gui army soldiers inside the car quickly discovered this phenomenon and slowly stopped firing. This is how the current situation came about.
After listening to the introduction of the special warfare team leader, Wang De couldn't help but burst out laughing: "Your special forces are really something else. Fighting can be done like this too." Wang De saw that the two battalions he brought had already surrounded the 2nd station platform. He told a staff officer from Yang Tengfei's unit who came with him: "Trouble brother to let them surrender, tell them our Fourth Route Army has occupied most of Wuhan. If they don't surrender now, I'll throw hand grenades and blow up the military supplies together."
The staff officer, upon hearing Wang De's words, did not dare to slack off. He immediately lay down at the window and shouted loudly. First, he introduced himself, then told the people on the train that Wuhan had been occupied and they should quickly get off the train and surrender, etc. The people on the train were initially in a state of confusion, but as they listened to the gunfire dying down in the city, they gradually came to believe it. First, one carful of people threw out their guns, followed by the other cars also throwing out their guns. The people in the train slowly got off one by one. Wang De's battalion of soldiers immediately surrounded them. Then, they searched each car one by one. A company commander ran over to report: "Deputy Regimental Commander, inside the train, except for the last five cars which are loaded with food, all the others are loaded with cannonballs and bullets." Wang De was delighted upon hearing this: "Great! I heard that the Second Division wasted a lot of cannonballs at Xiaogan. This is just what we needed to replenish our supplies." The special warfare team leader said: "Deputy Regimental Commander Wang, there are several large warehouses over there. I took a look and they're all loaded with food. I think it's enough for tens of thousands of people to eat for several months." Wang De smiled and patted him on the shoulder: "This is your achievement. I'll send someone to report to the Division Commander right away."
The Third Division Commander Sun Li led his division and the First Cavalry Regiment. They rushed to Zhuji River at 6:00 am, and the sky was already bright. Zhuji River is a small village with only dozens of households, located on the side of the main road along the river, which blocks the way from Huanggang to Hankou. The area is all flat, with only a small hill about 100 meters behind the village, tens of meters high, not an ideal place for ambushes. Sun Li had no choice but to order the artillery regiment to line up behind the small hill. The First Regiment defended the village and the small hill, while the Second Regiment dug trenches on the main road and both sides, slightly behind the village. The logistics regiment and the guard company served as reserve troops. The Third and Fourth Regiments had already been deployed at several places on the roads from Jintan Lake to Zhuji River. Here, in addition to the three regiments of the Third Division, there was also the First Cavalry Regiment. Sun Li consulted with the commander of the First Cavalry Regiment, Wang, who led his regiment to a place one mile outside Zhuji River and deployed them in a line from the riverbank to the north, unit by unit. The main concern was that if the retreating Guangxi troops could not use the main road, they might disperse into small groups and bypass Zhuji River. The cavalry had an advantage in dealing with these small groups of dispersed troops.
The command post of Sun Lidi was set up in Zhujiahe Village. The villagers had already arranged for the old people to be evacuated from the village.
At this time, the radio station had been set up, and before Sun Li could send a telegram to Zhang Ya-fei and Xiao Guo-tong, he received an enemy situation report from the division headquarters. Due to Yang Teng-hui's telegram last night, a defensive gap had appeared on the north side of Wuhan, so before Li Zong-ren arrived in Wuhan, Liu Da-yong, the chief of staff of the Guangxi faction's Wuhan garrison command, who was temporarily in command, ordered Li Ming-rui's division to defend Wuhan. However, Li Ming-rui's division suddenly turned towards Xiaogan and immediately sent a telegram betraying the Guangxi faction, completely shattering the Guangxi faction's dream of defending Wuhan. The several high-ranking officers of the Guangxi faction held an emergency meeting and Liu Da-yong, who was in Hankou, immediately took the Seventh Army commander, Xia Wei, who was hospitalized with illness, to cross the river to Wuchang overnight, preparing to arrange for the troops to retreat back to Guangxi. Hu Zong-dong and Tao Jun of the Huanggang front took advantage of Liu Zhi's troops not having arrived yet and retreated back to Hankou overnight, preparing to cross the river in Hankou.
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