The guerrillas still adopted the old tactics and used Type 92 infantry artillery to attack the Japanese army from a long distance.
The artillery shells exploded among the enemy groups, causing considerable casualties to the Japanese army.
The Japanese army captain was experienced and he immediately ordered the soldiers to disperse to avoid causing heavy casualties.
While he ordered the veterans to form a skirmish line to attack, he also ordered the commanders of the new recruits to march in squadrons toward the towns ahead.
Not to mention, this method effectively reduced the casualties of Japanese officers and soldiers.
In order to reduce casualties, the guerrillas were unwilling to get close to the Japanese army and exchange fire, so they could only use artillery fire to kill the enemy.
Due to the limited shells of the Type 92 infantry gun, the commandos used mortars to attack the enemy. Since the enemy's skirmishers were very scattered and the mortars were ineffective, they could only watch the Japanese brigade continue to advance.
Seeing this scene, Xu Dalong could only order the guerrillas to follow the Japanese and puppet troops and watch them enter a large village in front.
Since the people were not evacuated in advance, there were many people in the village. It was very difficult for the guerrillas to continue attacking the Japanese army, so Xu Dalong and others evacuated.
The Japanese army suffered a lot. Although the guerrillas were no longer visible, they still did not dare to come out and took the time to repair the fortifications to prevent the guerrillas from attacking again.
After the Japanese army captain entered the village, he finally breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the guerrillas withdrawing. He reported the situation here to Chiba Xunyi.
Chiba asked them to stay put, and then sent a telegram to Fujiwara Konichi, the commander of the Japanese 108th Division in Yucheng, asking him to send troops to escort the remaining supplementary troops.
Fujiwara Konichi agreed to his request and immediately sent an infantry regiment to respond.
Fujiwara Konichi is a rigorous person. He has already understood the characteristics of guerrilla cavalry operations in advance. The infantry regiment sent to support them marches in squadrons, with two squadrons separated from each other. A distance of three hundred meters was set up at a distance around the marching brigade to prevent the guerrillas from inflicting serious damage on the Japanese army.
Xu Dalong and others watched helplessly as the reinforcements sent by the 108th Division joined the Japanese officers and soldiers who supplemented the 32nd Division. There was no good way to deal with them for a while.
Sun Desheng suggested that even though the enemy troops are dispersed, some mines should be planted on the highway and they should be killed one by one.
Xu Dalong adopted his suggestion and laid some landmines on the road from the Japanese brigade to Yucheng, causing dozens of casualties to Japanese soldiers.
Seeing that there was nothing they could do, Xu Dalong and others evacuated, looking for opportunities to attack the Japanese army later.
At this moment, Zhou Mingde sent a telegram from Taiyuan saying that the Japanese cavalry regiment set off.
Xu Dalong and others hurriedly rushed towards Taiyuan City.
In order to confuse the enemy, Xu Dalong also left a cavalry detachment to harass the Japanese army. They kept changing their positions, sometimes to the east of the city and then to the west, to remind the enemy that the guerrilla cavalry troops were still active nearby to cover the cavalry troops. The main force went to attack the Japanese cavalry regiment.
On the road from Taiyuan to Mawu Mountain, the Japanese cavalry regiment was marching mightily.
The officers and soldiers of the Japanese army rode tall horses, carried carbines on their backs, carried swords on their waists, and wore dark green cloaks. When the horses galloped, their cloaks fluttered in the wind, making them all look very majestic.
Cavalry captain Inoue Kamakura received a telegram from Chiba Xunichi, saying that the cavalry troops in the Mawu Mountain area were attacking the troops replenishing the 32nd Division along the way, and hoped that they could arrive as soon as possible to eliminate the guerrilla cavalry.
Inoue Kamakura was an excellent cavalry commander. He originally maintained due vigilance in marching and fighting. However, Chiba Xunyi's telegram gave him the illusion that enemy troops were attacking the 32nd Division. troops, so he relaxed his vigilance and urged the large group of people to speed up their march to engage the enemy's cavalry.
The officers and soldiers of the Japanese army were very arrogant, especially the cavalry troops. They even looked down on their own infantry, let alone the Tubal Road in their eyes.
Although they heard that Xu Dalong and others' cavalry troops were very powerful, they thought that Xu Dalong and others' cavalry attack on Japanese infantry was a bit despicable. As long as their cavalry arrived, they would definitely give Xu Dalong and others' cavalry a lesson.
They were full of fighting passion and hoped to march quickly on the road.
However, their cavalry can only trot all the way. That is because they still carry a lot of baggage, including weapons, ammunition, food, horse feed and other supplies. Some are pulled by pack horses and some are pulled by carts. They cannot run no matter what. , which made the officers and soldiers of the Japanese cavalry unable to vent their energy. They even hoped to see the guerrilla cavalry and then fight vigorously.
That morning, the Japanese cavalry regiment left Changbei County and continued on its way. When passing through a hilly area, Inoue Kamakura knew that the guerrillas were hundreds of kilometers away in the direction of Yucheng, but he had developed a cautious attitude over the years. The habit still made him more alert.
He sent a cavalry vanguard to search the hilly areas ahead, but found no problems, so he confidently and boldly led the cavalry regiment to move forward.
Just when they were about to drive out of the hilly area, leaving only the last small gentle slope, and the empty plains could be seen in front of them, and when they were about to leave, an accident happened.
The vegetation on the hillsides on both sides of the road was sparse, making it impossible to hide the large troops. However, behind the sparse shrubs, the black muzzles of many light and heavy machine guns suddenly protruded. There were dozens of machine guns, and they aimed at the Japanese cavalry. The marching brigade opened fire violently, knocking the Japanese soldiers off their feet.
The cavalry march did not line up in neat queues like the infantry, and a certain distance was maintained between the teams. Therefore, the Japanese marching brigade was not very dense, which reduced casualties to a certain extent. However, the Japanese cavalry still lost hundreds of people. people.
Inoue had rich combat experience in Kamakura. He did not panic and immediately ordered the troops in front to dismount, find bunkers, and counterattack the guerrillas.
He ordered the large group of cavalry behind to stop advancing, some of them went to support the troops in front and counterattack the enemy, and some of them retreated and took a detour to surround the enemy.
On the way back, the Japanese cavalry suddenly encountered another enemy ambush. At least a dozen light and heavy machine guns fired at them on both sides of the road, killing dozens of Japanese cavalry on the spot.
Only then did Inoue Kamakura realize that the situation was serious. The terrain here was very unfavorable and the cavalry could not move at all. He ordered that except for some people to stay behind to protect the baggage, the rest of the people dismounted and fought to counterattack the enemy troops who were attacking on both sides of the road.
Inoue Kamakura soon discovered that the problem was getting more serious. On both sides of the Japanese army, many enemy troops appeared in fierce exchanges of fire with the Japanese officers and soldiers. The results of the battle made the Japanese cavalry very chilling.
The officers and soldiers of the Japanese army all used carbine guns, which had a relatively short range and low design accuracy.
The enemy officers and soldiers use 38-gauge guns, which have a long range and high shooting accuracy, and the enemy officers and soldiers' marksmanship is very accurate.
Not only that, the enemy troops also carried a large number of mortars, and the density of shelling was something they had never seen before, causing a large number of casualties to the Japanese officers and soldiers.
The enemy troops pressed forward while fighting. The Japanese officers and soldiers could not resist and gradually retreated. They were gradually compressed to within 1km, and the density of the troops became much higher.
Seeing the critical situation, Inoue Kamakura immediately ordered all the people covering the baggage troops to dismount and seize the hills on both sides.
At this moment, a violent explosion suddenly occurred on the highway, causing a large number of casualties among Japanese officers and soldiers.
All of this was planned by Xu Dalong. Since the distance between the enemy cavalry regiments was too long when marching, the use of explosives could not cause a large number of enemy casualties. The only way to do this was to drive the enemy troops to the place where the explosives were buried through combat. Causing massive casualties to the enemy.
Gu Nuo
After the explosion, the Japanese cavalry regiment suffered more than one-third casualties.
Inoue Kamakura still maintained his due calmness, ordered all the troops to dismount, seize the hillsides on both sides, and conduct mountain offensive and defensive operations with the enemy.
The guerrillas continued to attack the Japanese army, and the two sides fought fiercely on the hills.
The Japanese cavalry were very proud, and that was on horseback.
They are not good at mountain warfare at all. In the explosion just now, the Japanese army has lost most of its artillery, and its baggage has been blown up. The ammunition they carry is limited, and the machine guns will misfire after a short time.
Although the Mawushan guerrillas are also cavalry, they drill into ravines all day long. Even if they are cavalry, they are still mountain cavalry.
They were very good at fighting in the mountains. The guerrillas had a large number of machine guns and artillery, and they had a huge advantage in firepower. The Japanese army could not take advantage at all.
The enemy troops were beaten back steadily, and soon they were compressed to the hillsides on both sides and surrounded by guerrillas.
The guerrillas fired mortars at the enemy.
The vegetation on the hillside was sparse and there were exposed rocks everywhere. The Japanese troops had nowhere to hide. They suffered heavy casualties under the attack of artillery fire.
Inoue Kamakura was very angry and scolded the guerrillas for being too despicable for not daring to engage in cavalry battles with the Yellow Army on the plains and using such despicable means to conduct sneak attacks.
Xu Dalong didn't care about that. He ordered his troops to continue to surround the enemy and concentrate artillery fire on the hills on one side of the road first.
Soon after, the enemy troops on the mountain were basically destroyed by heavy artillery fire.
The guerrillas took the opportunity to rush up and eliminate the remaining enemy troops on the hill on one side of the road, completely surrounding Inoue Kamakura and others on the only remaining hill.
Inoue Kamakura could already see without a telescope that there were enemy troops in all directions.
The enemy troops are setting up artillery and will launch an attack soon.
Inoue Kamakura had already sent a telegram to his superiors asking for help after being attacked, but there were not a large number of Japanese troops in the area. Their superiors asked them to stand firm and wait for help, and they must hold their position for at least twelve hours.
Inoue Kamakura knew that under such fierce enemy artillery fire, he would not be able to hold on for two hours, let alone twelve hours. Holding on the mountain would only lead to death.
So he decisively ordered his troops to rush to the road and prepare to break out of the encirclement on horseback.
Although he knew that if he broke through on horseback, he would suffer heavy casualties under the fierce enemy machine gun fire. But in the current situation, this may be the only way out.
The guerrillas set up artillery and fired hard at the Japanese army.
Seeing the Japanese troops rushing towards the road, they chased them with artillery fire and fired fiercely at them with machine guns and rifles.
The Japanese officers and soldiers all knew that this was the last moment. Regardless of casualties, they rushed onto the road, mounted the horses left at the foot of the hillside, and galloped in the direction they came from.
Inoue Kamakura's heart was already freezing at this time, because he saw that the number of troops rushing towards the road was less than a quarter of the original number.
He didn't care much, and kept hitting the horse's buttocks hard with the whip, lowering his body, and galloping wildly.
The firepower of the guerrilla officers and soldiers was so fierce that Japanese officers and soldiers were constantly knocked off their horses.
Inoue Kamakura was galloping on his horse when suddenly his horse was shot and his front hooves softened. Under the influence of inertia, Inoue Kamakura fell directly off his horse.
Several Japanese cavalrymen guarding him hurriedly reined in their horses and tried to dismount to help him up, but they were also knocked to the ground by a heavy rain of bullets.
The surviving Japanese cavalrymen didn't even bother to fight back at the enemy. They fought hard and galloped, hoping to get out of this hilly area alive.
Finally, more than 200 cavalrymen broke through the guerrilla firepower and escaped.
Xu Dalong had already blocked their retreat. Just after the Japanese cavalry broke away from the guerrillas' firepower network, they just breathed a sigh of relief when four more light machine guns blocked their way.
Dozens of Japanese officers and soldiers rushing in front were immediately knocked off their horses.
At this time, a large group of guerrillas chased from behind again.
Among the remaining Japanese cavalry, the one with the highest official position is a Japanese captain. Seeing that the guerrillas were once again surrounding him, he suddenly dropped his carbine, drew his saber, and stood there.
Seeing this scene, the remaining Japanese officers and soldiers also threw away their carbines and drew their sabers.
They hoped to engage in a hand-to-hand combat with each other like ancient warriors. At this time, the hearts of the Japanese officers and soldiers were filled with tragic emotions. They rode on horseback, waiting for the enemy to approach.
Seeing that the enemy ceased fire, the guerrillas gradually surrounded them.
Sun Desheng suddenly became interested when he saw the remaining Japanese troops in a cavalry duel.
There was also a passion surging in his chest, and he hoped to have a hearty hand-to-hand combat with the Japanese army.
He mounted his horse, drew his saber, and shouted loudly: "Brothers! Everyone mount up and prepare to charge."
Xu Dalong couldn't help but feel funny when he saw him like this. He knew very well that the guerrilla cavalry seldom had horse fighting training, so if they were to fight against the Japanese army, they would be no match for them.
Besides, in this era of hot weapons, it is very funny to engage in hand-to-hand combat like ancient cavalry.
Xu Dalong smiled and said: "Sun Desheng, what are you doing? Attacking is nothing! Stop talking nonsense and kill them quickly."
As he spoke, he picked up a light machine gun and fired at the Japanese captain.
The guerrilla officers and soldiers fired fiercely at the Japanese troops with machine guns and rifles, and soon completely eliminated them.
