Yoshio Shinozuka knew exactly what the current retreat meant.
This not only meant that his long-planned plan to unite the Mongolian troops stationed south to deal with the Eighth Route Army's Huangyadong Arsenal and the Eighth Route Army's Taihang Base had completely failed.
It also means that after this battle, the international situation will be extremely unfavorable for the Japanese Empire.
It also means that this battle has not produced results.
As the commander who led the First Army stationed in Shanxi these years, Yoshio Shinozuka's career will also be affected.
No one knew how long he would remain as commander of First Army.
Perhaps because of the disastrous defeat in this battle, he will be transferred soon.
After letting out a long sigh of relief, Yoshio Shinozuka leaned back on the chair with some slump. After deciding to give up for a moment, he let out a long sigh of relief in his heart.
With such a difficult opponent, he had already tried his best, but there was nothing he could do.
Then wait for the next more brilliant commander to take over!
Although I don't want to admit defeat, it is the fact.
And just when Yoshio Shinozuka was thinking of quitting...
The fighting between all parties is still going on.
In Huangya Cave, in the complex terrain surrounded by mountains, more than 3,000 elite members of the 36th Division, who were completely trapped in the mountains of Huangya Cave, were still fighting hard.
In order to ensure the survival of this unit that penetrated deep into the Huangyadong of the Eighth Route Army and was most likely to complete the task of destroying the Huangyadong Arsenal of the Eighth Route Army, a task with high military value.
The Japanese temporarily built an airport in Licheng, and the main direction of reinforcements for flying troops dispatched at any time has always been here.
At this time, Yoshio Shinozuka still had one last extravagant hope.
In any case, this time his First Army joined forces with the Mongolian troops to launch a campaign against the Eighth Route Army troops in the Taihang base area. The starting goal was also the most obvious goal on the surface, which was to destroy the Eighth Route Army's Huangyadong Arsenal.
If this military goal can be achieved, even the First Army will retreat in its entirety.
This battle can still be regarded as a victory to a certain extent.
Maybe the propaganda can be modified and promoted to the outside world. This is a victory for the Japanese Empire.
Reversing the negative side of the international situation against the Japanese Empire.
Two days ago, the Japanese army trapped inside Huangya Cave also sent out communications indicating that they were getting closer to the hinterland of Huangya Cave.
It is even very likely that it is near the core area of the Eighth Route Army Huangyadong Arsenal.
This made Yoshio Shinozuka, who learned the news, even more full of expectations.
Maybe, just maybe, they can do it.
The flying troops are ready for reinforcements, as well as the Chinese-defeating airborne troops who have successfully penetrated into Huangya Cave by airborne troops.
As well as the imperial elites of the 36th Division who are constantly advancing towards the core area of Huangyadong.
Even if one of the three parties succeeds and can destroy the Eighth Route Army's Huangyadong Arsenal, it will be a victory.
For this reason, Yoshio Shinozuka issued the highest command order directly through the headquarters, ordering the combat troops who penetrated into Huangyadong to destroy the Eighth Route Army Huangyadong Arsenal at all costs.
However, is it really as simple as Yoshio Shinozuka, an old devil, imagined?
In Huangya Cave at this moment...
Ever since the more than 3,000 elite members of the Japanese 36th Division entered Huangya Cave, the only escape route behind them was the Sky Canyon Passage, which was completely blocked by bombed debris.
Their nightmare has officially begun.
As soon as I poked my head out of the entrance of the Yixiantian Canyon passage, I was greeted by a fierce bombardment by the Eighth Route Army troops.
There was no time to marvel at the powerful artillery fire of the Eighth Route Army troops.
The Japanese officer who led the team quickly led the troops into hiding in the mountains, trying to use the cover of the terrain to avoid the Eighth Route Army's artillery fire.
But then, the nightmare intensified.
Throughout Huangya Cave, one could see endless mountains, vast terrain, and complex terrain, but no matter where this little devil was hiding, it seemed that he could always be easily noticed by the Eighth Route Army troops, and then launch a surprise attack.
After a sudden attack, there was another artillery attack.
Just like this again and again, more than 3,000 elite Japanese soldiers were bombed into disgrace, leaving little room for counterattack.
They were even forced to disperse the main force and advance.
This is completely the home ground of the Eighth Route Army. The weather is favorable, the location is favorable, and the Eighth Route Army occupies the entire territory. How can we fight this battle?
No matter whether it is troops, equipment or tactics, no one is the opponent of the Eighth Route Army.
The only thing the little devils rely on is probably the flying troops that may be reinforced in mid-air at any time.
After the bombing, looking at the smoke left by the bombs covering the hills where the Eighth Route Army attacked, the little devils who relied on the terrain to fight were full of expectations.
Deep in my heart, I was thankful that the Imperial Japanese Empire's air combat troops were powerful and powerful. All the artillery on the Eighth Route Army's side must have been destroyed.
Who would have thought that as the mountain wind blew and the gunpowder smoke cleared, the little devils had just launched an attack, and the artillery fire of the Eighth Route Army on the opposite side struck again.
"Damn it, didn't the bombing just destroy the artillery on the 8th Route?"
The Japanese officer leading the team cursed angrily. At this time, with the confrontation between the two sides, the distance between the Japanese troops moved forward again. He looked through the binoculars and discovered with a look of shock:
The Eighth Route Army actually hid each artillery piece, almost the entire body of the gun, in the mountain. He only saw the faint muzzle exposed, and the specially reinforced bunker fortifications around the muzzle that seemed to be reinforced concrete buildings.
In addition, these artillery fortifications are built on sloping mountains.
The bombs dropped vertically by the Japanese aircraft had to hit these artillery bunkers at a very tricky angle.
Even so, if the bombs did not fall on the same explosion point every time, it would be difficult to directly destroy these extremely strong bunker fortifications.
In addition, compared to the infantry artillery and the like carried by the Japanese army at the moment.
The Eighth Route Army took advantage of the mountain's condescending terrain to easily project artillery shells into the low-lying areas where the Japanese were located.
However, the elevation angle of the Japanese infantry artillery is very limited. It is very difficult to find the angle to hit the opponent's Eighth Route Army artillery fortifications, let alone how to counterattack.
"asshole!"
The Japanese officer leading the team yelled angrily: "These cunning Tubalu, have they hollowed out this mountain?
Are all the artillery offensives hidden in the mountains? "
Congratulations to this little devil, you really got the answer right!
When we first proposed how to build fortifications in the entire Huangyadong mountains, we would have permanent fortifications to protect the Huangyadong arsenal.
In addition to considering multiple lines of fortifications and surrounding arches for the entire Huangya Cave, Kong Jie considered it.
At the same time, we also considered how to take advantage of the topography of the Huangyadong mountains.
This reminded Kong Jie of the movie and TV series he had watched in his previous life, My Captain, My Group.
The cunning little devils that the regiment leader and the others faced at that time had hollowed out almost all the mountains on the other side of the river and built an exaggerated number of bunkers as a series of fortifications.
The entire mountain is a fortification of the little devils. How can we fight this battle?
In this regard, although the defense of the Huangyadong mountains is not so exaggerated, it also has applications in this area.
When he first proposed how to use the topography of the Huangyadong mountains for defense and place artillery groups, Kong Jie once said jokingly:
“If the time constraints were not considered, the mountains inside Huangya Cave might have been used as defense fortifications for our Eighth Route Army.
In order to achieve the purpose of solid defense, we can imitate the pangolin and hollow out the entire mountain. "
The cadres present at the meeting were in a daze after hearing this.
Good guy, can these defenses be deployed like this?
Kong Jie smiled and said to everyone: "Don't look at me like that. Our arsenal's production capacity has increased a lot now, and we still have the equipment and tools for digging caves.
Is there any fortification stronger than the mountain itself?
Even if the Japanese plane comes, I'm afraid I can only stare. "
Later, in the construction of the artillery group fortifications inside Huangya Cave, the soldiers did borrow Kong Jie's suggestion. They used the mountain to build a channel-propelled artillery group fortification.
What does it mean?
It is to dig a cave in the sloping mountain, and use it to store combat artillery. The number does not need to be too many, just one or two.
Such small artillery fortifications can be set up at all angles to ensure that once the Japanese army appears, there will be almost no blind spots to avoid the bombardment of artillery fire.
Then, at the entrance of the cave, a horizontal artillery extension channel was created that extended out of the cave entrance.
When the Japs appeared, they pushed the artillery out, and then bombarded the target from above. If the Japs' bombers arrived, they would drag the artillery back into the cave in time.
It was not easy for Japanese aircraft to destroy these artillery pieces.
If the Japanese infantry wanted to come up, they would be at a certain distance and there would be so many fortifications along the way.
The Japanese rushed up at all costs, trying to knock off the Eighth Route Army's artillery fire and occupy the high ground at the same time.
There were blocking groups of fortifications along the way. By the time the Japanese attacked, the artillery positions would have been moved in advance.
In addition, most of the infantry fortifications set up along the way are very hidden with the help of mountains.
The front line consists of earthworks plus sleepers, stone-reinforced shooting points, light and heavy machine guns, and mortar fortifications all with bunkers, and all trenches have been reinforced.
When the Japanese came forward, the soldiers didn't even need to lean out to shoot.
There are so many machine gun nest shooting positions that the Japanese don't know where to hit.
The infantry artillery and mountain artillery that the Japanese had worked so hard to pull up. If they wanted to destroy these strong fortifications, they had to bear the artillery bombardment of the Eighth Route Army with their heads high, and they had to accurately deliver the artillery shells to the fortification group.
After the Japanese army paid a heavy price and occupied a fortification, they would then find that there were countless such fortifications waiting for them behind.
After so many charges, these more than 3,000 Japanese soldiers were elite.
Soon there were only about 2,000 people left.
The Japanese officer leading the team finally realized that whenever they encountered the Eighth Route Army's fortifications, they must not forcefully attack and occupy them. It was the wisest move to immediately turn their troops around and take a detour.
Anyway, their mission is to destroy the core arsenal of the Eighth Route Army.
There is no need to waste energy on entangled with the Eighth Route Army troops on the outside.
So the little devils who thought they were smart would immediately change direction and evacuate from another direction whenever they encountered an attack from the Eighth Route Army troops.
Anyway, the Huangyadong mountains are very unfamiliar to them. Since they are headless flies, how can they care about which direction they hit?
The Eighth Route Army traitor Chen Yongchun who led the team had been directly shot to death a day earlier.
Guizi Shaozuo saw it completely.
This traitor has caused great harm to everyone.
This bastard has absolutely no idea about the topography inside Huangya Cave.
Since entering Huangya Cave, the imperial troops have been running around aimlessly.
Some Japanese officers even believed that Chen Yongchun was responsible for the heavy casualties among the imperial troops so far in the battle.
This Chen Yongchun must be the dead ringer of the Eighth Route Army, and he deliberately lured everyone into falling into the Eighth Route Army's trap.
The unlucky Chen Yongchun died like this. As a dog-legger, he should have the consciousness to be beaten to death by the dog owner at any time.
While stumbling like this, the Japanese army encountered an attack by the Eighth Route Army and encountered the Eighth Route Army's defenses, and immediately changed direction and continued to advance.
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The little devil didn't realize it.
In the misty lake, they were actually already moving in the direction deliberately guided by the Eighth Route Army.
The Eighth Route Army's use of fixed-point attacks is like using mothballs to draw a predetermined route for ants, allowing the ants to keep advancing along this route.
When he saw that the Japanese had completely left the last area and observed with a telescope on the fortification not far away, Commander Cheng had a smile on his face:
"It's done. Our combat mission in the outer defense zone has been successfully completed. The little devil will soon enter the center line and our established artillery fire coverage area."
"Haha, this time we want to take a good look at the excitement and the shocking scene brought about by our heavy artillery fortification group when they bombarded the little devils."
"Li Yunlong is back later, I have to give him a good show."
Center line temporary command post.
Just after the Japanese were driven from the outer defense area into the middle line defense area by Captain Cheng and his party, the scouts reported the news in time.
"Report to the leader, the Japs have come in from the east and have entered our second-line defense area on the center line. The 17th Regiment has rushed over and continues to lure the Japs into our final shelling area."
Captain Xu nodded, his eyes showing deep expectation.
"Next, our 771st Regiment will appear. We must ensure communication with the artillery regiment. Once all the Japs enter the bombardment area, they can convey news to the artillery regiment at any time!"
"yes!"
…
…
Shimada Shozo, center left, is walking through the mountains and forests with his fire-fighting paratroopers who successfully parachuted into the Huangyadong mountains.
Several times he heard what seemed to be fierce gunfire not far away.
"Fight, fight hard. The more fiercely you fight, the more we can find loopholes and knock out the Eighth Route Army's command structure! Destroy the Eighth Route Army's arsenal!"
Shimada Shozo thought secretly.
After more than 3,000 Japanese elite troops entered Huangyadong, they continued to fight with the Eighth Route Army, causing a lot of noise.
This is a side cover for the secret infiltration and sneak attacks of the small Japanese special operations force in front of them.
Not long ago, with the help of the coordinate guidance of Shimada Shozo's airborne troops, the flying troops sent by the Japanese successfully destroyed two Eighth Route Army military bases in the mountains.
This made Shimada Masami even more impressed by the brilliance of his former captain Yamamoto Daizao in building a special operations force.
Use small groups of surprise troops to infiltrate and lurk, and guide artillery bombardments or aerial bombings.
This is truly a great tactic.
It is then equipped with an airborne surprise attack mode.
Shimada Shozo confidently believes that no Chinese army can withstand such an attack.
While he was daydreaming, the scouts from the front hurriedly returned to report:
"Reporting to the commander, the Eighth Route Army's military base was found again one kilometer away. Preliminary judgment shows that it seems to be a processing plant of the Eighth Route Army."
"Nani? Found it again?"
Shimada is a very cautious and suspicious guy, and his character is almost the same as Yamamoto Kazuki.
They walked through the mountains and forests and discovered many military bases of the Eighth Route Army with such ease. They had successfully guided air fire reinforcements and destroyed two bases of the Eighth Route Army.
But I found another place in front of me.
Is the Eighth Route Army really stupid to deploy these military bases so densely and so easily detected?
In addition, in the previous two bombings, the Eighth Route Army did not seem to have any special counterattack means.
what on earth is it?
Out of hesitation in his heart, this time, Masazo Shimada did not give an order and immediately reported the specific coordinates of the found processing plant to the flying team.
Instead, an order was issued to send a small group of scouts to secretly search for mirrors at the discovered Eighth Route Army processing factory.
He wanted to see with his own eyes what was going on here.
Until ten minutes later...
"Sir, please see, this is the situation!"
As the scout said, as far as Shimada could see, Noda's so-called processing plant seemed to be just an empty shell. It was an ordinary processing plant built with earth and stone structures. At first glance, it looked like that.
If you look closely, it's not bullshit.
"Assholes, these cunning bastards!"
Shimada Shozo was angry. On the one hand, he was angry at the cunningness of the Eighth Route Army, and on the other hand, he was angry at having been deceived before.
The reason why these empty shell buildings exist is simple.
It was clear that these cunning Tubal Roads were deliberately located in these mountains to mislead the Japanese army into false targets of attack.
And not so long ago.
The deputy chief of staff who was in charge of the rear headquarters also received the news.
The hinterland of the mountains was bombarded twice by the Japanese army. The bombardment locations seemed to be some camouflaged military bases built by Shi Dahu and others.
"Interesting. It seems that Kong Jie's guess is correct. It should be a small group of Japanese troops that got in!"
A staff officer looked surprised and said: "We have deployed so many lines of defenses, and there are both light and dark sentries along the way to be alert for investigation at any time. How did this little devil get involved?"
The deputy chief of staff thought for a while and said with a smile: "Perhaps as Kong Jie speculated, the Japanese were really airborne from the plane."
The cadres nodded, feeling a little scared.
Fortunately, these camouflaged military bases exposed these little devils in advance.
Fortunately, this defensive deployment also has means of sneak attacks against these small Japanese combat troops.
Otherwise, once these devils are allowed to get close to the core arsenal or headquarters and then direct planes to bomb, the consequences will be really unimaginable...
