EBE Chapter 531 Arrangement of Pockets
Chapter 531 Arrangement of Pockets
In the early morning of March 15, 1941, the Japanese troops that had completed their preparations began to attack. The first to be dispatched was the 33rd Division of the Japanese Army, which was responsible for the attack on the northern line. This Japanese army attacked Fengxin in two groups from Anyi. Under the cover of Japanese heavy artillery and aircraft, the 33rd Division of the Japanese Army quickly broke through the defense line of the 70th Army Reserve 9th Division of the 9th War Zone of China and occupied Fengxin.
When the Japanese 33rd Division on the northern front attacked Fengxin, the offensive force of the Japanese 20th Independent Mixed Brigade responsible for the attack on the southern front began to sneak across the Jinjiang River. However, the two river crossing operations of the Japanese 20th Independent Mixed Brigade were repelled by the defensive forces of the 9th War Zone.
The attacking force of the 20th Independent Mixed Brigade of the Japanese Army saw that they could not cross the Jinjiang River on their own, so they called for a large amount of air support. Finally, with the support of Japanese aircraft, the attacking force of the 20th Independent Mixed Brigade of the Japanese Army successfully crossed the river.
However, the attacking force of the 20th Independent Mixed Brigade of the Japanese Army was blocked by the 51st Division of the 74th Army of the 9th War Zone just after crossing the Jinjiang River. Under the tenacious resistance of the 51st Division, the attacking force of the 20th Independent Mixed Brigade of the Japanese Army was delayed in the Hongshiling area and could not advance.
The 34th Division, which was responsible for the central attack, was the most arrogant. Its commander, Lieutenant General Ogamo, led more than 20,000 men of the 34th Division and attacked rapidly westward along the Hunan-Jiangxi Highway. The goal of the 34th Division's commander, Lieutenant General Ogamo, was not only to wipe out the 74th Army of the 9th War Zone in front of him, but also to wipe out the 70th Army of the 9th War Zone of the China Government, which was fighting with the 33rd Division on the northern front.
However, the attack westward led by Lieutenant General Ohgamo, commander of the 34th Division, was not going smoothly from the beginning.
The 34th Division of the Japanese Army, led by Lieutenant General Ogamo, had not yet reached Gao'an when it encountered a fierce attack from the 107th Division of the 70th Army of the 9th War Zone. This forced Lieutenant General Ogamo to stop advancing and order his troops to defeat the Chinese troops blocking them as soon as possible.
The 320th Division's main position was defended by officers and soldiers of the 320th Regiment. They held their positions firmly under the heavy bombardment of Japanese planes and artillery. By the time the th Regiment received the order to retreat, more than half of the troops had been killed or wounded.
Although the 107th Division ultimately failed to stop the 34th Division, the officers and soldiers of the 107th Division used their lives and blood to slow down the advance of the Japanese 34th Division, buying precious time for the deployment and deployment of friendly forces.
Subsequently, Commander Xue of the Ninth War Zone ordered the troops near Gao'an to retreat as planned. This allowed Lieutenant General Ohgamo, commander of the 34th Division of the Japanese Army, to lead his troops to advance quickly to Longtuanwei, which was the cemetery that Commander Xue had prepared for the 34th Division.
In the combat plan of Commander Xue of the Ninth War Zone, the key to encircling and annihilating the 34th Division of the Japanese Army lies in whether the two divisions of the 74th Army deployed on the front can withstand the fierce attack of the 34th Division of the Japanese Army. If the 34th Division of the Japanese Army can be delayed on the front, it will buy time for the deployment of other troops in the Ninth War Zone.
However, if the 74th Army could not defend against the attack of the 34th Division of the Japanese Army, and allowed the 34th Division of the Japanese Army to capture Shanggao or escape from the encirclement, then all the previous efforts made by the 9th War Zone would be in vain.
The 74th Army of the Chinese government, which was the key fulcrum of this battle, was one of the elite troops among the Chinese government's direct troops at that time. The 74th Army was formed during the Battle of Shanghai. The army was composed of the 51st Division, the 57th Division and the 58th Division, with a total of more than 30,000 people.
Especially before this battle, the top government leaders deliberately reorganized the First Army, Second Army, Fifth Army, and Seventy-fourth Army of the Chinese government into "attack armies". All attack armies had much better weapons and equipment supplies than ordinary army-level units.
After the 34th Division of the Japanese Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Ogamo, arrived at Longtuanwei, they encountered the outpost troops of the 74th Army of the 9th War Zone. As it was already evening, Lieutenant General Ogamo ordered the troops to rest first and then attack after dawn the next day.
The 74th Army of the Chinese government had already built complete defensive fortifications in Longtuanwei. In response to the arrival of the 33rd Division of the Japanese Army, the Chinese officers and soldiers had already made defensive preparations. According to the plan, they would keep the Japanese Army here and buy enough time for the outflanking troops.
After the news that the 33rd Division of the Japanese Army had entered Longtuanwei reached the headquarters of the 9th War Zone, Commander Chen also ordered the new 22nd Army, which served as the encirclement force, to move south according to the combat plan to carry out an encirclement operation against the 33rd Division of the Japanese Army and completely annihilate the Japanese Army in Gao'an and Jinhe areas.
On the morning of the second day after arriving at Dalontuanwei, Lieutenant General Ohgamo, commander of the 34th Division of the Japanese Army, ordered his troops to launch a full-scale attack on the defensive positions of the 74th Army. However, this attack also surprised Lieutenant General Ohgamo to find that the defensive positions of the 74th Army of the Chinese government had obviously been built long ago, and his own troops were unable to successfully break through the defensive positions of the Chinese army for a while.
From the 74th Army's perfect defensive fortifications, the division commander Lieutenant General Ogamo felt more and more that something was wrong. He felt that his troops seemed to have been deliberately lured here by the Chinese army to fight. Moreover, the other two Japanese attacking forces that should have appeared at this time were nowhere to be seen, which made Lieutenant General Ogamo feel very strange.
The combat plan formulated by Lieutenant General Ohgamo, commander of the 34th Division of the Japanese Army, was to use three Japanese offensive forces as the core assault force, with the goal of occupying Shanggao, and to compress the 70th Army, 74th Army and 19th Army Group Headquarters of the Ninth War Zone of the China Government in the two wing pincers to the vicinity of Shanggao and encircle and destroy them.
According to the Japanese army's pre-war combat plan, the 33rd Division of the Japanese Army in the north should have forced the 70th Army of the Ninth War Zone of the Chinese government to retreat to the south, but the 70th Army retreated to the northwest while fighting all the way.
The 33rd Division of the Japanese Army also sent troops to pursue the 70th Army of the Chinese Government towards the northwest. The commander of the 33rd Division, Lieutenant General Shozo Sakurai, believed that the combat mission of his troops was to drive out the 70th Army of the Chinese Government. As for where to drive the 70th Army of the Chinese Government, that was not something he could control.