My Apprenticeship to Uncle Jiu: I Was a Warlord in the Republic of China

Chapter 378: Enemy Planes Show Their Power

Broken limbs and arms were flying everywhere, and blood was gushing out like a fountain, making it a hell on earth.

However, the Japanese pirates did not send a large number of infantry to attack because they knew that the enemy was numerous and occupied advantageous terrain.

So it was just a symbolic move, sending a small force to launch a tentative attack under the cover of artillery fire and aircraft.

However, on Li Jiayu's side, although they knew that the enemy's artillery fire was fierce, they did not dare to withdraw from their positions.

Because once they withdraw, the enemy's small forces will quickly occupy the positions that they have captured with great difficulty. At that time, it will be difficult to take them back.

In this way, Li Jiayu's troops stayed in their positions, enduring the enemy's constant bombardment.

Although they had anti-bomb holes to hide in, they still could not completely avoid it, especially the bombs dropped by bombers. The anti-bomb holes they dug could not withstand it at all.

Every time a plane flew over, there would be several wounded soldiers, and the number of dead was impossible to count because many of the soldiers' bodies were incomplete.

However, even in such a difficult environment, until night fell again, Li Jiayu led the joint forces and did not withdraw from the position due to heavy casualties.

This is certainly not because the warlords' troops have such a firm fighting will, but because only one-third of these defenders are miscellaneous soldiers of other warlords.

The remaining two thirds are made up of Li Jiayu's own people and Jiang Li's people.

It turned out that Jiang Li had sent 700,000 people to the expedition before, but he only brought 500,000 people with him, and another 100,000 were used to escort supplies by water. The last 100,000 were handed over to Li Jiayu to enhance their combat effectiveness.

Now he divided these people into several waves and mixed them together for defense, so that only strong soldiers with firm fighting will would appear on the battlefield.

Or maybe they were all miscellaneous soldiers with weak fighting will, and it was precisely because of this that they were able to hold their positions under such fierce artillery fire.

The Japanese pirates failed to recapture their position and finally had to retreat back to the temporary defense line that they had urgently arranged during the day.

When Jiang Li saw the night coming, he once again gave the order to attack. This time he did not intend to fight with the enemy Mo Ji again. He had already tested it last night and found that it was indeed difficult for the Japanese pirates' planes to select targets at night.

So he directly ordered all 300,000 elite troops to participate in the night attack and try to meet up with General Zhang Yezhong in Shanghai as soon as possible.

He had previously confirmed the situation of General Zhang Yezhong. He currently had only tens of thousands of people. Even if he relied on Shanghai's buildings and the enemy's street fighting, he should be running out of ammunition and food at this moment.

If they couldn't arrive in time, they might not be able to hold on.

And the situation was exactly as he expected. Although the Japanese pirates were wary of the foreigners in Shanghai, they did not retreat to the point of retreating.

So from time to time, some shells and bullets would fall into the concession, making the foreigners in the concession very nervous.

After such a long and fierce battle with the Japanese pirates, more than half of General Zhang Yezhong's 80,000 defenders had already suffered casualties. Even among those who were still alive, many had suffered varying degrees of injuries.

The worst thing was that since the industrial area was occupied by Japanese pirates, they could no longer obtain ammunition replenishment and the situation was precarious.

If they had not learned that a large number of friendly forces had come to support them from the periphery and were currently engaged in a bloody battle with the enemy, they would have lost their spirit and become a group of scattered sand.

...

Back to Jiang Li, after the night attack began, 300,000 elite troops, under the cover of darkness, attacked the Japanese pirates' positions.

Without aircraft support, and with the artillery having fought a whole day during the day, they were also unable to launch an effective counterattack.

Therefore, the positions of the more than 100,000 Japanese pirate defenders were breached again within just one hour. However, this time Jiang Li did not intend to just occupy the position and fight with the enemy.

Instead, they planned to keep chasing these Japanese pirates, preferably all the way to the outskirts of Shanghai, and then directly engage with the pirates' siege troops to relieve the pressure on the defenders in the city.

However, things turned out to be beyond his expectations. It turned out that the Japanese pirates were caught off guard by the night attack yesterday, but also because of this.

They racked their brains and came up with a solution, which was to pretend to retreat, attract people to pursue, and then let the navy planes bomb the enemy's rear.

This was to achieve the goal of killing the enemy. Of course, by doing this, they also intended to abandon their positions. After all, there were too many enemies and they were at a great disadvantage in terms of troop numbers.

We must get out of Shanghai as soon as possible and join the troops besieging Shanghai.

Then mobilize the army's air force to engage in a decisive battle with the enemy.

After determining the tactical strategy, the Japanese pirates' army immediately began to pack up and wait for the Anmin Army to attack. At that time, they could immediately evacuate and implement their retreat plan.

The Anmin Army, unaware of the situation, launched an attack that night and easily captured the Japanese pirates' positions. However, they were surprised to find that most of the defenders were puppet troops.

There were only a small number of Japanese pirates mixed in with them. When Jiang Li learned the news, he immediately realized that something was wrong.

But he knew that the Japanese pirates at that time were extremely powerful and it was impossible to scare them with just a night attack.

You know, according to statistics, they only killed more than 4,000 people last night. As for the wounded, it is difficult to count. However, it is impossible for the casualties of the Japanese pirates to exceed 10,000.

So the enemy was definitely not retreating, but was deliberately withdrawing. "Could it be that the enemy has set a trap in the rear, preparing to capture all my soldiers in one fell swoop?"

After thinking for a long time, he couldn't think of any trap they would set that could swallow up hundreds of thousands of troops in one bite, so he simply stopped thinking about it.

Just give the order to have 50,000 men pursue, and the rest of the men should spread out to both wings and grope their way forward towards Shanghai, so as to avoid being led into an ambush and being trapped.

Just a few hours after this order was issued, Jiang Li received a battle report from the front. It turned out that the enemy had joined forces with the air force and took advantage of the Anmin Army's pursuit to bomb the rear of the army.

Jiang Li was heartbroken when he saw the casualty report.

It turned out that after these rounds of bombing, the 50,000 elite troops responsible for the pursuit suffered heavy casualties. After statistics, there were more than 2,000 seriously injured people alone.

As for the minor injuries and deaths, it is difficult to count and there is still no accurate number until now. But fortunately, he dispersed the large force so that no greater damage was caused due to excessive crowding of people.

In this way, the two armies finally engaged in another battle in Qingpu District during the pursuit, escape and bombing.

But this time the battle was not so smooth, because the Japanese pirates who attacked Shanghai had already been stationed here for a long time, so the fortifications were built quite solidly.