Quartermasters can also fight the devils

Most of the attacking forces of the Japanese 11th Army had already had experience in the three Changsha Battles. The troops of the Japanese 11th Army had been badly damaged by the road destruction caused by the Chinese Army, and had some experience with this combat method of the Chinese Army. Therefore, the Japanese 3rd Division had already mobilized a large number of engineering troops before launching the Changde Battle.

When the attacking force of the Japanese 3rd Division began to attack, the Japanese engineering corps immediately started the bulldozers that had been prepared long ago and filled most of the trenches in the direction of the attack of the Japanese 3rd Division. As the attacking force of the Japanese 3rd Division continued to attack, the Japanese engineering corps followed the attacking force of the Japanese 3rd Division. For the Japanese engineering corps, although the workload of filling the trenches dug by the Chinese army was not small, because the Japanese engineering corps only needed to open up several main transportation roads, the speed was still relatively fast.

As a result, the blocking project that the Chinese army spent two months to build before the war was not as meaningful as imagined in actual combat, and it only played a certain role in delaying the attacking forces of the Japanese 11th Army.

After the Japanese engineering corps destroyed the Chinese Army's blocking fortifications, the Chinese Army and the offensive forces of the Japanese 11th Army also started a head-on exchange of fire.

After several days of fierce fighting, the offensive forces of the Japanese 3rd Division broke through the defense lines of the 73rd Army of the 29th Army and the 79th Army of the 10th Army of the Chinese government, crossed the Wuqi River, Taiping Canal and Songzi River from Zhujiazui, Zhakou and Zhangjiazui in the Gong'an area, and occupied Gong'an. Subsequently, the offensive forces of the Japanese 3rd Division continued to advance westward according to the combat plan without stopping.

However, the fall of Gong'an had long been anticipated by Commander Sun, Acting Commander of the Sixth War Zone of the Chinese Government, and Chief of Staff Guo of the War Zone before the war. In fact, the defense line of the Sixth War Zone of the Chinese Government at Gong'an was only the outer defense line against the offensive forces of the Japanese 11th Army. According to the combat plan of Commander Sun, Acting Commander of the Sixth War Zone of the Chinese Government, and Chief of Staff Guo of the War Zone, the Chinese army would take the initiative to transfer after inflicting a certain amount of casualties on the offensive forces of the Japanese 11th Army, and had no intention of defending Gong'an to the death. Of course, for Commander Sun, Acting Commander of the Sixth War Zone of the Chinese Government, and Chief of Staff Guo of the War Zone, there was no need for their troops to defend Gong'an to the death.

The Japanese 11th Army was responsible for the central attack and had another main division, the 13th Division of the Japanese Army.

The 13th Division of the Japanese Army is also one of the Type A divisions of the Japanese Army. Like the 3rd Division, it is one of the few elite divisions of the Japanese Army on the Chinese battlefield. Of course, the fate of the 13th Division of the Japanese Army is the same as that of the 3rd Division.

Before the Battle of Changde began, the 13th Division of the Japanese Army, together with the 3rd Division of the Japanese Army, received a dispatch order from the Japanese Imperial Headquarters through the China Expeditionary Force. Due to the unfavorable situation on the Pacific battlefield, the Japanese Imperial Headquarters planned to transfer the 13th Division of the Japanese Army to the Mariana Islands for garrison after the Battle of Changde to resist the attack of the American army.

This meant that for the Japanese 13th Division and the 3rd Division attacking in the center, the Battle of Changde became their last battle on the Chinese battlefield.

The troops of the Japanese 13th Division and the 3rd Division were only more than 20 kilometers apart. On the night of November 2, while the 3rd Division launched a full-scale offensive, the commander of the Japanese 13th Division, Lieutenant General Akashi Osamu, also ordered his 13th Division's offensive troops to begin crossing the Songzi River from the Mituo Temple area on the opposite bank of Shashi, and launched a fierce attack on the Chinese army's defense line.

The Japanese 3rd and 13th Divisions, with more than 30,000 offensive forces, advanced in parallel with each other, and their offensive was extremely fierce. The Chinese army's first-line defense positions were quickly lost under the fierce attack of the Japanese army.

Before the war, Commander Sun, Acting Commander of the Sixth War Zone of the Chinese Government, and Chief of Staff Guo of the War Zone conducted a detailed analysis and judgment and believed that no matter where the attack point of the Japanese 11th Army's offensive forces was directed, at the beginning the Japanese 11th Army's offensive forces would launch a fierce attack in the center.

In their pre-war research and analysis, Commander Sun, Acting Commander of the Sixth War Zone of the Chinese Government, and Chief of Staff Guo of the War Zone judged that the attack direction of the Japanese 11th Army's offensive force in the middle should be Nuanshui Street and Wangjiachang. This judgment was proved correct by the movements of the Japanese 11th Army's offensive forces three days after they launched the attack.

However, although Commander Sun, Acting Commander of the Sixth War Zone of the Chinese Government, and Chief of Staff Guo of the War Zone determined the target of the attacking force of the Japanese 11th Army, they did not expect that the attacking force of the Japanese 11th Army would be so large this time. Judging from the current scale, it is no less than the Battle of Western Hubei four months ago.

The acting commander of the Sixth War Zone of the Chinese government, General Sun, and Chief of Staff Guo of the War Zone have learned through the front-line troops that in the past few days they were engaged in battle with the attacking forces of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army. It is known that there are as many as eight divisions of the attacking forces of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army. By this calculation, it is estimated that the 11th Army of the Japanese Army has assembled at least 100,000 people to carry out this attack.

What surprised Commander Sun, Acting Commander of the Sixth War Zone of the Chinese Government, and Chief of Staff Guo of the War Zone even more was that this time the attacking forces of the Japanese 11th Army were not dispersed as in the past, but were all close together.

Take the Japanese 3rd Division and the Japanese 13th Division, which were responsible for the central attack of the Japanese 11th Army, as an example. The Japanese 11th Army used two Type A divisions to launch an attack in parallel within a range of more than ten kilometers. This was something that the Chinese government's Sixth War Zone Acting Commander Sun and the War Zone Chief of Staff Guo had never expected. There have been many battles since the official outbreak of war between China and Japan, and there are very few such precedents.

Commander Sun, acting commander of the Sixth War Zone of the Chinese government, and Chief of Staff Guo of the War Zone saw that the attacking forces of the Japanese 11th Army were too strong in manpower and had extremely fierce firepower. Although the Chinese army had built relatively solid field positions outside of Gong'an, it could only temporarily block the advance of the attacking forces of the Japanese 11th Army, but it was impossible to completely stop the attacking forces of the Japanese 11th Army.

Given that the enemy was numerous and we were few, and when it was not clear whether the Japanese army was moving south or north, it was impossible for General Sun, acting commander of the Sixth War Zone of the Chinese government, and Chief of Staff Guo of the War Zone to transfer the Jiang Defense Army and the 26th Army in the north to reinforce them. They could only rely on the Tenth Army's strength of less than 30,000 officers and soldiers to hold on.