Quartermasters can also fight the devils

Using these fortifications, the 57th Division built a multi-level defense area using trenches and land in the suburbs on the west, north and east sides outside Changde City, and buried a large number of mines on roads and areas where the offensive forces of the Japanese 11th Army might pass. In addition, the 57th Division also organized the people to prepare in advance for actions to destroy and block roads.

As for the defensive fortifications in Changde City, the 57th Division also built them quite well. The officers and soldiers of the 57th Division had blocked most of the streets in Changde City before the war. When the Japanese attacking forces arrived, they would block all the roads in the city to stop the advancement of the Japanese attacking forces in the city.

At the same time, the officers and soldiers of the 57th Division built bunkers of various sizes in the middle of the roads and intersections in Changde City, and chose sturdy civilian houses to set up commanding heights and firepower networks, which could effectively block all the advance routes of the Japanese attacking forces in the city.

In addition, the officers and soldiers of the 57th Division also broke through the walls of the more sturdy houses in the city, set up gun holes in the walls, and formed a horizontal cross-fire network. If the Japanese attacking forces wanted to attack by force, they would pay a heavy price.

Commander Yu of the 57th Division also arranged the defense strategy based on the actual situation of the troops' weapons and equipment. Although the 57th Division had few heavy weapons and only eight old Soviet-made field guns, the light weapons of the entire division were not bad, and there were hundreds of light and heavy machine guns. If these light and heavy machine guns were placed in bunkers with a good firing range for shooting, if the Japanese attacking forces did not have enough heavy weapons to cooperate and support, but instead adopted the method of infantry assault, it was expected that the Japanese attacking forces would suffer heavy casualties in front of the 57th Division's fortifications. In this way, the progress of the Japanese attacking forces in the city would be even slower.

If the Japanese offensive force used heavy artillery to attack these fortifications, the advancement speed of the Japanese offensive force would be slower. After all, the number of heavy artillery in the Japanese offensive force was limited. In addition, there were many fortifications in Changde City. You must know that the mobility of artillery is much lower than that of infantry. With so many fortifications in Changde City, the heavy artillery units in the Japanese offensive force would be exhausted to death.

Moreover, Commander Yu also deployed mortar units on the second line of fortifications, with platoons as units following the infantry battalions or companies responsible for defense to fight, and they could provide mortar firepower reinforcements to the first-line defense units at any time.

If the Japanese attacking forces could use infantry guns, flat-fire guns and mountain guns to destroy and suppress the numerous bunkers built by the 57th Division, then they had no good way to deal with the mortar units of the 57th Division.

The mortar gunners in the various units of the 74th Army of the Chinese government have undergone years of actual combat training. Not only are they proficient in artillery skills, they are also good at mobile artillery fire. The officers and soldiers of the mortar unit rarely stay in one position for too long. After firing a few shells each time, they will immediately move to another position.

It was difficult for the Japanese army to effectively suppress the Chinese Army's mortar units through artillery, and the Chinese Army's mortar units were in a defensive position with excellent visibility. Therefore, the Japanese army often suffered losses in front of the Chinese Army's mortar units, and senior officers were often killed or injured by the Chinese Army's mortars.

In addition, the eight Russian-made M1900/30 76.2mm field guns of the artillery regiment assigned to the th Army can also play a certain role. These eight field guns are part of the artillery pieces sold by the Soviet Union to the Chinese government in the early days of the War of Resistance.

This old-style field artillery was manufactured by Tsarist Russia before the First World War and was the main artillery of the Tsarist Russian troops during the First World War. Most of them were produced before 1920. Even the latest artillery is more than 20 years old, and the oldest artillery was manufactured in 1898, which is more than twice as old as the artillerymen who operated them.

These old-style artillery pieces are all antiques of the old artillery pieces eliminated by the Soviet army. Not only are their performance quite backward, but the weight of the artillery pieces is more than one ton, which is extremely heavy. It usually takes eight horses to pull them. At the same time, because they are antique artillery pieces, their range is only nine kilometers. Compared with the main field artillery pieces of the Japanese army, these antique artillery pieces can easily be at a disadvantage in an artillery battle.

The only advantage of this kind of antique cannon is its better shooting accuracy, so if it is fired from a fixed position in a defensive operation, these antique cannons can still play a certain role.

However, because the Soviet Union severed its relations with the Chinese government in 7, the supply of shells for these antique cannons has been stopped for more than two years. Originally, each cannon had about one thousand shells, but now, the shells for these eight antique cannons add up to only one thousand. Moreover, among these one thousand shells, about are old-style shells manufactured during the Tsarist Russia period. They are quite weak, only slightly more powerful than the shells fired by the mortars used by the Chinese army.

Although the antique cannons were very short of shells, which limited the performance of the Chinese army's field artillery units on the battlefield, each antique cannon still had more than a hundred shells, which could more or less cause certain casualties to the Japanese attacking forces. It was better than having nothing at all.

In general, the defense of Changde was still good. Although it had many shortcomings, it still formed a very strong defensive force. It would be impossible for the Japanese 11th Army's offensive forces to occupy Changde without suffering huge casualties.

Commander Yu of the 57th Division, who had rich combat experience, believed that once the battle of Changde started, street fighting in the city of Changde would be inevitable. With the powerful artillery and air force firepower of the Japanese attacking forces, the small city of Changde would most likely be bombed into ruins.

Therefore, the remaining troops of the 57th Division evacuated all the residents in Changde City, and government workers also withdrew to the rear to prevent the people from suffering unnecessary casualties in the Japanese attack.

As a result, before the attacking force of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army arrived in Changde, all the civilians in Changde City had been evacuated, and the only people left in the city were the police chief and more than 100 police officers responsible for maintaining order. Therefore, Commander Yu ordered the officers and soldiers of the 57th Division to begin to comprehensively reinforce and build defensive fortifications in Changde City, waiting for the arrival of the attacking force of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army.

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