Quartermasters can also fight the devils

Sure enough, when the troops of the Japanese 3rd Division and the 68th Division of the Japanese Army got closer, the officers and soldiers of the 10th Army fought a bloody battle for a whole day. Although there was some progress, the effect of the advancement was not great.

At this time, the officers and soldiers of the 57th Division had been fighting in the streets of Changde City for a day. Changde City was in danger. The Military Commission of the Chinese government was urging Commander Fang of the 10th Army and required the 10th Army to occupy Deshan, south of Changde City, within November 30.

Commander Fang of the Tenth Army believed that if the current attack speed continued, it would take more than a week for his Tenth Army to get close to the Yuan River, and the 57th Division in Changde City could probably only hold out for about two days at most.

Commander Fang of the Tenth Army understood that the blocking forces of the Japanese Eleventh Army obviously wanted to slow down the speed of the Tenth Army's reinforcement of Changde City through such a tug-of-war and prevent the Tenth Army from quickly reinforcing Changde City. Therefore, after carefully studying the current battle situation, Commander Fang of the Tenth Army believed that the Tenth Army should not continue to entangle with the two divisions of the Japanese Eleventh Army, but should organize troops to break through a defense point on the defense line of the two Japanese divisions. Then, the follow-up troops would immediately risk rushing in from the opened gap and try their best to rush to the city of Changde.

Therefore, Commander Fang of the Tenth Army ordered all the troops of the Eleventh Army to attack and advance, with a deadline of November 30 to capture Deshan in order to lift the siege of Changde. At the same time, Commander Fang of the Tenth Army ordered the Third Division, except for the Eighth Regiment to stay behind to guard the existing position, and the rest of the division should immediately form an attack spearhead to cross the occupied area of ​​the Japanese Eleventh Army to attack and recapture Deshan.

After receiving the order from Commander Fang, the Third Division's Commander Zhou Qingxiang immediately led the Seventh Regiment, the Ninth Regiment and other directly affiliated units to launch a fierce attack on the blocking defense line of the Japanese 68th Division. Under the continuous attack of the officers and soldiers of the Third Division, they finally tore open a corner of the blocking defense position of the Japanese 68th Division on November 30. Subsequently, the attack force of the Third Division rushed into the rear of the Japanese army from this broken section of the defense line.

Commander Zhou Qingxiang of the 3rd Division led his troops in an attack towards Deshan. During the attack, a battalion of officers and soldiers of the 3rd Division even broke into Xuejiapu, the headquarters of the 68th Division of the Japanese Army.

The commander of the 68th Division of the Japanese Army, Lieutenant General Sa Kuma Hitoshi, escaped from the headquarters of the 68th Division under the cover of the guards of the division headquarters, thus saving his life. However, the baggage troops and field hospital of the 68th Division in the rear were constantly attacked by the officers and soldiers of the 3rd Division and were almost destroyed.

However, the officers and soldiers of the Third Division suffered heavy casualties while attacking under the superior firepower of the Japanese Army. The bodies of the sacrificed officers and soldiers of the Third Division were everywhere near Deshan. The fighting was extremely fierce when the various attacking forces of the Third Division attacked Deshan.

In order to achieve the goal of a quick breakthrough, the attacking forces of the 3rd Division found gaps in the defense line of the Japanese 68th Division and drilled in. In the face of the Japanese firepower, officers and soldiers fell one after another. There is an old wharf in Deshan, which is less than one kilometer away from the old wharf to Gufengling outside Changde City.

The attacking force of the Third Division lost 1,400 officers and soldiers in this section of the journey, which means that an officer was killed every meter they advanced. Among them, at the end of the Changde Battle, all the officers and soldiers of the Third Battalion of the Ninth Regiment of the Third Division were killed or injured. In the end, only three officers and soldiers were not injured, and one of them was an officer in charge of liaison.

While the 3rd Division was attacking Deshan fiercely, the 190th Division and the 10th Reserve Division on the flank of the 10th Army were also carrying out life-threatening attacks. Among them, the 190th Division was blocked by a main regiment of the 68th Division of the Japanese Army. In the end, the officers and soldiers of both sides were mixed together and suffered heavy casualties on both sides.

The situation of the 10th Reserve Division, which was in the front, was much more dangerous than that of the other two divisions.

Due to the strong combat effectiveness and fast attack speed of the 10th Reserve Division, the commander of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army, Lieutenant General Isamu Yokoyama, and the commander of the 3rd Division of the Japanese Army, Lieutenant General San'ao Yamamoto, both mistakenly regarded the 10th Reserve Division as the 10th Army of the Chinese government. Even after the end of the Changde Campaign, the 11th Army of the Japanese Army still mistakenly regarded the 10th Reserve Division as the entire 10th Army of the Chinese government.

After such a misjudgment, Lieutenant General Isamu Yokoyama, commander of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army, successively mobilized two main regiments of the 3rd Division of the Japanese Army and a regiment of the 68th Division of the Japanese Army, preparing to intercept and encircle the troops of the 10th Reserve Division.

The officers and soldiers of the 10th Reserve Division fought desperately and continued to attack northward. In just one morning of November 29, the officers and soldiers of the 10th Reserve Division broke through the Japanese 3rd Division's blocking in the Yijia Chong area and advanced several kilometers to the south of Changde City.

However, the two regiments of the 10th Reserve Division responsible for the main attack also suffered heavy casualties. The two regiments now have only three battalions of troops left, and can only be combined into one regiment.

It was because the offensive of the 10th Reserve Division was too fierce that it almost broke through the blocking lines of the 3rd and 68th Divisions of the Japanese Army. This led the commander of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army, Lieutenant General Isamu Yokoyama, to decide to concentrate the main force of the 3rd Division of the Japanese Army to first annihilate the 10th Army of the Chinese government. Of course, this was actually just the 10th Reserve Division.

Commander Sun Mingjin of the 10th Reserve Division was also leading his troops to attack towards Changde City regardless of everything. According to the reconnaissance aircraft reports of the joint air force of China and the United States, the Japanese 11th Army's blocking line in the south of Changde City had a gap between the defense lines of the Japanese 3rd Division and the 68th Division in the south due to the dispersed forces. If his 10th Reserve Division could rush in through this gap, it could directly reach the city of Changde.

At the same time, Commander Fang of the Tenth Army was repeatedly urged by Commander Xue of the Ninth War Zone of the Chinese Government and the Military Commission of the Chinese Government, so he had no choice but to let the Tenth Reserve Division take the risk to carry out this combat mission.

Commander Sun of the 10th Reserve Division knew that this operation was extremely dangerous. Once the actions of the 10th Reserve Division were discovered by the two divisions of the Japanese 11th Army in the south, it would be attacked from both sides by the Japanese 11th Army with several times the strength, and the 10th Reserve Division might even be wiped out.

However, Changde City may fall at any time, and Commander Sun of the 10th Reserve Division has no way to consider his own life or death. If the 10th Reserve Division can rush into Changde City by chance, then the 10th Reserve Division can completely disrupt the entire deployment of the Japanese 11th Army's offensive forces attacking Changde City, and rescue the 57th Division that is defending Changde City.