Devil's Army

The soldiers of the Third Brigade were torn open by the Japanese army's double-sided attack.

The besieged Japanese troops quickly escaped from the encirclement of the Third Brigade through the torn gap.

In this annihilation battle, nearly half of the more than 20,000 Japanese troops who were on the mopping-up operation were wiped out.

The Third Brigade chased the fleeing Japanese troops to Yangquan City, surrounded it, and prepared to attack the city.

Lieutenant General Yansong, commander of the Shanxi First Army, was shocked to hear that the mopping-up force that surrounded the Devil Force was ambushed and suffered heavy losses.

He already knew that Peking and Tianjin were occupied by the Devil's Army, and immediately judged that the main force of the Devil's Army in Peking and Tianjin had moved south, preparing for a decisive battle with their First Army.

After much consideration, he transferred troops from Taiyuan to reinforce the Japanese troops in Yangquan City.

A brigade commander was overjoyed when he heard that the Japanese commander in Taiyuan had arranged more than 1 Japanese troops to come as reinforcements.

There are nearly 60,000 Japanese troops in Shanxi, plus more than 100,000 puppet troops. If a decisive battle were to break out between the two sides, the First Army would not be sure of victory.

Now is a good time to defeat them one by one.

He immediately arranged a brigade to occupy various strategic points on Lion's Head Mountain and strangle the throat of the Zhengtai Railway.

At the same time, he ordered the Third Brigade to start attacking Yangquan City.

Because the troops heading south had to march quickly, they did not carry heavy weapons such as large-caliber artillery.

The Third Brigade encountered stubborn resistance from the Japanese army when attacking Yangquan City, and its progress was not smooth.

A brigade commander immediately requested fire support from the air force. The closest Jinzhou Airport to Yangquan was nearly 1000 kilometers away, Fengtian Airport was over 1000 kilometers away, and Xiaoguanzhuang Airport was over 1600 kilometers away. All of these limited airborne combat time.

On the one hand, Deputy Commander Xu arranged for the Jinzhou Air Force to provide fire support, and on the other hand, he asked the brigade commander to occupy the Yangmingbao Airport.

The commander of the First Brigade immediately arranged for the Second Brigade to attack Yangmingbao Airport, laying the foundation for the First Army Air Force to occupy air superiority in Shanxi Province.

An hour later, the Jinzhou Air Force provided powerful fire support to the Third Brigade. The defenses of several Japanese city gates in Yangquan were destroyed by your air force's artillery fire.

The three soldiers took the opportunity to approach the gate of Yangquan City. When the Jinzhou Air Force attack stopped for a moment, they quickly launched a fierce attack on Yangquan City.

With the intermittent fire support from the Jinzhou Air Force, the soldiers of the Third Brigade broke through the gate of Yangquan City and entered the city.

After the Jinzhou air force returned, the soldiers of the Third Brigade continued to advance deep into Yangquan City, where fierce and brutal street fighting ensued.

On the Yangmingbao Airport side, the battle of the Second Brigade has also begun.

The only remaining Japanese air force at Yangmingbao Airport was surrounded and annihilated by the Jinzhou air force shortly after it bombed the soldiers of the Second Brigade.

After eliminating more than ten Japanese fighter planes at Yangmingbao Airport, the Jinzhou Air Force continued to fiercely bomb and strafe the Japanese anti-aircraft artillery positions and defensive positions at Yangmingbao Airport.

Yangmingbao Airport was an important stronghold for the Japanese army to control Shanxi. The airport's guards braved the air raids of the Devil Force's aviation and stubbornly blocked the attack of the Second Brigade.

Commander Yansong also arranged troops to reinforce Yangmingbao Airport.

However, when the Japanese troops who were reinforcing Yangmingbao Airport passed through Yanmen Pass, they were stubbornly blocked by the Jidong Independent Brigade.

Even with their large-caliber artillery and tanks, the Japanese were unable to break through the Jidong Independent Brigade's defenses. Instead, the road was blocked by the wreckage of tanks.

The Eighth Route Army troops in Shanxi also took the opportunity to launch a fierce attack on the Japanese strongholds around them.

For a time, fierce fighting broke out in all parts of Shanxi.