Devil's Army

Since the method of luring the enemy deep into our territory doesn't work, we have to think of other ways to eliminate the Japs.

The commander of the Third Regiment convened a combat meeting of commanders above the battalion level, hoping to pool their wisdom and ideas to come up with a way to eliminate the enemy's effective forces.

The commanders present at the meeting took turns speaking and everyone shared their views.

Everyone believed that the goal was to destroy the enemy's active forces, and there was no need to stick to formalities. The right of maneuver was delegated to battalion-level units, and each battalion would organize battalion or company units to look for opportunities to destroy the enemy.

The three regiment commanders agreed to this plan and decided that after the meeting, each battalion would organize and arrange guerrilla warfare independently, and the regiment would no longer make unified arrangements for operations.

In order to prevent the overlapping of the areas of the various battalions during the battle, the commander of the third regiment divided the three battalions into their own areas of action: the first battalion was mainly responsible for the Japanese on the left side of the path, the second battalion was mainly responsible for the Japanese on the right side of the path, and the third battalion was mainly responsible for the Japanese on the path.

After the meeting, the third regiment commander played Go with the political commissar in the regiment headquarters.

Each battalion arranged its combat plan independently, so he had nothing to worry about.

After the Saito Regiment completed its fortifications and defense lines, it continued to advance with the support of tanks.

Just like last time, the Saito Regiment advanced four or five miles towards Jianchang and then stopped, starting to dig fortifications and build a defense line. Soldiers were also sent to search the woods on both sides of the path.

Soon, gunshots were heard on both sides of the path.

The Japanese signalman on the left side of the path was killed in the first round of attack, so the Japanese search team could only exchange fire with the soldiers of the first company of the first battalion.

The situation of the 1st Company of the 2nd Battalion on the right side of the path was not as good as that of the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion on the left side.

When the soldiers of the 1st Company of the 2nd Battalion wiped out a group of Japanese soldiers at the beginning of their attack, the Japanese soldiers immediately called on the artillery on the small road to bomb the 1st Company of the 2nd Battalion.

In order to reduce casualties, the 1st Company of the 2nd Battalion had to withdraw from the battle, while the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion almost completely wiped out the Japanese search team.

Immediately afterwards, the Japanese soldiers who were building fortifications on the path were ambushed by a platoon from the first company of the third battalion.

The platoon of the third battalion did not want to fight and fled immediately after the successful sneak attack.

The subsequent artillery bombardment by the Japanese had no effect on them.

Colonel Saito's defense line advanced another ten miles.

The anti-aircraft artillery companies on both sides of the First Army's path were also ordered to retreat.

At noon that day, not long after lunch, two Japanese tanks began to lead the way, leading the Japanese to continue advancing towards Jianchang County.

The Japanese advanced about four miles and then stopped. As usual, their tanks fired at both sides of the path.

Before the Japanese soldiers could start digging fortifications and building defense lines, fierce gunfire broke out behind them.

The 1st Regiment of the 5th Brigade somehow managed to evade their patrols and sneak up behind them.

The second battalion of the first regiment launched an attack on the Japanese in the Jianchang direction. The third battalion took up a defensive position on the small road to prevent the Japanese reinforcements from the Jinhuashan direction.

The Second Battalion evaded the patrol by passing through the woods on the left side of the path, launched a surprise attack on the fortifications, and quickly occupied them.

Then the Second Battalion handed over the fortifications to the Third Battalion for defense, and launched a fierce attack on the Japanese in the direction of Jianchang County.

The commander of the third battalion deployed the first company in the enemy's fortifications on the front of the path. The second and third companies defended the left and right wings of the fortifications respectively.

As soon as the first company of the third battalion entered the fortifications, they immediately consolidated the area that had just been collapsed by the explosion of the second battalion.

Before the first company of the third battalion could consolidate their fortifications, the Japanese reinforcements arrived.

The Japanese artillery fired fiercely at the fortifications occupied by the First Company of the Third Battalion. Several shells landed on the anti-gun trenches of the fortifications, blowing up dirt and trees.

The Japanese anti-artillery trench was built with a mixture of trees and soil, with a total of two layers, and the anti-artillery effect was quite good.

The soldiers of the first company of the third battalion hid in the anti-artillery trench, and the fierce artillery fire of the Japanese did not cause much casualties to them. However, the continuous explosion of the shells still made their eardrums buzz, which was very uncomfortable.

The company commander told everyone to open their mouths wide and cover their ears with their hands in a fan shape. This did have some effect and everyone felt less uncomfortable.

The Japanese artillery bombardment had not stopped yet, and their infantry began to approach the fortifications cautiously.

At this time, all the soldiers in the company in the fortifications had climbed out of the anti-gun trench and were lying on the fortifications, staring at the Japanese soldiers crawling over.

The Japanese crawled to a place more than a hundred meters away from the fortifications, stood up one after another and rushed into the fortifications.

The soldiers of the company, who had been prepared, shot at the Japanese who stood up.

The group of Japanese soldiers who stood up first fell one after another, and the Japanese soldiers behind continued to rush forward regardless of casualties.

Upon seeing this, the company commander immediately called on the reserve soldiers squatting behind the soldiers who were firing to throw their grenades quickly.

The third battalion commander saw fierce fighting at the first company's fortifications at his temporary command post in the woods and immediately requested artillery support from the regiment headquarters.

Soon, the whistling sound of the 150mm howitzer, which made the Japanese terrified, came from far away and hit the Japanese follow-up troops.

The Japanese follow-up troops were immediately dispersed, and the Japanese soldiers were busy covering their heads to avoid the artillery fire.

The Japanese troops attacking the fortifications lost the reinforcements of the follow-up troops and were extremely exhausted.

The company commander took the opportunity to launch a counterattack and drove back the Japanese who were attacking them.