In the observation point covered with hand-painted camouflage cloth, Hu Xiushan used high-power binoculars to carefully observe the high ground where the Japanese army was tightly fortified. On the first line of defense under the high ground, the Japanese army's fortifications were very conspicuous. The gray-white cement exterior wall was incompatible with everything around it.

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The artillery that bombarded the Japanese positions came from the captured Japanese 150 howitzers. The power of the artillery shells was much greater than that of the Northeastern Army's 120 artillery pieces. Perhaps because of the overly eye-catching cement exterior walls, those locations were given special attention.

Since receiving a call back from the headquarters, Hu Xiushan has not said a word. After seeing the layout of the Japanese army's positions and the shelling, Hu Xiushan ordered: "After the exploratory attack, take some photos of the Japanese cement defenses and bring some

Come back in pieces."

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The staff immediately conveyed this strange but not excessive order. After all, this was a battlefield, and it was indeed inappropriate for the group army commander Hu Xiushan to enter the battlefield before dealing with the Japanese troops on the high ground.

It was now 8:45 a.m. on October 22. Within the prescribed attack time, the Northeast Army's exploratory attack began.

Lieutenant Colonel Rensuke Isotani, who was in charge of commanding this important high ground, heard the report that "the enemy has begun to attack." He immediately rushed to the high-powered telescope that was shaken by the shelling to look at it. The more he looked at it, the more surprised he became. Northeastern was mentioned repeatedly in the frontline battle report

The army's attacking formation was extremely sparse. Only after seeing it with his own eyes did Isotani Rensuke understand what it felt like.

The offensive troops of the Northeastern Army did not make a direct impact, but adopted different movement patterns according to different terrains. They might quickly cross obstacles and jump behind another obstacle. Or they might crawl forward to hide themselves from the Japanese army as much as possible.

The position is within the blind spot of shooting. Some of them roll over, move horizontally, and enter other routes that are easier to conceal. Even from a very high position, looking down, the sparse offensive formation of the Northeast Army's offensive troops is flickering.

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The offensive troops are so sparse that they use 70-caliber artillery bombardment. If you are not so lucky, it is likely that they will not be able to cause damage. 100-caliber and above 100-caliber artillery shells are powerful enough. On the position where Isotani Rensuke is located, artillery shells of this caliber

Only 700 pieces. They are used to deal with enemy group attacks and artillery. How can they be used to attack the enemy's ordinary infantry.

As soon as I thought of this, gunshots rang out. After these sparse Northeastern Army troops approached the Japanese army's position, they took the initiative to attack. The Japanese troops guarding the position immediately began to fight back. In less than a minute of fighting, the Northeastern Army's 60 mortars began to bombard.

Exposed Japanese firepower points.

Isotani Rensuke only felt a chill running down his spine and rushing straight to his forehead. Even though Ishihara Kanji and Okamura Neji repeatedly described it in their battle reports, in the early morning of the 22nd, at the military meeting they attended after waking up, another

It focuses on the tactics of the Northeast Army and the response plans adopted by the two men.

Even with preparations, Isotani Rensuke personally faced the Northeastern Army's attack, but he still felt that this tactic was completely unfamiliar and beyond all imagination of Isotani Rensuke. At this time, there was no time for Isotani Rensuke to sigh.

Reflected.

That lunatic Kanji Ishihara used large-caliber artillery to block the offensive channel of the Northeastern Army in Pyongyang, and sent a large number of troops to counterattack, but only achieved the result of killing and capturing 200 Northeastern Army soldiers. Isotani Rensuke decided to hold on a little longer. But just to be prepared.

, he also ordered the 100mm cannon artillery battery to prepare for firing. At the same time, he ordered that the second line be ready to support the first line trenches at any time.

Just after the order was issued, a new artillery group was added to the Northeastern Army's artillery. Judging from the explosion on the ground, it should be an artillery of about 100 caliber. These shells exploded on the Japanese second line position, hitting the Japanese second line.

The entrance to the first line of defense.

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"Baga!" Isotani Rensuke even cursed out loud. The machine gun position set up on the top of the hill was shooting at the invisible figure of the Northeast Army's air force reconnaissance plane, but it had no effect at all.

At this moment, the frontline commander called, "Report to Lieutenant Colonel Isoya, the enemy has invaded our position?"

"How many people are there?" Isotani Rensuke said angrily. The Northeastern Army obviously only had so few people, how could it make the Japanese frontline garrison officers so worried?

"There are gunshots in four or five positions! Lieutenant Colonel, I don't know how many enemies have rushed in!" the front-line commander shouted anxiously.

This is also mentioned in the battle report. The Northeast Army's small team operations are simply pervasive, and any small gap will be exploited. A three-person combat team does not need any serious flaws to break into the Japanese position.

In order to counterattack immediately, the Japanese army had to mobilize troops and close the defense. This gave the Northeast Army squad more openings, and more fearless Northeastern Army soldiers entered the Japanese positions through the openings, causing more chaos to the Japanese army.

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The Northeastern Army uses submachine guns and grenades, and the teams are relatively far apart. On the contrary, they can shoot and drop bombs unscrupulously, maximizing their combat effectiveness.

Even though the number of Japanese troops on the position at this time was far greater than that of the Northeastern Army, they were overwhelmed by the gunshots and grenade explosions that rang out everywhere. In the end, the very small Northeastern Army completely penetrated the defense line and fell into defeat.

Seeing that the commander of the first line of defense was a waste, Isotani Rensuke immediately shouted: "Retreat immediately, retreat to the second line of defense! Retreat immediately!"

Under such decisive and severe orders, the Japanese troops on the first line of defense began to retreat regardless of whether they were engaged with the Northeastern Army. After the Japanese troops on the first line of defense withdrew to the second line of defense, counted their numbers, and after a brief battle, the Japanese troops lost

There were more than eighty people, but not even a single Northeastern Army soldier was captured during the retreat.

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Isotani Rensuke did not care how the Japanese commanders reported the number of "probable enemy casualties". According to his observation, the casualties of the Northeastern Army's offensive troops were probably only single digits.

Facing a group of uneasy commanders, Isotani Rensuke's face was so gloomy that he could drip water. He shouted: "Gentlemen, follow the pre-war arrangements and stick to the second line of defense! Within the second line of defense, all positions are connected.

We must defend the position closely. Once the enemy invades the position, all units will counterattack on the spot. You have prepared reserves behind you, and the front-line troops will not retreat as long as they advance."

At this time, while the Northeastern Army was clearing the occupied Japanese front-line positions, it also did not forget Hu Xiushan's request. The soldiers used engineer pickaxes to smash the cement exterior walls of the Japanese frontline positions. They thought that the engineer pickaxes would bounce off the hard cement wall.

, I didn’t expect that a engineer’s pickaxe would pierce through the thing, and the surrounding cement would fall apart and fall to the ground.

This reaction puzzled the engineers. After careful inspection, it turned out that this so-called "cement fortification" was just a layer of cement on the outside of ordinary fortifications. It looked like cement fortifications. The thin layer of cement outside was of no use at all.

No.

The officer in charge of the matter was just completing the task assigned by his superiors. At this time, he discovered something fishy and quickly arranged to take photos and ordered the engineers to conduct multiple inspections. At the same time, he quickly ordered people to send the cement samples back to the back.

Tang Yanming, commander of the 5th Army, initially couldn't understand why Commander Hu Xiushan cared so much. After hearing the report, he put down his command work and rushed to Hu Xiushan himself. The engineer who happened to be participating in the sampling was giving an introduction. The engineer finished introducing the cement.

Situation. I added another thing that I noticed when I got close to the Japanese position. The Japanese army also wrote many Japanese slogans on many cement coatings, "Live and die with the position!", "Fight to the last man!",

"We will die together, no matter what!"

Tang Yanming didn't know how to react. Some officers suddenly burst out laughing, and Tang Yanming also laughed.

Are these slogans funny? The Japanese army collapsed at the first touch, and quickly withdrew to the second line of defense before the melee began. "Live and die with the position!", "Fight to the last man!" Who are you kidding?

Hu Xiushan picked up the cement piece and looked at it. He just chuckled and ordered his comrades to quickly return to their units and rebuild.

After the comrades left, Tang Yanming asked: "How did the commander find out that the Japanese army was deceiving us?"

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Hu Xiushan didn't want to answer, but after a moment of silence, he decided to answer Commander Tang Yanming's question, "Japanese commander Nagata Tieshan is not deceiving us, but I think Nagata Tieshan has realized that my determination to fight is not

firm."

Tang Yanming had been focusing on organizing the battle before. When he suddenly heard this level of answer, he couldn't figure out what Hu Xiushan said. He could only quickly search for knowledge corresponding to Hu Xiushan's words in his heart. Soon, Tang Yanming thought of

After reading the words in "Huainanzi Military Training" written by Liu An of the Han Dynasty, he asked: "Commander, the way to use troops is to show them with softness and meet them with strength, show them with weakness and take advantage of them with strength. Is this the case?"

"

Tang Yanming felt that these words could indeed explain what happened before him. The Japanese defenders were not very strong, so they had to pretend to be strong to shake the Northeast Army's determination to attack.

Hu Xiushan shook his head, "Not entirely. Nagata Tetsuyama was using such an exaggerated way to convey to me his confidence that he would fight to the end. It was just that he used too much force and only made people laugh."

Tang Yanming looked at his immediate boss, who was one year younger than him, and couldn't understand how Hu Xiushan came up with this. In the confused moment where he didn't know how to understand it, Hu Xiushan issued a clear order, "Tang Jun

Commander, you organize two battalion-sized probing attacks in the direction of our artillery and enemy reconnaissance positions where we have the best advantage. Other troops will conduct pre-emptive attacks. Tell the two battalion commanders that this is a probing attack."

Tang Yanming hurriedly made arrangements. After the arrangements were completed, he quickly asked, "Commander, can you explain it clearly to me?"

Hu Xiushan turned around and pointed at the sand table, "Commander Tang, if it were you, I would give you 10,000 troops, equipped with enough artillery and reconnaissance troops. You can defend a well-prepared mountain defense line. Can you withstand the current level of Japanese troops?"

How many troops will attack?"

Tang Yanming couldn't help but frown, and after thinking for a moment, he asked: "What kind of terrain is it probably like?"

Hu Xiushan searched for a moment in the map and pulled out a map of a mountainous area south of Pyongyang City. Immediately, a staff officer moved a blackboard over and fixed the map on the blackboard with magnets.

Tang Yanming looked at it for a while and replied with some hesitation: "It can probably withstand 50,000 Japanese troops."

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Hu Xiushan raised a new question, "If you are an average Japanese army and have received two months of tactical training from our army, how many people can you withstand?"

Tang Yanming only thought for a short time this time before answering: "Thirty thousand...thirty-five thousand."

Hu Xiushan knew that Tang Yanming was very talented in troop training and had a thorough understanding of the tactics of the Northeastern Army. The number of 35,000 was similar to what Hu Xiushan thought, but Hu Xiushan thought it was about 30,000, not more.

But since the two sides had similar understandings of the prerequisites, Hu Xiushan answered Tang Yanming's question, "Commander Tang, we have all counted the Japanese troops in Korea. If there are no rear reinforcements, the number of real Japanese regular troops in the troops guarding Seoul will be very small."

It will exceed 7,000. At this stage, the number of Japanese regular troops in the troops defending Seoul will not exceed 15,000."

Tang Yanming fully understood this. If only the Japanese army carrying rifles, some heavy machine guns, and a few basic bullets were transported to Seoul by train. Not to mention eight thousand, twenty thousand could do it. But these infantrymen

For artillery bombardment, it can only serve as cannon fodder. In order for these infantry to be able to fight, one cannon must be equipped with relevant troops stipulated in Japanese military regulations according to the ratio of Japanese military equipment.

With the current number of artillery in Seoul, the Japanese army can equip at most 15,000 regular troops. The other soldiers are simply cannon fodder, so there is no need for regular troops to serve as them.

But what does this have to do with Hu Xiushan's determination to fight? Tang Yanming did not believe that the Japanese army in front of him could hold Seoul.

Hu Xiushan was about to explain clearly to Tang Yanming, so he continued: "After we occupy Seoul, we will never defend Seoul. Do you understand the reason?"

Tang Yanming only considered taking Seoul, and did not consider whether to defend Seoul or how to defend Seoul. After hearing the commander's decision, he was stunned. He considered the terrain of Seoul and the logistical supply factors of the Northeastern Army and the Japanese Army, and thought together

The chain is faintly taking shape.

Hu Xiushan didn't want Tang Yanming to have too many random thoughts, so he explained the core reason.

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"This war may last two years. Our strategic purpose is not to defeat Japan, but to completely consume Japan and weaken Japan. At the stage when our army is liberating the entire China, Japan is completely unable to intervene militarily. Capturing Seoul is not necessary to complete this strategy.

The goal achieved, and even capturing Pyongyang is just a matter of chasing rabbits and killing rabbits. The goal of our army at this stage of the campaign is to control the vast mountainous areas in northern Korea, build a line of defense, and fully consume Japan in the next stage of the campaign. Commander Tang, from

From a strategic perspective, south of the Yalu River, there is nothing we must obtain and nothing we cannot give up."
To be continued...