The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Begins in Songhu

Chapter 416 The 18th Division Arrives (Bonus Chapter 23 for AT)

On the 7th, the battle for Nanning City was still raging, but there was a two-hour ceasefire after 1 p.m.

The reason for this was that the two divisions of the Central Army and the three divisions of the National Army that had participated in the attack earlier had suffered heavy casualties and their morale had plummeted to the lowest point, making it impossible for them to continue fighting.

Seeing this, Bai Jiansheng and Chen Xiuci finally had the five divisions waiting in the rear take their place.

The process of replacing the old and new attacking forces took more than an hour.

However, thanks to the deployment of these fresh troops, after a fierce battle throughout the afternoon, the Japanese first line of defense was completely breached around 9 p.m.

Forced to retreat to the second line of defense, the number of soldiers capable of taking up arms and fighting has dwindled to just over seven thousand.

This means that more than 3,000 people had already died or been wounded in the previous battles.

Faced with such pressure, Ando Toshiyoshi sent five telegrams to headquarters on the 7th, all inquiring about the whereabouts of the 18th Division.
When will we be able to land? How long is it expected to take to reach the outskirts of Nanning?

They didn't mention a word about needing reinforcements, but the urgency of the situation was self-evident.

Of course, in order to achieve such a goal, the total casualties of the Nationalist army on the Nanning battlefield have now exceeded 23,000.

There was no way around it! The Japanese had well-developed fortifications, better weapons and equipment, superior individual soldier skills, and air support.

What did the Nationalist army have? Besides their rifles, bayonets, and grenades, they only had their superiors' orders and their determination to fight to the death.

After breaching the first line of defense, Commander Bai's hands trembled slightly when he saw the latest loss statistics report.

After gritting his teeth, he still roared out an order: "All troops rest for two hours, and continue the attack at midnight. I don't care about casualty figures, I just want Nanning City."

Then he added, "Send this casualty statistics report to Hu Biao and the division-level and above generals of the reinforcement troops, so they know the gravity of the situation."

Twenty minutes later, this casualty statistic was in the hands of Hu Biao and others, and was being passed around continuously.

Mo Shuiyan quickly finished reading the contents and handed it to the AT next to him. He then muttered to Hu Biao, "Damn it! Commander Bai and the others have really gone all out this time."

"If we don't win this battle, believe me, he'll hold a grudge against you for the rest of his life."

"He'll hold a grudge against us for life. To be honest, this Commander Bai's perspective is too narrow." Hu Biao sighed after hearing this.

That's because although the above casualty figures are true, once Bai Jiansheng sent them to them, it would undoubtedly put even more pressure on the reinforcements.

It might cause the reinforcements in Dadong Township to have too many concerns and thus perform poorly.

Just an hour earlier, they had received a secret telegram from a great man.

In the secret telegram, in addition to offering several suggestions regarding the plan to besiege the enemy's stronghold and attack reinforcements, which impressed Hu Biao and his team and were prepared to adopt, the great man also...

He also comforted them, telling them not to feel too much pressure.

As long as we do our best, it doesn't matter too much even if the result is not good, because this is a long-term war for the Chinese nation, and everyone still has a chance, and so on.

Comparing the two telegrams, it's clear that Commander Bai's magnanimity and composure were far inferior.

It's normal not to think about it; in China's long history, how many years does it take for a great man like him to emerge? Commander Bai can't compare, so it's not surprising at all...

******
At 3:20 a.m. on the 8th, a fleet carrying the leader of the Japanese 18th Division appeared in a grand procession on the sea outside Beihai Port.

They arrived at least five hours earlier than expected.

This was because, faced with the increasingly dire situation in Nanning, the Japanese headquarters ordered the fleet to increase its speed along the way, sailing at the fastest possible formation speed.

On the deck of a transport ship, the lights of the harbor could be faintly seen.

The commander of the 18th Division, Hisano Seiichi, casually instructed his adjutant behind him: "Have the Akisui Battalion of the 55th Infantry Regiment disembark first, and set off as quickly as possible." Following this order, the Akisui Battalion, numbering about a thousand Japanese soldiers, was the first to disembark.

After disembarking, they immediately began eating the food prepared in advance by the local garrison on one side of the dock.

After quickly finishing their meal, half of the Japanese soldiers immediately took off all their clothes, leaving only their loincloths.

Then, he picked up some clothes and shoes that the local garrison had prepared in advance and put them on.

Not long after, all five hundred Japanese soldiers had completed their disguises, becoming farmers, peddlers, fishermen, woodcutters, and other different people.

In terms of weaponry, apart from some pistols they carried, the other light machine guns and rifles were hidden in the loads they carried on their shoulders, or in the oxcarts and horse-drawn carriages they drove.

Finally, as dawn broke, the Qiushui Brigade set off from Beihai towards Nanning.

After leaving the city, the undisguised personnel slowly drove along the main road.

The disguised Japanese soldiers immediately split into groups of three or four, ranging from a dozen to a dozen, and began to wander around the countryside and forests along the Qinning Highway.

Without a doubt, even if Seiichi Kuno, the commander of the 15th Division, did not believe that the Nationalist Army would dare to ambush an entire division after ambushing the Independent Mixed Brigade once.

Furthermore, the headquarters was constantly urging them to speed up the reinforcement process.

Still acting out of his cautious instincts, he ordered the Army Aviation to send out multiple reconnaissance aircraft to conduct repeated reconnaissance along their route to Nanning.

They even dispatched half a battalion in advance as scouts, who, after being disguised, began to explore the area ahead.

Although half a battalion of scouts may not seem like much, it was divided into eighty or ninety small teams, scattered across a considerable area in front of the main army; with them scouting ahead, the possibility of being ambushed could be largely avoided.

The premise is that these scouts can complete their reconnaissance mission alive...

It was a little past 8 a.m., before the morning dew had completely evaporated, at a pond about ten miles northeast of Beihai City.

Three men dressed as fishermen walked toward a hunchbacked old man wearing a large straw hat who was herding cattle.

From about ten meters away, the leading fisherman asked in a somewhat strange accent, "Uncle! How do I get to Dayun Village?"

As they were talking, the last fisherman put his right hand behind his back and secretly drew out a Japanese Type 30 bayonet, preparing to get close and stab the hunchbacked old man.

The people capable of doing such a thing were naturally the elite troops of the Japanese army.

The reason they wanted to kill the hunchbacked old man was simple: they felt that disguising himself as a cowherd would be more discreet and believable.

When the two were about six or seven meters apart, the hunchbacked old man suddenly lifted the hem of his shirt, revealing a submachine gun.

Before they could react, the trigger was pulled, and a hail of bullets killed the three Japanese scouts.

Then, the hunchback straightened his back and stepped forward, preparing to search the three Japanese soldiers.

The next second, a bullet hole appeared on his forehead. It turned out that several more Japanese soldiers were hiding in the bushes a hundred meters or so behind those three.

"Damn it! These Japanese devils are really cunning." The warehouse manager, who was also hiding in a bush dozens of meters away from the pond, couldn't help but curse after seeing this.

Then he gestured with his eyes to the dozen or so brothers around him to get ready so that they could take action when the Japanese soldiers got close.

From this moment on, small-scale battles began to intensify in a large area on both sides of the Ningqin Highway leading from Beihai to Nanning.

The scale of the battle was far smaller than that in Nanning City, but its intensity and ferocity were no less...

(End of this chapter)