Chapter 1488 Two Hundred Knife Monks Stay for Yellow Tea!

After Tang Dao severely shocked the officers and soldiers of the 10th Division, he immediately returned to Hengyang City and held a military meeting of the highest level in the Hengyang War Zone with Fang Xianjue, Zhao Zili, Zhao Junmai, and Sun Minyu.

The Hengyang map in Tang Dao's hand, which was drawn by Tan Tai Yunshu after nearly 8 months of visits and surveys, was hung on the wall of the Operations Department.

Tang Dao fully stated what he saw and heard on the position of the 10th Division and the advantages and disadvantages of the position contraction. In the end, Fang Xianjue personally decided to determine the position design and allocation after Tang Dao's balance.

The Hengyang Command finally decided to set up a triple defense line with the HY urban area as the core.

The first line of defense: In the south of Hengyang City, Zhangjiashan is the core main position. There are Wuguiling and Fengshushan in the east, Huxingchao and Fanjiazhuang in the west, Xiaojiashan and Zhangfeishan in the north, Tingbingshan and Gaoling in the south. Several independent highlands are about 400 meters apart, which is the best shooting distance for machine guns and rifles. Each position is a corner, forming a huge circular position with a cross-fire network.

This circular position is 4,000 meters wide from east to west and 800 meters from north to south. It is wide enough and has enough depth. There are 7,300 infantry, artillery and engineers stationed in the 10th Division.

And Huangchaling, 900 meters before being named No. 3 circular position, was named No. 2 position, and several highlands belonging to Huangchaling were named 201, 202, 203, and 204 highlands.

You should know that even the main urban area of ​​Hengyang was named No. 1 position, which shows the importance of several generals to the Huangchaling position.

They all knew that this nail hanging alone outside the No. 3 circular position not only greatly increased the depth of the entire Hengyang war zone's defensive position, but also was the biggest barrier before the No. 3 position. The Japanese army could not directly attack the No. 3 position with direct-aiming guns. The various machine gun bunkers on the No. 3 position could kill the Japanese infantry to the greatest extent.

The No. 2 and No. 3 positions combined into one will become the largest meat grinder outside Hengyang City. It depends on how many troops the Japanese army can put into this meat grinder-like mill.

Of course, although Tang Dao has taken the initiative to volunteer to use his most elite battalion to defend the No. 2 position, both Fang Xianjue and Zhao Zili solemnly promised that as long as the officers and soldiers on the No. 2 position have something to ask for, the 12 mountain guns of the 10th Army Artillery Battalion returned and placed in Hengyang City will definitely provide full support.

If the 12 Bofors mountain guns of the Four-line Regiment and the other 8 150 heavy mortars are added, the artillery support that can be called on for position No. 2 will be as high as more than 30 guns, not to mention the 9 special guns hidden in the huge naval artillery battalion.

Tang Dao has issued a strict order that the stuff must not be used unless it is absolutely necessary, or if the Japanese are furious and use thousands of people to launch a "Long Live Charge", then it can be used.

The Hengyang Command has invested almost 70% of its elite troops in the entire south of the city.

The second line of defense is centered on Yueping Mountain, Suxianjing, and Tianma Mountain, which are close to the urban area. Yueping Mountain and Tianma Mountain are the last gateways to the urban area in the south and west of the city respectively. The mountains are relatively large and the forests are dense, making them easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Huiyan Peak near Yueping Mountain has the highest poster, overlooking the entire city of Hengyang. The artillery command post led by Cai Rulin is also located here.

In addition, the west plain of the city is also part of the second line of defense.

Although the terrain here is flat and there is no danger at all, the 10th Army has already launched the action of "breaking roads to make fields, plowing fields to store water" here, that is, all the fish ponds, lotus ponds, and paddy fields on the plains were dug up, and even the river embankments of steaming water were dug up, and the steaming water was introduced into the plains, turning the whole place into a swamp.

Not to mention that cars, tanks, and artillery can't move, even people walking in it are as slow as a snail.

The scattered houses between the ponds and paths, except for those that are necessary to be converted into bunkers, the rest are all demolished.

In addition, under the guidance of the engineers, the reserve regiment will send people to pull up barbed wire and bury mines in this swamp, and form a group of bunkers hundreds of meters away, forming a dense cross-fire network with machine gun firepower.

The second line of defense is mainly defended by the two infantry regiments of the 3rd Division and the 3rd Battalion of the Four-Line Regiment.

The third line of defense, which is also the last line of defense, is the urban position with the Hengyang War Zone Command and the Central Bank where the field hospital is located as the core.

This was prepared for the final street fighting. The remaining ones included the Hengyang Guard Brigade and two regiments of the 3rd Division, the 2nd Battalion of the Sihang Regiment, and the 50,000 Hengyang young men who would hide in the city after the war began.

Fang Xianjue had already ordered the opening of the arsenal in Hengyang City, and the distribution of the old guns and their ammunition in stock to the Hengyang young men who had been organized into 10 reserve regiments.

Although each reserve regiment of 5,000 people received only a pitiful 300 guns, which were Hanyang-made or even older single-shot old guns, the young men were already very satisfied.

They all knew that once the city was broken, with the nature of the Japanese army, let alone their help in building fortifications for the Hengyang army, the 300,000 people in Jinling City were a lesson for them. With guns in hand, they could resist.

Those who didn't have guns could just pick them up from the pile of dead bodies. Street fighting had already begun, and the last thing the city lacked was guns and dead bodies.

In short, with the complete establishment of the three lines of defense, the five-member team of the Hengyang Command has sent a signal to all officers and soldiers: holding on to Hengyang for 15 days may only be the beginning. The 22,000 troops and 50,000 young and strong men in Hengyang will shed their last drop of blood in this city!

Because, apart from defense, the Hengyang Command did not have any evacuation plan. Perhaps someone asked the supreme commander Fang Xianjue privately, but at least no one mentioned it at the five-member military meeting.

It seemed that they had forgotten the only way to survive, which was to break out.

Perhaps, Tang Dao could understand the inner thoughts of the other four people who kept silent about the future breakout.

Fang Xianjue is now the supreme commander of Hengyang. If he mentions this matter, the morale of the army will inevitably fluctuate before the war.

Zhao Zili was exiled to Hengyang by General Xue because of the dispute over the defense of Tanzhou. He was holding his breath in his heart and would rather die in battle to express his heart to protect the war zone and the national battlefield. This is a bit like General Zhang who died in the Sui-Zao battle. In order to wash away the name of "traitor" on his body, he had already been determined to die.

Zhao Junmai had a little more thoughts. The city gradually prospered and splendid under his administration, just like his child. As the parent official of this city, he naturally hoped that the 10th Army and the Four-Line Regiment would defend the city.

Anyone can talk about breaking out, but he can't. But at the end of the battle, he will probably be the first to bring it up.

After all, he is more of a politician than a soldier!

Sun Minyu is much simpler. He firmly stands by his army commander Fang Xianjue. Fang Xianjue doesn't even talk about breaking out, so how could he bring it up?

But none of the four people know better than Tang Dao that Hengyang is a dead end and a dead end. No one here can leave, and there is no way to leave.

Of course, this is not to say that Hengshan Yong is so awesome that he surrounded Hengyang with 100,000 troops, and even flies couldn't fly out.

The truth is that when the battle of Hengyang lasted for 30 days, the 11th Army had already taken the initiative to open up the two passages in the west and north of the city.

That was really not some "encircle three and kill one" strategy played by Hengshan Yong. Hengshan Yong's little head full of muscles didn't have the ability.

The 11th Army suffered heavy casualties, so heavy that even a fierce Japanese general like Yokoyama Isamu could not bear it and took the initiative to withdraw the encirclement, sending a signal that you go! We only want this city, not people.

In the past, when it came to the late stage of the Hengyang Defense War, Yokoyama Isamu took the initiative to send personnel to negotiate with the city, hoping that the two armies would end this thankless battle of the city as soon as possible.

The Japanese were not the reason why the Hengyang army could not break through.

It was mainly from that person's face. The Allied forces were constantly winning in the Pacific battlefield, and the European battlefield had entered the counterattack mode. Only the Chinese theater was beaten back by the Japanese army. Tanzhou was lost, and Hengyang was lost again. How could he, the commander-in-chief of the Chinese theater, have the face?

Therefore, Hengyang had to persist and persist until the oil was exhausted, and the reinforcements never arrived!

That time, the Japanese 11th Army paid more than 60,000 casualties and finally took Hengyang as they wished. Many years later, when Hengyang started its modernization construction, the randomly dug bones piled up like a mountain, shocking the nerves of all Chinese people.

But this time, Tang Dao, who once strode towards Hengyang and now strode out of the command center, did not think so.

If Yokoyama Yong only brought 100,000 troops to fight Hengyang, then this time, they would leave at least 50,000 devils' lives here.

60,000 casualties are still too few!

As the orders for the defense positions of each division, regiment, and battalion were officially issued, the officers and soldiers of each unit ushered in the most fanatical climax of building fortifications.

The 50,000 young and strong men left were organized into 10 regiments, 4 regiments in the city and 6 regiments outside the city, to assist the infantry regiments in digging earth and building positions.

For a place like Huangchaling, which is called a "nail", there are up to 2 reserve regiments invested.

In Leng Feng's plan, Huangchaling will have 10 underground tunnels for each company to hide soldiers, and these 10 underground tunnels are interconnected so that reinforcements can arrive at the front positions on the east, west and north sides at any time under artillery fire.

This requires more than 100,000 cubic meters of earth to be excavated, almost completely hollowing out the entire Huangchaling mountainside. To complete it all in just 7 days, it is almost an impossible task in the eyes of many people.

"Nothing is difficult in the world, as long as you are determined!" Leng Feng responded to this question with only one sentence.

No one can refute the persistence of this lieutenant colonel of the army.

Because, among all the fortifications in Huangchaling, there are bunkers, deep trenches and tunnels for anti-artillery, but there is no communication trench for evacuation.

The communication trenches exposed on the surface are easily used by the Japanese army that bypasses, and instead become the breakthrough point of the Japanese army.

If you want to leave the Huangchaling position that is isolated in the No. 3 circular position of the 10th Division, you can only go through the long underground tunnel.

But obviously, that will be a passage as long as 1,200 meters. It is unknown how much manpower and material resources will be required. With the current personnel deployed on Huangcha Ridge, at least one-third will be allocated.

As the highest commander on Huangcha Ridge, Leng Feng chose to ignore it and put all the manpower and materials into the Huangcha Ridge position.

In order to ensure work efficiency, the two reserve regiments of 10,000 people were divided into 10 thousand-man teams, led by professional engineers to cooperate with the infantry company, artillery company, tank platoon, heavy platoon, medical team, communication platoon and other arms of the first battalion to build positions.

Working around the clock, even at night, bonfires and torches will be lit. The only rest time is to eat, drink water and sleep from 12 pm to 5 am.

The working hours per day are as long as 18 hours, which is much more cruel than the future 996 and 715.

But no one complained, just like Luo Dahu who came to Huangchaling. When he heard that there were only 1,400 soldiers on this position and it was far away from the main position composed of high mountains in the rear, this man from the north cried on the spot.

As an ordinary person who had been to many places in the war, he had seen pigs walk even if he had not eaten pork. He passed many abandoned positions along the way.

The position that was scorched by artillery fire was scattered with body parts and rotting corpses everywhere, which could be called hell on earth. But in order to find a bite of food for the hungry children, he had to endure the stench and search in the abandoned position.

He was unable to help the soldiers in dark blue uniforms rest in peace because there were too many of them. When he left, he lit three dead branches and stuck them on the small mound he piled up with mud, and then kowtowed several times to seek peace of mind.

But those scenes have never faded in the heart of this Northeast man!

He knew that when the Japanese attacked, the soldiers who were already bare-chested and digging fortifications with shovels and hoes on the battlefield would most likely become the scenes he had seen.

These soldiers were so young! There were also several female soldiers with big eyes, wearing military uniforms and looking heroic. When Luo Dahu thought that they would die defending Hengyang City and finally become the hideous appearance he had seen, he felt very upset.

"As I said before, if you are a man, you should work with the military men. It's exhausting, but we are also heroes who have been on the battlefield!" Luo Dahu, who was selected as the captain of the 1,000-man team of the reserve regiment, had already taken off his shirt and was only wearing a pair of coarse cotton pants. He took the lead and jumped into the more than five-meter-deep trench and dug hard.

It was under the leadership of this desperate man that this thousand-man team completed a kilometer-level trench with a depth of five meters and a width of five meters in six days. The excavated soil alone was as high as 25,000 cubic meters, and a small hill was piled up on Huangcha Ridge.

This was purely manpower excavation and transportation. Under normal circumstances, it would definitely not be completed without thousands of people.

But it was still not enough, even though 11,400 people on the Huangcha Ridge position had already started the desperate mode.

The residents of Hengyang were still evacuating. The people who could not evacuate by train basically went to the countryside 30 kilometers away. That was Fang Xian's absolute minimum estimate of the edge of the battlefield that was about to become a decisive battle for hundreds of thousands of troops.

Standing on Huangcha Ridge, you can clearly see groups of people carrying the elderly and children, carrying things on their shoulders and hands, and staggering away.

No civilians were left inside or outside the city. This was the military order issued by the Hengyang Command.

It is not just a matter of considering that the war will affect the lives and safety of the people, but also a military consideration. If the Japanese army cannot capture the city for a long time, they will often capture the people nearby and use them as shields. Anyone who encounters such a thing will have a headache.

No matter how fierce the firepower is, no matter how solid the fortifications are, you can fire at the Japanese invaders without scruples, but your crosshairs are all your compatriots. How many people's hands and hearts will not tremble?

This is also why once the battle starts, the 10 reserve regiments will also withdraw into the city. Only when the street fighting is insufficient will they become the last resistance force.

Hengyang has long become a military fortress that only allows people to leave but no one to enter!

But when Leng Feng stood at the highest point of Huangcha Ridge and stared at the people leaving the edge of Huangcha Ridge, he was shocked to see that a group of people in the distance were still going upstream and heading towards Hengyang City.

When he got closer, it turned out to be a group of monks wearing gray monk robes and bareheaded, at least 200 people.

"Amitabha, after hearing the motto of 'kill the enemy on horseback and learn Buddhism on foot' said by General Fang last month, I, Huiyuan, have always kept it in mind. A few days ago, I heard from pilgrims that Tanzhou had fallen and Hengyang would become a battlefield. After getting the permission of the abbot, I, my brothers and sisters decided to come and help the army. Buddha said: If I don't go to hell, who will?" The leading young monk said to Leng Feng with his hands folded.

"Amitabha!" A group of monks folded their hands together.

Under the tight monk's robes, there were shining swords!

The precept of killing should not be violated, that is for people, not for demons!

Looking at the firmness in the eyes of a group of young monks with their hands folded, even Leng Feng, who was as cold as he was, softened his face.

Looking back at the soldiers and civilians working all over the mountains and plains, Leng Feng was more confident than ever that he and the first battalion would be able to hold this position.

It was not because of the elite officers and soldiers, nor because of the excellent equipment, but because of the people living on this land!

200 monks participated in the construction of the Huangchaling position on the spot, and they never left until the end of the Battle of Hengyang.

It is known in history as "Two Hundred Swords Monks Stayed in Huangcha"!