After receiving the order from the independent division instead of accepting the order from the Northeast Work Corps, Song Geping, the mayor of Andong City, knew that the battle situation on the front line was corrupt and the Sixth Brigade was defeated. Not only the Sixth Brigade, but also the Sixth Brigade was defeated. The same is true for the fifth brigade. The highest command organ of the independent division issued an order to a local municipal government for the first time. No need to ask, it was the most urgent military affairs. He could not think about anything else and immediately issued an order in the name of Andong City Government. Civilian cars are called for use throughout the city, but how many cars are there in the entire Anton?
Song Geping even went against the norm and broke his own emphasis on the principle of restoring the economy and maintaining stability in Anton. As the mayor, he asked Colonel He Qifeng, the commander of Anton's security forces, to dispatch troops to assist the city government. Officers will take coercive measures against those citizens who refuse to carry out the city's recruitment order until they are imprisoned!
Song Geping said to He Qifeng: "Commander He, the situation is urgent and extraordinary measures must be taken in extraordinary times. The division commander ordered the Andong City Government to arrange vehicles and evacuate the wounded troops. This is a fatal task that must be carried out. Therefore, the troops are required to assist in the work. For those citizens who have cars at home but refuse to be drafted, they can be arrested immediately and their vehicles confiscated. If there is resistance, your soldiers can shoot! If something goes wrong, I will bear all the responsibility!"
He Qifeng was shaken in his heart. His impression of Song Geping had a fundamental change. He was a soldier and knew what it was like to retreat with tens of thousands of people, especially the huge number of wounded. In fact, he was gone long ago. The troops of the garrison headquarters did this. Song Geping was able to give up his personal grudges with Jiang Xianliang at a critical moment and think about the overall situation. This alone is worthy of his admiration!
The staff of the Andong City Government and the troops of the Security Headquarters have tried their best, but the number of motor vehicles collected is less than one-half of the required ones. In desperation, Song Geping and He Qifeng thought of using animal-drawn vehicles. There was no shortage of horse-drawn carriages and donkey-carts in the urban area of ??Andong, including the surrounding countryside. Of course, they could not be expropriated without compensation, but they were. There was no money to give for the time being, so what the car owners received were still IOUs stamped with the seal of the Andong Municipal Government and signed by Mayor Song Geping.
With such efforts, the mixed convoy of motor vehicles and animal-drawn vehicles finally eliminated more than 80% of the wounded in the Sixth Brigade. As for the wounded who were transported from the front line and could not get on the car, they could only be carried on stretchers. The movement was very slow. All the roads leading to Andong were full of traffic and people, just like a huge The field hospital is being transferred. Military doctors and nurses were extremely busy. There were too many wounded and they could not be rescued. Soldiers who were constantly suffering from severe poisoning stopped breathing.
Jiang Xianliang looked at the flow of traffic and people on the road. No matter how he looked at it, he felt that the current troops. There was an aura of failure, so he adjusted his posture with great effort and asked in a muffled voice: "Chief of Staff, have the casualty figures been calculated?"
Jiang Xianliang's voice was trembling a little. This is an unavoidable question. As a brigade commander, you must know. How much fighting strength does his army still have? Although he is cruel and doesn't want to face it, he still has to ask. And we have made psychological preparations in advance. The casualties of the Sixth Brigade will definitely not be small, and the vitality may be seriously injured!
Huo Shoushan, who hurried from the Anton rear brigade headquarters and couldn't sleep a wink until now, was silent for a moment and whispered: "Brigadier Commander, I personally ordered the staff office to make statistics. In a word, there are heavy casualties! You'd better put them first Your body has recovered well, and I will report back to you after this matter is in a safe place!"
Jiang Xianliang's heart felt as if he had been struck by lightning. The pain in his eyes suddenly spread out, and the muscles on his cheeks trembled involuntarily. "Sure enough, Huo Shoushan is also a veteran who has experienced many battles. The mountains of corpses are rolling in the sea of ??blood." The people who came over were able to say that the Sixth Brigade suffered heavy casualties.
"Chief of Staff, you should tell the truth. No matter what the outcome is, we have to face it. I, Jiang Xianliang, am not a person who cannot bear it! I must know, can the Sixth Brigade continue to fight?" Jiang Xianliang sighed and said firmly.
Seeing that the brigade commander insisted on asking, Huo Shoushan had no choice but to say: "According to statistics, the casualties of the first, second and third regiments are similar. In the three battalions of each regiment deployed on the forward position, more than 90% of the soldiers and officers were poisoned. During the subsequent Japanese bombardment, they suffered huge losses, with about one-half of the casualties, including more than 6,000 officers and soldiers killed! "
"Moreover, there are officers and soldiers who were seriously poisoned and died one after another. The current Sixth Brigade has only four battalions that can operate normally, plus the brigade headquarters security company, no more than 5,000 people, including the logistics department, etc. The total strength of the troops is about 6,000, and we have lost most of our heavy weapons."
"Poof!" Jiang Xianliang's face flushed, and he suddenly spurted out a mouthful of blood.After considering the casualties of the Sixth Brigade as seriously as possible, Huo Shoushan's report was still far beyond his imagination. In other words, it took less than four hours from dawn to the troops to evacuate the Phoenix Mountain position. Here, the Sixth Brigade was fully equipped with more than 16,000 troops, and more than 10,000 people fell, with more than one-third of them killed!
Such a huge loss was beyond Jiang Xianliang's psychological endurance. This was not a serious injury to his vitality, but the near-annihilation of his entire army. He was so furious that he vomited blood. "Brigadier!" Huo Shoushan exclaimed and hurriedly helped him. Jiang Xianliang, who looked sallow, shouted, "Military doctor! Military doctor!" He shouted again.
"Chief of Staff, you don't have to call the military doctor and vomit blood. I feel better!" Jiang Xianliang waved his hand, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and stopped him, "I haven't even seen the little devil's face. Our Sixth Brigade will More than 6,000 people were lost. What a shame. By the way, Chief of Staff, what about the heavy artillery regiment? Have you withdrawn it?" He suddenly remembered the brigade heavy artillery regiment. Without the heavy artillery regiment, it would have tried its best to suppress the Japanese artillery fire and slow down the Japanese attack. Time may not even allow the troops to withdraw.
The muscles on Huo Shoushan's painful cheeks were trembling, and he said: "Brigadier Commander, the heavy artillery regiment is good. It bought enough time for the troops to evacuate the Fenghuang Mountain position. However, the Japanese artillery fire exceeded the heavy artillery regiment several times. Above, after the fierce artillery battle, no one in the heavy artillery regiment survived, from the regiment commander to the ordinary soldiers, all were killed. Before they were killed, not a single artillery piece was left for the little Japanese! "
Jiang Xianliang's heart was numbed by the successive blows. In the past battles, the brigade's heavy artillery regiment was his offensive weapon. More than a hundred 155-caliber howitzers were invincible and invincible, opening the way for the infantry to attack. Now , no one was evacuated alive. The loss of the Sixth Brigade this time has reached the edge of collapse. His heart was bleeding in pain. For a moment, he didn't know what to say.
"Bang-bang-bang!" Far behind, in the direction of Phoenix Mountain, a faint sound of gunfire suddenly came from the wind. Jiang Xianliang and Huo Shoushan looked at each other, their eyes full of worry, temporarily suffering from the huge losses of the troops. In the midst of the pain, he broke away and thought in unison, "Could it be that the Japs are catching up?"
As if to prove the judgment of the two military officers of the Sixth Brigade, the jeep of Colonel Meng Jianzhu, the commander of the regiment, quickly caught up from behind with a cloud of smoke and dust. Before the jeep could stand still, Meng Jianzhu flew out of the car and ran away. When he arrived in front of Jiang Xianliang, he reported breathlessly: "The brigade commander, chief of staff, and the vigilant rearguard troops discovered that the Japs are catching up with them. There are many troops, covering the mountains and plains! They are still about fifteen kilometers away from us!"
Jiang Xianliang struggled to jump out of the car, staggered when he landed, and almost fell. Meng Jianzhu hurriedly supported him. Looking at the brigade commander's sallow face, he couldn't help but cast a questioning look at Huo Shoushan, who got off the car after him.
Huo Shoushan shook his head. Before he could explain, Jiang Xianliang said: "Chief of Staff, immediately order the four battalions capable of fighting, the brigade security company, and the troops from the logistics department to establish a blocking line on the spot to cover the wounded and continue to the village. The troops retreating from the front line of the river are under my command, and the retreating troops are under the command of the Chief of Staff!¡±
"No!" Huo Shoushan and Meng Jianzhu objected in unison, "Brigadier Commander, you are the top commander of the entire brigade, how can you stay to stop the attack? The army still needs you! I am the one who wants to stay!" Huo Shoushan hurriedly said said.
Jiang Xianliang shook his head stubbornly, and Meng Jianzhu, the commander of the first regiment, said: "Brigade commander, chief of staff, you two, stop fighting. I, Meng Jianzhu, can take turns to stop the brigade commander and chief of staff, and hand over the troops to me. Even though there are only five to six thousand people, we guarantee that the little Japs will not be able to pass through even one step and buy enough time for the wounded to evacuate. If the Japs continue to catch up, they will pass over the bodies of me and the soldiers!"
Meng Jianzhu's words have already expressed an attitude. Everyone who is determined to die knows that the Japanese army facing the sixth brigade in pursuit is more than a first-class division, with more than 50,000 people. The sixth brigade left only about 6,000 troops to block the attack, a ten to one strength gap. In addition, the troops did not have heavy equipment and were building temporary positions. Moreover, among the more than 6,000 troops, There are also more than a thousand logistics troops.
Facing the superior Japanese army, this is a blocking battle with a huge disparity in strength. The blocking troops have absolutely no chance of survival. I am afraid that as soon as the battle begins, they will be overwhelmed by tens of thousands of Japanese troops. The Japanese chasing troops are only fifteen kilometers away. , we can't adopt a layer-by-layer blocking strategy, retreating while attacking, we can only stick here like nails.
Jiang Xianliang was reluctant to let go of one of his most capable regiment commanders, and died like this in a blockade with predictable results. He was hesitating, and the gunshots from behind became more intense. Meng Jianzhu shouted anxiously: "Brigadier Commander, The little devil won¡¯t give us time, so don¡¯t hesitate anymore, leave the blocking task to me!¡±