Battle of Nanjing (3).
At dawn on the 9th, Japanese planes and artillery bombarded the front line of Tiger Cave with bombs, incendiary bombs, and smoke screens. Launching the charge again, the Luo Yufeng battalion of the 5th Regiment of the 3rd Brigade insisted on resisting until the afternoon, and the officers and soldiers of the whole battalion, including Luo Yufeng, died heroically, and the Tiger Cave was lost.
After the fall of Tiger Cave, the 16th Division began to attack the second peak of Purple Mountain. Ma Weilong commanded the 3rd Brigade of the Teaching Corps to be condescending, and shelled the Japanese army with 75mm mountain guns, which surprised the Japanese army and suppressed the Japanese charge for a while. The highest peak of the Purple Mountain is about 450 meters, and the left flank of the second peak is a mountain peak, and the Japanese soldiers cannot detour from the left flank;On the right flank, the 2nd Brigade still holds the position on the east side of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, and it can also shoot from the side to support, and the Japanese army can only attack from the bottom of the mountain, and the ** on the second peak condescendingly beat the Japanese ** heavy. The two sides attacked and defended together, until the 11th, when the Japanese army occupied the second peak of the Purple Mountain. In the case of great sacrifices, the teaching corps still stuck to the first peak and fought desperately with the Japanese army. During the battle, Colonel Lei Zhen, deputy commander of the 3rd Brigade, was martyred.
As sunset approached on the 12th, the troops of the 3rd Brigade guarding the 1st Peak fought the Japanese until both sides were exhausted, and the battlefield was once again deadlocked. After Ma Weilong issued an order for the troops to stand by in the east of the road near the tomb of Xu Da in Taipingmen at the first peak, Brigade Commander Ma Weilong and Regiment Commander Deng Wenxi of the 5th Regiment led some of his own soldiers to successfully break through to southern Anhui from Taiping Gate through Yaohua Gate with Ye Zhao of the 66th Army and Deng Longguang of the 87th Army. According to his orders, most of the officers and soldiers who still held on to the first peak and retreated to Xiaguan at dawn on the 13th died heroically. Sui Youlin, commander of the 4th Regiment of the 3rd Brigade, entered the refugee area with his adjutant before sunset, and Liao Yaoxiang, a lieutenant colonel and staff officer of the 2nd Brigade, and Qiu Qingquan, chief of staff of the corps who finally left the Fuguishan Headquarters, hid among the people and escaped in disguise.
The defense ground of the 1st Brigade on the right, between the southern foot of the Purple Mountain and Xiaolingwei, the small plateau outside the Zhongshan Gate is north and south, called the West Mountain, which is an important barrier outside the Zhongshan Gate, and is garrisoned by the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Regiment of the 1st Brigade concurrently served by the deputy commander Zhou Zhenqiang as the brigade commander. The defenders dug a wide and deep outer trench at the front of the Xishan position, and a barbed wire fence more than a meter high was set up on the edge of the trench. At 5 p.m. on 8 December, the 3rd Company of the battalion's outpost company made contact with the Japanese, and the battle began. After fierce fighting until 6 o'clock, the 3rd Company was ordered to withdraw behind the West Hill as a reserve. On the 9th, the main force of the Japanese army attacked the main positions of Xishan and Xiaoling with infantry, artillery and air, but was repelled by the teaching team. The Japanese army mobilized personnel to insert diagonally into the small stone mountain located between the Cangbo Gate and the Gaoqiao Gate, at the southern foot of the Purple Mountain, in an attempt to flank **. At the same time, the Japanese army violently shelled the Arctic Pavilion, Fugui Mountain in the east of the city, Fugui Mountain, and the Ming Imperial Palace in the southeast of the occupied Purple Mountain, and the positions of Maqun Village, Cangbo Gate, and Gaoqiao Gate, so as to block the main roads for the entry and exit of the Taiping Gate, Zhongshan Gate, and Guanghua Gate.
On the 10th, the Japanese army's large-scale offensive began, and the artillery fire covered the sky and the sun, and the ground shook where the shells were **. The Japanese took the lead with the tanks and the infantry followed, and after destroying the number of tanks, the soldiers of the 2nd Company hidden in the culvert hit the Japanese infantry behind. The Japanese retreated with heavy losses. On the 11th, more intense fighting began. The Japanese attacked in front of the barbed wire fence in the forward trenches, and ** took the opportunity to shoot heavily and throw grenades, and the Japanese flinched and turned to flank the defenders. Wang Yiqian, the commander of the right-wing defender company who took the lead in the emergency, was shot and killed. Battalion Commander Yao Mingde hurriedly sent Huang Guangshuo, commander of the 3rd Company, to lead 2 platoons to reinforcements. But at this time, the commander of the heavy machine gun company, which was blocking the intersection of the pass between the first and second companies, was also seriously wounded. The Japanese army entered the foot of the West Mountain. Battalion Commander Yao ordered the remaining platoon of the 3rd Company to reinforce it. He and the deputy battalion commander Li Weizhou went to the left and right flanks to supervise the battle respectively. Unexpectedly, Deputy Battalion Commander Li Weizhou was shot and killed as soon as he came out of the concealment department. Battalion Commander Yao went to the front of the battle to boost morale, and the officers and soldiers worked together to defend and not retreat, and the Japanese army finally encountered a difficult bone to gnaw. The teaching team has been deployed in Xishan for a long time and is well-trained. With the depth of the trenches, unimpeded information communication, and the fighting spirit of fearless death, all units repelled the frenzied attacks of the Japanese army again and again. Major General Wan Quance, chief of staff of the 1st Brigade of the Teaching Corps, was martyred. At nightfall, the battlefield fell silent.
The outpost position in front of the West Hill to the right of the defensive position of the 1st Brigade was the position of the 71st Division of the 87th Army. The predecessor of the 87th Division was the 1st National Guard Division, which was renamed the 87th Division in January 1932 (at the same time, it was renamed the 2nd National Guard Division, that is, the 88th Division. Later, each of the two divisions transferred a part of its strength to expand into the 36th Division. These 3 divisions are all German divisions). When the 87th Division did not arrive, it was temporarily garrisoned by the 3rd Battalion of Zhou Shiquan of the 1st Regiment of the 1st Brigade of the Teaching Corps. Because Shen Fazao's 87th Division was extremely large in the Battle of Songhu, and the combat effectiveness of the recruit company supplemented in Huai'an, Jiangsu Province was weak, from the beginning of the battle on the 8th, although the 87th Division's Cijusheng Company once held the Hongmaoshan outpost near Xishan, its own sacrifice was too great, and it had to be handed over to the Zhou Shiquan Battalion of the First Brigade of the Teaching Corps to take over the defense. The teaching corps also transferred Wu Shuqing's sergeant battalion with chariot defensive artillery reinforcements, and finally stopped the Japanese attack. That night, Tang Shengzhi transferred Deng Longguang's 156th Division of the 83rd Army to take over Zhou Shiquan's 3rd Battalion to defend the Hongmaoshan position, and the 3rd Battalion was transferred to the White Bone Tomb position near the Bereaved School (now the North of the Front-line Song and Dance Troupe) to defend the Beijing-Hangzhou National Highway on the line from the Blacksmith Battalion, Xiamafang, and Baigu Tomb to Weigang.
The 3rd Regiment of Hu Qiru's 2nd Brigade in the center guards the Linsen Mansion (Guilin Stone House) at the south end of the cemetery on the right, and goes north along the east side of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, the heights of Linggu Temple to the south end of the Tiger Cave. The defense deployment is the commander of the 2nd Battalion (Sun Zhongxian) as the right wing battalion, which guards the new village of the cemetery to the southeast highland of Zhongshan Mausoleum, and contacts the 1st Regiment of the 1st Brigade Qin Shiquan on the rightThe commander of the 1st Battalion (Zou Zuohua) is the left wing battalion, which is stationed in the area on the east side of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, including the position from Linggu Temple to the southern end of the Tiger Cave, and contacts the 5th Regiment of the 3rd Brigade Ma Weilong, the commander of the 3rd BrigadeThe commander of the 3rd Battalion (Lu Yuding) is the reserve, guarding the west of the position - the tomb of King Wu (Meihua Mountain) and the east side of the Ming TombThe regimental command post was set up in the tunnel in front of Zhu Yuanzhang's tomb.
On December 9, the Japanese 16th Division began to attack the main position of the 3rd Regiment, and the battle continued until sunset, and the Japanese failed to break through the 3rd Regiment's Cemetery New Village and the positions on the east side of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum. On the 10th, the Japanese army raised the observation balloon and commanded the Japanese aircraft to bomb the ** position, after which, the infantry launched a full-scale attack under the cover of combat vehicles. The 3rd and 1st Regiments of the Teaching Corps destroyed several enemy tanks with 47 Austro-Zao flat-firing guns, and returned fire with small machine guns and grenades against the Japanese troops approaching the front of the position. The Japanese still failed to shake their positions and had to stop the attack, and after nightfall, the two sides were at a stalemate again.
From the 11th to the 12th, the Japanese army attacked the whole line of Purple Mountain, the east side of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, Linggu Temple, Cemetery New Village, Xishan Xiaoling Wei to the White Bone Tomb, etc. At noon, most of the bunkers of Sun Zhongxian's 2nd Battalion were destroyed by enemy armor-piercing shells. The range of the Japanese artillery has been able to reach the tomb of Wu Wang, the tomb of Ming Xiaoling, and the Zhongshan Gate, and the headquarters of the 3rd Regiment was also shot, but there were no personnel**. At around five o'clock, Hu Qiru, the brigade commander who was still attending a meeting convened by Tang Shengzhi at the Nanjing Garrison Headquarters, told Liu Zishu, commander of the 6th Regiment: "I was ordered to go to Xiaguan to contact Song Xilian of the 36th Division on military affairs, and the combat affairs of this brigade and the fourth regiment are under your command." Hu Qiru took the lead in running to Xiaguan to find Song Xilian, the division commander, to negotiate the retreat of the 2nd Brigade, but after arriving at Xiaguan, he found that the situation was chaotic, so he left his troops and crossed the river by himself.