Chapter 112: Steady And Methodical Advance
Facing the furious Kisuya Kenji, Chief of Staff Kayamura Atsuro Colonel advised from the side: “Division Commander, this is not the time to pursue the responsibility of the Army Air Service, but rather to consider how to capture Tai’erzhuang.
He had just received the report from Nagase Takei that he had already led the Eighth Brigade to arrive two kilometers south of Tai’erzhuang.
Please give your orders: should they immediately enter Tai’erzhuang to relieve the Thirty-Third Brigade?”
“Go!” Kisuya Kenji nodded with a grim face: “Convey the latest appointments from the Imperial General Headquarters to them as well.”
………..
Imperial Japanese Army General Headquarters Order
Showa Year 13（1938）March 24
By Imperial Command
Army Minister Sugiyama Gen
Chief of the General Staff Prince Kanin Kotohito
Regarding the Relief from Duties and Return to Tokyo for Reporting of the Tenth Division’s Thirty-Third Brigade Commander and Others
Army Major General Seyama Kei
Army Colonel Akashiba Yaegizo
The following orders are hereby issued:
1. Relieve Seyama Kei of his Thirty-Third Brigade Commander duties; relieve Akashiba Yaegizo of his Tenth Regiment Commander duties.
2. Order the two to immediately hand over military affairs and depart for Tokyo within three days to report to the Army Ministry and the General Staff Headquarters.
3. Upon arrival in Tokyo, they must immediately submit detailed combat reports and accept questioning by the Imperial General Headquarters Special Investigation Committee.
This order
Inside the Thirty-Third Brigade headquarters, all regiment commanders of the Thirty-Third Brigade and officers above colonel rank were gathered here.
Major General Nagase Takei, the Eighth Brigade commander who had just arrived, read out this appointment and dismissal document in a slow tone.
After finishing the reading, he closed the document and said to Seyama Kei standing in front of him: “Seyama, did you hear the entire order?”
“I heard it.”
Seyama Kei gave a bitter smile: “Ever since losing the cavalry regiment and two artillery battalions at Teng County, I knew my days back home wouldn’t be far off; I just didn’t expect this day to come so soon.”
“Seyama, it’s good that you understand.” Nagase Takei glanced at him seriously and said: “Due to your recklessness, the Thirty-Third Brigade, this elite unit, suffered heavy losses and cannot recover its original combat strength without four to six months; from this perspective, you have failed as brigade commander.
And you…”
He shifted his gaze to Tenth Regiment Commander Colonel Akashiba Yaegizo nearby and said unceremoniously: “To be honest, for you to reduce a 3,800-man infantry regiment to just over 1,000 in a single morning is such incompetence that even I have to admire it.”
“I…” Akashiba Yaegizo started to speak but was stopped by Seyama Kei.
Seyama Kei, who had already resigned himself to his fate, now had red eyes; he sneered: “Fine, since Nagase thinks so too, I have nothing to say.
I hope in the coming days, you can lead the Eighth Brigade to wipe out the opposing Nanjing Security Regiment entirely, or capture that Su Yaoyang alive.
Akashiba and I will wait eagerly in Tokyo for your good news… provided we don’t commit seppuku first.”
With that, he turned and said: “Akashiba… let’s go; we mustn’t keep those red-cap gentlemen waiting.”
With that, he walked first toward the two military police officers who had been standing sternly behind Nagase Takei with cold faces.
The two military police officers were also infuriated by Seyama Kei’s address.
Since the military police directly report to the Japanese Army Ministry or army commands, they wield great power, can interfere with officer promotions and investigate disciplinary violations; if ordinary officers are targeted by the military police, they may at best have their careers affected, or at worst be secretly executed.
The military police override the ordinary military discipline system and often claim to be “directly under the Emperor,” causing dissatisfaction among frontline troops. Many officers believe the military police “hold life-and-death power without participating in combat” and view them as “enemies within the army.”
For example, a certain Kwantung Army regiment commander once wrote in his diary: “The military police arbitrarily arrest soldiers and even inquire into combat plans; they are like a bunch of ghosts.”
Given this, relations between frontline troops and the military police are very tense, but officers like Seyama Kei who dare to mock the military police to their face in front of so many people are extremely rare.
Seeing the unkind expressions of the two military police officers, Nagase Takei frowned: “Enough, Seyama; I know you’re in a bad mood, but that’s no reason for you to speak insolently.”
“Speak insolently? Is that really what you think?” Seyama Kei laughed heartily, said no more, and strode out, with Akashiba Yaegizo following closely behind.
Once Seyama Kei and the others left, Nagase Takei held a military conference.
“Gentlemen, the blood of the Seyama Brigade must not flow in vain; now I will deploy the next phase of the combat plan.”
His voice was exceptionally serious; in the headquarters, regiment commanders Numata and Takahashi instinctively straightened their backs. Just days ago, the Thirty-Third Brigade had suffered stubborn resistance from Chinese forces in this small village, incurring heavy casualties; even their brigade commander and regiment commander had been escorted back home by the military police.
With this lesson before them, they naturally had to be doubly cautious.
It must be said that Nagase Takei had learned from Seyama Kei’s mistakes.
After taking over the positions, he did not rush into an attack but first reinforced the positions, contacted Kisuya Kenji, made several requests, and only after setting a time did he launch an attack on Tai’erzhuang on the 26th… April 26…
At dawn, the sky resounded with the buzzing of a swarm of bees.
Twenty-four Type 97 heavy bombers flew over the canal waterway, dumping bombs on the ruins in the southeast corner.
Taniguchi Haruji’s artillery regiment opened fire simultaneously; 105mm howitzer shells pounded like the drums of hell, pulverizing the city walls. Before the smoke cleared, the engineers’ shovels began digging trenches, wriggling like giant serpents toward Tai’erzhuang.
“Ants nibbling.”
This was the new tactic adopted by Nagase Takei: in plain terms, using the Japanese air superiority and artillery advantage to steadily encroach on the Security Regiment’s positions bit by bit.
And this tactic indeed worked; under the cover of air fighters and bombers, as soon as the Security Regiment’s artillery showed itself, it would be bombed by Japanese aircraft.
Although the anti-aircraft battalion soldiers tried hard to fire at the sky, the anti-aircraft battalion was too small in scale, and it was passive defense to boot.
Therefore, under the relentless bombing by Japanese air forces, in less than a day, the artillery battalion lost another four 105mm howitzers and two heavy mortars, making Zhang Zhihao stomp his feet in distress.
Seeing such heavy losses in the artillery and anti-aircraft battalions, Su Yaoyang for the first time realized the difficulty and pain of an agricultural nation confronting an industrial powerhouse—and this was with him having an advantage; it further highlighted the greatness and resilience of those martyrs.
To avoid even greater losses, Su Yaoyang could only order the artillery battalion to cease fire and temporarily conceal itself.
Without the artillery battalion’s support, Japanese artillery fire became even more rampant, with shells constantly landing on our army’s positions, kicking up dust and collapsing houses.
