Chapter 359: Republic of China: Starting from the First Class of Whampoa Chapter 369 Seizing Air Superiority

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Protagonist:

Lv Muzhi

"Report to the Division Commander, Lieutenant General Iida Sadakazu of the Imperial Guard Division is calling, urging us to quicken our marching speed and reach Huangchuan before dawn tomorrow!" a staff officer said as he trotted over.

18th Division Commander Ushijima Sadanao was very embarrassed, looking toward the 116th Division Commander, whose face was equally full of worry.

"Division Commander Ushijima, for now we can only rely on ourselves!" Lieutenant General Shimizu Kiyoshige said straightforwardly.

"That's exactly my thought. The Youth Third Army before us has fierce firepower, especially in artillery; our artillery appears far inferior to theirs, making it difficult to break through the enemy positions for a time. Moreover, the Youth Third Army is also equipped with many tanks, so we must guard against them using tanks to launch rapid assaults on us!"

"We are here to rescue Huangchuan City; we absolutely must not easily deliver ourselves into it!"

"Agreed! Telegraph Lieutenant Generals Iida Sadakazu and Itagaki Seishiro: Lv Muzhi's Youth Third Army has already launched a blocking action against our forces at Gushi, and our forces are doing our utmost to open a breach. Request the Huangchuan City Garrison continue to hold fast and await our reinforcements!"

On the battlefield at the northern foot of the Dabie Mountains, a great battle unfolded around Huangchuan.

Besides the two divisions of the Higashikuni Palace in the Dabie Mountains, in the great battle at Huangchuan, the Japanese army directly or indirectly committed four divisions and over one hundred thousand troops.

With Xia Guo's forces added, the troops of both sides at the two main battlefields of Huangchuan and Gushi reached twenty-eight or ninety thousand, nearly three hundred thousand.

Currently, the forces of the Fourth Army Group of the Fifth and Ninth War Zones on the north bank of the Yangtze River are locked in a stalemate with Gangcun Ningci.

If Xia Guo wins the great battle at Huangchuan, the Central China Expeditionary Army will lose one of its right and left arms, ultimately losing the ability to vie for victory in the Wuhan campaign.

If the Japanese army wins, once the Higashikuni Palace successfully breaks through the Dabie Mountains, the forces of the Fifth War Zone on the north bank of the Yangtze River will be pincered from front and rear, and the loss of cities and territory will be staged once again.

Therefore, whether Xia Guo or the Japanese army, both have turned their gaze to this battlefield at Huangchuan.

The ground forces on both sides can no longer be dispatched at all, both being in a state of having no troops available.

To break the deadlock, the air power of both sides appeared over Huangchuan without prior agreement.

At Xinyang Airfield, Gao Zhihang, Aviation Commander of the Youth Corps, gathered the pilots of the various squadrons for a pre-battle pep talk.

"Japanese fighter planes have already gathered at Huangchuan. By order of Lu Commander, to win the campaign victory, all aircraft of our corps will sortie to strike down the arrogance of the Japanese pilots in the skies over Huangchuan!"

Notably, there were also pilots of the Soviet Volunteer Air Force at the airfield, assigned by Soviet Aviation Commander General Shanov; the Volunteer Air Force will fight alongside the Youth Corps to seize victory in the great battle at Huangchuan.

General Shanov walked to the front of the Volunteer Air Force ranks and shouted: "Hurrah! Beat those little devils to death!"

"Hurrah!!!"

One fighter plane after another took off from the airfield, heading for the Huangchuan battlefield.

Japanese Lieutenant General Tokugawa Yoshitoshi likewise dispatched an air corps, taking off from the Hefei base and heading for the Huangchuan battlefield.

Huangchuan experienced the most intense war in its history.

Above the ground, hundreds of cannons roared, and shells and rockets vied to smash into the ground.

In the sky, hundreds of fighter planes circled, dove, and climbed back up.

The intensity of the great battle at Huangchuan was even far greater than that of the main battlefield of the Wuhan campaign—the north bank of the Yangtze River.

People once thought that what made Xia Guo and the Japanese army so worked up was actually this small city of Huangchuan.

In the sky, the I-15 biplane fighters, relying on their exceptionally outstanding horizontal turning ability, like agile swallows, dogfight with the Japanese Type 96 carrier fighters.

Both sides' fighter planes excelled in maneuverability, and both sides engaged in a series of aerial dogfights in the sky.

Likewise, the Soviet Air Volunteer Group's faster I-16 monoplane fighters also entered the battle.

In the deliberations of the Youth Corps Aviation Brigade, Xia Guo's fighter planes adopted hit-and-run tactics against Japanese fighter planes.

BF-109 fighters bearing the Youth Corps emblem, relying on the advantage of being energy fighters, with excellent climb rate and high-altitude performance, always remained at the highest airspace of the battlefield, like circling hawks, calmly observing the melee below.

When the Japanese Type 96 or Type 97 had expended speed in dogfights and were in a lower energy state, the BF-109 would dive down from high altitude like lightning.

They did not engage in complex horizontal maneuvering entanglements with Japanese fighter planes, but instead used the extremely high speed from the dive to complete a clean and neat hit-and-run.

The 20mm cannon and the machine gun fire from the nose poured out; often one or two rounds of precise point shooting could seriously injure or cause a Japanese fighter plane to explode in midair.

After completing the attack, the BF109 did not linger at all, immediately using its remaining high-speed energy to climb rapidly, leaving those Japanese fighter planes attempting to counterattack far behind.

This style of fighting made it extremely difficult for Japanese fighter pilots accustomed to close-in dogfighting to adapt; they had to face the Soviet fighter planes before them while constantly worrying about the BF109 above their heads.

With the Soviet Volunteer Air Force's tenacious dogfighting, consuming Japanese fighter plane energy and attention, the hit-and-run tactics of the Youth Corps' BF-109 fighter groups achieved overwhelming results.

The air battle lasted a day; the fighter groups dispatched by Japanese Lieutenant General Tokugawa Yoshitoshi's Air Corps suffered heavy losses and were forced to withdraw from the battlefield, retreating toward Hefei.

Air superiority over Huangchuan was firmly grasped by the Xia Guo Air Force.

And at this moment on the ground, Huangchuan City could no longer be called a city.

Under days of long, almost uninterrupted violent bombardment, Huangchuan City's originally fairly sturdy rammed earth walls were already unrecognizable.

The walls were repeatedly hit by 155mm heavy artillery and rockets, large sections collapsing and peeling away; the height of many sections had become little different from the earthen walls of a farmer's small courtyard, with shocking huge gaps everywhere.

If not for knowing that tens of thousands of remnant troops of the Japanese Imperial Guard Division and Fifth Division were still holed up inside, taking advantage of these gaps, Lv Muzhi would have loved to immediately order the troops to swarm in.

"Lu Commander, the various divisions request instructions: should we organize infantry to launch a general attack from the gaps?" Qiu Qingquan asked beside him.

Lv Muzhi shook his head: "No. The Japanese are holed up inside the city, relying on the ruins to resist stubbornly; they would love for us to go in and fight street battles, consuming our strength."

"Order the aviation units to dispatch aerial reconnaissance to mark and bomb high-value targets inside the city!"

"The artillery units will share the aviation units' reconnaissance intelligence and launch fire strikes inside the city!"

"Tens of thousands of Japanese are holed up inside the city and won't come out; we shouldn't rush in either."

"Use shells and bombs to dig them out of their rat holes; I want to take Huangchuan with the smallest cost!"

Huangchuan was now in dire straits; Lieutenant General Iida Sadakazu, commander of the Imperial Guard Division inside the city, constantly called for reinforcements from the 18th and 116th Divisions at Gushi, but received only responses to hold fast and await relief.

In the sky, the Youth Corps' fighter planes constantly circled and reconnoitered, making the Japanese facilities exposed on the ground inside Huangchuan City clear as day.

When had the Japanese ever fought such a battle? Lieutenant General Itagaki Seishiro, commander of the Fifth Division, was so angry he picked up a stone from the ground and hurled it fiercely at the Youth Corps fighter planes in the sky.

However, it had no effect whatsoever.

"Telegraph Tokugawa Yoshitoshi's Air Corps; ask him to immediately retake air superiority and protect the heads of the Imperial Guard Division and Fifth Division!"

The telegram reached Hefei Aviation Base, where Lieutenant General Tokugawa Yoshitoshi was being scolded.

"Baron Tokugawa, I especially want to ask: what exactly is the Army Air Force doing? Why can't our air force seize air superiority from the enemy?!" On the other end of the phone, General Hata Shunroku was interrogating him.

"My apologies, General Hata! Huangchuan is too far from the Yangtze River; in terms of distance, the Navy's air force cannot effectively support;

and moreover, our army has launched the Guangzhou Offensive, and many of the Navy's air force are aboard aircraft carriers, heading to attack Guangzhou!" explained Tokugawa Yoshitoshi.

Hearing these words, General Hata Shunroku's accumulated fury had reached its extreme.

"Utterly useless! Prince Higashikuni is useless, and so is your air corps—when will these nobles ever be of any use?!

I don't care; fighter planes must be dispatched with full force to support Huangchuan. Huangchuan must hold out for another half month; we must wait until Prince Higashikuni crosses the Dabie Mountains before it falls!"

After hanging up, the word "useless" that General Hata had cursed truly drilled into the ears of Lieutenant General Tokugawa Yoshitoshi, the First in Japanese Aviation.

As the first Japanese person to fly solo in the Japanese army, a pioneer of the Army Air Force, and the holder of the baron title, he would not allow himself to be insulted.

"How many available aircraft does the air corps still have?"

"Commander, the air corps still has sixty-five fighter planes, of which twenty-seven are Type 97 fighters and eight are Type 96 land attack bombers..."

"Enough! Don't say another word!" Hearing these numbers, Tokugawa Yoshitoshi felt heartbroken.

His air corps originally had three hundred aircraft; after fighting for several months, only these sixty-something remained.

Could General Hata Shunroku actually be right?

"No! I am a pioneer of army aviation; this cannot happen to me. Order all aircraft to take off in full force and retake air superiority over the Huangchuan battlefield!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Tokugawa Yoshitoshi opened the drawer in front of him, took out the leather flight cap inside, and strode out the door in a hurry.

At the Central China Expeditionary Army Headquarters, General Hata Shunroku received a stunning piece of news: "Baron Tokugawa Yoshitoshi, piloting a fighter plane, leading the remaining air force, has flown to the Huangchuan battlefield!"

Hearing this, General Hata Shunroku broke out in a cold sweat; he had merely spoken in anger, yet Baron Tokugawa Yoshitoshi had actually taken off for combat himself!