Anti-Japanese War: From Becoming Chu Yunfei to Rising

Chapter 132: The Jinsui Army appeared outside Handan City, and Terauchi Shouyi was panicked (Subscription Request)
North China Expeditionary Army Headquarters.

The commander of the Fifth Division, Seishirō Sakagami, was making an impassioned speech.

He suggested that Commander of the North China Expeditionary Army, Terauchi Hisaichi, adopt his policy of pacification.

There were quite a few officers attending the meeting.

During this period of 37 years.

There were originally a large number of Japanese troops throughout North China.

As the fighting in Shanxi gradually cooled down, the mixed brigades also began to withdraw.
The 1st, 11th and 15th Independent Mixed Brigades.

From the beginning to the end, it still belonged to the Kwantung Army's combat sequence.

The previous battle in Shanxi was just a temporary allocation.

Because the war situation in central China was tense.

Originally belonged to the 6th and 16th Divisions of the North China Front Army under the command of Nakajima Imao.

The Kunisaki Detachment of the Fifth Division and the Shigeto Detachment, which was originally part of the Taiwan Garrison, were also transferred to participate in the Battle of Songhu and Nanjing.

Attending the meeting of senior officers of the North China Expeditionary Army.

Actually only.

Commander: Terauchi Hisaichi.

Chief of Staff: Naosaburo Okabe Deputy Chief of Staff: Masamitsu Kawabe (He is also the Chief of Operations Section)
The commander of the 5th Division was Seishirō Sakagami.

The commander of the 10th Division, Rensuke Kibotani.

The commander of the 14th Division is Kenji Doi.

The commander of the 20th Division was Fumisaburo Kawagishi.

The commander of the 108th Division is Shimomoto Kumamiya.

The commander of the 109th Division is Shigeaki Yamaoka.

As for the commander of the First Army, Seiji Kazuki, and the commander of the Second Army, Hisazo Nishio.

These two people did not participate in this meeting.

After the Fifth Division Commander Seishirō Sakagami finished his speech.

A group of generals also applauded out of respect.

"Everyone, what do you think of Sakagaki-kun's proposal?"

Jigu Lianjie spoke first: "I think that Commander Sakagami's idea will waste our precious attack time."

"In the battle against Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, our army will surely win a great victory."

"In order to link North China with Central China, to conduct the Xuzhou Campaign and to exert pressure on the enemy in Wuhan, and thus to occupy the stronghold on the right bank of the Yellow River..."

Jigu Lianjie is very straightforward and even tit-for-tat.

this period.

Many Japanese division commanders looked down on Sakagami because Sakagami was badly beaten by Wei Lihuang in northern Shanxi.

Rensuke Jitani has a very arrogant personality.

The combat effectiveness of the 10th Division under his command was also top-notch among the Japanese troops.

Very arrogant and spoiled.

To Seishirō Sakagami who occupied Taiyuan and successfully received the reward from Tianhuang.

In fact, Rensuke Jitani was quite jealous.

That's why he refuted it on the spot.

He also proposed something that Terauchi Hisaichi and his fellow generals were most looking forward to.

That is to capture the important town of Xuzhou, and even move westward to occupy Kaifeng and Zhengxian.

Needless to say, Xuzhou.

The Japanese army wanted to connect North China and Central China and consolidate the occupied areas.

Xuzhou is a place they cannot avoid.

It is the intersection of the Jinpu Railway and the Longhai Railway, with developed and convenient transportation.

Kaifeng is the capital of HEN Province.

An important city along the Longhai Railway with a huge population.

Zheng County is actually Zhengzhou.

It is a populous city, and the Pinghan Railway and Longhai Railway intersect it.

If the Japanese army invaded Shaanxi and attacked the heartland of the Republic of China at that time.

Zheng County is its springboard.

The reason why commanders Katsuki Seiji and Nishio Hisazo were not invited to this combat meeting.

This is what happens if two people attend the meeting at the same time.

It will turn into a tit-for-tat debate.

After occupying Taiyuan, Kozuki Seiji advocated consolidating Taiyuan and developing the Taiyuan area.

This is actually highly consistent with the idea of ​​the base camp.

The headquarters refused to continue to expand the war because it would result in a large number of troops being tied up.

It hinders the overall reorganization of the National Army (as Japan calls it).

Unable to adapt to the next strategy.

According to the headquarters, further expanding the scale of the war would require at least sixty divisions of troops.

This is an extremely large project.

The national strength, economy, number of military cadres, and scientific and technological capabilities are all insufficient.

Especially the newly formed troops must go through the entire process of conscription, training, drills, and actual combat.

Only in this way can we ensure the implementation of military orders in terms of combat skills and military qualities.

Terauchi Juichi was naturally unwilling.

Otherwise, he would not have sent his Operations Section Chief, Kawabe Masamitsu, to engage in a verbal battle with the Tokyo headquarters.

This kind of verbal battle has been going on for a long time.

Every now and then.

Terauchi Juichi would send people to generate electricity to the base camp.

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops are still gathered in the lake and swamp areas of Shandong and north of the Longhai Railway (southern Shandong), and they have not yet suffered serious losses from our army.

Terauchi Juichi frequently submitted reports of attacks by so-called plainclothes units.

This is not just some nonsense made up by Terauchi Juichi.

Raids by small units were indeed common.

However, Tokyo ignored the decision of the Japanese generals.

What Terauchi Hisaichi wants to do now is to persuade the generals under his command.

then.

Waiting for the Central China Front Army to capture Nanjing.

At that time, they were naturally able to deploy troops and march north along the Jinpu Road to cooperate with the Japanese troops in North China.
Kawagishi asked Saburo after listening to Jigu Renjie's explanation.

He immediately raised his objection.

The core of his point of view is this.

First, Shanxi has a large amount of resources that our country needs, especially coal and iron ore, which will bring great convenience to our country's industrial development. By stabilizing the transportation lines, Shanxi's coal and iron can be transported to the Northeast for secondary processing to manufacture more weapons and arm more troops.

Secondly, although the main forces of the Central Army and the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army in the Shanxi region suffered heavy losses and casualties, the Eighteenth Army Group was still active on the battlefield and would harass their logistics troops from time to time. The various units of the First Army gradually became exhausted.

Third, although the Shanxi Arsenal had been destroyed by the Jinsui Army's scorched earth policy, it could be judged based on the traces left at the scene and the intelligence collected by the Special High Technology Bureau.

They have removed most of the factory equipment and will most likely be able to restore factory capacity in the short term.

Fourth, the 18th Army’s military strength was growing too fast and could not be contained at all. Its fighting enthusiasm was extremely high and it was not afraid of sacrifice.

There was nothing wrong with Kawagishi's starting point, and his statement was impeccable.

The commander of the Fifth Division, Seishirō Sakagami, was himself suffering a lot at the hands of the Eighth Route Army.

Earlier, when he attacked Xinkou.

Its logistical supply lines were often harassed and attacked.

The planes in Yangmingbao Airport were completely blown to pieces.

For example, the counties in northwestern Shanxi that were captured by the Kwantung Army have now been recaptured by the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army while their forces are weak.

The puppet Manchukuo army responsible for defending the city, numbering about 300 to 400 people, was killed in pieces by the Eighth Route Army of the 1st Regiment of He's Division.

Its fighting power is beyond words.

It's just a pile.

Even when the Japanese army was taking over the defense work of Manchukuo.

I once lamented that the quality of the surrendered Northeastern Army was so poor.

Especially those Northeast local military units.

A large number of them were bandits, soldiers, and even vagrants.

Talk about it.

De-banditization and regularization of armed forces in the Northeast.

It was started during the Japanese occupation. Although the upper limit of the warlord troops was very high, the lower limit was also extremely low.

When the 918 Incident occurred.

The main forces of Zhang Xiaoliuzi's new army were all inside the Great Wall to mediate the war among warlords.

Coupled with Chiang Kai-shek's policy of non-resistance.

The new troops under his command did not actually suffer too many losses.

The Great Wall War of Resistance.

The Northeast Army also contributed a lot of effort.

Almost all the members of the Songhu and 67th Army were killed, with less than 500 people left.

Army commander Wu Keren was the second lieutenant general to die on the battlefield.

Battle of Xuzhou.

Yu Xuezhong's troops fought bloody battles on both sides of the Huai River to block the enemy from advancing northward, and worked together with General Zhang Zizhong to inflict inflict heavy damage on the Japanese army.

PS: During the Battle of Xuzhou, General Zhang Zizhong's 59th Army was running back and forth on the north and south of the Jinpu Road. Li Zongren's command level was very high, and he used the 59th Army as a surprise force... Not only did it put out fires in the south, but it also joined forces with Pang Bingxun in the north to win a great victory in Linyi.

anyway
Today, the Japanese army has two thousand main forces.

They were besieged in Kelan County.

The city here is high and dangerous.

The Eighth Route Army did not attack, they just surrounded them.

These old devils have been fighting all their lives.

Naturally, I guessed what Commander He was planning.

When they leave the city and retreat, it will be time to pursue and harass them.

The Eighth Route Army developed very rapidly.

Even beyond all expectations.

The 120th Division consisted of less than men who crossed the Yellow River to the east to fight in the war.

So far, it has grown to 20,000 people.

He's division established guerrilla forces and self-defense organizations in all counties in northwestern Shanxi.

These troops had almost no firearms and used spears, swords, and even bows and arrows.

But his enthusiasm for the war of resistance was very high.

The Japanese troops suffered terribly.

The Eighth Route Army's ability to rally troops far exceeded everyone's expectations.

PS: This is just working in the name of the Sacrifice Alliance.

Katsuki Seiji regards him as a formidable enemy, and if the situation continues to develop in this way, there will definitely be problems.

They simply thought of annihilating the Eighth Route Army while it was still unstable.

A total of more than 20,000 troops were mobilized for this combat operation.

It was an encirclement and annihilation operation led by Kiyoshi Kozuki.

They attacked separately along the Pingsui, Pinghan, Zhengtai and Tongpu railways.

Because they did not take the combat effectiveness of the Eighth Route Army seriously.

The military strength and number of these troops basically remain at around 1,500 to 2,000 people.

However, the main force of the Eighth Route Army was not in the northeastern part of Shanxi at that time.
The 115th and 129th Divisions were active in the Xiyang area of ​​southeastern Shanxi.

The main force of the 120th Division is active in the northwest of Shanxi.

At this time, there were actually less than 8,000 troops in the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region.

The Eighth Route Army was actually facing very great pressure.

Everyone's words make sense.

They even split into two factions on the spot.

One of them, led by the 10th Division's Jigu Lianjie and Doiyuan Kenji, advocated marching south to attack Xuzhou.

For them, this was an easy feat.

Once heading south.

They are likely to receive honors from Tianhuang in Jinan City.

The other faction, led by the commander of the 20th Division, Kawagishi Fumisaburo, advocated defending Shanxi first.

He also received support from the 108th Division and its commander, Shimomoto Kumamiya.

This old fellow, who was equivalent to being rehired after retirement, chose to be conservative.

And the commander of the 109th Division also supported Seiji Kazuki's idea.

But he was very smart and didn't offend either side and just kept talking about the same things.

Only Sakagami Seishirō's policy of appeasement was ignored. He was caught in the middle and was ignored.

At this combat meeting, Terauchi Hisaichi did not reach a consensus on going south to capture Xuzhou.

Instead, it led to such sharp and conflicting views within the North China Expeditionary Army.

Just like the North China Expeditionary Army Headquarters and the Tokyo Headquarters.

Terauchi Hisaichi believes.

The reason why Kawagishi Fumisaburo dared to express his views so sharply had something to do with Katsuki Seiji.

Katsuki Seiji has refused to carry out his orders more than once.

And the two men's strategic intentions clashed several times.

Prior to this, Terauchi Hisaichi had made concessions for the sake of the overall situation.

And now... in his opinion, not only did Katsuki Seiji not appreciate it, but he even became worse.

Just as Terauchi Hisaichi was thinking about how to request the Tokyo headquarters to transfer Kazuki Seiji back to the country.

The operations staff came over quickly.

"General! The 108th Division sent an urgent message that all their reconnaissance troops operating along the Handan-Changzhi Highway have lost contact... and outside Handan City, they found traces of the main force of the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army..."

"Nani?"

Terauchi Juichi took the telegram.

The main force of the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army?
From the Japanese perspective, they had already retreated to southwestern Shanxi and were no longer a threat.

After the Central Army troops retreated to Zhongtiao Mountain, in order to avoid being annihilated by the Japanese army, they even adopted the strategy of dividing their troops and holding the area.

In the eyes of the Japanese army.

After sacrificing a large number of middle and lower-level officers and soldiers with combat experience.

The Jinsui Army and the Central Army in the Shanxi region no longer posed any threat to it.

Because of this... the Jinsui Army suddenly appeared outside Handan City
Terauchi Shouichi was surprised at first.
How is this possible?
According to the intelligence from the Special High Technology Bureau, there can't be any Jinsui Army in the southeastern Shanxi region!

"General.. has something happened?"

Respond to the concerns of readers in the previous chapter.

In short, the Eighth Route Army was responsible for conscription and mobilization propaganda.

Chu Yunfei is responsible for training, combat, and command, and all command and military power are in Chu Yunfei's hands.

The military cadres are all Chu Yunfei’s people, so please don’t worry.



(End of this chapter)