Compared with the direct movement of the Western Expedition, the strategy adopted by the Eastern Expedition was completely opposite, when the devils were heavily defended near Harbin and were worried, several columns of the New First Army attacked separately, and one column went around to the Qiqihar area northwest of Harbin through Songyuan County, blocking the road to reinforce Harbin on the northern border; The second vertical is all the way to the east, controlling the area from Mudanjiang to Jiamusi in the southeast of Harbin; The fourth vertical is through Hegang, all the way to the north, controlling the range of 100 kilometers in Yichun.

The three columns formed an encirclement of Harbin on the periphery, and besieged Harbin without attacking, thus straining the enemy's will. At the same time, Xiao Quan's 108th Division, which was the fourth column, quietly went around between Harbin and Qiqihar to guard against the Japanese army on the northern border and the Japanese army in Harbin from the north and south.

When the three columns of the New First Army were deployed with Harbin as the center to encircle and annihilate the northern border and 13 Japanese divisions and regiments in the Harbin area, Xie Qin and the three columns had already crossed the Sino-Korean border and stationed troops 50 kilometers north of Putianbao.

The last remaining 11 divisions of the Japanese Kwantung Army on the northern border were concentrated in the area from Arshan to Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia, and after Umezu Mijiro, who commanded more than 20 divisions and regiments and did not wipe out the new First Army, fled all the way back to Hulunbuir, he looked extremely depressed, thinking that the Japanese Army General Staff Headquarters would remove him from his post as commander of the Kwantung Army, but there was no news for a long time. It turned out that because the battle line was too long, there was an extreme shortage of high-level commanders, and because many of the remaining personnel of the defeated divisions and regiments described the combat effectiveness of the New First Army, the Army General Staff Headquarters had no choice but to let Umezu Mijiro continue to command the remaining Kwantung Army to fight, and also looked forward to the early end of the Pacific Theater so that troops could be transferred back to relieve the crisis in Northeast China.

Harbin was besieged, and he sent a request for help after a few days, but Umezu Mijiro only cared about drunk life and death every day, and he didn't bother to pay attention to it, in fact, it was not that he was unwilling to reinforce, but he was afraid of the New First Army, and he had nightmares every day, and God knows what conspiracy the New First Army was hiding in the siege of Harbin.

At the beginning of World War II, the Japanese Army was known as the best army unit in the world, and although its weapons and equipment were inferior to those of the German army, its combat effectiveness was no worse than that of the German army. When marching in formation, from the generals to the non-commissioned officers, they all fought according to the principle of tactical combat, and there was no confusion, so that the enemy could not easily take advantage of the gaps. Although there was a lack of outstanding strategists among Japan's top generals, there were few major mistakes in the basic principles. Japanese generals are generally short in stature and not good-looking, but they can do things down-to-earth and meticulously, which is intimidating.

The Japanese army not only has a very strong individual combat capability, but also has very good coordination and cooperation between troops, whether it is infantry and artillery coordination, or the internal cooperation of small groups, squads (Cao), and squads, they are all well-trained.

At the beginning of the establishment of the new First Army, Lin Junxiong not only raised the combat capability of individual soldiers to surpass that of the Japanese army, but also used the famous three-three system training method of the People's Liberation Army to improve the unit's ability to coordinate operations.

In addition to the fact that after the outbreak of the Pacific War, the Japanese army was short of diesel fuel and other important strategic materials, so that he won great victories against the Japanese army again and again, and beat the vast majority of the commanders of the Kwantung Army to the point that they lost their armor and lost their armor, and their minds were not firm and even terrified.

Even if the anti-fascist war around the world entered the stage of counteroffensive, the Japanese Government still did not give up; one was that the Japanese Navy was deadlocked with the navies of Britain and the United States and other powerful countries in the Pacific Theater, and the other reason was that the training of nearly 1 million troops in Japan's emergency military expansion in Hokkaido was coming to an end, and they were convinced that as long as the British and American navies were defeated in the Pacific Theater, the situation could be completely reversed if Hokkaido's nearly 1 million troops were put into the battlefield.

Originally, they wanted to take advantage of the opportunity of the Soviet Union to send troops to northeast China to skillfully intensify the contradictions between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and to use the hands of the Soviet Red Army to get rid of Lin Junxiong and the New First Army of the Chinese Communists, but the Kuomintang and the Communist Party suddenly launched an attack on Mukden, and the New First Army was marching into Korea, which disrupted their deployment, and they had to transfer back the navy of Vladivostok to guard against the Soviet Union, breaking the rule that they were not allowed to go to the battlefield for one year without special training, and urgently transferring nearly 200,000 people from Hokkaido who had been training for less than a year to fight in Northeast China.

After the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Kuomintang Navy, which had been beaten by the Japanese Navy, finally regained some self-confidence after Japan's main maritime forces were concentrated in the Pacific theater, and when the battle in Dalian and Lushun was anxious, Chen Ce took the Fourth Fleet and another reinforced group army on land at the same time, and in less than a day, he defeated the stubborn Komanhara Taro's department and occupied Dalian and Lushun, and Komanhara Taro had to lead the remnants of the army to flee in all directions.

When the intelligence department sent the news that a unit of the Japanese Navy was transporting reinforcements from the northeast and preparing to come in the direction of Dalian and Lushun, Chen Ce decided to lead the Fourth Fleet to fight the Japanese Navy.

On April 10, 1944, in the strategy of the New First Army's Eastern Expedition to the West, Harbin was surrounded by the New First Army, and the Fifth Column also began to build a hilly defense line in eastern Liaodong, and the Sixth Column arrived at Jianping County southeast of Chifeng, the Japanese army stationed in Rehe Province through Montenegro and Fuxin, and Lin Junxiong also led his troops to Tongliao through Siping, and was approaching the Naiman Banner east of Chifeng.

Although he promised Kim Il Sung to send troops to North Korea, he wanted Kim Il Sung to remember that the CCP was their only savior, and Kim Il Sung did not seem to be in a hurry, he was convinced that even if the New First Army did not help North Korea, soon the Soviet Red Army would go south, and then he would be able to take the initiative and no longer rely on the New First Army as the only way out.

Chen Ce arranged the Fourth Fleet outside the port of Dalian, he knew that the Japanese army must have known the news of the fall of Dalian and Arthur ports, and from the analysis of the geographical location and fortifications, he concluded that if the Japanese army wanted to land, the most likely was the port of Dalian.

At 15:00 on the afternoon of the 10th, the foreign patrol force sent back the news that the Japanese Navy was only one day's journey from Dalian. ”

However, after seeing the information behind, his excited expression instantly put away, "It's not good, it's the main force of the Japanese Northern Fleet, even the flagship 'Nachi' heavy cruiser is here, as well as the four destroyers 'Wind', 'Rain', 'Den', 'Thunder' and more than 20 transport ships. ”

Chen Ce, a second-class admiral of the Navy, commander of the Fourth Fleet of the Navy of the National Revolutionary Army, and executive secretary of the Admiralty, was known as the "one-legged general" because he lost a leg in the battle against the Japanese Navy in Guangzhou.

From August 1937, the Japanese army sent naval vessels such as the aircraft carriers "Longxiang" and "Fengxiang" to blockade the Pearl River Estuary and launched three large-scale attacks on the Humen fortress. Under the leadership of Chen Ce, the vice minister of the Admiralty, the Chinese defenders held the fortress for more than a year with extraordinary courage and cunning.

In August 1937, the Japanese army dispatched a powerful naval and air formation, including aircraft carriers, to the south to blockade the mouth of the Pearl River.

At that time, the Sino-Japanese Battle of Shanghai was in full swing, and the Battle of Nanjing was about to begin. The Japanese authorities believe that China has a vast territory and sufficient human resources, but its domestic reserves of war materials are not enough to support the long-term war of resistance, and it must rely on international aid and material imports, and more than two-thirds of the imported materials must pass through the Pearl River estuary into the interior, and once this supply line is cut off, China will surrender without a fight.

Who controls the mouth of the Pearl River is in the hands of the sea is related to the direction of the entire war!

The Military Commission of the Nationalist Government urgently ordered the Cantonese defenders to block the six major outlets of the Pearl River, especially the Humen Fortress, because it chokes the main outlet of the Pearl River, and is known as the "Golden Lock and Copper Pass".

At this time, Vice Admiral Chen Ce was in charge of guarding the Humen Shuaiyin, and in his capacity as a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang and vice minister of the Navy, he led the Fourth Fleet (also known as the Guangdong Fleet) and the Marine Corps to defend the territory.

The Japanese fleet bound for Humen was called the Nanzhi Dispatch Fleet, which was led by Vice Admiral Takasu Shiro, and there were two aircraft carriers alone, "Ryuchi" and "Fengxiang", as well as "Yubari", which is called a milestone in the Japanese Navy's modern cruisers, and modern destroyers "Hurricane", "Chasing Wind", and "Asayan".

As for Chen Ce's Guangdong Fleet, there are only two main ships: the cruiser "Zhaohe" and the cruiser "Haizhou". "Zhaohe" is a turbine turbine cruiser purchased from Britain by the Qing Dynasty, which has been scarred by the old hull during the many years of civil war in the Middle East and the West. The "Hai Zhou" was purchased from France, and it was an old minesweeper that had long been obsolete, and when Chen Jitang bought it for customs anti-smuggling, only a 127-mm gun on the foredeck was powerful.

The Guangdong Fleet also had shallow gunboats such as "Zhongyuan," "Zhongkai," "Jianru," and "Zhixin," and the "Hairui" transport ships also joined the fleet one after another. In addition, Chen Ce also had the latest weapons in his hands, which were four advanced torpedo boats purchased from Britain and Italy.

However, the warships of the Guangdong Fleet are several thousand tons at full strength, which is not comparable to the tonnage of a Japanese aircraft carrier. Chen Ce knew that it would not be possible to fight hard, and the anti-enemy strategy he devised was to use the artillery on both sides of the Humen Fortress and the three islands in the center of the river as the main defensive force, and the "Zhaohe" and "Haizhou" of the Guangdong Fleet patrolled in the area from the front of Humen to Da Chan Island (about 15 kilometers away), and fought in coordination with the fortress, and also blocked the waterway with mines and other materials.

In terms of land strength, the Guangdong navy is not strong. Originally, there were more than 70 German Krupp cannons and British Vickers cannons on the Humen Fortress, but the previous civil war kept the army borrowing, and less than 40 remained. There are also fewer Marines, adding up to less than two regiments of the Army. At that time, most of the planes of the Guangdong Air Force had already gone north to the Songhu battlefield, and there were only nine Hawker III fighters left in Guangdong, which obviously could not provide much cover for the Humen fortress.

Although the situation is sinister, the "fierce general" Chen Ce is not timid. For a long time, Chen Ce commanded the "Zhongshan," "Flying Eagle," and "Zhaohe" warships to conquer the east and west in the Pearl River Channel, the Wanshan Islands, and even the Qiongzhou Strait, escorting convoys, suppressing bandits, and seizing territory. This advantage was vividly brought into play in the subsequent layout and tactical application.

Although Chen Ce heroically commanded the Fourth Fleet to fight against the powerful Japanese army, he was still defeated by the powerful Japanese navy, and the "Zhangwu team" that wiped out the Japanese army outside the mouth of the Pearl River lost a leg in the bombing of the Japanese navy's frenzied retaliation, withdrew from the battle with the Japanese navy in the waters near Guangzhou, and retreated to the rear to recuperate from his wounds.