May 24, 1629, Lushun.

It has been some time since the Governor's Palace issued a mobilization order. Since a week ago, the troops who have arrived one after another have turned the solemn and deserted Lushun into a sea of military flags.

On May 17, the 1st Regiment of the National Defense Forces, which was my regiment and the 2nd Regiment, which had departed from Taiwan, arrived in Lushun.

On 18 May, a battalion of the National Defense Forces from Jeju Island arrived in Arthur, along with a heavy artillery regiment drawn from Kyushu. These three regiments and one battalion together form the Liaoning South Brigade of the National Defense Forces.

On May 19, the Second Regiment (Dengzhou Regiment) and the Third Regiment (Qingzhou Regiment) of the Dengzhou Association Army from Shandong arrived in Lushun. The 1st Regiment of the Dengzhou Army (Laizhou Regiment), which had arrived on Changsheng Island earlier, stopped directly on Changsheng Island and did not come to Lushun. These three regiments, together with Zhu Guobin's independent cavalry battalion, formed the Shandong Brigade.

On May 21, the mobilization of the Liaonan Brigade of the Dongjiang Army was completed and they went to the Changshan Islands.

From May 22nd to 23rd, the Japanese vassal army from Kyushu Island and the Korean vassal army from Cheosan arrived one after another, and they were divided into Korean divisions and Kyushu divisions according to ethnic units, each with three infantry regiments.

At this point, all the army forces of this campaign have been fully integrated. Not counting the vassal army units without human rights, our army already has 8 infantry regiments, 1 heavy artillery regiment, and 1 cavalry regiment formed by the Dengzhou Army and the Dongjiang Army, with a number of nearly 14,000 people... If you count the vassal army, the number is more than 20,000. To be reasonable, the main purpose of the General Staff in mobilizing so many troops in one go, across the two auxiliary armies and the two vassal armies, is to review their military skills and organizational capabilities, integrate the various systems under the control of the Wehrmacht, and prepare for complete assimilation in the future. Well, if the purpose is to fight with Houjin, then Houjin's history can end in June.

In the decades after the fall of the Later Jin, many historians and military scientists have always questioned why such a powerful Austro-Song army had been passively resisting in the face of the Later Jin attack, and the commanders' aim seemed to be to rely only on the Jinzhou defense line to block the Later Jin. And when the guillotine operation was launched in the later stage, how could our army be broken through by the desperate Houjin army under such a big advantage, and miss the great opportunity to gather and annihilate Jiannu?

I've been shy about this in previous editions of my memoirs. Now, in accordance with the latest decryption regulations, I will answer the questions of readers and friends in detail in this edition.

First of all, I would like to introduce the initiator of the guillotine operation, Major General Qi Wu, who was the commander of the Southern Liaoning Group Army at the time.

In my previous impression, General Qi Wu was a very old-fashioned person. He had a beautiful mustache, his hair was always neatly combed, his clothes were not wrinkled, and he always buttoned the top of the style. But we were astonished that such a serious commander had proposed such a crazy and daring plan as the guillotine at a pre-war strategic meeting.

Operation Guillotine was a plan that went down in history, and it was the first pincer offensive on land and sea in the history of our army to be put into practice - although this theory had been proposed before. I spoke with Senior Colonel Mu Huai'an, General Qi Wu's chief of staff, and learned from him about the scene when General Qi proposed his plan.

————————————————

Mu Huai'an remembers that it was an afternoon. At that time, the Australian and Song officers, who were actually in charge of commanding the group army, gathered in the conference room to discuss tactics in front of a huge sand table and map (Note 1). At that time, everyone had been meeting for several days, and all the windows in the house were open, and the sea breeze blew up the white curtains. The people in the room unbuttoned their necklines, pulled their sleeves up to their elbows, and argued loudly from time to time.

Qi Wu had been staring at the map since noon, walking to the sand table from time to time and talking in a low voice with the staff officers sent by the navy. Mu Huai'an and Qi Wu have been old partners for many years, and they have worked together since they were in Europe. He had already noticed Qi Wu's unusualness, this old man had always had a dangerous look in his eyes, the corners of his mouth were smiling inadvertently because of excitement, and his face was flushed with red light, obviously he already had a belly case.

"Huai'an." His voice interrupted the officers' discussion. Everyone fell silent, their eyes focused on Qi Wu. He looked at the sand table motionlessly, then raised his head to look at the map hanging on the wall, strode to the map, opened his hands like crabs, and set off from Lushun, pointing at Xinjin and Hongzui Fort in an arc: "Look here, can we directly occupy this place and block Houjin between the Xinjin line and the Jinzhou defense line." ”

Mu Huai'an put his hands behind his back and looked at the map with a frown. He quickly recalled the information provided by the Navy and replied: "Possibly. ”

Qi Wu knew the character of his chief of staff, and he said that it was possible to mean "very likely". Hearing the chief of staff's answer, the look in Qi Wu's eyes became brighter and brighter. He turned around, propped up the table with both hands, and said in a voice like a bell: "Order, the General Staff is now aiming to 'Houjin is blocked by the Jinzhou defense line, and the army troops will set out from Lushun, capture Xinjincheng and Hongzui Fort at the same time, and establish a defense line on the spot'. Please inform the Chinese detachment and request that more naval staff officers be sent to cooperate with the work! ”

For more than a week that followed, the staff headquarters set up in Lushun was constantly lit. From the navy to the army, more than 100 staff officers were constantly discussing and revising the plan, discussing and revising the plan. This is a very heavy task, and it is necessary to formulate such a complex plan in such a short period of time at a time when the large army of Jiannu has already entered the city of North Jinzhou and the entire line of the Jinzhou defense line has entered a state of war. If it were not for the adoption of a staff system that far surpassed that of the world's military powers at the same time, we would never have been able to accomplish such a great achievement.

By the second day of the Second Battle of Jinzhou (Note 2), the General Staff had already taken out five detailed plans and handed them to Qi Wu for selection.

"The Marines will set off immediately, and they will go to Nishinaka Island first to stand by." Qi Wu ordered, "The First Regiment of the Wehrmacht will go over together." ”

"Hongzui Fort was handed over to Dongjiang Town on the Changshan Islands, leaving only one regiment to defend the island, and the other field troops were all ready to fight. The Japanese fleet was asked to come with some transport support. ”

Orders emanated from the headquarters, and the massive war machine began to hiss. The fate of thousands of people has changed since then, and no one knows that behind us, behind them, the future of hundreds of millions of people will also change.

Just as I was leading the 1st Regiment to the port to prepare to board the ship, hundreds of miles to the northeast, at the Jinzhou defensive line, the Zhenjiang Regiment and the Phoenix Regiment of the Dongjiang Army and the Nabeshima Brigade of the Japanese vassal Army were engaged in a fierce battle with Jiannu, who was attacking the defensive line.

The Golden State Line of Defense was from east to west, cutting off the Golden State Isthmus. The defensive line was more than a dozen kilometers long and consisted of five fortresses that housed thousands of men and the long walls that connected them. The defense line was completely designed by our civil engineers, with concrete as the main body, and the key parts have been reinforced with steel bars, which can be regarded as an impregnable barrier.

The commander of the Zhenjiang regiment was Kong Youde, who was transferred back to southern Liaoning along with a group of Dongjiang Army officers after the peace of Kyushu. Compared with fighting with the Japanese people, Kong Youde is full of endless fighting spirit for fighting with Jiannu. His father was killed in the battle of leading the rebellion against Jianzhou in Tieling, and he met Huang Stone on the way to flee south, so they went south to Dongjiang Town together, and now he has been fighting with Houjin for ten years.

It's the second day that Houjin has begun attacking the Golden State line. Since yesterday, Kong Youde has been engaged in war with superhuman passion. When Houjin had not yet begun his offensive, he would generally stay in the headquarters. This headquarters is set up on the South Mountain, the altitude is only about 116 meters, located in the south of Jinzhou City one kilometer, the left of Jinzhou Bay, the right of Dalian Bay, is the main road to Dalian and Lushun. When the weather is fine, looking down from the headquarters, Kong Youde can clearly see the Jiannu flag fluttering in Jinzhou City in the telescope.

At this moment, Kong Youde has entered the front line. Although the width of the Isthmus of Golden State is more than ten kilometers, there are not many roads suitable for the army to travel with. In front of him was the military department of Jianzhou, fluttering with a blue flag. This is the old opponent of the Golden State Army, since the defense line was built, the blue banner under Duoduo has been competing with them, and each other has long known each other's catties.

Kong Youde had a pipe in his mouth and looked at Jiannu a mile away with malicious intent. The Jiannu with the blue flag already had experience in facing the Dongjiang Army, and the shield vehicles that other flags relied on were basically impossible to see here. In front of the dense artillery on the defensive line, no matter how big the shield cart is, it is a snail shell that shatters at the slightest touch. These Jiannu drove the Han people to dig tunnels in a "Z" shape. The curved pit prevents it from being bounced through to the end.

Kong Youde didn't care about this. If Houjin wants to dig, just let them dig it. Now that the distance is far away, he really can't take the tunnel. When Jiannu has dug one or two hundred meters, the artillerymen who are still fighting in a sit-down battle will be able to let the old opponents feel the taste of artillery.