August 1939, Zhimaling base. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

If you ask Jiang Shan what he needs most now, then he will definitely answer two words without hesitation - time!

Taking advantage of the victories in the previous major battles, the Japanese army is now becoming more and more arrogant, and the soldiers are pointing at it as if they are in a no-man's land. In order to further attack the Chinese army's will to resist the war, Okamura Ninji, commander of the Japanese 11th Army, concentrated more than 100,000 men and invaded Changsha from northern Jiangxi, southern Hunan, and northern Hunan in an attempt to annihilate the main force of China's Ninth Theater in the shortest possible time.

In order to defend Changsha, Xue Yue, acting commander of the Ninth Theater of Operations, adopted the operational policy of "retreating to a decisive battle" and "fighting for the outer flank" with northern Hunan as the focus of defense, and mobilized more than 30 divisions and three advancing columns, totaling more than 240,000 people, to participate in the campaign. China and Japan have gathered more than 300,000 troops in a small area outside Changsha, and a big war is about to break out!

The Battle of Changsha was the first large-scale battle between China and Japan in the Chinese battlefield since the outbreak of World War II. Before this war, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a Soviet-German non-aggression pact, and the Japanese Kwantung Army had just been defeated by the Soviet Red Army in the Battle of Nomenkan, and the strategic plan of the northward advance suffered a major setback.

In September 1939, the commander of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army, Okamura Ninji, formulated an operational policy, and it was judged that the Chinese army in front of Xiushui River was 25 divisions, and the Japanese army decided to start a surprise attack after mid-September in order to combat the will of the Chinese army to continue the war of resistance, in order to capture the main force of the Ninth Theater in the shortest possible period and annihilate it in the area around Pingjiang and Xiushui in northern Hunan and Jiangxi. To this end, the Japanese 11th Army concentrated about 100,000 troops of the 6th, 33rd, 101st, and 106th divisions and three brigades (including one for the navy and one for the air force), and under the command of Commander Okamura Ninji, adopted the policy of rushing and attacking to attack Changsha.

On the Chinese side, Hunan is also clearly aware of the importance of this battle, Hunan is a famous granary in China, during the Anti-Japanese War, an important supply base for the Nationalist government's grain, soldiers and industrial resources. The headquarters of the commander of the Ninth Theater was located in Changsha, the provincial capital, and the Chinese and Japanese troops confronted each other across the river on the front line of the Xinqiang River in northern Hunan Province. Changsha is a strategic town in Central China and the key point of the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway. After the battles of Wuhan and Nanchang, Changsha's strategic position has risen to a particularly prominent position, and it has become a strategic point on the gateway to the southwest of China, China's strategic rear. Once Changsha is lost, the entire southwest region will be wide open, and the capital Chongqing will be directly exposed to the Japanese army's marching route. Not only that, once Hunan, a land rich in fish and rice, is lost, China's war material reserves will suffer heavy losses, and this kind of loss cannot be afforded by China, which is already short of materials.

In addition, once Changsha is lost, the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway will be cut off, and Chongqing, the capital between the mountains and mountains, will become a lonely city completely. The Japanese army only needed to adopt a cage policy to firmly hold the throat of the Nationalist Government. For the Nationalist Government, which has already lost the capital Nanjing, it would be a great shame to lose the capital of Chongqing, and it would also be a major blow to the anti-Japanese enthusiasm and morale of the Chinese people. As for whether the army will be defeated like a mountain in the future, no one dares to guarantee this kind of thing.

Therefore, the Nationalist Government did not dare to be careless, and especially strengthened the defense of the Changsha area, and the Ninth Theater gathered heavy troops to confront the Japanese army on the battle line.

China's Ninth Theater of Operations is mainly under the jurisdiction of Hunan, southern Hunan, and Jiangxi provinces. The theater straddles the border areas of Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces, with the Ganjiang River and the Xiangjiang River as the natural realm in the east and west, and there is a lake on each wing, Poyang Lake in the east and Dongting Lake in the west. The Japanese army's great detour tactics could not be used, and they could only engage in frontal combat. Moreover, in the area where Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces intersect, the mountains are vertical and horizontal, and the terrain is complex. Most of the northern Hunan region north of Changsha is also mountainous: Xiangbei is not only mountainous, but also watery. With the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway as the boundary, a straight line is drawn from north to south, with Dongting Lake and three major rivers of Lishui, Yuanshui and Xiangjiang on the left side, and Xinqiang River, Miluo River, Laodao River and Liuyang River on the right side, thus forming a natural defense line. Such a mountainous and watery terrain would have a great impact on the movement of troops, and was especially unfavorable to the movement of the Japanese army's mechanized troops.

Xue Yue, acting commander of the Ninth Theater, believes that as long as these favorable geographical conditions are taken advantage of, coupled with correct strategies and tactics, it is entirely possible to repel the Japanese attack and turn passivity into initiative. After some consideration, the Ninth Theater finally came up with a relatively complete set of combat plans. The operational plan for the theater is roughly as follows: The enemy seems to have begun to attack the south in mid-September, and will move from northern Hunan to Changsha with the main force, and carry out countermeasures in northern Jiangxi and southern Hunan. The theater planned to deal a serious blow to the enemy and set a precedent for the victory of the second phase of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and to lure the enemy deep into the area north of Changsha to encircle and annihilate the enemy's main force. On the northern and southern Hunan sides, the enemy's attempts to respond to the battle should be broken in order to ensure the success of the main forces. Xue Yue summed up the core point of this strategic deployment in eight words: retreat and fight for the outer wing.

As the Great War approached, Xue Yue also began to deploy troops and deploy troops. At that time, the Ninth Theater had a total of 21 corps and 3 advance columns, with a total of 52 divisions; The Military Commission of the Nationalist Government is attached to 4 corps (the 4th, 5th, 99th and the newly formed 6th Army) and 1 division (11th Division), with a total of 500,000 people in 63 divisions of 25 armies, and 21 corps, 49 divisions and 3 advance columns (the actual number of troops participating in the battle is 35 divisions and 3 advance columns of 300,000). By mid-September, the specific deployment of its troops was as follows:

The 58th and 60th armies of the 1st Group Army garrisoned the first-line positions of Zhangjiashan, Maxia and Huibu west of Jing'an and Fengxin;

The 32nd and 49th armies of the 19th Army garrisoned Lianhua Mountain, Maxingshan and the right bank of the Jinjiang River;

The 15th Army used the main force of the 52nd Army to garrison the Xinqianghe position, the 79th Army garrisoned the position between Nanjiang Bridge and Maishi, and the 37th Army garrisoned the position on the right bank of the Xiangjiang River and Miluo River north of Xiangyin;

The 27th Army of the 20th Group Army advanced out of the Xianning and Chongyang areas, and the 73rd Army assembled in the Zhajin area;

A total of 4 divisions of the 72nd and 78th armies of the 30th Group Army garrisoned the positions in the area of Putian Bridge and Pipa Mountain west of Wuning;

The advance of the Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi border area is located in Tongshan, Daye and Yangxin areas;

The 4th, 70th, 74th, 5th, 99th, new 6th Army and 11th Division, a total of 15 divisions, were the general reserve of the theater, which were assembled in Xiangtan, Zhuzhou, Hengshan, Hengyang, Liuyang, and Shanggao, Yifeng, and Wanzai in northern Jiangxi south and east of Changsha.

In addition, the defense of Dongting Lake and Xiangxi was the 20th Group Army of the 6th Theater (under the jurisdiction of the 53rd, 54th, and 87th armies), and in order to facilitate coordinated operations, this group army was assigned to the command of the 9th Theater. The headquarters of the commander of the 9th theater is located in Changsha.

For the Falcon Special Operations Brigade, which has always been the elite of the elite, Xue Yue, who has become a fine, will naturally not let it go. This time, Jiang Shan picked up a "good job" -- the Falcon Special Operations Brigade was broken up, broken into parts, and used battalions and regiments as units to go deep behind enemy lines to really carry out raids and harassment operations against the Japanese army.

As soon as the order came, Jiang Shan breathed a sigh of relief, and he was really afraid that Xue Yue's brain would be hot, and then he would put the Falcon Special Operations Brigade on the front line and confront the devils head-on. The Falcon Special Operations Brigade has always been trained in accordance with the model of special operations, and is good at small-scale special operations to achieve maximum results at the lowest cost. Besides, under the superior firepower of the Japanese army, the positional defensive battle will definitely suffer heavy casualties, and it is really a bit more than worth the loss to let these carefully trained elite soldiers die in vain.

However, after rejoicing, Jiang Shan scratched his head a little again. The Falcon Special Operations Brigade has nearly 10,000 combatants, which looks like a lot of people, but this little force is scattered on the main battlefield of the entire Changsha Battle, and there is no wave at all, let alone breaking it up and scattering the attack. How to bring into full play the combat effectiveness of these 10,000 people is a practical issue facing the country.

After discussing it with everyone behind closed doors all night, the Falcon Special Operations Brigade's combat plan was finally placed on the table of Xue Yue, the commander of the Ninth Theater of Operations. It's just that after reading this battle plan, Xue Yue, who has always been known for his boldness, is not calm this time.

The operational plan put forward by Jiang Shan stunned everyone -- in the face of a large-scale Japanese attack, the units under the Ninth Theater will spread out along the line of the Xinqiang River and the Laodao River, relying on Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake, taking advantage of the mountainous geographical conditions in the border areas of Hunan, Hubei, and Jiangxi provinces, adopting an active defensive posture and holding on to Changsha. In this process, the three main combat regiments of the Falcon Special Operations Brigade will be divided into 30 independent combat units, which will be interspersed behind the Japanese offensive line to cooperate with the Chinese defenders in raiding and harassing operations. The priority operational targets are mid- and high-ranking officers of the Japanese army, command and communication organs, logistics support, and baggage transport units. Strive to achieve the maximum result through the minimum cost.

If Otto. Skorzny, a special operations expert, will definitely think that Jiang Shan is a complete madman if he sees this battle plan of Jiang Shan now! One of the most important characteristics of special operations is concealment and small-scale, launching a sudden attack at the enemy's most unexpected but most critical time and place, but Jiangshan did the opposite and threw the entire brigade directly into the battlefield! Large-scale special operations, even Skorzny has never played like this!