Major General Shigeichi Harata is not a stupid person, and there is no fool who can achieve this position. On the contrary, Major General Shigeichi Harata is a very smart person, otherwise he would not have become the only senior commander of the army who has escaped from Han Yunhua so far. After thinking about it for a while, Major General Shigeichi Harata also figured out the trick. However, Major General Shigeichi Hatada, a militarist who was loyal to the spirit of bushido in his heart and to His Majesty the Great Emperor, believed that as long as his troops continued to achieve victories, the doubts of the headquarters and His Majesty the Emperor about the loyalty of the Hata detachment would disappear.

After thinking about this, Major General Shigeichi Harata began to sit still, and he wanted to prove to the base camp that the enemy in Baotou was a force capable of fighting big battles and winning battles, and soon a telegram requesting war was sent to the headquarters of the 11th Army.

Lieutenant General Okamura Ninji, commander of the 11th Army, did not immediately reply to Major General Shigeichi Harata after receiving the telegram, but carefully considered the strength of the two sides and the current military situation, and he could not let Major General Shigeichi Harata spoil the overall situation on the spur of the moment. Compared with Major General Shigeichi Hatada, Lieutenant General Okamura Ninji undoubtedly knows more, and his strategic vision is not that of Major General Shigeichi Hatada. Lieutenant General Okamura Ninji was inseparable from Han Yunhua in eastern Hebei some time ago, but now he has suddenly been promoted from a division commander of a front-line unit to the commander of the 11th Army who is in charge of his own side. He was extremely soberly aware of how many people in the fanatical military circles coveted this position.

Emperor Hirohito and the General Staff Headquarters had high hopes for Okamura Ninji, who had enjoyed great honor before he took office, and that kind of high-level treatment was not enjoyed by ordinary army lieutenant generals. On August 30, the day Okamura Ninji returned to Tokyo from Tohoku, he went to the General Staff Headquarters to report to Prince Zaihito Miyaji, the chief of staff, and accepted a very important task. On the morning of September 5, Okamura "entered the palace to pay homage to His Majesty the Emperor, and then to Her Majesty the Empress, and to receive a scarf sewn by Her Majesty the Empress." Later, under the guidance of the palace attendants, he visited the palace's halls and received the divine wine and bounty from the emperor. The vast imperial grace and the high hopes of the General Staff Headquarters made Okamura Ninji grateful.

At the beginning of his tenure, the commander of the Central China Dispatch Army, General Shunroku Hata, solemnly told Okamura Ninji that the headquarters and the General Staff Headquarters had high hopes for him in the Battle of Wuhan, hoping that he would do his best to fight this great battle concerning the fate of the empire and serve the emperor loyally.

General Toshiroku Hata also told him that for the Battle of Wuhan, the headquarters and the General Staff Headquarters had spared no effort, mobilized a large number of troops by land, sea, and air, and decided to adopt the tactics of a quick battle and a quick victory to completely encircle and annihilate the Chinese field army, completely destroy the will of the Chinese political axe to resist, and turn the Chiang regime into a local regime, thus completely destroying China. Since the Lugou Bridge Incident, the Chinese [***] team has been vulnerable to a year's battle on the battlefield, especially after the Battle of Xuzhou, the Chinese [***] team has suffered heavy casualties, is exhausted, and has become a rabble. The elite areas of Northeast China, North China, Tianjin, Beiping, Shanghai, Nanjing, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang have all been occupied by the Chinese army, and China's war potential has been exhausted. The battle of Wuhan was a good opportunity to give the Chiang regime and the Chinese [***] team the final blow. In addition, all the industrial bases in China have fallen under the control of the empire, and all external access has been cut off, and the only way for foreign aid in China is the big bear in the north. But now the Reich is sending a diplomatic note to Soviet Russia, and the two sides are conducting the third negotiation on mutual non-aggression, and now significant progress has been made. As long as the two countries sign a non-aggression pact, the only foreign aid in China will also disappear. Relying solely on the production capacity of the country in China, it would be a fool's dream to resist the advancing chariot of the empire. Listening to the impassioned words of General Shunroku Hata, Okamura Ninji couldn't help but feel excited.

Lieutenant General Okamura Ninji originally thought that the combat effectiveness of the current Shina army would definitely drop significantly compared with a year ago, just like the Japanese army. However, since the beginning of October, the army has suffered heavy losses one after another, which has made Lieutenant General Okamura Ninji's judgment of himself begin to waver.

However, Okamura still firmly believed that the elite army of the Great Empire was invincible, and it was impossible to stop at the small city of Wuhan in China. Now that all the main forces of his 11th Army have arrived, it can be said that the troops are strong, the ammunition is sufficient, and the combat effectiveness has been restored to the peak moment, and it is the best time to launch a new offensive. Moreover, in order to be ashamed, the navy also sent an elite fleet to support Wuhan, and now there are more than 150 naval ships docked in Nanjing, of which more than half are heavy cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and other large ships.

With the support of the navy, Okamura Ninji did not think that the [***] army still had the strength to resist, even if the stubborn Shina army still had the courage to resist, but everything was just an egg hitting a stone, and the final result was complete destruction, which Okamura Ninji firmly believed.

Okamura Ninji also believed that it was necessary to launch a major offensive in order to contain the decline of the front army during this time. After reading Okamura Ninji's battle plan, General Shunroku Hata, commander of the Central China Front Command, was quite satisfied and agreed that the 11th Army would carry out the battle plan, and at the same time ordered the 3rd Division, the 9th Division, the 1st, 7th, and 8th Readli Machine Gun Brigades, the 6th, 8th, and 9th Readli Light Armored Vehicle Brigades, the 7th Tank Wing, the 5th Tank Brigade, the 2nd Readishan Artillery Wing, the 3rd Readishan Artillery Wing, and the 3rd Readley Mountain Artillery Brigade. The 10th Wing of the Field Heavy Artillery, the 5th Brigade of the Field Heavy Artillery, the 1st Flying Regiment of the Aviation Corps, the 16th Squadron of Reading Flight, the 77th Flying Squadron, the 31st Flying Regiment, and the 3rd Flying Regiment fully cooperated with the Eleventh Army. On the naval side, the Central China Front Command sent a total of 87 warships from the 3rd Fleet, the 8th Fleet, and the 11th Fleet to participate in the battle.

After receiving the order, Vice Admiral Okamura Ninji immediately began to dispatch troops, in addition to the sea and air cooperation, on the land side, Okamura Ninji placed the Hatada detachment in Pengze County, the main frontal battlefield of this operation, and the task of the Hatawa detachment was to encircle the mouth of the lake with the navy immediately after capturing Pengze. Secondly, the 27th Division and the 101st Division bypassed Pengze County to directly attack Hukou, while the 106th Division bypassed Poyang Lake and approached Jiujiang.

On the north bank of the Yangtze River, the 6th and 14th Divisions of the Central China Front Army attacked from Tongcheng, Huaining, Qianshan, Taihu, Susong, and Huangmei, and approached Jiujiang.

Of course, the frequent movements of the army could not escape the surveillance of the [***] team, and the followers of Okamura Ninji issued orders one after another, and the Chinese side also began to organize an active defense. In view of the important surnames of Jiujiang and Hukou, the Wuhan Garrison Command decided to transfer all of Xue Yue's First Corps to the line of Hukou and Pengze to form the first line of defense. Zhang Fakui's Second Corps was stationed in Jiujiang to form a second line of defense. The 74th Army, the 77th Brigade of Reading Force, the 21st Division, the 39th Division, the 64th Division, and the 65th Division of the new formation withdrew to the first line of Jiujiang County, Dechang, and Yongxiu, and deployed along the Nanxun Line to form the third line of defense. At the same time, the Chinese Navy, which had initially formed its combat effectiveness, was also officially put into battle, and was transferred by the Wuhan Garrison Command to the front line of Hukou to assist in defense, while the Chinese Air Force, which was already small, was also transferred to Wuhan, ready to support the army and navy in operations at any time.

The two sides are tense, and the big war is about to break out. The first to receive fire was still the front line of Peng Ze, and the 187th Division of the 64th Army of the 29th Army of Xue Yue's First Corps was stationed in Peng Ze. The 64th Army was formed in August 1937 with the 155th and 156th Divisions of the troops stationed in Guangdong. In September, the 156th Division was transferred to the 83rd Army to participate in the Battle of Songhu, and the 187th Division was transferred to the army. After the army was transferred to the north, it participated in operations on the north and south banks of the Yellow River. After the Battle of Wuhan began, the 9th Reserve Division was transferred to the army. The 155th Division, the division commander was originally concurrently served by Li Hansoul (commander of the 29th Army Corps), and in May 1938, Chen Gongxia took over from Li as the division commander. The 187th Division was established in Guangzhou in November 1937, initially under the 83rd Army, and soon changed to the army, the division commander was originally Peng Linsheng, and in September 1938, Kong Kequan was the division commander.

After Kong Kequan's division was stationed in Pengze County, he immediately took over the fortifications left by Han Yunhua's subordinates, and at the same time applied to Xue Yue to transfer two engineering regiments to strengthen the city fortifications, and built more than a dozen strong pillboxes and a fort in Pengze County. Although this battery is somewhat rudimentary, it is far from being comparable to ordinary artillery positions. An infantry division was also stationed in Penglangji and the watershed in the northeast of Pengze, occupying favorable terrain to block the Yue army.

The first to attack was still the Hakuda detachment, which was replenished, and the current Major General Hatada Shigeichi was officially promoted to lieutenant general. The expanded Hatata Detachment is under the jurisdiction of: the 1st Infantry Wing of Taiwan (Wing Commander Sato Yatsudasa), the 2nd Infantry Wing of Taiwan (Wing Commander Takahashi Ryoshidasa), and the Taiwan Mountain Artillery Wing (Wing Commander Nakajima Yoshinakasa). Taiwan Temporary Tank Brigade, Taiwan's 1st and 2nd Health Teams, Taiwan's Temporary Automobile Brigade, Taiwan's 1st and 2nd Transport Surveillance Teams.

The high-spirited Lieutenant General Habata Shigeichi was overjoyed when he learned that it was no longer the feared general of the Eighth Route Army and his troops stationed in Pengze, but the vulnerable Shina Political Axe Army, and immediately led the main force of his headquarters to Pengze County.

(To be continued)