readx; Xue Yue did not know that in early 1944, he suddenly expanded and added 32 divisions and regiments. This number of pen & fun & pavilion www.biquge.info is equivalent to half of the total number of troops in 1943. Of course, they had the ability to send additional troops to China for the Battle of Changheng at the same time as the Battle of Henan-Zhong.

A few days later, Yang Hanyu, commander of the 20th Army of the Yang Sen Group Army, came to Changsha to report to Xue Yue: "A battalion of our army that is fighting guerrillas behind enemy lines in Linxiang has reported to the military headquarters in recent days that the army has gathered a large number of troops in the areas of Linxiang and Yueyang to prepare for an attack on Changsha. The situation is unusually serious! ”

Xue Yue smiled, thinking that it was the junior officer who was confused by the army and made a fuss. He said arrogantly: "After the third Battle of Changsha, does the Yue army still dare to attack our theater of operations? What's more, the war between Henan and China is still going on, and the army will inevitably bluff on the bank of the Yangtze River and make a feint to the south in order to contain the troops on the south bank. ”

The next day, the confidential secretary sent a report from the Yucheng Military Commission on the urgent military situation of 100,000 troops: It has been confirmed that a large number of troops have gathered on the Nantong and Chongyang lines in northern Hunan and eastern Hubei, and are now moving south to occupy the advance positions and preparing to attack Changsha on a large scale. Xue Yue was taken aback when he saw it.

That night, the Ninth Theater Commander's Department held an emergency meeting to study the plan to defend against the enemy. There was a lot of debate at the meeting. The people headed by Zhao Zili, acting chief of staff of the theater, held that the scale of the troops used by the Yue army to attack the central Henan Plain was unprecedented, and judging from the information obtained so far, the strength of the Yue army to attack Changsha was also unprecedented in scale, and in addition to the lesson of the three Changsha battles, the Yue army was bound to adopt new methods to attack. Therefore, it was necessary to develop a new combat program. The people led by Xue Yue insisted that the Yue army might use a larger corps to attack, but it was by no means an unprecedented scale and terrifyingly large. At the same time, this mountain, this water, and this land are still the same as before, and even if the army fights in such an environment, even if it is ever-changing, it cannot escape the net of heaven and earth of the "Heavenly Furnace Tactics of Warfare."

In the end, of course, Xue Yue's opinion prevailed, and he still arranged troops to meet the Yue army according to the old method. Xue Yue only accepted one lesson from others, that is, not long ago, Jiang Dingwen's commander's headquarters was defeated by the Yue army, which plunged the first war zone into great chaos. Just in case, he decided to transfer the headquarters of the theater commander to Leiyang, about 200 kilometers south of Changsha.

After Xue Yue finished the deployment, he took the personnel of the commander's department to Leiyang, and at the same time reported the deployment of troops and the battle plan of the Ninth Theater to the Military Commission.

As soon as Xue Yue arrived in Leiyang, he received telegrams from He Yingqin and Bai Chongxi. The telegram said that the Ninth Theater's judgment of the enemy's situation was unrealistic and overly optimistic, and that there were problems in the deployment of troops, which must be quickly changed.

Xue Yue ignored the order from above. However, Bai Chongxi sent a telegram, and he was still not at ease, so he called Xue Yue again: "According to the information we have, the strength of the army assembled in northern Hunan has greatly exceeded our expectations, and its combat strength will definitely not reach the limit when it reaches Changsha, and it may not reach the limit even when it reaches Hengyang. The opinion of General He Yingqin and I was that we should abandon Changsha, stick to Hengshan, and fight a decisive battle with the enemy south of Lushui. ”

Xue Yue said loudly: "Changsha is the center of Hunan Province, and the Ninth War Zone has deployed hundreds of thousands of troops here. Changsha must be defended to the death, and the main force will fight the enemy in the area north of Lushui and west of Liuyang! ”

Bai Chongxi said that Xue Yue couldn't move, and the two quarreled on the phone.

Xue Yue thought, you, Bai Chongxi, are purely squatting in Yucheng and commanding blindly. Think about the first Battle of Changsha in September 1939, you and Chen Cheng came to Lukou, didn't you also say that Changsha could not be defended? The result? The three battles of Changsha were fought. According to the method of my Xue, I will play triumphant songs again and again, and you, Chairman Chiang, and a senior member of your Military Commission, will also award me the Victory Medal again and again.

Bai Chongxi knew that Xue Yue was a bull temper, and it was too difficult to convince him. The results of the first three battles of Changsha blindfolded him, and it was even more difficult for others to shake his judgment. When it comes to the war in Hunan, the one who has the most right to speak is, of course, Xue Yue. He Yingqin and Bai Chongxi had no choice but to pray silently, hoping that everything would happen as Xue Yue expected.

At dawn on May 27, the iron hooves of the army set foot on the land of northern Hunan again. Isamu Yokoyama commanded the First Line Corps to launch an offensive.

The left corps of the army was driven south by the Yamamoto Division and the Chilu Division from Chongyang along the border between Hunan and Jiangxi. The second echelon is the Ochiai Division and other divisions.

The middle route corps of the army, consisting of the Sakuma Division and the Iwa Aeon Division, broke through the defense line of the 20th Army from the Yueyang area and rushed straight to Changsha. The second echelon was the 58th Division and the Ban Jian Xiong Division.

The right corps of the army consisted of the 40th Division of Miyagawa Seizo, the 106th Brigade of the Reading Infantry, the 17th Brigade of the Reading Force, the 5th Brigade of the Reading Infantry, the Needle Detachment directly under the military administration, the naval fleet, and the Marine Corps to attack southward from the waters of Dongting Lake.

Fierce battles are already raging on the front.

At Hunan University in Changsha, Zhang Deneng's Fourth Army, the Theater Special Service Battalion, and the Third Artillery Brigade guarding Changsha City are holding a tripartite meeting to study troop deployment and infantry and artillery coordinated operations. Zhang Deneng, Zhao Zili, and Wang Ruoqing were the commanders of these three troops, and Xue Yue ordered the three of them to defend the city, but did not specify who was the commander. The three horses are in the same groove, the responsibilities are unclear, no one can control whom, and the command is inevitably chaotic. They all believed that the army would attack Changsha with a large corps, but they had their own opinions on the deployment of troops, and they could not hold on to each other.

Zhao Zili distinguished himself: "Changsha should only be used as a long-term defense point to delay and deplete the enemy's vital forces, so as to gain time and facilitate the assembly and decisive battle of our mobile troops." Therefore, two divisions and artillery of the Fourth Army should be placed in the Yuelu Mountains west of the city, and one division should be placed in the city. As long as the position of Yuelu Mountain can be secured, Changsha City can be ensured, that is, when Changsha City cannot be secured, because the main force is on the side of Yuelu Mountain, it can also cover the division in the city to cross the Xiangjiang River to the west, so as to avoid annihilation by the Yue army, and it is too late to retreat to the west or south. ”

Zhang Deneng's opinion was in direct opposition to Zhao Zili's, advocating that the main force should be put in the city to defend it. He decided to personally lead two divisions into the city, one of which was placed in Yuelu Mountain.

The two sides argued, Zhang Deneng moved out of Xue Yue to suppress people, and said sharply: "The Fourth Army placed the main force in the city, which was the instruction of Chief Xue. ”

Zhang Deneng is the nephew of Zhang Fakui, the commander of the Fourth Theater of Operations, and naturally has a close relationship with Xue Yue. He didn't take Zhao Zili in his eyes, and he had to act according to his own opinions. He placed the 90th Division on the side of Yuelu Mountain, and led the 102nd and 52nd Divisions into the city, and the army headquarters was set up in the air-raid shelter of the central bank on Pozi Street in the city.

On 6 June, the right corps of the Yue Army broke through the Dongting Lake system, occupied the Yuan River, and blocked Wang Yaowu's group army, which had gone south to rescue the Sixth Theater, in the Yiyang area. The army continued to move south, and on the 16th, it captured Ningxiang, a strategic place west of Changsha.

The two divisions of the Central Route Army broke through the first line of defense of the defenders on the south bank of the Xinqiang River, encircled the 133rd Division for a time, and attempted to encircle and annihilate the headquarters of the Yang Sen Group Army and the main force of the Yang Hanyu Army. The other two divisions of the Yang Han Domain Army went to the rescue and broke the encirclement of the Yue Army, and the main force of the Yang Han Domain Army and the headquarters of the Yang Sen Group Army retreated from Pingjiang to the left in an attempt to move closer to the Liuyang area.

The commander of the first line of the army in the middle of the road drove straight down, arrived at the outskirts of Changsha on June 8, attacked Changsha with only a part of the troops, and the main force bypassed Changsha and continued to advance southward.

The Second Line Corps of the Central Army, accompanied by the Chien-shiung Division and the Maori Division, advanced rapidly on the passage cleared by the first-line corps. On the 13th, the Banjianxiong Division joined up with the Shima Detachment and the Needle Detachment of the Right Route Army, with a total of more than 40,000 troops, and suddenly crossed the Xiangjiang River from the north of Changsha to the west to attack the defenders of Yuelu Mountain in a roundabout way. At this time, the Maori division also arrived at the city of Changsha, detoured to the southwest, and launched a fierce attack on Changsha.

At this time, the first and second line corps of the left side of the Yue Army flanked and besieged the 44th Army of Wang Zejun, the 72nd Army of Fu Yi, the 58th Army of Lu Daoyuan, and the 37th Army of Luo Qi, the mobile forces of the Chinese defenders in the Liuyang area.

The entire theater was in chaos and fell into a situation of being passively beaten.

Xue Yue was so anxious that he beat his chest and complained bitterly, so he had to give orders to all group armies and armies: "All troops ask the enemy to attack." ”

Changsha City was in a desperate situation, and the army corps was surging, and its spirit was not frustrated in the slightest on the way forward.

The strength of the defenders of Yuelu Mountain was weak, and under the fierce attack of the army, it gradually became inadequate.

Only then did Zhang Deneng know that Zhao Zili's opinion was correct. He wanted to draw a division from the city to reinforce Yuelu Mountain, but the ships in the city had already been sent to evacuate supplies, and there were no ships available.

Late at night on the 16th, the positions on the periphery of Yuelu Mountain were lost, and the artillery support on the mountain was weakened. On the east bank of the Xiangjiang River, the army frantically pounced into the city and broke through some of the core positions in the city.

The situation Zhang Deneng faced was extremely dangerous, if Yuelu Mountain was lost, the two divisions in the city would be completely annihilated. He ordered the 102nd Division to rush across the Xiangjiang River and reinforce Yuelu Mountain.

The battle was so fierce that the officers and men of the 102nd Division, who had retreated from the city, thought that they were retreating from Changsha and rushed to the riverbank, so they rushed to cross the river, causing great chaos. After the team crossed the river, they retreated along the road from Yuelu Mountain to Hengyang, and Zhang Deneng was still in the dark.

In the past few days, he has been supervising the battle in various positions in the city, and he has long been exhausted from being bombed by military planes and artillery bombardments all day long. That night, he handed over the task of defending the city to the commander of the 59th Division, crossed the Xiangjiang River by boat with several guards, and prepared to personally guard Yuelu Mountain. When he came to Hunan University, it was already 4 o'clock in the morning, he walked into the house, fell to the ground, and fell asleep. The roar of the hundred and ten cannons on Yuelu Mountain did not wake him up.

On the morning of the 17th, the guards who woke up first saw the officers and soldiers of the 102nd Division running in the direction of Hengyang on the riverside outside, and hurriedly woke up the commander. Zhang Deneng was furious, rushed out and fired two shots into the sky, and shouted loudly: "Come back, if you don't come back, I'll shoot you!" "But it was too late, and most of the division had retreated before dawn.

18 In the morning, Mount Yuelu was lost.

On the same day, the 59th Division in the city saw that Yuelu Mountain was captured by the Yue army and lost its support, so it had to break through the siege and retreat in the direction of Liuyang. Changsha was lost.

When Chiang Kai-shek learned of the defeat, he was very angry and asked again and again: "How did the Fourth Army do it, and who told them to retreat?" He received a call from Wang Yaowu of the 24th Group Army of Sun Lianzhong's Sixth Theater from the front line in northern Hunan Province, saying that he had been ordered to lead his troops to reinforce Changsha, but was blocked by the superior army in the Yiyang area. He once called Zhao Zili to ask for a task, and Zhao Zili said that he and Zhang Deneng had different opinions on the issue of guarding Changsha, and Zhang Deneng was stubborn and put the main force in the city, and it seemed that Changsha could not be defended. As the acting chief of staff of the theater, he could not command the defense of Changsha, and hoped that Wang Yaowu would report to the chairman of the committee based on the truth.

Chiang Kai-shek was furious at Zhang Deneng's loss of Changsha, and immediately ordered: Zhao Zili and Zhang Deneng went to Yucheng to report to the Military Commission on the Changsha operation.

As soon as the two people asked by Chiang Kai-shek arrived in Chongqing, Zhang Deneng was arrested and imprisoned by the Military Justice Enforcement Headquarters. Later, after a trial by the Ministry of Military Justice, it was confirmed that he was guilty of crimes in the battle to defend Changsha City, and he was sentenced to death, and he was shot in July of that year. Zhao Zili was overshadowed by Zhang Deneng in the defense of Changsha, and he did not bear actual responsibility and was exempted from accountability.

Changsha was lost, and Chiang Kai-shek, in order to secure Hengyang, decided to adopt the strategic means of "blocking in the middle and sandwiching on both sides" in the area from Lushui to Hengshan, and blocked the army in the Changsha area to the north of Lushui. He telegraphed Xue Yue to quickly adjust his deployment to achieve the above strategic goals.

However, due to the drastic changes in the battlefield situation, Chiang Kai-shek's strategic intentions turned into a pie.

When Xue Yue received Chiang Kai-shek's telegram, the Ninth Theater was still carrying out the order of "all units seeking the enemy to attack." In fact, all units were being tracked and attacked by the army, and it was impossible to gather troops and organize the implementation of Chiang Kai-shek's strategic plan. It wasn't until the 23rd that Xue Yue got in touch with the various departments and issued their respective assembly locations and attack targets, but it was too late.

When the second-line corps besieged Changsha City, the first line corps of the middle route army continued to move south along the east side of Changsha, as if to block the middle [***] team that went north from Hengyang to reinforce Changsha, but in fact there were other plans. When the second-line corps of the Chinese army had just captured Changsha, the first-line corps, which had already undergone a certain amount of rest and replenishment, immediately advanced from the vicinity of Zhuzhou along the banks of the Xiangjiang River to Hengyang.

On the east bank of the Xiangjiang River, Sakuma's division frantically marched southward, reached the Hengshan area, fought with the defenders for two days, rushed to cross the river in the early morning of the 23rd, and arrived at Quanxi in the southeastern suburbs of Hengyang that night, and crossed the river overnight. During the day on 24 July, the main force of the division continued to forcibly cross the river in the face of bombing and strafing by US planes.

The Yan Yongwang Division marched hand in hand with the Yue Army on the east bank, reached the Hengshan area on the 23rd, quickly broke through the defenders' defensive line, and arrived near Hengyang on the 26th, and returned to the western suburbs of Hengyang City.

At the same time, the Red Deer Division also broke through to the south. When the Yue army captured Changsha City, it suddenly advanced south from Shangli, Jiangxi, crossed the borders of Pingxiang, Youxian, and Anren counties, and guarded the Chinese troops in the Jinggangshan area northeast of Hengyang, so as to ensure the safety of the flanks of the Yue army attacking Hengyang City.

The troops of these three divisions and regiments successfully broke through the precipitous area and successfully broke through the time gap when the troops in the middle and the troops on both sides were not yet deployed in place.

A day after the attack of the rapid troops of the Yue Army on the outskirts of Hengyang began, the Yang Sen Group Army and the Wang Lingji Group Army gathered about 15 divisions in the mountainous area on the Hunan and Jiangxi borders north of Lushui and attacked the Liling area. However, before these troops could be fully deployed, they were attacked by the three divisions of the Japanese army, and they were scattered before their fists could be clenched.

Wang Yaowu's group army on the west bank of the Xiangjiang River did not expect the army to move south so quickly. Originally, it was necessary to mobilize various armies to flank the Yue army with the Sichuan army on the east bank, but before they could gather troops, the Sichuan army on the east bank was scattered, and the Yue army was already attacking Hengyang City, and it was meaningless to flank the Yue army here. Wang Yaowu ordered Li Tianxia's 100th Army and Shi Zhongcheng's 74th Army to follow south to pursue the Yue Army, and ordered the other armies to quickly assemble in the Anhua, Xinhua and Baoqing areas to prepare to relieve the siege of Hengyang.

The Fourth Battle of Changsha was the first stage of the Battle of Changheng, which was an important part of the operation to open up the mainland lines of communication carried out by the Yue Army to aid the Nanyang Yue Army. In the Fourth Battle of Changsha, the Chinese defenders repeatedly repelled the attacks of the Yue army, inflicting heavy losses on the Yue army, but due to Xue Yue's light enemy and Zhang Deneng's command error, they failed to stop the large-scale attack of the Yue army.

The army crossed Changsha, the last gateway to the southwest, Hengyang City, and directly faced the bloody blade of the army. The Iwa Yongwang Division and the Sakuma Division, under the coordination of the two wings, were eyeing Hengyang.

At this time, next door to the war room of the Tenth Army, Army Commander Fang Xianjue stood in the room with his legs crossed, his hands behind his back, and stared at the roof for a long time, for more than three hours. Suddenly, the staff officer hurriedly broke in and shouted loudly in a panic: "Quick, military seat, chairman phone!" ”

Fang Xianjue was stunned for a moment, and contrary to his previous calmness and tranquility, he hurriedly ran towards the war room.

"Is it Fang Xianjue?" Chiang Kai-shek's voice came from the phone.

"Report to the chairman, I'm Fang Xianjue!"

Chiang Kai-shek ordered the Tenth Army to hold out in the city of Hengyang for ten days to two weeks in order to block, attract and consume the Yue army, cooperate with the peripheral troops, and strive to defeat or eliminate the Yue army in the Hengyang area. "The battle of Hengyang is related to the survival of the country and the nation, and the gains and losses of Hengyang are especially the key to victory or defeat. At the end, Chiang Kai-shek strengthened his tone and added meaningfully: "Commander Fang, the Tenth Army and Hengyang City will be handed over to you!" ”

Fang Xianjue replied immediately: "Don't worry, chairman, I will be loyal to my duties and serve the party and the state. ”

Soon after, military planes flew over Hengyang and bombed the urban area of Hengyang indiscriminately. Immediately after that, the Yue army, which was moving south along the east bank of the Xiang River from Zhuzhou and Lukou, arrived at Quanxi City, 30 kilometers east of Hengyang City, at night.

"Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, and robes: On the occasion of the coming of the Great War, our army and people are united in hating the enemy and going to the national disaster together. However, the war is relentless, and in order to reduce the sacrifices, the people are urged to evacuate all the items they cannot take with them, and be sure to nail the doors and windows and seal them tightly. If the house is destroyed by the enemy, it is an unavoidable loss; If it is a loss caused by someone breaking into the door, the army will guarantee to compensate according to the price! ”

Hengyang Sky City!

At the joint meeting of the military and the localities, General Fang Xianjue, commander of the 10th Army of the National Revolutionary Army, was impassioned: "The military headquarters ordered: Political workers at all levels of the army will work separately with city and county political axe workers to persuade the people; He also asked the Guangdong-Hanzhou and Xiang-Guizhou Railway Bureaus to mobilize vehicles to evacuate the people in the war zone at the east and west stations. Those who travel south take the Yuehan Road bus, and those who retreat west take the Xianggui Road bus. The military department sent staff officers to assist in handling the evacuation of the people and maintaining order among the soldiers; The baggage regiment sent troops to take care of the old and the young."

The people of the city continued to pour out of the city, and the army outside the city urgently gathered into the city.

The two streams of people on both sides of the road are surging like two undercurrents!

(To be continued)