Not to mention that Yoshio Shinozuka commanded tens of thousands of troops and Li Dayong's troops fought to the death in the Qian'an area, it was a death battle without the slightest retreat, and its tragedy can be imagined. However, for Han Yunhua, Li Dayong's desperate resistance was extremely meaningful, although Li Dayong's troops suffered heavy casualties, but it laid the foundation for the victory of the entire North China Battle.

Although General Binshan Yuan's tactics of flowering on all sides are powerful, but the Yue army seriously underestimated the strength of Han Yunhua's troops, and Han Yunhua relied on a huge lineup to deal with the Yue army, which was far less than them. However, it was not the Inner Mongolia Military Region that took the first turn in the battle, but the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region and the Jizhong Military Region.

More than 20,000 people were used to sweep the occupied areas this time, including the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Reading Mixed Brigade, the 1st and 2nd Wing of the Reading Infantry, and the 1st Wing of the Cavalry Group, and its commander was Lieutenant General Norihide Abe, who was known as the "flower of famous generals."

Originally, in the eyes of General Binshan Yuan, compared with the Inner Mongolia Military Region, which is less than a thousand miles apart, the so-called Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region and the Jizhong Military Region are actually a paper tiger, with 20,000 people enough. Moreover, the vast majority of the main forces of the Eighth Route Army in Hebei are concentrated in the Taihang Mountains, Wutai Mountains and other mountainous areas, and if they are not familiar with the terrain, how many people will go in vain, and according to the news transmitted by the special high-tech department, the Eighth Route Army Jizhong Military Region has been established for a very short time, and it has not been more than a year now, and its strength is not strong.

In order to achieve the strategic goal of eliminating the Jizhong Military Region and the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region in one fell swoop, Binshanyuan, an old devil, was ruthless and sent Lieutenant General Abe Guixiu, a rare mountain special operations expert in his army, to the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region. Moreover, in order to deal with the Eighth Route Army on the Jizhong Plain, General Binshanyuan insisted on dividing the originally small cavalry unit into a cavalry wing to Jizhong, and Binshanyuan believed that on the Jizhong Plain, a cavalry wing with extremely strong mobility could definitely be worth an infantry division.

However, to everyone's expectations, less than half a month after Abe Norihide led his troops to the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region Defense Area, news came that the Second Brigade of the Reading Force Mixed Brigade had suffered a crushing defeat and that Lieutenant General Abe Norihide had been killed.

The telegram jointly issued by the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region and the Central Hebei Military Region can be said to have stirred up a thousand waves with one stone, and the troops of both sides, who were already holding their breath, were taken aback, especially when General Binshan Yuan, who was sitting in Beiping, vomited blood directly when he received the telegram from the special high-tech department, and ordered the troops attacking the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region to immediately return to Dingzhou and wait for a new order from the front army.

And Han Yunhua was also surprised when he received the news from the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, he knew this Abe Guixiu Han Yunhua very well. Born in 1886 in Aomori Prefecture, Abe's era, like all young people of that era, was an era of unprecedented expansion of militarist aggression and expansion. In the same way, becoming a "samurai" who "gallops across the battlefield and is loyal to the emperor" is also the life that Abe dreams of. In order to realize this "ideal", Abe Norihide was admitted to the Army Non-commissioned Officer School ("Akamoto Lushi"), which specializes in training army officers. In May 1907, at the age of 21, Norihide Abe graduated from the 19th Infantry Department of the Rikushi and began his career as a true "samurai". On December 26 of the same year, Norihide Abe was awarded the rank of corporal and began serving in the army.

Norihide Abe is an extremely persistent or extremely stubborn person, who has an attachment to "honor" and "glory" that surpasses that of ordinary soldiers, so in the bloodthirsty war competition, he "stood out" and repeatedly made military exploits, which was quite appreciated by the base camp, and was known as the "flower of famous generals" in the military circles. Beginning in 1907, Abe Norihide was promoted step by step in the army without any background by virtue of his "military exploits", and successively served as adjutant of the 32nd Infantry Wing, adjutant of the 8th Division, and staff officer of the 18th Division. On April 11, 1932, he was transferred to the Sendai Army Teaching School as the captain of the student team, and on August 1 of the following year, he was promoted to the rank of infantry commander. In August 1935, he served as the commander of the 32nd Infantry Wing of the 16th Infantry Brigade of the 8th Division. On August 2, 1937, he was promoted to major general. In just over 20 years, Abe Norihide has produced a student doll who has just graduated from the army non-commissioned officer school and has grown into a major general of the army, which is simply an incredible thing in the army that has always looked at the background of the seniority gatekeeper. But Abe Norihide did it, so he was also called the "flower of famous generals" by the base camp.

In October 1938, Chang Kuanzhi, the former commander of the Second Mixed Brigade of the North China Front Army stationed in Mongolia, was killed by the Eighth Route Army in Zhangjiawan, Guangling County, Hebei Province. Soon after, Norihide Abe was promoted to lieutenant general.

Han Yunhua knows a lot about the death process of this energetic army lieutenant general, why do you say this, because Abe Norihide is the highest-ranking general killed by the [***] team in the history of the real Anti-Japanese War. Therefore, whether it is the post-war materials compiled by the National Political Axe or the historical materials of the Anti-Japanese War compiled by [***], Abe Norihide and his reading power mixed into the Second Brigade are one of the most colorful. When Han Yunhua was a student in a military academy, he had watched many books and movies about the death process of this army lieutenant general, so he kept this army lieutenant general in his heart.

In accordance with the original historical trend, in the summer of 1939, Yueben continued to intensify the focus of the "sweeping" against the base areas. The focus of the army's "sweeping" shifted from the Jizhong Plain to the Beiyue Mountains. In the autumn of 1939, the army mobilized more than 20,000 people from the 2nd Brigade and the 110th Division to carry out a larger-scale and more brutal autumn "sweep" in the Beiyue Mountains, in an attempt to completely destroy the Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base area. In late October 1939, Abe Norihide led the Second Brigade of Reading Power Mixed Brigade to Laiyuan, and after a little repair, Abe Norihide immediately held an operational meeting to make specific combat arrangements: the Fourth Brigade set out from Jijian Ridge to attack Zoumayi, and the First Brigade set out from Baishikou to attack Yinfang. On the night of November 2, the operation began.

As for the arrival of Abe Guixiu, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army and the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region also attach great importance to it. The Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region of the Eighth Route Army adopted the operational policy of "concentrating superior forces and breaking through each of them," and decided to use one force to pin down and block the enemy dispatched from Jianjian Ridge, and then concentrate the first and third regiments of the First Army Division, two battalions of the 25th Regiment, the third detachment of the guerrillas, and the second regiment of the Third Army Division, totaling 6,000 men, to ambush the enemy attacking Yinfang. On the morning of November 3, the first brigade that invaded Yinfang entered the Yansu Cliff Gorge under the bait attack of a small detachment of the Eighth Route Army, and was intercepted by the main force of the Eighth Route Army and surrounded in Yansu Cliff. By 4 p.m., the 1st Brigade had been annihilated, except for a few who had escaped and 13 who had been captured.

As soon as he was promoted to lieutenant general, he lost a brigade on the battlefield, and Abe Norihide was very ashamed and angry, and decided to personally lead more than 1,500 people from the second and fourth brigades to attack along the original route of the first brigade, so as to take the Eighth Route Army by surprise while the Eighth Route Army was still "digesting" the fruits of victory. On the night of November 4, Abe Guixiu led his troops to cross the Baishikou and enter the area of Yansu Cliff, but not even a shadow of the Eighth Route Army and the common people was found.

After Abe Norihide pounced on the air, he was impatient. The reconnaissance detachment of the army finally discovered the main force of the Eighth Route Army in the area of Loess Ridge, and Abe Guixiu, who was eager to fight, ignored the advance of the lone army and rushed straight to the main force of the Eighth Route Army in Loess Ridge along the rugged mountain road. On the morning of November 6, when Abe Norihide's troops broke into the Loess Ridge, the main force of the Eighth Route Army had formed an encirclement in the valley area east of the Loess Ridge. When he was about to enter the encirclement of the Eighth Route Army, seeing the surrounding valley terrain, the cunning Abe Norihide suddenly realized that the Eighth Route Army had lured Reading Force to form the Second Brigade with one unit, and the main force was gathering near the Loess Ridge in an attempt to attack from behind the brigade. In order to get rid of the danger of the Eighth Route Army attacking from "behind" and avoid being annihilated again, in the early morning of 7 July, Abe Norihide urgently made a new deployment and made the decision to continue the eastward march of the troops and return to the base camp through Zhaitou, Coal Toudian, and Futuyu. Abe ordered his subordinate troops to set out from Loess Ridge in batches. When advancing, the vanguard, armed with light and heavy machine guns, first occupied the high ground on both sides of the road, and then covered the slow advance of the brigade. The attempt is to strengthen the mobile response through such mutual interaction.

It was nearly noon, and the vanguard of Abe Guixiu arrived at Zhaituo Village on the east side of the Loess Ridge, but the large army was still dragging on the line of Shangzhuangzi. It was not until about 3 o'clock in the afternoon that the rearguard troops left the Loess Ridge, and a long group of men and horses entered the path in the canyon one after another, stepping into the encirclement of the Eighth Route Army. The Eighth Route Army waited for this group of men and horses to enter the "bag" before tightening the "bag mouth" and "catching turtles in the urn" to carry out a joint attack from the south, north, and west. Under the attack of the Eighth Route Army, the main force of Abe Norihide was quickly compressed into a ravine about 5 miles long and more than 100 meters wide near Shangzhuangzi. After a violent attack, the entire valley was filled with thick smoke. Norihide's troops were beaten to pieces. In order to struggle to get rid of the encirclement, Abe Guixiu immediately reorganized the troops, relying on sophisticated equipment, to attack in the direction of the Eighth Route Army's Zhaituo position, and after being resolutely attacked, he turned around and headed east, in a vain attempt to break through from the Loess Ridge and flee back to Laiyuan. The Third Regiment of the Eighth Route Army held its position and blocked the retreat of the army. At this time, the reinforcements of the Eighth Route Army also arrived at the battlefield, and they joined the battle from the left as the flank of the Third Regiment, so that the encirclement was further closed, and the Yue Army, which was blocked from the rear, could only resist on the spot. At about 16 o'clock, the main force of Abe's Norihide Brigade had suffered more than half of the casualties, and it was in chaos.

On 7 November, Chen Zhengxiang, commander of the First Regiment of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region, found that there were men wearing yellow tweed officer uniforms and carrying combat knives in the distance on the mountain bag who were observing with binoculars, and there was a small courtyard 100 meters away from the mountain bag, where the enemy was constantly entering and leaving. Soldier Li Erxi rushed to the gun position with artillery, measured the range and direction at the fastest speed, and adjusted the gun position. Under an order, Li Erxi popped up with his hand and fired two shots in a row. Impartially, the shells blossomed in the small courtyard. Then, he quickly adjusted the gun position and fired the only two remaining rounds at the hill. As soon as the smoke cleared, Chen Zhengxiang was surprised to find with his telescope that the soldiers in the small courtyard were entering and exiting in a panic, and the troops in Shanbao were also dragging the wounded out in a hurry. Norihide Abe was at the command post at the time, wounding several wounds in his right abdomen and legs from mortar shrapnel. About 3 hours after he was wounded, at 21:50 on November 7, Norihide Abe died of excessive blood loss at the age of 53. After Abe Norihide was killed, the "Chao Said News" even lamented with a column title: "The flower of the famous general withered on the Taihang Mountain." ”

This is real history, but since Han Yunhua pulled up the troops in the Inner Mongolia Military Region, Han Yunhua has not thought about this matter, or he did not expect this to happen. Because he transferred Yang Chengwu, who commanded the front-line battle, to the Inner Mongolia Military Region, it is really hard to say whether the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region, which lost Yang Chengwu, can create this miracle, so Han Yunhua has long forgotten about this matter.

But now it seems that Abe Norihide still hasn't escaped this catastrophe, and Han Yunhua can't help but sigh in his heart: "Damn people really can't live!" ”。 As for whether this time Abe Guixiu was killed in the Loess Cliff as in history, Han Yunhua is not clear, and of course he does not have the energy to take care of the idle affairs of the Jinchaji Military Region. However, Han Yunhua knew that due to the sudden death of Abe Guixiu, the attack of the Yue Army in the Jizhong Military Region and the Beiyue Mountains was completely aborted, and even Abe Guixiu, a self-proclaimed mountain warfare expert, could not escape the fate of death, and others did not dare to compete with the Eighth Route Army in the Taihang Mountains.

Moreover, now that the North China Front Army of the Chinese Army has mobilized all the forces that can be mobilized, Han Yunhua judged that General Binshan Yuan would not be able to muster many troops to clean up the mess in Jizhong and Beiyue for Lieutenant General Abe Guixiu.

In this way, the troops of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region and the Jizhong Military Region can be freed. Although General Binshanyuan's experience will definitely leave a part of his troops to monitor the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region and the Jizhong Military Region, this does not prevent the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region from supporting other battlefields of the Eighth Route Army. If you make a mistake, you will lose the whole game, this is a true portrayal of General Binshanyuan's complicated mood now.

However, despite the erosion of the war situation in Jizhong, General Binshan Yuan still had no intention of withdrawing his troops. In the view of Senior General Binshan Yuan, the reason why Lieutenant General Abe Norihide was defeated so quickly was entirely because Abe Norihide himself was arrogant and underestimated the strength of the Jizhong Military Region and the Jinchaji Military Region. Therefore, as soon as he received the telegram that Abe Guixiu had died in battle, he airdropped a commander to Jizhong to be responsible for the war in Jizhong.

However, Senior General Binshan Mototo did not expect that the loss of Abe Norihide's reading ability mixed into the Second Brigade was completely beyond the new commander, Major General Kimura. Originally, the strength of the five infantry brigades of the second brigade was completely wiped out by the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region, and only one infantry brigade stationed in the base camp of Dingzhou was not hit, plus the sporadic results in other places, the loss of the second brigade mixed with the reading force this time was not small, so the new commander, Major General Kimura, could not sort out the clue for a while, and the entire battle situation in Jizhong was strangely calm.

The reversal of the battle situation in Jizhong is very important to the morale of the units of the Eighth Route Army, just as Han Yunhua said in his evaluation of the first battle in Jizhong after the war: "The Jizhong Military Region has dealt a heavy blow to the second brigade of the Chinese army with a fearless spirit, and killed Lieutenant General Abe Guixiu. Without their sacrifices, perhaps the outcome of this Battle of North China would have been ............"

The troops of the Central Hebei Military Region fought well, and the troops in southern Hebei were also very effective. As Han Yunhua expected, after the 32nd Division, the 35th Division, and the 3rd and 4th Brigades of the Reading Force Mixed Brigade arrived in southern Hebei, they first carried out a devastating attack on the three divisions of Shiyou entrenched in Handan.

At first, Shi Yousan still had illusions, hoping to confront the army for a while, and it would be good to ask the national political axe to run for officials, but this time the army was determined to solve his wall. After the large army arrived in southern Hebei, Lieutenant General Kimura Hyotaro, who served as the commander of the southern route army of the Japanese army, gave Shi You an ultimatum through secret channels.

In an extremely stern tone, Kimura Hyotaro warned Shi Yuzo that the 69th Army had been listed by the Imperial Army as one of the most untrustworthy and hated squadrons, and that if Shi Yusan surrendered to the Imperial Army now, then the conditions that the Imperial Army had promised to Shi Yuzo would still be valid, and the troops under his command would still be retained. But if Shi Yousan still wants to play tricks, then once the war starts, the Imperial Army will not accept the surrender of the 69th Army.

This ultimatum of the Yue Army can be regarded as frightened Shi Yousan, he knows that this time he was really forced to a dead end by the Eighth Route Army, or he will fight to the death with the Yue Army without any hope, and live and die with Handan City. Either you surrender completely, and there is no middle way to go.

But Shi Yousan was not entangled, surrendering himself was something he had always wanted to do, and now it was just a period of time in advance, which was not a big deal for him, so Shi Yousan "simply" summoned his henchmen to conspire, preparing to surrender to the army and immediately join the army to counterattack the Eighth Route Army troops in southern Hebei.

Shi Yousan's secret letter soon arrived on Kimura Hyotaro's desk, although the solution to the 69th Army will definitely not delay Lieutenant General Kimura's time, but Kimura Hyotaro is most lacking now is time, now the whole of North China is fighting, every morning to end a war zone, then the Great Empire can send a large number of troops to support the armies on other battlefields, so for Shi Yousan's acquaintance Lieutenant General Kimura is still very satisfied.

(To be continued)