Don't look at the Japanese during this period of military might, almost occupied most of China, the entire south of the Yangtze River controlled by the Chinese except for Tibet and Yunnan provinces, the rest have become Japanese territory - but in fact, the situation of the Japanese is also not optimistic, just when the Japanese army is actively attacking China, the entire Southeast Asian battlefield has also undergone a major turn, in the Mariana Islands landing operations that lasted three months, the US army successively captured Saipan, Guam and Tinian Island, It basically wiped out about 70,000 garrisons on the three islands, resulting in a serious deterioration of the Japanese army's strategic defense posture in the Pacific Ocean, and the "absolute defense circle" stipulated by the base camp faced collapse due to the loss of the core area.

At the same time, the Japanese mainland will be subjected to direct air strikes by U.S. B-29 bombers taking off from the Mariana Islands, and the U.S. military will be given a forward base from which to continue its advance in the Central Pacific. The fall of the Mariana Islands greatly shook Japan, exacerbated the internal contradictions of its ruling class, and raised distrust and antipathy towards the Japanese cabinet that started the war.

During this period of time, a huge number of strategic bombers from China and the United States took off from air bases in northeastern China and on the islands in Southeast Asia to bomb the Japanese mainland without stopping, with the result that the Japanese mainland was full of traces of war burning, and this kind of strategic bombing has continued for more than five months, and Japan's major cities have been devastated, except for Kyoto and Nara, which are slightly better.

In recent times, millions of Japanese urban dwellers have fled to the countryside, and factory workers have seen their highest absenteeism since 1919. Due to the huge consumption of the war, and Japan lost the supply of huge war resources in Northeast China, Japan's wartime economy has reached the point of exhaustion - the production of oil refining industry has fallen by 83%; Aircraft engine production fell by 75%; Airframe production fell by 60%; the production of electronic equipment fell by 70%; More than 600 major military factories were either blown up or severely damaged

This is only an economic crisis, militarily the Japanese in Southeast Asia has also encountered a huge threat, in the Burma battlefield, the Japanese base camp with the command of "Mainland Finger No. 1776", issued the Imphal battle plan codenamed "U", trying to recover the lost Myitkyina and other strategic points on the Burma battlefield, and then occupy LinkedIn Pal and Kohima and other important places, control the entire East Indies. The 15th Army of the Burmese Front was assigned the offensive mission, commanded by Lieutenant General Mutaguchi Ryoya, known as the "Little Tojo", and had the 15th, 31st, 33rd, 89th, 167th, 186th, and 188th divisions. Due to poor logistics, the Japanese offensive was a complete failure, with about 180,000 people at the beginning of the offensive, but more than 83,000 were killed or missing in the battle, and more than 20,000 were wounded, and the Japanese army was defeated and returned to the original starting point of the attack. The 15th Army, which was the main force of the Japanese Burma Front, no longer had the combat effectiveness of a campaign corps. It was only a matter of time before the Allies regained the entire Indo-Burma battlefield, and the entire Indochina Peninsula turned to a strategic counteroffensive.

In addition, after learning that Chiang Kai-shek, the supreme leader of China, had been strategically bombed to death by the Japanese Army Aviation Regiment, the officers and men of the Chinese Expeditionary Force were overwhelmed with grief and indignation, and under the command of General Du Yanming and General Sun Liren, they launched 13 successive attacks on the Japanese army on the Burma battlefield, pushing the Japanese army's front more than 120 kilometers southward, and the flames of war had burned to the vicinity of Yangon.

MacArthur proposed to attack the Philippines first and then Okinawa, while Nimitz proposed to attack Taiwan first and land on China's eastern coast. From a military point of view, Nimitz's proposal was more reasonable. MacArthur, however, put forward a political reason: bypassing the Philippines would be tantamount to acknowledging the rumors spread by Japan that the United States had abandoned the Philippines and was unwilling to sacrifice the lives of American soldiers to save the Filipino people, which would be extremely detrimental to the prestige and influence of the United States in the Far East. and persuaded President Roosevelt to carry out the Philippine campaign. …,

When the U.S. Army launched the Philippine Campaign, the war in China was also becoming increasingly intense, and about 400,000 elite Japanese troops were gathered in the Xuzhou area in an attempt to fight a strategic decisive battle with Han Yunhua near Xuzhou.

In the middle of November 1943, the five field armies of the Third Group Army of the Northeast Front Army advanced rapidly to the south with the support of 400 tanks, 850 artillery pieces and a large number of aircraft, and after the capture of Lincheng, Zaozhuang and Hanzhuang, despite the resistance of the Japanese 25th Division and the 107th Division, the lone army went deep, and after defeating the resistance of more than 60,000 Japanese divisions and regiments of the Japanese army on the front line of Mufu Mountain, they went straight to Taierzhuang to break through, It is hoped that Xuzhou will be captured in one fell swoop.

And Okamura Ninji was not to be outdone, urgently transferred 650 fighters from central China to reinforce the Xuzhou battlefield, and also urgently transferred 300 tanks and a large number of weapons and ammunition, in order to ensure the supply of the front line, Okamura Ninji set up a material storage base in Anqing, Anhui Province, and sent heavy troops to guard it.

Okamura Ningji's strategic intention is not difficult to understand, it is very simple to say, it is completely a copy of what Han Yunhua used before, that is, regardless of the gains and losses of a city and a place, try to kill and injure the enemy's living forces, so although the Japanese army has set up a large number of blocking positions along the Xuzhou line, but the resistance of each position is not extremely resolute, and the Japanese army retreats every time it hits a critical point, but every time it will cause huge casualties to Yang Chengwu's department, since the Battle of Xuzhou, although the Japanese army has lost a lot of counties and cities, However, in terms of the price paid, Yang Chengwu's troops were still more miserable, with more than 17,000 casualties alone, including more than 8,600 killed in battle.

What is the idea of Okamura Ningji Han Yunhua knew very well, he did not let it go, nor did he order Yang Chengwu's troops to give up the attack, but ordered Yang Chengwu to increase the intensity and speed of the attack, because he wanted to play a game for the little devil that he had never seen before. Like the first Battle of Xuzhou, Taierzhuang is still a strategic place, in view of the experience of the defeat of the Japanese army in the first Battle of Xuzhou, Okamura Ningji suddenly placed 3 infantry divisions in Taierzhuang and its vicinity, and also built Taierzhuang into a strong military fortress, all of which are reinforced concrete military fortifications, as long as the squadron dares to come, Okamura Ningji believes that Taierzhuang will become a meat grinder for the squadron.

Han Yunhua already knew about the changes in Taierzhuang, but in order to attract the attention of the Japanese army, Han Yunhua still ordered the troops to continue to march towards Taierzhuang, but the speed decreased slightly. At the same time, Han Yunhua was busy testing his new tactics in Zhangjiakou, although this tactic is said to be a new tactic, but it is not new in Han Yunhua's era, and this new tactic has a lot to do with the Americans, and this tactic was actually invented by the Americans. In the enemy positions fortified at various levels, the attacking troops went beyond the front line and went straight into the hinterland to seize one central point after another, and this was the central theory of the new tactics that Han Yunhua said. The "frog jump tactic" is a new tactic that jumps out of linear thinking, and this tactic was first born in the Pacific theater at the end of World War II. During the thousands of years when the land battlefield was dominant, the confrontation between the two sides of the war was a clear contest between the "Chu River" and the "Han Boundary". Whether it is to conquer a city or to destroy a city, there is always a clear front in the thinking of the commander. Both sides of the war are based on their own camps and advance one after another, and use troops according to law.

But such tactics often put both sides in a tug-of-war, forcing both sides to engage in a war of attrition. After World War II entered the counteroffensive stage, the Pacific theater fell into such a tug-of-war: the allied forces led by the United States began to counterattack, and the Japanese army resisted stubbornly. The South Pacific Ocean is dotted with islands, and the two sides are fighting for each island, and the war is extremely difficult. In order to speed up the course of the war, a bold idea was born in the minds of two famous generals of the US military, MacArthur and Nimitz: abandon the traditional practice of pushing flat on the front line, jump forward, and attack across the island. Under their command, the Allied forces in the Pacific Theater advanced in two directions, taking advantage of their naval superiority, avoiding the Japanese army's first-line defense points, attacking the weakly defended islands in their strategic depth, and then continuing to attack with this as support after they succeeded, thus greatly speeding up the course of the war, and breaking through the inner defensive circle of the Japanese army in just over half a year....

This tactic was successful in the Southeast Asian battlefield, but now that it was moved to land by Han Yunhua, it may not be successful, so Han Yunhua is also worried about whether he can jump this frog jump. The Americans' "leapfrogging" tactic uses the navy as a "jump aid" and is mainly used in landing operations. However, Han Yunhua knew that after World War II, with the improvement of air transport capabilities, the "leapfrog" tactic gradually became the main theory of the US military's airborne operations. The 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada, which shocked the world, was a typical "leapfrog" parachute operation. The US commanders abandoned the traditional tactics of rushing to the beach and landed on the beach, and directly relied on airborne troops to cross the Georgian army's defensive positions and seize the airfield. The airborne troops parachuted at an ultra-low altitude of 150 meters, the ship did not moor the shore, and the soldiers did not wet their boots, and they disarmed the Georgian army in just four days.

China does not have a strong navy, so Han Yunhua's test of this new tactic is to use the air force as a jumper, but China's air force is not very strong, although it can barely protect the vast majority of its own airspace, but in terms of transportation capacity, it is still far away, so Han Yunhua has to ask the United States and the Soviet Union for help.

Hearing that Han Yunhua was going to carry out a large-scale counterattack again, the United States and the Soviet Union were also extremely excited, and when the US military campaign against the Philippines was about to start, the Americans desperately hoped that the Chinese would contain the Japanese troops, so Han Yunhua's request was quickly answered, and the United States was willing to transfer 899 large transport planes of the air transport corps that originally transported war materials for China to Guisui to participate in the war, and the Soviet Union also promised to send 300 transport planes to help Han Yunhua's troops.

Han Yunhua carefully calculated that the transportation capacity of the air transport troops of the United States and the Soviet Union, plus the 300 transport planes of the joint air force, each transport plane can transport 30 soldiers with loaded guns and ammunition at a time, and it can transport the strength of a field army at one time, while it takes up to 2 hours to travel to and from Anhui in Guisui and Beijing-Tianjin, and 3 times in one night, that is to say, as long as Han Yunhua is hard-hearted, regardless of the casualties of the troops, In one night, Han Yunhua could put about 150,000 troops into the predetermined area.

On the one hand, Han Yunhua used Yang Chengwu's headquarters to contain the main force of the Japanese army in front, and on the other hand, he sent transport planes to drop the troops directly into the Anqing area, and then captured the logistics base of the Japanese army by surprise, and then the two armies attacked the North China Front Army in the north and south, forcing the North China Front Army to surrender or be completely annihilated.

However, there is another very important problem here, that is, the vast majority of Chinese soldiers are peasant troops, and not many have participated in regular military training, and there is no one else who has participated in parachute training except for more than 16,000 soldiers from the two paratrooper brigades of the former Inner Mongolia Military Region, so at least 150,000 people must be parachuted before the plan is implemented.

The training of 150,000 people is not a small project, although there are a large number of planes to help train, but the 150,000 people can not complete a round of skydiving training in a week. In order to complete this assault mission, Han Yunhua selected a full 200,000 elites from the eight group armies of the former Inner Mongolia Military Region to participate in the training, and the first three days of basic training, although it was a bit harsh, but after three days of training, 160,000 soldiers suitable for parachuting were finally selected, and the remaining 40,000 were eliminated due to physical reasons.

But how many of the 160,000 selected can complete the training mission and become the most basic paratrooper is really unknown. The fourth day is the actual boarding training, and Han Yunhua is also uncertain, and more importantly, the boarding training is often accompanied by casualties. It is impossible without casualties, Han Yunhua just hopes that the casualties will be smaller.

Sure enough, there were a large number of casualties on the first day of training, 87 soldiers forgot to open their umbrella bags at the moment of jumping down due to nervousness and other reasons, and finally fell into meat cakes, and more than 1,000 soldiers were injured because of the wrong posture of landing on the ground or the special place where they landed, most of them sprained their feet, and some broke their bones. …,

There were more than 1,000 casualties on the first day, the probability of this casualty was really high, Han Yunhua himself was a little skeptical that this plan would not succeed, fortunately, the number of death soldiers was not beyond Han Yunhua's tolerance, so Han Yunhua hardened his heart and ordered the troops to continue training.

On November 26, a week's training was finally completed, and only more than 152,000 of the 160,000 soldiers who participated in the level training were finally qualified, and nearly 9,000 people were eliminated, of which 569 were killed and more than 8,000 were injured.

On the night of the 27th, under the order of Han Yunhua, 1,567 transport planes, protected by 150 fighters, took off simultaneously from 14 airfields, including Baoding, Zhangjiakou, Beiping, and Tianjin, and rushed to the Anqing area.

At one o'clock in the morning, although the pilot's vision was greatly restricted, under the instructions of the night pilot, the group finally arrived at the designated place and successfully completed the airdrop mission. Throughout the night, continuous airdrops, all 150,000 paratroopers were finally transported to Anqing.

At a quarter past six in the morning, Wang Jian, the general person in charge of the operation, reported to Han Yunhua that 152213 had completed the assembly, but 296 people were injured, and another 2,377 people had not returned.

Han Yunhua ordered Wang Jian not to look for those missing soldiers, they may have been thrown in the wrong place, so they did not contact the large army, and now his paratrooper group immediately launched an attack on the Japanese puppet stronghold within the scope of Anqing, and the most important thing is to take the Japanese army's logistics base in one fell swoop, otherwise his army will be dangerous, because they only have 200 rounds of ammunition and a day's dry food per person in this operation, if the battle is deadlocked, then their army will fall into a miserable situation of running out of ammunition and food and being helpless.

The Japanese army did not expect that the squadron would have such a strong transport capacity, so when the troops below reported to Lieutenant General Abeichiro, commander of the Anqing garrison, that there was a strange sound of aircraft flying in the defense area, Lieutenant General Abe ignored it, because the night bombing had almost no effect, especially after the implementation of light control in the whole city, no matter how many bombers came, it was still unknown whether they could find the bombing target, and as for the accuracy rate, there was no guarantee.

But soon Lieutenant General Abe found out that something was wrong, because the place where the Chinese paratroopers landed was 20 kilometers northeast of Anqing City, so soon the squadron appeared outside Anqing City, and quickly occupied the Anqing city fortifications, and tens of thousands of squadrons quickly marched towards the city.

The sudden attack caught the Japanese army by surprise, and the vast majority of the Japanese army had just woken up, and they became unjustly killed in a daze. At 7 o'clock in the morning, the Anqing railway station was occupied, hundreds of large warehouses became the trophies of Wang Jian's headquarters, and about 3,000 Japanese troops were surrounded near an old building, in a dilemma.

At the same time as the main force attacked Anqing, Wang Jian sent his troops as field divisions to attack Tongcheng, Chizhou and other places, hoping to cut off the rear route of the Japanese army.

The news of the fall of Anqing was quickly sent to the front line in Xuzhou, especially the news that a large number of squadrons appeared in the rear completely made Okamura Ningji petrified, and no one knew the importance of Anqing better than him. You must know that the life and death of these hundreds of thousands of imperial troops on the front line are closely related to that small city of China. Without the rear base of Anqing, hundreds of thousands of troops eat and drink, and they can eat and drink, but they generally need weapons and ammunition to fight a war, although there is still a batch of ammunition in stock in the hands of the troops, how can it support for how long, 3 days or 5 days, and what should the troops do after these 3 or 5 days.