In August of the 30th year of the Republic of China, Prime Minister Hideki Tojo sent a top-secret telegram to the commander-in-chief of the Northern Group of the Chinese invasion army, which roughly agreed to the proposal of Okamura Ninji and Ishihara Wanji to abandon North China, but it was by no means an easy abandonment.

In his telegram, Hideki Tojo instructed Okamura Ninji to concentrate enough forces to deal a heavy blow to the Central [***] team in the Beiping or Tianjin area, and then wait for an opportunity to abandon North China and retreat to the Northeast.

The commander of the Japanese army, Okabe Naosaburo, who was in Baoding, also received a telegram from the local base camp, which was personally signed to him by Ishihara Waner, the deputy chief of staff of the base camp.

The message was to the effect that Okabe Naosaburo led the Baoding army to immediately abandon the city and go north, obey the command of Okamura Ninji, and prepare for the Battle of Beiping.

Baoding, said to be in the army headquarters.

After reading the telegram, Naosaburo Okabe said to the staff officer beside him with a gloomy expression: "Inform all infantry wings to prepare to retreat overnight!" ”

"Hay!" The staff officer bowed his head sharply, and then quickly turned and left.

………… In Cangzhou, after several days of intense repair by the engineers of the 42nd Group Army, most of the houses were able to live temporarily, and the people would no longer sleep on the streets. At the same time, the units of the 1st Division also stopped the pursuit of the Yue army and gathered in Qingxian one after another.

Inside the headquarters of the 42nd Army.

Zhang Mingyu, Liu Cheng and Lai San were studying the next move around the map, and Zhang Mingyu's next move was naturally to march into Pingjin.

After more than a year of development, the production capacity of the arsenal has doubled, and now it has produced more than 500 fighters, bombers, and transport planes, and together with the standard fighters held by the former Flying Eagle Division, the 42 nd Group Army now has nearly 1,000 planes of various types, including more than 700 fighters, 200 bombers, and more than 100 transport planes.

Moreover, the arsenal and aircraft factories are still working overtime to produce.

In terms of armor, at this time, the 42nd Group Army had more than 400 Tiger tank fighting vehicles, more than 300 Tiger armored vehicles, and more than 3,000 trucks.

In terms of artillery, due to the birth of rocket artillery, the 42nd Group Army has made a qualitative leap in artillery; except for some small-caliber artillery, each division, regiment, and even each battalion is fully equipped, and each division has a rocket artillery battalion with 15 to 20 new rocket launchers. At the moment only the 1st and 3rd divisions of rocket artillery, as well as the guard battalion, have a company. The 2nd and 4th Divisions are not equipped for the time being.

Grenadier canisters and small-calibre mortars have been distributed to the companies, and each infantry company has a platoon of artillery and a platoon of machine guns.

In addition, each squad also has a mortar and grenadier group, and a squad machine gun (a Czech modification!). It can be fed with a two-hundred-round metal chain, and the feeding method has been changed to the flanks, and the sights have been changed to the top. As for the fact that it is impossible for the ** Sand submachine gun to be fully equipped with the whole division, Zhang Mingyu plans to equip each division with one or two ** Sand submachine gun regiments to ensure that this division has a strong enough short-range assault capability.

However, because the **sha has just been put into production not long ago, for the time being, in addition to the guard regiment, only one division, one brigade and one regiment are equipped with this powerful new weapon.

At this time, although the 42nd Group Army had not changed much in terms of strength, it had already made a qualitative leap in all kinds of advanced equipment, especially the air force, artillery, and armored units, and it definitely had the strength to attack the Beiping Army, which had been defeated again and again.

Just as Zhang Mingyu was about to announce the dismissal of the meeting, Ling Tianbao, the commander of the Second Division, strode in, came to Zhang Mingyu, and said with a smile: "General seat, seat!" The 2nd Division was ordered to arrive! ”

"Sky Leopard, it's been hard all the way!" Zhang Mingyu patted Ling Tianbao's shoulder and smiled: "The Battle of Texas, your second division fought really hard, did you suffer many casualties?" ”

"There are not many brothers who have died, but many of them have been disabled for life because of war wounds." Speaking of this, Ling Tian Leopard's eyes revealed a trace of gloom and sadness.

"Don't worry! I'll make good arrangements for those disabled brethren! Zhang Mingyu patted Ling Tianbao's shoulder and said.

"Hmm!" Ling Tianbao nodded gloomily, and immediately said to Zhang Mingyu: "General seat, when am I going to fight Beiping?" ”

"This will have to be carried out for a while, and only after the second batch of weapons and equipment produced by the arsenal is in place can it be concretely implemented, and during this period, the personnel of the security department will conduct reconnaissance in Beiping, mainly to reconnoiter the military deployment of the army and the firepower of various important positions." Zhang Mingyu said.

"By the way, Boss, when I fought Texas this time, I captured more than 3,000 puppet soldiers, what do you think of them?" Ling Tianbao suddenly remembered something.

"You can keep those puppet troops, and select strong and reliable people from them to replenish the troops, and the rest depends on the situation. It's time to kill! It's time to put it away! Zhang Mingyu waved his hand.

"Yes!" Ling Tianbao snapped to the ground, and then turned around to leave, when Zhang Mingyu suddenly stopped him and said, "Wait, this time the arsenal has transferred a batch of equipment from the increased production of equipment to your division, including five hundred **sha submachine guns, and twenty Tiger armored vehicles and tanks." ”

When Ling Tianbao heard this, he was overjoyed, five hundred submachine guns can equip an entire battalion of A type, and twenty tanks and armored vehicles are enough to equip a battalion. With this batch of equipment, the combat effectiveness of the Second Division will be greatly improved! Can he not be happy.

Ling Tianbao was overjoyed and said, "Thank you, Junza!" He should lead all the second brothers to fight bravely to kill the enemy! ”

After seeing Ling Tianbao leave, Chief of Staff Liu Cheng asked, "General Seat, if you give this batch of equipment to the Second Division, will the Third Division and the Fourth Division also give a batch?" ”

"No, you don't! The Second Division suffered quite a lot of casualties in this attack on Texas, and it was also possible to give them some new equipment so that the brothers would be happy and their morale would be boosted. As for the tanks and armored vehicles that can no longer be dispersed, I will expand the armored division into six regiments and eighteen battalions, and ** Sha this time only has 1,500 units, minus 500 for the 2nd division, and the remaining 1,000 will continue to equip the first brigade. As for the third and fourth divisions, it is only possible to take their time, and if conditions allow, each division will have one or two tank regiments, and more than two regiments will be armed with ** sand submachine guns. Zhang Mingyu waved his hand.

(To be continued)