Chapter 344: Battle of Southern Hebei (4)

Hebei Province has been an important place for soldiers to fight for since ancient times, which is of course inseparable from a series of objective factors such as Hebei's geographical location and natural resources. Hebei Province is located in the north of the Zhanghe River in North China, east of the Bohai Sea around Beijing, west of the Taihang Mountains, north of the Yanshan Mountains, north of the Yanshan Mountains of the Zhangbei Plateau, the rest of the Hebei Plain, with an area of 180,000 square kilometers and a population of 50 million. The highest peak in the province, Xiaowutai Mountain (2,882 meters above sea level), and the plain of 43 is less than 100 meters above sea level. It is adjacent to Tianjin City in the east and close to the Bohai Sea, Shandong and Henan provinces in the southeast and south, Shanxi Province in the west by Taihang Mountain, Chahar Suiyuan in the northwest and north, and Rehe and Liaoning in the northeast.

Hebei has a variety of surface landforms, abundant sunshine, a warm temperate continental monsoon climate, relatively complete water conservancy facilities, is a province with rich agricultural resources, and is also a large province with sufficient strategic materials. Hebei's agricultural development has a history of several thousand years, the planting industry is relatively developed, and it has accumulated rich experience in the development of agricultural resources, and its grain supply covers the entire North China region, including the Beijing-Tianjin region. The output of many major products ranks among the top in the country, and has a pivotal position in North China and even the whole country. Hebei is an important grain and cotton producing area in China. There are 5.559 million hectares of cultivated land, and crops can be harvested twice a year in most areas, but the cultivation system varies greatly from place to place. The sown grain area in the province accounts for more than 80 percent of the total cultivated area, and the main grain crops are: wheat, corn, sorghum, millet, and potatoes. Cotton is the most important cash crop, and the province is an important cotton production base in China. The southern Hebei region that Han Yunhua's department marched into is a famous cotton producing area in Hebei, that is, Xingtai and Handan, known as the "South Hebei Cotton Sea". In addition, oilseeds, hemp, sugar beet, and tobacco are also important, and cotton is the five major cash crops in the province. Animal husbandry is an important agricultural sector in Hebei Province after farming, and Cangzhou is very famous for its beef and mutton. Hebei is also one of the important fishing areas in China, with coastal fisheries as the main and Tangshan as the main center. The province is rich in chestnuts, apricots, persimmons, pears and other fruits. The main coal mines include Kailuan, Jingcheng, Fengfeng and so on, and some of the products are exported abroad.

Because of this, it is also decided that Hebei will definitely become the focus of contention between China and Japan. It is a pity that in this battle, China lost very early. In order to realize the established national policy of annexing North China and then monopolizing China, the Japanese military headquarters and the Kwantung Army took advantage of the Kuomintang's policy of non-resistance to fully implement the separation of North China and turn North China into a "second Manchukuo." However, due to its inadequate preparations, Japan took the form of stepping up its economic plundering of North China's resources and creating a political split with the backing of its military force, instigating the five provinces of North China, namely Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Chahar, and Suiyuan, to launch the so-called "anti-communist autonomy movement" and achieve the goal of occupying North China through the special method of political power in North China. As early as 1935, the Japanese took advantage of the murder of Hu Enpu, director of Guoquan, and Bai Yuhuan, director of Zhenbao, a traitor newspaper in the Japanese Concession in Tianjin, to exert pressure on the Nationalist Government, in a vain attempt to achieve the dream of expelling the forces of the Nationalist Government from North China. Regarding the killing of Hu and Bai, Japan accused the Kuomintang of acting as an anti-Japanese act, and exerted pressure on the Beiping Branch of the Nationalist Government.

At the same time, on May 15, 1935, the Sun Yongqin Division of the Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army operating south of the Rehe River was pursued by the Japanese army and retreated into the "demilitarized zone" south of the Great Wall. Japan accused China of sabotaging the Tanggu Agreement, and Takashi Sakai, chief of staff of the Japanese garrison in Tianjin, lodged representations with the Kuomintang government on 29 May. This is the so-called "Hebei Incident". Japan took advantage of this incident to force the Kuomintang government to accept Japan's various demands under the threat of force. In response to the unreasonable demands of the Japanese army, the Nationalist Government carried out the so-called policy of first securing the interior before seizing the outside world, and all conditions were accepted. …,

However, the Japanese aggressor's policy of invading and occupying China could not be dispelled by a temporary concession, and the repeated concessions and promises of the Kuomintang authorities did not satisfy the Japanese army. In order to extract profits to a greater extent and force the Nationalist Government to back down, the Japanese forced the Nationalist Government to reply in the form of a document so that it could be used as evidence. On June 11, 1935, the Japanese side sent a "memorandum" signed by Umezu Mijiro, commander of the Japanese North China Garrison Army, to the Beiping Military Branch, asking the Chinese side to copy a copy, and He Yingqin signed and sent it to Umezu Mijiro. This is known as the Homy Agreement.

According to a number of provisions of the He-Mei Agreement, the Kuomintang Party headquarters in Hebei and Pingjin were abolished; retreat from the 3rd Regiment of the Northeast Army, the Central Army and the Military Police stationed in Hebei; the removal of the chairman of Hebei Province and the mayors of Pingjin and Tianjin of the Kuomintang; Banning anti-Japanese groups and anti-Japanese activities in Hebei Province, and so on. This agreement effectively gave up sovereignty over North China, and laid an even greater hidden danger for Japan to launch a full-scale war of aggression against China two years later.

At the same time, the Japanese also demanded that the Nationalist Government draw a ceasefire line and recognize the legitimacy of the Japanese occupation. The Central Army, the central government's dispatched agency in North China, withdrew from North China, and the Third Military Police Regiment withdrew from Beiping, prohibiting the Blue Coat Society from operating in the Pingjin area. Punish Jiang Xiaoxian, the head of the third regiment of the gendarmerie, the backbone of the Blue Coat Society, Zheng Jiemin, Zeng Kuanqing, and Yu Lexing. In addition, there are brigade commander Zhao Dengyu and division commander Tong Linge.

In fact, the signing of the "Hemei Agreement" had formally given up the ruling power of Hebei by the Nationalist Government and handed over a large Hebei to the Japanese, and it had created a large number of shameless traitors such as Yin Rugeng. For a time, the whole of Hebei was a miasma, the Japanese were rampant, and the people suffered.

After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the entire Great Hebei was quickly captured by the Japanese army. A large number of cities such as Pingjin, Baoding, Qinhuangdao, Zhengding, Xingtai, and Handan fell into the hands of the enemy. At the same time, the whole of Hebei turned out to be the logistics base of the Japanese army, and almost all the supplies, food, and even weapons and ammunition of the Japanese troops in Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, and Anhui were also transported from Hebei.

If Han Yunhua can break the situation between China and Japan in Hebei this time, then a big game of chess in the entire North China region will be alive. Hebei Province is lost, Pingjin and Shanxi can't take care of each other, plus most of the territory in eastern Hebei has now been occupied by Han Yunhua's department, and even Chengde, a military town in eastern Hebei, is under the control of Han Yunhua's department, so the importance of this battle for Han Yunhua, who has already made certain preparations, is self-evident.

However, the difficulty is also quite comparable, not to mention the huge number of Japanese puppet troops, even defending so many counties and towns is a major burden. Although the Eighth Route Army has developed to a certain extent, it does not yet have the strength to occupy key areas on a large scale. Not to mention the Japanese army, even the Nationalist Government can't pass that pass.

In the past two years, with the development of the Eighth Route Army, the anti-communist wave of the Nationalist Government has also been wave after wave, and it seems to have become a law during the Anti-Japanese War. This time, Han Yunhua also expected that the Nationalist Government would definitely not be resigned to the reluctance, but for the Hebei region, Han Yunhua also knew that such a large piece of territory could not be eaten by the Eighth Route Army, since it could not be eaten, it was better to fight it down as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Nationalist Government, anyway, the fuel in the Inner Mongolia Military Region was already running out, and the Nationalist Government had already used more than half of what it had provided before.

Having figured this out, the final order for the Great War was issued. The first to suffer was the Dewang Department of Xilin Gol, since being driven out of Guisui by Han Yunhua's Department, the Dewang Department has been staying in his hometown Xilin Gol. However, due to the blows of Han Yunhua's troops, King De has become a lot more well-behaved, and his contacts with the Japanese army are not as frequent as before.

If you think about it, there is no way to turn to the Japanese. There is no need to say the reason, now the master of the Japanese is deflated in the hands of Han Yunhua, and even the holy city that he has managed to get his hands on has been lost, which makes King De very dissatisfied. Dissatisfaction was on the one hand with the troops under Li Shouxin, and on the other hand against the Japanese. …,

After such a toss by Han Yunhua's department, King De's psychology has undergone a huge change, and it turns out that the Japanese are not invincible. Therefore, although King Tokuda has been in contact with the Japanese for so long, the relationship between the two sides has faded a lot. The Japanese are also powerless about this, and they have not thought about "substitution" and replacing Li Shouxin with their spokesperson in the Saibei grassland, but in the end they still did not implement the "substitution" plan. On the one hand, it is because King De still has a certain prestige in the hearts of the Mongolian people, which is not something that Li Shouxin can replace. At the same time, King De's own strength is also very important, and the tens of thousands of elite cavalry in his hands are still very deterrent.

At present, the war in the south is tight, and the situation in the north is also changing, and a bad one is likely to push King De to Han Yunhua's department, which is certainly not what the Japanese army wants to see. In order to be safe, the Japanese army still made contact with King De and sent a large amount of aid to King De. But even so, King De is much more careful this time than before, glory and wealth are important, but it must also have a life to enjoy. I don't know if the killing god will suddenly come down one day, just like the last time, he was shouted in his sleep, if it weren't for Li Shouxin's conscience and didn't ignore him, otherwise it's really hard to say what kind of survival state he will be in now.

Of course, King De's "performance" Han Yunhua also saw it, but while the iron was hot, since King De had the intention of repenting, then Han Yunhua didn't mind giving him a little more pressure. This time to attack Xilin Gol, Han Yunhua's intention was very clear, he wanted to clear out all the Japanese forces in the Saibei grassland. But it is unrealistic to let Han Yunhua's troops send a large army to garrison the Xilin Gol grassland, so in the end, the grassland still needs a real Mongol to manage, as long as the king of De is still neat, then Han Yunhua does not mind handing over Xilin Gol to him to manage ......,