After the little devils captured Lianyungang, the 15th Division and the 17th Division also quickly moved south to join Tada Jun.

After the five divisions converged, the ashamed Tada Jun couldn't hold back any longer, and commanded the troops to start attacking Xuzhou. Of course, what was waiting for him along the way was not what flowers and wine, but the small units of the Eighth Route Army kept ambushing, blocking and harassing.

Fearing that the Eighth Route Army would set up an ambush between Lianyungang and Xuzhou, Tada Jun held five divisions together and slowly attacked Xuzhou under the cover of aircraft.

What the army did not expect was that when the heavy army group commanded by Lieutenant General Tsugashi Wang of Dongjuer Palace and the heavy army group commanded by Tada Jun on the northern front of the Yue army arrived near Xuzhou, the Eighth Route Army besieging Xuzhou overnight disappeared without a trace as if the world had evaporated.

At this time, Nishio Shouzo, Higashijueriyaki King Tsugahiko, and Tada Jun gathered in Xuzhou, although the three old devils realized the meeting, but they did not have the slightest joy, because they concentrated all their strength and swung their fists, but the opponent in front of them suddenly disappeared, and they just wanted to vomit blood.

Needless to say, Nishio Shouzao has defended Xuzhou, and he can finally make a deal, and there is basically nothing to do with him. However, he was a little unwilling, and flew in a hurry from Yuben, in order to command the troops to defend Xuzhou and fight with Liu Yimin's tutor, so that the people of Dayueben would know that he was also a famous general of the imperial army and a pillar of the empire, but not only Shouichi Terauchi and Shunroku Hata were the backbone of the army. As a result, Liu Yimin didn't cooperate at all, didn't even look at Xuzhou, played a golden cicada shell, and played the imperial army like a monkey, making him work in vain. This Liu Yimin soldier is not, he can only beat stuffy sticks and dig traps, it's too hateful!

Needless to say, the troops under his command are all troops of the Central China Front, this battlefield is in the Soviet Union, and the troops will naturally be returned to the system, and Shunroku Hata has begun to give orders directly to the divisions, and Tada Jun has to prepare to return to his book to be his deputy chief of staff. However, like Nishio Shouzo, Tada Jun is also very unwilling. He came to North China as the deputy chief of staff to supervise the war, and the result was the same as Terauchi Shouichi, and he was entrusted with the important task of commanding the southern front group to fight. But after fighting back and forth, he didn't even feel the shadow of the main force of the Eighth Route Army, let alone eliminate a regiment, a battalion, or a company of the Eighth Route Army in an organized manner. It's a shame to say this, those who know say that the Eighth Route Army is too cunning, and those who don't know say that he is very incompetent!

Tada Jun couldn't figure out why the Eighth Route Army was more slippery than loaches! Obviously, hundreds of thousands of troops have woven a big net, and they can see that they can be divided and wiped out, but the result is that the main force of the Eighth Route Army slipped out.

After thinking about it, Tada Jun felt that it was better for him not to expand the scale of aggression, as long as he could force Chiang Kai-shek to surrender or recognize the vested interests of the empire. The more ruthlessly the war against China is fought, the weaker the preparations for war against the Soviet Union, and the gains outweigh the losses.

But on second thought, since the beginning of the war, although the imperial army has captured a large part of China, it has also suffered heavy losses. Especially the instructor of the Eighth Route Army in front of him is simply the nemesis of the Imperial Army, and the Imperial Army has become a laughing stock in one battle and one defeat in another. If this continues, it will be very difficult to keep the territory that is currently occupied, not to mention the expansion of aggression.

Tada Jun can also be regarded as a senior general with strategic vision within the army, and when he went down from Jiaodongnan, he was also full of ambition, hoping to annihilate the main force of the instructor in one fell swoop and completely solve the hidden dangers in the occupied areas of North China. Because in his mind, it is impossible for Liu Yimin not to attack Xuzhou, everyone knows that the heavy army group is far away in Jiaodong, and the whip is beyond the reach of the whip, since Liu Yimin can eliminate the Eighth Division and the Tenth Division in one battle, then he should not look at the 10th and 6th Divisions guarding Xuzhou. As long as Liu Yimin storms Xuzhou, it will be easy to do, and under the siege of heavy troops, he is a mythical Sun Monkey who can't escape the palm of the Buddha. In this way, he can become famous in one fight, and maybe he will no longer have to suffer the anger of Prince Zaihito of the Idle Palace. It's a pity that Liu Yimin actually played this hand, making him useless as a hero. Seeing that the military power was about to be handed over, his ambition was trampled to pieces like the ruined city wall of Xuzhou, and Tada's thin face turned the color of a pig's kidney.

King Tsukihiko of Higashijur Palace was also very depressed, since he succeeded Nishio Shouzo as the commander of the Second Army, he had not reported good news to the base camp once, although the emperor and the chief of the general staff did not say anything, but he knew that he could not always be like this without achievements, and if he continued like this, I am afraid that the title of unlucky and incompetent would also fall on his head. You have to think about it carefully to see how you can catch up with Liu Yimin's main force and annihilate it in one fell swoop.

Although the three old devils have their own thoughts, they have one thing in common, that is, there is a deep sense of frustration. Therefore, after the meeting in Xuzhou, the three old devils strictly ordered all troops to search everywhere after a brief meeting, and ordered the planes to expand the scope of investigation, hoping to find out the whereabouts of the main force of the Eighth Route Army.

That's not all, in order to boost morale, but also to give themselves a long face, the three old devils held a press conference in Xuzhou.

This news conference was very strange, because none of the three old devils were commanders of the North China Front or the Central China Front, and they had no right to announce the major results of the public security war on behalf of the front army. In addition, Tada Jun and Nishio Shouzo do not have the arrogance of Terauchi Shouichi, only the old playboy of the East Gyur Palace, King Tsugihiko, still pretends to be decent, and talks about the imperial army's pacification of Shandong at the meeting, and the Jiaodong troops of the Eighth Route Army are trapped in the mountains, or it will not be long before they run out of ammunition and food; Liu Yimin fled in embarrassment under the blow of the heavy army group of the imperial army.

At the press conference, King Tsuyan of Dongjiuer Palace also ridiculed Liu Yimin, saying that Liu Yimin was known as the invincible god of war, and swore in the telegram that he would defend Lianyungang Port and capture Xuzhou, but he fled without firing a shot. It can be seen that Liu Yimin is also a shameless person who can only talk big, empty words, and like to loot. He just took advantage of the loopholes of the imperial army and went to Lianyungang to steal the materials of the imperial army. The real battle between the two armies, the real fight with swords and guns, Liu Yimin is definitely not the opponent of the imperial army.

Maybe Lieutenant General Dongjuer Palace Tsugiyan Wang said that he was excited and slipped his mouth, or maybe the silver evil in his heart was doing trouble, and he repeated the eight charges he announced to Liu Yimin at the Jinan press conference, and even drooled from the corners of his mouth and stared at his eyes in a daze, and read a few paragraphs of the disgusting novel against Liu Yimin compiled by Wang Kemin and others in public, and finally reiterated that the six charges pronounced by the Jinan Military Law Conference on Liu Yimin were indeed full of facts, the evidence was conclusive, and the sentencing was accurate.

King Tsugihiko of the Dongjuer Palace didn't know that his nonsense was not far from his death. Liu Yimin was originally in a state of concealment and standby, and the radio was basically silent, not knowing that the devil Han Jian was so bad for him. The headquarters of the Eighth Route Army did not tell him out of consideration not to affect his command of the operation. The underground parties in various places have made every effort to confiscate and destroy the novels concocted by Wang Kemin and others, and it is estimated that few people will tell Liu Yimin about this matter in the future. Originally, this matter was likely to pass, but now the mouth of the king of the East Gyuer Palace is foaming at the mouth, and the old thing is brought up again, and Liu Yimin, who has won the big victory, is staring at the movements of the devil with big eyes, and will soon know the nonsense of the king of the East Gyuer Palace. King Tsugihiko of the Higashijur Palace is sowing trouble for himself, I'm afraid that death is quietly coming to him!

King Tsugahiko of Higashijuer, who was too addicted, received a telegram from the base camp when he returned to the headquarters, ordering Tada Jun and Nishio Shouzo to return to the base camp, asking him to obey the orders of Shunroku Hata and command the troops to pursue the main force of Liu Yiminjiao.

King Twist Yan of Dongjuer Palace soon found the traces of the Eighth Route Army, and the news of Liu Yimin's presence in Huai'an spread to Xuzhou like a wind. Coupled with the comprehensive aircraft reconnaissance and the intelligence of the devils and Han annihilation in various places, Hata Junroku and King Dongjuer Palace Tsugahiko quickly determined that the reason why Liu Yimin did not storm Xuzhou was because he saw that the imperial army did not have the main force in the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union was extremely empty.

At this moment, the little devil became excited again, not to mention Shunroku Hata and King Tsugahiko of Higashijuer, the division commanders were screaming, as if as long as they pounced, they could destroy the main force of the instructor.

Now that we have found the whereabouts of the main force of the Eighth Route Army Instructor, this battle will be very big.

At this time, in view of the fact that the war situation in Shandong, central Hebei, and southern Hebei was stabilizing, the old devils in the army base camp had expanded their ambitions again, and dreamed of annihilating the main force of the instructor in one fell swoop, and pursued the victory to launch the Battle of Wuhan.

In view of this consideration, the base camp decided to adjust the order of troops, transfer the Second Army to the Central China Dispatch Army, and adjust the subordinate units to the Third Division, the Thirteenth Division, and the Sixteenth Division. At the same time, the base camp decided to set up the Third Army and the Fourth Army in the Kwantung Army and organize the Eleventh Army in Central China. Among them, the 11th Army was commanded by Lieutenant General Okamura Ninji, commander of the 2nd Division, with Major General Yoshimoto Sadachi as chief of staff, and was under the jurisdiction of the 6th Division, the 9th Division, the 27th Division, the 101st Division, the 106th Division, and the Hatada Detachment.

In this way, there was another internal adjustment within the army, and Hata Shunroku ordered the 15th and 17th Divisions and the 116th Division, which had been replenished by the Central China Front, to quickly move south by ship to strengthen the Jiangbei defense line, and ordered Lieutenant General Dongjuergong Tsukihiko Wang and Lieutenant General Okamura Ningji to command the troops of the Second Army and the 11th Army on the front line of Xuzhou to quickly sweep from north to south, sweep northern Jiangsu and central Jiangsu, and pursue and annihilate the main force of the instructor.

The defense of the Xuzhou front line was reassigned to the North China Front. In accordance with the order of the base camp, the 14th Division returned to eastern Henan, commanded the 39th Division and the 38th Division in southwestern Shandong, quickly stabilized the situation in eastern Henan, and made preparations for the capture of Kaifeng and Zhengzhou. The 114th Division and the 5th Brigade of the Reading Force Mixed Brigade arrived at the line from Xuzhou to Lianyungang and assumed the garrison task of the eastern section of the Longhai Road. The Fifth Division commanded the newly established Xuzhou garrison to garrison Xuzhou and undertook the tasks of supporting operations on the southern front and supporting operations in eastern Henan.

The order of the base camp delayed the army on the front line of Xuzhou for a while. Central China Dispatch Army Commander Shunroku Hatata, Chief of Staff of the North China Front Army Naosaburo Okabe, and the new commander of the 11th Army Okamura Ninji flew to Xuzhou to hold a meeting with Nishio Toshizo, Tada Jun, and Higashikuernomiya Tsukihiko to discuss specific operational arrangements.

This Shunroku Hata is 59 years old this year, and if he takes off his military uniform, he is purely a shriveled and thin old man, and outsiders would never have imagined that this is a butcher who kills people without blinking. But it was this shriveled and thin old man, with crazy power in his body, who had always dreamed of a full occupation of China.

Shunroku Hatata, Shouzo Nishio, Jun Tada, King Tsukihiko of Higashikueriya, Naosaburo Okabe, Ninji Okamura, six demons gathered together, what good thing can be?

Sure enough, after meeting with Nishio Shouzo, Tada Jun, Higashijueriyaki Tsukihiko, and Okabe Naosaburo, Shunroku Hata threw out a bombshell and captured Wuhan in one fell swoop under the cover of pursuing the main force of the instructor.

Hahata Shunroku's idea was this: Since the situation in central and southern Hebei was stable, the army could allocate a large number of troops for offensive operations. At present, the war on the Shandong side has also stabilized, and the Jiaodong Eighth Route Army has become a turtle in an urn, which can be surrounded but not attacked, and the 10th and 33rd Divisions can cooperate with the Jiaoji Railway Garrison and the Qingdao Garrison to besiege it. The reading power was freed up to be mixed into the 1st Brigade and the reading power mixed into the 7th Brigade to go south to participate in the war. Lunan's Eighth Route Army had limited combat strength, as long as it guarded the Jinpu Road and the Taiwei Highway, it was temporarily blocked. The 34th Division stationed in Tai'an and the 35th Division stationed in Yanzhou were responsible for the blockade of Lunan Province. From Lianyungang to eastern Henan, it was handed over to the 114th Division and the 39th Division to command the garrison of 30,000 Manchurian National Defense Forces. The newly organized Xuzhou garrison and Lianyungang garrison in the base camp will soon arrive, and when they arrive, the 30,000 Manchurian defense troops can cooperate with the imperial army to advance to northern Jiangsu, southern Lu, and southeastern Shandong. Since Liu Yiming went to the central part of the Soviet Union, he could just take advantage of the favorable conditions of the vertical and horizontal water network in the Soviet Union to pursue and annihilate the ministry. The specific plan is to use the 5th Division and the 14th Division to command the Reading Power Mixed into the First Brigade, the Reading Power Mixed into the Fifth Brigade, and the Reading Power Mixed into the Seventh Brigade as the left flank, with the 2nd Army under the command of King Dongjuergong as the middle road, and the 11th Army under the command of Okamura Ninji as the right flank. After completing the task, the first brigade of the first brigade, the fifth brigade of the reading force, and the seventh brigade of the reading force were stationed in northern Jiangsu and central Jiangsu, and the fifth and fourteenth divisions quickly returned to Xuzhou, and commanded the first-line troops in Xuzhou to launch the eastern Henan operation with the cooperation of the northern Henan troops, seize Kaifeng, and pursue the troops of the first theater to the west and seize Zhengzhou. Then he stopped in Zhengzhou, turned south, and cooperated with the Eleventh Army and the Second Army to seize Wuhan.

After Shunroku Hatatake's words, Nishio Shouzao raised his eyebrows and added: "To fight against Liu Yimin's instructor, we can't consider the local garrison, what we need is a quick pursuit, and we want to chase Liu Yimin to run for his life like a rabbit, so that he has to crash into our Jiangbei defense line." I consider this operation, the two wings should be boldly interspersed with detours, and first encircle the main force of Liu Yimin's instructor into the encirclement. If we really encircle him in the encirclement, we can also send the defenders of the central Hebei, southern Hebei, Hebei-Lubian, Taixi, southwestern and Jinpu lines to the south for reinforcements. As long as you eliminate Liu Yimin's tutor, it's worth the cost! ”

Hata Junliu nodded: "This time, we don't want the territory of northern Jiangsu and central Jiangsu, as long as Liu Yimin teaches the main force." The most fundamental purpose was to capture Wuhan, crush Chiang Kai-shek's will to resist in one fell swoop, and settle the war in China. ”

In recent days, Tada Jun has repeatedly pondered the strategic issue of the war of aggression against China, and he has some experience, so he proposed that the Taiwan Army should be expanded to at least five brigades, and at the critical moment of the Battle of Wuhan, it should release the winning hand and capture Guangzhou in one fell swoop, so as to completely cut off the foreign trade channel of China's political axe.

As soon as Toshiroku Hata heard this, his thin face immediately became vivid, and he saluted Tada Jun and said affectionately: "Tada-kun, please, after returning to the base camp, please speak a lot and promote this matter as soon as possible." ”

Gangbe Naosaburo is different from these people, Terauchi Shouichi is not there, and he thinks more about the security of North China. The base camp assigned the Second Army to the Central China Dispatch Army, and Shunroku Hata changed the order of the base camp again, and transferred the Fifth Division, the Fourteenth Division, the Reading Power Mixed into the First Brigade, the Reading Power Mixed into the Fifth Brigade, and the Reading Power Mixed into the Seventh Brigade, which was tantamount to drawing out the backbone divisions of the North China Front, and the remaining troops, except for the 20th Division of the First Army, were either ad hoc divisions or garrison divisions. In case Liu Yiming's cooking power slipped through the net and jumped back to Shandong, could these troops stop Liu Yimin's tiger and wolf army?

Therefore, Gangbe Naosaburo cautiously suggested whether the Fifth Division, the Fourteenth Division, and the three Reading Power Mixed Brigades could be left in North China, and the 32nd, 33rd, 34th, and 35th Divisions could be replaced and go south with the army.

Gangbe Naosaburo's remark made Shunroku Hata angry and directly accused the North China Front Army of ineffective command and wasting money and food, resulting in heavy losses for the imperial army. The Fifth Division, the Fourteenth Division, and the three Reading Power Mixed Brigades should have made meritorious contributions in the pursuit and annihilation of Liu Yimin's instructor and the capture of Wuhan. The North China Front should pay attention to the training of its troops, so that the garrison divisions and regiments transferred to North China can mature as soon as possible, and what happened to the 35th and 33rd Divisions must not happen again.

Regardless of prestige and qualifications, Naosaburo Gangbu can't compare with Shunroku Hatata, and after being trained, he had to nod respectfully and say Hai. When Hai was finished, he remembered the benefits of Shouichi Terauchi, if he was there, where would it be the turn of Toshitoshi Hata, what to say? Now that Terauchi Shouyi is gone, his chief of staff will have to be disciplined by others!

Okamura Ninji had just taken office and basically did not speak. He knew in his heart that whether he could fight the Battle of Wuhan or not was to see if he could successfully eliminate the main force of Liu Yimin's tutor. Therefore, he was also very supportive of Shunroku Hata's deployment and expressed his determination to carry out the order.

(To be continued)