Lieutenant General Yoshida's commanding ability is not outstanding among all the senior officers of the army, but this person has an extremely good performance in surprise attacks and night raids, so General Binshan Yuan will give him the important task of sneaking up on Chengde this time.

Yoshida Nao did not disappoint Binshan Yuan, the cavalry group can be said to be invincible along the way, although it has been blocked by the [***] team many times, but the cavalry group will soon be able to break through the interception of the [***] team, whether it is Qianxi County or other small towns, the cavalry group will not be able to handle it all in more than two hours. Starting from the 28th, the cavalry group arrived at Kuancheng in less than two days, not to mention General Binshan Yuan at this speed, even Han Yunhua, who has always been honorable and humiliated, was shocked. Although Han Yunhua ordered that the local troops in eastern Hebei only need to resist symbolically, and they will not be able to fight to the death with the cavalry units of the Yue army, he believes that with the deep hatred and hatred of the people of eastern Hebei, the troops under his command and the Yue army, they will not show mercy to the Yue army, although they will follow the order and will not fight to the death with the Yue army, but they will definitely not let the Yue army have a good time. Naoyoshi Yoshida commanded the troops so quickly, and there was indeed something special about it.

Kuancheng belongs to Rehe Chengde, located in the central part of Rehe Province, southeast of Chengde City, and Qinhuangdao, Tangshan, Liaoning Province Chaoyang junction, the total area of the county is 1,952 square kilometers, there are 120,000 acres of cultivated land, 2.4 million acres of mountain farms, a total population of 183,000, of which the Manchu population accounts for 71%.

The geographical location of Kuancheng is still very important, although it is not a strategic place, but Kuancheng is located in the southeast of Chengde, located at the northern foot of the Great Wall, north of Chengde County, Pingquan County, east of Lingyuan City, Liaoning Province, south of the Great Wall and Qinhuangdao City, Qinglong County and Tangshan Qianxi County, west of the reservoir and Xinglong County, with its unique geographical location, it has become an important traffic channel connecting North China to the northeast and Chengde inland to connect Qinhuangdao and Tangshan coastal areas. However, at this time, Kuancheng is still very backward, although it is located in the traffic artery, but the traffic of Kuancheng is not developed, only 121 kilometers of highways, and the asphalt road is only about one kilometer in the county. The highway below generally lacks bridges and culverts, the grade is low, the density is small, the accessibility is poor, the rain and snow are blocked, and more than 150 villages are still not connected.

Lieutenant General Yoshida looked at the westerly place, it was already August 29th, and it would be the 30th in a few hours. The two days of running night and night made the general, who had not fought on horseback for a long time, feel a little powerless. Although the cavalry group also had its own chariot unit and automobile unit, for the sake of coordination and command and distrust of the bean chariot, Lieutenant General Yoshida Nao did not lead the chariot unit this time.

It's no wonder that Lieutenant General Yoshida Nao, the surname of the chariot can really be bad enough, and it is normal for something to go wrong, so after Han Yunhua took over the batch of weapons and equipment of the army, he modified all the chariots under his command, although it cost a huge amount of manpower and material resources, but it was limited to the limitations of the bean chariot itself, and its modification effect was also lackluster, which made Han Yunhua very dissatisfied.

Lieutenant General Yoshida took a big sip of the kettle in the hands of the guards, unscrewed the lid, wiped the water stains from the corners of his mouth, and then asked, "Where are we now, and how far is it from Chengde?" ”

Staff officer Ichiro Shinozuka Shaozo took out the map and looked at it, then pointed to a small dot on the map and said: "Xiao Bao (General), we have arrived at the wide city of China, which is less than fifty kilometers away from Chengde, and it is expected that we will be able to reach Chengde tomorrow morning." ”

"Kuancheng? I know this place, a small place with an extremely important strategic position, tell me about the troops in Kuanchengchina? Yoshida continued to ask.

"Xiao Bao (General), the defenders of Kuancheng are an infantry battalion of the 77th Division of the Inner Mongolia Military Region of the Eighth Route Army of China, and we have not found out the specific number, but the number of the defenders of the Zhina army is only about 400 people, as long as the commander orders, Kuancheng can be taken in half an hour at most." Ichiro Shinozuka replied.

"Baga, how come Yo Xi, an excellent staff officer of your staff headquarters, don't even know the most basic situation of the enemy, at least I want to know the establishment of the enemy defending the city, the number of troops, the number of troops, the name and hobbies of the commander, the weapons and equipment of the troops, whether there is artillery, etc.?" Lieutenant General Yoshida shouted angrily with dissatisfaction.

Ichiro Shinozuka hurriedly said: "Xiao Bao (General), our intelligence sources are all in the hands of the special high-tech, so all our information comes from the special high-tech, and these materials are no exception. Some time ago, I heard from a fellow villager of the special high-tech department that General Yamaguchi, the person in charge of the special high-tech department, was also reprimanded by His Excellency Commander Binshanyuan because of the affairs of Han Yunhua's department, so we now know very little about Han Yunhua's department. ”

Unlike Ichiro Shinozuka, Naokada Yoshida is well aware of the procedures and standards for collecting information. Before the start of the war, Tegaoke began to investigate and collect from [***] officials and famous gentlemen. However, because there was no war in China at that time, and the collection of information could only be collected secretly, the collection of relevant information about China was very targeted, for example, when collecting the information of the [***] officer, the standard of the army was to be a major general or above or an officer at or above the rank of a full division, on the contrary, only cadres above the rank of major general or at the level of a regular division were eligible to be valued by the army. As far as the Eighth Route Army is concerned, only a limited number of people such as Zhu Mao can attract the attention of the Yue Army, like Han Yunhua, who was only a small infantry company commander at the time, could not arouse the slightest interest of the Yue Army.

After that, Han Yunhua himself strengthened the secrecy work for himself and his officers at all levels, so it was already very difficult for the army to collect it, so it also led to the fact that the army could not know itself and the enemy when dealing with Han Yunhua's department, and the backwardness of intelligence also made the special high-tech department in North China generally questioned by officers at all levels of the army.

Lieutenant General Yoshida thought for a moment and said: "Order the troops to eat immediately, rest for an hour, and then take Kuancheng in one fell swoop, and then rush to Chengde overnight." ”

"Hay!"

After the order was delivered, the cavalry unit immediately dismounted to rest and eat, and each soldier took out the strategic food that had been prepared long ago and carried with him - rice balls. Just with cold water, eating rice balls, this is the usual food of the army.

The food of the army is relatively very good, but it is not good when marching and fighting, due to the national strength, the food standards and styles prepared by the soldiers in various countries during the war are also different, take the army as an example, the army eats the prepared rice balls when marching, what is this rice ball, the rice ball is the rice ball, the simplest rice ball is to add their own taste of seasoning to the hot rice, and then knead it into a ball, the shape is kneaded according to their liking, and you can add your favorite filling in it, You can do anything, but it can't be juicy, or you can mix the filling and rice together and then knead it into a ball, and you can just wrap the small seaweed on the patch, in fact, it is my fast food, which is similar to the Chinese rice ball.

However, this is only a delicacy in our imagination, in fact, the rice balls that the soldiers ate at that time and the rice balls we buy now are simply two kinds of things. During the war, it was said that the soldiers of the army and navy usually ate cold rice with pickles and a cup of cold tea for breakfast, and they had to eat it as quickly as possible so that they could rush back to continue military training. Lunch might be rice with a little meat or fish, and dinner would be just a bowl of soup with a little rice and vegetables.

Take the Army's Showa 6-year food standard as an example, each soldier in the army does not exceed 640 grams of rice, 200 grams of wheat, 150 grams of canned meat, 110 grams of dried vegetables, 40 grams of kimchi, 20 grams of soy sauce, 12 grams of salt, 15 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of tea per day. However, after the war of aggression against China began, the food ration of the troops was given one order: self-sufficiency on the spot.

In contrast, the food of the Chinese [***] team is much worse, take the food standard of the Kuomintang Army in 1945, the daily food ration of each soldier of the Kuomintang Axe is 27 taels of medium-cooked rice, 1 catty of vegetables, 1 tael of meat, 1 tael of beans, 6 taels of oil, and 4 coins of salt (1 catty = 600 grams, 1 catty = 16 taels.1 tael = 37.5 grams, 1 coin = 3.73 grams).

In the latter part of World War II, some Chinese soldiers moved to Burma and became the famous Chinese Expeditionary Force, and when this force later arrived at the British [***] military base in India, in the eyes of the British and American troops, the Chinese Kuomintang army was an out-and-out "beggar army".

The shortage of materials has brought difficulties to the supply force, which has not only affected the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army, but also affected the image of some Chinese troops in the eyes of the people, and further deteriorated the living environment of the soldiers. Even in Chiang Kai-shek's descendants, the soldiers were always underfed, not only food, but also almost all military supplies.

At that time, each Kuomintang unit had a formal rifle and a set of military uniforms, but they did not change their new uniforms for a long time, so after some troops marched for a few months, their military uniforms were tattered and tattered, and they were called "beggar troops". After the war, there are many old photos that seem to us to be in tears until now, which truly reflect the real life of the Chinese soldiers at that time. Just like the little baby of the Sichuan army wearing single clothes and straw shoes in winter, and the photos of the signal corps of the Chinese Expeditionary Force taken by a photographer are even more worrying. In that old photo, the signal soldier of the Chinese Expeditionary Force was standing on the side of the road and shaking the phone, his military uniform was sewn with two large patches on the shoulders and waist, and the thin clothes were covered with blood, even so, there was a long tear on the back, the pants were fat and short, the laces of the straw sandals were tied with green tendons and exposed feet, only the steel helmet on his head and the green backpack with the letter "US" printed on the crossbody, showing that this was a soldier, and the steel helmet and backpack were undoubtedly the equipment rationed by the Americans. It's heart-wrenching to watch. This is the Chinese soldiers, this is the Chinese soldiers.

Of course, there may not be any other reasons for this except the weakness of the national strength, such as the troops stationed in Baoshan in 1943 and preparing to cross the river. Before the war, supplies were distributed, and the best khaki uniforms imported from the United States, as well as leather shoes, × socks, and all kinds of canned food. As a result, the quartermaster only gave each person only six feet of yellow cloth, and I heard that the quartermaster colluded with some commanders to resell the army's materials to the interior, and all kinds of military materials were often seen for sale in the market in Dali. The distribution of materials for the entire army was never made public, and it was completely in the dark, and if they wanted to get good equipment, they had to pay bribes to their commanders.

The Americans studied the food distribution system of the squadron and concluded: according to the rules of the army, each soldier was given 24 ounces of rice and a serving of salt per day; A full salary per month, if you spend it all on food, you can buy a pound of pork a month. A Chinese soldier can make a living well on these quotas. However, in reality they really received only a portion of the food and money allocated to them, because the commanders were accustomed to "withholding" a large part of it for themselves. The result was that most Kuomintang soldiers were undernourished.

However, even so, the rationing of the Yue army and the Kuomintang troops was far better than the food ration of the [***] Eighth Route Army. It should be admitted that the army of the Eighth Route Army was generally able to share weal and woe from the commander to the soldiers at that time.

During the Anti-Japanese War, the Kuomintang engaged in a blockade, and after 40 years, the military salary of the Eighth Route Army was suspended, and the Eighth Route Army took advantage of the magic weapon of the ancient sages' army Tuntian, and put forward the slogan of "do it yourself, have enough food and clothing" to the army, and set off a large-scale production movement in Yan'an. The people of Shandong also used pancakes and green onions to support their team, and the backpack was tied with a few green onions in Shandong's "Tuba Road", millet and rifle "also succinctly described the image of the [***] army, [***] in the first few years of arriving in Yan'an, ushered in a period of "golden years". Without the encirclement and interception of the Kuomintang army, they were far away from the invaders, and their lives were stable, and their food and clothing were guaranteed. However, this situation lasted for only three or four years, and after the Southern Anhui Incident, the Nationalist Axe stopped supplying military funds to Yan'an and imposed a material blockade. The political axes of the border region requisitioned troops and horses to prepare for war, but due to natural disasters, food was extremely scarce. The food of ordinary staff in Yan'an is small rice with potatoes and cabbage soup, and only old comrades of a certain level will be given some rice. The commander of the 115th Division [***] invited war correspondent Ke Hua to dinner several times, but each time he was just stewing an old hen.

The living conditions in the troops of the Eighth Route Army are even worse, the recruits of the better troops still have a set of military uniforms when they report for duty, and the troops with bad conditions can't even solve the minimum clothing of the troops, we often see that the troops of the Eighth Route Army are wearing peasant civilian clothes, which is not that they don't want to wear military uniforms, but they really don't have it. Even if there were, only one set of clothes was issued, and there was no change of clothes, so I had to go to the river on Sundays to strip naked, while bathing in the river, eating mostly small rice and yam eggs.

The gap in food standards reflects the rise and fall of the national strength of China and the two countries, and at the same time, it also widens a certain gap in the combat effectiveness of the two teams. Therefore, while the cavalry units of the Yue Army were eating at the outskirts of Kuancheng, the Chinese cavalry troops were hungry in a ravine thirty miles away from the Yue Army Cavalry Corps waiting for orders from their superiors. Even the chariot troops, which Han Yunhua attaches great importance to, only have a ration of less than one pound of food per day, and after breakfast and lunch, there is no dinner, so the vast majority of soldiers are willing to ask the cooks to eat at five o'clock in the afternoon, otherwise they will be hungry and unable to sleep at night.

At five o'clock in the afternoon of August 29, 1939, the cavalry group of the Japanese army, which had rested for an hour, launched a surprise attack on Kuancheng, the eastern gateway of Chengde, under the orders of Lieutenant General Nao Yoshida, the commander of the group. This opened the curtain on the destruction of the cavalry group, and also marked the tragic end of the last cavalry division of the army.

Although Kuancheng is called a city, but in fact it is not a city, not even the minimum city wall, after the Eighth Route Army took over the city defense of Kuancheng, it built a lot of city fortifications, but there are also some simple pillboxes and road card trenches. And the cavalry group of the army did not hide their whereabouts along the way, anyway, even if Yoshida wanted to hide it, he couldn't hide it, more than 15,000 cavalry is not fifteen cavalry, and even such a large number of men and horses could not be concealed. Therefore, Yoshida Nao simply quickly stabbed the mess for a while, and ordered the troops to kill people when they saw the city directly, and quickly approached Chengde, without giving the [***] team any time to react.

Han Yunhua was very "cooperative" with the actions of the army, every Chinese infantry regiment guarded a roadside high ground for a while, and then retreated after half an hour, anyway, the cavalry was just a decoration in the mountains, could he still charge on the mountain beams. Therefore, it also gave the Yue army a false impression that the [***] team was so vulnerable, including Han Yunhua's department. At the same time, it also verified the news that the Chinese elite troops in eastern Hebei had been surrounded in Qian'an by the local divisions of the Great Empire.

Kuancheng is the first official pass set by Han Yunhua for the cavalry of the Yue army, because the victory in front has made the cavalry of the Yue army become blindly confident, although this is very good, but it also objectively improves the momentum of the Yue army, which is not conducive to the next annihilation war, so Han Yunhua wants to kill the morale of the Yue army in Kuancheng.

The number of the [***] squadron in Kuancheng was not large, as the previous military intelligence had shown, it was an infantry battalion. However, the number of this infantry battalion was not three hundred, nor four hundred, but a full seven. Although Kuancheng is important, the place in Kuancheng is really not big, the whole Kuancheng is just one street, and the rest are all small alleys, and it is already the limit to station a reinforced battalion, and it is not good to have more.

Although there is no gate in the east of the city, there is a small hill that is not high, and the only road is at the foot of the hill, so the blocking position of the Eighth Route Army is located in this hill.

Garrisoned in Kuancheng is the sharp knife battalion of the third brigade of the 77th division of the reading force, with a total number of 729 people, and it is also one of the largest infantry battalions in the regular troops of the Inner Mongolia Military Region, and it is the most elite infantry battalion of the three brigades. In order to accomplish the tasks assigned by the leaders of the military region, the Third Brigade was regarded as having made a bloody investment, and Tie Hu, the commander of the Third Brigade, transferred the only anti-aircraft machine gun company in the only fire support regiment in his hands to the command of the Sharp Knife Battalion. And in terms of intelligence, it also fully cooperated with the Sharp Knife Battalion, and as soon as the army stepped into the boundary of Kuancheng, the Japanese army was targeted by the intelligence officers of the Third Brigade, so every time the Sharp Knife Battalion occupied by the army, it was clear to the Sharp Knife Battalion.

(To be continued)