The Japanese army did not give Han Yunhua much time to prepare, and before the troops of the Inner Mongolia Military Region could be mobilized, the Japanese army began to launch a tentative attack. The first to exchange fire was the troops of northern Hebei and southern Chanan, and the leader was still the old rival of the Inner Mongolia Military Region, the Fengwen Department of Yamashita.

Although the two sides have confronted each other on the outskirts of Zhangjiakou for nearly two months, both Master Chen and Lieutenant General Yamashita Fengwen know that with the existing strength of both sides, no one can help anyone. Therefore, more than half a month ago, the two sides maintained a state of confrontation very tacitly, but they were in a strange situation, but now Lieutenant General Fengwen can be said to be complacent, Bin Sanyuan suddenly gave him reinforcements for a reorganized division, and ordered him to break through the battle situation on the front line of Zhangjiakou before August 20, and drive the Chinese army out of the southern part of Chahar, mainly to protect Zhangjiakou, and not let Zhangjiakou, the provincial capital, be threatened by the Chinese army.

Although the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army in front of them was terrifying, it was within the range that Yamashita would be able to bear. The shortcomings of the Chinese army's lack of air support and artillery support have not changed substantially, although the artillery of this Eighth Route Army unit is still quite strong, according to Lieutenant General Yamashita Fumi's estimation, it should be a mountain artillery field gun of about a complete artillery regiment, with a maximum caliber of no more than 75mm.

Although a 75mm caliber mountain artillery regiment was already very good on the Chinese battlefield, Yamashita Fengwen received a telegram from the North China Front Army Headquarters this time, and the Front Army transferred the 1st Heavy Artillery Brigade, which had always been extremely valuable, to Zhangjiakou to support the Yamashita Division in combat.

With the support of the heavy artillery brigade, Yamashita Bongfumi's confidence became extremely inflated. He believed that not to mention the opposite Chinese army, not to mention that it was not the most powerful and most combat-effective unit on the Chinese battlefield, even if the Fifth Army of the Central Army of the Chinese Nationalist Government, which is known as China's first and only mechanized force so far, came, it would be torn to pieces under the powerful firepower of the heavy artillery brigades.

The heavy artillery brigade refers to the Japanese field division or the heavy artillery unit directly under the front army, and its firepower is far more terrifying than people imagine, and the salvo of a field heavy artillery brigade can easily completely smash an infantry regiment. Therefore, the threat of today's field heavy artillery units is no less than the US atomic bomb hanging over the heads of the Japanese a few years later, and it is an absolute weapon of strategic deterrence. Before the start of the Anti-Japanese War, Japan was equipped with a total of 5 field heavy artillery brigades, and the establishment was also 2 wings. This is entirely because the cost of equipment for field heavy artillery brigades is too expensive, and although the field heavy artillery brigades are equipped with only 36 artillery pieces, the gun bodies are too heavy for ordinary towed vehicles to carry at all. Therefore, the field heavy artillery needs to be carried by train at a distance of more than 50 kilometers, and the railway lines in China are only a little bit, so the use of field heavy artillery in China has been greatly limited.

At the same time, the field heavy artillery brigade is very troublesome in the short-distance transportation industry, and even if the automobile unit is complete and the fuel is sufficient, it may not be able to transport the field heavy artillery brigade to the battlefield. Because the requirements of field heavy artillery for roads have also become particularly high, ordinary asphalt roads cannot support the crushing of field heavy artillery, and dirt roads are the natural enemies of field heavy artillery. Therefore, this also led to the fact that the Japanese army's field heavy artillery brigade rarely saw these mysterious guys on other battlefields except for a few times showing their faces on the Songhu battlefield.

Although at that time, in addition to the divisions and regiments of the North China Front of the Japanese Army were subordinate to the artillery wing, the units directly under the front army also had 3 mountain artillery wings, 1 cavalry artillery wing, 4 field heavy artillery wings, and 1 anti-aircraft artillery wing. However, there are still very few times when field heavy artillery units are actually allowed to be used on the battlefield, and if nothing else, the huge consumption of field heavy artillery units is not something that ordinary people can afford. The general Japanese divisions were only allowed to be equipped with mountain artillery or field artillery wings, so when the Anti-Japanese War broke out, 17 Japanese divisions and regiments had a total of 14 field artillery wings and 3 mountain artillery wings. …,

The 1st Field Heavy Artillery Brigade was originally equipped with the 12th Army stationed in Shandong, but due to the urgency of the war and the fact that the railway line from Shandong to Beiping had always been relatively smooth, General Bin Sanyuan transferred the 1st Field Heavy Artillery Brigade to Zhangjiakou to support the Yamasita Division. The 1st Brigade of Field Heavy Artillery has the 1st Wing of Field Artillery, the 4th Wing of Mountain Artillery, the 1st Wing of Field Heavy Artillery, and the 3rd Wing of Field Heavy Artillery. Although Han Yunhua's department also has its own field heavy artillery regiment, compared with the Japanese army's field heavy artillery unit, Han Yunhua's heavy artillery unit is simply a joke, and the heavy artillery unit of the people's department is luxuriously equipped, in addition to 24 field heavy guns with a caliber between 105mm and 150mm, there are also 12 mountain guns of 75mm caliber and 12 field guns. And the eleven 105mm caliber cannons captured by Han Yunhua's department are simply a child to an adult strong man in front of the Japanese army's field heavy artillery brigade, and this strong man is still a learned sanda, and the two sides are not opponents of the same level in the first place.

However, such a strategic weapon as a deterrent greater than actual combat has always been the focus of attention of the Chinese intelligence departments, and the 1st Field Heavy Artillery Brigade of the 12th Army of the Japanese Army was sabotaged by the Chinese side shortly after it came out of Jinancheng, and the Kuomintang military commander's spies and Tong Jiayong both sent elite squads to sneak attack. It's a pity that the Japanese army also attaches great importance to field heavy artillery, not only has a wing of infantry escort, but also a special combat team is secretly escorting. An assassination detachment of the military commander suffered a great loss because it did not expect in advance that the Japanese army would be escorted by a special combat team, and less than 10 of the more than 30 elite agents of an assassination detachment escaped.

And Tong Jiayong sent the guards left by Han Yunhua, and they were also the special combat teams trained by Han Yunhua himself, but unfortunately the Japanese army's special combat team was more than a step higher than Han Yunhua's special combat team in terms of numbers and weapons and equipment. After the two sides called for hands a few times, each losing eight or nine team members, Tong Jiayong knew that the enemy had already taken precautions, so he had to order the special combat team to withdraw from the battle and give up the sabotage operation.

However, even if the operation failed, Han Yunhua's side knew some new movements of the Japanese army. He ordered Master Chen to pay attention to the surprise attack of the Japanese field heavy artillery brigade, and to appropriately move the battle line to the north by more than ten or twenty kilometers, avoiding the railway line, so that his field heavy artillery brigade would be useless.

Master Chen is an outstanding graduate of the Whampoa Military Academy, and his attainments in operational command are more than a step higher than Han Yunhua's. After receiving Han Yunhua's telegram, Master Chen judged that the Japanese army's heavy artillery brigade would not arrive at Zhangjiakou in a week at the earliest, and it would take more than 10 days to transport it to the front line at the earliest. For ten days, he was confident that he would give Yamashita Fengwen a lifelong memory, and this little devil in the province was so arrogant.

Master Chen is not open-mouthed, he knows that the current Yamashita Fengwen will definitely not let him withdraw so willingly, and will definitely find a way to contain the main force of the independent 77th Division in the periphery of Zhangjiakou, wait for the arrival of the 20th Division of the Japanese Army and the field heavy artillery brigade, and then complete his efforts to gather and annihilate the independent 77th Division in Zhangjiakou.

Moreover, Master Chen believes that Yamashita Fengwen must not know that he now has four more divisions of reinforcements, and on the Zhangjiakou front, there is no longer only an unreorganized division of the independent 77th Division, the 1st Guard Division and the 1st Field Division have also arrived at the Zhangjiakou front, and the 2nd Field Division and the 3rd Field Division are on their way to Chengde. Mechanized brigades and artillery brigades, as well as nearly 30,000 cavalry units, are also heading south from Xilinhot to Chengde.

As for the sudden extra 30,000 cavalry, it was indeed not in Han Yunhua's expectation, it was a thing made up by Wan Guoquan. Wan Guoquan led the mechanized brigade and artillery brigade to raid Xilinhot, the king's lair, with the help of tanks, chariots, and automobiles. After annihilating an elite Japanese army brigade in Xilinhot, more than 100,000 puppet Mongol troops under the command of King De were defeated, and when the results of the battle were finally counted, the prisoners of the puppet Mongol army alone exceeded 80,000, of which cavalry accounted for the vast majority. …,

Wan Guoquan is not a fuel-efficient lamp, under the influence of Han Yunhua, it will soon be used in waste. Threatening his life, he forced King De, who had originally intended to break away from the control of the Japanese army, to call on his sons and the entire Mongolian people to resist Japan and save the country. Not to mention, although King De has no deterrent power among the Han people, he is still very prestigious among the entire Mongolian people, and under his call, Wan Guoquan soon organized more than 50,000 cavalry troops. After all, the horses, weapons and equipment and personnel are complete, plus with the assistance of the two cavalry brigades of Aurege, the 50,000-strong cavalry brigade was quickly controlled, and after a series of methods such as systematic disruption and reorganization, mixing sand, etc., Wan Guoquan soon mastered nearly 80,000 troops.

After receiving Han Yunhua's order, Wan Guoquan was now energetic, anyway, except for a few limited places such as Hailar and Manchuria, there was no longer a large force of Japanese troops in the entire Saibei grassland. Therefore, in a reply to Han Yunhua, Wan Guoquan actually asked for the 80,000 troops under his command to go south to fight together except for the necessary remaining troops.

Han Yunhua's was also taken aback by Wan Guoquan's generosity, not to mention that the 80,000-strong brigade has never had such a huge establishment in the history of modern warfare in China, even if it is in the world's military history, there is no such brigade. Han Yunhua was overjoyed and a little bitter, but the sudden extra 80,000 cavalry troops really relieved Han Yunhua's pressure. With this group of cavalry with strong mobility ability, Han Yunhua can use the planned tactics more flexibly.

With the addition of these 50,000 cavalry, Han Yunhua's mobile force has a full 100,000 people, and originally Han Yunhua had four cavalry brigades of more than 23,000 people, as well as four automobile brigades, which can simultaneously transport a semi-integrated regiment of more than 4,500 troops within a radius of 400 miles. Coupled with the mechanized brigade, the number of rapid reaction forces in Han Yunhua's hands far exceeded that of the Japanese army.

The high-spirited Han Yunhua was not hypocritical, and ordered Wan Guoquan to leave two cavalry brigades to stay in Xilinhot, and the remaining troops immediately went south, and after leaving a cavalry brigade in Chifeng, all the remaining troops were transported to the periphery of Chengde, but they were not allowed to enter Chengde City.

How far Chengde is from Zhangjiakou, with so many troops to rely on, Master Chen is not afraid of the reinforcements of the division under the mountain. Since Yamashita Fengwen didn't want him to retreat, it was the same to cripple the Yamashita division and then retreat, and Master Chen, who had made up his mind, immediately launched an action.

Zhangjiakou, the government compound of the puppet Chanan Autonomous Government.

"Nani? Eight-way to withdraw? Do you see clearly? Yamashita Bongfumi shouted with a slight gaffe.

"Hai, Your Excellency the Commander of the Division, I can see clearly that the firepower of the people of China has suddenly become much thinner, and their artillery unit has not fired a single shell today, and it is completely desperate to survive. Just now a squadron-level charge was organized, although it was repulsed by the Chinese army, but the time taken by the Chinese people was more than an hour, and the position was almost occupied by our army, which was still due to the huge number of mines placed by the Chinese around the battlefield, otherwise the Chinese army could be driven out of Zhangjiakou with the charge just now, so the humble judgment of the Chinese people should retreat. A young officer in a Shaozo uniform replied fluently.

Yamashita Fengwen frowned and thought for a while and said: "Yo Xi, the burning room (so it is), the people of China already know our plan, they want to retreat before the arrival of the Twentieth Division and the Field Heavy Artillery Brigade, hmph, how can there be such a cheap thing." If you come uninvited, how can you leave like this. ”

"Xiaolu Shaozuo, gather your brigade, I will personally command your troops to attack the position of Zhina, if I can drive the people of Zhina out of the position, I will promote you to Zhongzuo." …,

"Hai, thank you for your cultivation, the little deer will definitely live up to the high expectations of the division commander."

After Xiaolu Shaozo withdrew, Yamashita Fengwen said to Major General Yuhara Bingyoshiro, the chief of staff of the division on the side: "Yuhara-kun, what do you think?" ”

"Your Excellency, Division Commander, I think your analysis is very reasonable. The people did show their intention to retreat, although we don't know why the people were in such a hurry to retreat, and they were so clumsy in disguise. But I think this is inseparable from the several incidents of Shandong's attempt to sabotage the field heavy artillery, nine times out of ten it was sent by the demon of Han, and I heard that this time even the special combat team personally trained by His Excellency Yanagi suffered a lot of losses, and even His Excellency Yanagi's proud protégé was folded there. On the battlefield of China, I can only think of two units with such combat effectiveness, one has always been the guard of Chiang, the leader of China, the special forces called the "Chinese gendarmerie", and the other is the "black devil" special forces of Communist Han. And Chiang's guards generally will not leave Chiang's surroundings, let alone try to destroy the first brigade of field heavy artillery, and before that, His Excellency Yanagi's special combat team had also defeated the assassination team sent by the military commander, the largest intelligence agency in China, and almost completely annihilated the branch of China, so it is said that Shina Han is the most suspicious. From this, it can be deduced that Han is very likely to know the information of the 1st Field Heavy Artillery Brigade going north. And the enemy in front of him happened to be the 77th Independent Division of Han's descendants, so it was understandable that the 77th Independent Division would retreat at this time, and it would really not be able to leave if it was too late. It should also be true that we have gone in such a hurry, Your Excellency Lieutenant General, I think we should immediately send troops to level the positions on the opposite side, and then pursue the fleeing Eighth Route Army with all our might. Major General Yoshiro Hara carefully analyzed.

The analysis of Major General Yuan is very reasonable, he is a top student who graduated from the Staff Department of the Imperial Army University, and he is much better than Yamashita Fumi, a lieutenant general who graduated from the Infantry Command Department, in terms of war strategy. Therefore, Yamashita has always attached great importance to Major General Yuhara's suggestions.

"Shaoga, Yuan Jun is reasonable, and ordered: The division Xishiyuan Brigade, the 1st Light and Heavy Brigade, the 121st Cavalry Wing, and the 121st Artillery Wing are urgently assembled, and the above troops led by Major General Xishiyuan will immediately pursue the Zhina troops fleeing north after Xiaolu Shaozuo occupies the positions of the opposite China troops. The troops directly under the division immediately strengthened the defense forces in the city, and the remaining troops were ready to support the Xishiyuan Brigade at any time. Yamashita Fufumi decisively ordered.

"Hail"

Xiaolu Shaozuo's attack was very smooth, this time although there were a large number of mines to obstruct it, but under the stimulation of the rank of Zhongzuo, Xiaolu Shaozuo did not care about the casualties of the soldiers at all, and it only took more than half an hour to take the defensive positions of the two Chinese infantry battalions. Although the two Chinese infantry battalions had long been ordered to retreat in the event of a fierce enemy attack, the result of being forced to retreat within half an hour still made Master Chen feel incredible.

The successful occupation of the position by Xiaolu Shaozuo made Yamashita Fengwen's eyes become a lot more determined, and Yamashita Fengwen also saw through the binoculars at the forward observation post that the Chinese troops on the opposite position did put up a very stubborn resistance, but still could not resist the attack of the Xiaolu brigade.

This can only show that the Chinese army lacks stamina, which is why the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army will suddenly decline. The will of the soldiers in the trenches on the opposite side was not as tenacious as before, and the Chinese troops chose to retreat almost at the same time as the Japanese soldiers occupied the trenches, and did not fight to the death for the trenches as usual.

Yamashita Fengwen was overjoyed and also felt a burst of regret, the battlefield on the periphery of Zhangjiakou was recovered in this way, and the task assigned to him by General Bin Sanyuan was easily completed. Some time ago, the stubborn resistance of the Chinese army left a big shadow in the heart of Yamashita Fengwen. However, after this period of fighting, Yamashita Fengwen still established his prestige and confidence, just as the soldiers of the Inner Mongolia Military Region believed in worshiping Han Yunhua, the soldiers of the Yamashita Division also trusted Yamashita Fengwen. And the Chinese army's escape without a fight also made Yamashita Fengfumi feel a sense of regret, if the pursuit is to catch up, that is, after the arrival of the 20th Division and the field heavy artillery brigade, under the encirclement of several parties, China's Chinese army, which has repeatedly caused huge losses to the imperial army and greatly insulted the imperial army of Japan, how can there be a reason for survival......