After the Battle of Wuhan, the Japanese army successfully occupied Wuhan, but at this time the Japanese army was in a state of excessive extension, and most of its standing and A-level reserve divisions had been put into the front line, and they still failed to destroy the main force of our army, and although most of the essence area had been lost, the Chongqing authorities were still not prepared to accept Japan's terms for peace talks, and the Japanese found themselves in the abyss of a protracted war that they had been trying to avoid. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The choice of the Japanese army at this time was to stop and consolidate the occupied areas on the one hand, and to take a local offensive on the other hand, in order to exert pressure on the Nationalist Government in the hope that the Nationalist Government would agree to the peace talks.

This strategy was basically a rehash of the old tune after the fall of Nanjing, but the situation was even worse for the Japanese army, whose occupied area was at least twice as large, and the Japanese army lacked both the strength to fully control the occupied area and the lack of sufficient reserves. If it was wise for the Japanese to adopt this strategy at the end of 1937, it would be foolish to restart it a year later.

After deciding on the strategic concept, at the end of 1938, the Japanese army began to reorganize its forces, that is, to enter China with a large number of newly organized independent brigades and B-level reserve divisions, and to exchange defenses with the standing divisions and A-class reserve (adhoc) divisions that had been put into the battlefield. The troops that were replaced were either driven back home to be mobilized, or the Kwantung Army was transferred to fight the Russian threat.

According to the plan, by the beginning of 1940, the Japanese army should deploy 24 divisions and regiments, 81 independent mixed brigades, and two cavalry brigades in China (except northeast), with a total of nearly 800,000 ground troops.

This number of troops was very large, and not only the cost of the garrison put a lot of pressure on the Japanese government, but also the vastness of the occupied area was a headache for the Japanese army.

Worse still, Japan's own economic problems. At the beginning of 1937, Japan had just passed a plan for the reorganization of its navy and army, with the United States and Russia as imaginary enemies, totaling 2.4 billion yen, before it began to be implemented. With the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, the war cost was huge, and the military expansion still had to be carried out, so the Bank of Japan's gold was prepared to be consumed rapidly.

By the end of 1938, more than two-thirds of the BOJ's gold stocks, worth only $1.35 billion, had been depleted. Even so, in order to carry out the Battle of Wuhan that year, the Japanese Army still had to postpone the implementation of the renovation plan in order to allocate enough budget to meet the war expenses.

After the Battle of Wuhan, the Japanese Army's reorganization plan was revised again, from the initial version of 40 wartime divisions to 55 divisions at the beginning of 1938, and by the end of 1938, the goal was to complete the rearmament of 65 wartime divisions and 164 squadrons of the Army Air Force by 1942.

In order to produce and stock up on sufficient equipment, ammunition, and reconstruction, the funds needed for the reorganization program have risen steadily, and the 1939 military expansion budget alone required 1.8 billion yen, and Japan's finances have reached a critical point.

In fact, Japan also actively wants to get out of China, but its terms for peace talks are far beyond the bottom line of the Nationalist Government, and the probability of achieving a breakthrough in this area is not high. On the other hand, although Japan tried to support vassal governments in North and Central China to "use China to contain China" to help the Japanese army weaken the influence of the Nationalist Government in Chongqing, the results were not very good, even though the Wang Jingwei regime was established in 1939.

Therefore, the Japanese army as a whole is not enough to distribute its strength, and all divisions and regiments are responsible for occupying the task, and if they want to launch an offensive, they must draw a large number of garrison forces, and under the premise that there are no troops to take over the defense, the offensive cannot be sustained, in other words, in order to weaken our army in a major offensive, the Japanese must greatly increase their troops, otherwise what they can fight is only a partial (and not deep) offensive.

The commander of the Japanese 11th Army, Okamura Ninji, realized this, and in his report he decided that diplomacy or small offensives could not be useful, and that a major offensive had to be carried out with a large increase in troops. But at this time, the Japanese Army was busy making money to expand its army, and it was unable to increase troops at the front.

As a matter of fact, the "garrisoning" of the Japanese army after the Battle of Wuhan was aimed at saving money to support the army building plan, and the ground forces of the Japanese army in China had decreased by about 50,000 from a peak of about 850,000 after the Battle of Wuhan to July and August 1939.

The full strength of a standing division or A-level reserve division (4th Wing) is about 22,000, the newly transferred garrison division (3rd Wing) is only about 15,000, and an independent mixed brigade is only about 6,000. Although Gangcun's idea is correct, it is impossible for the higher authorities to accept it.

It was precisely because of the general situation at that time and the existence of a large number of anti-Japanese troops behind enemy lines of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party that there were not many Japanese troops to face in the Battle of Eastern Henan.

North of Longhai Road, the nearest is Heze, a brigade of the garrison transferred two squadrons, and recruited more than 1,000 puppet troops from Juancheng, Dingtao and other places to go south after hearing the order, but was intercepted by the Eighth Route Army's Hebei-Lu-Henan Detachment and the Second Regiment of the Bao. Gao Shuxun's Eighth Army moved south, threatening Heze and forcing the enemy to retreat.

Pang Bingxun, stationed in Lingchuan, commanded the 40th Army to carry out a sabotage battle on the Pinghan Road between Xinxiang and Anyang, which interrupted the Japanese army's railway transportation for half a month, and Li Zhenqing's 106th Division was particularly brave in the battle.

Sun Dianying's new Fifth Army in Linxian County (now Linzhou) in northern Henan heard the order to move south, join Pang Bingxun's troops east of Lingchuan, and threaten Xinxiang.

Tang Weiyuan's Third Army in Zhongtiao Mountain and the 45th Division of Jincheng also heard the order to attack and contain the Japanese army in southern Jin.

After receiving the telegram order, Sun Tongxuan left only one brigade of the 22nd Division to defend Zhengzhou, and personally led the other two brigades and the troops directly under the group army to cross the river to participate in the battle, and joined up with Zhou Zunshi's 20th Division to make a posture of besieging Kaifeng.

After the Kaifeng Japanese army lost a large number of reinforcements it sent, seeing that the situation was not good, it could only shrink the garrisons in the surrounding counties and towns, and there were reinforcements sent from Lankao and Fengqiu, and they barely cobbled together 3,000 people to confront Sun Tongxuan's nearly 20,000 horses in Yicheng.

The Japanese troops were either pinned down, or they were too hasty to mobilize, and only the Japanese army in Xuzhou dispatched the largest force.

At that time, the 17th Division of the Japanese Army was stationed in Xuzhou, and the division commander, Lieutenant General Hirabayashi Morito, had jurisdiction over the 17th Infantry Regiment, the 53rd, 54th, and 81st Infantry Wings, the 17th Division Search Team, the 23rd Field Artillery Wing, the 17th Engineer Wing, the 17th Heavy Infantry Wing, the Signal Team, the Ordnance Service Team, the Field Hospital, and the Sick Horse Factory.

Many people who are familiar with the composition of the Japanese army may be puzzled that there is such a composition as an "infantry regiment" in the Japanese army, but this infantry regiment is not the same as the Chinese infantry regiment in concept.

The Japanese army, like the Chinese army, had a standard configuration of three to four infantry wings under the division, and the division commander was a lieutenant general.

However, in wartime, one or two infantry wings will be used as the basis of divisions and regiments, and other arms (generally cavalry, artillery, engineers, etc.) will be strengthened to form independent units to carry out a certain aspect or a certain task independently.

If this independent unit is made up of two infantry wings, it is a larger brigade, and the brigade commander is a major general.

If this independent unit is formed by an infantry wing, it is a smaller infantry regiment and the regiment commander is a major general or a large general.

Therefore, in fact, the "infantry regiments" of the Japanese army, like the Chinese "brigades", are independent combat units subordinate to the "divisions/divisions". It can also be said that the Japanese "infantry regiment" is the smallest multi-arm mixed combat unit.

It was this infantry regiment sent by the commander of the 17th Division, Hirabayashi Morito, to be more precise, the commander of this infantry regiment and part of its troops, and the number of garrisons from all over the country was reduced, and the more than 5,000 men and horses were finally gathered.

an infantry wing with three brigades and a total number of more than 3,400 men; the 17th Engineer Wing, more than 500 people; Two artillery brigades, plus baggage soldiers, totaled more than 1,000 people, with twenty-four Type 94 75mm mountain guns; Together with the infantry guns and rapid-fire guns to which each infantry brigade belongs, the number of artillery pieces of this "infantry regiment" is not small.

The devils also added more than 10 tanks, more than 20 armored vehicles, and two vehicle-mounted squadrons to this infantry regiment, which marched parallel to the road on the north side of the railway. This rapidly mobile armored unit further strengthened the confidence of the commander of the infantry regiment, Major General Tanaka Ken.

Mobilizing men and horses from everywhere and gathering ammunition and supplies, the Japanese infantry regiment in Xuzhou waited for four days before it was ready. The situation in eastern Henan was grim, and the Japanese army did not dare to let the light infantry take the lead. Now, it is no longer a question of whether to reinforce or not, but to recapture the important town of Shangqiu and reopen the Longhai Railway. To this end, the commander of the 17th Division, Hirabayashi Morinto, also promised Tanaka that he would continue to mobilize men, horses, and materials to support the infantry regiments on the expedition.

Four days doesn't seem like much, but it has already given Yang Tianfeng enough time to prepare for the battle. In addition to the two brigades of He Cuizhi's 81st Division, one brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, the Guo Detachment, and the 14th Cavalry Brigade transferred from Huaiyang, the Chiang detachment and a cavalry brigade were dispatched to the periphery, sweeping all the strongholds along the railway, with Shangqiu as the center, and opening up a decisive battlefield.

At the same time, the regular army with only one brigade left to continue to besiege Zhecheng, and Song Kebin's First Route Army replaced the Zhou regiment and the four detachments, and the Zhou regiment and the four detachments, as well as the anti-Japanese guerrilla brigade in eastern Henan, the militia of Minquan Liguan, the anti-Japanese guerrilla brigade of Suixian, and the three detachments of Lu and Henan, fought together, so that the Japanese troops in Qixian and Ningling could only retreat to the county seat and restore civil power. The railroad from Shangqiu to Minquan was also sabotage.

The joint defense team from Haoxian and Luyi, as well as tens of thousands of people recruited on the spot, took turns to attack day and night, tearing down all the railways from Shangqiu to Yucheng and destroying the roadbed, fully demonstrating the people's anti-Japanese enthusiasm and great strength.

Another place where the construction was carried out and the power of the people was displayed was in Yucheng County (now Limin Township). As an important position to resist the Japanese army from the east, it has unique conditions. And Yang Tianfeng is also preparing to have a contest with the Japanese army here.

Fighting Shangqiu but not Shangqiu, Yang Tianfeng's thinking is not limited to one place, and it is not in Shangqiu to stick to the city. Spread out on the periphery, it has considerable room for maneuver, does not set up a single line of defense, but chooses to focus on defense, and maintains a considerable number of mobile forces for interspersed detours. (To be continued.) )