Chapter 479: The Fall of Wuhan (Ask for subscriptions, ask for monthly passes, ask for everything!) ）

At this time, Ampere Shaozuo was like an angry bull, desperate to find out the murderer who killed Zhang Qiuzhen's defenders. However, this matter does not seem to have become a headless public case like the previous sniping of Ma Dahu. According to the interrogation of the townspeople by his men, the news soon came.

Almost all the residents of Zhang Qiu Town said in unison that the town's Taijun was killed by a bandit army, and the leader of this bandit force seemed to be called "Kang Bisheng".

After listening to the report of the intelligence department, Ampere Shaozo was furious that a reinforced squad of the dignified Imperial Japanese Army had been wiped out by a bandit, which would only make the Japanese Army lose face.

Immediately An Pei Shaozuo issued a gag order, saying that Zhang Qiuzhen was raided by a large group of guerrillas in China, and the defenders of a small team suffered heavy losses, but their strength was still there, and an infantry regiment of the Imperial Association Army was all jade.

Ampei Shaozo knew very well that he would definitely be reprimanded by His Excellency the Brigade Commander for losing a team, and no one would care about how many Imperial Cooperative troops died. At the same time, Ampei Shaozuo ordered to find the hateful Chinese bandits as soon as possible, and find them out and destroy them all, so as to bring shame to the Snow Emperor Army.

On the same day that Ma Zheng's troops won the first battle, the battle situation on the Wuhan battlefield changed again. The Battle of Wuhan has been going on for two and a half months, and the Japanese army is in a state of overwhelming strength, and the military situation on the periphery of Wuhan is even more tense at this time, and the enemy in the north and south is gradually approaching Wuhan.

After the main force of the 2nd Army attached to the Central China Front occupied Xinyang on June 22, the commander of the 2nd Army on that day ordered Fujita Jin's 3rd Division to guard the Xinyang area, monitor the movements of the main force of the Kuomintang army, and control the situation in the northern area of the Wuhan battlefield; The 13th Division was ordered to attack south along the Pinghan Road with one division, and the main force was west of the Pinghan Road along Yingshan, Anlu, Yunmeng, and Yingcheng, breaking through the defense of Luo Zhuoying's 5th Corps in the 5th Theater in the area, and attacking Hankou and Hanyang from the northwest in a roundabout way.

However, the left route of the 2nd Army was not smooth, and the right route army was slightly better than it, first bumping into a generation of famous generals Zhang Zizhong. Zhang Zizhong led his subordinates to block the Japanese army for half a month, and finally was able to retreat safely in front of the enemy. Then he encountered Hu Zongnan's First Army, which was the best equipped in China at the time, with Qiu Qingquan's tank unit and Peng Mengzhi's artillery brigade. Hu Zongnan sat on the best equipment of the Chinese government, and used three armies and seven divisions to fight fiercely with two divisions of the Japanese army, which had already fought several bloody battles, for more than 20 days, and even had the upper hand.

The 11th Army, on the south bank of the Yangtze River, its Inaba Shiro's 6th Division occupied Gwangji (Meichuan) in the middle of June 6, and then captured the fortress of Tianjiazhen.

However, the Nationalist Government was also extremely angry about the war on this front, and after the fall of the Tianjiazhen Fortress, Bai Chongxi, the acting commander of the Fifth Theater, immediately commanded the troops to counterattack, but the Japanese army held on to the death, and also released a large amount of poison gas, and the hard attack suffered heavy losses.

Seeing that the strong attack could not work, Bai Chongxi transferred troops to flank the rear of the Japanese army, and Li Pinxian's corps recovered Taihu Lake and Qianshan, cutting off the land supply line and land retreat of the Japanese 6th Division, making Inaba in a difficult situation. Bai Chongxi seized the opportunity and commanded the 28th Army, the 84th Army and other troops facing each other head-on, to take advantage of the opportunity to storm and attack with the intention of completely annihilating the 6th Division, which had committed numerous crimes in the Nanjing Massacre.

This time, although Bai Chongxi's layout was clever, he still underestimated the combat effectiveness of the Japanese army. The 6th Division held on to the danger and at the same time released a large amount of poison gas to survive the difficulties. Okamura also immediately dispatched the navy to open a supply channel at Koike across the Jiujiang River, providing ammunition and replenishment for the 6th Division. After Inaba was replenished, he began to counterattack, and although Bai Chongxi went to the front line to supervise the battle, it was to no avail.

Under the onslaught of the Japanese army, the 28th, 68th and 84th armies suffered heavy casualties, and the reserves were exhausted, but they were still unable to stop the Japanese offensive and were forced to retreat in the direction of Wuhan. When the Japanese saw the defenders retreating, they immediately followed the pursuit.

The battle to defend Wuhan was carried out until mid-July, and both Lao Chiang and the bigwigs of the Military Commission understood a truth: If the Japanese army continued to fight, the encirclement of the north and south of the Yangtze River would be closed, and not only would they not be able to hold Wuhan, but even the hundreds of thousands of troops on the periphery of Wuhan would be swallowed up by the Japanese army, so they decided to evacuate Wuhan.

Subsequently, the Military Commission telegraphed Sun Tongxuan's 3rd Army, which had been reinforced, from Yangxin in Jiangnan to Xinyang in Jiangbei, to make a detour through Yingshan and Suixian, and open Zhengzhou in the north, and be under the command of the 1st Theater. Luo Zhuoying was transferred out of the 5th Corps and replaced by Wan Yaohuang, who continued to serve as the defense of Pingjing Pass, Wusheng Pass, and Yingshan area south of Xinyang. Zhang Zizhong's 59th Army, Liu Ruming's 68th Army, and Feng Zhi'an's 77th Army were combined into the 33rd Group Army, with Zhang Zizhong as the commander-in-chief of the Group Army.

Xue Yue's 1st Corps was still fighting the enemy in the De'an area south of the Jiujiang River. Zhang Fakui's 2nd Corps, relying on the Mufu Mountain, secured the area east of Tongshan, Gaoqiao, and Jinniu, and covered the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway to the west.

With the Nationalist government's initiative to evacuate Wuhan, the Japanese army finally captured the largest city in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

When the news of the fall of Wuhan was relayed to Ma Zheng by the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, Ma Zheng was educating the prisoners who had been recruited back on Jingyanggang. After reading the telegram sent by the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, Ma Zheng felt depressed for a while. Lao Jiang really failed, and he was defeated very badly.

At this time, the Nationalist Government was able to fight with the Japanese army in terms of courage, but it was completely defeated in terms of strategy and tactics. This could not but remind Ma Zheng of the evaluation of the Kuomintang troops by later generations of military strategists -- first-class soldiers, second-rate non-commissioned officers, third-rate generals, and unpopular commanders.

Indeed, the Chinese soldiers are undoubtedly the world's first-class soldiers, and they were able to persist in fighting even though their weaponry, equipment, and logistical support were far behind the Japanese army, and finally won the final victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan, which has to be said to be a miracle.

At the same time, China's non-commissioned officers are also very good, and middle and lower-ranking officers have never lacked courage and blood. There are many people who still hold their positions even if they fight to the last day, and as junior officers, they have done their best.

Although the Chinese generals did not have any wonderful performances, they still persevered, although as a soldier they have been worthy of their hearts, but as a general they are still far from good, so there is still a certain gap between the Chinese generals and the officers of Germany, Britain and other countries at the same time.

As for China's supreme commander-in-chief, he is indeed a good hand in politics, but at the level of military strategic command, it is simply a joke, and not only can he not help in a general battle in which only one infantry battalion commander has to command millions of troops to participate in the battle, but his overstepping of command and unrealistic orders will only make things worse. This can be seen from the fact that there is always a big rout after every great victory, so the Chinese commander-in-chief is not in the stream.

Ma Zheng was so unwilling about the fall of Wuhan, but Ma Zheng also knew that the war in Wuhan was really far away from him, and he only had 1,800 people in his hands now, even if he wanted to help, he was powerless to implement it. So his attention quickly shifted from Wuhan to Shandong, Xie Wensheng and Xu Weiguo now have new moves, and of course Ma Zheng himself can't be idle.

Due to the two consecutive years of war, not only did the Chinese government tighten its belts to get by, but government officials and the vast majority of officers could only receive half of the national salary, and of course those corrupt officials were not among them.

The Japanese government, which was also in a tight financial situation, was on the verge of economic collapse, and even the rations of Japanese officers were stopped at the beginning of this year, and the base camp ordered the defenders in various localities to raise money and food on the spot.

This gave Ma Zheng a great opportunity, so in addition to leaving a special operations team to train those newly recruited prisoners, the rest of the troops were all scattered to attack the money and grain teams that were transported to the county seat of Yanggu County.

With the combat effectiveness of Ma Zheng's department, not to mention the traitor landlords who escorted the car, even the regular field troops of the Japanese army who came to meet them often suffered great losses. For a time, the casualties of the defenders in Yanggu County skyrocketed, which only made An Pei Shaozo anxious. (To be continued.) )