[Anti-Japanese Iron Blood King] Chapter 546: Fight Handan (Ask for subscriptions, ask for monthly passes, ask for everything!) ）

Even so, Yamashita reported his findings and inferences to the North China Front Headquarters in the form of telegrams. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 At the same time, Yamashita Fumi, in the name of the commander-in-chief of the former enemy, asked Sugiyama for tactical guidance and prepared for the most drastic counterattack against the integrated 2nd Division on the Xuanhua front.

After receiving the telegram from Yamashita Fumi, General Sugiyama did not give an immediate reply, but urgently convened a meeting to discuss the matter. After some deliberations, General Sugiyama finally decided to support Yamashita Fengfumi's counterattack, and ordered the Japanese troops stationed in Shimen, Zhengding, Baoding, and Xingtai to transfer three infantry wings, two cavalry wings, three chariot brigades, and three infantry groups of the Imperial Allied Army totaling more than 21,000 people to supplement the troops on the Xuanhua front, and Yamashita Fengfumi was the commander to launch a major counterattack against the Suicha Military Region.

The Japanese counterattack was very sharp, the Japanese army from the front line of Yanqing and Xuanhua was more than 50,000 people, and all the troops of the second division added up to 35,000 people.

Anyway, the task of reorganizing the Second Division was to attract the main force of the Japanese army to the north and create opportunities for the troops on the front line in southern Hebei and Xinkou, and now that the goal had been achieved, there was no need to fight the Japanese army to the death.

While the troops on the northern front were retreating, the troops on the Xinkou front line and the troops in southern Hebei received orders to attack quickly. In particular, on the southern Hebei front, Ma Zheng waved his pen and ordered the Shandong Independent Division, the Southern Hebei Administrative Office, the 115th Division, and other troops to advance to Handan with all their might, not to care about the gains and losses of one army in one city and one place, and to break through Handan, an important military town in southern Hebei, in the shortest possible time.

The 2nd Brigade and 3rd Brigade of the Independent Division, as the vanguard of the attack, were the first to launch an attack on the enemy forces on the periphery of Handan, of which the 2nd Brigade attacked the Japanese army in Feixiang County, and the rest of the troops were all engaged in the battle sequence of attacking Handan.

At this time, although the defenders of Handan had already sensed the danger, since all the Japanese troops on the Zhengding and Shimen lines had been transferred to the Xuanhua line, there were no troops nearby that could support them.

As a last resort, Tokugawa Yasuichi had to transfer several infantry squadrons and brigades scattered in the surrounding counties of Handan back to Handan, plus an infantry group of the Imperial Allied Army, so as to increase the garrison in Handan City to 7,000 people.

The battle to attack Handan began on 27 August, first of all, the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division launched a fierce attack on Feixiang, the eastern gateway of Handan, and at the same time, the main force of the 3rd Brigade, with the cooperation of two regiments of the Southern Hebei Administrative Office, quietly bypassed Feixiang and appeared on the outskirts of Handan.

Although the Japanese army in Feixiang had more than 4,000 people, but there were not many heavy weapons, because on the way to reinforce Feixiang was blocked by the Eighth Route Army one after another, many heavy weapons were lost, not to mention tanks and armored vehicles, not even light and heavy machine guns. In addition, the Japanese troops stationed in southern Hebei were all supplementary troops who had just been transferred from Japan to the Chinese battlefield, and their combat experience and will were far from being comparable with those of the old units of the North China Front, and their combat effectiveness was extremely limited.

In the face of the fierce attack of Ma Zheng's department, the Japanese army could only passively defend. At three o'clock in the morning of the 28th, the main force of the Second Brigade approached the city of Feixiang and surrounded the puppet army of more than 3,000 days in the city of Feixiang.

The Feixiang garrison was shocked and immediately sent a report to Major General Tokugawa in Handan City for help, but now the Japanese army in North China is fighting at the same time in southern Hebei, Jinzhong, Chanan and the eastern steppe, plus there are still so many territories to defend, where did Major General Tokugawa get so many troops to reinforce Feixiang.

But it was not enough to watch the defenders of Feixiang be annihilated by Ma Zheng's department, so Major General Tokugawa thought about it and decided to order the Japanese troops in Feixiang City to urgently break through in the direction of Handan, but it was this seemingly shrewd but extremely stupid order that completely killed more than 3,000 defenders in Feixiang City.

Originally, Ma Zheng had no way to deal with Feixiang, which had strong fortifications, and planned to let the main force of the Second Brigade besiege the puppet army for thousands of days first, and then return to clean up this small county town after defeating Handan. Unexpectedly, the Japanese army did not defend the city, but played with them to break through.

Instead of preventing the Japanese army from breaking through, the second brigade on the front line was ordered to release water when the Japanese broke through, and more than 3,000 Japanese troops only suffered less than 500 casualties when they broke through the line of Xie Wensheng's headquarters, and almost all of them were puppet troops, which means that the Japanese army had almost no big losses.

But before the Japanese army in Feixiang was happy for too long, they were ambushed by Xu Weiguo's third brigade on the way back to Handan, more than 2,500 people faced three times the Eighth Route Army, and it was still calculated or unintentional, the Japanese army only lasted less than 20 minutes and was completely defeated, and more than 2,500 people were either killed or became prisoners of Ma Zheng's department except for a few who escaped by chance.

Subsequently, the soldiers of the 3rd Brigade changed into Japanese uniforms and equipment, pretended to be the Japanese troops who had retreated from Feixiang, attacked the city and plundered the village along the way, and finally arrived outside Handan at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the 28th.

At this time, Tokugawa Yasushi was stupid and couldn't notice that something was wrong, but at this time, he still felt that he should be able to hold Handan City with six or seven thousand people in his hands, but when Xu Weiguo attacked at six o'clock in the afternoon of the 28th, Tokugawa Yasuchi suddenly felt pressure.

The two sides fought until 10 o'clock in the morning of the 29th, and after completely clearing out the remnants of the enemy in Feixiang City, Xie Wensheng's troops also arrived outside Handan City and immediately entered the battle. The Japanese puppet army in the city suddenly panicked, thinking that they were only six or seven thousand people, but the Eighth Route Army besieging the city had two brigades plus two regiments of the Southern Hebei Administrative Office, with a total strength of almost 17,000 people.

By noon on the 29th, almost all the strongholds on the periphery of Handan Cheng were declared lost, indicating that nearly 3,000 Japanese puppet troops outside the city were defeated by the Eighth Route Army, and Handan City was in danger.

At this moment, Tokugawa Yasu panicked and immediately sent a telegram for help to the 108th Infantry Division of the Japanese Army stationed at Jingcheng Pass, begging the 108th Division to send troops to the south to rescue them quickly, otherwise the situation in Handan would be dangerous.

When Lieutenant General Kumaya Shimoto, commander of the 108th Division, received a telegram from Tokugawa Yasuichi, he was immediately shocked, and this matter was an extremely difficult matter for him. Originally, he had already received an order from the base camp that the 108th Division under his command would return to Japan before November to be disbanded, and he, the commander of the lieutenant general division, would be appointed as the general of staff, so there was no need to wade into the troubled waters this time.

But it can't be saved when you die, although Tokugawa Yasuichi is a scumbag, but the Tokugawa family is a behemoth. Although the Tokugawa family is inconspicuous in Japan's military and political circles, the truly capable people know the horror of the Tokugawa family, which is the most trusted samurai family of His Majesty the Emperor, nearly half of the officers of the Guard Division came out of the Tokugawa family, and nearly one-third of the soldiers who led the troops in the imperial palace were also surnamed Tokugawa.

Lieutenant General Kumaya Shimoto knows very well the horror of the Tokugawa family, not to mention that Tokugawa Yasuichi is the eldest son and eldest grandson of the Tokugawa family, and he is a super master who has reached the eighth stage of the black belt in the sword book, and he is very popular in the entire Tokugawa family, so if something happens to Tokugawa Yasuichi, there will definitely be another big earthquake in the Japanese military and political circles, and when the Tokugawa family settles accounts after the autumn, the fate of him, the commander of the infantry division who will not be saved, will definitely not be much better.

If the Tokugawa family wanted to clean him up as the commander of an infantry division with no background, it would be no different from pinching an ant to death, and it would not take much effort at all.

Although Shimoto Kumaya himself also has a certain foundation, otherwise it would be impossible to achieve the post of lieutenant general division commander in the Japanese Army, which is highly competitive and highly valued for his background. However, the Tokugawa Yasuichi family has more power in the Japanese army, although it cannot cover the sky with one hand, but it is also very detached, because the patriarch of the Tokugawa family is one of the most trusted leaders of the Japanese emperor.

As the head of the Praetorian Guard of His Majesty the Emperor, the old patriarch of the Tokugawa Yasuichi family has a very powerful voice in the Japanese military circles, no less than the Japanese Minister of War and the Chief of the General Staff of the Military Department. Now if something happens to the eldest grandson of the Tokugawa Yasuichi family in his territory, not only will he, the "small" lieutenant general, be in trouble, but even General Sugiyama Mototo will be implicated. (To be continued.) )