[Anti-Japanese Iron Blood King] Chapter 1027: Counterattack in North China (Ask for subscription!) , ask for a monthly pass, ask for everything! ）

When he returned to Guisui Ma Zheng, he learned that the reason why Political Commissar Luo was in such a hurry to let him come back was because something happened at the front line. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 After cleaning up the Eighth Route Army in Shandong and the Kuomintang Sulu Theater, the little devil consciously settled down his backyard, so he decided to counterattack North China.

On April 22, under the command of the commander of the North China Front, Okamura Ninji, about two divisions of Japanese troops attacked from Liaocheng and came straight to the southern Hebei region where Gao Shuxun's headquarters were stationed.

Not to be outdone, the Nationalist Government immediately ordered Gao Shuxun's 39th Army as the main force of the southern Hebei troops to launch a counterattack, and the two sides fought fiercely in the Daimyo area.

However, due to the full preparation of the Japanese army, coupled with the fact that the original Daimyo, Yanggu and other places were the territory of Ma Zheng's department, Gao Shuxun's department did not take over for a long time and had not yet fully gained a foothold, so the battle was in a situation of passive beating at the beginning.

Fortunately, Gao Shuxun has fought with the Japanese army many times in recent years, and he has rich experience in fighting against Japan, and after taking the initiative to give up part of the defense area, he finally stabilized the front line on the Liujiagou line in the northwest of Daming County, and finally did not collapse in a battle.

However, even so, the situation was still very serious, and although the 39th Army had two corps and four divisions, it had been at the forefront of the war with the Japanese army before, so the losses of its troops were extremely high.

In addition, the Chongqing side was very dissatisfied with Gao Shuxun's behavior of executing Shi Yousan after asking for instructions, so it could not replenish the ammunition supply and food in time, so the 39th Group Army was just an empty shelf. Even counting the newly recruited recruits, Gao Shuxun could only use more than 37,000 troops.

The Japanese army responsible for attacking southern Hebei was the Japanese army with two divisions and one mixed brigade under the command of Lieutenant General Abe Norihide of the 26th Division of the Japanese Army, and there was also one division of the puppet army to cooperate with the operation, and the strength was more than 1.5 times that of Gao Shuxun's department.

In view of the critical situation, Gao Shuxun immediately asked Chongqing for help, hoping that the Military Commission could order the First War Zone and the Second War Zone, which were close at hand, to immediately reinforce southern Hebei.

However, what is depressing is that a few days ago, the First War Zone and the Second War Zone, which were fighting for the ownership of the southern Hebei region, reacted surprisingly unanimously at this time, all of them were silent, and no one was willing to send troops first, and in desperation, Lao Jiang had to order the main force of the 14th Group Army stationed in Tianjin to go south to southern Hebei to reinforce Gao Shuxun's department.

With the reinforcements of the 14th Army, Gao Shuxun's headquarters was finally able to take a breath, and after half a month of hard fighting between the two sides, the Japanese army only broke through to the areas of Wei County, Guangping, and Guantao County, and could no longer advance an inch.

Although Okamura only carried out a small-scale tentative offensive, it took both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party by surprise. Especially on the side of the Nationalist Government, not to mention the loss of territory in two counties, but also the loss of more than 10,000 troops, fortunately Okamura Ninji was just a test, if he really prepared a large-scale counterattack in North China, the consequences would be unimaginable.

However, both Lao Chiang and other senior officers of the Military Commission understood that although this was a tentative attack, it must not be far from the day when the Japanese army would counterattack North China.

Therefore, the Military Commission immediately made a decision to place Gao Shuxun's 39th Group Army under the command of the First Theater. At the same time, he ordered Wei Lihuang, commander of the First Theater of Operations, to immediately make preparations for a major war, and to be sure to defend Tianjin and southern Hebei.

The Japanese army's actions in southern Hebei also frightened Yan'an, you must know that the North China Corps and the Nationalist Government divided the territory on the line from Shimen to Hengshui, with the territory of the Nationalist Government in the south and the territory of the Eighth Route Army in the north.

Now the Japanese army has advanced to the line of Guantao and Guangping, and it is not very far from Hengshui. Moreover, the Yan'an side was very suspicious of the combat effectiveness of Gao Shuxun's department, once the Japanese army captured the entire southern Hebei, then the Eighth Route Army would be passive.

The main reason is that the problems faced by the North China Corps are the same as those of Gao Shuxun's department, which has just taken over the new territory and has not yet been thoroughly digested.

More importantly, the Eighth Route Army used to fight guerrillas, and many of its troops were local troops before, and there were not many regular troops. Now that more than 300,000 troops have been upgraded to regular troops at once, many people have not yet adapted to it, so the Party Central Committee ordered the North China Corps to prepare at the same time, and also ordered Ma Zheng's troops to be ready to go south for reinforcements at any time.

After receiving the telegram from Yan'an, Ma Zheng was also surprised, and secretly said that Okamura Ningji was really a Xiaoqiang who couldn't be beaten. It has only been a few months since it recovered, and it seems that it is really unrealistic to take out the North China Front in one fell swoop.

And Ma Zheng also expected that although this time it was the end of the point, but the next time the Japanese army went north, it would be a thunderbolt, and the narrow and long defense area of the first war zone of the Nationalist Government was not conducive to defense at all, and there was almost no suspense about being broken through by the Japanese army. In the end, it will inevitably become a showdown between the Eighth Route Army and the Japanese army, so you must be prepared.

Subsequently, Ma Zheng held a military and political meeting in Guisui to arrange the next stage. According to Ma Zheng's memory, 1942 seems to have been a year of frequent natural disasters, and almost the whole of North China was in a state of extreme drought in this year.

In view of this, Ma Zheng asked all military regions to put special emphasis on planting drought-tolerant crops, such as potatoes and corn, and to plant as few crops as possible such as wheat and flax when guiding the common people to plough in spring.

At the same time, Ma Zheng demanded that all local arsenals and supporting iron and steel factories and gunpowder factories should increase horsepower production, work in three shifts, and the machines could not be stopped, and they should do a good job in hoarding weapons and ammunition to prepare for the next big war.

The task of the troops is even heavier, and the main force of the Chahar Military Region, which is close to Hebei and the Pingjin region, moves southward, and places the main force on the front line of Xuanhua and Zhangjiakou, ready to fight southward at any time.

The Rehe Military Region, which is located in the northeast, must be well prepared to fight the Kwantung Army, and the main force must store weapons and ammunition for at least three months and actively infiltrate into the northeast region.

All in all, although the Japanese army's action was not large, it alarmed both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and even the troop movement of the whole of North China began.

The battle broke out much earlier than everyone expected, and just half a month after the end of the Japanese attack on southern Hebei, the North China Front once again showed its fangs.

On May 28, the main forces of the two divisions of the Japanese army, with the cooperation of the two artillery brigades and the puppet troops of the two divisions, set out from the two counties of Daimyo and Guangping to attack Handan, an important town in southern Hebei.

Gao Shuxun's headquarters immediately blocked the Japanese army from moving north in Wei County, Cheng'an, Feixiang and other places, and the two sides once again fought to the death in the southern Hebei region.

But this time it was different from the last time, this time Okamura Ningji was obviously determined to take southern Hebei, not only dispatched more than 50,000 main forces, but even dispatched a complete field heavy artillery brigade and a part of the tank troops.

In comparison, Gao Shuxun's armament was poor, and there was only one mountain artillery battalion in the entire group army, and the rest were all small-caliber mortars, with an average of 4 guns per regiment, and the two sides were not opponents at the same level at all.

On the third day of the battle, the county seat of Weixian County was lost, and the Japanese army arrived at Feixiang and Cheng'an counties on the outskirts of Handan.

In order to keep Handan and the most important city in southern Hebei, Gao Shuxun immediately asked his boss Wei Lihuang for help. And Wei Lihuang was also very simple, and immediately ordered the 15th Army stationed in reserve to go north to reinforce Gao Shuxun's department. At the same time, the main force of the 14th Group Army stationed in Tianjin was ordered to go south, and the two armies rushed to southern Hebei day and night.

However, just when everyone thought that China and Japan would stage a dragon and tiger battle in southern Hebei, on the night of the 31st, the main force of the First Army of the Japanese army stationed in Xiuwu and Wuzhi suddenly stormed Jiaozuo, and under the opening of the chariot troops, Jiaozuo was taken in just one night.

Immediately afterwards, the main force of the Japanese First Army was about three divisions, with the cooperation of two puppet infantry divisions, all the way to the west and north, and by three o'clock in the afternoon of June 1, the Japanese army successfully captured Jiaozuo, an important town in northern Henan, and four surrounding counties.