[The Iron Blood King of the Anti-Japanese Army] Chapter 128: The generals are not in harmony

This series of adjustments by the Japanese army was dazzling, and the personnel appointments of the commanders of six field divisions, the chief of staff of one corps, and the commander of one corps were adjusted at once.

As the saying goes, changing generals in battle is taboo for soldiers. Although the Japanese army is now fighting fairly smoothly on the Chinese battlefield, there has been a decline in the local battlefield, and such an intensive personnel adjustment at this time is indeed somewhat unexpected by everyone.

In particular, the transfer of the commander of the First Army of the North China Front, Kiyoshi Kazuki, made the Second War Zone and the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army even more confused. In their opinion, this Lieutenant General Kiyoji Kazuki has a strong command ability and is a great opponent in the World War Zone, but they did not expect to be suddenly transferred back to Japan, which is more happy than confused.

In fact, it is not only these generals in the Second War Zone and the Eighth Route Army Headquarters who are puzzled, but even Kazuki Kiyoji himself is puzzled, and of course, there is also a strong anger and resentment.

In fact, Kazuki Kiyoji received a transfer order as early as the end of May, which should be May 29 to be exact. The telegram was addressed to him by Field Marshal Sugiyama, Minister of War, to the effect that: "Your Commander of the 1st Army shall be dismissed from his post as commander of the 1st Army from May 29 and transferred to the General Staff Headquarters." ”

However, due to the sudden order to cooperate with the Mongolian army to seize the body of His Excellency Hasunuma, he was temporarily left in his post and did not return to China.

Regarding the issue of being suddenly dismissed, Kazuki Kiyoji actually expected it, but he didn't expect it to be so soon, which made him depressed and angry in his heart, and he was also a little more worried about the future battle situation.

The reason why he was dismissed was mainly caused by the conflict between him and General Shouichi Terauchi. The specific reason is because of the use of troops and other issues, and there have been several disputes over this. For example, on February 11 this year, the day of the Japanese Era, the 1st Army, in accordance with the plan of the North China Front, attacked Jinnan with the 14th, 108th, 20th, and 109th divisions and regiments in a multi-circuitous and mutually coordinated manner, in an attempt to occupy the area east and north of the Yellow River in order to consolidate the occupation line on the western flank of the North China Front.

At the same time, the North China Front ordered the First Army to transfer two more infantry brigades and one artillery squadron to coordinate with other units to attack the Jinchaji anti-Japanese base area of the Eighth Route Army in the area of Fuping County, Hebei Province.

However, as the commander of the front line, Kiyoji Kazuki knew very well how many troops he had, and there were so many people in the 1st Army, and in order to ensure the focus of the attack, the number of troops to maintain stability in the rear and protect communications has been reduced to a minimum.

It would indeed be difficult to send two more infantry brigades to Fuping, so Kazuki Kiyoji called the North China Front Headquarters and asked for a remission. However, the chief of staff of the North China Front, Naosaburo Okabe, refused to agree to the order, and at the meeting of the chiefs of staff of the North China Front held in Beiping on March 21, Okabe blamed the 1st Army for this, and the chief of staff of the 1st Army, Major General Shojiro Iida, was asked to admit his mistake.

However, Iida refuted the argument that the Jinnan operation was carried out on the orders of the front army, that the temporary withdrawal of troops would affect the fulfillment of the original mission, and that the question of the use of troops during the operation was also allowed to be raised by the command organs on the front line in this regard. After Iida pleaded this way, Naosaburo Okabe and his head of the operations section went down the mountain to think that Osa was extremely angry and asked Terauchi to make a summary statement.

Terauchi Shouichi was the eldest son of Marshal Masaki Terauchi, the 18th Prime Minister of Japan after the Meiji Restoration, graduated from the 11th class of the Army Non-commissioned Officer School in November 1899, and after the "February 26 Incident" in 1936, he became the Minister of War as a field marshal.

At this meeting, Teramichi pointed out after making a defense based on Shojiro Iida: "All orders must be carried out and communicated to the military commander, and this should be taken seriously in the future." ”

With such an attitude, it was clear that the First Army was wrong, and Terauchi Shouichi asked the Chief of Staff of the First Army to convey this to Kiyoshi Kazuki, which was a naked insult and contempt.

What made it even more difficult for Kazuki Kiyoji to accept was that after the meeting of the North China Front, the problems of the 1st Army were pointed out as typical examples in the documents submitted to the Ministry of the Army, the General Staff Headquarters, and the distribution to various units. Kiyoji Kazuki was so angry after hearing Shojiro Iida's report on the reprimands and seeing the documents of the North China Front that he wrote a long letter to Terauchi Shouichi explaining the situation in five aspects, but the letter was returned.

In addition, Xiangyue and the North China Front also had serious differences on many major issues, such as the instigation of the anti-Japanese will, the submission of the generals, and the use of combat forces in Xuzhou. In particular, in the autumn of Showa 12, when Kazuki's 1st Army attacked the Shijiazhuang area in the southwest along the Pinghan Road, the commander of the 14th Division under his command, Kenji Dohihara, had a unique view on the use of troops.

Because Tsuchihara carried out spy activities in China with Lieutenant General Rihachiro Sakanishi in the early days, he established quite a lot of relationships among all levels of society. Prior to this operational offensive, Feiyuan had established contacts with Han Fuyu, commander-in-chief of the 3rd Army and chairman of Shandong Province, and Shi Yousan, commander of the Northern Hebei Security Command, who was stationed in the Anyang area

In particular, the instigation of Cai Peide in the Linqing region and Li Ying and Li Fuhe in the Anyang region was quite eye-catching, but the North China Front Command had a contempt and distrust of these proposed converts, and imposed many harsh conditions, which caused Xiangyue to have many difficulties in this work and ran aground. In the future, the North China Front will have to carry out this work again, but the environment has changed greatly, and it is difficult to carry it out again.

Xiangyue transferred the 16th Division from Gaoyi and Anyang on Pinghan Road, and the 14th Division from Xinxiang and Jiaozuo to fight in Xuzhou, leaving the defensive forces south of Shijiazhuang and Jinnan empty, and as a result, not only was forced to abandon Changzhi and other areas. Moreover, the 20th Division in Linfen, Quwo, Wenxi, and Yuncheng along the southern section of Tongpu Road was attacked day and night by the Kuomintang troops who crossed the Yellow River again and returned to Jinnan and found themselves in a difficult situation.

In short, due to the concentration of forces to attack Xuzhou, the results of the 1st Army in the past two years presented an extremely unstable situation, and the various units could only make a passive defense, and no longer had the ability to attack and occupy new areas and sweep up, while the anti-Japanese forces in North China took advantage of the opportunity to develop in large numbers.

In addition, the 14th Division of the 1st Army, which participated in the Xuzhou operation, deployed it in the isolated Lanfeng and Kaifeng areas, and when the 4 divisions of the 2nd Army, the 3rd and 13th Brigades attached to the Kwantung Army and the 3 divisions of the Central China Dispatch Army joined forces to encircle Xuzhou, most of the 60 divisions of the Kuomintang Army suddenly broke through from Xuzhou to the west. In this regard, Xiangyue believed that Terauchi Shouichi lacked overall consideration in consolidating the use of troops in the occupied areas in North China, and that he had neglected one or the other in the deployment of the Xuzhou operation.

In addition, Xiangyue and others were very dissatisfied with the leaders of the North China Front Army and the staff officers of the organs who were arrogant and reprimanded the troops at every turn. According to Kiyoshi Kazuki, the North China Front commanded him like a low-ranking non-commissioned officer.

In other respects, Xiangyue used the ammunition used by the commanders of the front-line troops to inspect the battlefield using the old "モ-type" and "ス-type" planes, while the staff officers and troops of the North China Front sometimes used the new aircraft with better performance. Some of the troops have not yet been issued cotton clothes in winter, while the commanders, chief of staff, section chiefs, staff officers, and even service personnel of the "North China Front" have already put on new, and some of them are still high-grade cold-proof clothing. They are dissatisfied with the fact that the headquarters of the North China Front has always lived in the peaceful Pingjin area, rarely inspecting the front-line troops, and even less going to difficult and dangerous areas.

In short, because Kazuki Kiyoshi had a lot of dissatisfaction with the North China Front, but Kazuki Kiyoji thought that there was not much contradiction between himself and General Terauchi Shouichi, so he did not expect that Terauchi Shouichi would suddenly dismiss him.

After being dismissed, the most he thought about was not what happened to him, but whether it was really possible to hand over hundreds of thousands of imperial warriors to a commander like Nishizu, who was arrogant, narrow-minded, and wantonly enjoyed?

And it turned out that Terauchi Shouichi did a really poor job in dealing with the rise of the Eighth Route Army, and even gave Ma Zheng's department in Chanan the ability to completely annihilate the Imperial Army. This cast a shadow on the heart of Kiyoji Kazuki, who was about to leave his post and return to China, for his own future and the future of the Great Japanese Empire.