[Anti-Japanese Iron Blood King] Chapter 370: Sugiyama Moto's Purpose (Ask for a subscription, ask for a monthly pass, ask for everything!) ）

Sugiyama Motokai asked this, and Yoshio Shinozuka had already expected it, after all, the main purpose of this meeting was to solve the threat of Ma Zheng's department.

Immediately, Yoshio Shinozuka's vicious little eyes flashed with a terrifying light, and then he said in a deep voice: "Your Excellency, there is an old saying in China: It is better to cut off one of its ten fingers than to hurt it, and it is better to destroy one of its ten divisions than to destroy one of its divisions militarily. He believes that the most important thing for us now is to find out the direction of the main attack of this Chinese army, and then concentrate our forces to annihilate one of them. I think that in this way, the attack of Ma Zheng's department will be self-defeating. ”

General Sugiyama nodded with satisfaction and said: "The 10th Division is a model for all units of the Imperial Japanese Army, and it is the elite of the elites of the empire. ”

"Your Excellency the Commander has won the award, Shinozuka is ashamed to be ashamed, Your Excellency Isoya is a model for my generation of soldiers, and it is indeed admirable for his humble position." Speaking of which, the reason why Yoshio Shinozuka was able to serve as the commander of the 10th Division was that his previous division commander Ryosuke Isoya really contributed a lot, so Yoshio Shinozuka was grateful to Ryosuke Isoya from the bottom of his heart.

General Binshan Yuan glanced at the generals in the conference room, his expression suddenly became very serious, and his originally kind face said with a little hideous: "Now we have preliminarily judged the strategic intentions of Ma Zheng's troops, and we can also infer that the main attack direction of the troops should be the southern line, because the southern line is relatively close to southern Hebei, and it is easier to force our army to return to help, and the Zhina troops on the first line of Rebei are likely to be Ma Zheng's troops in the old doubtful formation. After all, with the current strength of Ma Zheng's department, it is impossible to penetrate deep into Rehe. ”

Speaking of which. Sugiyama Moto's originally hideous face showed a strange smile, and then said: "But the hateful Tubalu doesn't know that the more than 40,000 troops allocated to our front army from the base camp have landed in Tianjin Port, and he is destined to be disappointed this time." ”

"Order: The Rehe Front Army is under the full command of Lieutenant General Yasui Toji, and it is necessary to hold off Ma Zheng's subordinates, even if they lose Chengde. After the front army eliminated the main force of the southward detachment led by Ma Zheng, it sent troops to encircle and annihilate the enemy who invaded Rehe. ”

"Mobilize the 10th Division and the 110th Division to the north to reinforce the Zhangjiakou and Datong fronts. The 10th Division reinforced Datong, and the specific operations were under the full command of Shinozuka-kun. The 110th Division reinforced Zhangjiakou and cooperated with the 16th Division. ”

"Hail"

"Hail"

……

After the meeting was adjourned, all the participating officers withdrew one after another, and General Sugiyama Mototo, who was the only one left in the conference room, looked at the dazzling map of China on the wall, and General Sugiyama Moto's heart was mixed.

At the beginning of the all-out war of aggression against China, the main decision-makers in Japan believed that they only needed to "strike a blow at China." It is possible to force China to submit. When the Emperor of Japan asked how long the war would take, he brazenly said that "one or two months is enough." He said and thought so, and in his opinion, China was nothing more than a toothless tiger, and no longer had the ability to compete with the Japanese Empire.

However, what General Binshan did not expect was that the Shina government, which had always been weak and deceitful, would fight the empire at all costs this time, and during the Battle of Songhu, the empire was forced to increase its troops three times, and for the first time more than 300,000 troops were dispatched for a local battle, which is not unheard of in Japanese history. But it's quite rare.

Although they won the battle and captured the city that the whole world coveted. Soon after, they also got their wish and captured Nanjing, the capital of China. However, the Chinese's will to resist did not collapse as they imagined, but fought valiantly under the leadership of the government of China and the local warlord parties, from Shanghai to Nanjing, from Jinan to Taierzhuang, from Xinkou to Taiyuan.

This may also be unexpected by the leader of China, Jiang, and it is no wonder that he was able to write heroic poems of "an inch of mountains and rivers, an inch of blood, 100,000 young men and 100,000 soldiers".

After almost two years. The Chinese army on the frontal battlefield was neither wiped out, nor did the Chinese government give in, and still insisted on resisting the war. The enemy on the battlefield behind enemy lines became stronger and stronger, established a large number of anti-Japanese base areas, and recaptured large areas of occupied areas. Especially the fierce general Ma Zheng of Tubalu. This previously unknown officer of China seems to have been born out of thin air, not only with unique strategic vision, but also with extremely high tactical skills.

Since the beginning of the war, many high-ranking officers of the empire have been lost in his hands, and even the famous lieutenant general of the imperial army, Rennuma Pan, has been broken in his hands, and his body has become a trophy of others.

What's even more terrifying is that it has only been a long time for almost all of the Mongolian Xinjiang areas that the imperial army has worked so hard to fight have fallen into the hands of Ma Zheng. Now that the ministry was fully fledged, it directly threatened the Empire's rule in northern China.

Resistance in China has been repeated, and the situation abroad has also been very unfavorable to Japan. At present, the most fearful thing in the empire is that the United States, Britain and other Western powers will support China, but fortunately, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the empire is still attentive, and with their efforts, the United States and Britain basically did not provide assistance to China during this period. Moreover, in order to push the empire's chariot onto the red Soviet Union, the United States and Britain tried their best to pursue a "policy of appeasement" and even continued to sell the empire the strategic materials that the empire lacked most.

However, even so, under such difficult conditions, the poor and backward China mainly relied on its own strength to resist the attack of the empire, forcing the empire's strategic plan to conquer China in a short period of time and turn China into a base for "southward expansion" or "northward expansion" completely aborted. What is even more terrifying is that the empire is now stuck in the "Chinese quagmire" and cannot extricate itself, and the national economy has begun to decline seriously.

Not long ago, General Terauchi Shouichi, former commander of the Imperial North China Front, reported to His Majesty the Emperor on the situation of the resistance forces in North China in his "Report on the Situation of the Resistance Forces in North China": "The occupied areas are ...... The enemy's guerrilla activities were gradually active...... Its actions are extremely rampant. Incidents such as sabotage of railways, attacks on various places, etc., are constantly occurring. The so-called 'law and order restoration areas' are in fact limited to a few kilometres on either side of the main communication routes. ”

As the first commander of the North China Front, His Excellency Terauchi Shouichi still had a very insightful view, and he very much agreed with and appreciated the views of General Terauchi Shouichi. In addition, at this time, Japan not only suffered serious setbacks militarily, the momentum of its strategic offensive had reached the end of its strength, but it was also gradually falling into difficulties economically, its national strength began to decline, and there was a shortage of strategic raw materials. Moreover, due to the continuous increase in the number of soldiers, labor, energy, and food are all insufficient.

So in the eyes of General Binshan Yuan, there was a huge crisis under the halo of imperial glory. According to the data obtained some time ago, the military expenditure of the empire has reached 260 million yen, and the production plan of the defense industry can no longer be completed. The poverty of national strength has become superficial and the army has lost the ability to guarantee the supply of military materials, thus aggravating the pain and pressure of the head of the central high command.

Not long ago, Sugiyama had an exchange with Deputy Chief of Staff Shigeru Sawada and made an inference about the current form of the empire. As a result, Sawada Shigeru was surprised by what he said, and Sawada Shigeru thought that the current Great Japanese Empire was already a foreign power, and he could still fight with the Shina people in a short time, but he couldn't maintain it for a long time. In the end, Sawada Shigeru came to the conclusion that there was no way out by relying on the decisive battle of force to resolve the Shina incident.

In fact, Sugiyama also had basically the same opinion as him, believing that it would be very detrimental to Japan to continue fighting. Even if the big cities of Wuhan and Guangzhou are defeated, it will not be possible to bring China to its knees. In addition, the political situation in the country is unstable, and the struggles between the cabinets have come and gone, and Prime Minister Fumima Konoe, who has just taken office, has been provoked by Kiichiro Hiranuma, Nobuyuki Abe, Mitsumasa Yonechi and others more than once, and there is almost no suspense in changing the cabinet.

However, their policy toward China, especially toward the guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army in North China, was capricious, and although they constantly changed their tactics toward China and adopted various means such as "strategic bombing," "naval blockade," "three-light policy," "using China to contain China," and "using war to nourish war," they still failed to reverse this unfavorable situation, which was getting deeper and deeper. Senior General Binshan Mototo believes that the several cabinet changes during the incident are in themselves exposing Japan's weakness to the world.

Not long ago, there was news from the base camp that the General Staff Headquarters was drawing up a secret plan to end the war, and in the words of a certain high-ranking cabinet official, it would be futile to continue the fighting, and it would be impossible to comprehensively resolve the China issue in one fell swoop through this incident. The broad masses of the people are already tired, and chaos will inevitably arise after a long war.

However, Sugiyama himself did not think that this was the most favorable period to end the war in China, although there were such and such internal troubles in the empire at this time, but General Binshan Yuan would never allow the empire to end the war, and the holy war of the empire was to completely occupy China as the first purpose, not just extort some property.

Therefore, Sugiyama Mototo believed that their North China Front must fight a big battle in the fastest possible time, and it was a big enough victory to attract all the attention of the empire, so that those who are short-sighted can see the strength of the Great Japanese Empire, and let them see the might of the Imperial Army of the Great Japanese Empire. Therefore, the use of troops against the Suicha Military Region this time was not only because Ma Zheng's troops took the initiative to send troops, but had an inseparable relationship with the political situation in Japan. (To be continued.) )