[Anti-Japanese Iron Blood King] Chapter 572: Attack on Shimen (Ask for subscriptions, ask for monthly passes, ask for everything!) ）

However, just when Umezu Mijiro was glad that the remnants of the 108th Division were stationed in Jinzhong County in time, there was extremely bad news from the direction of Yuanping Town, the 79th Wing and the 80th Wing were routed by Ma Zheng's headquarters and surrounded by the Shina people on the way to retreat, and the remnants had surrendered to the Shina people at this time. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Then news came from the direction of Ningwu Pass, a brigade of Ma Zheng's department had set off from Yuanping Town to Ningwu Pass, if the defenders of Ningwu Pass did not retreat, they would be attacked by the front and rear of the Zhina army at that time, and it would be too late to retreat.

In desperation, Umezu Mijiro had no choice but to order the defenders of Ningwuguan and the defenders of Daixian to immediately withdraw to Jingle, and telegraphed to the commander of the 20th Division of the Japanese Army, Ushijima Minoru, that if the original flat line was no longer defendable, the troops could withdraw to Xinkou and continue to deal with the Chinese army, as long as the fifth division arrived in Shanxi, the Chinese would be defeated.

At the same time, Umezu Mijiro also authorized Ushijima to be in charge of the defensive operations on the front line of Xinkou, and ordered Ushijima, Xinkou to be the last line of defense of the 20th Division, and if it could not resist the attack of the Shina people, then everyone, including him, the commander of the lieutenant general's division, should stay there.

Relying on iron-blooded means, Umezu Mijiro finally stabilized the battle line again, but he also knew that if he didn't find a way to fight back, his first army would probably be planted in the hands of the Shina people this time. For this reason, he had to pull down his son and ask for help from General Sugiyama Yuan in Beiping, asking him to send a large army to help immediately.

And Sugiyama Yuan, who was far away in Beiping, knew that simple reinforcements could not solve the problem of Shanxi at all, and the people of China were determined to take back Taiyuan, and the lack of reinforcements was not enough to dispel this attention, so they had to think of other ways.

Major General Muto Akira, deputy chief of staff of the North China Front, has been in the post of chief of staff of the Front for a year and a half, so he has a much clearer view of the situation in North China than General Sugiyama Moto. He believes that the reason why the Second War Zone of the Nationalist Government launched the Second Battle of Taiyuan at this time is that in addition to containing the First Army, more importantly, the Second War Zone has the support of Ma Zheng's department, and if you want to prevent the Second War Zone from recovering Taiyuan, then you have to let Ma Zheng's department withdraw its troops.

As long as Ma Zheng's headquarters withdraws troops from the Xinkou front, in this way, the second theater that has lost the cooperation of the Suicha Military Region will withdraw without a fight, so all the problems are still in Ma Zheng's department.

In the end, Major General Muto Akira put forward a countermeasure, that is, to order the troops on the Zhangjiakou front to intensify their offensive, strive to take Zhangjiakou in a short time, and force Ma Zheng's troops to immediately withdraw their troops from the Shanxi battlefield.

I have to say that Muto Akira analyzed it very well and saw the crux of the matter clearly.

After the decision of the top level of the Japanese North China Front, the front army immediately sent a telegram to Yamashita on the Zhangjiakou front, ordering them to strengthen the offensive and capture Zhangjiakou City before the 13th, forcing Ma Zheng's troops to return to Zhangjiakou and have no time to take care of the Shanxi battlefield.

In the view of Sugiyama Yuan and others, once Ma Zheng's troops were withdrawn, it would be completely difficult to support the second theater alone, and as long as the first army came back, it was still unknown who would destroy whom.

At the same time, the North China Front Headquarters also sent a telegram to the Japanese Fifth Division marching to the vicinity of Dezhou, ordering them to speed up their march and rush from Dezhou to Shimen within three days, and then rush to Taiyuan via the Zhengtai Railway.

The Japanese moved extremely quickly, and as soon as the order was given, the 5th Division stationed in Texas began to assemble overnight.

Just as China/troop movements cannot be concealed from the Japanese army, the large-scale troop movements of the Japanese army cannot be concealed from China's intelligence services. When receiving the news that the Japanese Fifth Division was heading north, Lao Jiang, Yan Laoxi, and Ma Zheng reacted differently.

Lao Chiang breathed a sigh of relief, and now the scale of the battle in North China is getting bigger and bigger, and it has the meaning of sweeping the whole of North China. In this way, the Japanese army in North China had no time to take care of the Kuomintang troops in Henan, and he had been worried that the Second Army, which was subordinate to the North China Front, would launch an attack from the Lanfeng area to the First Theater of Operations, so as to contain the National Revolutionary Army in Henan, but now it seems that this is completely impossible.

After all, the Japanese army only has a few divisions in Shandong, and now that the fifth division is going north, there are only two divisions left in the Japanese army in Shandong, and it is a little reluctant to hold on to Shandong, and it is even more impossible to attack Henan, so Lao Jiang is greatly relieved.

On the contrary, Yan Laoxi of Shanxi gasped after receiving the news, and the three and a half half-disabled divisions of the First Army were enough for his old man to drink a pot. Now that the Fifth Division is going westward, then his old man is not stealing chickens and rice. If the Eighth Route Army took the opportunity to pull his hand, then his old man would really lure the wolf into the room, so Yan Laoxi gasped.

Ma Zheng just shook his head disdainfully after receiving the news, in Ma Zheng's opinion, the old devil Sugiyama Yuan had a good idea, encircled Wei to save Zhao, and wanted to force the main force of the Suicha Military Region Army to come back to help, which was really a good calculation. But his old boy didn't even know the real goal of Ma Zheng's department, and after Xie Wensheng's department successfully captured Shimen, all of Sugiyama Yuan's plans had to go bankrupt.

Ma Zheng does have reasons for disdain, and he has that strength. Now he is working overtime in the arsenal in Baotou to catch up with the schedule, the monthly production of AK47 assault rifles has increased to more than 9,000, and more than 20,000 have been delivered to the troops, in addition to at least 20,000 in the warehouse, it will not be long before all the troops of the Suicha Military Region will be replaced with assault rifles with powerful firepower.

In addition, in terms of troops, although the North China Front Army has nine divisions and regiments, in fact, it is not enough to even have seven full-strength divisions and regiments, and in addition, the puppet North China Security Army and the puppet Mongolian Army have suffered heavy losses one after another, and the number of puppet troops has decreased sharply, so the total number of Japanese puppet troops in the entire North China is now less than 400,000.

On the other hand, the anti-Japanese forces developed rapidly, with the three main divisions of the Eighth Route Army adding up to at least 200,000 horses, plus the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region and other troops, the total strength was at least 300,000. After several years of development, the total strength of the Suicha Military Region has reached more than 180,000, and including other units in the Second World War Zone, the anti-Japanese forces in North China are at least 800,000 or more, more than twice that of the Japanese army.

Not to mention that most of the Japanese puppet army was scattered to various counties in North China, in fact, the forces that Sugiyama could use were very limited. This time, this old guy mobilized more than 70,000 people to besiege Zhangjiakou at once, regardless of life or death, and it was completely desperate, armed with his head exposed, and it was impossible for Sugiyama Yuan to use this method to solve the crisis in Shanxi.

On the night of 11 September, in Huojiatun outside Shimen, Xie Wensheng's headquarters had been assembled, and more than 6,300 people in the brigade were ready to go.

The task has been arranged, and the task of the second brigade this time is to cooperate with the special forces, and the most important thing is to hold there and block the Japanese reinforcements from rushing to Shanxi.

In addition, there is also a very important task that is to intercept the Japanese army's several military trains that are about to go to Taiyuan, and we must not let them arrive in Taiyuan, which is related to the life and death of the entire Shanxi war situation, and we must not be careless.

They have already figured out the situation of the Japanese troops near Shimen, and there is a squadron of Japanese troops stationed in Pingshan County, Lingshou County, and Luquan County, and there is also a puppet infantry battalion to cooperate with the Japanese army. Shimen now has a dissatisfied infantry brigade of the Japanese army and a group (brigade) of the puppet army, with a total strength of about 3,300 people.

However, Xie Wensheng and others also detected that there were a large number of Japanese companies stationed in Shimen, and each company had a large number of security teams composed of ronins. In addition, there is a railway unit at Shimen Station, with a strength of about one squadron, so although the protective force of Shimen is not very strong, there are still five or six thousand defenders. (To be continued.) )