"Before, even Tomahawk tanks were powerless against some ground fortifications of the Japanese army, but this self-propelled gun can destroy some simple fortifications and pave the way for infantry attacks."

"Well, what about the production of such self-propelled guns?" Jiang Li looked at the low-faced self-propelled gun and asked.

"Due to the slight decrease in tonnage and the cancellation of the turret design, the process and cost have decreased a lot. The cost of one such self-propelled gun, man-hours, is only about half that of a Tomahawk tank. Technicians at the plant, named this tank a sword self-propelled gun. The test officer said.

"In other words, the effort and cost of building one Tomahawk can make two of these self-propelled guns." At this time, the eyes of everyone present lit up.

"Self-propelled guns are not enough to show their prestige, let's call them sword assault guns." Jiang Li also smiled when he heard the performance and cost of this self-propelled artillery, at this time when the 57MM tank guns of various countries were considered large-caliber, the northwest had taken the lead in equipping its tanks with 75MM guns.

"Assault guns? It does sound a lot louder. When the test officer and others heard this, they all nodded. Then the performance of some sword assault guns was introduced, with a speed of 36 kilometers per hour, it can run more than 150 kilometers with one fuel, and the comprehensive performance is already good compared to its physique.

"Although there is no turret and no rotating artillery, the advantages of the assault gun are also visible, the safety is not lower than that of the Tomahawk, and the additional artillery is large enough. What's more, it's cheaper. In other words, with the same investment, our armor force can be doubled. The advantages of quantity are enough to erase the disadvantages in other aspects. Commander, my old Yang has never been convinced in his life, but this time he is completely convinced. ”

Yang Hucheng looked at this new type of assault gun with glowing eyes, and he was completely convinced by Jiang Li, while they were in these local armies, in order to expand the team, to get more machine rifles, and buy ammunition. Jiang Li has already surpassed everyone, and has made these weapons that are synchronized with the great powers, and even surpass them to some extent. At least it has surpassed the Japanese army at this time, if it weren't for his own experience, Yang Hucheng wouldn't even dare to imagine it. Whether it is the Feng 918 semi-automatic rifle, the fire tongue general-purpose machine gun that has begun to be in service in large quantities, the imitation German heavy artillery produced in the northwest, or the tank in front of you, the plane overhead, and even the poison gas thrown by the Japanese army.

If he was to come, he wouldn't even know where to start. When he was in Shaanxi, he stayed in the northwest longer than Jiang Li. Better than anyone else understands the poverty of the Northwest. I understand that if Jiang Li had not brought this, the Japanese army would have attacked the Central Plains and captured Wuhan long ago. Yang Hucheng has gone all the way from the late Qing Dynasty, from a hot-blooded young man to the current military boss, he has seen too many generations of heroes, but these people finally fell silent in the long river of history, in addition to laying a temporary prestige, but did not have much impact on the current situation, and failed to change the current situation of poverty and weakness in the Republic of China, in a sense, these people even exacerbated the turmoil of the Republic of China.

It is a miracle that the Republic of China and the Northwest can have the current situation, and it is Jiang Li's miracle hands that shape this miracle.

"Yes, the cost is so low, and expanding production can replace the current Tomahawk tank. Although we have some foundation in the northwest, we can't afford to be swayed. Later, this sword assault gun can be used as the main force. Zhang Zhibang nodded again and again.

"Although there are many advantages, if you really put it right with the Tomahawk, most likely it will be this assault gun. After all, the performance of the Tomahawk tank is more flexible than that of this assault gun. Now that the conditions do not allow, we can make more of these assault guns to replace the position of tanks, and that is also because the assault guns we make are not inferior to the tanks of the Japanese army. But in the future, tanks should still be our main force. ”

Jiang Li said that after such a long period of hard work, the Northwest successfully developed an assault gun from the chassis of the Avenger tank. But the assault gun canceled the turret as a hard wound, and it was not Jiang Li's ideal main armored force. THE SWORD ASSAULT GUN IN FRONT OF HIM IS EQUIPPED WITH 24 TIMES 75MM GUNS IN ADVANCE THAN TOMAHAWK TANKS. Also because of the lower cost of the sword assault gun. Mass production is only an emergency move, after all, the sword assault gun is enough to solve the needs of armored forces in the northwest at this time. The greatest enemy of the Northwest Army was not the Japanese, but Soviet Russia to the north. At that time, with the development of the industry in the Northwest, a large number of tanks will be equipped to compete with the Soviet army.

However, it was enough to deal with the tanks of the Japanese army. The best performance is not necessarily the most suitable, at least for the moment, the sword assault gun can replace the Tomahawk in the fight against the armored forces of the Japanese army.

According to the current production capacity of the tank factory, if a certain number of tanks are produced, plus this kind of assault gun, with the current combat intensity, by next year, we will further complete the expansion of Sun Liren and Zhang Chujiu, and at the same time, we will pull up another armored division next year. After the Japanese army launched the Pacific War, it was not too late for the Northwest Army to launch it.

After all, although the northwest had accumulated a certain amount of strength at this time, in the continuous increase of troops, the Japanese army still had no more than one million troops fighting in the pass at this time. During the entire Second World War, the Japanese army was claimed to be more than 6 million. Historically, after the Japanese army moved south, a large number of elite Japanese troops were transferred to the Pacific theater. In fact, since the explosion of the Pacific War, the mainland of the Republic of China has not been the main battlefield of the Japanese army. Although the northwest also accumulated a certain amount of strength at this time. But relatively speaking, if the Republic of China challenges the entire Japanese army on its own, it is still not enough. For the Republic of China and the Northwest at this time, delaying until the outbreak of the Pacific War was a victory.

According to the current situation, Jiang Li was not worried that the Japanese army would not go south, after all, the much-needed oil has always relied heavily on imports from white countries. Once this passage is cut off, the Japanese army's vast war machine is in danger of collapsing, and even Japan's local industry will lose the motivation to move forward.

As a great power, especially a country with great ambitions like Japan, it will never allow its lifeblood to be held by Britain and the United States all the time. The production of Borneo oil fields is almost irresistible for Japan at this time, and it is also the only large-scale oil field that Japan can control at this time. At this time, the drastic changes in Europe, Britain and France declared war on Germany, the situation was the same as more than 20 years ago, and Britain and France simply did not have enough energy to take care of the situation in Asia. Nor did they have the strength to compete with the Japanese army in Asia. For such a large oil field that seems to be at your fingertips, it does not cost too much to collect a few uses, and completely solve the oil needs of the Japanese army for the next ten years. If the Japanese army can hold it, then there is really a ghost.

The situation is generally developing within the grasp of the leader and Jiang Li, but there are some aspects that are not transferred by the will of the individual.

As soon as the official order was issued for the Japanese Navy and the Republic of China Fleet to cooperate with the Army to occupy the vicinity of Anqing. The Botian detachment was escorted by the 11th Mine Brigade from Zhenjiang Port in Jiangsu. The navy's tracing force set out from Nanjing, and the two met the river in Wuhu and advanced westward in the tracing river. The Japanese fleet advanced to Tiepanzhou, about 20 kilometers southeast of Anqing, and the area of the General's Temple. On the same day, the Hatada detachment landed on the north bank. Along the river well to Anqing. No strong resistance was encountered along the way. Following the Hatata detachment, the Japanese Special Marines landed on the south bank and, after a short battle, captured the Shangkougou battery. In the evening, the Hatada detachment occupied the airfield.

The Yang Sen Division of the Sichuan Army lost its command because the main force was scattered. At this time, he was in the unfavorable situation of being attacked by the enemy, so he gave up Anqing and retreated to Qianshan and Taihu Lake.

As a result, the Japanese army occupied Anqing on August 16. A wing of the 6th Division of the Japanese Army also occupied Tongcheng on the same day.

The fall of Tongcheng and Anqing allowed the Japanese army to use the road from Hefei to Anqing to gain a more favorable position to attack Wuhan. Although the garrison in Huainan had as many as 9 divisions, plus local teams, and more than 100,000 troops, they lacked effective command because of their scattered deployments and lack of command. The troops' will to fight was severely weakened by the successive blows of the Japanese army. In only ten days, hundreds of miles of land were lost.

The Japanese army had long hoped to occupy Anqing, and the original Japanese army was based in Guangde and Wuhu, and whenever its bombers or attack planes attacked Wuhan, the escort fighters could only compress the air combat time over Wuhan within 15 minutes because of their endurance. Due to the lack of escort, the Japanese planes were intercepted by Soviet volunteer fighters and the Central Air Force in Wuhan, and suffered great losses.

After the Japanese army occupied the airfield in Anqing, the Japanese air force gained an excellent access to the airfield to attack the central air base in Wuhan and other places. The Madang blockade line of the Central Army was directly exposed to the Japanese attack. The difficulty of river defense has been further increased.

However, some troops were weak in battle, but most of the troops were extremely tenacious, and in the Jiangnan area, the dense rivers and mountains became a good line of defense against the Japanese army, and a large number of Japanese troops could not break through the defenders' positions even under superior firepower, so they used poison gas to fight. The Japanese army not only issued an order to use sneezing poison gas in the Republic of China, but once the order reached the Japanese army, it would always be a little out of shape. The Japanese soon added the use of more toxic asphyxiating gas. In the Battle of Wuhan, more than 50,000 national, military, and civilian casualties were directly caused by poison gas.

Three months later, after holding out for nine months, the central government in Wuhan ordered the abandonment of Wuhan in order to retain a certain strength and avoid such heavy losses as it had suffered during the retreat at the Battle of Songhu. With the last batch of machinery, it was transferred to Changsha, Hengyang and other places one after another.

The Japanese army lost more than 200 planes of all kinds and nearly 100 tanks, directly killed more than 46,000 people, and suffered a heavy price of nearly 200,000 casualties.

Due to the major setback suffered by the Japanese army at the Battle of Xuzhou, Chairman Chiang won a few more months to set up the Wuhan defensive line, these relatively sufficient preparations, and the fact that the Nationalist Army entered the later stage, the number of troops reached a staggering nearly 900,000 troops to counterattack. The Japanese casualties also lost a large number of living troops in hundreds of battles large and small.

In view of the fall of Wuhan, Jiang Li canceled the early battle plan for eastern Henan according to the situation. At the same time, in order to avoid the battle line being stretched too long, it is not conducive to the later hold. It was only a certain counteroffensive launched in northern Henan, but it was soon counterattacked more strongly by the Japanese army. The positions of the Northwest Army in Yunbei were almost destroyed, and the wreckage of more than 500 aircraft and 200 tanks has been piled up on the front lines of both sides since 38. With little to rely on the position, Jiang Li ordered Wang Tiehan, who was in charge of the Battle of Northern Henan, to retreat south. At this point, Anyang and other places, which had been held for more than a year, fell under the control of the Japanese army. In the more than a year of operations in northern Henan, although the Japanese army lost more than 10,000 troops compared with the Battle of Wuhan, the number and quality of planes and tanks damaged in the battle were much stronger than those in the Battle of Wuhan. If the losses of the battle in eastern Henan are counted, it actually exceeds the data of the battle of Wuhan.

Although the armored forces of the Northwest have been greatly strengthened at this time, after the Sword assault gun was put into production, the total number of tanks and assault guns from the tank factory in the Northwest reached 53 in a month, and the number of Snow Leopard armored vehicles also reached 23. Not only the 2nd and 3rd mechanized brigades were replenished with tanks and assault guns in addition to armored vehicles in the war, but more than 100 armored vehicles were added in the war, and each had more than 40 Snow Leopard armored vehicles. Moreover, as the pioneer of the Northwest Army's armor, Tian Jianlong stepped down as the director of the Northwest Military Academy's Armored Department, and the 1st Northwest Armored Division formed also completed a small part of the reorganization.

But Jiang Li still shrank the fronts in eastern and northern Henan inward. Draw troops to the second line of Central Plains defense circles such as Xinxiang, Kaifeng, Zhoukou, and Zhumadian.

At this time, large cities and strategic areas such as the eastern coast of the Republic of China, the northeast, Guangzhou in the south, and Wuhan in the central part of the Republic of China all fell under the control of the Japanese army. Although it paid far more casualties than in history, the Japanese army finally achieved its set strategic goals. Forced Wuhan into the area of Changsha, Hunan. Most of the large and medium-sized cities in the eastern and central parts of the Republic of China fell into the hands of the Japanese army.

The Germans, having occupied the Sudetenland, occupied Czechoslovakia again. And scraped Poland with the USSR. After Britain and France declared war on Germany, there was no movement, and it was nicknamed a strange sit-down war by the current situation. Poland was caught between the world's two top military powers, and its million-strong army was wiped out in a month.

The weakness of Britain and France in Europe was seen by Japan at this time, and in the Battle of Nomenkan, although the Japanese army fought a good record, it was also severely shocked by the huge artillery group of the Soviet Union, which could almost make people desperate, and the voice of the previous northward movement was suppressed. At this time, the proposal to go south was once again placed in front of the emperor's imperial case. And the emptiness of Southeast Asia, the weak attitude of Britain and France, all faced a good reason for the southward faction, the war of the Republic of China stopped a little, and there was another wave of huge disputes in the Japanese base camp. (To be continued.) )