At the time when the Battle of the Southeast and the Ryukyus were in full swing, Germany finally united with Poland to launch a war of military aggression against the Soviet Union, perhaps the word "unitedoffensive" is not correct, but it is also undeniable that Poland itself really wanted to do so, and they just reluctantly handed over all military command to Nazi Germany, or completely vassal to the Third Reich.

The tragedy of the Soviet Union lies in the fact that it lost too many elite military officers in the previous purge, especially those who were loyal to the country and the nation, and at the same time faced the possibility of two-front operations, on the Sino-Soviet border, the Central Defense Force of the Chinese Empire maintained more than 30 elite divisions, and the vast majority of them were mechanized divisions, and China and the Soviet Union have not been able to reach a truly effective peace and complementary aggression agreement, which made the Soviet Union have to maintain the same size of garrison in the Kazakh region.

From the official outbreak of the Soviet-German war on May 4 to May 23, the German army's blitzkrieg was successful, and its elite Sixth Army broke through the defense line of the Soviet Red Army all the way and occupied the Belarusian region, while the Polish army also captured most of Ukraine all the way, approaching Kiev to the limit.

The Type 4 tank jointly developed by China and Germany showed great might in the war and shocked the whole world for a while, but its prototype tank MBT30 tank and its successor model MBT33 tank were not so glorious on the Korean battlefield.

On the whole, in the Third Sino-Chinese War, China did not show real military strength, because China's regular defense force only had 74 army divisions, but it had to take into account the defense of the whole of Asia, including three armored divisions and one conventional mechanized infantry division in the Middle East and the allied countries alone, and in Cambodia and Thailand, in East Africa and the South Pacific, the imperial navy, land and air forces also had troops.

By May 1940, the army establishment of the Central Defense Force had expanded to 172 divisions and 53 integrated brigades, the total number of armored vehicles, tanks, armored transport vehicles, amphibious tanks, amphibious armored vehicles and self-propelled artillery had exceeded 77,000, and the total establishment of the Air Force had increased to 55 air force aviation combat divisions, 10 airborne divisions, and 17 transport divisions. The total strength of the Navy was readjusted to the Central Air Combined Fleet, the Headquarters Coastal Defense Fleet, the Pacific Combined Fleet, the Indian Ocean Fleet, and the Far East Fleet, and the Marine Corps was expanded to 52 brigades.

So far, the total number of members of the Central Defense Force of the Imperial Navy, Land, Air Force and Strategic Forces combined exceeds 5.7 million, which is 2.3 times larger than before the war, even so, this is not the limit of the Imperial Defense Force, the Imperial still has more than 4 million retired officers and soldiers of appropriate age, and there is no conscription to serve, if you add the Imperial Recruit Reserve, the limit of the Imperial Defense Force can be expanded to about 20 million.

In the whole world, except for the Soviet Union, no other country can compete with the empire in the total number of soldiers, and in the total number of officer reserves, the Soviet Union, Germany, the United States, and Britain together may not be able to surpass the empire, the empire's officer education system is not only of a higher level, but also larger, and the level of more than 24,000 young officers entering military service every year can be called the world's first military education power.

According to the plan of the Central Military Department, by the end of 1940, the total number of the Imperial Navy, Army and Air Force will reach 6.5 million, and this will be the time for the Imperial Wehrmacht to attack the Reichswehr in an all-out way and attack the Reichswehr itself.

This is a long blockade war.

The empire does not need to devote all its national strength to the war, but if necessary, the empire can burst out stronger at any moment at any time to prevent the army from winning at a certain stage of the situation, for example, in the Random Arrow Project, Fu Zuoyi's defeat and Hata's extraordinary play failed to prevent the empire from continuing to the final victory.

…… After the imperial strategic forces were put into the war, the empire adjusted the original tactical offensive steps and began to emphasize the first offensive of the strategic forces, first relying on the missile attacks of the strategic forces to eliminate the important airfields, communications, ammunition depots, and command organs of the Syrian army, followed by the air force sending large-scale fighter-bombers and attack aircraft groups to clear the fortresses, fortresses, logistics, roads, railways, ports, and artillery positions of the Japanese army, and then the large-scale ground offensive of the army.

Under these circumstances, the army was completely unable to adopt an effective counterattack strategy, and could only rely on the advantage of the mountains for local defense, and the role of such defense was greatly weakened.

In order to salvage the situation and prevent the defeat, the Imperial Army was forced to continue to use chemical weapons to contain it, and the scale of the chemical weapons retaliatory war carried out by the Imperial Defense Forces also rapidly expanded, and when the Japanese Army was unable to effectively use chemical weapons to attack the Chinese mainland, the Imperial Army relied on the superiority of the air force and strategic forces to carry out the first wave of chemical weapons retaliatory war against the Yueben Maguan on May 27, which then expanded to Tokyo, Kobe, Kyoto, Hiroshima and other cities.

The war became extremely cruel, both sides violated international treaties, and started a large-scale chemical war on the Korean Peninsula, and in this kind of war, although the army had the ability to threaten, or even inflict heavy damage on the imperial army, the countermeasures encountered were even more severe, the army mainly used the erosive agent, while the Northeast Defense Army mainly used the nerve agent, Tabon and sarin were the most used chemical agents by the Imperial Defense Army.

Compared with the Japanese army, relying on more generous military spending and perennial research and development and war preparations, the Imperial Defense Forces are more fully prepared in terms of chemical weapons defense equipment, and the Japanese army, which first launched a chemical war, is more passive and more vulnerable to heavy damage from chemical weapons, and even more miserable than the Japanese army are the Korean civilians and the Korean civilians who have no defense capability at all.

War is meant to be so brutal.

On 30 May, Lieutenant General Hosokawa Tadayasu commanded his troops to attack Kim Do-ryeong and used mustard gas shells at the first opportunity, but half an hour later, the unit was retaliated by sarin shells from the 24th Division of the Imperial Central Air Force stationed in Korea, and a number of sarin shells were fired at the artillery position of Kim Do-ryeong.

This battle is destined to be very famous, not because of the large number of chemical weapons used by both sides during the entire campaign, but after the end of this battle, the garrison of the Japanese army in Korea was completely cut into two parts, and the six divisions of Hata Jun and Matsui Ishine were counter-surrounded at the same time, which determined the demise of the army.

Before the outbreak of the Battle of Jindaoling, the Imperial Air Force Transport Division had already given many supplies to the Jindaoling garrison, and Xue Yue's troops did not lack chemical weapons defensive equipment, because the use of chemical weapons by the Yue army became more and more frequent, and even regarded them as the only means to turn the tide, Xue Yue was extremely cautious in this regard.

Beginning in the early hours of the morning, the army launched four rounds of artillery bombardment on the front and rear of the position, and about 20,000 artillery shells were fired, of which about one-third belonged to poison gas bombs, and there were all kinds of shells.

This made Xue Yue very angry, and he had been in the underground command post, constantly giving instructions to the rear rocket artillery troops, and sending telegrams to the air force, asking for a strong counterattack and retaliation for the army's chemical warfare.

The chemical warfare between the two sides lasted for about two days, and it was not until 2 p.m. on the third day that the army launched the first round of positional attacks.

In the midst of the roar of artillery fire, about two infantry wings of the Yue army first carried out a strong attack on the 303 heights, and Tan Zhengfu's 203 battalion happened to adjust the defense area to be arranged here, and on this high ground at an altitude of 410 meters, Tan Zhengfu continued to build five more forts on the basis of the three forts left by the Yue army, with three trenches connecting with each other, giving a strong suppression to the strong attack on the position of the Yue army.

During this period, the Northeast Defense Force has all carried out the refitting of M35 assault rifles, plus light and heavy machine guns and a large number of general-purpose machine guns, as well as howitzers and mortars, in the positional warfare against the army does occupy a great advantage, but because of the serious shortage of soldiers, Tan Zhengfu, as the battalion commander, is also equivalent to personally going into battle.

Soldiers, like bullets, are consumables in war.

Each battle is subdivided into parts, and it is only a battle for each stronghold.

Hosokawa Tadayasu sent two infantry wings to attack simultaneously from both flanks of the 303 position, constantly inducing the Northeast Wehrmacht to use machine guns and then trying to destroy the opponent's machine gun strongholds with mortars, but this command method was too cruel, because the Imperial Army stationed here not only had a large number of light and heavy machine guns, but also generally equipped with assault rifles, and Lieutenant General Hosokawa Tadayasu was not aware of the change brought about by this.

With a small number of light machine guns and assault rifles, the infantry charge of the Japanese army was easily stifled, and the firepower could still reach the level of sweeping the battlefield in an instant, but the ammunition consumption rate of the Imperial Army was also sharply increased, so it required a more powerful transportation capacity than during the Sino-Chinese Xinhai War.

Major General Xue Yue grasped this point very experienced, and he had thoroughly studied the theory of classical positional warfare, and his first emphasis was on the construction of communication trenches in the trench system, and the construction of a temporary road from the Jindaoling defense line to Wei Lihuang's department was strengthened.

The army also temporarily set up a large number of light machine guns, exchanged fire with each other, and constantly tried to cover the attack with the suppression of firepower, and the sound of da-da never stopped for a moment on the battlefield, and the dull sound of mortars sounded from time to time, bursting out with short explosions on the battlefield.

In addition to mortars, the main means of striking are 30mm caliber howitzers and machine guns, and even machine gun points can be attacked from a distance of more than 300 meters by means of rocket launchers.

The complex system of light weapons has a very good value for resisting positional warfare, and the army also tried to use a small number of light tank fighting vehicles to carry out assaults, but the 97 land combat vehicles of the Japanese army were too thin, not to mention unable to block the attacks of 37mm anti-tank guns and 60mm caliber rocket launchers, and even 20mm machine guns could not withstand at close range.

In addition to the strength of the army, which was at a disadvantage on the whole, the progress was difficult, and the strength of the two infantry wings was quickly exhausted, and Hosokawa Tadayasu was forced to continue to draw troops to cover the frontal attack, and most of the only more than 40 Type 97 medium tanks were also destroyed.

In the early stage of the southeast campaign of the entire Korean battlefield, Hata Shunroku was very wise, but in the battle of Kim Dorying, he made a fatal mistake, in fact, when the Yue army besieged Fu Zuoyi, and even in the previous battle of Kaesong, the Yue army had already exposed the problem of the difficulty of forcibly breaking through the defense in the positional warfare.

In the Third Sino-Japanese War, with the renewal and development of infantry equipment, the possibility of relying solely on infantry charges and tactics to advance was already very low, and the Chinese army was still stuck in the First World War period in this field, which was also the reason why the Chinese army had to use chemical weapons on a large scale.

However, the Japanese army that provoked the chemical warfare is actually in a more serious disaster, because the level of chemical weapons on both sides is not equal.

The artillery fire on Jindaoling became more and more intense, and in just a few hours, the army fired more than 13,000 shells, but this attack was short-lived, and as the air force arrived at the front line to support the operation, the artillery positions of the army were quickly contained.

The long-range support J-15 Tiger Shark fighter-bomber dropped a large number of incendiary bombs at high altitude, burning the entire battlefield as brilliant as a blazing mountain, in modern warfare, there is no land offensive without the air force, this is a law that is difficult to break through, and the army does not seem to realize this, blindly wants to rely on spiritual weapons to support victory, wants to defeat the opponent with a brave fighting spirit, can only attack the position wave after wave, regardless of the number of damage and casualties.

The two sides repeatedly fought over the three positions of 303, 314, and 332, and the forces that the two armies successively invested here gradually expanded from the initial one brigade to three brigades to one infantry division against four brigades and one garrison brigade.

It was not until June 3, 1940 that the newly formed 105th Infantry Division, which had newly arrived on the Korean battlefield, marched 70 kilometers overnight and arrived at the Jindaoling defense line at 3 o'clock in the morning, and the outcome of the battle lost its final suspense, with the arrival of the support forces of the Imperial Army, the follow-up 106 and 107 new divisions will also arrive within a week, and the Yue Army was forced to abandon the attack on Guanjiri, and the battle also changed from the attack of the Yue Army to the counteroffensive of the Second Army.

Wei Lihuang used the strength of two armored divisions and three infantry divisions to contain Matsui Shigen, concentrated the newly reinforced troops in the Battle of Jindaoling, and aimed at Hosokawa Tadayasu, who was overconsumed, Xue Yue, who was in charge of commanding the Battle of Jindaoling, did not wait for Hosokawa Tadayasu to retreat with the remaining troops, and used hundreds of MT22 tanks as the main force to break through the defense line of the Yue army, annihilating the two brigades of Hosokawa Tadayasu, and then went north to occupy Jinquan County, completely cutting the Matsui Shigen and the six divisions of Hatatoshi of the Yue army.

The Battle of Kim Dooling was the biggest turning point in the campaign in the southeast of Korea, since then, the army completely lost the initiative on the battlefield, and the entire East Asian Dispatch Army was also cut into two pieces by the Imperial Army, as the Imperial Central Military Headquarters adjusted the operational plan, more than 20 new divisions crossed the sea to reach the Korean battlefield, Wei Lihuang bypassed Jirisan Mountain, launched a pincer attack on Matsui Shigen from Xianyang and Hedong, and annihilated the 3rd Army of the East Asian Dispatch Army of 170,000 people in Matsui Shigen.

In the Changju Theater, Xu Wei was ordered to replace Fu Zuoyi as the commander of the First Army, joined up with Zhang Zizhong's Third Army, and defeated Iwamatsu Yoshio's 1st Army, while Chen Wu's 4th Army crossed the defense line of Taibai Mountain of the Yue Army, jumped 400 miles to raid Pohang, and attacked the Daegu garrison of the headquarters of the Yue Army with Zhang Zizhong's Third Army from east to west, and the Yue Army was forced to retreat to South Gyeongsang Province in Korea.

It was only at this time that Emperor Song Biao flew to Jeonju by special plane, considering that it would be conducive to the final decisive battle against Yueben, and the command headquarters of the Imperial Northeast Defense Force had been moved to Jeonju at the end of May, and the scale of the Jeonju military airfield was also expanded, and three air divisions and one air transport division were stationed locally, responsible for the overall support of the front-line battlefield.

When Song Biao's special plane arrived at Jeonju Airport, the commanders of the Northeast National Defense Force Headquarters were all at the airport to greet them, and now it was a time when China's navy, army, and air forces had an absolute superiority in an all-round way, and the remaining 700,000 troops of the army were concentrated in South Gyeongsang Province, and the total strength was less than one-third of that of the Imperial Army, and the air force and armored units were completely lost, losing more than 6,000 artillery pieces, and it can be said that the artillery was also completely damaged, and it was no longer able to wage a bloody battle with the Imperial Army.

After the plane stopped, Song Biao, accompanied by Fu Liangzuo, deputy chief of the general staff of the Central Military Department, walked out of the cabin door, swept his eyes, and first saw Cai Yi, Liu Gengyun and Wei Lihuang standing in front of the crowd, but there was no Chen Wu who he wanted to see, but Fu Zuoyi.

Fu Zuoyi did not evacuate the battlefield, but stayed in the General Staff Operations Department of the Northeast National Defense Army as the deputy chief of the First Staff Bureau, responsible for logistics work, which can be regarded as staying in the war and making meritorious contributions.

Song Biao didn't want to beat Fu Zuoyi to death, but he had to admit that he was still very disappointed in Fu Zuoyi.

Seeing the emperor, all the generals stood up and saluted at the same time.

Song Biao slowly returned the salute, and then walked down from the cabin bridge and shook hands with Cai Ye and Liu Gengyun first.

His expression was still very solemn, at least in his opinion, this decisive battle in the southeast was not beautiful, the imperial navy, land and air forces all put in all their efforts, and even the previously secret missile strategic forces were mobilized, and finally the main force of the army was defeated.

Although Song Biao knew the difficulties of this war, this result still made him feel a little disappointed and suspicious.

Song Biao shook hands vigorously with every general who came to greet him, and when he finally shook hands with Fu Zuoyi, he said with relief: "There will still be a chance in the future, let's learn a lesson!"

That's all he wants to say, as for whether Fu Zuoyi has a chance in the future, I'm afraid this is not something he can decide.

Fu Zuoyi was naturally deeply relieved, and couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, but the sense of guilt in the depths of his soul could never linger, and the persistence in the Battle of Shangzhou certainly thwarted Toshiroku's plan to annihilate the First Army in the Northeast, but it also made the entire Random Arrow Plan fall short.

Wrong is wrong.

This is something that cannot be disputed.

(To be continued)