On the day when China and China officially declared war, Cai Ye and Liu Gengyun were both in the office building of the former Military Reclamation Bureau in Dandong, and with the two of them, there was also Lieutenant General Zhang Zizhong, and the three of them spread out a map of North Korea and studied it together.

The military department's telegram has been issued, Cai Ye is the commander-in-chief of the Northeast National Defense Force of the Central Defense Force, and the other commander-in-chief of the Southeast Defense Force is Vice Admiral Yan Houhua, who has been awarded the rank of admiral together with the newly appointed Minister of National Defense Chen Houfu and Chen Jiliang, chief of the naval staff of the Central General Staff, because of the naval battle of Sanduao.

Chen Qicai, former minister of national defense, was transferred to serve as a member of the National Defense Coordination Committee of the Central National Defense Commission and chief of logistics of the Central Military Department.

All this is good news, but the pressure on Cai Ye at this time is also very great, the emperor's edict has arrived, asking the Northeast Group Army to temporarily ignore the strategic victory or defeat, gain or loss, and attack Seoul first, to ensure that the more than 200,000 citizens of Seoul and Inchon can retreat smoothly, after the general retreat of the people living in Korea, if it is acceptable to abandon Seoul because of the strength and strategic gains and losses, and even the loss of Pyongyang is not a serious problem.

These are the exact words of the emperor.

This presented a big problem for Cai Yi, because there has always been a strict mutual agreement between China and China regarding the stationing of troops in Korea, and the Imperial Defense Forces only stationed the 22nd Infantry Division of the Central Army in Pyongyang, North Korea, and the 103rd Special Mountain Brigade of the Central Army in Kaesong.

The 22nd Infantry Division is a conventional mechanized division, and it is feasible to rely on the railway to quickly attack Seoul, but because the army is concentrated in military forces and is more well prepared, it may soon directly send several divisions to besiege it, and once it is held at Inchon and Seoul, the 22nd Infantry Division is likely to be unable to draw back.

In addition, the 10th Infantry Brigade stationed in Seoul is also considered the elite of the Army, and the 8th Division stationed in Jeonju was once regarded as a steel army, so it is really difficult to say how it is now.

According to the plan of the Central National Defense Commission, 1.7 million demobilized soldiers will be recruited in the next three months, 3.3 million new recruits will be added in the next year, and four divisions and two brigades will continue to be transferred from the Wuhan Military Region to reinforce them.

The whole strategy is very clear, that is, it is not afraid of long-term attrition, but it requires a higher mutual loss ratio, and the casualty rate of the own side is lower than that of the army, and the consumption of the army's vital forces.

From the perspective of long-term strategy, although Cai Ye is not very familiar with the Yue army, he does not have too much pressure, but it is still very difficult to urgently attack Seoul to ensure the retreat of the people.

Cai Ye discussed the matter here with Liu Gengyun.

After talking for a while, Cai Ye couldn't help but be a little confused and said to Liu Gengyun: "Actually, I haven't thought it through, I don't understand why the emperor suddenly wants to let him command this war?" ”

Liu Gengyun sighed with a smile: "It doesn't matter if you don't know, anyway, whoever commands can win, just don't make big mistakes." ”

After a slight pause, Liu Gengyun still added: "Actually, this matter is relatively simple, because you have not fought the army, and you have rested for seven or eight years in between, this battle must be cautious and cautious." If it was Lao Zhao and Lao Zhang, they would have been fighting back then, and they might have underestimated the enemy. ”

Cai Yi smiled bitterly and said, "Is this also an advantage?" ”

Liu Gengyun thought for a while and asked rhetorically, "Why not?" The arrogant soldiers will be defeated, this is a taboo for soldiers. What is admired, then it is easy to blindly believe in what, the way of playing in this place on the Korean Peninsula is contrary to the general trend of our army reform in recent years, at the beginning of the year I came back from Africa, and when the emperor asked me to inspect the DPRK again, he talked to me, I think it is still enlightening for us? ”

Cai Ye asked curiously, "What?" ”

Liu Gengyun replied: "The emperor said that we have been too concerned about the threat of the Soviet Union over the years, and we have not paid too much attention to the defeated generals and small countries under the command of Yueben, and I am afraid that we will suffer losses if we really fight, so if we really want to fight with Yueben, then we must lengthen the cycle, explore new changes and new tactics in the war, and use changes to fight the unchanged of Yueben." ”

Cai Ye felt that there was nothing surprising about these words, but he simply sighed, and after a little pondering, he gradually pondered the intention inside.

Only then did he understand that the emperor wanted to use the Korean battlefield as a testing ground to explore new military and tactical ideas and new changes, and that he had basically not kept up with the wave of the great mechanized revolution in recent years, which was a problem, but also an advantage, because he was not easily bound by some inherent theories of the Central Military Department.

In fact, Song Biao's thinking about this war is still relatively cautious.

Whether it is the third time or the second time, the geographical situation of the Korean Peninsula determines that it is very difficult to bring about a major change in the direction of major tactics, and if we want to defeat Yuben in this region, we must continue to adhere to the mobile and rapid combat theory of the Northeast Army era, and at the same time increase the tactical absorption of the air force and mechanized operations, including the use of small-scale elite troops, and we must also be more mature.

The Air Force is very important on the Korean Peninsula, but it can hardly be said to have a decisive significance, and when it was to resist US aggression and aid Korea, the US military had such a great advantage and did not win the war in the end, which explains a lot of problems.

On the whole, the development and progress of the Chinese army is inferior to that of the Chinese army, but it is more suitable for fighting in a region like the Korean Peninsula in terms of equipment, training, and the overall organizational structure and tactical superiority.

In this particular area, there is not much difference in the weapons and equipment of the two sides, many heavy tanks of the Imperial Army are basically unable to drive in, and there are also a lot of individual anti-tank and small-unit anti-tank weapons in this book, especially in the field of anti-light tanks, and the scale of research and equipment it has invested is very large, especially the 37\47mm machine guns it is equipped with, and this thing is still a very serious threat to the Chinese Army.

Over the years, the Chinese Army has invested a lot of energy and material resources in the study of positional warfare and mountain warfare, and the level is certainly very high, and the military center of the Chinese Army is in the field of armor, but it is certainly not worse than the Chinese Army in these fields, but it will not take advantage of it.

Song Biao's overall feeling was that the Third Sino-Chinese War would be very difficult, and the absolute superiority of the Imperial Central Army could not really be exerted in this region, so he could only pick up the set of tactical theories of the Northeast Army again.

Therefore, it is a more suitable choice to use Cai Yi in this war.

Old-fashioned is old-fashioned, as long as it is useful.

Cai Yi's current situation is the same as Yamamoto Isoroku, he knows very well that it will be very difficult to take Seoul and Incheon, and it is very risky, but he still has to do it.

Because the other troops had not yet arrived, the only thing in Cai Ye's hands was the 23rd Infantry Division stationed in Dandong and the 30,000 army troops stationed in northern Korea that could be mobilized, and the other subordinate generals had not arrived, so Zhang Zizhong, the deputy commander of the Northeast Military Region, was here to accompany him.

Without saying anything else, Cai Ye could only let Zhang Zizhong personally go into battle, with the 23rd Infantry Division to reinforce Kaesong, and the 22nd Infantry Division stationed in Pyongyang directly into battle, demanding to capture Seoul within five days.

After all, Cai Ye is a veteran veteran army general who has experienced a hundred battles, and he has fought all the way from the Russian War, the Liberation War, the First World War, and the Sino-Soviet War, but he has not fought the famous Sino-Chinese Xinhai War.

He has been retired for twenty years, and he is also a person who can fight, using a division to fight someone else's brigade, and he wants to capture Seoul in five days, how is that possible?

The emperor's edict could not be carried out, but things still had to be done.

In the name of the commander-in-chief of the Northeast Defense Force, Cai Yi sent a telegram to the central authorities, saying that the army was too late, and it would definitely not be able to pass, so it was better to let the navy come up, organize a large-scale rescue from the ports of Aurora and Pyongyang, and Dandong, and under the escort of the navy and air force, rescue the Chinese people living in Seoul and Incheon first, and help them retreat.

Of course, Song Biao also knew that the army could not mobilize the main force to attack Seoul in such a short time, and he was also thinking of a way, which was basically the same as Cai Yi's idea, that is, to use the army to gain time and use the navy, the coast guard, and the air force to evacuate the people together.

At present, the Chinese people in North Korea are close to one million, with Nampo accounting for half, Incheon and Seoul together about 200,000, and the rest scattered in Pyongyang, Hyeseong, Mosan, Sinuiju and other places, in fact, there are nearly 10,000 in Busan and Pohang, and this part is no longer under the control of so much.

…… The matter goes back to the Battle of Sanduao.

After the defeat in the Battle of Sanduao, the Cabinet immediately declared that it had not declared war on China, and that the First Air Combined Fleet of the Navy's Navy was only going to demonstrate off the coast of China to force China to admit the illegality of the coup axe of the North Korean rebellion, and that there was no plan to start a war, but it was suddenly attacked by the Chinese army.

Objectively speaking, Prime Minister Mitsumasa Yonechi is not a person without moral character, but this is the situation of the whole country, and this is the characteristic of this nation.

It is impossible for them to make mistakes, and the most important point is that the emperor of the Great Emperor will never make any mistakes and mistakes, and the same is true of the navy and army under the emperor.

After China officially declared war, the cabinet declared war on "China" for the second time.

Returning to another question, why did he not repent of the word "shina", because this edict was established by Emperor Meiji in the first place, and if the cabinet admitted its mistake and apologized, it would mean that Emperor Meiji was wrong.

This matter is an absolute taboo in the world, and no one dares to refute or raise objections.

In the final analysis, it is a question of the emperor system, which is not only a political system, but also a religious system, which is itself a very complicated issue.

The emperor is a god.

How can God be wrong?

Including the Yasukuni Shrine, what kind of religious sacrifice occasion is this shrine?

Shinto, of course.

Who is the ultimate Shinto shrine?

It's the Emperor.

That's why this country is very special.

Of course, it doesn't matter whether or not he admits these things, the war has already begun, and in the end it is the victor who will speak, and war is basically the only way to deal with a country like Yuben.

It's like reasoning with a mentally ill hooligan on the street, it's useless to talk about it, because its thinking logic is absolutely different from yours, you slap it twice, stab it a few times, and slash it with a brick, maybe it will be better for a while, and after a few days, it will still be like that bird when it recovers.

It's just a very healthy and normal looking neurotic and hooligan.

There is no way, continue to pick the bricks and smash them again, and it will be quiet to stone.

Actually, as long as you pick the emperor's tendon, it's quiet.

We always say that a man is an animal that thinks with his lower body, and this is actually the case, the emperor is the testicle, and if the testicle is cut, it can become a truly normal country.

In any case, the third Sino-Chinese war is finally unstoppable.

Similar to previous wars, there are many new weapons invested by the empire, but in fact, most of the so-called new weapons have already appeared in the East African war, and the army is mainly based on the renewal of light weapons.

During this period, the famous Popning submachine gun in the Sino-Chinese Xinhai War, World War I, and Sino-Soviet War has been withdrawn from the Imperial Wehrmacht, and replaced by a Browning light machine gun and a cheaper MP30\33 submachine gun.

In the field of machine guns, although the Browning heavy machine gun is more common, the MG34\38 general-purpose machine gun jointly developed by the Reich and Germany also appeared on the battlefield on a large scale.

In the development and reform of the empire's large-scale mechanized army, a basic point is to strengthen the firepower of the squad-level troops, and to continuously strengthen the replenishment ability of baggage and troop ammunition for this purpose, the regular allocation of the imperial army at the squad level is still a light machine gun, two submachine guns, and a precision sniper rifle, and the biggest change during the first Chinese war is the popularization of the Hanyang rifle, but the army has also been equipped with a new type of semi-automatic rifle, this semi-automatic rifle called the 99-type rifle was originally just a manual rifle, Because in the East African War, the semi-automatic rifle of the Imperial Army caused great damage to the rate of fire of the Italian army, and it was temporarily adjusted from 1937 to request the use of semi-automatic bolts.

At this time, semi-automatic rifles have been more common in the world's major powers, China, Britain, the United States, France, Germany, and the Soviet Union basically strengthened the development of semi-automatic rifles after the end of the Sino-Soviet War.

The two second-class military powers, Ben and Italy, which were actually the last to begin research on semi-automatic rifles, had already replaced their newly-designed semi-automatic rifles during the same period, including countries such as Poland, Sweden, and Finland.

The Imperial Army's MP30\33 submachine guns are all hung with special grenade launchers, so the Imperial Army does not emphasize the use of gun grenades in infantry divisions, but in the war there are a variety of factors, the army soldiers will still carry two gun grenades each.

At the platoon level, the Reich Army had already begun to match bazookas, and the number of mortars was not decreasing.

Judging from the assessment of the combat strength of the infantry company level, the Imperial Army has improved compared with the period of the Sino-Chinese Xinhai War, but this increase is not large, and it is not enough to produce an absolute advantage over the Chinese army.

However, the army still has a rather obvious conservative side, and it attaches far more importance to light machine guns than submachine guns, because it has long been seriously inferior to the navy in military spending, and the top echelons of the army are blindly conservative and rigid; even though they suffered a large number of losses in the Xinhai War, after supplementing a large number of light machine guns, they believe that the effectiveness of submachine guns is far inferior to that of machine guns.

In fact, this is because of the large population and insufficient funds and resources, and people are always cheaper than guns.

…… History has proven time and again that the course of war is not necessarily dictated by human will.

China's military operations in Inchon and Seoul were all aimed at evacuating overseas Chinese, but he misread such a strategy, thinking that China's target was Inchon and Seoul, and frantically sent troops to attack, and under the restrictions of the treaty, the scale of the army and air forces of both sides on the Korean Peninsula was not large, and in the first few days after the start of the war, the scale of the battle was no more than a confrontation between two infantry divisions.

A surprising thing is that the 23rd Infantry Division actually tore through the defense line of the 8th Division in Seoul with a small number of heavy tanks TK15 and infantry fighting vehicles, resulting in the loss of the 8th Division in Seoul.

At this time, the Korean Lee royal family was still in Seoul, because of the suddenness of the incident, in order to cover the retreat of the Lee royal family, the army sent the air force to Jeonju on a large scale, resulting in the rapid expansion of the scale of the air force operations between the two sides.

In the history of Asian warfare, the first largest air battle -- the Inchon Air Battle -- broke out.

The Inchon Air Battle was a very special air battle, which lasted as long as 20 days, from the initial struggle of dozens of planes to the final competition of nearly 1,000 fighters, due to the damage of the aircraft carrier, the Imperial Southern Fleet and the Northern Fleet were quickly merged into the Central Combined Air Fleet, and the main aircraft carriers were concentrated together, with the Jinzhou and Lushun Naval Joint Base as the main home ports, and officially intervened in the Incheon Air War through the deployment of the four naval bases in Nanpu, Weihai, Jinzhou, Lushun, and Qingdao.

The Battle of Inchon was also a large-scale air battle that broke out in advance, and in fact, neither side of the war commander arrived, nor did they anticipate that the scale of this air battle would reach the point of deciding the life and death of both sides.

With the sudden attack of the Imperial 22nd Infantry Division on Seoul, the Japanese army mistakenly thought that China would still fight as quickly as the last time, directly occupy Seoul and Incheon, and transport troops and materials to the Korean Peninsula on a large scale through the navy and army at the same time.

In view of the conditions of the port of Incheon, it is absolutely impossible to allow this port to be occupied by China.

For China, since there were nearly 200,000 expatriates in Seoul and Incheon, it was impossible to sit idly by and watch the two places completely occupy, which eventually led to the early outbreak of the Inchon Armageddon.

As a result, from August 1, 1939, when the war was officially declared to August 7, 1939, the two sides had already used their respective backup airfields in North and South Korea on a large scale, and although the speed of reinforcement of the air force was faster, with the arrival of the Imperial Central Air Combined Fleet, the scale of the two sides was basically close to about 2,000 fighters.

The air battle of Inchon officially broke out.

The background of this air battle was the large-scale evacuation of overseas Chinese by the Chinese Navy, and because the fighters were inferior to the Chinese, the Army Aviation Unit chose to blow up and sink a large number of ships in the port by means of low-altitude strafing of the pier and large-scale bombing, forcing the Chinese Navy to abandon the evacuation of overseas Chinese, and at the same time abandon the plan of sending troops to land at Inchon and transport war materials at Incheon.

Therefore, the air battle of Inchon is not an air battle that bursts out at a certain moment, but an extremely long and long-term air battle, and it is also a tug-of-war in the air.

The Chinese Air Force experienced the baptism of World War I and the Sino-Soviet War, and its overall structure was more perfect, its tactical experience was richer, and its aircraft types were better, and the gap between the two sides in air combat was quickly widened.

In particular, the J-5 Tiger Shark fighter and the J-4 Lightning fighter were added on a large scale, the former is known for its large range, high speed and outstanding night combat capabilities, and is a typical fighter-bomber, which can bomb military airfields in large groups at night, while the J-4 Lightning fighter is responsible for driving out enemy aircraft during the day.

There was already a zero war during this period, but the zero war belonged to the carrier-based aircraft, and the company did not have the industrial strength to produce the zero war on a large scale, so it could only rely on the 97 fighter as the main force to fight against the three different fighters of the empire J-3\4\303.

As a light fighter, the 97 fighter has a stronger maneuverability and good turnaround ability, and its practical surname in air combat is excellent, and it has a clear advantage in the face of the slightly bulky and very bulky J-4\5, but after the Navy's J-303 carrier-based aircraft joined the battlefield, this situation was quickly changed.

The pilots of the Imperial Air Force generally have more experience, and after a few days of the Incheon air battle, they quickly find out the tactics for the surname, usually after the 97 fighter turns, the J-4 Lightning fighter will immediately roll aside, avoiding the 97 fighter from behind, and then rely on the Lightning fighter's higher horsepower and speed advantage to leave the battlefield, return to the battlefield at a higher altitude, rely on the strong body to take a high-speed dive sweep with a high load to shoot the landing plane, or induce the 97 fighter to pull up the combat altitude, In the case that its high-altitude surname can drop significantly, it can be pursued by using the mobile surname.

Generally speaking, the J-4 lightning fighter has a stronger comprehensive surname and high-altitude combat advantages, but the shortcomings of the lack of sensitive surname at medium and low altitudes are still obvious, which requires the J-3 \ 303 series fighters to cooperate, especially the Navy's J-303 Sea Snake fighter has better maneuverability and agility in the low-altitude field that the 97 fighter is good at, making the 97 fighter completely difficult to compete.

Inchon.

The grave of the death of the plane.

Due to the large number of planes engaged in the battle and the long period of time, planes fell from the sky of Incheon almost every day, and there were always countless planes humming and whizzing, and more than 40 ships were sunk by the Japanese army.

It was not until August 20, 1939, when the 200,000 expatriates in the Incheon and Seoul areas had largely withdrawn, that the air battle at Inchon was completely stopped, the Imperial Navy's Central Air Combined Fleet was withdrawn to the Ngaowan Naval Base in Geumju for repair, and the army and air force were also withdrawn to the northern part of Korea for repair according to the order of the commander-in-chief of the Northeast Defense Force, Admiral Choi Ye.

In the past half a month, the three engineering brigades of the Imperial Central Army were preemptively transferred to the northern part of Korea to expand their airfields in Sincheon, Jaeyeong, Sinmaku, Nampo, Pyongyang, Anju, Taecheon, and Uiju, and the Imperial Air Force also began to transfer these spare military airfields on a large scale, and the number of air divisions arriving in northern Korea increased to 11, and each division was rapidly using reserve pilots, increasing the number of military aircraft, and expanding the two air combat regiments assigned to it to three, or even four.

The Inchon Air Battle proved that the Empire's theory of military revolution in the past 30 years of constantly using the Air Force as a new strategic center was correct, although the Empire did not have obvious preparations for mobilization and secret preparations before the start of the war, so that in the early days of the Inchon Air Battle, the Imperial Air Force was still at a certain disadvantage in the air battle, but with the large-scale transfer of the Air Force, the results of the Incheon Air Battle quickly fell in favor of the Empire.

Times have changed.

As long as the conditions at the airfield are sufficient, it only takes two weeks for an air force division to complete its relocation and be fully transferred to an area thousands of kilometers away to fight, and it only takes a few days for thousands of fighters to be transferred to northern Korea, and this is something that is difficult for the army and navy to do.

(To be continued)