Chapter 577: The Arrival of the Fifth Division (Ask for a subscription, ask for a monthly pass, ask for everything!) ）

The sudden destruction of the remnants of the 108th Division caused the Japanese army in Shanxi to fall into a complete panic, and with the annihilation of this remnant, it marked the complete destruction of the 108th Division, the first garrison division of the Japanese Army, and at this time, there was only less than a month and a half left before the 108th Division returned to China to rest. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

If it weren't for the sudden appearance of Ma Zheng and the strong rise of the Suicha Military Region, according to the trajectory of history, the 108th Division would have returned to the Japanese mainland in early November 39, and then been disbanded, and it would not be reconvened until Japan was defeated in the war.

In the end, the invaders paid a heavy price for their actions, and the annihilation of the whole army was also Ma Zheng's explanation to all the people, and it was also the best tribute to the dead heroes.

At this time, there were only more than 30,000 people left in the first army stationed in Shanxi and more than 20,000 people in the vicinity of Taiyuan, and even if the garrisons scattered in other parts of Shanxi were added, their total strength was less than 60,000, which had to include at least 15,000 puppet troops.

More importantly, as these 60,000 people would face the threat of lack of ammunition at any time, the air units of the Second World War Zone were violently bombing their positions day and night, and the ground troops were desperately attacking them again and again, and an atmosphere of unease permeated the entire First Army.

The Japanese army is like this, and those puppet troops are even worse. With the lesson of Shimen, the First Army learned to be obedient this time. The puppet army only distributes weapons when they are forcibly driven into battle, and the ammunition is pitiful. In peacetime, all of them were imprisoned in the barracks by the Japanese army, and they were also guarded by heavy soldiers to prevent the puppet army from backing the water.

Even so, General Umezu Mijiro also knew that the First Army was really in danger, so he sent telegrams asking for help to Beiping one after another.

Umezu Yoshijiro was well aware of the significance of the First Army to the North China Front, and to the Commander of the Army, His Excellency Motomo Sugiyama. General Terauchi Shouichi lost his official position because of the Mongolian army, and if the First Army was annihilated by the Shina army, I am afraid that His Excellency Sugiyama Moto's fate would be better than that of His Excellency Terauchi Shouichi.

On the one hand, he ordered the Fifth Division to go north as soon as possible, and at the same time sent a telegram to Yan Junliu, commander of the Central China Front, requesting that the two flying wings transferred to the Central China Front be repatriated.

Just in case, General Sugiyama sent a telegram to Umezu Yoshijiro, ordering him to immediately shrink his forces and prepare to break through to Henan or Hebei. At the same time, in order to appease the officers and men of the First Army, Sugiyama Mototo ordered the commander of the Provisional Air Corps, Tokugawa Yoshitoshi, to airdrop supplies for the First Army at all costs.

The loss of the stone gate completely made Umezu Mijiro mess up the rules, this war is about people, but also about money, food and ammunition. Although the Japanese army still has some ammunition stocks in Taiyuan City, if it wants to support the 60,000 army to fight for a long time, the difference is not half a star. It's okay to say for a short time, but if it's a long time, then the problem will be a big problem.

A formed army is different from a small army, which can still be solved by airdrop, but the ammunition needed by tens of thousands of troops cannot be solved by a few dozen or dozens of fighters.

Moreover, the present situation is different from the past, in the past, the Nationalist Government lacked air combat power, and the Japanese army controlled China's air supremacy with only a few dozen or even hundreds of fighters. The Japanese army, which had mastered air supremacy, could drop sufficient ammunition on any trapped army anytime and anywhere, and it seemed that it was far away from the Japanese army when they ran out of ammunition and food.

But now it is different, although the air power of the Nationalist Government at this time is still not comparable to the Japanese army, but in order to cooperate with the recovery of Taiyuan in the Second World War Zone, Lao Chiang also made a bloody investment, a large number of combat planes transferred from Chengdu and Chongqing to Shaanxi, and entered Shanxi to fight, and the Japanese army also had a rare taste of the Chinese Air Force strike.

On the morning of September 12, the 3rd Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade of the Japanese Army stationed in Baoding was ordered to advance north from Xinxiang, and seemed to be preparing to attack Handan in the north.

Ma Zheng immediately ordered Xu Weiguo's Third Brigade to deploy along the Cheng'an line south of Handan, preparing to attack Sasaki head-on.

At the same time, the Japanese Fifth Division had also arrived in Hengshui from Dezhou and was advancing to Xinji Town, southeast of Shimen, and according to the marching speed of the Fifth Division, it would be possible to reach Shimen in two days at most. The situation of the Japanese army does not seem to be so bad that it is exhausted, as long as the Fifth Division reoccupies Shimen, then there is still a possibility that this bad game of chess in Shanxi can be saved.

The battle is about to break out, and the pressure on the defenders of Shimen is very great, you must know that this time it is the most elite fifth division of the Japanese army, which is not comparable to the 108th division that has just been completely annihilated.

The Fifth Division, also known as the Hiroshima Division, is one of the first seven divisions in Japan, and is also one of the 17 standing divisions before the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which has set a record of fighting against more than 70 divisions in the Chinese battlefield, and is known as the "Steel Army", and was reorganized into one of the four mechanized divisions of the Japanese army after 1940. Since the 19th division commander, Lieutenant General Seishiro Itagaki was best known Chinese, the division was also Chinese called the "Itagaki Division".

This is not the first time that the Japanese Fifth Division has participated in the war against China, as early as 1894, during the Sino-Japanese War, the Fifth Division was ordered to participate in the war of aggression against the Qing Dynasty. At that time, the Japanese War Department transferred two infantry wings from the Fifth Division, and on this basis, the Oshima Mixed Brigade was formed, which was commanded by Major General Yoshimasa Oshima and rushed to the Korean Peninsula.

The 5th Division then engaged the Qing Huai army in an encounter with the Qing Dynasty at a place called Cheng Huan, about 100 kilometers south of Seoul in Korea, which lasted a full day, and the Qing army was defeated and retreated into Asan. This battle was highly valued by the Japanese because it was the first time that Japan's modern army faced a foreign army since its founding, and it used modern tactics, which is also worth recording in the history of world operations.

After that, the Oshima Mixed Brigade captured Pyongyang and participated in the Battle of the Yalu River and the Battle of Niuzhuang. Ten years later, in the Russo-Japanese War, the 5th Division participated in the battles of Liaoyang, Shahe, and Mukden.

In 1937, immediately after the outbreak of the 77 Incident, the 5th Division was transferred to North China under the command of Seishiro Itagaki, the 19th division commander. On July 27, 1937, he set out from Japan and landed in Dagu to join the Chinese garrison in Tun, assembled in the south of Changping, and then entered the Nankou operation on August 16 as a reserve of the North China Dispatch Army, and captured Zhangjiakou, Weixian and other places in the eastern section of Pingsui Road.

In accordance with the orders of the Japanese base camp, the 9th Brigade was dispatched to the main battlefield of the Pinghan Railway and then transferred to Shanghai to participate in the Jinshanwei landing. The division commander led the 21st Brigade to fight on the front line of Pingxingguan, and then participated in the Lexinkou operation and captured Taiyuan. It was also in this battle that the Fifth Division defeated more than 30 Chinese divisions along the way, creating the "prestige" of the Itagaki Division. It is worth mentioning that another part of the detachment of the 5th Division participated in the Battle of Songhu and also participated in the Nanjing Massacre.

In January 1938, the Fifth Division was transferred to the Second Army for Qingdao and Jiaoji Road, and then participated in the battles of Linyi and Taierzhuang in the Battle of Xuzhou. In September of the same year, he was transferred to the 21st Army and transferred to South China to capture the surrounding areas of Guangdong. Two months later, he returned to Shandong to recuperate, and has been stationed in Qingdao since then.

If Ma Zheng's division had not captured Shimen, according to the historical trajectory, the Fifth Division would have been transferred to the Kwantung Army this month, and would soon have been transferred to the base camp reserve and waited in Dalian. Later, he also participated in the operation of the Nanning area and participated in the Battle of Kunlun Pass, and also fought against Du Yongming's Fifth Army at the end of 1939, and finally disabled the 40,000-strong mechanized army at the cost of 5,000 casualties under the commander of the 21st Brigade, Nakamura Masao.

The strength of the Fifth Division has penetrated into the hearts of the Chinese, and even Chen Cheng, He Yingqin and others frowned when they mentioned the Fifth Division. This division has rarely been defeated since the battle sequence of the Japanese army invading China, but the Japanese army did not advance smoothly in that place, and the Japanese army top brass thought of the Fifth Division, which was completely a firefighting team on the battlefield of invasion of China, and its combat effectiveness could be seen.

Because of this, the arrival of the Fifth Division made the troops in the direction of Shimen feel pressure, and the excitement of capturing Shimen before suddenly disappeared, and the atmosphere on the front line was extremely depressing. (To be continued.) )