This war took a huge turn after entering 1942, the Axis alliance won great victories in various theaters, and at the same time as the Far East battlefield naval forces attacked the Ryukyus, the Chinese defense forces also began a full-scale combat operation to recover the northeast, and the European theater was also full of success.

From mid-May, the German-Austrian forces, together with the Italian, Ukrainian, Don and Caucasian armies, launched a full-front counteroffensive against the Soviet army. By the beginning of July, the German-Austrian forces broke through along the Don River into the lower Volga region, conquered Tsaritsyn, the most important transportation hub in the lower Volga, and broke into the west bank of the Urals, which could cut off the Soviet army from Turkestan at any time. On the Northern Front, 1.5 million German troops, together with the combined forces of the three Baltic states, Belarus and Finland, launched the Battle of Bagration, defeated the more than 1.8 million troops of the Soviet Leningrad Front, drove the Soviet army out of Belarus in one fell swoop, and began to approach Petrograd, the largest industrial city in Soviet Russia.

In front of the powerful armored clusters of the German army, the Soviet Belorussian Front and the North-Western Front were completely routed, and the soldiers scattered and retreated backwards, and under the onslaught of the German tank group, they scattered over the vast fields of Belarus.

On the Siberian and Central Asian fronts, the 2.4 million Chinese Army forces rapidly advanced along the Far Eastern Railway, the Irtysh River, and Lake Balkhash in three directions to the weakly defended Eastern Front of the Soviet Army, conquered the Siberian town of Omsk in one fell swoop, and began to threaten the most important oil and industrial raw material supply base of Soviet Russia. On the front line in Central Asia, about 500,000 Chinese defense troops marched along the Ili River valley to Central Asia, recovering the lost territory in the northwest occupied by Soviet Russia in one fell swoop, and continued to advance westward along the Chu River, preparing to completely cut off the connection between Soviet Russia and Central Asia, and preparing to join forces with the Axis coalition forces that entered Central Asia through the Caspian Sea by land.

In the face of harsh realities, Zhuashvili had to begin to succumb. and sent a secret delegation to hold talks with German-Austrian representatives in Stockholm in preparation for a separate peace with the Axis powers.

In the northeast battlefield, Jiang Fangzhen, the commander-in-chief of the front, chose the breakthrough point in the area of the West Liaohe Plain, where the Japanese army's defense was relatively weak, and nearly 500,000 troops of the three group armies of the northern front group in the ** area advanced eastward along the Middle East Railway and crossed the Daxing'an Mountains. Directly attack Qiqihar, the capital of Heilongjiang Province, and attack in the direction of North Manchuria.

In addition to the Shanhaiguan line, on the line of the Great Khing'an Mountains, the Chinese Army made rapid progress, especially the 12th Army and the 21st Group Army, which advanced eastward from Huolin Gol, quickly crossed the Great Khing'an Mountains, and went straight to Baicheng and Songyuan along the Huolin River, and could turn to Xinjing, the capital of the puppet Manchurians, at any time.

The 16th Army and the 22nd Army spread out in Linxi, rushing to Kailu and Tongliao from the left and right flanks. Approaching Siping Street, with the intention of cutting off the railway connection between Mukden and Xinjing of the Japanese Kwantung Army.

Siping City is located in the middle of the Songliao Plain, is one of the most important railway hubs connecting the three northeastern provinces, the Zhongchang Railway and the three railway lines of Simei and Sitao converge here, and the geographical location is very important. If this place is lost, then Xinjing, the "capital" of the puppet Manchukuo and the headquarters of the Japanese Kwantung Army, will have no danger to defend, and the Kwantung Army will have to transfer troops from Xinjing, Shenyang and Harbin to reinforce Siping with all their might.

In fact, the headquarters of the Japanese Kwantung Army was always in the city of Shenyang. But. Since the Chinese army aviation has already occupied an absolute superiority in the sky, in order to avoid bombing. The headquarters of the Kwantung Army has been relocated to the basement of the Manchurian Bank in Shenyang.

At present, the entire Kwantung Army headquarters is tense and hectic, and the commander of the Japanese Kwantung Army, Umezu Mijiro, listens with his eyes closed as the staff officer reads to him one urgent telegram after another sent from various places. After the fall of Qiqihar, the Chinese Army began to advance towards Harbin and Xinjing. On the northwestern front of Liaoning, the 17th Army, the 18th Army, the 23rd Army, and the 52nd Army launched an offensive in the border area of Reliao, and the 24th Army crossed the Horqin steppe. Launched an attack along the Liuhe River to the north of Zhangwu and Fuxin.

“…… According to the intelligence report, a large number of Chinese troops were found in the southern area of the Great Khingan Mountains, with a total strength of more than 400,000 troops. The Harbin intelligence station reported that about 300,000 troops were marching east along the Eastern Railway, and that the Manchurian Defense Forces stationed in Qiqihar had surrendered. Up to now. About 1.5 million troops have already entered Manchuria......"

As the voice of Yukio Kasahara, chief of the General Staff of the Kwantung Army, sounded, the staff officers in the war room quickly marked the latest situation on the sand table. Umezu Mijiro stared at the sand table silently.

"General Jiang is worthy of being a top student of the Imperial Non-commissioned Officer School, with extraordinary momentum, and he will be an army of millions as soon as he strikes, and he will not give us any chance." Mitsu Mijiro shook his head, "The most strange thing is the Shanhaiguan line, the people of China have nearly 700,000 troops on this line, but they have not made a big move, although the offensive of the China Army is fierce, but its elite 1st Army, 5th Army, 9th Army and 13th Army have not appeared on the battlefield. Obviously, the Chinese are trying to encircle our main force of nearly 300,000 on the Shanhaiguan line. ”

Yukio Kasahara was taken aback, but after a little look at the situation on the sand table, he understood that Umezu Mijiro's judgment was not wrong: "General, judging from this scale, the total size of the Shina army should be more than three million people, and there are more than 3,000 tanks and armored vehicles, and we simply can't stop them in the plains." I suggest that the retreat can begin in advance, shrink the defensive line, abandon the plains and retreat to the eastern mountains, which are conducive to defense. Otherwise, once the Chinese army completes the encirclement, the eleven divisions in western Liaoning will be in danger. Yukio Kasahara said.

"You can wait." Umezu Mijiro didn't want to give up Manchuria so soon, and the opinion of the base camp was also to hold the eastern part of Manchuria, the Kwantung Prefecture and the outer northeast line, otherwise what would be the face of the Imperial Army? So far, except for the Shanhaiguan line, the direction of the attack of the Zhina Army is within his estimate, and the heavy army group of the Zhina Army has crossed the Daxing'an Mountains from Inner Mongolia, broken into the West Liaohe Plain, and then attacked the Zhongchang Railway which the Kwantung Army regarded as the lifeline to the east, with very obvious intentions.

Now that the war has progressed, few people in the Japanese military hierarchy still think that Japan will win the final victory, and the question for the cabinet now is how to end the war with dignity. However, the Chinese did not intend to reserve some "face" for the Tojo government at all, and the premise of the peace talks was that the Japanese army withdrew from the Far East, Manchuria, Korea, Taiwan, and the Ryukyus, which was tantamount to asking the Japanese Empire to abandon all the "achievements" obtained by years of expansion and foreign aggression, which was unacceptable in any way.

There is no hope for peace talks, and this war must continue.

In fact, the top brass of the Kwantung Army also understood that their stubborn resistance in the Far East did not mean much, the Chinese Army and the "German-Austrian ghost animals" had already landed in the Ryukyus and began to attack the Japanese mainland, and if the mainland fell, then what was the use of them holding on to Manchuria? Even before the start of this campaign, the Kwantung Army had little confidence in the prospects of the war and formulated a strategy of retreating to the eastern mountains and holding on to Korea and the Far East by virtue of its geographical advantages.

In the Manchurian Plain, a delayed operation was carried out, buying time for the main forces of the Kwantung Army to withdraw to the east and build a defensive line relying on the Qianshan, Changbai and Xiaoxing'an Mountains. Now that the combat operations of the Shina Army are almost the same as the previous plan, Mitsu Mijiro is not willing to retreat, but wants to look for an opportunity to fight a beautiful counterattack before leaving.

However, the Chinese offensive forces are abundant, and the opportunity to annihilate the enemy is not easy to find. (To be continued.) )