October 21, 1942, Shandong Peninsula.

It was nearly dusk, and Zhifu Island in the distance was shrouded in a golden afterglow.

The Yantai Naval Base, located in Zhifu Bay in the northern part of the Jiaodong Peninsula, is a busy scene, with a total of 129 ships, including frigates, including 36 transport ships carrying 27,000 officers and equipment of the 3rd Marine Division of the Chinese Marine Corps, on the east side of Zhifu Island. The fighters of the naval air force participating in the escort mission constantly flew over the formation, and the huge roar was deafening, and the whole scene was very spectacular.

After the beginning of winter, the artillery fire on the Soviet-Russian front became sparse, and major military operations gradually stopped. In the Far Eastern Theater, the offensive in the northeastern direction of China was also temporarily halted after the Republican Army occupied the Harbin and Xinjing fronts, and in the Liaoshen Battlefield, the Republican Army approached Fengtian City from three sides and continued fierce battles with the Kwantung Army on the Liaohe front.

The more than 1.2 million Japanese troops in Manchuria were basically concentrated in eastern Manchuria and along the Yalu River, while in Korea there were only the 19th and 103rd Divisions and the newly organized 218th Division, totaling only more than 50,000 troops.

Before the Battle of Okinawa, the Headquarters of the Allied Forces in the Far East had drawn up an operational plan for landing on the Korean Peninsula, but due to opposition from the Navy, after coordination, it was finally agreed with the Navy that it would be decided to start a landing operation on the Korean Peninsula after the Battle of Okinawa.

The main forces of the coalition fleet, commanded by Admiral Yankel, departed directly from Okinawa and entered the Yellow Sea to seize sea and air supremacy in order to cover the safety of the landing fleet. And Wilhelm? Admiral Marshall commanded another task force to continue the attack in the direction of Kyushu.

In addition, the 1st Division of the German Far East Army stationed in Qingdao and the Chinese 15th Army assembled on the Jiaozhou Peninsula after the landing campaign began. It can be transported to the Korean Peninsula by sea at any time. The advance force for the landing was carried out by the 3rd Austro-Hungarian Marine Division, which was targeting Mokpo Harbor, and the 3rd Marine Division of the Republican Army, which was assembled at Yantai, and the 3rd Marine Division of the Republican Army, which was targeting Gunsan Bay.

Due to the loss of Okinawa, the entire Japanese archipelago is now under the threat of Axis allied strategic bombers, and the Japanese army and navy in Tokyo are also divided on whether to abandon the whole of Manchuria and retreat to the Korean Peninsula and the mainland. No one will back down. The army was still clamoring to defend Manchuria with all its might, while the navy, which had lost two-thirds of its main force, demanded to concentrate its forces and retreat to the mainland with all its might, waiting for reinforcements from the American army.

In the midst of the constant wrangling, the Axis allies began a key battle for the Korean Peninsula -- the landing operation in the south of the peninsula -- with lightning speed. Of course, the first shot of this large-scale landing campaign could only be fired by surface ships, but the difference was that this time it was the four slightly aging "Dinghai" class battleships of the Chinese Navy that were the first to strike.

The four "Dinghai" class battleships owned by the Beiyang Navy were the four improved "Bishop" class battleships built by the French Navy in the late World War I based on the "Queen Elizabeth" class battleship, the capital ship of the British Royal Navy. After the surrender of France in World War I, these battleships fell into the hands of the Austro-Hungarian Navy and continued to be built. However, due to the destruction of the French shipyards, the battleships were not built before the end of the war.

After the end of the European War, Austria-Hungary, despite the strong opposition of the Japanese, sold these four battleships, which had been 80% completed, to the Beiyang Navy at that time, and completed the final construction works at the Austro-Hungarian shipyard, which was completed and delivered to the Beiyang Navy in 1926.

As one of the most powerful battleships of the First World War, the Dinghai-class battleships, built in the late World War I and modeled after the "Queen" class, boasted a high speed of 25 knots. Belonged to one of the pioneers of the post-war concept of "high-speed battleships". After removing the redundant bow torpedo tubes and modernizing them, the standard displacement of this class of battleships was increased from 32,000 tons to 35,000 tons due to the increase in armor. However, the increase in overall power and hull fluidity increased its speed by 2.5 knots out of thin air, which was enough to follow the carrier formation.

Under the clear moonlight, the sight of the entire East China Sea is not very bad, enough to see the huge black shadows of his companions who are only 1.5 nautical miles away from him. There was a light breeze on the sea, and the gently undulating waves had little effect on the powerful capital battleship. Under the leadership of the fleet flagship "Dinghai", the battleships of the same class "Zhenhai", "Pinghai" and "Jinghai". and more than 30 warships, including the cruisers "Qinzhou," "Fuzhou," and "Hangzhou," were cleared by minesweepers and sailed from the southwest toward Gunsan Bay in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula.

In accordance with the pre-developed plan of the landing operation, two hours before dawn, the landing cover fleet slowed down at a distance of 12 nautical miles from the coast. Naval artillery would then be used to bombard the Japanese fortified targets at the landing site, and the landing force would begin its operations at about 4 p.m. After dawn, Vilmots? The eight aircraft carriers under the command of Admiral Yankel will provide air protection for the entire landing convoy. At the same time, 920 combat aircraft of the 4th Wing of the Land-based Aviation Force and the 3rd Air Wing of the Coalition Army, commanded by Major Generals Gao Zhihang and Major General Sucker, will also provide air support to the landing force.

Due to the Japanese army's blind belief in the absolute naval supremacy, and the fact that the Japanese army did not attach importance to defense at all, in fact, in the Far East, except for the Lushun fortress built by the Russians, the other ports basically did not build permanent fortifications. After the Battle of Okinawa, the Japanese troops stationed in Korea hastily built temporary fortifications at the port of Incheon near Seoul.

The Japanese defense in Gunsan and Mokpo was not very strong, there was about one wing of defenders in Mokpo, and the total strength of Gunsan Port was only one brigade and some local garrisons, and there was not even an army defense in the western beach area of Gunsan Bay, while there was only one squadron of Japanese troops and one squadron of Korean troops stationed near Gunsan Port, the landing point of the 7th Marine Brigade of the Chinese Marines, and this defensive force of more than 1,500 people quickly abandoned the defensive position on the beach under the blow of the navy's heavy artillery.

At Blue Beach in the southern part of Gunsan Bay, after a brief shelling, the covering fleet never found any signs of Japanese activity. Obviously, the Japanese focused most of their attention on the mountainous areas of eastern Manchuria and the line of the Yalu River, and were largely unprepared for a large-scale landing operation by the coalition forces.

At 11 a.m. on the 22nd, the 17th Regiment of the 9th Army Brigade of the Wehrmacht began to change to landing craft and rushed to the beach, meeting no resistance at all, and no enemy troops were found in this area.

At 12:20 p.m., the landing commander sent a telegram to the flagship of the fleet: "The landing was successful, no resistance was encountered!" ”

Then the 17th Army Regiment began to expand its booths, and the amphibious tanks and amphibious landing vehicles assisted by Austria-Hungary also began to go ashore, this amphibious tank weighing 22 tons was equipped with a 48 times caliber 75 mm cannon, although the armor ability was inferior to the latest medium tanks equipped by Germany and Austria, but it was more than enough to deal with the Japanese army that was basically unarmed.

The 17th Army Regiment began to advance northeast to Gunsan Harbor after disembarking its equipment and follow-up units, encountering no enemy troops along the way, until a skirmish with a Korean garrison at 2:30 p.m. at the town of Guipo. A small team of about 150 North Korean troops defended here, and it took about 10 minutes for the 17th Army Regiment to wipe out the North Korean infantry team, which was armed with only three grenadiers and three heavy machine guns.

By 4:20 p.m., the 17th Army Regiment had met slightly stronger resistance when it reached the vicinity of the railway station on the outskirts of the mountains, where the Japanese had deployed a squadron of Japanese troops and a large Korean garrison, and had temporary fortifications and some artillery around the station.

At 1 o'clock in the afternoon, the 7th and 8th Marine Brigade arrived in the southern part of Gunsan Port, and a large number of personnel and materials began to go ashore, and the Japanese army was completely powerless to prevent the Wehrmacht from landing, and the whole situation was irreversible.

It was only at this time that the Japanese base camp woke up like a dream, and the landing of the Axis coalition forces in southern Korea was a blow to them, and the operational purpose of the coalition forces was clearly revealed at this time: they did not care about the Liaodong and Yalu River defense lines, which were heavily defended by the Japanese army and built a large number of fortifications, but cut off the retreat of the Kwantung Army in one fell swoop, intending to close the door and fight the dogs, and completely annihilate the main force of the Kwantung Army in the northeast. (To be continued.) )