The Far East Campaign plan went smoothly, the rear was blocked and the front was blocked, the left and right flanks were surrounded, and it was only a matter of a day or two, but Prince Zaihito's mood at the moment was not as relaxed and uneasy as before, and this uneasiness came from the sense of powerlessness that could not control the overall situation.

And the root cause of Prince Zairen's uneasiness is that Tang Qiuli's troops, on the line from Chita to Irkutsk, in the face of the tactics adopted by the Soviet army, Prince Zairen absolutely believes that this is which Chinese devil did it on purpose, and now, he himself is not sure whether the troops of the two Soviet fronts, when the Soviet Far Eastern Front is surrounded by the Imperial Japanese Army, will they come back to help, and whether the troops of the Chinese devil can pull the back legs of the Soviets as judged by himself?

"Being used once, turning his hand around, he left himself with such a big uncontrollable hidden danger, this devil is cunning and treacherous to the point of reaching the peak!" In this regard, Prince Jaehito could only sigh secretly.

Knowing that the millions of Soviet troops stranded on the line from Chita to Irkutsk in the Far East are an uncontrollable factor and judgment, the more they determine the success or failure of their Far East campaign, however, Prince Zairen can no longer stop, or make adjustments in the campaign, the three forces of the empire have been fully launched, and the arrow has to be launched, even if they want to terminate the campaign now, they can't do it, at least, the Kwantung Army troops have to get in.

Prince Zairen temporarily put aside the anxiety caused by Tang Qiuli in his heart for the time being, and devoted all his attention to the final stage of the Far East campaign.

The Japanese army intensified the tendency to close the encirclement, and Zhukov, feeling the imminent pressure and great danger in the encirclement, found the Japanese troops from the line of the Bria Mountains on the left flank of the front, the next day. Zhukov received another piece of information to make matters worse, "The Front Command, the First Reconnaissance Brigade of the Intelligence Department, on the front line of the Kukan Mountains, found that the vanguard of the Japanese army, and many mountain passes in the Kukan Mountains, had been occupied by the Japanese army, and this place was less than 100 kilometers away from the battlefield!" ”

Zhukov listened to the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Godayav, and when he read this information, his face was blank. His expression was sluggish, and the successive blows had already made him lose any excitement and surprise, what if he knew about the conspiracy of the Japanese?

The wolf comes at the front door, and the tiger enters the back door. Two odd armies of the Japanese army, on the left and right flanks of the Far Eastern Front. Punch the knife. On the frontal battlefield, the Japanese Kwantung Army troops fought more and more fiercely, and the commander-in-chief of the Kwantung Army, General Minami Jiro, seemed to have grasped Zhukov's weakness and did not dare to pour all the strength of the Far Eastern Front into a decisive battle with the Kwantung Army. The magnetic tactics have been brought to the extreme.

Kraft candy was like a kraft candy, tightly twisting the troops of the Far Eastern Front, except for the three army group units that were responsible for covering. The troops of the 13th, 16th, and 19th armies, which were originally scheduled to withdraw from the second echelon, had to stop their evacuation operations and turn around to deal with the stubborn fighting of the Kwantung Army.

In the operational sequence of the Far Eastern Front, there are a total of ten group armies, and the troops that have been dragged on the battlefield are as many as six group armies, accounting for about two-thirds of the total strength; in addition, in Zhukov's hands, he also has the strength of a group army, but he does not dare to use it, this is the battle reserve of the front army, ready to be thrown into the most dangerous direction at any time, that is to say, except for the three group army units withdrawn from the first echelon, the entire Far Eastern Front is still trapped on the battlefield.

What's even more terrifying is that on the left and right flanks of the battlefield, the vanguard of the Japanese army was found, so how many troops did the Japanese army follow behind? In what direction? The reconnaissance unit of the Intelligence Department of the Front Army has not yet sent more valuable information, but Zhukov knows that in a certain area of the Far East, there must be a large number of Japanese troops pressing over.

In the face of this situation, Zhukov was also a little helpless, the only thing he could do was to order the troops of the second echelon to get out of the battlefield as much as possible, although it was difficult, but it was necessary to do so, according to the order of the front army command, the 13th, 16th, and 19th armies of the second echelon each drew out the strength of one army and held their positions, and the rest of the troops, in the roaring artillery fire of the Kwantung Army, withdrew from their positions one after another.

On the other side of the battlefield, General Minamijiro, commander-in-chief of the Kwantung Army, has been in a very pleasant mood in the past few days. After a few days of fighting, the facts proved that General Minamijiro was wise and decisive, and was pressed and beaten by the Soviet army all the way from the Outer Khingan Mountains, and the defeat was unbearable, and the Kwantung Army troops who withdrew to the Far East region, with a half-crippled body, launched against the Soviet Far Eastern Front Army, which was several times their size, and the vast majority of the Kwantung Army generals were not optimistic, thinking that it was a suicidal attack, and the results of the battle exceeded the expectations of the Kwantung Army generals.

After each tug-of-war battle, the commanders and division commanders of various units of the Kwantung Army, when they counted the casualties of the troops, were pleasantly surprised to find that although they were fighting an offensive war, the casualties of the troops were far less than those of the previous defensive battles, and the casualties of the Soviet troops were more than their own.

As a result, Prince Zaihito's seemingly murderous order with a knife, and the resentment and anger brought to the generals of the Kwantung Army, have disappeared, and the commanders of various units of the Kwantung Army, like this style of play, launched an offensive with the main attack, and after being strongly counterattacked by the Soviet army, they immediately retreated, but did not leave the battlefield, the Soviet army stopped counterattacking and looked for an opportunity to resume the attack, and the generals of the Kwantung Army proudly called this tactic "holding the nose!" ”

Of course, as the battle progressed unexpectedly, the prestige of Commander-in-Chief Minamijiro also rose to an unprecedented height, and the morale of the troops, who had been encircled and intercepted by millions of Soviet troops and beaten hard, gradually recovered, and the Kwantung Army became the most elite Imperial Army.

Looking back now, I can see how wise, resolute, and far-sighted Commander-in-Chief Minamijiro's decision was, and in the midst of opposition, he tried his best to overcome public opinion and start from where he could not be, and the Kwantung Army poured into the headquarters like a tide of praise.

Senior General Minamijiro enjoyed this praise very indifferently, the initial anxiety and uneasiness, worry and fear, have become a thing of the past, and now what he has to do is to listen to the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Kenjiro Matsuda, every day, report on the battlefield situation, the casualty figures of each unit, and the casualties of the Soviet army, and take the practice of not interfering in the specific attacks of each army and each division.

But there is one point, General Minamijiro is on his lips, "We must always remember that we are mainly sticking to the Soviet army, not giving the Soviet army much heavy damage, so in terms of tactics, we must be flexible and changeable, and we must not be brave!" ”

In a few words, up to the point, General Minamijiro knew in his heart that from the battlefield of the Outer Khingan Mountains to the plain battlefield between the two mountains in the Far East, after more than a month of bloody fighting, the generals at all levels of the Kwantung Army had already become proficient in commanding operations, and they did not need their own specific guidance, and they were happy to be idle and control the general direction of the troops.

Compared with the emaciated and anxious Zhukov, on the battlefield full of artillery fire, General Minamijiro even had leisure and leisure, tasting some sake every day, and then, sleeping peacefully, of course, the sound of guns and cannons is an indispensable lullaby, without the rumbling cannons, His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief could not sleep well!

Lieutenant General Kenjiro Matsuda, Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army Headquarters, once jokingly said: "Your Excellency, Commander-in-Chief, I have never seen Your Excellency since the beginning of the campaign, and there is such a relaxed and leisurely time!" If there were another group of geisha singing and dancing, I would almost have the illusion that this was not on the front line under heavy fire, but in a tavern in Ginza, Tokyo! ”

In this regard, General Minamijiro smiled slightly and said something very subtle, "Matsuda-kun, the overall situation has been decided, what we need to do is just wait for the result!" ”

Chief of Staff Matsuda thought so, as the chief of staff of the Kwantung Army, he naturally knew the overall situation of the current battle situation, and the overall situation was decided, but it was also seen from this that there was a clear difference between General Minamijiro and Prince Zaihito.

Prince Zairen's vision, in the entire Far East and even in Outer Mongolia, is quite sensitive to all kinds of unexpected factors, and can immediately smell the taste, General Minamijiro's attention, on the battlefield in front of him, what he sees is Zhukov's increasingly passive trend, in terms of overall strategic vision and sensitivity to the battlefield, General Minamijiro is obviously inferior to Prince Zairen, so the two of them are not a heavyweight.

The three army groups in which the first echelon of the Soviet Far Eastern Front withdrew from the battlefield, the two army group units that spread out to the left and right flanks for strategic defense, and the one army group unit that moved closer to the direction of the Outer Khingan Ridge Front as far as possible, were originally taken by Zhukov as a precautionary measure to ensure that the retreat of the front army would not be cut off by the Japanese army.

On the night of 3 May, at the General Headquarters of the Japanese Far East Campaign in Khabarovsk, Prince Jaehito issued an operational order to encircle and annihilate the troops of the 15th, 18th, and 21st armies of the Soviet Far Eastern Front in Kono.

"Lieutenant General Noigoro Ono, commander of the Far East Dispatch Army, and General Shinichi Tanaka, commander of the Korean garrison army, your main task now is to completely annihilate the troops of the Soviet Far East Front in the existing area.

"There is only one requirement from the headquarters, to completely, cleanly, and neatly annihilate the units of the three Soviet armies, and completely close the passage for the Soviet troops to withdraw in the direction of Chita! Then, together with the troops of the Kwantung Army, they will encircle the Soviet Far Eastern Front in the Far East battlefield! ”

(To be continued)(To be continued......