Taiyuan, headquarters of the Second Army. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

"Tufeiyuan-kun, why are you back?" The Chief of Staff of the Second Army, Major General Shoji Iida, saw the wind. Kenji Dusty Soil was startled.

He is also anxious now, the security operations in the occupied areas have seriously dragged down the progress of the Japanese army in Shanxi, and the Jin Sui Army and the *** have joined forces to deal with them, relying on a 20th division and some security forces, which can only hold some strategic points, and most areas cannot be effectively controlled.

"Iida-kun, I rushed back as a last resort, and I must meet the new commander, His Excellency Umezu." Kenji Dohihara solemnly bowed to Iida Shoji.

"Your Excellency Umezu has just arrived in Beiping, I'm afraid you won't be in office in a day or two, and you left the army without permission, if people find out, it will be a great thing."

"At present, the war situation is stable, and it is not a big problem for me to leave."

"Tuhihara-kun, I really don't know why you didn't carry out the orders of the temple cabinet in the first place?" Shoji Iida asked with a wry smile.

"Our opponents are far from what the staff officers in Tokyo can imagine who sit in their offices and talk about themselves." Kenji Tohihara said with a gloomy face, "The Chinese are a flock of sheep, but when a lion leads a flock of sheep, the flock has the strength to fight the wolves." ”

"You mean that Leng Feng of the First Division of Honor?"

"That's right, it's not the first time I've fought with him, this Leng Feng is a strong-willed, and very cunning and wise Chinese general, we didn't know anything about this person in the past, which made us suffer many times in the confrontation with him, this time if he hadn't obstructed him, maybe we would have already achieved the strategic goal set by the base camp."

"He's alone, with so much energy?"

"He can bring out a group of defeated soldiers trapped in the refugee camp to kill the city of Nanjing, which is heavily garrisoned by our troops, and also build this defeated army into an elite army, whose combat effectiveness is far greater than that of any army under the command of the Chiang regime, such a person is not worthy of attention, don't you think it is terrible?" Kenji Dohihara stared at Iida Shoji and asked heavily.

"There is some truth in what you say, but this is not a reason for you to change your combat orders without authorization."

"Iida-kun, I trust my judgment."

"Okay, I'll contact Beiping right away to see when Commander Umezu can arrive in Taiyuan." Shoji Iida sighed, the chief of staff does not have much power, just an assistant.

"Thank you, Iida-kun."

"Dohihara-kun, you take a rest first, as soon as Commander Umezu arrives, I will send someone to inform you immediately." Iida Shoji said.

Kenji Dohihara nodded, he could only bet on this one.

Beiping, the headquarters of the North China Front.

The commander of the North China Front, General Shoichi Terauchi, held a simple internal welcome banquet at the headquarters to welcome Lieutenant General Umezu Yoshijiro, who had flown in from Tokyo and was about to become commander of the Second Army.

From the deputy chief of the army to the commander of the Second Army, this is no different from exile for Umezu Mijiro, far from the core of power, naturally a little lost.

Before that, his predecessor, Lieutenant General Kazuki Kiyoji, had already had a brief handover with him, and then the two of them secretly sped on him for half an hour.

He learned something about the actual situation.

Because Kazuki Kiyoshi has always disagreed with Terauchi Shouichi, mainly about the strategy of the war against China, Kazuki Kiyoji is a "non-expansion" faction, while Terauchi Shouichi is a radical "expansion faction", and the two naturally can't pee in the same pot.

As soon as Shou Terauchi oppressed people with his power, Kazuki Kiyoji simply died of a drunken dream, and during his tenure as a commander for more than a year, he almost didn't do a decent thing.

Ignoring the lack of Japanese troops and logistics, Terauchi Shouichi ordered the Second Army to attack Shanxi, and although it achieved a certain victory, it was also mired in it, and the gains were disproportionate to the consumption, resulting in the current predicament of being mired in a quagmire.

Terauchi Shou's blind attack not only caused huge casualties to the Japanese army, but also gave the country the wrong judgment that China could be quickly conquered.

But in fact, the Japanese army can now control only the cities along the main railway arteries, and the vast countryside and a large number of county towns are still under the control of the Chinese.

The resistance of the Chinese is becoming more and more fierce, and to maintain law and order and interests in the occupied areas, a large number of security forces are needed, but the empire does not have a clear strategy for the conquest of China, whether to directly occupy it by armed force and incorporate it into Japan, or to follow the path of gradual change as in Manchukuo, and first support a puppet regime?

This kind of dissatisfaction was experienced by Umezu Mijiro from Seiji Kazuki.

And he is now a direct subordinate of Terauchi Shouichi, he must also consider this question, whether to cooperate with Terauchi Shouichi all the way, or do he have his own opinions?

Looking at Shouichi Terauchi's face with a warm smile, Umezu Mijiro's heart couldn't help but be a little trance, will Kiyoji Kazuki's ending today be his future?

"......," the adjutant whispered in his ear.

"I know, you go back and prepare first, after I meet His Excellency the general in the temple, I will go to Taiyuan immediately." When Umezu Mijiro heard this, his face changed slightly.

Although he was somewhat mentally prepared, he still felt that this change of position was the most dangerous in his professional military career.

If he is not careful, maybe he won't even have the opportunity to go back to Tokyo to retire.

After meeting Shouichi Terauchi, Umezu Mijiro did not return to his residence, but drove directly to the airport.

At the airport, he met with a man, the head of the operations department of the base camp, Major General Hashimoto Gun.

Hashimoto Group is also going to Taiyuan.

The two were arranged on the same plane, and Umezu Mijiro didn't know if Hashimoto had already known that Kenji Dohihara had returned to Taiyuan, and the two chatted casually on the plane.

Shouichi Terauchi lost his temper in the office, and Umezu Mijiro's attitude annoyed him, and Umezu didn't agree to his order on the spot.

For those who disobey themselves, Shouichi Terauchi has never had a good impression.

At this time, a telegram from Shunroku Hata came, asking him to hand over the dominance of the Battle of Xuzhou, the meaning was obvious, Shunroku Hata wanted to take the greatest credit.

Originally, the North China Front was the main attacker, but now the North China Front has suffered one defeat after another and suffered heavy losses, and it is no longer capable of taking on the main attack task.

Shunroku Hata came to take the lead at this time, and it was clear that he was here to demonstrate and make him admit defeat.

This "lose" his temple Shouyi will not admit it, he is a nobleman, how can he lose to a person with a lower status than him?

Fortunately, Takahashi Hiroshi did not betray Kenji Dohihara, otherwise, at this moment, Shouichi Terauchi might have known the news that Kenji Dohihara had left his army.

The planes that Umezu and Hashimoto took did not fly directly to Taiyuan, but landed at Jinan Airport first.

The two went together to meet with the commander of the First Army, Lieutenant General Minoru Higashikure.

Umezu Mijiro came to China to serve as the commander of the First Army of the North China Front, so he naturally needed to understand the thoughts of the commander of the First Army at his level, if King Minoru Higashikure wore a pair of pants with Terauchi Shouichi, then he could only learn from Kazuki Kiyoji, and simply sleepwalk at home every day.

If King Higashikure Minoru didn't agree so much with the temple and had the same idea as himself, then the two of them could join forces to fight.

The situation of the 2nd Army was very bad, the 10th Division, which was the most elite directly under it, was almost completely wiped out, although there were still two divisions, 108 and 16, but one was only a second-class division, and the other was only on the books.

The 16th Division was gone forever since it was transferred to participate in the Battle of Nanjing, and it was only recently that it had been rebuilt from the mainland, and it was planning to send a force over to cooperate with the marines of the Japanese Navy's Third Fleet to attack Yizhou.

The two mixed brigades transferred from the Kwantung Army originally expected them to recapture Yanzhou and Jining, which were occupied by the Honor 1st Division, but as a result, the invincible Kwantung Army also suffered defeat.

The two brigades combined with more than 10,000 people, and now there are only half of them left, and they are still full of wounded soldiers.

The 2nd Army is even more pitiful than the 1st Army, there is only one 108th Division and some local security forces, and there is a puppet army, the number of which is tens of thousands, but the Japanese army does not dare to use them to fight the Honor 1st Division.

Because, while fighting, people are gone, not only are people gone, but even weapons are brought over.

This has brought a lot of high-quality soldiers to the Luxi Corps.

After Umezu Mijiro learned about the actual situation of the 2nd Army, he was stunned for a long time before he came back to his senses, and the strategic plans formulated by the base camp were simply bullshit.

The telegrams that triumphed every day were actually nothing, and they were all beaten and cowered in strong fortifications and did not dare to go out, was this still an invincible Imperial Army of the Japanese Empire?

The situation on the other battlefields is unclear, at least as it actually was in the 2nd Army.

Through the understanding of the situation of the 2nd Army, Umezu Yoshijiro also learned some about the battle situation in the Luxi area in general, although the Dohihara Division was strong, it was able to suffer setbacks at the hands of Leng Feng and the Honor 1st Division one after another, and the losses were not small.

This is still on the surface, but the danger in the secret is invisible, and based on the intelligence analysis of the battlefield, Umezu also has to admit that the current situation of the Tohihara Division is really not as it appears on the surface.

It's dangerous!

He now understood a little bit why Kenji Dohihara was reluctant to move south to the Longhai Line in Caozhou, and in addition to his own reasons, this had gathered at least 100,000 Chinese troops around Caozhou.

If Kenji Tuhihara goes south to Germany, it is likely to be the second Taierzhuang.

In such a dangerous situation, who dares to joke about the life and death of the main elite field mechanized corps, this is the cowardice in the eyes of His Excellency General Terauchi Shouichi?

Just kidding, it's clear that the enemy is waiting for you to pass, but you insist on crashing into it to seek death?

"Such a dangerous situation, doesn't His Excellency the General of the Temple know about it?"

"Your Excellency the Commander of the Temple does not think that the 14th Division is a heavy mechanized corps, and with the cooperation of the Second Heavy Artillery Brigade, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops are under the enemy's back, and the commander of the Tufeiyuan Division should completely defeat the current enemy with the courage to break through the cauldron and complete the strategic concept of encircling the fifth theater of Xuzhou with the base camp!" Hashimoto smiled bitterly.

"It's impossible to do!" The First Army's combat staff friend Miharu roared angrily.

"So what, Your Excellency in the temple only asks about the result, not the process."

"Barbaric, arbitrary, how can Your Excellency the temple be so disregarding the lives of the soldiers on the front line of the empire?" Tomomi Miharu asked with crimson eyes.

"Ci is not in charge of the soldiers, at the level of His Excellency in the temple, sacrifice is just a bunch of numbers in his eyes."

"Does His Excellency still insist on his opinion?"

"Yes, the first thing he asked me to do when I took office was to strictly urge Kenji Dohihara to go south to the Longhai Line, cut off the retreat of the Chinese army, and ensure that it would be annihilated in the Xuzhou area."

"It's delusional, it's a dream!" (To be continued.) )