The sudden mutiny of the puppet army and the loss of Zhengding County made the Japanese army extremely angry, and an extremely thorny problem in front of Binshanyuan and others was, can the puppet army still be used? Although the Japanese army has always had no trust in the puppet army, it has always restricted the puppet army in terms of weaponry and establishment, and has also set up Japanese military advisers in the establishment of each regiment and above, which is actually equivalent to supervising the army, responsible for monitoring and supervising the puppet army's operations.

However, so many measures still could not curb the defection of the puppet army, and it was the defection of the entire division, so whether the puppet army could be used or not became an urgent matter for the Japanese military to consider. If it can't be used, then what should be done with the hundreds of thousands of puppet troops in North China, and what should be done with the four or five hundred thousand puppet troops in the whole of China? If it can still be used, then how can it be used to avoid the rebellion of the puppet army?

Although there have been puppet army mutinies in the past, the scale is far less than this time, and the consequences are far less than this time. So it detonated the discussion of the Japanese military high-level about the puppet army.

The vast majority of officers still think that the puppet army can be used, after all, the role of the puppet army is still very large, and in the case of limited troops, the puppet army is responsible for the security of the rear, which can save a large number of troops for attack. Otherwise, with this little strength of the Japanese army alone, more than half of it would have to be consumed to maintain public order, and it would be a fart attack. Therefore, 80% of Japanese officers believe that the puppet army can be used, and it must be used, but it must be used selectively, and the puppet army officers should not be given absolute autonomy.

Therefore, the headquarters of the North China Front urgently issued an order that from now on, all the establishments above the Imperial Association Corps level will be added to a deputy post, and this deputy post will be held by the Japanese army. At the same time, the deputy officer concurrently serves as the supreme commander of a tactical unit directly under him, which means that in the future, in addition to one adviser for units above the puppet corps, a deputy post will be added, that is, a deputy regiment commander, a deputy brigade commander, and a deputy division commander.

Unlike the adviser, this deputy post is not a fictitious position, but a real position, and he has to serve as the supreme commander of the battalion or regiment directly under him. In this way, the autonomy of the puppet army was reduced again, and the Japanese army's control over the puppet army was further strengthened.

Regardless of how the Japanese army controlled the puppet army, the battle situation in the entire north changed again with Chen Feng's orders, and the entire army of the various units in the Eighth Theater seemed to have been beaten all at once. The momentum was even stronger in the next attack. The northernmost 61st Group Army, with the cooperation of the Eighth Route Army, successfully captured the city of Chengde. The Japanese 14th Division and the 5th Mixed Brigade broke through to the east with more than half of the casualties, while the 8th and 2nd Divisions of the Kwantung Army rushed south to fight. After five days of midnight fighting, although the 61st Army repelled the Japanese counterattack, it was unable to pursue and annihilate the Japanese 14th Division. The two sides confronted each other across the Qinglong and Qian'an lines.

And the battle in the Xinkou direction is progressing even more smoothly. Although the First Army stationed in Shanxi had nearly 100,000 Japanese puppet troops. However, they have lost more than 14,000 people in the battle some time ago, plus they have to deal with the attack of nearly 100,000 troops of the 40th Army, and at the same time deal with the siege of nearly 200,000 troops in the second theater. Therefore, as of 11 December, the First Army stationed in Shanxi had lost more than half of the security areas in Jinzhong, and in addition to Taiyuan, only more than 10 counties and cities in Gujiao, Shouyang, Yangqu, and Yangquan were still under the control of the First Army, and the situation was very difficult.

The battle in the direction of Shimen was the most thrilling, after capturing the county seat of Zhengding, Yang Yi ordered the troops to set off overnight, rushed to Shimen, and soon the troops were under Shimen City. Then the Ma Cao Department also quickly moved south, joined Yang Yi's department, and launched a full-scale attack on Shimen on December 11.

Although Kimura Hyotaro is arrogant and brutal, this person still has some means. No matter how Yang Yi and Ma Cao's headquarters attacked, the 32nd Division and the mixed 3rd Brigade were just cowering in the city and not fighting, and tens of thousands of troops guarded the city fortifications and confronted more than 100,000 troops in the Eighth War Zone. At the same time, in order to prevent air raids in the Eighth Theater of Operations and possible airborne troops, Kimura Hyotaro actually drove tens of thousands of Chinese civilians to the city and tied them with wire one by one.

Kimura Hyotaro and Binshan Gen telegraphed, and Hirayama told Kimura that the only thing they could do now was to delay time, and as long as they could, the danger of Ishimon would be solved in a week at most. Because of this, Hyotaro Kimura came up with such a dirty trick.

Seeing that Shimen could not be attacked for a long time, and the Japanese army still did not know what conspiracy was brewing in Ludao, after thinking about it for a while, Chen Feng decided to let go of Shimen first, but sent a special combat team to quickly seize Jingcheng Pass, and at the same time sent a large army out of Jingcheng Pass and killed directly to Yangquan, while only one infantry division and one chariot brigade were left in the Shimen area. In Chen Feng's words, the purpose of this operation is to encircle and annihilate the First Army of the North China Front Army in Shanxi, and attacking Shimen is an auxiliary measure.

When 100,000 mechanized infantry crossed the Jingcheng Mountains and appeared in Yangquan, the Japanese army was completely panicked, and Yoshio Shinozuka had to shrink his forces again to prevent them from being broken by Chen Feng's subordinates. Despite this, the First Army was already strategically at an absolute disadvantage, with the ratio of Japanese and Chinese/army forces in the Shanxi Battlefield reaching 1:4, and the difference in firepower was even greater, and the situation was even more far apart.

Originally, according to Shinozuka Yoshio's idea, the First Army had now lost its qualification to compete with the Chinese army, and the wisest choice was to break through the siege, from the east or southeast of Jin. The consequence of this is to lose territory, but it will save the troops. But it's a pity that Yoshio Shinozuka's suggestion was rejected by General Binshan Yuan, because Binshan Yuan is very confident in Hu Lila, once the Hu Lila germ breaks out, then Chen Feng's troops will definitely withdraw their troops, and if they hold on for a few more days now, the benefits to the empire will be great. Therefore, Binshan Yuan ordered the First Army stationed in Shanxi to hold on to Shanxi at all costs! At the very least, we must defend Taiyuan.

The battle in the direction of Changping was the most intense, originally on the 11th, the 52nd Army had destroyed the Japanese army's fortifications, but unfortunately on the 12th, the Japanese army suddenly sent more than 600 combat vehicles to participate in the battle, and the 52nd Group Army suffered a lot of losses under surprise, and all the previous results returned to zero.

Enraged, Xu Hu released the only tank brigade in his hand and fought 350 against 600. The two sides launched a decisive battle under the city of Changping, which belonged to the armored forces. The battle lasted for four hours, and the final result was a crushing defeat of the 3rd Tank Division of the Japanese Army, with 419 of the 600 tanks destroyed and 202 fleeing back to the city. The armored brigade of the 52nd Army lost only 187 tanks, of which 142 were captured Japanese Type 95 light tanks.

In fact, Japan began to produce tanks as early as 1927, but due to the limited understanding of armored tactics, for a long time, the Japanese army has been dividing tank wings into various field divisions, and only using them as large bunkers for infantry charges. After the outbreak of the war of aggression against China, the Japanese army participated in large-scale offensive operations.

In 1934, the Kwantung Army first became an independent mixed first mechanized brigade. In the later Battle of Xuzhou, the Battle of Nanchang, and the Battle of Nomonkan, the Japanese army concentrated on tank assault tactics. A few months ago, Okamura Ninji used the tactics of chariot and cannon in the Battle of Nanchang. It took only 7 days to capture Nanchang. In addition, Poland was destroyed in more than 20 days after a blitzkrieg, which shocked the Japanese army greatly, so the Japanese army base camp ordered the formation of a mecha army, with Yoshida Tokushi as the commander, and the first, second, and third tank divisions and the tank teaching brigade under it. Among them, the 1st and 2nd Tank Divisions and the Tank Teaching Brigade are all subordinate to the Kwantung Army combat sequence. Only the 3rd Tank Division was assigned to the Chinese Dispatch Army.

The commander of the 3rd Tank Division of the Japanese Army was Lieutenant General Kazuse Nishihara. The division has under the jurisdiction of the 5th Tank Brigade, the 6th Tank Brigade, the 3rd Motorized Infantry Wing, the Rapid-Fire Artillery Team, the Search Team, the 3rd Mobile Artillery Wing, the Air Defense Team, the Engineer Team, the Maintenance Team, and the Baggage Team.

Although the tank divisions of the Japanese army were well formed. There are many soldiers, but the combat effectiveness is not very strong, which has a great relationship with the level of industry in Japan and the performance of armored combat vehicles. Armored forces are not the same as infantry. The quality of the infantry and the use of tactics have a great impact on the campaign.

The combat effectiveness of the armored forces mainly depends on the performance and number of combat vehicles, and the third tank division of the Japanese army is mainly equipped with Type 95 light tanks, Type 97 medium tanks, and 97 medium tanks. The Type 95 light chariot is a light chariot designed and developed by the Japanese army according to the actual needs of the battlefield of aggression against China after the Type 89 chariot was put into operation. THE TANK HAS A CREW OF 3 PEOPLE, AND IS EQUIPPED WITH 1 Type 94 37MM TANK GUN OR TYPE 98 37MM TANK GUN, AS WELL AS 2 7.62MM MACHINE GUNS. The speed is 40 kilometers per hour, and the maximum range is 250 kilometers. THE CREW OF THE TYPE 97 MEDIUM TANK IS 4 PEOPLE, EQUIPPED WITH A TYPE 97 47MM GUN, AND TWO TYPE 97 7.7MM MACHINE GUNS.

In comparison, Chen Feng's main tank is now equipped with much more powerful, the T34 tank weighs 32 tons, has a crew of 4 people, the main weapon is a 76.2 mm F-34 main gun, the secondary weapon is two 7.62 mm DP/DT machine guns, the width of the vehicle is 2.92 meters, the height of the vehicle is 2.39 meters, the В-2-34 water-cooled diesel engine, the power is 373 kilowatts, the maximum driving speed is 55 kilometers per hour, the maximum travel is 468 kilometers, the height of the obstacle is 0.75 meters, the width of the trench is 2.49 meters, and the climbing is 30 degrees. The armor was 18-60 mm thick.

It can be said that this is the most classic tank in the history of World War II, and even in the later stage of World War II, it is the main force of one top one. Although it is not as good as the German Tiger tank in individual confrontation, it inherits the usual advantages of Soviet-style weapons, the structure is simple and easy to operate, and it does not require soldiers with a high level of education to operate.

Although the T34 can only be a medium tank in Europe, but in Asia, compared with the Japanese bean tank, the huge T34 can be regarded as a very successful heavy tank, although the Japanese tanks in this battle are more than the 52nd Army in quantity, but in terms of quality is far behind. If it weren't for the fact that the armored brigade of the 52nd Army was only equipped with less than 200 T34s, and the rest were replaced by captured Japanese Type 95 tanks, otherwise, this battle alone would have been enough for the Japanese army's 3rd Tank Division to die before it could get out of the division.

Despite this, the 3rd Tank Division of the Japanese Army was also devastated, and it did not want to recover its combat effectiveness for half a year, and with the tattered things of the Japanese army, even if the 3rd Tank Division was restored to combat effectiveness, it would not be of much use, and the armored troops under Chen Feng's department would still have no place to be buried. With the rapid advancement of various battlefields, Chen Feng's southward operation has also entered the countdown! (To be continued......)