Okamura's sudden outburst startled all the senior officers in the conference room, it was still a gentle drizzle just now, why was it suddenly thunderous? Especially Kimura Hyotaro, who had just been loudly reprimanded by Okamura, he felt that he was really wronged, even more wronged than the woman in the Shina drama, everything he did was for the sake of the Japanese Empire, not for himself, why did this matter become so unbearable in the mouth of General Okamura, it seems that he is not worthy of being a soldier at all in the eyes of General Okamura.

Kimura couldn't accept such an "insult" at all, and the furious Kimura Hyotaro was about to have a good debate with the newly appointed commander of the Front Army, but just as he was about to speak, he suddenly thought that this Okamura General was not easy to deal with, and it was obviously not a wise choice to directly confront him.

"Your Excellency Commander, the military discipline of the Imperial Army is still very good, and now that the Imperial Army is an occupation army, it is understandable that some small violations of discipline occasionally occur, after all, the Great Japanese warriors have come to China thousands of miles away, and some negative emotions in their hearts must be vented through 'reasonable' means!" Hyotaro Kimura said in a deep voice.

"Yaga, strong. Rape the women of China, rob the common people of China, and wantonly slaughter the civilians of China, this is what you call military discipline is good? Okamura Ninji said loudly.

Lieutenant General Iijima stood up and explained: "Your Excellency, the military discipline of the Imperial Army soldiers really needs to be improved, but this is also something that cannot be helped, after all, the area occupied by the Imperial Army is now being infiltrated by many armed forces in China, so the law and order is very poor, and the common people of China are secretly helping the resisters. Therefore, during the sweep, it is inevitable that the soldiers will "

"Iijima-kun, you are also one of the famous generals of the empire, you should know the importance of strict military discipline in the province, whether an army is strong or not depends on military discipline, if military discipline is slack, then even Oda Nobunaga's rebirth will not help. In fact, I don't look at the military discipline of the North China Front Army, and I don't know that the road is definitely not good, even if it is not as bad as reported by the China government, but it will definitely not be too good. ”

Okamura Ninji has his own set of standards for judging whether the military discipline of the Japanese army in the occupied area is good or not, and the criteria are very simple, and from the eyes of the Chinese girl, you can see whether the military discipline of the local garrison is good or bad. If you don't see a girl on the street. That is the absolute "bad military discipline". If the Shina girl was amazed by the Japanese cars and trucks and looked out of the window from a distance, then it was judged that "military discipline was slightly better." If the Chinese girl walks calmly on the street where Japanese soldiers come and go, then it is judged that "military discipline is good".

"Ladies and gentlemen, now the front army is suffering from the most dangerous situation since the Shina Incident. As a warrior of the Great Japanese Empire. We must break out of this unfavorable situation. In view of the current situation, the imperial army urgently needs to do three things, the first of which is to maintain law and order. Stabilize law and order in the occupied territories before gradually recovering lost territory. ”

"At present, the goal of the imperial army's policy should be to take the initiative to attack in a planned way, to divide the territory, to consolidate the public security areas within a limited time, to conceal the strength of the quasi-public security areas, to plan to enter the public security areas, and to use the remaining forces to advance to the unordered areas, so that they can develop into the quasi-public security areas. The ultimate goal is to bring 100 million people in northern China to the Japanese side. To follow such steps, we should neither rush to achieve results nor miss the opportunity, and we must have targeted tactics. ”

"The second thing is the rectification of military discipline, which is the fastest and most fundamental way to improve the combat effectiveness of the North China Front. Then formulate corresponding measures to rectify military discipline. ”

"The third thing is to ensure that the passage with Manchuria and Central China is unblocked, first of all, it is necessary to ensure the smooth passage to the north, that is, the contact with Manchuria, which is an effective way to deal with the continuous offensive of the Eighth Theater of China, the Eighth Theater of China and several other Chinese armies can cooperate with each other, and our North China Front Army can also cooperate with each other, and can even unite to completely defeat the Eighth Theater of China. Secondly, it is necessary to ensure the smooth passage to the south, as long as the communication channel between the Kwantung Army and our China Dispatch Army is unblocked, then the empire will be invincible in the China battlefield. ”

As soon as Okamura Ninji finished saying the three things, the whole conference room immediately burst into warm applause, and it was obvious that these three things were very necessary in the eyes of the senior Japanese officers present, and they were formulated based on the specific conditions in North China, not exaggerated talk, still less unrealistic.

At this time, the commander of the Twelfth Army, Iijima Sadagu, stood up again and said: "Your Excellency, this is a battle plan formulated by the Commander and the General Staff of the Twelfth Army, please approve it!" ”

After receiving the battle plan handed over by Iijima Sadagu, Okamura looked down and said, "Lu Xisu is planning a battle plan?" ”

"Hai, it's Lu Xisu's battle plan!" Iijima Sadagu Road.

Okamura Ninji threw Iijima Sadagu's battle plan book on the conference table, and then said: "I won't read the battle plan book, it just so happens that all of you have time today, so let's listen to Iijima-kun's battle plan!" ”

"Hay!"

Then Iijima Sadagu continued: "Some time ago, when the Imperial Japanese Army and the Eighth War Zone of China were engaged in the Battle of Southern Hebei, the Eighth Route of the Chinese Soil suddenly carried out a large-scale operation in the Luxi and Lunan areas, and successively captured many large cities garrisoned by the Imperial Army, which made the Imperial Army quite passive. Although under the careful deployment of the front army, the Tuba Road was heavily damaged, with more than 10,000 casualties, but the imperial army was not able to eliminate the Tuba Road in Shandong, through this incident we can clearly see a problem, that is, after several years of development, the Tuba Road has developed into a powerful regular armed force, which can completely carry out a war of annihilation against the troops below the size of the wing in the occupied area, so in order to consolidate the occupation area of Shandong, we must carry out a large-scale sweep of the Tuba Road in the defense area. ”

"Iijima-kun, tell me about your plan!" Okamura Ninji said.

"Hay! The main area of this operation was the Luxi Security District; The main goal was to clear the area under its jurisdiction of the Tuba Road and other anti-Japanese forces; The main participating troops were the 21st Division, the 10th Mixed Brigade, artillery, and charioteers, totaling about 15,000 people."

After Iijima Sadagu finished speaking, Okamura Ningji said: "Iijima-kun, although your combat plan is very good, but the scale is relatively small, the front army will use your combat plan as a blueprint to formulate a larger combat plan, the target is all the Tubalu and anti-Japanese armed forces in the North China Front Defense Area, the specific combat time and combat strength will be notified to the troops at that time, and you can make pre-war preparations after you go back!" ”

"Hay!"

"Then let's talk about the military discipline of the imperial army, in my opinion, the rectification of military discipline is far more important than the rectification of the security area, an army with loose military discipline is unlikely to be liked by the locals wherever it goes, and the combat effectiveness of such an army is very doubtful!" Okamura Ninji Road.

"Your Excellency Commander, in fact, the military discipline of the imperial army has always been very good when it is in the country, but for some reason it has become like this when it arrives!" Lieutenant General Yukio Kasawara, chief of staff of the North China Front, who had not spoken, suddenly spoke.

The new commander of the Seventh Army, Hideki Tojo, said: "Gentlemen, I think that the problem of the sloppy military discipline of the Imperial Japanese Army should be analyzed from two aspects: the quality of officers and soldiers and the problem of supply, the military discipline of the early Imperial Army is indeed much better than now, and the empire has participated in many wars in modern times, such as the Russo-Japanese War, such as the Eight-Nation Allied War of Aggression against China, and the Sino-Japanese War, and every time the Imperial Army can win the battle, these are closely related to strict military discipline. ”

However, as the war continued to expand, the quality of officers and men declined day by day. Officers and men are the backbone of the army, and the level of combat effectiveness of an army has a great deal to do with the quality of officers at the grassroots level. However, in the past few years when I have been idle at home, I have found a problem, that is, the training of our grass-roots officers has become more and more rough, and you all know that the previous teaching plan of the Ludao Army University was carried out according to the three-year course with a quota of about 50 cadets, but now it has been changed to a two-year system, and with the urgency of the war situation, the base camp is even planning to change it to a one-year short-term education with a quota of 200 cadets. ”

Seeing that these senior officers in the conference room all showed shocked expressions, Hideki Tojo said, "Can such an officer training system cultivate the military talents that the empire needs?" Obviously, no, don't you find that the newly appointed junior officers are far worse than us, and they are all defective, so it can be said that under the wartime system, the empire has interrupted the education of the officer corps in previous years, so that there is a phenomenon that the officers lack basic education"

Okamura Ninji also said at this time: "The problem that Tojo-kun said is indeed very serious, in addition to the problem of officer education, there is an extreme shortage of grassroots officers in all divisions and regiments of the Imperial Army, as far as the 11th Army under my command before that is concerned, its officer shortage is about 40%, and the shortage below the quasi-noncommissioned officer is 30%. Therefore, many officers are temporarily promoted by the commander from the line of fire on the battlefield, for example, an infantry squadron leader on the battlefield dies in battle, and our usual practice is to promote the deputy squadron leader or squad leader to the acting squadron leader, and after the battle is over, the acting squadron leader will naturally become the squadron leader, in fact, the squadron leader who took office at this time does not have the ability to command a combat squadron at all. ”

"In the long run, many of our squadron leaders, group leaders, and even officers at the level of wing commander may have only received a simple military education, or they may not have received an orthodox military education at all. The absence of high-quality officers shows the low combat effectiveness of the various units, and it is conceivable that military discipline is lax. (To be continued......)