Chen Feng's business is booming, but the whole territory of Poland is rumbling with cannons. Poland itself is a political freak, which is also reflected in its shapeless geography. It has no permanent appearance, no continuum of polity or national purpose. It disappeared from the map of Europe several times and was divided into provinces that became powerful powers.

Poland's strategic position was extremely unfavorable at the outset of the war, and the whole territory could be seen as a weak convex angle inserted into Germany, bordering East Prussia to the north and Czechoslovakia to the south, and the whole terrain was so flat that it was easy for Germany to rush in from the west. Behind it, to the east, stood the Soviet Union, which had recently been linked to Germany through a non-aggression pact orchestrated by Ribbentrop.

The Germans did not give in to the British, the French, they had come out of the embarrassment of the First World War, and after the Anglo-French declared war on them, the Germans continued to advance into the heart of Poland. In fact, it took the Germans only about four days to break through the entire Polish defense, a speed far beyond the expectations of the British, French and even the Polish High Command.

An even greater catastrophe was yet to come, as the Germans, having broken through the Polish lines, advanced into the heart of Poland at a speed of 50-60 kilometers per day. Rundstedt's Army Group South, with Reichenau's 10th Army Corps as the main force in the center, Liszt's 14th Army Corps as the right flank, and under the cover of the 8th Army Corps of Blaskovice on the left flank, advanced from the west and southwest towards the middle reaches of the Vistula; Bock's Army Group North, with Kruger's 4th Army Corps as the main force, plunged eastward into the "Polish Corridor", while Küller's 3rd Army Corps moved south from East Prussia to Warsaw and the Bug River behind Warsaw.

This is the great march of mechanized troops on a scale unprecedented in the history of human warfare, and in this great march. Guderian, the founder of the German Panzer Corps, successfully practiced his theory of Panzer Corps and led the 19th Panzer Corps to a brilliant victory. After the start of the war, Guderian led his troops to quickly break through the Polish border defense, crossed the Brachy River on the night of September 1, and advanced to the line of the Vistula River on September 3, completing the encirclement of the Polish army "Pomerania" in the "Polish Corridor" area.

By 4 September, the three infantry divisions and one cavalry brigade of the Polish "Pomerania" corps had been annihilated, while the four divisions commanded by Guderian had only 150 dead and 700 wounded.

The tactical surprise attack was completely successful because the hypocritical Polish politicians, despite knowing that the situation was dangerous. Just constantly giving false assurances to the people. Maybe it's not fake, maybe their allies lied to them. Almost a thousand aircraft of the Polish Air Force were destroyed on the ground, and the Luftwaffe flew freely in the sky, mastering absolute air supremacy. Poland's ground resistance was also weak against strong. The charge of the brave Polish cavalry on the battlefield towards the tank formation. And then like leeks were harvested by the German armored forces with bullets and artillery.

Poland in 1939 was ruled by reactionary military men and politicians with crazy territorial ambitions. the backward and closed autocratic rule of this government, which is extremely cruel to minorities and unjust and hypocritical to its own people; This government pounced on Czechoslovakia like a hyena at the time of the Munich crisis. took advantage of the danger to rob a Czech province; This government has been clumsily juggling Germany and the Soviet Union for twenty years; At the very least, he has to pretend to speak and act like a major military power, when in fact he is as weak as a kitten.

The German army's lightning attack completely put the Polish army in a situation of passive beating, which was the first time that the Poles and the whole world had learned the taste of "blitzkrieg". The combat thinking of the Polish army command was still before the First World War, and they did not know anything about the German mechanized troops, but they were overconfident in their military strength and arrogantly and ignorantly counted on the assistance of Britain and France, so they deployed all their troops on the German-Polish border, thinking that as long as they carried out a resolute counterattack, they could achieve victory. This kind of deployment, which had no flexibility in advance or retreat, caused the Polish army to be either annihilated or divided and surrounded under the advance of the German army at high speed and depth, and became a lone army left behind the German army, and the resistance quickly collapsed.

However, to the great confusion of Germany and other countries, although Britain and France deployed millions of troops on the Western Front, they did not move and declared no war. Watching the German army push towards Warsaw, the capital of Poland, step by step, these two allies really made the Poles extremely speechless!

The war situation in Europe touched the hearts of all the great powers, and they were very eager to know why Germany had the courage to argue with Britain, France, Poland and other countries, and even more to know whether this kind of courage could withstand the bombardment of British and French planes and artillery. The Americans are watching, the Japanese are watching, the Soviets are watching, but the Chinese can't.

Germany blitzed Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and in addition to the Chinese, the Japanese were also happy. Japan has always been worried that Britain, France and the United States will intervene in their invasion of China, just like during the First Sino-Japanese War, although they defeated the Qing government and occupied the Liaodong Peninsula and Taiwan, but they were stopped by Britain, France, the United States, Russia and other countries, so that the Qing government only spent 30 million taels of silver to ransom the Liaodong Peninsula to take back.

Although Britain and France have not intervened in the war in Asia until now, it does not mean that they will remain silent. However, now that Germany has lit the powder keg in Europe, Britain, France, and other countries will not have the opportunity to meddle in Asian affairs in a short period of time, and as for the United States, the world's largest economic power, Japan does not look at it at all, and the army of less than 100,000 people in Japan's opinion only needs two infantry divisions to completely defeat the United States.

At the same time, German tactics in Poland reminded the Japanese that the power of the blitzkrieg fascinated them. On 9 September, Okamura Ninji, commander of the 11th Army, concentrated two third-rate divisions, the 101st and 106th, which had suffered repeated defeats, and with the cooperation of the 6th Field Heavy Artillery Brigade and the Tank Group, launched an attack on Nanchang, an important military town controlled by the Nationalist Government, in an attempt to destroy the second largest aviation base of the Nationalist Government from the ground.

Although the Japanese army did not mobilize many infantry in this campaign, it mobilized a large number of artillery and combat vehicles, and a single field heavy artillery brigade had 72 "four-year-type" 150-millimeter howitzers, 16 "fourteen-year-type" 100-millimeter caliber canons, 12 "four-one-type" 75-millimeter caliber canons, 4 "eighty-nine" 150-millimeter caliber canons, 34 "three-eight-type" 75-millimeter caliber guns, and 32 "three-eight" 75-millimeter caliber guns, in addition to the above more than 170 heavy artillery. The four infantry wings of each division still have 56 mountain artillery and field artillery, and the two divisions and regiments have 112 guns and eight mortar squadrons, not counting the 92 infantry guns and other front-line combat artillery equipped with Japanese wings, squadrons, and squads. The 101st Division and the 106th Division used more than 300 heavy artillery pieces to attack the defensive line of the Nanchang defenders, and the total number of artillery participating in the battle was almost equal to the infantry attacking.

Such a powerful artillery camp is extremely rare on the Chinese battlefield, even the Soviet Union, which has always advocated artillery, rarely dispatched such a large-scale artillery unit, you must know that the field artillery division that is regarded by the Soviet Army as the main force of the attack is only 60 76 mm field guns, 45 122 mm howitzers, 30 152 mm howitzers, and only 135 artillery pieces in one division, and the heavy artillery of the Japanese army this time is equivalent to 3 Soviet artillery divisions, and it is really nothing to deal with the Chinese defenders in Nanchang.

Moreover, the Japanese army also concentrated more than 130 tank fighting vehicles and more than 200 aircraft on the Nanchang front, and the national army only held out for 7 days without anti-aircraft weapons and anti-tank weapons before the entire line collapsed, and the Japanese army successfully captured Nanchang.

The Japanese occupation of Nanchang caused an uproar in the Nationalist Government, and it was nothing to lose a big city, but the 100,000 troops on the Nanchang front only held out for 7 days, which made the original not very glamorous color on the face of the Nationalist Government dim again, and the morale of the Wuhan front also dropped very much.

When the news reached Saibei, Chen Feng was also surprised, he didn't expect Okamura Ningci to use this old thing, in history, Okamura Ningci should have occupied Nanchang in April this year, the tactics are still like this, and Okamura Ningci's blitzkrieg is earlier than Germany's blitzkrieg, but the Japanese army has not moved during this time, Chen Feng thought that Okamura Ningci had forgotten, but he didn't expect to capture Nanchang at this time.

Okamura Ninji's light capture of Nanchang was a great boost to the morale of the Japanese army, not only the Japanese troops on the Wuhan front were like chicken blood, but even the Japanese troops in North China were ready to move. Not long ago, Li Zong sent back the news that the Tianjin wharf had just arrived with three warships, all loaded with armored vehicles and tanks, and it seemed that there were five or six hundred of them, and the Japanese army should have made a big move.

Moreover, during this period, the North China Front Army Command frequently convened meetings of senior officers at the division, regiment, brigade and regimental levels, and material transfers were also extremely frequent, and Li Zong and others even saw the appearance of the Japanese army's special combat team.

Sure enough, the intelligence department also collected a lot of information about the recent movements of the Japanese army, especially when they found out that the main force of the Japanese army had a tendency to quietly move south.

Chen Feng judged that the Japanese army was probably preparing to launch an attack on the Kuomintang troops in Henan, and the Japanese army had been blocked by the first theater of the Nationalist Government on the Lanfeng line for more than a year, and it was time to attack. Moreover, now that the Battle of Wuhan is in full swing, and the Nationalist Government has transferred a large number of elites from the First War Zone, attacking Henan at this time is the best opportunity.

Chen Feng's judgment was correct, and on September 18, the Japanese North China Front mobilized three divisions and two mixed brigades of the main force of the 12th Army on the Shandong front, and launched an attack on the Kuomintang troops on the Lanfeng front line with the cooperation of more than 100 tanks, more than 200 artillery, and 200 fighters.

At the same time, the Japanese army also concentrated a division and a mixed brigade and a large number of technical and tactical arms in the southern Hebei region, breaking into Henan from north to south, and attacking the defenders of Henan on both sides. (To be continued......)