"Report to the commander-in-chief, our armored forces are ready at any time, as long as the command has an order, we will rush up and crush the enemy at the first time, and any enemy who dares to block us will be completely swept into the garbage heap of history!" Lu Nautical said loudly.

"Very good, your armored forces will be the main force of assault in the future, now we only have three armored divisions and three armored brigades, but we will definitely have three armored armies in the future, or even three armored group armies, I am optimistic about the development of armored forces!" Chen Feng said loudly.

Then Chen Feng asked again: "Ma Yun, you are in charge of the army aviation, what is the situation now!" ”

Ma Yun got up and replied: "According to the plan, our army aviation unit will be increased to 4 brigades, and the total number of various fighters is nearly 1,400, but so far we have only received 380 fighters, which is only enough for the equipment of one brigade. ”

"Don't worry about weapons and equipment, I'm only worried that you don't have enough pilots, and now our own airfield has been built, and the production capacity is considerable, and the little equipment you need is only a few months of production." Chen Feng said.

"Please rest assured, Commander, our Army Aviation now has more than 1,100 pilots, and now there are still 3,000 pilots in training, and it will not take half a year for these more than 3,000 pilots to become qualified blue sky warriors."

"3,000 people is too little, at least 3,000 are still trained, your army aviation unit has a very heavy responsibility, and it will be you who will cooperate with the army in the future, as for the air force, their mission will become a unit specializing in long-range combat!"

"Yes! Mission completion guaranteed! ”

Chen Feng got up and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I just received news from the intelligence department. The Japanese army concentrated four divisions, two mixed brigades and more than 20,000 puppet troops, and launched an attack on the Kuomintang troops in Henan in two ways. As the Central Plains of China, Henan's geographical location goes without saying, so Henan can't have anything to do in any way, at least before the end of the Battle of Wuhan. But the Kuomintang troops in Henan alone could not stop the Japanese attack in any case, so we had to join the war! ”

"Commander, we have a Shanxi sandwiched between us and Henan, how can we reinforce the first theater?" Li Wensheng asked with a frown.

"Don't say that it is sandwiched by a Shanxi, even if it is sandwiched by a China, it must be reinforced, and the first theater now has only 100,000 troops. How could they have been able to hold back the Japanese attack. Chen Feng said.

"Commander. So how do we do that? Li Yifeng said.

"I plan to draw elite troops to form an expeditionary force, then go through Shaanxi to Henan, and then assist in the first theater of operations. At the same time, the 8th Theater launched a new offensive in the north, forcing large Japanese forces to return to reinforcements. Chen Feng said.

Yang Yi thought for a while and said, "Commander." Think about it. Once something happened to our troops in Henan. No one is going to rescue us, and the fact that this expeditionary force is running out of ammunition is a problem, whether it is from the southwest of Shaanxi or from the southwest of Shanxi. With such a long distance, logistics must be difficult to guarantee. If there are fewer troops, it will be easy to be eaten by the Japanese army, and when the rescue fails, they will lose their own troops! ”

Chen Feng said categorically: "No matter how difficult and dangerous it is, we can't watch Henan being captured by the Japanese army, but the chief of staff also thinks about it, but I will apply to the national government to temporarily requisition the railway line from Xi'an to Zhengzhou, and at the same time requisition the airports in Zhengzhou, Zhoukou and other places, with these presumably the supply of ammunition is not a problem." As for food and oil, it will be provided by the First War Zone, after all, we are going to reinforce them, and they will not be happy if they don't have some blood! ”

"Commander, how many troops do you plan to send south?" Yang Yi asked again.

"Two infantry divisions, an armored division, an army aviation brigade, two heavy artillery regiments, and a special operations brigade!" Chen Feng said.

"Junza, isn't this a bit much, the total number of troops is more than 70,000?" Yang Yi said.

"Not much, this is the configuration of a complete strategic unit, just one infantry division is missing, our future strategic units are three infantry divisions, an armored division, a heavy artillery brigade, an army aviation brigade, plus a special combat team, this time even if we have a long-distance attack drill, see if this configuration is okay?"

"Who is the commander-in-chief of the southbound troops, and do you have a candidate in mind, commander?"

"Li Yifeng, is it okay for you to command this strategic group?" Chen Feng turned his head and asked.

Li Yifeng said without hesitation: "I promise to complete the task and never disappoint the commander's expectations." But I hope the commander can give me a deputy? ”

Chen Feng asked in a deep voice, "Who do you want?" ”

"Shi Jianfei, deputy commander-in-chief of the 52nd Group Army, he is a high-achieving student who graduated from a regular military academy, and has experience in large corps operations, with his cooperation, we will definitely be able to complete the task!" Li Yifeng said.

"Okay, I'll send Shi Jianfei to you as an assistant, and you have to use these 70,000 people to cooperate with the 100,000 army in the First War Zone to teach the little devil a hard lesson!"

"Yes, mission guaranteed!"

Soon after, the Eighth Theater Commander's Headquarters issued an urgent operational order, mobilizing the 222nd Division of the 49th Group Army, the instructors of the 52nd Group Army, the 1st Tank Division, the 1st Army Aviation Brigade, the 2nd Special Warfare Brigade, the 1st Heavy Artillery Regiment, and the 2nd Regiment to form the Southbound Corps, with Li Yifeng, commander-in-chief of the 49th Group Army, as the commander-in-chief of the corps, the deputy commander-in-chief of the 52nd Group Army as the deputy commander-in-chief, and Lu Haihang, commander of the 1st Tank Division, as the chief of staff. The above-mentioned troops immediately gathered in Guisui, then went to Xi'an by car, and then rushed to the First War Zone by train!

At the same time, Chen Feng issued another order for operations in the north, mobilizing all the forces of the 40th Group Army, and then transferring four divisions, two special task brigades, five artillery brigades, and two tank brigades from the newly formed troops, and with the cooperation of the remaining fighters of the Northern Air Force, to launch an all-out attack on the Japanese army in the central Hebei region.

In order to create more pressure on the Japanese army, Chen Feng specially sent a report to the Second War Zone and Yan'an, hoping that they could also send elite troops to participate in the war, and at the same time Chen Feng pointed out that although this operation was a four-way battle in the First War Zone, the Second War Zone, the Eighth War Zone, and the Eighth Route Army, except for the joint operation of the First War Zone and the Eight War Zones in Henan, all other places were fighting separately, and there was no need for unified command, and everyone only needed to fire at the Japanese army.

The next day, the Second War Zone sent a telegram that they would send the 6th and 7th armies to attack the Japanese troops in Lüliang, with the strategic goal of driving out the more than 8,000 Japanese troops who had broken through into Lüliang. At the same time, they will mobilize more than 60,000 troops from three armies to the south to reinforce the First War Zone, and also to prevent the Japanese army from attacking Shanxi from the south of Jin, the southeast of Jin, and the north and south after the Japanese army occupies Henan.

Yan'an also sent a telegram deciding to send a total of 22 regular regiments and 30 small regiments of the 115th Division and the 129th Division to launch a large-scale sabotage campaign against the Japanese strongholds in central and southern Hebei, but Yan'an hoped that the Eighth Theater could support them with a batch of explosives.

After receiving the telegram from Yan'an, Chen Feng was overjoyed that the Eighth Route Army would send so many troops to participate in the battle, and also dispatched a regular infantry regiment. It is important to know that in the combat sequence of the Eighth Route Army, the troops are divided into three, six, nine and so on, the most subordinate is of course the militia, followed by the county brigade and district squad, to put it bluntly, it is still the militia. Then there are the guerrillas, which are between the regular troops and the militia, and the quality of the personnel is endless, and the equipment does not have a unified style, and the combat effectiveness is even more difficult to say, and the strong guerrillas can be hard against the field squadrons of the anti-Japanese army, and the weak ones are not worth mentioning.

Even the regular troops of the Eighth Route Army were not all the same, especially at the regimental level. The regiments of the Eighth Route Army are divided into large regiments and small regiments, the large regiments are built according to the establishment of the regular infantry regiments of the national government, and a regiment is between 1800 and 2500 people, and such regiments are also called regular regiments.

As for the small regiment, it is much smaller than the large regiment, the general small regiment only has two infantry battalions plus some directly subordinate troops, adding up to no more than 1,000 people, and even some regiments only have 6 or 700 people, and it is at best a reinforced battalion in the Eighth Theater, but the most such small regiment is in the battle sequence of the Eighth Route Army.

According to the telegram sent by Yan'an, this time they planned to dispatch 22 large regiments and 30 small regiments, with a total strength of at least 90,000 troops. If it is said that it is 8 or 90,000 people, I am afraid that it will be 100,000 people at that time.

The Eighth Route Army lacked offensive weapons Chen Feng knew that since he invited people out of the mountain, he had to pay wages, but he didn't say that Chen Feng had a large hand, 36 Japanese-made field heavy artillery, 8,000 shells and 100 tons of explosives, which were sent to Yan'an with the troops going south. Anyway, it is necessary for the army to go south to Xi'an, through northern Shaanxi, and also through Yan'an.

Although Chen Feng did not think much of the Eighth Route Army's ability to attack fortified positions, he still admired their guerrilla tactics that would save the enemy when they saw the seams. From the military perspective of later generations, guerrilla warfare is a special warfare method that disrupts the enemy's line of sight and attacks the enemy's vital points.

After receiving responses from many parties, Chen Feng secretly calculated that the troops participating in the battle in his Eighth Theater in the north included 6 infantry divisions and 2 mixed brigades, as well as 6 artillery brigades, 2 armored brigades, and a large number of aviation units, with a total strength of more than 200,000 troops.

The Second World War Zone dispatched two group armies totaling about 90,000 people this time, and the Eighth Route Army also dispatched nearly 100,000 people to participate in the war in North China. The army alone numbered 400,000 men. In addition to the more than 100,000 troops in the First War Zone, there are also 70,000 troops in the Eighth War Zone and 60,000 troops in the Second War Zone, with a total strength of nearly 250,000.

The total strength of the Japanese army in North China is only 350,000, and even if the puppet army is added, it will not exceed 450,000. (To be continued......)