Xue Yue was in Jiujiang and De'an to operate the defense line intensively, and Okamura Ningci was not idle.

After successively capturing Anqing, Madang, Pengze and Hukou, the Hatian detachment finally got tired of the old soldiers, and the consumption of both personnel and equipment was very large, so it had to rest at Hukou for ten days, and after ten days, Junrokuro Songura's 10th Pei Regiment finally arrived at Hukou from the Japanese mainland, and then launched an attack on Jiujiang on the other side of Poyang Lake.

In the early morning of July in the year of the Republic of China (1938), the Japanese army sneaked into Poyang Lake in the rain and took advantage of the night to sneak into Poyang Lake and successfully landed in the pre-lpei position south of Gutang.

Obviously, since the Battle of Songhu, with the death of hundreds of thousands of well-trained veterans, the overall quality of the national army has seriously declined.

These Xiangxi men are tyrannical, don't want to die when they fight, they are all heroes and heroes, but they don't know how to fight at all, small Japan is still thousands of kilometers away, they began to shoot, and before the commander gave the order, they began to charge, as a result, under the strafing fire of the small Japanese naval artillery field artillery group, machine gun group and tanks, they fell down in pieces, blood flowed like a river, and the corpses piled up like a mountain.

This is the tragedy of the times, but also the tragedy of the country and the nation, if these Xiangxi men are given a certain amount of military training, they will become a formidable armed force on the battlefield of resistance against Japan, but Chairman Chiang, who has been overwhelmed by the rout of the whole front, can no longer take care of this at all, the front-line troops are gone, his first reaction is to gather more troops, China lacks everything is not short of people, just like that, countless strong men from Hunan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan were pulled to the battlefield, As a result, the size and number of troops became larger and larger, but the quality of the soldiers became worse and worse, and the overall combat effectiveness became weaker and weaker, as if a vicious circle had been entered.

The pre-Pei and Dipei were soon defeated by the Matsuura Division, and the Japanese army gained a foothold in Huxi.

After the Japanese army occupied Jiujiang, it was faced with two choices, one was to advance westward along the south bank of the Yangtze River and go straight to Wuhan, and the other was to go south along the Nanxun line, take Nanchang, and take Changsha directly through Xinyu and Yichun.

When the commander of the 10th Pei Division, Junrokuro Matsuura, strode into the headquarters, he found that the commander Okamura Ninji was standing in front of a large map hanging on the wall, and from the image, Okamura Ninji did not match his famous name, he was thin, and he had a pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose, and if he took off his military uniform, no one would regard him as a general who commanded thousands of troops.

"Your Excellency, Commander." Junrokuro Matsuura snapped his feet and stood upright, bowing heavily towards Okamura Ninji.

"Matsuura-san, you're here." Okamura Ninji turned around, there was not much expression on his face, his two thin lips were also tightly pursed, the corners of his mouth were slightly downturned, and the gaze behind his glasses was not very sharp, but it was very cold, most of such people were determined and stubborn, and it was difficult for them to change their decisions because of external factors.

"Hello." Junrokuro Matsuura folded his hands and bowed again on the outside of his thighs.

Okamura Ninji waved his hand casually, stroked Matsuura Junrokuro's back and led him to the large map, then stretched out his hand and pointed to the huge map and said, "Matsuura-san, how do you feel about this map?" ”

Junrokuro Matsuura said without thinking, "Big, big, this is a big land. ”

"Yes, it's big, bigger than Kyushu and Shikoku." Okamura Ninji bowed his head lightly and said with deep feeling, "But this is only a small part of the entire vast territory of China, just now I was thinking that if the empire wants to occupy the entire China, I am afraid that it is absolutely impossible, this is like a small snake wants to swallow an elephant, but if it has to swallow it by force, it can only break its belly and die." ”

Junrokuro Matsuura said: "The empire does not need to occupy the whole of China, it only needs to force the government of China to surrender. ”

Okamura did not comment on Matsuura's views, and asked, "So how can Matsuura-san force the Shina government to surrender?"

Junrokuro Matsuura said, "As long as the main force of the Shina army is eliminated, the Shina government will surrender." ”

Okamura Ningji said again: "But it is not easy to eliminate the main force of the Chinese army, the Battle of Songhu and the Battle of Xuzhou, the imperial army tried to seize the main force of the Chinese army and annihilate it, but in the end the imperial army failed to do so. ”

Junrokuro Matsuura said, "Well, there should be a chance." ”

"It seems that Matsuura-san is not sure, hehe." Okamura Ningji smiled, and then his face turned cold, and the eyes hiding behind his glasses also revealed a cold light, and said in a deep voice, "Then let me tell you, it is impossible to capture and completely annihilate the main force of the Chinese army in this Wuhan battle, in fact, there is no main force in today's Chinese army, you annihilated fifty divisions today, and they will be able to reorganize into one hundred divisions the next day, the most important thing in China is people, and there are only those fools in the base camp, will be delusional in their attempt to force the government to surrender by annihilating the main force of the China Army. ”

Junrokuro Matsuura was dumbfounded and asked in a lost voice, "Then what can be done to force the Shina government to surrender?" ”

"It is impossible for the government of China to surrender, at least not for Chiang Kai-shek." Okamura Ninji walked behind his desk and sat down, took out a document from the folder, pushed it to Junrokuro Matsuura from the table, and said, "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has actually been in private contact with Chiang Kai-shek for a long time, but unfortunately, the empire simply cannot accept Chiang Kai-shek's conditions. ”

Junrokuro Matsuura picked up the document and glanced at it casually, and found that there was an unconditional withdrawal of Japanese troops from the occupied area, so he was no longer interested in reading it, as Okamura said, it was absolutely impossible for the empire to accept such a clause, and now that the Chinese government surrendered, North and East China must also be autonomous.

The truth is clear: a unified China is by no means what the Great Japanese Empire wants to see.

Okamura Ninji stood up, walked to the big map again, and said with his hands behind his back: "Therefore, it is simply wishful thinking to force the government of China to surrender, and the only thing the empire can do now is to cut off the entire China as much as possible, especially several railways and lines must be completely cut off, only in this way can the local powerful factions in China emerge, China may fall into de facto division, and the empire can eat up the entire China step by step." ”

Matsuura Junrokuro's strategic vision was obviously inferior to Okamura Ningji, and he was a little dizzy when he heard it, but he understood one thing, that is, to cut off several railways in China, and at present, the Jinpu, Jiaoji, and Pinghan railways have been controlled by the Japanese army, and the Longhai line has also been cut off, leaving only the Zhejiang-Jiangxi and Guanghan lines that have not been cut off.

Okamura Ninji's strategic vision is really not boasting, this old devil did see the key node of the Sino-Japanese war.

Trying to occupy the whole of China militarily with the national strength and military strength of small Japan is simply wishful thinking, and not to mention whether the Japanese government's finances can afford the huge war expenditures, if it really occupies China, the huge garrison and the necessary expenses will be able to drag Japan's finances into the bottomless abyss.

Therefore, the most appropriate course for the Japanese government is to wipe out Chiang Kai-shek's Central Army as much as possible, to strike a blow to Chiang Kai-shek's prestige as much as possible, and at the same time to cut off the main line of the three vertical and three horizontal railways in China, so as to strategically stifle the possibility of the Nationalist army launching a strategic counteroffensive, and then support various local powerful factions to plunge China into a de facto split.

So far, Japan is still moving along the right path, and the task of the Japanese army is to encircle and annihilate the Nationalist army in Wuhan as much as possible, and at the same time cut off the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway and the Guanghan Railway.

Matsuura suddenly said: "Your Excellency Commander, is the next step to attack Nanchang along the Nanxun line?" ”

Okamura Ninji bowed his head slightly, picked up the wooden pole and drew a long arc on the map, from Nanchang straight into Changsha, Zuihou put down the wooden pole and turned back to Matsupu and said: "Matsuura-san, controlling the Nanxun line is the first phase of your division's combat mission, and then, your division will continue to take Changsha to the west and cut the Guanghan Railway in two." ”

"Hello." Junrokuro Matsuura suddenly retracted his feet and bowed heavily.

Okamura Ninji stroked Matsuura Junrokuro's back again, and specially advised: "Matsuura-san, this time your opponent is a very famous general in the Chinese army, Xue Yue, although this person lost to Tohihara-san in the Battle of Lanfeng, but that was not his reason, if it wasn't for the escape of several senior generals of the Chinese army at that time, the 14th Division might have been revoked now." ”

Junrokuro Matsuura was quite unimpressed, but he didn't show it on his face, but listened very carefully.

Okamura Ningji may not really value Xue Yue much in his heart, he is just a general of the national army, no matter how powerful he is, can he compare with the highly talented students who graduated from the Imperial Army University? The reason why Okamura Ninji specifically told Junrokuro Matsuura was actually to come up with a radical general to motivate the Matsuura Division to fight harder in the next Nanxun Line offensive, and that's it.

Okamura Ningji's agitation is undoubtedly effective, Matsuura Junrokuro is the headquarters that left with a lot of anger, he is already ruthless in his heart, this time he has to beat Xue Yue's L Corps on the Nanxun line, although the L Corps has more than 20 divisions and nearly 300,000 troops, but Matsuura Junrokuro really didn't pay much attention to it.

Okamura Ninji didn't expect it, and Junrokuro Matsuura didn't expect that what awaited the Matsuura division would be a brutal tug-of-war, a bloody battle so cruel that even Okamura would waver.