On June 20, 1942, the 13th day of the start of the "Thunder Operation", in the northeast region, the northern cluster had reached the periphery of Xinjing, and at the same time, the rear route of nearly 300,000 Japanese puppet troops in Songyuan and Shuangcheng was cut off. The Central North Cluster also made a breakthrough, and the army captured the transportation hub Siping 3 days ago, but it was fiercely counterattacked by the Japanese puppet army and fell into a bitter battle.

The central cluster was fought hard with the Japanese army in Panjin, although it was more than the soldiers for many days, but it was still not allowed to advance an inch, Umezu Mijiro knew the importance of Chaoyang, because it was the most important channel for the Kwantung Army to connect with the North China Front, if Chaoyang and Jinzhou were lost, the Kwantung Army and the North China Front Army would be divided and surrounded by the Soviet Army, and they would be broken after the last day.

In order to hold Chaoyang, Umezu Mijiro mobilized 9 elite display divisions, 8 puppet army infantry divisions and a large number of technical arms to the Chaoyang front, and relied on favorable terrain to block the attack, Shi Jianfei's department fought hard for more than ten days and only occupied some of the outermost positions of the Japanese puppet army.

However, the hard fighting of Shi Jianfei's department was not without results, at least the fierce attack of the central cluster largely restrained the main force of the Japanese puppet army and relieved the pressure on several other armies.

The calm side also fought very smoothly, after all, the Pingjin side and the place were originally small, so hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides swung there, and the one who was stronger and which was weaker was judged at a glance, besides, Chen Feng had been operating in the north for so long, and the most important thing was to take down Beiping City, and this time many factors worked together, and the Japanese army suffered a lot of losses.

However, Okamura Ninji is not a vegetarian either, although he is at a disadvantage in terms of soldiers, weapons and equipment, and supplies. But Okamura still caused a lot of trouble for the Pingjin cluster. Coupled with the dense cities in the Pingjin area, and most of them are tall cities protected by city walls, it is really impossible to take these big cities in a short period of time.

Under the command of Zhang Jingjun, the southern cluster successively captured Kaifeng, Lankao and other places in the mode of assault of the large corps, and then the army conquered Shangqiu in one fell swoop, and was marching towards Xuzhou, an important town in Huaibei.

At ten o'clock in the morning of the 20th, it was a difficult morning for the Japanese puppet army in Tianjin, first of all, the Chinese/army outside the city began to attack early in the morning, and the shells smashed into the positions of the Japanese puppet army like they did not want money. And the fighters of the Chinese Air Force are constantly approaching positions and ports. Huge casualties were inflicted on the defenders.

However, the real battle was not yet to come, and at one o'clock in the afternoon there was a sudden earth-shattering explosion from the eastern direction of the port, followed by a shrill siren throughout the city. It turned out that China's navy suddenly appeared in the sea to the east. Cooperate with the army to the west to launch a thunderous attack on the defenders of Tianjin.

Meanwhile. A large number of spies and special combat teams that had been lurking in the city also began to exert their strength, and the command system and arsenal of the Japanese army were attacked, and the battle lasted from morning to eleven o'clock in the evening. The city of Tianjin, which was garrisoned by the puppet army for 50,000 days, was captured, most of the defenders were wiped out, more than 10,000 people were captured, and only two or three thousand people fled north back to Beiping City.

In addition, the battle also caused more than 3,000 casualties among Japanese nationals, and more than 30 large and small ships anchored in the port of Tianjin were sunk or captured, including 2 cruisers and 3 destroyers.

There is no doubt about the importance of Tianjin's puppet army against the Japanese, as it was not only a foreign port for the Japanese army to receive supplies and replenishment of troops and equipment from the Japanese mainland, but also a transportation link between the Shandong Peninsula and Beiping. As soon as Tianjin was lost, the Japanese puppet army in Beiping City completely broke off contact with the 12th Army in Shandong.

After Tianjin was captured by Chen Feng's headquarters, the first thing the Japanese army had to deal with was how to receive supplies and how to communicate with the 12th Army in Shandong.

At this time, Okamura Ninji was keenly aware that the 12th Army in Shandong was in danger of being completely annihilated, although the 12th Military Japanese Army had a number of elite troops, not counting the puppet army, there were also three divisions and 4 brigades of more than 90,000 troops, plus the local puppet army in Shandong, the total strength exceeded 130,000.

According to the intelligence gathered by the intelligence department, the Chinese army attacking Xuzhou had as many as 8 or 9 divisions, with a total strength of more than 200,000, plus 1560,000 troops in the direction of Tianjin, which was almost twice as large as the Shandong defenders.

Okamura Ninji did not dare to slack off, and immediately called the base camp, asking the navy to send the main fleet to the north immediately to cooperate with the army to recapture Tianjin.

The base camp did not hesitate to send the main force of the navy to Tianjin, although the vitality of the combined fleet was greatly damaged, but if it was pieced together, there was no big problem in forming a detachment to go north, and the navy really needed a hearty victory to maintain the dignity of the Great Japanese Navy and improve morale.

Moreover, the base camp has repeatedly confirmed that there were only eight Chinese naval vessels that appeared in the waters off Tianjin that day, and there were no aircraft carriers participating in the battle, so the base camp decided to send a small aircraft carrier formation north to Tianjin to cooperate with the army to recover Tianjin.

With the support of the base camp, Okamura Ninji was reassured. To this end, Okamura Ninji sent the only one and a half tank divisions in his hands, and transferred the two most elite infantry divisions of the North China Front to prepare for a counterattack on Tianjin.

On 24 June, the chariot division of the North China Front left Langfang and approached Tianjin, while a detachment of three large aircraft carriers, two seaplane carriers, one battleship, two heavy cruisers, eight destroyers, and two supply ships under the command of Vice Admiral Nagumo Tadaichi approached Tianjin from the sea.

Okamura Ningji's idea was good, but the reality was extremely cruel, first the chariot division was attacked by Chen Feng's helicopter group on the road, more than 800 light and heavy chariots were destroyed, and the troops also suffered many casualties, and the most important thing was that the originally majestic and high-spirited troops were suddenly beaten into roasted potatoes. Before Tianjin, morale dropped to freezing point.

The second was that the naval formation was ambushed by the main force of the Chinese naval fleet in the outer darkness of Tianjin, and the original only 8 warships were turned into 80 at once, including 6 large main battle aircraft carriers and 4 battleships, and the Japanese Navy lost 4 aircraft carriers, 4 cruisers, and 6 destroyers in World War I, and more than 4,000 officers and men, including Nagumo Zhongichi Zhongyi, were killed, and the plan to recover Tianjin was aborted.

The army was beaten with a blue nose and swollen face, and the navy was directly disabled, and in desperation, Okamura Ningji had no choice but to recall the troops back to Beiping and accept the reality that Tianjin was captured.

Not to mention the matter of recovering Tianjin, but the situation of the 12th Army on the Shandong Peninsula is becoming more and more dangerous, and it is necessary to make a decision as soon as possible whether to defend or withdraw, otherwise it will be too late to withdraw when Chen Feng's troops capture Xuzhou.

Abandoning a province in China was not something that could be decided by a small commander of the front army of Okamura Ninji, who reported the crisis facing the Twelfth Army in front of him to the headquarters of the Chinese Dispatch Army, and asked General Yan Jun and the bigwigs in Nanjing to take ideas.

However, Yan Shunroku, like Okamura Ninji, can't be the master, or can be the master but doesn't want to take responsibility, so the problem turned around and finally flew to Tokyo, where it was decided by Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and Emperor Hirohito.

After all, the Japanese army paid an extremely heavy price for the capture of Shandong, including nearly 30,000 casualties in the fight for Taierzhuang.

But they also understood that after Tianjin was captured and the navy was heavily damaged, it was definitely not easy for the 12th Army to hold Shandong, and the biggest possibility was that Shandong did not hold the 12th Army but was wiped out.

After the decision of the cabinet meeting and the joint meeting of the five ministers, from now on, the 12th Army of the Japanese Imperial Army stationed on the Shandong Peninsula immediately retreated to the south under alternate cover, and withdrew to Xuzhou through Zaozhuang, cooperating with the imperial army in Xuzhou to hold this important communication Sunu.

However, before this order could be sent to the North China Front, they received an urgent battle report from the headquarters of the Chinese Dispatch Army - the loss of Xuzhou.

Xuzhou is located in the bordering areas of Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan and Anhui provinces, the north wing of the Yangtze River Delta, relying on Weishan Lake in the north, Suzhou in the west, Lianyungang in the east, Suqian in the south, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal passes through it, and the two major railway trunk lines of Longhai and Beijing-Shanghai converge in Xuzhou, known as the "thoroughfare of five provinces". Xuzhou is one of the nine states in China in history, since ancient times it is the key to the north, the gateway to the south, and the place where soldiers must fight, known as the "thousand-year-old imperial capital", and has the saying of "Xuzhou, the emperor of the nine dynasties". Xuzhou is the birthplace of the Han and Han cultures, and is known as "the hometown of Peng Zu, the hometown of Liu Bang, and the hometown of Xiang Yu".

Since the Battle of Xuzhou, it has been occupied by the Japanese army and has become a key military town for the Japanese army. This time, Chen Feng's headquarters launched a thunder operation, and the Japanese army dispatched 120,000 troops to defend Xuzhou.

Although Xuzhou is important, Xuzhou has no danger to defend, which was difficult for Lao Jiang during the battle of Xuzhou, and now it is the turn of the Japanese to have a headache. The Japanese base camp agreed to abandon the Shandong Peninsula in fact, taking into account that Xuzhou was not in danger to defend and that it was necessary to concentrate forces with China. The army was dead, so it was decided to transfer the 12th Army to the south.

However, Zhang Jingjunyan did not give the Japanese army this opportunity, and while the main force stormed the defense line west of Xuzhou, he sent a partial division to make a detour to Suzhou, and the whole army changed into Japanese military uniforms, and used the captured password to send a report to the Xuzhou garrison headquarters, saying that there was a reinforcement that would rush to Xuzhou via Suzhou, and Xuzhou needed to be prepared to meet it.

Xuzhou did not suspect that there was him, Zhang Jingjun's thief, was caught off guard, and under the combination of the east and west, Xuzhou Zhongzheng was easily broken, and although the 120,000 Japanese troops were not greatly damaged, they were still driven out of Xuzhou. (To be continued......)