The Japanese army's counterattack plan was still very good, and it was quite implicit in formulating a counterattack plan based on the weaknesses of the First Theater, the Second Theater, the Eighth Theater, and the Eighth Route Army. And the effect is also extremely obvious, since the start of the war on November 4, the Japanese army has been in a passive state, but with the North China Front Command issued a counterattack order, the Japanese divisions and regiments quickly moved and quickly stabilized the situation.

In the direction of Gaoyi, the Japanese army, with its strong city fortifications, strictly defended the southbound Xu Fufu Division, and no matter how Xu Fufu's headquarters attacked, the Japanese army always carried out an order, that is, never to retreat half a step. In view of the fact that Chen Feng's division has a large amount of armor power, the Japanese army specially mobilized a large number of anti-tank guns from the country, and these anti-tank guns played a huge role in the Gaoyi Campaign, and the three-day battle caused huge losses to Chen Feng's armored troops, and in the battle of yesterday alone, the Second Panzer Regiment lost 46 light tanks and 12 T34 medium tanks, and the losses were not insignificant.

Of course, Chen Feng's artillery cluster and fighter brigade also caused huge casualties to the Japanese army, so the battle on the front line of Gaoyi fell into a state of stalemate, and neither side could help the other party.

The battle in the direction of Hengshui is also in a predicament, Liu Li's division made rapid progress in the first two days, and by the afternoon of November 7, Liu Li's division went down to Jinzhou, Xinji City, and Luanzhou, and the troops pointed directly at Hengshui, but since the 8th, it has fallen into a bitter battle, because the Japanese army has mixed the sixth brigade and the third division of the chariot have been stationed in Hengshui. Coupled with the original defenders and puppet army in Hengshui, the total strength of the Japanese puppet army in the direction of Hengshui at this time reached more than 33,000 people, which has exceeded Liu Li's department.

But Liu Li is not very worried about this, after all, the real reliance of the Japanese army is not the more than 30,000 infantry, but the more than 600 tanks of the Third Tank Division and the mechanized infantry brigade.

However, to Liu Li's surprise, in the battle on the morning of the 8th, the combat effectiveness of the Japanese army's tank units was greatly improved compared with a year ago, the armored battle a year ago. The Japanese army was beaten only with the ability to parry, but did not have the strength to fight back. A tank division of Nuoda was almost completely wiped out.

But now it is also the 3rd Tank Division, which is also at an absolute disadvantage in today's battle, but it has inflicted certain losses on the 3rd Regiment of the Panzer Division, after two hours of fierce fighting. The 3rd Tank Division of the Japanese lost 127 tanks. However, it destroyed 54 light tanks and 9 medium tanks of the 3rd Armored Regiment of Chen Feng's department. According to the report of the armored troops on the front line, the vast majority of the combat vehicles used by the Japanese army on the Hengshui front this time were Type 97 medium tanks, not the previous Type 95 light tanks.

This information surprised Chen Feng. It seems that the Japanese army has a deep understanding of the armor power in his hands, otherwise, those Type 94 and Type 95 light chariots that are widely used on the Chinese battlefield will not withdraw from the North China Front. At present, the Japanese army's armor strength is limited, and only the Type 97 medium tank can compete with the Xiafei light tank equipped by Chen Feng.

After several confrontations between tanks, the Japanese also discovered an extremely serious problem, that is, the 94 and 95 types of chariots that they were proud of on the battlefield have been eliminated, and after several major battles, all the 94 chariots and the vast majority of the 95 chariots have become the wreckage of the battlefield, and only the 97 medium chariots really have a certain survivability on the battlefield.

In order to deal with the tank troops under Chen Feng, the Japanese army base camp decided to replace all the tank units in North China with Type 97 medium tanks, and even the base camp even gave the task of developing heavy tanks to the design institute and prepared to put the heavy tanks on the battlefield in North China.

However, before the mass production of heavy tanks, only the Type 97 medium tank could be used, and the Japanese also knew that their Type 97 and the "heavy" tank that Chen Feng was now equipped with were not at the same level at all. If you want to talk about the difference, it's like the difference between Audi and Alto now.

Although the Type 97 was by far the most successful and famous tank of the Japanese army, it was also a medium tank. The design of this tank was finalized in 1937 and began to equip the troops. It is called a medium tank, but in fact the total combat weight is only 15 tons, which is only equivalent to the light tanks of other countries. It had a crew of 4 and was armed with a 57mm short-barreled gun, with armor generally 25mm thick. The use of an air-cooled diesel engine as a power plant, an asymmetrical turret, a riveted armored hull and turret, a frame-shaped antenna of the radio station and a driving wheel in front are several major features of the 97 tank.

The Xiafei light tank equipped by Chen Feng, the Xiafei light tank adopts the traditional overall design of the American tank, and the single turret design with the engine rear and the active wheel in front, but it is very interesting in the initial design, which uses a crew of 4 people, that is, the co-pilot, the commander, and the gun commander, during the battle, the co-pilot has to climb into the turret to act as a loader, but this point was quickly changed, and there is a special loader in the turret, which is arranged as: the left side of the commander's turret, the left side of the gunner's turret before the commander, and the loader's turret on the right. The driver's body is left in front, and the co-pilot body is in front of the right.

The body length is 5.03 meters, the width is 3 meters, the height of the vehicle is 2.46M to the top of the turret, to the anti-aircraft machine gun mount 2.54M, counting the machine gun 2.77M track center distance of 2.44M, the bottom of the car is 0.46M high from the ground, the track width is 40.6cm, the track grounding length is 285.8cm, the vehicle weighs 38750 pounds, the pressure on the ground unit is 10.7 pounds per square inch, and the diameter of the turret seat is 152.4cm. Use T72E1 tracks, 75 on each side, if T85 tracks are used, the driving wheels should be replaced.

Generally speaking, the performance of the Type 97 tank and the Xiafei light tank is almost the same, but because the quality of the Japanese army's armored troops is stronger than that of the armored troops of the Eighth Theater, Chen Feng's department suffered a little loss in the duel between the Xiafei tank and the Type 97 medium tank. The usual light and heavy combination of Chen Feng's armored forces was at a disadvantage in the duel between light tanks and Type 97, and when T34 and Type 97 confronted, T34 was a second kill Type 97, so although Chen Feng's department won the tank battle this time, it lost part of the light tanks.

Among the three armies of Chen Feng's southward journey, only the Nangong direction is progressing relatively smoothly, but Nangong is close to Dezhou and is also close to Liaocheng, and at this time, the two master regiments of the Japanese Twelfth Army are in the northwest of Chen Binglu, once Chen Feng's troops attack Nangong, these two master regiments will definitely send troops to southern Hebei.

In northern Henan, Gao Guizi's two divisions and the three dozen divisions had received Wei Lihuang's order to immediately send troops to Cixian to create pressure on the Japanese army in southern Hebei. However, just when Gao Guizi's department was preparing to send troops, news came from eastern Henan, the Japanese army's elite 27th division suddenly went out of Dongming County to attack Changyuan County, although it was temporarily defeated by the defenders, but the Japanese army continued to gather in eastern Henan, which caused huge pressure on the first theater, although Wei Lihuang knew that the Japanese army was just encircling Wei to save Zhao, even if Gao Guizi's department went north to southern Hebei, the Japanese army may not dare to launch the Eastern Henan Campaign, but as the commander of the first theater, Wei Lihuang still did not dare to take this risk, Therefore, he had to order Gao Guizi's troops to suspend the operation and at the same time increase troops to eastern Henan.

As for the second war zone, it was even worse, the two infantry divisions under the jurisdiction of the Sixth Army were ready to send troops to southern Hebei, but before Yang Aiyuan gave the order, news came from the front line that the two generals under his command were assassinated by the Japanese army, and the most embarrassing thing for Yang Aiyuan was that one of the generals still died on the belly of a woman, which was really humiliating and thrown to his grandmother's house.

In addition, during this period of time, his Sixth Army's defense area was frequent, first the general was assassinated, and then the Yangquan Jin Sui Army arsenal suddenly exploded, killing and wounding countless soldiers, what made Yang Aiyuan even more angry was that the arsenal was hoarding a large amount of arms, and the main role of that batch of arms was to prepare for the army in southern Hebei.

After detailed investigation, they found that these things were done by a small Japanese mysterious squad, thinking that a Japanese army squad had assassinated a senior officer in the second war zone before, and afterwards according to the investigation of the people in the eighth war zone, it was all done by the Japanese army's special forces, so the war zone immediately organized troops to investigate, and launched an encirclement and suppression of the Japanese army squad in the territory.

After two days and nights of fighting, the 27th Group Army was never able to completely annihilate the 13th Wing of the Japanese Sixth Division, and the Japanese army was reinforced by the Araki detachment that had just arrived from northern Jiangxi, and the battle was extremely fierce. Subsequently, the Ninth Theater found signs that the Japanese army was about to launch a large-scale attack on Changsha, so it ordered the main force of the 27th Army to move south of the Xinqiang River, and the battle of Dayun Mountain came to an end.

As a result of this attempt, all the Japanese troops transferred from various localities to northern Hunan had been assembled and entered the predetermined offensive position. Having learned the lesson of the dispersion of forces during the First Battle of Changsha, Anan Weiki deployed the attacking forces in a narrow front in the hope of making a breakthrough in depth.

This time, the Japanese army deployed 44 brigades and 322 artillery pieces and mortars on a front only 20 kilometers wide north of the Xinqiang River, and only sent the 63rd Brigade (Hirano Detachment) of the 14th Brigade to the south by boat, attacking Qingshan and Yingtian, covering their right flank, and planning to fight with the main frontal force.

In addition, the 63rd Brigade of the 14th Brigade, the main force of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army, set out from the vicinity of Yueyang; The Araki Detachment of the 6th Division set out from the north side of Sangangzui; The Abyss detachment set out from the vicinity of Qingfeng Station; The 3rd Division departed from the vicinity of Kazuguchi; The 14th Infantry Brigade (Eto Detachment), which was independently mixed into the 62nd Brigade Regiment, set out from the vicinity of Straw Shoe Ridge; The 40th Division set out from the vicinity of Majiaqiao and simultaneously launched against the defense area of the 9th Theater. (To be continued......)