Following the victory of the Eighth Route Army in southern Hebei, the Second World War Zone finally drove the Japanese army division and brigade out of the Luliang Mountains at the cost of heavy casualties of more than 13,000 soldiers, and regained the land of western Shanxi.

At the same time, Li Wensheng's troops who went south to Yanmen Pass and Ningwu Pass also made tremendous progress, and the army routed the Japanese Fourth Division in front of it with lightning speed, captured Daixian, Yuanping, and Wutai counties, and pointed its troops directly at Xinkou.

Lieutenant General Yoshio Shinozuka did not expect the Fourth Division to be so vulnerable, and hurriedly mobilized the first mixed brigade and the 108th Division to go north for reinforcements, and it was easy to temporarily block the Chinese army north of Xinkou, but it was only temporary, according to the news from the Japanese army on the northern front, the Chinese army that went south this time was as many as 100,000, and there were Chinese troops in all directions, in addition to the infantry, they also found a large number of artillery and armored troops, and the eighth wing of the fourth division was wiped out without even holding on for a day, Without the strength of three to five divisions, I am afraid it will be difficult to hold Xinkou.

Relatively speaking, the situation in the two battlefields of eastern and northern Henan is not very good for China, the Japanese army is stronger than the first theater in terms of strength and firepower, and the combat effectiveness of the two sides is not at the same level.

Although it was precarious, the troops of the First War Zone finally resisted and ensured that Kaifeng was not lost. The officers and men of the First War Zone all knew that there was no room for loss in this battle, and once the Lanfeng line was lost. Then the Japanese mechanized army will sweep across the Great Plain of eastern Henan in a few days, and then capture Zhengzhou and other places. Therefore, despite the menacing Japanese army, the two group armies of the First Theater and the newly formed 50,000 or 60,000 recruits burst out with 120 percent combat strength to fight against it.

Fortunately, the 70,000 troops of the Eighth War Zone finally arrived at the battlefield in early October, and originally according to the operational deployment of the First War Zone, the 70,000 troops in the south of the Eighth War Zone were to be placed on the second line of defense and deployed along the Yellow River, but Li Yifeng refused, he believed that the Japanese army in eastern Henan was only 70,000 or 80,000 people, and there was not much difference between them and his troops, and even if they resisted hard, there would not be much problem. Not to mention that there are still more than 60,000 elite soldiers and 50,000 or 60,000 new soldiers in the First War Zone. It is completely possible to fight an offensive and defensive battle face to face with it, and even if it cannot be annihilated, it can also protect the Great Plain of Eastern Henan.

Wei Lihuang didn't expect Li Yifeng to be so confident, and with only three divisions and one brigade, he dared to go head-to-head with the three elite divisions of the Japanese army. Although there are some worries. But he also knew that he only had the right to make suggestions. There was no final command, since this army did not belong to his 1st theater of operations, but to the 8th.

As soon as these three divisions of the Eighth Theater appeared, they were beaten on the battlefield in eastern Henan, and the Japanese army was taken by surprise. The 110th Division, the vanguard of the Japanese army, was attacked by the Eighth Theater Armored Division and the Army Aviation Brigade, a group charge of 600 tanks, and an air attack by more than 300 aircraft.

The 110th Division was suddenly attacked, which was no better than the Polish army that was attacked by the German blitzkrieg, and the front of more than 20,000 people held out for only one day before completely retreating, which shocked Sun Lianzhong, the commander-in-chief of the Second Army on the front line, and secretly said that the Eighth Theater really lived up to its name.

With the addition of the new force of the Eighth Theater, the previous achievements of the Japanese Twelfth Army were constantly eroded, and it had to stop the offensive and began to shrink its forces to block the attack of the Chinese army.

On October 4, just as the Japanese army was attacking Wuhan, the Eighth Theater dispatched two airborne brigades overnight to capture Baoding, the capital city of Hebei Province, by surprise with the cooperation of Li Zong and others. However, in order to ensure the safety of Li Zong and others in the enemy-occupied area, Chen Feng deliberately ordered people to let Major General Akiyama, the supreme commander of Baoding, go.

At the same time as the capture of Baoding, 20,000 mechanized infantry in full gear quickly moved south from Wei County, and successively broke through Laiyuan, Yixian, Mancheng and other counties, with the intention of joining forces with the 52nd Group Army to attack the Pingjin area.

After receiving the telegram from Major General Akiyama, General Binshan Yuan was shocked and immediately ordered the nearby 10th Division and other troops to go to Baoding to rescue, and at the same time ordered the 32nd Division and other troops in northern Henan to immediately stop entanglement with the Chinese army and slowly withdraw from the battle, and the troops in eastern Henan should also be ready to retreat.

On October 6, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army suddenly besieged Zaozhuang, and captured Zaozhuang before the arrival of Japanese reinforcements.

After the capture of Zaozhuang, the Eighth Route Army did not stop, but gathered a large army to Xuzhou, the most important logistics base of the Japanese army in eastern Henan and the location of the headquarters, which made the Japanese army extremely panicked. In desperation, the Japanese army had no choice but to withdraw its troops from eastern Henan, and all the territories previously captured were abandoned.

The Japanese army returned to help, and the 115th Division in Shandong immediately moved to the mountains. After the headquarters of the Eighth Theater of Operations in Baoding also transported all the strategic materials that could be transported, they quietly withdrew to Wei County, and soon the fighting in Shanxi and other places quickly calmed down, and by October 10, the entire Chinese battlefield was quiet.

Counting the two months of fighting, the Japanese army really had an urge to vomit blood, dispatched more than 600,000 troops, and only captured the two cities of Nanchang and Wuhan, but its own casualties exceeded 120,000. Although the Japanese base camp of this war was expected to inflict at least 250,000 casualties on the Nationalist Government and the First, Second, and Eighth Theaters, no one knew how many casualties the Chinese actually had.

In addition, the people of China were supported by a large number of penicillin drugs, and presumably there would not be too many officers and soldiers who actually died in battle, so it can be said that although the Japanese Empire won a tactical victory this time, it was a great defeat in terms of strategy.

At the same time that the Japanese army was depressed, Lao Jiang and Yan Laoxi were also very unhappy, Lao Jiang did have a reason to be sad, Wuhan was lost, the troops suffered heavy casualties, especially the Air Force, which had accumulated a little bit of family funds, this time it was basically all thrown at the Wuhan station, the only thing that made Lao Jiang feel gratified, through this war he saw one thing clearly, that is, the little guy in Saibei was not a person who did not care about the overall situation.

This time he was able to transfer so many fighters and troops to Wuhan to participate in the war, which made Lao Jiang very happy, not to mention tens of thousands of troops going south to defend Henan, if it wasn't for that little guy sending troops to fight south, Henan might have fallen into the hands of the enemy at this time. However, there are also some things that make Lao Jiang very troublesome, this time the Eighth Theater sent to Wuhan fighter plane losses are extremely serious, a total of 319 fighters were shot down before and after, not to mention the pension of the dead and wounded pilots, the compensation for these 319 fighters alone is an astronomical amount.

Moreover, according to the agreement between the two sides before the war, the Nationalist Government must compensate twice as much for all the fighters lost in Wuhan in the Eighth Theater this time, that is, the Nationalist Government must compensate 638 fighters in the Eighth Theater at once, and according to the calculation of 100,000 US dollars, 638 fighters will need 63.8 million US dollars, and counting the pensions of 192 pilots and 101 wounded pilots who died in the war, I am afraid that it will not be able to explain without 65 million US dollars.

However, Lao Jiang didn't plan to owe money this time, Chen Feng's combat effectiveness that he didn't show made him extremely shocked, there was such a force that could listen to him, even if it didn't matter how much money he paid.

Yan Laoxi was depressed because although his troops drove the Japanese army out of western Jinxi this time, they were not able to continue to advance eastward, let alone seize the opportunity to recapture Taiyuan again, and more importantly, his son-in-law did not agree to his request to ask him to help seize Taiyuan.

Chen Feng was also very dissatisfied with this operation, although he had gained a total of 18,000 points in the past two months, he had lost nearly 400 fighters and 200 pilots, which was the heaviest loss since the establishment of the Northern Air Force. According to Liu Nijia's report, 126 of the pilots lost this time were Chinese, and the remaining 76 were all Soviet pilots, including six ace pilots.

It was not that Chen Feng did not want to recover the Shanxi Plateau in one go, but he knew that the Japanese army had already produced the famous Zero fighter and had already begun to use it on a large scale on the battlefield, and if the unit let the pilots get familiar with and use the new fighter as soon as possible, I am afraid that soon the Japanese army would gain absolute air supremacy, and when the time came, in the face of the Japanese army's wanton and indiscriminate bombing, the losses would be even greater, so Chen Feng wanted to end the battle as soon as possible.

The day after Liu Nijia and the others returned to Guisui, Chen Feng convened a secret meeting of all the senior commanders of the Northern Air Force and the officers of the Army Aviation Force, and the contents of the meeting were listed as top secrets.

More than 2,000 pilots were transferred by Chen Feng to the depths of the Kubuqi Desert, where there is a newly built huge airfield with more than 300 new fighters, including 100 J-5 and J-6 fighters, 30 Hercules transport planes and B47 strategic bomber fighters, and 40 Wuzhi-9.

This is an aviation training base secretly built by Chen Feng, which is located in the depths of the desert, and the more than 2,000 pilots were sent here to participate in intensive training in order to adapt to the new fighters. (To be continued......)