Chapter 684: Withdrawal of troops

Although Churchill was very resistant to some of the questions raised by Chen Feng, the situation on the British front was very bad, especially in Asia, and Britain needed Chen Feng's support, so there was still a lot of consensus in the recollection.

On October 10, China, the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union jointly issued a declaration: "Our four allies are determined to inflict unrelenting pressure on the enemy on land, sea, and air, and will persist in waging a long-term war against the German, Italian, and Japanese fascist countries until they surrender unconditionally." The purpose of this war is to deter and punish the German, Italian, and Japanese aggression against the countries of the world, and to deprive Japan of all the islands it has seized or occupied in the Pacific since the beginning of the First World War in 1914, and to restore to the Republic of China the territories that Japan has stolen from China, such as Manchuria, Treasure Island, the Penghu Islands, the Ryukyu Islands, and South Sakhalin."

Since the Opium War, China has been a big and weak country in the eyes of Western countries for nearly 100 years, and the big and small conferences are either not announced and China is not invited to participate, or they come as a spectator, even if China participated in the Paris Peace Conference after World War I, as a victorious country, and put forward legitimate demands, but they were still rejected by the foreign powers.

Therefore, this is the first large-scale conference in the world in which China has participated in the capacity of a major country in the world, and in fact it has enhanced China's international status. In particular, when the contents of the manifesto were vigorously publicized by the propaganda and education departments, the cohesion and national self-esteem of the domestic people exploded, and the anti-Japanese sentiment was high.

Between the 10th and 13th. Chen Feng held individual talks with Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, covering territorial disputes, economic cooperation, cultural exchanges, and military complementarity. At the same time, Chen Feng exchanged views with the heads of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and other countries on the legal status of the Nanyang Territory, although Britain and France were very dissatisfied with Australia's private handling of the ownership of the island of New Guinea, but they also knew that Chen Feng and the entire Chen family behind him had indeed paid a lot of price for the poor and backward island.

However, Roosevelt and Churchill demanded that the Chen family must abide by the agreement with Australia, and that the Nanyang Territory would be a private territory under any circumstances, and would never be established. Secondly, Nanyang collar only belongs to the Chen family. And it doesn't belong to China. It's like a Chinese buying a piece of land in the United States. This land belongs to the Chinese, but it is not Chinese.

On October 15, Chen Feng returned with honors. On the day he returned to Chongqing, tens of thousands of people greeted Chen Feng on the streets of Chongqing. The momentum was spectacular.

The Cairo meeting lasted nine days. The showdown between the flagship China and Japan is still ongoing. However, although the Japanese offensive in the Jiangnan area seemed to be fierce, it still failed to make a breakthrough, and was instead beaten back by the troops in various Chinese theaters. In less than a week, the detachment on the Yangtze River was sent to the bottom of the Yangtze River by Chen Feng's bomber group.

At the same time, the Chinese and Soviet armies in the north repeatedly inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese army in important battlefields, and as of October 15, only the territory controlled by the Japanese Kwantung Army and the North China Front Army was Beiping, Mukden, and Tonghua, with a total area of less than one-fifth of what it had been in 38 years.

On October 16, the Chinese and Soviet armies launched the Battle of Dong Tongdan, with the aim of seizing Tonghua and Dandong and cutting off the most rear-end passage for the Japanese army to withdraw to Korea.

This time, the Chinese and Soviet armies not only had their land and air forces participating in the war, but also a large number of navies joined the battle group, and the Heilongjiang Fleet of the Chinese Navy and the Far East Fleet of the Soviet Navy respectively attacked various coastal cities in Korea, and at the same time intercepted Japanese merchant ships traveling between China and Japan, Korea and Japan, and Korea and China.

The nearly 2 million Chinese and Soviet troops and hundreds of ships put on a crushing offensive posture, which directly put the Kwantung Army and the North China Front Army under tremendous pressure.

Considering the strength of all aspects, Okamura Ninji and General Umezu Mijiro both believed that even if the current Kwantung Army and the North China Front Army were merged, they could not be the opponents of the Chinese and Soviet armies, so Okamura and Umezu reported to the base camp and requested the immediate withdrawal of troops from Korea.

In the words of Okamura Ninji, although the withdrawal of troops from Korea has lost Manchuria and face, it can maintain the last fulcrum of the Great Japanese Empire on the Asian continent, and it is not impossible to use the Korean Peninsula as a springboard to try China again in the future. But if we want to continue to fight with the Chinese in order to save face, then the result will be that millions of troops will be annihilated on the spot, and the Great Japanese Empire will lose its most capable vitality, and it will not only be unable to protect Korea, but I am afraid that even Japan itself will not be able to defend it.

Okamura Ninji's telegram caused a shock in the base camp, and although they knew that the situation on the Chinese battlefield had deteriorated to a certain extent, all senior military officers, including Emperor Hirohito, always believed that China was a weak country, and that the traditional weak country was not capable of wrestling with the powerful Japanese Empire.

Even if the situation worsens, there is a bottom line, and this bottom line is to restore the situation between China and Japan to the way it was before the 12th year of Showa, that is, before the Lugou Bridge Incident in 1937.

However, now they understand that China's rise is definitely not a slogan, nor is it a boast of good deeds, but it has really become stronger, and its powerful military power has fully equipped it with the strength to destroy or even destroy the defense power of the Great Japanese Empire.

Although he knew these things, not everyone had the courage to withdraw his troops, after all, the price paid by all the Japanese people to this day was heavy, and it was feared that the withdrawal of Korea in such a gloomy manner would shake the international status of the Great Japanese Empire.

But if you insist on not withdrawing troops, then as Okamura Ninji said, the whole army will be collectively shattered, and North Korea will not be guaranteed after the worst comeback, to put it bluntly, it will be an adventure, and if you bet right, you can not only get through the current predicament safely, but also make a major breakthrough, but if you make a mistake, it will not only be the loss of the Japanese occupation zone in China, but even the Korean Peninsula will not be able to be saved.

More importantly, judging from the war situation in southern China, the possibility of relying on the troops of Central China to seize Chongqing is very small, that is to say, the "Yong" battle plan of the six generals of Yan Jun has completely and completely failed, and according to the strategic plan formulated before, once this battle plan fails, then the imperial army will immediately withdraw its troops from the Chinese battlefield and strive to protect the South Pacific theater.

In this case, it is no longer necessary to continue to hold Beiping and South Manchuria, it will only give the government of China an interface and opportunity to attack, and it is better to withdraw all at once.

After three days and two nights of study, Emperor Hirohito finally signed an order that the Imperial Japanese Army immediately and orderly withdraw its troops from the Chinese battlefield starting on October 25, and the first to withdraw troops was the northern battlefield.

According to the order of the base camp, the North China Front was merged into the Kwantung Army, and General Umezu Yoshijiro was still the supreme commander, Okamura Ninji was the deputy commander, and General Okabe Naosaburo was the chief of staff, and all the 670,000 Japanese troops and 260,000 puppet troops under the headquarters were withdrawn to Korea, and defensive positions were organized on the front line of Changbai Mountain, when the Chinese and Soviet troops entered Korea.

At the same time as the retreat of the North China Army, the headquarters of the Chinese Dispatch Army was moved to Shanghai, and the various units alternately covered and withdrew to Shanghai by sea and land transportation.

According to the strategic assumption of the base camp, except for a part of these troops to withdraw to the Japanese mainland, the vast majority of these troops were withdrawn to the Indochina Peninsula through the land passage between China and Indochina, and defensive positions were set up along the line of Liangshan and Zhennanguan to prevent the Chinese troops from moving south to French Indochina.

In view of the rise of the Chinese navy, the Japanese army also decided to build a number of large naval ports on Hong Kong and Baodao and Hainan Island to counter the Chinese navy.

The withdrawal of the Japanese army was forced by the war situation, and the country of projectiles, with a population of only 70 million, wanted to pry more than half the world, which was really beyond its means. In addition to West Asia and South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Northeast Asia were all drawn into the whirlpool of war by the Japanese army.

Now Japan's national strength and military strength are no longer enough to support such a huge war, so withdrawal has become the final choice. As mentioned earlier, if the Japanese army withdraws its troops from Southeast Asia and then continues to fight China, then the result will be to prolong the war indefinitely, and the final result is likely to be a defeat for both sides.

Moreover, it was precisely because Japan could not continue to fight with China that it launched the Pacific War, and if it withdrew its troops from Southeast Asia, Japan would not have the capital to continue fighting, so the only choice was to withdraw its troops from the Chinese battlefield and engage in attacks on various regions of Southeast Asia to ensure Japan's domination of these new colonies, and then accumulate strength and wait for the opportunity.

The speed of the Japanese army was very fast, and with the order of the base camp, the troops on the front began to carry out an organized counterattack, and then a large number of expatriates and enterprises were evacuated to Korea by road and rail, and at the same time, the Japanese military center in North China also went to Mukden from Beiping.

Although the news that the Japanese army was going to withdraw from the Chinese battlefield was very secretive, it could not be concealed from Chen Feng's intelligence organs, and soon an analysis report on the possible withdrawal of Japanese troops from the Chinese battlefield was submitted to Chen Feng's desk.

The analysis report is the conclusion reached by the three giants of the intelligence department after discussion, and the final conclusion is reached through the performance of the Japanese army on various battlefields during this time, and Dai Li and others firmly believe that the probability of the Japanese army withdrawing from the Chinese battlefield is as high as more than 80%. Therefore, they urgently sent this analysis report to Chen Feng and asked Chen Feng to take countermeasures as soon as possible. (To be continued......)