In mid-September, in view of the increasing number of German and military divisions, local divisions, and even security regiments of the Central Army entering Shanghai, in order to facilitate effective command, Chairman Chiang issued an order to reorganize the battle sequence, and organized the more than 50 divisions of the Nationalist Army that had entered the Songhu battlefield into three strategic army groups, the left wing, the center, and the right wing, and each performed its own duties.

Among them, the Right Wing Army with Zhang Fakui as commander-in-chief was responsible for the defense of Pudong, Hangzhou Bay, and especially Ningbo, the Central Army with Zhu Shaoliang as commander-in-chief was responsible for containing the Japanese 3rd Division that landed from Zhang Huabin, and only the Left Wing Army with Chen Cheng as commander-in-chief was responsible for attacking the Japanese 11th Division that landed from Chuanshakou and Shishilin.

Of the three strategic army groups, only the Left Wing Army took the offensive, and in order to make this fist have sufficient lethality, Chairman Chiang incorporated 26 of the more than 50 German armies that were put into the Songhu battlefield into the Left Wing Army, among which the 15th Group Army with Luo Zhuoying as the commander-in-chief concentrated 18 German armies!

The tactical concept put forward by Falkenhausen was haode, that is, to concentrate absolutely superior forces, first to eliminate the Japanese 11th Division that landed from Chuanshakou and Shishilin, and then concentrate the two strategic army groups on the left flank and the center to crush the Japanese 3rd Division that landed from Zhanghuabin, Wusong Fort, and Qiujiang Wharf with a thunderous force.

However, the old German man obviously did not take into account the naval aviation and army aviation of little Japan, or he overestimated the combat effectiveness of the Chinese Air Force, believing that the Chinese Air Force could not suppress the Japanese army's army and navy aviation, and could at least resist it for a while, but the fact was that less than two weeks after the Battle of Songhu began, the planes of the Chinese Air Force could basically not be seen in the sky over the Songhu battlefield.

The officers and men of the Chinese Air Force fought extremely bravely, and they often flew crashed fighters to ram the warships of the Japanese Navy and even the Japanese Navy Special Operations Marine Corps Headquarters in Shanghai, and they had done their best, but unfortunately the Nationalist Government did not have an aviation industry and could not provide them with a steady stream of aircraft.

Without the protection of the air force, the terrain in the Songhu area is extremely unfavorable, and the results can be imagined.

Although Chen Cheng's left-wing strategic army group concentrated 26 of the most elite German armament divisions and almost all artillery units, it was unable to make a substantial breakthrough under the fierce bombardment of the Japanese air force, and after half a month, the battle line only advanced less than two kilometers!

By the end of September, the second batch of three divisions and two heavy artillery brigades mobilized by the Japanese government, plus the Shigeto detachment stationed in Taiwan, and three mixed brigades of the puppet Manchukuo Army arrived at the Songhu battlefield one after another, and all these troops were thrown into the left flank battlefield.

On September 22, the Japanese 9th Division and the 101st Division took the lead in entering the battlefield and launched a fierce attack on Luodian, Luo Zhuoying's 18th Army and Ye Zhao's 66th Army did not know that Japanese reinforcements had arrived, and still launched an attack as they had done a few days ago, and as a result, they crashed into the arms of the 9th and 101st Divisions of the Japanese Army.

At this time, the gap in firepower between the Chinese and Japanese armies became more and more wide, and under the indiscriminate bombardment of the Japanese air force, the artillery of the Nationalist Army was basically destroyed, while the Japanese army added two new heavy artillery brigades, and the heroic officers and men of the Nationalist Army could only brave the fire of the Japanese artillery to launch one tragic and desperate charge after another, and then fell on the battlefield one after another.

Fierce fighting until the early morning of the 24th, nearly 20,000 officers and soldiers of the 159th and 160th Divisions who were responsible for the main attack were all killed.

However, the death of the 159th and 160th divisions was not without cost, and the fierce attack of the two divisions for two days and two nights at any cost poured cold water on the heads of the 9th and 101st divisions of the Japanese army that had just been put into the battlefield.

How miserable was the Japanese army? There was a squadron leader in the 9th Division who refused to charge because of the large casualties of the squadron, and the captain of the infantry brigade where the squadron was located slapped him several times, and as a result, the squadron leader was angry and gathered several veterans of the squadron to kill the captain, which was the only mutiny of the Japanese army during the entire Battle of Songhu.

Matsui Shigen, the commander of the Shanghai Dispatch Army, looked at it, yo, this is not good, and immediately turned the direction of the main attack from Luodian to Dachang, the purpose of which was of course to avoid the real and attack the false, trying to seek a breakthrough from the gap between the left wing army group of the national army and the central army group, and then copying the back road of the national army in a roundabout way, this is all the old routine leftover.

On 15 October, the Japanese army broke through the defense line of Yuyuhama and was in a hurry.

At this time, most of the more than 50 German armor divisions that had been put into the Songhu battlefield were already exhausted, and the troops could not be withdrawn from all fronts.

The first batch of Gui troops to rush to the Songhu battlefield had four divisions, mainly Liao Lei's 21st Group Army.

Liao Lei's 21st Group Army is the trump card of the Gui system, under the jurisdiction of Zhou Zuhuang's Seventh Army and Wei Yunsong's 48th Army, each army has three divisions, equipped with some French ordnance, and has extremely strong combat effectiveness.

There were two different opinions on how to use Liao Lei's 21st Group Army at that time, one opinion was that the 21st Group Army should be thrown into the Liuhe battlefield to storm Chuanshakou and Lion Forest from the flanks to threaten the rear of the Japanese army, and the other opinion was that the 21st Group Army should be thrown into the field to shake the sharp edge of the Japanese army.

The national army was in a weak position, so it was the right choice to avoid the weak point of the Japanese army's fierce attack, but Chairman Chiang made another bad move here, and actually threw the 21st Group Army into the big field to shake the Japanese army's sharp edge, and what is even more tragic is that the Gui army, from the senior generals to the ordinary soldiers, regarded the Japanese army as a local army during the warlord melee.

As a result, the Japanese army's two heavy artillery brigades, three field artillery wings, and Japanese warships anchored on the Yangtze River and Huangpu opened fire in an all-round way, nearly 100 fighter-bombers bombed indiscriminately, and the officers and men of the Gui Army were cut down piece by piece like wheat when they were ripe in summer; in less than three days, most of the more than 30,000 officers and men of the whole army were killed, and six brigade commanders alone died. After the battle, Bai Chongxi's lips trembled in distress, and he couldn't eat for several days.

After the failure of this counterattack, the national army no longer had the courage to counterattack, and it did not have the ability.

At this time, Zhu Shaoliang's central army group had retreated to the south of Suzhou Creek, and only one battalion of the 88th Division was left in the north of Suzhou River to resist to the death in the Sixing warehouse, which was the 1st Battalion of the 524th Regiment, and the heroic spirit of 800 heroes defending the four elements alone inspired countless overseas Chinese.

Chen Cheng's left-wing army group also retreated to the line of Jiading and Nanxiang.

At this time, if the Japanese army continued to detour westward along the north bank of the Suzhou Creek, it could easily cut off the connection between the left wing army group and the central army group, and then break through each of them, but fortunately, the five divisions of the Japanese army, the Shigetsu detachment, and the three brigades of the puppet Manchukuo Army that had been put into the Songhu battlefield were also exhausted by the veteran divisions and were no longer able to attack.

At this time, Ishihara Wan'er, who was far away in Tokyo, finally tore off the camouflage that did not expand, showed his sharp fangs, drew the 6th Division and the Kunizaki Detachment from North China, drew the 18th Division from Manchuria, and urgently mobilized the 114th Division from China, and organized the 10th Army to prepare to land from Hangzhou Bay and intercept the rear route of the Nationalist Army.

However, there is no shortage of bureaucrats in the top echelons of any country, and Ishihara's good intentions have not been understood by these bureaucrats, and when he saw that Ishihara's strategy of "gradually increasing troops and luring and annihilating the main force of the national army in the Songhu area" was about to succeed, this old devil was forced to resign by those bureaucrats who were vegetarian on the grounds that Ishihara had made the strategic mistake of gradually increasing troops, so that the Japanese army could not quickly resolve the Shanghai incident, which caused an adverse impact on the international community.

Of course, although Ishihara resigned, the Tenth Army was still organized according to his vision.

The agents of the Nationalist Government are very powerful this time, whether it is the spies lurking in Tokyo, or the agents of the Jishu Branch of the Blue Coat Society, they have already noticed the changes of the Japanese army, and judged that the Japanese army is about to increase its troops again, but I don't know how many troops the Japanese army will put into this increase, and there is no way to know the specific landing location of the Japanese army.

However, the top level of the national government generally believed that the Japanese army would land along the Yangtze River north of the Liuhe River, as the Japanese army had done five years ago during the 128th Shanghai War of Resistance, and this time it would be no exception.

The Battle of Songhu has been fought to this point, even Falkenhausen, a stubborn old German man, has to admit that it is impossible for the Nationalist army to hold Shanghai again, and the most correct choice at this time should be to leave five to ten miscellaneous divisions behind, and then decisively withdraw all the German divisions to the four defense lines for fortification.

Chairman Chiang also recognized this and gave the troops an order to retreat.

To make a bold assumption, if the main force of the Nationalist army in the Songhu battlefield retreated to the four defense lines of Wufu, Xicheng, Jiacha, and Haijia according to Jihua, then the course of the War of Resistance would be completely different, and with Japan's limited national strength, it may not be able to enter Wuhan, and even Nanjing may not be able to defeat it.

Since the Battle of Songhu, the casualties of the national army have exceeded 200,000, because of the shortage of medicines and the lack of medical personnel, at least 100,000 of the 200,000 soldiers have sacrificed their precious lives, the casualties of the national army are so large, but it should be pointed out that the 59 German armor divisions still retain at least more than half of the backbone veterans.

If these backbone veterans can be given a week to half a month of rest and recuperation time for them to recover their strength, they will soon be able to recover, and then replenish the appropriate number of strong men, with the help of strong fortifications to fight a few battles with the Japanese army, or less than half a year, these German armor divisions will be completely restored to combat effectiveness.

If this is the case, the course of the war of resistance will be completely rewritten.

However, it is a pity that history has no ifs, at this critical juncture, Chairman Chiang has come out again!

The day after the order to retreat was issued, when the various units of the Nationalist army on the Songhu battlefield were preparing to retreat one by one, Chairman Chiang suddenly convened an emergency meeting and said at the meeting that the Nine-Nation Pact was in session, and if the Nationalist Army could hold Shanghai for one to two weeks, the Nine-Power Pact might come forward to sanction Japan.