In fact, because there was no Han Fuqu's escape without a fight, the Fifth War Zone was able to rely on the Yellow River to defend to the death, and even withstood the Japanese army's attack for more than a month, and it seems that the start is much better than in history. However, the Japanese Navy suddenly attacked Qingdao after the Spring Festival in 38 and frantically increased its troops at a rate of one full division every 3-4 days, directly threatening the flank of more than 100,000 people in Hefang. After this astonishing news reached the front line of river defense, the 100,000 people who could still grit their teeth and hold on collapsed in an instant under the further strengthening of the Japanese offensive in front of them

With the support of hundreds of aircraft, they continued to go south along the Jinpu Road without scruples after capturing Jinan, and in just two days, they successively captured Yanzhou, Jining, Zou County, and Teng County, and went straight to the transportation hub Lincheng, fortunately, Zhang Zizhong was ordered to lead the 59th Army to rush here overnight. Ammunition and air support were almost unable to keep up, and the tanks were almost a third less due to breakdowns and battle damage, so they suspended the offensive and withdrew to Fuji County, waiting for friendly forces in the rear to come to support.

In this battle, the Japanese army killed and wounded 780,000 people in the tank division alone, while the tank division only suffered a slight loss of 2 to 300 people. However, the problem is that in doing so, it is necessary to compete with the navy for resources and military spending, which is tantamount to grabbing food from the mouth of a tiger, and the difficulty can be imagined. However, at this time, the struggle between the emerging "aircraft carrier faction" and the traditional "giant ship and artillery faction" within the Japanese Navy also entered a white-hot stage, giving the army an opportunity to take advantage of the situation.

zuihou。 After a fierce struggle, the "giant ship artillery faction" completely lost its position, and Japan gave up the production of all battleships, battle cruisers, and most of the heavy cruisers, and went all out to produce aircraft carriers and various supporting ships with outstanding air defense and anti-submarine capabilities, as well as supply ships that had been neglected by the Japanese high-level before, and the new carrier-based aircraft not only significantly accelerated the progress of research and development, but also put forward higher requirements for performance

The Army, for its part, has also benefited greatly. Because the production capacity and resources occupied by the aircraft carrier route are relatively smaller than those of the "giant ship cannon" route, this random squeeze is already an astronomical amount for the poor army. According to the secret agreement reached in advance between the two sides, the army can produce at least 12,000 "combat vehicles" (including tanks, armored vehicles and self-propelled guns) in three years. Although this is estimated according to the size and tonnage of the "combat vehicles" currently in service in Japan, in fact, as Japanese tanks are upgraded much faster than in history, only more than 5,000 units were finally drummed up. But even so. It also greatly enhanced the combat effectiveness of the Japanese Army

The defeat in the northern section of the Jinpu Road not only caused the rapid fall of various parts of Shandong, but also made Li Zongren, the commander of the Fifth Theater, feel more and more powerless. Although taking into account the factors of the commander-in-chief, the combat effectiveness of Chen Mingren's integrated 88th Division was not inferior to that of Tang Enbo's corps in the same period in history; Moreover, because of the deterrence of the 15 th Army, the Japanese Central China Front, which had insufficient troops, had been looking for reasons to perfunctory base camps, and had always refused to send troops north along the Jinpu Line to join forces with the North China Front, because the treacherous and cunning new commander of the Central China Front of the Japanese Army, General Shunroku Hatata, was worried that the 15 th Army would suddenly come out of the Dabie Mountains and cut off the back route of the Japanese army going north; Moreover, because the losses in Songhu and Nanjing were much smaller than those in the same period in history, Lao Chiang rarely squeezed out a little more troops to support the Fifth Theater, so that even now when the Fifth Theater has almost completely destroyed the entire army in Shandong, it still has 450,000 combatable troops. But Li Zongren is far from being as confident as he was in history

This is because the Fifth Theater of Operations in history has the Dabie Mountains in hand, and it can be attacked and defended if it advances, and even if it cannot defeat the Japanese army, it can retreat into the Dabie Mountains to avoid total annihilation by the devils, and continue to persist in the War of Resistance with a combination of movement warfare and guerrilla warfare. But now Dabie Mountain is the territory of the 15th Army. After the Fifth War Zone lost Shandong, the remaining defense areas were almost all plains that could not be defended, and the Dabie Mountain in the west was the territory of the 15th Army, and it was possible to escape into it, but it was absolutely impossible to use it as a base for persisting in the War of Resistance, and as the boss of Li Zongrengui's family. If he led his troops to retreat into Dabie Mountain but could only leave by the road, he couldn't stand that kind of humiliation...,

In this way, the four or five hundred thousand people in the Fifth Theater could only fight hard with the elite troops of the devils, and if it were not for the fact that the Japanese North China Front was afraid of the sudden advance of the 15 th Army into Shandong, and the entire five full-fledged field divisions of the 1st Army of Seishiro Itagaki (who was appointed as the commander of the rebuilt 1st Army by the Japanese base camp after the successful breakthrough of the siege) had been standing still just in case, and the troops directly used for the attack were insufficient, the Fifth Theater would have been unable to hold on for a long time

It was precisely because of the difficult situation in the Fifth Theater that Chiang had no choice but to approve the number of the new 38th Division, and on this condition demanded that the Red Party launch a large-scale campaign in North China in order to contain the main force of the Japanese North China Front and relieve the tremendous pressure on the Fifth Theater at present. Zhou Gong agreed to this request on behalf of the Red Party, but at the same time said that the Red Party could only guarantee to launch an offensive in the first half of 38, but the specific time, where, and how to fight could not be determined in advance, Lao Jiang knew that Zhou Gong was right, so although he was anxious, Zuihou still nodded and agreed. But don't talk about Lao Jiang, even Zhou Gong, he didn't expect at this time that it was not the regular army like the 15th Army and the Eighth Route Army that took the lead in attacking

After Itagaki fled back to Pingjin, he immediately reported to General Terauchi Shouichi, commander of the North China Front, that the Red Party was likely to have mastered the telecommunication code of the "Imperial Army", and suggested that the plan should be set up for the Red Party Army to drill, but Terauchi Shouichi did not have the courage of Itagaki at that time, and the strength of the Japanese North China Front was extremely empty, if it were not for the continuous arrival of reinforcements from the mainland and Manchuria to Pingjin, coupled with the reluctant protection of the navy, I am afraid that even self-protection would be very problematic. Where did Shouichi Terauchi have the courage to take the initiative to fight the Red Party Army again at this time? What made Itagaki Seishiro even more suffocating was that Terauchi Shouichi believed that the harm of the password being mastered by the enemy for an extra month or two was greater than the possible benefits of setting up a bureau to destroy the enemy after the strength was replenished, so he immediately reported the matter to the base camp, making Itagaki Seishiro's attempt to carry out the counter-plan come to naught (to be continued). If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendation and monthly passes, and your support is my biggest motivation. )