Tianjin. Command of the North China Front.

General Shoichi Terauchi, commander of the front army, who had just taken office for less than a month, was in the operational command room discussing the operational plan for the Chinese army with several generals, when suddenly Major General Shozo Kawabe, deputy chief of staff, suddenly walked in in a hurry, quickly walked to Terauchi Shouichi's side, and whispered a few words.

Immediately, General Terauchi Shouichi was stunned, and shouted sharply: "Yaga, Tojo's high-ranking soldier is a big bastard, how can he be surrounded by the Shina people?" ”

Seeing that all the generals in the combat command room were looking at him, General Terauchi Shouichi said in a deep voice: "Gentlemen, I have just received news that the Imperial Japanese Army was once again severely damaged in the Second Battle of Tianzhen, not to mention the loss of troops. His Excellency Hideki Tojo, the commander of the Chahar Dispatch Army, sent a request for reinforcements to the front. ”

Just as General Terauchi was speaking, Major General Naosaburo Gangbe, chief of staff of the North China Front Army, quickly spread a huge military map on the large wooden table in the center of the command room, and quickly marked the small county town of Xinghe on the map.

"Your Excellency Commander, the Chahar Dispatch Corps is composed of the most elite Kwantung Army of the Imperial Japanese Army, with a total strength of more than 40,000 people, and more than 40,000 Imperial Cooperative Army, which far surpasses the Zhina Army in the northern Shanxi region in terms of strength and weaponry, how can it be counterattacked by the Zhina Army, and the battle situation is still so miserable?" Major General Naosaburo Okabe voiced the doubts in his mind.

"The details of what happened are not very clear to this commander, but now the Chahar Dispatch Corps does continue to reinforce, especially the assistance of the Air Corps, so I order: The 2nd Group (Fighters), the 3rd Group (Reconnaissance Aircraft), the 5th Group (Light Bombers), the 6th Group (Heavy Bombers), and the 8th Group (Fighters) of the Provisional Air Corps will immediately take to the air to urgently reinforce His Excellency Tojo. In addition, the 109th Infantry Division immediately assembled in Tianjin, and then drove to Zhangjiakou overnight to ensure the rear route of the Chahar Corps. Shouichi Terauchi ordered loudly.

Terauchi Shouichi's mood at this time was extremely depressed, and at the same time, his anger value soared to an extremely terrifying level in a short period of time. This person came from a prominent background, the eldest son of Japanese Prime Minister Masashi Terauchi, and had a high prestige in the Japanese army.

For this war, Terauchi Shouichi has always advocated a quick victory, so at the beginning of his tenure, he commanded the North China Army to attack the entire North China region. As a result, Shouichi Terauchi, who had just been in office for less than a month, issued an order for the Baoding-Zhuozhou mobile operation in a very short period of time. It was expected to meet the main force of the Kuomintang Central Army in the north on the Great Plain of central Hebei, relying on its firepower and mobility to make a rapid breakthrough beyond the Chinese army, but as a result, the Chinese army's front line was repeatedly broken by the Japanese army before it was formed, and the Liu Zhi Group Army, which was fighting on the front line, retreated again and again, and Xu Yongchang, director of the Baoding camp, was at a loss.

On September 24, following the occupation of Baoding by the First Army of the North China Dispatch Army, the Second Army, commanded by Nishio Shouzo, braved the flood to occupy Cangzhou. Then the First Army of the North China Front broke through the commander of the First Theater Cheng Qian, successfully occupied Shijiazhuang and pressed towards the front line of the Zhanghe River; The Second Army also completed the plan to capture Texas, breaking Feng Yuxiang's Sixth Theater troops. At present, the North China Front is planning to use the line of Shijiazhuang in Dezhou as a base and attack southward with all its might, in an attempt to occupy the entire territory of Shandong and Hebei in a short period of time. But I didn't expect that at such a critical time, the Chahar Corps would poke out such a big basket, which added a lot of variables to the next battle of the North China Front.

Shouichi Terauchi is an extremely egotistical man, a madman who likes to take everything into his own hands. Because of his background, this person has always been beyond the two major systems of the Japanese military department, and because of this, after the "226" incident in 1936, after the "226" incident, Terauchi Shouichi, a famous family, beyond the factional struggle, has a complete service history, and has a cheerful and open-minded personality, and has the courage to take responsibility for his subordinates.

After Terauchi Shouichi became the land minister, he immediately purged the army with his "iron fist" operation. In order to smash the camp of the "Imperial Road faction," Terauchi Shouichi removed a large number of key elements of the "226" incident and formed a new personnel arrangement for the Ministry of War and the General Staff Headquarters. In addition, in order to strengthen control, Terauchi Shouichi tried every means to grasp the power of personnel. He first took up the post of army minister and concurrently served as military staff officer in May to expand the power in his hands, and then took advantage of the Japanese Army's practice of carrying out personnel transfers in August every year, breaking with the original procedure (the decision was made by the meeting of the three commanders and the plan for personnel transfer could only be announced and implemented after the emperor approved it). (The director of education, Yoshiichi Nishi, is an honest man, and the chief of staff, Prince Miyajihito and Marshal Miyajihito, does not ask for details) Terauchi Shouichi's move essentially abolished the format of the meeting discussion, and one person is in charge of personnel. After cleaning up the Imperial Road faction, the backbone of the ruling faction, Sugiyama Mototo, Nishio Toshizo, and Umezu Mijiro, were transferred to control the army center.

This feeling of being in control of everything fascinated him, so he was not very willing to be transferred to North China as the commander of the North China Front Army Terauchi Shouichi this time, because compared to the power and status of the land minister, the commander of this front army is actually a scumbag.

Originally, the position of commander of the North China Front was the most suitable for the position of General Nobuyuki Abe, which happened to cooperate with Matsui Ishine in Central China, but at this time, due to the involvement of the "226 Incident", General Mazaki Shizaburo was still imprisoned, and in order to save Mazaki from prison, he had to transfer the temple that approved the detention of Mazaki away, and in this way, the temple was transferred to the North China battlefield.

After being transferred to the North China battlefield, Terauchi Shouichi always wanted to fight a big battle and win a big battle, and then let the base camp quickly transfer himself back to his homeland. The effect in the early stage is still good, although the imperial army in the occupied area of North China has performed extremely well, but the first battle of Tianzhen Chahar sent the corps suffered heavy losses, which has made the base camp have a little bit of a complaint about the North China Front army that cooperates with the operation, if this time he sees the Chahar Dispatch Corps being annihilated by the Chinese army, then it will definitely be a disastrous consequence for Terauchi Shouichi, and the base camp will definitely give him a whole army to reprimand him, so that his plan to return to the base camp will be in vain.

In order to reinforce the Chahar Dispatch Corps, Terauchi Shouichi did not hesitate to send more than half of the fighters of the Temporary Air Corps out of the city. It must be known that there are less than 300 fighters under the jurisdiction of the entire North China Front Army, and besides, the Provisional Air Corps lost 60 or 70 fighters this morning, and the number of brigades and squadrons dispatched to Lu this time has already reached more than half of the number of Japanese fighters in North China.

Under the orders of Hideki Tojo and Shouichi Terauchi, several large armies quickly rushed towards Kowa, intending to form a large counter-encirclement outside the encirclement of the Chinese army on the periphery, and then order the Abe Norihide Department in the encirclement to carry out a central civilization tactic to achieve the intention of completely annihilating the Chinese army after the most rear.

However, Chen Feng had already expected that the Japanese army might send reinforcements to reinforce Abe's Guixiu Division, so he urgently transferred a reinforced battalion to Xinpingbao to block the Japanese army and buy time for the large army.