At present, the Japanese army is willing to take out a division as bait, and at present, it will definitely not be simple, that is, to lure itself into battle, and it is as simple as pulling its own deployment on a large scale.

The Japanese army, which has always been stingy, is definitely not so generous.

If they make a deduction on the Hebei-Shandong-Henan battlefield, they will adopt the overall strategy of slowing down first and then urgent, so as to pull their own deployment on a large scale.

Just as Chai Shirong judged, in a short period of time, the 118th Division dragged Chen Hanzhang's attack cluster and forced the eastern cluster to divide his troops.

Then he constantly mobilized his troops and took high pressure on the battlefield in Zaonan.

Under the circumstance that the Eastern Cluster is already under extreme pressure, it attracts its own Western Cluster and the troops deployed by the Eastern Cluster in depth to prepare for anti-landing operations to the south.

Solving the anti-coalition participating forces in the Zaonan battlefield is just a wedge between the two major clusters in the east and west for the Japanese army.

Of course, it is possible to deeply cut off the connection between the two major clusters of its own east and west.

But for the Japanese army, this point also has risks.

Its deep forces are likely to face the flanking attack of its two major clusters.

Therefore, they simply set up two divisions directly in the northwest of Shandong, and no matter which one the Anti-United Nations attacked first, the surrounding Japanese troops would sweep up, and the two wings of the Anti-Japanese Federation would penetrate the perimeter to implement counter-encirclement.

Tong Guò Zaonan and Wei County battlefields, to force themselves to fight a decisive battle with them on their inner line, and to mobilize their own defense forces in depth as much as possible, for a wide range of penetration.

Who said that the tactic of luring the snake out was to kill the snake in the first place?

If Chen Hanzhang's troops were trapped in the southern direction of Zao, they would come to surround Wei and rescue Zhao in turn.

Through the southern battlefield of Zao, it constantly attracted its own troops to the south, especially the tank troops.

Creating conditions for the sortie behind should be the real purpose of the Japanese army.

Yang Zhen suddenly had a feeling that the second phase of the operation had been launched for nearly 10 days, and the landing operation that the Japanese army would definitely carry out on the front line of Bohai Bay had not been launched for a long time.

One is that it is very likely that the senior commander of the Japanese army believes that the battle situation has not yet reached a critical juncture, and the landing operation has not yet reached the time when it will kill with one blow.

The other biggest possibility is that the first phase of the battle has ended, and the Japanese army can be said to know the troops and equipment invested by the Anti-Japanese Union on the Hebei battlefield.

But the second phase of the battle has been going on for so long, and the number of tanks put into the battlefield by the Anti-Union is far less than the original.

These never appeared on the battlefield after the second phase of the operation began.

During the first phase of the battle, the tank unit that left a deep impression on the Japanese North China Front, even the entire Chinese dispatch army, and even the first base camp of the Japanese army, made the Japanese commander like a thorn in the back.

Except for the relatively dense rivers in the west, most of the Jizhong Plain is flat.

Even some rivers are in the spring dry season.

The water flow is small and the water potential is gentle, so it is possible for the entire Japanese army to book a landing site, and it is a natural battlefield for tank group operations.

The non-appearance of these tank units means that whether it is a breakthrough on the middle line or a landing on the flank, it will face an all-out counterattack by the tank clusters of the anti-United Nations.

This point is very likely to be quite a bogeyer for the Japanese army.

This is most likely the main reason why the Japanese landing operation was never launched.

The Japanese commanders probably believed that all the armored forces of the Anti-Japanese Alliance, which had not yet appeared on the battlefield, should be deployed along the Bohai Bay to prepare for anti-landing operations.

In this way, it is very understandable that the Japanese navy bluffed in the Qikou and Tianjin battlefields at the beginning, and the Japanese army is now making such a situation in the Jilu border battlefield in northwest Shandong.

At present, the Japanese army has made so many moves in the northwest direction of Shandong, and its overall strategy should have been completely exposed.

It is to mobilize their own forces on a large scale, and at the same time, in order to lure out the armored forces that they have not been invested, the main force tries its best to lure them out.

The Zaonan battlefield, located at the junction of the two clusters, affects the whole body.

If there is a stalemate in the Jilu border battlefield in northwest Shandong, he is bound to continue to invest troops.

The greater the pressure on the Zaonan battlefield, the more troops the Japanese army has accumulated, and the higher it is likely that the main force of the armored forces that will be deployed along the Bohai Bay and is making anti-landing preparations will be.

In addition to the two divisions and regiments advancing in parallel on the Pinghan Line, it is impossible for him not to mobilize the troops in depth to go south.

In this way, the depth from Qikou to Shimen will be quite empty.

Added to the Tianjin battlefield, the entire Hebei battlefield has formed a situation of sinking at both ends and light in the middle.

At this time, the Japanese army was landing from Bohai Bay, and the Japanese army in the southeast of Jin was leaving the southeast of Jin, forming a pincer offensive on the two flanks behind the participating troops in the battlefield south of the Fuyang River.

Then, at present, the main forces of the Anti-Japanese Union and the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region, which are concentrated in southern Hebei and Hebei, will face the encirclement of the entire great depth of the Japanese army.

Now it seems that the Japanese army's attempt is definitely not just the original judgment, each of them to break through the two major clusters in the east and west of the Hebei battlefield, plus the main force of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region in the southeast of Shanxi.

With a great appetite and greater ambitions, such a strategic deployment, presumably the Japanese army has really made a bloody investment.

Now it seems that the goal of the two divisions of the Japanese army in the southeast battlefield of Shanxi Province is very clear, that is, to go east to the line of Maguan and Huangyu Pass.

And in order to achieve this goal, the Japanese army is in the southeast of Shanxi, and even in the entire northern Henan, and the follow-up actions must not only be from the Japanese puppet army that is now attacking Dongyang Pass from Shexian County, they should also have other follow-ups.

Chai Shirong was right, the Japanese army not only had field divisions, but also newly formed independent brigades.

Although the 18th Group Army on the Shanxi battlefield defeated most of the independent mixed brigades under the First Army, the Japanese army reorganized the 3rd, 7th, and 10th independent brigades for the First Army, a total of three independent brigades.

At present, the Japanese army has indeed lost almost the entire battlefield in North China except for Shandong.

But in many cases, bad things are not necessarily absolute.

When there is a disadvantage in everything, it does not necessarily mean that there is no benefit at all.

After losing Hebei, Pingjin, and Shanxi, the Japanese army, which could no longer devote a large number of troops to garrisoning and sweeping, also greatly increased the mobile forces available in its hands.

However, during this battle, the Japanese army drew a large number of independent artillery operations.

If the Japanese need it, the Japanese army can at any time put these three independent brigades and regiments with only light equipment and artillery and other technical units into operation.

At present, the main forces of the First Theater that had just been withdrawn from eastern Henan suffered considerable losses, and in fact they were unable to advance eastward for a period of time, and the pressure on the battlefield in eastern Henan had dropped sharply.

The Japanese army can also use these three brigades at any time to take over the defense of the 35th or 37th Division, and transfer these two brigades and regiments to the north.

Moreover, once the Japanese army captured Wu'an on the battlefield west of the Pinghan Line, the 117th Division could also complete the turn to the southeast of Jin.

The vacancies left by the middle line can be filled by the 35th Division or the 37th Division, and the Eastern Henan Battlefield will be handed over to the three independent brigades.

In this way, on the battlefield in the southeast of Shanxi, the Japanese army formed a situation of flanking from three sides.

Of course, this does not necessarily mean that the Japanese army's move was to recover the whole of Shanxi or to recapture the southeast of Shanxi.

All their deployments in northern Henan should still revolve around the two divisions on the battlefield in the southeast of Shanxi.

As long as these two divisions can get out of Maling Pass, cut off the Pinghan Railway, and outflank the rear road of the Western Front cluster.

For the Japanese army, such a large-scale transfer was worth it.

Before thinking of Chen Hanzhang's report on the battle situation, the offensive of the Japanese army on the front line of Wu'an on both sides of the Pinghan Line of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region was significantly strengthened.

The Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region's defense line in Wu'an dropped an average of 1,000 rounds of ammunition per day.

Despite the layers of resistance, the troops of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region felt more and more pressure in their defensive operations.

In particular, the 117th Division, which was fighting west of the Pinghan Road, also changed its original tactics of mainly relying on frontal assault after abandoning Zhouqu east of the Pinghan Road.

The two brigades and regiments under their command were dismantled, and the brigade was used as a formation to adopt the tactic of combining multi-channel infiltration with frontal attack, which brought great passivity to the defensive operations in the battlefield west of the Pinghan Line.

The troops of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region, east of the Pinghan Road, repeatedly organized troops and firepower in an attempt to seize the Japanese army in one direction and fight a battle of annihilation.

However, the Japanese army reacted quickly and cooperated with each other very carefully.

Once one direction was surrounded, the surrounding Japanese troops were quickly reinforced.

Although it also defeated a detachment the size of a large group of Japanese troops, it failed to change the passive situation on the entire battlefield.

At the same time, the 50th Division, which was fighting east of Pinghan Road, also used the strength of a wing to bypass the Nanhe line and try to reach Xingtai after taking Quzhou.

At present, the troops of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region are facing the danger of the Japanese army's multi-way impact on the Pinghan Line and on the battlefield to the west, and Yang Zhen's whole train of thought is now suddenly clear.

The 72nd Division was a noose that the Japanese army put around its neck to attract its main force to the south.

The follow-up actions of the Japanese army in the Zaonan battlefield and the surrounding areas are bound to become bigger and bigger.

The 118th Division, the 100th Division, and the 48th Division currently deployed on the front line of Shouguang will eventually be put into the battlefield.

As long as the two armored divisions deployed on the Tianjin-Pudong Railway move south, the Japanese landing operation will begin.

Its strategic intentions, which have been hidden in northern Henan, will also be carried out across the board.

If the strategic deployment of the Japanese army is really as judged by itself, then the possible landing place of the Japanese army can already be completely determined to be in Qikou.

My previous judgment that the Japanese army was going to divide its two major clusters in the east and west, and then concentrate its forces to adopt the tactics of frontal and flank coordination, defeat the eastern front cluster in one fell swoop, and reopen the Tianjin-Pudong Railway was still a bit too limited.

It seems that the Japanese army's largesse is not just a matter of reopening the Jinpu line.

Judging from the overall strategic moves of the Japanese army directly pointing to the Jinpu and Pinghan lines in its rear, after several encounters, the Japanese army has found the most fatal weakness of the anti-United Nations forces, and has also found the most effective way to adopt various tactics to deal with the anti-Japanese alliance, cutting off the supply lines of the anti-United Nations forces currently concentrated in the entire Hebei battlefield.

Now the firepower and equipment of the Anti-United Nations are getting better and better, but the dependence on the rear is also getting stronger and stronger.

At present, the average daily consumption of ammunition and supplies by the combat division has reached more than 100 tons.

The daily consumption of fuel by the armored forces during the operation alone was as high as more than 100 tons.

In the southern Hebei and Hebei-Shandong border battlefields, all the troops participating in the anti-Japanese alliance, a large amount of ammunition and materials needed for the operation, except for some food, need to be sent south through the two railway lines of Guò, Pinghan and Jinpu.

Once the two major railway lines of Pinghan and Jinpu are cut off, the firepower of all the participating units of the Anti-Japanese Union in the entire southern Hebei and Hebei-Shandong border areas will be reduced by several levels.

And all tank units will be in a situation where they will be unable to act.

In this way, the Japanese army can eat the anti-coalition participating troops one by one.

In particular, the armored units, which pose the greatest threat to them, can only be used as a fixed fire point or even a pile of scrap metal without the supply of fuel.

On the contrary, the Japanese army fought wherever it wanted, and fought as much as it wanted.

At present, the Japanese army is in Hebei, Shandong, Henan, and Hebei, including the southeast of Shanxi, and all strategic feints are working hard in this direction.