The defensive battle of Lublin began at an unestimated time for the expeditionary force, and the progress of the German army exceeded Shi Dashou's expectations and also exceeded Wang Mingyuan's expectations. At the beginning of the battle, the 21st Army suffered its first major defeat since the expeditionary force entered Russia.

Major General Zhang Zuoxiang had been informed of the campaign plan of the expeditionary force headquarters, and the task of the 21st Army was to block the head, block the sharp spearhead of the Germans and wait for the main force to strike a blow. This deployment was not as Zhang Zuoxiang expected, but it caused Brigadier General Guo Songling's dissatisfaction, "According to this mediocre deployment, why not let the 3rd Army also come over?" Isn't this a borrowed knife to kill? ”

"Don't say anything like that!" Zhang Zuoxiang sternly stopped Guo Songling, "You stay in the military headquarters, I will go to the 63rd Division to supervise the battle, we have no way to retreat, and we must not give up an inch of position without an order!" Violators will be shot on the spot! ”

Wang Mingyuan is known for his benevolence, but it doesn't mean that he won't kill! Especially for such a non-mainstream unit as the 21st Army. The commander's order was clear that Lublin must be entrenched and the road to the east of Lublin must be guaranteed. After the 21st Army arrived in Lublin and received the order to hold the city, Zhang Zuoxiang led the division commanders to survey the terrain on the spot, and deployed the 62nd Division in the east of the city, the 63rd Division in the south of the city, and the 61st Division in the west of the city, and the main force of the division was the division reserve.

It's a decent deployment, and I can't fault anything big. However, it is worth considering that the 63rd Division, which has the weakest combat effectiveness, will be placed in the direction south of the city, and the 61st Division, the main force, will be regarded as a reserve. The divisions of the Wehrmacht are the largest tactical corps, equipped with complete auxiliary units, artillery, engineers, cavalry, baggage, and medical care, and can independently undertake various tasks. In this case. It is debatable to use the strongest division as a reserve, because it will inevitably have to be dismantled and used, and it will be difficult to play the role of the main division.

As a result, there was really a result that Zhang Zuoxiang did not want to see. The German army, which defeated the Russian army and drove straight into power, overwhelmed the 63rd Division at once.

In order to completely win the Polish campaign, the German army on the Eastern Front carried out tactical innovation under the auspices of Chief of Staff Hoffmann, especially summed up the experience and lessons of breaking through the fortified areas, summed up a set of relatively advanced tactics, and re-studied the coordination of infantry and artillery, air-ground coordination, the use of combat engineers, and the infiltration of detachments on the premise of concentrating troops to the greatest extent possible. Some tactics were inspired by the Chinese, such as the use of Chinese combat engineers in the Battle of Qingdao, which impressed the German army. And the successful Chinese night raid in the Battle of Ploiesti also "educated" the Germans. The Germanic people, with their profound military qualities, were originally a warlike people. The overall quality of the German army was definitely higher than that of the Chinese army, so these things were not difficult to learn.

The German breakthrough at Krakow proved the effectiveness of the new tactics, and the Germans, of course, would not make the same mistakes on the Western Front, so they continued to use their increasingly handy offensive tactics in the offensive battle in Lublin.

Max, who was in charge of the overall planning of the Polish campaign. Hoffman, of course, did not ignore the Chinese army. The Romanian campaign had proven that the Chinese army was more difficult to deal with than the Russian army. Therefore, Hoffmann's design of the German army on the southern road put on a two-way attack formation in the attack on Warsaw. One is to be subject to the road. The main reason is the fear of the Chinese army rushing from Ukraine. The main task of the German forces moving on the east bank of the Vistula River was to deal with the Chinese army. Hoffman equipped it with the strongest troops and personally commanded the way.

After basically determining the assembly area of the Chinese army, Hoffman judged that the Chinese army marched west from Ukraine to Poland. There were no more than two routes for its troops, one from Zhytomyr-Krosjian-Kovelli-Lublin, and the other from Lviv to Rzeszow. After carefully weighing various factors, especially logistical factors, Hoffman believed that it was more likely that the Chinese army would advance westward from Lviv. Lviv is not only the location of the headquarters of the Russian Southwestern Front, but also the logistics supply center of the Russian army's southwestern theater. Therefore, Hoffman came up with a plan against the Chinese army -- with a strengthened elite army as the vanguard, strive to cross Starova Walla before the main force of the Chinese army enters Poland, cross the predetermined line of the Chinese army to blitzkrieg Lublin and occupy this point, mobilize the Chinese army to seize the initiative, and the main force will set up an ambush circle on the Tarnóf-Starlova Walla line, and when Lublin is in a hurry, the main force of the Chinese army will inevitably go north, and will get into the ambush circle he carefully designed and be attacked head-on. After the defeat of the Chinese army, the Germans will be relieved of their worries and will be completely free to move.

One of the most important lessons of a military commander is calculation, and the so-called strategy is actually doing math problems. For the layman's relatively mysterious field of military command, operational command is like solving an equation, and there are constants and variables in this equation, with one's own troops, equipment, supplies, and so on all being constants, and factors such as shape and enemy strength being variables. Therefore, the ancient Chinese soldier saint Sun Wu had the teaching of "more wins, less wins". Therefore, the accuracy of intelligence has been the most concerned issue for generals since ancient times.

In this Sino-German military showdown, the main commanders of both China and Germany failed to figure out the constants, let alone the variables.

The first is that neither side has accurately figured out the strength of the opponent's forces. The Chinese Expeditionary Force has just arrived and is squatting in Ukraine far from the battle line, and the channels for obtaining the enemy's situation mainly rely on the intelligence of the Russian army, but the aviation regiment led by Major General Cheng Jianguo has arrived at the front line, and the number of airfields is constrained, and the flight units are arriving one after another, and mainly in order not to expose the air strength of the expeditionary force, Ye Yanbing has not allowed large-scale reconnaissance. Naturally, it is difficult to figure out what the German forces were committed to in the Polish direction. The Russian army reported about 10 divisions of the German army that broke through to Lublin along the east bank of the Vistula River, but the reality was a full 14 divisions! General Hoffmann had placed his main forces on the east bank of the Vistula River, and he could not safely conduct the Polish campaign without defeating the Chinese army.

The German army's estimate of the strength of the Chinese army also deviated greatly. The Germans could not understand the actual situation of the Qing army. It is only known that the follow-up troops of the Chinese army are arriving in Ukraine, and the Chinese army near Chernivtsi has not moved. Therefore, the German high command judged that the total number of troops invested by the Chinese army in Poland was about 15 divisions. This is a clear underestimation of the strength of the expeditionary force.

The two sides are not clear about the strength of the other side, and there are many errors in judgment in strategy. The Germans did not expect the Chinese army to divide their troops in two directions. One way was the 21st Army and the 3rd Army, taking the northern road into the Lublin line, but the two armies were separated by three days. The other five corps under the command of Shi Dashou took the southern route and entered Poland from the direction of Lviv. The plan of the expeditionary force was to be stopped by the 21st and 3rd armies, with the main force intercepting the German army moving from Starova Vola towards Lublin, and to encircle and annihilate its main force south of Lublin. After the Romanian campaign, the expeditionary force became more confident in fighting the Germans, and felt that with 21 divisions with heavy artillery and air force, it was not a problem to defeat the German army with 10 divisions. The reason for placing the 3rd Army in the Lublin direction was solely due to road problems. Shi Dashou asked the 3rd Army to conceal its whereabouts. There is no rush into Poland. So as not to frighten the Germans to lead the zhì campaign plan to fail. So in the Lublin direction there was only one 21 Army that entered Poland ahead of schedule.

The speed of the German army exceeded Shi Dashou's expectations, and he did not expect Starlova Walla to fall four days after the start of the battle. In this way, the German army on the east bank of the Vistula River could escape his intended battlefield and quickly move north, and the five corps under his personal command could only pursue the German army. So he ordered the 21 Army to hold on to Lublin. The 3rd Army commanded by Yan Shulin quickly marched westward. Fight in close proximity to the 21st Army. Not a single soldier of the opponent must be allowed to cross the Lublin line.

After the Germans learned that there were Chinese troops in Lublin, the German 20th Army, which had crossed Starova Walla, did not hesitate and went straight to Lublin. That was a necessary point in the German plan,

Thus began the Battle of Botong.

After the 21st Army entered Lublin, Zhang Zuoxiang did not consider using the city to block the German army, but set up a defensive position outside the city. In the habitual thinking of the generals of the Chinese army, there is generally no idea of fighting in the streets, not because they are afraid of the cruelty of street fighting, but because they are reluctant to smash the exquisite buildings, China is so poor that even in a foreign country, the generals are reluctant to destroy the city by war.

Zhang Zuoxiang placed the 61st Division, the main division of the 21st Army, in the south of the city, and placed an infantry regiment of the 62nd Division reinforced with artillery in the west of the city, and in order to ensure that the road to the east (the 3rd Army must use this main road) was not cut off, the 63rd Division was placed in the east of the city. The main force of the 62nd Division (Zhang Zuoxiang's general reserve) and the troops directly under the military headquarters remained in the city.

This was a decent deployment, and of course the plan was reported to Admiral Shi Dashou. Shi Dashou did not make an observation. He also couldn't give an opinion, because he had never been to Lublin at all.

However, to the surprise of the leaders of the 21st Army, the German 20th Army did not attack the position south of the city at all, they placed the main force in the east of the city, and broke through the position of the 63rd Division on the first day. Due to the negligence of the 63rd Division, and because of the weak combat effectiveness of the 63rd Division, when the Germans broke through the position of the 1st Battalion of the 188th Regiment and rushed to the rear, the commander of the 188th Regiment, who commanded the reserve counterattack, was killed in the middle of the artillery, leading the 188th Regiment to disperse, and the division headquarters urgently ordered the 189th Regiment on the left flank to counterattack, but it was defeated by the German army with high morale, and even the division headquarters and artillery regiment were threatened by Yanzhòng, and the emergency transfer to the position of the 187th Regiment avoided more Yanzhòng losses.

In just one day, Mr. Zhang's left wing collapsed.

It was normal for the Germans to attack long distances and adopt unconventional tactics, and they naturally did not storm the existing positions of the Chinese army because they lacked heavy artillery that was difficult to tow. That's not a big deal. The Polish plains and the cold winter facilitated the German detours, and war was like that, always favoring generals who did not follow the rules according to local conditions.

A situation that had never been conceived arose. Naturally, Zhang Zuoxiang and Guo Songling were angry, and they still wanted to fight a beautiful battle in Lublin to win glory for the 21st Army and the old commander. Now they are in danger of cutting off their retreat, fighting independently, or even being encircled. There were many reasons for the failure of the 63rd Division, including the fact that the military headquarters did not send small units to the front, and the lack of effective reconnaissance was an important reason. But the main factor in the failure of the 63rd Division to build a strong defensive position. The Wehrmacht had perfect regulations for field construction, but the 63rd Division believed that it was not the main operational direction and was lazy, and the so-called freezing ground and the high groundwater level were all excuses for not being able to dig trenches. Large areas of forest are fully exploitable, but they don't know how to do it. The division headquarters also had a bad response after the 188th Regiment had problems, and the correct response at that time was not to rush to counterattack the breach, but to order the other two regiments to hold on to their original positions and block the breach with firepower to wait for reinforcements.

Zhang Zuoxiang did not dare to move the 61st Division in the south of the city, so he had to take out two infantry regiments of the 62nd Division of the General Reserve to counterattack to the east in an attempt to save the 63rd Division. On the afternoon of the second day of the battle, another German army attacked the Chinese positions west of Lublin, breaking the reinforced regiment of the 62nd Division and forcing it to retreat into the city.

The 21st Army was in danger of being encircled.

The Germans succeeded on the eastern and western flanks of Lublin, and Yan Zòng misjudged the 21st Army. Zhang Zuoxiang and Guo Songling jointly sent a telegram to General Shi Dashou asking for help, exaggerating the strength of the German army, believing that the German army attacking Lublin had at least two corps! Request for reinforcements from the 3rd Army!

This telegram made Shi Dashou very anxious. He quickly replied, strictly ordering Zhang Zuoxiang not to abandon Lublin, and if he judged that the position outside the city could not be recovered, he could withdraw his troops into the city and hold on. At the same time, Yan Shulin was strictly ordered to rush west to meet Zhang Zuoxiang, and at the same time, he urgently ordered the main force of the South Road to speed up its action. Zhang Zuoxiang's telegram for help misled Shi Dashou, and he was now annoyed that his movements were too slow, and the main German forces had apparently flocked to Lublin, and all the plans were out of order. Now he could only hope that Yan Shulin's 3rd Army could block the Germans after approaching, and then press through from the south. But he had to consider the actions of the Germans on the west bank of the Vistula, and the future of the battle, which had been repeatedly studied and thought could not be lost, became uncertain. In his telegram to Wang Mingyuan, Shi Dashou raised the possible danger and built a plan to at least move the 9th Army west just in case. (To be continued......)