In view of the increase in the strength of the Japanese army in North China, Chen Feng transferred a total of 1 integrated division, 1 armored division, 2 artillery brigades, and 1 aviation brigade to participate in the southern Hebei operation.

On November 3, the Eighth Theater Commander's Department issued an order to set up the Southern Hebei Campaign Command, Xu Fufu was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the headquarters, Hu Tiesheng and Liu Li were appointed as deputy commanders-in-chief, and Xu Dazhuang was appointed as chief of staff.

On 5 November, the 2nd Division, the 1st Armored Division, the 1st Mountain Artillery Brigade, the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, and the 32nd Fighter Group of the Air Force quickly arrived in the Shimen area to stand by.

According to the intention of the theater command, the main purpose of the southern Hebei operation was to completely drive out or eliminate the Japanese 32nd Division and other troops, and to recover the two important cities of Handan and Xingtai.

In view of the fact that the Japanese army in Shandong could reinforce southern Hebei nearby, Chen Feng specially sent a telegram to the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, hoping that the Eighth Route Army could cooperate with this operation in the Eighth Theater and provoke an incident in Shandong, forcing the Japanese Twelfth Army to not even reinforce southern Hebei.

After studying the current situation of the enemy and us, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army came to a conclusion: If the Japanese army does not urgently reinforce North China with more than 500,000 troops in a short period of time, in the next two to three years, the Japanese army in North China will be completely wiped out by Chen Feng's department, and now Chen Feng's department has occupied the original Chahar Province, Suiyuan Province, and most of Rehe Province, and its troops have also penetrated deep into northern Shanxi, northern Hebei, eastern Hebei, and central Hebei, and a small half of Shanxi and Hebei have become Chen Feng's territory. In addition, five relatively wealthy provinces in the east, including Ulaanbaatar, the former capital of Mongolia, were also placed under Chen Feng's rule, and now Chen Feng can be said to be a veritable king of the north.

The strong rise of Chen Feng's unit not only caused great pressure on the Japanese army. At the same time, it also caused huge pressure on the Yan'an side and Yan Laoxi, not to mention the Yan'an side, although Chen Feng's department is still relatively friendly to them now, not only giving money and supporting weapons and equipment, but also absorbing them into the provincial government of Saibei Province.

But no matter how friendly Chen Feng was, after all, Chen Feng's subordinates were subordinate to the Nationalist Government's battle sequence, and if Chongqing ordered them to suppress the Communists, I am afraid that Chen Feng would not oppose it, so they had to guard against it.

More importantly, since Chen Feng's troops occupied Shimen and Baoding. The Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region of the Eighth Route Army fell into the encirclement of Chen Feng's department. As long as Chen Feng's subordinates are willing, the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region may be wiped out at any time, so it is imperative to open up a new anti-Japanese base area.

However, in these provinces and cities in the north, only Shandong can become a new place for the Eighth Route Army. This Hebei is not good. Whether it is eastern Hebei or central Hebei, it is everywhere the territory of Chen Feng's activities. The headquarters of the Eighth Route Army judged that Chen Feng's campaign to recover eastern Hebei, central Hebei, and southern Hebei would soon begin, and if the Eighth Route Army still wanted to use this place as its own guerrilla area, I am afraid that Chen Feng's headquarters would not agree.

And Henan is a good place, but unfortunately Wei Lihuang has long been guarding against the Eighth Route Army. After completely driving the Japanese army out of eastern Henan, the First Theater of Operations of the Nationalist Government stationed one division each in western and northern Henan, not to defend against the Japanese, but to prevent the Eighth Route Army from entering Henan from these two directions.

Although the Pingjin bag does not have the power of the Nationalist Government, these two places themselves are not large, have no strategic depth, and are not very suitable for guerrilla warfare, and now the only place that can become a new base area for the Eighth Route Army is Shandong. However, since Tada Jun was promoted to commander of the North China Front, under the tremendous pressure of the strong rise of the Eighth Theater, the main goal of the Japanese army has also changed from attacking the Second and Eighth Theaters and forcing the Nationalist Government to surrender to giving priority to consolidating the security zone and sweeping away the guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army in the territory, so the development of the Eighth Route Army has been greatly restricted in the past two years.

In order to break this passive situation, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army had in fact drawn up an order to open up a base area in Shandong and set up a Shandong Military Region, and had sent two fully equipped infantry divisions to Shandong. However, in view of the fact that the Japanese puppet army in Shandong is too strong, there has been no major action.

This time, Chen Feng's unit proposed that Shandong's Eighth Route Army cooperate with the Eighth Theater's action, which was in the hands of the Eighth Route Army Headquarters, and Mr. Zhu immediately made a decision and ordered the Eighth Route Army of the Shandong Military Region to immediately assemble in Zaozhuang and Liaocheng, and if the Japanese army sent reinforcements to southern Hebei, they could take this opportunity to link Lunan and Luxi revolutionary base areas together and strengthen their own momentum and strength.

The actions of the Eighth Theater of Operations quickly attracted the attention of the North China Front, and Tada Jun did not dare to slack off, and while ordering the intelligence department to find out the intentions of Chen Feng's troops as soon as possible, he also ordered the defenders in various places to shrink their forces and actively prepare for war.

In fact, Tada Jun was also aggrieved enough during this time, the Japanese army in North China has not had a big war this year, the first half of the year is to recover, from the base camp to the ordinary soldiers do not want to fight with Chen Feng's department again, so Tada Jun has always ordered the troops to take a defensive position, and even took the initiative to give up some towns that are not easy to defend to Chen Feng's department.

In the second half of the year, the strength of the North China Front Army was restored by more than half, and Shanxi and central Hebei regions were lost, so the problems of the Japanese army's previous fronts that were too long and supply difficulties did not exist, and with the support of the Japanese army, the North China Public Security Army developed rapidly, and the total strength even exceeded 180,000.

But it's a pity that at this time, the war between Chen Feng's department and the Soviet Union broke out, and the base camp in order to let Chen Feng's department fight hard with the Soviet side, so as to be the profiteer, so he sternly ordered everyone and the North China Front Army not to meddle in the war, so as to prevent Chen Feng's department and the Soviet Union from not being able to fight to their heart's content.

However, although the North China Front did not launch any large-scale campaigns, this did not mean that they had stopped moving, and in fact the development of the North China Front in the past year was still very astonishing. At present, the North China Front Army has built a new Second Army, and has increased its troops from China by four divisions, and the Japanese army in North China has as many as 10 divisions and six mixed brigades, as well as a number of artillery brigades.

Peiping. Command of the North China Front.

General Tada Jun was talking to Lieutenant General Okabe Naosaburo, and the two of them were worried about the frequent movements of the Shina army during this time, and the War Department of the Imperial Japanese Army sent a telegram not long ago, ordering them to stop a little during this time, and the Imperial side was likely to make a big move, but I didn't expect that at this time, the Shina people would come to the door by themselves.

Tada Jun shook his slightly emaciated body, and then asked, "Okabe-kun, what do you think is the intention of the Shina people this time?" ”

Lieutenant General Okabe Naosaburo looked up at Tada, and then replied, "Your Excellency, I believe that the frequent movement of the people of China at this time has two main intentions, one is to support the battlefield of Central China. His Excellency Yan Junliu has decided to carry out a second military strike on the ninth theater of operations of the government of China to force the government of China to submit to the enemy country. However, the will of the Chinese government to resist is very high, and it seems that it intends to carry on with the empire, so the second Changsha battle in the direction of Central China is inevitable. ”

Speaking of this, Okabe Naosaburo got up and took a military map from a desk next to him, and then spread it on Tada Jun's desk and said: "Your Excellency Commander, please see, this is the deployment map of the imperial army, such a large defense area in Central China, the empire has only sent 2 armies to station, and now it has to use troops against Changsha, and the troops must be stretched." If the war in Central China does not go well, we will definitely transfer troops from our North China Front. We can see this, and the people of China will definitely be able to think of it, so Chen Feng's troops are frequently mobilizing troops at this time, which must have the intention of containing our army. ”

"Yo Xi, Okabe-kun's analysis is very reasonable, the transfer of troops by the people of China at this time is inseparable from the war on the part of Central China. So what is the second intention? Tada Jun asked again.

"Your Excellency Commander, the Eighth Theater of Operations in China is a powerful military group, and the combat effectiveness of its troops is so strong that Your Excellency the Commander should understand that it is impossible for such a huge force to be prostrate all the time, looking at the actions of Chen Feng's department during this period, it is not difficult for us to see that Chen Feng's department has a complete set of operational plans for fighting against the Imperial Army, and although the territory where the Imperial Japanese Army is in contact with it is relatively safe, there is one place that has always been in a relatively dangerous state!"

"Nani! Where? ”

"South Hebei!"

"Jinan? Isn't there the Empire's most elite Twelfth Army garrisoned there, how can it be dangerous? "After all, Tada Jun has been in China for a relatively short time, and he is still relatively unfamiliar with some place names or regional names in China.

"Your Excellency, the southern Hebei mentioned by the humble post refers to the southern part of the Hebei of China, not Jinan in Shandong. Now that the people of China have captured Shimen, the Pinghan Railway is in a state of interruption, and southern Hebei has always been under the firepower of the people, if the people of China attack southern Hebei from Shimen, it will be difficult to resist the imperial army in southern Hebei alone. Moreover, southern Hebei is close to the southeast of Shanxi and northern Henan, once Chen Feng's headquarters in China launch an attack on southern Hebei, the first and second theaters of China will certainly not stand idly by, and the imperial army in southern Hebei is likely to be besieged from the eighth theater, the second theater, and the first theater of China. At the same time as the explanation, Lieutenant General Naosaburo Okabe also pointed out what he said on the map, and Tada Jun was scared into a cold sweat. (To be continued......)