Yang Zhen's judgment of the Japanese army's actions in northwest Lu was quite accurate. According to Okamura Ninji's intentions. The 118th Division, and even the 72nd Division, were all used by Okamura Ninji as a bait to fish and attract the anti-Japanese forces in the depths of the Western Front to fight in the south.

The offensive of the 118th Division in the direction of Guantao certainly included the factor of taking the opportunity to open up the connection with the battlefield east of the Pinghan Line. However, the main thing was to fake a shot and use it as a bait to lure the Anti-Japanese Union to take the initiative to attack, so as to create fighters for the Japanese army to operate in northwest Shandong.

Okamura Ninji's intention is very clear, in order to attract the anti-alliance, who is good at roundabout interspersing and outflanking, to take the bait, so as to pull the entire deployment of the anti-alliance. Taking advantage of the situation around the 118th Division, which is actually not prominent, lure the Anti-United Nations to take the initiative to attack, and then concentrate on annihilating the main cluster of the Anti-United Nations on the Western Front that is trying to encircle and annihilate the 118th Division.

Taking out a division as bait, Okamura Ninji's deployment can be described as quite well-intentioned. As Yang Zhen had predicted, the position of the 118th Division at that time looked like a lone attack. But on the Zhouqu line, east of Pinghan Road, there was a division of the Japanese army. On the battlefield of Wucheng behind it, there is the 72nd Division.

And in Jinan, to the southeast, there is also a division of the Japanese army. As soon as the Anti-Union tries to swallow this bait, its troops participating in the war will immediately be flanked from three sides. In order to avoid stealing chickens and rice, this bait was swallowed by the Anti-Union before his own outflanking troops rushed over.

Okamura Ninji gave the 118th Division a significant reinforcement of anti-tank guns and heavy artillery. At the same time, the 118th Division was required to operate as a brigade as a formation as much as possible when it was operating. Except for the movement to the northwest with no more than one reinforced brigade, the main forces should not be divided as much as possible.

This plan was specially studied and formulated by Okamura Ninji in view of the tactics of large-depth, large-scale detour, and outflanking that the Anti-Japanese Federation was accustomed to adopting on the battlefield in the first stage. Although it seems a little hasty because of the time relationship, Okamura Ninji also concentrated all the operational staff officers of the Front Army and the Twelfth Army at the beginning of the campaign, and finally determined it after repeated deductions on the sand table.

It is different from the base camp that has always been concerned about opening up the Jinpu Railway and restoring contact with the Kwantung Army. Okamura Ninji was more concerned about the mobilization of so many troops and the concentration of such a huge amount of weapons and equipment, and even the navy sent marines to participate in the war. Can we take advantage of this favorable situation to annihilate more anti-United Nations forces used as the main combat force on the battlefield in Hebei?

He insisted that only by completely solving the problem was that the current anti-coalition troops in the Hebei battlefield and taking advantage of the rare concentration of the communist armies in Hebei to defeat its main force in one fell swoop, the rest of the things would be relatively easy to do. If the anti-Japanese forces on the battlefield in Hebei cannot be defeated, even if the Tianjin-Pudong Railway is opened and Tianjin is rerecovered, it will be difficult for the Japanese army to defend again.

Therefore, he adopted the tactics of coordinating with each other in strategic deployment, advancing from east to west, and attacking from multiple directions. Using a division and regiment as bait, mobilize the Anti-Japanese Alliance, which likes to adopt the tactics of interspersing with large depths and roundabouts, to take the initiative to attack and fight a war of annihilation in the northwestern part of Shandong Province and the Hebei-Shandong border region, and strive to destroy the main living force of the enemy army in the Hebei battlefield in one fell swoop.

He not only deployed two divisions of mobile troops to the Shandong battlefield, but also arranged a division east of Pinghan Road. His two divisions deployed in eastern Henan and one division on the front line in northern Henan and Kaifeng could also be mobilized to participate in the battle at any time.

didn't expect that instead of being fooled, the Anti-Japanese Federation simply let go of the first line of the pavilion and directly hung Okamura Ningji's entire plan in mid-air. In desperation, under the urging of the base camp, Okamura Ninji could only let the 118th Division turn ahead of time, cooperate with the Japanese division east of Pinghan Road to spread north, and adopt the method of advancing in tandem with the 72nd Division.

But in the face of the current situation, Okamura Ninji did not completely abandon the original plan. He ordered the 118th Division to complete the turn and attack in the direction of Weixian, Guangzong, and Julu. Cooperate with a division east of Pinghan Road to attack the troops of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region, which is currently the weakest link in the entire Hebei battlefield.

Adopt the direction of attacking and saving, forcing the deep anti-coalition forces on the Western Front to be saved. In order to mobilize the forces of the Anti-Japanese Union on a large scale, and create fighters for themselves to encircle and annihilate the Anti-United Nations in northwestern Shandong and southern Hebei. If the Anti-Japanese Union is not fooled again, the position of the division can be directly inserted into Nangong to the east, and it can be completed to forcibly cross the Fuyang River to the west and directly enter the Ningjin line.

When the 72nd Division carried out this operational plan, it was not only one of the main mobile strike divisions, but also used its own location as one of the decoys. Because of the confrontation with the Anti-Japanese Federation in the previous two years, Okamura Ningji, who had been beaten for a long time, could not figure out which direction the Anti-United Nations would choose first when the 118th Division attacked in the direction of Guantao.

Therefore, Okamura Ninji has adopted a looping approach in this strategic deployment. No matter which of the 72nd Division or the 118th Division is attacked first, the Anti-Japanese Union will face his encirclement on all sides. Coupled with the forces attacking on both sides of Lubei and Pinghan Road, the troops in other battlefields of the Anti-Japanese Federation could not be reinforced, so he was very confident to achieve this goal.

What's more, the two divisions he had on the battlefield in the southeast of Jin were definitely not simply rescuing the remnants of the 36th Division. He wanted to use these two divisions to fight a heart-piercing battle in the southeast of Jinjin, and to make a detour from the southeast of Jin to the back of the Western Front of the Anti-Union Alliance. The route he chose to go out of Shanxi was not Junji Pass and Huangze Pass, but the line of Maling Pass further north. Rescuing the remnants of the 36th Division was just a matter of taking advantage of the situation.

Okamura Ninji did not think that the 18th Group Army in the southeast of Jin Province would cause too many losses to the roundabout actions of his two divisions. What's more, he was on the battlefield west of Pinghan Road, and there was also a division to cooperate with the actions on the battlefield in the southeast of Jin. He stubbornly believed that as long as these two divisions could smoothly get out of Maling Pass, the initiative in the entire battle situation would be firmly in his own hands.

And he also added two insurances for the actions of these two divisions in the southeast of Jin. The attack of the enemy of Shexian on Fukou was only the first line of this insurance. The real killer weapon he hid in the southeast of Jin has not yet been exposed because it has not yet reached the critical moment. In order to achieve his strategic goals in the southeast battlefield of Jinjin, Okamura Ningji did his best.

Therefore, for Lieutenant General Kumaharu Chiba, who clearly understands the entire operational plan of the front army, it cannot but be said that he has been mentally prepared for the counterattack of the confrontation alliance. But neither he nor Okamura Ninji thought that the Anti-Union would choose the most unlikely target in a time that they thought was the most inappropriate.

Moreover, the momentum of the counterattack and the intensity of the firepower were beyond his expectations. When the counterattack of the Anti-Japanese Federation really fell on the head, the 72nd Division felt from top to bottom what it means to be the sky falling apart. Under the cover of tanks and one mixed attack aircraft brigade each, Chen Hanzhang's breakthrough troops deployed on both flanks forcibly carried out a rapid penetration into their depths, regardless of the troops deployed by the 72nd Division on both flanks.

The first round of counterattack artillery fire was fired on the front, and it directly smashed into the 134th Wing, which was attacking through Encha, Zhang Xiutun, and Sanlangnan to Zaonan County. With intensive artillery fire, Encha and Zhang Xiutun, the two key Japanese attack directions, the Japanese positions, and the starting point of the attack, it rained a heavy rain of shells.

Previously, Chen Hanzhang wanted the 72nd Division to enter the ambush circle as early as possible. Not only did it take a lot of painstaking efforts to camouflage, but the use of artillery on the battlefield from Wucheng to Zaonan was also quite restrained. When leading the main force of the 72nd Division to the north, no artillery of more than 75 mm caliber was used.

The artillery involved in the battle was mainly 76-mm cannons, 75-mm mountain guns, and 82 mortars. Even a hundred and twenty-mm mortar, not many of them were used. Consciously showing weakness in firepower, it was very successful in confusing Lieutenant General Kumaji Chiba.

Although from the information already available, it is known that the Anti-Japanese Union invested a large amount of artillery in this North China operation. Although it is also clear that in the previous battles, the strength of the artillery fire that the Anti-Union has never been able to confront the 72nd Division, there must be some tricks in the middle. But after really seeing the firepower intensity shown by the Anti-Alliance, Lieutenant General Chiba Kumaji was still stunned for the first time.

The two squadrons of the 1st Brigade of the 134th Wing, which were still attacking in the direction of Encha, were not prepared in the slightest in the face of the dense artillery fire that suddenly came from the depth of the Anti-Coalition. Its offensive formation was covered by two salvos fired by two 122 rocket artillery battalions, and it was directly blown to pieces.

Facing almost following the artillery fire extension line, two battalions of the Anti-Union under the cover of the half-track armored vehicle group. The remnants of the 1st Brigade had not yet recovered from the heavy rain of steel made of dense rocket shells, and they had not yet had time to turn to the defense. The entire position was washed apart.

And the 3rd Brigade of the 134th Wing in the direction of Zhang Xiutun to the west of Encha was not in a much better situation than the 1st Brigade. In the first round of counterattack artillery fire that was dense and even left the Japanese with nowhere to hide, the brigade suffered nearly one-third of its troops.

Before the unit could wake up from the so-called unprecedented artillery fire, more than 20 anti-United Nations attack planes used napalm to completely set fire to the area where the brigade was located. Two successive waves of air-ground firepower were hit, and the losses of the brigade were even higher than that of the 1st Encha Brigade.

In front of them, the two regiments of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region used continuous air-ground strikes to cause chaos to the Japanese army. Before the napalm ignited the skyrocketing fire was completely extinguished, it was outflanked from both wings. Under the cover of the artillery and light and heavy machine guns of the brigade, especially the four four-mounted 14-mm anti-aircraft machine guns reinforced by the Anti-Japanese Union, and the fire of the flat fire, the remnants of the brigade were divided and surrounded in Zhangxiutun and the three villages of Zhangjiazhuang and Miaoqian Li in the north.

The situation of the Third Brigade, which was located on the right flank of the entire front of the 134th Wing, was slightly better because it was not the focus of the firepower. Unfortunately, the location of the brigade happened to be the part where the Anti-Japanese Union divided the connection between the two Japanese wings.

The brigade had just woken up from the artillery fire, and the two mechanized infantry battalions of the Anti-Japanese Union in front of it had already rushed head-on with the cooperation of a tank battalion. The brigade was located on an unobstructed large plain, and in the face of the mechanized troops rushing over from the Anti-United Nations, it was simply unable to effectively intercept it.

Its makeshift defensive line was riddled with holes in just an hour. Fortunately, the Anti-United Nations Department that rushed over did not pay attention to them at all after tearing through the improvised defense line it had temporarily constructed. Directly rushed through the defense line of the brigade, rushed towards the junction of the wing and the 152nd Wing behind it, and blocked it with a force, and its route to the 155th Wing on the right flank.