Chapter 613: The Great Victory of Changsha and the Fall of Singapore (Asking for Subscriptions, Monthly Tickets, and Miscellaneous !! ）

With Lao Jiang's instructions, Xue Yue and the others dared to slack off, urging all troops to speed up their marching and be sure to arrive at the predetermined position before launching a counteroffensive.

On the afternoon of 5 September, Japanese reconnaissance planes discovered that a number of Chinese armies were suddenly on the march on both sides of the 3rd and 6th Divisions, and after the information was reported to the headquarters of the 11th Army, Anan was taken aback for a few moments, and immediately judged that the Ninth Theater was planning to swallow up the two divisions he had led in one go.

Anan, who was frightened into a cold sweat, immediately ordered the 3rd Division to retreat, and at the same time ordered the 6th Division to ensure the road to the retreat of the 3rd Division and ensure the safety of crossing the river.

This move of the Japanese army greatly stimulated Xue Yue, and he judged that the Japanese army was planning to escape, and immediately ordered the 20th Army and the 26th Army under his command to attack immediately, and the 10th Army defending the city also acted with all its might to contain the Japanese Third Division. Soon, the main force of the 3rd Division, as well as the 45th Infantry Wing and the 6th Baggage Wing of the Japanese troops stationed near the city of Langli, the crossing point of the river, fell into a bitter battle.

In the face of the simultaneous attack of the 3 armies of the 9th Theater of Operations, the Japanese army made frequent mistakes, the position of the 7th Squadron of the 45th Infantry Wing was abandoned after sunset, the position of the 2nd Brigade was infiltrated that night, and although the 1st Brigade held its position, it also paid the price of 400 casualties.

And the 6th Wing of the Baggage Corps also suffered the most fierce attack, because it was a baggage unit. Therefore, the combat effectiveness was not very strong, and more than half of the casualties were suffered in just half a day, and they had to ask for help from the headquarters of the Sixth Division.

At the same time as the fierce fighting, the 3rd Wing of the Heavy Infantry and other units were rushing to the front line with ammunition and food. At 23:30 on the evening of September 5, the unit ran headlong into the troops of the 26th Army of the Nationalist Army near the city of Langli. After half an hour of fierce fighting, the division was forced to take up positions near the village of Chatang and ask for help from the 3rd Division. The 3rd Division, which was too busy to take care of itself, replied, "I hope to endure self-respect for the time being, and do everything possible to fight tenaciously."

After receiving the order to retreat, the 3rd Division immediately ordered the 68th Wing under its command to contain the casualties, and then under the cover of the 18th Wing, which suffered smaller losses. Retreat back. However, as soon as he withdrew to Mopanzhou, he was blocked by Ou Zhen's 4th Army. The 4th Army was a newly reinforced unit, which could be said to be waiting for work, and took the Japanese by surprise and fought fiercely for several hours. The Japanese suffered heavy casualties. The 18th Infantry Wing, as well as the 13th Brigade of the 3rd Wing to the southeast, were surrounded.

Fortunately, the Japanese 68th Wing arrived to reinforce it. The 4th Army was only a vanguard brigade that blocked the Japanese army, which was far less than the Japanese in terms of strength, and the Japanese finally broke through the encirclement after several hours of fierce fighting.

Relatively. Only the retreat of the 6th Division was relatively much smoother. The main force of the division began to retreat at 22 o'clock after sunset on the 4th, and although it was fired upon by some artillery in the Ninth Theater, there was no army to chase after it, so by dawn on the 5th, the division had gathered through the Langli Army Bridge and formed in the area on the right bank of the Liuyang River. However, the 6th Division did not suffer any losses, and the field hospital of the division and an infantry brigade protecting the field hospital were completely annihilated by a division of the 20th Army because of the late departure and the delay in returning to the dark battlefield after being attacked to retrieve the wounded, re-equip them, and check the personnel.

At the same time, the Japanese 40th Division continued to fight hard with the 37th Army in the area of Guanjiaqiao. At dawn on the 5th, the Army Aviation Corps reconnaissance report showed that the 40th Division had been completely surrounded, and the 95th Division of the Ninth Theater had occupied the high ground on the west side of the division. Immediately, the headquarters of the 11th Army ordered the 40th Division to retreat immediately, and at this time, the 235th Wing of the division was under heavy siege in Zhulin City, and the 234th Wing was ordered to assemble at Dashantang, and it was also fully engaged in all-day fighting. The Japanese air force provided support, but it was ineffective, and the units were short of ammunition, and there was chaos.

On the night of the 5th, the headquarters of the 40th Division decided to break through the enemy's defense line north and south of Dashantang after midnight and move towards Chunhua Mountain, and decided to leave the 236th Infantry Wing, the wounded, and the field hospital to cover the main force of the division. At midnight, the 234th Wing finally captured the area around Dashantang and completed the assembly, and the 236th Wing occupied the positions around Dashantang and controlled the retreat of the division. At this time, the rifle bullets of the wing were only 10~15 rounds per person, and each grenade was 1~2 pieces. At 2 a.m. on the 6th, the 40th Division began to retreat along the road from Elephant Trunk Bridge to Xiangtu Bridge to Wenjiayuan to Chunhua Mountain.

In the early morning of September 6, Xue Yue issued an order to pursue, and there was no trace of the enemy near Changsha at this time. All but two divisions of the 6 armies and 27 divisions belonging to the Ninth Theater joined the pursuit of the Japanese army, except for the two divisions that remained in Changsha.

On 8 September, the Japanese 6th Division and the 3rd Division successively broke through the interception line, and the 40th Division also withdrew north from the eastern side of Chunhua Mountain. The 99th Army and the 37th Army then intercepted at Mashi Mountain, Mafengzui and other places. The Japanese resisted and retreated. It was not until the 10th that the Japanese army retreated to the north bank of the Miluo River before it was able to contain and rectify. After the 20th, 58th, 73rd, 4th, 37th, and 78th armies of the Ninth Theater pursued to the south bank of the Miluo River, the 78th Army crossed the Miluo River from Hukou on the 13th and carried out an overtaking pursuit to the north of Changle Street.

On September 13, the Japanese army retreated to the original defense area of Xinqiang Hebei, and the 20th, 58th, and 78th armies of Chinese troops searched for and annihilated the remaining Japanese troops south of the Miluo River, and attacked the Japanese positions north of the Xinqiang River on the other. By the 15th, the situation before the start of the battle had basically been restored, and the command post of the 11th Army had also withdrawn to Hankow.

In this battle, the Chinese side suffered more than 25,000 casualties, killed and wounded nearly 60,000 Japanese soldiers, captured 13,900 prisoners, and seized a large amount of supplies, including 21,138 rifles, 815 light and heavy machine guns, 81 mountain artillery, 34 radio stations and a large number of other military supplies, and achieved the third great victory in Changsha.

In addition, because the battle coincided with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Allies were losing ground in the Pacific Theater. U.S. President Roosevelt said: "The victory of the Allies is entirely due to the great victory of the Chinese army in Changsha," and announced that it would lend $500 million to China, and the Allies also decided to appoint Chiang Zhongzheng as the supreme commander of the Allied "China-India-Burma Theater." The British media also reported with the headline "When the Far East is overcast, only the clouds over Changsha are exactly brilliant". The Soviet Union and the Western allies also visited Changsha with a large number of journalists and visiting delegations.

The sensation caused by the victory in Changsha not only significantly enhanced China's status in the international community, but also increased the personal prestige of Chiang himself, and the excited Chiang immediately commended the meritorious generals, and Li Yutang, commander of the 10th Army, was promoted to deputy commander of the 27th Group Army. Fang Xianjue, the former commander of the 10th Division, was promoted to commander of the 10th Army. Ge Xiancai, the former major general of the 28th Regiment, was promoted to the deputy commander of the 10th Division, and other generals who won combat exploits in battles were also rewarded by the National Army Command.

Although China achieved great success on the battlefield, the American and British forces in the South Pacific suffered heavy losses after the Battle of the Philippines. A month ago, Churchill told the Americans. Singapore's island fortress can withstand a six-month siege.

General Percival, the supreme commander of the British forces on the Singapore side, although he had 85,000 troops, held his position to repel the enemy's attack. He made the same mistake as General MacArthur: he concentrated all his forces on the shores of the Strait. He did not listen to General Wavell's advice. The British Eighteenth Division was brought in and deployed in the open field northeast of the Channel Causeway, where he believed that the enemy was most likely to launch a strong attack. The Northwest Coast is handed over to Gordon. Bennett's Australian army defended. In order to establish a line of defense, they were rolling in a swamp overgrown with dense tropical plants. The jungle blocked the firing range and prevented communication between the various tactical positions.

Convinced that Percival had enough troops and munitions to resist the imminent Japanese attack, Governor Shenton. Sir Thomas announced that Singapore would write "a glorious page in the history of the Empire". However, due to the lack of propaganda, while the army was actively preparing fortifications, civilians were hindering combat readiness, insisting that the army issue a written permit from the "competent authority" to dig trenches or cut down palm trees on the golf course.

It was only when the costly new facilities at the Janggi naval base began to be blown up with explosives that the extent of the danger was realized.

Merchants immediately stopped selling goods on credit to European customers, and the increasing air raids caused uncontrollable fires. Since there were no bomb shelters, the casualties were heavy. The ditches outside the city have become graves of flies, drunken deserters roaming the streets, looting bombed-out houses, and long lines of refugees lining up on the docks.

The last scene of the British tragedy in Malaya was performed on the evening of 7 September, when General Yamashita sent the Guards Division across the strait to occupy the small island at the entrance to the Janggi Naval Base, which was now bombed to ruins. It was a feint to get rid of the defenders' defenses, and at that moment, the Japanese artillery began to fire fiercely, and the sound of artillery was like rolling thunder.

The results of the Japanese artillery bombardment were astonishing, and by dawn a smoke screen hung over the burning oil depot, which was destroyed to prevent the burning oil from flowing into the strait. As the day wore on, the firing was methodically directed to the west, knocking down the machine-gun bunkers and fortifications around the channel's causeway.

Churchill thought that Singapore could hold out for half a year, but in fact it lasted less than ten days, and on September 15, 1941, the day after the Battle of Changsha, all order in Singapore collapsed. On the orders of the Japanese, at 6 o'clock in the afternoon of this day, the garrison general Percival, together with his senior officers, drove to the Ford Motor Factory in Bukit Chima, the rear of the Japanese front, to negotiate with the Japanese commander Yamashita Fumi.

As a defeated general on the Chinese battlefield, Yamashita Fengfumi, who was almost executed as a scapegoat, was proudly waiting for these Brits. In contrast to Yamashita Fumi's triumph, Percival's haggard face and bloodshot eyes showed his deep sense of defeat.

The British were covered in dirt on their uniforms, and they looked pitiful as they sat down in a row on the other side of an unclothed table. When they learned through an interpreter that this was not a negotiation to discuss the terms of surrender, and thus became even more uneasy, the round-headed Japanese general Huo Ran pointed to the surrender document spread out in front of them on the table and asked rudely: "To sign or not to sign?" Percival, though he was already depressed, was not ready to accept this humiliation of all kinds, and was about to get up and leave. However, after consulting with his officers, he was determined to save his soldiers and the citizens of Singapore. At 8:10 a.m., in front of the movie camera that shot the camera, he signed the surrender in humiliation.

The British army was forced to surrender unconditionally due to lack of water and shells, and the British army still had more than 80,000 men at this time. In this battle, the Japanese army only killed and wounded about 140,000 British troops at the cost of about 10,000 casualties. In this way, the "Gibraltar of the East", which Britain had painstakingly operated for 20 years, and Singapore, the world's famous fourth largest military port, fell into the hands of the Japanese army, and the gateway to the Indian Ocean was opened.

Japan finally conquered the "Lion City" and smashed the foundations of British imperialist power in the Far East. More suffering and death are yet to come! Although Yamashita promised to spare the lives of civilians that night, in an operation that later became customary, many European women and children were captured and imprisoned in Zhangyi Prison, and large numbers of Chinese were executed without mercy. The Allied hope of Southeast Asia was extinguished, and the prestige and reputation were wiped out by the war. (To be continued......)