Episode 135 Closure

On the battlefield in the northeast, although it cannot be called "devastating", it is absolutely overwhelming. Even in the War of Unification, the Ming army never used such concentrated armored forces and aircraft. The battlefield of the Unification War was much wider, and at that time the Ming army had far fewer tanks and planes than now. Now compared with the North China Plain, the Heilongjiang Plain is a little bigger, and the steel of the Ming army, whether in the sky or underground, is too concentrated.

The Japanese army fought bravely, and it was said that one was not afraid of hardship and the other was not afraid of death. The training and quality of soldiers are also generally higher than those of Ming soldiers. However, after all, the Ming army was already an army that had fought for more than a year, and it was a nationwide war, and basically every division and regiment had been fully baptized on the battlefield, and more than 90% of them were veterans. The only war experience the Japanese army had was more than a month of fighting from July 7 to August 15. From an officer to a soldier, it can only be said that he has "been on the battlefield and seen blood", which is far from the standard of a "veteran". Moreover, the Ming army's armored warfare and air-ground three-dimensional warfare on such a scale were unprecedented for the Japanese army. Even in the previous month or so, the intensity was far less than this general offensive.

In the past month or so, the two armies have been constantly moving to the northeast, and the battle line has changed rapidly, first the Japanese strategic offensive, the Ming army's strategic retreat, and then the Ming army's strategic offensive and the Japanese army's strategic retreat, the Japanese army has never had a long-term stable front, and there is no opportunity to build fortifications well. That is, less than ten days before the general attack of the Ming army, the Japanese army was able to build its own position. The time was too short, and the trenches were built in a hurry, and did not form a defense system with several layers of depth and a huge system.

The civil engineering officers of the Japanese army were also extremely rigorous, and the construction was carried out in full accordance with the norms of the "Field City Construction Regulations". At this time, the design ideas of "field city building norms" in various countries were completely still the routines of the First World War, and the "anti-tank" factor was basically not taken into account......

Now, in the face of the first wave of huge casualties caused by the bombs and incendiary bombs of the Ming planes, and then in the face of the large number of tanks that had rushed in front of them, the Japanese officers and men were completely stunned and at a loss. In previous battles, I had never seen such a turbulent tank, and I had never heard such a roar. The Japanese anti-tank artillery team was crazy, shouting and shouting, while desperately aiming, firing, retracting, loading, and aiming...... But there are too few artillery, and in front of the dense tanks in front of you, there is really a feeling of "I don't know who to hit", or even "it's the same whether I fight or not".

The shells and machine guns of the Ming tank group covered them like a storm, and the anti-tank artillery groups that opened their trenches and opened fire were quickly eliminated one by one. Only a few Japanese soldiers with anti-tank guns remained, and because of their low stature, there were fewer casualties, and they kept shooting with red eyes.

For the Ming tanks, especially the "Lightning 4" and "Lightning 3" that took the lead, the anti-tank guns basically did not work. The Japanese soldiers watched in despair as the tanks roared, drove up to their faces, and then drove down and over the trenches with a downward and arch...... Turning his face again, the first tanks were already behind him. I wanted to catch up and attack the rear of the tank, but at this time, the front, back, left and right were already full of Ming tanks. Machine guns came from all directions, and the Japanese soldiers who had just climbed out of the trench were either beaten into a sieve, or directly knocked down and crushed into meatloaf.

Within two hours, the two Japanese defense lines were fully breached, and more armored troops continued to tear apart, the gap became bigger and bigger, and the influx of Ming troops became faster and faster. By the evening of August 15, the Ming forces on both sides had advanced 50 kilometers and 65 kilometers respectively, leaving the Japanese troops in the middle far behind - that is, in their pockets.

On the 16th and 17th, the Ming army continued to advance north and east, and more and more troops entered the battle, and the encirclement gradually thickened and closed. The Japanese army in the middle broke through the siege with the strength of a fish to the death, but to no avail. Compared with the Ming army, the Japanese army was seriously short of artillery, ammunition, vehicles and fuel, and most of the heavy weapons and baggage relied on military horses. The light weapons in the hands of the soldiers could not be compared with the Ming army. In addition to the light and heavy machine guns that are not too high, the rest is all the "38 big covers". Even if the Ming army only used small arms to exchange fire, it was able to completely suppress the Japanese army.

On the fifth day of the battle, on August 20, the Japanese army had annihilated at least 15,000 of the 100,000 men in Heilongjiang, about 20,000 or so, and retreated eastward in time before the encirclement.

The remaining 80,000 Japanese troops are now all encircled by the Ming army.

In the past few days, Xiang Xiaoqiang has not been idle at all, sitting in an armored command car and a few military vehicles and guards of the People's Guard, running around the northeast land, which place has just been recovered, which place is the most fierce, he ran over to the labor army, and the soldiers with a lunch box to eat a big pot of dishes, and then give a few speeches to boost morale.

In the past few days, he has been constantly receiving telegrams from the Nanjing Command on the armored command vehicle, mainly on the macro strategic situation. The battle situation of the Ming army in Central Asia, the battle situation of the Ming army at sea, and so on. Among them, Xiang Xiaoqiang is most interested in the progress of submarine warfare.

Now the total number of submarines of the Ming army in the "four major theaters" at sea has reached 35. As expected, the "Western Pacific Theater" has achieved the highest results, sinking six cargo ships and three oil tankers since the start of the war, with a total tonnage of 80,000 tons. This theater is the place with the highest concentration of large coastal cities and large ports in Japan, and the shipping routes are the busiest, and the results of the war are naturally the highest.

The "Sea of Japan" was the next most successful, sinking 50,000 tons, half of which were Soviet ships. The results of the "East China Sea Theater" and the "Northern Theater" were much less, both less than 20,000 tons.

These results are evenly distributed on the head of each submarine, and naturally they cannot be counted as small. However, in terms of the total amount, of course, it is far from enough, let alone cutting off Japan's sea transportation lines, I am afraid that it is not enough to attract Japan's attention. This is, of course, due to the fact that the number of submarines is too small, and the time for the implementation of submarine warfare is too short.

However, now the Admiralty is also gradually leaning towards submarines. Every day, more slipways are allocated to submarines.

Submarines have only one advantage of being a small ship, that is, "slipway compatibility", in other words, they don't grab slipways very much. As a traditional naval power, the Ming Dynasty naturally has a very strong shipbuilding ability. However, no matter how big a naval power is, there are not many large slipways and docks in a country. Now, the large slipway docks are all used for the construction of aircraft carriers and heavy cruisers. And more small shipyards and slipways that cannot build cruisers or even destroyers can be allocated for submarine construction.

To Xiang Xiaoqiang's relief, as these slipways drove out of submarines one after another, the goal of "submarines cutting off Japanese blood vessels" that he envisioned was approaching step by step. It is now possible to keep about 30 submarines in place. It won't be long before Japan is able to maintain a hundred or more submarines in the four theaters around Japan, and Japan will not be far from complete defeat.

In submarine warfare, Xiang Xiaoqiang is most concerned about the two air defense submarines, the Qingyu and the Yitian. Now they have successfully crossed the Ryukyu island chain and entered the "Western Pacific Theater", that is, they have sailed south of Honshu and Shikoku Islands. In the past few days, the two submarines shot down 11 bombers, 3 water reconnaissance planes, and 4 fighters, and also seriously damaged a large cargo ship and sank an oil tanker.

Because the anti-aircraft submarine did not have torpedoes and did not have main guns, it could only be beaten with the heaviest weapon - 40-mm Bofors when it saw the freighter. The freighter they encountered was too big, at least 8,000 tons, and could only be damaged by a 40mm gun, but not sunk. And that tanker was different, although the shells were small, they ignited the oil inside, blowing up the tanker into a big fireball.