Chapter 559: Xuzhou after the war

During the two-hour shelling, tens of thousands of shells fell on an area within a radius of only a few kilometers in Xiao County, and the Japanese positions were shrouded in bloody rain.

Liao Lei turned around and gave the general attack order, to be honest, in Liao Lei's opinion, the troops went up and cleaned the battlefield almost the same, such a fierce artillery bombardment, in exchange for his own troops, can survive, it is an absolute miracle, the Gui army and the Sichuan army rushed up from all directions, stepping on the floating soil that was blown loose by the shells and did not pass the surface of the feet, did not see a single living Japanese soldier, and even the corpses were broken pieces.

Approaching the core area, they encountered weak resistance, that is, some Japanese soldiers who were seriously wounded and had not yet lost their breath, holding on to their last breath, shooting sporadic bullets, which did not pose a threat to the Chinese soldiers who surrounded them at all, but some dying and struggling Japanese soldiers, lying in the pile of corpses, waiting for the Chinese soldiers to come, pulled the grenades on their bodies, but caused certain casualties to the Chinese army.

Despite this, there was no impact on the entire battle situation, and the encircling forces of the Gui Army and the Sichuan Army met in Xiao County, which also meant that the Xiao County Campaign, which encircled and annihilated the First Army of Isoya Lianjie, ended victoriously, and more than 50,000 Japanese troops were wiped out, and not even a single prisoner was captured, which made Li Zongren, who was ready to make a big fuss about Japanese prisoners, very dissatisfied.

He issued an order to find the bodies of Ryosuke Isoya and other senior generals of the Japanese army, and searched the entire position, without even a trace, Li Zongren was nervous for a while, could it be that Ryosuke Isoya slipped through the net? If this is the case, the Battle of Xuzhou is a pot of raw rice, an impermeable encirclement of 230,000 troops, and it is inexplicable that Isoya Ryosuke can slip through the net.

After careful investigation, finally in a basement, the bodies of more than a dozen high-ranking Japanese officers were found, but they had been burned beyond recognition by gasoline, and it was Ryosuke Isoya who could not distinguish at all, and could only judge their identities from the command knives left at the scene, and there was no doubt that they were all the senior generals of the Japanese First Army.

From the beginning of the Kaifeng Resistance Battle on 17 December to the end of the Battle of Xiaoxian on 28 December, the Battle of Xuzhou, which lasted more than 10 days, finally came to an end, and Li Zongren, commander of the Xuzhou Theater Command, commanded the Gui Army and the Sichuan Army troops under the command post to annihilate the 130,000 troops of the Japanese North China Dispatch Army, which had broken into the hinterland of the Yellow River defense line, with a total of 130,000 troops, in the Xuzhou area.

In this battle, the troops belonging to the Xuzhou Theater suffered less than 40,000 casualties, it can be said that it was at the lowest cost, and achieved the greatest results, to explore the reasons, there was no independent division of the Su Jingfeng Yellow River Henan Garrison Corps, in Kaifeng three days of tragic resistance, Zhang Zizhong Sulu Garrison Corps in Shangqiu two days of bloody fighting, for Li Zongren in Xuzhou calmly arranged, to gain ample time, not only will there be no Xuzhou victory, the war situation is developing in that direction, it is not yet known, one thing is certain, Isoya Lianjie will occupy Xuzhou.

In order to ensure the victory of the Battle of Xuzhou, the troops of the independent division paid a huge price, the Yellow River Henan Garrison Corps suffered more than 17,000 casualties, more than half of the strength of the troops, the corps commander Major General Su Jingfeng was killed, the Sulu garrison corps suffered more than 15,000 casualties, close to half of the strength of the troops, and the corps commander Lieutenant General Zhang Zizhong was killed, and the two divisions suffered a total of more than 32,000 casualties.

With weak forces to meet the first army of the Japanese army, the hardship and cruelty of the battle can be imagined, Li Zongren faced under the city of Xuzhou, but was the troops of the independent division of the tired division, the strength was weakened layer by layer, when they arrived at the city of Xuzhou, the total strength of the Japanese army was less than 100,000, and Li Zongren had 230,000 people, waiting for work, the battle of Tongshan, it was Tang Qiusheng's division to annihilate more than 45,000 Japanese troops, Xuzhou Theater poured all its troops, in Xiao County to encircle and annihilate the Japanese army, but more than 50,000 people, This was the whole process of the Battle of Xuzhou.

Therefore, in the Battle of Xuzhou, Tang Qiuli's independent division troops made the most sacrifices and paid the greatest price, but they did not participate in the final war of annihilation, the world is often like this, people only see those who hold laurels in their hands and run to the finish line, and cheer and applaud them, those who dedicate themselves on the way are often behind the halo and are ignored by the public.

The reporters accompanying the army in the Xuzhou Theater took a large number of on-the-spot photographs and sent them to newspapers in major cities across the country at the fastest speed, especially in Shanghai and Nanjing.

The whole country was boiling, and the major newspapers printed them one after another, with eye-catching headlines such as "Xuzhou Victory, General Li Zongren Commanded the National Army, Gathering and Annihilating More Than 130,000 Japanese Elite First Army," or "General Li Zongren used his soldiers like a god, and the Japanese chief Isoya Ryosuke was buried under the city of Xuzhou," and the content was a detailed report of the Xuzhou Battle for the reporters.

For a time, Li Zongren became a well-known hero, a newly rising hero of the Anti-Japanese War, all kinds of honors in one, his goal was achieved, with the battle of Xuzhou, the new Gui system quickly entered the eyes of the people, and stepped onto the political stage of the Republic of China.

Xuzhou, the Theater Commander's Department, in the face of the reporters who flocked to the whole country, Li Zongren was full of spring breeze, wearing a brand-new general's uniform, which set off his Confucian demeanor, and the adjutants were busy distributing the pre-printed materials to the reporters, Li Zongren's demeanor was very modest, and he attributed all the credit to the officers and men of the Gui Army and the Sichuan Army, especially the Sichuan Army, who were the objects of his support, and took the trouble to answer all kinds of questions and strange questions from the reporters.

In order to satisfy the curiosity of the reporters, Li Zongren specially arranged for them to go to Xiao County to do on-the-spot interviews; seeing the scene after such a fierce battle, the reporters who had not experienced the smoke of the war exclaimed again and again.

Li Zongren was very satisfied with this kind of scene, he had time to put on a show, the news of the annihilation of the First Army of Isoya Ryosuke in Xuzhou quickly spread to all the Japanese troops, since the loss of contact with the First Army, Zaihito and Kazuki Kiyoji felt that things were not good, and ordered the Japanese troops in various places to stop the attack, and strengthen the defense against the Chinese army on the principle of sticking to the existing position.

The Japanese base camp, which was extremely surprised, immediately ordered all units of the Shanghai Dispatch Army to immediately stop all kinds of military operations, and took the existing positions as their basic policy, but their so-called existing positions were still ships roaming the sea.

The targets that need to be rescued are gone, and what kind of effort is there to fight, and if you can't get it right, the unit that will be sent in will be eaten by the Chinese army, so after the destruction of the first army of Isoya Ryosuke, the Japanese troops on both the northern and southern fronts have taken a defensive position to adjust their deployment.

The Japanese army adopted a strategic defensive position, and the generals of the Central Army and Chairman Chiang in the Songhu and Hangzhou Bay battlefields in the south were naturally greatly relieved.

Under the siege of the Japanese army in several ways, it was not easy to keep the pots and jars in Shanxi, and he also took the initiative to provoke the Japanese.

Yan Xishan and Chairman Jiang did not move, but this did not mean that a few generals of the independent division could spare the Japanese army, and on the Cangzhou front, Liu Tiehan and Li Honggang, who had defeated more than 300,000 Japanese troops under the personal command of Zairen, took the opportunity of the Japanese army's retreat on all fronts to take the initiative to attack, not only intercepting and killing the strength of several brigades of the Japanese army's rearguard, but also pushing the battle line all the way to the periphery of Cangzhou, and the original Japanese positions had already changed hands.

In addition, Li Honggang was also sent to lead four brigades of troops to approach the Jinghai area in the south of Tianjin, and the front of the troops pointed to Tianjin City.

After several fierce battles in the Qingxian and Dongziya areas, Li Honggang's troops found that the Japanese army had a tendency to gradually increase its troops, and in order to avoid being surrounded by the Japanese army in the Jinghai area, he took the initiative to withdraw to the Cangzhou line and threatened the Tianjin campaign, which ended the battle.

Feng Jiwu on the Niangziguan battlefield on the Western Front, after receiving the information that the Japanese army had stopped attacking and there were signs of retreat, sent Han Tie, chief of staff of the Niangziguan Garrison Corps, to lead five brigades of more than 60,000 troops to sneak out of the old pass on the right flank of Niangziguan, and set up an ambush on the road that the Japanese army must pass through to retreat to Jingcheng Pass.

Because of the huge disparity in strength, Han Tie's troops took the initiative to leave the battlefield in the evening, for some reason, the Japanese army did not pursue, Han Tie's department, and then returned to Niangzi Pass safely, so far, all the fighting in the northern battlefield stopped.

Looking at the entire situation of the northern battlefield, after the Japanese troops stopped attacking everywhere, the Japanese Yamaguchi troops under the city of Wuxiang were isolated and prominent, in fact, they were already a lone army, and the intelligence obtained by the special operations detachment showed that the Japanese troops under the mountain pass had signs of retreating, and the strength of its three wings had already been on the route to Shijiazhuang, arranging alert troops, reinforcing bridges, and this route was just passing through the Taihang Mountains.

(To be continued)