There was another important reason for Yoshimoto to make up his mind to withdraw the rest of his First Army to the south of the Yellow River. That is, the battle on the Eastern Front has come to an end, and the enemy's large tank clusters, which have been mainly used for operations on the Eastern Front, may turn around and advance westward at any time.

Once the enemy forces have freed up the tank clusters on the eastern front, they will move westward to southern Hebei or northeastern Henan. For the first army that has suffered heavy losses and has no enough troops to stick to the north of the Yellow River, it will be a catastrophe. That's hundreds of tanks, not hundreds of trucks that don't pose a threat.

The terrain on the Jilu border is flat and flat, which is conducive to the enemy's tanks interspersed with operations. But in the northeast of Henan, except for the western part of the Taihang Mountains, the rest of the places are basically the same as the Hebei and Shandong border areas. Although it is the main grain producing area of the whole of Henan, the terrain is extremely conducive to the rapid penetration of the enemy's tank clusters.

For Sadaichi Yoshimoto and his First Army, once the enemy's tank cluster turns around, then the First Army, which has already suffered heavy losses and has little strength left, may be even worse than Yoshio last month. After all, when it comes to the two armies under the reorganized North China Front, his first army is far less solid than the 12th Army.

Therefore, after these two divisions reluctantly withdrew from the battlefield in the southeast of Jin, they did not make any stops in the southeast of Jin. Under the order of Yoshimoto Sadachi, and Jincheng and the entire Jin-Henan border area, they directly withdrew to Kaifeng on the south bank of the Yellow River in one go. With the withdrawal of all the Japanese troops in the southeast battlefield of Jin Province across the Yellow River, it also represents the complete end of this battle.

At the same time as the Japanese army retreated in the southeastern battlefield of Shanxi, the two Japanese puppet armies in the Hebei-Henan border area cooperated with them and tried to flank the battlefield in the southeast of Shanxi, and the outcome was quite miserable. Under the attack of the Jin-Cha-Ji reinforcements mobilized by Yang Zhen, as well as a division of the Anti-Japanese Alliance, and the troops of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region in Shanxi, the Japanese puppet army in front of Dongyang Pass was scattered and most of them were surrounded and annihilated.

After breaking through the siege many times, they were trapped in front of Dongyang Pass, on the two hills in the southeast, the two infantry brigades of the Japanese army. After the water supply was cut off and the materials carried were exhausted, the materials airdropped by the Japanese army rarely fell into the hands of the Japanese army due to the terrain. The two infantry brigades trapped in the hinterland of Taihang Mountain were trapped alive in front of Dongyang Pass.

And the brigade that attacked from Linxian County and entered the front line of Hongti Pass reacted quite quickly. After the frontal defeat at Dongyang Pass, seeing that the situation was not good, he quickly retreated south on the spot before the two flanks outflanked the troops and came up. Despite being bitten hard by the pursuing troops and losing nearly half of their troops, the main force finally ran back.

At present, the Eastern Front has been completely retreated, so leaving the First Army, which has suffered heavy losses and has only less than 30% of its own combat effectiveness, is alone on the Pinghan Line, which is unacceptable to Yoshimoto Sadachi in any way. How to shrink the remaining forces to stick to a certain aspect has become a difficult choice that Yoshimoto Sadachi needs to face.

However, compared to Eitaro Uchiyama, the Lieutenant General Yoshimoto Sadachi's actions are more daring. Not only the remnants of the two divisions and regiments that were withdrawn from the battlefield in the southeast of Shanxi Province directly withdrew south of the Yellow River. He even gave up even the entire northern part of Henan, which had not yet been attacked, and the whole army shrank along the Longhai Railway south of the Yellow River centered on Kaifeng. The 12th Army, which had retreated across the Yellow River along the same line to the east, leveled the entire front.

It's just that although Yoshimoto Sadachi said that he gave up northern Henan and northeast Henan, he played a heart in the process of retreating. During the retreat, he made a big fanfare, and consciously and directly exposed the entire retreat to the neighboring First War Zone. And that side also understood it, and sent a group army to follow behind the retreating Japanese troops, and successively seized the entire area west of Xiuwu, north of the Yellow River, and south of Jincheng.

As the Japanese army on the western front abandoned the entire northeastern and northern Henan regions in the shortest possible time, all withdrew across the Yellow River, and all the way biting the retreating Japanese army's anti-union western cluster, and the pursuit force composed of troops from the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region moved south quickly, and basically completely recovered the entire northeastern Henan without a major battle.

The reconquest of northeastern Henan also indicates that the Japanese army will take a frontal assault and take a large in-depth detour on both flanks. The implementation of the three-sided encirclement strategy for the anti-coalition army in the entire southern Hebei and Hebei-Shandong border areas was completely bankrupt, and it also heralded the complete end of the entire North China Battle.

In this battle, the First Army and the Twelfth Army under the North China Front of the Japanese Army suffered heavy losses. Together with the two divisions that landed on the flanks, the elite divisions that had invested heavily were completely annihilated. By the time the Japanese army had completely retreated to the Yellow River, the North China Front had basically lost its ability to sustain operations.

Together with the first phase of the battle, the Japanese army lost almost the entire North China control area except for central Lu, southern Lu, and eastern Henan. Although it also paid a heavy price, the casualties of the Anti-Japanese Alliance, which entered the customs after the end of the battle, together with the various units of the 18th Group Army in North China, were also about 100,000. However, the battle ended with a complete victory against the United Nations and the troops of the 18th Group Army in North China.

But sometimes things happen when you don't expect them. Tail chasing the retreating troops of the Japanese army on the Pinghan Line, and quickly moving south to seize the northeast of Henan, in order to ensure the anti-union forces in the northwest of Shandong and the south of Hebei. In the territory of Huojia, there was a little friction with the troops of the First War Zone who came to receive it.

One division dispatched from the First War Zone, two divisions of the Anti-Union West Cluster that pursued the Japanese First Army, were regarded as puppet troops in Nanjing. Nanjing's puppet government was established under the protection of the Japanese army's bayonets. In order to show his orthodox status, all the puppet troops who nominally belonged to his own sequence were also replaced with military uniforms from Chongqing.

What's worse is that the two divisions that went south to fight against the United Nations, the division commanders were all from the old Anti-Japanese Federation, and it was the first time they encountered the army in Chongqing. And because of this battle, the North China puppet army also participated in a lot of troops. Therefore, it is quite familiar with those puppet soldiers who are dressed exactly the same as those in Chongqing, but the armbands and chest marks they wear are different.

When the two armies met, a division of the Anti-Union that served as the vanguard. According to the information from the enemy report issued by the higher authorities before the pursuit, the troops on the Chongqing side should now be south of the Yellow River. These people who wore the same military uniforms as the puppet army in North China regarded them as a front army of the puppet army stationed in northeast Henan, and they didn't care too much.

For the division commander of the Anti-Japanese Federation who commanded the vanguard, since it is a puppet army, what is there to say, just eat them. Despite the fact that there were only two regiments in hand, there were actually only five infantry battalion formations. But he looked down on the puppet army, and immediately launched an attack without the slightest hesitation.

In fact, the so-called peaceful construction of the Wang puppet regime in Nanjing, although in order to flaunt itself as orthodox, copied the military uniform of Chongqing. Although the military uniforms of the two are almost identical on the surface. But in fact, there are certain differences between the two, except for the chest mark and armband, in the subtleties.

For example, on the cockade, there is a circle of red around the cockade of Nanjing. In terms of the color of the military uniform, it is also slightly lighter than that of Chongqing. There are also certain differences in the design of the pockets of military uniforms. The most important thing is that on the flag, in addition to the normal military flag, there is also a pennant like a yellow diaper

It's just that in a hurry, who has the time and energy to tell the difference between the military uniforms on the two. However, anyway, the superiors said in the enemy situation report that there is a puppet army in this area. Anyway, since it's a puppet army, let's fight it first.

As a result, the division commander who commanded the vanguard also moved very neatly. By the time the political commissar of the division arrived in Huojia with a follow-up reinforced regiment and artillery, he commanded five battalions, which were the vanguard of the entire anti-Japanese alliance southbound troops, to directly defeat the division in the First War Zone.

Except for a regiment led by a regiment commander after the break, who saw that the opportunity was not good and quickly retreated and escaped. The divisional headquarters and mid-ranking officers of the division were all captured, and the troops were all crushed. Fortunately, the two regiments of the Anti-Japanese Union that participated in the battle, except for mortars and 12-mm machine guns, did not keep up in time with heavy weapons. Although the collapse of this division was a bit fast, the casualties were not large.

However, after capturing the division commander and several senior officers of this division, it was discovered that although the uniforms were almost the same, the words on the chest marks on the uniforms of these captured prisoners were somewhat different from those of the North China puppet army. When the true identity of this army is discovered, it will be too late to say anything. The two armies who have never been in contact with each other before, this can be regarded as not knowing each other.

In fact, not only did the Anti-Japanese Federation fight in this battle, but the new editor in the First War Zone, who entered the territory of Huojia, lost even more inexplicably. When he was ordered to cross the river to the north to recover the "lost territory", Shangfeng did not tell him that there would be such a well-equipped "communist army" in this area.

When I found that there was a team in front of me that was very different from the Japanese army in terms of military uniforms and weapons, and the military uniforms on my body were also very different from those puppet troops composed of the former Chongqing side defecting to the enemy. Before he had time to send someone to contact, he was pressed by the opponent on the front line, and the tactics of flanking and outflanking were in an uproar.

This new division of the First Theater with a total strength of only more than 4,000 people was crushed by this opponent who was still encountering it for the first time before it could be launched. Although the division headquarters walked in the middle of the two regiments, a battalion interspersed by the Anti-Japanese Union directly made dumplings.

When the two armies who had fought a battle in a daze found out that they had found the wrong opponent, they were extremely embarrassed. Faced with the captured major general, division commander, colonel, deputy division commander, lieutenant colonel chief of staff, plus two regiment commanders and more than 2,000 prisoners, the division commander of the Anti-Japanese Federation did not know what to do.

The local armed forces of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region, which were originally active in this area, were also staring at each other and could not help much. Although there was friction with some parties before, it was a local stubbornness. Now facing the entire regular division in the First War Zone, they don't know how to deal with it.

And the captured Chongqing division commander had no hatred for defeating his opponent except for curiosity. On the contrary, he was quite annoyed with his boss. Before crossing the Yellow River, he still wondered how such a good thing could be his turn as a ragtag new editor.

At the moment, inflation in the rear is higher than day by day. The fiat currency is depreciating every day, and the rate of military pay is far from keeping up with the rate of inflation. Relying on more and more meager military salaries alone, it is becoming more and more difficult to support the family. Not to mention the current ragtag army, even if the Central Army can now have a stable station, it is also a pretty good thing. If the station is more fertile, or has some specialties, it will be even better.

Having a stable station is equivalent to having some other gray income. In this way, although military salaries cannot be raised, these gray incomes can at least change the living dilemma brought about by the current rise in prices and the lack of military salaries. Those high-ranking officials in the rear will not wait for the stable rear. Isn't it just for such a little benefit that they are trying to move to the front line?