Chapter 686: Jinling Undercurrent

Okamura Ningji looked at the great rivers and mountains of Shaanxi in Taiyuan, leaving the ancient capital of Xi'an, his heart was like a cat scratching, staring at Dingbian and drooling, Tang Qiuli in Wubao was not idle, looking at the distribution of the Japanese army in Shanxi, he understood why Okamura Ningji did not immediately cross the Yellow River west and attack Shaanxi.

If the Kwantung Army goes south, it will join forces with the Japanese army in Shanxi, and the strength will increase greatly, and it will be much more difficult to fight in the future, and a situation should be created to let Okamura Ningji cross the Yellow River to the west and consume the Japanese army's strength in the continuous battle, so as to finally kill Okamura Ningji in Shanxi.

He sent a telegram to Tang Qiusheng, who was in eastern Hebei and was fighting hard with the southbound troops of the Kwantung Army, not to entangle the Kwantung Army troops too tightly, and to block them appropriately, once the Kwantung Army troops reoccupied Tianjin, there was an intention to move west into the Taihang Mountains, and the Sulu Mobile Corps immediately returned to the Taihang Mountains to stand by, and Tang Qiusheng, who received Tang Qiuli's order, was greatly relieved, and this was easy to do.

In the past few days, Tang Qiusheng's corps has fought very hard, and the Kwantung Army's troops, which are basically equal to him, have surpassed the Japanese army in North China in terms of combat effectiveness and firepower, and the soldiers of the Kwantung Army are extremely fierce in combat, and every day, the Sulu Mobile Corps has to pay a corresponding price in order to stop the Kwantung Army troops from advancing, but in about five days of fighting, the casualties of the Corps have reached about 18,000 people, and the loss of more than one brigade of troops has never appeared in the combat history of the Sulu Mobile Corps.

The Kwantung Army did not take advantage either, at least more than 20,000 devils fell on the land of eastern Hebei, not counting the number of wounded soldiers, after a few days of fighting, the Kwantung Army went south to the corps, and the strength has been reduced from 130,000 when it first entered the pass to about 100,000, how can the Kwantung Army troops, which have never suffered major losses in recent years, swallow this breath, the greater the casualties, the more ferocious the fighting, the repeated group charges, the crowd tactics, but also the momentum.

According to the latest order of the division commander Tang Qiuli, the Sulu Mobile Corps deliberately relaxed the frontal blocking force, and the pace of the Kwantung Army troops immediately accelerated, and the distance from the intended target Tianjin was getting closer and closer.

At the same time that Okamura Ningji began to prepare for the attack on Shaanxi, he calmed down and sent a long telegram to the base camp, he felt that he should have an explanation or explanation for the loss of Tianjin, all the 60,000 defenders, and the death of the lieutenant general commander, and now is the best time, Okamura Ningji slyly analyzed that if Tianjin was just lost, he would go to the telegram, it would be very passive, similar to the fate of Kazuki Kiyoji, at least he had to be transferred out of North China, and his position would be replaced by other generals, Wouldn't it be a failure to live up to the expectations and entrustment of all colleagues in the Kwantung Army.

Therefore, after he lost Tianjin, the telegram from the country, the base camp, and the staff headquarters was a "drag" word, under the pretext of commanding the operation in the Taihang Mountains, taking Taiyuan, and occupying the entire territory of Shanxi, the situation was different, starting from Tashiro Wanichiro to Kazuki Kiyoji, always going around Pingjin, no commander of the Imperial North China Dispatch Army had such a record, losing Tianjin, taking Shanxi, which is more important, the base camp and the General Staff will naturally consider.

In the telegram, Okamura Ninji asked for punishment and asked the base camp to remove himself from the post of commander of the North China Dispatch Army, he was willing to take full responsibility for the loss of Tianjin, and fully accept any punishment from the base camp, in order to comfort the 60,000 soldiers of the Tianjin Empire and the dead of Lieutenant General Ono Ichiro, this is a typical trick to retreat as advance, Okamura Ninji felt the pulse of the base camp, at this time, even if he wanted to cut off his head, he had to wait for the whole territory of Shanxi to be completely occupied and become the rear of the imperial holy war.

After receiving Okamura Ninji's telegram of resignation, this time, the high-ranking officials in the Japanese army base camp surprisingly did not make a fuss, and the various factions did not make a big fuss about the Tianjin incident, and their opinions tended to be the same, and the situation in North China was stabilized by Okamura-kun, and Emperor Hirohito was very happy, and he did not want the Tianjin incident to become a gladiatorial arena for various factions to compete for interests and a debate platform for attacking each other.

For deeper consideration, after the full-scale start of the war against China, in less than a year, the North China side changed three commanders one after another, is it because the generals of the Great Japanese Empire are incompetent, or is that the devil Tang Qiu is powerful, so that not to mention the morale of the soldiers of the Imperial Army, how can the face of the Imperial Army remain? Where is my face? On the navy side, they will find a reason to attack the army, and they will have to bother to strike a balance.

In fact, the heads of various factions in the Japanese army, also out of consideration of the actual situation, saw that the North China region of China has become a quagmire for the generals of the Japanese Empire, and the two commanders have been trapped, Okamura Ninji can achieve such a big result, pay attention to proving his military command ability, and moreover, the opposition does not have a suitable candidate to replace Okamura Ninji's position, if a general is sent to preside over the overall situation in North China, the record is not as good as Okamura Ninji, and it is not his personal face and future that he will lose, but also the face of the faction to which he belongs. Okamura Ninji is currently the best candidate to sit in North China.

Emperor Hirohito also saw through the thoughts of these important ministers under him, but he did not say it, in his opinion, no matter which faction of the general, can win the battle for himself and the empire, is the best candidate, not to mention, the imperial staff headquarters is planning a peace operation against the Chiang Kai-shek government in Nanjing, it is said that the progress is smooth, once the Nanjing government can stand by and watch the war in North China, the entire power of the empire will be used to deal with the devil Tang Qiuli, eradicate Tang Qiuli's forces, and then turn to deal with the Nanjing government, It's a great plan for each one.

Therefore, Okamura Ninji received a telegram from the base camp, not only did not condemn the loss of Tianjin and the death of the soldiers, but also commended him for occupying Shanxi, praised him as a famous army general, an imperial hero, and an outstanding citizen who made outstanding contributions to the Great East Asian Holy War of His Majesty the Emperor, and awarded the Royal Medal, Okamura Ninji smiled proudly, this qiē was in his expectation, and it was also the result he wanted the most, and he got a qiē, including honor.

But Okamura Ninji was not an easily satisfied fellow, he struck while the iron was hot, called back to the base camp, in addition to expressing his gratitude and determination to serve His Majesty the Emperor, analyzed the situation in North China, and began to put forward conditions, asking the country to send more troops to North China, whether it is the army or navy, aircraft, artillery, tanks, the more the merrier.

The Japanese army headquarters sent a telegram back that it was possible to increase the strength and equipment of the North China Dispatch Army, but it had to wait, because the newly formed divisions and regiments in China had not yet been formed, and they could not leave for North China until at least the end of August this year.

Tang Qiuli in the Yellow River defense line in Shaanxi, a large increase in troops, each major ferry, there is a steady stream of new troops, the number and number are unknown, in fact, this is Tang Qiuli to Okamura Ningji burned a fire, that is, to let Okamura Ningji cross the river with the existing strength to attack, do not have to wait for the arrival of the Kwantung Army, plus in recent days, the pace of the Kwantung Army southward has accelerated, he does not believe that the old devil Okamura Ningji is not moved.

Tang Qiuli ordered Sun Zhenbang's troops to hide in the civilian armed forces in Dingbian, and he instructed the secret service not to alarm the Japanese spies, and let these messengers bring the information back, this is the modern version of "Jiang Gan's book theft", the Yellow River defense line and the territory of Shaanxi, there is no main force of independent divisions, only civilian armed forces, which is enough to arouse Okamura Ningji's appetite and prompt him to do his best.

Tang Qiuli didn't know the inside story of the Japanese base camp meeting, he was in Wubao, Shaanxi, busy deploying troops, using Japanese spies to dig a pit for Okamura Ningji, he didn't know that at this time in Nanjing, dark clouds were rolling, and there was an undercurrent quietly surging, and the target was himself.

Since the beginning of November of the 27th year of the Republic of China, the third phase of the Battle of Songhu began, and ended at the end of the month, the Japanese army did not want to take any advantage and retreated in panic, for more than half a year, the Japanese in the direction of Songhu, no longer wanted any military action, even the Japanese warships that had been ghostly wandering in the waters off Wusongkou were gone, and the Nanjing State Government and the Central Army troops stationed in the Songhu area waited in fear for more than a month, and did not wait for the sound of Japanese guns.

The anxious Spring Festival of 1938 was also calm as usual, the Nanjing government was greatly relieved from top to bottom, the Japanese did not dare to come, the Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou areas were restored to the prosperity and noise of the past, buying and selling as usual, speculators still bought and sold short, the gang leaders still opened incense halls to accept apprentices, busy with fires and fighting for territory, ordinary people, also busy for food, clothing, shelter and transportation, the war a few months ago, as if it happened in the distant past.

The high-ranking officials of the Nanjing government are still intrigued, visiting the flower building and drinking flower wine, and have forgotten the sound of guns, and at this time in North China, Tang Qiuli and the hundreds of thousands of troops under his command are fighting with the Japanese inseparably, everywhere is gunsmoke, corpses are everywhere, there is no threat from the Japanese on the surface, some of the big officials in the government began to ponder the growing reputation, unlimited expansion of power, and more and more territory Tang Qiu left.

The terrible thing is that the members of this group are all high-ranking officials or senior officials in the Nanjing government who hold actual power, and their policy direction and attitude towards the Japanese government inevitably have a subtle influence, and they have almost become the mainstream opinion of the government's decision-making, and they have gradually been valued by Chairman Chiang.

(To be continued)