Chapter 875: A Delicate Balance

Lieutenant General Hikogoro Ishihara, former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Japanese army's base camp, commanded the western front troops of the Kwantung Army, which reinforced four divisions and two heavy artillery brigades, and marched all the way, not only recovering the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden, but also beating Liu Tiehan's troops back to Jinzhou.

Emperor Hirohito was excited, and all the senior generals in the base camp were excited, but I didn't expect that Ishihara was so capable of fighting, and he didn't find that such a general could replace the position of the supreme commander of the Kwantung Army by Kenkichi Ueda? Such an idea had already been brewing in the hearts of Emperor Hirohito and the senior generals of the base camp.

Only Ishihara Hikogoro himself knows in his heart that the army of the people is not with him at all, the imperial army troops seem to be aggressive, advancing rapidly all the way, but in fact, they are not cheap at all, not to mention how many branches of the army are eliminated, even the shadow of the soldiers of the branch is not seen, but it is their own troops, and there are no less mines and bombs along the way, and it is estimated that there are two wings of attrition, right?

Ishihara was not happy at all, he always felt that this was a trick of the devil Tang Qiuli, according to reason, his opponent was not without the strength of a battle, and he should be a strong opponent, but blindly retreating, it was weird, and it did not conform to the combat style of the North China Independent Division, as an important officer of the General Staff of the base camp, he made a lot of effort to study similar combat examples, and there were few examples of the imperial army troops suffering big losses?

Ishihara's fears became a reality, but it was not the Western Front of the Kwantung Army under his command, but the Kwantung Army troops fighting in the Far East under the command of Commander Kenkichi Ueda.

Ueda Kenkichi commanded the troops surrounding Arsenyev and pursued the Timoshenko breakthrough troops, but they were more than a day away, and His Excellency, the commander of the Kwantung Army, who was in a hurry, ordered the aviation troops to bomb the Timoshenko breakthrough troops, and in the words of Ueda Kenkichi: "Bomb me hard, and you must leave these hateful Soviets in the Far East." ”

The General Staff of the Soviet Army had long been prepared to rescue Timoshenko's Second Army at any cost, and this was the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Comrade Stalin, who dared to slack off, and the Japanese planes, the Soviet Far East Air Force, immediately took off a large number of fighters to intercept them.

This was the second large-scale air battle in the Far East since the Arsenyev air battle, the air battle lasted for two days, hundreds of Japanese and Soviet planes turned into burning firebirds, the Japanese and the Soviets did not have the absolute upper hand, in comparison, the Japanese air force also suffered a little loss, and the bombers lost a lot.

Without the air threat, the Timoshenko breakthrough force continued to retreat undisturbed, and on 13 November, the situation in the Far East deteriorated, and the units of the 1st Army of the Kwantung Army, which was responsible for blocking the Soviet Transcaucasian Front, were smashed open in the blocking line west of Khabarovsk under the fierce attack of the Soviet troops.

Takashima, the commander of the First Army of the Kwantung Army, was greatly shocked, and hurriedly threw the reserves in his hand into the battle to block the breakthrough, but it was still difficult to stop the Soviet soldiers who poured in like water, and the problem was serious, the First Army was facing the danger of being attacked from both sides, and it was still unknown whether the troops who intercepted Timoshenko's troops on the front line of the Bijin River could block the more than 80,000 Soviet soldiers who killed the red eye.

Looking at the map, the red and blue arrows of the dog's tooth jiāo, the eyes of the commander Takashima were straight, what kind of battle is this fighting, just west of Khabarovsk, retaining Jinsky's Transcaucasian Front, taking out a desperate posture, constantly expanding the breakthrough, from the direction of Ussuriysk, and killing Timoshenko's gang of red-eyed troops, behind Timoshenko, the hundreds of thousands of troops under the command of His Excellency the commander are chasing Timoshenko.

The battlefield is all luàn, however, one thing Takashima knows very well, at least before the pursuit of the troops of His Excellency the Commander does not reach Khabarovsk, his own First Army troops must be the pie of the Soviet army, and the fate of being flanked on both sides cannot escape, even if the First Army can keep it from being completely annihilated, it will be greatly damaged, and this battle is called luàn.

The crux of the problem is that the troops of the Soviet Transcaucasian Front have already fought their lives, and the blocking line will definitely not be able to be maintained, and in the city of Khabarovsk, a lot of Soviet shells have already been eaten, and in less than ten hours, the blocking line will completely collapse.

At the critical moment, Takashima took a clever but unfavorable measure against the situation of the Kwantung Army in the Far East, abandoning the blocking line, gathering the troops on the Khabarovsk line and the Bikin River line, immediately moving south, facing the pursuing troops of His Excellency the Commander, first surround the fleeing troops of Timoshenko.

After the First Army began to act, Takashima reported the specific deployment to Ueda Kenkichi, in this case, Ueda Kenkichi did not have a good way, although Takashima took measures, it is very good to see that the remnants of the Timoshenko army got rid of the fate of being annihilated, but more than 80,000 Soviet remnants were defeated, compared with the more than 300,000 Kwantung Army soldiers of the First Army, Ueda Kenkichi still knew the weight of the end.

Without the Kwantung Army's troops to block it, the troops of the Soviet Transcaucasian Front, like a flailed tiger, quickly passed through Khabarovsk, without even stopping their footsteps, grabbing the back of the First Army of the Kwantung Army and chasing straight down.

Takashima's idea was good, the deployment was correct, and Timoshenko was not a vegetarian, and when he reached the south of Khabarovsk, west of the Bikin River, in the Sikhote Mountains, he led the troops, suddenly turned due east, passed by the 1st Army of the Kwantung Army, which was pressing south, got rid of the fate of a head-on collision, and went straight to Kamchatka.

Temoshenko's move almost shocked Kenkichi Ueda and Takashima's jaws, they have always firmly believed that the remnants of Timoshenko's troops can only completely get rid of the fate of annihilation by joining up with the Transcaucasian Front that came to the rescue.

The problem is not only so simple, Timoshenko's move has turned the Second Army of the Kwantung Army, which was fighting with the Kamchatka Front of the Soviet Union, into an extremely dangerous situation, the Far Eastern battlefield has become a mess, and the Second Army of the Kwantung Army has become a lone army, facing the fate of being attacked by the Soviet Army on both sides.

Ueda Kenkichi and Takashima met, both sides had calm faces, obviously angry, but they didn't know who to shoot, in the temporary command post, the two looked at each other, the Kwantung Army troops led by Ueda Kenkichi had already chased the Soviet Transcaucasian Front troops jiāo fire, jī fierce gunfire, one after another, at the beginning, the battle was very jī fierce.

Takashima couldn't hold it back, got up and said: "Your Excellency Commander, judging from the current battlefield situation, it is no longer possible to annihilate the remnants of Timoshenko's troops, and the Second Army will still face the fate of being flanked, and there is a construction in the humble position," Ueda Kenkichi raised his heavy swollen eyes, and his eyes that obviously lacked sleep were even more ruthless, and he saw that Takashima's scalp tightened.

"Takashima-kun, what is there to build," Ueda Kenkichi said in a low tone, "the only way now is to order the Second Army, at any cost, to withdraw from the direction of Kamchatka and move closer to us, so that our huge strength of nearly 530,000 men will be under the unified command of His Excellency the Commander, and then, holding firmly on the Soviet Transcaucasian Front, may not be able to fight a beautiful encirclement battle with Arsenyev." ”

Ueda Kenkichi's eyes lit up, and he was very useful to Takashima's words, in the battle of Arseniev, Ueda Kenkichi always believed that if the base camp did not transfer 250,000 troops to help Manchuria, Timoshenko would not be able to escape no matter what, and he was recognized by his subordinates, and Ueda Kenkichi was in a better mood.

After carefully studying the next course of action with Takashima, Ueda Kenkichi gave the Second Army of the Kwantung Army an order to retreat, and three days later, the Second Army of the Kwantung Army approached with the wolf, bringing a definite information that the troops of Timoshenko had broken through with the Soviet Kamchatka Front, and then continued to retreat north.

The corners of Ueda's mouth, unconsciously twitched a few times, and with great effort, he still let Timoshenko escape, he was unwilling, and at the same time, he was very disappointed, and his anger was all vented on the Transcaucasian Front, which was commanded by General Jinsky.

More than 500,000 troops of the Kwantung Army, divided into three directions, launched an offensive on the Soviet Transcaucasian Front, and what made Ueda Kenkichi almost crazy was that the retention of Jinsky was not entangled with him at all, and the task of rescuing Timoshenko's troops had been completed, and there was no need to fight desperately with the superior Kwantung Army troops in the Khabarovsk region.

The Soviet troops quickly withdrew, abandoning the Khabarovsk region, and the Kwantung Army troops were in hot pursuit, and the retreat route of the Soviet Transcaucasian Front was very intriguing, following the route from which they came, heading straight to the direction of Lake Baikal, and behind them, they were closely chasing after more than 500,000 Kwantung Army troops who were like wolves and tigers.

The reconnaissance unit of the Waiméng Ancient Frontier Army truthfully reported the movements of the Soviet Army and the Japanese Army to the commander Major General Sun Zhenbang, Sun Zhenbang saw the information, and immediately felt that something was wrong, the area around Lake Baikal is now the defense area of the Outer Méng Ancient Frontier Army, and the Kwantung Army pursued the Soviet army, to fight or not to fight?

If the Kwantung Army takes the opportunity to occupy the ancient border area of Waiméng, this will be a huge threat to the Pingjin area of North China and the hinterland of the independent division.

The matter was urgent, and in addition to ordering all units of the border guards to prepare for battle and the reconnaissance troops to closely monitor the movements of the Soviet and Japanese troops, Sun Zhenbang immediately reported the situation to division commander Tang Qiuli.

Tang Qiuli, who received Sun Zhenbang's telegram, was at home, comfortably enjoying the massage of Mei Xue's small hands, after reading the telegram, he smiled contemptuously, and after drawing on the map for a while, he said to Chen Feng, the director of the communications department who was waiting on the side: "Call Sun Zhenbang back, get out of the way, no matter which side you are on, do not make any interceptions, and concentrate your forces on the front line of Kent Mountain to stand by." ”