Chapter 10: Anqing (59)

The death of a Chinese general, and such a major victory, did not bring much joy and excitement to the Japanese base camp, but made the cabinet worried. Looking at the Chinese battlefield, it has been nearly ten years since the occupation of the Northeast by the September 18 Incident and then to the battle in Guannai. At this time, the Japanese base camp was seriously overstretched, and the little profit obtained from the occupation of Northeast China was completely insufficient for the expenditure of the four major battlefields in North China, East China, Central China, and South China. Originally, it was hoped that the Chinese issue would be resolved peacefully through the Wang Jingwei government, but the death of a great general on the battlefield would fundamentally arouse the anti-Japanese anger of the Chinese. China and Japan have entered a situation of survival or death, and the possibility of a peaceful settlement of the China issue is becoming more and more distant, and they have been relegated from the main strategy to a subordinate position. Relatively speaking, Nanjing's Wang Jingwei is not so important!

From the central government to the localities, from the troops to the common people, all of them realized that there was no room for reconciliation between China and Japan, and that either you die or I die, as long as it is Chinese, we should pick up guns and fight with the Japanese to the end until the earth is desolate.Chinese

The Japanese army's Daping Battalion, which had quickly calmed down from the new battle situation, immediately sent a telegram to the 11th Group Army in Yingcheng, Kazuichiro: Suspend the dispatch of troops to Yichang, take advantage of the Chinese army's anger and heart, use the 3rd Division as a bait, and use the 3rd Division as a bait to lead the Chinese army into the Suizhou area of Suizaoyang, and use the 13th and 39th Divisions to lay a big net here to wipe out the Chinese troops pursuing the 3rd Division.

This plan is not poisonous!

Looking at the situation of the confrontation at this moment, it is already relatively clear, because Huang Weigang's final battle wiped out most of the 68th Wing of the Third Division. In order to rescue Zhang Zizhong, Huang Weigang did not take advantage of the victory to pursue and form a flank attack with Wang Yuwen's 91st Division, causing the headquarters of the 3rd Division and the 5th Brigade to breathe a sigh of relief.

Yamawaki Masataka, who escaped, was very calm, although he didn't know why Huang Weigang gave up halfway, but he knew that the opportunity was rare, so he hid the soldiers who couldn't move on the back of the mountain, reorganized all the soldiers who still had the strength to fight, and killed Shuanggou where the 29th Brigade was trapped in one fell swoop.

Zhang Xuezhong's 13th Army surrounded it for several days, and the already small amount of heavy weapons and ammunition had long been exhausted, and although it had a slight upper hand, it could not fundamentally eliminate the 29th Brigade that was curled up like a turtle. The 29th Brigade was extremely tenacious, and although its numbers were constantly decreasing, it was still holding on to the battle. The reinforced 6th Wing was blocked by Shi Jue's 4th Division, unable to form a joint force with the 29th Brigade, and basically lost the role of reinforcement, divided into two pieces, fighting separately. At the current pace, it will take another three to five days to completely wipe out the 29th Brigade and the 6th Wing.

Yamawaki Masataka's attack disrupted Zhang Xuezhong's position, Zhang Xuezhong hurriedly reported to Tang Enbo, Tang Enbo mistakenly thought that the Japanese army was over, and he had formed a habit of not wanting to be entangled by the Japanese army's inherent thinking once again swayed Tang Enbo, and urgently ordered Zhang Xuezhong to retreat.

The 29th Brigade was rescued, the 6th Wing was converging, and the remnants of the 3rd Division, which had abandoned its troops and abandoned the generals, retreated to the Suizao area according to the plan of the base camp.

Finding that it was not a large Japanese army but only the remnants of the Third Division, Tang Enbo was extremely annoyed, knowing that because of his own judgment error, he had wasted an excellent opportunity to completely annihilate the Third Division. When the news of Zhang Zizhong's sacrifice came, Tang Enbo was even more furious, and immediately ordered Zhang Xuezhong to launch a pursuit, and at the same time ordered Li Chuying's 23rd Division and Wang Yuwen's 91st Division to intercept in the middle of the road in two ways, striving to clean up the Third Division in a battle.

The commander-in-chief was killed, the 33rd Group Army was red-eyed, and the commander of the 59th Army, Huang Weigang, led Li Jiusi's 38th Division, Liu Zhensan's 180th Division and Yao Jingchuan's 13th Independent Brigade to turn around and fight back, flanking the 3rd Division. Feng Zhi'an, commander of the 77th Army, led the 37th Division Ji Xingwen, the 132nd Division Wang Changhai, the 179th Division He Jifeng and Cao Fulin, the 29th Division of the 55th Army, Xu Wenyao, and the 9th Cavalry Division of the 59th Army Zhang Deshun to face the 13th Division of the Japanese Army with a desperate heart.

The Third Division fought and retreated, and the speed was not fast, from Shuanggou to Suixian, it took three whole days, and was attacked several times on the way, with more than 3,000 dead and wounded, and with the previous number of casualties, the number of dead and wounded of the Third Division had exceeded 8,000. The purpose of the Third Division at the expense of sacrifice was just to make the Chinese army behind it roll bigger and bigger, and accumulate more and more.

At the very beginning of the campaign, the 13th Division fought a battle with the 33rd Group Army at Zhongxiang, and half a month has passed, the 33rd Group Army has been in battle, and its strength has dropped a lot. In addition, the Japanese army sent more than 100 tanks to join the battle, which made the 33rd Group Army more than capable of strength, and after two days of bloody fighting, Feng Zhi'an reluctantly withdrew from the battle with the remnants and retreated to the west of Hanshui.

The 13th Division immediately moved closer to the 39th Division, and the four detachments of the two divisions and the armored vehicle brigade gathered in the vicinity of Tang County and Suixian, and the 3rd Division alone brought the Chinese army into a desperate situation.

The retreat of the Japanese Third Division narrowed the distance between the three Japanese troops, and the danger was getting closer and closer. On the morning of 19 May, the Japanese army launched an all-out attack with three divisions and nearly 200 tanks of all sizes as the lead. The Chinese army was undaunted, and all of them bravely faced the enemy with a spirit of sacrifice and anger for the revenge of General Zhang Zizhong. However, war is war, morale is important, weapons are the decisive factor, and under the impact of nearly 200 chariots, all units of the national army were unable to support it in just one morning. The 75th Army of Zhou Zhe, the Jiangfang Army, which was the latecomer, was the new force, fought bravely, did not retreat in bloody battles, suffered heavy losses, and other departments also suffered casualties. Seeing this, the Fifth Theater hurriedly ordered all armies to retreat, and the Japanese army took advantage of the victory to pursue, and on the 21st, when they arrived at the Rolling River, the Japanese army stopped the pursuit.

A forced decisive battle in the Fifth Theater was declared a failure.

After the failure of the forced decisive battle in the fifth theater of the Battle of Zaoyi, the troops suffered very serious casualties and were no longer able to stop the Japanese offensive. The Japanese army was also very tired, the Xianghua Highway was completely cut off, logistics and transportation were basically suspended, and after the major counteroffensive, they ran out of ammunition and food, and had no strength to fight again. After careful consideration of the situation on both sides, Kazuichiro Sonobe decided to transfer the 13th Division and the Ikeda Detachment south to Zhongxiang, and at the same time to occupy the area east of the Han River and make preparations for crossing the river. The 3rd and 39th Divisions were reorganized on the spot, sheltering stragglers and searching for wounded and sick soldiers who had straggled. In order to strengthen the offensive force in Jiangbei, the command of the 11th Army transferred the 40 th Division south of the Yangtze River to the north to strengthen the offensive force in the Jiangbei area.

The battlefield of Zaoyi has a temporary pause.

The ups and downs of the past half month, the offensive and defensive battlefields are easy to defend, and Mo Di and others have been deeply attracted to it. has not recovered from Zhong Yi's sacrifice, followed by the death of General Zhang Zizhong, just when the whole army was fighting a decisive battle with the enemy with the heart of death, but he stepped into the net arranged by the Japanese army, and the full advantage of the first ten days was a super reversal in the last ten days.

Li Baicheng is gone, the 21st Group Army can no longer appear as a bystander, the two divisions of the Seventh Army have all returned to Macheng, and the 48th Army has no manpower, so it can only transfer Li Baicheng's artillery regiment to the Seventh Army to assist in the battle.

The next minute after receiving the order, Li Baicheng had already walked out of the door of the inspection team.

Seeing Li Baicheng who was far away, Mo Di suddenly felt a trace of guilt, the battle in the Zaoyang area, all the teams in the Fifth War Zone were fighting bloodily, and only the 21st Group Army stood by.

Tang Ruru didn't think so, in his opinion, the reason why this situation occurred in the Zaoyang War was because of the improper handling of the Fifth War Zone's Commander's Department, and Zhang Zizhong's active interception illustrated this problem. Tang Ruru believed that Zhang Zizhong was the closest to the reinforcements at that time, but Wang Zhanxu's 29th Group Army was not much far away, and as long as the commander of the Fifth Theater strictly ordered the 29th Group Army to intercept it, it was impossible for him not to go. Although Wang Zhanxu can't stop the army in the middle lane, there should be no problem at all with a 223 wing in the block. If the 29th Group Army was able to block the 223rd Wing, Huang Weigang and Wang Yuwen's 91st Division successfully won the headquarters of the 3rd Division, and Zhang Xuezhong wore out the 29th Brigade through time, the battle situation would be completely different. Even if the 29th Army could not block the 223rd Wing and let the 3rd Division escape, there would not have been an irrational counteroffensive due to the discouragement of gas. As for the 21st Group Army, which he was in, he did not consider the combat troops at the beginning of the plan, not to mention that the 138th Division of the 48th Army was fighting the Japanese puppet army in Hefei, and the 176th Division had to strictly guard against the reckless actions of the Japanese puppet army in Anqing, and it could not withdraw. As for the Seventh Army, the original job was to defend east of Pinghan Road, not in the attack sequence, but in the next battle, the Seventh Army is very likely to go to the battlefield again.

Jin Tongxuan did not agree with Tang Ruru's opinion, and only said one sentence: For the way of the general, it should be as stable as Mount Tai. That's a good thing, the battlefield changes rapidly, do everything, you can't let the excitement overwhelm the brain, let alone anger overwhelm the brain, happiness can be sad, anger is also sad.

The Japanese army is reorganizing, and the Fifth Theater is also renovating. Tang Enbo's 31st Group Army had never suffered such a big loss, and after returning to Xinye, he gritted his teeth and moved out the materials at the bottom of the box and reorganized the two armies. The General Staff of the Fifth Theater knew that the next battle would be even more severe, and with the arrival of the 40th Division of the Japanese Army, as a new force, the offensive would be even more fierce. Therefore, Liu Heding's 39th Army, Li Xianzhou's 92nd Army, and Zhou Zhe's 75th Army were temporarily assigned to the 31st Group Army to form a powerful offensive and defensive force in case of emergency.

The 84th Army was completely disabled, the 174th and 189th Divisions were full of wounded soldiers, the scattered teams of the 173rd Division returned to their garrisons, and there were less than 2,000 people left in the whole division. He is one of the oldest deputy division commanders in the Gui Army, and one of the earliest commanders known to Mo Di, when Mo Di entered the army, he was a soldier of the 1st Battalion of the 15th Regiment of Yin Chenggang of Zhong Zupei's 8th Brigade, and Su Tingxun was the commander of the 2nd Battalion at that time. Su Tingxun is a full fifty years old and is a really good old man. Over the years, he first became He Weizhen's deputy, and then Zhong Yi's deputy, always working hard and silently assisting the chief officer behind his back. This time, he was corrected as the division commander, mainly because of his ability to pacify, the 173rd Division fought too badly, and the anger was too heavy, and it needed to be resolved slowly.

"The 84th Army recovers, I'm afraid it will take at least half a year!" Mo Di said.

"Whether it's half a year or a year, Guinan is still in the hands of the Japanese army, and Guangxi is no longer a big rear that can be replenished at any time! Even if it is replenished, it will be replenished on the spot! Tang Ruru said.

"The best way is to move to western Anhui, and it is much more reliable to replenish in western Anhui than from Guangxi." Jin Tongxuan said: "The newly formed Fourth Army can pull out more than 10,000 people in half a year, and the 84th Army will not be much worse than them!" ”

Mo Di and Tang Ruru both laughed, that's the truth.

Feng Zhi'an was promoted to commander of the group army, and all the troops were transferred west of the Hanshui River to rest in the northeast area of Jingmen. In order to strengthen the defense of the Xiangyang area, the Fifth Theater transferred Sun Zhen's 22nd Group Army to Xiangyang, leaving only one Wang Zhanxu's 29th Group Army in the Dahongshan area. Sun Lianzhong's Second Army, which did not participate in the great counteroffensive, entered the area around the Tang River and became a barrier to the north.

Looking at the layout of the Fifth War Zone, Mo Di couldn't help but sigh, turned his head and asked Jin Tongxuan: "Is there any new progress in Europe?" Did the French counterattack? ”

"Guderian and Reinhardt have arrived in Dunkirk, France is finished!" Jin Tongxuan said.

Mo Di shook his head, didn't ask anything anymore, and asked Qin Guosheng to send a squad to go up the mountain to hunt.

It was not until 28 May that Lieutenant General Naojiro Amaya led the headquarters of the 40th Division to the theater of operations, and the Ishimoto detachment was rebuilt. At the same time, the 40th Division took over the command of the four major detachments of the Ikeda Detachment, the Ogawa Detachment, the Yoshida Detachment, and the Matsui Detachment, as well as the heavy artillery brigade and other rear covering units, forming a super master regiment of up to 30,000 people, which drove towards Dahongshan and carried out a sweep.

Everyone agreed that a new offensive would begin.