As soon as the fortress of Tianjiazhen is lost, the loss of Wuhan will not be far away, and at this time, Lao Jiang's attention is on Wuhan, and he can't take care of Guangdong for the time being. Although Lao Jiang had already planned to abandon Wuhan, and the descendants of the Central Army also retreated first, there were still hundreds of thousands of Nationalist troops around Wuhan, and the retreat could not be turned into a rout.

So Lao Jiang telegraphed Chen Cheng to unify the command of Wuhan's retreat, and commanded all units to retreat westward in an orderly manner. The troops south of the Yangtze River are easy to manage, and the Shogunate Mountains are on the edge of the Yangtze River, and if more than 100,000 troops withdraw to the mountains of the Shogunate Mountains, the 27th and 18th Divisions of small Japan will certainly not risk pursuing them into the mountains.

On the Jiangbei side, there is more trouble, first of all, it is necessary to withstand the attack of the Japanese army's 5th and 101st divisions, so that more than a dozen corps can retreat, and the troops there in Dabie Mountain must be withdrawn. The troops in the Dabie Mountains had to choose a good time, because the Japanese army would go straight to Wuhan through the Dabie Mountains as early as possible, and the troops that stayed to block the 5th and 101st Divisions of the Japanese army would be cut off from retreat and thus surrounded by the Japanese army.

It is not possible to withdraw late, and if the Japanese 5th and 101st Divisions are withdrawn late, it will also cut off the retreat of the defenders of Dabie Mountain. The timing of this depends on Chen Cheng. Chen Jie is also worthy of being a famous general, he first let the 45th Army, which has the strongest combat effectiveness in his hands, go forward to the Xisaishan Fortress in front of Huangshi City to defend the main road to Wuhan.

Then he ordered more than a dozen armies in Jiangbei to fight and retreat to the direction of Wuhan. And in Dabie Mountain, Luo Zhuoying has always been Chen Cheng's cronies, and Chen Cheng ordered Luo Zhuoying to continue to hold on and wait for the retreat order. For Chen Cheng's order, Luo Zhuoying will naturally carry it out to the end. Therefore, although the fortress of Tianjiazhen was lost, the retreat of the national army was still relatively orderly and did not become chaotic.

The affairs here in Wuhan are beyond the reach of Wang Haitao, who is far away in Wuzhou, and while Wang Haitao is paying attention to Wuhan, he pays more attention to the Japanese army in Guangdong. After more than half a month of hard work by the reconnaissance brigade, the situation of the Japanese troops in Guangzhou has been basically clarified. The Japanese army was stationed in and around Guangzhou City was the Japanese 104th Division, and after the 11th Division occupied Shaoguan, it drove tens of thousands of Cantonese troops into the mountains of northern Guangdong, and now has the momentum to continue its offensive against Hunan. The 28th Division was advancing to Fujian in the south, and had the potential to cooperate with the Zhejiang defenders to occupy Fujian in one fell swoop.

Wang Haitao, who was moving the 28th Division of the Japanese army in the direction of Fujian, and the 104th Division stationed in Guangzhou, did not want to pay attention to it for the time being, and now Wang Haitao was aiming at the 11th Division of the Japanese Army in the area of Shaoguan. Of the three divisions in Guangzhou, only the 11th Division was a first-class division, which not only had the largest number of people, but also had the strongest combat effectiveness.

If they can eat this 11th Division in one fell swoop, I am afraid that the Japanese army will only be cowering in a place in Guangzhou City, and they will not dare to have any other ideas. Therefore, Wang Haitao sent a report to Tang Xiaoshan, asking Tang Xiaoshan to focus on reconnoitering the situation of the 11th Division of the Japanese Army. In order to attack Shaoguan as soon as possible, Wang Haitao ordered two heavy artillery regiments of the heavy artillery brigade and two regiments of the armored brigade to be stationed in Hezhou City.

The straight-line distance from Hezhou to Shaoguan is not far, but this road is full of mountains, and the highway is also a winding mountain road, the road condition is very poor, Shaoguan is also a male pass, built between two peaks, and only one road passes through. If you want to attack Shaoguan, a surprise attack is a good way, once the Japanese troops guarding Shaoguan have full preparation, it will be very difficult to capture Shaoguan, and the casualties will not be small.

In order to ensure that the heavy artillery brigade and armored brigade could quickly advance from Hezhou to Shaoguan, Wang Haitao ordered the engineer unit to secretly repair the road from Hezhou to Shaoguan under the protection of the reconnaissance brigade and the guard brigade. In addition, the 93rd Division and the 210th Division also had to conduct targeted attack drills against the terrain of Shaoguan.

After Su Zuxin and Tang Renxin learned that Wang Haitao had the idea of eating the 11th Division of the Japanese Army, they couldn't sit still in Wuzhou, asked Wang Haitao for instructions, and went directly to Hezhou to command the troops to conduct an attack drill. Here in Wuzhou, Tang Yikuan, the commander of the 90th Division, couldn't bear it, and ran to Wang Haitao to ask what the task of the 90th Division was.

Wang Haitao knew that once he captured Shaoguan, the 104th Division of the Japanese Army remaining in Guangzhou would definitely go to the rescue, so it was the best choice to choose a favorable location to eat the reinforcements of the Japanese army. The task of eating this Japanese army will be completed by 90 divisions.

However, the prerequisite for this task was to capture Shaoguan first, so that the Japanese 11th Division could ask for help from Guangzhou. It was too early to reveal the content of the mission to the 90th Division, so Wang Haitao did not reveal his bottom to Tang Yikuan, but just asked Tang Yikuan to continue to train and be ready to attack at any time. Tang Yikuan couldn't help but come over and ask, Wang Haitao didn't say that Tang Yikuan didn't mind, he knew that against the Japanese, Wang Haitao would not put his 90th division there. Therefore, as long as you train carefully, you don't have to worry about not having a task.

Except for one battalion escorting the engineer units to repair mountain roads, all the other fighters were scattered into the mountains and rivers of Guangdong in reconnaissance detachments of more than a dozen people, and not only the distribution of the strength of the three divisions of the Japanese army and the movements of the troops, but also the situation of several main roads, the situation of the small roads, the movements of the Cantonese army, where they were stationed, and so on, all of which needed to be grasped by Tang Xiaoshan and reported to Wang Haitao.

The intelligence of the reconnaissance detachment was sent to Tang Xiaoshan one by one, and then Tang Xiaoshan analyzed and sorted it out and then sent it to Wang Haitao. As time passed, with the increase of intelligence, Wang Haitao became more and more aware of the form of Guangdong. The Japanese army was divided into three parts, and the city of Guangzhou and the surrounding cities were garrisoned by the 104th Division. The 28th Division was stationed along the southeast coast of Guangdong, ready to attack Fujian at any time. Only the 11th Division has already captured the line of Yingde and Shaoguan, and is resting, and has the potential to attack Hunan or Jiangxi in the north.

While waiting, time had entered the winter of 39 years, and Wuhan finally fell into the hands of the Japanese army. Compared with history, the fall of Wuhan was a full year later, and the balance of power between China and Japan was very different. Now in addition to Wang Haitao's 90th Army, Lao Jiang also has more than 150,000 elite Central Army, half of which are German armor divisions.

On the other hand, small Japan lost at least five to six more elite divisions than in history, and after taking Wuhan, it was no longer able to advance westward, and North China, northern Jiangsu, southern Anhui mountainous areas, and even some parts of southern Jiangsu were full of beacon fires and all kinds of resistance. It was only in some of the larger cities that small Japan really occupied, and the vast areas where the cities were located became the base areas of the Chinese Communist Party or the guerrilla areas of the Nationalist army.

Little Japan has spent so many manpower and material resources and paid so much price, and on the surface it seems that it has occupied half of China, and it is still the richest region, but because of the lack of troops, it is simply unable to rule these regions. This made little Japan very unwilling, so the Japanese cabinet made a decision to form ten local security divisions and recruit troops into the Chinese occupation zone again.

The Japanese army stopped its westward advance in Wuhan, and the general headquarters in Chongqing also deployed the most capable troops in the mountains west of Wuhan and built overlapping defensive positions. At this time, Lao Chiang's heart settled down, and he finally remembered that there was also a 90th Army placed on the border between Guangzhou, and it was going to attack the three divisions of the Japanese army that had captured Guangdong.

In fact, once Wuhan is lost, it is meaningless to recapture Guangzhou, even if Guangzhou is recaptured, the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway will be cut off, and all foreign aid will no longer be able to be transported in from Guangzhou. If you don't want to fight Guangzhou, you have already issued a military order to the 90th Army before. Therefore, at the behest of Lao Chiang, the Chongqing General Headquarters sent another telegram to Wang Haitao, the main meaning of which was to ask Wang Haitao what he thought about the battle to recapture Guangzhou.

Wang Haitao really had some thoughts about the battle of Guangzhou, and at that time Wang Haitao called back to the Chongqing General Headquarters and explained his views. In the reply, Wang Haitao explained that it would be too difficult to recapture Guangzhou City, which was heavily protected by Japanese warships, heavy artillery, and aircraft, and that even if it was recaptured with huge sacrifices, it would not be of much significance. It is better to concentrate forces and strike at the 11th Division of the Japanese Army, which is deep in northern Guangdong. If the 11th Division could be severely damaged or eliminated, the Japanese army would only be able to retreat near Guangzhou City and dare not run around, and naturally it would not threaten Hunan and Jiangxi.

Wang Haitao's reply was recognized by the Chongqing side, and Wang Haitao was appointed commander-in-chief of the Guangdong Campaign, and Yu Hanmou, commander of the 12th Group Army, was appointed deputy commander-in-chief. The telegram would also be sent to Yu Hanmou, commander of the Twelfth Army.

Wang Haitao was speechless for a moment when he received the telegram, and he must know that Yu Hanmou was a first-class general of the national army, the commander of the 12th Group Army, and the person in charge of Guangdong Province. The more than 100,000 troops of the Guangdong army obeyed this man's orders, and let him be his deputy, didn't he put himself on the fire to roast himself? Wang Haitao immediately sent a telegram back to Chongqing, asking the general headquarters in Chongqing to appoint General Yu Hanmou as the commander-in-chief of the Guangdong Campaign, and to be his own brother.

After receiving Wang Haitao's telegram, the Chongqing side, after consideration, agreed with Wang Haitao's opinion and reappointed General Yu Hanmou as the commander-in-chief of the Guangdong Campaign, while Wang Haitao was appointed as the deputy commander-in-chief. Wang Haitao, who received the telegram, breathed a sigh of relief and decided to personally go to meet with General Yu Hanmou, commander-in-chief of the 12th Group Army, and communicate with General Yu Hanmou so that the two armies could cooperate in the operation.

According to the report of the reconnaissance brigade, the 12th Group Army has now retreated to the mountains in the west and north of Guangdong, and the headquarters of the 12th Group Army and the 62nd Army are in the mountainous area of Guangning County northwest of Guangzhou.

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