81_81266With a roar of "attack", in the far east, a new war began. A group of short, legging-wearing pale yellow uniforms of Japanese troops took a stand on the vast plains of Mongolia and started the Battle of Nomenkan.

This was a war that Japan, as an Axis power, had long been determined to be with Germany, and Japan, in accordance with the cooperation commitments of both sides, should have started this agreed war half a month ago. However, the Japanese base camp played a trick and dragged the war on until today, because it was only today that they were sure that Germany had won the battle of landing in England. Just hours earlier, Canada's new British government had announced the fall of Churchill's regime, which had trapped London.

Even if it is a partner, the relationship between countries is so strange, the icing on the cake is something that every country is happy to do, but there are few people who give charcoal in the snow. Not all countries are willing to take the risk of taking sides, but once it is certain that the outcome will require some countries to fall into the trap, the number of allies will be numerous overnight.

On the very day that Churchill was abandoned by the British government, Spain declared war on Great Britain and began the Gibraltar War. Franco mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops to storm the British Gibraltar area, and although no substantial progress was made due to the counterattack of the British defenders, this desolate atmosphere of falling trees and scattering did shake the determination of the United States to enter the war.

Taking action against Germany was no longer an easy task, and President Roosevelt was in a sad mood when he looked at the long list of names on the Axis list: Germany, Italy, Japan, Romania, Spain, Vichy France, Ireland...... If you don't get it right, you have to add Turkey and Finland. Although these countries don't seem to be very powerful even together, but there are more ants that bite the elephant after all.

Moreover, there are not many potential allies of the United States at present: Chamberlain in northern Britain is vying with the British royal family in Canada for the command of orthodox Britain; although the United States has been providing assistance to China, Chairman Chiang has been secretly eyebrows with the Germans; it is difficult to say that the Soviet Union has not officially entered the war and left the scene; and De Gaulle's French government-in-exile is very firm in supporting the United States in declaring war on Germany -- but apart from support, they do not even have decent combat units.

So in such a situation where the result was almost certain, the Japanese Army's northward faction had the upper hand, and the base camp decided after a series of analyses to play a two-pronged game of stud this time. As a result, the Japanese army's battle plan was actually divided into two, and a good battle plan to attack the Soviet Union in the north turned into a crazy gamble in the north and south at the same time.

Following Spain's declaration of war on Britain, Japan was also preparing to declare war on Great Britain, and the Japanese navy would be tasked with covering the Japanese army in the south to attack Hong Kong and seize the British colonies in South Asia. At the same time, the Vietnamese army marched into Burma and attacked the British forces in Burma.

Of course, the Japanese Kwantung Army mobilized the combat strength of one army and attacked Mongolia to the north to test the reaction of the Soviet side. If the Soviet Union entered Outer Mongolia to fight the Japanese army, the Japanese Army would go all out to defeat the Soviet Red Army and restore the glory of the Russo-Japanese War.

This battle plan seems to be arrogant to the extreme, but it has the Japanese base camp in mind. After some discussion, they concluded that this plan was comprehensive and effective, and that it was a more efficient expansion action, which was fully in line with Japan's future development strategy.

Why? Because the Japanese Army believed that the Soviet Red Army was vulnerable and that they were sure that they would defeat the Soviet Army in the Far East. This self-confidence comes from a number of sources, such as the Russo-Japanese War, which marked Japan's official rise, the clumsy appearance of the Soviet Red Army during the Soviet-Finnish War, and the ugliness of the Soviet army during the two Soviet-Polish wars.

Therefore, the Japanese top brass believed that this time the tentative attack on the Soviet Union was likely to look like this: the Imperial Japanese Army entered Outer Mongolia, and the Soviet Red Army was forced to face it, and after the first battle between the two sides, Japan won a great victory and began to pursue the victory, so Outer Mongolia became Japan's bag, and places like Vladivostok would become Japanese territory.

Since they are so optimistic, the idle navy and the army in the south naturally cannot continue to be so idle, and they must always find something to do, right? Therefore, the Japanese navy, which has always been at loggerheads with the army, took advantage of the situation and put forward its own "grand strategy" -- Isn't your army going north to the Soviet Union to kick the embassy? Our navy is going south to kick Britain and the United States in the ass! If you provoke the Soviet Union, I will smoke the United States! We must absolutely not weaken the momentum of the navy, and we must not be robbed of the limelight by the army!

Therefore, in Japan's southward strategy, attacking Hong Kong, invading Singapore, and attacking Burma were all just appetizers, and the persistence hidden in the heart of the Japanese navy was actually to pick the Philippines with guns, slash Malaysia, trample on Australia, and torture and kill the United States -- your little Italy is just so ambitious, and you are satisfied just to turn the Mediterranean Sea into an inland lake of the Roman Empire? Look at how much our Imperial Japanese Navy is so bullish that it wants to use the entire Pacific Ocean as a bathtub for our emperor!

The Army's blind optimism did not come from a point of origin, and more than ninety percent of Japanese soldiers believed that the Soviet Red Army was vulnerable. More than seventy percent of the Japanese commanders did not know the situation of the Soviet Red Army at all, and confidently claimed that one Japanese division could completely defeat three Soviet divisions.

So on the day of March 15, the two units of the 23rd Division and the 7th Division of the Japanese Kwantung Army drove to the Sino-Mongolian border, and then opened the prelude to the battle of Nomenkan between Japan and Russia.

"General Komatsu, this time the Japanese Army seems to be determined to win, how sure are you of this operation?" A reporter accompanying the army asked Lieutenant General Komatsubara, the supreme commander of the Japanese front, who was standing on the hillside watching the 23rd Division meandering forward, holding a notebook in his hand.

This Lieutenant General Komatsubara, military attache of the Japanese Embassy in the Soviet Union, was a Soviet expert in the Japanese army, and he deserved to be the commander-in-chief of this offensive operation.

Komatsubara has his hands behind his back, the slender Japanese sword hangs down on his legs, looking quite a general's momentum, for this battle, the Japanese Kwantung Army has prepared the 1st Tank Division, the 7th Division and the 23rd Division, a full three divisions, if he can't win again, Komatsuba is estimated to commit suicide.

Judging from his earlier observations of the Soviet Red Army, although he could not blindly optimistically say that one Japanese division was superior to the three divisions of the Soviet Union, he felt that three Japanese divisions were still very sure that they would fight three or four divisions of the Soviet Union. So Komatsubara smiled and said to the Japanese reporter: "There is no such thing as a guaranteed victory in the war, but Japan will not lose this time!"

"Ah, General, then congratulations to me on the victory of the Imperial Japanese Army. Naturally, the reporter got off the donkey, quickly wrote down the general's words, and then slapped his own ass.

On March 16, the Japanese front-line reconnaissance force made contact with the Soviet Red Army for the first time, and the two sides immediately engaged their forces to engage in a fierce battle, Komatsubara handed over the front to his 23rd Division, and ordered the 7th Division and the 1st Tank Division to attack in a roundabout way to the north to cut off and isolate the Soviet troops in front of the 23rd Division.

On the morning of the 17th, the Soviet Red Army was defeated, and the telegram of the Japanese Army flying to Tokyo like snowflakes. One of the most outrageous telegrams claimed that "an unprecedented victory was achieved by killing 5,000 people of the Soviet Red Army." However, Komatsubara's own telegram denied this exaggerated result, and he truthfully reported the day's results: the Soviet army was routed, 270 Soviet soldiers were killed, and 4 were captured.

This victory irritated Moscow, and the angry Stalin removed the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Red Army in the Far East and handed over the command to Zhukov, one of the few remaining senior commanders of the Soviet Union, who redeployed the battle plan and expanded the scale of the battle as soon as he took office, and the Soviet Far East invested more combat troops, and the Battle of Nomenkan broke out in full swing.

A large number of Soviet armored units entered the battlefield and immediately exerted the power that frightened the Japanese army -- the Soviet armored units were half of the apprentices who were abused by German tanks in Poland, and dealing with the Japanese army's "classic cars" could be described as killing chickens, and the Japanese tank units learned how to behave in an instant.

The T-26 tank, which was abused by the German Leopard tank, was much better than the Japanese tank, but after a series of improvements, the thickness of the front armor was strengthened, which became the nemesis of the Japanese tank. Some of the Russian tankmen finally found the feeling of the German tanks that had tortured them in the past, and set a brilliant record of destroying several Japanese tanks with one tank.

A T-26 tank that was destroyed by the Japanese army due to a malfunction was transported back to Shenyang with great difficulty, and was immediately regarded as an artifact by the Japanese tank designers who came to observe it.

A designer touched the T-26's fragile cardboard-like armor in front of the German tank gun, and couldn't help but sigh: "The armor thickness of this tank is very worthy of our Japanese learning and emulation." ”

Of course, following the example of imitation, the Battle of Nomenkan still had to continue, but the Japanese army, like another time and space, was beaten all over the ground by the Soviet Red Army commanded by Zhukov, and retreated to the place from which it had started. It was so troublesome that even the puppet "emperor" of Manchukuo, Pu Yi, knew that the Soviet artillery was so powerful that even the Japanese could not afford to provoke it.

The outcome of the battle did not go beyond Accardo's expectations, the Japanese lost more than 5,000 men, lost their armor and returned to China, Zhukov fought better than expected, and the Soviets probably lost 5,000 men. The swollen Japanese Army stopped talking about going north, and the Soviets temporarily postponed their attack on Germany, and Stalin and the top brass in Moscow focused more on the Far East