After all, it was July 1945, and there were still 37 days left before the surrender of the Japanese army.

Before this, no one expected that the Japanese army would surrender so quickly, although the two big bombs played some roles, but in fact, the most important thing was the destruction of the Japanese Kwantung Army.

On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. On August 9, the Soviet Red Army sent troops to northeast China and defeated the 700,000-strong Kwantung Army, the strongest Japanese army, in just one week.

This brought a great shock to the little devils, and losing control of the northeast, the Japanese army had no room to struggle.

We know that a short-term war is mainly determined by the combat strength of both sides, while a long-term war is a struggle for war resources between the two sides.

Japan is a small country, scarce in resources, and very limited in its war resources, but many people do not know that Japan's main war resources in the late World War II did not come from domestic, but from the northeast of China that it occupied.

In fact, the Northeast was already a very powerful military industrial base before 1945. For example, in 1944, 2.5 million tons of pig iron were smelted here (2.7 million tons in Japan) and 1.3 million tons of steel ingots were smelted (2.9 million tons in Japan). Fifty-five percent of Japan's synthetic fuel production facilities are located in Tohoku.

The concept is that the military industry in Northeast China and North Korea is fully capable of supplying a million-strong army of weapons, equipment, ammunition and technical weapons, and only bombers and heavy artillery cannot be produced.

When the old American bombers began to carry out concentrated attacks on the Japanese mainland archipelago and its industrial and military centers, naval bases, and other life-and-death targets.

The role of the Northeast, as a huge rear base and military warehouse, is even more obvious. Because Northeast China is still outside the radius of activity of the "flying fortress" of the United States.

As a result, many factories and enterprises, along with their equipment, were moved there in their entirety from the Japanese mainland. There are numerous barracks in the Northeast, which can accommodate 55 to 60 infantry divisions, and the air station and airfield are capable of parking more than 6,000 aircraft at the same time.

The Japanese command could calmly train and replenish troops for the front, form new units and reorganize old ones, and take other necessary military measures without any interference.

The Kwantung Army, the most powerful of the Japanese army, was stationed in the northeast, and it had under its jurisdiction the 1st Front Army of East Manchuria, the 3rd and 5th Armies, the 3rd Front Army of West Manchuria, the 30th and 44th Fronts, as well as the 4th and 34th Independent Armies of North Manchuria, and the 58th Army of the 17th Front, with a total strength of more than 700,000 troops.

In addition, the puppet Manchu army, the Japanese puppet army in Inner Mongolia and the Zhang Sui army were also under the command of the Kwantung Army Headquarters. This powerful group, which has an army of more than a million, is also supported by two air armies, the 2nd and 5th air armies. There are about 2000 aircraft in both air armies.

The strategic defense assumptions established by the Japanese General Staff Headquarters at the end of World War II theoretically increased the hope of victory for the Kwantung Army in the imminent war against the Soviet Union, even if it was a limited hope.

The reason is that the Northeast, by its natural conditions, is more suitable for defense than for offense. The surrounding mountains and primeval forests became natural obstacles for the attackers, precluding the possibility of rapid maneuvering by tanks and other forces, making it difficult for troops equipped with heavy technical weapons to pass, and the artificial obstacles constructed by the enemy multiplied the difficulty of overcoming natural hazards.

By the spring of 1945, after the victory over fascist Germany, the Far East General Command headed by Marshal Vasilevsky of the Soviet Union was established, and under its deployment, many military trains departed from the western regions and traveled through the entire territory of the Soviet Union to the Far East.

Units of the 39th Army were first transferred east from East Prussia. The 5th Army then moved from East Prussia, and the 6th Guards Tank Army and the 53rd Army moved from Czechoslovakia to the Primorsky area.

A large number of separate units and corps of armoured, artillery, aviation, engineering and signal corps, as well as logistical units and organs, were also transferred to the Far East from other fronts.

By the time of the dispatch of troops to the northeast, the Soviet army in the Far East had increased from 32 divisions to 59 divisions. In addition, there are 4 tank and mechanized corps, 6 infantry brigades, 40 tank brigades and mechanized brigades. The total number of troops is 1.5 million.

The Soviet army sent troops to the northeast, and the offensive lasted only 10 days and nights. On land, fighting operations in Northeast China, Inner Mongolia, and North Korea have swept nearly one million square kilometers of land.

This is the size of three Frances, and the Kwantung Army is the largest and most well-equipped army in the Japanese armed forces, with permanent defenses.

But all of this collapsed within 10 days of the Soviet Red Army's offensive campaign, which is not amazing enough, and the speed, scale, and effect of this kind are by no means extraordinary compared with the operations of the American army and the Japanese army in the Pacific theater.

After all, for the struggle for some archipelago and isolated islands, the Americans and the Japanese fought fiercely for almost four years.

Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, supported by a powerful fleet and bomber aviation, stormed an island garrisoned by a Japanese garrison for weeks, sometimes months.

By the spring of 1945, the Americans had finally captured some key positions and advanced far to the Japanese archipelago, but the final victory was not easy and problematic for the allies of the Central Powers.

According to published materials, the US command estimates that the Japanese resistance will be completely defeated by 1946 at the earliest, and some people believe that even this date is too optimistic, and it may be fought until 1947 or even 1948.

After all, the Japanese army still maintained a strong combat effectiveness at this time, and they also had a large rear base in northeastern China and mainland Korea with large quantities of grain, weapons, ammunition, and the powerful Kwantung Army.

As a result, by August 1945, the Japanese Army, including the Air Force, had a total of 5.5 million personnel. The Navy has 109 major combat ships of all kinds, and the Air Force has nearly 6,500 aircraft.

It is precisely for this reason that the US and British commands believe that the final stage of the landing operation on the Japanese archipelago will be long and very difficult. As British Prime Minister Winston Churchill later put it, the war against the Japanese mainland "required the cost of troops unprecedented in this war." No one can tell how many lives and how much money will be sacrificed in this operation. ”

So the Soviet offensive campaign in the northeast left the impression on the allies at that time. True, these 10 days in August not only shocked the Japanese command and Japan, but also the Americans. The Soviet army, which played a major role in the crushing of Hitler's Germany, showed the same valor in the struggle against Japan.

Later Western historians argued that the atomic bombs dropped by the U.S. military on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 played an important role in the surrender of the Japanese army.

They assert that it was the atomic bombing that proved to all the people of Japan, including their military leaders, that continued resistance would be of no avail.

However, this was not the case, and after the defeat of the Kwantung Army, Borodov personally interrogated the commander of the Japanese 5th Army and many other generals.

The question of the morale of the Japanese troops was often raised during the interrogations, and none of the generals mentioned the atomic bomb.

However, all the captives spoke of the mental shock inflicted on the Japanese soldiers by the Soviets in the capture of Berlin and their possible engagement in the war against Japan, as well as the eventual launch of the Northeast Strategic Offensive Campaign.

Generals, officers, and soldiers alike can affirm that the shock caused by these facts was so strong that the thought that "the Russians were attacking Northeast China" and that Japan was about to be defeated haunted them all the time.

The first days of the Soviet strategic offensive campaign in northeastern China proved to Japan that fears of rapid collapse were not exaggerated, or even quite the opposite.

Not even a pessimist in Japan could have predicted that on the second and third days of the Soviet offensive, the Japanese front and corps-level headquarters would lose control of their subordinate units.

By the end of the first week of the campaign, disaster and total annihilation were a foregone conclusion, and the entire Kwantung Army had been divided into rabble scattered over a vast area.

They discarded the last of their artillery and baggage and waited for capture, or fled into primeval forests, mountains, and swamps, where they dreamed of taking refuge for a while, waiting for the day to come.

One can imagine what it was like at this time in the Tokyo Military Headquarters and some other military organs.

They could not fail to understand that the rapid rout of the Kwantung Army, a fifth of the entire Japanese Army force, with Soviet tanks advancing to South Manchuria and continuing to advance towards the Peiping area, would put the rest of the Japanese Front in North and Central China in a critical position.

They will not fail to understand that the concept of warfare to which they had been accustomed in the past, as well as the practical experience that the Japanese army had gained over the years in China, Burma, the Pacific and other regions, was completely ineffective in the first battle with the Soviet army.

Nor will they fail to understand that for them, even enough time, space, and strength to limit or delay the Soviet offensive are gone.

Therefore, there is only one way out, and that is to admit Japan's complete defeat and surrender.

Li Yunlong thought of what would happen next, so he did not make full preparations for the next month or so, and scattered most of the 120,000 troops in the army and sent them out, so that he could receive weapons and equipment as soon as the Japanese surrendered.

The distribution of Japanese troops, except for the Kwantung Army in the northeast, is the largest in Kannai.

The most Japanese rear in North China is not very many, and the peak is only 300,000 people, and now, there are only about 200,000 Japanese troops left in North China, in addition to a large number of puppet army troops,

And Li Yunlong's eyes were on the Japanese puppet army in North China, after all, compared to other regions, North China has an advantage in distance.

Therefore, Li Yunlong sent a large number of troops to North China, and only retained seven regiments of more than 30,000 infantry in the defense area, and the main task of this unit was to go to Taiyuan to receive Japanese weapons and equipment when the Japanese surrendered on August 15.

Although in history, in order to organize the Eighth Route Army to obtain the weapons and equipment of the Japanese army, Jiang Guangtou secretly reached an agreement with the little devils to allow only the Japanese troops in the pass to surrender weapons and equipment to the national army.

But this is not difficult for Li Yunlong, he has already made a plan, when he helped Chu Yunfei clean up Qian Bojun before, he seized the weapons and equipment of one of Chu Yunfei's regiments, and collected the equipment of this regiment along with military uniforms, just for the arrival of this day.

Under Li Yunlong's expectation, the time soon came to August 15, 1945.

At noon that day, Li Yunlong called Zhao Gang, Ding Wei, and Kong Jie to the command room for the first time, and then turned on the radio.

"Lao Li, what is the matter with your kid, hurry up and say, I still have a lot of things waiting for me to deal with." Zhao Gang frowned and sat down and said dissatisfiedly to Li Yunlong on the side.

After all, as the political commissar of the first column in North China, Zhao Gang is indeed responsible for a lot of things, and with the expansion of the defense area, most of the things have to be handled by him, so he is busy every day without touching the ground, so there are some words for Li Yunlong to call them for the first time.

"Yes, Lao Li, what's wrong with you kid today? Is there anything important that you have to call all three of us? Kong Jie also said on the side.

Since the military academy was built in the army, he and Ding Dawei have focused part of their attention on the school, after all, there has been no war in the army for several months, or they have to die idle if they don't find something to do.

Hearing the words of the two, Ding Wei on the side looked at Li Yunlong, and he was also a little curious, Li Yunlong must have something important to say when the three of them are called together today, otherwise Li Yunlong's character will not do this.

"What's the hurry, sit down and wait, you'll know what's going on in a while." Li Yunlong glanced at a few people angrily, and then spoke.

At this moment, a voice came from the radio, and Li Yunlong hurriedly asked the three of them to shut up, and then pointed to the radio.

After the three of them were stunned and heard the content from the radio, Li Yunlong turned off the radio, and then put it aside and looked at the three of them with a smile.

"Lao Li, this ........., the Japanese army has surrendered?" Kong Jie asked Li Yunlong in disbelief.

After all, since the little devil invaded China in 1931, more than ten years have passed now, although they left to speculate that the surrender of the Japanese army would be sooner or later, but they did not expect that things would come so quickly.

Hearing Kong Jie's words, Li Yunlong smiled and said, "Haha, haven't you heard it all." ”

"Lao Li, pinch me too, I'm not dreaming, the little devil is going to surrender, I really can't believe it." Kong Jie glared at Li Yunlong and said.

Ding Wei on the side trembled and picked up the water cup with his hand and took a sip, then stared at Li Yunlong and said incredulously: "Lao Li, did you guess that the devil was going to surrender, why did you send the troops out without consulting us before?" ”

Hearing Ding Wei's words, Zhao Gang and Kong Jie also turned their heads to look at Li Yunlong, although he didn't believe that Li Yunlong could predict the prophet, but the facts were here.