Taiyuan.

The headquarters of the 1st Army of the Japanese Army.

"Report to Your Excellency Commander, the Eighth Route Army attacking Xiaodian Town has retreated!"

Masao Miyazaki, deputy chief of staff of the First Army, walked quickly into the office with a saber on his shoulder, and bowed his head to the commander Yoshio Iwamatsu.

Masao Miyazaki's face was blackened by the smoke of the cannonballs.

He hadn't closed his eyes for three days and three nights, and his whole person's eyebrows were deeply tired, but he still held on.

Iwamatsu Yoshio was no better, his whole eyes were bloodshot, and the Eighth Route Army's attack on Taiyuan brought him a lot of pressure.

The two old devils are close to sixty years old, and they are no longer young men, and their energy can no longer keep up.

However, the two old devils are battle-hardened after all, and they exercise regularly.

If you want to change ordinary people, you will not be able to stand up and fall down for a long time.

"Oh?"

"The Eighth Route Army has retreated?"

Iwamatsu Yoshio's expression moved, and at the same time he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hey!"

Masao Miyazaki bowed his head:

"The defense line of Xiaodian Town blocked the attack of the Eighth Route Army, and the thickened reinforced concrete pillboxes and turrets that you ordered to be built by Your Excellency Commander have played a role."

"The Eighth Route Army used 105-mm and 150-mm howitzers to attack, but it did not penetrate the defenses of these permanent fortifications."

Iwamatsu Yoshio showed a smug look on his face: "Yo Xi! ”

Fortunately, he had foresight, and when he took office as commander of the First Army last year, he had already guessed that the Eighth Route Army would attack Taiyuan sooner or later.

Therefore, Iwamatsu Yoshio applied to the North China Front for materials such as steel and cement, and built these permanent fortifications around Taiyuan.

Otherwise.

I am afraid that with the artillery fire of the Eighth Route Army, it would have hit the city of Taiyuan a long time ago.

At that time, the cement was still called ash, and military cement and civilian cement are different, under normal circumstances, the hardness of military cement after hardening is much greater than that of civilian cement.

But soon, Iwamatsu Yoshio's face gradually became gloomy.

In this battle, although the 1st Army was not completely annihilated, it had lost more than half of it, and lost the Zhengtai Railway, the lifeblood of the First Army, as well as important military towns such as Shouyang and Yangquan.

What collapsed even more was that the 33rd Division and the 37th Division were completely annihilated by the Eighth Route Army.

The commander of the 33rd Division, Lieutenant General Sakurai Province, and the commander of the 37th Division, Lieutenant General An Da 23, were both broken.

Since the Japanese invasion of China, there has been no precedent for the entire division of the Japanese army to be completely annihilated by the Chinese army.

But this time, two second-line divisions were completely annihilated, and both lieutenant generals were loyal to the locusts, which was a very explosive existence in the entire history of the Japanese army.

Other than that.

The 14th Brigade and the 18th Brigade were defeated, and only the 41st Division and the Yamada Wing, Taiyuan Garrison and other units remained in the First Army.

Together with the 1st Cavalry Brigade subordinate to the Mongolian Army, there are now less than 30,000 troops left in the First Army.

Seeing that the situation was not good, many locust armies had already slipped away.

This made Yoshio Iwamatsu very uncomfortable.

Why are all the wounded in my First Army?

In this battle, the First Army lost more than half of its territory and a large area of territory, and someone must be responsible for it.

Be reasonable.

This battle was commanded by Okamura Ninji in remote operation and controlled the overall situation, but Yoshio Iwamatsu felt that he would be regarded as a backstabber.

If he is just dismissed, Yoshio Iwamatsu can still accept it, but if he is ordered to apologize for his crimes, it will be very uncomfortable.

He glanced at Masao Miyazaki, and thought to himself, should he pretend to be guilty of seppuku in front of his cronies.

The next sentence of the chief of staff next to him, Hanaya Masa, made Iwamatsu Yoshio's face more and more ugly.

"Your Excellency Commander, according to the information exchanged by the troops stationed in Mongolia, the main force of the Eighth Route Army, which attacked the 1st Division of Datong and the Army stationed in Mongolia, is equipped with large-caliber heavy artillery, with a caliber of not less than 200 mm and a scale of not less than 20 guns."

"In terms of power, it is not inferior to the 240-mm howitzers and cannons of the Locust Army."

Masao Miyazaki also said: "Moreover, Your Excellency Commander, the Eighth Route Army fired no less than 400,000 shells on the Taigu Defense Line and the Xiaodian Town Defense Line. ”

"From this point of view, the artillery shells of the Eighth Route Army are sufficient......"

On the first day, the Eighth Route Army threw 150,000 shells on the Taigu defensive line.

On the second, third and fourth days, no less than 100,000 shells were dropped each day.

Those large transport planes, each transport plane can drop 10 tons of airdrops, in addition to artillery shells, there are various caliber guns and cans and other supplies.

Densely spread across the sky.

And every time it's an airdrop in front of the devil.

Every time supplies were airdropped, the corners of the mouths of the commanders and fighters of the Eighth Route Army were almost to the root of their ears, and the devils were so envious from a distance that their saliva was about to flow.

The power is not inferior to the 240 mm mortar of the Locust Army?

Plenty of shells?

A deep sense of powerlessness rose in Iwamatsu's heart.

Can those permanent fortifications withstand the large-caliber heavy artillery of the Eighth Route Army? Yoshio Iwamatsu has no bottom in his heart.

The main thing is that he doesn't have a 240mm mortar in his hand, and he can't try it.

Tired, destroy.

After a pause, Yoshio Iwamatsu looked at Kazuo Yamamoto:

"Yamamoto-kun, your intelligence department still hasn't investigated the source of the weapons and ammunition of the Eighth Route Army? Still haven't found out where Chen Feng is sacred? ”

The Eighth Route Army was able to have today's strength and achievements, annihilating more than half of the First Army and defeating the main force of the garrison in Mongolia.

It's all about the channels of assistance behind it.

If there were no assistance channels behind it, the group of mud-legged people of the Eighth Route Army would still be fighting guerrillas in the ravine at this time.

However, now, the combat edge of the Eighth Route Army's large corps has begun to appear.

I thought that it would take a transition time for the Eighth Route Army to switch from guerrilla warfare to large corps operations.

However, judging from this battle, the combat strength of the large corps of the Eighth Route Army is actually not inferior to the Locust Army.

Iwamatsu Yoshio estimated that the strategic goal of the Eighth Route Army's next campaign of the Great Corps should be to completely annihilate the First Army.

"Hey!"

Kazuki Yamamoto's tone was bitter:

"Your Excellency Commander, I have mobilized all the manpower of the intelligence department of the First Army, and even applied to General Tufei Yuankenji for reinforcements, and even did not hesitate to use the background of the imperial intelligence department, but I still haven't found out the details of this Chen Feng and the location of the enemy's military base, as if this person does not exist at all."

"There is reason to suspect that the name Chen Feng is not a person's name at all, it may be a place name, it may be the name of an organization, or it may be a code name."

It has been less than a year since Kazuki Yamamoto went from being ambitious when he was promoted to major general to being depressed now.

But.

Kazuki Yamamoto still hasn't given up his dream of avenging Lieutenant General Yoshio Shinozuka.

Yoshio Shinozuka has the grace of knowing him.

If it weren't for Yoshio Shinozuka, he would still be just a small agent captain with the rank of Nakasa in the Kwantung Army.

"Waste..."

Yoshio Iwamatsu snorted mercilessly.

Chen Feng, Aid Channel, Li Yunlong, Kong Jie, Ding Wei, 129th Division......

These are all things that give Yoshio Iwamatsu a huge headache.

However, after this battle, I am afraid that my hat, the commander of the First Army, will be lifted.

Even if he was ordered to apologize, it was better than sitting in the position of commander of the First Army and being scared all day long.

Give the next commander of the First Army a headache.

……

Peiping.

Iron Lion Alley.

Command of the North China Front.

"Report to Your Excellency Commander, the Eighth Route Army has announced to the public that more than 60,000 locust army personnel were killed and wounded in this operation, three locust lieutenant generals were killed, and one locust army lieutenant general was forced to be disemboweled..."

The communications staff officer handed the information in his hand to Okamura Ninji and reported.

In the conference hall, a group of devil officers were silent.

The battle lasted less than 10 days, but the scale was not small, and the total number of troops invested by both sides was close to 400,000.

An officer of a command used a scale to calculate the area of the battle between the two sides, and it turned out to be thousands of square kilometers.

The 33rd Division stationed in Shouyang County and the 37th Division stationed in Yangquancheng were completely annihilated, and the two division commanders were shattered.

The 14th and 18th brigades were routed.

The main forces of the Mongolian army suffered two-thirds of the casualties, and the commander of the 3rd Tank Division was shattered in the shelling.

And it was really a broken jade, and the entire bodies of the two old devils were blown into ashes.

The 1st Division lost more than one infantry wing, and the reinforcements from all walks of life also suffered heavy casualties.

Okamura Ningji's eyes were gloomy, and the casualties of the locusts announced by the Eighth Route Army were similar to the actual situation.

Heavy casualties!

As for the casualties of the Eighth Route Army, Okamura Ninji could not be estimated, because it was the Eighth Route Army that won the battle.

Okamura Ninji narrowed his gloomy eyes and looked at the communications staff officer:

"Immediately announced to the outside world that in this battle, the locust army faced the Eighth Route Army with 150,000 against 250,000, the locust army suffered 6,000 casualties, and killed more than 25,000 people of the Eighth Route Army."

On the side of the Eighth Route Army, the battle report has been made public.

If the North China Front Army did not issue a battle report, at least half of the Locust Allied Army would have mutinied, and the morale of the entire North China Front Army and even the entire Imperial Army would have suffered a great blow.

"Hey!"

The communications staff officer bowed his head abruptly and turned to leave.

After a pause, Okamura Ningji looked at Moritake Tanabe: "Tanabe-kun, where did we talk about just now?" ”

Tanabe Moritake: "Your Excellency, Commander, as we said just now, the Eighth Route Army used two new weapons in this campaign. ”

"New weapons?" Okamura Ninji's face sank, "Go on." ”

Tanabe Shengwu said: "The two new weapons used by the Eighth Route Army this time are all in the Datong battlefield, one of the weapons is heavy artillery fire coverage, the first use is outside the north gate of Datong, a round of artillery bombardment made almost the entire locust army full of jade shattered, and then used in the battle with the main force of the Mongolian army, this weapon is very powerful, each shell does not lose the power of 150 mm high-explosive shells, can cover the target area in a very short period of time, according to the report of the Mongolian army, At least one tank wing and one and a half infantry wings, Lieutenant General Shigetaro Ganji, commander of the Mongolian Army, and Lieutenant General Nishihara Kazuse, commander of the 3rd Tank Division, were under the weapon covered by this new heavy artillery fire. ”

"Another new weapon is a large-caliber heavy cannon with a caliber of more than 200 mm, which is not as powerful as the 240 mm mortar cannon of the Locust Army."

Okamura Ninji's gaze became more and more gloomy.

The emergence of new weapons in the Eighth Route Army was both unexpected and reasonable.

The Japanese army has been beaten out of the pattern, and every once in a while, the Eighth Route Army must have powerful weapons.

The problem is that the firepower of the Eighth Route Army is getting stronger and stronger, while the firepower of the Locust Army has been staying in place or even retreating.

How can this be?

(End of chapter)