Li Xiazhong was shocked when he heard Gao Jianwu's words.

"The Middle Route Army has 4 integrated divisions, including the 68th, 116th, 34th, and 58th Divisions, and your army is ready to attack them alone?" Li Xiazhong asked in disbelief.

"Yes, that's what we're planning." Gao Jianwu replied.

Although Li Xiazhong really wanted the expeditionary force cluster to do this, because in this way, the expeditionary force cluster would lose both sides with the little devils, for the Ninth War Zone, this was of course a great thing, and the expeditionary force cluster, which was originally a big hidden danger, would not be a threat.

But Li Xiazhong is still a Chinese man with discipline after all, and he feels that it is too risky for the expeditionary force to do so.

"Commander-in-Chief Gao, with all due respect, although it is said that the expeditionary force group is capable of fighting and has achieved many victories. The little devil is not a weak hand, and the strength of the four integrated divisions and regiments is 70,000 or 80,000, and the strength should not be underestimated. I hope that your army would do well to coordinate with our Ninth Theater when it marches. Li Xiazhong admonished.

"Thank you Li Gaoshen for reminding us that if the little devils go hand in hand, of course we don't have much to do. But now that the little devils have scattered their ranks and marched forward, our army will seize the opportunity of the little devils to disperse the attack and break them all.

If we wait for the Nine Theaters to act together, I am afraid that the delay will be too long and the fighter plane will be lost. ”

"Regarding the combat operations of this expeditionary force cluster, if Li Gaoshen has time, he might as well follow us for a walk." Gao Jianwu responded, and invited Li Xiazhong to be a witness.

Of course, he didn't want to show off, but hoped that Li Xiazhong could send a report to Chief Xue as soon as possible after obtaining first-hand information on the current battle situation, so as to push the Ninth Theater to take timely action against other attacking little devils and eat the main force of the 11th Army in this attack as much as possible.

Of course, Gao Jianwu did not simply support the battle in the Ninth War Zone, but through this battle, the little devil completely lost his strategic advantage in Central China, creating a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for his next move.

If this strategic goal is achieved, then when Gao Jianwu moves north, there will be no strong little devils in the three towns of Hankou to resist resistance.

The three towns of Hankou can be directly taken down at a relatively low cost, which is one of the most important nodes for Gao Jianwu to achieve his next strategic goal.

It can be said that if the main force of the 11th Army is killed, Chief Xue may make money, but Gao Jianwu will definitely not lose!

It's a win-win.

Li Xiazhong looked at Gao Jianwu's serious appearance, knowing that this was Gao Jianwu's decision, it was not a whim to say empty words, with a little curiosity in his heart, he shook his head slightly with a sigh, and no longer persuaded him, he had a communication soldier with him, and he could borrow Gao Jianwu's radio station to change the channel and password to send a report.

Therefore, Li Xiazhong stayed in Gao Jianwu's expeditionary force cluster to watch the battle on the spot, and Gao Jianwu didn't care about him, except for the confidential matters of contact with his superiors, and let Li Xiazhong listen to the information issued by the various attack groups below and the replies of various troops at the command headquarters.

For Gao Jianwu, these are not confidential things, and Li Xiazhong has this global real-time battle situation. It means that Chief Xue also has the actual progress news on Gao Jianwu's side, which is of course very helpful for his troop arrangement, and now Gao Jianwu has carried down 5 reorganized divisions.

If Chief Xue's side is only targeting 5 integrated divisions, it is equivalent to returning to the situation of the 3rd Battle of Tanzhou, and there will be a chance to win with the tactic of outflanking with more and fewer wings.

......

Gao Jianwu's tactic was indeed not a whim, but premeditated. He has even completed the strategic layout of communication with superiors and larger aspects.

When he was in Hengzhou, while commanding the air force to fight, Gao Jianwu was planning how to maximize the interests of the expeditionary force cluster he brought back.

The answer is very simple, that is, you can't simply return to Jindi, if you bring the large army back directly, not only will it not have any effect on Jindi in the short term, but it will directly become a heavy burden on Jindi, after all, Jindi has just recovered not only a year, food production or something has not been self-sufficient, and the new increase in tens of thousands of people is very difficult to digest for Jindi.

After all, after Gao Jianwu came out with this group of people who originally belonged to Jindi, the brigade commander, Li Yunlong, and the various base areas were not idle, and they began to expand their troops in large quantities by using the continuous weapon production capacity of the Jinyang Arsenal.

Among them, the brigade commander has the fastest action, and in addition to Li Yunlong's department, his command has expanded to no less than 100,000 people!

Li Yunlong also restored the main force to 50,000 people, and then expanded the contingent of no less than 30,000 local garrison regiments, walking on two legs between the local troops and the main force planned by Gao Jianwu.

Coupled with the explosion of troops in other base areas, the main force of the entire Jindi alone has exceeded 300,000!

With such a scale, it is already very stressful to simply provide for the land. Fortunately, the urgent need was solved by the trading company of Yamashita Sanosuke's trading company, which exported a portion of Jinji's industrial products and then imported large quantities of grain.

Therefore, Gao Jianwu had to consider letting the expeditionary force cluster come out of Jindi and open up a new base area.

With such a large number of troops to be fed, it is obvious that the small base areas in one county and one place can no longer meet Gao Jianwu's needs.

It was against this background that Gao Jianwu jumped out of the narrow scope of the Battle of Tanzhou and considered it in a larger strategic pattern.

That is, taking advantage of the big event of the 11th Army going south to attack the land of Sanxiang, if he can find a way to defeat and eliminate most of the 11th Army, so that the little devil has a strategic gap in Central China, then he will quickly seize the three towns of Hankou, take this core stronghold in Central China, and then build and establish a new Hubei-Henan-Anhui base on this basis!

This is not an old area with a total area of more than 40,000 square kilometers and a population of more than 350,000 in the vast area of Weihe River in the east, Pinghan Road in the west, Huaihe River in the north, and Huangmei and Guangji in the south.

It is a large base area that extends to the Han River in the west, the Yellow River in the north, the Dabie Mountains in the east, and the Yangtze River in the south.

Such a grand planning goal, of course, cannot be accomplished by Gao Jianwu as an expeditionary force cluster.

In order to achieve this goal, Gao Jianwu had secretly reported this new plan to the Eighth Route Headquarters, and asked the brigade commander and Li Yunlong to move south, cross the Yellow River to take the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties, and then take the Nanyang Valley, all the way to Xingyang and Bianjing, cut off the north-south passage of the little devil, and then go south to take Xudi, and then go west to gradually connect with the brigade commander.

Gao Jianwu divided his troops into three routes, the left route army took Jingxiang all the way, the right route army went to take the Macheng Hong'an Lao base area, and finally advanced to Shangguang Mountain on the Huai River, and the middle route army advanced north along the Jinghan line, taking Danyang, Yiyang, Runan, etc., and finally connected with the base area of Li Yunlong and the brigade commander into a large area.

When the main force of the 11th Army of the little devil was annihilated, this land happened to be the emptiest time for the little devil occupation army, and without the response of the 11th Army of the little devil, the little devil in the Japanese-occupied area of Henan was lonely, Gao Jianwu of course had to take advantage of this opportunity to take it, so that combined with the Jindi, it really formed a stable living land.

The land in Jin is poor, and it is not easy to grow grain and even feed himself, and now if Gao Jianwu rashly returns with the expeditionary force cluster, there are so many more people at once, and it is really difficult to even eat enough!

Although it is common to say that Balu can't eat enough, Gao Jianwu doesn't want to do this, so everyone is bleeding desperately and hungry at the same time.

The land that occupies the center of Hubei, Henan and Anhui is different, this is originally the grain area in the hinterland of the Central Plains, with a large amount of fertile land, Gao Jianwu is confident that after the implementation of the new policy, the problem of eating will be solved in a year at most, and it has a new base for good development!

Both the population and the industrial capacity can be taken to the next level.

Although it is said that there are enemies on all sides here, and it is not easy to defend, but Gao Jianwu is now strong and strong, and waiting for idle little devils to come to an army is to deliver food, not to mention that now the brigade commander and Li Yunlong are developing very well, Gao Jianwu estimates that the brigade commander can send 70,000 or 80,000 troops to the south, and Li Yunlong can also send at least 50,000 troops out.

In addition to Gao Jianwu's own side, the main force has as many as 150,000 or 60,000, not to mention that after integrating the local guerrilla forces, there will be no problem at all in bringing up 50,000 or 60,000 troops as second-line garrison troops in the short term.

In this way, with the size of 3 expeditionary force clusters and 1 garrison cluster, except for a few must-defend places with a strong industrial base such as Hanyang, the rest of the cities can be abandoned in the movement war.

With Gao Jianwu and the brigade commander now commanding the combat capability of the large corps, and the weapons and equipment of the troops have been completely updated, there is no problem at all for the three field clusters to directly eat the little devils and one army.

Even if each of them is a cluster against the army of a little devil, it is not a big problem. As long as it is not the little devil who attacks with all his strength and defends this base to develop himself, Gao Jianwu is confident!

After having a solid economic foundation to recover, it is not uncommon to let go of Li Yunlong's hands and feet and let him explode the army, and pull up 200,000 people in the Central Plains in half a year!

As long as weapons, ammunition, food, logistics, and baggage can keep up, Li Yunlong is only developing himself at a speed that you can't imagine.

With regard to Gao Jianwu's grand plan, the higher authorities have approved it after careful study and decided to set up a Hubei-Henan-Anhui base area, and to transfer 70,000 people from the Taiyue Military Region to form the East Henan Cluster, and 40,000 people from the Ping'an Base Area to form the Central Plains Cluster, and the original Second Theater Expeditionary Force Cluster to be renamed the Jianghan Cluster.

Before Gao Jianwu met with Li Xiazhong, the interior of the expeditionary force cluster had already been reorganized.

At the same time that Gao Jianwu planned to attack the 11th Army, the Eastern Henan Cluster and the Central Plains Cluster started almost at the same time, one of the peaks pointed to the Luoyang Basin and the Nanyang Basin, and the other went straight to Xingyang and Bianjing!

In a wider area, the Qilu base area also launched a counteroffensive, and the Jinsui base area and the Taihang Military Region began to attack Jizhong, in response to Gao Jianwu's strategic plan and comprehensively contain the little devils in North China.

A strategic counteroffensive against the little devil was kicked off by Gao Jianwu, although at the beginning of this major counteroffensive, the little devil and the preserved fruit side knew nothing at all, the high efficiency and secrecy of the Eighth Route Headquarters and the border headquarters hid the ultimate goal of this major counteroffensive to the death.

Now, except for Gao Jianwu, the brigade commander, and a number of high-level officials above who have overall clear strategic goals, even Li Yunlong only knows the goal of his Central Plains cluster, but does not know what the ultimate strategic goal is.

But for Li Yunlong, none of this is important, the important thing is that he has time to show his strength again. Holding the large base areas of Ping'an and Lu'an, Li Yunlong completed a new round of development in one year.

Almost exhausted the potential of this territory, almost pulling up an army of 100,000, if it weren't for Gao Jianwu leaving a good industrial base for Yamashita Zuo Nosuke to exchange for food from the outside, with Li Yunlong, the chief officer with a serious bias, he wouldn't be able to feed so many troops at all!

Now that his superiors have allowed him to attack the heart of the Central Plains on a large scale, for Li Yunlong, this is exactly what he can't ask for.

The entire Central Plains cluster, with Li Yunlong as the commander-in-chief and Shen Quan as the deputy commander-in-chief, commanded 3 main infantry attack groups and an artillery attack group, plus a 3,000-person rapid attack group built by Lao Li according to the Red Star agricultural tricycle, the main force was exhausted.

Among them, Lao Li's rapid attack group vaguely has a little bit of the flavor of the motorized troops that Gao Jianwu told Lao Li, a Red Star tricycle with a large compartment can carry 15 soldiers and their portable equipment and ammunition, Lao Li asked for 200 vehicles to build them, and interspersed sneak attacks in plains and mountains with highways, which is particularly easy to use.

Compared to the standardized safety equipment, the Type 43 assault rifle of this rapid attack group has a crooked sub-machine gun and a 60mm mortar per 15-person infantry squad, and the firepower squad is equipped with an 82mm mortar or a heavy machine gun, and four firepower squads and six infantry squads are equipped with one company with two 82mm mortars and two heavy machine guns.

4 assault companies formed a rapid attack battalion.

In addition, the entire assault group also dragged 4 Type 41 mountain guns and 4 92 infantry guns, so there were 8 squads that were both infantry and artillery, and all personnel were combatants.

The distance of a day's run depends entirely on the depth of the tank.

I have to say that Lao Li saves his belongings, which is really first-class and powerful. After tasting the sweetness, if he couldn't afford to burn the oil, he dared to directly make a rapid attack group of tens of thousands.

At present, most of the oil sources still rely on Gao Jianwu's refinery equipment, which is produced and refined from the small oil field in the border area.

......

After determining the strategic offensive policy, Gao Jianwu didn't care what to do elsewhere, but concentrated on preparing to solve the little devil in front of him.

At present, the 40th Division of the Little Devil has all crossed Zishui and is confronting the national army guarding Yiyang City.

Due to the heavy artillery of the artillery wing being blown up by the space of the expeditionary force cluster, the artillery fire of the little devils weakened a lot, and there was little progress in the face of the defenders who stubbornly resisted by relying on their positions.

"The first attack group, forcibly marched to the port of Schelling, blocking the westward escape route of the 40th Division from the direction of the port of Schelling, the second attack group, raided Lanxi, attacked the little devils from the east of Yiyang, and the tank group and the third attack group coordinated to attack from the south frontal! Be sure to quickly break through the little devil formation and directly block the south bank of Zishui, cut off the north escape route of the little devil, and the fourth attack group followed the tank group to hold all the 40th divisions and annihilate them under Yiyang City! ”

(PS: The internal rearrangement of the number has been completed, but the Jianghan cluster has not been played externally, and it is still an expeditionary force cluster for the time being.) ）

Gao Jianwu's strategy was simple and crude. The heavy artillery regiment was not even arranged for anything, and directly sent four infantry attack groups and tank attack groups into battle, and with the infantry attack group's own howitzer battalion, there was no problem in terms of firepower against the 40 th division, which had already crippled the artillery wing.

What's more, there are 16 fighters dispatched by the Air Force to volley air support, and now after leaving Hengzhou, there are no logistical resources, Gao Jianwu still has to save fuel, after all, the next supply, the three towns of Hankou will have to be defeated next time before there is a chance to break out on a large scale.

Li Xiazhong already had an understanding of the newly reorganized attack group on Gao Jianwu's side, which was roughly equivalent to an integrated division of the national army.

Although the 40th Division is said to be the 3rd Wing Division of the 39th year of the little devil, it has the 234th, 235th, and 236th Infantry Wings under its jurisdiction, with a total strength of about 14,000 people, and it is not the main force in the 11th Army, but it has been fighting for several years, and its combat effectiveness is still much stronger than that of the national army.

Although Gao Jianwu dispatched 4 attack groups, which are equivalent to 4 integrated divisions of the national army, it is only about 40,000 people, and the strength is less than 3 times that of the other party.

However, Li Xiazhong was a guest, he knew his status very well, and he didn't say a word about the other party's command, just listened with his ears.

From Ningxiang to Yiyang, although the distance is only about 40 kilometers, in Li Xiazhong's opinion, it will take at least a day for the expeditionary force cluster to move in place, but to his surprise, the expeditionary force cluster team that set off at 7 o'clock that day will move in place at about 12 o'clock and launch a direct attack!

Li Xiazhong, who rushed to the temporary headquarters outside Yiyang City in a jeep with Gao Jianwu, witnessed for the first time how the expeditionary force group was fighting.

I saw that after the front-line observation post reported the suspicious artillery position of the little devil, Gao Jianwu quickly commanded the artillery to launch an artillery attack, and the 40th Division of the little devil who was caught off guard did not expect that the expeditionary force cluster would complete the tactical penetration and surround them near Yiyang within 1 day.

When Gao Jianwu destroyed the opponent's artillery, the tank attack group immediately launched a full-scale attack, followed by the third attack group behind the tank attack group, all the way to the little devil offensive front, less than 1 hour to break through the 40th Division's offensive formation to break through the south bank of Zishui, and then divided into left and right to expand, establish a depth position of about 2 kilometers, directly cut off the retreat of the 40th Division!

After the artillery position was destroyed, the remaining 92 infantry guns, heavy machine guns, grenadiers and other firepower were like tickling for the Sherman tank.

Once discovered, the tank turned around and was solved with one shot, and the infantry that followed, with the advantage of Garand rifle firepower, faced the little devil infantry 38 big cover, all the way to follow the tank to harvest!

In the whole process, there was no cruel bloody battle as Li Xiazhong imagined, and the main force of the three wings of the 40th Division of the little devil was crushed completely by relying on the tank attack group and the third attack group!

The other three attack groups really intercepted the little devils who slipped through the net, and they didn't use much force.

Gao Jianwu's troops achieved the total annihilation of the 40th Division in half a day!

When Li Xiazhong heard that the 40th Division had been completely annihilated in the evening, his brain was buzzing all the time, and he couldn't imagine that the expeditionary force cluster was now so strong in combat effectiveness.

When he heard the news at the headquarters, he still didn't believe it, but when he went to the front line in person and saw the little devils with corpses all over the field, as well as the defenders of the national army who had survived the catastrophe, they all ran out to cheer, and Li Xiazhong had to believe that this was a fact.

To be honest, when Li Xiazhong confirmed that this was the truth, he seemed a little lost, because such an army was completely different from the army he imagined.

Originally, in his mind, he thought that it was good for the expeditionary force cluster to be able to open with the little devil 55. After all, after fighting with the little devil for so many years, the little devil's combat effectiveness is still very good in Li Xiazhong's heart.

Although the expeditionary force cluster is famous, it claims to have eliminated two or three hundred thousand little devils. But Li Xiazhong himself knows very well that the battle report can be a great artistic rendering according to the situation.

The results of propaganda are more than two or three times more than the actual results, and they are already very conscientious. But today the expeditionary force cluster has turned his perception upside down.

Gao Jianwu said that annihilation was really a complete annihilation, and the entire little devil was wiped out cleanly on the battlefield. Of the more than 14,000 men in an integrated division, only a few hundred wounded and disabled soldiers were captured.

Although Li Xiazhong didn't count them personally, he saw that most of these prisoners were mainly officers dressed as lieutenants and left officers, and there were very few ordinary little devils.

The whole group of the expeditionary force knew very well that Gao Jianwu had a special hobby, which was to capture the officers of the little devils, and then let them find a way to kill them.

At first, they didn't quite understand, but then they speculated whether it was a kind of mental torture for the little devils, similar to murder.

No one knew that Gao Jianwu silently carried everything in order to increase the explosive equipment bonus by 150%.

That night, Li Xiazhong reported everything he saw to Chief Xue of the Ninth Theater Command by phone.

The first moment Chief Xue received the report, he felt a little ridiculous, and even wondered whether Li Xiazhong had been rebelled by the expeditionary force!

Fortunately, the battlefield itself is not far from Tanzhou, and there is a telephone contact, and Commander Xue in the city also has his own people in the local area, and soon sent scouts to verify that the battle report sent back by Li Xiazhong is true, and the 40th Division of the little devil was indeed completely killed by the expeditionary force cluster in less than half a day!

"The expeditionary force cluster is so strong?" After Chief Xue confirmed the news, he was not happy at first, but a little afraid. With such a strong army around, if they don't leave, it's really a bit difficult to sleep.

For him, the little devil is a vicious tiger, but the principal's lineage and the expeditionary force cluster are not another group of hungry wolves.

He didn't want to give up the territory he had worked so hard to get down. Therefore, it is resistant to all foreign forces.

Even if Commander Fang and them were just some miscellaneous cards, Chief Xue was not at ease, and he would weaken their strength if he found the opportunity.

When he received the news, he was alone in the entire headquarters, looking at the large map on the wall, Chief Xue took down the small flag of the 40th Division, and then stared at the 68th and 116th Divisions close to Gao Jianwu's side in a bit of a daze.

If Gao Jianwu and they can eat the 68th and 116th divisions again, then...

Sparks burst out in Chief Xue's eyes, Li Xiazhong was right, if the expeditionary force cluster realized what they boasted, then his chance would come again!