Under modern warfare conditions, the development and growth of an army cannot be achieved simply by changing equipment. It is more about the quality of the commanders and the overall combat capabilities of the troops, which must be improved accordingly to truly achieve success. Only by adapting to modern warfare can we fight against well-trained and well-equipped troops like the Japanese army.
At present, the time for reorganization before advancing northward is too short. The troops still need a long time to adapt to this almost new combat mode for this army. The troops left behind in the pass have not yet been reorganized, at least for now. There are still some people who are not willing to take on this kind of battle.
Even if the troops have been tempered to a certain extent through the Battle of Jehol, there may still be a certain gap in executing a battle of the scale that Yang Zhen mentioned. If the troops suffer excessive losses in the battle and fail to Achieving the combat goal will have a huge impact on the overall situation in the future.
Therefore, the two veterans' previous thoughts were that even if the next step is to open up the Great Wall inside and outside, it is necessary to combine mobile warfare with guerrilla warfare, make way for roads and main transportation lines, occupy the countryside, and adopt trapping tactics against the Japanese and puppet troops. As long as the connections are opened, That’s fine, you don’t have to occupy the main highways.
For the two veterans, the top priority now is to train the troops after the Battle of Jehol. The troops should be equipped and their corresponding qualities should be improved. Before the training of the troops is completed, head-on confrontation with the Japanese army should be avoided as much as possible. of battle.
Their plan to use Cha'nan as the main combat target was based on this idea. In the Cha'nan area, troops from the Beiyue District of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region are insisting. The west can also get the cooperation of the Shanxi-Sui Military Region at any time, while in Chabei The region is restricted by geographical and ethnic factors, and the entire region is almost a blank for Guan Nei.
Judging from the overall deployment of the Japanese troops stationed in Mongolia, the troops in the Chabei area are indeed relatively weak. This is the most important advantage of using Chabei as the main breakthrough point. However, when our own troops go there, they also have no advantage. In the Chabei operation, there was neither local political power to provide support nor local troops to cooperate with the operation.
The most fundamental area is where the Mongolian people live. Most of the areas are nomadic areas, not traditional agricultural areas. The local area is simply unable to provide sufficient food supplies. The adjacent Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region belongs to the Beiyue District. As well as the two areas in northwestern Shanxi under the Jinsui Military Region, it was also difficult to provide supplies for the troops due to the Japanese blockade and the local barrenness and poverty of the people.
Not to mention that there is not enough grain to replenish, even if there is, it cannot be transported to Chabei through the Japanese-occupied areas, especially in the northwestern Shanxi region. Since it is not a major grain-producing area, it still has to bear part of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. Food supply, not to mention the inability to supply hundreds of thousands of troops, as well as gasoline, ammunition, and the placement of the wounded and sick, will be a big problem.
If all materials, including food, ammunition, gasoline, medicine, etc., are transported from the Northeast, then the price is a bit too high. It has traveled thousands of miles from Beiman, to Chabei via Rehe, and Suiyuan to transport so many materials. , even if there are enough cars available, the daily gasoline consumption is an astronomical figure.
Coupled with the tanks and armored vehicles assigned to combat, they were enough to consume the little fuel reserves of the Anti-Japanese Alliance. As the highest military and political leaders of the advancing army, plus they were originally responsible for the two major base areas in North China, the two veterans still had a strong understanding of the international situation. Have some understanding.
In the Chanan area, although gasoline and ammunition still need to be transferred from the northeast, the placement of food and the sick and wounded is not a problem, especially food. Although most of the central Hebei area has been tightly controlled by the Japanese army, there is still a certain degree of difficulty. It's strenuous, but the millet and yam are still enough.
Although it may not necessarily be good food, it is not a problem to feed hundreds of thousands of troops, and there are old bases around it, so there is absolutely no problem in the placement of the sick and wounded. Although Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei is not too wealthy at present, it will be in a short time It is still possible to support a large army. At least the food output in the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region, except Beiyue District, is sufficient.
In addition to the supply problem, what worries the two veterans most is that if they abandon the Chanan area and use the Chabei area as the main assault direction, the entire strategic situation will form a half arc. Even if the combat objectives are achieved, the entire communication line will The width is less than a hundred kilometers, and there is no depth. This situation means that this transportation line will be quite fragile even if it is opened.
Once the Japanese army concentrates a large number of troops from Chanan to the north, this communication line may be cut off at any time. If you want to ensure smooth flow, it is necessary to invest a large amount of troops. Even if there are Yinshan Mountains that can be used as natural barriers, they are used to protect traffic. The number of troops on the front line must not be less, because there is no invincible line of defense in this world. Even relying on geographical dangers, it is impossible to guarantee that danger will never occur.
What worried them most was not just how many troops would be needed to maintain the line of communication after the line of communication was opened, but also what if, while the Anti-Japanese Alliance and the advancing army were fighting the Japanese garrison in Mongolia, the Japanese North China Front took the opportunity to concentrate its forces out of the Great Wall and attack the entire Combat operations will have a huge impact.
In Yang Zhen's plan, the main battlefields are all along the railway line, from Baotou, Guisui, to Peiping. Moreover, the two major strongholds of the Japanese garrison in Mongolia, Zhangjiakou, are very close to the Pingjin area, and There is Pingzhang Railway directly connected with Beiping.
Datong is not only connected to the First Army Defense Area by mountains and rivers, but also connected to the hinterland of Shanxi by the Tongpu Railway. Once the main force of the Japanese North China Front decided to intervene, even if the First Army in Shanxi was entangled and unable to reinforce, it could still use the most powerful force to reinforce it. Reinforcements were quickly mobilized from the Pingjin area and even Hebei to come out of the Great Wall for reinforcements.
With the Japanese army's usual response and action speed, if it is determined to reinforce, it will not leave much time for the entire westward marching force. The railways in North China can be said to be the most developed railway area in China except Northeast China. The area with the highest density.
Not counting the areas under the jurisdiction of the Japanese Twelfth Army in Shandong, Hebei alone has the Zhengtai Railway, Pinghan Railway, and Pingsui Railway, plus the Tongpu Railway that runs through the south, north, and south of Shanxi, forming a relatively developed railway network. , the main force of the Japanese North China Front was almost deployed along these railways.
The Japanese army even got on the train from Handan in southern Hebei and Shimen in central Hebei. They could go north through the Pinghan Line, Pingzhang Line, and Zhangbao Line directly to the Zhangjiakou line. To the west, they could go through the Zhengtai Railway and Tongpu Railway directly to Taiyuan, Datong, and even When necessary, railways can be used to quickly provide reinforcements to Baotou and Guisui areas.
Modern transportation and the opening of railways have brought unprecedented impact to the hinterland of China, an ancient country that is not close to the sea. Compared with coastal areas, the relatively isolated hinterland can also experience modern industrial civilization, but in foreign wars , especially in the current war that is related to the life and death of the entire nation, it also brings great convenience to the enemy's mobilization and plundering of resources in China's hinterland.
A distance of thousands of roads that may have taken a month to travel by march can now be reached in just three to five days by train. If necessary, it can be easily reached within a day. It used to require a large number of people to carry the supplies on their backs. , one train can fit them all.
At present, almost all the railway lines in North China are in the hands of the Japanese army. The Japanese army can use these modern tools at any time to quickly mobilize all reinforcements and reach the battlefield they need to reach. As long as the railway lines reach, the Japanese reinforcements can It won't be slow at all.
Once the North China Front makes up its mind to reinforce with all its strength, not counting the need to divide its forces to defend the first and second theaters of the Chinese army, and to encircle and suppress the Taiyue, Taihang, and Beiyue areas, the First Army stationed in Shanxi and those stationed in Peiping defends the independent mixed 15th Brigade that cannot be mobilized by its North China Front headquarters.
In other directions, the Japanese army alone could mobilize and deploy around Pingjin, including the 27th Division stationed in Tianjin, the 110th Division in Shimen, the 8th Independent Mixed Brigade, and the 1st Independent Mixed Brigade in Handan. And these Japanese troops, relying solely on the troops of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region in the Central Hebei Military Region, were simply unable to attract them all.
Similarly, if the Japanese army does not hesitate to weaken the Yellow River defense line and takes the risk of containing only one force in the second theater, the First Army is not impossible to mobilize. Judging from the current national war situation, even if the First Army dispatches its main force to go north, its position The war zone they face will not put too much pressure on them.
The Mongolian garrison is under the command of the North China Front Army, and the three corps-level organizational arrangements of the entire North China Front Army are intertwined and support each other. The First Army in particular is not only adjacent to the defense zone of the Mongolian Army, but also in terms of deployment, It is also deployed in a ladder shape. Once there is danger to the troops stationed in Mongolia, it is impossible not to dispatch the First Army stationed in Shanxi, which is directly adjacent to it.
Even if it is stationed in Yuncheng, the 37th Division, which maintains pressure on Shaanxi and the first theater in western Henan and central Henan on the other side of the Yellow River, and the 41st Division stationed in Linfen, which maintains vigilance on the second theater, are subject to the entire The situation around Shanxi makes it impossible to send reinforcements northward, but there is no big problem in dispatching the 36th Division stationed in Changzhi to reinforce the Mongolian troops stationed in Xinjiang.
In addition to the Thirty-sixth Division that can be mobilized at any time, the Japanese First Army's independent Third Mixed Brigade stationed in Nao County, Yangquan's Independent Fourth Mixed Brigade, and the Independent Ninth Mixed Brigade stationed in Taiyuan The mixed brigade, Fenyang's independent 16th mixed brigade, can reinforce northern Shanxi in the shortest possible time when needed.
In particular, this independent third mixed brigade is stationed in Nao County, which is close to Datong. Once it needs to go north, it can use the Tongpu Railway to reinforce Datong as quickly as possible. Although its strength is only five infantry The brigade also suffered a lot of casualties in last year's Hundred Regiment War, but its strength has been replenished long ago, and its combat effectiveness is not weak.
The strength of the Mongolian garrison alone is indeed not large, but the sum of the surrounding Japanese troops is a large number. Even if the two divisions of the First Army stationed in southern Shanxi are not dispatched, if the remaining troops are deployed on the battlefield On the other hand, it will still have an inevitable impact on the entire war situation, not to mention the other departments of the North China Front.
The Japanese army does not have the kind of attitude of staying still when friendly forces are in trouble. Once one unit is attacked, the rest of the army will desperately reinforce it. Coupled with convenient transportation and crisscrossed railway lines, the Japanese army's reinforcements are bound to be extremely fast. If they advance westward While the troops were fighting fiercely with the Japanese and Mongolian troops, the Japanese troops were dispatched from other directions. This situation was probably beyond what Yang Zhen could have imagined.
According to Yang Zhen's plan, the battle line is too long, and the longer the battle line is, the more areas the Japanese army can choose to attack. In addition, the Japanese army has the advantage of transportation, and can mobilize and gather troops far better than its own. It is convenient for one side, and the longer the battle line is, the more dangerous it is when the stamina is insufficient.