Chapter Thirty-eight Will not change the determination
Yang Zhen insisted on attacking the enemies in Peiping first, and there was another reason that he could not explain clearly. That is, if he attacked Tianjin first, not only would he have to pay a heavy price, but he might not be able to succeed. Once Tianjin and Tanggu were lost, the entire Japanese army in Peiping would be destroyed.
The way back was completely cut off.
In this way, not only will it not have a great effect on the entire war situation, but it will disperse its own forces in disguise, and it will easily push the Japanese army in Peiping to the point of jumping over the wall. In addition to unconditional surrender, the Japanese army in Peiping can only fight to the death.
There is almost no choice other than fighting hard and making a desperate struggle.
And the Japanese army is not the kind of army that will take the initiative to surrender when the situation is unfavorable. With the loss of Tianjin and Tanggu, almost all escape routes have been lost. The Japanese troops currently deployed outside Peiping City will either shrink into the city.
Either defend Gucheng or fight to the death. These two choices are difficult for Yang Zhen to accept.
At the same time, based on Yang Zhen's judgment of Okamura Neiji's character, Okamura Neiji, who has a somewhat gloomy personality, is definitely not the kind of person who will be easily broken. Once Tianjin and Tanggu are lost, he will immediately destroy the city.
Most of the main forces outside retreated back to Beiping City to wait for reinforcements from other directions to arrive.
If the Japanese army really shrinks back to the city of Peiping, facing an opponent like the Japanese army, Peiping, the thousand-year-old capital, may really be destroyed. So what if it is besieged? The Japanese army, which has always been stubborn, will never surrender.
Surrendered. But there was no food production in Beiping City. In addition to the Japanese and puppet military and political personnel, there were millions of civilians in the city.
Are these Chinese people allowed to be buried with the Japanese army and starved to death in Peking City? What's more, considering the current strength of the Japanese army around Beiping City, according to the requirement of at least a three-to-one strength advantage in the encirclement battle, there are other things to deal with.
Under the conditions of the battlefield, it was difficult for the army to deploy too many troops to besiege Beiping City for a long time.
In this way, they are being restrained. The Chinese are trying to attack Peiping and cannot let it go. The Japanese don't care whether this ancient city will be destroyed or whether the millions of people in the city will starve to death.
The most critical thing is that the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region, which is barren and has not yet recovered from two consecutive years of natural disasters, is unable to support a large number of troops around Beiping City for a long time.
And even if they paid a huge price to capture Tianjin and Tanggu, how could the troops, who must have paid huge casualties, deal with the new enemy situation? Even if the Japanese army could stay in Peiping and make sacrifices in the tough battles of Tianjin and Tanggu.
Are the troops at a huge cost still capable of overturning the situation to complete the encirclement and annihilation of the enemy in Peiping, or even an encirclement?
Once the Japanese army in Peiping breaks out to Tianjin with all its strength, will the troops still be able to annihilate the enemy on the move? If the Japanese army invests a large number of troops and lands in Beitang, Dagu, or even around the entire Tianjin coastline, will the troops still be able to deal with the new enemy situation?
This is all an unknown quantity.
There is also a considerable price to pay, but it is not as good as the Japanese troops around Beiping City, which are currently fighting for the periphery. Fierce fighting outside the city will not damage the characteristics of Beiping City and the surrounding ancient buildings. Solve it first.
The heavy Japanese troop cluster in Peiping can at least ensure the security of the supply lines and rear for the southward campaign that has already begun.
Being able to force them to voluntarily abandon Peiping and retreat to Tianjin is the best result, and it can also preserve Peiping, the thousand-year-old ancient capital. When the troops approached the Tongzhou, Daxing, and Nanyuan lines, Okamura Neji mobilized heavy troops to fight for the Tongzhou line.
It has been stated that they want to ensure transportation between Beijing and Tianjin, and have the intention to ensure a retreat route to Tianjin when necessary.
Although the Japanese army is not necessarily fighting for the front line of Tongzhou, it is definitely to maintain the breakout route when the war situation is unfavorable. But attacking Peiping first and clamping down on Tianjin's strategic deployment, even if they cannot force them to take the initiative to break out, can at least divert the attention of the Japanese army from Hebei.
Compared with the central Hebei plain area, Yang Zhen believed that the Japanese base camp paid more attention to the gains and losses in Peking and Tianjin.
Regardless of whether Tianjin and Tanggu are combined, this is the largest port in northern China. The important strategic positions of the two places, as well as the location of the North China Front Army Headquarters, are all key points that the Japanese army must rescue. Use the Pingjin area to mobilize the possible reinforcements of the Japanese army.
Extend the front as much as possible. As for Tianjin Port and Tanggu Port, Yang Zhen believes that the aviation blockade is enough.
The Americans can take advantage of the aviation force to send entire ships of Japanese elite troops to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. So why can’t the Chinese adopt the same tactic and send Japanese reinforcements to the Bohai Dragon Prince to stay permanently? Isn’t this more expensive than
At the cost of seizing Tianjin and Tanggu, we need to save a lot of troops?
Yang Zhen insisted on his plan, which made the boss very dissatisfied and also quite embarrassed. The central government's intention was to attack Tianjin first, forming a closed-door and dog-fighting trend in the entire North China battlefield, and completely eliminating the maritime threat to the North China base area.
, and shorten the front line to deal with the Japanese counterattack.
But Yang Zhen's persistence and stubbornness gave the boss a headache. The boss is still clear about the price that may be paid by attacking Tianjin and Tanggu. However, attacking Tianjin and Tanggu will be quite beneficial to the entire war situation. From the perspective of the war situation
Overall, this price is still worthwhile.
But the young commander in front of him stubbornly insisted on attacking Peiping. As for Tianjin and Tanggu, he still focused on air blockade, which made the boss very dissatisfied. If only dozens of bombers could achieve the effect,
The ground equipment functions, so what else does the infantry do?
It's just that the boss didn't know that Yang Zhen's plan was not a temporary one. It was one of several contingency plans that Yang Zhen and Guo Bingxun had studied over and over again after the entire combat plan was formulated. On the Tianjin and Tanggu front lines, it was
It was not included in Yang Zhen's attack plan at all.
Especially after the Japanese Navy deployed part of its fleet to Huludao and Lushun before the war, Yang Zhen simply directly removed the capture of Tianjin and Tanggu from all his plans. His idea was to suppress the relationship between Tianjin and Jidong.
The enemy used aviation to blockade Tianjin and Tanggu Port, focusing on the direction of Peiping.
To this end, the Anti-Japanese Alliance specially transferred the first batch of SBD Dreadnought dive bombers and three combat squadrons aided by the US to several field airports in Renan. At the same time, taking into account the issue of combat radius, a squadron of Brenhai was also mobilized.
Mu bombers, specially used to blockade Tianjin Port and Tanggu Port.
As the overall war situation changed in the second half of 1943, although the Americans had always provided mainly second-rate fighter assistance, they only provided them with the P-40 fighter jets that had been gradually phased out. However, in terms of attack aircraft assistance, they were still
I've always been quite generous.
Under the situation that the A-20 attack aircraft still need to be allocated to the Soviets, and they themselves need to be used in large quantities, they began to transfer the SBD dive bombers that the US Navy and Army had begun to replace to the Anti-Alliance side. These three squadrons,
They were the first batch of modified aircraft received by the Anti-Japanese Federation. The most important thing is that the pilots of these three squadrons have all undergone sea attack training.
Taking into account the good range of this aircraft and its relatively high bombing accuracy. In other battlefields where a large number of A-20 attack aircraft are still needed in limited numbers, this time the combat mission of blocking Tianjin Port and Tanggu Port was carried out.
So it was handed over to this kind of American dive bomber. Instead of mobilizing the A-20 attack aircraft with better performance but also higher take-off and landing standards.
However, in order to cope with unexpected situations, there are two A-20 attack aircraft squadrons on the Tongliao front line. They are also on standby according to orders, ready to reinforce the North China battlefield at any time. And these two A-20 attack aircraft squadrons are all attacks by the Anti-Alliance Air Force.
Among the aircraft troops, he is the only one who has actual combat experience against ships.
Although before the war, the Anti-Alliance and the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain were in constant contact, trying to win or even purchase a batch of aviation anti-ship torpedoes. However, the efforts of the Anti-Alliance were still rejected by the three countries. The United States and Britain believed that the Anti-Alliance was useless.
In Haikou, there was no need to equip aviation torpedoes, so we refused outright.
The Soviets did not want to provoke them again and again, and the Japanese, who were always prone to convulsions, refused to provide any torpedoes. Even though they had a large number of torpedoes aided by the United States and Britain, they refused to provide even one aviation anti-ship torpedo to the Anti-Japanese Alliance.
.Only twenty naval torpedoes for torpedo boats were given, but not a single torpedo boat was given to the Anti-Japanese Alliance.
In the absence of special aviation torpedoes, the contingency plan formulated by the Anti-League was forced to focus on ordinary aerial bombs. Yang Zhen was so stimulated by this that he specifically talked to the military industry department of the Anti-League.
Let them develop an aviation torpedo based on the naval torpedo given by the Soviet Union.
Although Yang Zhen has made a certain determination, the development of a piece of equipment cannot be achieved overnight, at least in the short term. The Anti-Alliance can only use ordinary aerial bombs and anti-attack weapons.
Ground rockets, used in anti-ship warfare.
Fortunately, Pearson was quite interesting and collected a large number of experiences of the U.S. Army and Navy aviation forces in fighting Japanese ships in the Pacific battlefield. In particular, the U.S. military used highly lethal anti-ship ricochet tactics.
Pearson was handed over to the Anti-League.
In order to avoid as much as possible the siege of Tianjin and Tanggu under the Japanese army's superior land and sea firepower, Yang Zhen and Guo Bingxun took great pains. Although they lacked the most powerful aviation torpedoes and dedicated torpedo attack aircraft, they could not use the most powerful aviation anti-ship
torpedoes, but still ordered the aviation force to select the most suitable aircraft and formulate a targeted plan.
It was just this contingency plan, because the central government, which had many concerns, did not agree with the original opinion of using Peiping as the main battlefield from the beginning, so Yang Zhen never reported this plan to the central government. Although there was a certain degree of communication in advance, Yang Zhen
In the end, this contingency plan was suppressed.
Yang Zhen knew very well that he was a soldier. On the battlefield, he could think about how to achieve the purpose of combat and fight. But the central government could not think like him. The central government had to consider not only military gains and losses, but also political gains and losses. Once
If Peiping, a thousand-year-old ancient capital with a large number of ancient buildings, is destroyed, the central government will face heavy political pressure.
The pressure brought by the education sector and intellectuals alone will be difficult for the central government to bear. Even a lot of work done in the past few years may be destroyed. As the top military commander of the region, Yang Zhen has to
Consider the heavy pressure the central government may face.
It was precisely because he knew the importance of completely capturing Peiping to the future development and work of the central government that Yang Zhen did not report this contingency plan. Moreover, in his original plan, using Peiping as one of the main battlefields was also part of all plans.
The last choice among them.
But the current development of the entire situation has turned towards the side that he is most unwilling to do. No matter what he does, he cannot turn a blind eye to the heavy Japanese troop clusters around Peiping. The overall changes in the battlefield are forcing him to
He had to make the most difficult choice. But even though this choice was difficult, Yang Zhen would not make any changes in his determination unless there was a big change in the war situation.