Okamura Neiji did not expect that the North China Communist Army would mobilize in its entirety and invest such a large amount of troops to cooperate with the anti-Japanese troops moving south. From Shanxi to Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei, from Hebei to Henan, Shandong, the entire North China Communist Army was almost
The whole army was mobilized. Even the New Fourth Army in northern Jiangsu was constantly making moves.
Moreover, after a year of silence, the North China Communist Army received support from the Northeastern Communist Army in terms of equipment and training, and its combat effectiveness has obviously been beyond a whisper. Its so-called Jinsui and Shanxi-Hebei-Luyu, plus some of the troops in Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei
, was actually able to support Shanxi's First Army from left to right.
It was equipped with German-made light weapons obtained from unknown sources, plus Japanese mountain field artillery, which formed an almost perfect combination. The Japanese army's grenade launchers, infantry guns, and mountain field artillery were all quite light. The result was that
In the hands of the communist army, which had even worse maneuverability, it became a weapon against the Imperial Army.
Coupled with a large number of German-made submachine guns and general-purpose machine guns, these are far more powerful than Type 38 rifles, crooked handles, and Type 92 light weapons. They have been effectively combined and have undergone rigorous tactical training.
The burst of super combat power undoubtedly hurt the Imperial Army.
This was almost impossible to imagine before the North China Front lost Chahar, Suimeng, and Northern Shanxi last year, allowing the Northeastern Communist Army to establish direct contact with the North China Communist Army. The equipment and training are almost completely different from before.
The old rival made the North China battlefield, which was already in chaos, even worse.
Just over ten days after the battle officially started, the defense line he had painstakingly built was broken through across the board. With the mountainous area in the north of Pingjin as the first line of defense, Peiping and Tianjin as the two strategic support points, he also planned to increase the depth of the deployment of troops on the second and third lines.
, was also completely disrupted.
And Peiping, where his front army headquarters is located, has now been encircled. The war situation is eroding at a speed that far exceeds Okamura Neiji's psychological preparation. Right now, he is secretly hiding in Peiping City, just after the Anti-Japanese Alliance launched a general attack.
The two planes dispatched by the Chinese Dispatch Army Headquarters overnight to pick up the transport planes from the Front Army Headquarters made Okamura Neji feel unusually dazzling.
These two planes arrived at night to transport the transport planes from the Front Army Headquarters to Tianjin or Jinan. At present, they don’t even dare to land at the airport. Instead, they use the enemy’s forces to attack the city of Peiping. Since the battle started, not one has fallen in the city.
The bomb was secretly landed at the hastily opened Tiantan Airport.
Several airports around Peiping and Tianjin had been bombed into ruins long before the war. In order to ensure smooth air communications, the Front Army Headquarters opened a new field airport near the Old Summer Palace. However, after the battle started,
Because of the rapid erosion of the war situation, it can only be terminated.
Now that the North China Front has entered the battlefield, a limited number of Type 99 light bombers and Type 1 fighter groups have taken off from the deep Xiongxian County. Although they have now withdrawn to the deeper Hejian area, the airport in Xiongxian County is still in a functional condition.
Under the conditions of use, except for the anti-Japanese bombers that visit from time to time, this airport can be said to be relatively safe.
But the road from Peiping to Xiongxian is now extremely unsafe. The transport planes sent by the Nanjing Dispatch Army Headquarters to transfer the North China Front Army Headquarters can only take off and land at the temporary airport opened in the Temple of Heaven. And they don't dare to take off and land at all during the day.
Take off and landing, all activities can only be carried out at night.
This undoubtedly made Okamura Neji feel extremely ironic. When did the Imperial Japanese Army, which had always had air supremacy in the China battlefield, get to this point? It actually had to hide from its own aircraft on its own territory.
Enemy troops were taking off and landing. Moreover, the pilot clearly told him, the front commander, that taking off during the day was simply impossible.
It's just that for Okamura Neiji, although Beiping City has actually been surrounded, as a commander of the front army, he does not want to evacuate at this time. This kind of behavior is tantamount to escaping from the battlefield, and in his eyes, for a great leader
It will be impossible to accept in the future.
Although General Hata Shunroku, the commander of the Chinese Expeditionary Forces, has repeatedly ordered him to immediately withdraw to Tianjin or re-establish a headquarters in Jinan in order to avoid the first general in the army to be killed or captured. However, Okamura Neiji still has not made a decision.
Determined to evacuate to Tianjin or Jinan in accordance with the requirements of the dispatched army headquarters.
At least for now, he has no time or energy to consider these things. However, in order to prevent the loss of Beiping City, which would bring chaos to the command of the North China Front, he asked Lieutenant General Oshiroto Sanji, the chief of staff of the front, to lead the rest of the headquarters.
The personnel were evacuated first, leaving only a capable headquarters in Peiping to cooperate with him in commanding operations.
Because Okamura Neiji knows very well that he, the commander of the front army, can die in battle. But if the entire North China Front Army headquarters is taken over by others, then it means that the entire North China Front Army has been completely wiped out. Therefore, it is time to evacuate.
They still have to evacuate. But as the commander of the front army, he can only choose to stay in Peiping.
Looking at the two transport planes that dispatched troops to evacuate the front army headquarters, Okamura Neiji felt mixed emotions. He regretted that he did not dispatch more troops during last year's battle. Even if the North China Front Army was exhausted
, we cannot allow the Communist Army in the Northeast to capture Suimeng, Chahar and Northern Shanxi, and open up ground connections with the Communist Army in North China.
In today's front army operations in the first half of the year, the main purpose was to clear out the Chongqing government forces in northern Henan and southern Hebei. However, they did not expect to continue the 41-year sweep of the so-called base areas of the Communist Army in North China. Before its wings were fully formed,
In order to completely destroy its base area.
During the great sweep in the first half of 1943, although the Chongqing Army destroyed the last army in North China except Shanxi, and forced the surrender of two lieutenant generals, it left the Communist Army in North China in this period.
Within a short period of time, the troops were able to reorganize and regain their strength.
Judging from the current performance of the North China Communist Army, the North China Front's war in the first half of 1943 has turned into a big joke that sacrificed the basics for the sake of the end. There was no enterprising spirit in defeating one army and it posed almost no threat to the security of North China.
army, but let go of a really big fish.
If you can take advantage of the fledgling North China Communist Army to completely destroy its base areas in the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei and Taihang Mountains, then even if the Northeastern Communist Army invades the border in large numbers, they will still be unable to hold on. The war situation will never be eroded.
It happened so quickly, and the front army would not be in such a dilemma when dealing with it.
It's just Okamura Neji's regret. It's too late to say anything now. For him, the most important thing is to keep Beiping. Although there is little hope of keeping Beiping, Okamura Neji doesn't want to give up just like that. Because
He knew that if he stuck to the key points around Peiping, the enemy might be able to hold on longer, and might be able to hold on until reinforcements arrived.
However, if the mountainous areas around Peiping are abandoned, the entire army, whether it is encircling Japan or retreating south, will only be completely destroyed by the enemy's tank clusters in motion. On plain terrain, no matter how strong the Japanese army's marching ability is,
It can't outrun tanks, armored cavalry groups either.
Once the commanding heights and mountainous areas around Peiping are abandoned, the Japanese troops waiting for the Peiping battlefield will not only sit back and wait for death, but will be defeated by the enemy troops one by one during the breakout. So although there is little hope, Okamura Neiji is still stubbornly persisting. He
They didn't even dare to shrink the entire army back to Peiping, because then they would really be trapped in the city.
At the moment, Neji Okamura is worried not only about the war situation around Peiping, but also about the war situation that has become increasingly corrupt. What makes him even more worried is what is deep inside him, that is, the Jizhong Plain behind Peiping. The Jizhong Plain is undefendable.
, with only one division's defensive strength, Okamura Neji's depth was smashed to pieces by the two intersecting groups of the Anti-Japanese Alliance.
After crossing the railway line between Beijing and Tianjin, the vast Jizhong Plain is almost the best natural battlefield for tank groups to quickly break through. In order to ensure control of the Jizhong Plain, the Japanese army built a large number of roads in the Jizhong Plain area, which also served as a basis for the resistance.
The two major intersecting groups provide the best route for rapid breakthrough.
The two intersecting groups of the Anti-Japanese Alliance, led by tanks, were almost unstoppable all the way. Along the Jinpu and Pinghan Railways, they interspersed all the way south. The 17th Division that stayed in the Jizhong Plain and the 48th Division were transferred north.
The main force of the 32nd Division, which hurriedly moved north to take over its defense, was unable to withstand the two-wing attack of the two armored groups even with all its might.
Zhuoxian, Dingxing, Xushui, Baoding along the Pinghan-Hankou Railway, Jinghai, Dacheng and Qingxian along the Jinpu Railway, strategic points on the two railways, with the rapid breakthrough of the two strategic groups of the East and West of the Anti-Japanese Alliance
, was erased from the map of the Japanese North China Front Army Headquarters.
After the 48th Division was transferred north, the 32nd Division, which received orders from Okamura Neiji, had just completed its assembly when Jinghai over there was lost. The 32nd Division did not expect that the Anti-Japanese Alliance would advance so fast.
As soon as the leading regiment passed through Cangzhou, it encountered the leading regiment of the Eastern Cluster on the north bank of the North Canal between Cangzhou and Qingxian.
As a result, this regiment, which went into battle hastily and only brought four 37 anti-aircraft guns, resisted for only four hours under the full impact of the anti-alliance tank troops and tanks. Facts once again proved that the light infantry in the plains was
Encountering a group of tanks on terrain would be a disaster.
After the main force of the East Cluster caught up, the regiment was directly crushed into scum under the crushing and rampage of the tanks. Faced with the encounter of the leading regiment, the main force of the 32nd Division that followed up even
They didn't even dare to rescue. In addition to watching helplessly as the vanguard unit was overwhelmed, the entire army immediately retreated to Cangzhou and was beaten to death without even daring to step out of the city.
As the backbone division of the 12th Army, the main force of the Japanese army stationed in Shandong battlefield, the 32nd Division was not originally included in the North China Front Army's response force after the reorganization. Originally, according to Okamura Neiji's plan, this division was in the 59th Division
After the regiment was transferred, it stayed behind on the Shandong section of the Jinpu Railway to ensure the smooth flow of the Jinpu Railway.
Therefore, the weapons equipped by the division are still mainly old-fashioned 37 rapid-fire guns. Not to mention the new 50mm anti-tank guns, due to insufficient production, they are not equipped with the divisions in this plan that only deal with Tubal Road in Shandong.
Regiment. Even the number of 47mm Type 1 combat defense artillery is only two squadrons.
After all, the equipment on the Tubal Road in Shandong is still relatively incomplete, and there are no heavy weapons such as tanks. To deal with their civil fortifications, the 37 rapid-fire artillery and the 92 infantry artillery are enough. There is no need to waste because the output cannot increase, and the production quantity has always been
New anti-tank guns that cannot meet the needs.
As a result, the operational staff of the North China Front Army who made the plan did not expect that the plan would not change quickly. After the Eastern Anti-Japanese War interspersed clusters crossed the Ping-Tianjin Railway, the 32nd Division was already the closest division to the Hebei battlefield.
He was rushed into battle.
Because the division's operations were too hasty, the number of heavy weapons it carried was less than two-thirds of its establishment. Even when the main force of the division set off, because the division's artillery regiment did not have enough draft horses, the division's artillery regiment totaled
Only three squadrons came. The rapid-fire artillery and infantry artillery had to be dismantled and carried by men.