Gritting his teeth, Okamura Neiji ordered the five regiments that had arrived in Kaifeng and were heading north via Xinxiang not to get off the train before arriving at Wangdu. He would order the aviation lieutenant general to go down the mountain to think about it, and send all the aircraft to cover it to speed up the process.
The speed of Japanese reinforcements to the Baoding battlefield.
At the same time, he ordered the five infantry regiments to go north. Lieutenant General Eitaro Uchiyama, commander of the 12th Army, who had already arrived at the Shimen line, took over the front-line combat command of Lieutenant General Yasu Sakai from the Shimen line and was fully responsible for the entire Hebei province.
In other words, Lieutenant General Eitaro Uchiyama is not only responsible for the entire Jizhong operation, but also responsible for the specific command of the Baoding battlefield.
As for Lieutenant General Yasu Sakai, he has prepared to send Lieutenant General Eitaro Uchiyama back to China directly after his arrival. The current North China Front Army really cannot afford the lavishness of the commander of the 17th Division.
What I was worried about was wasted.
In just a few days, this guy sent three independent tank regiments, one tank brigade, plus two regiments from his 17th Division, and reinforced five infantry brigades from the 35th Division, all to waste.
His North China Front Army really couldn't afford this prodigal style.
After Lieutenant General Uchiyama Eitaro took over his command, if Lieutenant General Yasu Sakai had not been killed in battle, General Okamura Neiji would have decided to give him a ticket directly to return home. Which army this super prodigal son would like to join would be
Just stay with whichever army you want to go to. As long as it's not in his North China Front army, go to that one if you like.
Lieutenant General Eitaro Uchiyama, although he is an artillery general, comes from a military family. He has extremely rich combat experience and is good at persevering under adversity. He has an extremely firm will to fight and is good at both offense and defense. He is especially good at grasping fighter opportunities.
His adaptability is even more outstanding.
This was also when General Okamura vetoed the transfer of the base camp to the former commander of the 39th Division, Lieutenant General Raishiro Sumita, when he was selecting the commander of the Twelfth Army, and took over as the commander of the Twelfth Army, which was at the key position of Jinpu Road defense, and designated
The main reason why Lieutenant General Eitaro Uchiyama took over.
Of course, since Okamura Neiji appointed Lieutenant General Uchiyama Eitaro to take over the entire Jizhong Plains operation, he would not let him only command five regiments to attack from the Baoding front line. After giving Lieutenant General Uchiyama Eitaro, he gave the order to immediately attack on the spot.
After Shimen took over the command of Lieutenant General Yasu Sakai, General Okamura Neiji also successively issued multiple orders to the supporting armies that had rushed to Jizhong.
He ordered the six infantry brigades of the Sixty-eighth Division on the south bank of the Hutuo River, commanded by Major General Kurose Ippei, commander of the 57th Infantry Brigade, to immediately turn around and forcibly cross the Zhulong River to attack the Gaoyang line, cutting off the Baoding battlefield and the river.
The main force of the 64th Division was ordered to immediately launch an attack on the Hejian and Suning lines without rest.
He ordered Major General Xia Zhilongnan, the commander of the 66th Infantry Brigade of the 63rd Division on the Cangzhou front line, to transfer all offensive tasks to the 22nd Division. Forced to cross the Hutuo River with the Shahe Bridge line and penetrate directly behind the river.
Renqiu. The order he gave to Major General Xia Zhilongnan was that even if there was only one soldier left in the 66th Infantry Brigade, the imperial flag should be planted again in Renqiu County.
In order to cover the arrival of the various units in the designated combat areas as soon as possible, especially the safe arrival of the five infantry regiments reinforced by the 11th Army, Okamura Neiji gave the commander of the 3rd Flying Division, Lieutenant General Shimoyama Takuma, a fatal order to ensure that at all costs
The military columns transporting these five regiments must not have a single bomb fall on their heads.
At the same time, he issued a fatal order to all the troops along the Pinghan-Han Railway to keep the line from Baoding to Xinxiang on the Ping-Han Railway open. If there is a problem on that section, the commander of the garrison in that area will be subject to the most severe military sanctions. He will commit seppuku.
Opportunities are not given to these people.
However, even though five regiments of reinforcements from the 11th Army were about to arrive, Okamura Neiji still felt that the troops on the battlefield in central Hebei were still insufficient. Because he knew very well that the North China Communist Army's troops in Shanxi, Hebei, and Luyu did not have much strength yet.
It's such a big move. And once the fighting starts on both sides of the Hutuo River, these communist troops will come out of the Taihang Mountains like rats.
The Jizhong Plain must be preserved, and the rear of the battlefield on the north bank of the Hutuo River, which is about to be fully launched, must also ensure safety and must not be harassed in any way. Especially in the eastern Hebei and southern Hebei areas, the current situation must be guaranteed and there must be no harassment.
of confusion.
But the deployment of troops from there to reinforce Jizhong gave Okamura Neiji an unusual headache. Before a division from the mainland had time to land in Tanggu, it was raided by the Anti-Alliance Air Force, and most of them were sent into the Bohai Sea by the enemy.
Bay. The base camp is still hesitating whether the next division will be transferred to the Chinese battlefield.
But the current Eleventh Army and the Fifteenth Army can no longer mobilize too many troops. Unless the base camp risks a full-scale counterattack from Chongqing and continues to mobilize troops from these two armies. The reinforcements mobilized by the 23rd Army
, some have just landed in Qingdao, and some are still wandering at sea.
The 2nd Guards Division, whose base camp was drawn from the Southern Army, has just been concentrated in Singapore. It is not known when it will arrive. In other words, not to mention the current Okamura Neiji, it is the headquarters of the China Dispatch Army, unless the entire line
Reduce your troops, otherwise you will basically have no troops to send.
After thinking about it, Okamura Neiji sent an urgent telegram to the base camp, asking the base camp to reinforce the original plan to the Chinese battlefield. But now, after the first wave of reinforcements suffered heavy losses at sea, the subsequent second division
The 89th Division, which was somewhat hesitant about reinforcements, immediately landed in Qingdao by sea from its homeland.
After sending a telegram to the base camp that reinforcements were urgently needed, Okamura Ningji sent reinforcements to the 23rd Army. Now it has arrived in Qingdao, but it is a detachment trapped in Qingdao because the Jiaoji Line was cut off. It immediately forced a breakthrough of the Shandong Communist Army
Block and move forward to the Jinpu Railway, and make every effort to ensure the smooth flow of the Jinpu Railway.
As the telegrams from Okamura Neiji continued, the situation on the entire Jizhong battlefield suddenly became tense. On the Cangzhou battlefield, the 22nd Division continued to increase its offensive efforts, trying to fight against the 32nd Division who were trapped in Cangzhou.
The remnants of the divisions gathered together. The Japanese 32nd Division in Cangzhou City was also constantly organizing troops to counterattack outside the city, trying to defeat the enemy forces around Cangzhou by cooperating internally and externally.
On the frontal battlefield between the rivers, the Japanese Sixty-fourth Division, with the cover of a large number of artillery and aviation, as well as the first part of the Second Tank Brigade, launched multiple attacks, constantly trying to break through along the Hutuo River. With Du
A division from the Kaishan Division fought fiercely on both sides of the Hutuo River.
Along the Ping-Han Railway south of Baoding, the troops of the Shanxi-Hebei-Luyu Military Region continued to launch attacks along the Ping-Han Railway south of Shimen in order to support frontal operations in central Hebei. They once captured Yuanshi and Gaoyi, but after
Under the desperate obstruction of the remaining troops of the 17th Division and the desperate cover of the aviation force.
We did not expect that the Japanese reinforcements would be so fast. Under the high pressure of the Japanese reinforcements, we could only abandon the Yuanshi and Gaoyi lines again. Instead, we used many rivers to continuously block the attack. However, the momentum of the Japanese reinforcements was extremely fierce.
, the blocking force suffered heavy casualties.
Considering the next step of the war, Yang Zhen directly telegraphed the Shanxi-Hebei-Luyu Military Region not to fight head-on with the Japanese reinforcements. After the Japanese reinforcements passed through, he launched an offensive deep into the enemy's army by flooding the ground with mercury. Taking full advantage of the strengths of the troops inside the pass,
, using mobile warfare tactics to cut off the Japanese army's logistical supplies and cut off the connection between the Japanese army in eastern Henan and the Japanese army in southern Hebei.
In order to weaken the strength and speed of Japanese reinforcements in the air, the Anti-Japanese Alliance concentrated a large number of attack aircraft to conduct continuous assaults on the Pinghan-Hankou Railway, and intensified the blockade of the Shide Railway and the Jinpu Line in Shandong. Especially in Shandong.
Shimen, the intersection of the Ping-Han Railway, the Zhengtai Railway, and the Shi-De Railway, was the focus of the Anti-Japanese Alliance's bombing of the Ping-Han Railway.
Although the Anti-Alliance bombers and attack aircraft groups destroyed the Shimen Railway Station and the dispatch yard, they did not slow down the speed of Japanese reinforcements. The attack on the Japanese reinforcements riding in military columns was also due to the Japanese aviation force dispatching superior forces to fully cover, and
The Japanese army installed anti-aircraft guns on their military columns, but the results were not many.
In order to cover the five regiments reinforced by the 11th Army, they successfully arrived at the Baoding battlefield. The Japanese aviation forces transferred to North China were almost mobilized. Together with the anti-alliance cover fleet, they launched a large-scale air battle in southern Hebei and central Hebei.
.The Japanese reinforcements this time were all veteran pilots, which undoubtedly exacerbated the difficulties of the Anti-Allied aviation forces in fighting for air supremacy.
As the Japanese reinforcements continued to arrive, the entire Hutuo River to the Baoding battlefield was filled with intensive gunfire. On the Baoding battlefield, the Japanese army was not in a hurry to put the reinforcements into the battlefield immediately. Instead, it took the entire army to guard Wangdu south of Baoding.
Get off the station and join the battlefield in unison.
The arrival of the five Japanese field regiments and the six infantry brigades of the 68th Division launched an offensive towards the Gaoyang front line, making Chen Hanzhang immediately feel the pressure doubled. The five Japanese infantry regiments that arrived at the Baoding battlefield
Under the command of Lieutenant General Eitaro Uchiyama, who was personally commanded by Baoding, they immediately left the city and launched a counterattack against the anti-alliance forces that had arrived outside the city.
Compared with the Jizhong battlefield, which entered the most brutal stage, the Pingjin battlefield, which was nearing its end at this time, mainly the battlefields around Peiping, seemed much calmer. As Yang Zhen increased the investment of troops, after several days of fierce fighting and hard fighting,
The various Japanese military units outside Peiping have been completely separated.
The Japanese 63rd Division in the Pingbei battlefield has basically been wiped out, and most of the 110th Division in the Pingxi area has been surrounded and annihilated. The remaining troops can only stick to a few sporadic positions such as Mentougou, and the direct connection with Beiping City has been destroyed.
Cut off. As for the independent mixed eighth brigade of the three stores, it has been completely wiped out long ago.
As for the Tongzhou battlefield, the encirclement and annihilation of the independent Ninth Mixed Brigade has been completed. At present, troops are being concentrated to carry out the final encirclement and annihilation of the 59th Division, which has been divided into five complementary and connected parts. The entire battle situation outside Peiping City,
It has been basically finalized. Under Yang Zhen's painstaking efforts, the main battles were completed on the battlefields around Peiping.
At the same time that the war in central Hebei Province entered its most brutal stage, the Anti-Japanese Alliance had completed the final encirclement of the Beiping battlefield. At this time, the entire Beiping City, including the military police, had less than 2,000 defensive troops. Neji Okamura
Refusing to give up the peripheral positions around Peiping, they lost the main force of the Peiping battlefield around Peiping.
On the same day that five regiments of the Japanese army entered the Baoding battlefield, a tank company of the Anti-Japanese Alliance carried a reinforced company and even rushed into Beiping City from Xizhimen. After a rampage in the city, they reached Shichahai in one go and were ordered to withdraw to Xizhimen.
Stand firm and wait for help.
But despite withdrawing from Xizhimen, this anti-alliance force still firmly controls Xizhimen and the Xizhimen Station outside the city. At the same time, they have appeared outside Fuchengmen in the west, Deshengmen in the north, and Andingmen.
There are a large number of Anti-Union forces. Not only has the Temple of Earth been lost, but even the water plant in the north of the city has been occupied by the Anti-Union. As for Dongzhimen in the east, it has been under attack from artillery fire. The city of Beiping is now surrounded on all sides.