The first theater of war was launched eastward by two armies. The strategic goal was clearly directed at the Shandong-Henan border, and threatened the two major transportation arteries of Longhai and Jinpu. In order to ensure the safety of the Jinpu Railway, Okamura Neji
They had no choice but to squeeze out a division from the already insufficient reinforcements and launch it on the spot in eastern Henan to deal with the offensive in the first theater, which was called the New Year Offensive.
There is no way, the entire East Henan currently only has half the strength of the 35th Division. The remaining Nanjing government troops, who were originally colluding with the Chongqing side, are extremely unreliable under the attack of the Chongqing government troops.
There is a large-scale rebellion. If part of the troops are not reinforced within a short period of time, the entire eastern Henan will not be able to hold on at all.
Once eastern Henan is lost, not only will the Tianjin-Puzhou Railway be under greater threat to the current war situation, but the entire rear area of the Jizhong battlefield will also be under a comprehensive threat. Furthermore, the entire northern Jiangsu and northern Anhui will also be threatened.
.No matter how reluctant Okamura Neji is, he can only squeeze out his troops to reinforce the battlefield in eastern Henan.
I originally thought that with Chongqing's usual procrastination and habit of taking half a beat slower, the counterattack in the First Theater Zone would take at least half a month. But I didn't expect that Chongqing's actions would be so fast and efficient.
It was quite unprecedented, and Okamura Neji was somewhat caught off guard.
What made Okamura Neiji even more depressed was that at the same time that the First War Zone launched a comprehensive counterattack into eastern Henan, the Shanxi King who had been suppressed by the First Army and stayed in the southwestern region of Shanxi. When he got the Chongqing Eighth War Zone
After being reinforced by several elite troops, they unexpectedly dared to launch an attack on the Yuncheng front line and southern Shanxi.
The First Army, which was already struggling to support itself under the siege of the Communist Army on the Shanxi battlefield, was even more overwhelmed when faced with the besieging elite Central Army. The Thirty-seventh Division, which was originally standing alone in Yuncheng, was defeated by the Eighth Route Army.
The three armies in the war zone, plus the first unit of the Jinsui Army in the World War II zone, were completely encircled on the front line of Yuncheng.
At this moment, Okamura Neiji truly understood the meaning of the saying in Chinese that everyone pushed down the wall. The King of Shanxi in the World War II zone, who had always been suppressed and beaten by the Japanese army, not only rejected the North China Front Army's suggestion,
He actually dared to take action at this time, which was beyond Okamura Neji's expectation.
At the same time, in the Chongqing 5th, 6th, and 9th theaters around the Eleventh Army, although there were no big moves, there were frequent small moves. The Eleventh Army's troops left in central China were almost all restrained and did not dare to make any rash moves.
No matter how many troops are deployed, China's battlefield is now in an extremely complicated situation. The two countries and three parties are fighting earth-shattering battles in North China.
The counterattack launched by Chongqing is nothing more than making matters worse for Okamura Neiji. In fact, he has long been aware of Chongqing's previous small moves, but Okamura Neiji is really unable to deal with it. The only thing he can do now is
In addition to detaining a division to reinforce Eitaro Uchiyama and detaining a division to reinforce the east of Henan, he only had to report all the situation to the base camp and the dispatched troops.
But the only reply the base camp could give him was to persist and wait for the arrival of new reinforcements. As for where the reinforcements were, the base camp had weighed them repeatedly and didn't know where to choose. Divisions deployed in the Dutch East Indies and Taiwan
, the base camp would not dare to be mobilized even if they were beaten to death.
But where to find reinforcements? Look around for the divisions that the base camp can use at the moment. Apart from the Guards Division deployed in Vietnam, there is only one that is not wanted in almost all aspects. The other divisions are fighting.
is in full swing, but their Fourth Division, which has been waiting on various battlefields, can still be mobilized.
Under the current situation where the troops on all battlefields have been used to the extreme, the current base camp has always been fully staffed, but it stayed on the Indochina battlefield after the Philippines Campaign, so leisurely and leisurely basking in the sun.
, and really dissatisfied.
The base camp really doesn't have the guts to transfer the Guards Division to the Chinese battlefield that has become a crater. What a joke, if the emperor's imperial army is wiped out, the old face of the Imperial Army will be completely gone. Although the current situation is
The Guards Division has been divided into two.
However, the base camp, which is short of troops, has never dared to transfer the Guards Division, which is also basking in the sun in Indochina, to the Chinese battlefield and send it into the tiger's mouth. It would be better for this Guards Division to continue to wait in Vietnam, the safest place.
As for reinforcements, let the Fourth Division go. It has the most veterans among all the divisions now, and the equipment is also the best.
However, after kicking the Fourth Division into the Chinese battlefield, the base camp was really worried about the Fourth Division. Not only did it instruct the Southern Army to deploy a group of elite soldiers and generals, it also replaced more than half of the officers of the Fourth Division.
After much hesitation, the newly formed 120th Division, which was originally planned to be deployed to Taiwan, was also transferred to the Chinese Dispatch Force. As for the vacancy left by the Taiwan Army, the U.S. military in the Pacific still had time to do so.
Fortunately, Okamura Neiji is not so picky about this stall that uses cornbread instead of gold. At the base camp, he met another 120th Division, so there was no argument. The fourth division was fourth.
The divisions are much stronger than those scarecrows. Especially the Fourth Division has the most veterans among all the divisions in the entire Japanese army.
It's just that of these two divisions, one is still far away in Thailand, and the other is still being organized locally. As for when reinforcements can be sent to the Chinese battlefield, it is difficult to say. After all, the current transport fleet of the base camp is under attack by US submarines.
The losses were heavy. Moreover, each battlefield required supplies, so it was difficult to gather enough supplies in a short period of time.
The base camp has no idea when these two divisions will arrive. However, the current battle situation can no longer delay. After the five regiments on the Baoding battlefield completely lost all contact, they really couldn't sit still.
Neji Okamura simply came to the rescue.
He ordered the First Army to immediately abandon the battlefield in Shanxi and concentrate the entire army on Yuncheng. They forcibly crossed the Yellow River from Luping to Quheng, invaded the Chongqing First Theater, and retreated through central Henan to the eastern Henan area. One of his actions was to attack various passes in the Taihang Mountains.
Under the tight control of the North China Communist Army, they used Henan to withdraw to the battlefield in Hebei.
The entire First Army is currently isolated on the battlefield in Shanxi. If they don't find a way to withdraw, I am afraid that under the attack from both sides by the Communist Army and the Chongqing Government Army, not only will they be unable to defend the current Shanxi controlled area, but they will also be unable to protect themselves. Since the road to retreat eastward has been
If everything is cut off, then we can go south and take the Henan route.
According to current intelligence, Chongqing has stored a large amount of food and ammunition in Henan. At present, its elite troops have moved eastward and are counterattacking in eastern Henan. The entire Henan territory is relatively empty of troops. If you pass through the areas controlled by the Chongqing government in Henan, not only
It can be withdrawn smoothly, and it can also use the supplies stored in Henan to replenish itself.
The second reason is that if the First Army can forcefully cross the Yellow River, it will not only be able to get rid of the current embarrassing situation. It can also cooperate with the East Henan battlefield to completely defeat the counterattack in the First Theater, and maybe even occupy the entire Henan. If it can capture
Henan can also be regarded as a kind of compensation for the North China Front.
Okamura Neiji, who had made up his mind to completely abandon Shanxi, had a good plan. However, his First Army had been locked up in their respective control areas, and even the largest cities could not get out of the city gates. The Japanese army was in
The last railway line controlled by Shanxi, the South Tongpu Railway, has been completely interrupted. The Japanese troops on the Yuncheng line have been completely separated from the Japanese troops in other directions.
But Okamura Neiji's wish is good, but whether the First Army can be assembled is a matter of two minds. As soon as the North China battlefield started, Yoshimoto Teiichi tried to gather the troops many times. But many times he failed
They tried hard, but they all failed. Not only did they fail to gather their troops, but they lost one-third of their troops in the process of gathering.
Otherwise, how could the Japanese army, which had always only eaten and not vomited, beg the Second Theater Command to take over the Japanese-occupied Shanxi area? Wasn't it just to allow the Second Theater Command to draw out its troops and cover their assembly and retreat? It's just that the abacus was better than
His clever King of Shanxi was not fooled at all, and the plan of Okamura Neji and Yoshimoto Teiichi came to nothing.
Neiji Okamura, who had no success this time, simply wanted to do something horizontal. The troops of the Eighteenth Army in the Shanxi battlefield were focused on the Zhengtai Railway and the Baijin Railway, as well as the passes of the Taihang Mountains and Wutai Mountains. Okay.
, I won’t take those routes, I’ll take a detour to Henan on the south bank of the Yellow River. I’ll see if your hands can reach there.
It's just that it is currently blocked in a few isolated towns along the Nantong-Pu Railway and the Zhengtai Railway. Can the First Army, which was attacked by the 18th Group Army on the Shanxi battlefield and suffered heavy casualties, still have this ability?
, it is another matter to gather enough troops to break out of the encirclement via Henan.
But regardless of whether Chongqing is sincere or not, what is the purpose of this counterattack? Strategically, the entry of the first theater into eastern Hebei has relieved the pressure on the battlefield in central Hebei to a certain extent. Just as Yang Zhen expected
, the interception operation in the First War Zone actually helped the Anti-Japanese Alliance to a certain extent.
On the Jizhong battlefield, as the bell of 1944 came, the first two battlefields to fall silent were the Baoding North and Gaoyang battlefields. On the last day of 1943, Chen Hanzhang completed the attack on the Baoding battlefield, where the five Japanese forces
The team's complete siege and annihilation. The key node of Qingfengdian was in vain. With the recovery of Baoding City, the entire Western Front battlefield has come to an end.
It was just a continuous hard battle on the battlefield in Baoding. Although five Japanese infantry regiments were annihilated. However, under the continuous life-threatening counterattacks of the Japanese army, Chen Hanzhang's troops suffered considerable casualties. The number of casualties even reached one-third of the total strength of the troops.
1. After arriving at Zhengding, because there were no reserve troops to supplement, it was actually no longer possible to continue southward and had to turn to defense.
Just before the gunfire on the Baoding North Battlefield subsided, the Gaoyang Battlefield ended first. The troops attacking from the direction of Gaoyang had captured Li County and completely eliminated several Japanese infantry brigades in front of them. After completing the encirclement and annihilation of the enemy in Gaoyang, the troops
Regardless of casualties, they immediately turned around and attacked eastward.
In order to cooperate with the siege troops on the Hejian battlefield, they completed the encirclement of the enemy in Hejian. The unit is currently fighting the Japanese army on the front battlefield in Hejian, and is engaged in a fierce battle between Zhulong River and Suning. However, in the face of a fierce battle to ensure the division's
The left wing of the main force was safe, but the Japanese troops were desperately resisting. In addition, they had suffered heavy casualties in previous battles, and the number of troops invested was somewhat insufficient, so the progress was relatively slow.
However, progress on the right wing of the Hejian battlefield was relatively smooth, and the outflanking of the Japanese 64th Division on the Hejian battlefield was basically completed. The resistance of the 64th Division on the right wing was defeated, and the attack on the 64th Division was completed.
The division of contact between the regiment and the 22nd Division.
Although they were encircled many times, they were all escaped by this very cunning Sixty-fourth Division. However, they also clung to the right wing of the Japanese army, using the tank group as the forerunner, and adopted the tactics of parallel and overtaking pursuit. Many implementations were carried out.
They were besieged all the way, and they were constantly tearing flesh off the Japanese soldiers piece by piece.