Chapter 8 Chapter 8 Who Can Give Me a Sword (5)

Urgent The soldiers in front were quite satisfied with the progress of Xue Yue's second siege, but Chiang Kai-shek, who was sitting in Zhengzhou, seemed anxious. too slow! Twelve divisions before and after participated in the siege, and the Doihara division now has at most five or six thousand people left. Why can't hundreds of thousands of people take down five or six thousand people? Let me tell you, with this standard, even if Sanyiji is invaded, it will only be a laughing stock in the history of warfare. It is not a big deal in the history of Chinese and foreign wars that hundreds of thousands of people attack a city and cannot be overcome. After all, you have only attacked for two or three days, not two or three months, and the opponent has not reached the point of desperation. Relying on planes can still get supplies.

The so-called "eternal laughing stock" and so on are nothing but Chiang Kai-shek's aggressive tactics, but he has indeed seen the crisis, that is, under the circumstances that Sanyiji has repeatedly failed to attack, new changes may occur in the battlefield situation. Sima Qian recorded in "Historical Records" that Confucius' favorite book in his later years was "Book of Changes", and even reached the point where the cowhide ropes on the bamboo slips were broken many times in the "Three Wonders of Wei Bian". The old master loves "Book of Changes" so much, of course, because this ancient book, which is said to be written by King Wen of Zhou, has so many things that make people's eyes shine.

According to the thesis of the author, everything may turn in the opposite direction when it reaches its peak. Even if you reach the excellent artistic conception of "flying dragon in the sky", you will definitely encounter the embarrassment of "the dragon has regrets". The Xue Yue Corps has not yet been able to "flying dragons in the sky", but Chiang Kai-shek, who overlooks the overall situation, can already see various ominous signs. Being able to surround Doihara, in the final analysis, exploited the loopholes in the cooperation between the temple and Xiangyue. Once the other party wakes up, the time of the siege cannot be counted.

All Chiang Kai-shek's worries depended on whether or not Shangqiu could be kept. It used to be the west gate of Xuzhou, but now it had to be regarded as the east gate of eastern Henan. If Shangqiu can be guaranteed, there is still time. If Shangqiu is not guaranteed, there is no need to talk about it. On May 29, Shangqiu was occupied by the "North China Front Army" advancing westward. Chiang Kai-shek's worries finally became a reality. At this time, he had flown back to Hankou and immediately called Xue Yue long-distance: It is urgent!Immediately stop the siege of Doihara and organize the retreat of the entire army.

During the phone call, Chiang Kai-shek repeatedly warned Xue Yue that if the deployment was not changed, the entire Xue Yue Corps, including all the troops in the First Theater, would be annihilated by the enemy and would be utterly disgusted by military strategists. Xue Yue understood that that very short chance of winning was gone forever. Now is not the time for the battle of Songhu. A dozen divisions are already doing their best against a single division in Doihara. If two or three divisions appear all of a sudden, everyone will be cornered. Stop the siege and retreat immediately. Under the order to retreat, the soldiers in front who didn't know what was going on couldn't help sighing: Why retreat after winning the battle? Doesn't this mean letting Doihara go?

Before the Sanyi collection, Gui Yongqing wanted to cry but had no tears. Only he knew what this order meant to him, and that was the end of everything. Gui Yongqing forever lost the opportunity to make up for his mistakes. The chief leader of the "Iron Guard" failed to get out of the quagmire in the end. He was dismissed from the post of army commander, and he was not able to return to the military until the end of the Anti-Japanese War. . The fate of his subordinate Long Muhan was even worse. He was tried by court-martial in Wuhan and sentenced to death. fire or flood For the Chinese High Command, the siege of Doihara was a rare opportunity. If it really wanted to fight the main force of the Japanese army with mechanized advantages on the Eastern Henan Plain, it would be a fool to the end.

The so-called elite, the so-called main force, only have such a few left in their hands. After the battle in Henan, there will be nothing in Wuhan. How can we organize the defense of Wuhan? But even if you want to leave at this time, you won't be able to escape immediately. Prior to this, the Japanese High Command had issued an order to the temple, requiring that during the entire Xuzhou battle, Shangqiu or at most Lanfeng must be used as the boundary, and no cross-border operations were allowed without approval. From the perspective of Hirohito and the Konoe cabinet, all of this is of course to allow the other party to have time to write a schedule for them, so there must be room for it, and the deputy chief of staff Tada Hayao still hopes to be able to negotiate as soon as possible when the possibility of continuing negotiations is lost. Withdraw from China.

But the temple said: No! Although Xiangyue had already left, what he said still greatly irritated this pretentious old boy. Don't you Xiangyue just want to show me your hand?As a result, Kaifeng still couldn't be taken down. Now I not only want to take Kaifeng, but also take Zhengzhou directly, not only take Zhengzhou directly, but also take Wuhan from north to south. Chasing all the way like this, none of the troops from the fifth theater that broke out from Xuzhou before, and the Xue Yue Corps that besieged Doiyuan in Lanfeng, should not even try to escape. After all these troops are killed, how many main forces are there in China, and whether they can surrender ?

Back then, the power in the temple was dominated by the government and the public, and a piece of restrictive order from the high command was nothing to him, so he just threw it away. On June 2, the "North China Front Army" crossed Lanfeng and continued to pursue westward. During the Battle of Lanfeng, the fat fox Doihara was locked in a cage by Xue Yue for many days, and he was so suffocated that he couldn't even breathe. The Doihara Division is a purely mechanized division. As long as the supplies keep up and the cars and tanks are refueled, they can indeed receive the effect of one against ten or even one hundred on the plain.

Doihara was in front, and the rest of the troops followed closely, splitting up and attacking from different directions. It was another big retreat, and it was another severe test for the extremely weak Chinese army. There are still 100,000 combat troops who are about to withdraw from the front line. It is inevitable that you will be pushed and squeezed, but God will not help. It has been raining for days and the roads are muddy. He was exhausted and the morale of the troops was very depressed.Li Hanhun's Cantonese army had amazing courage when they conquered King Luo, but now they are in chaos and disorder.

When they retreated to Zhengzhou, the headquarters of the first war zone found that these troops had no courage to continue fighting, and the first war zone, which once gathered elite soldiers and strong generals, could no longer come up with a confident force to stop it. A few days ago, the sky was still bright and sunny, but now there is a thick row of icicles hanging in front of the eaves. Cheng potential Zhengzhou organizes the high-ranking officers in the First War Zone to discuss countermeasures day and night.Since human power is no longer useful, we can only use natural power.The most effective natural forces are nothing more than two, except fire attack and flooding. Fire attack strategy: When it is really impossible to keep time, Zhengzhou will be burned, so that even if the Japanese invaders capture Zhengzhou, all they can get is a piece of scorched earth. Flooding strategy: Dig the Yellow River embankment near the north of Zhengzhou and implement the strategy of flooding the Seventh Army. It is said to be a fire attack, but in fact it can't hurt the devils, it hurts itself. If it is flooded, Zhengzhou can be preserved, and the Japanese invading army can also be blocked and killed. After repeated weighing, Cheng Qian finally chose the strategy of flooding. Door of hell The so-called flooding strategy was not actually initiated by Cheng Qian. As early as the "July 7th Incident", the German consultant Falkenhausen suggested that in order to prevent the Japanese invading army from attacking from north to south, the Yellow River should be burst as soon as possible. Foreigners don't know the seriousness, so it's really easy to say. Flooding of the Yellow River is a common occurrence in history, and there is even a saying that "the embankment bursts twice in three years and diverted once in a hundred years", but it is a natural disaster after all, and it is too late to block and prevent it. How dare you blow it up yourself? Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, the "water" in it is not the source of life as we understand it now, it is a symbol of danger.Just like summoning ghost soldiers in "The Lord of the Rings", you want to use water as a soldier, but what is likely to open at the same time is a gate to hell. However, things in the world are so weird, the more you refuse, the more it will force you to do it. Cheng Qian reported his idea to the commander of Chiang Kai-shek's system, and Chiang Kai-shek called his staff to discuss it, and within an hour there was a result: fight it out, do it! For such an important matter, verbal consent cannot be counted. Cheng Qian asked for instructions in a formal message, and it was officially implemented after Chiang Kai-shek's approval. On June 9, after several failures to break the embankment, the construction team finally succeeded in blasting the Huayuankou. At this time, Kaifeng had already fallen, and the railway south of Zhengzhou was also blown up by the "rapid advance team". Its method of operation is the same as that in the later period of the Xuzhou Battle. They all rely on the Japanese army's maneuver advantage to cut off the Chinese army's retreat at lightning speed. Before the Huayuankou was blasted, there had been no rain for many days in North China, and the Yellow River was also in a dry season that was rare in history. But after the breach was released, it suddenly rained, and it was still pouring. The Yellow River arrived as scheduled! A new Yellow River appeared, which would cut the Japanese invading army, which had just entered the land of no one, in half.As the flooded area was still expanding, the Japanese troops who were separated from the east bank of the New Yellow River retreated hastily. Originally, I was afraid that I would not run fast and not get the first prize, but now it backfired.All mechanized equipment, including tanks, cars, and artillery, has become a burden and can only be allowed to sink to the bottom of the water. Despite throwing away heavy weapons and luggage, a considerable number of Japanese invading troops and horses were washed away by the water without any precautions. The breach of the Huayuankou dike made the Japanese army in a panic On the west bank of the New Yellow River, in addition to one part of the Doihara Division, five brigades of the Sixteenth Division in Kyoto were separated from the bank, and after a few days, there was a shortage of food and ammunition. Zhang Zizhong and other troops were stationed nearby at this time. Seeing this situation, they immediately "take advantage of the fire and loot" and launched a fierce attack on the Japanese invading army whose retreat was cut off. The cavalry detachment of the Doihara Division was unlucky because it was the first to rush forward. All the cavalry were wiped out, and more than 400 Oriental horses and four field guns became trophies. The Japanese invading army abandoned on the west bank has become a street mouse, and even the self-defense regiments of the counties ran out to assist the regular army in pursuit.Among them, there is a self-defense regiment that pulls several large carts with only the saddles of the Japanese cavalry. All the Hanyang-made and old sleeves are replaced with Type 38. Each team also has a crooked machine gun, which is really armed with devil’s equipment. Own. The temple was dumbfounded. Not to mention occupying Wuhan from north to south, even Zhengzhou is no longer possible. The most important thing is to fish out the subordinates from the other side. All the engineering units and boats originally used to forcefully cross the Yellow River were all transferred to rescue the Japanese troops on the west bank. The remaining troops of the latter were terrified and fled back to the east bank by boat after many days. The power of nature is always awe-inspiring. In front of it, human beings are always so small and humble, and the so-called strong will soon become weak. For Chiang Kai-shek, Cheng Qian and others, the Yellow River was never going to happen, and they were in a hurry, but after successfully breaking the embankment, they were rejoicing, but also left with heart disease. When the supervisor broke the embankment, in order to get rid of this psychological shadow, the construction team also directed a folk version of the sketch on the spot. Everyone was digging, when suddenly a soldier fell to the ground, foamed at the mouth, and shouted: I am Lord Dragon, I have been stuck here for a long time, and I am going to enter the sea from here today. The performance of the play is very realistic, just like the well-known "stone man with one eye, stirring up rebellion in the Yellow River". But this can only deceive your own people. If you use it to deal with the news media, it can only make people laugh. Of course, it can also be explained in this way that the breach of the dike was to preemptively prevent the Japanese army from blowing up the dike first and flooding us.But the real problem is that the opponent has an overwhelming advantage, and they simply can't afford to use sailors. Under the instruction of Chiang Kai-shek, the unified caliber of the breach of the Huayuankou embankment was: enemy planes blasted the Huayuankou embankment, and the officers and soldiers were struggling to block it. The construction team has changed, from the instigator who broke the embankment to block the enemy, to the hero of flood fighting and rescue. Compared with the skit that is suspected to be possessed by the water dragon king, fighting against floods is a big show, because it has to withstand the test of Chinese and foreign reporters who came to interview. Cheng Qian specially called in two thousand migrant workers, and they were serious about moving rocks, and those who threw straw bales were performing solemnly in front of the reporters. The reporters in the Republic of China were not easy to fool, they read it very seriously, and you don't want to ask the questions he asked.One buddy was even more outrageous. After seeing the temporary "Japanese bomb traces", he suddenly felt emotional—— The bullet marks are only about one meter deep, but the embankment is more than twenty meters thick. Even if the bombers bombed at the same point, would it be possible to blow up the embankment? I really want to kick this reporter. None of the performers could answer the question, so they had to pretend to be stupid, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The reporters and the public opinion were fooled like this, and the Japanese were "planted" and there were hardships to tell. The first theater also thought that this was the best strategy as a last resort. But I still heard the crying on both sides of the Yellow River. The surging water of the Yellow River caused a disaster in an instant.Although when the embankment broke, the first war zone arranged for the relocation of residents along the way, but it is not so easy to move a house in a hurry, not to mention that many people resettle and relocate, and they are unwilling to leave their homeland even if they die.If they wanted to move or escape, they would have left long ago under the circumstances of such a series of wars. An official who inspected the Yellow River flooding area saw along the way that where the Yellow River passed, even the whole village and even the whole township suffered. It was really horrible. The homeland has been completely changed so far, and countless lives have been shattered in the flood. Looking at this period of history from a distance still brings us pain.Nearly ten years after Huayuankou broke the dike, Liu and Deng Qianli leaped into the Dabie Mountains. The yellow flood area presented to them was still a vast ocean, and the villages they saw had no people, just like ghost villages.Chen Zaidao, who had experienced the Long March, said sadly that the Red Army had crossed the grass three times and could still see green grass, but here, it was difficult to see even greener colors. There is no doubt that no matter what time it is, Huayuankou will be a heavy topic that can never be avoided.