Chapter 67 Chapter 67 Outer Puzzle 2

In fact, Isamu Yokoyama, the commander of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army, had long seen through the strategic deployment of the national army. Although the offensive against Hengyang suffered repeated setbacks and heavy casualties, he only made up for the 68th and 116th divisions responsible for the siege. Without reinforcements, without throwing its main force into siege battles.Under the repeated urging of the dispatched army and the base camp, they still insisted: "As long as the main force of the enemy's periphery is destroyed, the Hengyang defenders will not receive reinforcements. Without supplies, when their combat power is exhausted, they will be defeated by themselves." !"

Sure enough, when the Japanese army oppressed all the national troops on the east bank of the Xiangjiang River to the far south of Hengyang, they immediately mobilized three divisions and entered the siege of Hengyang. However, things are quietly changing.The tenacious resistance of the Hengyang 10th Army has achieved the goal of defeating the Japanese army's spirit and morale, destroying its prestige, and disrupting the Japanese army's strategic deployment and logistics supply.The Hengyang garrison attracted several times as many Japanese troops as the garrison. Hengyang, as Fang Xianjue himself said, was like the eye of a typhoon, holding hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops participating in the No. The hilly area of ​​the country made it chaotic in dispatching, slow in action, and opportunities abound for the surrounding armies of the national army.The war situation has undergone profound changes from the initial unfavorable situation, and it has become more and more conducive to the national army's counterattack. The conditions for the national army to organize the Hengyang battle have not disappeared.

After Hengyang's outlying national forces fell in Changsha, there were still 300,000 people in the order issued by the Ninth Theater.Although the logistics supplies were lagging behind and the morale of the troops was frustrated, the Japanese army had been severely injured and suffered heavy losses after two failed general attacks on Hengyang.As long as the national army is well organized, it is entirely possible to wipe out or defeat part of the Japanese army in any direction around Hengyang.The key at this time is to have a strategic giant eye to see the fleeting good fighter opportunity brought by the Hengyang defenders; and a strategic giant hand to overcome all opinions, unify command, and forcefully dispatch all forces to obey and Serving a unified strategic goal.

However, during the period of Hengyang's persistence, people could not see such a giant eye, nor did such a giant hand come out.The soldiers of the national army only saw Chief Xue Yue who was disheartened and complained; only saw Generalissimo Jiang who had been paying attention to the Hengyang battle very anxiously, but had no unified organization and arrangement, and only prayed every day; I saw the sarcasm of the deputy chief Bai Chongxi, who called himself a "little Zhuge" and had military foresight in the party-state army, standing sideways. As an ancient city of history and culture, Hengyang is destined to become the focus of the world's attention.The Japanese army paid a heavy price to capture her; the 10th Army of the National Army also paid a huge sacrifice to guard her.Both China and Japan are facing a profound crisis of "falling short of success". It depends on who is more active in this helplessness and can persist in the last five minutes.

Being proactive was perhaps the most lacking sense of war in the party-state at that time, while being passive had become a virus that penetrated deep into the bone marrow.Military strategies such as Bai Chongxi's cannot provide a decision-making reference for active combat, but can only be used for passive predictions and predictions.Therefore, Fang Xianjue and his 10th Army fought bloody battles to create an opportunity to change history, and the Nationalist Government and the Chinese nation are about to miss it... Chiang Kai-shek has been clamoring to make the Battle of Hengyang the second in the Battle of Stalingrad.But I don't know if he thought about it, the 48-day defense of Stalingrad.Those 48 days and nights are not only the soldiers fighting desperately to fight for every inch of land.More importantly, there are a large number of strategic operations outside the siege: the assembly and deployment of troops, the storage and distribution of strategic reserves, the detour and coordination of strategic flanks, the blocking and isolation of enemy logistics supply lines, the division and attraction of enemy reinforcements, the common hatred of all soldiers and civilians, The unity and coordination of the top and bottom... The victory after 48 days is naturally a natural and inevitable result. 330,000 elite German troops were wiped out under the city.Mao Zedong himself wrote an article praising this great victory, and his comments were unique. At the beginning of the article, he denied the Western newspaper's saying that he called it "Red Verdun", and called it "the turning point of the Second World War", which is eye-catching. And accurate.And what does the defense of Hengyang signify, and what can it be exchanged for?Can it be exchanged for victory in a battle?Or just embodies the battlefield discipline of "survival and death with the battlefield", or the value of "loyalty, benevolence and bravery" and the spirit of "dear Jingcheng"? !

No matter what Chiang Kai-shek was doing, no matter what Bai Chongxi was busy with, and no matter where Xue Yue had gone or how the rescue situation was, the Hengyang defenders were indeed at their last juncture.With the advent of the era of hot weapons, the value of castles and fortifications has been greatly reduced. Especially in World War II, the intensity of ground and air artillery fire was enough to destroy any man-made fortifications. The 10th Army in Hengyang City only relied on earthworks and fortifications. It is already a great miracle that the infantry's conventional weapons have persisted for more than a month.No matter how excellent Fang Xianjue's command was, no matter how good the soldiers of the 10th Army were able to fight, they could not bear the fate of the hundreds of thousands of troops of the national army, nor could they stop the entire front of the Japanese army's No. 1 battle alone...

As early as July 18, before the artillery fire of the second general offensive of the Japanese army ceased, Fang Xianjue reported to the high command: "... our army has lost all casualties. Were compiled, food, ammunition and medicine are all short, it is really unsustainable, Hengyang is at stake. I hope to order reinforcements to rush in to rescue the siege..." His voice was hoarse and weeping, the general was helpless at this point. After hearing the news, Generalissimo Jiang wrote in his diary: "Unexpectedly, the casualties are so great!" He hurriedly urged the support troops to advance to make a rescue. On July 20, the 62nd Army rushing to assist Hengyang attacked 7 kilometers southwest of Hengyang, and the 79th Army marching northwest to assist Hengyang was only 8 kilometers away from Hengyang.Jiang estimated that one day, the two armies only need to advance 5 kilometers, and the siege of Hengyang will be closed, so he hurriedly notified Fang Xianjue and ordered him to send troops to respond.However, it is so close.When Fang Xianjue sent the Cao Huating Special Agent Battalion to attack the direction of the 62nd Army's reinforcements, they worked in vain for a while, but were repeatedly blocked by the enemy on the way back and suffered heavy casualties.This day was a very heavy one. All the artillery shells dropped by the Sino-US joint air force in the sky, and the artillery shells that the Hengyang defenders were eagerly looking forward to, also fell into the Japanese positions.Jiang sighed in his diary: "... those who are depressed for a long time!"