Chapter 8 Chapter Eight: The First Army in the World

Matsui's "Shanghai Expeditionary Army" landed from two directions. After the Zentsuji Division landed in Chuanshakou, the Nagoya 3rd Division also landed in Zhanghuabang. On August 31, Wu Song fell. On September 5, Baoshan was besieged. There is a battalion stationed in Baoshan, and the battalion commander is Yao Ziqing. After the Nagoya Division surrounded Baoshan, they immediately dropped a letter of persuasion by plane, demanding that the city give up resistance. I have seen a photo of Yao Ziqing, wearing a pair of glasses, he looks gentle, not like a soldier, but like a scholar.

But this soldier who looks like a scholar is extremely tough inside. Now is the time to make up your mind to die. It is better to die generously than to die stealthily.In the face of death, I, Yao Ziqing, will never take half a step back. I die, the company commander takes command, the company commander dies, the platoon leader takes over, and so on.At that time, there is no need to ask for instructions and reports, just take over automatically. After saying this, Yao Ziqing picked up his gun and led his warriors up the city wall. Two days later, the city was broken.All of Yao Ziqing's battalion died in battle, along with the city.

The front line was once again in crisis. In addition to Baoshan and Wusong, Liu Xing was also breached by the Japanese army, and Luodian's back was immediately exposed.After inspecting the front line, Chen Cheng decided to give up his original plan to stick to Luodian's position and retreat to the southwest of Luodian. It was a retreat, but Chen Cheng did not leave Luodian, so Matsui was still unable to cut off the retreat of the Chinese army. The battlefield situation is changing rapidly, and everyone has to keep changing their tactics.Matsui Bian's move is called the "Central Breakthrough" tactic, the kind that slashes at the waist with a knife, making your blood gushing wildly, the kind that sprinkles the sky.

This waist refers to Yang Xing.If Yang Xing can be captured, Matsui can cut the Songhu North-South battlefield into two sections, and then eat them in one bite. Chen Cheng transferred another good general, who was Hu Zongnan. Hu Zongnan, a native of Zhenhai, Zhejiang, graduated from the first phase of Whampoa. Hu Zongnan studied very hard when he was a boy. He once graduated from middle school with the first place in the school, but his family was too poor, so he had to give up the opportunity to continue his studies.In order to make a living, he worked as a primary school teacher and set up a street stall, and finally decided to go to Guangzhou to apply for the Whampoa Military Academy.

Among the generals of the Republic of China, Chen Cheng was considered short, and Hu Zongnan was even shorter, less than 1.60 meters, almost equivalent to a "super disabled".When he applied for the Whampoa Military Academy, even if he lifted his shoulders up, he was still more than a head lower than the others. When the examiner saw it, he immediately took him out of the team, and said unceremoniously: You are not material for being a soldier at all! This sentence is undoubtedly tantamount to a death sentence for the candidate. Thinking of the vast road ahead in a different place and no relatives, Hu Zongnan felt sad for a while, and couldn't help squatting on the ground and crying.

Manly man, not tofu, just crying is useless.After thinking for a while, Hu Zongnan suddenly wiped away his tears, jumped up, and loudly questioned the instructor just now: Why don't you let me participate in the National Revolution? Revolution is the duty of every young man, and I am a young man, what right do you have to deprive me of my duty like this!Why, you say!you say! Hu Zongnan became more and more excited: Don't you think I'm short?What's wrong with being short? Napoleon wasn't tall either. It's not the same as being invincible all over Europe. Mr. Sun Yat-sen's height is less than 1.7 meters!

Having said that, he began to quote scriptures. Confucius once said that judging people by their appearance will lose Ziyu (the word of Confucius' disciple Tantai Mieming).Ziyu's appearance must not be very good, which is why Confucius thought he was not good at first. Who knows that this disciple became famous all over the world, and in the end even Confucius had to admit his mistake and admit that he was wrong. The national revolution, what a sacred cause, how can you judge people by their appearance? The examiner didn't expect that the young man in front of him, who had been declared eliminated by him, would suddenly go mad, and he was so righteous and eloquent that he was rendered speechless for a while.

Hu Zongnan was small, but his throat was not small. His wow-wah-wah voice shocked everyone around him, including Liao Zhongkai, who was the party representative of the Whampoa Military Academy at the time. Liao Zhongkai inquired about what had happened, and returned to his office to write a note to Hu Zongnan. The note said: The national revolution urgently needs a large number of talents, as long as they have good grades and good health, it doesn't matter if they are short. Holding Liao Zhongkai's note, Hu Zongnan was authorized to take the exam.Although his test scores were actually good, he was still listed as a "candidate student" because of his height.

Candidate students are not formally admitted yet. It seems that even with representative Liao's care, discrimination is still everywhere. So you must work hard and tell those worldly eyes with facts: In fact, I am the best! Don't be afraid of those who look down on us, even if they are so-called instructors, examiners, authorities... Just like Chennault at the time, Hu Zongnan also did this. A small man with an unattractive appearance, he became the commander of the main division of the Central Army very early on. First student". Behind the success is of course countless hardships and dedication.

Fan Changjiang, a reporter from the Republic of China, was famous for his book "The Northwest Corner of China". When he was interviewing in the Northwest, he made a special trip to visit Hu Zongnan, who was already famous at that time. It was winter during the interview, the wind was howling outside, and the temperature was extremely cold.Fan Changjiang originally thought that such a celebrity would definitely sit in the headquarters in a handsome and elegant cloak. Unexpectedly, this headquarters is not even a private house, but a ruined temple in a mountain.Hu Zongnan lived in the dilapidated temple, and the small temple was indeed dilapidated, with the bitter northwest wind constantly blowing in through the windows.

As soon as you walk in, there is not even a hot kang in the room, let alone a stove. As a senior general of the Central Army, Hu Zongnan was still wearing single clothes and pants, and his whole body was covered with sores from the cold from his face to his hands. In Fan Changjiang's eyes, this teacher doesn't like to talk about vague topics like what life is, and he always likes to talk about his troops.What surprised Reporter Fan was that he knew his subordinates well, even "what about a certain sergeant, and what about a certain corporal". This situation surprised the well-informed reporters. Later, Fan Changjiang went deep into the barracks, interviewed many soldiers, and found that Hu Zongnan was not exaggerating.Even in the eyes of ordinary soldiers, his image is close to perfection: he loves soldiers like a son, is hard and simple, and is sometimes so demanding on himself that he is almost masochistic. When he was in the Northwest, Hu Zongnan was only a teacher, and he had a quiet personality and didn't like to approach people proactively, so not many people knew him, but his 1st Division was already famous all over the country at that time. In the Central Plains War, the wolves and tigers of the Northwest Army were most afraid of the 1st Division. As long as they heard that the 1st Division was coming from the opposite side, they would immediately avoid this hard stubble and turn to other soft persimmons. In the years when copyrights were not properly protected, this famous trademark was quickly used fraudulently. Even Zhang Zhizhong and Wei Lihuang claimed that they belonged to the 1st Division when they were fighting.The Northwest Army was quite puzzled, why the 1st Division is everywhere, what a ghost.In the future, a rule will be formed, wherever the 1st Division appears, it will immediately become the main battlefield of the Central Army's operations, and the 1st Division is therefore called "the first division in the world". Hu Zongnan is a low-key person. In fact, his 1st division has already met the conditions for promotion to the army, and the military and political department has also passed it, but he has not been promoted for a long time. He Yingqin, Minister of the Military and Political Department, kept urging, saying that if you don't get promoted, I won't pay you any more. In addition, the brigade leaders below also became emotional because they couldn't be promoted, so Hu Zongnan agreed to promote the division to the army. However, Hu Zongnan's 1st Army was not a German armed force, and its equipment was also very general. Most of the officers and soldiers used Hanyang-made or miscellaneous guns. The so-called "first" refers to the spiritual first. In order to break through Hu Zongnan's line of defense, Matsui organized a heavy artillery bombardment. When the artillery fire was the most intense, five or six shells would explode on the defenders' positions every second. The battle was so fierce, but the 1st Army never retreated a single step, and none of its soldiers fled. One of the battalions had been besieged by the Japanese on three sides, and it was almost overwhelmed, so Hu Zongnan hurriedly transferred another battalion to reinforce it. The reinforcement battalion ran wildly, but saw a group of devils holding a flag in front of the defenders' position from a distance. The battalion commander's heart skipped a beat, thinking that the position was going to be over. Suddenly there was a burst of gunfire on the position, and the Japanese army withdrew. When the battalion commander rushed into the position, he found that the trenches were full of corpses, and one battalion had been wiped out, leaving only one Shanxi soldier who could still hold a gun. It was this veteran who fired the gun just now, and his comrades around him were all killed in battle, but he never thought of running away or retreating. That kind of decisive aura scared away all the determined opponents. In the defense of Yangxing, the casualties of the 1st Army were astonishing. Taking the main 1st Division as an example, two brigade commanders were injured and three were injured, four regiment leaders were lost and five were lost. You may wonder why there are more people than the actual positions. The answer is simple: the extra ones are added, and the last added ones are also hung up. After a week of solidarity, the casualty rate of officers and soldiers below the 1st Army Battalion has reached 80%. The company commander has been replaced except for the communications company commander whose position is not fixed. There are very few veterans who have come to Shanghai. Seeing that the beatings were getting less and less, Hu Zongnan still didn't say a word, didn't complain, just gritted his teeth and stood up alone. Instead, after the superior knew the truth, he quickly called Hu Zongnan and asked him to change defenses and rest. Only then did Hu Zongnan tell the other party that if he didn't change his defense, tomorrow I would go to the line of fire with a gun. When the 1st Army first arrived in Shanghai, there were still 40,000 people, but by the end of the Songhu Battle, there were only 1,200 people left.Reporter Zhang Jiluan sighed from this, saying that the 1st Army has always been an elite division, and the sacrifice was so tragic that it made people cry. On the battlefield, Hu Zongnan seemed to have a heart of steel, but when he set off to return to the northwest, he could not help feeling sad when he saw the more than 1,000 officers and soldiers remaining around him. The No. 1 Army in the World disappeared in Shanghai forever. Under Hu Zongnan's desperate defense, Matsui failed to hit the "waist", and the "central breakthrough" tactic also failed. At this time, the two divisions of the Shanghai Expeditionary Army were both in a bitter battle. Since the landing, they had suffered a total of 4,080 casualties, and some of the regiments suffered particularly heavy casualties. In addition to the war deaths and injuries, there are also many people who are sick. Listen to those names on the Songhu battlefield, such as Jiangwan and Yunzaobang, all have something to do with water.There are many mosquitoes in the ponds in the south of the Yangtze River. When the weather is hot, there are more mosquitoes. These mosquitoes can't do anything else. If the landing of the Marine Corps in the urban area of ​​Shanghai was the first reinforcement, then the landing of the two standing divisions in the northern suburbs of Shanghai should be regarded as the second reinforcement. Never fall down. Who is to blame, Matsui, the commander of the Shanghai dispatched army, for his ineffective command? Matsui looked aggrieved. He said that when he set off from Tokyo, he emphasized to Sugiyama Moto who saw him off that two divisions were not enough, and five divisions were not enough. All right, then send reinforcements. Back then, in order to increase troops to North China, the Japanese military and political circles discussed and discussed, and the saliva was flying all over the sky, which made Lu Xiang Sugiyama himself almost lose his temper, but now and then, the current climate in Japan has made it a habit to send troops abroad. Action, no one stopped. Sugiyama Moto was even more anxious and panicked, wishing that with a touch of his finger, the third batch of reinforcements could immediately cross the ocean and fly to Shanghai.You know, before the war started, he swore in front of Emperor Hirohito that the war would end within one month.Now that January is too early, the battle in Songhu shows no sign of stopping at all, so how can he sit still. Only Ishihara, the head of the Operations Department of the General Staff Headquarters, still insisted on the original idea, that is, no more troops could be sent to China, and at the same time, fighting should be stopped, but who else would listen to his opinions? Before that, the deputy chief of staff Kiyoshi Imai once supported him, but after Xiangyue took Hirajin lightly, the old man stopped talking until he resigned due to illness. Followed by Hayao Tada.When he served as the commander of the "North China Garrison", he also vigorously promoted "North China Autonomy", so he can be classified as a hardliner. Now Ishihara is more distressed than ever before. You only see a Chinese "China", but you have completely forgotten our great enemy - the Soviet Union and the United States. Around the Northeast, the Soviet Army has 14 infantry divisions alone. How many divisions does the Kwantung Army have? Haha, four! Now the Soviet army has advanced by leaps and bounds, and the strength of one of their infantry divisions is no worse than that of the Japanese divisions, 14 against 4, how can they fight against him? Yes, our mechanized special forces look great, almost unbeatable in North China, but in the Northeast, the Kwantung Army has 200 planes, the Soviet Army has 900; the Kwantung Army has 100 tanks, the Soviet Army has 800 cars are just a fraction of others. This is the north, and the south. According to intelligence, the United States has built underground fortifications in the Philippines and Manila, which are clearly aimed at us. After all, Tada Hayao has a different status now. He can't always be greedy for merit like when he was the commander of the "North China Garrison". Listening to what Shi Yuan said, it seems quite reasonable. China is not scary, but the Soviet Union in the north is scary. If you only focus on China and waste your strength, how can you prepare for war against the Soviet Union? So he took half a step towards the Moderates. But it was only half a step. Tada Hayao also had the kind of fluke and arrogance that the Japanese often have. He believed that as long as he exerted more force, the war with China would be over, and it would not be too late to talk about preparing for the war against Su. Shi Yuan became completely alone. Seeing that the General Staff Headquarters and the Army Ministry could not coordinate, Prince Zairen, Chief of Staff, had to go to the palace to meet Emperor Hirohito in person. Hirohito no longer remembers Sugiyama Moto's "one-month period". After his in-laws said something, he immediately nodded in agreement, okay, let's increase the number of troops. Now that the Emperor has approved it, going to Ishihara is nothing more than going through the procedures. On September 7, Ishihara signed the troop increase plan, and then he resigned as the head of the war department. Twenty days later, he was appointed as the deputy chief of staff of the Kwantung Army, and has since left the power center of the Japanese military circles. It's finally out! In the eyes of ordinary Japanese, this "national hero" who launched the "September 18th" is indeed quite old, and he can no longer be called a hero. Even if he returned to the headquarters of the Kwantung Army, Ishihara was very unhappy. He always looked down on the boss whom he called "Private Soldier Tojo"-Kwantung Army Chief of Staff Tojo Hideki. Ishihara thinks Tojo is purely mediocre. But God is so unfair. The mediocre boss was proud all the way, and later he became the prime minister.Tojo, who became the prime minister, did not hesitate to put on shoes for Ishihara, who was the head of the division at the time, forcing this talented subordinate to retire from active service and go to teach in a university. The class he taught was national defense, but the real Japanese national defense was on the verge of collapse at that time, and "Professor Ishihara" was still helpless. He attracted people's attention again when Japan fell into the quagmire of China and couldn't extricate itself. Only then did the Japanese discover that what Ishihara said might be right. However, it was too late. Like his compatriots, he could only watch his country step by step towards the fate of failure. To some extent, Ishihara is like the fortune-teller with a pair of yin and yang eyes, who predicted the future disaster, but no one believed him. In fact, he planted this evil fruit with his own hands, some years ago, in Liutiao Lake, during the "September 18th".It's just that at the beginning he thought that what he planted was a towering tree, but he didn't expect it to be a poisonous seedling that almost brought disaster to the nation. Although it is an enemy country, I still have to admit that Shi Yuan is a strategist with some foresight, and a person with some brains. I have seen a photo of Ishihara, that is Ishihara when he was young, at that time he could be called heroic and full of vigor. If we change our perspective, this can be considered a tragic figure. In this way, the nation behind him is equally tragic.It has absorbed many good things from our traditional culture, and until now, some traces of Han culture can still be found in this country.But I have learned so much, but I have not learned an old Chinese saying well.This is the phrase that the sages once said repeatedly - do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself! No matter how smart Ishihara was, he could not go beyond this limitation, and this is probably the real root of many Japanese tragedies.