Chapter 35 Chapter Five Against the Current

The huge and heavy wheel of war creaked and creaked slowly, rolling into 1944 with a pool of blood all the way.In this troubled world, the power of justice has finally come out of the most difficult years after a hard battle, and has taken another step forward towards the light of peace that the heart longs for. On the Soviet-German battlefield, Stalin, smoking a big pipe, led his generals to carry out the "ten strikes" aimed at completely crushing the Third Reich. In January 1944, the Soviet Red Army, wearing heavy leather boots and duffel coats, launched the Leningrad-Novgorod battle in the ice and snow against the pure-bred Germans who were no longer proud. Almost at the same time, the Ukrainian campaign on the right bank of the Dnieper River was launched, that is, the "second strike".The Soviet army invested a total of 3.45 million troops in the two battles, while the German troops who responded to the battle also reached 2.54 million.The grandeur, big battlefield, big fight, and bloodshed are truly the feeling of "world war".Both battles ended with the victory of the Soviet army, and fascist Germany lost its initiative in the war against the Soviet Union until the next year, when it completely failed.

On the night of January 21, 1944, according to the chessboard laid out by the two giants Roosevelt and Churchill, the US 5th Army and the British 8th Army landed in Anzio, Italy. At the same time, another famous landing operation "Normandy Landing" Also entered the countdown standby state.These two landings opened up the second battlefield in Europe and accelerated the pace of the total collapse of German and Italian fascist forces in Europe. In Myanmar, where the dense subtropical jungle grows, taking advantage of the opportunity of the Chinese Expeditionary Force to contain the main force of the Japanese army, the British 5th and 7th British Indian Division fought a battle with the Japanese army in the golden fortress in the Arakan Mountains in February.In this service, more than 7,000 Japanese soldiers were killed and more than 5,000 prisoners were captured. It was the first British victory against Japan since the outbreak of the Pacific War.Subsequently, the British and Japanese armies fought again on the Imphal Plain on the border between India and Myanmar. This battle lasted for 4 months, and the Japanese army was defeated with heavy casualties of 50,000 dead bodies.

Focus on the Pacific Ocean. From January to February 1944, after the US Army, Navy and Air Force captured the Gilbert Islands, they immediately attacked the Marshall Islands, which is located on the east side of Japan's central Pacific defense circle. With its superior firepower, the U.S. military crushed the iron will of the Japanese guarding the island and broke through the line of defense that controlled the front of the Pacific Ocean.A large number of warships flying the Stars and Stripes sailed into the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and the U.S. military planes took off from here like a flock of happy birds. They either searched for Japanese warships on the sea, or visited islands closer to Japan, and even flew to Japan uninvited. Bombs were thrown over the mainland.

The development of the matter to this point cannot but arouse the serious concern of the Japanese army base camp. As we all know, Japan is a resource-poor island country. In order to seize the origin of raw materials and establish sea transportation lines, the Japanese nation has worked hard for several generations, and even expanded wildly like a wild beast.It is not an exaggeration to call the sea transportation line its own "blood transfusion line", it is the survival of this nation. In 1941, the Japanese army attacked Pearl Harbor with excellent military action and destroyed the US Pacific Fleet in order to ensure its expansion to the sea.But contrary to expectations, the United States quickly resumed its combat capability in the Pacific Ocean, and gradually pushed the blue front closer to the Japanese mainland, which not only endangered its external expansion, but also endangered its normal existence. The United States, whose military potential seems immeasurable, has nothing to do, at least under the current circumstances.

With the loss of command of the sea, land transportation becomes even more important. Major General Joichiro Sanada, Chief of Operations of the Japanese Army General Staff Headquarters, and Takushiro Hattori, Chief of Operations Section of the Ministry of Army Operations, saw the danger of losing the sea control in the Pacific Ocean as early as 1943 when the US army captured Guadalcanal Island in the South Pacific.The two of them suggested to Hideki Tojo, then Prime Minister and Minister of War: Open up the mainland transportation line. The so-called Continental Line of Communication is the railway that enters Northeast China from North Korea, which is the closest to the Japanese mainland, and connects the Northeast, North China, and Central China occupied by the Japanese army to Wuhan, and then continues to extend forward, passing through the two railway lines of Ping-Han and Hunan-Guangxi. , from Guangxi to Yunnan, and connected with Vietnam and Myanmar railways.Only through the completion of such a long communication line can the loss of damage to the sea transportation line be minimized and the various materials plundered from the occupied areas can be maintained, especially the oil, steel, The import of strategic materials such as coal, grain, cotton, non-ferrous metals, and timber to Japan.

However, along the Ping-Han Railway and the Hunan-Gui Railway, the Chinese army each has hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and opening up the communication line means a big battle.Therefore, when the Ministry of War proposed the operational concept of concentrating heavily on forcibly opening up the lines of communication on the mainland and subsequently destroying the air bases in southwestern China, which were a great threat to Japan, General Susumu Nishiura of the Military Division of the Ministry of Army immediately raised objections. At the end of 1943, the Military Section submitted a document to Hideki Tojo, starting from the difficulties in Japan's national power and military power, and proposed that large-scale combat operations should not be carried out in the short term, and the use of military power must remain focused.Hideki Tojo thought over and over again, and thought that the opinion of the military department was more objective, so he put the motion of the War Department on hold.

But only one month later, at the beginning of January 1944, an intelligence message from both the United States and China shocked the Japanese base camp: the newly developed and finalized large strategic bomber b-29 of the United States began to equip the air force.This bomber was at the most advanced level in the world at that time in terms of range, load and bombing target accuracy.The U.S. government ordered the military to allow this aircraft to show its prowess in the war against Japan first. So hundreds of B-29s flew across the ocean and landed at several military airports in southwest China.

This move means that the security of the Japanese mainland is mortally threatened.Tojo had to reconsider the shelved proposal.Based on the opinions of both the Operations Department and the Military Section, he decided to use the troops he could mobilize to carry out a limited operation aimed only at destroying the main air force bases in Southwest China. The base camp quickly drew up a combat order, requiring the Chinese dispatched army to organize an attack on the Chinese army along the southern section of Pinghan Road and the Hunan-Guizhou Railway, defeat the main forces of China's Sixth and Ninth War Zones in the Hunan-Guizhou Operation, attack to the vicinity of Guilin and Liuzhou, and completely occupy the After the railway line, they quickly captured the airports in Nanxiong, Guangdong and Suichuan, Jiangxi, completely destroying the foothold of the Chinese and American air forces in southern China.

Hideki Tojo held a neatly copied combat order in his hand, and he could feel its weight.From April 18, 1942, when the U.S. Air Force attacked the mainland for the first time, the Japanese people lived day and night amidst the sound of air defense sirens. Even the holy emperor had to condescend to roll and crawl to avoid air raids, and once even broke the body of a dragon.As the supreme general in command of the imperial army, what are the responsibilities? This will be a crucial battle that will determine Japan's success or failure in the war.If the new American bomber takes off from the airport in Southwest China, it will come to Japan in the blink of an eye.According to intelligence, this aircraft can carry out continuous bombing of ground targets without any difficulty.If it flies over important local industrial areas, military bases, and ports, the losses will be unimaginable.And if it flew over a densely populated city, the casualties and chaos would be even more incalculable.The former "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" has regressed into an "Absolute Defense Circle". We can't even defend our homeland and end up in ruins!

Precisely because victory or defeat is at stake, survival is at stake, so what will be carried out is the largest offensive operation since the outbreak of the war of aggression against China.In Pinghan and Xianggui, a total of 510,000 troops were invested (including 362,000 for the Hunan-Guangzhou line), and an additional 100,000 horses, 1,500 cannons, 800 tanks, and aviation and navy coordinated attacks. The actual combat distance will reach 1,500 kilometers is equivalent to an expedition.Such a large-scale field operation is the first time in Japanese military history, and its scale is equivalent to the "Chongqing offensive" that was not implemented in 1942.But this time it must be implemented, and there is no other choice.

Hideki Tojo wrote the code name of the operation on the cover of the document with a thick red pen: Battle number one.