Chapter 37 3. The Japanese army introduced a new strategy

In the Battle of Taierzhuang, the Chinese army wiped out more than 16,000 Japanese troops in one battle, which was even more shocking than the magnitude 8 earthquake in Japan.The local Japanese people can't hold back anymore. The young and middle-aged soldiers who enlisted in the army lined up in a long snake-like team, and the Japanese military is expanding its army in large numbers.They are determined to avenge their shame, and use the heads and blood of Chinese soldiers and civilians to pay homage to the souls of the invaders. The Japanese believe that the emperor can directly talk to God and act according to the will of God.The Chinese don't know that Japanese soldiers believe in God very much.From the corpses or relics of the Japanese soldiers on the battlefield, you can find all kinds of talismans everywhere, but the ghosts and ghosts, big and small, are not active, not only failed to protect the lives of these soldiers, but dragged them into the gate of hell.

The gods believed by the Japanese soldiers are not effective, and the emperor is the real body of the gods, so it is said that they are very effective.But the final facts proved that the Emperor of Japan was a false god. Not only could he fail to protect the Japanese people, but he dragged the Japanese people into the abyss of suffering.I don't know if this huge mistake was made by God, or by the Emperor? Maybe both.He quickly increased his troops to China on a large scale, launched a larger attack, and vowed to avenge the defeat of Taierzhuang. The Chinese also believe in gods and Buddhas.But the gods and Buddhas that the Chinese believe in are to make people abandon evil and do good, make evil people return to justice, make people accumulate virtue and do good, let people not kill in the world, and keep peace forever.Saving a life is better than building a seven-level pagoda.You can see the difference between the two.Of course, Japanese militarism also has its fatal weakness, that is, if you are stronger than him, you must defeat him, just like when the United States dropped two atomic bombs later, he immediately became honest and stopped jumping.This is just as Chairman Mao Zedong said, all reactionaries are paper tigers.You beat him to the ground, he is worse than a paper tiger.This is the virtue of Japanese imperialism.

After all, China is a big country, with a vast territory and abundant resources, not to mention a vast territory, but also a large population.The War of Resistance Against Japan is like Chairman Mao Zedong's metaphor of the foolish old man moving mountains, generation after generation will fight against you, and there will be no end to the descendants.Chairman Jiang of the Nationalist Government and Li Zongren, the commander-in-chief of the Fifth War Zone, both saw this, traded space for time, destroyed the north and the south, and fought with the Japanese for consumption.With this understanding, come to Little Japan. Hundreds of millions of Chinese people are waiting in their homes with swords and spears in their hands.

The Japanese High Command knew that this revenge was not easy to avenge, and even Xuzhou, a heroic city, was not easy to get.Unless we mobilize heavy troops and surround us on all sides, it will be difficult to get through the Jinpu line.So shortly after the end of the Taierzhuang War, the North China Front Army and the Central China Dispatch Army of the Japanese invaders gathered 13 elite divisions and about 300,000 troops (including the two divisions of Isoya and Itagaki) from Pingjin, Jin, Sui, Jiangsu, and Anhui. After retreating from Taierzhuang, they regrouped and supplemented their resting forces), equipped with various heavy weapons, hundreds of aircraft, and divided into six groups to form a large encirclement of Xuzhou. They adopted the tactics of advancing north-south and flanking in an attempt to encircle and annihilate the gathering in Xuzhou. The main force of the Fifth Theater in the area.

The deployment of the Japanese High Command was indeed prescient. When they formulated this strategy, they did not know what Chiang Kai-shek was thinking.Of course, Chairman Jiang did not know the plan of the Japanese Army High Command.The plan for the Japanese base camp seemed to be born out of Chiang Kai-shek's ideas.I don't know if Chiang Kai-shek is stupid or what?He really dispatched troops to Xuzhou in accordance with the wishes of the Japanese High Command, and this transfer got out of hand, and even transferred 600,000 elite troops of the Nationalist Government.Shouichi Terauchi, commander of the North China Front Army of the Japanese Army, and Toshiro Hata, commander of the Central China Dispatch Army, began to toast to celebrate the victory before they went to fight.They are really grateful to Chairman Jiang of China.

The intelligence of the Japanese spy agency is really fast and accurate.Here Generalissimo Jiang had just transferred the troops there, and the Japanese intelligence personnel reported a series of information such as the number and number of troops to their superiors before they were deployed.The Japanese frontline commander telegraphed to the base camp that there was a powerful group of the Chinese army in the Xuzhou area. According to reliable information, the group had about 50 divisions and more than 600,000 people, almost all of which were Chiang Kai-shek's elite troops. The Army High Command was immediately ecstatic, thinking that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to avenge Taierzhuang.

Sugiyama Motoroku immediately reported to the Emperor, strongly advocating launching the Xuzhou Battle.A severe blow to the Chinese army concentrated in Xuzhou can have a huge effect of dampening the enemy's will to resist the war.Therefore, the army is preparing to carry out an annihilation operation against Xuzhou, because Xuzhou is almost the elite main force of the Chinese army and is already in a state of isolation. As long as the strategic goal of annihilating this enemy army is achieved, the Chinese incident can be resolved by force, the Chiang regime will be forced to surrender, a decisive step can be taken, and the bad influence of our army in Taierzhuang can also be restored.

The Emperor was overjoyed when he saw the newspaper, and he also believed that this was a great opportunity to attack the arrogance of Chiang Kai-shek's Taierzhuang victory propaganda. He immediately decided to encircle and annihilate the Chinese army in Xuzhou, and demanded that the army's attack must achieve huge results in this attack. One of the Chinese troops slipped through the net in order to wipe them out.In order to seek a quick decision and not miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the Army Department of the base camp issued Order No. 84 to General Terauchi, Commander-in-Chief of North China Military Affairs, and General Hata Toshiliu, Commander-in-Chief of the Central China Dispatch Army:

1. The commander of the North China Front should defeat the enemy near Hsuchow with a forceful force and occupy the area east of Lanfeng and north of the Longhai line. 2. The commander of the Central China Expeditionary Force should occupy the vicinity of the Jinpu line south of Xuzhou with a part. While mobilizing the main forces of the North China Front Army and the Central China Dispatch Army to join the battle, the Japanese base camp also ordered the Kwantung Army to send troops to support it.Since General Toshiichi Terauchi, commander of the North China Front Army, and the six generals of Toshiro Hata of the Central China Dispatch Army had the same official rank, neither of them would accept the command of the other. Therefore, only Major General Hashimoto, the Chief of Operations of the Army Staff Headquarters, which was the base camp of the emergency dispatch, led the staff officers of the General Staff Headquarters. A base camp dispatch team was established in Jinan to organize the staff officers of the Japanese Army in North China and Central China to coordinate the battle of Xuzhou.

The Japanese army used the 16th and 14th divisions to reinforce the 5th and 10th divisions on the northern line, and advanced southward along Jinpu Road to lure the main force of the Chinese army; Longhai Road, thereby blocking the Chinese army aiding Xuzhou and blocking the retreat of the Xuzhou defenders; the 13th Division assembled between Bengbu and Huaiyuan on the southern line; the 6th and 9th Divisions advanced towards Fengyang and Hefei; The 11th Division attacked North Jiangsu. The deadliest thing in the Japanese combat plan is two words: lure.To fight a decisive battle with the Chinese army in Xuzhou, the main force of the Chinese army must be lured over and controlled in the Xuzhou area.

For this reason, the 5th Division of Itagaki and the 10th Division of Isoya of the Japanese Army carried out the combat policy of the base camp to the north of Taierzhuang and entangled with the Chinese army.They did not lure the main force of the Chinese army to the bait, but they lured the supreme commander of the Chinese Supreme Command. To use a Chinese fable as a metaphor, the Generalissimo Jiang at this time is like a crow eating meat in a tree, and the Japanese army base camp is the fox under the tree. will fall into the fox's mouth.The fox showed his patience, squatting under the tree and waiting. Generalissimo Chiang really sang.Aren't those who fought with the Chinese army north of Taierzhuang the same guys who were beaten up by Zhang Zizhong, Pang Bingxun, Sun Lianzhong, and Tang Enbo?Seeing the 5th and 10th Divisions of the Japanese Army standing there like two rambunctious dogs, bluffing with their teeth bared, Generalissimo Jiang smiled. Chairman Chiang Kai-shek is in a good mood for a while, and jokes from time to time.The victories of the Chinese army in Linyi and Taierzhuang gave Chiang Kai-shek an appetite for a big meal.He mobilized a large number of troops from various theaters, so that the strength of the fifth theater soared to 64 divisions, with a total number of 600,000.As if this was not enough for his appetite, Hu Zongnan, Huang Jie, Gui Yongqing, Yu Jishi, Song Xilian and other troops of the Central Army were deployed in eastern Henan as Xuzhou's backup force.This is a showdown. At the Supreme Command in Wuhan, Chiang Kai-shek talked about the Xuzhou battle again with a group of high-ranking staff. He told He Yingqin and Bai Chongxi that Xuzhou was the core of the battle this time.Xuzhou is located between the Yellow River and the Huaihe River, at the junction of Shandong, Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu provinces. It is the link between the north and the south and the barrier of the Central Plains.In Chinese history, the gains and losses of Xuzhou are related to the rise and fall of the country. He Yingqin echoed that the chairman's instructions were extremely important and wise.Xuzhou has always been a battleground for military strategists. The south guard can overlook Henan and Shandong, and the north guard can overlook the Huaihe River. It should not be easily given up. We must stick to Xuzhou!Lin Wei also followed suit. Liu Fei thinks that Xuzhou should defend, but in the end it is bound to fail.Considering that he is only a combat team leader, it is inconvenient to openly compete with Chiang Kai-shek, so he can only stare at Bai Chongxi, who is known as "Little Zhuge", hoping that he will come up with a good idea.Bai Chongxi understood Liu Fei's meaning, but at this time Bai Chongxi had a certain idea in his mind. He was instructed by Chief Li Zongren beforehand, and he understood the general trend and direction of the battle in Xuzhou in the fifth theater.Seeing that Generalissimo Chiang was so confident, he couldn't reveal his true heart, and he couldn't directly oppose Chiang Kai-shek's opinions.He could only make a detour with Chiang Kai-shek.Bai Chongxi said that the enemy's 10th Division and 5th Division attacked Lunan this time, and their arrogance was very fierce... Before Bai Chongxi could finish his words, he was restrained by Chairman Jiang's gesture. What are you afraid of?Weren't they defeated by Zhang Zizhong, Pang Bingxun, and Sun Lianzhong?We can increase our troops, and the elite troops of the national government are not afraid of them.Chiang Kai-shek's implication is that if he can't even defeat a motley army, can he still defeat my direct descendants? Little did they know that Chiang Kai-shek's determination was exactly what the Japanese base camp could not hope for.Just as Chiang Kai-shek commanded the main force of the Xuzhou Fifth Theater to drill into the trap set by the Japanese army step by step, Li Zongren, the commander of the theater, couldn't help it, and he stated his views to the Supreme Military Command. Xuzhou is surrounded by plains, and there is no danger to defend. The Japanese army is a mechanized force, and there are many air forces to assist in the battle. If there is a fight here, the Chinese army will suffer a lot.He believes that our army of hundreds of thousands of people in the Xuzhou Plain is the best target for the enemy's mechanized troops and air force.Li Zongren started from the strategic thinking of protracted attrition, and believed that it was stupid to fight a war of attrition with the enemy in Xuzhou.He said that with the equipment of the Chinese army, it can only take advantage of the terrain conditions to conduct mobile warfare with the enemy. In order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the Beijing-Shanghai battlefield, he proposed to withdraw from Xuzhou, but a few people in the military committee were intoxicated by the victory of Taierzhuang.After Li Zongren's opinion was denied, he immediately deployed the Xuzhou battle. As the supreme commander of the Fifth War Zone, Li Zongren was not discouraged or negative.After his correct opinions and propositions were denied by the Military Council, he still actively deployed in accordance with the decisions of the Military Council. Soldiers take obeying orders as their bounden duty, and Li Zongren was a soldier, so he had to form troops around Xuzhou. Zhou Lei's 75th Army and Li Xianzhou's 92nd Army extended eastward from Taierzhuang, posing a threat to the Jigu Division and Itagaki Division.Fan Songfu's 46th Army was placed on both sides of the canal, and one of its divisions replaced Sun Lianzhong's 31st Division and stationed in Taierzhuang for defense.Later, Li Zongren transferred Li Yannian's 2nd Army and a division of the Jin Army to the Eastern Front to strengthen the defense forces on the Eastern Front.Tan Daoyuan's 22nd Army was placed in the Weishan Lake area in the northwest of Xuzhou.On the south line of Xuzhou, the Chinese army was weak. Li Zongren transferred the three armies of Shi Yousan, Feng Zhi'an, and Liu Ruming to increase the defense force on the north bank of the Huaihe River. The general battle centered on Xuzhou is imminent. Before the 13 divisions of the Japanese army formed an encirclement of the Xuzhou area, the Japanese base camp asked the Isoya Rensuke Division and Itagaki Division to engage in full entanglement with the Chinese army in the southern Shandong area. Gain time for the new strategic plan of the Empire of Japan, so that 13 Japanese divisions and 300,000 elite soldiers can form an encirclement circle around Xuzhou.The strategic intention of the Japanese army is very obvious. However, at this time, Chiang Kai-shek, the supreme commander of the Chinese High Command, still dreamed of recreating the Taierzhuang victory.This dream of Generalissimo Chiang is very dangerous.