Chapter 1474: That’s What You Wish For!

Fang Xianjue paused for a moment and walked over quickly.

Standing beside the little child, he silently looked at the blurred photo of his best friend on the tombstone for a while, and then looked down at the little child who was looking up at him.

"Your name is Tang Shanhe?" Fang Xianjue asked.

The child nodded vigorously.

"Can you tell me what you said to your uncle Sun when you were kneeling here just now?" Fang Xianjue squatted down and helped Tang Shanhe pat the dust off his knees.

Tang Shanhe's pants were covered with dust. I think he has paid tribute to many heroes in this Martyrs' Shrine.

"My father told me that this uncle is a hero, a man that even he admires. I told him to rest well in heaven and not to be too tired. The next time I come to see him, I will bring him sweet red bean paste buns." Tang Shanhe said seriously.

"Haha! Good, if your uncle Sun knew that he would have such a good nephew, he would be happy." Seeing the little boy's cute words, Fang Xianjue, who was originally in a gloomy mood, couldn't help but smile.

"Uncle Sun is in another world and can't repay you for sending him flowers, so let uncle repay it for him. You make a request, and uncle will definitely satisfy you as long as he can satisfy you." Fang Xianjue said as he stretched out his hand to pick up Tang Shanhe.

"Really?" Tang Shanhe habitually put his fingers in his mouth and looked at this man who was almost as tall and strong as his father.

"That must be true. A man's words are unchangeable. Your father and mother can prove this! Even if you want your father not to scold you and beat you in the future, I am the commander of the army, and your father is the commander of the regiment." Fang Xianjue obviously likes the sturdy Tang Shanhe very much.

"Then can I make all the uncles and aunts here come out of this?" Tang Shanhe bit his fingers and thought for a long time, and finally said.

"The houses here are different from the ones we live in. There are no windows. It's very stuffy to live in them."

"This..." Fang Xianjue's throat choked, but he didn't know how to answer for a while. After a long while, he smiled bitterly. "Your request is really beyond Uncle Fang's ability."

"Shanhe, mom will accompany you to see the mountain view over there, and let dad and Uncle Fang talk here." Tan Tai Mingyue took the initiative to come over.

"How about this? You are still young and don't know what you want. When you grow up and go to school, tell Uncle Fang, and Uncle will definitely fulfill your wish." Fang Xianjue handed Tang Shanhe to Tan Tai Mingyue, and he still didn't forget his promise.

Watching Tan Tai Mingyue holding little Tang Shanhe's hand and walking away for a long distance, Fang Xianjue waved to Tang Dao standing on the side and said, "Come on, accompany me to sit over there."

In late spring, wild flowers are everywhere, and the fragrance is fragrant!

There are several acres of wild chrysanthemums beside Sun Mingjin's tomb, especially the "roadside yellow", which is in full bloom. Clusters of bright yellow make the place bright and beautiful, butterflies fluttering up and down, and wild bees buzzing and dancing. Next to the flowers, there are two or three bamboo frame thatched huts. They are the tombs built by the 10th Army Engineering Battalion according to Fang Xianjue's instructions.

Fang Xianjue said earlier that he would come to guard his friend's tomb for one night this spring, accompany him to see the scenery of Nanyue, and chat with him.

"Sit!" Fang Xianjue took the lead and sat on the bamboo stool that had been prepared long ago.

"You are a good parent. My son is well educated. When my kid was this old, he would cry to me for money to buy candy." Fang Xianjue saw Tang Dao sitting down, but he talked about education.

"He was educated well in Shanhe, but it has nothing to do with me. I've been away for a long time, and it's thanks to his mother and grandfather who taught him." Hearing someone praise his son, Tang Dao was not modest, but he didn't take credit for it either.

"It's said that Captain Tang is a man with eight hundred tricks all over his body. He's so frank today. Is there something wrong? Tell me! But I have to declare in advance that I'm just a small councilor of the Military and Political Department. I can't help much with military secrets." Fang Xianjue said.

"Don't be, Chief Fang. You are a lieutenant general councilor, and I'm a colonel engineer. In general, you are much better than me." Tang Dao replied.

"You are worthy of being the commander of the Tang regiment. Since the transfer order of the Military and Political Department was issued yesterday, even good friends and comrades such as Mayor Zhao and Chief of Staff Sun dare not mention the word councilor in front of me. You come up and poke me in the heart. It seems that the relationship between you and me is not yet so familiar!" Fang Xianjue said with a serious face, pointing at Tang Dao.

"Romain Rolland said: True heroism is to still love life after recognizing the truth of life! Just like this Patriotic War, the Japanese army was stronger than China from beginning to end. Are we going to give up? Without the courage to fight against the strong, the war would have ended long ago, and China would have fallen long ago. Anyone who thinks that the commander of the 'Taishan Army' can't even hear two words is really underestimating Chinese soldiers." Tang Dao replied righteously.

"Eight hundred minds, I'm right about you! I just don't understand why you, who is so smart, disobeyed that person and led to the current situation! Do you know that Commander Xue has always admired you very much and wanted to transfer your Four-Line Regiment to the Tanzhou front several times, but the telegrams he sent were like a stone sinking into the sea, and finally nothing came of it." Fang Xianjue sighed.

"It's a long story, but in the end, it's just that the road was bumpy and someone had to smooth it, otherwise more people would fall." Tang Dao looked calm when talking about his own experience.

"If Mingjin were still alive, you would definitely become close friends with him. You two have many similar temperaments, but he is not as sharp as you." Fang Xianjue sighed.

"I have been traveling around Nanyue with my wife and children for the past six months. When I am not wearing a military uniform, people think I am a rich young man! I have lost my edge, so what can I show off!" Tang Dao grinned.

"Haha! Others don't know you, Tang Dao, but I, the former highest military commander in Hengyang, don't know you? Not to mention that you have set aside a piece of land of 2 square kilometers under Hengshan to build fortifications and conduct simulated city attack and defense drills, just say that wherever you stand, your whole person is as straight as a spear. When I saw you for the first time last year, I felt that if you appeared on the battlefield, you would definitely be able to defeat ten or even a hundred people!" Fang Xianjue also laughed.

"You and the Four-Line Regiment have been away for nearly two years. Others say that your Four-Line Regiment has been useless and no longer as brave as before, but I know that the precious sword is still a precious sword. When it is unsheathed, it will still shine with cold light."

"Looking at the Ninth War Zone, the only one who can have such vision is Commander Fang."

"Oh? What about Commander Xue?" Fang Xianjue looked at Tang Dao with a smile.

Tang Dao had fought under Commander Xue. General Xue admired him very much. He even sent a telegram to transfer the Four-Line Regiment to the Tanzhou War Zone, even at the cost of making him unhappy. He even promoted Tang Dao's old superior Xie Jinyuan to the deputy commander of the 51st Division of the 74th Army and the commander of the 154th Brigade half a year ago.

There were originally two fierce generals in the 51st Division, one was Wang Yaowu and the other was Zhang Lingpu, both of whom were very famous in the 9th War Zone. Xie Jinyuan ranked second as soon as he arrived, second only to the division commander Wang Yaowu, and surpassed the commander of the 153rd Brigade, Zhang Lingpu. It can be seen that General Xue valued Xie Jinyuan.

Fang Xianjue's intelligence showed that Xie Jinyuan was promoted because he did have good abilities, and on the other hand, it was because of his subordinate Tang Dao who emerged in the Sihang Warehouse.

It was extremely rare for General Xue to appreciate Tang Dao so much, given his stubbornness and strong desire for power.

"Before 1942, you were not as good as him, but now, he is not as good as you!" Tang Dao was straightforward.

This straightforward answer shocked Fang Xianjue.

Tang Dao's next sentence was even more shocking.

"For example, there will be a battle between Tanzhou and Hengyang in the near future. You predicted it, but he still insisted on his own opinion. If the fourth battle of Tanzhou fails, then only the important town of Hengyang in northern Hunan can stop the Japanese invaders. If you want to defend Hengyang, it must be the 10th Army and Commander Fang."

In the whole straw hut, there was no other sound except the buzzing of wild bees in the surrounding flower fields and the slight mountain breeze.

After a long time, Fang Xianjue finally smiled bitterly. He opened his mouth to say something, but his eyes were still firm. He directly drew a map on the dusty wooden table with his fingers and said in a deep voice: "Come, tell me how you deduced that the Japanese army would definitely launch an attack on our war zone."

Fang Xianjue is a very pragmatic person. Although Tang Dao's opinion is similar to his, any conclusion is not generated out of thin air, but must be based on detailed logical reasoning.

Everyone must have a purpose for doing anything. Only with a purpose can we infer what he will do.

The battlefield is even more so, and there is no room for any imaginary thinking.

"All the Japanese army's current combat intentions come from the defeat in the Pacific battlefield." Tang Dao did not refuse, and directly picked up the stone from the ground and played a war chess game with Fang Xianjue on the table.

This war chess game is destined to be almost the same as the facts that are about to happen, because in this world, apart from the Japanese who formulated the "Operation Plan No. 1", there is probably no one who knows it better than the future little butterfly.

In the spring of 1944, the situation of World War II had reversed, and the Allied forces were triumphant in major battlefields in Asia and Europe.

On the European battlefield, on the Eastern Front of Europe, the bears drove the German Empire Army out of transit and continued to counterattack its vassal states; on the Western Front of Europe, General Eisen, the commander-in-chief of the Allied Expeditionary Force, led the Allied forces to actively open up a second battlefield, and the German Empire was about to face the crisis of fighting on two fronts; on the Southern Front of Europe, Mussolini's government fell and the Axis powers fell apart.

On the Pacific battlefield, the contest between the US and Japanese armies has already determined the strength of the enemy. The US army is pressing forward step by step. Although it has not yet completely cut off the Japanese sea route, its ocean transportation capacity has been reduced to less than half of the previous level. This has also led to the counterattack by the Chinese, US and other coalition forces in the Southeast Asian battlefield, forcing the Japanese army to switch from the offensive to the defensive.

The Japanese military headquarters realized a terrible problem. The sea transportation line from Japan to Southeast Asia and South Asia is about to be cut off. The continental transportation line from the Korean Peninsula through China to the Malay Peninsula will become its last lifeline.

Most of the areas on this important transportation line, including Henan Province, Hunan Province, and Guangxi Province in China, are still under the control of the Chinese army.

In order to save the Japanese army from the crisis in East Asia and the Pacific battlefield, the Japanese military headquarters proposed the idea of ​​"opening up the continental transportation line", also known as the "Operation Plan No. 1".

The so-called "continental transportation line" starts from the Korean Peninsula, enters Shanhaiguan through Northeast China, runs through the Pinghan, Yuehan, and Hunan-Guangxi railways from north to south, connects to the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, opens up the battlefields in Northeast China, North China, Central China, South China, and Southwest China, and runs through the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia, the Malay Peninsula, and the Indonesian Archipelago, and finally connects the Japanese mainland, the East Asian continent, and the Nanyang region, establishing a road supply line for the Japanese army to avoid the annihilation of the army after the sea and air are controlled by the United States.

In fact, as early as the summer of 1943, the idea of ​​"Operation No. 1" had been submitted to the Japanese headquarters for discussion, but due to the tense situation in Southeast Asia at the time, the battle for islands in the Pacific was also fierce, and the Japanese army was short of manpower, so the plan was forced to suspend.

In September, the newly commissioned B-29 bombers of the US military were put into actual combat, and the Japanese mainland entered the range that the Allied Air Force could directly attack for the first time. On November 25, 9 B-29s set off from Liuzhou, mainland China, with a flight distance of nearly 2,500 kilometers, and bombed the Japanese naval base in Taiwan Province, which caused great panic in Japan.

The Japanese headquarters judged that the long-range bombers of the United States would soon attack the Japanese mainland, and they must eliminate the US air force bases on the East Asian continent. The importance of the Chinese theater was once again valued by the headquarters.

In January 1944, the Japanese headquarters officially issued the order for "Operation No. 1".

The content of "Operation No. 1" mainly includes three points: first, capture the southern section of China's Pinghan Railway; second, capture Guilin and Liuzhou, and destroy the US Air Force bases deployed in the area to prevent B-29 bombers from raiding the Japanese mainland; third, defeat the main force of the Chinese army along the Hunan-Guangxi and Yue-Han Railways, and continue to hit China's will to fight.

"Operation No. 1" is the largest operation in which the Japanese army has deployed troops in the Chinese theater since the outbreak of the Pacific War.

In the past, the Japanese army deployed a total of 18 divisions, about 510,000 soldiers, 100,000 horses, 1,500 artillery pieces, more than 800 tanks, and 15,000 vehicles in this battle.

Since "Operation No. 1" was mainly concentrated in Henan, Hunan, and Guangxi provinces in China, it was called the "Henan-Hunan-Guangxi" campaign!

Among them, the "Changheng Battle" was the top priority of the "Hunan-Guangxi Battle", which was carried out by the 11th Army of the Japanese Field Army, which had the largest number of troops in the battlefield in China.

The 11th Army was the only strategic mobile field army under the China Expeditionary Army. By the end of 1943, it had 8 divisions under its command, with a force of more than 160,000.

The former commander of the 11th Army, Anami Yuji, resigned due to the defeat in the third Tanzhou Campaign. The current commander is the old returnee, Yokoyama Isamu, who relied on a thick skin to hold on to the position of Deputy Chief of Staff of the Expeditionary Army and finally got the opportunity to be re-employed.

The Japanese headquarters counted on their fingers to sort out the generals in China and found that those at the same level as Yokoyama Isamu were not as good as him, and those who were better than him had higher ranks than him. It was not appropriate for him to be the commander of the 11th Army. In addition, Yokoyama Isamu was very honest in the more than a year since he left office, and he was very popular with the then commander of the China Expeditionary Army, Tian Shunroku. In order to smoothly implement the "Operation No. 1" plan, Yokoyama Isamu had to be re-trained as the commander of the 11th Army.

The Japanese army began to prepare to launch "Operation No. 1" in February 1944. In addition to the Japanese North China Front Army quietly gathering 150,000 elite troops to launch a surprise attack on the Chinese First War Zone in the Yellow River section of Henan Province, Tian Junliu also made other arrangements with great pains.

"You mean to say that the Japanese are also playing the trick of repairing the plank road in the open and secretly crossing the Chencang. Their 13th Army launched operations in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, not only to contain the Third War Zone, and the 23rd Army launched an attack along the West River in Guangdong Province, not only to disrupt the Seventh War Zone, but also to confuse us and make us not understand their real intentions. In fact, they have gathered heavy troops and hidden in Chongyang, Yueyang, and Huarong?"

After listening to Tang Dao's analysis of the war situation in Asia and Europe and the real strategic intentions of the Japanese headquarters, Fang Xianjue was already full of solemnity. When he saw Tang Dao clearly draw the current attack routes of various Japanese troops in front of him, and Hunan Province was still completely calm, he was even more shocked.

Originally, he judged that the reason why the Japanese attacked Hunan Province was Mr. Baili's "Three Yang Lines". Now, after hearing what Tang Dao said, it became clearer. No matter whether it was the "Three Yang Lines" or the so-called mainland transportation line, as long as the Japanese wanted to transport supplies from their homeland to the Malay Peninsula by land, Hunan Province was the only way for them to pass through and they had to attack.

"Hey! Don't say that I have been transferred from the 9th War Zone. Even if I am still the commander of the 10th Army, will Commander Xue listen to my suggestions?" Fang Xianjue reached out and brushed away the map that the two had drawn for half a day with their fingers as pens and dust as paper, and stood up very angrily.

This should be the first time that this tiger general in the army showed his dissatisfaction with his immediate superior in front of outsiders.

In the past few years, Admiral Xue defeated the Japanese army's three attacks on Tanzhou, and his reputation grew. His desire to control his subordinates also reached its peak. The 10th Army suffered heavy losses in the rescue of Changde, and the 3rd Division and the 10th Reserve Division suffered heavy losses. As a result, the commander of the theater took advantage of this to force his own confidants to try to take full control of this "Taishan Army" and used his influence in the Military and Political Department to transfer the army commander Fang Xianjue who strongly opposed it.

"Sir, Tang Dao is not clear about the right and wrong of the high-level officials in the theater, but Tang Dao believes that the old ancestors have said it very clearly, called "a forced melon is not sweet". No matter how high the official is, no matter how powerful he is, if he goes against the will of the people, it is easy to shoot himself in the foot." Tang Dao said.

Tang Dao knew this history too well. General Xue's forced personnel adjustments were fine below the division level, but the transfer of Fang Xianjue, the soul of the 10th Army, was unanimously opposed by the officers and soldiers of the 10th Army. Within a week, they jointly rejected the successor to the commander, which would make the army face the embarrassing situation of being without a commander for the second time.

"You mean" Fang Xianjue can become a fierce general, not because he is fierce enough, but because he can really fight. His brain is much more flexible than ordinary people, and he immediately heard Tang Dao's subtext.

"General Fang might as well leave this place for the time being. When the war starts, since the general can be a councilor, why can't the councilor be a general?" Tang Dao said with a smile.

After staring at Tang Dao for a long time, Fang Xianjue smiled: "Captain Tang is so clear about the global war, and I didn't expect that he is so knowledgeable about people's hearts. Your reputation as a fierce general is really unworthy of the name. Those who only regard you as a brave general will sooner or later fall into your trap."

"Sir, you are too kind! Tang Dao just firmly believes that you will not leave the front-line combat position." Tang Dao said.

"So, let me guess, Tang Dao, you talked to me so much today, what is your real purpose?" Fang Xianjue paced back and forth with his hands behind his back.

"If the Japanese army attacks Hengyang with heavy troops, my 10th Army now only has the 3rd Division and the 10th Reserve Division in the Hengyang area, with a total of no more than 15,000 troops. If I ask the war zone to transfer the Four-Line Regiment to help defend Hengyang, I wonder if Commander Tang dares to come to fight?"

"Haha! If you invite me, I will!" Tang Dao grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.

The words "eight hundred hearts" can be returned to this lieutenant general of the army as they are.

As long as he agrees, the officers and soldiers of the Four-Line Regiment will be indispensable in this battle known as the Battle of the Defense of the Eastern Moscow!