Chapter 1479 Failure!

When the Miluo River defense war started, General Xue was surprised to find that the Japanese army's troops this time were really different from before.

The Japanese army numbers found on the front line were as many as 9 divisions.

Except for the Japanese army, the Chinese side did not know that the Japanese army headquarters had invested 150 infantry battalions for the Hunan-Guangxi campaign, which was even 10 more than the 140 infantry battalions in the Jiangxia Campaign in 1938.

In order to ensure the success of the Hunan-Guangxi War, the Japanese army headquarters also specially sent Colonel Shimanuki Takeshi to take over as the deputy chief of staff of the 11th Army.

This is because the Japanese army rarely fought the kind of large-scale battles on the European battlefield where both sides of the war often invested millions of troops. There were few officers who understood the tactics of large-scale combat. Colonel Shimanuki Takeshi, who served as the second-in-command of the staff of the airborne 11th Army, was one of the few commanders in the Japanese army who understood such tactics.

If you think that a mere colonel can reflect the importance of the Japanese headquarters to this battle, then you really underestimated Takeshi Shimaguchi.

First of all, the Japanese military ranks are not like China, which has five levels, from special general, first-class general to second-class general, then lieutenant general, and major general. There are only three levels: general, lieutenant general, and major general. In the Japanese military sequence, the colonel has already stepped into the general class. In the Western military rank system, it is a standard brigadier general, which is already a senior officer.

Secondly, this "Operation No. 1" plan was actually made by Colonel Hattori Takushiro, the then Chief of the Operations Department of the Japanese General Staff, and Takeshi Shimaguchi, a senior staff officer of the headquarters, with a group of lieutenant colonels and majors. The tactics they formulated, even though the commander of the expeditionary army like Junroku Tanaka is a big shot in China, as long as the headquarters signs and agrees, the tactics formulated by these colonels, he can only follow the plan obediently.

In 1942, Takeshi Shimanuki was sent by the Japanese headquarters to the European battlefield to study and investigate the combat experience of the German Empire, the Soviet Union, and the British Empire. He also served as a senior staff officer for the German army in the Eastern European battlefield. He was very good at theoretical research and map work on large encirclement and annihilation wars.

In short, the Japanese headquarters sent a very reliable think tank to Yokoyama Isamu this time.

He had just arrived in early April and showed his excellent ability and tough personality.

The original principle of the Hunan-Guangxi battle formulated by the Japanese headquarters was "quick battle and quick decision". The first step was to quickly capture Tanzhou and Hengyang; the second step was to capture Guilin and Liuzhou, destroy important airports of China and the United States along the way, and then fight a decisive battle with the main force of China that arrived.

The Japanese army, with a total strength of 250,000, has the opportunity to compete with the main force of China with more than 500,000. If they win, they can use this victory to give the military and civilians of the entire island a shot of chicken blood, which will facilitate the continued fierce battle with the Allies in the Pacific and Southeast Asian battlefields.

Yes, for the "Operation No. 1" plan, opening up the mainland transportation line is only one of the strategic goals, and it is only a military strategic purpose.

The most important thing is that after continuous defeats, both the emperor and the Japanese headquarters are in urgent need of a victory to prove to all citizens that the Great Japanese Empire is not Germanic and has the ability to fight independently and win in the Far East.

Yes, for the Japanese Empire, which is already on the decline, a victory in a battle is already precious. Only in this way can more young people from the country join the army, and then throw them into the flames of war to become the nourishment for the continuation of the war.

The extremely arrogant General Xue only saw the "sun is setting in the west", but never thought that even a rabbit will bite when it is anxious, let alone a red-eyed gambler who has put all the money he has accumulated for a hundred years on the gambling table!

After arriving in China, Takeshi Shimanuki met with Yokoyama Isamu. After field investigation and intelligence analysis on the personalities and combat characteristics of Chinese generals in the 9th War Zone provided by Yokoyama Isamu, and after repeated deductions of the original plan of the headquarters with Yokoyama Isamu, he believed that:

This time the empire has an absolute advantage in military strength. Although Tanzhou is strong, it is not a concern; on the contrary, the Chinese troops on both sides of the main offensive line along the Yuehan Railway and the Xianggui Railway should be paid more attention. The 6th War Zone in the west suffered heavy losses in the Changde Battle last year, so there is no need to worry too much; the 9th War Zone in the east, the flanking, ambush, and tail attack on the two wings of the Xiangjiang River, are the key to determining the outcome of this battle.

The two jointly judged that due to insufficient preparation, it would be difficult for China to launch a flank attack on the imperial army in the fourth Tanzhou offensive and defensive battle, and it was very likely that the attack would be launched only when the imperial army attacked Hengyang in southern Hunan.

Therefore, the two decided not to follow the strategy and tactics formulated by the headquarters to "quickly fight and make a quick decision, first attack Liugui, and then fight a decisive battle", but to use heavy troops to besiege Hengyang while using this China's largest rear industrial and commercial base as bait to attract other troops from the 9th War Zone of China to fight a decisive battle here, and strive to annihilate as many Chinese main forces as possible in the mobile warfare at this stage.

When the 11th Army reported this decision to the Expeditionary Army Headquarters, Tian Junliu, the commander of the Chinese Expeditionary Army, who had already moved his front-line headquarters to Jiangxia, did not dare to make the decision, but reported it to the headquarters, and the Japanese headquarters actually approved it.

Before the war, the generals of China and Japan made completely opposite choices. One completely sidelined and exiled his most reliable think tank, while the other had extreme trust in him, and even in the context of almost "making meritorious service while guilty", he proposed to his boss's boss to modify the established strategies and tactics. This in itself was an extremely rare wisdom and courage.

Different choices have determined the outcome of the fourth Tanzhou battle!

However, the world is so ingenious that the best senior staff officers and the most powerful generals of China and Japan in Hunan Province did not meet in Tanzhou, but met in Hengyang.

This is actually destined to pile up corpses inside and outside Hengyang!

However, the generals and soldiers of both China and Japan now have their eyes on Tanzhou, the capital of Hunan Province, an ancient city with a long history and culture of 3,000 years and a history of 2,400 years of city construction.

Under the command of Yokoyama Yong and Shimanuki Takeshi, the 11th Army was fully prepared for the Hunan-Guangxi battle.

Although some of the participating troops were security divisions replaced by independent infantry brigades formed by domestic recruits, they lacked sufficient actual combat experience, but the Japanese army spent two or three months in the world to train and formulated a very detailed combat plan.

The plan even specified the details of each battle, including troop deployment, combat progress, rear military stations, security, climate, geographical environment, etc. It perfectly fits the old Chinese saying: "Success is reserved for those who are prepared!"

For example, the tactic of "turning roads into fields" developed by General Xue in the previous Tanzhou battles was a simple and crude tactic that made the 11th Army suffer.

This tactic originated from the first Tanzhou battle in 1939. The 9th War Zone learned the lessons of the Nanchang Battle and destroyed all available roads, including railways, highways and even country roads. It destroyed more than 2,000 miles of roads and turned the entire northern Hunan into a muddy pond, making it difficult for the Japanese mechanized troops and heavy artillery to move forward. As a result, the Japanese divisions preferred mountain artillery, infantry artillery and mortars with less lethality but easier to disassemble and transport, which also led to a sharp decline in the Japanese artillery strike capability and urban assault capability.

By the third Tanzhou Campaign, the 9th War Zone had mastered the tactic of "turning roads into fields". They basically dug hundreds of miles of roads in the Yueyang Road to Tanzhou into ridges that could only accommodate one person. The roadbed outside the ridges was completely dug up and water was released to turn them into paddy fields.

That was fine. Fang Xianjue, who participated in the third Tanzhou Campaign and was the commander of the 10th Reserve Division, not only turned the roads into ridges, but also kept changing the direction of the ridges, sometimes left and sometimes right, forcing the Japanese army to march in a serpentine manner. As a result, they were ambushed by Chinese soldiers ambushed in the paddy fields on both wings and were beaten so badly.

The mobility of Chinese soldiers wearing straw sandals or even no shoes in the paddy fields was far better than that of Japanese infantry wearing cowhide boots.

When talking about this, the veterans of the Japanese 11th Army, who witnessed many colleagues who were reluctant to take off their cowhide boots until their death, burst into tears.

The way the poor bully the rich is so unreasonable.

This time, Yokoyama Yong put aside his position as the commander of the lieutenant general and went down to the grassroots to listen to the suggestions of the grassroots veterans and lieutenants. Three cobblers are better than Zhuge Liang, not to mention so many short legs thinking hard together, they finally came up with a way to deal with it.

The hills in northern Hunan are full of pine trees. The people of Hunan Province usually rely on these pine branches and pine needles for burning and heating, so they are reluctant to cut down these pine trees when the road is broken, which provides the possibility for the Japanese army to open the road.

When the Japanese army repaired the road this time, they changed the past practice of mainly repairing the damaged roads, but instead cut down pine trees to pad the roadbed and open up emergency roads. On the plains without pine forests, they did not hesitate to use cattle and horses and manpower to drag heavy artillery weighing thousands of kilograms into the battlefield in northern Hunan.

In addition, the Japanese army also made full use of Dongting Lake and Xiangjiang River water transportation to maintain logistics, and looted more than 2,500 civilian ships to transport field heavy artillery and artillery shells.

This time, under the command and deployment of Takeshi Shimanuki, who was good at large-scale combat, the five first-line divisions of the Japanese army advanced in parallel on a wide front of 140 to 200 kilometers. The two outermost field divisions were like two strong wings of an eagle, blocking the flank attack of the Chinese army on both sides. The remaining second-line divisions were more than 100 kilometers away from the first-line divisions. Once the first-line divisions stuck to the opponent, they immediately followed up and formed a tiered attack.

The Japanese army used the tactical strategy of "wide front and wave-like" to always form a local force advantage and maintain the depth of the battlefield.

At the same time, the competition in the sky was also in full swing.

The US Air Force and the Chinese Air Force located at the airports in Gui and Liu were equipped with Wildcats, Hellcats and even the "Havoc" attack bombers widely used on the European battlefield. In terms of aircraft quality, they have completely surpassed the Japanese Zero fighters and Type 97 fighter bombers.

Since the Battle of Changde at the end of last year, the Japanese army has been defeated repeatedly in air battles, and the main players in the air-to-ground attack have long been Chinese and American fighters.

This is also an important basis for General Xue and even Fang Xianjue to confirm that they have gained air supremacy.

However, this time, the Japanese army obviously did not want to give up air supremacy. With the strong support of the headquarters and the expeditionary army headquarters, the Fifth Air Corps deployed more than 260 fighters and 110 bombers to the battlefield, which is a large-scale fleet that has never appeared since 1943.

This obviously also greatly exceeded the expectations of China and the United States. In the first stage of the war in Tanzhou, China and the United States failed to control the air power, but suffered huge losses. On the first day of the war alone, more than 28 fighters were lost.

Although the Japanese side also lost no less than 30 fighters, they did not lose air superiority. The 28 catastrophe attack bombers waiting at Liuzhou Airport had to stop taking off to avoid greater losses.

In the next few days, the Japanese Army Air Force continued to send a large number of fighters to the battlefield. The infantry on the ground were desperately pouring firepower, and the sky was also desperately strangling, and fighters continued to fall with thick smoke.

In the end, although the "catastrophe" attack bombers sent out due to the urgency of the war also successfully bombed the Japanese infantry on the ground, 4 "catastrophes" and 9 American pilots remained on the battlefield forever.

The Chinese side's idea of ​​complete control of the air did not appear in the early stage of the battle.

On the ground, in the face of the crazy offensive of the Japanese army, the troops of the 9th War Zone could not implement encirclement and flanking as in the past, and even could not stand at all. Instead, they were stuck, divided and surrounded by the Japanese army with absolute advantages in mobility and artillery, and were severely damaged respectively.

On May 10, the Japanese troops on the east route broke through Tongcheng in southern Hubei;

On May 11, they captured Pingjiang and continued to move south. The 3rd Division attacked the northwest, and the 13th Division attacked the southeast. The two divisions attacked Liuyang, an important town near Tanzhou.

On May 13, the Japanese troops on the west route captured Yuanjiang and attacked Ningxiang.

On May 14, the Japanese troops on the central route crossed Xinqiang River, Laodao River, and Liuyang River.

On May 15, in order to severely damage the morale of the Tanzhou defenders, the Japanese army began to bomb Tanzhou City with airplanes at night.

Although the city of Tanzhou had long been under a curfew, with the surge in refugees, many traitors and spies sneaked into the city, lighting lanterns or firing flares in the dark to guide the location of Japanese planes in the sky.

The city of Tanzhou was already in a panic!

On May 17, the Japanese army captured Liuyang and occupied Zhuzhou, completing the complete encirclement of Tanzhou.

The battle of Tanzhou was inevitable.

General Xue was unable to stabilize the troops on the front line. Finally, in the face of the rapidly deteriorating situation, he no longer had the arrogance of the past. He could only withdraw the theater headquarters to Leiyang and leave his 4th Army in Tanzhou to fight the enemy.

The 4th Army was once the trump card of the Guangdong Army. It was known as the "Iron Army" during the Northern Expedition. Almost all the famous generals of the Guangdong Army came from this army.

At this time, the 4th Army had actually left the Guangdong faction and belonged to the Central Army. The whole army had 3 infantry divisions under its jurisdiction, with a total strength of 25,000. Because it was General Xue's direct force, it was mainly equipped with German and American weapons.

The mountain artillery battalion under the 4th Army alone had more than 50 artillery pieces of various types. Not counting submachine guns and semi-automatic rifles, their heavy artillery firepower alone was not inferior to a main division of the Japanese Army.

In this war, the 4th Army also had the 3rd Artillery Brigade directly under the theater to assist. The most powerful artillery of the brigade was not the 12 brand-new 75mm mountain guns or the 6 105m 105 howitzers, but the 4 of the 24 150mm howitzers that China had ordered from Rheinmetall of the German Empire at a huge cost.

When the third Tanzhou battle was at its most dangerous, it was the 4 heavy artillery placed on Yuelu Mountain that continuously bombarded and defeated the Japanese infantry attacking the city.

In theory, even if there were only 25,000 elite Chinese soldiers defending the city, the Japanese army, which had invested more than 100,000 troops, would have to pay a terrible price to capture Tanzhou.

The Chinese Military and Political Department estimated that they could hold out for at least 10 days, and other troops of the 9th War Zone could also arrive at the corresponding positions to attack the Japanese army from the side. As long as they hold out until the reinforcements from Jiangnan arrive, the troops in Hunan Province will reach more than 400,000. With the final acquisition of air supremacy, the 4th Tanzhou Battle, which has already been somewhat corrupted, is not without the possibility of regaining victory.

In order to quickly capture this ancient city with a splendid civilization and a long history, Yokoyama Yong and Shimanuki Takeshi are also prepared for more than 10,000 casualties or even more.

But at this time, the Chinese command system made an extremely stupid scene that shocked the Japanese!

Yokoyama Yong didn't even dare to believe that it was the Chinese side that won three consecutive Tanzhou battles. If that was the case, what about Anan Weiji and his two famous generals of the Imperial Army who commanded the first three battles?

Those who are compared to stupidity can only be idiots!