Li Xiazhong was surprised when he heard Gao Jianwu's words.
"The Central Army has four reorganized divisions including the 68th, 116th, 34th, and 58th Divisions of the Little Devils. Your army is preparing to attack them alone?" Li Xiazhong asked in disbelief.
"Yes, we have this plan." Gao Jianwu replied.
Although Li Xiazhong really wanted the Expeditionary Force Group to do this, because in this way, both the Expeditionary Force Group and the Japs would suffer losses. For the Ninth War Zone, this was of course a great thing. The Expeditionary Force Group, which was originally a major hidden danger, was not a big deal. Threatened.
But Li Xiazhong is still a Chinese with integrity after all. He feels that it is too risky for the expeditionary force to group together.
"Commander Gao, with all due respect, although the expeditionary force group is capable of fighting, it has achieved many victories. The little devil is not a weak opponent. The strength of the four integrated divisions is 70,000 to 80,000, and their strength cannot be underestimated. I hope that your army will It is best to coordinate with our ninth theater when marching," Li Xiazhong advised.
"Thanks to Li Gaosen for reminding us that if the little devils attack together, there is certainly not much we can do. But now that the little devils have dispersed the team and are advancing separately, our army will seize the opportunity of the little devils to disperse their attacks and attack them. Defeat each one.
If we wait for the nine theaters to act together, we may be delayed for too long and lose our fighter opportunities. "
"Regarding the combat operations of this expeditionary force cluster, if Li Gaosen has time, you might as well come with us and take a look." Gao Jianwu responded, and invited Li Xiazhong as a witness.
Of course, he did not do it to show off, but hoped that Li Xiazhong could send a report to Commander Xue as soon as possible after obtaining first-hand information on the current battle situation, thereby promoting the Ninth War Zone to take timely action against other attacking Japs, and try to minimize this time. The main force of the attacking 11th Army was eaten.
Of course, Gao Jianwu did not simply support the battle in the ninth theater, but through this battle, the little devil completely lost his strategic advantage in central China, creating a rare opportunity for his next move.
If this strategic goal is achieved, then when Gao Jianwu sends his troops north, there will be no strong resistance from the little Japanese in the three towns of Hankou.
The three towns of Hankou can be captured directly at a low cost. This is one of the most important nodes for Gao Jianwu to achieve his next strategic goal.
It can be said that by killing the main force of the 11th Army, Commander Xue may make a profit, but Gao Jianwu will definitely not lose!
This is a win-win situation.
Li Xiazhong looked at Gao Jianwu's serious look and knew that this was Gao Jianwu's decision and that it was not just empty words on a whim. He shook his head slightly with a bit of curiosity and a bit of a sigh, and stopped trying to persuade him. He had a communications soldier with him. You can borrow Gao Jianwu's radio station to change the channel and password to send messages.
Therefore, Li Xiazhong followed the trend and stayed in Gao Jianwu's expeditionary force group to observe the battle on the spot. Gao Jianwu did not care about him. Except for the confidential matters of contacting his superiors, Li Xiazhong was left at the headquarters to issue orders to the various attack groups and respond to the intelligence of each unit. Just listen.
For Gao Jianwu, these are not confidential matters. Li Xiazhong has this overall real-time battle situation. In other words, Commander Xue also had information on the actual progress of Gao Jianwu's side, which was of course very helpful for his troop formation. Now Gao Jianwu has taken over 5 reorganized divisions.
If Commander Xue only targets the five reorganized divisions, it is equivalent to returning to the situation of the third Battle of Tanzhou. Using the tactic of outflanking with more wings and fewer wings will still have a chance of victory.
...
Gao Jianwu's tactic was indeed not a whim, but a premeditation. He has even completed communication with his superiors and larger strategic layout.
While in Hengzhou, Gao Jianwu was commanding the air force in operations while planning how to maximize the benefits of the expeditionary force cluster he brought back.
The answer is very simple, that is, you cannot simply return to Jin. If you bring the large troops back directly, not only will it have no effect on Jin in the short term, but it will directly become a heavy burden for Jin. After all, Jin has just It had only been a year since the restoration, and food production was still not self-sufficient. The additional consumption of tens of thousands of people was very difficult for Jin to digest.
After all, after Gao Jianwu came out with this group of people who originally belonged to Jin, the Brigade Commander, Li Yunlong and various bases were not idle. They used the continuous weapons production capacity of Jinyang Arsenal to start a large number of army expansion.
Among them, the Grand Brigade Commander is the fastest. In addition to Li Yunlong's troops, his subordinates have expanded to no less than 100,000 people!
Li Yunlong also restored the main force to 50,000 people, and then expanded the local garrison team to no less than 30,000, walking on two legs between the local troops and the main force planned by Gao Jianwu.
Including the explosion of troops in other base areas, the entire main force of Jin has exceeded 300,000!
With such a scale, it is already quite stressful for Jin Land to support it. Fortunately, Yamashita Sanosuke's trading company was able to trade, export some of Jin's industrial products, and then import large quantities of grain to solve the urgent need.
Therefore, Gao Jianwu had to consider letting the expeditionary force group come out of Jin and open up a new base area.
As such a large-scale army needs to be supported, it is obvious that the small base areas in one county can no longer meet Gao Jianwu's needs.
It was against this background that Gao Jianwu jumped out of the narrow scope of the Battle of Tanzhou and considered a larger strategic pattern.
That is, taking advantage of the big event of the 11th Army going south to attack Sanxiang, if he can find ways to defeat and eliminate most of the 11th Army, leaving the little devil with a strategic gap in central China, then he can quickly send his troops to capture the three towns of Hankou and win this The core base in Central China, and then use it as a foundation to build and establish a brand new Hubei, Henan, and Anhui base!
This is not an old district that starts from the Pihe River in the east, ends at Pinghan Road in the west, borders the Huaihe River in the north, and reaches Huangmei and Guangji in the south, with a total area of more than 40,000 square kilometers and a population of more than 3.5 million.
It is a large base area extending from the Han River to the west, the Yellow River to the north, the Dabie Mountains to the east, and the Yangtze River to the south. It is a new base area that is even larger than the current Jinsui base area!
Such an ambitious planning goal cannot of course be accomplished by Gao Jianwu with just one expeditionary force group.
In order to achieve this goal, Gao Jianwu has secretly reported this new plan to the Eighth Route Headquarters, and asked the brigade commander and Li Yunlong to send their troops south, cross the Yellow River to capture the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties, then capture the Nanyang Valley, and go all the way to capture Xingyang and Bianjing to intercept the little devils. The North-South Grand Passage, then went south to take the land, and then moved westward to gradually connect with the Grand Brigade Commander.
Gao Jianwu divided his troops into three groups. The left army took Jingxiang all the way, the right army went to Macheng Hong'anlao base, and finally advanced to Shangguangshan on the Huaihe River. The middle army advanced north along the Beijing-Hankou Line, taking Danyang and Yiyang. , Runan and others captured it, and finally formed a large area with the base areas of Li Yunlong and the Grand Brigadier.
After the main force of the 11th Japanese Army was annihilated, the land was at its most empty. Without the support of the 11th Japanese Army, the Japanese-occupied areas in Henan were left alone. Gao Jianwu certainly wanted to take advantage of this situation. The opportunity was taken, and combined with the Jin land, a stable double-eye live land was truly formed.
The Jin area is thalassemia, and it is not easy to grow food to feed oneself. Now if Gao Jianwu rashly takes the expeditionary force back, there will be so many more people at once, and it will be really difficult to even have enough to eat!
Although it is common for the Eighth Route Army to not have enough to eat, Gao Jianwu did not want to do this and make everyone bleed and fight while still hungry.
The fertile land that occupies the center of Hubei, Henan, and Anhui is different. It was originally a grain-producing area in the hinterland of the Central Plains, with a large amount of fertile land. Gao Jianwu was confident that after implementing the new policy, he could solve the food problem within a year at most, and he had a A new base for good development!
Whether it is population or industrial capacity, everything can be improved to a higher level.
Although it is surrounded by enemies on all sides and it is difficult to defend, Gao Jianwu now has strong troops and horses. Every time a little devil comes to the army, he will just deliver food. What's more, the brigade commander and Li Yunlong are both developing very well. Gao Jianwu estimates that the brigade commander can mobilize 70,000 to 80,000 troops to go south. , Li Yunlong can mobilize at least 50,000 troops.
In addition, Gao Jianwu himself has a main force of 150,000 to 60,000 troops. What's more, after integrating the local guerrilla forces, there will be no problem in raising another 50,000 to 60,000 troops as a second-line defense force in the short term.
With three expeditionary force cluster-sized field troops and one garrison cluster, except for a few must-defend places like Hanyang with a strong industrial base, the rest of the cities can be abandoned in mobile warfare.
With the ability of Gao Jianwu and Brigadier General to command large corps, and with the army's weapons and equipment completely updated, there is no problem for three field groups to directly eat up an army of little Japanese.
Even if each of their groups fights against an army of little Japanese, it won't be a big problem. As long as the little devils don't attack with all their strength, Gao Jianwu is confident in guarding this base area and developing himself!
After restoring a strong economic foundation, it is not unusual to let go of Li Yunlong's hands and let him explode his troops. It is not unusual to raise 200,000 people in the Central Plains in half a year!
As long as the weapons, ammunition and food logistics can keep up, Li Yunlong will develop himself at a speed you can't imagine.
Regarding Gao Jianwu's grand plan, the superiors have approved it after careful study and decided to establish the Hubei-Henan-Anhui base area. 70,000 people will be transferred from the Taiyue Military Region to form the East Henan cluster, and 40,000 people will be transferred from the Ping'an base area to form the Central Plains cluster. The World War II Expeditionary Force Cluster was renamed Jianghan Cluster.
Before Gao Jianwu met with Li Xiazhong, the expeditionary force cluster had been reorganized.
At the same time that Gao Jianwu was planning to attack the 11th Army, the East Henan Cluster and the Central Plains Cluster started almost at the same time. One military peak pointed at the Luoyang Basin and Nanyang Basin, and the other went straight to Xingyang and Bianjing!
In a wider area, the Qilu base area also launched a counterattack, and the Jinsui base area and the Taihang Military Region began to attack Jizhong, in order to support Gao Jianwu's strategic plan and comprehensively contain the North China Japs.
A strategic counter-offensive against the Little Japs was kicked off by Gao Jianwu. Although at the beginning of this major counterattack, the Little Japs and Guo Preserved knew nothing at all. The high efficiency and confidentiality of the Eighth Route Headquarters and the Border District Headquarters made this a strategic counterattack. The ultimate goal of the counterattack was tightly hidden.
Now, except for Gao Jianwu, Brigade Commander and numerous senior officials who have overall clear strategic goals, even Li Yunlong only knows the goals of his Central Plains cluster, but does not know what the ultimate strategic goals are.
But for Li Yunlong, these are not important. What is important is that he has time to show off his talents again. Holding the large base areas of Ping'an and Lu'an, Li Yunlong completed a new round of development in one year.
The potential of this site was almost exhausted, and almost 100,000 troops were mobilized. If Gao Jianwu hadn't left a good industrial base for Yamashita Sanosuke to exchange food from outside, with Li Yunlong, a highly partial chief officer, He simply can't feed so many troops!
Now his superiors allowed him to launch a large-scale attack on the heart of the Central Plains. For Li Yunlong, this was exactly what he wanted.
The entire Central Plains cluster, with Li Yunlong as the commander-in-chief and Shen Quan as the deputy commander-in-chief, has three main infantry attack groups and an artillery attack group, plus a 3,000-person rapid attack group built by Lao Li based on the Red Star agricultural tricycle. The main force is used.
Among them, Lao Li's fast attack group vaguely resembled the motorized troops that Gao Jianwu told Lao Li. A red star tricycle with an extra-large carriage could carry 15 soldiers and their personal equipment and ammunition. Lao Li shamelessly went to get it. After 200 vehicles are built, they are particularly useful for sneak attacks in plains and mountainous areas with roads.
Compared with the standardized security equipment, this rapid attack group has the same Type 43 assault rifle. Each 15-man infantry team has a crooked machine gun and a 60mm mortar, and the firepower team is equipped with an 82mm mortar. Artillery or 1 heavy machine gun, 4 fire teams and 6 infantry teams form a company, equipped with 2 82mm mortars and 2 heavy machine guns.
Four assault companies form a rapid attack battalion.
In addition, the entire assault group is also dragging 4 Type 41 mountain guns and 4 Type 92 infantry guns, so there are still 8 teams that are both infantry and artillery, and all the personnel are combatants.
The distance traveled in a day depends entirely on the depth of the fuel tank.
I have to say that Lao Li's ability to save his fortune is truly outstanding. After tasting the sweetness, if he hadn't been unable to burn the oil, he would have dared to directly create a group of tens of thousands of rapid attacks.
Most of the oil now comes from Gao Jianwu's refinery equipment, which is produced and refined from the small oil field in the border area.
...
After determining the strategic offensive policy, Gao Jianwu did not care about what was done elsewhere, but concentrated on preparing to deal with the little Japs in front of him.
At present, the 40th Division of the Little Devils have all passed the qualification period and are fighting fiercely with the national army guarding Yiyang City.
Since the artillery regiment's heavy artillery was blown up by the space where the expeditionary force clustered, the Little Devils' artillery fire was greatly weakened, and they made little progress in the face of the stubborn resistance of the defenders relying on their positions.
"The first attack group forced a march to Port Xelling and blocked the westward escape route of the 40th Division from the direction of Port Xelling. The second attack group raided Lanxi and attacked the Little Japs from the east of Yiyang. The tank group and the third attack group coordinated. Attack from the south front! We must quickly break through the Japs’ formation to directly block the south bank of Zishui and cut off the Japs’ north escape route. The fourth attack group will follow the tank cluster to capture the entire 40th Division and annihilate it under Yiyang City!”
(PS: The internal reorganization of the designation has been completed, but the Jianghan cluster has not yet been launched to the outside world. It is still an expeditionary force cluster for the time being.)
Gao Jianwu's strategy is simple and crude. They didn't even arrange anything for the heavy artillery regiment. They directly sent four infantry attack groups and tank attack groups to fight. The infantry attack group's own howitzer battalion faced off against the 40th Division, which had already beaten the artillery regiment to its lowest level. In terms of firepower, it was no longer enough. There is a problem.
What's more, the Air Force dispatched 16 fighter planes to provide air support. Now that they have left Hengzhou, there are no logistics resources. Gao Jianwu has to save fuel. After all, the next supply will have to defeat the three towns of Hankou next time to have a chance. A massive explosion.
Li Xiazhong already knew about Gao Jianwu's newly reorganized attack group, which was roughly equivalent to a reorganized division of the national army. At this time, he heard that Gao Jianwu wanted to use 4 divisions to fight against the 40th Infantry Division, and he was quite dissatisfied.
Although the 40th Division is said to be the 3rd Infantry Regiment in 1939, it has jurisdiction over the 234th, 235th, and 236th Infantry Regiments, with a total strength of about 14,000. It is not the main force in the 11th Army, but it has fought several battles. year, the combat effectiveness is still much stronger than that of the national army. Without 4 on 1 or even 5 on 1, there is no way to win, let alone annihilate.
Although Gao Jianwu took action, he dispatched 4 attack groups, equivalent to 4 national army reorganized divisions, with only about 40,000 people, and the strength was less than 3 times that of the opponent. In Li Xiazhong's view, such a configuration would make it difficult to win, and annihilate them all. That's a bit bragging.
However, Li Xiazhong was a guest and he knew his status very well. He didn't say a word to the other party's instructions and just listened with his ears.
Although the distance from Ningxiang to Yiyang is only about 40 kilometers, in Li Xiazhong's opinion, it will take at least a day for the expeditionary force group to move into place. But what surprised him was that a large team of the expeditionary force group set off at 7 o'clock that day. , moved into position around 12 o'clock and launched the attack directly!
Li Xiazhong, who arrived at the temporary headquarters outside Yiyang City in a jeep with Gao Jianwu almost simultaneously, witnessed for the first time how the expeditionary force group fought.
After the frontline observation post reported the suspected artillery position of the Little Devils, Gao Jianwu quickly directed the artillery to launch an artillery attack. The 40th Division of the Little Devils, who was caught off guard, did not expect that the expeditionary force group completed the tactical interlude within one day. They surrounded Yiyang.
It was only when Gao Jianwu launched the artillery attack that he woke up from a dream, but it was already too late. After Gao Jianwu destroyed the opponent's artillery, the tank attack group immediately launched a full-scale attack. The third attack group following the tank attack group attacked the little devils all the way. The offensive line was crushed, and in less than an hour, the 40th Division's offensive formation broke through on the south bank of Zishui, and then spread out to the left and right, establishing a deep position of about 2 kilometers, directly cutting off the 40th Division's retreat!
The whole process can be said to be overwhelming. After the Japs were destroyed in the artillery position, the remaining 92 infantry cannons, heavy machine guns, and grenade firepower were like scratching the Sherman tank's itch.
Once discovered, the tank turned around and dealt with it with one shot. The following infantry, relying on the firepower advantage of the Garand rifle, faced the 38 or so enemy infantry and followed the tank all the way to harvest!
The whole process did not involve the brutal bloody battle that Li Xiazhong imagined. He completely relied on the tank attack group and the third attack group to crush the main force of the three regiments of the 40th Division of the Little Japanese!
The other three attack groups were really just trying to intercept the little devils who slipped through the net, and they didn't use much force.
Gao Jianwu's troops completed the annihilation of the 40th Division in half a day!
When Li Xiazhong heard in the evening that the 40th Division had been wiped out, his mind was buzzing. He could not imagine that the expeditionary force group was now so powerful in combat effectiveness.
When he heard the news at the headquarters, he still didn't believe it. When he went to the front line in person and saw the corpses of the little Japanese and the national army defenders who seemed to be surviving the disaster, they all came out to cheer. Li Xiazhong had to believe that this was A fact.
To be honest, when Li Xiazhong confirmed that this was true, he seemed a little lost because such an army was completely different from the army he imagined.
Originally, in his mind, he thought it was pretty good that the Expeditionary Force Group could compete with the Little Devil 55. After all, after fighting with the Jaap for so many years, Li Xiazhong was still very aware of the Jaap's combat effectiveness.
Although the Expeditionary Force Group has a good reputation, it claims to have wiped out two to three million Japs. But Li Xiazhong himself knows very well that battle reports can be greatly artistically rendered according to the situation.
The propaganda results are two or three times more than the actual results, which is considered very conscientious. But today's expeditionary force cluster has overturned his cognition.
Gao Jianwu said that annihilation was really a complete annihilation, and the entire little devil was wiped out on the battlefield. There were more than 14,000 people in a reorganized division, but only a few hundred wounded and disabled soldiers were captured.
Although Li Xiazhong did not count them personally, he saw that most of these prisoners were officers dressed as lieutenants and Zuoguan, and there were very few ordinary little devils.
Everyone in the expeditionary force group knew that Gao Jianwu had a special hobby, which was to capture the Japs' officers and then let them find ways to kill them.
At first they couldn't understand it, but later they speculated whether doing this was a kind of mental torture for the little devil, similar to murder and heart-wrenching.
No one knows that Gao Jianwu silently shouldered everything in order to get 150% more explosive equipment bonus.
That night, Li Xiazhong reported everything he saw to Commander Xue of the Ninth Theater Command via phone.
The first moment Commander Xue received the report, he felt a little ridiculous. He even doubted whether Li Xiazhong had been instigated by the expeditionary force to rebel!
Fortunately, the battlefield itself is not far from Tanzhou, and there is telephone contact. Commander Xue also has his own people in the city. Investigators were quickly sent to verify that the battle reports sent back by Li Xiazhong were true. The 40th Division of the Little Japs The regiment was indeed completely wiped out by the expeditionary force group in less than half a day!
"The expeditionary force group is so strong?" After Commander Xue confirmed the news, he was not happy at first, but a little scared. With such a powerful army right next to them, if they didn't leave, it would really be hard to sleep and eat well.
To him, the little devil is an evil tiger, but the principal's direct descendants and the expeditionary force group are not just another group of hungry wolves.
He didn't want to give away the territory he had worked so hard to gain. Therefore, we are resistant to all external forces.
Even if Commander Fang and the others are just a bunch of bad guys, Commander Xue is not at ease and will weaken their strength whenever possible.
When he received the news, he was the only one in the entire headquarters. Looking at the big map on the wall, Commander Xue took down the small flag of the 40th Division, and then stared blankly at the 68th and 68th Division troops near Gao Jianwu. 116th Division.
If Gao Jianwu and the others can eat up the 68th and 116th Divisions, then...
Sparks burst out from Commander Xue's eyes. Li Xiazhong was right. If the expeditionary force group achieved what they boasted about, then his chance would come again!
