Rise from eight hundred.

Chapter 1479 Failure!

When the Miluo River defense battle began, General Xue was surprised to find that the Japanese troops deployed this time were really very different from before.

There were as many as 9 Japanese divisions discovered on the front line.

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

In order to ensure the success of the Hunan-Guangxi Campaign, the Japanese military headquarters specially sent Colonel Shimanuki Takeshi to take over as Deputy Chief of Staff of the 11th Army.

This is because the Japanese army seldom fought large-scale battles like those in the European battlefield where both sides deployed millions of troops, and there were few officers who understood the combat tactics of large-scale troops. However, Colonel Shimanuki Takeshi, who served as the second-in-command of the general staff of the 11th Airborne Army, was one of the few commanders in the Japanese army who understood this type of tactics.

If you think that a mere colonel cannot reflect the importance the Japanese headquarters attached to this battle, then you really underestimated Takeshi Shimane.

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

Secondly, this "Operation No. 1" plan was actually devised by Colonel Hattori Takushiro, then head of the Operations Section of the Operations Department of the Japanese General Staff, and Shimanuki Takeshi, a senior staff officer of the Imperial Headquarters, along with a group of lieutenant colonels and majors. The tactics they formulated were not to be underestimated because a general commander of the expeditionary army like Tanaka Shunroku was a big shot in China. As long as the Imperial Headquarters signed and agreed, he had no choice but to follow the plan to formulate the tactics of these colonels.

In 1942, Shimanuki Takeshi was dispatched by the Japanese Imperial Headquarters to the European battlefield to study and investigate the combat experiences 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-scale encirclement and annihilation battles.

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

He just took office in early April and has already demonstrated his outstanding abilities and strong personality.

The original combat principle of Hunan-Guangxi formulated by the Japanese military headquarters was "quick battle and quick decision". The first step was to quickly capture Tanzhou and Hengyang; the second step was to conquer Guilin and Liuzhou, destroy important Chinese and American airports along the way, and then engage in a decisive battle with the arriving Chinese main force.

The Japanese army, with a total strength of 25, had the opportunity to compete with the main force of the Chinese army of more than 50. If they won, they could use this victory to give a strong boost to the military and civilians on the entire island, so as to facilitate the continued fierce fighting with the Allied forces 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.

And the most important thing is that after a series of defeats, both the emperor and the Japanese headquarters urgently need a victory to prove to all the people that the Empire of Japan is not Germanic and still has the ability to fight independently and win in the Far East.

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

  The extremely conceited Admiral Xue only saw the 'sun setting in the west', but never thought that even a rabbit will bite when it is cornered, let alone a red-eyed gambler who has already put all his capital accumulated over a hundred years of hard work on the gambling table!

After arriving in China, Takeshi Shimanuki met with Isamu Yokoyama. After a field investigation and analysis of the intelligence provided by Isamu Yokoyama on the personalities and combat characteristics of the Chinese generals in the 9th War Zone, he and Isamu Yokoyama repeatedly deduced the original plan of the headquarters and concluded 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 attack lines along the Guangdong-Hankou Railway and the Hunan-Guangxi Railway should be paid more attention. The Sixth War Zone in the west suffered heavy losses in last year's Battle of Changde, so there is no need to worry too much. The 9th War Zone in the east's flank attacks, ambushes and tail attacks on both wings of the Xiangjiang River are the key to determining the outcome of this battle.

The two men jointly judged that due to insufficient preparation, it would be difficult for China to launch a flanking attack on the imperial army in the fourth battle of Tanzhou, and it would most likely wait until the imperial army attacked Hengyang in southern Hunan before launching an attack.

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

When the 11th Army reported this decision to the Expeditionary Army Headquarters, the commander of the Chinese Expeditionary Army, Tian Shunroku, who had already moved his front-line command post to Jiangxia, did not dare to make the decision. Instead, he reported it to the Japanese headquarters. As a result, 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 a context of almost "making meritorious contributions 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 Battle of Tanzhou!

However, things in the world are so clever that the best senior staff officers and the most powerful generals of China and Japan in Hunan Province did not meet in Tanzhou, but will meet in Hengyang.

This is actually destined. Corpses will pile up like mountains inside and outside Hengyang City!

However, now the generals and soldiers from both China and Japan have their eyes on Tanzhou, the capital of Hunan Province, an ancient city with a long history and culture of 3000 years and a history of city construction of 2400 years.

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

Although some of the participating troops were security divisions that were replaced by independent infantry brigades formed by domestic recruits and lacked sufficient combat experience, the Japanese army spent two or three months training them and formulated an extremely detailed combat plan.

The plan even includes 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" that General Xue came up with in the previous battles of Tanzhou was a simple and crude tactic that caused great suffering to the 11th Army.

This tactic originated from the first Tanzhou Campaign in 1939. The 9th War Zone learned the lessons of the Nanchang Campaign and destroyed all available roads, including railways, highways and even country roads, destroying more than 2000 miles of roads and turning the entire northern Hunan Province into a quagmire, making it difficult for the Japanese mechanized troops and heavy artillery to move forward. As a result, the Japanese divisions preferred mountain artillery, infantry guns and mortars that had less lethality but were easier to disassemble and transport. This also caused the Japanese artillery strike capability and urban siege capability to plummet.

By the time of the third Tanzhou Campaign, the 9th War Zone had mastered the tactic of "turning roads into fields". The hundreds of miles of road from Yueyang to Tanzhou were basically dug into ridges that were only wide enough for one person to walk on. The roadbed outside the ridges was completely dug up and water was released to turn them into paddy fields.

That would have been fine, but Fang Xianjue, who participated in the third Tanzhou Battle and was the commander of the 10th Reserve Division, not only built ridges on the road, but also kept changing the direction of the ridges, sometimes left and sometimes right, forcing the Japanese army to march in a serpentine shape. As a result, they were ambushed by Chinese soldiers lying in wait in the paddy fields on both wings and were beaten badly.

The Chinese soldiers who wore straw sandals or even no shoes at all were much more maneuverable in the paddy fields than the Japanese infantry who wore cowhide boots.

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

The way the poor bully the rich is so unreasonable. This time, Yokoyama Yong put aside his position as the lieutenant general commander 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 covered with pine trees. The people of Hunan usually rely on these pine branches and needles for burning fires and keeping warm, so they were reluctant to cut down these pine trees when breaking the road, which provided the possibility for the Japanese army to open the road.

When the Japanese army repaired the roads this time, they changed their past practice of mainly repairing damaged roads. Instead, they cut down pine trees to create a roadbed and opened up emergency roads. On the plains without pine forests, they did not hesitate to use oxen, horses, and manpower to drag heavy artillery weighing thousands of kilograms into the Xiangbei battlefield.

In addition, the Japanese army made full use of the water transportation of Dongting Lake and Xiangjiang River to maintain logistics, and looted more than 2500 civilian ships to transport field heavy artillery and artillery shells.

This time, under the command and deployment of Shimanuki Takeshi, who was good at large-scale troop operations, the five front-line divisions of the Japanese Army advanced in parallel on a wide front of 5 to 140 kilometers. The two outermost field divisions were like the two strong wings of an eagle, blocking the flank attacks of the Chinese troops on both sides. The remaining second-line divisions were more than 200 kilometers away from the first-line divisions. Once the first-line divisions stuck to the opponent, they would immediately follow up to form a tiered attack.

The Japanese army used the tactical strategy of "wide front, 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 is also in full swing.

The U.S. Air Force and the Chinese Air Force stationed at airports in Guilin and Liuzhou were equipped with Wildcats, Hellcats, and even the "Havoc" attack bombers that were widely used on the European battlefield. In terms of aircraft quality, they had completely surpassed the Japanese Zero fighters and Type 97 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 air-to-ground attacks have long been Chinese and American fighter jets.

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

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

This obviously far 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 supremacy, but suffered huge losses. On the first day of the war alone, more than 28 fighter jets were lost.

Although the Japanese side also lost no less than 30 fighter jets, it did not lose air superiority. The 28 Havoc attack bombers ready to take off 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 fighter planes to the battlefield. The infantry on the ground were desperately pouring fire, and the sky was also fighting hard. Fighter planes kept falling with thick smoke.

In the end, although the "Havoc" attack bombers sent out due to the urgency of the war successfully bombed the Japanese infantry on the ground, 4 "Havocs" and 9 American pilots remained in the position forever.

The complete control of the air supremacy envisioned by the Chinese side did not occur in the early stages of the battle.

On the ground, faced with the frenzied offensive of the Japanese army, the troops of the 9th War Zone were simply unable to carry out encirclement and flanking attacks as they had done in the past. They could not even stand their ground. Instead, they were stuck, divided, surrounded, and severely damaged by the Japanese army, which had an absolute advantage in mobility and artillery firepower.

On May 5, the Japanese troops on the eastern route broke through Tongcheng in southern Hubei;

On May 5, they captured Pingjiang and continued to move south. The 11rd Division attacked the northwest, the 3th Division attacked the southeast, and the two divisions attacked Liuyang, an important town near Tanzhou, respectively.

On May 5, the Japanese troops in the west captured Yuanjiang River and attacked Ningxiang.

On May 5, the Japanese troops in the central route crossed the Xinqiang River, Laodao River and Liuyang River.

On May 5, in order to severely damage the morale of the Tanzhou defenders, the Japanese army began to bomb Tanzhou city with planes at night.

Although a curfew had been implemented in Tanzhou City long ago, with the surge in the number of refugees fleeing, many traitors and spies sneaked into the city and lit lanterns or fired flares in the dark to guide the location of Japanese planes in the sky.

  There was panic in Tanzhou City!

On May 5, the Japanese army captured Liuyang and occupied Zhuzhou, completing the complete encirclement of Tanzhou.

The battle of Tanzhou is inevitable.

General Xue was unable to stabilize the troops on the front line despite his clumsy attempts. Finally, faced with the rapidly deteriorating situation, he no longer had the arrogance he once had. 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 unit 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 separated from the Guangdong faction and joined the Central Army. The army had three infantry divisions and a total strength of 3 troops. Because it was General Xue's direct force, it was mainly equipped with German and American weapons.

The 4th Army's mountain artillery battalion alone had more than 50 artillery pieces of various types, not to mention submachine guns and semi-automatic rifles. In terms of heavy artillery firepower alone, they were no less powerful than a main Japanese division.

而这次大战，第4军还有战区直属的炮兵第3旅助阵，该旅最牛逼的火炮不是拥有的12门全新的米制75毫米山炮，也不是6门105米式105榴弹，而是当初中国下血本向日耳曼帝国莱茵金属公司订购的24门150毫米榴弹炮中的4门。

When the third Battle of Tanzhou was at its most dangerous moment, it was the four heavy artillery pieces placed on Yuelu Mountain that fired continuously and defeated the Japanese infantry attacking the city.

Logically speaking, even if there were only 2.5 elite Chinese troops defending the city, the Japanese army, which had deployed more than 10 troops, would have to pay a terrible price if it wanted to capture Tanzhou.

The Chinese Military and Political Department estimated that they could hold out for at least 10 days. Other troops of the 9th War Zone could also arrive at the corresponding positions to launch flank attacks on the Japanese army. As long as they could hold out until the reinforcements from Jiangnan arrived, the military strength in Hunan Province would reach more than 40. With the final acquisition of air supremacy, the 4th Tanzhou Battle, which had already gone somewhat awry, was not without the possibility of regaining victory.

In order to quickly capture this ancient city with splendid civilization and long history, Yokoyama Isamu and Shimanuki Takeshi were prepared for tens of thousands of casualties or even more.

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

Yokoyama Isamu couldn't even believe that it was the Chinese side that had won three consecutive Tanzhou battles. If that was the case, then what about Anami Yuji and his two famous generals of the Imperial Army who commanded the first three battles?

Anyone who is outshined by stupidity can only be an idiot!