The Iron-Blooded Army of Beacon Fire

Chapter 428 Great Victory Effect
"Extra! Extra! Our army won a great victory in Yangxin, annihilating 24,000 enemies!"

"Extra! Extra! Our army defeated the Japanese invaders in Yangxin and killed a major general of the enemy!"

In the early morning of October 10, newsboys rushed to the streets of Wuhan carrying piles of freshly-published newspapers. Today, the newsboys' cries seemed much more enthusiastic than usual, and the streets and alleys of Wuhan gradually woke up from the early morning.

After hearing the newsboy's cries, many people were attracted. Pedestrians stopped, residents went out to call the newsboy, and rushed to pay for the newspapers.

Soon, the newspaper boys who struggled on the brink of life and death every day found that today's newspapers were selling especially well. In the past, it took a whole morning to sell out the newspapers, but today most of them were sold out in a short time. This really made these children very happy.

These newsboys were basically illiterate, and even the wording of their hawking and shouting was learned from others when they received and sold newspapers. They had no idea about the battle situation on the front line or the specific circumstances of the National Army's great victory in the anti-Japanese war. They only knew that the National Army seemed to have won a great victory somewhere.

Although they didn't know the inside story, the newsboys just thought that the words "great victory" were particularly useful, so they shouted even harder, spreading the wording of "great victory" throughout the streets and alleys. Some smart newsboys even shortened the wording of their shouting to "great victory of the national army".

The sales strategy of the newsboys was indeed effective. Their short and focused shouts further boosted the sales of newspapers. When residents heard that the national army had won a great victory on the front line, they bought newspapers. People sleeping on the streets, people in the occupied areas who were preparing to evacuate, students, workers, and even some refugees who were short of money pooled their money to buy newspapers. The newspapers in the hands of the newsboys roaming the streets were quickly sold out, but people's enthusiasm for buying newspapers did not diminish at all. Some people even gritted their teeth and paid several times the price to grab a newspaper.

The news of the great victory at the front has made today's newspaper sales exceptionally good. Newspapers that usually take newsboys a whole morning to sell out were sold out in just one hour today. No matter what newspaper it is, whether it is Central Daily News, Ta Kung Pao, Anti-Japanese War Weekly, or Anti-Japanese War Literature and Art, as long as it publishes the news of the national army's great victory at the front, it will all sell well. And along with the newspaper, the news of the national army's great victory at the front also spread.

The topics of discussion among ordinary residents on the streets, refugees passing by, and exiled students all turned to the "Great Victory of the National Army" and the "Great Victory of Yangxin" reported in the newspapers. In the neighborhoods, alleys, restaurants, pubs, and even in the red-light districts, discussions about the great victory reported in the newspapers were endless.

In just one day, the originally negative and decadent atmosphere in Wuhan quietly changed, and the whole city seemed to be boiling with excitement.

As an important urban hub in the current national war of resistance, Wuhan is not only a military stronghold, but also a transit center for the distribution of materials and personnel between the front and rear. People fleeing from the occupied areas, school students retreating to the rear under the leadership of their division commanders, and factories retreating as a whole are being relocated.

In addition, tens of thousands of wounded soldiers from various troops came down from the front lines every day. People of all kinds gathered in Wuhan, causing the city to fall into an unprecedented and abnormal prosperity, and fully demonstrating its value as the "crossroads of nine provinces."

However, the unprecedented prosperity and the surging population did not allow the city to continue to radiate new vitality. Before the Battle of Wuhan, Wuhan could be said to be a place where anti-Japanese sentiment was high. But after the Battle of Wuhan began, a series of defeats such as the fall of Ma'an and Jiujiang continued to weaken people's originally high anti-Japanese sentiment.

If it was just one failure, one defeat report could still be accepted. After all, even ordinary people who knew nothing about military affairs knew that victory and defeat were common in the military. But as time went on, what the people were waiting for was a series of bad news, and the Japanese army went up the river and gradually approached the front line in Wuhan.

Recently, there seems to be only news of defeat and loss of territory, but little news of victory. Under such circumstances, the people's enthusiasm and spirit for resisting the enemy have inevitably declined and disappeared. Negative and pessimistic emotions are increasing day by day, and even public security has become increasingly chaotic.

The spirit of national unity in seeking victory, which had erupted since the Battle of Shanghai, with the whole nation determined to fight the enemy all out and fight to the death, seemed to be eroded bit by bit.

As the war situation gradually worsened, the number of wounded soldiers retreating from the front lines to Wuhan or pouring into Wuhan continued to irritate the people.

There was no news of victory, no hope of victory. Instead, we could only hear news of the loss of cities and territories on the front line, and look at the miserable condition of the wounded soldiers on the streets. Under such circumstances, even the most optimistic people about the prospects of the war of resistance could hardly bear the negative news every day.

An atmosphere of depression, negativity, impetuousness, anger, and pessimism is gradually spreading in this core city on the current front line of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. The public opinion ecology and emotional changes in the city of Wuhan are also a microcosm of the military and civilians across the country.
The best remedy for the feeling of failure that is gradually spreading across the country is a victory, a great victory. Both the national army and the top government officials' desire for a great victory has reached its peak at this time. But how easy is it to win a great victory that can inspire people?
However, the deployment and command of the Japanese army were not without omissions. Recently, the top leaders of the National Army finally seized the precious opportunity to achieve a great victory in the vast battlefield where China and Japan were fighting fiercely around Wuhan.

On July 1938, 7, after occupying Jiujiang, the Japanese army divided its troops into three routes to capture De'an and Nanchang, attack Changsha, cut off the Yuehan Railway, and surrounded Wuhan in an attempt to annihilate the Chinese army. Among them, the 26th Division of the Japanese Army, which was responsible for the attack on the Nanxun Line, made slow progress under the desperate resistance of the Chinese army, and the 106st Division of the Japanese Army, which was attacking on the Dexing Line, also had a difficult time.

Under such circumstances, in order to open up the Nanxun Line as soon as possible and create conditions for the 106th Division attacking on the Nanxun Line to advance southward and open up the situation, the Japanese army ordered the 27th Division to attack along the Ruiwu Line toward Wuning, preparing to support the 106th Division's attack operations.

On September 9, part of the Japanese 24th Division ventured deep into the area west of Baishui Street west of De'an, attempting to use encirclement and detour tactics to attract Chinese troops that were blocking the 27th Division and reduce the frontal pressure on the 106th Division. However, the actions of the 106th Division were keenly noticed by Xue Yue, acting commander-in-chief of the Ninth War Zone of the National Army.

Faced with the 27th Division's encirclement move, Xue Yue decisively deployed troops to cut off the 27th Division's retreat route, forming a siege situation against the 27th Division.

第27师团陷入困境之后，日军方面极为恐慌，为了救援第27师团，使其免于遭到中国军队歼灭的命运，日军方面于25日急令南浔线上的第106六师团第123、第145、第147等3个步兵联队和山炮兵部队及德星线上的第101师团149联队从马回岭、星子等地火速支援。

Facing the Japanese 106th Division rushing to support, the National Army, while deploying troops to deal with its offensive to reinforce the 27th Division, also keenly seized the opportunity, believing that "the enemy is advancing like a wolves and pigs, and the lone army is deep in the territory, which is a taboo in military strategy. At this favorable opportunity, the Corps should take advantage of the time to counterattack and deal a decisive blow, and we should allow time and space to switch troops."

In short, while the Nationalist Army was encircling and besieging the 27th Division, it accidentally seized the weakness of the 27th Division, which was alone and eager to achieve success, and decided to turn to the 106th Division as a reinforcement and concentrate its elite troops in the Wanjialing area to encircle and annihilate it. The dramatic situation of the war was vividly reflected at this moment. The 106th Division, as a reinforcement, instantly became the besieged. In order to gnaw on the 106th Division, this behemoth, and fight a war of annihilation against the Japanese division-level heavy troops, the Chinese army was fully deployed, and the 106th Army, th Army, th Army, and the th Division, st Division, New th Division, nd Division, th Division, Reserve th Division, th Division, a brigade of the th Division, and a brigade of the New th Division, a total of more than heavy troops, were deployed under the command of Xue Yue, the acting commander-in-chief of the Ninth War Zone.

The 106th Division of the Japanese Army, which was targeted by the National Army, was no ordinary force. Although this division was not the most elite regular field division of the Japanese Army, but a special division established after the war, its strength after reinforcement was also considerable. It had the 111th Infantry Brigade (113th Infantry Regiment and 147th Infantry Regiment) and the 136th Brigade (123rd Infantry Regiment and 145th Infantry Regiment), as well as one regiment each of cavalry, artillery, engineers, and baggage, with a total strength of more than people.

Hundreds of thousands of heavy troops from both sides began to fight tit-for-tat in the mountains with Wanjialing as the core. The crazy offensive between the two sides began at the end of September.

Up to now, both the besieging Nationalist Army and the besieged Japanese 106th Division, as well as the Japanese reinforcements that came to rescue the 106th Division from the periphery, have tried their best and launched a very brutal fight.

For the Japanese army, a division being surrounded by a heavy Chinese army force was indeed an unbearable and unacceptable crisis. Once an army division was completely wiped out under the siege of the Chinese army, the consequences and the impacts would be unimaginable.

For the Chinese military, this is also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Since the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Chinese military has rarely been able to achieve an encirclement and siege of the Japanese army. It is extremely rare to have besieged a division now. If we can get rid of a Japanese division at this time when we urgently need victory and a great victory to inspire the military and civilians across the country, then this "great victory of annihilating a division of the enemy" will undoubtedly be a powerful medicine, which will have extremely important significance for the current battle situation surrounding Wuhan and the national anti-Japanese war situation.

Even before the Wanjialing encirclement and annihilation battle came to an end, the Kuomintang's propaganda machine had already begun drafting the manuscript of the "Wanjialing Victory". The reason was simple: China now needed a victory so badly.

It was also because of this that the siege and fighting between the two sides near Wanjialing was extremely brutal. The attacking Chinese army attacked the 106th Division day and night, and the 106th Division also fought desperately, even to the point where the Japanese air force had to send planes to drop ammunition supplies every day to maintain its combat status.

In short, the two sides fought fiercely, and the entire battle was in a white-hot and tense situation.

At this moment, before the National Army could achieve the long-awaited victory of encircling and annihilating the Japanese 106th Division, news of the assault corps' victory suddenly came from the direction of the river defense line between Tianjia Town and Banbi Mountain.

The Military Commission was also very happy when it received the report from the battlefield inspection team sent to the Assault Corps to confirm whether the battle records were falsified, "confirming that the battle records and results of the Assault Corps are true."

There is now a fierce battle going on in Wanjialing. Although there is a possibility of winning a great victory, the two sides are still in a fierce melee and the outcome has not yet been determined.

This time, the expected "Wanjialing Victory" had not yet taken place, but the Assault Corps actually won a great victory in Banbi Mountain. At this moment, a great victory on the battlefield was needed to inspire people and boost the morale of the army and civilians. Naturally, everything should be publicized. The National Government naturally mobilized all its propaganda machines and spared no effort to publicize the great victory won by He Wei.

The news and publicity resources that were originally intended to be used for the promotion of the anticipated "Wanjialing Victory" but which have yet to produce any results were all used to publicize the great victory of the Assault Corps.

Since Banbi Mountain and Tianjia Town are adjacent to Yangxin County, the top leaders simply named this great victory won by the assault corps as the Yangxin Victory. At the same time, the number of enemy troops killed changed again.

The battlefield inspection team that came to the Assault Corps to verify the results of the battle clearly pointed out in the report submitted to the Military Commission that the result of annihilating 14,000 enemies reported by the Assault Corps was not false, but basically true, and the Military Commission was very satisfied.

However, the Central News Agency and other official news and propaganda departments were quite critical of this number of enemy troops killed, believing that the figure of 14,000 was still too low and insufficient to boost morale and determination.

Therefore, for the sake of publicity, the number of 14,000 enemy troops killed that Wang Yuanling reported to the Military Commission was directly increased by 10,000, and then continued to be inflated to 24,000.

Immediately after the propaganda figures were set, the Kuomintang's propaganda machine was fully operational, and almost all newspapers on the market were used to publicize the Yangxin victory in the form of front-page headlines. The focus of the propaganda was, on the one hand, the number of enemy kills by the assault corps, and on the other hand, the remarkable achievement of killing Japanese Major General Hata Shigeichi.

The newspaper not only published in great detail the "cool"-style battle account that the reporters had exaggerated based on the first-hand oral materials they had obtained from He Wei, so that ordinary people could understand it, but also spared no effort to post a large number of photos of Japanese weapons and equipment captured by the reporters in the assault corps, as well as photos of Japanese corpses that the reporters had taken from different angles, such as long and close distances, despite enduring the stench of the corpses.

Of course, the most tragic person was the Japanese Major General Shigeichi Hata who was killed by the assault corps. At the strong request of reporters, He Wei sent people to bury this guy, and some of the rotten corpse was dug out. Shigeichi Hata's personal ID, sword, military uniform, etc. were all photographed close-up by reporters, and these disgusting and unappetizing close-up photos were all published in various newspapers.

On October 10, newspapers with the gimmick of a great victory and a large number of photos and text materials were sold out as soon as they were released, forcing newspapers to reprint them repeatedly. The reports on the Yangxin victory were like a shot in the arm, causing a heated response among the people and in propaganda. In the foreseeable future, this great victory will most likely achieve the propaganda effect expected by the National Government.

As for what impact this effect will have on the assault corps and He Wei, it is not something He Wei, who has been fighting a cannon battle with the Japanese army across the Yangtze River in Banbi Mountain, can know and predict.

(End of this chapter)