The battlefield of Xuzhou caused the Japanese army to lose its troops and fall into a huge passivity.

By the time of the fierce fighting on May 7, the situation had changed dramatically again. At that time, the commander-in-chief of the Battle of Xuzhou, General Terauchi Shouichi, had already issued a general attack order, and the 250,000 Japanese troops near Xuzhou attacked on all fronts.

As the main force of the attack, the strength of the Japanese army on the North Road quickly increased to more than 100,000 people, and Yuwang Mountain was also the number one target of their attack.

At this time, Li Zongren also knew the intentions of the Japanese army, and immediately arranged for all units of the national army to break through.

However, Yuwang Mountain, as a barrier to the north of Xuzhou, must not be given up at will. As long as Yuwang Mountain can be held, the national army in Xuzhou can retreat calmly, and the encirclement of the Japanese army will not be tightened, so Yuwang Mountain must hold on to the last moment.

Li Zongren issued an order to Lu Han to fight to the death of one soldier and one soldier to defend Yuwang Mountain.

The Japanese troops from all walks of life here tried their best to storm the defense line of the national army, and all kinds of heavy weapons were on the front line, and the intensity of the attack was jaw-dropping, and there was a momentum of eating the national army in one bite.

The Yunnan army's Yuwang Mountain suffered the most fierce blow in history, the shells of the Japanese army's heavy artillery, mountain artillery, field artillery, and infantry artillery fell on the position of the Yunnan army like raindrops, the mountains and rocks were blown to pieces, and the trees were blown up several meters high!

The position of the Dian army on the hill of Yuwang Mountain was almost completely destroyed, and by this time the Japanese infantry had already begun to charge, and it was too late to repair the position.

There was no way, the Dian army piled up the remains of the martyrs who died in the battle as cover, and struggled to resist the Japanese attack.

At that time, the Yunnan army suffered heavy casualties, and all the flat land north of Yuwang Mountain was buried with the remains of the martyrs, and the remains of the newly martyred martyrs really had no place to bury them. At that time, due to the fierce fighting, the body could not be transported.

The remains of the martyrs of the Yunnan army had to be placed in the trenches, and the meals and rest of the living soldiers of the Yunnan army were next to the bodies of the martyrs, and when the battle was fierce, they could only walk around the bodies of the martyrs.

The battle has reached this point, and everyone is red-eyed. Witnessing the sacrifice of so many comrades-in-arms, the officers and soldiers of Yunnan all held on to their determination to die, and they had no intention of leaving Yuwang Mountain alive.

As a result, although the Japanese army attacked with all their might, it was never able to succeed.

The Dian army continued to hold on until May 17, when the main force of the Xuzhou National Army retreated successfully, and most of Yuwangshan was still in the hands of the Dian army.

On the evening of the 17th, after completing the task of blocking Yuwang Mountain, the 60th Army of the Yunnan Army retreated to Xuzhou under the order of Li Zongren and prepared for the retreat of the whole army.

On the 18th, the Dian Army and Sun Lianzhong's Northwest Army were the last troops to withdraw from Xuzhou, and at that time Li Zongren's Fifth Theater Command had also been transferred.

On the 19th, the empty city of Xuzhou was captured by the Japanese army!

The Dian army suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Taierzhuang, with more than 14,000 casualties among the 60th Army. Among them, the 182nd Division and the rest of the 183rd Division were only organized into 1 regiment, and the 184th Division suffered fewer casualties as a reserve, and the rest was only organized into 3 regiments.

The whole army grew from 12 infantry regiments to 5 infantry regiments, losing a full 7 regiments.

Among them, more than 5,000 were martyred, and more than 10,000 were wounded, 500 officers above the platoon commander level of the Yunnan Army were killed or wounded, 1 brigade commander was martyred and 1 was wounded, and 4 regiment commanders were martyred and 7 were wounded.

For a battle, the casualties of senior officers are like this, which shows that the battle is really fierce to the extreme, and the Dian army is indeed very ruthless.

The Yunnan army announced the annihilation of more than 7,000 Japanese troops, according to post-war estimates, the total number of Japanese casualties exceeded 5,000, and all of them were casualties of the first-class divisions of the Japanese army.

The chairman himself also sent a message of commendation:

Commander Lu of Taierzhuang, your troops fought bravely, comforted deeply, and investigated the hardships of the enemy, especially me, and hoped to encourage the troops to continue to work hard to overwhelm the Japanese in order to show the prestige of the country.

The Japanese army originally thought that they would be able to occupy Taierzhuang in two or three days, but they did not expect to take it for half a month. The Japanese military department had no choice but to make excuses that the Yuwangshan defense force was the most elite central army of the national army.

However, the remains of a large number of fallen soldiers of the Yunnan army prove that they are troops from Yunnan.

The Japanese military department knew from top to bottom that the Yunnan Army's combat effectiveness was very weak and vulnerable.

Therefore, the top level of the Japanese army did not understand the defeat, so they had to speculate wildly, and also announced: In the Lunan Campaign, our army's offensive at Yuwang Mountain was frustrated and the progress was unfavorable, mainly because Soviet officers were found to be involved in the command near Yuwang Mountain.

In fact, the Soviet advisers were not attached to the combat units of the Nationalist Army at that time, and when they arrived in the army, the battle of Wuhan took place a few months later.

Under the cover of various units of the national army, hundreds of thousands of national troops in Xuzhou broke through successfully.

Compared with Tang Shengzhi, who was the first to abandon the troops and flee in the Battle of Nanjing, Li Zongren almost persevered until the last moment.

On the evening of the 18th, after most of the retreat had begun, Li Zongren led more than 700 people from the Fifth Theater Headquarters to withdraw from Xuzhou under the protection of 2,000 men in one division.

At that time, the first thing the Japanese planes wanted to attack was the senior officers of the Nationalist Army, and they specially bombed cars and strafed the officers of the Nationalist Army who were riding horses and wearing high-class military uniforms.

So Li Zongren himself changed into soldiers' clothes and stipulated that no one in the army was allowed to ride a horse. Except for the sick who need to ride in a small cart, the rest of the people are all marching on foot. Funny

Li Zongren himself rode a small cart and selected a few sturdy soldiers to take turns pushing the cart.

Sometimes he was lying in the car, sometimes he got out of the car and walked. The team marched entirely on a rural road in a sea of wheat, and did not disturb the county government or the township office at night, but lived in the village or town.

During this period, it encountered several bombing and strafing by Japanese aircraft, but fortunately, the casualties caused were limited.

And the Japanese cavalry units did not dare to attack such a large force of national troops. After four days and more than 500 miles of arduous marching, Li Zongren and his entourage arrived safely in Fuyang on May 22, breaking through the encirclement of the Japanese army.

After Liu Ruming's 68th Army successfully completed the covering task, more than 30,000 troops immediately dispersed their troops into several regiments to break through.

Under the leadership of the anti-Japanese people in Shandong, they calmly drilled out of the gap in the Japanese encirclement, and the casualties were very small.

The retreat of the Nationalist army was very successful, not a single of the 60 divisions was annihilated by the Japanese, not a single senior officer was captured alive or dead, and not even a single officer of the colonel rank was captured.

After a full month of fierce fighting, the Japanese army used 250,000 troops and suffered more than 20,000 casualties, but they did not capture any main force of the national army at all.

For this, both Japanese Minister of War Sugi Sugimoto and Terauchi Terauchi, commander of the North China Front, and Shunroku Hata of the Central China Front Army were deeply ashamed.

It is equivalent to using the Emperor Kangxi to send thousands of people to hunt in Rehe, and the momentum is amazing, but as a result, thousands of people only hit a few rabbits, isn't it a big joke?

Meng Shaoyuan also knew that the Battle of Xuzhou was not a defeat of the national army in any sense.

Because the purpose of the Battle of Xuzhou was to find an opportunity to annihilate the main force of the Japanese army, delay the start of the Battle of Wuhan, and then seek an opportunity to withdraw from the battlefield.

The Battle of Taierzhuang annihilated the Japanese army and forced the two divisions of the Japanese army to flee in disarray, and the goal was accomplished.

In the face of the onslaught and siege of the Japanese army's 250,000 troops, if the national army held on to the ground like the Soviet army in the Battle of Kiev until the whole army was defeated, then the 600,000 main force of the national army would be annihilated by the Japanese army.

The domino effect was that the Battle of Wuhan failed before it was fought. The second layer of defense was quickly captured by the Japanese at very little cost, and Sichuan Province was definitely not able to hold it.

In this way, the War of Resistance was about to end with the victory of the Japanese army.

Meng Shaoyuan once heard his friend Xiao Glasses say this:

As far as the Battle of Xuzhou is concerned, it is undeniable that the high-level of the national army is still very clear about the understanding of the war situation, they did not care about the gains and losses of one city and one place, nor did they change the operational policy because of international public opinion, thus preserving the vital strength of the national army, ensuring the progress of a protracted war, and also ensuring the final victory of the national army in the War of Resistance Against Japan.

In terms of retreat, Li Zongren also achieved proper command on the whole, which can also show his superb ability as a famous general.

Compared with Tang Shengzhi's indiscriminate command in Nanjing, incompetent and cowardly, Li Zongren commanded the troops very calmly and successfully broke through, and it was really not easy for him to persist until the last moment in evacuating Xuzhou.

At this time, Luo Liangjian glanced at Meng Shaoyuan: "Shaoyuan, we fought very hard in the defense of Xuzhou, but we also achieved major results. Li Zongren is still very capable. However, when Li Zongren retreated, he left a large amount of materials for the Nationalist troops fighting behind enemy lines in the future, as well as the anti-Japanese army, which urgently needed to be distributed. ”

What do you mean?

What do you do with the distribution of supplies? Meng Shaoyuan didn't understand for a while.

"This batch of materials, by Li Zongren's cronies, Xue Sixu, director of the chamberlain, and Hou Yongsheng, director of the Xuzhou Strategic Materials Management Office, are jointly responsible, some of them have been distributed to the national army troops fighting behind enemy lines, some of them are hidden on the spot, and some of them are transported to the Sulu junction in advance when they decide to retreat, and they are ready to be transferred all the way to central and northern Jiangsu."

Luo Liangjian said slowly: "In Jiangsu and Shandong, Yu Xuezhong, commander of the Sulu Theater, Shen Honglie, chairman of Shandong Province and commander of Shandong Provincial Security, and Han Deqin, chairman of Jiangsu Province and commander of the 89th Army, led 200,000 athletes to Sulu and fought behind enemy lines with the Japanese army for a long time. ”

Meng Shaoyuan suddenly faintly sensed something.

Luo Liangjian said casually: "However, whether it is in Shandong or Jiangsu, there are a group of troops who are also appointed by the government and given them numbers, but they do not obey the government's orders very much. ”

Meng Shaoyuan's heart was bright, knowing that what he guessed was not wrong at all, and this was what he was most afraid of hearing.

"Shao Yuan, tell me, who are these weapons?"

Luo Liangjian just threw this question to Meng Shaoyuan.

Meng Shaoyuan could only smile bitterly and said cautiously: "It is the Eighteenth Army that is active in Shandong, and the Fourth Route Army that is very active in Jiangsu. ”

"If you know, it's good." Luo Liangjian took a puff of cigarette: "They are also staring at this batch of materials, and Li Zongren seems to be intending to distribute the materials to them." ”

Don't, don't.

Meng Shaoyuan was afraid of something, so he heard Luo Liangjian say:

"I'm going to send you there to coordinate the distribution of this batch of important supplies as a special observer in the chairman's chamberlain!"