In fact, on the surface, Japan's "Operation No. 1", which is what China calls the Battle of Yuxianggui, did not use the Japanese Kwantung Army stationed in the northeast. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The plan of the Japanese army's "Operation No. 1" was as follows:

With the North China Front Army investing four divisions and regiments, it is expected to launch the Henan operation, and it is expected to open the Pinghan Line in one and a half months. With the 11th Army in Central China as the main force and the 23rd Army in Guangdong as the auxiliary, a total of 10 to 12 divisions and regiments were invested to launch the Hunan operation, and it is expected to open up the middle section of the Guangdong-Hanzhou Line in five months. With the 23rd Army as the main force, the Guangxi operation will be launched, and it is expected that the southern section of the Hunan-Guizhou line and the Guangdong-Hankou line will be opened in one or two months.

In other words, the sources of its troops are mainly from North China, Central China and Guangdong.

However, most of these units of the Japanese army have been fighting in China for a long time, and all units were already in a state of serious shortages before the "Operation No. 1" plan was launched.

On the other hand, more than 500,000 troops of these 20 divisions and regiments are only troops fighting on the front line, and a large number of personnel and reserve troops are needed to prepare for replenishment or support logistics on the second line...... In this regard, Hideki Tojo has made a bloody investment.

The reason why it is necessary to spend a bloody capital is that Hideki Tojo knows very well that whether or not the "Operation No. 1" plan can be won has a direct bearing on whether Japan has the capital to continue fighting with the US military, or whether Japan has the possibility of an armistice with the United States in a dignified manner...... At this time, Hideki Tojo actually knew that even if he gained a place in China and fought with the US military, Japan had no possibility of winning, and he shifted his strategic focus to China in addition to saving his life, but also held on to a hope, that is, to drag the Americans indefinitely on the Chinese battlefield and force the Americans to negotiate an armistice with Japan, which would also give Japan a step to step down.

Therefore, Hideki Tojo can be said to have poured all his resources into the "No. 1 operation", and before the implementation of the No. 1 operation, he carried out a sweep in the northeast, north China, and central China to loot the common people everywhere to replenish military rations, and even transported a large number of supplies from the Japanese mainland, including all the road and bridge engineering personnel and equipment in the Japanese mainland.

Everything else needed for the campaign, from field medical equipment to military uniforms and leather shoes, was available for the war as never before in the history of the Japanese war. It can be said that Japan mobilized the manpower, material, and financial resources of the whole country to ensure victory in a campaign of this scale. As a result, the grain and ammunition reserves of the Japanese army's participating units generally reached more than half a year's supply.

But that's only half a year...... The real Battle of Yuxianggui was fought for eight months, so in this battle, countless Japanese soldiers died of starvation and disease.

All of this required personnel and troops to operate, and the Japanese army had no other surplus troops to use, so it drew 380,000 people from the Kwantung Army and either supplemented them into front-line combat units, or directly as combat units, or as reserves, etc.

The total strength of the Kwantung Army was only about 700,000 people in more than 20 divisions...... The Kwantung Army was actually in name only.

Therefore, there are many opinions on the modern Internet that the Kwantung Army has not participated in the war, so its strength has been preserved, and it is the strongest army after the war...... However, the Kwantung Army, which was the elite of the Japanese army, was vulnerable to the attack of the Soviet Red Army and completely collapsed in just over 20 days, which can also show how bad the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army is.

This view is clearly wrong.

The Japanese can't be so stupid, when they are almost empty on the front-line battlefield, the elite Kwantung Army is still in the back...... In fact, the Kwantung Army has been moving for a long time, and the troops under its jurisdiction have been being transferred to the front line, but they are not moving as a whole as the "Kwantung Army".

If you look up the numbers of the Japanese divisions under the jurisdiction of the Japanese Kwantung Army with a little care, you will find a very interesting point:

In the early days, the Kwantung Army was under the jurisdiction of the 1st Division, the 8th Division, the 9th, 10th, and 11th Divisions...... The number is over to the 29th Division, and another 57th Division is added.

By the end of the period, the number of the divisions and regiments under the jurisdiction of the Kwantung Army was all above 39, and none of the numbers were duplicated from the initial number.

The potential problems illustrated by this comparison are:

All the Kwantung Army in the early days were sent to the battlefield, and some of them even lost their numbers. The Kwantung Army in the later period was not at all the Kwantung Army of the past, and the vast majority of them were recruits with no combat experience, even when the Soviet Army went to war...... The Japanese Kwantung Army also hurriedly replenished 250,000 retired old and weak soldiers into the Kwantung Army, and due to the lack of supplies, some people did not even have rifles, this is the so-called "elite of the Kwantung Army" defeated by the Soviet Army!

At this time, it was not the Soviet army that had to face these Japanese troops, but the Chinese army.

Zhang Chi couldn't help frowning when he looked at the distribution of Japanese troops on the map......

"What? Isn't it easy to fight? Seeing Zhang Chi's expression, Halsey asked.

When it came to dealing with the Japanese Army, Halsey could be said to have no say at all, as a navyman, he knew more about the Japanese fighters and warships, and knew almost nothing about the Japanese Army. At the same time, as an American general, he does not know much about the Chinese battlefield, so he can think more about using existing resources to cooperate with Zhang Chi's operations.

"No!" Zhang Chi shook his head, then pointed to the map and said to Halsey: "As we imagined, the Japanese troops stationed in the northeast are very empty, mainly nine divisions and five brigades of the Third Front Army, with a total strength of more than 300,000 people!" ”

"Oh!" Hearing this, Halsey couldn't help frowning: "There are more than 300,000 people?" That's twice as many troops as the Chinese army! ”

Halsey was right, the Chinese army, including the 6th, 53rd, and 54th armies transferred from China, had only 150,000 men, which was almost half the size of the Japanese army.

If such a force were used against the Japanese army, it would be almost unimaginable in the country...... The Nationalist army had to be more than three times the strength of the Japanese army to be able to match the Japanese army, but now the Japanese army is twice the size of the national army, and if it is according to this calculation, this battle will not be fought.

But Zhang Chi doesn't think so.

"It's relatively easy to defeat this Third Front!" Zhang Chi said.

"How?" Halsey asked.

Although Halsey did not know much about the Chinese battlefield, he had also seen the combat effectiveness of the Japanese army in the Pacific Theater on the battlefield of seizing islands, and the American army often fought several times or even dozens of times the strength of the Japanese army, and it was still embarrassed when the superiority in the sea and air was completely disproportionate.

Therefore, Halsey really didn't understand and couldn't believe what Zhang Chi said, it would be a simple matter to defeat twice the strength of the Japanese army.

(To be continued.) )