4.45 Saddle Islands

On the sea hundreds of kilometers away from Shanghai, Senior General Matsui Ishine, commander of the "Shanghai Dispatch Army," and his chief of staff, Rear Admiral Mamoru Iizawa, held a pre-war meeting of the Shanghai Dispatch Force in the war room of the headquarters on the warship. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Matsui Ishine brought to Shanghai this time was a strong army, under the jurisdiction of the 3rd Division and the 11th Division. In addition, it is also attached to the 7th Independent Machine Gun Brigade, the 5th Combat Vehicle Brigade, the 8th Independent Light Armored Squadron, the 10th Independent Heavy Artillery Brigade, the 4th Mortar Brigade, the 3rd Field Antiaircraft Artillery Team, the 3rd Field Air Defense Team, the 8th Independent Engineer Wing, the 6th Independent Flying Squadron, the Headquarters of the Shanghai Dispatch Signal Team, the 5th Independent Siege Heavy Artillery Brigade and the Military Station Unit.

The 3rd Division and the 11th Division are both standing divisions of the Japanese Army, both of which are 2 brigades and 4 wings, and each division and regiment that has been expanded during the war has more than 25,000 troops.

Relying on its strong strength, there was a mood of underestimating the enemy within the Shanghai Dispatch Army, and they attributed the defeat in the Shanghai War more to the incompetence of the Marine Corps, and did not regard the Chinese Army as a tough opponent.

However, their commander, General Matsui Ishone, did not think so, since the departure from Atsuta Port on the 18th, the Shanghai battle report forwarded by the Ministry of War along the way made General Matsui Ishone more and more frightened!

The 88th Division, the 87th Division and the 36th Division, the ace troops in the Chinese army, were all put into the Songhu battlefield without exception, and even the 98th Division, which served as an assist, was not an idle person, and it was also one of the descendants of the Nanjing government's army reorganization plan carried out in accordance with the advice of the German advisers, as well as the 99th Division, which had an outstanding record, such a steel division seemed to emerge from the ground overnight, and the intelligence department's understanding of this unit was almost zero!

The military department described the 99th Division as another teaching corps armed with American-style weapons! Such a comment is really the limit of what the military department can describe!

It was this 99th Division that not only buried Rear Admiral Okawa of the Marine Corps with his own hands, but also cooperated with the Chinese Navy in a surprise attack on the flagship Izumo of the 3rd Fleet, and Vice Admiral Hasegawa also stepped down, and now the commander of the Japanese Fleet near Shanghai was temporarily replaced by Rear Admiral Tanimoto Mataro, commander of the 11th Sentai Fleet.

The commander of the 99th Division is as a mystery as this unit, and this young general named Huang Haoran was also born suddenly, and his performance made the head of the Japanese Army Intelligence Office in East China immediately change people.

Before the war, the intelligence department collected information about Huang Haoran and the 99th Division was labeled as "garbage", and Tokyo even began to investigate whether there was any infiltration of anti-war groups among intelligence personnel.

In addition, many elite divisions of the Nanjing Army near Shanghai also began to appear, such as the 18th Army and the Teaching Corps, and the Chinese could not easily abandon Shanghai this time!

The "Shanghai Dispatch Army" will face an unprecedented bloody battle!

Senior General Matsui Ishine had to admit that the military department's methods of covering up the news were very clever, and the Japanese army officers and men in the fleet transport ships were almost ignorant of the fact that the battle in Shanghai was about to be lost, and only a few sensitive people realized that the marines in Shanghai must be in serious trouble, so they needed 100,000 urgent reinforcements from the army!

The sentiment of contempt for the enemy can no longer spread! Otherwise, this unprepared army will plant a big heel in Shanghai!

Senior General Matsui Ishine kept his sanity and clarity, but the army officers who attended the meeting did not think so, especially the chief of staff of the 11th Division, Katamura Shihachi Daisa, who thought that it was a very absurd thing to summon the senior officers of the "Shanghai Dispatch Army" to a warship for a meeting, knowing that the transport fleet was very large, and it took more than two hours for these wing commanders to gather in small boats, and Lieutenant General Yamamuro Munetake, the commander of the 11th Division, also complained about this, but it was difficult to say.

According to the arrangement of the military headquarters, the "Shanghai Dispatch Army" was transported to Shanghai by naval ships in two batches: half of the troops of the 3rd Division departed from Atsuta Port on the 18th and 19th; On the 20th and 21st, the 11th Division departed from Tadutsu and assembled at the Ma'an Islands, the forward base; The other half of the 3rd Division set out from Yupin on the 28th and 29th and sailed straight for Shanghai.

Now they are located in the Saddle Islands, which are only 120 kilometers away from Shanghai, in the eyes of Chief of Staff Katamura 48, the 11th Division should be killed in one go, and it is really a waste of time to avoid a meeting here, and he is a little envious of Lieutenant General Fujita Shin, commander of the 3rd Division, and Tajiu Toshio Osa, chief of staff. Since they don't have to assemble in the Saddle Islands, they don't have to put up with the nonsense of Admiral Matsui Ishone......

Only half of the men and horses of the 3rd Division came to the Saddle Islands, and the officer who led the team was Major General Riichiro Katayama, the commander of the 5th Infantry Brigade, and the 5th Brigade had two infantry wings: the wing commander of the 6th Infantry Wing was Kuranaga Tatsuharu Osa, and the wing commander of the 68th Infantry Wing was Takamori Takasa, and these three people were now sitting straight in the war room, Chief of Staff Katamura Shihachi and Major General Riichiro Katayama nodded with a relaxed expression, all of which were seen by General Matsui Ishine.

"Ladies and gentlemen! This is the first operational meeting of our 'Shanghai Dispatch Army', and we are about to face an unprecedented bloody battle in Shanghai. ”

The lights were turned off, the slideshow began, and the first photo made Chief of Staff Katamura 48 stare his eyes out!

It was the sinking "Izumo", the British reporter's shooting angle was very good, the picture was very shocking, and the sweat of the chief of staff of Katamura 48 came down!

The staff officer on the side was just right with a voiceover:

"In the early morning of August 21, the Chinese Navy attacked our 3rd Fleet in Shanghai, and our army lost the cruiser Izumo, the destroyer Yaeyama, and a transport ship, which was the largest loss of our Navy since the start of the war......"

The picture flashed and was replaced with a photo of the Japanese Marine Corps Headquarters building, but the Chinese flag was fluttering on it.

"On August 19, the 99th Division of the Chinese Army captured the building of the headquarters of our Marine Corps, and the seventh major general Yu was shattered in Dachuan, and in the next few days, the Chinese army launched a strong attack on Huishan Wharf, the last position of our army in Shanghai, and today, Huishan Wharf ......is in danger."

The photos behind are all tragic scenes of the Japanese army in Shanghai, especially the last photo of a few Japanese soldiers in rags bowing their heads and confessing their guilt at the press conference of the Chinese army, which made the senior army officers in the war room itch with hatred!

Seeing that the officers present had been infected by the photo, Senior General Matsui Ishine began to speak:

"Tokyo has given a death order to our 'Shanghai Dispatch Army' to rescue the trapped marines at Huishan Wharf and conquer Shanghai! Only in this way can we save the face of Great Japan! I appreciate your high fighting spirit very much! However, I ask you to think about it calmly, is the Marine Corps really vulnerable? What does it really mean for them to collapse so quickly? What kind of army is our opponent? What should we do?! ”

The barrage of questions made the Japanese generals fall into deep thought, and when the Japanese put down their posture, the Chinese army in Shanghai officially ushered in their fierce enemy!

.............................................................................................