The destruction of the only dozens of tanks left in the tank division directly announced that the third tank division of the Japanese army had not long been formed only an empty shelf, and Okamura Ninji was also stunned by the scene in front of him, originally he was also wary of that huge soft land, if it weren't for the fact that he had to pass through that land, Okamura Ninji's cautious character would never let the troops get into danger.

Seeing that the chariot troops were completely finished, Okamura Ninji's heart was dripping blood, and with the obstruction of this swamp, the Japanese army would not want to attack normally for at least a week, which made Lieutenant General Okamura Ninji very dissatisfied. Okamura Ninji still knows the reason that he is like a tiger in one drum, and then he is exhausted, so according to his established plan, he does not give the Chinese army time to breathe, and he has indeed done it in the previous ten days of attack, and his uninterrupted attack has indeed exerted a strong combat effectiveness.

However, the current changes in the objective environment have caused the Gangcun plan to be completely aborted, and with this week's time, the Chinese army will certainly be effectively replenished. If you want to push the Chinese army to this point again, you will definitely pay a huge price, but even Okamura Ninji knows that this result will not change the current situation in the slightest.

As Okamura Ninji had predicted, the huge swamp did not gradually return to its previous state until a week later, and it was originally planned that the 1st Brigade would continue to fill the swamp with water according to Xu Shiyou's approach, so as to continue to delay the Japanese attack. But Shangguan Qing was very depressed and told him that that method could only be used once, because there was no river in the south of Zhangjiakou, and the nearest river was the Daqing River that flowed from the city center, but the project of diverting water from the Daqing River was very huge, even if the more than 1,500 good soldiers of the Engineer Regiment spent a week digging a small canal less than one meter wide, the reason why they were able to turn a piece of soft land in Nuoda into a swamp in a very short period of time that day. On the one hand, the 1st Brigade directly blew up the dam that had been blocking the reservoir for more than a week, and the amount of water that had been stored for more than a week was directly washed out, and the water was abundant. On the other hand, it is caused by the topography, the terrain of the whole Zhangjiakou is high in the north and low in the south, the back is high mountain, and the south is plain, and the reservoir can be repaired to the mountain when it is built, so who will be so fierce.

Now that the Japanese army has been prepared, it is impossible to achieve results. Therefore, the Japanese army will continue to attack in the next two days, and because the fortifications are seriously damaged, even if they have been reinforced several times in the past few days, it is very difficult to hold this position, so Shangguan Qing hopes that the division headquarters will be ready to fight street battles.

On March 13, the offensive and defensive battle of Zhangjiakou, which had been stagnant for a week, kicked off again. Although Okamura Ninji was eaten up by the only dozens of chariots left due to negligence, the vitality of the entire North China Front was not lost. Okamura Ninji has not been waiting stupidly these days, he knows very well that the Chinese army will not give up Zhangjiakou easily, so if he wants to take Zhangjiakou, he has to take some extraordinary measures.

After more than half a month of offensive and defensive operations, Okamura Ninji discovered a strange phenomenon, that is, the distribution of the strength of the Chinese army in the three places that were attacked in Zhangjiakou was different, and the defenders in the south and west were not only large in number, but also extremely advanced in weapons and equipment, but their will to fight was not too tenacious, and they would take the initiative to retreat once they were attacked irreversibly. The defenders in the east were on the contrary, although the positions in the east were very wide, the defenders only had a little more than 10,000, and their weapons and equipment were much worse than those in the other two directions. In addition, the defenders in the east do not seem to have a separate artillery unit, and a total of several mortars have been fired in the past few days, and the caliber is only about 60mm to 80mm, which is not a little worse than the large-caliber infantry guns and 75mm mountain guns used in the other two directions. …,

The discovery of this situation made Okamura very happy, and the imbalance in the strength of the Chinese army allowed Okamura to find a way to break through the last line of defense.

At the very beginning of the Japanese attack, Xu Shiyou and others realized that something was wrong, although the Japanese attack in the two positions of the 1st Brigade and 2nd Brigade of the 6th Field Division was also very strong, and the two sides even engaged in artillery battles, but compared with the intensity of the attack some time ago, this is simply not worth mentioning. The Japanese army not only concentrated all its aviation units in the eastern position, but even transferred the 6th Brigade of the Field Heavy Artillery, the 5th Mountain Artillery Wing, the 26th Field Artillery Wing, and the 10th Wing to the eastern position, and a large number of snipers appeared on the Japanese position.

As soon as the battle began, the 7th Field Division was dealt a devastating blow by the Japanese army, and in just one hour, the position of the 7th Field Division was broken twice by the Japanese army.

But even so, the Seventh Field Division was beaten back one after another, and it was only a matter of time before the position fell. At this time, He Guangyu finally saw the power of the Japanese army's three-dimensional attack, although the combat effectiveness of the Seventh Field Division was not bad, but the Japanese army really couldn't stand such a fight.

Although the Seventh Field Division gradually gained a firm foothold under He Guangyu's pressure, the loss of the troops made He Guangyu, a veteran who was accustomed to life and death, also feel a little worried, but the Seventh Division lost more than 3,000 people in just over an hour, of which more than 800 were directly killed, including Li Hongfei, commander of the Third Brigade of the Seventh Field Division, Zhang Yongquan, deputy commander of the Third Brigade, and more than a dozen staff officers, and only the brigade political commissar was left among all the middle and senior officers of the entire Third Brigade.

Okamura Ninji saw a panic on the position of the Seventh Field Division, and something seemed to have happened in the easternmost section, and even the command system was in chaos. Gangcun seized the opportunity and ordered the 10th Infantry Wing of the 10th Division, which had long been ready to attack, to immediately charge.

The infantry wing of the 10th Division is the main force of the 10th Division, and the vast majority of the infantry wing are veterans with more than three years of military experience, and its combat effectiveness has been tested in many major battles. The attack of the 10th Infantry Wing was very fierce, and the location of Okamura's attack was the defense area of the 3rd Brigade whose command system was attacked by Japanese aerial bombs, so the Japanese army soon broke through the positions of the 7th Division and 3rd Brigade, forcing the 7th Field Division to retreat on all fronts.

After the Japanese occupied the position east of Zhangjiakou, they began to move to the flank, and the positions of the first brigade and the second brigade of the 6th Field Division were mortally threatened, and Xu Shiyou had no choice but to order the two brigades to withdraw to Zhangjiakou immediately.

After taking all the outlying positions in Zhangjiakou City, the arrogance of the Japanese army suddenly became extremely arrogant, and the commander of the North China Front, Tada Jun, even clamored that it was only a matter of time before the headquarters of the Communist Eighth Route Army were eliminated, and that the Imperial Army would completely occupy Zhangjiakou within two days and completely expel the headquarters of Han Yunhua, which had the highest combat effectiveness of the Eighth Route Army, from the Hebei region.

But the progress of the next battle made all the senior Japanese generals including Tada Jun dumbfounded, the Zhangjiakou city wall, which had been destroyed by the Japanese army, had been secretly reinforced by the Chinese army, and the city wall was full of light and dark bunkers built of reinforced concrete.

However, an infantry wing did not even break through the fortifications of the Chinese army with the cooperation of a large number of artillery, and the sensitive Okamura Ninji also found that the number of Chinese troops seemed to have increased a lot, and the unit that was strong in combat and fought with the imperial army for more than a month did not seem to participate in the final offensive and defensive operations. …,

Okamura Ningji guessed very accurately, after the 6th Field Division and the 7th Field Division were evacuated into the city, they were arranged by Xu Shiyou to rest in the underground fortifications, and as for the city defense, they were handed over to the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th Field Divisions that were transferred to Zhangjiakou a few days ago, and these four divisions were specially transferred to Zhangjiakou by Han Yunhua, on the one hand, because the two divisions of Xu Shiyou and He Guangyu suffered heavy losses and urgently needed to rest and replenish, and on the other hand, because the city defense fortifications in Zhangjiakou were extremely strong, they were very suitable for the garrison of new troops.

The recruit unit could not compete with the Japanese army without seeing blood, but if it was stationed in a fortified position, it would be much simpler, the soldier only needed to pull the trigger when the enemy came up, and the rest would hardly have to do anything, if the newly formed recruit units could not even do this, then they would not be worthy of being called an army.

Although the vast majority of these recruits have never been on the battlefield, the backbone of these ten divisions are all wounded who have not returned to the General Hospital of the Guisui Rear Hospital, and the fighting consciousness of those guys is not comparable to that of ordinary veterans, although the number of more than 15,000 people is not a little worse than that of more than 200,000 recruits, but these wounded veterans have indeed played a significant role. In addition, the one-and-a-half-month training of recruits also enabled these recruits to understand some of the most basic knowledge of marching operations, so these 10 newly formed infantry divisions still have a certain combat effectiveness.

No, just after the first round of counterattack, the dozen or so wings of the Japanese army besieging the city were beaten to the ground, and it only took ten minutes to repel the first round of the Japanese attack, and also caused huge casualties to the Japanese army.

Recruits are like this, it's very easy to fight a tailwind battle, if these guys are allowed to fight with the Japanese army face to face with bayonets, they will retreat in two hours at most, and it is very possible to even be completely annihilated by the Japanese army, but if these guys seize the opportunity to take advantage, then all the recruits will burst out with 200% combat effectiveness. The morale and the quality of the soldiers will be greatly improved in a short period of time, which is also the main reason why Han Yunhua transferred these recruit divisions to Zhangjiakou at this critical juncture.

Okamura Ninji saw that the fortifications of Zhangjiakou were unexpectedly strong, and immediately had a certain understanding of the intentions of the Chinese army, and immediately ordered the troops to stop the attack. And convene all the senior officers on the front line to discuss countermeasures, if they attack Zhangjiakou according to the strong attack tactics formulated earlier, then the price to pay is too great.

The front, the operational command of the Japanese army.

"Gentlemen, this is the case, the intention of the people of China is obvious, that is, to use strong city fortifications to fight with the empire, and to fill the empire with a famous person Zhangjiakou, and even if the front army takes Zhangjiakou, the gains will outweigh the losses. Therefore, I hope that you can come up with a practical way to take Zhangjiakou with a large reduction in the casualties of the imperial army. Okamura Ninji looked at all the senior generals in the command "sincerely."

In fact, the intentions of the Chinese army were discovered shortly after Okamura Ninji arrived at the front line, but because at this time, the entire North China Front Army was already difficult to ride a tiger, and in order to take care of the face of Tada Jun's entire North China Front Army, Okamura Ninji did not make a statement, let alone give a warning, because he also knew that with Tadajun's stubborn and self-serving character, he would not listen to his advice, and would even add more troops to the Chinese position at all costs.

But now it's different, Tada Jun has handed over the command of the front line to him, so there are some things to say to these people, although it doesn't need to be said explicitly, with the intelligence of these people, they can't even hear the voice outside the phone. …,

"Your Excellency, Commander, have we been all this time" Lieutenant General Toshiyoshi Ando said with a somewhat pale face, thinking of the terrible result, Lieutenant General Toshiyoshi Ando didn't even dare to say it.

Okamura Ningji looked at the famous fierce general in the Imperial Army in front of him, sighed and said: "Ando-kun, you guessed right, this battle is completely a bureau specially set up by the Chinese people for the imperial army, an insoluble situation that the imperial army knows is a trap and has to drill into it. Seeing that there were still a few major generals in the army who still had some disbelief or disdainful expressions, Okamura Ninji said with some anger: "Gentlemen, don't think that I really say nothing, think about the performance of the people of China since the beginning of the war, is it that the performance of the army of China is much worse than the elite of the empire, no matter how the people of China disguise it, the intentions of the Yin* front army still cannot be concealed." As long as you count the casualties of the front army in this battle, you can see the intentions of the people of China clearly, so you must change your mindset, and the people of China are no longer the people of China three years ago. ”

"Your Excellency, I agree with you that the people of China did use the strong fortifications of the Yin* Front to besiege and then take the opportunity to kill and wound a large number of the living forces of the Front. Since the outbreak of the Battle of Zhangjiakou, our Fifth Division has suffered extremely heavy casualties, and so far more than 8,400 soldiers have been killed in the battle, and more than 16,000 have been wounded, and the entire Fifth Division still has less than 6,000 fighting units, and all the combat vehicles have been destroyed by the Chinese people. With its strong fortifications and large-caliber artillery, the Fifth Division, the Empire's most elite division, it has already rendered it incapacitated, so I support your Excellency's opinion. The Fifth Division got up and said.

Immediately afterwards, Lieutenant General Nishihara Kazuse, commander of the 3rd Tank Division, stood up and said: "The loss of the 3rd Tank Division is even more heart-wrenching, the people of China are very cunning, and in just over a month, the people of China have destroyed all the tanks of the tank division with those hateful mines and large-caliber artillery that can fire explosive packs. Although the losses of the 3rd Division were not large, the losses of those heavy equipment could not be replenished in a short time, so the 3rd Division could be regarded as losing its combat effectiveness before the tanks were fully replenished. ”

With the support of Toshiyoshi Ando and Kazusaku Nishihara, Okamura Ninji's assertion was quickly accepted by all the officers present, even if they did not approve of it, they did not dare to say anything at this time. After Okamura Ninji's analysis, all the senior officers of the Japanese army present knew that the Japanese army had been led by the Chinese army all along, and had completely lost the initiative in the battle.

But even if you know the intentions of the Chinese army, what can you do, the Chinese army is now attacking, retreating, and defending, and it is nothing to lose Zhangjiakou, of course, it is better not to lose it. However, the North China Front Army was different, if it lost so many troops and did not achieve any results at all, not only would the entire North China Front Army lose face, but it would even affect the great cause of the empire going south. Therefore, even if the casualties in this battle were large, the Japanese army could only pinch their noses and admit it, so no one stupidly proposed to withdraw their troops.

As for how to take Zhangjiakou City, the entire Japanese army headquarters was divided into several factions, and some advocated sending paratroopers to parachute into Zhangjiakou and open the gate of Zhangjiakou under the cooperation of the inside and the outside. Some people think that it would be more perfect to send a special combat team with strong combat effectiveness to infiltrate Zhangjiakou City, and then wait for an opportunity to blow up the arsenal of the Zhangjiakou defenders, and if the commander of the Chinese army can be assassinated, or if the command system of the Chinese army can be discontinued.

However, the opinions put forward by these generals are very flawed, and they may not be successful, and there is a great element of risk-taking. This was very dissatisfied with Okamura Ningji, who had studied in Germany, Gangmura was an extremely cautious officer, and he had always believed in the spirit of bushido in the Japanese army, and after studying in Germany for half a year, he was deeply attracted by the rigorous combat methods of the German army, so he was very disgusted with the practice of these senior officers of the North China Front Army fighting like a casino.

"Gentlemen, I think we must not let the people of China know that we have known their intentions, so from tomorrow our offensive will continue, of course, I will not let the warriors of the empire send them to death, Ando, you urge those imperial alliances, tomorrow I will incorporate all the imperial alliances on the Zhangjiakou front into the battle sequence of your fifth division, as for how to use those imperial alliances, I will not ask, but I ask that the gunfire on the Zhina position is not allowed to stop for a while, In addition, I will ask His Excellency Tada Jun to mobilize more Imperial Allies to come. As for the rest of the divisions, all the search teams of their respective divisions and regiments are concentrated in the headquarters, and the whole army is ready for battle at any time, and as for the fortifications of Zhangjiakou City, I will solve it within three days. Okamura Ninji gave the order slowly.

Although these high-ranking officers of the Japanese army did not know what Okamura Ninji had in mind, since Gangmura said that he would solve the hateful fortifications by himself, then all the high-ranking officers of the Japanese army would no longer say anything, as long as they did not let their troops go to death, everyone would not have an opinion......