7.12 New number

The non-enlarged faction in the Japanese government believed that even if the Japanese army could capture Xuzhou, open up the Tianjin-Pudong railway, and connect the railway between Beiping and Nanjing, it would bring a series of problems. The occupation of Xuzhou www.biquge.info limited increase in the ability of the Japanese army to control China, and the Japanese army had to send a large number of troops to garrison along the railway line to defend against the attacks of the Chinese army, which would cause the Japanese army to be further dispersed, so that Japan would really fall into the quagmire of the Chinese battlefield.

In the eyes of the non-expansion faction, if the Japanese army in the Chinese battlefield really wants to connect the north and the south, it is better to use sea transportation, which is safe and cheap.

But the expansionists in the Japanese cabinet saw a different picture, arguing that the Wuhan government had suffered a series of defeats in East and North China, and that China's military and industrial capabilities had been destroyed. As long as Japan sent a few more wings to join the Chinese battlefield and pursue the Chinese army sweeping through Xuzhou, the Wuhan government would soon surrender. The capture of Xuzhou and the opening of the Jinpu Railway are necessary battlefield consolidations, and the capture of Xuzhou can also help the Japanese army to threaten Wuhan, the strategic center of China, along the Longhai Railway and the Huaihe River Valley.

The controversy between the enlarged faction and the non-enlarged faction was noisy for a while, and both the base camp and Emperor Hirohito felt a little at a loss.

This ideological confusion in the cabinet and the military department soon manifested itself in Japan's China policy.

At the beginning of 1938, the Japanese cabinet issued the "Outline for Handling the China Incident", in which there were sentences such as "the imperial government hoped that the Wuhan government would quickly abandon the anti-Japanese policy and cooperate with the empire", and then it said a lot of "not necessarily hope that the negotiations with the Wuhan government would be successful, but continue to seek other ways to clean up the situation, cooperate with military action, and prepare for the progress of the situation, so as to cope with the long-term resistance of the Wuhan government." "Words like that.

In fact, this already reflects Tokyo's ambivalence, and the military department and cabinet are oscillating between whether to expand or not to expand the war in China, so that the contents of this "Outline for Handling the China Incident" are somewhat contradictory.

In the end, it was the emperor who put an end to this ideological confusion in Tokyo. Hirohito ordered that all Japanese troops in the Chinese theater should not continue to expand the war until they received a new order from Tokyo. He demanded that after conquering Jinan and Qingdao, the North China Front only need to establish a security line to the south. He also demanded that the Central China Front should also stop its offensive immediately after conquering Nanjing and Wuhu.

The attitude of Emperor Hirohito has already shown that Japan wants to end this war, which is becoming increasingly uncertain about the future. Negotiations with the Wuhan government have become Tokyo's top priority.

But how can a boiling oil pot be cooled by a spoonful or two of cold water? The terrible war machine has been launched, and now the Japanese government wants to stop this crazy machine immediately, how easy is it to say!

As the news of the Japanese army's capture of Nanjing, the capital of China, reached Japan, the Japanese fell into a complete frenzy. The whole Dongying was immersed in cheers and drum noises. Every day, the newspapers and radio stations controlled by the Enlargement faction repeat the same voice: "Long live the Emperor!" Expand the victory of the Imperial Army. ”

However, there is no mention of the unprecedented losses suffered by the Japanese army in the Songhu and Nanjing battlefields.

The number of casualties of the Japanese army on the Chinese battlefield announced by the military headquarters to the Japanese people looks more like a joke!

The hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Japanese troops fought for more than five months, and the total number of casualties of the Japanese army invading China was only 507!

When a lie is repeated a hundred times, it becomes the truth!

Fanatics brainwashed by militarism floated up like dirty oil, organized marches, rallies, and petitions, and scurried around the Japanese archipelago, frantically clamoring.

Expand the victory in the war against China!

Completely wipe out the stubborn China army!

Conquer China!

In the Japanese archipelago in January, despite the snowflakes and the cold weather, the short Japanese were as excited as if they had been beaten with chicken blood!

This fanaticism in Japan was soon transmitted to the Japanese army in the Chinese theater, and the Japanese army in North China and the Japanese Central China Front disobeyed the emperor's orders and swung their butcher's knives at Xuzhou, another important city in the Central Plains of China.

The intention of the generals of the invading Japanese army was quite clear, they wanted to open up the Jinpu Road, remove the threat of the right side of the march into Wuhan in the future, and then go west from the Longhai Road to cut off the Pinghan line, take Wuhan in one fell swoop, and force the supreme authorities to have a showdown.

The soldiers of the empire never believed that the Japanese diplomats would be able to bring the supreme authorities in Wuhan to the table of negotiations, they only believed in their bayonets and artillery! The senior generals of the invading Japanese army had to put the last straw that crushed the Wuhan government with their own hands......

*************************************************

Anqing, where the 25 Army was stationed.

Chief Li's efficiency is really not covered, and only 48 hours later, Chief Li has already completed some of the things he promised Huang Haoran.

The commendation order given by the Military Commission to the 1st Army and He Daru's transfer order were the first things that Commander Li did, and with such a thin piece of paper, Huang Haoran's debt to the 1st Army was written off.

In order to make this commendation order an ironclad case, Commander Li also made the "touching deeds" of the 1st Army appear in the newspaper through his connections.

He Daru was also officially transferred from Li Tiejun's 1st Army to Huang Haoran's 25th Group Army by the Ministry of Military Affairs, so that it was impossible for Li Tiejun to put the blame on He Daru's head.

Huang Haoran wanted to know if Hu Shoushan, the real master of the 1st Army, had been smoked by this unexpected commendation, and as for what kind of devastation Li Tiejun would suffer, Huang Haoran didn't care at all.

The sooner a soft bone general like this gets out of the way, the better it will be to fight the war! Looking at the special feature of the "Central Daily" for the 1st Army, Huang Haoran really felt a kind of pleasure in eliminating harm for the people!

The second telegram Huang Haoran received was the "Plan for the Formation of the 25th Group Army" approved by the Military Commission, and this "Plan" was almost a copy of the plan for the formation of the Army that Huang Haoran had reported.

According to the "25th Group Army Formation Plan" of the Military Commission, Wang Shankui's new army was given the number of the 100th Army, and the two provisional infantry divisions of Liu Zhaomu and Xie Wendong became the 187th and 188th Divisions respectively.

According to this "Formation Plan", Huang Haoran reorganized all units of the 25th Group Army, and the main structure of the 25th Group Army after the reorganization is as follows:

99th Army: 99th Division, 188th Division, 189th Division and 47th Independent Brigade;

100th Army: 139th Division, 121st Division and 187th Division.

Among them, the 189th Division and the 47th Independent Brigade are empty numbers, and the actual combat units that the 25th Army can use are 5 infantry divisions.

The 5,000 wounded of the Tax Police Corps in Wuhan were unusually smooth.

In view of the close relationship between Song Ziwen and the highest authorities, Chief Li did not go directly to Song Ziwen as soon as he came up, but used Minister He and Song Ziwen's two younger brothers to knock on the side a few times.

In the eyes of outsiders, Song Ziwen is a very arrogant person, he holds the financial power of the government, and he should be the object of everyone's scrambling. But in fact, only a very small number of people around Song Ziwen followed, and he often became the target of attacks by various factions.

Song Ziwen often offered to resign when he felt unable to cope with major difficulties. The highest authorities also have a problem with this approach of his. Song Ziwen failed to handle interpersonal relations within the government, and he was not very good at communicating his views with the highest authorities and others, either accepting them or leaving if they did not accept them, and his personality made the relationship between him and the highest authorities not as harmonious as it seemed.

During his tenure as Minister of Finance of the Nanjing Nationalist Government, Song Ziwen created a military armed tax police corps directly under the Ministry of Finance in an attempt to control a private army.

After the "128" incident, Soong Ziwen profoundly realized the serious threat posed by Japan. In order to cope with the sudden incident in North China, he secretly negotiated with Qian Zongze, director of the Longhai Railway Bureau, to prepare more than 30 trains, concentrate them in Haizhou, and transport all the tax police regiments to Zhengzhou at once, ready to leave for Beiping. The incident was discovered by Liu Zhi, chairman of Henan Province, who called the highest authorities to report it. When the highest authorities learned of this, they were furious and ordered the tax police corps to immediately return to its original defense, otherwise it would be disarmed.

Soong's series of activities and attitudes, coupled with his refusal to increase military spending for the Central Army, greatly annoyed the highest authorities. The highest authorities could no longer tolerate the existence of the tax police corps, a powerful army that was not a descendant, and soon Huang Jie, the commander of the second division stationed in Xuzhou, took over as the head of the tax police corps. The army that Song Ziwen had painstakingly managed was actually out of his control.

So when Song Ziwen learned from Minister He and his two younger brothers that Chief Li hoped that he could hand over the wounded soldiers of the Tax Police Corps in Wuhan to Huang Haoran, Song Ziwen immediately decided to sell Chief Li this favor, he wrote a handwritten letter to the old department of the Tax Police Corps, and then asked people to send it to Anqing to hand over to Huang Haoran.

Considering that the 5,000 wounded soldiers still needed some time to recover and train to reach their best condition, Huang Haoran did not transfer them to Anqing. Instead, the wounded soldiers of these tax police regiments were organized into two supplementary regiments, and at the same time, the 25th Group Army set up a garrison in Wuhan. Xu Xinghua became the director of this left-behind office, and the personnel of the secret service were also transferred to Wuhan. Compared with the fierce frontal battlefield, the vast rear and the Japanese-occupied area are the best stage for the secret service.

In addition to the two supplementary regiments of intelligence work and training, Huang Haoran also asked Xu Xinghua to set up many recruitment points in Hubei, and the 25th Group Army in Xuzhou will definitely be damaged, and the 25th Group Army now has two empty numbers, and the other five divisions are also unsatisfied. Rather than recruiting new recruits on the fly, it's better to start preparing now.

As Chief Li's promises were fulfilled one by one, Huang Haoran also began his action of repaying the favor. Rich and Fan Jie stared at nothing to make a mistake, and Huang Haoran gradually shifted his energy to communication with Wuhan.

After negotiating the conditions with Huang Haoran, the report of Chief Li's request to transfer the 25th Group Army to join the 5th Theater was immediately handed over to the Military Commission. But now two days have passed, and there is no movement in Wuhan.

The telegram from Chief Li hoping that Huang Haoran would take the initiative to ask the highest authorities for war and the telegram sent by Xu Xinghua to report the good news that he had successfully taken over the wounded soldiers of the Tax Police Corps had arrived back and forth. Huang Haoran was a little suspicious that Chief Li had left someone in Wuhan to monitor the movements of those wounded soldiers, otherwise, the timing of this telegram would be too coincidental, right?

This obviously extremely rancid idea for Huang Haoran was actually a strategy by Chief Li in order to firmly tie the 25th Group Army to the local troops in the 5th Theater.

It's just that Huang Haoran won't fall for this!

For the sake of such a stupid thing as the miscellaneous army in the 5th theater taking the initiative to ask the highest authorities to fight, only a madman would do it, Huang Haoran was willing to go to Xuzhou to help Chief Li, but he would never use such an idiotic method.

If you want to move the highest authorities, you have to grasp the psychology of the highest authorities, and Huang Haoran bets that no one in 1938 knew the highest authorities better than he did. After all, he is the only one who has read the memoirs of the highest authorities, which show the inner world of the highest authorities!

As long as the highest authorities did not turn his memoirs into a collection of lies, Huang Haoran would have a way to go to Xuzhou!

***************************************************

Tianjin, the headquarters of the "North China Front" of the Japanese invasion of China.

General Terauchi Toshiichi and his chief of staff, Major General Naosaburo Okabe, were studying the next operational deployment of the North China Front.

Originally, General Terauchi Shouichi thought that a decisive battle between China and Japan would break out in the Hebei region. The North China Front under his command was well prepared to encircle and annihilate the Chinese army in this area, forcing the Nanking government to surrender in one fell swoop, thus making an immortal feat.

However, the plan could not keep up with the change, and the sudden offensive launched by the top strategic decision-makers of the Nanjing government in Shanghai shifted the decisive battle between China and Japan to East China, so that Matsui Ishone's Central China Front had the opportunity to participate in the decisive battle and eventually capture the Chinese capital Nanjing. However, General Terauchi Shouichi's North China Front not only did not even get the opportunity to assist, but was also successively transferred by the military headquarters to two and a half divisions to support Matsui Ishine's Central China Front.

In the eyes of General Terauchi Shouichi, this is a disregard for the North China Front!

General Terauchi Shouichi was desperate to restore the honor of the North China Front on the North China battlefield. However, he never expected that Tokyo suddenly gave General Terauchi Shouichi a standby order to defend against the Soviet Union, which made the North China Front under his command completely have no room to play.

General Terauchi could only watch as Matsui Ishone's Central China Front won the great honor of capturing Nanjing. In addition to envying Matsui Ishone's luck, General Terauchi Shouichi could not suppress his desire for honor, so he presented to the base camp the idea of the North China Front Army preparing to fight deep into the hinterland of China, hoping to open up a new battlefield and establish meritorious service.

But at this time, Emperor Hirohito's order to prohibit the expansion of the war in China was conveyed again! General Shouichi Terauchi, who has been hit repeatedly, finally couldn't help but start complaining!

General Terauchi Shouichi did not dare to question the will of the emperor, but he dared to attack the base camp and the military headquarters! There were many Japanese generals who felt the same as him, especially Lieutenant General Nishio Toshizo, the commander of the 2nd Army, who expressed strong dissatisfaction with Tokyo!

According to the original judgment of the North China Front, the focus of the decisive battle between the Japanese army and the Chinese army should be along the Pinghan Railway, which was mainly attacked by the 1st Army under Lieutenant General Kazuki Kiyoji, and the 2nd Army of Nishio Shouzo, which was fighting on the Jinpu Railway, was responsible for assisting and encircling the right flank.

Due to the opening of the Songhu battlefield, the main force of the Chinese army did not assemble on the Pinghan Railway, so that the 2nd Army of Nishio Shouzo had no chance to show its combat strength. What is even more surprising is that due to the expansion and development of the war situation in Shanxi, the main force of the Japanese 1st Army entered Shanxi to assist the 5th Division in the battle, and Nishio Shouzo's 2nd Army became the reserve of the North China Front, so it could not attack the Chinese army in depth along the Jinpu Road, and could only stay in the area north of the Yellow River to stand by for combat readiness in case of an attack by the Soviet Union against the Japanese army.

However, until the Central China Front successfully captured Nanjing, and the ice and snow blocked the transportation in Siberia, the Soviet army did not show signs of gathering, and Nishio Shouzo missed most of the operations of the North China Front in vain.

The hungry Nishio Shouzo could not accept the end of the Sino-Japanese war, and he actively asked General Terauchi to allow his 2nd Army to attack the Shandong Peninsula.

Nishio Shouzo's request for war gave General Terauchi the most suitable excuse, and out of his selfishness, the North China Front began to try to change the strategic deployment of the Japanese base camp.

The hope of General Terauchi was that it would be better if the base camp would increase the strength of the North China Front and allow them to attack from north to south along the Pinghan line to Wuhan. Otherwise, at least Xuzhou must be captured and the Tianjin-Pudong line will be opened to connect the Japanese-occupied areas in North and Central China.

After the efforts of General Terauchi Shouichi, news finally came from Tokyo, and today, the base camp will give the North China Front a final reply.

General Terauchi hopes to receive a military order that allows him to capture Xuzhou!

"Your Excellency, the politicians of Tokyo should still be in the midst of endless quarrels! The fate of the empire cannot be handed over to those weak fools! Only we, the soldiers of the Imperial, are the hope of Japan, do you say yes......! ”

Major General Okabe Naosaburo, chief of staff of the North China Front, suddenly raised his head and said such a thing to General Terauchi Shouichi, Chief of Staff Okabe Naosaburo's face was flushed with perverted redness, these days, the Japanese senior officers of the North China Front Army have been in a high degree of excitement, and many people have suffered from insomnia, and Chief of Staff Okabe Naosaburo is also one of them.

General Terauchi Shouyi put down the red and blue pencil in his hand and looked at Chief of Staff Okabe Naosaburo, he didn't like the current appearance of Chief of Staff Okabe Naosaburo, General Terauchi Shouichi insisted that as a soldier, he must always remain calm, and a guy like Chief of Staff Okabe Naosaburo who is easily influenced by the outside world cannot be regarded as a qualified imperial soldier.

General Terauchi Shouichi's voice was a little cold in answering the question of Chief of Staff Okabe Naosaburo, and he asked in a stern tone:

"Okabe-kun! What you say may sound a little lacking in confidence... What are you worried about? (To be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )