Chapter 468: No War in North China

Taiyuan. Headquarters of the First Army in Shanxi.

Yoshio Shinozuka frowned and looked at the officers under him, the battle in the past few days has exhausted the entire First Army in Shanxi, at this time there are not many troops left in the entire First Army in Shanxi, the 36th and 37th divisions are only less than half of the troops, and the remaining divisions are also the vast majority of casualties of more than half, and now there are less than 30,000 troops left in the entire First Army in Shanxi, plus more than 10,000 puppet troops, it is only a little more than 40,000, and the squadron around Shanxi has exceeded one million, Yoshio Shinozuka knew it was time to make a decision.

"Gentlemen, now that Tianjin and Tangshan have been occupied by the Chinese people, the headquarters of the front army is also besieged in Beiping, and even Gangcunjun's eleventh army has been dragged in Henan by Xue Yue's first corps, and it is temporarily impossible to go north, so we have no reinforcements anymore, and now we need you to make a decision with me, whether to continue to stay in Taiyuan and live together with this Taiyuan city or withdraw troops to break through." Yoshio Shinozuka spoke slowly, and he was watching the officers' reactions.

The result was similar to what I expected, in fact, these officers did not really go to China for the so-called "holy war", let alone for His Majesty the Emperor, but for their own sīyù and the promotion of the ** to make a fortune, the so-called "bushido" is just the bushido of lower-level officers and soldiers, once the official to the captain of the Daisa, there are absolutely few people who believe in the spirit of bushido anymore.

Now that the imperial forces in North China have completely collapsed, there is almost no hope of survival left, and even the ** team in a heavy city like Tianjin can be taken down in a very short time, and Taiyuan City, which is much weaker than the city fortifications of Tianjin City, has no chance of surviving. Moreover, Taiyuan City was close to the interior, and reinforcements could not reach it for the time being, so almost all the officers were not against breaking through.

The reason why no one brought it up before was entirely because of the strict system of superiors and subordinates in the Japanese army. If there is no order from a superior officer, the troops will be judged to be rebels, and the Japanese army has always been very cruel to the rebels, not only will they be punished very severely, but they will even implicate their own daughters, so if Lieutenant General Yoshio Shinozuka does not propose, no one dares to say such a "rebellious" proposal.

Ishihara Zhong, chief of staff of the First Army, stood up and said: "Your Excellency, Commander, now that the front army is powerless, due to the mistake of intelligence, we have seriously underestimated the strength of the Chinese army, and even underestimated their individual strength. The Chinese army is not the so-called million or so at all, but at least two million troops participated in the war, and at the same time there are about 500,000 reserve troops, while our front army has less than 200,000 troops, and the ratio of the Chinese soldiers has reached a terrifying 10:1, so this depends on our army not to lose to the Chinese people, but to ourselves. Therefore, he thinks that staying in Taiyuan will not do much, so he can only accompany this empty city to be buried together, and it is better to preserve a little strength for the empire. ”

Lieutenant General Anda 23, who had just returned from the front line, also got up and said: "Your Excellency, there is an old saying among the people of China, called "Stay in the green mountains, don't be afraid of running out of firewood", so we can fail and break through, but we must save enough troops for the empire so that we have a chance to make a comeback, so I agree to break through. ”

Seeing that these two strong generals in the army supported Yoshio Shinozuka together, the others would not object, so the First Army stationed in Shanxi unanimously decided to prepare to break through.

Although the general policy and route is determined, but the specific implementation is still very troublesome, just withdraw from Taiyuan City is simply looking for death, now there are squadrons everywhere, if the planning is not good, it is likely that just out of Taiyuan City will be besieged by the team. Losing the protection of Taiyuan City will only make the First Army stationed in Shanxi die faster.

In addition, there are now more than 20,000 imperial elites in the Shien area, so how to withdraw and where to withdraw has become the key to the discussion of the First Army stationed in Shanxi. Regarding the route of withdrawal and breakthrough, the entire First Army was divided into two factions, one was dominated by Lieutenant General Ishihara Zhongteng, who advocated withdrawing to Henan, and then flanked Xue Yue's First Corps with Okamura Ninji's Eleventh Army. The second view was put forward by the officers headed by Anda 23, who advocated that the entire army of the First Army should pass through Jingcheng Pass, and then rendezvous with the Japanese troops in the Shicheng area, and then seek an opportunity to break through.

Both points of view are very reasonable, regardless of right or wrong, after thinking about it for a long time, Yoshio Shinozuka decided to go south to join the 11th Army. Because as far as the current squadron in North China is concerned, the most effective force is the troops of Han Yunhua of the Inner Ancient Military Region, but most of the troops of the Eighth Route Army are now concentrated in Hebei and eastern Shanxi, if they go to join the troops in the Shi En area now, they will eventually compete with the squadron in Shi En and other places, and it will not be good if they are entangled, so Lieutenant General Yoshio Shinozuka finally decided that the whole army should go south to join Okamura Ningji's 11th Army.

It was Wei Lihuang's Third Army and the 35th Army of the Jin Sui Army that besieged Taiyuan, while Yan Xishan and Wei Lihuang also all reached the Taiyuan front.

However, they did not expect that Yoshio Shinozuka would have the courage to abandon the fortified Taiyuan City, let alone that the Japanese army would flee to the Henan region. Therefore, when Shinozuka Yoshio's troops attacked, both the Central Army and the Jin Sui Army were caught off guard, and the troops suffered heavy casualties. And the direction that Yoshio Shinozuka chose to break through is indeed hard to imagine, Han Yunhua also thought that the Japanese army could break through before, and the probability of breaking through to the east is very high. But now it seems that Han Yunhua still underestimated Yoshio Shinozuka, people know that Han Yunhua's department is now gaining momentum, so he doesn't rush to this brow at all, the squadron ** team of the Nakajo Mountain Defense Line is very poor in terms of personnel training and weapons and equipment, so Yoshio Shinozuka directly pinched the soft persimmon, and it succeeded all at once.

In order to ensure that the breakthrough could be successful in one fell swoop, Yoshio Shinozuka was also tough enough, and suddenly released an infantry division in Taiyuan City to continue to attract the main forces of Yan Xishan and Wei Lihuang, forcing them not to send the main force to pursue the main force of the First Army.

After the main force of the First Army successfully broke through, it did not dare to stop at all, and fled directly towards northern Henan. As for the Kuomintang troops along the road, they did not dare to stop them when they saw that tens of thousands of Japanese devils were in vast, and at this time, the vast majority of the main forces of the Kuomintang troops had been transferred to the central Jinzhong area, and the troops in southern Jinnan were all garrison troops, and they were not enough to protect themselves, so they still had the courage to resist the Japanese army's 20,000 or 30,000 troops.

In addition, the first army of this breakthrough was cavalry in addition to cars, and it also threw away most of the baggage that could not be taken away, so the march was very fast. So it only took two days to escape to Wuxiang, and the main force of the squadron was all near Taiyuan. The 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army had three columns remaining in the southeast of Shanxi, but they did not dare to make trouble with the First Army of the Japanese Army, because at the same time as learning that more than 25,000 people of the main force of the First Army of the Japanese Army had fled to Wuxiang, the 120th Division also received a telegram from the 115th Division, saying that an infantry brigade of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army had occupied Wushe County this morning, less than 50 kilometers away from Jiaozuo, an important town in northern Henan. And the Ministry of National Affairs Fǔ Sun Dianying, who was stationed in northern Henan, surrendered without a fight and became a lackey of the Japanese.

After receiving the news, the 120th Division immediately returned to the southeast of Jin with the main force, and Master He directly ordered the three columns left in the southeast of Jin not to attack at will, and to let the first army of the Japanese army go over, anyway, the 11th Army did not have the courage to go deep into the Shanxi territory alone. There is no logistical support, no reinforcement of troops, and more than 300,000 troops under Xue Yue's department are eyeing from the sidelines, if Okamura Ningji still has the courage to go deep into Shanxi alone, then even if the squadron really eats the first army and the eleventh army, it will not be a problem.

So Yoshio Shinozuka is very ... [This chapter is not finished, please click on the next page to continue reading!] ］