[Anti-Japanese Iron Blood King] Chapter 444: Showing Fangs (Asking for Subscriptions, Asking for Monthly Tickets, Asking for Everything!) ）

As for how to defend Wuhan, the high command also thought a lot, and finally decided to continue the old method and use the gathering and annihilation of enemy troops near Wuhan as a tactical guide. Efforts should be made to maintain the present situation, to deplete the enemy's troops, and finally to secure the main positions in Dabie Mountain, Huang, and Majian, as well as the main lines of De'an, Qixi, Xintanpu, Tongshan, and Tingsi Bridges, to first destroy the enemy's attempt to encircle, and then to use the assembled powerful troops to flank the enemy advancing along the river from the north and south.

Before the Japanese army launched an attack, the Nationalist Government High Command sent a telegram to the Fifth Theater of Operations, ordering the Fifth Theater to secure the main position in the Dabie Mountains in the current situation and actively break through the enemy attacking along the Yangtze River and southern Henan. The specific arrangement was to use Li Yannian, Xu Shaozong, Liu Ruming, and other units to secure the current positions, actively break through the enemy in front of them, and send troops to occupy positions on the two fronts of Xishui and Bahe, and at the same time transfer about five divisions to Songbu and Huangpi to coordinate operations with the Wuhan garrison.

In southern Henan, Sun Lianzhong, Song Xilian, and Zhang Zizhong were sent to hold the position of Dabie Mountain north of Huangju, and Feng Zhi'an and Xu Yuanquan were controlled to fight at the intersections of Macheng and Songbu. Hu Zongnan and Yu Xuezhong's troops took a flank offensive and connected with the troops occupying the position, striving to break through the enemy encircled on this side. If necessary, the 13th Division can be used to defend the pass near Xuanhuadian. Finally, it is necessary to secure the Dabie Mountain position and Xinyang, so that the Wuhan troops can fight easily.

At the same time, 12 divisions or more were designated to set up guerrilla base areas in the Dabie Mountain sub-district to advance guerrilla attacks in Anqing, Shu, Tong, He, Liu, eastern Henan, and northern Anhui.

The combat mission of the Ninth Theater, which is the main force defending Greater Wuhan, is to do its utmost to maintain its current position and to secure the key lines of De'an, Qixi, Xintanpu, Tongshan, and Tingsi Bridges in order to maintain the rear of the whole army. In the direction of Xingzi on Nanxun Road, Wu Qiwei commanded the armies of Wang Jingjiu, Yu Jishi, Ye Zhao, and Ou Zhen to ensure that the current position north of De'an was the right flank of the whole army.

Xue Yue personally commanded Wang Lingji, Huang Wei, Li Yutang and other troops to quickly break through the enemy attacking on both sides of the Ruiwu Road, and ensure that the Qixi Henglu was paved with various passes to prevent the enemy from making a detour. and take advantage of the enemy's breakthrough to attack the north flank. In addition, the Ninth Theater later established a guerrilla base in Jiugong Mountain with more than four divisions to conduct guerrilla attacks in Changchuan, the enemy's rear.

In addition to these, the General Headquarters also ordered the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd theaters, as well as the units of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, to actively attack the enemy and strike at the Japanese puppet forces in the defense areas, so as to contain the enemy Japanese army and prevent it from transferring troops like Wuhan. At the same time, the Third Theater was ordered to fire artillery along the river, cut off the Yangtze River contact line of enemy ships at all costs, and cooperate with the navy to participate in the Battle of Wuhan.

The high command also sent a separate telegram to Ma Zheng's subordinates, ordering them to contain the plague in the existing area no matter what, and never allow the plague to spread, so as not to affect the battle of Wuhan.

The above are the operational guidelines for the Battle of Wuhan formulated by the Nationalist Government High Command and implemented in accordance with them, and these operational guidelines are relatively correct from a literal point of view, with both front-facing defense, key flanking attacks, and guerrilla harassment behind enemy lines.

However, if you analyze it carefully, there are flaws. The first is that the defense is rather messy, there is no focus at all, and it is not pointed out in which area to focus the defense? In which area should the Japanese army be gradually depleted with a strong defense, and then annihilated it with a new force? Since the route of the Japanese army's attack was already expected, why didn't it ambush in a certain area in advance, and the absolutely superior forces sought an opportunity to gather and annihilate the Japanese army?

Therefore, from Ma Zheng's point of view, the Nationalist Government High Command only theoretically pointed out that it was necessary to put key forces on the outside line to seek opportunities to capture and destroy the Japanese army, but in fact, this plan was not implemented. That is to say, in the actual battle, the absolute superiority of forces was not gathered on the outer flank to gather and annihilate the Japanese army, but only the relatively superior forces were assembled to attack the Japanese army, and the result was inevitably not very effective, neither breaking the Japanese army's offensive, nor turning the tide of the war.

Obviously, the staff officers of the Nationalist Government High Command only mentioned the seemingly reasonable strategy and tactics on paper, but among the vast majority of the senior generals of the ****, including ******, Bai Chongxi, He Yingqin and others, they did not really have a real military awareness and military quality to use the flexible way of mobile warfare to seek fighters and gather and annihilate a certain in-depth Japanese army unit in one fell swoop with absolutely superior forces.

Then, since the operational guidelines on paper are divorced from the military awareness and military quality of the generals who actually command operations, no matter how perfect this paper operational guidelines are, they are equal to zero. From this point of view, before the battle began, the Nationalist government army had already lost half of it.

It was precisely because of this that Ma Zheng decided to take the lead to reduce the pressure on Wuhan.

Although the north in June is not as hot and rainy as the south in the middle of summer, but this year's climate is indeed a bit abnormal, since the beginning of spring, there have not been a few rains in the north of Shanxi and the south of the country, so the weather is extremely dull, and the air is filled with a restless atmosphere.

Although it was already night, the soldiers of the 1st Wing of the Chinese Garrison of the 27th Division of the Japanese Army stationed in Fengzui Liang, Baoziwan, and Deshengbao still felt irritable, in addition to the weather, more importantly, they felt extremely unwilling and depressed about the task they were carrying out at this time.

Since the beginning of May, the division headquarters has ordered their wings to be stationed in this line urgently, with the main task of preventing the odious Chinese peasants from escaping to their defensive areas and spreading the terrible plague to their territory.

In fact, in the course of a month, there were indeed ordinary people from time to time who crossed the mountains and entered their defense areas, and they naturally did not show mercy to these hateful people and killed them all.

However, the news from the other side was getting worse and worse, and I heard that Fengzhen County, dozens of kilometers away, was already a dead city, which made the soldiers be cautious even when they breathed, and even faintly smelled a foul smell of corpse decay.

At the same time, all the soldiers on the front line were worried that their lines of defense were so close to the epidemic area of the Chinese people, and whether they would also be infected with that terrible virus. Over time, this fear gradually developed a panic among the troops, and the mood of the soldiers became more and more unstable.

After all, Japanese soldiers are human beings, and even if they are brainwashed by militaristic ideology, they can still collapse under the threat of death for a long time. This made the Japanese commander in charge of guarding this line, Aso Daisa, very worried, lest something bad happen to the soldiers in this high-pressure and tense state.

In fact, it is no wonder that Aso Daisa is so worried, mainly because he knows what kind of troops these troops under his command are. Since the 27th Division suffered heavy losses last year, the base camp decided to supplement the 27th Division, but due to the lack of domestic soldiers, it was decided to transfer the two wings that were about to return to China and turn into reserves on the Chinese battlefield to the command of the 27th Division, postponing the time for the soldiers to retire.

It is conceivable that these soldiers have fought the Chinese battlefield for more than two years and can finally return home alive, and now the order from the base camp has once again allowed them to participate in the endless war, and the soldiers will naturally not be happy in their hearts.

Although these soldiers did not mutini like other militant units, they have not been at ease since they were transferred to the 27th Division, and often made trouble, sometimes so violent that they did not even listen to the orders of his wing commander.

As the commander of the first wing of the garrison, Aso Osaku is very aware of the strength of the current troops, not to mention that the 27th Division has more than 15,000 people in six wings including technical arms, but in terms of combat effectiveness, it may not be comparable to the three wings of the 10th Division.

However, Aso would never have imagined that in a mountain forest less than 20 kilometers away from their defensive line, a large force had been lurking for a long time and baring its terrible fangs at them. (To be continued.) )