Kawagishi Bunzaburo led the 20th Division back to the Korean nest, and immediately couldn't wait to send troops to test it, which is exquisite.

It turned out that after returning to Seoul, Kawagishi Bunzaburo's ass was not next to the stool, and Minamijiro had already rushed over from the Seoul Governor's Palace.

In the past, it was difficult to explain it in the telegram, because Kawagishi Fumizaburo was worried that the enemy would decipher the telegram, so many things were not explicitly stated. Now that the two old devils have met, they can naturally talk quietly.

So, Kawagishi Bunzaburo started from scratch and explained in detail how the Sixth Division was broken, how Terauchi Shouichi and Gu Shouo were beheaded, and the entire North China Dispatch Army Headquarters did not leave a single hair.

No matter how Nanjiro was in a daze, Kawagishi Bunzaburo was still talking to himself: "As far as I know, Jinzhou, Yingkou, Lushun and Andong have all undergone great changes, and the Fourth Division is likely to repeat the mistakes of the past, there have been unexpected changes, and they have been wiped out. ”

"Before I was ordered to withdraw, the initial order was for my division to move south and attack the Central Plains from the north. Later, the new prime minister specially ordered me to come back to stabilize the overall situation of North Korea, and also said that North Korea was the last lifeline of the empire. ”

"Your Excellency the Governor, please think that since the Manchurian Incident, the Empire has said from top to bottom that Manchuria is the lifeblood of the Empire, and that Korea is the processing ground of the Empire. Now that it has suddenly regressed, I reckon the situation in Manchuria should be very bad. ”

"I had a telegram exchange with the commander of the Otaka Kamezo Division of the 19th Division to the north, and according to him, the Yamato Bridge had been blown up. Your Excellency the Governor, if you want to blow up the Yamato Bridge completely, you must first take Anton, right? ”

"Lushun is so close to Anton, and there is no rescue of Anton, what does it mean? The only explanation is that the situation on the Lushun side is worse than Anton! The Fourth Division was in Jinzhou, and both Anton and Lushun had encountered unprecedented disasters, how could they sit idly by? So I judged that something had happened to the 4th Division as well. ”

"Now we can calculate the other way around: to be able to take down a reorganized field division and attack Lushun and Anton at the same time is definitely not something that ordinary armies can do. I estimate that it will take at least 100,000 people to do it, who in southern Liaoning has such great energy? ”

Nanjiro shuddered when he heard this: "Kawagishi-kun, what do you mean to say, is Chengde's white book outstanding?" ”

"Is there any other explanation?" Kawagishi Bunzaburo looked solemn: "Assuming that the Fourth Division has been completely destroyed, then the entire southern Liaoning and Southern Manchurian are already completely Bai Shujie's world!" At this point, Manchuria would have been plunged into a series of wars and would have lost its significance as an economic lifeline. ”

Nanjiro gritted his teeth and said: "The devil Bai Shujie is simply ghostly!" I came here from the Kwantung Army Headquarters, and I was still in his shadow, Bagayalu, how can this be done! ”

"Your Excellency the Governor, I have one of the worst guesses, I'm afraid you will be even more worried when you hear it!" Kawagishi Bunzaburo saw that there was no one around, and then he said in a low voice: "I'm worried that Bai Shujie will arrange a powerful army to enter Korea and completely strangle the economic lifeline of the empire!" Do you think, if it weren't for an even more vicious plan, what would he do by blowing up the Great River Bridge? ”

"I understand, I finally get it!" Nanjiro said with a gloomy expression: "After Bai Shujie's troops enter North Korea, if they don't blow up the Yamato Bridge, they will have to send heavy troops to guard it. The long Yalu River would contain half of his troops, and with the 19th Division to the northeast, he would not be able to do anything. ”

"The railroad is out of work right now, so I think you're right. There has been no news from Pyongyang for half a month, which means that Pyongyang has fallen! Kawagishi-kun, if that's the case, what should we do? ”

"It's a very bad situation!" Kawagishi Bunzaburo got up and walked to the place where the map was hung and said, "The Korean Peninsula is high in the east and low in the west. Now that Paek Shu-jae is stuck in Pyongyang, the traffic to the west has been completely interrupted. ”

"In this way, although we and the 19th Division are on the Korean Peninsula, one is in the southernmost part and the other is in the northeast corner, and the entire mid-belly area is in Bai Shujie's hands. To put it more vividly, in fact, the current North Korea has become Bai Shujie's! ”

"What's even more troublesome is that the big Russian nose on the northeastern border is also a henchman of the empire, and the 19th Division does not dare to relax at all. In other words, we have to deal with the damn Bai Shujie independently. Your Excellency the Governor, Bai Shujie can eat the Fourth Division in an instant, do you think our Twentieth Division can destroy him? ”

Minamijiro stared at the map and shook his head, his mouth moving for a long time, but he didn't say a word.

Kawagishi Bunzaburo sat down opposite Minamijiro and whispered, "After the Shanghai Incident, the battle situation has always been at a stalemate. The base camp was shattered, and four divisions were temporarily dispatched to land in Hangzhou Bay before forcing back Chiang's government army. According to sources, Shanghai lost more than 80,000 troops in the First World War. ”

"If you count the Sixth Division, which has been shattered, and the Fourth Division, whose whereabouts are unknown, the empire has lost more than 130,000 people, which is equivalent to four divisions that have lost their numbers."

"The current situation is that although Taiyuan was captured last week, the enemy's main forces have not lost their ability to resist. The problems in North China have not been completely solved, and the problems in the Yangtze River valley are much stricter than originally envisaged. The original plan to force Chiang Kai-shek to surrender in three months has completely failed. ”

"What is especially strict is that the Communist Eighth Route Army reached North China overnight. Baoding, Shijiazhuang, Raoyang, Anping, Renqiu, and Hejian all became the world of the Eighth Route Army. ”

"What's especially strange is that the Eighth Route Army is all imperial weapons and equipment. From the Type 38 rifle, grenadier canister, Taisho 11th type light machine gun, Type 92 heavy machine gun, infantry artillery, 75mm mountain artillery field gun. If the Eighth Route Army changed into the imperial uniform, it would be the most neat field division. ”

"These Eighth Route Army were much braver than the Central Army in the south, and they smashed a grenade at every turn, and then rushed up to fight with bayonets. And the moves are sharp, not afraid of death, and every position will fight to the last man. ”

"In particular, the Eighth Route Army is the best at fighting small units, and it doesn't fight positional warfare with you at all. It is difficult to find them during the day, and their shadows are everywhere in the middle of the night. Groups of three or five attacked in all directions, making it difficult for the garrison to sleep. ”

"With less than one squad in force, you must not go out to operate. After concentrating a brigade, you can't even find half a figure. Once your forces are dispersed, the Eighth Route Army will feel like it has come out of the ground. ”

"Unlike in the south, after the occupation of Shanghai, a squad of soldiers actually captured a county seat in Wuxi. This is simply unimaginable on the territory of the Eighth Route Army in Hebei Province and Shanxi Province. ”

As soon as Kawagishi Bunzaburo said it so simply, Minamijiro had already begun to sweat: "Kawagishi-kun, according to your judgment of the front line, what should we do now?" ”

"Now there is no way to think about it except to increase the number of troops to seize Nanjing." Kawagishi Bunzaburo said with a wry smile: "There is turmoil in Manchuria, Korea is in danger, and the empire's economy has lost its last fulcrum. The only way now is to stabilize the situation in China as much as possible, and then withdraw some of the troops back to the rear of Korea and Manchuria. ”

At this moment, the adjutant of communications came in and said: "The report is Your Excellency the regiment commander, the headquarters emergency telegram!" ”

Kawagishi Fumizaburo took it and looked at it, his whole face turned the color of pig liver at that time, he waved his hand wordlessly, asked the communication adjutant to go out, and then handed the telegram to Nanjiro and said: "Your Excellency the Governor, please see, the problem is more severe than I just estimated." ”

Nanjiro took it and just glanced at it, and then jumped up from the tatami mat: "Nani? The 4th Division and the North China Aviation Regiment were all shattered, and all industrial facilities in southern Liaoning collapsed? Lost one cruiser, two destroyers, forty combat aircraft? Loss of more than 700 cargo ships of various kinds? ”

Kawagishi Fumizaburo waved his hand angrily: "Your Excellency the Governor is calm for a while, continue to look down, it really makes no sense!" A bunch of corpse vegetarian guys are simply blind commands! ”

"Yaga!" Nanjiro looked behind him and immediately raised his voice an octave: "The national mobilization has not been completed in China, and there is no room for sending additional troops to North Korea at present." Ordered us to recruit Korean soldiers on the spot and form a second Korean division? Then purge the anti-Japanese elements in the territory and restore industrial production and grain production in Korea to support the country? ”

"Three years ago, a division was conscripted, and all the most loyal young people in North Korea were exhausted. North Korea has fallen, more than 10 million people have been lost, where to find troops? What does Seishiro Sakagaki of the military department do for food? ”

Kawagishi Bunzaburo turned his hands back and forth twice, but there was still no way: "Even if you can find 20,000 people, and you are loyal to the empire." However, it will take at least a year to form a new unit and finally form a combat strength before it can be barely used. Are all those people in the court stupid? ”

"The empire is in danger, it's in danger!" Minamijiro sat on the tatami mat with his ass: "As soldiers of the empire, we can only reluctantly make it difficult for us, and we can only be loyal to His Majesty the Emperor." ”

"On the issue of recruiting new soldiers, I will go to the General Affairs Department of the Governor's Office tomorrow and ask them to start work immediately, and strive to complete the recruitment work before the arrival of the Spring Festival next year."

"If it doesn't work, pull out all the police corps and gendarmerie, after all, they are different from the domestic police, and they are equipped with light machine guns, heavy machine guns, mountain artillery, and field artillery."

"Then, with them as the backbone, and then expand a group of recruits, you can build a general framework. Even if you can't take on front-line combat missions, you should still be able to guard the rear, right? ”

"I'm just worried that Bai Shujie won't give us time!" Kawagishi Bunzaburo shook his head: "If you can slowly hone it in one to two years and train a new army to come out." ”

"According to the news from the Shanghai front, the North Korean soldiers and the Taiwanese soldiers killed the Chinese people in the course of the battle, and they were as brave as the imperial warriors, and they could be used as a standing force (death squad), and it is said that the effect is very good."

"The key question now is to find out whether Bai Shujie will leave us a chance. Your Excellency the Governor, you have fought with Bai Shujie many times, so you should know something about him. Is there any good way to deal with the current crisis? ”

After all, what happens next, let's see how it will be broken down next time.