At the same time as dispatching troops to participate in the war, Yang Zhen also began to make final preparations for the follow-up counterattack that the Japanese army could basically determine, and constantly adjusted the deployment of troops and the deployment of firepower. Hurry up and allocate supplies, especially ammunition reserves.

According to Yang Zhen's request, the logistics department is also transferring materials and ammunition to the Jizhong battlefield by using the railway under its control. The entire Pinghan Line and the Pingcheng Railway have a military train running almost every 15 minutes. Ammunition, recruits, and supplies brought from the northeast continued to arrive in Jizhong by rail.

By the end of February, the entire Jizhong battlefield had stockpiled 150,000 rounds of 150-millimeter artillery shells, more than 1 million rounds of mountain artillery shells, and mortar shells of various calibers. There are also more than 100,000 rounds of rocket artillery shells of two calibers. Light weapons and ammunition were all delivered to designated parts of Hebei Province according to the standard of 15 base numbers.

The fuel, ammunition, and accessories required by the tank units have also reached the prescribed reserve standards. All the tanks damaged in battle and unable to be repaired on the battlefield have been brought back to the Changxindian Railway Locomotive Factory in Beiping as an overhaul site. At the same time, 370 tanks transferred from the northeast also arrived in Jizhong as supplementary tanks.

It's just that among the replenishment tanks, the number of German-made No. 3 and No. 4 tanks drawn from the reserve is not much, and the total number of tanks is only 140. These German-made tanks were all pieced together one by one from the battlefields of North Africa and the Soviet Union that had just ended four or three years.

These scrap iron and garbage in the eyes of the Soviets, Americans, and the British are priceless treasures in the hands of the Anti-Japanese Union. The Anti-Japanese Union used the armored prisoners of war among the German prisoners of war to piece together a batch of tanks from the scrap metal piles in North Africa and the Soviet Union. Although the tanks were all pieced together, they didn't perform much worse when the prototype was good.

Moreover, with the continuous change of firepower and equipment on both sides of the Soviet-German battlefield, the Germans, who had just woken up from a dream, not only put in new tanks, but also greatly increased the production of the No. 4 tank, which was equipped with a powerful 75-mm long-barreled gun. Among this batch of tanks, those dragged back from the Soviet-German battlefield were basically No. 4.

Among them were more than a dozen battle-damaged Panthers, as well as the guns of two Ferdinand tank destroyers, the turrets of two Tiger tanks, and a chassis. For these German-made new equipment, Yang Zhen can be described as a treasure. It was immediately handed over to Polytechnic University as a teaching tool, as well as to carry out research work.

However, although these tanks are mainly American-made light tanks, German-made tanks are all patchwork. However, with the arrival of these tanks one after another, several armored units in the Jizhong battlefield have reached full strength. In the Changxin shop of Beiping, which was temporarily converted into a tank overhaul factory, and in the Pinghan Railway Locomotive Overhaul Factory, there are still nearly 100 tanks undergoing emergency repairs.

After the emergency repair of these tanks is completed, the entire Jizhong battlefield troops will still be able to maintain a certain amount of equipment reserves. In the event of a large battle loss in the follow-up operation, these tanks can be filled in at any time. With this batch of tanks, it is undoubtedly a pretty good thing for the next battle.

Along with the ammunition came 50,000 new recruits who had all completed their training in the Northeast. After arriving in Jizhong, this group of recruits was immediately replenished to the various divisions. Several shelf divisions that were originally transferred to the northeast to replenish were also transferred back to the Jizhong battlefield after the replenishment was completed.

At the same time, the reorganized Jizhong Military Region also helped the Anti-Japanese Federation mobilize more than 30,000 recruits on the spot in Jizhong. The Bohai Naval Region is also under the unified coordination of the Shandong Military Region, and the three regiments are armed locally. Together with the seven regiments drawn from the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region, they were integrated into the Anti-United Nations Forces as a whole. The Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region also mobilized 10,000 new soldiers to the Anti-Japanese Federation in the southern Hebei and Hebei-Shandong-Henan border areas.

The Shandong Military Region also mobilized 20,000 recruits for the Anti-Japanese Federation, as well as nine independent regiments and a number of county and district armed forces, and arrived in Jizhong under the cover of the cavalry brigade sent by the Anti-Japanese Federation. But this totals more than 60,000 recruits from top to bottom, and they are all new recruits who can't be put into the battlefield without half a year of training, and this operation can't be counted on.

Even though the troops of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region and the nine independent regiments transferred from the Lunan, Lunan, and Jiaodong Military Regions, as well as the county and district armed forces, are all from local armed forces, although they are all basic cadres. The training methods are different from those of the Anti-United Nations, and the tactical standards are also very different. If you want to be integrated into the unit, you can only retrain and retrain, and you cannot replenish the unit in a short period of time.

In addition to some of these recruits who were trained in North China on the spot, half of them were transported back to the old base area in Northeast China for training by Yang Zhen using the military train that transported supplies. Although the Jizhong Plain has largely recovered, the training conditions here are far inferior to those in the Northeast. Therefore, Yang Zhen thinks that it is better for this group of recruits to be transferred back to the Northeast for training.

However, the troops coming from the Shandong Military Region are not just troops and recruits to supplement the Anti-Japanese Federation. There are also a number of company and platoon-level cadres drawn from various units, as well as a large number of squad leaders and backbone personnel who have been sent to the Anti-Japanese Federation for training. For this request of the Shandong Military Region, Yang Zhen did not hesitate to accept it all.

At the same time, Yang Zhen also returned to the troops of the Shandong Military Region to replenish all the Japanese-made light and heavy machine guns captured on the battlefield in Tianjin. He also coordinated with the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region to coordinate 7 million rounds of 65 rifle and light machine gun ammunition, 2 million 777 heavy machine gun bullets, and 1 million rounds of 79 bullets from its own inventory and from the Japanese army's war-ready material warehouses in Beiping and Tianjin.

500 grenadiers, 150,000 grenade grenades, 90 Japanese-made mortars and 30,000 mortar shells were also deployed. Sixty 92 infantry guns, 15 Type 41 mountain guns, plus 17,000 Japanese-made 92 infantry shells and 75 mm mountain artillery shells, 25 tons of yellow explosives.

With this batch of ammunition, plus a part of the trophies that were transferred at the beginning of the campaign and during the campaign. Taken together, the total number is enough for all units of the entire Shandong Military Region to be used for one year. Even if the connection between the central Hebei and Hebei-Shandong border battlefields and the Shandong Military Region is cut off in a short period of time, the Shandong Military Region does not need to consider that there will be a shortage of ammunition.

This is also Yang Zhen's preparation in advance in order to deal with the follow-up counterattack of the Japanese army. The Shandong Military Region occupies a very important position in his next operational plan. Increasing the strength of the Shandong Military Region as much as possible and enabling it to accumulate a sufficient amount of ammunition will be of great help to its next operation.

While the ground forces are stepping up their preparations, the air force is also constantly adjusting its deployment, transporting fuel, aerial bombs, and napalm to several airfields in central Hebei. And organize a group of battle-damaged aircraft personnel to return to the northeast to receive new combat aircraft. A batch of P-40K fighters supplied by the United States has been assembled.

Except for the remaining part of these fighters as a supplement for the Northeast Battlefield, the rest was transferred to the North China Battlefield to supplement the battle losses of the North China Battlefield. In the next step of the operation, air support is very important. Therefore, the air force raised planes as much as possible and gave priority to replenishing the battle losses on the battlefield in North China.

At the same time, in accordance with Yang Zhen's order, from the campaign to the rest, to the present, the air force has been organizing a group of aircraft to continuously attack from Hejian and Zhengding. While intensifying the strict blockade of the Japanese army's roads and railways in eastern Henan and Shandong, we also cooperated with the troops of the Shandong Military Region in combat.

Whether it was the Tianjin-Pudong Railway, the Pinghan Railway in eastern Henan, or the Jiaoji Railway, as well as on the highways in all the Japanese-occupied areas north of the Huai River, every Japanese marching column, even a military truck, was within the range of firepower. In the Bohai Bay, the aerial reconnaissance and warning area will be extended as much as possible in the direction of the Bohai Strait.

With a part of the force, it was transferred to Taiyuan and Lincheng airfields to provide air support for the southeast operation in Shanxi. As ground operations move into a short-term period of recuperation, the intensity of the air force's sorties is constantly increasing along with the changes on various fronts. The range of operations is also getting bigger and bigger.

Compared with the extremely active anti-coalition air force, it is still facing the pressure of the Sino-US joint air force on the western front, as well as the huge battle losses in the previous war. The number of sorties made by the Japanese air force stationed in China is becoming less and less, and the air force of the Anti-Japanese Union moving south has basically mastered the air supremacy in the eastern Henan, Shanxi, Hebei, and Shandong theaters.

However, Yang Zhen's plan to hope that the Taihang Military Region would seize Jincheng and Tianjing Pass was unsuccessful. After receiving Yang Zhen's telegram, the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region called back. The Jin Sui Army in the southwest of Jin, with the cooperation of the First Division of the Central Army, and the main forces in the Taihang Military Region, are currently concentrated in the battlefields around Changzhi, and they cannot take into account the south of Jin.

Taking advantage of the evacuation of the 14th Independent Brigade of the Japanese Army, the action was quite fast. Not only had it basically taken control of the Zhongtiao Mountains, but one of its divisions had already rushed to the area west of the Dan River. In addition to the county seat and the highway connecting Tianjingguan, the surrounding key points of Donggou, Macun and Gaodu have been within the control of the Jin Sui army.

The swiftness of the Jin Sui army's move to seize territory this time also exceeded the expectations of the central government and the Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan Military Regions. Although the actions of the Jin Sui army were only along the Jin-Henan border, they basically did not collapse the Jin-Henan border area. Most of the actions did not cross the line of Wangwu Mountain.

The swiftness of the Jin Sui army's action was quite rare, and the Japanese side had just begun to shrink its forces, and immediately followed behind the Japanese army to seize the defensive area. The Japanese troops in the Zhongtiao Mountains were in a hurry to retreat, and did not pay attention to the Jin Sui army's move of following behind their butts to pick up bargains. It was only a few county towns south of Zhongtiao Mountain, and most of them retreated to Yuncheng in a hurry.

According to the pre-war requirements of the Central Committee for the Shanxi battlefield of this battle, it is necessary to avoid conflicts in the second war zone and the Central Army as much as possible. The Taihang Military Region originally operated around Jincheng, and an independent battalion of the Taihang Eighth Division and the independent battalion of Jincheng County had already withdrawn east of the Dan River.

Unless there is a direct conflict with the Jin Sui army, it is basically impossible to control Jincheng and Zhongtiao Mountain at the moment. The Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region suggested that the status quo be maintained on the Jincheng front line for the time being. The focus is on the direction of Handan, but the first line of Tianjing Pass in the direction of Jincheng should also be focused on. Obviously, the old commander of the Shanxi-Hebei-Luyu Military Region is a little uneasy about the combat effectiveness of the Jin-Sui Army.

Since the matter is already the result, Yang Zhen can only accept it no matter what. However, he also repeatedly reminded the Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan Military Regions that they must focus on the front line of Tianjing Pass and Fukou. And at the same time as soon as possible to solve the battle on the front line of Changzhi, urge the Taiyue Military Region to also solve it as soon as possible, and now can only trap the Japanese army in the last few strongholds along the Nantongpu Railway.

At the same time that the Anti-Japanese Federation continued to replenish supplies and replenish troops to the battlefield in central Hebei. The troops of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region, which had already completed operations on the Shanxi battlefield, handed over all the Taiyuan and surrounding battlefields to the troops of the Luliang Military Region of the Shanxi-Sui Military Region in accordance with the unified arrangements of the central authorities.

All the main forces participating in the battle were unified into three infantry columns, with a total of 11 brigades. Together with all the artillery units directly under it, they began to move south one after another. It is ready to be put into the second phase of the operation in the central Hebei battlefield to supplement the possible shortcomings of the anti-union forces.