In order to ensure that the offensive was carried out in strict accordance with the battle plan drawn up by himself, General Umezu Yoshijiro, despite the harmony between Japan and Manchuria, which he had repeatedly emphasized since taking office, not only brought more than 10,000 people from the new Kannai but also prepared to escort them to Fujin, and seized the time to repair the flood-damaged road.

More than 5,000 laborers were also recruited from Jiamusi on the spot to undertake the transportation of military rations and other military materials. The Japanese army was in a big situation, which made the residents of Jiamusi City complain. Fools know what happens when they are captured by the Japanese army to do coolies, not to mention that they can't get a penny, and if they don't get it right, they will not return. In recent years, they have seen a lot of the fate of the workers in the Guannai.

In the past few years, the laborers who were arrested from the customs have been pulled north by truckload, but I have not seen a few returning. In the winter of last year, two Shandong laborers who ran out of Heli had a temperature of minus 20 or 30 degrees, and they put two cement bags on their bodies and asked for food everywhere. I finally wanted to stutter, but before I could eat it, I was arrested by the Japanese military police. On the spot, he was thrown into the wolf-dog pen and fed to the wolf-dog.

At this time, the people of Northeast China, who had not yet enjoyed the so-called industrious service formulated by the Kwantung Army, were actually forced labor, and naturally did not experience the blood and tears of the workers in the Kanto region. Only after the Japanese army carried out the so-called industrious and forced labor throughout the northeast, and the laborers sent from the northeast counties also suffered inhuman abuse and a large number of unnatural deaths, they could deeply understand the blood and tears of those workers in the customs.

However, for the current Northeast laborers, the Japanese army still requisitioned a very small number of them. Most people simply don't know what fate they are about to face. It's just that the compatriots in Kannai made them somewhat vigilant, so almost no one in the Japanese army was willing to go when they forcibly recruited laborers.

Of course, there is nothing to be a slave in the country, even if you don't want to go again, but you have to go under the threat of bayonets. Even if you are the pillar of your family, and your whole family will starve to death if you leave, as long as the Kwantung Army takes a fancy to you, you have to go. The flood-damaged highway was finally completed before a full-scale attack was launched, thanks to the intensive work of a large number of laborers working day and night.

By the end of August, all preparations were made for the work of the Japanese army. Umezu Yoshijiro, who was already in some impatience, set the same day that Germany, an ally of Japan, in Europe, would attack Poland, on September 1, 1939.

It was only a few hours later than their ally, Nazi Germany, that the attack had been changed from dawn to 7 a.m. sharp. Five days before the attack was launched on all fronts, in order to weaken the opponent's ability to resist, Umezu Mijiro dispatched a large number of planes and carried out carpet bombing of all strategic and tactical targets in Jiangbei.

Yang Zhen's ears are sensitive because of the dispatch of the reconnaissance battalion, and Umezu Mijiro, who has a very effective intelligence agency of the Kwantung Army Intelligence Department, is not bad. Although all the reconnaissance planes were dispatched, the location of the opponent's arsenal was never clarified. But the location of Yang Zhen's headquarters was clearly investigated by him.

On 31 August, the day before the attack was launched, under the personal supervision of Umezu Mijiro, Lieutenant General Kumaichi Teramoto sent out all the planes that could be dispatched, including the Type 97 and Type 98 light bombers, as well as the Type 93 medium bombers with inferior performance and being used by the Japanese themselves as straight-line forced landing training planes, with a combat radius of only 400 kilometers.

and the Type 97 heavy bombers of the 61st Air Corps that had just been withdrawn from the Normenhan front after taking a beating of the old punch in the waiting, and the Type 97 heavy bombers of the 61st Squadron who had just been withdrawn from the Nomenhan front. Of course, I can't forget the Twelfth Air Force, which was equipped with the advanced heavy bombers of the Italian allies, and all of them were sent out.

In order to intensify air strikes, and in the absence of air forces and no air threat on the other side, the Type 97 fighters, which were originally used to escort bombers, also hung 250 kilograms of bombs to participate in ground bombing. Even the Type 97 reconnaissance plane, which was responsible for reconnaissance missions and artillery fire correction, was hung with 100 or 50 kilograms of bombs.

The Japanese planes that poured out of the nest bombed Yang Zhen's headquarters in the Xingshan fortress area, as well as all the roads in Luobei, Tangyuan, Fengshan, and Tonghe. On the afternoon of 31 August alone, in fact, because Yang Zhen had already led his front finger forward to move forward to the headquarters in Tangyuan, which had become empty at this time, nearly 300 100-kilogram bombs were dropped.

Under the situation that the Japanese army concentrated more than 100 planes to bomb in turn, not only were all roads in the Yang Zhenkong area bombed in a mess, but all kinds of transportation could only be carried out at night. Even several wharves in the Soviet Union, which are separated by a river from Yang Zhen's base area, and can be directly navigated with Luobei and Suibin, have also dropped a lot of bombs under the Japanese army's intentionally or unintentionally.

Of course, in the face of the strong protest of the Soviet representatives of the negotiations between Japan and the Soviet Union in the Nomenkhand region at this time, the Japanese army offered the excuse of "accidental bombing" that a certain superpower often found in the following decades. He also said that although it cannot completely prevent the occurrence of such incidents in the future, it is willing to compensate for all losses caused by such incidents.

However, since this loss was caused by the Japanese Empire in order to exterminate the bandits in Manchukuo, then this money should naturally not be borne by the Imperial Army. Manchukuo, as the beneficiary, should bear such losses on a full basis.

Lieutenant General Iimura, chief of staff of the Kwantung Army, clearly expressed his opposition to the fact that the entire army had not yet moved on to launch such a strategic bombardment of the enemy-controlled area. In his opinion, not launching such a large-scale bombardment before the offensive is launched is a clear indication that the opponent's own attack is imminent?

For Lieutenant General Iimura's opposition, General Umezu Mijiro scoffed. In the eyes of General Umezu Mijiro, even a fool can smell the difference in the frequent movement of his troops. If the other side had not been prepared, there would have been no shelling of the airfield.

Now that the whole operation has been exposed, it is better to concentrate superior aviation forces to weaken the opponent's combat potential as much as possible before a full-scale war begins. Even if it can't completely make it incapacitated, it must at least cut off the supply of its front-line troops.

The Japanese bombing did bring a lot of trouble to Yang Zhen. The movement of troops, the delivery of supplies, and even the transfer of residents to the preset battlefield can only be carried out at night.

However, fortunately, the Japanese army did not have the strength of the American army in the Korean War later, and was able to complete the bombing during the day, and at night they had to send night bombers to keep an eye on the sky.

Moreover, the night flight capability of the Japanese air force at this time was extremely poor, and even a considerable number of troops did not have the night flight capability at all. After only one night of the night bombing, which cost a full four BR 20s and two Type 97 heavy bombers, or crashed into a mountain, or disappeared and did not know where to fly, Lieutenant General Teramoto Kumaichi no longer dared to organize a night bombing, no matter how urged by General Umezu Mijiro.

The kind of brawny BR-20 bomber is not enough, the Type 97 heavy bomber is a cutting-edge heavy bomber that the army has just begun to equip. Limited to production capacity, the entire army was not equipped with a few aircraft, and only a few teams were reequipped in total. In an inexplicable shelling a few days ago, a whole team of Type 97 heavy bombers had already set off firecrackers.

The heavy bomber of this newly transferred team, Teramoto Kumaichi no longer dares to take this risk. If these precious bombers, which have always been the pride of the Army, are lost, the War Department will not be able to spare itself. Even Admiral Umezu probably can't afford to take on this responsibility.

And not only the planes, even these trained pilots are the eyes of the Ministry of the Army. If the losses were too great, Lieutenant General Tojo, the former commander of the military police of the Kwantung Army and now the director of army aviation, would have to remove himself from his post.

He General Umezu Mijiro has nothing to do with himself, and he doesn't have a backache when he stands and talks. He Teramoto Kumashi can't let Umezu Shogun Hu come. There are only a few heavy bomber teams of the Kwantung Army, and they have all been lost, who will bear this responsibility? Therefore, no matter how General Umezu Mijiro urged, Lieutenant General Teramoto just did not follow his orders to take night bombing.

Due to Lieutenant General Teramoto's over-cautiousness, even though the Japanese army's indiscriminate bombing brought considerable inconvenience to Yang Zhen, it did not completely prevent Yang Zhen from mobilizing troops. As late as 29 August, Yang Zhen's troops had already arrived at their respective combat areas and had been fully launched before the Japanese attack was launched.

On the morning of 1 September, in accordance with the established battle plan, the Japanese troops on time forcibly crossed the Songhua River at 7 o'clock under the cover of heavy artillery fire on the south bank and more than a dozen planes. In order to carry out this forced crossing and defeat the defenders of Jiangbei in the shortest possible time, the Japanese army concentrated a large number of Funaqiao troops, and the first wave concentrated the transportation of a wing of troops.

It's just that General Umezu Mijiro, who came to the north of the Songhua River to command the forced crossing, was puzzled that the opponent did not make any defense against the natural danger of the Songhua River. The 89th Wing of the 24th Division commanded by Lieutenant General Nemoto as the vanguard landed on the north bank of the Songhua River without encountering any resistance.

The first battle of Shun lì made the cautious General Umezu Mijiro suddenly become stable. On the one hand, he ordered the 89th Wing Wada Takashi and Dazuo not to stay, and swept to the north shore with all their might. On the one hand, in addition to the Jing'an Division of the puppet Manchu Army, which was the second echelon, crossed the river and cooperated with the 89th Wing to sweep the north bank, the 32nd Wing of the third echelon immediately terminated the crossing of the river and assembled in the south of the Yangtze River to stand by.

Just when the 24th Division was wondering why the commander-in-chief issued such a strange order, and watched the 89th Wing and the Jing'an Division of the puppet Manchu Army go farther and farther, a dense artillery fire suddenly sounded from Jiangbei.

A rain of bullets consisting of a dense blasting anti-personnel grenade with a caliber of at least 150 millimeters and a burst of shells with long fireworks dragging a strange tail suddenly exploded over the heads of the 32nd Wing, which had gathered on the riverside. The dense rain of bullets tightly covered the assembly area of the 32nd Wing.

Originally, the 89th Wing, which had crossed the river without encountering any resistance, had carried out the work very smoothly and with some carelessness, and had almost no precautions, was killed and wounded by this sudden artillery bombardment. In particular, the strange cannonballs with long fireworks trailing their tails are extremely lethal and have a very fast rate of fire. Apart from the whizzing of shells across the sky, there was hardly a single loud sound of artillery fire.

Just when the 32nd Wing was under intense artillery fire, the 89th Wing and the Jing'an Division, which had been described as unimpeded in front, were also hearing dense gunfire and explosions at the same time.

Before Umezu Mijiro could recover from the sudden blow, a dozen planes in the sky, which had been unscrupulously diving, bombing, and strafing, suddenly plunged headlong into the ground. He practiced Newton's law of universal gravitation with himself.

Seeing that several friendly planes had been shot down in the blink of an eye, the remaining Japanese planes changed their previous posture of showing off their might and did not dare to fly almost grazing the treetops as they had just done, and immediately climbed up at maximum speed. However, when they turned around and carefully turned back to the battlefield, they did not notice anything unusual on the ground. The anti-aircraft fire that had just hit itself was almost the same as that of the non-existent zài.

Although they did not find out what exactly their friendly planes were shot down by, when these Japanese planes bombed the ground again, they did not dare to use high-precision dive bombing, but instead adopted horizontal bombing, which was extremely unsuitable for use under tactical conditions.

Umezu Mijiro, who found that the shape was wrong, immediately ordered the combat staff officer beside him: "Sue Lieutenant General Sù Teramoto, let his aviation force find out those bandit artillery for me at any cost and kill them." Ordered Takashi Wada and Osa to immediately report what kind of resistance they had encountered. The opponent's strength and firepower. ”

It was the first time to contact Yang Zhen's department, and he didn't know the reality of the opponent, and under the attack of the opponent's firepower, Takashi Wada, who had taken the puppet Manchurian army as a substitute for the dead ghost, and Osa, received the order of General Umezu Mijiro to report the enemy's situation, and immediately called back unequivocally: "We have at least encountered a tough fire attack from the opponent equipped with a large number of heavy machine guns, mortars, and infantry guns. According to the standards of the previous battle with the Kannai China Army, the opponents encountered by the 89th Union had at least one army's strength, or even more. ”

Regarding Takashi Watada's report to Osa, General Umezu Mijiro's brows furrowed tightly. He simply did not believe that his opponent would put the main force in front of him. The opponent is not stupid, and when there is no superiority in strength and firepower, he puts his eggs in one basket.

Senior General Umezu Mijiro, who did not believe Takashi Wada's report to Osa, immediately ordered Lieutenant General Hiroshi Nemoto, commander of the 24th Division, who had already crossed the Songhua River, to personally go to the position of the 89th Wing to find out the truth.