After a sea and air battle that was not too large in scale and not too fierce. The air forces participating in the war were shot down by nine aircraft by escort ships and six fighters belonging to the Kwantung Army who subsequently rushed from Qinhuangdao. Sink eleven troop carriers from the Japanese fleet, as well as a coastal defense ship escorted by the Japanese Navy.

By the time the division came ashore from Tanggu Harbor, it had set out from Nagasaki with a huge fleet loaded with a fully loaded division, with the result that less than a single wing was left, and the heavy weapons were almost completely lost. What's more serious is that the headquarters of the division, including their lieutenant generals and division commanders, all went to be the son-in-law of the Bohai Dragon King in Bohai Bay.

The Japanese garrison stationed in Tanggu, which no longer had any air force on the Pingjin front, could only watch as the troop transports, which had already reached their sights, were sunk one by one like targets. If it weren't for the anti-United Nations air force, which was a fledgling in attacking ships, I am afraid that the few remaining troop carriers would not have escaped the catastrophe.

The base camp of the Japanese army did not expect that the air force of the Anti-United Nations already had the ability to attack ships. In addition, the fleet passed through the coast of Korea and the Laotieshan Waterway on the Liaodong Peninsula, almost all of which were under the tight control of the Japanese Navy. Although there are also US submarines that haunt from time to time, there are not many of them. Therefore, the Japanese Navy is quite confident in the safety of the entire trip.

Far from arranging too many escort ships, they also did not dispatch naval ships stationed in Tianjin and Qinhuangdao to escort them. Of course, this also has a lot to do with the fact that most of the main ships of the Japanese Navy are concentrated in the Southwest Pacific Theater, and there are really not too many ships on the mainland.

After most of the strength of an entire division was sent to the bottom without firing a single shot. The Japanese base camp immediately terminated the reinforcement of the Pingjin battlefield by sea. For the base camp of the Japanese army, not only could not afford to lose soldiers, but even troop carriers could not afford to lose at the moment.

Although there was a lack of aerial torpedoes, aerial bombs were just as good as Japanese ships. Especially in the face of unarmed and armored troop carriers, the lethality of these aerial bombs is just as staggering. What's more, the bomber groups of the Anti-United Nations are coordinated with each other as soon as they are dispatched. In addition to the planes attacking the troop carriers, there were also planes specifically designed to suppress the already scarce escort ships of the Japanese army.

Although it is believed that the Chinese battlefield must not be lost, North China and the Pingjin front line cannot be lost. However, it stopped the operation of reinforcements from the mainland to the Chinese battlefield, and only continued to urge China to send troops to increase troops at all costs to ensure the security of Pingjin and Jizhong.

The base camp believed that it was still possible to squeeze out sufficient troops on the Central and East China fronts by appropriately shrinking and abandoning some occupied areas. If the occupied area is temporarily ceded to Chongqing, it can still be recaptured at any time if it wants to. If it is lost to the communist forces in North China and Northeast China, then it will really not be able to get it back.

In addition to ensuring the Jinpu Road, the main artery of north-south communication, along the Yangtze River, the main artery of communication between the east and west, and the richest areas of China, such as southern Jiangsu and Hangzhou, in order to maintain the Japanese army's strategy of fighting and supporting the war. The base camp believed that if necessary, the Chinese dispatch army could give up some minor occupation areas.

In this way, some troops can be freed up to compete with the enemy for the line between North China and Pingjin. The base camp believes that the Hebei region must not be lost, and if Hebei loses it, not only will the Jinpu railway line be cut off, but also an important grain and cotton producing area will be lost. Moreover, even the occupied areas such as Shandong and eastern Henan are difficult to keep, and the Shanxi battlefield will become a lone army and an outcast. On the battlefield in North China, there is absolutely no room for error.

While desperately urging China to send troops to mobilize reinforcements, the base camp is also urging the Kwantung Army to strengthen its investment in the northeast battlefield. The anti-union troops will be attracted back to the northeast from North China as much as possible. The base camp believes that the northeast is the foundation of the Anti-Japanese Federation, and once the situation in the northeast is critical, the enemy army will inevitably return to help in a big way.

As long as the Anti-Japanese Federation withdraws to the Northeast, even if part of it is withdrawn, the rest of the things in North China will be easily resolved. The base camp really did not expect that the territory and army in the northeast corner of the Anti-Japanese Federation would dare to fight on multiple fronts, and such a large-scale in-depth penetration into the North China battlefield would create a certain degree of passivity for the Japanese army.

Otherwise, after receiving the news of the entry of the Northeast Communist Army, he would not have insisted that China send troops to launch the Battle of Changde. As a result, when the battle really began, and the scale was beyond the expectations of the Japanese base camp, it took a lot of effort to let the Chinese dispatch army that fought on multiple routes raise reinforcements.

In fact, there is no need to give this order from the base camp, as early as the North China battlefield, the Chinese Dispatch Army Command has always been paying close attention. It's just that the main forces of the Japanese army in Central and East China are trapped in the Changde battlefield and cannot be withdrawn for a while. After completing the capture of Changde, the Chinese dispatch army immediately transferred back all the troops that participated in the Battle of Changde.

After withdrawing to the original station, he immediately selected a few divisions and regiments from among them that were closest to the Jizhong battlefield, and went north to reinforce them before they had time to reunite. Although the Japanese moved quickly, after all, the development of the war situation could not give them much time. When the Japanese reinforcements arrived, Du Kaishan and Chen Hanzhang had already converged in the river, and the last gap in the entire encirclement had been firmly blocked.

However, with the arrival of Japanese reinforcements, the Japanese army started from Cangzhou in the east to Baoding in the west, and a bloody battle of unprecedented scale officially kicked off. What really kicked off this bloody battle was the fierce air battle that broke out between the two sides on the battlefield in Jizhong. With the arrival of Japanese reinforcements, a large number of aviation units mobilized by the Japanese army from the mainland, South China, and Central China also arrived at the vicinity of the Jizhong battlefield.

At the same time that the cavalry brigade belonging to the Western Cluster was fighting fiercely with the 1st Brigade of Japanese Tanks between Wangdu and Baoding. The first batch of aviation troops mobilized by the Japanese army also appeared on the battlefield in Jizhong first. It's just that the intensive ground firepower of the Anti-United Nations did not give the Japanese vanguard not too many bombers and too many opportunities for sneak attacks.

It's just that the fighters are slightly inferior, and they will wait until all the Japanese planes participating in the battle are in place. The anti-United Nations aviation units have also completed their final preparations and have begun to be put into the battlefield in central Hebei one after another. It directly dispelled the idea that the Japanese army might rely on aviation to contain the anti-coalition armored cluster and there might be the next offensive.

As the combat planes of both sides arrived one after another, a large-scale air battle broke out over the Jizhong Plain. In order to compete for air supremacy in the Jizhong Theater, the Japanese army invested the main force of its Third Flying Division of the Air Force stationed in China, and the total number of combat planes reached more than 300.

As soon as it arrived in the war zone, it took advantage of its long range to take off from Xingtai, Anyang Airport, and even Jinan Airport and put it on the battlefield. At the same time, the combat clusters mobilized from Taiwan by the Japanese army's base camp also arrived one after another over time.

In the face of a large number of fighters invested by the Japanese army, the anti-United Nations air force in western Hebei, which had completed all operational preparations, could be said to be dispatched. The two sides dispatched a large number of fighter planes every day, and fierce air battles took place over the line from Baoding to Cangzhou. The bomber groups on both sides also desperately dispatched to cover the attack of their respective ground forces.

The Yak-9 fighters and P-40 fighters dispatched by the Anti-Japanese Union took the lead in the air battle with the Japanese Type 1 and Type 3 fighters, which opened the prelude to the bloody battle in central Hebei. The main force of the Third Flying Division of the Japanese Army Aviation Corps was dispatched in full swing, and the fighter groups of the Anti-Japanese Union also took off from several field airfields in southern and western Hebei to meet the battle.

In the hazy sky in the middle of the winter, there were constantly dense gunfire sounds. The fighter groups on both sides were constantly rolling and fighting in the sky above Jizhong. From time to time, downed planes fall from the sky in black smoke. In the sky, an umbrella flower floats from time to time.

The people on the ground, facing this air war, are far more novel than afraid. Of course, except for the downed plane, which was dissatisfied with the destruction of their houses and farmland when it crashed, most of the time the mood was still very strong.

On the ground below the battlefield of air combat every day, the people of the surrounding ten miles and eight towns are looking up to watch the fierce battle in the sky. On the ground below, houses and trees were full of people craned their necks and looked up. As for the air-raid shelters that were converted from the original tunnels, no matter how much the local cadres tried to persuade them, there was no one to go in and hide.

What are you kidding, such a beautiful thing couldn't be seen in the past. It's happening around me now, and there won't be this shop in this village anymore. Anyway, they all fight in the sky, and they don't go down to the ground to fight, and there is no danger. What's the point of hiding in the tunnel, to see such a wonderful thing, even better than singing a big show?

We cannot but admire the Chinese's mentality of watching the excitement, and the common people in many places even ran dozens of miles to the war zone to watch the battle. In order to prevent these ordinary people watching the excitement from being harmed, the left-behind troops in Jizhong who cooperated with the anti-United Nations operation had to send people every day to disperse these spectators.

The two kinds of fighters that the Japanese army put into the battlefield are naturally no stranger to the Anti-United Nations. In order to compete for air supremacy with the two Japanese fighters, especially the Type 3 fighters with excellent performance. Among the fighters currently equipped by the Anti-Union, all the Yak-9 fighters with the best performance are used in the Jizhong battlefield.

Although the legs of the Yak-9 fighter are shorter than those of the Japanese fighters, the Japanese fighters suffered a great loss with their excellent combat performance at medium and low altitudes. At the same time, the excellent take-off and landing of Soviet-made fighters from airstrips, as well as their super adaptability to airport conditions, make these aircraft take off directly from field airfields in the mountainous areas of western Hebei.

It not only greatly shortens the combat radius, but also significantly enhances the time spent in the air. The pilots who were transferred to the Jizhong battlefield were all anti-United Nations pilots who had been tested by successive large-scale air battles in the northeast in the first half of '42 and '43. Moreover, against the combat aircraft of the Japanese Army, a set of effective tactics has also been formed.

A large number of anti-United Nations pilots who have experienced the test of war and have matured into the United Nations. Its performance in the air has even surpassed that of the Japanese Army Air Force, which has been trained according to the elite model of the past, and has greatly declined in terms of both technical and tactical level and air combat capability. On the first day of the battle, it was very advantageous.

Compared with the increasing maturity of the anti-United Nations air force, with the increase in the intensity of the anti-Japanese bombing against Japan, most of the elite of the Japanese army aviation has been transferred back to China to participate in local air defense operations. Among the pilots who have been put into the flying team on the battlefield in China, rookies who have just left school and have not been tested in actual combat account for a large part.

The experience of the pilots is not bad, and the performance of the aircraft can be roughly equal. In addition, the American-made P-40K fighter that took off from Chanan adopted high-altitude dive tactics. After a day of air fighting, the Japanese army exchanged 31 planes to 19 planes, and it was obvious that they suffered a heavy loss.

Moreover, this air battle over the Jizhong Plain was even more unfavorable for the Japanese army, once the plane was shot down, it also meant that unless there were special circumstances, the pilot would be a permanent loss. In other words, if the Japanese army shoots down a plane, it is basically a loss of money. Most of the downed pilots were rescued, but the Japanese could not make up for the loss.