Chapter 10: Anqing (37)

On the second day after the 18th Division broke through the Yongchun Ferry, 100 planes bombarded Qianjiang, Bai Chongxi was dismissed from his post as commander-in-chief of the front line due to command failure, and the commander-in-chief of the Guinan operation was succeeded by Zhang Fakui, commander of the Fourth Theater of Operations in Liuzhou. After receiving the order, Zhang Fakui's expression was not much better than that of Chen Cheng at Liuzhou Airport, and this mess was difficult to clean up.

On February 4, 1940, the Japanese army occupied Shanglin, occupied Wuming on the 6th, and Litang on the 7th. Zhou Zuhuang withdrew from the peak pass and withdrew from Wuming, the Japanese army occupied Wuming, Yao Chun retreated to Shanglin, Fu Zhongfang retreated to Heshan, and completely abandoned the pass that had been fought for two months to avoid the enemy's edge. On the 7th, Ando Toshikichi arrived in Binyang, and announced that night that "the Battle of Binyang has ended, and troops should be gathered near Nanning", and on February 8, the Chinese New Year's Eve, the Japanese units stopped pursuing and returned to Nanning.

The retreat of the Japanese army made Zhang Fakui breathe a sigh of relief, since he took over on 1 February, he had not closed his eyes for several days and nights, and the situation he faced was the most difficult since he joined the army. Zhang Fakui, whose name is Xianghua, is a Hakka family in Shaoguan, Guangdong, forty-four years old, a young old revolutionary. In 1912, he was admitted to the Guangdong Army Primary School, and he was only 16 years old when he joined the China League. As the commander of the 12th Division of the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, he was just 30 and 31 years old when he participated in the Northern Expedition. After the September 18 Incident, Zhang Fakui's unstable position became as stable as a rock, and that was one main purpose: to resist Japan. First led the army to the north to aid Ma Zhanshan, and then to the east to aid Shanghai Cai Tingkai, because he was unwilling to join Jiangxi to discuss the Communist Party, he left his post to go abroad to promote anti-Japanese propaganda, and after returning to China in 1935, he was only willing to take up one position, that is, to supervise the anti-Japanese fortifications. At the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Zhang Fakui successively served as the commander-in-chief of the group army, the commander-in-chief of the corps, the commander of the theater, and the commander of the front army.

After Zhang Fakui took office, his first order was not issued to the chaotic Guinan army, but to Yu Hanmou in Shaoguan, Guangdong, demanding that all armed forces in Guangdong immediately launch a full-scale attack on the Japanese army in Guangdong. Zhang Fakui knew that in order to relieve the siege of Guangxi, the first thing was to pull the enemy's 18th Division and Sakurada Detachment back to Guangdong as quickly as possible, otherwise, the Japanese army, which had already exceeded 100,000 people, was far from being able to resist the enemy with the 180,000 troops composed of the Gui Army, the Guangdong Army, and the Central Army.

The second order was Cai Tingkai, commander-in-chief of the Eastern Route Army, to cut off the supply line of Japanese troops from Qinzhou to Nanning at all costs. After receiving the order, the 523rd Regiment of the 175th Division, which was closest to the Yongqin Line, set off first and occupied the high ground around the Yongqin Line Highway in the Kukuang area, followed by the 55th Regiment of the New 19th Division, pointing in the direction of Qiling and Xiaodong, and occupying the major mountains and ridges east of the road. The 188th Division of the Western Route Army crossed the mountains from Suwei and entered the Datang area, and the Yongqin Highway was cut off for several sections.

The 55th Regiment of the New 19th Division was the first to engage the enemy and fought fiercely with the Japanese army at Daluling, the enemy of Xiaodong took more than 100 vehicles to the north to reinforce the enemy, the enemy of Datang dispatched more than 2,000 people to the south to attack, and the aircraft carriers of Qinzhou Bay sent planes to assist in the battle, and the 175th Division and the new 19th Division fought for the mountains in the area of Kukuang and Qiling.

Yongqin Road was paralyzed across the entire line.

The third order was Deng Longguang of the 35th Group Army of the National Revolutionary Army, requiring Deng Longguang to rush to Binyang as quickly as possible, day and night. The 156th Division of the 64th Army of the 35th Group Army was required to carry out offensive containment from the rear of Kunlun Pass and cover the withdrawal of other armies in the Kunlun Pass area.

After Ye Zhao's 37th Group Army was defeated, Deng Longguang's 35th Group Army became the closest team to Binyang, he led the army day and night, and finally arrived at the northern section of Binyang on Liuyong Road less than 24 hours after the Japanese occupied Binyang, erected a steel barrier between Binyang and Qianjiang, and became the first Qinwang division. The arrival of Deng Longguang's 35th Group Army relieved the former enemy command in Qianjiang, and he finally would no longer be exposed to the Japanese army.

After occupying Wuming Binyang, the Japanese army stopped its offensive and began to withdraw south on 9 February, not because the Japanese army did not want to go further, but because the troops were scattered, the rear was empty, and it was difficult to supply them, and they were attacked from time to time. The most important thing is that the war in Guangdong broke out again, although Yu Hanmou's large-scale offensive was not yet mature, but the anti-Japanese armed forces in various places started one after another, and for a while, there was a tendency to spread. The 104th Division of the Japanese Army became a firefighting unit, running around, exhausted. The Dongjiang Column led by the Red Party was not far behind, and under the leadership of Wang Zuoyao, it successively recovered Shayu Bay on the Dapeng Peninsula and the southern head of Bao'an County, and set up an ambush at Henggang, killing and wounding more than 30 Japanese soldiers. Lieutenant General Kizaburo Hamamoto, commander of the 104th Division, burned his buttocks, and sent 20 telegrams a day, all asking the 18th Division to withdraw its troops as soon as possible.

It was not until 17 February that the 18th Division retreated to Qinzhou Bay and left Guangxi, leaving the Guards Brigade behind. The remnants of the Fifth Division, the Taiwan Mixed Brigade and the Fifth Division were reorganized into the 22nd Group Army and retreated to Guinan.

Zhou Zuhuang led the first column to follow the retreating Japanese troops to the peak pass, and the 135th Division carried out a tentative attack on the peak pass on the Yongwu road, and the Japanese army could not hold the stronghold. Li Yannian's 2nd Army and Gan Lichu's 6th Army pursued the enemy army and re-entered the Taishou Silong area, and Deng Longguang led the 35th Group Army into Yongchun, closing the door for the Japanese army to go north.

From Qinzhou to Xiaodong to Taiping into the Yongchun River, and then bounded by the Daming Mountains from Kunlun Pass in the east to Gaofeng Pass in the west, the Japanese army contracted in an all-round way, and everything returned to the situation before the attack on Kunlun Pass on December 17, 1939.

What is puzzling is that from beginning to end, the 41st Wing of the 9th Brigade in the Ningming area of Pingxiang did not return to Nanning to participate in the battle, and according to the report of Chen Zhengxin, a special service group monitored in Xiashi, the Japanese troops of the Fourth Route had entered and exited Vietnam several times, and most of their food supplies were obtained from Vietnam.

The Fourth Theater was puzzled by this behavior and attitude of the Japanese army, and Zhang Fakui decided to convene a meeting and held a special discussion.

With this question in mind, and with dissatisfaction with the battle in southern Guinan, on February 22, Chiang Kai-shek came to Liuzhou and convened a military conference of more than 100 generals in the Fourth Theater of Operations to review the summary of the southern Guizhou operation and the winter offensive.

Review, ineffective combat, application for punishment, etc. became the central words of the Liuzhou Conference, and Chiang Kai-shek complained, slapped the table a few times, scolded Niang Xipi a few times, and the meeting came to an end. The following treatments were made:

First, the Guilin camp no longer commanded the troops, and Bai Chongxi, the director of the Guilin camp, was ineffective in supervising the leadership, and was demoted from a first-class general to a second-class general; Political Minister Chen Cheng was unable to provide guidance, and was demoted from a first-class general to a second-class general.

Second, the Guinan Theater was placed under the command of the Fourth Theater in order of battle, and the General Headquarters of the Fourth Theater was moved from Shaoguan to Liuzhou, and the commander of the theater, Zhang Fakui.

Third, the numbers of the three group armies of Ye Zhao, Xu Tingyao, and Cai Tingkai were cancelled, and Ye Zhao, commander-in-chief of the 37th Group Army, was detained and handed over to the military court for trial; Xu Tingyao, commander-in-chief of the 38th Group Army, was removed from his post for investigation, and Cai Tingkai was transferred to the post of guerrilla commander of the Guangdong-Guizhou Border Region.

Fourth, Yao Chun, commander of the 36th Army, was removed from his post for investigation; Chen Ji, commander of the 66th Army, was removed from his post for investigation; Fu Zhongfang, commander of the 99th Army, was removed from his post for investigation; Guo Su, chief of staff of the 36th Army, was removed from his post for investigation; Li Jingyi, commander of the 49th Division, was dismissed from his post for investigation; Song Shitai, commander of the 160th Division, was removed from his post and investigated.

Fifth, the commander of the 135th Division, Su Zuxin, was removed from his post and retained; Wu Zongjun, commander of the 405th Regiment of the 135th Division, was detained and handed over to the military court for trial.

Deng Longguang, commander-in-chief of the 6th and 35th Group Army, recorded merit once; He Xuan, commander of the 46th Army, recorded his merits once; Wang Lingyun, commander of the 76th Division, remembered his merits once.

Chiang Kai-shek had a secret talk with Zhang Fakui, commander of the Fourth Theater, on the next trend in the Guinan Theater, and in the air-raid shelter on Sheephorn Mountain, while listening to the explosion of Japanese planes outside, he had a heart-to-heart talk with Zhang Fakui. Since Chiang Kai-shek came to Liuzhou, the Japanese Third Air Brigade that took off from Nanning has not stopped exploding, and during the Great War in southern Guangxi, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Brigades of the Chinese Air Force and the Soviet Union Aid Brigade went to Guangxi, with a total of 115 planes, but the Japanese army had more, and there were more than 100 planes at Nanning Airport alone, plus planes in Guangdong and planes on the aircraft carrier in Qinzhou Bay, more than 300. The planes of the two sides fought several times over Binyang, shooting down 11 Japanese planes and losing 15 of them. When Chiang Kai-shek came to Liuzhou, the Japanese army immediately got the news that planes kept hovering over Liuzhou every day to bomb Liuzhou, hoping that the missile would hit Chiang Kai-shek.

"The Japanese also know that I am in Sheephorn Mountain, and today's bombing is all around Sheephorn Mountain, hehe, I want to see if the Japanese army can blow up Banjiao Mountain!" Chiang Kai-shek brushed the ash on his sleeves and said easily.

Zhang Fakui didn't know how to answer, so he had to laugh dryly, the Japanese army could know the whereabouts of China's top leader so well, and he, the highest army commander in the region, had the responsibility of inaction.

"Sitting in the sound of the explosion of the Japanese army, you can still sit safely, this stability is really beyond the reach of ordinary people." Zhang Fakui said flatteringly. He didn't have much of a good impression of Chiang Kai-shek, and as an old comrade of the League, his qualifications were no lower than that of the old Chiang, which was why he chose Wang Jingwei instead of Chiang Kai-shek when he was shunted from Ninghan. However, Chiang Kai-shek's will to resist the war inspired him, so he was obliged to return to Chiang Kai-shek's side and become a general in charge of the army, fighting for the independence and freedom of the nation.

"Hehe, it won't be lonely this way." Chiang Kai-shek said with a smile: "Xiang Hua, as you can see, what is the purpose of the Japanese army's retreat to Nanning?" ”

Zhang Fakui took out a crumpled draft of the telegram from his coat pocket, handed it to Chiang Kai-shek, and said: "This is a telegram from Cai Tingkai in Cai Xianchu's handwriting, and it is a telegram given to him by his nephew, Ou Shou Nian, commander of the 48th Army. I thought about it for a long time, and then I referred to the attitude of the Japanese army at the beginning of December and the defensive posture after the retreat in the middle of this month, I was afraid that I would be righted by Ou Shounian. ”

"Ambition is not in Guizhong, but in Vietnam?" Chiang Kai-shek was very clever and immediately knew what Zhang Fakui meant, and said: "The Japanese army wants to take Vietnam and first cut off our Yunnan-Vietnam railway, and then launch an attack on our Yunnan-Vietnam rear from the Yunnan-Vietnam railway?" In other words, the occupation of Guinan is to find a foothold for entering Vietnam. ”

"Wise." Zhang Fakui knew that some words were enough to say this.

"In that case, how are you going to deal with it in the Fourth War Zone?" Chiang Kai-shek did not let Zhang Fakui go because he did not continue to speak, and directly threw out the question.

"Commission, since the Japanese army will not take the initiative to attack Guizhong, why don't we also take the opportunity to rest and recuperate, after more than two months, it is a bit chaotic." Zhang Fakui said: "We also know that the purpose of the Japanese army entering Vietnam is also to deal with us, but it is estimated that he will not be able to enter for a while, because Vietnam belongs to France, and it seems that the Japanese have not yet turned their faces with the French." ”

Chiang Kai-shek nodded and said, "You can rest for a while, but you still have to be prepared, it is best to be able to drive the Japanese army into the sea, after all, it is more beneficial for us to occupy Vietnam by the French than by the Japanese." The Fourth Theater should do a good job of preparing for the guerrilla zone in southern Guinan, and through guerrilla means, the Japanese themselves will not be able to stand it and leave. ”

Zhang Fakui nodded and told Chiang Kai-shek that he was going to propose that Zhou Zuhuang be the commander of the 46th Army, with the 170th, 175th and new 19th divisions under his command, and conduct guerrilla attacks in the area of southern Guinan. As for He Xuan, who was commended this time, he can be transferred to the central government.

On the 26th, Zhang Fakui, commander of the Fourth Theater, announced: "At present, there is no need to counterattack Nanning. This is the end of the entire Guinan Campaign.