Glorious Mission 1937

Yan Junliu obviously underestimated the strength of the Eighth Route Army. In any case, he never imagined that the China Tuba Road, who was like a rat in his mind, would dare to besiege Liaocheng, which was heavily guarded by the imperial army, and more importantly, they were defeated by them. Face, naked face slap.

As the former supreme commander of the Central China Dispatch Army, Yan Junliu always felt that he had a good understanding of China's national defense forces, but this time he was beaten in the face by the groundhog-like Eighth Route Army, which made General Yan Junliu extremely angry.

General Yan Jun, who felt that his authority was being challenged, ordered the Japanese troops around Liaocheng to immediately move closer to the outskirts of Liaocheng, and at the same time ordered the Japanese 109th Division near Jining and the Mixed Tenth Brigade stationed in Heze to immediately reinforce Liaocheng. With fifty or sixty middle and senior officers of the observation group, they moved to Jining to command the battle.

The sudden fall of Liaocheng made the frontline Japanese army very worried. The situation of the frontline troops was very clear. If the supplies could not be delivered in time, not to mention annihilating the Chinese army in the encirclement, whether they could protect themselves was a problem.Originally, according to the consistent marching principle of the Japanese army, any troops going out to fight must carry a week's supplies and ammunition.

However, in order to achieve an unexpected effect this time, Momoto ordered the troops to carry only three days of supplies for combat. Now the supply inventory has reached below the warning line. According to the current consumption rate, the supply in the inventory can only support 20 yuan at most. Hours.

The food is okay. After all, there are so many Chinese villages nearby, and the Imperial Japanese Army can easily raise a lot of food.But ammunition is a big problem, and those Chinese farmers don't have ammunition in their hands.If there is no ammunition.War is just a joke.In desperation, Genbo had no choice but to ask the six generals Yan Jun for help.

General Yan Jun also realized this problem. The loss of the logistics base in Liaocheng really made the base of the base of the lone army extremely passive, and there was a danger of being surrounded by the Chinese.Now there are two roads before the Japanese army. One is to immediately break away from the Shandong First Column and First Brigade through all the Japanese and puppet troops, and then retreat north to Dezhou.The other way is to airdrop ammunition to the Japanese and puppet troops while surrounding the Shandong First Vertical and First Brigade.

Forget about ground transportation. Although Dezhou and Linqing are very close to the battlefield, these two cities are not important military towns. They don't have much ammunition in stock at all, and the ground transportation takes too long.There is no other way but to drop the Japanese army by air.

On April 4, the Japanese army assembled more than 8 transport planes to airdrop supplies to the Nemotobo headquarters on the battlefield.At the same time, the Japanese army who arrived at the outskirts of Liaocheng started a fierce battle with the Eighth Route Army Liaocheng defenders.

The Eighth Route Army acquired a large amount of weapons and equipment after capturing Liaocheng, and this time Xu Xiangqian gathered more than [-] people at once, so the battle was extremely fierce from the beginning.One is fighting for honor, the other is fighting for survival.At the beginning of the battle, both sides revealed their strongest attack methods.

April 4.Under the support of the Shandong First Vertical Second Brigade and the Third Brigade.The remnants of the First Brigade and more than 9 ordinary people finally broke through the encirclement of the Japanese army.But Nemotobo's headquarters did not back down.Fifteen and six thousand people came to encircle Liaocheng under the command of Nemoto. So far, the Japanese army has formed a huge encirclement circle around Liaocheng.

Realized that this is the best opportunity to eliminate the main force of the Eighth Route Army.General Yan Jun hurriedly mobilized a mixed brigade and an artillery brigade from other places in Shandong to join the battle.As the two sides fought more and more courageously, the troops around Liaocheng also gathered more and more troops.

As of April 4, at least 12 people had assembled on the battlefield in Liaocheng, of which more than 8 troops from the Eighth Route Army guarded the city, and more than 5 Japanese troops launched attacks under the cover of aircraft and artillery. All means have been used.

This time, the Sixth General Yan Jun was completely mistaken. He thought that only one mixed brigade would be enough to wipe out the Luxi base of the Eighth Route Army, but now the number of troops used has reached one division, three mixed brigades and one artillery brigade. Still failed to win the Eighth Route Army, not to mention that there are still 3 puppet infantry divisions assisting.

The life of the Japanese army was not easy, and the life of the Eighth Route Army was also not easy.Although they have an advantage in strength, they are far behind the Japanese army in terms of firepower, especially in terms of artillery. When the Japanese field heavy artillery brigade joined the battlefield, the pressure on the Eighth Route Army on the front line increased sharply.

Persisting until April 4, after transferring most of the people, Xu Qianqian ordered the troops to break out to the west.After a hard fight, Shandong Yizong finally jumped out of the encirclement of the Japanese army and successfully moved to the mountainous area of ​​Luxi.The Japanese army did not pursue it either, and the encirclement and counter-encirclement campaign ended.

The Japanese army and the Eighth Route Army were very unhappy in this battle, especially the Japanese army. They originally planned to wipe out the Shandong Yizong of the Eighth Route Army in Luxi in one fell swoop, but the final result was that they lost troops and broke out. The logistics base in Liaocheng lost a lot of weapons and equipment.

The Eighth Route Army felt that this battle was very useless. The first brigade was almost made dumplings by the little devils. Not to mention the loss of nearly 1 troops in World War I, one-fifth of the villages in the base area were brutally slaughtered by the Japanese army. Ten thousand people can be said to be the biggest loss of the Eighth Route Army in the past two years.

After the battle, General Yanjun personally reported the results of the battle to the Japanese base camp and Emperor Hirohito. He wrote in the battle summary: "... After the field survey and verification of the humble post, the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army has indeed improved. The main performance The weapons and equipment of the Chinese army have been greatly improved. Even the Chinese Tuba Road, which has always been poorly equipped, can now achieve one rifle per person, and even formed an artillery team. The second biggest change is the Chinese. The will to fight. Three years ago, when the Chinese army clashed with the imperial army, they were often defeated at the first touch. Now the Chinese people not only dare to fight the imperial army face to face with bayonets, but even dare to open up their posture and fight the imperial army in positional warfare and war of attrition... "

Regarding the combat effectiveness of the Japanese army, Yan Junliu commented in this way: "...Facts have proved that the combat effectiveness of the Imperial Japanese Army has indeed declined, and the decline has been relatively large, which is mainly reflected in the composition of the imperial army and the will to fight. Three years ago, the Imperial Japanese Army was almost entirely composed of veterans who had served in the army for more than three years. Those veterans had undergone rigorous military training and their individual qualities were extremely high, so their combat effectiveness far exceeded that of the Chinese army of the same strength. But after three years After years of war consumption, the veterans of the various units of the Imperial Army suffered heavy casualties and were almost exhausted. The new recruits added to the various units were all recruits who were temporarily conscripted into the army. Compared with the veterans before... because there are too many soldiers, the fighting will of the imperial army is greatly reduced. Three years ago, when fighting with the Chinese army, the imperial army of Japan had almost no soldiers who surrendered, but now the soldiers of the imperial army It is not uncommon to surrender to the Chinese army, without the determination to die, this is another reason for the decline in the combat effectiveness of the Imperial Japanese Army!"

Therefore, the Sixth General Yanjun suggested that the Empire of Japan should not consider going south or north for the time being, because if the Chinese people are not defeated, going north or south will only lead to self-destruction.At the same time, the six generals Yan Jun sent another secret telegram to Emperor Hirohito, suggesting that Emperor Hirohito should continue to contact the Chinese government and conduct peace talks with the Chinese government in the shortest possible time, even if he gave up a little interest.

However, although Yan Junliu's telegram attracted the attention of the Emperor of Japan, the Japanese military headquarters, whose eyes were red-eyed by the German army, almost unanimously opposed the peace talks with the Chinese government.Fumma Konoe, who was supported by the military, also publicly supported the military's continued expansion of the war, and even put forward the concept of co-prosperity in Greater East Asia.This time, even Mitsumasa Minai and others who originally supported the peace talks did not speak. Although they did not explicitly support the military, everyone at the time could see that Mitsumasa Minai and others acquiesced in continuing to expand the aggression.

In fact, it is no wonder that the attitude of the top Japanese leaders has undergone such a big change, because the performance of the Germans is really incredible.From September 39, 9 to the present, in just over half a year, Germany quickly defeated Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.As of now, Germany occupies all of Western Europe.Since then, the entire Atlantic coast from Norway in the north to Spain in the south has been controlled by Germany.

The mighty Britain and France that once controlled the League of Nations were left with only the United Kingdom still lingering. Although the British army withdrew part of their troops in the Dunkirk retreat, they lost a lot of weapons and equipment, including 2450 artillery pieces, 6400 Three anti-tank guns, 1.1 machine guns, more than 7.5 vehicles, 50 tons of military supplies, 224 ships were sunk, and 106 planes were shot down. At this time, Britain was seriously injured, and there were only 500 artillery pieces left in the country and 200 tanks.The air force has also been greatly weakened, with only more than 1300 combat aircraft remaining.As for the navy, due to the blockade of the German navy and air force, it lost the conditions for cooperation with the French fleet.

Whether it is the Soviet Union, Japan, or other countries, they all believe that Britain has lost the capital to continue fighting. The German army will attack the British Isles in the shortest possible time and destroy the empire that the sun never sets. Completely perish, and then be swept into the dustbin of history very chicly.

What the Germans can do, the Japanese think they can do too.Compared with Germany, which has been knocked out by Britain, France and other countries for 20 consecutive years, the Japanese think that their national strength is much stronger than that of Germany.The most important thing is that the Japanese think that their opponents are not as strong as their German opponents, and the weak China is simply not comparable to Britain and France.

The reason why the Germans were able to successfully defeat Britain and France, but the Japanese Empire was stuck in the quagmire of the China War, the Japanese attributed these to the fact that Japan has no allies.Germany was able to achieve such a brilliant record in such a short period of time, on the one hand because the German army is really strong, but it is undeniable that Germany has allies such as Italy, Spain, Finland and Romania, precisely because of the support of these allies With help, Germany can concentrate its forces to fight against Yingfa, so the Japanese government is eager to find a reliable ally. (To be continued..)