Many years later!

When Zhao Shoushan, who had already achieved success and fame, was invited to speak at the ceremony of a graduate of a military university in China.

The young men in the audience who were full of energy and heroic spirit were about to step into the barracks, mustering up the courage to ask the general who participated in the Great Patriotic War: "Chief, what are the most memorable battles in your life?"

Zhao Shoushan pondered for a moment and replied solemnly: "Just talking about the deepest memory is probably not accurate enough. I, Zhao, have been in military service for nearly 30 years. The most heartbreaking battle was the lack of Luling in Niangziguan. In that battle, the 17th Division of our Northwest Army lost more than 8,000 battles and lost all its essence. Until half a year later, he still did not recover his vitality!

But if we say that Zhao has done wisely in his life, the battle in Southeast Jin, which I led 8,000 people in the division in 1938, would definitely be among the top two!"

This made the young soldiers in the audience very curious. Zhao Shoushan was originally the Northwest Army and joined the Eighty Army only after the victory of the National Defense War. This must be the first of his wise moves, but it seems that in this person's opinion, participating in the war in Southeast Shanxi was able to go hand in hand with such an important decision. Why?

"Chief, did you make outstanding achievements in that battle?" Someone couldn't help but ask curiously.

"Haha! No, it was when I was convinced by a young soldier who was about the same age as you. I made a decision that I couldn't believe in myself, and implemented the seemingly impossible tactical plan.

However, the facts proved that the young man was right. So I just said in my speech that you young people are the future of China and the future of my Chinese army." Zhao Shoushan replied with a smile.

After hearing Zhao Shoushan say this, the young soldiers in the audience were dumbfounded. If it weren't for the strict discipline, they would have been a mess.

You know, the person in front of them was already a lieutenant general and a young man about the same age as them, even in the war years, he was at most a platoon leader. The company commander! The middle school will be persuaded by a lieutenant and implement his tactical plan. Is this possible?

"However, what he convinced me was not really his imaginary tactics and equipment that promised to help my division. Here, I will throw a question he asked me to everyone to see if you can give the correct answer." Zhao Shoushan did not say the name of the young soldier, but continued with a smile.

"Who can tell me what is the basis for our China to win this war?"

Many young people at the scene raised their hands.

"The army has strong national defense!"

"Wrong!"

“Industrial level is improved!”

"wrong!"

"educate!"

"wrong!"

"economy!"

"wrong!"

......

Faced with a series of enthusiastic answers, Zhao Shoushan shook his head repeatedly, but the smile on his face remained unabated.

These young people are the same age as that young man, but their experience is simply incomparable to that young man. At their age, the young man is already the leader of a regiment and annihilated nearly 10,000 Japanese pirates. No, since that battle, this number has been rewritten.

Who can have his knowledge and pattern at this age? At least in Zhao Shoushan's military career, he has never been seen.

"The vast territory is the basis for us to win this long Patriotic War." Zhao Shoushan stood upright and replied with a serious face.

The scene was silent.

"Our neighboring country, the landing American soldiers advanced 200 kilometers in just three days, and the mechanized marching speed was astonishingly fast, but this was not important. What is important is that a marching speed like this can only take another day or two to cross their territory and reach our borders.

The so-called strategic depth is a noun in textbooks for the country with a land area of ​​only 120,000 square kilometers.

On the edge of the South China Sea of ​​China, the capital is the country, and the country is the capital. It took only three days for the Japanese army to capture it.

Our China has 9.6 million square kilometers of land, and the Japanese army used more than 2 million army and 80% of its national strength. It took eight years and still occupied only 50% and 60% of its territory. The southwest and northwest are all in our hands, which also provides the possibility of accumulating strength for our country to continue to counterattack and stop.

So, classmates and comrades, are you proud to have such a vast territory? Can you guard him like your ancestors? Like them, stand up to die with a command?" The general with silver hair stood on the stage, his eyes sharp and sounded like a bell.

"Chief, we are willing!"

"Chief, this is the responsibility of Chinese soldiers!"

"Chief, please believe your comrades' promise!"

......

The young soldiers who had not yet been awarded the title stood up in unison and saluted the old general on the stage.

There was no slogan of tsunami, but Zhao Shoushan got the answer he wanted from the firm eyes of the young soldiers.

The rows of figures standing upright like green pine made him feel like he was back twenty years ago.

The same was true for his soldiers, saluting solemnly in front of him, and then rushed to the battlefield without looking back with the gun.

I don’t know how many familiar faces I’ll see you again!

That was the day before the Battle of Southeast Jin was about to begin.

May 20, 1938!

With the arrival of Lieutenant General Xiangyue Qingshi, the then commander of the First Army of the Japanese North China Front Army, a battle named Southeast Jin officially began in the future.

It was similar to Tang Dao's expectations. The Japanese North China Front Army attacked the southeastern Jin from roughly ten directions. However, beyond Tang Dao's expectations, the Japanese army not only mobilized about 70,000 troops in three divisions of 108, 109 and 16th, but also drew a second mixed brigade with more than 10,000 troops from Pingbei City to participate in the battle.

Except for the more than 10,000 Japanese troops left behind in each county, the total Japanese troops responsible for the attack reached 70,000, which is a number that is almost equal to the Chinese troops in the Taihang Mountains.

Maybe some people think that China is defending, Japan is attacking, China has absolute geographical advantages, what's so great about the similar forces?

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content later! Those who think so must not understand how big the gap in equipment between China and Japan is.

In terms of light weapons equipment, the main equipment of China is Hanyang-made rifles. Although the range is slightly closer than that of the Type 38 rifles equipped by Japan, the range of 300 meters and 400 meters does not constitute the so-called difference in the times. To be honest, there is a slight difference in the training of the two sides.

Most of the Japanese are veterans and have accurate marksmanship. After continuous wars, many troops, like the 17th Division, were consumed in large quantities, and replaced by new recruits who were recruited into the army. Many people did not go through actual combat, and even had more than a dozen shots of live ammunition.

But in general, there is a gap, but it is not to be beaten.

To truly widen the gap in combat strength between the Chinese and Japanese troops, it must be a heavy weapon.

If an ordinary Chinese infantry division can have seven or eight mortars or four mountain cannons, it will be of good firepower. However, an infantry brigade that can compete with the infantry division is often equipped with more than 20 artillery pieces, which is not counted as the artillery gang directly under the division. If half of it is assigned to the brigade, the number of artillery brigades that can have will reach a terrible nearly 40.

With artillery alone, the Chinese army can also hide by digging trenches. After all, 40 artillery cannons cannot achieve carpet-style coverage attacks, and at least two-thirds of them can survive artillery fire.

But the Japanese army also had fighter jets to help, and there was no sign of Chinese fighter jets in the northern sky. They could unscrupulously drop bombs at low altitudes. If a bomb of more than 200 pounds hit the position, it would mean that an infantry platoon or even an infantry company would disappear.

Dozens of strong men! My parents spent eighteen years raising them before they grew up. As a result, a bomb came down and it completely disappeared.

This is not the most painful thing. China can tolerate the use of human lives and the Japanese bombs to consume them. If one-on-one is not possible, we will only have ten-on-one, but the Japanese still have tanks.

The Japanese tanks are not like the West. The main battle tanks are only a dozen tons. They are just a scumbag on the Western battlefield. However, in the Chinese battlefield, facing the Chinese army that lacks anti-tank guns, they have almost no natural enemies.

However, the 30mm thick armor is enough to withstand any bullets, and the 57mm short-barrel can destroy almost all field fortifications. Faced with such a steel beast, the only countermeasure of the Chinese army is to blast manually.

But will the Japanese tanks easily give you a chance to get close? Not to mention the wide range of two 7.7mm machine guns, there are also Japanese infantry behind them. If you don’t fight in the streets in the city and want to blow up a tank with explosives, you must have enough luck in addition to being willing to die.

At this time, the Japanese army already had an almost three-dimensional attack method in the air and ground, which was a dimensional reduction attack for the Chinese army.

This is also the main reason why China gathered more than 300,000 troops and even more than 300 artillery pieces in the Battle of Xinkou, but it still could not stop the 70,000 troops under Itagaki Shiro.

Generally speaking, even in a defensive war, the comparison between China and Japan's forces must be between four to one or even five to one, so as to ensure that they will not lose too ugly.

This is almost a consensus reached by senior generals of China and Japan after a half-year war.

Therefore, when we learned that the Japanese army had actually invested 70,000 troops to siege the southeastern part of Shanxi, the old man in Shanxi, who was located in the combat conference room of the Second War Zone Command in Linfen City, was depressed and heartbroken.

Although Tang Dao reminded him, he still underestimated the determination of the Japanese North China Front Command. In his vision, it would be good if the Japanese army could invest 30,000 people. He arranged nearly 100,000 troops in the Taihang Mountains in southeastern Shanxi. The three-to-one military force comparison, coupled with the danger of the Taihang Mountains, even if he couldn't win, he could consume part of the Japanese army's strength. Then he could just rightly transfer the elite troops of the Jinsui army under his command into the Taihang Mountains.

But I knew that if the Japanese army did not move, it would be like thunder, and if it moved, it would be like thunder. It would be crazy and would be deployed into three divisions and a mixed brigade. Their forces were almost the same as those of the Chinese troops in the southeastern Shanxi.

If the southeast of Shanxi is lost, Linfen City will lose an important barrier, and it is almost inevitable that the city will be broken.

The key is that the more than 200,000 troops he deployed on another line of defense were still not daring to move. The 20th Division, 5th Division, 114th Division, and 10th Division all moved one after another, coming from east, north, and west to southeast of Shanxi, which was as high as 100,000 troops.

Although the attack was not launched, it was like a dark cloud covering the city, making the Chinese generals as if they were facing a great enemy.

This time, the Japanese North China Front Army actually used most of its troops for a small southeastern Shanxi.

"Order all departments of the War Zone Command and government departments to clean up and secretly evacuate Linfen in batches!" The old man from Shanxi who sat until late at night finally spoke.

Although he knew that the secret evacuation of the theater command during the war might shake the morale of the army, the old man from Shanxi had to make this decision in pain.

For this boss, this not only means that he, the commander of the war zone, has lost confidence in the war, but also means that he has accepted that person's "good intention".

The so-called good intention is to protect him from his life, but if the Jin Provincial Department loses his life, he, the commander of the war zone, will be blamed, and resignation is a foregone conclusion. The Jin Provincial Department's base camp is gone and the official position is gone. It can be imagined that the glory of the past will also leave him. From then on, it will be his daily life to have a free position and be a rich man.

How painful this is for a big man who has been in the position of the number one person in a province for more than twenty years.

But even so, this man still made this decision after most of the ideological struggle.

Living is the most important thing.

Something in his heart made him make the most correct decision he thought he was.

In fact, in the face of the old man's decision, the headquarters worked hard and did not even have a single voice to object.

The Military and Political Department, far away in Jiangxia, fell silent after the Japanese army mobilized troops and arrived, and did not object to the decision of the Second War Zone Command to evacuate materials and important personnel to the Yellow River.

Obviously, for these senior generals, the battle in southeastern Shanxi is bound to be defeated.

They were even ready to swallow the bitter fruits of the defeat in the southeastern Jin Dynasty, even the loss of Linfen, and the loss of the entire Jin Province.

At the beginning of the battle, it was just as Lieutenant General Xiangyue Qingshi, who was the commander of the First Army of the Japanese North China Front Army who arrived in Lucheng and served as the commander of the Eastern Route Army, said: "It is said that China's Taihang Mountain is steep, but what I want to say is that under the iron boots of the Imperial Warriors, all mountains and seas can be settled! In this battle, our Eastern Route Army will only be seven days before it can defeat the enemy and return!"

The Japanese army marched southeastern Shanxi from ten directions to conquered the first line of defense on the first day. The Chinese army deployed on the periphery fought for only one day, and then discarded the trenches that had been built for several days and evacuated them.

On the second day, the Japanese army was still not hindered, and only small-scale troops remained along the way to harass them, but they were soon driven into the mountains by the Japanese army of thousands of scales.

On the third day, the Japanese army approached the hinterland of the Taihang Mountains, especially in Liao County, Yushe, Wuxiang and other places, and achieved brilliant results. It was the location of the main force of the 921st Division of the 80th Army.
To be continued...