freenovelworld Chapter 727 Fight to the Death
Chapter 727 Fight to the Death
From this point of view, the plan of the Japanese army in China to open up the transportation lines of the Chinese mainland is imperative. At the same time, it is the threat of the United States Air Force deployed in the area controlled by the Chinese government to the Japanese mainland that has greatly accelerated the implementation time of the Japanese military headquarters for the "Operation No. 1" plan. This also prompted the Japanese military headquarters to make up its mind to concentrate its elite troops to eliminate the Chinese anti-Japanese forces supported by the Chinese government.
The fourth point is that the Japanese Army is the main force in implementing the "Operation No. 1" plan. The Japanese headquarters also hopes to boost the morale of the Japanese Navy, which has been declining due to continuous failures in the Pacific battlefield, through the victory of the Japanese Army in the battle against the weaker Chinese government army.
Therefore, it can be seen that although on the surface the "Operation No. 1" plan was a desperate attack by the Japanese headquarters, in fact, it was an initiative of the Japanese headquarters to build a defense circle in the occupied areas of China in advance when they were fully aware that the Pacific defense line was not secure. It could be regarded as a last-ditch effort before death.
Of course, the Japanese military headquarters also took into account that the Chinese battlefield, with weaker resistance, was the best target for the Japanese army. At the same time, they could also build the so-called inland defense circle of the Japanese military headquarters, so as to achieve the goal of allowing the Japanese army to fight for a long time.
As intelligence gathered by all intelligence personnel lurking in the Japanese-occupied areas by the Chinese government's intelligence agencies showed, the Japanese army was indeed carrying out large-scale mobilizations, especially in North China, where the mobilization of Japanese and puppet troops was extremely frequent.
In order to ensure the smooth implementation of "Operation No. 1", the Japanese military headquarters began detailed operational planning as early as August 1943. After several internal discussions and simulations, the "Operation No. 1" plan gradually became more practical and mature.
Because the "Operation No. 1" plan involved so many aspects, the Japanese military headquarters discussed and deduced the specific operational plan of "Operation No. 1" repeatedly. First, the Japanese China Expeditionary Army formulated a preliminary operational plan in early December 1943, but the senior officials of the Japanese military headquarters warned the China Expeditionary Army Command not to make a decision easily to prevent the operational plan from being leaked.
In mid-December, the Japanese Imperial Headquarters agreed to the China Expeditionary Force's combat plan and officially named the operation "Operation No. 1". At the same time, the top brass of the Japanese Imperial Headquarters demanded that the China Expeditionary Force Command advance the attack plan.
After entering 1944, the actions of the United States Air Force in China became more frequent, which further prompted the Japanese military headquarters to demand that the Japanese China Expeditionary Force start "Operation No. 1" as soon as possible to destroy the United States Air Force base in China.
On January 24, 1944, the Japanese Emperor approved the "Operation Outline No. 1". The Japanese China Expeditionary Army then formulated a more detailed "Operation No. 1" plan on March 10. After obtaining the approval of the Japanese Imperial Headquarters, the Japanese China Expeditionary Army Headquarters began to communicate the operational plan to the participating troops on March 12.
According to the "Operation No. 1" plan formulated by the Japanese Expeditionary Force in China, the Japanese Expeditionary Force in China will launch attacks on the Chinese government-occupied areas formulated in the operational plan in the spring and summer of 1944, first from North China, then from the Three Towns area and South China.
In the "Operation No. 1" plan, the Japanese Army's China Expeditionary Force required all units to defeat the Chinese government's army and successively occupy the southern part of the Beijing-Hankou Railway south of the Yellow River and key points along the Hunan-Guangxi and Guangdong-Hankou Railways, and ensure subsequent control.
The combat objective of the Japanese Expeditionary Force in China was to defeat the Chinese government's army, occupy and secure the key points along the Hunan-Guangxi, Guangdong-Hankou and Beijing-Hankou railways. At the same time, the Japanese offensive forces needed to destroy the American air force bases in the areas controlled by the Chinese government, stop the American air force from continuing to bomb the Japanese mainland and destroy Japan's transportation lines at sea.
At the same time, the Japanese Chinese Expeditionary Force also hoped to completely destroy the confidence of the Chinese government in the mountain city to continue fighting the Japanese army through this large-scale attack.
The combat range planned by the Japanese Army's China Expeditionary Force in this "Operation No. 1" plan included the Yellow River, Xinyang, Yuezhou, and Hengyang, with a straight-line distance of 400 kilometers each, while the straight-line distance between Hengyang and Liuzhou reached 600 kilometers.
If the Japanese army wanted to defeat half of the entire field army of the Chinese government, whose number was several times that of the Japanese offensive force, and complete a penetration operation in a vast area stretching more than 1,500 kilometers from north to south, the difficulty of such an operation would be unimaginable.
In particular, at this time, the Japanese Army's China Expeditionary Force had already encountered the difficulty of insufficient troops. In the combat plan of "Operation No. 1", the total force of the Japanese Army's China Expeditionary Force in this "Operation No. 1" was 510,000, including 148,000 troops in the Pinghan Line Operation, 362,000 troops in the Hunan-Guangxi Operation, 100,000 war horses, 1,551 artillery pieces of various types, 794 tanks, and 15,550 vehicles.
By the end of 1943, the total number of Japanese troops in China was only about 620,000, with 130,000 war horses and about 18,000 vehicles.
In order to ensure the success of the Japanese Expeditionary Force in China in the "Operation Number One" plan, the Japanese headquarters temporarily suspended the withdrawal of troops originally planned to be transferred from the Chinese battlefield to the Pacific islands, and also drew a large number of various arms from Japan and China's northeast region to strengthen the offensive combat force.
For the Japanese Army, such long-distance combat and large-scale troop assembly were unprecedented. General Hata Shunroku, commander-in-chief of the Japanese China Expeditionary Army, was actually worried in his heart, because the Japanese China Expeditionary Army was now obviously experiencing a comprehensive decline in strength, materials and combat effectiveness. To carry out such a large-scale combat mobilization was really an act of forced combat.
However, General Hata Shunroku, commander-in-chief of the Japanese Expeditionary Army in China, also knew that the Japanese army was now facing an extremely unfavorable war situation in the Far East and the Pacific, and the Japanese headquarters had no choice but to make a desperate attempt.
Opening up the Pinghan Line was the first phase of "Operation No. 1" and also the first step. The Japanese China Expeditionary Army was handed over to the Japanese North China Front Army to carry out and complete the first phase of the operation.
The operational plan for the first phase of "Operation No. 1" was to first break through the defensive positions of the Chinese government's army on the front and gather the Japanese offensive forces on the south bank of the Yellow River. The Japanese offensive forces then sent out troops to pretend to move south along the Beijing-Hankou Line, arriving at the vicinity of Yancheng as the center.