Yang Zhen somewhat misunderstood the commander-in-chief's meaning. Although they didn't get along for long, the commander-in-chief already knew Yang Zhen's character in detail. He knew that Yang Zhen was the kind of person who would never change his decision easily. He wanted to speak not to continue persuading, nor to change Yang Zhen's determination and arrangements.
Since Zeng promised to be Yang Zhen¡¯s logistics minister, the commander-in-chief still kept his word. He also knew that in this battle, which was definitely not small in scale, the arsenal, which was one of the life and death lines of the army, needed a strong person to take charge. The entire logistics also requires a capable manpower to arrange and dispatch to ensure the supply of food and ammunition for the troops and the transfer of the wounded. Therefore, the commander-in-chief had no objection to Yang Zhen's arrangement for him to go to the arsenal to take charge.
¡°Besides, he thinks Yang Zhen¡¯s words are not unreasonable. In this battle that is related to the life and death of the army, it is not a good choice for the four top commanders of an army to gather in one place. What he wanted to say was that when Yang Zhen was deploying defense just now, he did not assign tasks to himself and the second regiment.
Of course, the commander-in-chief would never think that Yang Zhen was deliberately conserving his strength and avoiding the war. He was certain that this guy had not arranged combat missions for himself and the second regiment, which had the strongest combat power among the three regiments. He must have had an idea that could be called absolutely audacious.
Didn¡¯t he just say that he had a new plan and wanted to discuss it with a few people. Based on the Commander-in-Chief's understanding of this guy, his new plan will definitely be an earth-shattering plan if it is not implemented.
Sure enough, after the commander-in-chief asked Yang Zhen what he was doing, Yang Zhen smiled and said to several people: "Look, this time alone, the Japanese army has not completed the deployment of its troops. The fourth Japanese army stationed in Jiamusi Almost all of the division and the 3rd Cavalry Brigade have been dispatched. All troops from the Seventh Military District of the Puppet Manchu Army stationed in Jiamusi have also been dispatched. In this way, Jiamusi has almost become an empty city."
At this point, Yang Zhen smiled strangely and said: "It's not rude to come and not come back. Since the little devil thinks so highly of me, he almost all the Japanese and puppet troops stationed in Jiamusi were mobilized. Then, what's wrong with me not going there to cause trouble?" To attract his attention? So I decided to take the Second Regiment with one battalion of the Third Regiment plus five independent companies, as well as two mountain artillery battalions of the direct artillery to go to Jiamusi for a walk. This is called you fight yours, I will fight mine."
Seeing that several people were dumbfounded by his unfashionable idea, Yang Zhen just smiled lightly and said: "With all the Japanese troops deployed, the rear must be empty. Most of the other Japanese troops are in the Manchu-Soviet border counties in Eastern Manchuria. The closest to Jiamusi They are also in the Mudanjiang and Mishan areas. As long as we seize the opportunity and conquer Jiamusi in one go, there won¡¯t be any big problem.¡±
"As long as we capture Jiamusi, we can mobilize the Japanese army on a large scale and create opportunities for our army to finally break the Japanese encirclement and suppression. I don't believe that the Japanese army can watch its strategic town of Jiamusi being occupied by me and remain indifferent? As long as the Japanese army moves, we will We can look for fighter planes to severely damage one of them."
"From now on, the main force of the Japanese army's suppression force is still deployed in front of Qunce Mountain. There are many gaps for us to make a detour. So I plan to take advantage of the main force of the Japanese army to attack Qunce Mountain, and use a force to attack the Jiamusi front line. At least for now. Judging from the deployment of Japanese troops, there should not be any big problems. Mobilizing enemy troops on the move is the essence of guerrilla warfare."
"But the key to this battle is the blocking of Lao Guo and the political commissar. You have to lead the Japanese army to the hinterland of Qunce Mountain and delay it, but you can't cause too many casualties to yourself. So you must pay attention to your tactics. The application of force. It¡¯s still the old rule, firepower is allocated with heavy weight in the front and light in the back, and troop allocation is light in the front and heavy in the back.¡±
"The Japanese army is good at outflanking. You must pay more attention to protecting your flanks. The Japanese army's attack tactics are generally to launch attacks from a distance of 600 to 400 meters. They first use probing attacks to lure me to expose the main firepower points and then Destroyed by its heavy firepower.¡±
"In particular, the use of grenade launchers poses a great threat to our light and heavy machine guns. The National Army in Guannai is in a head-on confrontation with the Japanese army. This loss is not small. You must not fight hard and pay more attention to the use of the undulations of the terrain and the ridges of the mountains. Arrange them in a trapezoidal shape. Try to place the Japanese troops within 200 meters, or even 100 meters before firing."
Aren¡¯t there a large number of Type 89 water-cooled heavy machine guns that are somewhat bulky but have a much higher rate of fire than the Type 92 heavy machine gun? Use them all. While strengthening the firepower, we should also pay attention to the connection between each position and the main position. Each blocking position must be equipped with field telephones connected to the main position. Note that all lines must be buried underground. "
"Five days, Lao Guo, political commissar, you must hold on for at least five days under the fierce enemy attack. After five days, if the Japanese offensive has notIf we are weak, you should look for an opportunity to retreat to the Qinghei Mountain headquarters. "
"However, you must pay attention to your retreat whether during combat or when breaking out. Although the Japanese army has not yet appeared behind us, I estimate that the Japanese army will definitely send troops to outflank us in order to prevent us from retreating into the mountains and forests. The side and rear. So you should be more careful when breaking through. The little devil¡¯s strategy is very poor, but his tactics are still quite good."
"The Japanese troops have begun to gather their forces one after another, and I estimate that they will not delay for too long. If the estimate is not bad,
With the deployment of its troops completed, the time to take action should be within these three to five days. We should also start preparations immediately. "
Regarding Yang Zhen¡¯s thoughts, several people looked at each other and said nothing. They just nodded slightly. As for Yang Zhen's risky move, everyone knows that although it is dangerous, it is also a last resort at the moment. Purely fighting on the inside has no advantages other than fighting hard and consuming the limited strength of the troops bit by bit.
When necessary, jumping to the outside line and combining internal and external operations is the best choice in a situation where the enemy is strong and we are weak. Although there is a certain danger in fighting deep into the heart of the Japanese and puppets. But this kind of risk is necessary to break the Japanese encirclement and suppression.
Yang Zhen¡¯s guess was not wrong. The Qunce Mountain base had indeed been exposed, but the reason for the exposure was beyond his imagination. The exposure of the Qunce Mountain base and the sudden increase in firepower of Yang Zhen's unit were only one reason.
The reason why the Japanese army finally determined that Yang Zhen's headquarters was hiding here was that when Yang Zhen's headquarters was fighting on the outside in the previous period, they had intensive telegraphic contacts with the front line of Qunce Mountain, which led to the discovery by a radio listening station of the Japanese army in Jiamusi. A high-power radio signal with an unknown call sign appeared on the front line of Qunce Mountain.
The Japanese are not fools. On the contrary, they are better at calculating than other established Western powers. This listening station was originally used to monitor Soviet military radio signals on the north bank of Heilongjiang. But he didn't expect to find an unknown signal source in the mountainous area northwest of Tangyuan, which was very close to him. With the full tracking of the Japanese military listening station and the cooperation of mobilizing aircraft, it was finally determined that the source of the unknown signal was in the Qunce Mountain area in the northwest of Tangyuan County.
This discovery surprised the Kwantung Army headquarters. What's there in Qunce Mountain? The Kwantung Army knew very well. There is the largest secret arsenal in the entire Sanjiang region of Manchuria. As the builder of the warehouse and the owner of the inventory equipment, the Kwantung Army Headquarters knows much better than Yang Zhen about the number, types, and uses of the weapons here.
The amount of equipment stored there is enough to maintain all the ammunition used intensively by at least three Category A infantry divisions for a year and all the equipment to form three divisions in a short period of time when supplies from the rear are cut off.
The most important thing is that there are not only a huge number of weapons and ammunition, but also nearly 60% of the Kwantung Army's spare weapons and ammunition stockpiled in the entire North Manchuria area, as well as a large amount of food and materials. There are also thousands of military machines and a large amount of military raw materials that were transferred there from the Fengtian Arsenal as reserves in order to maintain the troops' continued combat capabilities.
Not counting the huge amounts of explosives, smokeless gunpowder, and various propellants for artillery shells, the semi-finished products such as 65 bullets and primers used in the Type 38 rifle alone can produce 10 million rounds of bullets in a short period of time. level.
There are even more 7- and 7-mm heavy machine gun shells than this, as well as a large number of semi-finished products and spare parts for 75-mm mountain artillery shells. And parts such as rifles and light and heavy machine gun barrels that have been processed and can be put into use only after partial assembly.
In addition, it also includes a huge amount of high-quality gun steel and various communication equipment used to manufacture rifle machine guns. There are nearly a hundred high-power radios in stock.
By occupying that place, you not only gained a huge arms warehouse, but more importantly, you gained a huge arms factory that has even reached half the production capacity of the Fengtian Arsenal, the largest arms factory in Asia. Although there is no necessary equipment for producing weapons such as steelmaking, as long as a stable source of steel is obtained, a large number of weapons and equipment will be manufactured here in a short period of time.
The semi-finished military products and raw materials there were secretly reserved by the Kwantung Army for the war against the Soviet Union. The quantity reported to the Tokyo base camp was only half of the actual reserves here. And those military machinery are also secretly stored in the name of scrapping. Losing there will not only throw away a large amount of weapons reserves and give the opponent a huge military factory, but it is also tantamount to putting a noose on the heads of everyone involved. Once the base camp knows about this, I am afraid that the whole Kwantung Army will be miserable and go away.
Originally, the insiders in the Kwantung Army headquarters were somewhat lucky. After all, the Qunce Mountain area is vast. Although a secret high-power radio signal appears there, it is not necessarily a secret.There is a problem with the database. But before the Kwantung Army Headquarters issued the order to strengthen the alert for the Qunce Mountain garrison, the telegram sent from Sasaki to Kaichi made everyone at the Kwantung Army Headquarters immediately feel like cold water was being poured over their heads.
The rebels have extremely strong firepower. They are now equipped with a large number of imperial standard mortars and artillery. The number of light and heavy machine guns is even more astonishing. The number of their equipment has even exceeded that of the elite divisions of the Kwantung Army. And all of them are Imperial Army-standard Taisho 11, Type 96 light machine guns, and Type 92 heavy machine guns.
Where did the large amount of weapons and equipment needed by the rebels come from? After sending a telegram hoping that the Kwantung Army Headquarters could conduct a detailed inspection of various secret military warehouses under its subordinates, the Kwantung Army Headquarters combined the secret high-power radio signals previously discovered at the front line of Qunce Mountain, Immediately, I was keenly convinced that something happened to the secret warehouse in Qunce Mountain this time.
The Kwantung Army headquarters knew very well that the reason for the sudden increase in firepower of this group of gangsters without discovering any contact between their opponents and the Soviets was that they were the only ones to capture the secret warehouse in Qunce Mountain. Because in the entire Northern Manchuria region, apart from a secret warehouse in the Hylar region whose reserves are far inferior to those here, this is the only place that can provide such a large amount of equipment. This also explains why opponents have a huge amount of Imperial Army standard equipment in their hands.
In fact, Yang Zhen didn¡¯t know that the Kwantung Army Headquarters knew about Sasaki¡¯s accident much earlier than he expected. Otherwise, the Fourth Division's reinforcements would not have been so fast and its follow-up actions would not have been so powerful.
After confirming that something happened to the secret arms warehouse in Qunce Mountain, General Kenkichi Ueda, the commander-in-chief of the Kwantung Army, immediately gave Sasaki an order. Let him concentrate all the invasion and suppression troops to immediately change direction and attack the front line of Qunce Mountain with all their strength. No matter how much the price is paid, the secret warehouse in Qunce Mountain must be recaptured in the shortest possible time.
¡°If there was no response after issuing the order several times, Ueda Kenkichi had not yet discovered that something had happened to Sasaki. So after receiving the report from the Taipingchuan Group tribe from the Fourth Division about the intensive sound of gunfire coming from the Taipingchuan line, and comparing it with the previous news that he had lost all contact with Sasaki Ruiichi, he immediately reacted to this I'm afraid something happened to this guy Sasaki Toichi.
Although Ueda Kenkichi lost contact with Sasaki and felt something was wrong, he was a veteran Japanese general after all, and his reaction speed was definitely top-notch. Without the slightest hesitation, he immediately mobilized one infantry and cavalry regiment of the Fourth Division stationed in Jiamusi to quickly reinforce Sasaki's headquarters who had gone into the mountains to clear out the troops, and immediately found out the whereabouts of Sasaki at all costs.
Ueda Kenkichi, who was already distraught at the loss, ordered the Fourth Division to assemble troops overnight without even waiting for dawn. He also strictly ordered the commander of the Fourth Division, Lieutenant General Sawada Shigeru, to personally command the troops to reinforce Sasaki Yuichi. We must set out immediately after dawn the next day. Ueda Kenkichi's orders were extremely tough. As for whether the Fourth Division can complete mobilization within the time specified by him, it has nothing to do with him.
When the next day, Ueda Kenkichi, who was almost looking forward to death, received a telegram from Lieutenant General Sawada Shigeru Sasaki that the mutilated body of Shigeru Sasaki had been found, he was completely dumbfounded. A current lieutenant general was killed in battle. This was not only the first time that the Kwantung Army had wiped out the anti-Manchu anti-Japanese armed forces in Manchuria, but it was also an unprecedented first among the Japanese army.
News of the death of Lieutenant General Sasaki arrived, although it had not yet been reported to the Tokyo Base Camp, and the Tokyo Base Camp had not yet made a final decision. But Ueda Kenkichi clearly knew that this time his position as the commander of the Kwantung Army was really over.
Since the eyeball-like Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department incident in the Tokyo base camp last year until now, not only have I failed to completely annihilate this group of rebels and recover the lost top-secret information, but I have organized and suppressed them repeatedly, without making any progress, and I have also suffered heavy losses. Among the general-level officers alone, one lieutenant general and one major general were lost. As for junior officers, the number may be even greater. What happened continuously was enough to make the Tokyo base camp and even the Emperor furious.
Not only was he the first lieutenant general killed on the battlefield since the establishment of the new Japanese Army. There is also the previous incident of the Ministry of Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply. Just the loss of the secret warehouse, as well as the unknown number of military machinery and excess reserves of equipment in the warehouse, were enough for Ueda Kenkichi to take away.
The excess reserves of equipment in the secret munitions warehouse at Qunce Mountain were precisely after he took office. At that time, the then Kwantung Army Third Section Chief Staff Major Hanatani Masanobu and the Kwantung Army Depot Section Instructor Tsuji Masanobu were two enthusiastic northward marchers. With the desperate instigation of the Kwantung Army, the two chiefs of staff of the Kwantung Army, Tojo Hideki and Isotani Rensuke, carried out secretly behind the Tokyo base camp.
Ueda Kenkichi knows how much impact this secret will have on him once it is leaked. toBefore that Tsuji Masanobu was just a lecturer in the military depot class, and now he was just the chief combat staff officer. This board can't hit him no matter what. I'm afraid I have to settle old and new accounts together.
In order to cover up the secret of the secret warehouse at Kunze Mountain, Ueda Kenkichi did not even go through Lieutenant General Kenji Doihara, the commander of the Fifth Army who had just established the direct boss of the Fourth Division, but directly gave it to the commander of the Fourth Division, Sawada Shigenaka. Will. Ueda Kenkichi's move broke another record of the Japanese army. The commander of the front army bypassed the commander of the corps and directly commanded the division commander. This was the first time in the Japanese army.
In any case, although Ueda Kenkichi's movements were half a beat slow, he finally saved the 24th Regiment of the 12th Division, which had been severely damaged mentally and physically in just two days of fighting.
In order to regain the secret warehouse in Qunce Mountain as soon as possible and minimize the impact, Ueda Kenkichi did not let the 4th Division, which had completed the response task, return to the Jiamusi station. Instead, he and the 24th Regiment were stationed on the Taiping River line. On call. At the same time, an additional section of the Japanese 11th Division stationed in Mishan was deployed to quickly reinforce the 4th Division.
If it weren't for the persuasion of Chief of Staff Isotani Rensuke, while mobilizing reinforcements, Ueda Kenkichi would even hesitate to carry his stump leg that was injured in the 128 incident as the commander of the Kwantung Army. , arrived in Jiamusi in person to direct the suppression of Yang Zhen's troops.
Although he desperately wanted to take revenge and throw this anti-Manchu armed force into hell that had completely ruined his career, considering his last dignity as a general, he had very little dignity left. Ueda Kenji finally accepted Isotani Rensuke's advice and delegated command to Lieutenant General Doihara Kenji, commander of the Fifth Army.
¡°Whether Ueda Kenkichi¡¯s move was a desperate struggle, a desperate move, or the final act of madness. But the subsequent development of the incident was beyond his control. He did not expect that this attack would be exactly the opposite of the solution he expected. He threw himself into the troops participating in this attack. The 4th Division relied on its familiarity with the terrain and retreated quickly. Although it lost part of its troops, it finally escaped.
But the 44th Regiment of the 11th Division and the accompanying troops that he transferred from Mishan were completely lost. Major General Kuroiwa Yoshikatsu, the commander of the 22nd Brigade, also died on the front line of Qunce Mountain. The 57th Regiment of the First Division, which was responsible for outflanking the enemy from behind, also suffered heavy casualties. After passing through the primeval forest area of ??Xing'an Mountains and escaping back to Sun Wu, not only were all the heavy weapons lost, but even the infantry was gone.
The failure of this campaign was called by the Japanese base camp the biggest failure in the history of the Army in its armed operations against China. Ueda Kenkichi, who had lost all his bets, was not only dismissed from his post on the spot after returning to Japan, but also had his reserve service cancelled. His rank of general was deprived of him by direct order from the emperor, and he was demoted to major general and sent home to retire.
Being directly demoted from the position of general to major general, Ueda Kenkichi¡¯s ending can be regarded as breaking another record in the history of the Japanese army. He became the first among many generals to be demoted in rank since the establishment of the new Japanese army.