Just as the Kwantung Army was always ready to fight against the Soviet Union, his so-called biggest enemy never completely cut off their desire to go south to find a warm outlet to the sea. The Kwantung Army is always ready to go north, and others may not be ready to go south.
How to create an impression that the Kwantung Army is still indestructible to the equally ambitious opponent has become the most urgent problem for Umezu Yoshijiro and the new Chief of Staff Yoshimoto Teiichi. After all, compared to the Anti-Japanese Alliance, the polar bear with stronger national power and military power was a much greater threat to the Kwantung Army's rule in Manchuria.
While urgently transferring a large number of uniforms, uniforms, and weapons to the embarrassment of the 23rd Division, the Kwantung Army Headquarters also urgently transferred 12 troops from the remaining divisions, local garrison units, and even the border garrison. A squadron was replenished to the 23rd Division as quickly as possible. Artillery and cavalry were transferred from other divisions to supplement the 23rd Division.
In order to restore the combat effectiveness of the 23rd Division in the shortest time, the Kwantung Army has almost reached the point of doing whatever it takes. It only took five days to reorganize the already dilapidated 23rd Division into a complete division, at least on the surface.
Even in order to create an illusion for the Soviet army, the Kwantung Army privately ordered the 23rd Division to proactively provoke the Soviet and Mongolian troops to show that its combat effectiveness had been fully restored. But in fact, even if the 23rd Division is a crazy supplement to the Kwantung Army, it is still far from truly restoring its combat effectiveness.
This is why the troops of the 23rd Division have provoked many times and even entered the depths of Outer Mongolia. However, as long as the Soviet-Mongolian coalition forces make a slight counterattack, they will immediately withdraw and will never entangle with the Soviet-Mongolian army. Of course, before the Soviet-Mongolian army counterattacked, in order to show the military power of the Japanese Empire, these Japanese troops could still hang around in Mongolia for a while, as long as possible.
"What the Kwantung Army Headquarters didn't expect was that their actions indeed frightened the Soviet troops stationed in Mongolia. Even the Soviet General Staff Headquarters in Moscow was deceived by them. But Yang Zhen got a big deal and got a large amount of ammunition and equipment for free.
The logistics department was naturally very happy to receive such a large amount of supplies. With this batch of supplies, the arsenal, which has been somewhat exhausted by heavy production tasks during this period, can finally breathe a sigh of relief in some aspects. At least the production speed of the fully charged Soviet M-1908 rifle ammunition, 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine gun ammunition and 120mm mortar shells used in general machine guns can be slowed down slightly.
The arrival of these Soviet compensation equipment and supplies also heralded the participation of the three parties and four countries, but the fight was a bit messy. The Lingxi Battle, which lasted less than half a month, ended in an anticlimactic manner. After the battle, Yang Zhen did not continue southward to Xing'an Province, but ordered the 1st and 4th Divisions going south to switch to defense at the southern foot of the Xing'an Mountains south of Aershan.
Yang Zhen did not forcibly suppress the mood among the troops to avenge the compatriots who died in Hylar. Instead, the documentary filmed in Hailar was played in various units, including local units and various cities, in turn, raising the morale and fighting spirit of the troops. Letters of challenge and even blood letters were sent to the headquarters one after another.
Not only did the troops get excited by him, but even the common people showed unprecedented cohesion and war consciousness after watching these documentaries. Many students took to the streets to demonstrate without any mobilization. In addition to expressing their patriotic wishes, they called on everyone to join the army and raise military funds for the Anti-Japanese War.
Suddenly, the enthusiasm for joining the army surged throughout the base area. Go to the front line, all for the front line slogans fill the streets, alleys, and even the rural fields. Donations one after another also went to the Northeast Bureau and the Anti-Resistance Headquarters. At various army stations, young people who wanted to join the army could not be turned away.
But what is incomprehensible next is the excitement among the soldiers and civilians in the base area. Yang Zhen himself left the task of combined training of the troops, as well as the distribution of troops, ammunition hoarding and other tasks to Guo Bingxun, Chen Hanzhang, Zhang Zhenhua and others.
Even the issue of troop deployment in the new area west of the Daxingan Mountains has been left to Yang Jingyu, who is in charge of local armed forces in the military region, and Wang Guangyu, commander of the Nenjiang Military Region. Except for the occasional trip to Qiqihar to discuss the distribution of troops in the west with Wang Guangyu, he almost no longer interfered. Even if he brought Chen Long, the military intelligence chief, to Qiqihar, there would not be many opportunities to meet Wang Guangyu.
"And he himself was either running back and forth between Qiqihar and Jiamusi, or secretly discussing something with Chen Long, the military intelligence minister, in a secret room, or having talks with Kovalev in Harbin. As for what the two of them were discussing and what they were talking about with Kovalev, no one knew. Yang Zhen never mentioned it to anyone, nor did he let anyone else ask.
Seeing that Guo Bingxun became the hands-off shopkeeper because of Yang Zhen, he was so busy that the sky was dark and the earth was dark. Li Yanping, who felt sorry for Guo Bingxun, wanted to ask several times, but finally endured it. He knew that Yang Zhen must be secretly planning something, so he boldly let go at this most critical period for the development of the entire Anti-Japanese Alliance.
In addition, Li Yanping himself is not the kind of person who is overly curious. So as to what Yang Zhen was doing during this period of time, he resisted and didn't ask anything. Because he knew that no matter what Yang Zhen was doing, he was doing it for the vital interests of the Anti-Japanese Alliance and even the Chinese nation. Li Yanping believed even more that Yang Zhen would never act recklessly.
¡°However, Li Yanping obviously thought too idealistically about his partner. If he knew what Yang Zhen was planning, it would be weird if he didn't fall out with him on the spot. Because Yang Zhen was busy with only one thing during this period, which was to figure out how to let his ally shed more blood in the upcoming Soviet-German war.
And try every means to use the Soviet Union to get more benefits for the Anti-Japanese Alliance when they are stuck in the quagmire of war. Although Yang Zhen's plan pitted not only the Soviets, but also other major participating countries. But his plan was mainly based on the Soviets.
In particular, the T-34 tanks, Yak-1 fighter jets, Peter II bombers, 1937-type 152mm howitzers, M-30122mm howitzers, etc. that he has long been eyeing. These Soviet Union The military has always refused to sell equipment. Of course, there is also the ZLS III 76mm cannon that the Soviet Army has completed development but has not yet put into production.
Yang Zhen is already salivating over the equipment that will be used in the upcoming Soviet-German war. Even the German army, which has always looked down on the Soviet military industry, has acquired it. Yang Zhen has already been coveting it, and he has long wanted to get it. As for those thin-skinned tanks such as T-26 and BT, they were not what he really wanted.
In order to obtain these powerful weapons and equipment that are very suitable for the current situation of the Anti-Japanese Alliance, we can regain the entire Northeast as soon as possible. Since the Soviets were openly unwilling to transfer, Yang Zhen could only play dirty with them even if he didn't want to.
Although we have prepared weapons and equipment that can be exchanged, we can take advantage of the Soviet army's huge equipment losses in the early battles to exchange for the equipment we want. You can even use the Soviet Union, which lost its grain-producing areas in Ukraine and was short of everything in the first two years of the war, to exchange grain for these equipment.
But Yang Zhen felt as uncomfortable as if a bone was stuck in his heart. The feeling of being picked on after spending a lot of money really made Yang Zhen uncomfortable. Without this opportunity to trick them, Yang Zhen would not be able to balance his mind at all. Moreover, Yang Zhen did not want to see another situation like what he knew in history, where the Soviets were still secretly attacking China despite having too much to take care of themselves.
Yang Zhen, who traveled from a later life, knew better than anyone in the world what the outcome of the bloody battle, considered the bloodiest in the twentieth century, would be. In this war, he even knew more about the general deployment of troops on both sides, as well as the development trends of weapons and equipment, including the battle history of previous wars, than the general staffs of both sides.
How to make the Soviets pay more in this bloody war that lasted for four full years. Let it have no time to look eastward during World War II and relieve some of the pressure on itself and even Xinjiang. They could even take advantage of the Soviets being attracted to the western battlefield and take advantage of the situation to regain Outer Mongolia. But it couldn't change the outcome of the entire World War II, but it made Yang Zhen spend a lot of thought.
Although the more than one million Soviet troops stationed in the Far East Military Region and the Siberian Military Region were all prepared for the Kwantung Army. And they have successively begun to be transferred westward to the Moscow Military District, the Ural Military District and other second-line military districts in the western Soviet Union. But the remaining hundreds of thousands of troops and a large amount of mechanized equipment are a big pressure for any army.
And it was not only the Japanese Kwantung Army that felt huge pressure, but also the Anti-Japanese Alliance. This kind of alternative pressure brought even greater pressure to Yang Zhen than the Japanese Kwantung Army. Because unless he is willing to become a pawn in the hands of the Soviets, the Soviet leader may really fall out with him once he thinks that he wants to get rid of the Soviets that day.
For Yang Zhen, these troops were prepared for the Kwantung Army. But under necessary circumstances, or when they think they need it, or when they think they have harmed the interests of their so-called great Soviet, they can also turn around and deal with themselves.
"For the Soviets, when they think they need it, they don't care whether you are their ally or enemy. When necessary, the same will be done. Only when the hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops stationed behind him dropped to a number that Yang Zhen could accept, would Yang Zhen feel at ease when sleeping at night.
After all, no one wants to have a sharp sword hanging above their head and hundreds of thousands of well-equipped troops gathered behind them while they are fighting bloody battles. Especially this army belongs to a so-called ally who has had the experience of stabbing others in the back many times when they were in trouble.
The performance of the Soviets in the west made Yang Zhen always wary of them. This is also the reason why Yang Zhen retained these fortresses used by the Kwantung Army to fight against the Soviet Union after successively capturing a large number of fortresses built by the Kwantung Army on the national border. Because Yang Zhen doesn¡¯t want to be the second Pole