Chapter 57: Pointless Change of Hands
The Chiang Kai-shek faction and the Guangxi faction fought below their standard in southern Guangxi, but the Northwest did not laugh at this. The reason was not that the Northwest still had sympathy for Chiang Kai-shek and Guangxi, but actually the Northwest was also facing a not-so-small crisis at this moment.
It is said that this crisis was actually self-inflicted, and this has to start with Liu Wenhui.
After being promoted from deputy commander-in-chief to commander-in-chief of the Hunan-Hubei-Bashu War Zone, the Taoist Duobao was eager to demonstrate his command capabilities.
In fact, as early as when the Lanfeng Campaign was still going on, Liu Wenhui commanded Liu Duoquan's troops of the First Corps and Sun Lianzhong's troops of the 19th Army to launch a counterattack in western Hubei. They took advantage of the Japanese army's troop weakness to recapture Zhongxiang, Jingmen and other counties and advanced part of the guerrilla force to De'an, Xiaogan, Jingshan, Tianmen and Yingcheng, threatening the Japanese army's rule in northern Han.
After the Battle of Lanfeng, the newly appointed Liu Wenhui started his first attack just one week later. At that time, he arrogantly ordered the new deputy commander of the war zone, Wang Baoyuan, who was not actually under his direct command, to attack the Gong'an and Shishou lines, cut off the Yangtze River shipping, and threaten Jiangling, Shashi and Yichang occupied by the Japanese army.
Due to the failure of the Lanfeng Campaign, the Northwest was forced to yield to the side forces under his command. Influenced by this, Wang Baoyuan accepted Liu Wenhui's unreasonable dispatch and sent Liu Heding's 39th Army to carry out the task of attacking south of the Yangtze River. He personally commanded the 250th Division and Chen Guanqun's 124th Division to attack Dangyang and Yuan'an.
After three and a half weeks of fighting, Wang Baoyuan commanded his troops to successfully capture the four county towns mentioned above. At the same time, he killed three to four thousand Japanese and puppet troops, including a Japanese major garrison captain, and captured a batch of guns, artillery and supplies. Liu Heding's troops also further recovered Huarong and Nanxian, threatening the flank of Yueyang and causing considerable shock to the Japanese troops in central China.
Liu Wenhui's first fire was lit, but its success was ultimately due to the soldiers' dedication and Wang Baoyuan's good obedience, and it did not reflect his ability. Therefore, the ambitious Liu Wenhui subsequently planned to lead the main force south to recapture Yichang, Jiangling, Shashi and other important gateways along the Yangtze River in one fell swoop.
At that time, the Hunan-Hubei-Bashu War Zone had one army group and two corps north of the Yangtze River, as well as the Nanjinguan Garrison including the 250th Division and the 124th Division, and the 2nd Independent Artillery Regiment, with a total of about 160,000 people. Among them, the Nanjinguan Garrison was directly under the Northwest National Defense Army Headquarters and commanded by Wang Baoyuan, and could not be directly mobilized by Liu Wenhui.
Therefore, Liu Wenhui instructed the commander of the First Corps, Liu Duoquan, to command the 51st Army and the 42nd and other five divisions to garrison Suixian and Zaoyang, and all other units were transferred south.
According to Liu Wenhui's plan, five divisions including the 77th Army of the 19th Group Army and the 6th Reserve Army of the 10th Corps would be used to block possible Japanese reinforcements that might be dispatched from Xiantao and Qianjiang.
The 56th Army of the First Corps, the 24th Army of the Tenth Corps, and the 30th Army of the Nineteenth Army Group were responsible for attacking Jiangling and Shashi.
Bao Gang's guerrilla army on the border of Hubei and Henan contained the Japanese army on the line of Suixian and De'an, while the guerrilla army in central Hubei operated between Jingshan and Yingcheng.
In addition, Liu Wenhui also sent a telegram to the Northwest, asking Wang Baoyuan to command the 250th Division to conduct a diversionary operation near Yichang.
Now that the plan was finalized, the army marched southwards in no time.
However, on the road from Xiangyang to Jingzhou in the south, only the banks of the Han River are flat, and the rest require crossing mountains and ridges.
Liu Wenhui naturally did not want to be caught in the Japanese aerial reconnaissance before the battle even started , and he was not commanding the Northwest Army which had a large number of anti-aircraft artillery. Therefore, in order to conceal the movements of the troops and avoid aircraft bombing, Liu Wenhui decided that except for the five divisions reserved for blocking that could use the Han River, the rest of the troops could only advance through the Wudang Mountains. In the snowy winter, one can imagine how difficult it would be.
But Liu Wenhui never expected that his actions would still fall into the sight of the Japanese army. When the Chinese army, which had lost considerable manpower, finally emerged from the deep mountains and forests, the Japanese army had already strengthened its garrisons in Jiangling, Shashi, and Yichang, and even stationed gunboats of the Chinese dispatched fleet, commonly known as the "Yangtze River Fleet", in Shashi.
Therefore, Liu Wenhui's offensive encountered great resistance. After 15 days of fierce attack, 8 divisions of the Chinese army suffered heavy casualties, but still failed to succeed.
What made Liu Wenhui even more upset was that Okamura Neiji did not send reinforcements from Xiantao as he had planned. Instead, he used the navy to transport reinforcements and landed directly in Jiangling, catching the Chinese army off guard.
When the Japanese army surrounded the Chinese army from both inside and outside, Su Huazhou, the deputy commander of the 24th Army in the front line command, inhaled Japanese poison gas and died. The headquarters of the 56th Army was also bombed by Japanese planes, and the commander Mou Zhongheng was seriously injured by shrapnel.
The commander and command structure were destroyed, and the Chinese army, like a headless fly, could no longer hold on. All units retreated spontaneously, and the Japanese army pursued them all the way. The Chinese army was littered with corpses and the scene was tragic beyond description.
In a hurry, Liu Wenhui bypassed Wang Baoyuan and ordered Liu Heding's troops to cross the river to attack Jianli and Jiangling, but was rejected by Liu Heding. After learning the news of the defeat in Jiangbei, Liu Heding was even worried about being attacked by the Japanese army from Yueyang, so he took the initiative to give up Shishou, Huarong and Nanxian.
Liu Heding, who disobeyed the order, was later dismissed from his post but retained his position, but this did not alleviate Liu Wenhui's predicament.
To make matters worse, Okamura Neiji took advantage of the fact that Liu Wenhui's forces were scattered and the defenses on the Xiangfan line were weak, and dispatched the 3rd and 13th Divisions to launch an attack on the Sui-Zao line.
The Japanese troops attacked from two directions like two iron brooms, not only defeating the five divisions that Liu Wenhui had planned to block between the Han River and the Yangtze River, but also defeating Liu Duoquan and other troops who were left behind in the Sui-Zao Corridor.
On January 17, 1940, Sui County fell, and two days later, Zaoyang also fell.
The Chinese army, which had lost its weapons and armor, even abandoned the important town of Xiangfan and fled upstream along the Han River.
The unstoppable Japanese army burned, killed, raped and looted, committing countless atrocities in northwestern Hubei. The poor Chinese people paid the price with blood for Liu Wenhui's arrogance.
After the Japanese army captured Xiangfan and Zaoyang, Lieutenant General Tanaka Shizukazu, commander of the 13th Division, proposed to march south to capture Jingmen, Zhongxiang and other places. However, Lieutenant General Yamawaki Masataka, commander of the 3rd Division, which served as the main force, advocated to march into Nanyang with great momentum.
It is understandable that the two have different strategies. After all, the 13th Division is stationed on the line of Yingcheng and Jingzhou, while the 3rd Division is stationed on the line of Xinyang and Dawu, and their interests are not consistent.
Colonel Shinichi Endo, Chief of Staff of the 3rd Division, and Colonel Takuma Ishikawa, Chief of Staff of the 13th Division, then negotiated at De'an Juexing, but neither could convince the other, so the Japanese army split into two groups and acted separately, which provided an opportunity for the subsequent counterattack by the Chinese army.
In view of the disastrous defeat in the Hunan-Hubei-Bashu war zone, the Lanzhou Supreme Command was forced to mobilize the Seventh Army and the Eleventh Corps, Yang Sen's troops, and the Twelfth Army, Liu Ruming's troops, which were resting in Nanyang, to enter Hubei to assist in the battle.
However, before the above-mentioned units entered Hubei, the Japanese 3rd Division had already entered Xinye.
At the same time, the Third Division stationed in Xinyang appointed Colonel Takano Naomitsu, commander of the 18th Infantry Regiment, as the detachment commander. He selected three and a half infantry battalions from the 18th Infantry Regiment and the 31st Infantry Regiment, as well as 13 squadrons of cavalry, artillery, engineers, and light and heavy troops to form the Takano Detachment, which attacked the Biyang line, intending to join forces with the southeast to threaten Nanyang.
Chen Youliang, deputy commander-in-chief of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui War Zone, immediately adjusted his subordinates, using Yang Sen's Sichuan Army and Liu Ruming's 68th Army to delay the enemy advancing westward. The main force of the Seventh Army concentrated the 207th, 208th, 238th and 240th Divisions to attack the enemy invading Xinye and Tanghe.
At the same time, the Hubei-Henan-Anhui war zone also took the initiative to attack in the southern foothills of the Dabie Mountains and north of Anqing, harassing the Japanese-controlled areas in western Anhui and northeastern Hubei.
An expert can tell whether something is strong or weak with just one move. Although the Third Division is rampaging in northwestern Hubei, it is actually just a detachment with a strength of tens of thousands of people.
Although the various units of the Seventh Army suffered heavy losses in the Battle of East Henan and have not recovered to this day, they still have 20,000 people in four divisions. In addition, the army level sent artillery and armored battle groups to assist in the battle. Lieutenant General Yamawaki Masataka accidentally broke a tooth.
When Okamura Yasuji came back from a nap, he discovered that the 3rd Division had accidentally exceeded the offensive cut-off line set by the army headquarters, and he was immediately shocked.
The 13th Division was transferred after the Battle of East Henan to replace the 101st Division to garrison Xinyang. It had no idea of the strength of the Northwest Army. Now, eager to win, it actually charged into the Northwest Army's lair. This was fatal.
Lieutenant General Okamura Yasuji then immediately ordered the 13th Division to send troops to the north for support. At the same time, he also ordered the 3rd Division to withdraw the Takano Detachment advancing westward as soon as possible to avoid the formation of a second encirclement in southern Henan.
It must be said that Okamura Yasuji acted quickly. Just as the Japanese Kono Detachment began to retreat, Men Bingyue's Reserve Cavalry Corps of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui War Zone launched a surprise attack on the Xindong area under the strict order of Lanzhou.
The 13th Division, which headed north overnight, also launched an all-out attack to assist the 3rd Division in escaping.
The Seventh Army, which suffered further losses, was unable to pursue and could only watch the Japanese army retreat to northwestern Hubei.
Lieutenant General Yamawaki Masataka, who escaped, thought that his territory was too large and difficult to defend, so after communicating with the commander of , the Japanese army gave up Xiangyang, Fancheng, Zaoyang and Suixian.
The 13th Corps also withdrew from Yicheng immediately, and the main force withdrew to the Jingshan line, retaining only some troops to continue garrisoning in Jiangling, Shashi, Yichang and Jianli.
The two sides basically returned to the pre-war confrontation situation.
However, for this meaningless change of hands, the Chinese side paid a painful price of 7 divisions being defeated, 4 divisions severely damaged, 1 deputy army commander sacrificed, 1 army-level and 3 division-level cadres injured, 11 regiment commanders and deputy regiment commanders injured or killed, and a total of more than 42,120 officers and soldiers below the battalion level killed or wounded. A large amount of military equipment and supplies were seized by the Japanese army. In a sense, the Japanese army in central China has temporarily eliminated the threat in the northwestern Hubei direction.
