UGB #189 - New Operation No. 3
#189 - New Operation No. 3
Due to the Eighth Route Army's large-scale raid on the airport, nearly half of the Japanese warplanes stationed in North China were destroyed. Operation No. 3, originally scheduled to launch in May, had to be postponed to June due to the extended preparation work and the expansion of its scale.
The battlefield first started in the Jizhong base area. The Japanese army in North China, colluding with over 50,000 Japanese and puppet troops, and in coordination with the air force, launched hundreds of light armored vehicles known as Type 97 'bean' tanks and Type 94 tankettes. They marched out of their lairs in Beijing and Tianjin, and under the command of Commander Okamura, began to divide their forces and pounce on the Jizhong base area, implementing their so-called iron-wall encirclement.
This time, the Japanese tactics were extremely vile and ruthless, employing the tactics of 'longitudinal and horizontal netting, diagonal clearing, and repeated combined attacks' and the 'Three Alls Policy.' They built strongholds and bunkers, constructed highways, and dug blockade trenches, preparing to completely divide and devour the Jizhong Anti-Japanese Base Area and destroy the main force of the Eighth Route Army's Jizhong Military Region.
Without Ren Zhong's advance warning, the main force in the Jizhong base area would likely have suffered heavy losses in this sweep. In the original historical timeline, the base area misjudged the situation, resulting in heavy losses for the main force and the near-total fall of the base area into enemy-occupied territory.
It took more than two years to slowly recover.
However, in this timeline, with Ren Zhong's advance warning, the Border Region Staff Department attached great importance to it and directly deployed troops according to Ren Zhong's estimation, communicating with the Eighth Route Army headquarters to move the eight main regiments (22nd, 23rd, 26th, 27th, 28th, 31st, 32nd, and 33rd Regiments) out of the base area in advance to operate on the outer lines, while the remaining troops were broken up into smaller units and transformed into a secret underground struggle mode.
This strategy of the Eighth Route Army left the Japanese punching cotton. They were somewhat confused by the Eighth Route Army's tactics. After entering the base area and finding no opponents, they thought they had won without a fight and began to seize civilians everywhere to build blockhouses and highways.
However, the Jizhong main force suddenly struck the Japanese.
They fully utilized the tactics of feinting east and attacking west, moving at night and hiding during the day, and attacking the weak points while avoiding the strong.
They seized opportunities to ambush the puppet troops who had widened the distance, delivering a fatal blow before resolutely turning around and leaving, never fighting positional warfare or hard battles!
This approach made the Japanese troops, who were sent out on expeditions, exhaustedly chase after the Jizhong main force's tail, unknowingly being led by the nose and gradually running to the edge of the Taihang Mountains, circling around the mountains.
Due to the continuous annihilation of puppet troops, coupled with the support and ammunition supply from the brotherly units in the Taihang Mountains, the Jizhong main force, after two weeks of continuous fighting, had sufficient food and ammunition, and its strength did not decrease. On the contrary, its combat experience became stronger and stronger.
After receiving the mortars and Type 56 semi-automatic rifles prepared for them by Taihang, the strength of these eight main regiments in Jizhong suddenly increased dramatically.
They continuously seized opportunities where the Japanese and puppet troops were disconnected, and launched several beautiful annihilation battles, wiping out more than 5,000 puppet troops and hundreds of Japanese soldiers.
However, the Japanese were not fools. According to their established strategy, they resolutely turned the Jizhong base area upside down, verifying the local people one by one, causing heavy losses to the remaining armed work teams. For the villages that used landmine warfare and guerrilla warfare, the Japanese no longer pretended and directly started the village extermination mode, arresting most of the young and middle-aged men in the villages and transporting them away, while the remaining elderly, weak, women, and children suffered tragically.
More than 50,000 young and middle-aged men were arrested and became death laborers.
The Japanese did not feel any pain for the lost puppet troop cannon fodder. Anyway, after giving a little dog food, there would always be many people willing to come to the door to be lackeys, consuming the Chinese people.
Ren Zhong was powerless to do anything about the news.
He is not a god. Being able to preserve the main force of Jizhong in the face of absolute advantage, leaving the spark for revenge when his heavy weapons production capacity explodes, he would advise against taking any prisoners.
The Jizhong counter-sweep began in the most brutal mode. Okamura, the Japanese devil, was indeed a butcher destined for the gallows, ruthless and unscrupulous, creating one tragedy after another.
He was heavily in debt with blood in Jizhong.
Just as everyone thought that the Japanese army would end this operation after sweeping Jizhong, they did not expect the main force of the Japanese army in North China to suddenly change its formation.
A full two divisions and three mixed brigades, plus two main divisions of the Kwantung Army secretly moving south, suddenly appeared on the edges of the Taiyue and Taihang base areas, dividing into several routes to launch surprise attacks on the Eighth Route Army headquarters and tens of thousands of troops of the Nationalist army who had retreated to the mountains but had not yet been transferred out.
During the day, Japanese reconnaissance planes kept circling and scouting in the mountains, searching for the traces of the main forces of the Eighth Route Army and the Nationalist army. Once they were discovered, the Japanese troops on the ground would swarm in.
Faced with the sudden appearance of the two Japanese divisions, the Eighth Route Army and the Nationalist army were not psychologically prepared. The Japanese had done a very good job of keeping this secret, directly mobilizing the two divisions of the Kwantung Army to Shimen by rail before they were exposed.
In the mountains of Taihang and Taiyue, if they were determined to run away, they would basically disappear without a trace. A battalion or company could scatter into a mountain, and even a dog could not catch up.
Not to mention that no one is better at running away than the Nationalist army.
Therefore, for the new encirclement and suppression by the Japanese, these troops dispersed and wandered in the mountains, making it impossible for the Japanese to find the specific location of the main force.
For the Eighth Route Army, this was just commonplace. Moving every day was a daily routine. The soldiers had a very firm will and a firm belief that they must drive away the Japanese, so they moved randomly, and the more they ran, the stronger the troops became.
But for the Nationalist army, lacking a strong spiritual core, running thirty miles a day was considered good.
Therefore, seeing that the Japanese were unusually persistent in their pursuit this time, the Nationalist army began to complain endlessly. The high-level officers of these troops had to propose to find a way to return south.
If they continued to chase like this in the mountains, the team would really disperse in a few weeks.
With their current size, the Nationalist government could not easily abandon them.
After all, if they dispersed and went home to farm, it would be fine, but if these people were allowed to surrender and become puppet troops, the harm would be even greater, which would be equivalent to doubling the strength of the Japanese army.
Faced with such a major event, the Nationalist government had to cooperate with the Eighth Route Army.
Otherwise, with the strength of the Nationalist remnants alone, it would be difficult for them to break through the Japanese encirclement. Without adequate supplies, the Nationalist troops were far less intelligent than Li Yunlong and could not solve the supply problem themselves. Therefore, after several months of wandering, they could not even guarantee one gun per person, and the ammunition was as scarce as the early Eighth Route Army, reaching the begging level of a few rounds per person.
The Eighth Route Army Headquarters naturally could not sit idly by and watch this friendly army become an enemy army. After repeated transmissions and consultations, they finally agreed to open a passage to the south for the friendly army and send them to the north bank of the Yellow River.
It was necessary to let the Nationalist remnants break through the Japanese southern encirclement, ensure that the Nationalist troops would not be completely lost here, and reduce the Japanese military pressure in North China.
Now, the southern bank of the Yellow River still had to rely on the First War Zone to hold the battle. Since the evil consequences of the Zhongtiao Mountain collapse were not suffered in this timeline, Commander Wei was still firmly stationed in the First War Zone. For the Eighth Route Army, this was already a good ending.
Second update