vstars Chapter 113
Chapter 113
Finally, thinking of the previous attack strategy of the sneak attack on Changzhi, Okabe Naosaburo decided to divide his troops and gave a strict order to his subordinates, prohibiting them from fighting at night, and they must find a good location and be on guard when setting up camp to rest.
At the same time, all battles can only be carried out during the day. If there is news that other troops are attacked, no support is allowed without the order of the headquarters, and the mopping-up operation must continue. At the same time, the air force is ordered to take turns taking off during the day to conduct aerial reconnaissance.
When Naosaburo Okabe issued this order to the various regiments below, it immediately caused a burst of laughter. Even ordinary sergeants told the soldiers that the commander had developed a fear of Zeng because of the beating by the Chinese Zeng Jiwen.
Everyone rushed to say that they wanted to capture Zeng Jiwen of the 389th Brigade alive so that the commander could have a good sleep.
After the Japanese army's order was announced, it immediately brought some joy to the tense atmosphere in Jin.
When all parties in the Chinese army heard about the cautious and prudent operation of the commander of the Japanese First Army, they all sighed that it was worthy of Zeng Jiwen. He had changed three commanders of the First Army in less than half a year. The operation of the third commander made many people drop their eyebrows.
The husband who was far away at home also heard about this and joked to the people around him: "The commander has lost morale before the battle even started. It seems that the result is already visible~"
When Zeng Jiwen received this news, he immediately understood that Okabe Naosaburo had studied a lot of battles between the 389th Brigade and the Japanese army before, not only the previous encirclement and annihilation battles, but also the large and small ambushes carried out by the subordinate units on their own initiative, otherwise he would not be so cautious.
In fact, Zeng Jiwen did guess right. When the General Staff was formulating the battle plan, Okabe Naosaburo, in order to be cautious, ordered people to compile all the battle reports in southeastern Shanxi over the past six months. If you don't read it, you won't know what it is. When you see it, you will be shocked.
In addition to the previous losses of the 108th Division, the Locust Army's garrison in the county town in southeastern Shanxi Province almost completely replaced all its soldiers. However, due to the small number of people each time, no one paid attention and just thought it was a routine small attack.
However, from the summary of the battle reports, the total casualties added up to almost an entire regiment, which was more than the casualties in the last major battle. But every time reports were made from various places, there were only a dozen or twenty people, and no one cared at all.
Under such casualties, according to Okabe Naosaburo's estimation, the 389th Brigade was fully capable of annihilating an entire regiment of the Locust Army, so he wanted to use more troops to encircle them. However, he did not have enough troops, and attacking in a group was ineffective. He could only warn the troops below that they must be accompanied by air force support as soon as possible.
Thinking that since the troops are insufficient, no matter how strong your 389th Brigade is, it will only suffer heavy casualties under the bombing of the Imperial aircraft, so he made this smart decision.
On the 20th, Okabe Naosaburo ordered the Japanese troops stationed in various places to start sweeping along the designated combat routes and encircling the 389th Brigade. At the 389th Brigade, after the Japanese troops were dispatched, Zeng Jiwen received a message from the headquarters. As predicted before, the Japanese army encircled southeastern Shanxi with nine routes, each consisting of a regiment.
Immediately, Zeng Jiwen issued the operational plan for the first phase of the anti-encirclement and suppression campaign, and the counter-mopping-up campaign in southeastern Shanxi officially began under the command of Zeng Jiwen.
As the Japanese army began to move out, according to previous arrangements, Deputy Brigade Commander Huang Hanjia and Wu Lin respectively went to the local areas with Deng Xie, Liu Ming and others to organize local regiments and militias, evacuate the people in the villages along the route the Japanese army was preparing to march, and at the same time, prepare for the subsequent work of recovering the county seat.
In an instant, the entire base became extremely tense.
Throughout the day, various local regiments began to harass the Japanese troops along their routes, slowing down their advance.