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Text Chapter 945 Turbulent September

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    On September 12, the National News Agency in Beijing announced the results of the Naval Battle of Guam. As soon as the news came out, it set off a lot of naval craze in the country, and many young people even considered wearing navy badges as a fashion.  On the afternoon of the same day, in order to ease the tense atmosphere over Pyongyang's loss of North Korea, the Ministry of National Defense also officially announced the victory of the Petropavlovsk Battle, which had been suppressed for several days.

    Compared with the difficulties faced by the Navy, the Army seems to have gone crazy in the northwest!  Only a week after the siege of Petropavlovsk in early August, the 16th Army and the 33rd Army of the South Kazakh Army, led by the Polish 2nd Armored Division and the 103rd Central Guard Division, forcibly broke through the defenses of five Soviet divisions and occupied  Barabinsk.  Not only did it include Omsk in the Petropavlovsk encirclement, but it also officially cut off the Siberian Railway, leaving behind a series of Soviet eastern fortresses such as Barnaul, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, and Krasnoyarsk.  , to complete the expected strategy of encirclement of Central Siberia.

    On the third day after the siege, the Air Force officially launched a full-scale bombing campaign against Petropavlovsk and all fortress cities to the east. In a total of 20 days of bombing, more than 60,000 tons of various bombs were dropped, destroying all types of fortified buildings.  There were hundreds of fortresses and bunkers, more than 40 bridges were blown up, and basic living facilities such as roads, power generation, and drinking water were completely destroyed and paralyzed in these places. Incendiary bombs were also used to cause large-scale damage to food and farmland about to be harvested.  As the harsh winter is about to enter, the Central Siberian wilderness cannot be inhabited without these facilities, so a total of 1.1 million Slavic immigrants and residents of other ethnic groups living in these places are forced to retreat to the Ural region of Western Siberia.  At the same time, Long Yun and Liu Mingzhao also seized the opportunity of the chaos of the refugee retreat to launch a general attack on Petropavlovsk and Omsk.

    After three weeks of bloody fighting and the cost of more than 70,000 casualties, Timoshenko's troops finally ran out of ammunition and food.  A total of 200,000 Soviet defenders in the two places were completely annihilated, and more than 110,000 were killed alone.  With the two fortress cities guarding Central Siberia and northwest Kazakhstan completely falling into the hands of the National Defense Forces.  After a year of fighting, the Republic of China finally liberated all of Central Asia east of the Aral Sea, semi-encircled Central Siberia, and pushed the defense line to less than 800 kilometers away from the Ural Industrial Zone in West Siberia.

    At this point, all the key objectives in the spring and summer offensive of 1940 were completed, and a defense line from the Aral Sea to Petropavlovsk and extending north to the town of Tevriz in the north of Omsk was fully formed.  After learning that the two areas had been breached, the 9th, 22nd, 33rd and 47th armies of the Siberian Army stationed on the east bank of Krasnoyarsk also launched a fierce attack on the west bank and fully occupied it five days later.  But just when Moscow was worried about completely losing Central Siberia.  However, the Wehrmacht stopped and formed a three-sided encirclement of Barnaul, Novosibirsk and Tomsk, and then began to build railways, airports, bunkers and fortifications, and began to stockpile winter supplies.

    After hearing the news, Zhukov immediately went to see Stalin.  He was asked to order as soon as possible to have 200,000 Siberian sergeants from the three areas break out to Surgut in the north along the Ob River, the only gap, and from there detour south to Tyumen and Kurgan to strengthen defenses.  But Stalin turned a blind eye, ignoring the fact that local people's livelihood and winter supplies were basically destroyed by air strikes, and scolded Zhukov.  The local soldiers and civilians were forced to continue to hold on.  Zhukov was very angry, but could not disobey the order. Finally, he approached Ural Front Army Chief of Staff Rokossovsky, using "fleeing refugees" as a cover.  A retreat plan was secretly formulated to withdraw seven divisions totaling 120,000 soldiers from three places.

    Timoshenko did not know what the two men were doing. After learning the news at the end of November, he immediately reported it to Stalin.  The two were arrested and sent to Moscow.  Stalin was also very angry for a time, until he learned about the tragic situation in Central Siberia in December.  Then he re-examined his order and released the two men.  Because of this, Zhukov also returned to the front-line command position.

    This is all a thing for later.

    After the completion of the spring and summer offensive, the northwest, which had been fighting fiercely for five months, finally entered the interwar period.  In a total of five months of fighting, although the National Defense Forces fought consecutive victories, they also paid a price of 550,000 casualties (including injuries). A total of 1,100 aircraft and more than 4,000 tanks and armored vehicles were lost, and the total consumption of various types of  13 million tons of supplies (calculated in terms of transportation volume, including everything shipped to the front line).  It is said that war is all about logistics. This number can also explain from the side why the Wehrmacht was able to win consecutive battles. On the contrary, the Soviet army, which suffered consecutive defeats, even if it fought inside the country, from the beginning to the end of the Petropavlovs Battle, it only transported troops to the front line.  5 million tons of supplies were purchased, which was less than half of the National Defense Force.

    Whether it is logistical pressure or the extension of transportation lines, after several months of continuous fighting, the soldiers have reached the point where they need large-scale rest and recuperation.  Therefore, Yue Peng decisively ordered to stop large-scale fighting, seize the time to restore troops, reserve winter supplies, dredge roads, and build more railways and airports.  Of course, this also gave Moscow a chance to breathe, Soviet Europe and the CaucasusThe integrity of the region gave Stalin the capital to continue fighting, so more and more people began to put on military uniforms, and a large number of tanks and aircraft were continuously manufactured. This also indicates that the battle in the coming year will be more intense and cruel.  But as repairs to the Petropavlovkos railway and airfield speed up, the Ural industrial zone is already within the radius of Chinese bombers.  What¡¯s worse is that after losing resources such as Central Asia and Kazakhstan, which are large granaries, meat, cotton, nickel mines, copper mines in Omsk, etc., Moscow¡¯s supplies have also begun to be tight, especially as the food pressure has become increasingly serious.  , had to adopt measures to restrict purchases and reduce the rations of ordinary people to maintain huge military supplies.

    Strict purchase restrictions and the sight of only three black breads a day make some elderly people seem to have returned to the most difficult years of the European War.  On the contrary, the rearmed and larger troops were like giant gold-eating beasts, constantly chewing up and devouring the flesh and blood of the Soviet Union's decades of development.  Coupled with the declaration of war between China and Britain, the Soviet Union was completely unable to obtain external food support. Even if a large granary like India had turned to the Soviet Union, it would not be able to obtain food for a moment.  Under such pressure, Moscow also wanted to seek change. Many Soviet generals proposed that they should cooperate with Germany and Italy to capture the productive Balkan Peninsula, attack the Middle East and seize the Suez Canal, and open up maritime connections with India.  Get food supplement advice here.

    On the contrary, due to the comprehensive liberation of Central Asia east of the Aral Sea, livestock seedlings supported by the Republic of China from Mongolia and other places have also arrived, and grain production in the five Central Asian countries has basically recovered in the second half of the year.  At the same time, in order to fulfill their agreement, Emperor Annan Bao and Ho Chi Minh also delivered the first batch of 500,000 tons of military rations to China, which greatly eased the pressure on military rations in the northwest.  In order to speed up the establishment of Annan, the Beijing Congress has also passed the border demarcation agreement with Annan as quickly as possible, taking the north of the Red River into its hands and merging it with Guangxi Province.  The merger sparked grumbling in Britain and the United States.  Both countries expressed dissatisfaction with Beijing taking the opportunity to expand, but they could not provide information or specific documents on who the area north of the Red River belonged to. In addition, the Annan interim government was uncooperative, and finally Peking University united with hundreds of colleges and universities across the country.  After hundreds of historians presented "historical documents from ancient times."  In the end, the matter had to be left alone.

    On the morning of September 13, Emperor Bao Dai announced the establishment of an independent Vietnam in Hue, adopting a constitutional monarchy, with Ho Chi Minh as Prime Minister, Ho Xue Lan as Minister of Defense and Chief of General Staff, and Ngo Dinh Diem as Minister of Foreign Affairs  .  Later, it also announced that it would join the Allied Powers and declare war on Japan, the Soviet Union, Italy and Germany respectively.  And promised to form an army of 500,000 people and place it under the joint command of the alliance's Southwest Pacific Theater Command.  Finally, according to the agreement, Cam Ranh Bay, Con Dao Island and the former French military base in Ba Ria-Vung Tau east of Saigon were leased to the Chinese government for a period of ninety-nine years.  To celebrate the founding of Vietnam.  Not only did the new Prime Minister of the Republic of China Gu Weijun and Finance Minister Bei Zuyi arrive in Hue in person, but countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Iran also sent special envoys to express their congratulations.  At the subsequent founding ceremony, Bei Zuyi provided a loan of 300 million yuan to Vietnam on behalf of the Beijing government.  For national construction and military defense needs.  Surprisingly, the U.S. government also provided a $50 million loan.  As a symbol of friendship between the United States and Vietnam.

    Although Vietnam was full of joy at this time, the people were singing and dancing to celebrate the restoration of independence from colonial rule.  However, this time the temporary compromise between the various factions and the U.S. loan became the trigger for the U.S.¡¯s failure in the Southwest Pacific and its complete withdrawal from South Asia after the war.

    The race to the southwest has actually just begun.

    With the simultaneous stabilization of the northwest and Vietnamese barriers, Yang Qiu, who was fighting on both sides, could finally relax a little, and his attention began to turn to North Korea and India.

    In order to relieve the pressure on India, he asked Qiu Wenbin to launch an active offensive posture in the southwest. While constantly crossing the Mekong River to maintain pressure on the Japanese army and Siam, he also carried out bombings on the Japanese army in Burma.  It also once again deployed five additional infantry divisions and more than a thousand heavy artillery pieces to the oil fields of Borneo and Sumatra to confront the Japanese troops in Singapore across Malacca.  And deployed 300 H-5 and other bombers in Natuna, the newly acquired Conlun Island, and Vung Tau base in Saigon to carry out harassing bombings against Singapore, the Philippines and Malaya.  In this unobtrusive Nanyang battlefield, the war has actually been burning for ten days. However, because both China and Japan will focus on Ryukyu and Mariana, and their respective fleets have suffered serious losses, they have taken various measures.  Attack and harassment are supplemented, and defense is the main posture.  However, with the conquest of Pyongyang, the Japanese Army, unwilling to fail, seemed unable to sit still and continued to send more troops to Rabaul and other places. It also sent more troops to the Philippines and Southeast Asia through the long-distance route from Rabaul, which is thousands of miles long, in an attempt to serve as a  Japan's Optimus Prime reversed defeat.

    The Chinese navy, which just won the Mariana naval battle, also needs time to rest and recuperate. It also needs to control nearby islands and Japanese military bases as soon as possible to avoid others taking advantage of troubled waters, so it cannot disturb long-distance routes for the time being.  But even if there is a long-distance route, the consequences of losing Guam still make Japan heartbroken.  The Chinese naval submarine and bomber forces departing from Guam have become a nightmare for Japan. In the three months from September to the end of November, Japan lost a total of 780,000 tons of commercial goods.?, accounting for one-seventh of the total shipping tonnage (4.5 million tons before the war, about 500,000 tons after the war, and 500,000 tons from Siam and other slave countries).

    Faced with the danger of losing supplies from Southeast Asia and being interrupted, the Japanese Army became increasingly frantic, eager to completely occupy North Korea and take Asia's largest Musan Iron Mine and Hyesan Copper Mine into their pockets to ease the pressure on domestic resources.  At the same time, they are also coveting the huge industry in the Northeast, trying to imitate Germany in occupying the Czech Republic, and control one of the best industrial zones in Asia in one fell swoop.  Even in the face of an unfavorable start, in order to quickly cross the Yalu River, Itagaki Seishiro immediately sent troops across the Ahu Feiling Mountains to implement a central breakthrough after occupying Kaesong.  Using the cover of the mountains, a total of seven divisions advanced rapidly while encircling Wonsan and Pyongyang.  The Japanese Army, which had been holding back for twenty years, really made progress. It was very good at breaking through outflanks and the soldiers were also very good at fighting. So they quickly broke through several defense lines of the North Korean National Defense Force.

    By August 30th.  The Japanese army has occupied Yanshan and Xinping, less than 40 kilometers away from Pyongyang.  On September 3, the Battle of Pyongyang began. In order to capture Pyongyang in one go and destroy North Korea's will to resist, Itagaki Seishiro launched six divisions in one go to attack in turn.  Although the North Korean National Defense Force and three Chinese National Defense Force infantry divisions resisted tenaciously, and two Korean armored divisions were dispatched, and the air force also continued to attack, the Japanese army paid a price of 50,000 casualties under the desperate attack.  After holding on for seven days to buy valuable time for the evacuation of the city, the troops had to withdraw from the battle and retreat to Sunchuan.  The news of the seizure of Pyongyang spread back to Tokyo, and cheers erupted in Hibiya Park, and the thanksgiving of the Emperor resounded throughout the Japanese archipelago.  The Japanese Army even boasted of this battle as "annihilating 300,000 Chinese National Defense Forces and avenging the victims of the bombing of Kyushu. Punishing the despicable sneak attackers, and taking over Manchuria and Mongolia is just around the corner" The Navy originally scoffed at this, but who would have thought  Two days later came news of the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Mariana.  Hirohito was shocked!  Tojo was shocked!  Japanese high-level officials are shocked!  Faced with another disastrous defeat of the navy, the Japanese government did not even dare to disclose the truth. It had to pretend to have won a major victory in Guam, sinking ten Republic of China capital ships, and annihilating the Nanyang Fleet in one fell swoop

    But no matter how you promote it.  It is an indisputable fact that the Japanese Navy has completely given way to the Army.  The original offensive faction headed by Genda Minoru, Kuroshima Kameto and Yamaguchi Takan still insisted that Mariana could not be abandoned and should continue to attack.  Because they believe that the Chinese Navy's xn21 battle group was not intact in this battle, the remaining four aircraft carriers and four King Kong-class battleships should be assembled.  Even the two long gates were closed, and they continued to fight.  If you lose, you can simply surrender to China. If you win, you can regain control of Mariana.  Although what they say makes sense.  If the Japanese army continues to invest four aircraft carriers and six main battleships, Bingwen may really find it difficult to cope with it.  But Nagano Shushen and other conservatives did not do it.  Japan has a narrow territory and few resources, so it is not easy to save these wealth by frugality. It lost nearly half of its main force within a month of the war, and everyone thought that they should give up the offensive and adopt defensive tactics.

    As mentioned earlier, the navy is an offensive arm. Once the offense is given up, the meaning of the navy will no longer exist.  The decision of the Japanese high-level officials made the Japanese navy completely become a vassal of the army. In addition, the victory of Pyongyang happened to happen, so even Yamamoto and others who hated the army the most did not dare to say a word.  We can only hope that the battleships such as Yamato in the dock will be built as soon as possible, and the mission of the fleet has also changed from offensive to protecting various seaports and transportation lines, serving as the army's "transport team".  The Japanese Army, eager to recoup its losses and continue to expand its results, completely became a gambler. On the third day after occupying Pyongyang, the Japanese army was eager to split into three groups.  The West Road advances along the railway line to the north, Suncheon and Anju.  The middle route takes the Afeihuling Mountains and Yuanshan to attack Xingnan and Changjin Lake.  The East Route started from Busan, dispatched the "Army Fleet" and two heavy cruisers, and landed in Seochon and Jinqing.  Tojo Hideki and Hirohito were also disappointed with the navy and placed all their bets on North Korea. They even transferred five divisions from the mainland that had only been formed for less than a month to support North Korea, regardless of the emptiness at home.

    But just when Kiichiro Higuchi led the 9th Division to attack Suncheon from Pyongyang, he was hit hard.

    Under the protection of four Thunderbolts, the Flexible Transport 6 tactical transport aircraft slowly landed at the Sunchuan Field Airport.  As soon as he got off the plane, Li Zongren heard a familiar scream, and then an explosion that resounded through the sky.  Looking to the south, several huge mushroom clouds have rolled up on the horizon.  "Good boy, Yi Zhi, your place is still lively. Listen to the sound, there must be at least three railway heavy artillery." In several battles in the northwest, Li Zongren and his Seventh Army were not the main force.  Seeing the old guys killing each other happily, he was also itching beside him.  But the large-scale battles in the northwest have ended, and there will be no more wars before at least April next year. So when he saw this scene, he grabbed Zhu Peide, who came to pick him up, and jokingly asked to be transferred to North Korea to get better at it.

    Zhu Peide and Li Zongren are both among the nine outstanding figures of the Army. They were friends when they were at the National Defense University.  He narrowed his eyes when he heard the joke: "It seems that your stay in the northwest was not in vain. You can tell how many cannons were used after listening to a few times. But today youI made a mistake, and I dispatched four doors.  "

    "Oh? Then I want to see it. You don't know that there are few railways over there. Not to mention railway guns, even 305mm towed howitzers are difficult to transport." Since it is a war zone, the ones responsible for transporting them are Hound armored vehicles.  .  The two of them had only chatted for a few words when Li Zongren saw a large number of soldiers appearing in front of them. In the woods behind the soldiers, three Warhammer 305mm long-range railway guns lined up in a row had their barrels raised.

    "Let's go. The General Staff, Commander Zhang and Xue Yue are all here. Oh, by the way, Yan Youbing is here too."

    "Both Xue Yue and You Bing are here! Haha, isn't Itagaki Seishiro too proud?" Li Zongren was surprised.  Xue Yue and Yan Youbing are not ordinary people.  The former is a master of armor application and tactics and one of the Army's Nine Elites.  Although the latter is not ranked among the so-called Nine Elites, he is the veteran artillery king of the National Defense Force and the father of domestic ballistics.  Both of them were world-renowned generals who became famous in the European War. How could they suddenly gather in North Korea?

    Zhu Peide doesn¡¯t like this kind of false reputation. The Nine Elites are just a joke for busybodies.  If we really want to rank them, then Wang Zhuo, the commander of the Central Guard Division and now the president of the National Defense University, Zhang Zizhong of the 11th Borneo Army, and Ouyang Nan of the 21st Vietnamese Army, are they ordinary people?  Not to mention the new generations behind them, such as Zhuo Fan, Li Jin, Ye Weixun, Du Yuming, Xu Xiangqian and Su Duozhen, who is the easy generation?

    So he threw a steel helmet to Li Zongren and said with a smile: "Let's go, the Chief of General Staff has been waiting for you for a long time."
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