ushernet Chapter 464 Misjudgment and Greed
Chapter 464 Misjudgment and Greed
Just as Lieutenant General Okamura Yasuji, commander of the 11th Japanese Army, said, after the 21st Japanese Army occupied Guangzhou, the Japanese headquarters continuously sent troops to occupy Hainan Island, Shantou and other places on the southeast coast of China. The whole of China could only obtain strategic materials through several international transportation lines in the southwest.
Nanning, the capital of Guangxi Province, is located at the end of the Guangxi-Vietnam Highway in China. It controls the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway and the Yunnan-Burma Highway in the western Yunnan Province and is at the forefront of defense against the Japanese attack. This shows that the strategic position of southern Guangxi is very important.
In order to cut off China's Gui-Vietnam international transportation line and force the Chinese government to surrender as soon as possible, the Japanese military headquarters ordered the new commander of the 21st Army of the Japanese Army, Lieutenant General Ando Rikichi, to command the 5th Division, Taiwan Mixed Brigade, Marine Corps, 3rd Joint Air Force and other troops to land in Qinzhou Bay, capture Nanning and cut off China's Gui-Vietnam Highway in southern Guangxi.
After the victory of the Battle of Changsha, the Chinese government has been judging the next direction of action of the Japanese army. Judging from the current situation of the Japanese army, it is obvious that there is a shortage of troops. The only directions that can launch an attack are the 11th and 21st Japanese armies.
Either the 11th Japanese Army will continue to launch an attack towards Changsha to save the face of the Japanese Army's last disastrous defeat, or the 21st Japanese Army will launch an attack towards southern Guangxi and threaten the Chinese government's international supply lines.
Not long after the end of the Battle of Changsha, the top government summoned the commander of the Ninth War Zone, Commander Xue, the commander of the Fourth War Zone, Commander Bai, and the commanders of several other war zones to Yamashiro under the guise of commending those who had made contributions in the Battle of Changsha. They held a secret supreme military meeting to discuss the direction of the Japanese army's next move.
At the meeting, Commander Xue of the Ninth War Zone first analyzed the current situation of the Japanese 11th Army. Commander Xue believed that given the current situation of the Japanese 11th Army's shortage of soldiers and major generals and insufficient material preparation, it would not rashly launch another attack on Changsha and Hunan Province without massive reinforcements from the Japanese mainland.
When it was Commander Bai of the Fourth War Zone's turn to speak, he believed that the Japanese army would not immediately attack Guangxi Province after taking Hainan Island and Yangcheng. With the current troop deployment of the Japanese 21st Army, it was impossible to withdraw too many troops to attack southern Guangxi.
Moreover, if the Japanese army wanted to attack Guangxi Province, Commander Bai judged that the Japanese army would land in Guangzhou Bay with its main force and attack Liuzhou via Yulin and Guixian. As for the provincial capital Nanning, the Japanese army would definitely only send a small number of troops as assists.
Commander Bai believed that even if the Japanese army attacked Guangxi Province by sea, the Liuzhou railway line in Guangxi Province would definitely be the main target of the Japanese attack.
After listening to the two people's analysis, the top government officials were undecided for a while and could only instruct the heads of the intelligence departments attending the meeting to find out the movements of the Japanese army as soon as possible in order to provide a strong basis for judgment for subsequent operations.
In fact, the attack direction judged by the Japanese army and Commander Bai was exactly the opposite. The ultimate strategic intention of the Japanese army this time was to capture Nanning, not Liuzhou on the railway line as Commander Bai believed.
Moreover, Commander Bai still doesn't even think that the Japanese army will attack Guangxi Province. You have to know that Guangxi Province is one of the poorest provinces in China, with many mountains and far away from the current Chinese government's secondary capital Shancheng. It has no value at all.
However, for the Japanese army, Guangxi Province was indeed a waste before 1939. But when most of China's coastal cities were occupied by the Japanese army, Qinzhou Bay became the only sea route and land route to Southeast Asia for aid materials to China, and the provincial capital Nanning happened to be the concentration point of these materials and the location of the railway artery. Moreover, it was also a springboard for the subsequent attack on Yunnan Province and completely cutting off all of the Chinese government's external supply lines. The significance of this was immediately highlighted.
However, on the evening after the meeting, Commander Bai thought carefully about the next course of action of the Japanese army in his room. Combined with Commander Xue of the Ninth War Zone's analysis of the current situation of the Japanese 11th Army, Commander Bai thought more and more that the Japanese army might really attack Guangxi Province.
However, Commander Bai still believed that if the Japanese army attacked, their target would definitely be Liuzhou, and there was a high probability that they would attack by land from the direction of Yangcheng.
Therefore, to be on the safe side, Commander Bai ordered Xia Wei's 16th Army, in the name of the chief of the Guilin camp, the next day, to deploy four divisions of troops on the north bank of the Yujiang and Xunjiang rivers for training, and to build defensive fortifications on the north bank of the river to resist the Japanese army attacking Liuzhou from the direction of Guangzhou Bay. Since the main force was transferred to the east to guard against possible Japanese attacks, only two divisions were deployed for defense on the Qinzhou Bay line.
However, Lieutenant General Ando Rikichi, commander of the 21st Army of the Japanese Army, was also secretly gathering troops and constantly instructing the intelligence department to release a lot of false information to confuse the judgment of the Chinese government.
After more than a month, the 21st Japanese Army in Yangcheng had not made any move to attack Guangxi Province. Therefore, officers at all levels in the Guilin Camp believed that the Japanese Army had no intention of attacking Guangxi Province.
For this reason, Commander Bai also arbitrarily gave his own opinion that the Japanese army would not attack Guangxi Province because Guangxi Province had already fully launched the war mode at that time. The "Three Self-reliance and Three Accommodation" policy established by Commander Bai had been implemented in every corner of Guangxi Province. Up to now, there have been nearly one million militias and regular troops responsible for defending Guangxi Province. With the current strength of the Japanese army, it will definitely not easily bite off this tough province.
Later, when Commander Bai was studying the combat maps and situations every day, he discovered that the Yangjiang, Kaiping and Yangchun areas at the intersection of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces were currently an unowned land.
This situation occurred because after the Japanese army landed in Guangdong Province, the Chinese troops in the area had completely withdrawn.
After repeated reconnaissance in recent times, the Japanese army has not yet sent troops to occupy these areas. Commander Bai analyzed that it is probably because the Japanese 21st Army has limited manpower and cannot be divided to guard this area, which makes the area a no-man's land.
When Commander Bai discovered this situation, he could no longer contain his excitement. You know, this area is an important grain-producing area in western Guangdong, and it also has excellent coastal ports. Once his Guangxi clique can occupy this area, he can not only expand his territory, but also expand his access to the sea.
Seeing that the Japanese army was still slow to arrive, Commander Bai immediately ordered the 31st Army to quickly dispatch troops to the area to seize the territory first. While Commander Bai was happy that he had seized a piece of territory for the Guangxi clique, it also made the Guangxi army's defense line in southern Guangxi and Qinzhou Bay even more stretched, and also laid the groundwork for the Japanese army to quickly capture Nanning.