Chapter 752: The Strategy Stalemate of the Almighty Soldier King of Anti-Japanese War Chapter 752: In a blink of an eye, more than half a month passed, and it was early October 1938.

After occupying the three towns in Wuhan, the Japanese army divided their troops to capture more than a dozen counties around Wuhan. Immediately afterwards, the 11th Army of Okamura also arrived in Wuhan along the north bank of the Yangtze River.

However, after occupying Wuhan, the Japanese army did not take advantage of the victory to pursue and continued to expand their offensive.

It’s not that Japan doesn’t want to expand its offensive, but that its industrial foundation can no longer support it.

To be honest, Japan does not lack troops, and its local area has more than five million reserves and reserves.

Here we explain the difference between the reserve and the reserve in Japan. The reserve refers to veterans who have served but have retired now, also known as the local soldiers. Because these veterans have been married and have children, and most of them have been infected with the bad habit of drinking and gambling, they have weak fighting will and generally have poor combat power.

Reserve refers to those Japanese young people who are of the right age but have not entered the military uniform.

There are only seventeen permanent divisions in Japan, and only recruit less than 150,000 soldiers a year. It is impossible to ensure that all young people of appropriate age join the army.

These young Japanese who did not have the opportunity to join the army were full of energy, mostly unmarried, and were not infected with the bad habit of drinking and gambling, so they had a strong fighting will and often had very strong combat power.

For example, the 101st Division, the 106th Division, and the 116th Division are all composed of post-service reserve soldiers, and their combat effectiveness is not slightly worse than that of the First Division, Sixth Division and Sixth Division, which are permanent divisions.

In short, Japan has a large number of reserves and reserves. As long as the Japanese government issues a mobilization order, hundreds of divisions can be formed in a short period of time!

However, starting a war does not only require an army, but also requires the army to be equipped with weapons and equipment. It is not enough to have weapons and equipment, and it also requires the supply of ammunition!

The old saying goes, a cannon will cost ten thousand taels of gold!

It can be seen from this that how much ammunition is required to launch a war and how much resources it consumes.

Especially in the face of a country like China with a vast and large population, the ammunition and resources that need to be consumed are even more astronomical!

Although the industrial manufacturing foundation of Japan is much stronger than that of China, after the Sino-Japanese War lasted for a year, its reserved weapons and ammunition stocks were basically exhausted. In the second stage of the Wuhan Battle, in order to equip more divisions, even domestic teaching guns and teaching cannons were pulled out to the troops.

The ten security divisions assigned to the 12th Army were all mountain artillery corps, and they used old mountain artillery corps that had been eliminated by permanent divisions.

In other words, the Japanese base camp no longer has enough ammunition reserves to provide the Japanese army with a large-scale attack, which is no longer possible in a short period of time.

Because of this, after capturing the three towns in Wuhan, the Central China Front Army stopped moving forward.

Not only that, even the original ammunition reserves of the Central China Front Army allocated a considerable portion of the newly formed 21st Army to launch the Guangzhou Battle.

Compared with the Battle of Wuhan, the scale of the Battle of Guangzhou is much smaller.

By this time, although the Japanese government refused to admit it, it actually had already agreed that the Sino-Japanese War had entered a strategic stalemate from the stage of full-scale offensive.

After realizing this, the Japanese base camp quickly adjusted its strategy. While taking a defensive position against the national army in Wuhan, it also accumulated strength and prepared to launch a security war in North China.

Because the Japanese base camp became increasingly aware that the Eighth Route Army led by the Communist Party of China had replaced the Kuomintang army and became the biggest threat to the Japanese invasion of China!

If the Eighth Route Army in North China cannot be wiped out, the Japanese invaders will not only fail to achieve the strategic goal of fighting with war, but may even be dragged down by endless guerrilla wars!

Therefore, the Japanese base camp adjusted the sequence of the Japanese invaders.

The 12th Army was included in the North China Front Army, and Guzhuang Ganlang was also dismissed for his poor performance in the second phase of the Wuhan Battle. The one who replaced Guzhuang Ganlang as the army commander was Otaka Katsura.

In addition, the commander of the Central China Front Army, Shinji Hata, was also dismissed for his poor performance in the Battle of Wuhan. The replacement of Shinji Hata as the commander of the Central China Front Army was Yamada Osamu.

At the same time, the commander of the North China Front Army was also replaced, from Sakaichi Desunari to Sora Sugiyama.

Almost all the senior management of the Japanese invaders have changed, which shows how dissatisfied the Japanese base camp has been with the performance of the Japanese invaders over the past year.

But only one person's performance was recognized by the top Japanese military leaders.

This person is nothing else, but the commander of the 11th Army, Okamura Yasuji.

After the Battle of Wuhan, the 12th Army was quickly transferred away, but Okamura's 11th Army was left in Wuhan and took on the heavy responsibility of defending Wuhan!

For Okamura Yasuji, this is undoubtedly a very serious task.

Because around Wuhan, there are more than 100 main divisions of the national army!

Xue Yue's Ninth War Zone and Bai Chong's miserable fifth War Zone were like two giant beasts watching at the doorstep of Wuhan's home, and the 11th Army commanded by Li Pinxian was entrenched in the Dabie Mountains. At this time, Wuhan was so dangerous that Okamura Yasuji couldn't sleep all night.

However, this old Japanese devil, Okamura Yasuji, is indeed not simple.

It took only more than half a month before the old Japanese made a clue from the mess.

To ensure the safety of Wuhan, we must first ensure the unobstructed logistics support channels.

There are two logistics support channels from Japan to Wuhan, one is the Pinghan Railway and the other is the Yangtze River.

Although the Pinghan Railway is faster, it is extremely dangerous to travel from Peking to Wuhan, from thousands of miles to the middle of the Communist Eighth Route Army and the defense zone of the Kuomintang Army's First War Zone! Therefore, before the North China security war achieved a decisive victory, the Pinghan Railway could not be counted on.

Then, the Yangtze River Channel has become the only lifeline of the 11th Army!

Therefore, the first task of the 11th Army is to ensure the smooth flow of the Yangtze River channel.

There are two main factors that pose a threat to the Yangtze River waterway, one is the guerrilla army in the Dabie Mountains, and the other is the main force of the Ninth War Zone entrenched in Nanchang to Gao'an.

Compared with the main force in the Ninth War Zone, Li Pinxian's guerrilla army threatened much smaller.
Chapter completed!