Accompanied by the dull sound of gunfire, Lieutenant General Matsuyama Yuzo, commander of the 56th Division of the Japanese Army, who was giving instructions to his subordinates, felt a pain in his chest. When he looked down at his chest, he only saw a stream of blood coming from his left chest and a thumb.
Waves of water gushed out from the large hole, and then I felt my eyes darken, and my whole person fell into darkness.
"Your Excellency, Division Commander!"
With the death of Matsuyama Yuzo, the Fifty-sixth Division finally became chaotic.
Although Chief of Staff Major General Miura Misaki tried his best to gather the troops, the Fifty-sixth Division inevitably fell into complete collapse under the hard attacks of the expeditionary force and the Rendai Militia.
Previously, the reason why the various units that had suffered heavy casualties were still able to hold on was because Matsuyama Yuzo was still there, and they still had a backbone. Now that the backbone is gone, Miura Misaki has no ability to clean up the mess. The Fifty-sixth Division
The collapse is a matter of course.
In this way, Gao Jiwen and Wu Chengfeng commanded the 200th Division and the four battalions of the Liantai Militia to launch a large-scale pursuit of the 56th Division.
On December 5, Chairman Chiang Kai-shek, who was far away in Chongqing, also announced to the world that except for a few people in the 56th Division who escaped, all 15,000 people in the 56th Division had been wiped out.
The serial number will also completely disappear from the Japanese military sequence.
And Chairman Chiang’s words were not nonsense. The reason why he had the confidence to say these words was because after Zou Tieshan and the others killed Matsuyama Yuzo, they took advantage of the chaos to annihilate the Japanese flag-protecting squadron.
In the chaotic battle, the flag guard squadron had no time to destroy the three military flags they carried, so the flags of the three infantry regiments 113, 146, and 148 belonging to the 56th Division all fell into the hands of the expeditionary force.
According to Japanese Army regulations, once a unit's flag is burned or captured by the enemy, the unit's designation will be permanently revoked.
The reversal of the war situation in Myanmar also shocked the Japanese top brass. None of them expected that the Japanese army, which had clearly had the upper hand before, would undergo such drastic changes in less than two or three months.
That's more than 30,000 people in two divisions, just like that?
Naturally, someone must be held responsible for the defeat, and Daben Zhengcai, the commander of the 33rd Army in charge of the Burma battlefield, is naturally the best scapegoat.
Soon, Duoben's political materials were directly recalled to the homeland by the base camp, and he was transferred to the reserve force not long after.
The victory in the Burma Campaign not only gave the now arrogant Japanese a blow to the head, but also gave great encouragement to the Allies.
The British Times, the American Washington Post and other newspapers reported the good news.
"As our Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, said two years ago: We will fight in France, we will fight on the seas, and we will fight in the air with growing confidence and growing strength.
We will defend our land at all costs, we will fight on the beaches, we will fight on the enemy's landing points, we will fight in the fields and in the streets, we will fight in the mountains. We will never surrender!
Yes, we have gone through the darkest moments in our lives in the past two years, including bombings, hunger, and death. We have experienced all these things, but we have not been defeated by Nazi Germany and its puppet allies.
We are still fighting wherever humans can reach, because we always firmly believe that the dawn of victory will eventually come.
And just yesterday, this dawn finally appeared.
In distant Asia, there is such an army.
Not only did he raid the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp and rescued more than 11,300 prisoners from the United States, Britain, the Philippines, China and other countries, he also eliminated 30,000 Japanese troops entrenched in Burma.
This army is the National Revolutionary Army Expeditionary Force of China. These brave young men use their courage to tell the world that when freedom-loving people all over the world unite, they will be invincible!"
On the third day after the Japanese 56th Division was successfully annihilated, that is, December 6, The Times reported the news of the great victory in Burma with its entire front page headline.
In this report, The Times uncharacteristically praised the Chinese Expeditionary Force. Even Chairman Chiang Kai-shek, who was far away in Chongqing, praised him for his effective planning and command.
Soon, the Washington Post and other major newspapers in the United States followed suit and publicized the great victory in Burma. For a time, people all over China knew that their expeditionary force had wiped out 30,000 Japanese troops in front of them.
For a time, the morale of the people across the country was greatly boosted, changing the decadent atmosphere of the past two years, and petitions calling for a comprehensive counterattack came one after another.
Because the nationwide petition calling for a counterattack was so overwhelming, Chairman Chiang Kai-shek had to personally come out to cool down the situation.
He repeatedly warned the people that the war of resistance was a long process and would never be accomplished overnight, and asked the people to be calm and perform their duties. It would not be too late to wait for the international situation to change before launching a counterattack.
"Snapped!"
Yan Xishan turned off the radio and said with a sneer to Yang Aiyuan and Sun Chu: "Look, how proud he was a few days ago, how uncomfortable he is now.
Well, I've said it a long time ago, if you don't have the strength, you shouldn't brag so much, now you're being roasted on the fire, right?"
Yang Aiyuan also laughed and said: "The Chairman is good at everything, but his problem of being so happy with his achievements has not been changed after so many years.
After being praised for a few words, I really thought that the victory of the expeditionary force was due to my good command.
Without Gao Laodi’s hundreds of planes and the troops behind us who were urgently mobilized to rescue the scene, it’s still unclear who will win.”
Sun Chu also couldn't stand the bragging of Chongqing these days. "When Burma lost the war and saw the entire army of 100,000 people was wiped out, the Chairman was so anxious that he even sent someone overnight to ask Brother Gao for help.
Now that the war is won, Brother Gao seems to have become a passerby. Domestic newspapers don't even mention it. This is really a case of using people to go forward and not using people to go behind!"
Seeing his two favorite generals complaining at the same time, Yan Xishan had to comfort him: "Okay, Cui Ya, Xing Ru, you two should stop talking, it will be another trouble for Chairman Chiang to hear.
Moreover, Gao Hongming is not a pushy person, so maybe what Chongqing did was in line with his original intention.
What we have to do now is not to complain here, but how to deal with the Japanese First Army's pressing on us."
Since the Japanese army in Shanxi suffered consecutive defeats, the Japanese army has paid unprecedented attention to the situation in Shanxi.
In order to reverse Shanxi's decline, General Hata Toshiroku, commander-in-chief of the Japanese Expeditionary Forces in China, not only added three more divisions to Shanxi, but also dispatched two more fleets of aircraft, making the First Army in Shanxi unprecedentedly stronger.
As your strength increases, your ambition will naturally increase.
The newly appointed commander of the First Army, Lieutenant General Yoshimoto Sadichi, frequently deployed troops and generals during this period and started military exercises, which made Yan Xishan and other generals of the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army unable to sleep and eat well.