Taiyuan, Headquarters of the First Army of the North China Front.
The military headquarters is composed of more than twenty rooms in total, including the important department, the operations department, the communications department, etc.
One of them, a small room of only a dozen square meters located in the northeast corner, is Neji Okamura's lounge.
Shinozuka Yoshio once suggested to Okamura Neiji more than once: "Your Excellency, Lieutenant General, the living room is small and the conditions are difficult. I can arrange a better place for you!"
"Shinozuka-kun!" Okamura Neiji declined politely: "Thank you very much for your kindness, but we are imperial soldiers, and we should think more about fighting! I think this place is very good. It is close to the headquarters and can save time.
, I can also feel the atmosphere of war, and my staff can find me at any time... There are many benefits!"
"Yes!" Yoshio Shinozuka could only stand up and respond.
Then Okamura Neiji patted Yoshio Shinozuka on the shoulder again and said, "You don't want to steal this lounge from me, do you?"
Yoshio Shinozuka immediately became nervous: "Well, Lieutenant General, your subordinates will never... dare to have such an idea..."
Okamura Neji chuckled and said, "I'm joking with you, Shinozuka-kun, don't mind!"
Yoshio Shinozuka said "uh", then smiled awkwardly, and secretly wiped his sweat when Okamura turned around.
The Imperial Army has an almost perverted culture. Subordinates must absolutely obey their superiors, otherwise they will be beaten and kicked at best, or dealt with according to military law at worst.
Yoshio Shinozuka also grew up being beaten and scolded like this.
Therefore, Shinozuka Yoshio was habitually cautious in front of Okamura Neji, and just a joke could make him walk on thin ice.
At this time, Okamura Neji was practicing calligraphy in the lounge, writing Chinese characters that Shinozuka Yoshio could not understand.
Yoshio Shinozuka stood in front of Okamura Neji and asked cautiously: "Your Excellency, Lieutenant General, next...how will our army attack?"
Okamura Neiji's men did not stop and asked in a slow and unhurried manner: "Have we not made a battle plan?"
Shinozuka Yoshio asked curiously: "Lieutenant General, do you mean that we still use the previous blockade plan?"
"Why not?" Okamura Neji asked.
"But, Lieutenant General!" Yoshio Shinozuka said hesitantly: "If we continue to do what we did before...build railways, build roads, and then build gun towers to implement blockades, one day, when we are almost done, the enemy will launch another attack
Where is the attack?"
What Shinozuka Yoshio said is not unreasonable. Even Okamura Neji himself was worried about this.
After all, it is difficult to build a bridge but easy to blow it up. A single explosive packet can burn down months of hard work.
But at this time, Okamura Neji was not worried.
"Shinozuka-kun!" Neji Okamura asked without answering: "Usually, does the enemy counterattack like this time?"
"Never before!" Yoshio Shinozuka replied: "This is the first time, it is very abnormal!"
"So..." Okamura Neiji asked again: "Why do you think the enemy is so abnormal?"
Yoshio Shinozuka thought for a moment and then understood: "What Lieutenant General means is that because our tactics make the enemy afraid, that's why..."
Okamura Neiji had finished writing at this time. He put away his pen, stood away and admired it for a while, nodded with satisfaction, and then replied: "Isn't this just proof that we are right? If we change our tactics, wouldn't it?
What the enemy wants?"
"Yes" Yoshio Shinozuka nodded and responded, "Your Excellency is wise!"
After thinking for a while, Yoshio Shinozuka asked again: "But, Lieutenant General, the enemy already has a considerable number of 'spray bombs' and 'infantry guns', which are powerful weapons against gun towers..."
"Don't worry, Shinozuka-kun!" Neji Okamura replied: "We have a helper who can help us blockade the Eighth Route Army. If the Eighth Route Army can't even provide food and clothing, how much power can they have to fight back?"
"Help?" Yoshio Shinozuka was stunned for a moment, and then he immediately understood: "Yes, you are wise. Then, next we should focus on the blockade!"
Okamura Neiji nodded, showed the written words in front of Shinozuka Yoshio, and said: "Let's call this attack this name, 'Million War'!"
"Yes!" Yoshio Shinozuka responded and respectfully stretched out his hands to take the words from Neji Okamura.
"The War of Millions".
This name seems a little untrue.
Because there are only over 300,000 Japs in North China, and with the over 100,000 puppet troops, there are only over 400,000, which is still a long way from one million.
But Okamura Neji had a special meaning in choosing this name.
There are more than 400,000 Japs, plus 200,000 Jinsui Army, plus more than 300,000 troops from Chongqing, wouldn’t there be one million people?
Therefore, Okamura Neiji's strategic policy at this stage, or the focus, is not how to sweep, how to encircle and suppress, or how to blockade.
Of course these must be done as well.
But Okamura Neiji believes that it is more important to continue his old profession, which is to send spies, traitors and spies to bribe and divide the Chinese army, and even teach the Chongqing army how to better blockade the Eighth Route Army...
Okamura Neiji believes that with their "joint efforts", it won't be long before the Eighth Route Army will be in trouble!
The result turned out exactly as Okamura Neji hoped.
Before Neji Okamura took action, the stubborn army took the initiative to learn the Japanese blockade tactics.
The stubborn defense zone is in the south, from Zhongtiao Shandong to the Huxi area in the west (there is the Huxi Military Region to the west of Weishan Lake). There are more than 300,000 people in the incomplete defense line.
At this time, more than 100,000 troops were immediately added to reach 500,000 troops, and the focus was on the border area between western Shanxi and the Eighth Route Army.
Soon, these areas, like the Japanese, built blockhouses in the border areas, pulled up barbed wire fences, dug isolation trenches, and destroyed highways and mountain roads.
If there were people-to-people exchanges and exchanges in this area before, they have been completely cut off now.
The Eighth Route Army immediately felt that the situation was deteriorating rapidly.
After the victory, the independent regiment returned to Zhaojiayu.
At this time, the salt detachment from Dingbian had returned. Hundreds of horses were carrying salt one by one. The soldiers and civilians were all beaming with joy.
But when I asked... When I left, I could exchange a load of salt for 300 kilograms of rice, but when I came back, I could barely exchange for 100 kilograms of rice.
But this seems normal.
Things are rare and valuable, so the folks either have no rice in their hands, or they don't dare to sell it if they have some rice, so they keep it.
What the fellow villagers said makes sense: "It's okay if we don't eat salt for a while, but if we don't have rice for a few days, we'll starve to death!"
This was actually caused by a tacit understanding between the Japanese and the stubborn army to attack food and implement a blockade.
Blockade makes the base area an almost completely enclosed area.
Looting food will cause a severe shortage of food in this closed area and cannot be replenished.
This cannot be compensated by anything else, unless it can last until the fields have a good harvest.
However, God was not kind to us, and it happened that hailstones fell at this moment...The hailstones the size of pebbles hit the ground with a bang, and the crops in the fields were damaged one by one.