Chapter 1336 Useless National Defense Fortifications
Building such a large-scale national defense fortification is not something that can be done in one go. First, you have to choose the person who will be in charge of the construction. There is not much to choose from in Shanxi. The shrewd old man from Shanxi is the only candidate. If you don’t choose him, you will want to dig in Shanxi.
Not even a ditch is formed.
As for Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou, it is related to the safety of the capital, so naturally we must choose military strategists with outstanding reputation and outstanding ability.
At that time, there were only three and a half recognized military strategists or people qualified to serve as chief of general staff in the Chinese military circles. Among them, Jiang Baili was the most famous. Unfortunately, he had faced off against the bald man on the battlefield, and even defeated the bald man.
His face was completely lost, and the bald boss feared him far more than he trusted him. Even though this military genius during the Republic of China later came up with the world-famous "National Defense Theory", the bald boss still regarded this highly respected person as
No need; the other one is the future military god of Zhao Zilong from Sichuan that Liu Lang mentioned before. He is young and powerful and has outstanding abilities, but he has directly defected to the Red Party and is fighting against the bald boss, so naturally he will not succeed; the other one is Bai Chongxi, known as Xiao Zhuge.
The reputation ability is also very strong, but this is the second in command of the Guangxi warlord, so the bald man naturally does not dare to use it; apart from these three people, there is only the last half of the military strategist left, that is Yang Jie.
Yang Jie was no ordinary person either. He had served as regimental commander since the Revolution of 1911. In 1931, he was elected as a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang. In December, he was appointed as the president of the Army University. In January 1932, he was appointed as the deputy chief of staff of the Military Commission and the president of the Army University.
His experience can be seen in his status in the Chinese military circles at that time. It was only appropriate for him to preside over the construction of these defense fortifications.
But military strategists are human beings, and they will naturally make mistakes. Because of the Japanese strategy and the failure to deal with General He, who was already the second-in-command of the Military Commission, he became angry. He did not even do the most basic on-site investigation, and spent two and a half days on it.
Time drew a few lines on the drawings and compiled a "Beijing-Shanghai-Hangzhou fortification plan." The most bizarre thing was to design the huge Nanjing city into a closed fortress defense plan, that is, the capital was integrated into a
Large fortress.
Obviously, as soon as this plan came out, it almost blinded the eyes of several big bosses. No one would want to live in a fortress like a turtle shell, would they? If they are really surrounded, they can run away if they want.
No. Didn't his nemesis, General He, take the opportunity to scold him bloody?
With his head as big as a bucket, the bald man rushed his chief of staff to Europe for "inspection". Now it's great. No one in China is qualified to preside over the construction of the national defense line. That can only be done by the bald man.
The boss personally went into battle. The boss went into battle in person and did not mean to go into battle shirtless. The boss just used a name to show his importance. The main implementation person was the Third Reich advisory group who came to China. The Germans were much more rigorous. They spent a lot of time
After several months of on-site investigation, an extremely rigorous defense plan was finally proposed.
This plan was awesome. The Germans even referred to some features of their old rival the French, which they had spent ten years and even at that moment building, the Maginot Line, which was said to never fall. According to this defense plan,
At that time, the Japanese army's military strength and firepower level made it impossible to break through the defense line and reach Nanjing.
After the bald man saw the report, he was only excited for less than a minute, and then threw the report into a pile of junk. It's not that the advisory team didn't pay attention, but that it was too careful, and the design was too awesome, just like those women's
Like those luxury goods, they look very nice, but if you want to buy them, the cost is too high. If you want to build national defense fortifications according to that report, the entire national government will have to go without food for several years to save the money to build national defense fortifications.
.What do you guys eat? Let’s go begging together!
The bald man was angry, but he was determined to build defense fortifications, and handed over the task to the Staff Department of the Military Commission. The senior staff of the Staff Department lived up to the expectations of the Chairman. After extensive on-site inspections, they proposed
A plan that reasonably explains and differentiates the possible attack direction of the Japanese army and the focus of the entire defense plan.
This plan believes that the Japanese army is most likely to attack Nanjing along the Yangtze River and the Beijing-Shanghai Railway from Shanghai, so it advocates building defense fortifications in Fushan, Changshu to Wuxian, and Jiangyin to Wuxi, and setting up offensive positions in the front and rear as well as rear assembly positions to form two
A defense line with battalion and regiment level fortification groups as the main body, these are the Wufu Line and the Xicheng Line.
The plan also did not ignore the possibility of Japanese troops landing from Hangzhou Bay. It advocated building coastal fortresses in Zhapu, Kanpu, Tuolin and other places, and building defense fortifications from Zhapu, Jiashan to Suzhou, Haiyan to Wujiang via Jiaxing, and also building offensives in front and behind.
Positions and assembly positions, these are the Jiazha Line and Haijia Line.
In addition to these four defense lines, a compound position and a peripheral defense line must be built in Nanjing. The compound position is based on the city wall, and the peripheral defense line starts from Dashengguan and passes through Niushou Mountain, Fangshan, Chunhua Town, Tangshan Town and Qixia
The mountain forms an arc-shaped fortification group, with the Yangtze River natural moat behind it, forming a complete defense circle.
This plan was adopted, and construction began in the 23rd year of the Republic of China. It was basically completed in the 25th year of the Republic of China. The main body of the project was the four defense lines of Wufu, Xicheng, Jiacha, and Haijia.
The four defense lines are mainly composed of battalion-level fortification groups, and a few important areas have been strengthened into regiment-level fortification groups. All heavy machine gun nests, artillery positions, observation posts, shelters, and ammunition depots are all made of reinforced concrete.
Fortifications, only communication trenches and fox trenches need to be dug during wartime to form a complete defensive fortification.
The thickness of the top walls of all permanent fortifications is more than one meter, which is enough to withstand the bombardment of 150mm heavy artillery and the bombing of 500-pound aerial bombs. The thickness of the underground shelter is more than two meters, enough to withstand the bombing of 1,000-pound aerial bombs. During this period, due to cutting corners and the
Design errors will inevitably make some mistakes, but overall they won't be too different.
If there had not been the tragic Battle of Nanjing that had happened in time and space, from Liu Lang's perspective, these four lines of defense, which were built with a lot of money, would definitely have played a great role and inflicted great damage to the Japanese army. If they could
With ten to twenty divisions relying on the defense line for defense, it was difficult for the Japanese army to quickly cross the defense line.
However, due to Songhu's hasty retreat, the 700,000-strong army suffered heavy losses. The loss of more than 300,000 troops was second to none, but the loss of all heavy equipment was fatal.
What's even more frightening is that with such a strong defense line, the headquarters did not issue a defense line map to each army division. Because they did not know the specific location of the fortifications, the army officers and soldiers could only dig up earth bags everywhere, resulting in many losses.
All the graves were dug up. Because the keys to the fortifications were handed over to the local mayor and security guard for safekeeping. As a result, because of the war, everyone ran away. Even if the officers and soldiers dug up the fortifications, they still had no keys and could not enter.
Go to fortifications. Even if there are a few villages, the security chief does not run away and gives the key to the troops. As a result, due to no maintenance for a long time, the keyhole has already been embroidered and it still cannot be opened...
When Liu Lang saw such battle reports in the future, he smiled almost painfully. He spent a lot of money to build it but didn't know how to keep it and maintain it. What kind of things were in the heads of the government officials during this period? Do they only know how to eat, drink and have fun?
Of the large number of permanent fortifications built along the Wu-Fu Line, only a handful were eventually put into use. The very few permanent fortifications that were put into use basically did not play their due role, because no matter how strong the fortifications are, they still need to be guarded.
Those national troops who were defeated on the Songhu battlefield had long lost their fighting spirit. Those who could hold out for more than two days were extremely elite troops.
But speaking of it, the fortifications on the Wufu line played a more or less effective role, at least blocking the Japanese army for a while. The most regrettable thing is that the two defense lines of Jiacha and Haijia, because the Japanese army was in Jinshan
Wei's landing was too sudden, and all the main forces of the national army had been transferred to the west of Shanghai at that time, so the Japanese army crossed these two defense lines almost without any blood.
When the Japanese troops on the southern front marched around the south bank of Taihu Lake and captured Yixing, the last and strongest defense line, the Xicheng Line, could no longer hold on. The only good thing was that the Sichuan army blocked the southern front in Guangde and Si'an.
The Japanese army and the Jiangyin Fortress also firmly blocked the Yangtze River, buying time for the main force of the Chinese army to retreat.
But these four lines of defense were foolishly wasted.
At this moment, Liu Lang focused on pointing out these four lines of defense built by the bald boss, hoping to arouse his vigilance and not to focus his strategy on the Songhu battlefield, which was already showing signs of decline, but to rely on these four lines of defense to fight against the Japanese army.
Carry out layer-by-layer blocking.
As for the news that the Japanese troops were destined to land at Jinshanwei's tidal flats and Taicang, Liu Lang's eyes flashed with a stern look, and he suppressed the thought of reminding the supreme commander. The boss was not just like him at the moment.
The colonel was holding a military meeting because he was just depressed and wanted to give him a few words of advice. If he really thought of himself as the general of the staff, Gao Shen, and was dictating the Songhu Battle here, it would be counterproductive in the end.
"Yes, yes, it's rare that you have also seen this. This is the defense line that I ordered the Military Commission Staff Department to design a few years ago, and the government invested heavily in building it. It is China's Maginot. The Japanese are destined to
This place has suffered a big loss, and the whole of China will be destroyed in March. They are really not afraid of the wind blowing their tongues." The bald man nodded with some satisfaction.
At this moment, he saw Wang Shihe hurriedly walking in with documents. His eyebrows that had just relaxed were wrinkled again, and he waved his hands gently and said: "Minister He will return to Nanjing from Guangzhou this afternoon. Tomorrow, I will ask Shihe to take you to his office to handle everything."
You can take matters into your own hands!"
"Yes!" Liu Lang stood at attention, saluted, and walked out the door.
After leaving the small building of the Military Commission and going to the first guard box to get his own rifle and military spurs, Liu Lang breathed a sigh of relief and looked toward the southeast with squinted eyes.
Although he couldn't see the flames of war hundreds of miles away, Liu Lang knew that passing this test was just the beginning. The real test might come in a few days.
The independent regiment will join the bloody battlefield where nearly a million troops are fighting fiercely.
However, even Liu Lang himself didn't know at what time he joined.