Xue Yue is in Jiujiang, De'an is busy operating the defense line, and Okamura Yanji is not idle either.

After conquering Anqing, Madang, Pengze and Hukou, the Hotan Detachment was finally exhausted, and both personnel and equipment were consumed very much, so it had to rest in Hukou for ten days. Ten days later, Songpu Chunruolang's 10th Pei Regiment finally arrived at Hukou from Japan, and then launched an attack on Jiujiang on the other side of Poyang Lake.

In the early morning of July 1938, the Japanese army sneaked into Poyang Lake in the rain at night and successfully landed in the Yipei position south of Gutang. Since the Hatan Detachment succeeded in raiding Anqing, the Japanese seemed to have tasted the sweetness and launched a surprise attack at night. Sadly, the national army always neglected the precautions, allowing the Japanese to succeed again and again.

It is obvious that since the Battle of Songhu, with the death of hundreds of thousands of well-trained veterans, the overall quality of the national army has declined seriously. In the Battle of Songhu, the Japanese dared to raid at night, and the national army could make them look for their teeth, but the current national army is no longer the national army during the Battle of Songhu.

Later, the Gu family Qidipei, who rushed to assist, were all reorganized by recruiting mountain people from Xiangxi after the Battle of Xuzhou. These tyrants in Xiangxi were desperate to fight. They were all heroes, but they didn't know how to fight. The little Japanese were still thousands of meters away, so they started shooting. Before the commander gave the order, they started charging. As a result, under the strafing of the small Japanese ship gun field gun group, machine gun group and tanks, they fell down in pieces, blood flowing into rivers and corpses piled up like mountains.

This is the tragedy of the times, and it is also the tragedy of the country and nation. If these western Hunan men were given certain military training, they would become a daunting armed force on the battlefield of the Anti-Japanese War. However, Chairman Jiang, who had been defeated by the entire line, could no longer care about this much. The front-line troops were exhausted, and his first reaction was to gather more troops. China lacked everything but not people. In this way, countless strong men from Hunan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan were dragged to the battlefield, and then they were killed and killed soon. Then the National Government arrested strong men everywhere. As a result, the size of the troops became larger and larger, the number of troops was increasing, the quality of the soldiers was getting worse and worse, and the overall combat effectiveness was getting weaker and weaker, and it was like entering a vicious cycle.

Yul Pei and Di Pei were soon defeated by the Matsuura Division, and the Japanese army also gained a foothold in Huxi.

After occupying Jiujiang, the Japanese army faced two choices. One was to advance west along the south bank of the Yangtze River and go straight to Wuhan, and the other was to go south along the Nanxun Line to take Nanchang, pass through Xinyu and Yichun to take Changsha. These two choices have their pros and cons. The Japanese base camp was also quarreling endlessly, but Okamura Yasuji seemed to have made a decision.

When the commander of the 10th Pei Regiment Division, Junroro Matsuura, walked into the headquarters, he found that the commander Okamura Natsuji was standing in front of the large map hanging on the wall, and from the image, Okamura Natsuji did not match his reputation. He was thin and had glasses on his nose. If he took off his military uniform, no one would regard him as a general who commanded thousands of troops.

"Commander." Junroro Matsuura held his feet and stood at attention, bowing heavily to Okamura Yasuji.

"Matsuura Sang, you're here." Okamura Yanji turned around, with no expression on his face, his two thin lips were pursed tightly, and the corners of his lips were slightly down. The eyes behind his glasses were not very sharp, but they were very cold. Most people like this were firm and stubborn, and it was difficult to change their decisions due to external factors.

"Hayi." Junroro Matsuura closed his hands and put them on the outside of his thighs, and bowed his head again.

Okamura Youngji waved his hand casually, stroked Matsuura Junroro's back and led him to the big map, then pointed to the huge map and said, "Matsuura Sang, how do you feel when facing this map?"

Junroro Matsuura said without hesitation: "Big, big, this is a huge land."

"Yes, it's big, bigger than Kyushu and Shikoku Island." Okamura Yanji nodded slightly and said with deep emotion, "But this is only a small part of the huge territory of China. I was thinking just now that it is probably impossible for the empire to occupy the entire China. It's like a small snake trying to swallow an elephant and insisting on swallowing it, but it can only end up dying after it."

Junrororo Matsuura said: "The empire does not need to occupy the entire China, it only needs to force the Chinese government to surrender."

Okamura Yasuji did not comment on Matsuura's point of view and asked again: "So Matsuura San, how can we force the Chinese government to surrender?"

Junroro Matsuura said: "As long as the main force of the Chinese army is eliminated, the Chinese government will surrender."

Okamura Yasuji said again: "But it is not easy to destroy the main force of the Chinese army. In the Battle of Shanghai and Xuzhou, the Imperial Army tried to capture the main force of the Chinese army and annihilate it, but in the end the Imperial Army failed to do so. In this battle in Wuhan, did Matsuura Sang think that the Imperial Army had a chance to annihilate the main force of the Chinese army?"

Junroro Matsuura said: "This should have a chance."

"It seems Matsuura Sang is not sure, haha." Okamura Niji smiled, then his face turned cold, and a cold light appeared in his eyes hiding behind his glasses, and said in a deep voice, "Then let me tell you that it is impossible to capture and wipe out the main force of the Chinese army in this Wuhan Battle. In fact, there is no such thing as the main force in the Chinese army now. If you annihilate fifty divisions today, they will be able to reorganize a hundred divisions the next day. What China does not lack the most is people, and only those idiots in the base camp will want to force the Chinese government to surrender by annihilation of the main force of the Chinese army."

Junroro Matsuura was dumbfounded and asked in a lost voice: "What should we do to force the Chinese government to surrender?"

"It is impossible for the Chinese government to surrender, at least Chiang Kai-shek could not surrender." Okamura Nishi walked to the back of the desk and sat down, took out a document from the folder, pushed it to Junroro Matsuura from the table, and then said, "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has actually had private contact with Chiang Kai-shek. Unfortunately, the empire could not accept the conditions offered by Chiang Kai-shek at all."

Junroro Matsuura picked up the document and glanced casually. He found that there was a Japanese army unconditionally withdrawing from the occupied area and he was no longer interested in browsing. As Okamura said, it was impossible for the empire to accept such terms. Now even if the Chinese government surrendered, North China and East China must also be autonomous.

The truth is obvious. A unified China is by no means what the Great Japanese Empire wants to see.

Okamura Yanji stood up, walked back to the big map, and said with his hands behind his back: "So, it is simply a delusion to force the Chinese government to surrender. The only thing the empire can do now is to cut off the entire China as much as possible, especially the railways must be completely cut off from the line. Only in this way can the local powers in China emerge, China may fall into a de facto division, and the empire may erode the entire China step by step."

Matsuura Junroro's strategic vision was obviously not as good as Okamura's Neji, and he felt a little dizzy when he heard it, but one thing he understood was that was to cut off several railways in China. At present, the railways of Jinpu, Jiaoji, and Pinghan have been controlled by the Japanese army, and the Longhai Line has been cut off, leaving only Zhejiang-Jiangxi and Guanghan Lines.

Okamura Yanji's strategic vision is really not a boast. This old Japanese man did see the key node of the Sino-Japanese War.

With the national strength of Japan, military power is simply a delusion to occupy the entire China militarily. Not to mention whether the Japanese government's finances can afford huge war expenses, it really occupied China. The huge garrison and the required expenses can drag Japan's finances into the bottomless abyss.

Therefore, the most appropriate way for the Japanese government is to eliminate Chiang Kai-shek's Central Army as much as possible, to attack Chiang Kai-shek's prestige as much as possible, and at the same time cut off the three vertical and three horizontal railways in China, and to stifle the possibility of the national army launching a strategic counterattack from a strategic level, and then support various local powers to put China into de facto division.

So far, Japan is still following the right path. The next step is to encircle and annihilate the national army in Wuhan as much as possible, and at the same time cut off the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway and the Guanghan Railway.

Matsuura suddenly said, "Commander, will you attack Nanchang along the Nanxun Line next?"

Okamura Yanji nodded slightly, picked up the wooden pole and drew a long arc on the map, and went straight from Nanchang to Changsha. Finally, he put down the wooden pole and turned back to Matsuura and said, "Matsuura Sang, controlling the Nanxun Line is the first phase of your division's combat mission. Then, your division will continue to go west to Changsha and cut the Guanghan Railway into two parts in half."

"Hayi." Junroro Matsuura suddenly stopped his feet and bowed his head again.

Okamura Nishi stroked Matsuura Junroro's back again and specifically reminded him: "Matsuura Sang, this time your opponent is a very famous general in the Chinese army. Xue Yue. Although this person lost to Dohira Sang in the Battle of Lanfeng, that was not his reason. If it weren't for the fact that several senior Chinese army generals escaped in the battle, the 14th Division might have been revoked now."

Junroro Matsuura was quite dissatisfied, but he didn't show it on his face, but just listened very seriously.

In fact, Okamura Yanji may not have attached much importance to Xue Yue. He is a general of the National Army. No matter how powerful he is, he can still compare with a talented student who graduated from the Imperial Army University. The reason why Okamura Yanji specifically reminded Junroro Matsuura that he wanted to come up with a provocation and motivate the Matsuura Division to fight harder in the subsequent Nanxun line offensive, that's all.

Okamura's aggressive general was undoubtedly effective. Junroro Matsuura left the headquarters with a violent aura. He was already ruthless in his heart. This time he insisted on fighting Xue Yue's 1st Corps on the Nanxun Line. Although the 1st Corps had more than 20 divisions of nearly 300,000 troops, Junroro Matsuura didn't take it much seriously.
Chapter completed!