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The recruitment plan of the 88th Army is in full swing. Most of the young and middle-aged men and some young women in the Tang Dynasty are coming to Shanxi Province. They have endured years of humiliation under the oppression of the devils. Now the 88th Army is like a star in the dark night, giving them direction.

Wei Li also gradually adapted to his position in the 88th Army and began to instruct dozens of new officers. Most of these new officers did not have enough qualifications, but there were numerous low-level non-commissioned officers.

With Zhang Shuping's introduction, Lu Ningyi officially took up the position of deputy director of the Intelligence Department, and jointly established a larger Lu Group with local business companies that had previously fought against the war together.

Secretly, Lu Ningyi took away several senior intelligence agents from the Intelligence Department headquarters, and using the business network he had established across the country over his many years of business, he began to formally expand his intelligence work beyond Shanxi Province.

The task of liaison with Yamaguchi Keiko also fell on him.

The Shancheng Military Commission sent a division under Commander Jiang to Shanxi Province to transport guns and ammunition, and various industries in the rear area of ​​the Tang Dynasty began to recover slowly.

While these things were developing steadily, the Japanese headquarters was in a state of panic.

The 88th Army recaptured Taiyuan and took back most of Shanxi Province from the Japanese. This seriously affected Japan's deployment against the Tang Dynasty and indirectly affected its offensive plan against Southeast Asia.

Japan, Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, Imperial Palace.

This is where successive emperors have lived. The emperor is the highest ruler of Japan, the supreme leader of Shintoism, the symbol of Japan, and claims to be a descendant of Amaterasu, the goddess of creation in Japanese mythology. Therefore, the emperor has no surname.

On this day, two of the three chief commanders of the Japanese Army, Army Minister General Hideki Tojo and Army Chief of Staff General Sugi Mimoto, came here together.

The three chief officers of the army had very high status and had the right to meet the emperor alone.

In comparison, the status of the navy was much lower. Even the highest chief of the navy, the Minister of the Navy, although also a cabinet member who could attend the headquarters meetings with the Minister of the Army, did not even have the right to speak and could only be an audience, let alone meet the Emperor alone.

Hideki Tojo is not only the Minister of the Army, he is also the current Prime Minister of Japan. He planned the massacre of the Tang Dynasty and the attack on Western countries.

"Your Majesty, our situation in the Tang Dynasty is not good!"

After seeing the current Emperor Showa, Hideki Tojo said tremblingly that the war situation had changed so drastically, and he, as the Minister of the Army, had to bear the responsibility.

Emperor Showa is only 41 years old now. Sitting on a high seat, he looks like he is looking down on everyone, but his short body of less than meters looks a bit funny.

He remained calm and said, "Is it because of the Tang army that was reported earlier? I remember it was the 88th Army. Did he do something again?"

Tojo Hideki explained: “Just a few days ago, the 88th Tang Army, in coordination with more than 10 Tang troops, launched an attack on the southern part of Shanxi Province controlled by the empire. Our soldiers suffered heavy casualties and were forced to withdraw to the north of Shanxi Province.

Now the entire North China has been affected. If the 88th Army breaks through the defenses of Shanxi Province, all the deployments of the Empire in the Tang Dynasty will end in failure, and the soldiers below the central part of the Tang Dynasty will suffer a fatal blow. "

Chief of Staff Shan Sanyuan said: "Therefore, before we find a way to defeat the 88th Army, we must think of a way to make up for this loss and eliminate the potential threat of the imperial army in the Tang Dynasty."

However, the Emperor was unhappy when he heard this, and changed his expression and said: "A year ago, you said that the army was a huge threat, and you said you would find a way to deal with it. Now that the army has damaged our interests again, you are now saying you will find a way!

I give you status and power, so you must be loyal to the empire. It is right to think of ways, but you must think of useful ways instead of just talking to me when something goes wrong!

I don't want you to complain to me about how powerful the 88th Army is. I only want to see the results of your handling of the situation!"

"Yes!" Tojo Hideki hastily agreed, "We have been investigating the equipment deployment of the 88th Army, but the results are minimal. We finally found some information, but not long after, they changed their equipment again.

For example, at the beginning, they used Bofors mountain guns, which had good performance but small caliber and insufficient power. When we learned about their numbers, they changed to more powerful large-caliber guns.

That kind of artillery is called Type 54 howitzer, with a caliber of 122mm. It is not found in the information collected by our military. I guess it is a new product developed by them.

But just as we were gradually understanding this type of artillery, they updated the artillery again, and the quantity was very large. There is no specific intelligence data yet.

But according to reports from the front line, they are all large-caliber field heavy artillery with a very long range, and can fire beyond the range of our artillery.

In addition, the latest intelligence says that the 88th Army is equipped with nearly 300 heavy tanks. The firepower of this type of tank is stronger than any other tank in the world today, and its protection capability is also the best in the world!

Even if we restore our Type 95 heavy tanks to fight against them, we are still far from being a match!"

At this time, Emperor Showa interrupted Tojo Hideki and said, "I don't care how good their tanks are, but I know one thing: the industrial capacity of the Tang Dynasty is absolutely impossible to produce the tanks you mentioned. There is only one possibility, that they were obtained from other countries! You should check carefully to find out which country provided the tanks to the Tang Dynasty."

Tojo Hideki shook his head helplessly and said, "Your Majesty, if other countries had such powerful tanks, they would have appeared on the European battlefield long ago. It is impossible for them to not use them themselves and transport them in large quantities to the Asian battlefield!

Moreover, the 88th Army had thousands of armored vehicles, which forced the Imperial Army to retreat step by step. According to Yoshio Iwamatsu's report, he had never seen such an armored vehicle, and its performance was not much weaker than our medium tanks.

The 88th Army is already a steel-like mechanized force, far superior to our mechanized forces."

Shan Sanyuan said: "Your Majesty, before we find out the weakness of the 88th Army, there are three things we can do!"

"what's up?"

“First, develop heavy combat vehicles that can rival the 88th Army’s tanks, and then quickly deploy them to the Tang battlefield.

Second, adjust the deployment against Datang and transfer all main forces to the vicinity of the 88th Army to defend against the 88th Army.

Third, temporarily suspend the offensive against Southeast Asia, gather troops, and prevent the situation in the Tang Dynasty from deteriorating again so that the various units can quickly return to respond. "

However, Emperor Showa was furious: "Don't you know why we launched such a large-scale war? Let alone re-developing heavy tanks to fight against the 88th Army, let alone restoring the Type heavy tanks, even if we increase the production of Type tanks, we don't have that much resources.

How can we stop the offensive in Southeast Asia? If we stop, where will the resources of the empire come from? At that time, let alone continuing the war, we won’t even be able to protect ourselves! Our oil and rubber have to come from there!"