Bright Sword: Construction starts from southeastern Shanxi

At the same time, in southern Hebei, after the Imperial Army replaced the 14th Division, the entire occupied area began to be in chaos and became unstable.

In order to make up for the shortage of troops in North China, Sugiyama Gen has begun to draw on domestic reserves to form new divisions. The 110th Division will not arrive in the mainland until the end of the month.

At this time, the Xuzhou battlefield was just coming to an end. The Japanese troops on the front line suffered heavy losses and the war was extremely consuming. Facing the counterattack of the 389th Brigade in Shanxi, Sugiyama Gen did not have any extra troops to support.

Moreover, the destruction of the two regiments of the 16th Division caused a severe shock to the Central China Front Army.

Originally, the plan was to wait until the Battle of Xuzhou was over and then transfer the 16th Division to the command of the North China Front Army.

However, in order to deal with the 389th Brigade, Okabe Naosaburo pulled out a brigade of troops in advance to participate in the nine-way encirclement in southeastern Shanxi.

However, they did not expect that the First Army gave such a big surprise to the Central China Front Army. Two entire regiments were destroyed in the mopping-up operation one after another. Even though the 5th Division and the 10th Division suffered heavy losses in the Xuzhou battlefield, they were not completely wiped out. Now, the angry commander of the 16th Division, Nakajima Imago, has personally rushed to Peiping to greet Sugiyama Gen.

Since the North China Air Force was almost completely destroyed, coupled with the losses reported by the First Army, and the headquarters' strategic focus had been on Central China to force the Chinese government to surrender as quickly as possible, Sugiyama Gen had no way to immediately organize troops to target the 389th Brigade.

At the same time, they were also quite wary of the combat effectiveness demonstrated by the 389th Brigade in this anti-mopping-up operation.

Before figuring out how the Eighth Route Army destroyed the Locust Army's airport, the main way to deal with this Eighth Route Army force is probably to blockade it. Moreover, the occupied areas of the entire North China Plain are beginning to feel somewhat unstable.

All these factors combined have forced Sugiyama Gen to adjust his strategy towards southeastern Shanxi.

At the same time, the commander of the First Army, Naozaburo Okabe, must be replaced. Although Sugiyama Gen wanted to keep Naozaburo Okabe this time, facing the criticism and anger of the Central China Expeditionary Force, someone must take responsibility for this defeat.

There is no doubt that the commander of the First Army, Naosaburo Okabe, is a good scapegoat. It is impossible to let the newly appointed commander take the responsibility. As the former Minister of the Army, Sugiyama Gen is still capable of shifting the blame.

Moreover, the loss of the air force this time was more than 170 aircraft. Such a huge loss could be blamed on Naosaburo Gonobe at the Shanxi airport, but Shijiazhuang and Handan airports could not escape their own responsibility.

However, since it is still unclear what weapons the Eighth Route Army used to destroy the airport, Sugiyama Gen had reason to put the blame on the intelligence department's new head, Yukio Kasahara, for the department's poor intelligence collection.

After Sugiyama Gen clearly assigned the responsibilities for the failure of this mopping-up operation, he began to issue instructions to the Japanese troops in the surrounding areas of southeastern Shanxi.

The Japanese troops stationed in Shanxi were ordered to blockade the southeastern part of Shanxi from the west and north. At the same time, the 14th Division in the Handan direction separated a regiment and stationed it in Xinxiang in northern Henan, and immediately ordered the 110th Division in the country to set off, saying that they could not wait any longer.

At the same time, the Fifth Division, which had suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Xuzhou and had originally planned to withdraw to the outside of the Great Wall for rest and recuperation, was intercepted and forced to rest in Shijiazhuang.

At the same time, the First Army Commander, Okabe Naosaburo, was ordered to temporarily take over the post of Commander of the First Army and prepare to hand over and return home after the new commander arrived. As for whether he could escape the disaster, it depended on the power behind him.

After the order from the North China Front Army was issued, the Japanese troops in the entire southeastern Shanxi area began to temporarily shrink.