Bright Sword: Construction starts from southeastern Shanxi

For the sake of this large-scale sweep, Sugiyama Gen even ignored the news reported by the First Army that the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army had recaptured southwestern Shanxi.

In his mind, the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army was already in that state. When the Locust Army had enough troops next year to boost the morale of the First Army, he would start with the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army.

The only thing that Sugiyama Gen felt sorry about was that there was no air force involved in this raid.

Previously, Sugiyama Gen once wanted the Kwantung Army to mobilize a flying squadron to come to North China, but was rejected without hesitation by the Kwantung Army.

Not to mention that the atmosphere on the border is becoming increasingly tense. Last time, your North China Front Army lost nearly two hundred planes and we still haven't figured out what happened. How could they possibly send planes to you?

If it was destroyed by the Eighth Route Army again, where would the Kwantung Army go to seek justice? They couldn't just give up their territory and go south to settle accounts with Zeng Jiwen.

Helplessly, Sugiyama Gen began to prepare for the mobilization of troops and supplies.

The Japanese army's movements in the Hebei-Central area of ​​North China did not escape the attention of local underground organizations, and the large-scale mobilization of troops was also difficult to conceal from the eyes of all parties.

After receiving intelligence that the Japanese army in North China was preparing to launch a large-scale sweep of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei region, the General Command immediately began to confirm and assess the current situation.

Based on the information collected from various places about the Japanese army's troop movements and material preparations, the General Command quickly determined that the Japanese army might not be able to focus on the main points of this mopping-up operation.

According to the intelligence gathered so far, although the North China Front Army deployed three divisions to encircle the 389th Division this time.

It looks quite intimidating, but you can't take it too seriously.

Once you look into it in detail, you will find that the Fifth Division has just been replenished with troops, and it will probably take some time to restore its combat effectiveness.

The 14th Division was basically destroyed by the 389th Brigade in the last mopping-up operation. Now there are less than two regiments that can still fight, and other logistics arms account for more than half.

Not to mention the newly-built 108th Division, which has only been formed now after being completely annihilated by the 389th Division last year. It is composed entirely of reserve forces drawn from the country.

It would be fine if it were just an early-stage reserve, but with the previous Battle of Xuzhou and the current Battle of Wuhan, the Japanese army is now continuously sending in additional personnel to replenish their depleted forces.

According to intelligence received, the 108th Division had already dispatched at least two rounds of troops to the Wuhan battle, and the remaining troops were basically newly arrived recruits.

In other words, although the 108th Division was reorganized last year, many of the Japanese troops in it were reservists who had just been recruited from the country in the past two months.

As for this autumn mopping-up operation, it is still unclear how many troops the Japanese army will use and when they will attack, but it is entirely possible to let the Tainan Military Region do something in the south. It depends on whether Sugiyama Motoyoshi wants to attack central or southern Hebei.

After discussion, the task of cooperating with the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei autumn anti-mopping-up campaign was assigned to Zeng Jiwen's 389th Division.

After Zeng Jiwen and others received the task from the commander-in-chief, Zeng Jiwen immediately asked Hu Di from the intelligence department to start investigating the situation in the southern and central Hebei areas.

After helping the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army resolve the crisis and recover southwestern Shanxi, Hu Di also gathered the intelligence he had gathered to the division headquarters.

Zeng Jiwen looked at the collected information and immediately laughed.

"This Sugiyama Gen is really interesting. He's trying to trick us into thinking we're the real thing."

After saying that, he handed the summary document to the two of them.

"The Fifth Division suffered greater losses than we expected on the Xuzhou battlefield. It was said that this was due to a lack of artillery."

"According to reports from both sides, the Fifth Division originally lost two to three thousand men, which was enough to give them some relief for a while, but we didn't expect the actual loss to be double that."

Zeng Jiwen picked up the water cup and said with a smile.

Hearing Zeng Jiwen say this, Zhou Shi and Wang Zhuo hurried over to look.