Bright Sword: Construction starts from southeastern Shanxi

However, their strategic ideas were not only not accepted by the headquarters, but even many officers at the lower levels openly ridiculed them.

Tada Shun himself was also assigned to the Third Army as commander.

However, an unexpected accident occurred. In North China, the North China Front Army under Sugiyama Gen suffered a setback in the battle with the Eighth Route Army, resulting in heavy losses for the Japanese troops in North China. Even the supplies that the Japanese troops in North China were preparing to use to expand their troops were intercepted by the Eighth Route Army.

Faced with such a result, Sugiyama Gen will probably have to go to military court when he returns to the country.

However, no one expected that Sugiyama Gen would be so courageous as to survive by cutting off his arm. In order to avoid being held accountable, Sugiyama Gen, at the suggestion of Yamashita Tomoyuki, made a deal with Tada Shun through Doihara Kenji. The faction behind Sugiyama Gen supported Tada Shun to become the commander of the North China Front Army. The two sides worked together to save Sugiyama Gen from being held accountable and transferred him to the reserve.

Similarly, Itagaki Seishirō and Doihara Kenji continued to serve as commanders of the 5th and 14th Divisions, and transferred the two divisions to the northeast for rest and recuperation.

After being persuaded by Kenji Doihara and Itagaki, Tada Shun agreed to Sugiyama Hajime's request, which led to the current situation.

However, after Tada Shun took office in North China, he immediately felt disappointed after reviewing the situation of the battles between the locust army in North China and the Eighth Route Army over the past year.

Kenji-kun and Itagaki-kun really made things difficult for him this time.

Tada Shun thought to himself.

Originally, Tada Shun believed that the main responsibility for the successive major defeats of the North China Locust Army lay with the wrong decisions made by the previous two commanders, Terauchi Hisaichi and Sugiyama Hajime. However, since he took office and sorted out the combat reports of the North China Locust Army and the Eighth Route Army, Tada Shun suddenly felt a sense of relief.

If this happened to him, he would probably fall into this trap as well. Tada Shun swore that he had never encountered such a vicious thing in all his years in the army.

According to the detailed summary information in the battle report, the equipment of the Eighth Route Army was not as strong as that of the Locust Army, but the Locust Army always suffered setbacks in some inexplicable places, and then the Eighth Route Army seized the opportunity, causing heavy casualties.

Among them, what made Tada Shun most worried was the 389th Division in southeastern Shanxi.

This Eighth Route Army unit showed a strange behavior from the very beginning of its battle with the Locust Army. Although the Locust Army was in an advantageous position every time, it suffered huge losses inexplicably, allowing the 389th Division to seize the opportunity to grow stronger.

Until now, they have become a serious threat to the locust army in North China.

What's worse is that the intelligence department has not yet figured out the specific situation of the 389th Division, and there is still no result on the previous matter of the Locust Army Air Force.

Although the Eighth Route Army did not claim that they did it, everyone knows that it was the Eighth Route Army that did it.

Looking at the mess in North China, Tada Shun felt a little worried for a moment.

After thinking for a long time, Tada Shun could not think of a way to break the deadlock. Finally, he had to hold this meeting, hoping to pool everyone's wisdom and strength to come up with a good solution.

Therefore, when the meeting began, Tada Shun asked the generals present about how to deal with the Eighth Route Army in North China.

However, to Tada Shun's disappointment, no one could come up with a solution at the moment, not even a way to deal with the Eighth Route Army.

Seeing Tada Shun's expectant eyes, the generals sitting below suddenly felt embarrassed.

Let them think of a solution. No matter how they think about it, the locust army in North China is now seriously short of manpower. They should be thankful if they can replenish the manpower and restore it to the pre-war level before the middle of the year.

Among the troubled generals below, there was a short figure with a bitter face, who seemed to be hesitant to speak to Tada Shun.

He is the new commander of the First Army of North China, Yoshio Shinozuka.

After learning about the situation of the First Army in detail, Yoshio Shinozuka had similar ideas to Tada Shun.

He suddenly felt regretful and wondered why he had agreed to be the commander of the First Army.

The current First Army is even worse than the previous sick cat.

In the Battle of Shijiazhuang, the entire 4th Independent Mixed Brigade was destroyed, the 108th Division on the Zhengtai Line was surrounded and annihilated by the Eighth Route Army, the 40th Brigade of the 20th Division was completely wiped out in Shijiazhuang, and the generals of the 109th Division have not yet arrived.

Now the Zhengtai Line is still in the hands of the 389th Division in southeastern Shanxi. If it were not for the Tongpu Railway, the First Army could have withdrawn from Shanxi.

What Shinozuka Yoshio finds most worrying is the morale problem of the First Army. The morale of the entire First Army has reached freezing point. Now Shinozuka Yoshio even suspects that if the Eighth Route Army in Shanxi launches an attack on Taiyuan, the First Army is likely to be blown up.

Yoshio Shinozuka looked at everyone in silence, then finally stood up and looked at the generals in the conference room.

"Your Excellency, Commander, and gentlemen, I have something to say!"

When Tada Shun saw Yoshio Shinozuka stand up and speak, his eyes suddenly lit up.

"General Shinozuka, please share your thoughts."

Yoshio Shinozuka bowed to everyone, and then spoke seriously.

"Your Excellency, Commander, Generals, let us now discuss how to deal with the Eighth Route Army in North China. This is purely a useless effort."

"The most urgent task is to restore the strength of our North China Locust Army. We must replenish the losses of the Locust Army as soon as possible. Otherwise, if this continues, the Locust Army will be in a very dangerous situation."

Hearing that Shinozuka Yoshio had bluntly exposed the current fig leaf, Tada Shun's face looked a little unhappy, but he couldn't get angry. Shinozuka Yoshio was talking about the root cause of the current predicament of the locust army in North China. If the losses of the locust army in North China were not compensated, let alone suppressing the Eighth Route Army, I am afraid that the Eighth Route Army would be aggressive towards the locust army later.

However, Tada Shun knew what Shinozuka Yoshio said. However, after more than a month of statistics, Tada Shun couldn't help cursing Sugiyama Hajime after seeing the losses. No wonder he was chosen. This big pot of black was now made him bear the losses.

Tada Shun is very clear about the current situation. Both Northeast China and Central China need to increase their troops, and the reinforcements from North China can only make up for the previous losses. If they want to suppress the Eighth Route Army, they need to continue to increase troops in North China. However, the reserves have almost been withdrawn. If they want to increase troops, they can only wait for the new round of conscription at the end of the year.

But can we wait until the end of the year? If we wait until the end of the year, then the locust army in North China will have nothing to do this year and will just have to guard against the Eighth Route Army.

Thinking of this, Tada Shun suddenly felt a headache.