Bright Sword: Construction starts from southeastern Shanxi

In June 1940, a scorching hot summer swept across North China.

For the Japanese army, this year should have been a year to consolidate the occupied areas in North China and stabilize the rear front.

However, the development of events was far from as smooth as they expected.

Since the end of last year, the Japanese army has implemented a series of new combat strategies in the North China battlefield.

Most of these strategies were conceived by special operations expert Yamamoto Ikki.

He proposed to use special operations, intelligence warfare, psychological warfare and economic warfare to disintegrate the Eighth Route Army's resistance forces through multiple means.

However, after half a year of implementation, the results were unsatisfactory. In some areas, the situation of the Japanese army was even worse than before.

Yamamoto Ikki originally envisioned destroying the Eighth Route Army's rear command system through the secret infiltration of Japanese special forces, assassinating important commanders, and thus throwing the Eighth Route Army's combat system into chaos.

But when actually carrying out the plan, the Japanese army found that the vigilance of the Eighth Route Army was far beyond their imagination.

Long before the special operations began, the Eighth Route Army had established a complete anti-espionage system to target Japanese infiltration.

Whether it is the local armed forces at the county and district levels or the militia organizations in various bases, they have all undergone rigorous counter-espionage training.

Many spies and secret agents sent by the Japanese army were discovered by local armed forces and militias even as they had just sneaked into the village, and were subsequently secretly executed.

In some key areas, the Eighth Route Army took the initiative to set up anti-infiltration traps, deliberately releasing false information to lure Japanese special forces to carry out sabotage missions, and then ambushed and annihilated them.

In the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei base area, the Eighth Route Army even successfully instigated a group of puppet army spies sent by the Japanese army to defect, and used them in reverse to provide misleading intelligence to the Japanese army, causing the Japanese army's infiltration operations to be repeatedly thwarted.

The "security war" proposed by Tada Shun is essentially a high-pressure method, attempting to use large-scale clearing, village massacres, and support for pseudo-regimes.

This caused the rural areas of North China to completely lose their support for the Eighth Route Army.

However, half a year later, the Japanese army found that although they had created an atmosphere of terror in some places, the activities of the Eighth Route Army had not been completely curbed.

Many villages ostensibly submitted to the Japanese army and accepted the management of the Japanese puppet government, but secretly continued to provide food, intelligence, and even hide the wounded to the Eighth Route Army.

However, those villages that were massacred in retaliation by the Japanese army aroused even stronger resistance.

Speaking of Tada Shun, since the disastrous defeat in the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain in 1939, Tada Shun had begun to consider leaving.

This battle not only cost the Japanese army a heavy price, but also completely exposed the flaws in the strategic deployment of the North China Front Army.

As the commander of the North China Front Army, he could not avoid the responsibility for the failure, so he took the initiative to submit his resignation to the headquarters, hoping to unload this heavy burden.

However, what he did not expect was that the headquarters did not approve his resignation as he wished, but rejected his request without hesitation.

On the surface, this was because the headquarters still had expectations for him and hoped that he could continue to command the battles in North China.

But in fact, the top leaders of the headquarters have become accustomed to the defeats in North China and even seem a little numb to the difficulties on this battlefield.

Instead of looking for a new commander, it is better to let Tada Shun continue to be in charge temporarily to maintain stability.

In fact, when the headquarters first received Tada Shun's resignation telegram, some senior executives did consider replacing him.

Even discussions about his successor began.

However, surprisingly, when the military staff of the headquarters began to seek opinions from the generals, the situation was beyond everyone's expectations.

As a rule, an important position like the commander of the North China Front Army would usually trigger fierce competition and even open and covert fighting.