Japan is a country that upholds the spirit of Bushido. During World War II, the country's use of weapons was only third-rate, but their spiritual level was able to climb to the top, which people did not expect.
In the hearts of the Japanese, the samurai spirit has a high status, and swords and swords are also very representative products. Being able to have a knife that bears their name may give them a sense of supreme honor.
The Japanese soldiers we see in the film and television drama, the familiar Asian faces, the sallow skin revealing a determined look, are always frightening.
However, in real life, most of these are illusions, because the Japanese love to create this standard officer image, which can play an inspiring role and conform to their belief in the spirit of the samurai, which is a cultural belief!
So are the mythical "heroes" of Japanese history really as legendary as they say?
Japanese soldiers in World War II
In fact, this statement is incomplete, although the Japanese soldiers have reached the pinnacle of faith, but it is inevitable that there will always be some people who have not been able to achieve a state of equality with the spirit in terms of strength.
For example, Norihide Abe, who has the title of "Flower of Famous Generals", is a more typical example.
Norizō Abe was born in 1886 in Aomori Prefecture, Japan. The era in which Norihide Abe was born was also an era of unprecedented expansion of Japanese militarist aggression and expansion. At that time, the young people of Japan hoped to become samurai who "rode the battlefield and were loyal to the emperor."
The same was true of Norihide Abe, who, in order to realize his ideals, was admitted to the Japanese Army Non-Commissioned Officer School, which specializes in training army officers.
In 1907, at the age of 21, Norihide Abe graduated from the 19th Infantry Division of the Lushi Division. After graduating, he went to serve in the Army and began his career as a true "samurai".
Abe, like all young Japanese youth at the time, was particularly obsessed with war. It is his duty to obey the emperor absolutely, and it is an honor for him to swear allegiance to the death.
In the bloodthirsty war competition that followed, he "stood out" because of this. In the environment without any background, he was promoted step by step with "battle merits" and was greatly appreciated by the base camp. He successively served as an attached officer of the 32nd Infantry Regiment, an aide-de-camp of the Eighth Division, a staff officer of the 18th Division, and so on.
Shortly after Japan launched a full-scale war of aggression against China, Abe Washu was promoted to major general of the army, transferred to the commander of the 1st Infantry Brigade of the 1st Division of the Kwantung Army, and led the army to invade the three eastern provinces of China.
Two years later, he was promoted to lieutenant general. Because of his repeated "military achievements", he gradually gained some fame in the Japanese military circles, and was known as the "flower of famous generals", and the scenery was unlimited for a while.
Judging from his resume, Norihide Abe at that time was definitely a "flower" in the Japanese military circles, and was a representative figure of Japanese mythology.
But if we throw away so much of his aura and analyze it from the perspective of an ordinary soldier, Abe Norihide is actually a straw bag, worthy of the name.
Abe Norihide died in the Battle of Loess Ridge, the course of this war was vigorous, and he himself was killed under shelling, three hours ago, really came and went in a hurry.
When he began joining the army in 1907, Norihide Abe was just an unknown junior. It took him 32 years to climb to the top and rise to the rank of lieutenant general. To others, Abe's life seems to be smooth.
In October of the year before he became a lieutenant general, Norihide Abe was appointed brigade commander of a third-rate security force, a move that once embarrassed him to the extreme, and became the laughing stock and stubble in the mouths of the troops. Because for a year, Abe Norihide failed to bring achievements to the Imperial Army.
Over time, the army's morale was scattered, and his negative image gradually spread, and he was slightly heard about for hundreds of miles.
In the process, Abe Reported the biggest war to the upper echelons, which was a battle with Guo Qifeng's field team. However, this war cannot be examined, and there is no such figure in the history of the Eighth Route Army. Therefore, it is difficult not to make people suspicious of this move, and posterity has also speculated whether Norihide Abe has lied in the end.
The only one who has something to do with Guo Qifeng should be Wang Qifeng of the Northeast Cavalry Army. Although the names of the two men are slightly similar, he is also in an awkward position.
This northeastern army could not even make up for the basic equipment, which was very different from the military equipment of Abe Norihide.
So in 1939, Abe Washu was not able to give the upper echelons a qualified report card when he was dying, and from the perspective of a general, he really failed.
As for why the Japanese elite is so obsessed with cultivating him? Let's start with the Asahi Shimbun.
As mentioned before, Japan has a strong samurai spirit ideology, and they trumpet these officers who died on the battlefield, that is, to invisibly enhance the spiritual beliefs of the samurai, inspire other soldiers, unconditionally be loyal to the emperor, and fight for the Japanese Empire.
And the death of Norihide Abe also fully proves what an amateur is. We may wish to look back at the situation in Loess Ridge at that time, in 1939, the Japanese army carried out a key sweep of our anti-Japanese base areas. Our Eighth Route Army understands that in terms of weapons and equipment, it is certainly inferior to the Japanese army, so it adopts the operational policy of "concentrating superior forces and breaking through each one."
On November 3, a large group of the Japanese army, under the lure of a small detachment of our Eighth Route Army, entered the YansuYa Gorge, and was intercepted by the main force of the Eighth Route Army and wrapped into dumplings. All but a few escaped and 13 were captured, and all the rest were annihilated.
When the news reached Abe's ears, he was very angry, personally leading two brigades (not a complete formation) of more than 1,000 people, trying to catch the Eighth Route Army by surprise. But when they arrived at the place, they did not find even a shadow of the Eighth Route Army and the common people.
The next day, Abe Norihide led his troops forward again, and our Eighth Route Army held back the troops according to the predetermined deployment while fighting and retreating, luring the enemy to go deeper. Abe's tired main force arrived at the location, but once again pounced.
The two empties caused Abe's mentality to change slightly. At first, some of them were angry and frustrated, eager to fight, ignoring the adventurous advance of the lone army, and directly attacking the main force of the Eighth Route Army along the rugged mountain road. But he did not know that at this time, he had entered the ambush circle designed by the Eighth Route Army in advance.
When the Japanese army was almost in the "pocket", the Eighth Route Army tightened the "bag mouth". Abe's main force was quickly compressed in a ravine about 5 miles long and more than 100 meters wide near Shangzhuangzi, and the troops were beaten to pieces.
While the fighting was still raging, the Eighth Route Army scouts discovered a small village called Jiaochang between Loess Ridge and Shangzhuangzi, and a temporary Japanese command post in a nearby independent farm yard. So he immediately made a decision and aimed at the target to shell.
Although all four shells exploded at the target point, the shells in front did not hit Norihide Abe. Xu is the hat of the "Flower of Famous Generals" is too high to take off.
In the face of the shelling of our Eighth Route Army, everyone else fell on the ground to dodge, but he did not hide, and as a result, just one of the shells landed next to him. Many people know that our weapons and equipment are very backward, even if the shells, the lethality is not as great as that of the Japanese army.
So although the shell landed on Abe's side, it did not kill him on the spot. Only the abdomen, waist, legs were injured in many places, and three hours later, the Japanese "flower of famous generals" Abe Norihide was killed in Huangquan, becoming one of the highest-ranking generals of the Japanese army killed by the Eighth Route Army since the War of Resistance.
It was The 18-year-old mortar bearer, Li Erxi, who fired the gun. As soon as Abe Norihide died, the troops seemed to have lost their main backbone, fell into panic, and desperately broke through without order.
As the core of the army, the command should have been protected by the soldiers, but Abe's mode of operation completely broke with conventional theory.
He completely exposed the headquarters to the Eighth Route Army, and, indeed, a little too arrogant, in the face of our army's shelling, he was even a little dismissive, and he did not bother to hide.
But what is shocking is that his death did not have much impact on the Japanese army. In the end, the death toll of the army was 79, but this data comes from the diary of Japanese officer Naozaburo Okabu, and the credibility is not high.
As for the death of Norihide Abe, the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported it like this:
"Lieutenant General Abe is personally present at the front line in order to inspect the enemy situation and give orders at any time. When he reached a house about a kilometer south of Shangzhuangzi, an enemy shell suddenly flew to his side and exploded, and Lieutenant General Abe was injured several times in the right abdomen and legs, but he did not succumb to the serious injuries, but still shouted: 'I ask everyone to persevere'. Then he bowed his head to the east and left a message: 'This is the duty of a warrior.' 'Wounded for about 3 hours, at 9:40 p.m. on the 7th, the lieutenant general died..."
The title reads: "The Flower of the Famous General withers on the Taihang Mountain." ”
At that time, the commander of the enemy's North China Front, Tada Jun, in a eulogy to mourn Abe Norihide, lamented that "the flowers of famous generals withered on the Taihang Mountain."
When news of Abe's death at Loess Ridge reached Yan'an, Mao Zedong sent a telegram to verify the matter and asked "the headquarters to announce it to all sides and widely publicize it."
Many people may ask, why do I think Abe Norihide is just a superficial appearance, a straw bag? After all, he was a lieutenant general.
In fact, many people have misunderstood, thinking that if they do not graduate from the Army University, they will not be qualified to serve as generals. No, the Japanese Army University graduated from the university but there is more room for improvement, and there is a faster promotion rate.
Japan launched a war against the outside world at that time, and it urgently needed talents, and the Army University had dozens of graduates a year, where was it enough? Don't many officers who graduate from advanced infantry schools also become generals?
Abe's rapid improvement is mainly due to his rich tactical thinking (he taught at the Kumamoto and Sendai Army Schools), so he is known as a "toshi" and "mountain warfare" expert who is good at using "new tactics".
In terms of battle achievements, there is no outstanding experience in campaign command, and it is even worse than Itagaki Seishiro, Ishihara Guan'er and others. Even if he is senior, he is also lackluster.
Of course, although he claimed to have no background in the military circles, he still had a background in politics and business, and at that time, he may have spent money and bribes.