In the entire War of Resistance Against Japan, leaving aside very few cases, the casualty ratio between the Nationalist army and the Japanese army will generally be maintained between 4:1 and 5:1, which is a fair figure. However, if only in terms of troops, in the early stage of the all-out War of Resistance, the three divisions of the Nationalist Army were still able to compete with the Japanese army for a long time, but with the progress of the war, in some cases the Nationalist Army often needed nearly 10 divisions to maintain the balance of frontal attack and defense with a division of the Japanese army.
Under these circumstances, the defense of Hengyang was fought at Hengyang City for 47 days with more than 17,000 men of the Tenth Army, which was not fully organized, and 110,000 Japanese Kou of the Japanese Eleventh Army Yokoyama, and the Japanese army paid the price of 20,000 dead and nearly 60,000 wounded.
Although Hengyang eventually fell and Fang Xianjue surrendered to the Japanese army in order to save the army from being slaughtered by the Japanese army, this urban offensive and defensive battle was still a battle that the Chinese army in the War of Resistance Against Japan could sing and cry on the frontal battlefield.
The Battle of Hengyang took place from late June to early August 1944 as part of the Battle of Yuxianggui. In order to redeem its defeat in the Pacific War, the Japanese army was determined to implement the "Operation No. 1" plan to open up the mainland communication line in China so that the Japanese army could get out of the quagmire of the Chinese battlefield as soon as possible.
After the fall of Changsha on 18 June, the Japanese 11th Army's Yokoyama Beakubu began an attack on Hengyang on 23 June with 5 divisions and 1 brigade, totaling 110,000 men.
The 10th Army of the Defenders belonged to the 3rd Division, the Pre-10th Division, the 190th Division, and a regiment of the Provisional 54th Division, which was transferred to the command of the 10th Army. Among them, the 190th Division was originally planned to be a rear-transfer division, except for one regiment with relatively complete strength, the remaining two regiments only retained cadres at or above the formation level. A regiment of the provisional 54th Division was not part of the 10th Army, and in order to preserve its strength, two battalions were separated from the battlefield shortly after the battle began under the command of Xue Yue, so that only one battalion was left. In addition, the 10th Army suffered heavy damage in the Changde Exhibition, and the personnel and equipment were only 70%, so the total strength was only 17,500 people.
It can be said that under such a comparison of troops, the original plan to hold on to 7-10 days, while the 10th Army held out for a full 47 days, if the reinforcements can arrive in time, they can turn defeat into victory.
Although Hengyang was lost, on the whole, the responsibility was not in Fang Xianjue, he was more like a victim, a tragic hero.
There are many reasons for the fall of Hengyang, but there is one person who bears an unshirkable responsibility for this, that is, Jiang Ren, who is sitting far away from Hengyang in Chongqing but who frequently intervenes in the front-line command with telegrams (thousands of years, there is no room for everyone).
Leaving aside the consequences of Chiang Kai-shek's intervention, first of all, there are three fatalities in this form of direct command of front-line operations in the form of a telegram:
First, it is easy to be cracked by local telecommunications and leaked military aircraft (according to Japanese war history records, Chiang's telegrams during the Hengyang Defense War were indeed deciphered by a large number of people);
Second, it is impossible to accurately grasp the rapidly changing battlefield situation;
Third, I send a judgment on the veracity of the situation between the enemy and ourselves.
In addition, there is a more serious problem with Chiang's direct command of front-line operations, that is, it will make the already chaotic command system of the Nationalist army more chaotic, and it will disrupt the established operational arrangements of the former enemy's command.
During the defense of Hengyang, the commander of the 10th Army, Fang Xianjue, was in charge of the defense of the city, and the deputy commander of the 27th Group Army Li Yutang (former commander of the 10th Army, the 10th Army was Li Yuntang's starting unit) who was responsible for the operations on the outskirts of Hengyang. In addition, there was Jiang in the central authorities, Bai Chongxi in Guilin, xue Yue, commander of the Ninth Theater, and coordinated command of various group armies.
The command system, which was already chaotic, was even more powerless because of Chiang Kai-shek's direct intervention, which led to the fact that the generals who directly commanded the operation were even more powerless.
However, Jiang and most of the generals still had differences, such as the deployment of the 62nd Army in peripheral operations, and Jiang and Li Yutang only saw different views.
June 22, 1944. That is, the day before the outbreak of the Hengyang Defense War, Li Yutang ordered the 62nd Army, which had just been transferred from Guangdong, to "control and place it near Tanzi Mountain and Zengping, and when the enemy crossed the Xiang River and attacked with steaming water, it would attack from inside and outside, and suppress the enemy on the west bank of the Xiang River and the south bank of the Steaming River and annihilate it." On the same day, Jiang crossed Over Li Yutang and sent a direct telegram to Huang Tao, commander of the 62nd Army, ordering him to go to Qiyang to assemble and stand by. Therefore, the 62nd Army could only follow Jiang's orders and drive to Qiyang to garrison.
Judging from the development of the later battle situation, Chiang's dispatch was obviously wrong, resulting in the 62nd Army staying away from Hengyang, not to mention, when supporting the Hengyang operation, it was also necessary to eliminate the enemies of Baihepu, Jilong Street, and Tanzishan along the way, resulting in the 62nd Army being unable to effectively support the Hengyang operation later.
And because of this frequent skip-the-line command, in addition to causing Li Yutang to be overwhelmed and unable to effectively control the troops, it also led to a great reduction in the seriousness of the military order, and Chiang Did not give a clear deadline when specifically commanding the troops supporting the Hengyang operation, which once again weakened the seriousness of the military order.
From the beginning of the battle until July 20, the Hengyang defenders repelled two general attacks of the Japanese army, and when the Japanese attack was frustrated and demoralized, it was the best time for the reinforcement of the peripheral troops, but the 8 armies on the outskirts of Hengyang had more than 100,000 people, and the slow progress of reinforcements was puzzling.
For example, the 37th Army, ordered to rescue Hengyang with all its might, sent only one "all-out" attack of the 60th Division to advance. But even so, not a single general who failed to rescue was punished by Chiang.
In contrast, the 8th Regiment of the 10th Army, which had remained in the area of Nanyue and Hengshan, immediately moved that night after receiving orders from the commander Fang Xianjue to break through the enemy position as soon as possible and return to Hengyang on July 3, and only three days into Hengyang City.
And the reason for all this is naturally inseparable from Jiang sitting on the remote control battlefield in Chongqing. Therefore, I think that the loss of Hengyang City is neither to blame Fang Xianjue nor Li Yutang, but in terms of personal responsibility, the biggest person responsible is none other than Jiang Gong, who is sitting in Chongqing.