Author: Bin Ge
In the summer of 1944, in the European and Pacific theaters of World War II, the Allies launched a major counteroffensive. However, at this time in the Chinese battlefield, the Japanese army launched an unprecedented scale of "Operation No. 1", and the Nationalist armies in Henan, Hunan, and Guangxi collapsed for thousands of miles.
Changsha, which had thwarted the Japanese offensive three times, fell in three days from June 16. Why was it that before the Nationalist army was able to use the "Heavenly Furnace Tactics" to achieve a great victory in Changsha, it could not save Changsha in 1944?
Xue Yue
The Japanese were dying and the scale of the attack was unprecedented
Many people believe that the Japanese army in 1944 has reached the end of the crossbow, and the total strength, equipment, and quality of soldiers are not as good as the peak of 1941. This is true overall, but the Japanese army still has an absolute advantage in the Chinese battlefield.
After the Third Defensive Battle of Changsha in early 1942, the Japanese army did not engage the Nationalist army in the Ninth Theater for two and a half years. During this time, the Japanese army did not lose many elite troops in the frontal battlefield, but gained the opportunity to recuperate.
In 1943, the U.S. military counterattacked in the Pacific Ocean, and long-range bombers appeared over Japan for the first time; the Japanese army and navy felt unprecedented survival pressure. In order to eliminate the air bases in China and open up the "mainland communication line" connecting the various Japanese-occupied areas, the Japanese base camp was determined to gamble counter-intuitively and pinch the "soft persimmon" of the Nationalist army.
U.S. military aircraft flying to the Japanese mainland
To this end, Japan carried out a large-scale mobilization in 1943, and 32 new divisions and regiments were formed in the country. This would replace the troops who had previously fought in north and central China. The vacated divisions and the troops transferred south from the Kwantung Army formed a powerful mobile corps.
Although the level of mechanization of the Japanese army in World War II is low, it has more heavy weapons than the Chinese army and the logistics support is more adequate. Therefore, the Japanese army formulated a battle plan to open up the Chinese battlefield. That is, to give full play to its mobile superiority of relying on railways, roads, and water transportation, to concentrate the scattered main force of the Japanese army in a certain theater to break through the national army in front of it; and then quickly transfer to another theater to achieve local attacks with more and less.
For this "Great Expedition of the Century", the Japanese army concentrated a total of 510,000 soldiers; and for the first time, a large number of armored units were used. Its troop strength and logistical support materials have surpassed the previous unprecedented scale of the Battle of Wuhan. After the Battle of Yuzhong, the main force of the Japanese army went south to attack Changsha, gathering more than 360,000 troops in Hunan.
For the first time, the Japanese army used a large-scale armored force
In the previous three battles to defend Changsha, the Japanese army had a strength of 110,000 troops and a small number of only 70,000. In this way, the Nationalist army will want to copy the original "Heavenly Furnace Tactics", and the outer nationalist forces will not only be unable to encircle the Japanese army attacking Changsha, but will be severely damaged. According to the previous example, in order to resist more than 360,000 Japanese troops, the Ninth Theater needed to assemble at least 1.5 million troops; it was impossible to do this in time or space.
Lack of mobile troops
While the Japanese abandoned some minor positions and refocused their garrisons into mobile forces, the Nationalists were caught in an awkward situation in which they had numerical superiority in the air but no mobile strength and no general reserves.
Many Taiwanese scholars attribute the defeat at the Battle of Yuxianggui to the fact that in April 1944, Stilwell and other American generals forced the Second Chinese Expeditionary Force to counterattack Western Yunnan. Objectively speaking, the Chinese Expeditionary Force, which numbered 250,000 people, may have been the only mobile unit of the Chongqing High Command at that time. But it should also be noted that it is one thing for this unit to be placed in western Yunnan, but it is another thing to put it on other battlefields.
The so-called Second Phase of the Chinese Expeditionary Force was only slightly better equipped than the Central Military Department in China at that time; there was still a huge gap between the main divisions of the Chinese Army in India or the Japanese Army, which was fully reflected in the Battle of Songshan. Stilwell and others demanded that the Chinese Expeditionary Force counterattack Burma, in effect taking into account logistical considerations. If these troops are transferred to other battlefields, there is no air support and ammunition supply from the US military, and the combat effectiveness is no different from other domestic troops.
The Nationalist army in 1944 was in dire straits
The large number of main units of the Nationalist army is not only backward in equipment, but also has poor mobility. Soldiers are short of food and medicine for a long time, and they lack military shoes, and people will fall down on long marches. In this way, the soldiers marched on two feet with physical strength and no fuel for the car; there was no material basis for wanting to fight a sports war with the Japanese army. Moreover, even if the 250,000 expeditionary force can really be transferred to the Hunan battlefield, the total strength is still in the inferior position.
In fact, if the Chinese army in India and the second Phase of the Chinese Expeditionary Force had been able to open the Burma Highway by the end of 1943, the US aid materials gathered in India could be quickly transported to the rear; in this way, the combat effectiveness of the domestic army could be fundamentally improved (rather than relying only on a limited number of expeditionary forces) to avoid the rout of 1944. However, the Chongqing Headquarters lacked the awareness of the overall situation and dragged the positive factors into negative factors.
Soldiers of the Chinese Army in India trained in the United States
The Ninth Theater's own combat effectiveness was weakened
The first three Japanese attacks on Changsha were all "sweep operations", but in 1944 the Japanese army aimed to penetrate the entire Ninth Theater. However, in the face of an unprecedented war, the Ninth Theater commanded by Xue Yue was blindly optimistic and poorly prepared for war. Although there are still 300,000 troops on paper, because there is no war in Changsha, the Chongqing high command has transferred many main forces to other places. For example, the 74th Army, once one of the double aces of the Ninth Theater, first became the direct command of the command; later assigned to the Sixth Theater, it suffered great losses in the defense of Changde.
Another ace, the 10th Army, due to the personal contradictions between the military commanders Fang Xianjue and Xue Yue, suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Changde but failed to receive priority replenishment. In fact, the 10th Army originally planned to participate in the Battle of Changsha, but was forced to defend Hengyang because Changsha was lost too quickly.
The Japanese army that attacked was no longer the Japanese army of that year, and the national army defending Changsha was not the national army of that year. At the same time that the ace troops in the Ninth Theater were drawn, the corruption at the top and the light enemy slowly devoured the combat strength of the nationalist army.
The Japanese used trucks to quickly transport troops
The actual number of enemies annihilated in the first three battles of Changsha was far less brilliant than the propaganda, and even the Chongqing Military Commission expressed doubts. But under the overwhelming publicity, Xue Yue had been deified. After that, the Japanese army did not attack Changsha again, which also seems to prove that Changsha is "impregnable".
As a result, in the Ninth Theater of Operations after 1943, from the commander Xue Yue to the junior officers, there was a serious feeling of light enemy. In their view, the Japanese army has reached the point of exhaustion and will not attack again; all they have to do is to preserve their strength and wait for the Japanese army to be defeated and grab territory. Even at the end of 1943, the Hunan provincial government had already engaged in infighting within the personnel arrangements for the "restoration" of the cities and counties; that is to say, before the Japanese were expelled, they began to "divide the cake" in advance.
The eve of the great war will be discordant
Although it is indeed difficult for the Nationalist army to save Changsha in 1944, it does not mean that Changsha should have been lost so quickly. The defeat in the 1944 Defense of Changsha was largely due to the infighting among the top brass of the Ninth Theater, which eliminated the possibility of the nationalist army's last victory.
Xue Yue was recognized as a famous anti-Japanese general, but he was also a relatively maverick presence among the generals of the Nationalist Army. In a sense, this kind of character of his was an advantage in facing the Japanese army alone; but when it was necessary to coordinate the various parties to fight, his arbitrary and blind style became a huge weakness. Before the war, The chief of staff He Yingqin and the deputy chief of staff Bai Chongxi repeatedly reminded Xue Yue that he should change his deployment, but they ignored him. It can be said that Xue Yue's arrogance was an important reason for the defeat of the entire Battle of Changheng.
Chief of staff wu yizhi in film and television dramas
In the first three battles of Changsha, Xue Yue and Chief of Staff Wu Yizhi cooperated tacitly as an important factor in victory. However, in October 1943, Wu Yizhi made a mistake and was forcibly transferred to Chongqing by Chiang Kai-shek to take up an idle post, and Zhao Zili, the former chief of staff, took over. Although Zhao Zili also had some talents, his personal relationship with Xue Yue was very bad.
Before the Fourth Battle of Changsha, although all aspects of intelligence showed that the scale of the Japanese attack would be different from the past. However, Xue Yue, out of his extreme dislike for Zhao Zili, opposed his proposal to retreat to Hengyang for a decisive battle; insisted on using the Fourth Army to hold Changsha, and evacuated first without giving Zhao Zili actual command. As a result, due to the command error of Zhang Deneng, the commander of the Fourth Army, the Japanese army took Yuelu Mountain lightly and destroyed the heavy artillery positions of the Nationalist army, making the entire war situation irreversible. Before the great war, the commanders were actually lost, which shows that the nationalist army in the late stage of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression was already accumulating heavy burdens and was difficult to return.
German heavy artillery of the Nationalist army
Throughout the Battle of Changheng, the Chinese and American air forces fully supported ground operations and cut off the logistics supply line of the Japanese army for a time; it was difficult to make up for the overall disadvantage of the Nationalist army and the consequences caused by the wrong command. The rapid fall of Changsha not only in vain the previous efforts of the Nationalist army, but also affected the overall situation of the Chinese battlefield. Both the great cause of anti-fascism in the world and China's international status have had a tremendous negative impact.