On May 20, 1938, the Yudong Corps of the Nationalist Army was formed near Shangqiu, and the Yudong Corps had more than ten main divisions under its jurisdiction, and the commander of the corps was Xue Yue, the general of the Guangdong Army, who was mainly responsible for receiving the nationalist troops evacuated from Xuzhou.
At this time, Xuzhou had been declared to have fallen, and 100,000 nationalist troops were retreating along the Longhai line railway line in eastern Henan, shangqiu as the western gate of Xuzhou, as long as shangqiu was still there, the westward retreat of xuzhou nationalist troops could be unimpeded.
However, due to the defeat at the Battle of Xuzhou and the large number of Xuzhou troops, even though Li Zongren, who was in Xuzhou before the evacuation, had formulated a detailed evacuation plan, there were still a large number of Nationalist troops who panicked and deviated from the Longhai line.
More importantly, in addition to the Nationalist troops that were retreating westward, there were also a large number of Nationalist materials that could be withdrawn in the vicinity of Shangqiu, so Xue Yue had a heavy responsibility to guard Shangqiu and had to buy enough time for the Nationalists to withdraw troops and materials.
However, before the formation of the Yudong Corps, the main force of the Japanese army, the Tufeiyuan Division, had already broken through shangzhen's Luxi Defense Line and burst into the Eastern Henan region, and Xue Yue decided to take the lead in driving the Tufeiyuan Division back to Luxi in order to ensure the safety of the westward retreat.
On May 21, 1938, Xue Yue ordered a counterattack against the Tufeiyuan Division, and the troops were divided into east and west to attack the Tufeiyuan Division, preparing to wipe out the Japanese army in eastern Henan in one fell swoop and restore the smoothness of the middle section of the Longhai Railway.
In Xue Yue's two large armies, the nationalist army on the west side was commanded by Song Xilian and swerved back to the Flank of the Japanese army to launch a flank attack, while the Nationalist army on the eastern side was commanded by Li Hanling and launched a fierce attack from the front, attracting the attention of the Japanese army and creating opportunities for Song Xilian's detour.
However, to Xue Yue's surprise, both Song Xilian's and Li Han's soul troops defeated the Japanese army with great ease, and even the main Japanese army that should have been distributed on the front fled without a fight.
Li Han's soul was ready to lead his troops to a bitter battle, but along the way the Japanese army made almost no resistance, and Li Han's soul department captured the target location in just one day.
Song Xilian's troops were even more successful, and they easily used artillery to capture the Japanese defensive positions, and the Japanese army was too hasty to evacuate, and Song Xilian's troops also captured a large number of Japanese materials.
Although Xue Yue did not have much experience in fighting with the Japanese army before this, during the Battle of Songhu, Xue Yue also led reserve troops to support, and the performance of the Toiyuan Division was undoubtedly very abnormal from the previous combat examples.
However, Xue Yue and the others did not doubt for too long, because the main force of the Japanese army soon appeared, and the first to find the main force of the Japanese army was Gui Yongqing, who was ordered to garrison Lanfeng City.
Gui Yongqing graduated from the first phase of the Whampoa Military Academy, and during his time at the school, he was deeply appreciated by the chief instructor of Whampoa, He Yingqin, and was one of the first people to step into the battlefield in the first phase of Whampoa.
Gui Yongqing performed very heroically during the Northern Expedition and the Central Plains War, became He Yingqin's confidant and beloved general, and was praised by He Yingqin as a model for Huangpu graduates.
After the end of the Central Plains War, Gui Yongqing, who had been promoted to brigadier general, was selected as the first batch of German students in the Republic of China to continue to study military affairs in Germany, and Gui Yongqing's achievements during his time in Germany always remained in the top three.
After Gui Yongqing returned to China, he was directly appointed as the chief of the Central Army's Teaching Corps, and was very familiar with Gui Yongqing, an officer of the Teaching Corps, and during Gui Yongqing's reign, the Teaching Corps grew to more than 30,000 people, known as the "Iron Guard".
During the Defense of Nanjing, the Teaching Corps suffered heavy losses as the main force of the Nationalist army, with more than 30,000 people remaining only more than 2,000 after the fall of Nanjing, and Gui Yongqing's troops stationed in Lanfeng were expanded based on 2,000 veterans.
The Japanese Army's Doihara Division also had a long admiration for Gui Yongqing's teaching corps, and the division commander Kenji Doihara was reluctant to engage in a direct confrontation with Gui Yongqing, so as to avoid the heavy losses of his troops when attacking Lanfeng.
In fact, the target of the Toiyuan Division was Kaifeng after Lanfeng, so Kenji Toihara decided to take advantage of the high mobility of the mechanized troops to bypass Lanfeng and directly attack Kaifeng City.
After Xue Yue received Gui Yongqing's report, he couldn't help but sweat coldly, and Xue Yue realized that the Japanese troops encountered by Song Xilian's and Li Han's soul departments had no intention of fighting at all, but were bent on attacking the important town of Kaifeng.
Friends who like this article can pay attention to my WeChat public account "Ancient Stories", which has more articles to share with everyone!
"Disclaimer: This article is reproduced from the Internet. The copyright of the graphic belongs to the original author, if there is any infringement, please contact to delete』