On June 23, 1944, the Japanese army launched an attack on Hengyang with 5 divisions, 1 independent brigade and 1 heavy artillery unit. The Order given to Fang Xianjue by the Nanjing Military Commission was to hold out for 10 to 15 days, but they believed that Fang Xianjue could only hold out for a maximum of 3 days. Because Zhang Deneng's 4th Army only lasted 4 days in Changsha, and Fang Xianjue's 10th Army suffered heavy losses in the previous Defense Of Changde Battle in order to relieve Yu Chengwan's siege, before it had time to replenish, the whole army only had more than 17,000 people, equivalent to a half division, and it was for this reason that the Central Military Commission believed that Fang Xianjue could defend for up to 3 days.
However, the Central Military Commission obviously underestimated the combat effectiveness of the 10th Army and Fang Xianjue's command ability, and the progress of the hengyang defense war exceeded many people's expectations. Fang Xianjue and his 10th Army fought a bloody battle at Hengyang and 100,000 Japanese Kou for 47 days and nights, killing more than 40,000 enemy troops, more than twice as many as their own troops. From this point of view, the Hengyang Defense War can be called the most outstanding battle fought by the Nationalist Army since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and there is no one. But after the war, the Japanese army announced a casualty figure of only 29,000 people, so where did the remaining 10,000 people go?
It turned out that in order to reduce the actual number of casualties, the Japanese army used a very funny way, that is, the original unit and the current unit did not record the seconded troops. In this fierce offensive and defensive battle that lasted 47 days, the Japanese 116th Division and the 68th Division suffered the heaviest losses as the main force of the attack, and in order to ensure the combat effectiveness of these two divisions, Yokoyama successively added nearly 20,000 soldiers to them. However, in the post-war casualty counts, neither division counted the casualties of this part of the supplementary soldiers into their own units, and the original divisions and regiments that sent support troops were reluctant to count this part of the casualties on their own heads.
Take the 133rd Wing of the 116th Division regiment as an example, this company had more than 4,400 troops when it attacked Zhangjiashan, and after the battle, including Wing Commander Heiichi Kurose, there were less than 300 people left, and almost all of them were lost. In order to restore combat effectiveness as soon as possible, the Iijima Brigade and watanabe Brigade were urgently replenished, which were devastated in the second general offensive launched by the Japanese army on Hengyang, but after the war, neither the 133rd Wing nor the original units of these two brigades had any record of casualties of this part of the Japanese army.
The 68th Division, which also suffered heavy losses in the second general offensive, was also replenished, and then launched an attack on the Tiger's Nest and the Forest Heights, but was met with stubborn resistance from the defenders, and the "Needle Valley Detachment" replenished in the battle was almost completely destroyed. After the war, none of the 68th Division's squadrons were willing to take note of the casualties of the Needle Valley Detachment. As the original unit of the Needle Valley Detachment, the Japanese 34th Division even regarded the Needle Valley Detachment as a spilled water, believing that since it had been transferred to the 68th Division, their casualties should of course be counted on the head of the 68th Division. In this way, the Needle Valley Detachment was kicked around as a leather ball, and in the eyes of both sides, the Needle Valley Detachment was no longer a "person", but a burden that was eager to get rid of. In the defense of Hengyang, such examples were not uncommon, which was also an important reason for the huge difference in statistical results between the enemy and us after the war.