After the outbreak of the Japanese invasion of China, the Japanese army occupied the three northeastern provinces very quickly, and then occupied Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan and other places. Along the way to the south, he repeatedly won victorious battles, and the area occupied by China was also getting larger and larger. However, in one place, during the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Japanese army launched three attacks without being defeated, and even suffered heavy casualties, and the Japanese army became an international joke. This place is Changsha, Hunan.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Japanese launched three offensives against Changsha, namely the First Battle of Changsha from September to October 1939, the Second Battle of Changsha from September 17 to October 9, 1941, and the Third Battle of Changsha from December 24, 1941 to January 15, 1942.
The Third Battle of Changsha was the longest of the three Battles of Changsha, but our army won the final victory, and its results were even more brilliant than the Battle of Taierzhuang. The campaign was a defensive campaign conducted by the troops of the Ninth Theater of Operations against the Japanese invading forces in the Changsha area of Hunan Province.
Before the outbreak of the Third Battle of Changsha, the Japanese army had just finished the raid on Pearl Harbor in the United States, and the Pacific War broke out. At the same time, the ambitions of the Japanese army continued to swell, preparing to launch an offensive against Hong Kong. Due to the successful attack in Hong Kong and the failure of the first two Japanese forces in the Battle of Changsha, the Japanese general at the time, Anan, decided to capture Changsha.
At that time, Anan only received intelligence that after the outbreak of the Pacific War, the elite troops of the Ninth Theater of the Nationalist Army were transferred south, believing that it was a weak defensive force in Changsha. Therefore, he proposed to attack Changsha again, but there were also many Japanese generals who opposed the attack on Changsha, but Anan was hot-headed after winning several battles and insisted on launching the Third Battle of Changsha.
On December 24, 1941, the Third Battle of Changsha broke out. On December 31, the Japanese army invaded the city of Changsha and engaged in street battles with our army. At that time, the Japanese army had the upper hand, and Anan only thought that Changsha had been taken by him. So he sent a congratulatory telegram to Japan to announce the good news, to wash away the shame of the defeat in the first two battles of Changsha. However, what Anan did not expect was that later they were strongly attacked by the Yuelu Mountain Artillery Brigade, and their supplies were also cut off, and the war situation underwent a fundamental change. Breaking Anan's only few daydreams of occupying Changsha, his congratulatory message became an international joke.
On January 4, 1942, our army surrounded the besieging Japanese army in Changsha, and Anan was reluctant to retreat, and issued a wrong order to continue attacking Changsha. Finally, in the unfavorable situation of no reinforcements and no supplies, a forced breakthrough was forced. At that time, our army was not tightly encircled and let it escape, and the Japanese army suffered heavy losses. On 6 January, the Battle ended in victory for our army.
In this battle, our army invested more than 300,000 people and suffered 28,116 casualties. The Third Battle of Changsha, in which the Japanese army invested 120,000 and annihilated 56,994 people, was the first major victory of the Allies since the outbreak of Pearl Harbor, so the Chinese side called it the "Changsha Victory".