The Battle of Wuhan was a four-month battle between the Chinese army and the Japanese invading forces in the Wuhan area during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
The Battle of Wuhan was the largest, longest, and most annihilated battle in the strategic defense stage of the War of Resistance Against Japan, which greatly depleted the effective strength of the Japanese army.
After that, China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression entered a stage of strategic stalemate.
Before the Wuhan Campaign began, the Chinese nation reached the "most dangerous time."
In July 1937, the Lugou Bridge Incident broke out, and the Japanese invasion of China broke out in full swing.
Due to the disparity in strength between the two countries, by the fall of Xuzhou in May 1938, the Sino-Japanese confrontation lasted only 10 months, and the Chinese side was defeated, lost its divisions, and lost 16 important cities north of the Yangtze River and east of Pinghan.
Nanjing, the capital of the Nationalist government, had also fallen and had to be moved to Chongqing.
At that time, China's highest military command was still in Wuhan, and the Japanese authorities wanted to completely defeat China, and Wuhan bore the brunt of it and became their next target.
The strategic significance of Wuhan is that it is not only the last line of defense in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, but also the transshipment point for many important materials on the way of the government's westward migration, which will be handed over to the enemy once Wuhan is lost.
At the Kaifeng conference, Chiang Kai-shek repeatedly stressed the importance of defending Wuhan: "If we want to maintain the lifeblood of the country, we must stick to Wuhan and consolidate Wuhan." ”
Moreover, the Battle of Wuhan was a strategic and helpless choice of Chiang Kai-shek at that time, and the Japanese army captured Kaifeng, the capital of Henan Province, in 1938. In this case, the Japanese army had the possibility of attacking Shaanxi from the west.
Once the Japanese occupied Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, Chongqing would be threatened.
In Wuhan, the Japanese army will concentrate on attacking Wuhan from east to west along the Yangtze River.
In this way, the safety of the Great Southwest can be ensured.
Before the Battle of Wuhan, the Nationalist government invested 300,000 troops in March 1938 and fought the Battle of Taierzhuang.
The Japanese suffered 11,000 casualties at the Battle of Taierzhuang, one-fifth of the troops involved in the battle.
Although the ratio of troops invested by China and Japan was 6:1, the casualty ratio was 5:1.
After the Battle of Taierzhuang, the heavily damaged Japanese army was furious and demoralized, and wanted to capture Wuhan at all costs, completely disintegrating the anti-Japanese fighting spirit of the Chinese people.
If the Japanese army did not go all out to attack Wuhan, but divided its troops to attack Shaanxi, the southwest rear area may be occupied by the Japanese army, and the National Government will be attacked on both sides, and the danger will be like an egg.
The Japanese army at the Battle of Wuhan also had its own wishful thinking, that is, to completely annihilate the main force of the nationalist army in Wuhan, compress the living space of the National Government, and let it become a local government and gradually disappear.
At the Battle of Wuhan, the Nationalist army determined the theory of the strategy of "exchanging time for space" according to the reality that the enemy was strong and we were weak.
To be precise, knowing that if you can't hold it, you must also defend it, and holding the enemy back is victory.
In June 1938, the Battle of Wuhan officially began.
In order to fight this defensive war well, the Nationalist government invested 14 group armies, 50 armies, about 200 combat aircraft, more than 30 ships, and a total strength of nearly 1.1 million people.
In this battle, the Nationalist army killed and wounded a total of 250,000 Japanese troops, which was 3 times that of the Songhu Campaign, which greatly surprised the Japanese army, dealt a heavy blow to the arrogance of the Japanese army, and smashed the Japanese army's conspiracy to destroy China.
After this battle, the Japanese army no longer clamored for a rapid government of China.
It was also after this campaign that China and Japan entered a stage of strategic stalemate.
In the defense of Wuhan, the reason why the Japanese army paid heavy casualties was mainly because of the loss of geographical advantages.
The Songhu Campaign was a one-horse Pingchuan, the Nationalist army had no danger to defend, and there was no equipment advantage, and the Japanese army held air and sea control, so it was very rampant.
The Japanese army in the Wuhan Defense War did not have the geographical advantage, they were the attacking side, and they had to face the 600-kilometer-long Poyang Lake, Dongting Lake and other Yangtze River basins.
The theater of operations was not only densely packed with lakes, but also undulating mountains; the Mufu Mountains bordering Hubei and Gansu and the Dabie Mountains on the border of Hubei and Anhui made it impossible for the mechanized troops of the Japanese army to exert their superiority, and they had to pay a heavy price for each step forward.
In the Battle of Songhu, the casualty ratio between China and Japan was 3:1, and the casualty ratio at the Battle of Wuhan was 2:1.
Even the Japanese admitted that the Battle of Wuhan was "the battle that suffered the most losses and paid the most." It was after the Battle of Wuhan that the Japanese army was obviously insufficient, because many of the living forces were wiped out and the front line was stretched too long.
If you want to navigate the battlefield head-on, you must show a gap in the rear. Due to the concentration of troops on the front line, the Japanese railway and public transportation lines were under the blows of the communist anti-Japanese guerrillas.
After the Battle of Wuhan, the Japanese army began to face up to the opponent of the Nationalist Army.
During the occupation of Nanjing, the Japanese army also held a grand entrance ceremony.
After the occupation of Wuhan, the commander of the Central China Dispatch Army: Hata Shunroku issued an order: the army was not allowed to celebrate the victory and hold a ceremony to enter the city. The reason for this is that although it is victorious, it is not glorious.
Despite the geographical advantages of the Nationalist army, the battle was still fought very hard, because the Nationalist army participated in the battle with too many troops, and there were major problems in coordination and cooperation.
Chen Cheng, the commander of the Wuhan Campaign, admitted: "The excessive number of intermediate command units is a major reason for the failure of previous battles. We have known this painful experience for a long time. However, by the time of the Battle of Wuhan, the intermediate command units were not only not reduced, but more numerous. There are armies, regiments, group armies, corps, and even the headquarters of the commander of the theater in the division, which is really a very powerful thing."
For example, on the night of June 11, the Botian detachment took advantage of the rainy night to raid Anqing, and the Yang Sen department of the 27th Group Army of the Sichuan Army was ineffective in combat and was expelled from the city overnight.
Yang Sen argued that Xu Yuanquan's 26th Group Army took the initiative to retreat, allowing himself to suffer from the enemy on his stomach and back, and had to withdraw.
When Chiang Kai-shek held Xu Yuanquan accountable, he said he had received orders to retreat.
Therefore, this matter is not resolved.
For example, on June 25, Xue Weiying, the commander of the 167th Division, received two orders with different contents: Bai Chongxi ordered him to rush from the highway to help, and Li Yunheng told him to take the path.
Although the command is not good, the enemy is strong and we are weak, but the national army still destroyed more than 200,000 Japanese troops in a weak situation, indicating that many national army officers and men have tried their best and are worthy of the title of soldiers.
In the history of war, all defensive battles were fought very fiercely. What's more, the Wuhan Defense War is a battle in which the enemy is strong and we are weak, and the degree of tragedy can be imagined.
Of all the units involved in the war, the hardest to fight was the 74th Army, the ace of the Nationalist Army.
In the defense of Wuhan, the Nationalist army generally fought a defensive battle; while the 74th Army fought a tough battle, and the fierceness of the battle was beyond imagination.
On October 5 and 6, the main force of the 1st Corps, the 74th Army (the predecessor of the reorganized 74th Division, which was later known as one of the five main forces of the Kuomintang Army), and other units fought fierce battles with the Japanese 106th Division at Changling, Beixi Street, Zhanggushan, and Shiziyan.
The 74th Army, under the command of division commander Wang Yaowu, launched several attacks on the northern end of Changling and the commanding heights of Zhanggu Mountain occupied by the Japanese army, and Zhang Lingfu, commander of the 305th Regiment, led a small and capable force to attack from the cliffs of the rear mountains that the Japanese had neglected to defend.
When the Japanese army found out, the Nationalist army had already arrived.
Zhang Lingfu shouted loudly and led the officers and men to pull out their bayonets.
The Japanese soldiers also screamed, withdrew their bullets, turned off the safety, and rushed over with rifles.
For a moment, flesh and blood splashed, screams continued, and corpses lay on the top of the mountain.
After half an hour of white-knife fighting, the Nationalist army finally occupied the main position of Zhanggushan.
Until October 9, under the repeated attacks of the Chinese army, the Japanese 106th Division suffered heavy losses, many platoon commanders and company commanders fell in a pool of blood, and the Japanese army was like headless flies.
When the commander of the Central China Dispatch Army, Junliu, heard the news, he was so angry that he personally organized the airdrop of more than 200 officers below the squadron commander to the Wanjialing area to come to the rescue.
Such a scene was very rare in the entire Chinese War of Resistance Against Japan.
The Japanese launched more than 30 rounds of attacks in five days and nights, but the positions were still controlled by the 305th Regiment.
In the Battle of Wuhan, the main force of the Nationalist army, the 36th Army, also performed very eye-catchingly, defending the dignity of the soldiers with their blood and lives.
On June 28, the Japanese 10th Division captured Lu'an, and this news made the Nationalist high command anxious.
Bai Chongxi, commander of the theater, ordered Sun Lianzhong's troops, who were closest to the Japanese army, to hold out for at least ten days to buy time for the subsequent establishment of a new defensive line.
Sun Lianzhong was dumbfounded after receiving the order, because his troops had just withdrawn from the Xuzhou battlefield, and not only were they sleepy and depleted, but they were also seriously depleted, and they needed to rest, and their combat effectiveness was too poor.
At this time, Song Xilian, the commander of the 71st Army, asked for battle.
The corps was formed from the 87th, 88th and 36th Divisions of the German Elite, especially the 87th and 88th Divisions, formerly known as the 1st Division and the 2nd Guard Division of the Nationalist Government Guard Army, which were combined in March 1931, and were the orthodox capital of the Yulin Army.
As the main force of the Nationalist army, the 71st Army participated in major battles such as the Battle of Songhu, the Battle of Nanjing, the Battle of Lanfeng, and other major battles, and won the title of Anti-Japanese Iron Army because of repeated setbacks to the elite of the Japanese army.
Although the 71st Army was well-equipped, after many major wars, it was no longer an all-German weaponry, and could only barely maintain half German weapons and half national weapons.
Song Xilian's position to block the enemy was at Fujin Mountain, which was located at the junction of Gushi and Lihuang (present-day Jinzhai) counties, like a fan, towering and dangerous, and the elevation was dangerous.
So Song Xilian deployed his troops at Fujin Mountain to control the Hexin Highway, where he could block the Japanese army from moving north.
Because the 87th Division had not yet arrived on the battlefield, Song Xilian ordered Chen Ruihe's 36th Division and Zhong Bin's 88th Division to build the fortifications of Fujin Mountain first; the army headquarters was located at the top of Fujin Mountain, and the 61st Division under the command of the 61st Division held the county seat of Gushi County and responded to the main force of the FujinShan garrison.
All officers and soldiers knew that this was a fierce battle, but as soldiers had no choice.
On August 30, 1938, the vanguard of the elite 13th Division of the Japanese Army launched a fierce attack on the 108th Brigade of the 36th Division at the forward positions on both sides of the Shi River.
The officers and men of the brigade stubbornly resisted, and after two days of perseverance, they were ordered to withdraw to Fujin Mountain, and none of the officers and men of some companies survived, and all of them were martyred heroically.
On 2 September, the elite Japanese 13th Division continued its attack on the positions of the 36th Division.
The 36th Division stubbornly resisted the onslaught of the Japanese army, and its two companies holding Onashan and Iron Mountain were all killed.
Commander Song Xilian personally went to the headquarters of the 36th Division, ordered the main force of the special service battalion to detour and attack, and cooperated with the 36th Division to attack the Japanese from the flank, and Ma'anshan returned to the hands of the Nationalist army.
On September 6, the 36th Division, commanded by Division Commander Chen Ruihe, launched an active attack on the Japanese army halfway up the mountain.
The two sides repeatedly fought for positions in Ma'anshan and engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
At noon on September 7, the Japanese army, which had suffered heavy losses, was distraught and released poison gas bombs at the Nationalists. The Japanese thought that most of the defenders were poisoned and incapacitated, and rushed up the mountain with screams.
But officers and men of the 71st Army struggled to break out of the trenches and engaged the Japanese in hand-to-hand combat with bayonets.
The two armies fought until the sun set and the moon rose.
Seeing that the Chinese soldiers were invincible, the Japanese commander was so angry that he disregarded the state of the two armies on the position, mobilized heavy artillery to bombard, and fired a large number of incendiary bombs, turning the position into a sea of fire.
Seeing that the Japanese army was about to break through the defensive line, the military headquarters of the main peak was about to be threatened by the enemy, and Chen Ruihe, commander of the 36th Division, immediately commanded the 106th Brigade to draw 200 people to form a death squad; launched a counterattack against the Japanese army, and finally recaptured part of the position.
Reporters accompanying the army reported: General Song (Xi Lian) found that the Japanese army was pedaling cowhide hard-soled shoes on their feet, slow to move, and it was unfavorable to climbing the mountain to fight, and immediately ordered officers and men to rush out of the trenches, shouting killing, fighting for thorns, shaking the mountains, and breaking the enemy's guts.
Some of the nationalist athletes stabbed six devils to death in a row, and although they were shot out of breath, they clutched their bayonets in their right hands; some pierced the enemy's steel helmets with all their strength and died of brain plasma; some stabbed the devils in the abdomen, and the enemy also stabbed them, and neither of the bayonets was pulled out, and they lay in a pool of blood.
In addition to the Kuomintang Central Army, the performance of the miscellaneous army in the Battle of Wuhan was also very outstanding, and the 58th Army of the Dian Army led by Sun Du was almost all new recruits, not only did not undergo strict military training, but some had not yet heard the sound of artillery.
However, this mainly recruited unit, starting from September 23, blocked the enemy in the fortifications along the highway in Yangxin County, Xintanpu, and Xintanpu, and did not let the Japanese advance half a step for 20 days.
After the battle, Sun Du lay on the road and cried, and his 7 regimental commanders, 9 company commanders, and more than 1,700 soldiers could never return to their hometown, most of them blurred with blood and flesh, unrecognizable.
Although the Wuhan Defense Warring States Army failed, it was defeated.
It is precisely with these hot-blooded men that the Japanese army's destruction of China has become a delusion.
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