What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
In 1944, the world anti-fascist war entered the final stage, and the decline of Japan and Germany in the war was fully demonstrated, and defeat was a foregone conclusion. After the United States completely annihilated the main force of the Japanese Navy in the Pacific, Japan's sea lines of communication were cut off in this battle, and Japan urgently needed to open a new line of communication to maintain its own war needs.
As a result, the Japanese army launched the "No. 1 Operational Plan" of opening up the Pinghan, Guangdong-Han, Xianggui, and Guiqian lines to connect Vietnam and establish the so-called "Greater East Asia Communication Line." Changsha and Hengyang were successively attacked by the Japanese army, and the next target of the Japanese army was Guilin, the provincial capital of Guangxi.
The Guilin Defense War broke out against this background, and although the final result of the war ended in the fiasco of the Chinese army, the Japanese army also suffered heavy casualties in this war, which became a nightmare in the hearts of many Japanese soldiers.
On the eve of the war, the defense of Guilin was adjusted several times and weakened to the point of hopeless defense
The original plan for the defense of Guilin was to hold Guilin for three months, but the fact was that the defenders tried their best to defend Guilin for half a month, so was there any suspicion of exaggeration of the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army? If we specifically understand the changes in Guilin's garrison, I believe we will no longer have any doubts about the combat effectiveness of the defenders.
The garrison army originally scheduled for Guilin was the headquarters of the Thirty-first Army, the main force of the Sixteenth Group Army, its 131st and 188th Divisions, the Forty-sixth Army Headquarters and its 175th And 170th Divisions.
However, Chiang Kai-shek could not bear to deplete the strength of his own troops, and the Central Army did not even have to think about entering guizhou to participate in the war. Even if the Central Army did not participate in the war, the strength of the Gui clan alone would not be reduced to resisting the Japanese army for half a month. However, people's hearts are complicated, and when Bai Chongxi saw that old Jiang was determined to deplete the strength of the Gui army, he naturally also played a plan to preserve the elite of the Gui clan.
As a result, the strength of the guarding Guilin changed several times into the 131st Division and the 170th Division, both of which were the weaker divisions in the Gui clan's battle sequence, and combined with the widespread shortage of nationalist troops, the combat effectiveness of these two divisions could be imagined.
In contrast, the Japanese army directly involved in the attack on Guilin was three complete divisions and a company, and if it was fully deployed, the Japanese offensive force should be about 53,000 people, and such an army was once unable to hold on to hundreds of thousands of Nationalist troops, let alone the two weak divisions in Guilin.
Even Wei Yunsong, the commander of the Guilin garrison, was pessimistic about the battle, and before the war even began, he was planning a breakthrough plan and making various preparations for exploration. You must know that Wei Yunsong was a tough man at that time, eating black beans and filling his hunger and desperately defending the city, and finally won the victory. Even such people are timid before they fight, which shows how great the disparity in the balance of forces between China and Japan is.
But after the battle began, it was these two weak divisions that surprised tens of thousands of Japanese troops, and even after the victory, they did not dare to recall the war again.
When the war was going on: the weapons were poor and the personnel were not orderly, but they gave the Japanese army a blow in the head
After completing initial reconnaissance and tentative attacks, the Japanese launched a full-scale siege on 1 November. Mao'er Mountain, Pingfeng Mountain and other places became the first choice for the Japanese army to attack, although our defenders lacked heavy weapons, but still with limited artillery to give the Japanese army heavy casualties.
On the fourth day, the positions of Mao'er Mountain and Pingfeng Mountain fell into the hands of the enemy one after another, and Putuo Mountain and Crescent Mountain became the places where our defenders continued to resist. During this period, the positions on the two mountains changed hands several times, and the Chinese and Japanese sides left many corpses here, and the fierceness of the battle was no different for a while. On the seventh day, the strength of our defenders was weakened to an extremely dangerous situation, and with no follow-up reinforcements, the defenders were forced to abandon the positions of Putuo Mountain and Crescent Mountain and withdraw into Qixingyan to continue their resistance.
At the same time as the fierce fighting occurred in the east of the city, the North Gate Station, Kozan, Dezhi Middle School, Shogun Bridge and other places were also fiercely fighting, although the defenders inflicted heavy casualties on the invading Japanese army, but due to the lack of weapons and personnel, the positions of the fierce battle were eventually captured by the Japanese army.
Although Wei Yunsong was not optimistic about the prospects for the defense of Guilin, after all, he was once a tough general, sending troops to retake the bridgehead and positions along the river overnight. However, due to the failure to eliminate the invading enemy, it has left a major hidden danger.
By November 10, the defenders' communications were all interrupted, and the Japanese army was about to fully attack the city, and the defenders were in danger of being completely annihilated. At this point, the defenders could not receive effective support or repel the invading enemy, so Wei Yunsong made the decision to retreat.
However, not all the troops chose to withdraw from the battle, and there were still a considerable number of troops left to continue the battle with the Japanese, and by dawn the city of Guilin officially fell into Japanese hands.
According to the results, the Guilin Defense War is undoubtedly a defeated battle, but in terms of national integrity, the Guilin Defense War has played the integrity of chinese soldiers and let the world know that the Chinese nation can never be conquered.
According to statistics, the Kuomintang army lost 5,665 people and captured 13,151 people in this battle, most of whom were stunned by the Japanese army's poison gas and were unable to resist before they were captured. Corresponding to this is that the Japanese army dropped thousands of corpses in Guilin, otherwise why did the defense of Guilin become the most brutal battle in the mouths of many Japanese soldiers.
The disparity between the enemy and our forces, the contradiction between Chiang Kai-shek and the Gui clan, or the Gui clan's attempt to protect themselves led to the defeat of the guilin defense war?
As an hindsight Zhuge Liang, the strength of the enemy and us in the defense of Guilin was already very different, and it was impossible for the Nationalist army to repel the Japanese army with two weak divisions.
Compared with the Hengyang Defense War, the good villains who insisted on holding out in Hengyang were the Tenth Army, one of the aces of the Central Army, and although there was a gap between the weapons and the Japanese, they were undoubtedly much better than the inferior units in the Gui army. There were even many elderly people in the militia groups that participated in the defense of Guilin, which invisibly increased the difficulty of resistance.
Let's look at the Japanese troops attacking Guilin, the 58th Division, the 40th Division, the 37th Division and the 218th Infantry Company of the 34th Division, so that the three divisions plus a company with a total of 53,000 people directly attacked Guilin. And the Japanese also prepared hundreds of tanks and dozens of aircraft for the attack on Guilin, in contrast to the nationalist army with only 22 guns.
Although the Guilin Defense War gave the Japanese army heavy casualties, the Guilin Defense War was indeed a battle in which the strength was completely uncharacterized, and although we sighed for the result, the gap between them must also be acknowledged.
So why is the strength of the Gui clan to guard Guilin so weak, which is inseparable from the contradiction between Chiang Kai-shek and the Gui clan. After the nationwide War of Resistance, the warlord forces throughout the country openly accepted the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, but in fact there was still a certain hostility between the two.
Being able to effectively kill and injure the Japanese army and weaken the warlord forces is undoubtedly Chiang Kai-shek's wishful thinking. Under these circumstances, Chiang Kai-shek tried to avoid his own central army from participating in the war, so as not to cause attrition, and comprehensively depleted the strength of the Japanese army with the Gui army. However, Bai Chongxi and the like of the Gui clan were naturally not fools, and they would not watch their elites being consumed in vain.
As a result, the elite of the Gui clan were transferred out of Guilin City, leaving only the old, weak, sick and disabled to resist the Japanese army, and the strength of the Guilin garrison was weakened as never before. In this battle, we can despise the upper echelons of the Nationalist army, but the middle and lower strata of the Nationalist army have done their best for this battle, giving the Japanese army the greatest degree of casualties with limited weapons and limited personnel.
The defense of Guilin ended in defeat, but it is undoubtedly biased for us to talk about the defense of Guilin based on the results. In the defense of Guilin, patriotic faces emerged, spilling blood for the country, and building a wall against foreign humiliation with their own flesh and blood. While admiring the landscape of Guilin today, we should not forget the soldiers who sacrificed their lives to defend this beautiful land, and they deserve to be remembered by all the sons and daughters of China.