Xue Yue, a name, a legend. During the anti-Japanese period, he was good at winning more battles with less, and was recognized as the "God of War". He was not only the general who annihilated the most Japanese invaders, but also a tactician and a strategist. His "Heavenly Furnace Tactics" made the enemy fearful, and his three feats of defending Changsha will forever be recorded in history.
Xue Yue was born in an ordinary family in rural Guangdong, because his father hoped that he could be like Yue Fei and defend his family and country, so he was named Xue Yue. After graduating from the military academy, he devoted himself to the revolutionary cause of Sun Yat-sen. Since then, his life has been closely linked to the War of Resistance Against Japan, and his name has been associated with a series of brilliant achievements.
In the difficult years of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, General Xue Yue became a banner of the Chinese army with his outstanding command ability and firm determination to resist the war. The enemy he faced was the notorious Japanese commander --- Okamura Ninji. This man is a crazy militarist with vicious and brutal methods of warfare. The army led by him, wherever he captured, implemented the three-light policy of "killing, burning, and robbing everything".
But I have to admit that Okamura Ninji has a certain military talent. After Japan's full-scale invasion of China in 1937, Okamura Ninji went all the way south, winning many battles, and was called a "military genius" by the Japanese. However, it was this so-called "genius" who was repeatedly frustrated and suffered great defeats in front of General Xue Yue.
In 1938, the Battle of Wanjialing began. This is a battle related to national dignity and survival, and it is also the first head-to-head confrontation between Xue Yue and Okamura Ninji. General Xue Yue fought against Okamura Ninji's 20,000 elite Japanese troops with an army of 100,000. In the case of inferior equipment, General Xue Yue surrounded the Japanese army in the Wanjialing area with excellent tactical arrangements and firm determination to resist the war.
After fierce fighting, the Japanese suffered heavy casualties, and the 106th Division was almost completely annihilated. This battle completely shattered the myth of the invincibility of the Japanese army, and also gave Okamura Ninji a taste of defeat.
However, Okamura did not stop there. In April 1939, he launched another offensive in an attempt to capture Nanchang. For this reason, the two fought again. This time, Okamura Ningji made full preparations, found Xue Yue's weakness in defense in advance, and then adopted methods such as crazy bombing and ground shelling, and captured Nanchang in a week.
The victory in this battle made Okamura Ningji have the illusion that Xue Yue was nothing more than that. Then I wanted to take advantage of the victory and chase after it. So in September, 180,000 troops were quickly assembled, preparing to take Changsha in one fell swoop, and Xue Yue was pressed and beaten. In the face of the menacing Japanese army, Chiang Kai-shek, after analyzing the situation, believed that the strength of the two sides was very different, and in order to preserve the strength, he ordered the generals around Changsha to retreat and not resist.
But Xue Yue did not flinch, he resolutely advocated defending Changsha, even if he died in battle, he must defend the country. Therefore, in the face of Chiang Kai-shek's order, Xue Yue did not carry it out, but prepared for battle. He first instructed to give an internal lecture to tell everyone about the current situation, and then showed that those who are unwilling to stay can leave and will never be embarrassed. As a result, no one left, and they were willing to fight against the Japanese invaders with him.
After the internal morale was boosted, Xue Yue borrowed troops everywhere. In the end, with great difficulty, with his own troops, he could command a total of more than 30 divisions, plus 3 advance columns, with a number of about 400,000.
Then the Battle of Changsha began, in the face of the fierce attack of the Japanese invaders, in the early stage of the battle, our army was defeated and retreated, but General Xue Yue was not chaotic at all. He had already prepared a huge "pocket" for the Japanese army, just waiting for the Japanese army to go deep into it and then annihilate it in one fell swoop. When the Japanese army attacked outside the city of Changsha, Xue Yue ordered the army to retreat from the ravines on both sides, and at the same time gather in the middle, lure the enemy deep into the depths, and then seal the mouth of the "pocket".
This tactic caught the Japanese army off guard, and we were fighting and retreating, and the Japanese army thought that we were not capable of fighting. As a result, they fell into an encirclement. When Okamura Ninji found out about the attack, he had to order the entire army to retreat, but it was too late. During the retreat, the Japanese army was fiercely pursued by the Chinese army, and more than 30,000 Japanese troops were annihilated.
After the defeat in the first Battle of Changsha, the Japanese side changed its commander, Lieutenant General Anami, but was still beaten back by Xue Yue, and Changsha was not captured at all.
This time, Xue Yue combined the combat experience of the previous two times to create the "Heavenly Furnace Tactics", which is a tactic of "retreating and decisive battle", first fighting and retreating, luring the enemy to go deeper, and finally encircling the enemy in the decisive battle area and annihilating it. In the end, the Battle of Changsha was fought from September 1939 to January 1942, annihilating more than 110,000 Japanese invaders. The number of dead and missing on our side is 9,344.
The victory in the Battle of Changsha completely shattered the illusion that the Japanese army would invade and occupy China in March. General Xue Yue's heroic deeds and outstanding achievements have also been recorded in history forever and have become a good story in the War of Resistance Against Japan. His "Heavenly Furnace Tactics" were widely praised by later generations and became part of China's military tactics.