In May 1944, the Japanese army launched the Battle of Yuxianggui and attacked Changsha for the fourth time. As early as before the war, the intelligence of the first-line troops of the Ninth Theater and the advancing columns behind enemy lines showed that the Japanese troops moved frequently, completely blocking some roads in the areas of southern Hubei, northern Hunan and northern Jiangxi, and not allowing Chinese to pass. All kinds of circumstances show that the Japanese army is mobilizing its forces to prepare for a larger-scale offensive, and the number of troops mobilized to participate in the war may exceed the previous three battles of Changsha. Moreover, this time, the Japanese army not only moved east of Dongting Lake like the previous three battles in Changsha, but also had steamboats and other river crossing equipment on Dongting Lake, indicating that the Japanese army was not good this time, and the attempt was not small.
However, when this information was summarized in the Ninth Theater Command, Xue Yue was indifferent and unmoved. Why? Xue Yue believed that the Japanese suffered heavy casualties in the Third Battle of Changsha and did not dare to fight Changsha again. After the Battle of Changsha, the Japanese army retreated in a hurry, and the casualties were indeed relatively large, and the Nationalist army also carried out a lot of propaganda after the war. However, the propaganda of the Nationalist army has always exaggerated the casualty figures of the other side and concealed its own casualty figures. Therefore, the propaganda of the Nationalist army has always had little credibility. But the lie was repeated a hundred times, and it was still a lie in someone else's place, and when it came to Xue Yue, it became a fact. He really believed that his Heavenly Furnace Tactics had already hurt the Japanese army, and he did not dare to attack Changsha again.
Faced with this situation, Zhao Zili, then chief of staff of the Ninth Theater of Operations, proposed three operational plans, believing that the best strategy was to fight a decisive battle near Hengyang after resisting one after another, rather than repeating the same technique and then fighting a decisive battle in Changsha. At this time, Bai Chongxi had just replaced Li Jishen as the director of the Guilin camp and had the responsibility of commanding the Ninth Theater, and Bai Chongxi also asked Xue Yue to concentrate the troops in the theater to the Guilin and Liuzhou areas in Guangxi after resisting one after another, and to fight a decisive battle with the Japanese army in this area. However, Xue Yue resolutely stated that he would not guard the gate for Guangxi, refused to obey Bai Chongxi's orders, and still stubbornly insisted that, like the Third Battle of Changsha, after the troops resisted one after another, they turned to the outside line, broke the Japanese logistics supply line, and then attacked Changsha for a decisive battle.
The Tenth Army, which had shown great courage in the Third Battle of Changsha, was now stationed in the area of Hengyang and Hengshan, and in Changsha was Zhang Deneng of the Fourth Army, and ou Zhen, the former commander of the Fourth Army, had been promoted to deputy commander-in-chief of the Twenty-seventh Group Army at this time. There were also personnel changes in the Tenth Army, with li Yutang, the former commander of the army, promoted to corps commander for meritorious service after the Third Battle of Changsha, and Fang Xianjue, former commander of the Reserve Tenth Division, to commander of the Tenth Army. After the Japanese army began to attack, Zhao Zili advised Xue Yue not to prepare for a decisive battle with the Japanese army in Changsha, so there was no need to hold Changsha, and the main force of the Tenth Army should be used to defend Yuelu Mountain west of the Xiang River, and if Yuelu Mountain could not be defended, Changsha would not be able to hold. However, Xue Yue was determined to fight a decisive battle in Changsha, and insisted that the Fourth Army place two divisions in the changsha city east of the Xiang River, leaving only one division at Yuelu Mountain.
The key to the Heavenly Furnace Tactics lies in the eight words, retreating to the decisive battle and fighting for the outside line. The success of the first three battles of Changsha was due to the lack of Japanese troops, so the offensive front was not enough to cover the defensive line of the Nationalist army, so that the first line of the Nationalist army could calmly turn into the mountains and hide after one resistance after one resistance after each confrontation, sit and wait for the Japanese army to break through, and then kill from the rear, first destroy the Japanese rear communication line, cut off the logistics supply of the Japanese army, and then pursue the tail in the direction of Changsha, and then annihilate the Japanese army on the outskirts of Changsha. That is to say, the main points of the Heavenly Furnace Tactics are two aspects, the first is that the front-line troops can successfully transfer to the outer line of combat, and the second aspect is that Changsha can be defended.
However, this time, the Japanese army aimed to open up the mainland communication line, so it aimed to attack the city strategically, rather than to attack the main army of the Nationalist army as in the previous three times. Therefore, after the Japanese army began to attack this time, it was divided into three ways at the same time, and all of them were slowly advancing, fighting steadily and steadily, gradually pressing the troops of the nationalist army's eastern and western fronts to the south, leaving no space and opportunity for the first-line troops of the nationalist army to turn into the outer line of combat. Moreover, the Japanese middle and east roads have already destroyed the first line of the Nationalist army, and they do not go deep immediately, but while repairing the roads, restoring transportation, and ensuring the logistics supply line, while waiting for the Japanese army on the western front to gradually eliminate the blockade line and mines of the Nationalist army. Therefore, the Twenty-seventh Group Army and the Thirty-seventh Group Army on the East Road were soon completely oppressed by the Japanese army and moved south, and were not able to turn north into the Flank of the Japanese Army to attack the outside line, and Wang Yaowu's Twenty-fourth Group Army on the Western Front was also blocked by the Japanese West Road in the Yiyang area and could not move closer to Changsha.
The Japanese army obviously learned the lessons of the failure of the Third Battle of Changsha, so this attack on Changsha did not take the urban area as the main direction of attack, but took the capture of Yuelu Mountain on the west bank of the Xiang River as the main direction of attack. The Central Military Commission also found that the Japanese army was not good at this large-scale attack, so it asked Xue Yue to move the headquarters of the commander of the Ninth Theater of Operations to western Hunan to cover the safety of the great southwest, but Xue Yue resolutely refused to guard the gate to Chongqing, but prepared to move east, in case it did not work, he would go to Jiangxi to pull troops to fight guerrillas. Only Zhao Zili remained in Changsha and lived in Yuelu Mountain in the war zone. Zhao Zili found that the Japanese army was fighting steadily, and in case the Yuelu Mountains were lost and Changsha could not be defended, he asked Zhang Deneng, commander of the Fourth Army, to transfer the main force of the troops to the Yuelu Mountains in Hexi for defense. Zhang Deneng first shirked it, and then said that this was the order of Chief Xue, and he did not dare to disobey.
After the Japanese army began to attack Changsha, the first day of the battle situation was still relatively stable, but Zhao Zili judged that the main direction of the Japanese army was in Yuelu Mountain, so he suggested that Zhang Deneng withdrew the main force to Hexi, in case Changsha was lost, he could also retreat west to join Wang Yaowu. At this time, Zhang Deneng also found that the situation was completely different from the Third Battle of Changsha, and like the Tenth Army in the Third Battle of Changsha, he fought with the Japanese army in the city of Changsha, and he was also alone, because the outer troops had been completely defeated by the Japanese army, were moving south, and were not capable of rescuing Changsha. Therefore, Zhang Deneng had no choice but to agree with Zhao Zili's opinion, leaving only one regiment to defend the city, and the rest of the troops crossed the river and moved west to prepare to defend Yuelu Mountain. However, Zhang Deneng was too tired, he fell asleep when the troops crossed the river, the deputy commander in charge of commanding the crossing of the river did not have a good grasp of the troops, the Japanese army discovered the attempt of the Nationalist army, and then attacked with aircraft and artillery, the Fourth Army immediately collapsed in its entirety, and scattered, Zhao Zili and Zhang Deneng could only flee quickly.
That is to say, the loss of Changsha and the sudden collapse of the Fourth Army were not mainly responsible for Zhao Zili and Zhang Deneng, but on Xue Yue's wrong command and deployment. If Zhang Deneng has any responsibility, the main thing is that the response is relatively slow, missed the opportunity to adjust the deployment of troops, and only began to adjust the deployment after the Japanese army had begun to attack, it was too late, and then crossed the river in the middle of the battle, was attacked by the Japanese army, and failed to grasp the troops, resulting in the collapse of the troops. But after the two of them arrived in Leiyang, Xue Yue asked them to go to Chongqing to accept the military law enforcement department of the Central Military Commission to be tried, and Zhao Zili was not sentenced after some activities because he had expressed his opinions through Wang Zhangxu and Bai Chongxi in advance, and Zhang Deneng became unlucky, and the sentence originally drawn up by the military law enforcement director department was life imprisonment, but when Jiang signed and approved, he directly changed it to shooting.
Xue Yue was born in the Cantonese Army, and the Fourth Army was an old unit of the Cantonese Army, and it also played the reputation of the Iron Army in the Northern Expedition, so Xue Yue always paid great attention to the mastery and control of the Fourth Army when fighting in the Ninth Theater, and was always under the direct command of the Theater of Operations, rather than being included in the command sequence of other group armies. In the Third Battle of Changsha, the successful defense of the Tenth Army in Changsha greatly enhanced the reputation of the Tenth Army, but in the Battle of Changde, it was defeated by the Japanese army, suffered heavy casualties, and retreated to the Hengyang area to reorganize and replenish, so Xue Yue arranged for the Fourth Army, which he thought was the strongest in the theater of operations, to defend Changsha, so that the Fourth Army could show its face again, and as a result, he did not expect that his wrong judgment and command not only failed to make the Fourth Army show its face and make meritorious contributions, but instead took Zhang Deneng's small life. Of course, his death itself was also Jiang venting his dissatisfaction with Xue Yue's disobedience to his command.
After this battle, xue Yuedi's prestige accumulated by the first three battles of Changsha and the great victory of Wanjialing was greatly damaged, and the base of the Thirty Group Army Wang Ling, which was originally commanded by him, basically broke away from the command of the Ninth Theater and no longer obeyed his orders, and other troops no longer believed In Xue Yue's command.
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