From September 1939 to the end of 1941, the 11th Army of the Japanese invasion of China invaded Changsha three times, all of which ended in failure, making the city the only important town in central China that did not fall during the strategic stalemate stage. In particular, in the Third Battle of Changsha, Xue Yue, commander of the Ninth Theater and chairman of Xiang Province, used the "Heavenly Furnace Tactics" to inflict heavy blows on the Japanese army, which is known in history as the "Great Victory of Changsha."Although the number of annihilated enemies is still debated, it is an indisputable fact that after the fiasco of the Japanese Kou and the Japanese Kou fled back to the north bank of the New Wall River.
Stills of Xue Yue
The Changsha Victory in early 1942 also brought Xue Yue's personal military career to the peak, and his reputation at home and abroad could be described as "like the sun in the sky", and even US President Roosevelt gave a positive evaluation of the Changsha victory in his diary. Admiral Xue Yue, the "Tiger Boy," has always had his eyes above the top since he was in the army, so he has become even more fluttery, able to take charge of the war zone with the strongest troops, and with the power of his great military achievements, I am afraid that the only two who can lower Xue Yue in the entire military circles of the Republic of China are Jiang Ren and Chen Cheng.
At the end of 1943, Xue Yue's old classmate and theater chief of staff Wu Yizhi was dismissed from his post by the Military Commission because he had crossed the level to communicate with the US side, so that the last person around Xue Yue who could persuade him was no longer there. After The removal of Chief of Staff Wu, Zhao Zili, the former chief of staff of the theater, succeeded him, but due to his shallow seniority and not being from the Cantonese army, Zhao Zili's influence on Xue Yue was really limited, which also laid the groundwork for later failures.
Wu Yizhi stills
Zhao Zili became an uprising general in 1949, and according to his recollection, Xue Yue was able to buy Chen Chengshang, the political minister among the "Big Four" of the Military Commission, after all, it was his Bole and predecessor, and it was also the strong backing of his ability to take charge of the Huangpu troops. As for He Yingqin, chief of staff and minister of military affairs, he did not pay any attention to it at all, and if Xue Yue thought that the orders or official documents sent from Chongqing were not in line with his own wishes, he would often directly write the words "unreasonable" and "nonsense" on them, and the second-ranking figure of the Huangpu department could not do anything with him.
Bai Chongxi, deputy chief of staff and minister of military training, could not defeat Xue Yue, and in 1939, when Bai Chongxi demanded on behalf of the Central Military Commission to withdraw from hengyang in the Ninth Theater of Operations, Bai Chongxi, on behalf of the Central Military Commission, was categorically refused by Xue Yue, and finally actually expelled Okamura Ningji, so Xue Yue privately rolled his eyes. Coupled with the historical grudges between the two men and the "traditional disobedience" of the Cantonese people to the Guangxi people, Bai Chongxi's instructions and official documents were treated basically the same as He Yingqin.
Chen Cheng stills
According to Zhao Zili, even if it was a telegram sent by the chairman's attendant room, Xue Yue felt that it was inappropriate or problematic, and would approve "deposit" or "wait to be done" and then put it on the shelf, which showed Xue Yue's arrogance at that time. And when a general with a heavy army is blind and cannot listen to the opinions of others, it is often a precursor to a crisis.
In April 1944, the henan section of the largest military operation brewed by the Japanese army invading China, "Operation No. 1" (Battle of Yuxianggui), had already begun, and the devils gathered unprecedented troops, and the soldiers in the First Theater were defeated. However, Xue Yue believed that this was just a local operation of the Japanese army in the Central Plains, because since the Changsha victory in January 1942, the Japanese army had not launched an offensive against the Ninth Theater for more than two years, and it was obvious that he was scared, so the end of the war had not started, and Xue Yue had seriously lightened the enemy.
Still
Zhao Zili, the new chief of staff of the theater, judged that the Japanese army was able to use an entire tank of the 3rd Division in Henan, and that this offensive was bound to be unusual, reminding Xue Yue that the southern section of Lake Xue Yue lake might also ignite a war, and that since many troops in the Ninth Theater were transferred to Yunnan, the remaining combat strength was only 60 regiments, and it was necessary to make preparations and ask the Central Military Commission for assistance. Xue Yue was extremely impatient: "The cowardice of the enemy army has become a fact, and although there is now wind and grass, but the soldiers will come to block the water and flood the earthen tun, our army should change with no change (referring to its heavenly furnace tactics).
On the basis of various circumstances, the Chongqing Central Military Commission judged that the Japanese army did indeed have an attempt to penetrate the north and south, and Liu Fei (Xu Yongchang, who was too lazy to communicate) called Xue Yue on May 14: "After the enemy opens the Pinghan Road, he will definitely attack the Yuehan Road in an attempt to open up the north-south communication line. However, Xue Yue had no good feelings for Liu Feixiang, who was from the Gui clan, and after reading the telegram, he threw it aside without any reaction.
On May 23, 1944, lieutenant general Isamu Yokoyama, commander of the Japanese 11th Army, led the combat command to Yueyang, and the Japanese troops in northern Hunan and southern Hubei moved extremely frequently, and under the intelligence of all sides and the strict orders of the Military Commission, Xue Yue finally believed that the Japanese army was going to invade Changsha. However, at the emergency military conference held, he still believed that the Fourth Battle of Changsha was no different from the previous three, as long as the "Heavenly Furnace Battle Method" was sacrificed to the enemy, it would definitely be victorious as well, and Xue Yue's light enemy and arrogance finally made a big mistake.
In view of the fact that it was very likely that the japanese army would have unprecedented troops, Zhao Zili's opinion was to retreat to Hengyang for a decisive battle, and Bai Chongxi called to suggest that the main forces of the Ninth Theater withdraw to Guangxi for a decisive battle, all of which were rejected by Xue Yue. He insisted on holding Changsha with powerful troops and fighting a decisive battle, the only difference being that Fang Xianjue's 10th Army could not be mobilized in Hengyang, so he used the 4th Army of the Cantonese clan to hold on to the "hearth" of Changsha. The other departments still adhered to the gist of the "Heavenly Furnace Method of Warfare" and waited for the Japanese army to launch an attack according to the model of the Third Battle of Changsha.
Xue Yue and Luo Zhuoying
The core of Xue Yue's "Heavenly Furnace Tactics" was a retreating decisive battle, that is, after the front-line troops resisted one after another in various water systems in northern Hunan Province, they successively turned to two wings to wait for the plane, forming an anti-eight-character formation with Changsha as the "hearth", and the main purpose of the campaign was to hold Changsha to prevent the enemy from entering, and then use powerful corps and two wings of troops to counter-encircle and defeat the Japanese army.
Unfortunately, Yokoyama Isamu is not Anan, and the strength of the Japanese army this time is no longer 100,000 people in three or four divisions, but more than 200,000 troops in seven divisions and regiments pressed on the front line, and Yokoyama Yong also spent a year studying Xue Yue and his Heavenly Furnace Battle. Moreover, due to the abundant strength of the Japanese army, it not only carried out a rapid breakthrough in the middle of the road, but also maintained a strong mobile force on both flanks to accompany the attack, and the battle situation took a sharp turn.
That is to say, when the troops in northern Hunan turned to the two wings as planned, they were immediately hit by the mobile units of the Japanese army, and they collapsed and retreated in all directions, and they were no longer able to hit the enemy on the side. The two wings of the Japanese mobile force surpassed the attack, and then detoured to the left and right of Changsha, and in the march, they broke through the 20th, 37th, 44th, 58th Army, and the Provisional 2nd Army that Xue Yue was preparing to use for a decisive battle, and completed the tactical encirclement of Changsha, and the "Heavenly Furnace Tactics" completely failed.
On the evening of June 16, 1944, the Japanese 34th Division, which had arrived from the west bank of the Xiang River, began to shell Yuelu Mountain, and due to the improper deployment and poor command of zhang Deneng, the commander of the 4th Army, the 4th Army troops fell into chaos in the early morning of the next day and collapsed to the south, and the Japanese siege force broke into Changsha in only three hours, and it took less than a day and a night before and after. Xue Yue, who had officially served as the commander of the Ninth Theater since 1939, finally defeated Changsha and withdrew to Xiangdong, and the War of Resistance was not guaranteed.