bayedsolid Chapter 506 The Economy Can't Hold On
Chapter 506 The Economy Can't Hold On
Just as Commander Bai had estimated, the Japanese army did not continue the attack after occupying Binyang. Instead, after seeing that the troops of the Fourth War Zone of the Chinese government that attacked Nanning had retreated, in order to avoid being surrounded and attacked by the Chinese army, the Japanese army took the initiative to abandon Binyang and Kunlun Pass and other places.
The Japanese army's move was also very wise, because only by withdrawing all troops to the vicinity of Nanning and shortening the front line could the Chinese government's Fourth War Zone be unable to find a suitable direction for attack, and Nanning and some suburban areas could be defended to ensure the victory of the Guangxi-Nanning Campaign.
After all, an important strategic goal of the Japanese army's Battle of Southern Guangxi was to cut off the Chinese government's last sea supply route. Now, as long as Nanning is preserved, the strategic goal of the Battle of Southern Guangxi will be achieved, and the result of the battle will also end with their own victory.
As the Japanese troops withdrew, China's Fourth War Zone also ordered its troops to recapture areas and cities that the Japanese had abandoned, until they confronted the Japanese troops near the suburbs of Nanning. The bigwigs of the Fourth War Zone headquarters were also very clear that with the current strength of the exhausted troops in the Fourth War Zone, they could not attack Nanning and drive the Japanese troops out of southern Guangxi. It would be very good if they could maintain the current situation as much as possible.
The top government leaders also saw that it was difficult to make a breakthrough on the battlefield in southern Guangxi, and that international transportation lines at sea could not be opened. In addition, the newly appointed commander of the Japanese 11th Army in the three towns, Lieutenant General Sonobe Kazuichiro, had been restless recently, which made the top government leaders feel that it was a waste to station a large number of government troops in southern Guangxi.
Therefore, the highest level of the government issued an order to dispatch most of the government's direct troops back to their original bases, returning them to the various war zones before the war, in preparation for participating in combat operations against the Japanese 11th Army. As for southern Guangxi, it was left to the Guangxi clique to deal with it on its own. Now the Guangxi clique could no longer avoid the war and preserve its strength.
After the Battle of Three Towns, although the Japanese army successfully occupied the three towns, the Japanese army as a whole was already in a state of over-extension at this time, and most of the Japanese regular and reserve divisions had now been deployed in the front-line operations.
However, although the Japanese army has invested a large number of troops to fight in China, it has not been able to destroy the main force of the Chinese government. Moreover, although the Japanese army has occupied most of China's core areas, the Chinese government is still not prepared to accept Japan's peace terms. This made the Japanese government realize that the Japanese army has unknowingly fallen into the abyss of protracted warfare that they had always wanted to avoid before the war. This is a very unfavorable thing for Japan as a whole.
After the Zaoyi Campaign, the Japanese army was forced to stop its offensive in order to avoid consolidating the occupied areas and launching local offensives in order to put pressure on the Chinese government, hoping to force the Chinese government to agree to Japan's peace terms. Because, with the continuous expansion of the occupied areas, the Japanese army's strength was really insufficient, and even the reserve divisions urgently formed on the mainland could not keep up with the previous needs and losses.
In fact, the Japanese army began to reorganize its forces in 1938. The Japanese headquarters sent a large number of newly formed independent brigades and reserve divisions to battlefields across China to replace the regular divisions and special divisions originally on the front battlefield.
The troops that were replaced were sent back to the mainland for replenishment or transferred to the Kwantung Army to fight against the Soviet threat from the north. By the beginning of 1940, when the Battle of Southern Guangxi ended, the Japanese army had deployed a total of 24 divisions, 21 independent brigades and two cavalry brigades on various battlefields in China, with a total ground force of 800,000, not including the Kwantung Army in the Northeast.
The Japanese army had a huge number of troops, and the military expenditure also put a lot of pressure on the Japanese government. However, the Japanese occupied area in China was too large. As a result, although the scale of the Japanese troops inside the Great Wall seemed large, in order to control the occupied area, they could only break up each division into small units and control some strongholds with squadrons and companies. Even a division could only maintain a battalion-sized mobile force. However, even with such a deployment, the gaps between the Japanese troops were very large, resulting in poor control in the occupied area. At the same time, this also allowed China's guerrilla forces behind enemy lines to thrive.
An even more troublesome problem arose in Japan's domestic economy. Before Japan went to war with China, it had just approved a plan to build up its navy and army with the United States and the Soviet Union as its imaginary enemies. The total cost of this plan was as high as 2.4 billion yen. However, just as the plan began to be implemented, a full-scale war broke out between China and Japan.
This made the Japanese government's war expenses extremely huge. At the same time, the military reorganization plan previously formulated by the government had to continue. As a result, the gold reserves of the Bank of Japan were rapidly consumed. By the end of 1938, more than two-thirds of the gold reserves of the Bank of Japan had been consumed.
Therefore, in order to carry out the Battle of Three Towns, the Japanese Army even delayed important military reorganization plans, and only then was there enough budget to cope with the consumption of the Battle of Three Towns.
This is why after the Battle of Three Towns, the Japanese government's economy reached a critical point, and it also began to actively try to extricate itself from the Chinese battlefield. On the one hand, the Japanese army hoped to cut off the Chinese government's foreign aid channels to force the Chinese government to surrender. On the other hand, Japan tried to establish vassal governments in North China and Central China, hoping to use the method of "using China to control China" to help the Japanese army weaken the influence of the Chinese government, but the results were not very good.
The 11th Army of the Japanese Army in the three towns had a disappointing performance throughout 1939, especially during the Sui-Zao Campaign, when the 16th Division, a regular Japanese division, was annihilated by the Fifth War Zone of the Chinese government, which angered the entire Japanese government and the headquarters.
Moreover, the Japanese 11th Army was insufficient in overall strength. The various divisions under it were responsible not only for the security of the occupied areas, but also for offensive operations. This meant that if the 11th Army wanted to launch an offensive, it would have to withdraw a large number of garrison forces. If there were no troops to take over the garrison, it would be impossible to sustain the offensive.
Otherwise, if the 11th Japanese Army wanted to weaken the Chinese troops with a large-scale offensive, the Japanese headquarters would need to significantly increase its troops on the Chinese battlefield. If it could not significantly increase its troops, the Japanese army could only launch local offensives. This has been very obvious in the Battle of Southern Guangxi.