Podcasts about divisions

Last time we spoke about the Miluo River Catastrophe. On September 17, General Xue Yue, watching alarming reconnaissance telegrams, learns the Japanese 11th Army has massed across the north bank of the Xinqiang River—3rd, 4th, 6th, and 40th Divisions—alongside additional detachments. Chinese operatives even intercept a Japanese order directing divisions to prepare for an attack on September 18. Despite this, Xue Yue's decisions and readiness remain inadequate. By September 21–23, the fighting at and around the Miluo River and Dongting Lake destroys the 37th Army's ability to function as a coherent combat force. The disaster as both tactical collapse and a failure of planning: Japanese interception and decoding of radio orders allow them to shift toward encirclement, turning Chinese movements into a "trap" laid in advance.   #211 The Japanese Blunt China's Iron Army at Changsha Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. The four divisions that had stormed into northern Hunan had made good progress, achieving the victory of defeating three main Chinese armies in quick succession. General Anami Korechika, commanding the Japanese forces, was secretly pleased, but he dared not slacken his efforts in the slightest. He was a methodical man, and he understood that the contest was not yet decided. Every day, his intelligence officers placed before him a stream of intercepted Chinese military telegrams and aerial reconnaissance reports. What they showed gave him reason for both confidence and caution. Two significant forces were moving toward the battlefield — forces unlike those he had so far encountered. One of them was Chiang Kai-shek's elite 74th Army, a formation whose reputation had reached Anami long before, from his time at headquarters in Tokyo. The other was the 10th Army, considered second only to the 74th in quality and fighting spirit.   The 74th Army was no ordinary unit. It had been rigorously trained under German and Soviet instructors specially hired by Chiang Kai-shek, its officers schooled in both European combined-arms doctrine and Soviet tactical flexibility. It was characterized by its disciplined offensive and defensive tactics and was lavishly equipped by the standards of the Chinese military. Most remarkably, it had maintained an undefeated record on the battlefield since the beginning of the war — a distinction that had earned it the title of "Iron Army of the Anti-Japanese War" among the Chinese people. In the high command of the Imperial Japanese Army, it was referred to, with a mixture of respect and wariness, as the Tora no Ko — the "Tiger Child" — meaning, in essence, the ace in the enemy's hand.   The 10th Army was held in nearly equal esteem. The deployment of either of these two formations required the personal approval of Chiang Kai-shek himself. The Generalissimo's principle for employing them was clear and deliberate: they were to be committed only to the most critical battles, those that would decide outcomes, or to the most prominent ones, where their prowess could demonstrate the might of the Chinese army to a watching nation. Since the outbreak of the war, the 74th Army had been kept in reserve at Fenyi in Jiangxi Province, and the 10th Army at Hengyang in southern Hunan. Both forces had been conserving their strength, training, and waiting.   Now Anami's relentless offensive had forced Chiang Kai-shek's hand. The battle situation had tilted dangerously under the weight of Japanese pressure, and the fall of several elite units had left the Chinese commander of the Ninth War Zone, General Xue Yue, with little room to maneuver. Xue Yue had no choice but to appeal to Chongqing for help, and Chiang Kai-shek, reluctantly and with full awareness of the risks, agreed to release his two trump cards. Anami, having mastered his opponent's intentions through his intelligence apparatus, now found himself in the rare and advantageous position of a card player who could see his opponent's hole cards. He carefully planned his battle strategy, studying maps late into the night, conferring with his officers, and calculating how best to neutralize the Chinese elite before they could bring their full weight to bear. He knew that his life's honor, his career, and his legacy rested on this one gamble.   Li Yutang, the commander of the 10th Army, was from Guangrao in Shandong Province — a place that had given China more than its share of fighting men. He was a graduate of the first class of the illustrious Whampoa Military Academy, where he had trained alongside men who would go on to shape the fate of China. At the academy, he had been part of a celebrated group known informally as the "Four Lis of Shandong": himself, Li Xianzhou, Li Yannian, and Li Hanfan. The first three would all rise to significant commands in the Nationalist army. The fourth, Li Hanfan, a native of Changqing in Shandong, had taken an entirely different path, joining the Communist Party of China and fighting the same war under a different flag. In later years, the group became known as the "Three Lis of Shandong," the fourth having parted ways with his classmates long before the guns fell silent.   Li Yutang had not risen quickly or through privilege. He embodied the hardworking, resilient, and tenacious qualities long associated with the men of Shandong — qualities forged by a hard land and harder circumstances. He had climbed the ranks of the army step by step: platoon leader, company commander, battalion commander, regimental commander. Each step had been earned through performance under fire. When Japan launched its full-scale invasion in 1937, Li Yutang was serving as commander of the 3rd Division of the 2nd Army under Li Yannian, participating in the brutal Battle of Shanghai in August of that year. He fought in the grinding urban warfare along the Suzhou Creek, learning lessons in modern combat that would serve him for the rest of the war. The following spring, in March and April of 1938, he led his troops in the Battle of Xuzhou, holding the Linyi line northeast of Taierzhuang, blocking the Japanese 5th Division under Itagaki Seishiro from breaking through to reinforce the embattled Japanese forces at that critical engagement. His handling of the defense contributed to one of the few early Chinese battlefield successes of the war.   For his performance at Xuzhou, he was promoted to commander of the 8th Army. During the Battle of Wuhan in 1938, he led his troops in major engagements against the Japanese 101st and 106th Divisions along the Nanxun Railway, inflicting significant casualties on the attackers. After that campaign, General Xue Yue, recognizing both Li's talent and his Shandong origins — Shandong being home to Mount Tai, the foremost of China's Five Sacred Mountains — personally inscribed a banner reading "Mount Tai Army" and formally presented it to Li Yutang's 8th Army. Chiang Kai-shek added his own recognition, awarding Li Huazhou a medal. In the Battle of Nanchang, Li Yutang again distinguished himself, leading his troops in the defense of Wuning for ten days and ten nights of uninterrupted fighting. When the battle was over, Japanese soldiers lay piled in front of his defensive lines, and the name "Taishan Army" was on every officer's lips from Chongqing to the front. After the First Battle of Changsha in 1939, Chiang Kai-shek personally nominated Li Yutang to take command of the 10th Army — the posting that would now define his legacy. The orders came on September 20, 1941 — three days after the Japanese forces had broken through the Xiangbei defense line in the north. General Xue Yue's summons reached Li Yutang's headquarters in Hengyang, and the 10th Army began immediate preparations for movement to the battlefield.   The mobilization was extraordinary even by the standards of an army that prided itself on discipline and fighting spirit. Li Yutang addressed his men, and the response was unlike anything a commander might ordinarily expect. He received wave after wave of letters — requests to be placed at the front, declarations of determination, pledges to die before surrendering. Some of the letters were written in ordinary ink. Others had been written in blood, the soldier biting his own finger to draw enough for a few lines. These were not men who needed to be driven to battle. They were men who had spent months training for precisely this moment.   Their preparation had been rigorous to the point of fanaticism. For six months before the order came, the 10th Army had conducted intensive training in the three core skills of infantry combat: marksmanship, grenade throwing, and bayonet fighting. The Ministry of National Defense had set a standard that considered a unit successful if one quarter of its men scored "top-tier" in each category. Chiang Kai-shek had personally raised the bar for the 10th Army: eighty percent of every unit must score "top-tier," with the remainder no lower than "excellent." Any unit falling short would face elimination. When the assessments were completed, the result was unambiguous — one hundred percent of the army had met the standard.   Over 30,000 men boarded seven special trains at Hengyang, their military songs and mobilization slogans ringing through the station as families and bystanders watched them depart. The troops traveled by train to Zhuzhou, then transferred to motor vehicles for the road north to Changsha, arriving in the Jinjing area — some seventy kilometers northeast of the city — on September 22nd. They had moved with professional speed. What awaited them would test something no training exercise could fully replicate. From the moment of arrival, the situation was clear to any officer with eyes: the 10th Army had stepped into chaos. However, given the already established passive situation, the 10th Army was like a leaf caught in a whirlpool as soon as it arrived on the battlefield. General Xue Yue, at the Ninth War Zone Command, immediately ordered the entire army to support the besieged 37th Army and simultaneously launch an offensive against the Japanese 3rd Division. It was an ambitious order for troops who had just completed a multi-day journey and had not yet oriented themselves to the ground. Nevertheless, Li Yutang passed the order down and his divisions began to move.   The first division to feel the dislocating effect of high command's demands was Zhu Yue's 190th Division. On September 23rd, the vanguard regiment of the 190th made contact with Japanese forces and was preparing to engage. Before a single shot was fired in earnest, Division Commander Zhu Yue received a telegram from army headquarters ordering him to abandon his current position and rush immediately to Shending Mountain to relieve the siege of the 140th Division of the 37th Army. The order brooked no delay. The troops dropped their baggage where it lay and ran — truly ran, in light order — to the vicinity of Shending Mountain.   They had barely formed ranks at their new position when a second telegram arrived from General Xue Yue. The 190th Division was to immediately reverse course and return to the Fulipu area to establish a defensive line and block the Japanese advance southward. Another forced march, exhausting men who had already marched and traveled for days. They arrived at the designated position on time — a testimony to their conditioning — and Zhu Yue established his division headquarters at Liangjiaduan, near Fulipu. After all the aimless marching and countermanding orders, after all the wasted energy and fruitless attempts, the troops were running on the last of their reserves. They worked through the night constructing fortifications with shovels and bare hands. Just as the first light of dawn revealed the outline of their new positions, the Japanese army advanced.   General Toyoshima Fusataro's Japanese 3rd Division had not rested. It had decisively defeated the 37th Army on the night of the 23rd and turned immediately, without pause, to attack the 190th Division. The blow came from the sky before it came from the ground. At dawn, more than ten Japanese planes swept down over Zhu Yue's division headquarters — seemingly guided, as the Chinese soldiers would later say, as if they had eyes in their heads, so accurate was the targeting. The small village that housed the headquarters was bombed almost to the ground. Dust and smoke billowed over the ruins as the aircraft banked away, and before it had settled, over a thousand Japanese infantrymen, seemingly springing from the earth itself, rushed forward directly toward the headquarters position. The regiment commanders, still at their positions elsewhere, could not be recalled in time.   Division Commander Zhu Yue did not hesitate. He drew his pistol and began commanding his subordinate units to fight back, rallying the headquarters staff and support troops into a perimeter defense. Under the fierce and accurate Japanese fire, Zhu Yue was hit by a bullet in his right arm. Then another round struck him in the left leg, and he went down. Almost simultaneously, Deputy Division Commander Lai Shixiang took command of the nearest available men and attempted to lead a breakout with a machine gun. An enemy mortar round found its mark, and Lai Shixiang was killed instantly. The division headquarters personnel, already shocked by the swiftness of the attack and the wounding of their commander, broke into disorder. Chaos erupted on the battlefield. Many soldiers ran blindly in the smoke and confusion, dying in the crossfire from multiple directions.   Division Chief of Staff Tao Xiu, now acting as deputy division commander with Zhu Yue incapacitated, took hold of the situation as best he could. He led the remnants of the headquarters staff in retreat toward a hollow in a grove of trees near the edge of the village. When the headcount was taken, approximately twenty men remained capable of fighting. It was already ten o'clock in the morning. Tao Xiu gathered these few men and led them along a small path through the dense forest on the outskirts of the village, bypassing Liangjiaduan, searching for the dispersed units of the division.   Out on the main positions, the 568th, 569th, and 570th Regiments were simultaneously surrounded and attacked. The officers and soldiers, exhausted from days and nights of continuous fighting, summoned what remained of their endurance and put up a tenacious resistance. From dawn until the afternoon, several positions were cut off and divided by Japanese encircling movements. In the ever-shrinking pockets, each cluster of defenders became an isolated target for enemy aircraft and artillery. Completely losing the initiative, groups of officers and soldiers perished in the shelling. Many of them died not in defiance but in something closer to despair — regretting this humiliating reversal, the waste of their patriotic aspirations, their unfulfilled desire to fight and kill the enemy on their own terms.   By evening, the regimental commanders had lost control of their respective battalions and companies. The remaining soldiers on each position scattered and concealed themselves in whatever ground offered cover, hiding in all directions across the darkening hills. It was not until midnight that the lightly wounded and unwounded officers and soldiers managed to assemble, as the contingency plan had directed, in a dense forest on the southwest side of the position. Division Commander Zhu Yue, wounded in both his arm and his leg, had been sent to the rear to receive treatment. Acting Deputy Division Commander Tao Xiu stood before the assembled survivors — more than two hundred men gathered from the regiments — and offered them quiet words of comfort. There was little else he could give them. The people present carried the seriously wounded on improvised stretchers and supported the lightly wounded with their arms and shoulders, groping their way through the darkness toward Zhuzhou. The 10th Reserve Division, under Commander Fang Xianjue, had been assigned to hold the Jinjing line — a position that, on paper, formed an anchor of the defensive scheme. In practice, the situation was deeply flawed from the outset. The Ninth War Zone Command had placed the 10th Reserve Division alone at Jinjing with no depth behind it and no friendly forces on either flank — an isolated salient that offered the Japanese every opportunity for encirclement.   On the 23rd, the division captured the Kanai line at noon, an initial success that promised more than it delivered. Around six o'clock in the evening, as darkness gathered, General Kanda Masatsuka arrived at the front with the vanguard of the Japanese 6th Division. He was not a man to move without information. Before committing to a full assault, Kanda ordered a probing attack and watched its progress carefully through binoculars from a small hill behind the advancing force. What he saw gave him pause. However he searched for a weak point in the Chinese line, the defenders showed none. No gap in the wire, no position carelessly manned, no sector that sagged under pressure. Kanda lowered his binoculars and considered his next step. He felt this was indeed an elite unit with excellent tactical skills, and should not be underestimated. He ordered a halt to the attack and waited for the full arrival of his division's strength.   On the morning of the 24th, the Japanese launched their proper assault — a fierce attack from the east, north, and west simultaneously. The three-directional pressure was designed to pin the defenders and deny any lateral reinforcement. Kanda went further, requesting permission from General Anami to concentrate all thirty-plus bombers available for the entire battlefield and direct them at the 10th Reserve Division's positions in a single concentrated raid. Anami granted the request. The bombing was devastating. The defending positions were almost completely destroyed from the air. Yet in the ruins of their fortifications and bunkers, the soldiers of the 10th Reserve Division continued fighting, repelling Japanese ground attacks wave after wave through the rubble and the smoke.   At two o'clock in the afternoon, a report reached Fang Xianjue that halted him in his tracks. A Japanese regiment had executed a large-scale outflanking maneuver around the south side of Jinjing and was approaching the rear of the position. The encirclement was closing. Fang Xianjue was shocked. He now grasped in full the tactical impossibility of his assignment. The Ninth War Zone Command had placed the 10th Reserve Division here alone, exposed on all sides, without depth and without support. The order to "block the enemy's southward advance" had been an empty promise from the start. Fang Xianjue could not understand the strategic intention behind the deployment at all — there was none that made any tactical sense. The only purpose of holding out here, he concluded bitterly, was to theoretically be seen to be "fighting the Japanese." Before Fang Xianjue could translate his analysis into a decision, the Japanese troops launched another fierce attack from the front and both flanks, and one side of the defensive line was breached. The situation became critical. Fang Xianjue decided to withdraw before the encircling force to the south could complete its movement and seal off all escape. He did not have time to seek authorization from the war zone — there was no time. He ordered each regiment to organize its own breakout and reassemble at designated locations.   At four o'clock in the afternoon, Fang Xianjue led the division headquarters in the first withdrawal from the battlefield. Looking back as he departed, he watched as the regiments were cut apart by Japanese fire, large numbers of officers and soldiers falling among the mountain ridges and into the ditches and gullies. There was nothing more he could do for them.   By the 25th, approximately half of the division's troops had reached the designated reception point. After a hasty reorganization, they were ordered to occupy positions along the Xueshi Bridge line and prepare to resume the defense. That same evening, a portion of the Japanese 3rd Division — fresh from its defeat of the 190th Division — launched a fierce attack on Xueshi Bridge. The positions could not be held. The scene of the previous day's rout was repeated almost exactly, and this second defeat completed the destruction of the 10th Reserve Division as a coherent fighting force. General Xue Yue's rebuke reached Fang Xianjue shortly afterward, and the division commander had no way to express the depth of his frustration — the tactical position he had been placed in had made his assignment impossible before the first shot was fired. On the 26th, he led the surviving troops to be received and reorganized by war zone units near Changsha. Compared to the bitter fates of the 190th Division and the 10th Reserve Division, Zhou Qingxiang's 3rd Division wrote a different kind of story in these same days — one of extraordinary tactical competence maintained against mounting odds. In the equally fierce battles, the 3rd Division demonstrated the qualities of an elite force more effectively than any other unit on either side.   On the 22nd, the 3rd Division had been ordered to establish positions two kilometers east of Fulipu. At noon on the 24th, after the Japanese 3rd Division defeated Zhu Yue's 190th Division, a portion of the Japanese force turned and attacked the right flank of Zhou Qingxiang's position. It was repelled. That evening, the Japanese 4th Division, riding the momentum of its success against the 37th Army, launched a night attack on the 3rd Division's left flank. It too was repelled. On the 25th, Zhou Qingxiang's division was attacked from both sides simultaneously by the main forces of two Japanese divisions — forces that outnumbered the defenders several times over. The officers and soldiers of the entire division showed no fear. They fought bravely and with skill honed by months of intensive preparation, holding their lines despite heavy casualties and preventing the Japanese from breaking through at any point.   When word of this resistance was relayed to General Anami Korechika at his headquarters, he fell into a long, uncharacteristic silence. He studied the reports before him, the maps, the casualty tallies on both sides. Then he turned to his chief of staff, General Isamu Kinoshita. "This is the elite force," Anami said quietly. He paused a moment, and added: "I really want to go there and see for myself." The compliment, delivered in the private setting of a Japanese headquarters, was perhaps the most honest assessment of the fighting quality of Zhou Qingxiang's men that history has preserved.   Anami's response, however, was not admiration — it was determination to overwhelm. On the morning of the 26th, he concentrated nearly the entire combat power available to him against the single 3rd Division: units drawn from the Japanese 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 40th Divisions — close to 100,000 men — were directed to surround and destroy the Chinese formation. The 3rd Division stubbornly held its ground despite catastrophic casualties, the soldiers refusing to give way even as the perimeter contracted and the dead accumulated.   To ease the relentless pressure from enemy aircraft, the division commanders made a calculated decision: all positions were ordered to allow the Japanese troops to close to hand-to-hand fighting range. If the enemy was within arm's reach, the bombers above could not strike without killing their own men. Several instances of fierce hand-to-hand fighting erupted across the defensive line as a result — bayonets, shovels, pistols and bare hands in the broken earth and shell craters. By noon, the 8th Regiment had been divided and surrounded. Shortly afterward, the 7th and 9th Regiments met the same fate. Zhou Qingxiang moved the division headquarters to the position of the 7th Regiment to maintain command over his most accessible unit, while the deputy division commander and chief of staff were dispatched to coordinate the independent defense of the 8th and 9th Regiments respectively. For another half day, each of the three regimental pockets fought alone. At dusk, Zhou Qingxiang ordered a breakout.   As darkness fell, exploiting the brief respite that came when the Japanese halted their attacks for the night, each regiment burst simultaneously from its position. Carefully prepared covering detachments remained behind and created convincing feints toward false breakout directions, drawing the enemy's main pursuit forces away from the actual withdrawal routes. The deceptions worked. By the time the Japanese commanders understood what had happened, the breakout had succeeded. Officers and soldiers filtered into the designated reception point in small groups — three men here, five there — arriving through the night and into the following morning. When the count was complete, the 3rd Division was a remnant of less than one-fifth of its pre-battle strength. The finest infantry division in the 10th Army had bled itself almost dry, but it had done so on its own terms, and it had extracted as much as it was possible to extract from an impossible situation.   On September 27th, a chilly autumn wind blew across the city of Changsha. At the playground of Lizhong Middle School in the eastern part of the city, Li Yutang stood and watched the survivors of his divisions come in. A week before, on September 20th, more than 30,000 men had departed Hengyang aboard seven special trains. Their military songs had filled the railway station. Their letters of determination, some written in blood, had been stacked on Li Yutang's desk. Their training scores were the highest ever recorded for a Chinese army unit — a perfect one hundred percent of "top-tier" achievement across all three infantry skills. They had been, by every measurable standard, the finest army China could produce.   Standing now at the playground of a secondary school repurposed as a muster point, Li Yutang looked at what remained: a little over 2,000 men, including lightly wounded soldiers from Changsha who had been caught up in the fighting and bandaged civilians who had taken up arms. Two thousand, from thirty thousand. What had happened to the others? They were dead. They were injured. They were maimed. Some had broken under the pressure and run. The accounting was simple and devastating. Li Yutang's expression remained dignified as he inspected his survivors — the face of a commander who understood that bearing is required of officers precisely in the moments when bearing costs the most. But his heart was filled with tears. Perhaps soon, he reflected, there would be another 10th Army — still heroic and spirited, still singing loudly as it went to war. But it would not be the same one.   History has no gaps or blank pages. The story of the 10th Army's ordeal was barely complete before the next chapter began. Reluctantly, one must turn the page. Following the 10th Army, Wang Yaowu's 74th Army also suffered a crushing defeat. Wang Yaowu had received his orders from Commander Xue on September 21st and had immediately begun moving his three divisions from their cantonments at Fenyi and Xinyu in Jiangxi Province. The 74th Army was composed of three divisions: the 51st Division under Li Tianxia, the 57th Division under Yu Chengwan, and the 58th Division under Liao Lingqi. These were the formations that had kept the "Iron Army" undefeated through four years of brutal warfare. Their code names told their own story — the 51st Division was called "Frontline," the 57th was called "Tiger Warrior," and the 58th was called "Exhilarating." Wang Yaowu had personally chosen the code name for the army headquarters: "Brilliant." Chiang Kai-shek himself had once remarked, "Of all the code names, yours is the best." It was a small distinction, but one that Wang Yaowu quietly cherished.   What Wang Yaowu did not know — could not know, for Anami's intelligence network had kept the preparation perfectly concealed — was that Anami Korechika had been monitoring his movements since the order to deploy was first issued. The Japanese commander had already selected the terrain, positioned his units, and laid the trap. He was waiting for the 74th Army's arrival.   On the 25th, Wang Yaowu led the 57th Division into the battlefield first, marching rapidly as Xue Yue had directed to Chunhua Mountain on the north bank of the Laodao River, east of Changsha, to occupy positions and cover the main force's deployment. On the evening of the 25th, the 169th and 170th Regiments of the 57th Division arrived at the south side of Chunhua Mountain and encountered a Japanese search party of over a hundred men. The 169th Regiment swiftly cut off the small force's escape route, coordinating effectively with the 170th. The Japanese detachment suffered heavy casualties, and the survivors fled toward Chunhua Mountain. When part of the 170th Regiment reached the foot of the mountain, they ran into a much larger Japanese force coming down to meet them — and learned in that moment that Chunhua Mountain had already been occupied by the enemy.   Wang Yaowu responded instantly. To seize the initiative before the Japanese could consolidate, he ordered two regiments to assault Chunhua Mountain that same night. Around midnight, the troops advanced in silence through the dark. After a fierce night battle, two Japanese battalions were unable to hold against the assault and withdrew in the early hours of the morning. The 57th Division had its foothold. At dawn on the 26th, a regiment from the 57th Division followed up the night's success, and Yu Chengwan positioned the division along the Chunhua Mountain line. As the morning advanced, the 51st and 58th Divisions arrived to complete the deployment. Following Xue Yue's orders, Wang Yaowu spread his force across the line: the 57th Division at Chishi River, the 58th Division at Chunhua Mountain itself, and the 51st Division at Fengjiang Bridge. They were ready. Or so it appeared.   At dawn on the 27th, Wang Yaowu went on the offensive. The 57th Division launched a surprise attack on the camp of the main force regiment of the Japanese 3rd Division. The Japanese were caught entirely unprepared — the attack came in total darkness, and the camp was thrown into chaos before anyone could organize a coherent response. The Japanese managed to form some kind of defense only as the first light of dawn broke, and through the morning the two armies clashed furiously. By mid-morning, the Japanese had been forced back three kilometers — a genuine and significant victory achieved through aggression and timing.   Then, at eight o'clock, the Japanese 3rd Division launched its counterattack with the support of dozens of aircraft — fighter-bombers diving low over the Chunhua Mountain positions, strafing and bombing. Both armies knew themselves to be elite formations; each had its country's reputation riding on the outcome. They clashed with corresponding ferocity.   Around noon, Wang Yaowu climbed to the rooftop of a farmhouse and studied the Japanese battle line through his field glasses. What he saw was encouraging: a breach had appeared in the enemy's formation to the north of Chunhua Mountain — a gap that, if exploited quickly, could roll up the Japanese flank. He ordered Li Hanqing, the infantry commander of the 51st Division, to take two regiments and execute an outflanking maneuver through that gap, striking the Japanese from the side. An hour later, Li Hanqing's movement succeeded. The Japanese forces were thrown into disarray, breaking rearward in a rout. For one brief hour, it seemed as though the 74th Army might achieve a decisive success. Then the Japanese 4th Division arrived. It swept in from behind Li Hanqing's flanking force, surrounding his two regiments before they could extract themselves. In the desperate fighting of the breakout attempt, Li Hanqing was shot and killed.   In the afternoon, with two of its regiments lost to encirclement and its flanking stroke reversed, the 57th Division found itself holding off two full Japanese divisions alone. The fighting continued — artillery, rifle fire, close assaults — until nightfall dimmed the battlefield. The division had suffered over 3,000 casualties, and more than half of all commanders below battalion level had been killed or wounded. Division Commander Yu Chengwan conferred with Wang Yaowu over the field telephone, and together they decided to withdraw the troops to prepared positions to hold through the night.   Meanwhile, on the same 27th of September, Liao Lingqi's 58th Division at Chunhua Mountain was subjected to a separate and equally devastating assault by the Japanese 6th Division, reinforced by elements of the 3rd Division. The positions at Chunhua Mountain were compact and clustered — ideal targets for concentrated aerial bombardment. The Japanese bombers came in two waves, and after both had passed, the hastily constructed earthen fortifications were almost entirely destroyed. Across what had been the defensive line, limbs and broken bodies could be seen among the wreckage. The entire division had suffered devastating casualties.   Beginning at nine o'clock in the morning, tens of thousands of Japanese troops launched successive offensive waves, methodically dividing the defensive line into sections and breaking through each one in turn. The defenders engaged the Japanese in hand-to-hand combat at position after position, gunfire and the shouts of bayonet fighters filling the smoke-thickened air. At two o'clock in the afternoon, the Chunhua Mountain defense line collapsed. The surviving soldiers attempted to break out in small groups, but many were intercepted and cut down by Japanese forces waiting along the escape routes.   Wang Yaowu was seething. He directed the battle from wherever he could find a usable vantage point, issuing orders in rapid succession — one moment ordering the 51st Division to send reinforcements to Chunhua Mountain, the next directing the army's directly subordinate regiments to absorb the shattered remnants of the 58th Division, then ordering the 57th Division to block Japanese forces from reinforcing the encirclement. He was everywhere at once, doing the work of a staff of twenty, improvising responses to crises that unfolded faster than any plan could accommodate. And as he directed, the same thought played and replayed: wasn't the Ninth War Zone just feeding them to the wolves? They had jumped into the enemy's encirclement without any initiative, while the enemy could attack from whatever direction they chose. He had nowhere to vent his frustration on the battlefield, only able to fend for himself. While directing the battle, he cursed under his breath: "What kind of hell is this?!"   As dusk fell over the chaos, the gunfire gradually subsided. The Japanese as a rule did not launch night attacks — a pattern the Chinese had come to rely upon for the brief respite it offered. Li Tianxia, commander of the 51st Division, concentrated his troops from the flanks toward the center to consolidate a defensible perimeter. The 57th Division, adjacent to the 51st and badly diminished by the day's fighting, did the same. Both divisions settled into their positions, and the exhausted soldiers lay down fully clothed, weapons in hand, and tried to rest. At midnight, the battlefield exploded.   Fierce gunfire roused the soldiers from whatever shallow sleep they had found. Two elite regiments of the Japanese 6th Division had broken through the gap that had opened between the positions of the 51st and 57th Divisions — a gap created by both units pulling inward — and were driving directly toward the headquarters of the 74th Army. In Wang Yaowu's many years of battlefield experience, this was the only instance he ever encountered of a large Japanese force launching a major attack at night.   The knowledge of terrain displayed by the attacking Japanese regiments was so precise, the route to army headquarters so accurately selected, that it raised immediate suspicions of an intelligence compromise — an inside source who had provided the attackers with maps and positions. Whatever the explanation, the effect was devastating. The headquarters' directly subordinate regiment and guard battalion were outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed. They fought where they could, but the Japanese pushed through them.   The guard platoon leader, a man who had served at Wang Yaowu's side through numerous campaigns, gathered several of his best soldiers and formed a close escort. He led Wang Yaowu into the darkness as the Japanese closed around the headquarters compound. More than a hundred Japanese soldiers gave chase — moving through the dark with a sureness of foot that seemed almost preternatural, as if they had developed night vision. The platoon leader recognized that Wang Yaowu could not outrun a hundred men. He shouted to the general and the remaining escort: "Go quickly!" Then he and a single machine gunner turned and stayed behind. Wang Yaowu ran. A few minutes later, the machine gunner was killed. Shortly after that, the platoon leader was shot through the leg and fell to the ground. He was captured.   Wang Yaowu threw himself into the grass beside a drainage ditch and lay still as Japanese soldiers searched the ground around him, their voices close enough to touch. From his hiding place, he heard his platoon leader — the man who had been at his side day and night, who had chosen to stay behind so that his general might live — cursing the Japanese soldiers from the ground where he lay captured and wounded. Then a Japanese officer drew his sword. The cursing stopped. The Japanese soldiers moved on. The gunfire subsided. Wang Yaowu lay in the grass in the dark and did not move until he was certain they were gone. When he crawled out of the bushes, he looked up at the stars, found the direction of Liuyang, and began walking in the darkness with the few guards who had stayed close. He walked until dawn.   Since joining the army, Wang Yaowu had never allowed himself to think about fear of death. He had spent too many years on battlefields, seen too much death and bloodshed, to entertain it as a personal concern. This time, however, he was in tears. Not from sadness, and not from fear. From something harder to name and harder to bear: frustration — the frustration of a capable commander who had been committed to battle by a higher command that neither understood the ground nor provided him the support to fight on it, and who had watched good men die for orders that made no tactical sense.   In the aftermath of the battle, Wang Yaowu's grief was compounded by something beyond the ordinary losses of combat. The 27th alone had cost the 57th Division nearly half its strength, and the 58th Division had been essentially wiped out as a fighting formation. Of his three powerful divisions, only the 51st remained relatively intact. In war, such losses, however painful, are comprehensible. What happened next was not. Liao Lingqi, the commander of the 58th Division — one of the three officers Wang Yaowu had called his "tigers" — did not remain with his shattered troops to regroup and reorganize them. Instead, after the division's collapse, he slipped away from the battlefield with only his personal guards, changed into civilian clothes, and boarded a train bound for his hometown of Qiyang in southern Hunan to visit his family.   By unhappy chance, a senior staff officer from the Ninth War Zone was aboard the same train. He recognized Liao Lingqi and watched, saying nothing, as the division commander traveled south in civilian dress while his men lay dead on Chunhua Mountain. Upon arriving in Hengyang, the officer went directly to report the incident to General Xue Yue. Xue Yue instructed the Military Law Supervision Department to investigate and referred the case to the Military Commission's Military Law Enforcement Directorate on charges of desertion in the face of the enemy. At that point, in that situation, there was nothing Wang Yaowu could say. He had no words left. He had given everything he had to the battle, and this was what greeted him at the end of it.   The elite 74th Army, with its heroic spirit and its unbroken record, had captured the imagination of the Chinese nation and the hearts of countless young men. When soldiers of the 74th Army returned to their hometowns on leave, they wore their elite status openly, and the prestige of the unit was such that families sought them as sons-in-law. Young men who enlisted and were not selected for the 74th Army were known to weep. What a fine unit. But this time, the trap had been perfectly laid, and the intelligence had been mastered. Anami had looked at his opponent's hole cards and played accordingly. He had concentrated overwhelming force, moved with coordination and speed, and exploited the confusion generated by contradictory orders from the Ninth War Zone Command. The Chinese elite had fought with courage and skill that earned the admiration of their enemies. They had simply been outgeneraled at the operational level.   The Second Battle of Changsha, Phase Three, had cost China two of its finest armies. The 10th Army had departed Hengyang over 30,000 strong and returned barely 2,000. The 74th Army had suffered a crushing defeat from which it would require months to rebuild. Wang Yaowu had walked alone through the dark to Liuyang. Li Yutang had stood in the autumn wind at a schoolyard and looked at what remained of the men who had written their determination in blood.   I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Phase Three of the second battle of Changsha showed Anami Korechika using intelligence and planning to blunt China's elite forces as Chiang Kai-shek reluctantly deployed the "Iron Army" 74th and the 10th. Intercepted communications enable encirclement and heavy losses. Li Yutang's merit and experience shape resistance, yet Japanese strategy dominates from the outset through coordinated advances.

Jon Ossoff's first attack ad against Mike Collins tests whether Republican divisions over the Epstein files can shape Georgia's U.S. Senate race. On today's episode of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Politically Georgia podcast, Greg Bluestein and Patricia Murphy examine Ossoff's financial advantage, the lingering fallout from Georgia's 2020 election fight and the unresolved tensions between Burt Jones and Rick Jackson. They also discuss the growing influence of democratic socialists and whether Raphael Warnock or Ossoff could emerge as a presidential contender in 2028. Have a question or comment for the show? Call or text the 24-hour Politically Georgia Podcast Hotline at 770-810-5297. We'll play back your question and answer it during our next Monday Mailbag segment. You can also email your questions at PoliticallyGeorgia@ajc.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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00:00 Best divisions in the NFL.13:40 Buffs season outlook.31:40 Denver sports legacies.

Last time we spoke about the battle for Dayun Mountain. Chinese forces  under Xue Yue, believed they were encircling an exposed Japanese regiment. Acting on that assumption, Chinese units concentrated attacks to crush the "trapped " force, hoping to annihilate an elite enemy formation. Their pressure briefly seemed to succeed: on the 13th–14th, Chinese assaults compressed the Japanese positions to a small area, and individual fighting around ambush and prepared defenses produced moments where "victory appeared close." But the Chinese command misunderstood the target. The Japanese had layered deception: Dayun Mountain was held to draw attention, then replaced at night with another unit to maintain the appearance of continued occupation. Despite heavy fighting, the Dayun Mountain battle ends in stalemate by Sept. 17, and Chinese attention turns back to the primary offensive around Changsha.   #210 The Miluo River Catastrophe Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. On the morning of September 17, 1941, General Xue Yue, commander of the Ninth War Zone, sat at his desk at the headquarters on Changsha's Yuelu Mountain and fell into deep thought. Spread before him were a series of intelligence telegrams dispatched by the reconnaissance teams of his war zone and by General Yang Sen, commander of the 27th Army Group operating to the north. What they described was unambiguous and alarming. Along the north bank of the Xinqiang River, stretching westward from Yueyang, reconnaissance had identified a massive Japanese build-up: the 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 40th Divisions of the Japanese 11th Army, along with five additional detachments, had taken up positions facing the river. On the afternoon of September 16th, General Kanda, commander of the Japanese 6th Division, had personally toured the north bank accompanied by a retinue of staff officers, training his binoculars across the river for a long and deliberate survey of the Chinese defensive positions on the southern bank. Perhaps most conclusively, Chinese operatives working behind enemy lines had tapped Japanese military telephone lines and intercepted a direct communication from the 11th Army to all of its divisions, ordering them to prepare for an attack on September 18th. On any reasonable reading, the evidence pointed in one direction: a massive Japanese offensive was imminent. Yet Xue Yue, one of China's most celebrated wartime commanders and a man renowned for the tenacity with which he had defended Changsha, arrived at a different conclusion. He had been studying the record of 11th Army Commander Korechika Anami and came away convinced that Anami was a general who habitually used a mix of truth and deception in his operations—a man for whom the most obvious sign was precisely the most suspicious one. The scale of the preparations, their openness, the conspicuous presence of senior officers on the riverbank—all of it struck Xue Yue as too theatrical to be real. He concluded that Anami was feigning a frontal attack on the Xinqiang River in order to draw the main force of the war zone forward, leaving the flanks exposed for a surprise breakthrough elsewhere. Once this interpretation took hold in Xue Yue's mind, it became immovable. No subordinate could dislodge it. When intelligence reports then confirmed that the Japanese had transported the equipment for building pontoon bridges to the very banks of the Xinqiang River—a detail that left virtually no room for doubt about what was being planned—Xue Yue remained unmoved. He told his chief of staff with quiet certainty: "No rush. Let's see tomorrow." He was unaware that he had already lost his tomorrow. At dawn on September 18th, after 11th Army Commander Korechika Anami presided over the routine silent prayer ceremony that opened each day of active operations, he drew his gleaming ceremonial sword and pointed it towards northern Hunan. The battle had begun. On the Chinese side of the Xinqiang River, the first indication that this was no ordinary morning came from the sky. Air raids were a familiar occurrence along the front; the veterans of the 4th Army had grown accustomed to Japanese bombing runs. But this time was different. The number of bombs was greater, the density higher, and the bombs themselves heavier than anything the soldiers on the south bank had experienced before. Two successive waves of air attack struck the fortifications with crushing force, destroying positions that had taken months to construct. Then came the infantry. At Xiaotang, Siliufang, Tongxi Bridge, Shanmu Bridge, and a string of other crossing points along the river, dozens of tanks led the assault, pushing forward with unstoppable momentum, their treads churning up the riverbank mud as the infantry followed closely behind, advancing through fire, forcing their way across the water. On the not-so-wide front in Xiangbei, four Japanese divisions had lined up side by side—like four ferocious beasts pouncing forward simultaneously. Even the veteran soldiers of the defending Chinese forces, men who had been fighting the Japanese for years, had rarely seen such a terrifying formation. The troops defending the Xinqiang River were the 4th Army under Ou Zhen, one of the most distinguished units in the Nationalist order of battle. The 4th Army had earned the reputation of "Iron Army" during the Northern Expedition, where it had demonstrated a ferocious capacity for breaching fortified positions and defending strategic points under fire, and it had fought many of the major battles of the War of Resistance. In theory, the army consisted of four divisions: Zhang Deneng's 59th Division, Chen Kan's 90th Division, Bai Huizhang's 102nd Division, and the 60th Division, which had recently been transferred to the army's command. In practice, however, by September 18th the Iron Army had been hollowed out. During the concurrent Battle of Dayun Mountain, the Ninth War Zone and the 27th Army Group had stripped away most of the 59th and 102nd Divisions to commit them elsewhere, while the 60th Division had followed the army group as a reserve force. What remained at the Xinqiang River was the 90th Division and only a remnant of the 102nd—a fragment of what had once been a formidable fighting force. Xue Yue had planned for the first-line position to hold for three days. It held for two hours. Against a Japanese force that outnumbered the defenders several times over and enjoyed an absolute advantage in artillery and air power, the position could not stand. In just two hours, the Japanese broke through the 102nd Division's defensive line and then swung their forces around to encircle the 90th Division. With no remaining options, Xue Yue ordered both units to retreat to the second line of defense. The Xinqiang River had fallen.  The crisis at the Xinqiang River was compounded by the predicament of Yang Sen, commander-in-chief of the 27th Army Group, who should have been the force most capable of responding to the breakthrough. Instead, Yang Sen found himself trapped far to the east, bogged down in a battle on Dayun Mountain from which he could not extract himself. The situation on Dayun Mountain was one of those military embarrassments that seem almost unbelievable in retrospect. Yang Sen had committed five full divisions to encircle what was supposed to be a single regiment—the 234th Regiment of the Japanese 40th Division, which had dug into the deep mountain. What followed was a sustained humiliation. Two divisions were ground down until their combined fighting strength equalled that of one. Another division was reduced to a regimental shadow of itself. Yang Sen, who had first served in the army in 1906 and had seen virtually every variety of military difficulty in three and a half decades of Chinese warfare, said afterwards that he had rarely experienced such deception. The Shigematsu Regiment, ensconced in the mountains and dense forest, had proved maddeningly resilient. Yang Sen had committed his forces expecting a quick resolution—finish the battle on Dayun Mountain, then redeploy to defend the Xinqiang River—but the regiment would not be finished. He could not advance and he could not retreat. Just as he was preparing to intensify the assault for another day or two, certain that the enemy must finally be near collapse, the news arrived on the morning of September 18th that the Japanese had launched their general offensive across northern Hunan. By nine o'clock that morning, the Xinqiang River's first line of defense was already gone. Yang Sen immediately ordered the abandonment of the Dayun Mountain operation and commanded all divisions to redeploy back towards the Xinqiang River. But the Japanese had moved too fast. Between the first and second lines of Chinese defense there were only scattered guard units; the main force was simply not in place. The second-line troops, moreover, had been configured according to the defensive setup used during the First Battle of Changsha and were wholly unsuited to withstand such a massive, concentrated enemy thrust. The defending forces were too weak and too thinly spread to mount any gradual, coordinated resistance. The Japanese advanced through the gap as if they were in an empty field. The five divisions of the 58th Army and the 4th Army now found themselves in a desperate race against the Japanese, studying maps as they marched, trying to reach blocking positions before the enemy could. No matter what they did, they could not outrun the 11th Army. It was not merely the front-line units of the 4th Army that were endangered by the speed of the Japanese advance. Even the army headquarters itself, positioned forward in the proud tradition of the Iron Army, found itself running for its life. Army Commander Ou Zhen had been directing the battle from his headquarters in a small village called Lintang, located on the south bank of the Xinqiang River—a mere twenty kilometers behind the front line. The proximity was deliberate and characteristic of the Iron Army's ethos, a visible declaration that its commander would live or die alongside his men. On this day, it nearly proved fatal. Among those at the headquarters was Li Rupin, a native of Jing County in Anhui Province, who served as a sergeant squad leader in the 2nd Company of the 4th Army's Guard Battalion. Years later, reflecting on the events of that day, Li said without hesitation that of all his eight years fighting in the War of Resistance against Japan, that one battle was the most humiliating he had ever experienced. "The army headquarters was located in a small village called Lintang, south of the Xinqiang River, only about 20 kilometers away from the front lines," Li recalled. "The army headquarters was located in the front, which was a tradition of the 'Iron Army' to show that the commander was not afraid of danger and would live and die with his brothers. In that battle, we did not expect the enemy to break through the position so quickly. Not long after the battle started, the army headquarters had to move. Our guard battalion's task was to follow the army headquarters and serve as guards." Li described how Company Commander Chang Mingli assigned his platoon to help load the army headquarters' equipment onto trucks—huge, heavy boxes that required real effort to shift. While the loading was underway, Li caught sight of Army Commander Ou Zhen himself, speaking intently on the telephone. Li noted that Ou Zhen was ordinarily a man of few words, always seeming lost in thought, serious with the troops but not given to the kind of arbitrary reprimands that characterized lesser officers. What struck Li most vividly about the Army Commander, even in the midst of that morning's chaos, was a detail almost absurd in its incongruity: a pair of leather shoes that were always so perfectly polished they reflected light. "I heard he had studied abroad," Li added simply. Before the loading was even complete, the sound of machine gun fire erupted from the southwest of the village. A sentry reported: enemy attack detected, number unknown. Company Commander Chang, still pulling on his leggings, turned to Li and said without breaking stride: "Quickly take your squad and follow the deputy company commander. You must keep the enemy out of the village." Li took evident pride in the character of the guard battalion, comparing it unfavorably to what he saw in later years. "I see that nowadays, officers choose bodyguards who are fair-skinned and delicate, like little girls. I don't know why," he reflected. "Back then, our guard battalion, including the commander's personal bodyguards, were all big, dark-skinned men. Our squad of 12 men were all broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, and carrying a machine gun was like an ordinary person carrying a rifle." The squad carried three light machine guns, and each soldier also carried a pistol. They drilled constantly on marksmanship and physical conditioning. In the tradition of the unit, a guard soldier was expected to be able to carry his officer for dozens of miles without slowing and without fear of death. Li led his squad to the southwest corner of the village, where the 1st Company of the guard battalion was already engaged with the Japanese in a cemetery just outside the village boundary. The 1st Company commander had just descended from a rooftop when Deputy Company Commander Yan arrived and assessed the situation. "There are about 100 enemy soldiers in this direction," the 1st Company commander reported. "I don't know if there are any more in other directions." Yan replied without hesitation: "I'll take my four squads to outflank them and find out what's going on with the enemy. If it's a good opportunity, we'll wipe them out." He asked and received permission from the deputy battalion commander, who transferred three additional machine guns from the 1st Company to Yan's force. The squad slipped around to the south of the village, entered a nursery grove, and began working their way southwest to flank the enemy. "Before we even emerged from the woods, enemy machine guns opened fire," Li recalled. "The nursery grove was planted too densely, so it was inevitable that we'd bump into tree branches. We crept forward, keeping close to the ground, when the deputy company commander gave the order: 'Prepare grenades.'" Li looked back and saw that all his men had kept pace. Then Deputy Company Commander Yan's voice rang out clearly: "Charge!" He burst out of the woods at the head of the column. "Deputy Company Commander Yan is a graduate of the Whampoa Military Academy," Li said. "People say that Whampoa graduates are always at the forefront of battle. Others may not know, but several of us in our battalion are like that." The charge was furious and caught the enemy entirely off guard. "We shouted 'Charge! Kill!' and followed the deputy company commander out of the grove," Li recounted. "The enemy was about 40 or 50 meters ahead. Hearing the shouts, they hurriedly turned their guns to fire at us, but it was too late! We threw out our grenades, lay down, and fired back at the enemy. At this moment, the 1st Company also charged out of the village. The enemy could not stop them and retreated in droves. Looking around, there were no fewer than 200 of them. The enemy suffered a loss and left behind more than a dozen dead bodies." The 2nd Company did not pursue. Led by Deputy Company Commander Yan, they withdrew back to the village, where the deputy battalion commander stood at the crossroads and praised the 2nd Company for their fighting before immediately ordering them to follow the army headquarters and relocate. Li had barely grabbed his backpack and tied it to his body before gunfire erupted again outside the village. The Japanese had returned. Two battalions of the army reserve moved up to engage them, and the army's trucks and cars poured out of the village and accelerated south along the road. The guard battalion ran after them on foot. In less than half an hour, the enemy caught up. There were cavalrymen and a large truck packed with infantry. Li registered the significance of this with something close to shock: "It seems that the Xinqiang River has really been lost to the enemy, otherwise how could cars still drive across?" The battalion commander—whose surname, Li noted with dry humor, was the same as the Generalissimo's—ordered the 2nd Company under the deputy battalion commander to form a rear guard. They had one artillery platoon and two mortars between them. There was no time to prepare fortifications; the soldiers scattered on both sides of the road and found their own firing positions as best they could. When Li looked back south, the army headquarters was already a distant speck on the road. "The enemy was getting closer and closer," he recalled. "First, fifty or sixty cavalrymen charged over, brandishing swords and guns and shouting. The trucks were behind them, and we could already see two machine guns mounted on the front of the trucks." The deputy battalion commander's voice carried steadily over the noise: "Brothers, stay calm, aim carefully before you fire—we're going to slaughter a pig and drink tonight!" Nobody laughed, Li noted carefully, but nobody broke either. What followed was a running, desperate firefight. Within the range of 600 to 200 meters, the rear guard inflicted severe casualties on the advancing Japanese. Li watched soldiers toppling from their horses. One horse, shot but not immediately killed, dragged its dead rider—still entangled in the stirrups—forward at a gallop until it collapsed only a few steps from Li, the sudden impact startling him badly. The enemy dismounted from the trucks and formed attack waves, pressing the assault in shifts. The Chinese machine guns worked to suppress each wave and prevent the Japanese from closing the distance. The deputy battalion commander directed the two mortars against the densest enemy concentrations. Then one of the mortars exploded inside its own barrel, killing two gunners instantly. "I still can't figure out why," Li said years later. "The fuse of the mortar shell is on that tip, how could it explode inside the barrel?" There was no answer to be found. The two men were simply dead, and there was no time to grieve them. The rear guard repelled two enemy attacks before the deputy battalion commander ordered a withdrawal while the enemy paused to regroup. It was past two o'clock in the afternoon. "It's all just running," Li said with characteristic bluntness. "How can I not get tired? Even if I'm tired, I still have to keep running!" As they ran, Li overheard the company commander say quietly to the deputy battalion commander: "Actually, we can wipe out these enemies." The deputy battalion commander turned on him with a fierce look: "Eat it all up! Have you forgotten what we're here for again?" The exchange brought to Li's mind a memory from two years earlier, when he had first been assigned to the guard battalion. He had been transferred from the machine gun company of the 2nd Battalion, 305th Regiment of the 102nd Division at the end of 1939, appointed as deputy squad leader. Company Commander Chang had spoken to him at that time, asking why he had joined the army. "Who else would come here if not to fight the Japanese?" Li had answered. The company commander replied: "Very good, but the guard battalion's primary task is to ensure good security; that's the most important thing." The assignment had chafed at Li ever since—a natural fighter who had been a front-line machine gun squad leader, now consigned to watching other men fight. On one holiday, having drunk rather more than was wise, he had gone to the company commander and announced that he wanted to return to the 102nd Division and "mow down the Japanese with a machine gun." The company commander, who had also been drinking, chuckled and said: "Have you had enough of life? You might as well stay here and squat obediently! What do you know about life? You don't know anything! After we win, go home, get a wife, and live a good life..." Now, running south along a road contested by Japanese cavalry and infantry, with the army headquarters already out of sight ahead of him, Li perhaps understood the company commander's words in a way he had not before. The pursuit was unrelenting and grew worse before it improved. Over a hundred cavalrymen and four trucks drove after the guard unit without pause. In an attempt to split and divert the enemy, the company dispatched a platoon under Deputy Company Commander Yan himself down a different road, to lure one group of pursuers away. None of the men in that platoon returned alive. The deputy battalion commander led the remaining force in a continuing fighting retreat, engaging another Japanese contingent in a separate encounter that cost more than twenty dead and thirty wounded. Eventually the survivors managed to cross a large river, finally shaking off the pursuers, and caught up with the army headquarters at dusk. They had barely had a moment to catch their breath when night fell and they stumbled into another large Japanese force in the darkness. The 4th Army—the Iron Army, the pride of the Northern Expedition—seemed to have its commander and headquarters specifically targeted by the enemy. Driven from one position to the next throughout the day, they were eventually pushed up into the hills of Mufu Mountain and did not escape danger until the following morning. "That battle," Li Rupin concluded, "was truly humiliating." When the scale of the Japanese offensive became undeniable on the evening of September 18th, Xue Yue finally grasped the gravity of what was unfolding. It was too late to adjust his forces meaningfully; the overall numerical superiority he had enjoyed across the theater of operations had dissolved wherever the Japanese chose to strike, becoming a dangerous numerical disadvantage at each critical point. In just one day, even Yuelu Mountain—the historic height that had dominated Changsha and housed his headquarters—was no longer safe. He moved the war zone command post south to Zhuting and urgently telegraphed the Military Commission in Chongqing, requesting that Chiang Kai-shek immediately transfer troops from other war zones to provide reinforcements, warning that without them the situation would deteriorate with serious consequences for the national war effort. The telegram arrived in Chongqing, where Chiang Kai-shek and several senior military advisors sat in silence before the battle map in the Military Commission Operations Room, with the grim concentration of men watching a difficult game of chess they cannot influence. Troop movements take time. While the number of Japanese troops committed to northern Hunan was not enormous in absolute terms, they moved with unstoppable momentum. Xue Yue was requesting three to four combat corps—a mobilization from outside the Ninth War Zone that could not possibly be accomplished in the available time. Chiang Kai-shek was at a loss for what to do. He paced back and forth in the corridor adjoining the operations room. The only foreigner among the assembled staff—a blond-haired man with a prominent nose—was the Soviet military advisor Chuikov. He walked up to Chiang and fell into step beside him, pacing with him as he spoke. "Hunan and northern Hunan are in a passive position and we don't have any good solutions for the time being," Chuikov said. "Why don't we think about other things? Isn't there an ancient Chinese story called 'Besieging Wei to Rescue Zhao'?" Chuikov's specific proposal was this: if the forces of the Sixth War Zone were to attack the Japanese 13th Division at Yichang—a city in Hubei Province that had fallen to Japan in June 1940, and which was garrisoned by a division under the overall command of Anami's 11th Army—Anami Korechika would not be able to remain indifferent to the threat. Yichang was no ordinary city. It controlled the crucial choke point on the Yangtze River's waterway, and since its capture it had placed much of the river under Japanese control. More critically for the Chinese, Yichang Airport had become the closest bomber base to Chongqing, and the Japanese aircraft that harassed the wartime capital daily flew from that field. The Military Commission had long been reluctant to authorize a major attack on Yichang for these very reasons—it would not be easy to retake, and failure would be costly. But why not seize this moment? Chiang Kai-shek stopped walking, considered Chuikov's proposal, and nodded. He thanked the Soviet general for his suggestion, and the two men returned to the operations room together. Chiang instructed Chief of Staff Xu Yongchang to draft an implementation plan for combined operations: the Ninth War Zone would continue engaging the Japanese in northern Hunan, while the Sixth War Zone would simultaneously launch a counterattack against Yichang and ensure its capture. While Chongqing deliberated over the Yichang gambit, the immediate question facing the Ninth War Zone was how to organize a second line of defense following the fall of the Xinqiang River. The Japanese had also successfully landed forces on both sides of the Xiangjiang River estuary at Shangqingshan, blocking the waterway, which further constrained Chinese options. Xue Yue's solution was straightforward: he proposed deploying the 37th and 26th Armies in a line along the south bank of the Miluo River, using the river as a natural barrier to halt the Japanese advance toward Changsha. His chief of staff, Wu Yizhi, agreed without reservation and immediately instructed the operations section chief, Zhao Zili, to begin drafting the necessary orders. But Zhao Zili had been turning the strategic problem over in his mind, and he had reached a different conclusion. Zhao was a graduate of the Whampoa Military Academy's 6th class, a veteran of the Battles of Nanchang and Shanggao, and a man who had watched this war closely from his position at the center of the war zone's planning operations. At this moment he asked permission to share his thinking with his two superiors. Zhao's argument was systematic and urgent. The combined strength of the two armies—five combat divisions in total—was clearly insufficient to withstand four intact Japanese divisions in a set-piece defensive battle along the Miluo River. The 10th and 74th Armies were being summoned from elsewhere to reinforce the theater, but by Zhao's calculation they would require another four days to arrive. A static defense of the Miluo River line, therefore, would pit inadequate forces against overwhelming pressure for four days, and those forces would be destroyed long before help arrived. His alternative proposal was as follows: rather than standing and fighting at the Miluo, the two armies should conduct a deliberate fighting withdrawal—using alternating rear-guard actions and mutual cover—to fall back all the way to the south bank of the Liuyang River, in the hills immediately north of Changsha. The timing, Zhao argued, was almost providential in its precision: if the 26th and 37th Armies arrived at the Liuyang River at roughly the same moment that the 10th and 74th Armies arrived at the same position from the east, the combined force of four armies could then turn and strike the Japanese formations—which by then would have advanced more than a hundred kilometers into hostile territory with supply lines stretched thin and fighting strength degraded by continuous combat. Even if the Chinese could not completely sever the Japanese supply lines, the enemy would be exhausted, and victory under those conditions would be certain. Zhao Zili finished his presentation in one breath and waited. Xue Yue and Wu Yizhi conferred briefly. Then they decided to proceed with the original plan. Zhao Zili sighed inwardly. He got up, returned to his office, and began drafting the orders that, in his professional judgment, would lead to catastrophe. One hour later, the orders embodying Xue Yue's thinking were converted to radio waves and flew into the night sky. As some poet once asked of fate: "When the curtain rises, you don't know whether it's a comedy or a tragedy." On the morning of September 20th, in the intelligence section of the Japanese 11th Army's Special Operations headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Hachimō rose from his seat feeling dizzy and unsteady on his feet. He had been awake for an extraordinary stretch of hours, hunched over a radio set in a state of almost superhuman concentration. He took a couple of steps before realizing he was still wearing his headset. He pulled it off, tossed it onto the radio equipment, and—holding the handrail for support—made his careful way down from the third floor to the second. Hachimō was not a professional soldier by background. Before the war, he had been a young designer at the renowned Mitsubishi Corporation. After the outbreak of hostilities, he had enlisted, taught himself the Chinese language and writing system, and dedicated himself entirely to the exacting discipline of cryptanalysis. Given the severe technological limitations of the era, what he accomplished rested on a kind of willpower and intuition that bordered on the extraordinary. His method was laborious and painstaking: he spent long hours with a headset pressed against his ear, listening to the endless stream of radio signals, detecting patterns, discerning differences and similarities among thousands of beeps and pulses. He analyzed signal traffic appearing over time and correlated it against observed enemy troop movements. He used captured battlefield documents to decode fragments of text, then leveraged those fragments to deduce the positions of commonly used characters in Chinese military telegrams. Every time the Chinese side changed their cipher, all of Hachimō's accumulated work was rendered worthless in an instant, but he would begin again—listening, thinking, starting over from nothing, with the same unbroken patience. On the perfectly timed morning of September 20th, Lieutenant Colonel Hachimō achieved what he had been working toward. He cracked the cipher in use by the Ninth War Zone for communications with its various subordinate armies, and successfully intercepted and decoded the operational deployment order that the Ninth War Zone Command had issued to all its armies on the night of September 18th—the very orders that Zhao Zili had drafted in quiet despair after his plan was rejected. Those orders told the Japanese exactly where every Chinese unit was going, what it intended to do, and when. Hachimō made his way downstairs and reported his achievement. Staff officer Kinoshita Isamu read the summary, then stood and walked without a word into the room where 11th Army Commander Anami Korechika was at work. The other officers in the room looked at Hachimō with confusion, uncertain what had just happened. After a few minutes, Anami and Kinoshita returned together. Anami stepped forward and took Hachimō's hand. "I, the Commander, congratulate you," Anami said, "on becoming the first officer to receive a certificate of merit in Operation Plus. Now I order you to go and rest immediately." The intelligence transformed the battle. Anami's original operational plan had been relatively modest in its ambition: a breakthrough along the Changsha-Yueyang highway, advancing toward Jinjing and the Xiangjiang River, with the 3rd and 4th Divisions planned for deployment toward the river. But now that the Japanese held a complete map of Chinese intentions—the positions, routes, and assignments of every army in the Ninth War Zone—a far more ambitious opportunity presented itself. What could be more valuable, or more satisfying, than the direct encirclement and annihilation of the main Chinese forces in the field? Anami immediately revised his entire operational deployment. As Chinese historical records later documented: "The Japanese intercepted and deciphered the radio telegrams issuing operational orders from the Ninth War Zone, gaining access to the Nationalist Army's operational plans and deployments. This led to a shift in their original strategic concept from a breakthrough to an encirclement of the Nationalist Army's right flank." The trap was set. The Chinese armies, following Xue Yue's orders faithfully, were marching toward positions the Japanese already knew they would occupy. The 26th Army was commanded by Xiao Zhichu, and it comprised three divisions: the 32nd Division under Wang Xiushen, the 41st Division under Ding Zhipan, and the 44th Division under Chen Yong. When Xiao received Xue Yue's orders to move his army to defend the south bank of the Miluo River, the situation was already deeply unfavorable. The Japanese had broken through the Xinqiang River line and were advancing rapidly southward; the 26th Army was positioned in the Liuyang and Yong'an area to the west, at a starting point that was even farther from the Miluo River than the Japanese forces were. The army was engaged in a race against a faster-moving enemy to reach the same objective, running from the farther starting block. The timing was unfavorable. The location was unfavorable. And the personal dimension was unfavorable as well, in a way that would prove deeply consequential, because Xue Yue and Xiao Zhichu harbored a long-standing resentment toward one another with its roots six years in the past. In 1935, both men had attended the third session of the Lushan Officers Training Corps, each holding the rank of army commander in the army but serving as battalion commanders within the training structure. The corps was nominally commanded by Chiang Kai-shek himself, with Chen Cheng as deputy commander. Xue Yue was a favorite of Chen Cheng—a celebrated battle commander who had fought his way across half of China—and he carried himself accordingly, often holding forth at length in seminars and discussions and not infrequently straying off-topic into territory where his assertions were questionable. The other senior officers present were content to listen, taking what was useful and ignoring the rest. Xiao Zhichu, however, was a man of earnest and literal disposition who simply could not let inaccuracies pass without challenge. He disputed Xue Yue's claims on several occasions, insisting on clarifying the facts, and each such correction landed on Xue Yue like a public rebuke. The estrangement that resulted between the two men was severe and lasting. By 1941, Xue had risen to command an entire war zone; Xiao remained an army commander under his authority. In the intervening years, Xiao had learned to be extremely cautious in all his dealings with his superior, acutely aware that any apparent failure or challenge might be held against him. On the night of September 19th, Xue Yue issued Xiao Zhichu an order to move the 26th Army to the second line of defense on the south bank of the Miluo River. Then, at noon on September 20th, he changed the order entirely: Xiao was to push his troops forward to the first line of defense along the riverbank, a more exposed position further north. At dawn on September 21st, Xiao Zhichu personally led his 44th Division—the division with which he had built his reputation—on a forced march toward the designated position. They were 2.5 kilometers from their destination, at the town of Wengjiang, when they encountered the Japanese 6th Division. The Japanese already knew they were coming. Having read Xue Yue's intercepted operational orders, they had deployed their forces specifically to intercept the 26th Army on the march. Within just twenty minutes of the initial encounter at Wengjiang, the entire 44th Division was completely surrounded. Xiao Zhichu reported the situation to Xue Yue by telephone. Xue Yue's response from the other end of the line was white-hot fury: "What's going on? We're surrounded before we even arrived! Why aren't we fighting? If we lose the Miluo River position, I'll kill you!" Xiao Zhichu swallowed his bitterness. Following orders, he threw the 44th Division into battle in terrain that could hardly have been more disadvantageous. They fought for a full day and a night and were unable to break through the encirclement. He ordered Wang Xiushen's 32nd Division to press forward and relieve the siege, but by the time those orders could be executed, the 32nd Division was itself under attack—surrounded on three sides by the Japanese 3rd Division at Wukou. Wang Xiushen led the entire division in a desperate battle with the river immediately at his back, suffering grievous casualties, and was eventually forced to fight his way clear rather than advance to relieve the 44th. On September 23rd, General Kanda Masazuka committed a portion of the 6th Division to a fierce assault against the rear of the already-encircled 44th Division. The situation became critical. Xiao Zhichu's army was fighting simultaneously on two fronts, and the lines were beginning to give way. It was only the timely intervention of Ding Zhipan's 41st Division, which arrived on a diagonal axis and struck the enemy threatening the 44th Division's rear, that prevented a complete collapse. When Ding Zhipan came to report to the army commander, the chief of staff of the 44th Division informed him with hollow composure that the entire division had suffered more than half casualties. The daily reality inside the encircled positions was one of sustained and grinding misery. During brief lulls in the fighting—stolen moments between one Japanese assault and the next—the soldiers would stuff a cold rice ball into their mouths and scoop up a mouthful of muddy water from the nearest roadside ditch; that was their meal. Immediately they would put down whatever they had in their hands and rush to reinforce the hastily dug earthworks, knowing another assault was imminent. The wounded lay where they had fallen, unable to be evacuated, their groans a constant sound beneath the work of digging and the distant thunder of artillery. The dead were not buried; there was simply no time. The battlefield was a scene of utter devastation. After Xiao Zhichu's repeated requests, Xue Yue finally authorized a withdrawal. The 26th Army was permitted to pull back to Putang, a position a few kilometers to the south with marginally more defensible terrain. The entire army moved overnight, arriving exhausted, and immediately began constructing new fortifications. They had barely caught their breath when the Japanese 40th and 6th Divisions came on in succession, pressing the pursuit without pause. The 41st and 44th Divisions threw themselves into the fighting and were decimated. After destroying those two divisions, the Japanese turned their full attention on the surviving 32nd Division and the army headquarters. As Xiao Zhichu swept his binoculars across the positions, watching his men lie on the ground—dead, dying, or fighting on sheer will—one phrase repeated itself in his mind: "total annihilation." It was the most despairing phrase in a soldier's vocabulary, and it seemed to be becoming a description of reality. On the evening of September 25th, as the Japanese ring tightened around the remnants of the 26th Army, a Japanese Chinese-language translator began calling out to the encircled troops in Mandarin, urging them to surrender. The entire army appeared to be at its final moment. Then, in the darkness, reinforcements arrived—in the most improbable way imaginable. The head of the army's reconnaissance section had slipped through the Japanese encirclement looking for any exit, and in doing so had stumbled upon an entire regiment of the 32nd Army that had completely lost contact with the headquarters days earlier. This regiment had suffered damage to its radio equipment and had simply not received any of the telegrams announcing changes to the army's deployment and assignments. When they arrived at their designated rendezvous point, the area was empty. They had been sending scouts in all directions trying to locate friendly forces and make sense of the situation, when they encountered the reconnaissance section chief who had been doing precisely the same thing from inside the encirclement. The two men compared unit designations and confirmed their identities. Then the section chief remembered something: the regiment's party representative was his own classmate from the Whampoa Military Academy. Old bonds held. The two men exchanged information, assessed the situation together, and without further deliberation the regimental commander led his troops on a forced march straight toward the guns. They found and struck the weakest points in the Japanese encirclement, broke through, and extracted the army headquarters and the surviving remnants of the 32nd Division. The 26th Army had been saved, but only barely, and at a terrible cost. What had before the battle been a formidable force with numerous victories was now reduced to less than one-fifth of its original strength. Wang Xiushen, commander of the 32nd Division, had previously served as commander of the great warlord Feng Yuxiang's own bodyguard brigade—a valiant and decorated general of the old Northwest Army. Division commanders Ding Zhipan and Chen Yong were similarly seasoned veterans, known for their courage and resourcefulness throughout years of hard fighting. After the battle, they and Army Commander Xiao Zhichu were utterly dejected. They had fought as hard as men could fight, under conditions as unfavorable as circumstances could devise, and they had been broken. More than forty kilometers to the west of the 26th Army's ordeal, at the point where the Miluo River flows into Dongting Lake, a second major engagement was being fought at the same time. Here, the Japanese 3rd and 4th Divisions struck at Chen Pei's 37th Army, whose two main fighting formations—Luo Qi's 95th Division and Li Tang's 140th Division—were deployed across the hills and river-network terrain of the area. The fighting was, by any measure, equally bloody and equally brutal. Before the battle, with their blood up and their honor committed, the commanders of the 37th Army's divisions had gathered their officers for ceremonies of dedication that spoke to the seriousness with which they understood what was coming. Li Tang, commander of the 140th Division, organized a frontline oath-taking ceremony at which he stood before his assembled officers and men and vowed aloud to annihilate the Japanese invaders and avenge the deaths of fallen compatriots. Luo Qi, commanding the 95th Division, sent written instructions throughout his formation: "The defense of the Shending Mountain line is not only a matter of honor for our division, but also a matter of victory or defeat for the entire battlefield. With this stubborn enemy pressing in, all our officers and soldiers should be even more courageous and loyal, resolutely defend the position, annihilate the Japanese invaders, and achieve extraordinary feats!" Song Ruike, who served at the time as a senior staff officer at the Ninth War Zone Command headquarters, recorded his recollection of the battle's progress in later years with the systematic precision that his professional training demanded. "On the morning of the 19th," Song recalled, "the enemy's main force successively advanced towards the Miluo River via Yanglin Street, Guanwang Bridge, and the Changhu-Dajing Street highway. Our 37th Army was on high alert on the south bank, while our vanguard troops were also advancing forward on the north bank. That afternoon, the enemy's vanguard encountered our troops north of Changle Street. After a fierce battle, many enemy soldiers were killed. Then, enemy cavalry and artillery, along with several thousand infantry, attacked from three sides. Our defending 1st Company fought a bloody battle, but due to being outnumbered, they suffered almost all casualties. Changle Street was occupied by the enemy. At around 7 p.m., the enemy began to attempt a crossing at Modao Beach. Our troops defending the south bank fought bravely and fought fiercely throughout the night, but the enemy failed." The first crossing attempt had been beaten back, but the respite was brief. Song continued: "At dawn on the 20th, the enemy, under the cover of aircraft and artillery, launched another forced crossing. At around 7 a.m., fierce fighting broke out between the two sides along the Wugongshi, Guiyi, and Hejiatang line." Those words, whatever courage the oaths and instructions had inspired, could not alter the underlying arithmetic of the battle. From the 21st through the 23rd of September, the 37th Army fought ferocious engagements with the Japanese 4th and 3rd Divisions across the Shending Mountain and Banjunmiao areas, absorbing casualties that could not be replaced. Song recorded the progression: "The main force of the enemy, advancing rapidly southward, captured our positions at Nanyangmiao and Banjunmiao in Wengjiang at noon on the 22nd. Our 140th Division engaged the enemy at Lishan Lane and Daxingling, and fought fiercely for two days and nights..." After the battle, the 37th Army had effectively ceased to exist as a fighting force. It had gone into the engagement with nearly fifty thousand fully equipped and manned troops. Song Ruike, reflecting on it all in his old age, acknowledged with unusual candor the limitations of his own account: "Since history cannot be reproduced, people summarize events based on memory, striving to retain the most important and valuable aspects while filtering out the unimportant and those that do not reflect the essence." The elderly Song retained the factual architecture of the battle—times, places, unit designations, tactical methods—but he knew, as any honest chronicler must, that within those facts lay a multitude of individual experiences, individual sufferings, individual deaths, that no record could fully capture. "Then what about every individual in history?" he asked. "How should their emotions, will, beliefs, their flesh and blood, their breath, and everything they sacrificed be expressed and entrusted to us?" It was a question he could not answer, and neither can history. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. After commander Zhao Zili's plan was rejected, he drafted orders anyway, but Lieutenant Colonel Hachimō of Japan's 11th Army intercepted and decoded the Ninth War Zone's deployment orders on September 20. Meanwhile, the 37th Army fought the Japanese at the Miluo River confluence with Dongting Lake, launching oaths and grim defenses before being effectively destroyed as a combat force.

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Divisions around many teachers. All In Gospel Podcast is a chapter by chapter, verse by verse, in depth bible study where we seek to understand God's Word.All In Gospel is recorded live at Calvary Chapel with Pastor Seann Dikkers. You can support this study at anchor.fm/allingospel ⁠or ⁠https://all-in-gospel.com/

According to Siddique Jan, Imran Khan's imprisonment and his political standing are two separate issues. He said Imran Khan is the most popular political leader in Pakistan since Muhammad Ali Jinnah, with a strong voter base across all four provinces, as well as in Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. However, Jan argued that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is facing deep internal divisions, while any prospect of reconciliation between Imran Khan and the country's military establishment appears unlikely for the time being. - صدیق جان کے مطابق عمران خان کی قید اور ان کی سیاست دو الگ معاملات ہیں۔ ان کا کہنا ہے کہ عمران خان قائد اعظم کے بعد پاکستان کے مقبول ترین لیڈر ہیں اور چاروں صوبوں سمیت پاکستان کے زیر انتظام کشمیر و گلگت بلتستان میں بھی ان کا ووٹ بینک موجود ہے۔ تاہم صدیق جان کے بقول پی ٹی آئی کو شدید اندرونی تقسیم کا سامنا ہے، جبکہ عمران خان اور اسٹیبلشمنٹ کے درمیان مفاہمت کا امکان بھی فی الوقت معدوم نظر آتا ہے۔Explore more ways to listen to the Urdu program here: Listen to SBS Urdu. Install our mobile app “SBS Audio” on Apple (iPhone) or Android devices: SBS Audio App. Download on Apple App Store, Download on Google Play. Follow us on social media: SBS Urdu on Facebook and on SBS Urdu on Instagram. - _______________جانئے کس طرح ایس بی ایس اردو کے مرکزی صفحے کو بُک مارک کریں ہر بدھ اور جمعہ کا پورا پروگرام اس لنک پرسنئے, اردو پرگرام سننے کے دیگر طریقے, “SBS Audio”کےنام سےموجود ہماری موبائیل ایپ ایپیل (آئی فون) یااینڈرائیڈ , ڈیوائیسزپرانسٹال کیجئے

NATO leaders left Turkiye on Wednesday after reaffirming their commitment to collective defense, but uncertainty now hangs over the alliance following US President Donald Trump's disruptive remarks.北约各国领导人周三离开土耳其，此前他们重申了集体防御承诺，但美国总统唐纳德·特朗普一番极具分裂性的言论，让整个联盟前景蒙上一层不确定性。Divisions over defense spending and the security commitments of the United States have raised questions about the cohesion of the alliance and even whether leaders would convene another summit next year.各国在防务开支、美国安全保障义务两方面产生分歧，外界开始质疑北约内部凝聚力，甚至不确定明年能否如期举办下一届峰会。Although the 32-member bloc sought to project unity through its "ironclad commitment" to the collective defense principle, the summit highlighted increasingly divergent priorities between Washington and its European allies.这个拥有32个成员国的同盟试图借对集体防御原则“牢不可破的承诺”对外塑造团结形象，但本次峰会清晰暴露，美国与欧洲盟友的核心诉求分歧正不断扩大。Trump's repeated criticism of NATO, renewed demands for Europe to shoulder more of the budgetary burden, and public rebukes of individual allies reinforced concern that the trans-Atlantic relationship is becoming more transactional than strategic.特朗普多次公开抨击北约，再度要求欧洲承担更多防务经费压力，还当众点名批评部分盟国，这加深了外界的担忧：跨大西洋关系正在从战略伙伴关系，彻底偏向纯粹的利益交易关系。Speaking in Ankara before joining alliance leaders, Trump made clear that his frustrations with NATO had not eased.在赶赴北约领导人集体会谈前，特朗普于安卡拉发表讲话，直言自己对北约的不满丝毫没有缓解。"Despite the fact that I'm very upset with NATO, that we pay far, far too much, billions and billions of dollars too much — because it's unfair — we protect them, but they're not there for us," he said.他表示：“我对北约非常不满，我们付出的代价实在过高，白白多掏了数十亿美元，这非常不公平。我们为他们提供安全庇护，可他们却不愿对等付出。”Trump also renewed his call for US control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO member Denmark, while criticizing Spain over defense spending and its position on the Iran war, even threatening to cut off all trade with Madrid.特朗普再度提出由美国接管格陵兰岛（北约成员国丹麦的自治领地），同时指责西班牙防务投入不足、在伊朗冲突上立场与美国相悖，甚至威胁断绝与马德里的全部贸易。The remarks contrasted sharply with efforts by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and European leaders to present a united front, underscoring growing disagreements over burden-sharing, strategic priorities and the future balance of responsibilities within the alliance.这番表态和北约秘书长马克·吕特、欧洲各国领导人力求展现统一战线的努力形成强烈反差，凸显各方在防务分摊、战略重心、联盟权责分配等问题上分歧持续加剧。Domestic pressures国内层面的压力Tom Harper, a lecturer in international relations at the University of East London, said the dispute over defense spending has become increasingly tied to domestic political and economic pressures.东伦敦大学国际关系讲师汤姆·哈珀表示，这场防务开支争端，如今和各国国内政治、经济压力深度绑定。European governments face mounting political risks if higher military spending comes at the cost of public services, Harper said.哈珀称，欧洲各国如果以削减公共服务为代价增加军费，将面临巨大的国内政治风险。"If increased defense spending coincides with cuts to social services and education, this will likely impose domestic costs on European governments, which they may be unwilling to pay, especially should they be facing election campaigns," he said.他说：“倘若增加国防开支就要削减社保、教育投入，各国政府都不愿承担这样的国内代价，尤其是恰逢大选周期时。”"You could say it's an example of the age-old debate over guns or butter."“这就是经典的‘大炮与黄油'取舍难题。”Harper also argued that the economic benefits of increased military spending could flow disproportionately to the US.哈珀还提出，军费扩容带来的经济红利，绝大部分会流向美国。"It is quite likely that American companies would be the primary beneficiaries of increased spending, which is one of the reasons why Washington has been keen for NATO members to increase their defense expenditure," he said.他表示：“美国企业大概率会成为军费上涨的主要受益者，这也是华盛顿极力推动北约各国提高防务开支的原因之一。”Matthew Arnold, a policy analyst and visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, questioned whether NATO members could realistically sustain significantly higher defense spending.伦敦政治经济学院政策分析师、访问学者马修·阿诺德质疑，北约各国是否有能力长期维持大幅上涨的军费。"The fiscal concerns are serious," he said, warning that sustained increases in military expenditure could worsen debt burdens and social tensions, while much of the increased procurement would initially benefit large defense contractors, many of them based in the US.他称：“各国财政隐患十分严峻。持续增加军费会加重债务压力、激化社会矛盾，而且新增军备采购订单，初期大多流入美国大型军工企业。”Challenge to cohesion联盟凝聚力遭遇挑战Lawrence Loh, director of the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the National University of Singapore Business School, said NATO now faces a broader challenge to its cohesion.新加坡国立大学商学院治理与可持续发展中心主任Lawrence Loh表示，北约整体凝聚力正遭遇更深层次的考验。"The NATO summit comes at a critical time when the alliance faces an emerging legitimacy crisis," Loh said. "With pressure from Trump, NATO risks bowing to this strongman's demands for increased defense spending," he said. "It is evolving into a transaction grouping of countries that weigh their respective interests with just one member — the US."他表示：“本届北约峰会恰逢联盟合法性危机显现的关键节点。在特朗普的施压下，北约被迫迎合这位强硬领导人提高军费的要求，联盟逐渐沦为纯粹的利益交换集团，各国凡事只权衡对美单方利弊。”The alliance is simultaneously grappling with economic slowdown, political fragmentation and social integration challenges across Europe, while also facing criticism over its limited effectiveness in responding to conflicts in the Middle East, he added.他补充道，北约同时要应对欧洲多国经济低迷、政治分裂、社会融合难题，还因应对中东冲突收效有限饱受诟病。"All in all, NATO is now caught between a rock — the US — and a hard place, which is all the region-based anguishes in Europe," he said.他说：“总而言之，北约如今进退两难：一边是步步紧逼的美国，另一边是欧洲层出不穷的各类地区矛盾。”Several analysts believe Trump's approach could ultimately accelerate Europe's pursuit of greater strategic autonomy.多名分析人士认为，特朗普的行事风格，最终会倒逼欧洲加速推进战略自主。Angel Saz-Carranza, director of the EsadeGeo Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics in Spain, said NATO will likely evolve over the next decade.西班牙ESADE全球经济与地缘政治中心主任Angel Saz-Carranza表示，未来十年北约格局将会迎来演变。"Reliance on the US will diminish as European Union capabilities increase, which will gradually rebalance the trans-Atlantic relationship," he said.他说：“随着欧盟自身防务实力提升，欧洲对美国的依赖会逐步降低，跨大西洋力量平衡将重新调整。”Pedro Brinca, an associate professor of macroeconomics at Nova School of Business and Economics in Portugal, also expects the alliance to become increasingly European in character.葡萄牙诺瓦商学院宏观经济学副教授佩德罗·布林卡也预判，北约的欧洲属性会持续增强。However, he cautioned that Europe's ability to shoulder greater responsibility will depend not only on spending more but also on spending more efficiently. Fragmented national procurement would deliver less security than coordinated European investment, he added.但他同时提醒，欧洲想要承担更多安全责任，不能只单纯增加军费，更要提升资金使用效率。各国分散独立采购军备，所能获得的安全收益，远不如欧洲协同统一投入。Although NATO leaders departed Ankara reiterating their commitment to collective defense, the summit illustrated that the alliance's greatest challenge may no longer be external threats alone, but maintaining political trust among its own members.尽管北约各国领导人离开安卡拉时再度重申集体防御义务，但本次峰会充分说明，联盟最大的难题早已不只是外部威胁，维系成员国之间的政治互信才是核心。The final declaration said the leaders "look forward to our next meeting", but without committing to a date.峰会最终宣言仅写明各国领导人“期待下一次会晤”，并未敲定具体举办时间。divergence分歧、立场背离sow埋下、滋生（矛盾、裂痕）discord不和、分歧、内部裂痕NATO北大西洋公约组织，简称北约summit（国际）峰会

In this Q&A special we tackle the hardest questions in running (again).This episode was sponsored by Stryd!https://www.stryd.live/coffeeclubhttps://www.instagram.com/strydrunning/?hl=enThe Coffee Club Podcast is hosted by Oliver Hoare, George Beamish, and Morgan McDonald: 3 professional runners and olympians who train and live in Boulder, Colorado that compete for the On Athletics Club and On.Thumbnail Photography by Jacob Gower: https://www.instagram.com/jacob_gower_/?hl=enFollow us here:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coffeeclubpod/George Beamish: https://www.instagram.com/georgebeamish/Morgan McDonald: https://www.instagram.com/morganmcdonald__/Olli Hoare: https://www.instagram.com/ollihoare/Tom Wang: https://www.instagram.com/womtang/Coffee Club Merch: https://coffeeclubpod.comMorgan's discord: https://discord.gg/uaCSeHDpgsMorgan's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MorganMcDonaldisaloserIntro Artwork by The Orange Runner: https://www.instagram.com/theorangerunner/Intro Music by Nick Harris: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3Zab8WxvAPsDlhlBTcbuPi

Divisions in the DA by Radio Islam

Natalie joins her dad to talk about 12 NFL teams ahead of the 2026 season. Join them as they briefly discuss the North divisions + the NFC East! Be sure to like/subscribe/follow the accounts mentioned below... Our next show will be LIVE at 6:30pm ET on Sunday, July 19th, 2026! ------------------------------------------------------------ JMNJR Radio: www.jmnjrradio.com/ The Joe Mays & J-Raff Show: www.joemaysandjraff.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/JoeMaysAndJRaff Twitter: @MaysMediaLLC | @JoeMaysAndJRaff Email: contact@joemaysandjraff.com Phone: (530) 563-6297 More @ www.joemaysandjraff.com/

Derek Engelbrecht – CFO, Senwes SAfm Market Update - Podcasts and live stream

Colonel Jeff McCausland reflects on how, following the battle, the war's brutality is mirrored by civil unrest, specifically the deadly 1863 draft riots in New York City, highlighting deep internal divisions within the North. While General Meade celebrates his victory, President Lincoln remains despondent over the missed opportunity to end the war by failing to capture Lee's army. In November 1863, Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address, transforming the war's purpose from merely preserving the Union to ensuring a "new birth of freedom" through the abolition of slavery. This expanded vision eventually leads to the 13th Amendment and sets the stage for Lincoln's 1864 re-election despite his own earlier fears of defeat. In his Second Inaugural, Lincoln eschews vengeance, calling for the nation to bind its wounds "with malice toward none" and "charity for all." Today, the battlefield remains a "place of souls" where the echoes of sacrifice continue to resonate for those who ponder its history. (4)Gettysburg

Bongani Bingwa speaks to Sam Mkokeli, journalist and political commentator, about an eventful week in South African politics, with developments that could have significant implications for the country's political landscape. From former President Jacob Zuma's controversial visit to India and reported meeting with Ajay Gupta, to President Cyril Ramaphosa's cabinet reshuffle, and growing tensions within the Democratic Alliance, the week has been dominated by high-stakes political developments. 702 Breakfast with Bongani Bingwa is broadcast on 702, a Johannesburg-based talk radio station. Bongani makes sense of the news, interviews the key newsmakers of the day, and holds those in power to account on your behalf. The team brings you all you need to know to start your day Thank you for listening. Listen live on Primedia+ weekdays from 6 am to 9 am (SA Time) https://buff.ly/gk3y0Kj For more from the show and catch-up podcasts, visit Primedia+ here https://buff.ly/zEcM35T Subscribe to the 702 Daily and Weekly Newsletters https://buff.ly/v5mfetc Let’s keep the conversation going online: 702 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TalkRadio702 702 on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@talkradio702 702 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkradio702/ 702 on X: https://x.com/Radio702 702 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@radio702See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt Slick Live (Live Broadcast of 07/01/2026) is a production of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry (CARM). Matt answers questions on topics such as: The Bible, Apologetics, Theology, World Religions, Atheism, and other issues! You can also email questions to Matt using: info@carm.org, Put "Radio Show Question" in the Subject line! Answers will be discussed in future show. Topics Include: Scripture and Women Elders/ The Kingdom of God/ Difference between Premillennial and Amillennial/ Melchizedek and the Priesthood of Jesus Christ/ This Age and the Age to Come/ Old Earth and King James Only Believers/ Reasons for Divisions in the Christian Church/ July 01, 2026

Preview for Later Today: Thaddeus McCotter. Thaddeus McCotter reflects on the fleeting relevance of political books detailing internal administration leaks and divisions. He contrasts these "ephemeral" works with the lasting historical significance of projects like the Hoover Dam. McCotter suggests that while political gossip fades, monumental achievements stand the test of time.1931 HOOVER PARADE

Reshma Saujani, is a leading activist, an author, the founder of Girls Who Code, the founder and CEO of Moms First, host of My So-Called Midlife podcast, and executive producer of the new documentary No Country for Mothers. Named one of TIME's Women of the Year in 2026, Reshma has spent more than a decade building movements to fight for women and girls' empowerment.In this conversation we discuss No Country for Mothers, which argues that American motherhood has been deliberately designed to divide and distract women through false culture-war choices like “trad wife vs. girl boss.” We also talk about how childcare was once a bipartisan policy, how New York City's universal childcare can be a model for what's possible, and making childcare and paid leave defining voter issues in the midterms.Connect with Reshma: Website | Instagram | Substack | DocumentaryIf you're looking to unleash your potential, find your personal, professional, or political fire, and to connect with a community who is doing the same, click here to learn more. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shannonwatts.substack.com/subscribe

June 27, 2026; 7am: This week, President Trump cancelled a big bipartisan signing event on Capitol Hill for a bill that would make housing more affordable in this country. As lawmakers were gathering for the event, Trump said he would not sign it unless Congress passed his big voter suppression bill, the Save America Act. This comes after two federal judges blocked Trump's executive orders trying to restrict the use of mail-in ballots. Kimberly Atkins Stohr and David Drucker join The Weekend to weigh in on how this could actively hurt the Republican party's chances in November. For more, follow us on social media: Bluesky: @theweekendmsnow.bsky.social Instagram: @theweekendmsnow TikTok: @theweekendmsnow To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The ink on the Constitution was barely dry before others were trying to control us. Yet, we are still around. As life's pace begins accelerating, it's time for careful introspection. Our 250th anniversary has left others jealous. Chy-Nah and AI together leaves a lot of questions. Venezuela entered the picture in 2017. People herd you into groups where they think you belong. Hard choices get made under threats. The message seems disconnected by design. All the factions show who the real operators are. It's a swamp within a swamp. National leaders waste time on climate myths. AI complicates human nature. Many can't handle the truth. The Tina Peters case was done all wrong. We are going to lose the House. Saudi Arabia is out of oil. Israel should have played it down the middle. Bibi is a dumb warmonger. The President has taken so much grief for the people. England is the capital of bad teeth. Psyops change by the minute. Our media can be redone without sponsors. J6 was orchestrated by the right. Katrina Pearson saved the President. Choices offer fake everything. They attack us in every way possible. Cultivating discernment is key. Here's the secret to a long life. When you cease to learn, you cease to live.

Lopsided Christianity is an unappealing religion. Divisions and fracturing over minutia have severely harmed evangelism and the church's witness to the world. The apostle Paul's battle cry in Romans 14:17 is that the kingdom of God is not about minutia such as meat and drink. Following Paul's teaching in this sermon on Romans 14:17 titled “A Sense of Balance (1),” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones applies this point to the contemporary church. Today's Christians are just as guilty of making the kingdom of God about minutia – subsidiary doctrines, church government, particular church leaders. It is vitally important, says Dr. Lloyd-Jones, to preserve a sense of balance in all areas of the Christian life. While not advocating unity at all cost, Dr. Lloyd-Jones does challenge the contemporary church over unnecessary denominational divisions. He is not merely concerned in this message of affirming church unity, but seeks a diagnosis of church division instead. Beyond denominations, Dr. Lloyd-Jones scrutinizes the usefulness of “movements” within evangelical Christianity which isolate a particular part of the faith (i.e. evangelism) from the whole. This can equally lead Christians to lose their sense of balance. Finally, Dr. Lloyd-Jones remarks about the nature and character of theological education and the propensity of institutions to isolate the study of Scripture away from its intended context of worship. In all this, trouble arises when Christians forget what the kingdom of God is about.

Lopsided Christianity is an unappealing religion. Divisions and fracturing over minutia have severely harmed evangelism and the church's witness to the world. The apostle Paul's battle cry in Romans 14:17 is that the kingdom of God is not about minutia such as meat and drink. Following Paul's teaching in this sermon on Romans 14:17 titled “A Sense of Balance (1),” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones applies this point to the contemporary church. Today's Christians are just as guilty of making the kingdom of God about minutia – subsidiary doctrines, church government, particular church leaders. It is vitally important, says Dr. Lloyd-Jones, to preserve a sense of balance in all areas of the Christian life. While not advocating unity at all cost, Dr. Lloyd-Jones does challenge the contemporary church over unnecessary denominational divisions. He is not merely concerned in this message of affirming church unity, but seeks a diagnosis of church division instead. Beyond denominations, Dr. Lloyd-Jones scrutinizes the usefulness of “movements” within evangelical Christianity which isolate a particular part of the faith (i.e. evangelism) from the whole. This can equally lead Christians to lose their sense of balance. Finally, Dr. Lloyd-Jones remarks about the nature and character of theological education and the propensity of institutions to isolate the study of Scripture away from its intended context of worship. In all this, trouble arises when Christians forget what the kingdom of God is about. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/603/29?v=20251111

David DeBatto is host of the ‘No Delusion Zone' podcast @NoDelusionZone is a retired U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent, a geopolitical analyst, writer, and podcaster. David is an Iraq war veteran who served as Team Leader of a Tactical Human Intelligence Team (THT) in operations within Iraq and is also a former police officer. David is considered too conservative for the progressive left and too independent minded for the radical right and seeks to challenge political dogma and the naked self-interest of politicians.----------LINKS:@NoDelusionZone https://www.protectingtherepublic.com/podcasthttps://www.protectingtherepublic.com/https://substack.com/@protectingtherepublichttps://x.com/ddebattohttps://www.kyivpost.com/authors/743----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.gofundme.com/f/scaling-up-campaign-to-fight-authoritarian-disinformation----------ACTIVE CAMPAIGN:We are raising funds for 5 of 15 Vampire DronesSilicon Curtain for Kupiansk Vampires. Dzyga's Paw, together with Jonathan Fink, is joining forces to raise $40,000 to provide the Khartiia Brigade with Vampire Drones.https://dzygaspaw.com/silicon-curtain-for-kupiansk-vampiresThese heavy bombers are designed to destroy manpower and equipment, as well as for remote mining. The Vampire UAV, manufactured by Skyfall, has proven itself to be one of the most effective weapons in the Kupiansk direction. Skyfall is one of Ukraine's largest defense tech companies, producing Vampire bomber drones, various modifications of Shrike FPV drones, P1-SUN, Shahed drone interceptors, communication systems, and components.----------TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND:Save Ukrainehttps://www.saveukraineua.org/Superhumans - Hospital for war traumashttps://superhumans.com/en/UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukrainehttps://unbroken.org.ua/Come Back Alivehttps://savelife.in.ua/en/Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchenhttps://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraineUNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyyhttps://u24.gov.ua/Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundationhttps://prytulafoundation.orgNGO “Herojam Slava”https://heroiamslava.org/kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyslhttps://kharpp.com/NOR DOG Animal Rescuehttps://www.nor-dog.org/home/----------

Chris Ryan, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson are back and ready to talk all things Westeros! They jump right into breaking down ‘House of the Dragon' Season 3, Episode 1. They discuss the Battle of the Gullet, get into Alicent and Aemond's heated talk, and end with what we all need: a little dragon math to know which dragons are with which people. (00:00) Intro(01:18) CR's recap(06:09) Favorite moment of the episode(14:41) Pace of the show(18:49) The Battle of the Gullet(24:55) Rhaena and Sheepstealer(28:40) What were Jace's motivations?(32:32) Corlys Velaryon and his family(36:47) Who won the Battle of the Gullet?(39:20) Alicent and Aemond's relationship(44:33) Divisions inside Team Green and Team Black(47:28) Alys the witch and the Isle of Faces(49:23) What is Daemon up to?(51:33) What is Criston Cole up to?(56:37) Episode 1: Dragon math Hosts: Chris Ryan, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna RobinsonProducers: Aleya Zenieris, Carlos Chiriboga, and Scott LeeSocial: Jomi AdeniranSet Production: Jonathan Ratliff and Gitu MehraAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last time we spoke about the battle of Shanggao. From late March to early April 1940, Japanese forces attacked Shanggao in Jiangxi with a multi‑pronged offensive. Chinese commanders used elastic defense and coordinated counter-moves, trading space for time through layered positions until the Japanese advanced into prepared strongpoints. As the 34th Division moved toward the town, assaults repeatedly hit ridges and bridge lines held by the 74th Corps. Heavy air strikes caused chaos, but timely flank redeployments prevented a decisive breakthrough. During the crisis around March 21–24, Chinese units maneuvered an encirclement and executed a controlled breakout at the critical moment. After intense fighting and bombing, the Japanese were routed and fell back to their original positions. The wider war did not change, yet Shanggao proved that disciplined Chinese planning could reverse Japanese offensives against superior initiative and numbers.   #207 Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. By the spring of 1941, the War of Resistance against Japan had been grinding for nearly four years, and the map of China looked increasingly like a wound. Japan controlled the coastal cities, the major river valleys, and most of the productive lowland plains of the north and east. The Nationalist government had retreated far inland to Chongqing, governing a rump state of mountainous hinterland, foreign sympathies, and diminishing resources. The war had long since ceased to look like a conventional conflict between organized fronts and had settled into something grimmer and more ambiguous — a slow war of attrition fought in the mud and rocks of the Chinese interior, punctuated by Japanese offensives designed not to end the war but to compress it, to squeeze the Nationalists tighter with each season until surrender became a rational calculation rather than a humiliation. Japan had tried other methods first. In the late 1930s, Tokyo made serious overtures to Chiang Kai-shek's government, proposing a negotiated settlement that would see China aligned with Japan and the puppet Wang Jingwei government elevated as the vehicle for that arrangement. Chiang refused. He had gambled, and would continue to gamble, that the war in Europe would eventually draw in the Western powers, that American patience with Japanese aggression would run out, and that time was ultimately on China's side. The strategy required suffering in the present to buy survival in the future. Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the subsequent expansion of war across Europe only reinforced Japan's desire to accelerate its operations in China before the international situation made them impossible. By 1940, Japan signaled it intended to resolve the "China Incident" — the bureaucratic euphemism it used to avoid officially acknowledging that it was fighting a full-scale war — once and for all. The question was where. The front was hundreds of miles long. The Japanese army in China was stretched thin despite its nominal strength. Spectacular victories in the lowlands had failed to produce the political capitulation Tokyo expected. And in the mountains of Shanxi Province, a particular irritant had been festering for three years — one that the Japanese could neither ignore nor seem to dislodge. The Zhongtiao Mountains rise along the southern edge of Shanxi Province, running roughly east to west for some two hundred miles, forming a natural wall between the loess plateaus of Shanxi and the plains of northern Henan below. The range is not dramatic by Chinese standards — it is not the soaring, cloud-piercing landscape of Sichuan or Yunnan — but it is rugged, deeply ridged, and extraordinarily difficult to move through quickly. For a defending army with knowledge of the terrain, the Zhongtiao range was close to ideal. For an attacker, especially one dependent on mechanized firepower and coordinated logistics, it was a nightmare. Chinese forces had occupied the Zhongtiao Mountains since 1938, following the fall of Taiyuan and the retreat of Nationalist forces from the broader Shanxi campaign. At a moment when much of northern China was collapsing around them, the garrison there dug in and refused to move. Over the following three years, the Japanese Army mounted thirteen separate offensives against the Zhongtiao position. All thirteen failed. The mountains held. Chinese soldiers would later call it the "Eastern Maginot Line," a nickname that was simultaneously a boast and, in retrospect, a warning — the original Maginot Line, after all, had also been considered impregnable until the enemy simply went around it. But the strategic importance of Zhongtiao went beyond prestige. The mountains commanded the northern approach to the Yellow River crossings — the great geographic boundary that separated Japanese-controlled northern China from the Nationalist-held central and western regions. From their positions in the mountains, Chinese troops could threaten Japanese supply lines, protect their own river logistics, and maintain at least a symbolic presence north of the Yellow River. As long as the Zhongtiao garrison held, Japan could not claim complete control of northern China. It was also a potential launching point for a Chinese counteroffensive, should one ever become possible. The Japanese understood this perfectly. By 1940, eliminating the Zhongtiao position had become not merely desirable but strategically necessary. The First War Zone command responsible for the Zhongtiao garrison was, at least on paper, an imposing force. Between 170,000 and 180,000 men were deployed across the mountain range and its approaches, drawn from multiple armies and organized into several large groupings. The 5th Army Group under Zeng Wanzhong held the central area. The 14th Army Group under Liu Maoen operated in the eastern sector. The 4th Army Group, known as the "Iron Pillar of Zhongtiao" for its tenacious defense of the position over three years, was stationed as the backbone of the force. Individual armies were spread across specific nodes: Pei Changhui's 9th Army at Jiyuan in northern Henan; Zhao Shiling's 43rd Army at Yuanqu at the southernmost tip of Shanxi; Tang Huaiyuan's 3rd Army and Kong Lingxun's 80th Army in the Wenxi and Xiaxian areas; Wu Shimin's 98th Army at Dongfeng Town; Wu Tinglin's 15th Army near Gaoping. The man responsible for holding all of this together was Wei Lihuang, a gifted commander and one of Chiang Kai-shek's most capable generals. Wei had organized the Zhongtiao defense from the beginning, and his strategic instincts were widely respected. He was, by most accounts, the indispensable figure in the garrison's survival. The problem was that Wei had made powerful enemies. His refusal to participate in anti-Communist friction operations — at a time when the Nationalist government was increasingly focused on neutralizing the Communists even at the cost of Japanese resistance — had alienated him from a circle of powerful rivals, including the influential Hu Zongnan. Outmaneuvered at court, Wei was summoned to Chongqing in early 1941 and, under the pretext of strategic consultations, was effectively detained at Mount Emei. He never returned to his command in the Zhongtiao Mountains. The army he had built was left without its architect. The garrison that remained was compromised far beyond its missing commander, however. Three years of static defense had created conditions that corroded military discipline in predictable and insidious ways. Supply lines were unreliable, rations were short, and the soldiers garrisoning remote mountain positions had turned, by necessity and then by habit, to the local economy to sustain themselves. A bustling illicit trade in grain and opium had sprung up across the mountain zone, with Chinese troops selling what they could and buying what they needed from merchants who operated equally comfortably on both sides of the Japanese-Chinese frontier. This was not merely a logistical failure. It meant that Japanese intelligence had abundant commercial cover to infiltrate the garrison area, that security was a fiction, and that the defensive posture of the entire force had quietly shifted from warlike readiness to something closer to bureaucratic occupation. The Japanese had not missed any of this. For months before the offensive, Japanese intelligence agents had worked their way into the garrison's supply networks, trading relationships, and eventually its command structure itself. Japanese special forces had identified key headquarters positions. Informants had mapped the positions of individual units, traced the routes between them, and assessed the readiness of the men holding them. By the spring of 1941, Japanese planners believed, with considerable justification, that they could paralyze the entire Chinese command system within an hour of opening fire. This was not boasting. It was reconnaissance. Back in Chongqing, the intelligence picture was worse than unclear — it was actively distorted. The Nationalist intelligence apparatus issued warnings about Japanese troop movements near the Zhongtiao perimeter in April 1941, but the warnings were partial, their significance disputed, and the political will to act on them absent. A series of conferences were convened at Luoyang, the regional headquarters. Fortification orders were issued. Additional supplies were promised. Almost none of the follow-through actually materialized. The garrison's most powerful formation, the 4th Army Group, had already been transferred away from the area. Its absence left a hole in the defensive line that no amount of paper orders could fill. On the Japanese side, the operation that would eliminate the Zhongtiao garrison was carefully and systematically prepared. It was codenamed the "Central Plains Campaign" — a name that reflected its true ambition, which was not merely to take a mountain range but to reshape the strategic geography of the entire region. The operation was assigned to the North China Area Army under Lieutenant General Tada Shun, an experienced commander who had studied the Zhongtiao problem for years and had a clear understanding of why previous offensives had failed. The core of the attacking force was seven divisions: the 33rd, 35th, 36th, 37th, 41st, and 21st Divisions, along with several independent mixed brigades, puppet Chinese formations, cavalry, and a substantial artillery and air component. The 3rd Air Group, operating from airfields at Yuncheng and Xinxiang, would provide tactical air support throughout the operation. In total, the frontline assault force numbered approximately 100,000 men. This was not a repeat of the previous thirteen offensives, in which the Japanese had probed and pressed at the mountains frontally. This was a comprehensive annihilation plan. Tada's design exploited the geographic shape of the Zhongtiao position itself. The Chinese garrison occupied a roughly crescent-shaped area, with its back to the Yellow River and its front facing north and east into Japanese-held territory. The obvious previous approach — attacking from the north — had failed repeatedly because the terrain favored the defenders. Tada's solution was to attack from three directions simultaneously, with the town of Yuanqu on the Yellow River as the primary objective. Yuanqu was the hinge of the entire Chinese position: it controlled the main river crossings, served as the central supply point for the garrison, and sat at the narrowest point between the mountains and the water. If Yuanqu fell, the Chinese would be cut off from their supply line and divided into two separate pockets. Then each pocket could be destroyed at leisure. To execute this, Tada organized his forces into three attack groups. The eastern group, built around Lieutenant General Harada Yukichi's 35th Division with elements of the 21st Division and the 4th Independent Cavalry Brigade — totaling roughly 25,000 men with armor, artillery, and supporting puppet forces — would drive westward along the Daoqing Road, pushing through Jiyuan and Mengxian toward the eastern flank of the Chinese position. The northeastern group, under Lieutenant General Shozo Sakurai commanding the 33rd Division and an Independent Mixed Brigade, would descend from Yangcheng southward, striking at the middle of the Chinese line. The western and northwestern group, the largest, comprising the 36th, 37th, and 41st Divisions along with the 9th and 16th Independent Mixed Brigades, would push southward from multiple points between Sangchi and Zhangdian, driving straight for Yuanqu. The final element of the plan was the most audacious. Japanese special forces and paratroopers were to land behind Chinese lines on the opening night of the offensive, targeting the Chinese headquarters and communications nodes. If the Chinese command could be blinded and paralyzed in the first hours of the battle, resistance would collapse before it could organize. Given the penetration of the garrison by Japanese intelligence, the paratroopers knew precisely where to go. From late April, Japanese forces quietly moved into their assault positions. Supply dumps were stocked. Artillery was registered on Chinese positions. The attack was set for the morning of May 7, 1941. Everything was ready. The battle opened before dawn on May 7, and it opened everywhere at once. On the eastern front, Harada's 35th Division and its attached formations crossed the start line and drove westward in three parallel columns along the Daoqing Road. More than 5,000 infantrymen, 1,000 cavalry, dozens of artillery pieces, over 100 tanks and armored vehicles, and the supporting puppet troops of Zhang Lanfeng and Liu Yanfeng poured into the Chinese-held area around Jiyuan and Mengxian. The assault had an almost mechanical quality — it moved at the pace of its armor and artillery, methodically grinding through whatever lay in its path. On the northeastern front, Sakurai's 33rd Division descended from Yangcheng with more than 10,000 men, striking at Wu Shimin's 98th Army at Dongfeng Town. Wu was one of the more aggressive Chinese commanders in the garrison, and he did not wait to be overwhelmed. He threw his forces into active resistance on multiple axes, contesting each Japanese advance rather than simply absorbing it. In the fighting around Wangcun, his troops achieved one of the campaign's rare Chinese tactical successes, routing approximately 2,000 Japanese attackers and killing more than 700, including Colonel Hamada, a Japanese regimental commander. It was a genuine local victory, but it could not change the larger picture. On the western and northwestern front, the main Japanese force pushed south with its eyes fixed on Yuanqu. The coordinated weight of three divisions and two independent brigades, all moving along converging axes, was designed to be overwhelming. Individually, a Chinese unit might hold a ridge or a pass for a day. Collectively, there was no way to stop what was coming. And that same night, as the Chinese scrambled to respond to attacks on every side, Japanese paratroopers landed near Chinese headquarters positions. They found what intelligence had promised: a command system already in disarray, staffed by officers who had received no coherent orders and had lost communications with most of their subordinate units. The Japanese were not wrong when they predicted they could paralyze the Chinese command within hours. By the morning of May 8, the Chinese First War Zone headquarters had effectively ceased to function as a coordinating body. Individual armies would fight on, but they would fight alone. The second day of the battle brought the decisive blow. On the afternoon of May 8, the 9th Army under Pei Changhui — already reeling from the pressure of the eastern Japanese columns — abandoned the cities of Ji and Meng and fell back westward. The withdrawal opened a path through the Chinese line, and the Japanese exploited it immediately. That evening, with the assistance of paratroopers who had secured key access routes overnight, Japanese forces reached Yuanqu on the Yellow River's northern bank and took it. The fall of Yuanqu changed everything. At a single stroke, the Chinese garrison's supply line from the south bank of the Yellow River was severed. The main crossing points were in Japanese hands. The two halves of the Chinese position — those to the east of Yuanqu and those to the west — were now separated, unable to reinforce one another. The double encirclement that Tada had designed on paper became a physical reality on the ground. The trap had closed. May 9 brought further disaster. Japanese forces captured Wufujian, another significant point in the Chinese rear. And on this day the battle's human cost began to register in the most stark terms possible. Wang Jun, commander of the newly formed 27th Division of Kong Lingxun's 80th Army, was killed in action fighting in the southern Shanxi mountains. Major General Chen Wenqi, deputy commander of the 24th Division, died in fierce combat near Taizhai Village. And Major General Liang Xixian, having retreated with the remnants of his force to Taizhai and found every route blocked — his options reduced to surrender or death — walked into the Yellow River and drowned himself. He was not the last Chinese officer to choose death over capture. The loss of three generals in a single day was not merely tragic. It reflected something about the nature of the battle that the casualty statistics alone could not capture: the Chinese officers who fought most fiercely and refused to abandon their positions were precisely the men dying, while the broader institutional structure that should have supported them had already failed. The garrison was being consumed from its fighting edge inward. Over the following two days, the Japanese methodically tightened the ring. The eastern column, having taken Yuanqu, split into two prongs: one drove eastward, capturing Shaoyuan by the morning of May 12 and linking up with the forces that had been pressing westward from Jiyuan; the other drove westward to Wufujian, joining with the troops already there. The inner encirclement was now complete and continuous. The Yellow River crossings along the entire Chinese front were blocked. There was no route south that wasn't already under fire or in Japanese hands. The fighting in the mountain passes was, by all accounts, ferocious. At Fengmenkou — a critical pass that both sides recognized as a key chokepoint — the Chinese 9th Army committed the main force of its newly formed 24th Division along with elements of the 54th Division, fighting for every ridge and ravine. The Japanese sent reinforcements and simply absorbed the punishment, pressing forward until numbers and artillery told. By May 12, the position at Jianshan had been surrounded as well, and the outer ring of encirclement had sealed. The Chinese armies in the Zhongtiao Mountains were now divided into isolated pockets, each fighting separately, each trying to find a gap in the Japanese lines that simply wasn't there. Beyond the mountains, the Chinese high command in Luoyang was issuing desperate orders. Units that had already been overrun were instructed to hold positions they no longer occupied. Army commanders who had lost contact with their corps were told to coordinate with formations they couldn't reach. The gap between the orders flowing from headquarters and the reality on the ground had become absolute. The First War Zone command was, in practical terms, a spectator to the destruction of its own army. Of all the days in the three-week battle, May 13 was perhaps the most devastating for Chinese morale. At Cunbu, in the western sector, the 3rd Army under Lieutenant General Tang Huaiyuan had been surrounded and cut off. Tang was among the finest officers in the Nationalist army — a career soldier of exceptional ability, admired by subordinates and superiors alike, the kind of commander who by his personal presence could steady troops on the edge of breaking. He had led the 3rd Army in continuous fighting since May 7, conducting a fighting retreat that had preserved more of his force than most. But there was nowhere left to retreat to. Cunbu was surrounded on all sides. The Yellow River was behind him. The Japanese were in front. Tang Huaiyuan sat with his surviving officers and told them that he would not surrender. Then he shot himself. He was fifty-seven years old. On the same day, Cun Xingqi, commander of the 12th Division, was hit eight times during close combat and died on the field. The tally of dead general officers had now reached five in the space of a week. Tang Huaiyuan's death, unlike the others, resonated as something more than a military loss. He was a symbol of what the Zhongtiao defense had once represented: the possibility that courage and skill could compensate for disadvantages in firepower and logistics. His death seemed to say, loudly, that that possibility was exhausted. Chiang Kai-shek, when news reached him in Chongqing, personally ordered that Tang Huaiyuan be posthumously promoted and honored. The gesture was well-intentioned and entirely beside the point. Tang was dead. His army was destroyed. The gesture could not undo either fact. With the double encirclement complete and the primary Chinese resistance broken, the Japanese Army entered the second and less dramatic but equally brutal phase of its operation: the systematic clearance of what remained. Beginning around May 15, Japanese units shifted from the headlong offensive drives of the first week to methodical sweep operations, moving through the mountain terrain in organized formations, pressing into each remaining pocket and eliminating whatever resistance they found. The Yellow River's northern bank was secured by Japanese forces who established posts at the crossing points, blocking retreat and interdicting any resupply attempt. From the western front, sweep operations continued in a series of movements that lasted until well into June, each one driving Chinese remnants further into smaller and more untenable positions. Japanese after-action reports from this period read with the clinical detachment of men doing carpentry rather than fighting: so many positions cleared, so many prisoners taken, so many bodies counted. For the surviving Chinese forces, this period was one of desperate improvisation. With coordinated resistance impossible and every organized position either taken or surrounded, the remnant armies broke up into smaller columns and attempted to find their own routes out of the encirclement. Their experiences varied enormously depending on their starting position, the initiative of their commanders, and fortune. The remnants of the 3rd Army and 15th Army, under Zeng Wanzhong of the 5th Army Group, managed to push through to Yellow River crossings in the west and get their men across to the south bank, eventually reorganizing at Luoyang and Xin'an. The 93rd Army, which had occupied positions in the northeast, shook off the Japanese pursuit with sufficient speed and organization to cross at Yumenkou and escape into Hancheng County in Shaanxi Province, preserving more of its fighting strength than most. Wu Shimin's 98th Army — whose fighting at Wangcun had been one of the campaign's genuine bright spots — was pushed northward into the Taiyue Mountains, conducting guerrilla operations as it went. Wu himself was wounded during the withdrawal and would spend months recovering; he never fully recovered his health, and would die by suicide the following year. The 43rd Army under Zhao Shiling, which had held Yuanqu before its fall, managed a fighting withdrawal toward Fushan and Yicheng in the north. Pei Changhui's 9th Army conducted several days of guerrilla operations along the Daoqing Road before finding crossings at Xiaodukou and Guanyangdukou and getting across the Yellow River to safety. By May 27, the great majority of the Zhongtiao Mountain garrison had either been destroyed, captured, or withdrawn. The mountains that had held for three years were in Japanese hands. The battle, for all practical purposes, was over. The two sides emerged from the battle with starkly different accounts of what had happened, and the gap between those accounts is itself revealing. Japanese operational records claimed that their forces had killed approximately 42,000 Chinese soldiers on the battlefield, taken around 35,000 prisoners, captured enormous quantities of weapons and supplies, and inflicted total Chinese casualties exceeding 100,000. Against this, Japanese headquarters reported their own losses as 673 killed and 2,292 wounded — a ratio so lopsided that it seemed to describe a completely different kind of warfare. Whether or not the precise numbers are accurate, Japanese sources were consistent in portraying the battle as a catastrophic one-sided rout. The Chinese government's official figures, presented to the public and to allied nations, told a very different story. Nationalist records acknowledged approximately 13,751 officers and soldiers killed, wounded, gassed, or missing, while claiming Japanese casualties of around 9,900. These numbers, by the standards of the actual fighting and the geographic scale of the defeat, strained credulity. They were the numbers of a government that needed, for political and morale reasons, to minimize a disaster it could not afford to fully acknowledge. What is beyond dispute is the strategic result. The Zhongtiao garrison, which had held for three years against thirteen prior offensives, had been destroyed in twenty days. The last significant Nationalist Chinese presence north of the Yellow River in the region had been eliminated. Japan now controlled the northern bank of the river for a substantial stretch, had secured its supply lines through southern Shanxi, and had opened the door for future pressure on Luoyang and ultimately Xi'an. The mountain barrier that had allowed Chinese forces to threaten Japanese logistics was gone. It would not be rebuilt. Six senior Chinese generals had died in the battle: Wang Jun, Chen Wenqi, Liang Xixian, Tang Huaiyuan, Cun Xingqi, and others in the fighting. Their deaths were individually remarkable — men choosing death over surrender at rate that reflected both the desperate conditions of the battle and a code of honor that many of them explicitly invoked in their final moments. They were also, in aggregate, a measure of how completely the officer corps had been consumed. In the decades since the battle, historians have returned repeatedly to the question of why a position held for three years collapsed so completely in three weeks. The answers are neither simple nor flattering to the Nationalist government, and they were debated with bitter intensity in Chongqing even while the battle was still being fought. The most immediate cause was the removal of Wei Lihuang. This was not merely the loss of a capable general — it was the destruction of the institutional knowledge and personal relationships that had made the defense function. The Zhongtiao garrison was not simply a collection of soldiers in mountain positions; it was a system, carefully constructed over three years, that depended on specific command relationships, established logistics arrangements, and particular allocation of resources. Wei had built that system. Without him, and without any adequate replacement, it became something far more brittle than it appeared. Below the level of high command, the garrison's gradual corruption was an equally powerful factor. The trading networks, the opium commerce, the penetration by Japanese intelligence — these were not incidental problems but symptoms of a deeper institutional failure. An army that has spent three years in static defensive positions, chronically undersupplied and without a meaningful offensive mission, tends toward exactly this kind of decay. The Nationalist government's decision to prioritize anti-Communist friction operations over Zhongtiao's fighting readiness had removed the 4th Army Group — the backbone of the defense — and had consumed Wei Lihuang's attention and political capital at the worst possible moment. The Japanese plan, too, deserves credit it rarely receives in Chinese accounts of the battle. The three-pronged converging attack on Yuanqu was not simply overwhelming force applied to an obvious target. It was an elegant solution to the genuine tactical puzzle that the Zhongtiao mountains presented, exploiting the garrison's geographic vulnerability with a precision that turned the defenders' mountain terrain from an asset into a trap. The use of paratroopers to decapitate the Chinese command in the opening hours was a sophisticated operational concept that worked almost exactly as designed. Tada Shun was not lucky. He was thorough. Finally, there is the question of Chiang Kai-shek's own priorities. His reported weeping upon receiving news of the defeat was genuine, in the sense that the loss clearly shocked and grieved him. But the decisions that led to the defeat — Wei Lihuang's removal, the transfer of the 4th Army Group, the neglect of fortification and resupply in the months preceding the battle — had been made in Chongqing, not in the mountains. The Zhongtiao garrison had been strategically sacrificed, piece by piece, for political calculations in the internal factional struggle between Nationalists and Communists. Whether Chiang understood the cost of those choices before May 7, 1941, is debatable. After that date, it was difficult to pretend otherwise. The fall of the Zhongtiao Mountains did not end the War of Resistance, but it substantially worsened China's strategic position in the north. Over the following months, Japan used its consolidated control of southern Shanxi to increase pressure on the Yellow River line and probe toward Luoyang. The surviving Chinese armies, reorganized south of the river, were in no position to counterattack. The mountains themselves, stripped of their garrison and secured by Japanese occupation troops, became part of the extended Japanese occupation zone — a territory to be administered and exploited rather than contested. For the men who had fought there, the battle left wounds that went beyond the physical. Entire armies had to be rebuilt from remnants. Officers who had retreated, whether under orders or on their own initiative, faced boards of inquiry in an atmosphere of recrimination and blame-seeking. Some were cashiered. Some faced criminal proceedings. The search for culpability — which was genuine enough, since the failure was genuine — tended to fall on those least able to defend themselves rather than on the senior commanders and political figures whose decisions had created the conditions for defeat. The posthumous honors awarded to Tang Huaiyuan, Liang Xixian, Wang Jun, and the other officers who died in battle were heartfelt, and they were also convenient. The heroic dead could be elevated without requiring the living to answer uncomfortable questions. Their sacrifice was real. The system that wasted it was also real. In the broader history of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain tends to be overshadowed by more famous engagements — Shanghai, Nanjing, Taierzhuang, the later battles along the Salween. This is partly because the Chinese side lost comprehensively and had little interest in memorializing the loss, and partly because the battle's significance was more strategic than dramatic. There was no great last stand, no single moment of heroism sufficient to redeem the catastrophe. There were only men dying in mountain passes, generals walking into rivers, and an entire defensive system disintegrating under the weight of its own contradictions. What the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain represents, in the end, is a case study in how military positions are really lost. They are rarely lost on the battlefield alone. They are lost in the staff meetings where capable commanders are removed for political reasons. They are lost in the supply depots that never get restocked. They are lost in the informal economies that grow up when institutions stop functioning. They are lost in the intelligence assessments that are written and ignored. They are lost, finally and irreversibly, in the early morning hours when the guns open simultaneously on three sides and the men at the radios discover that no one is answering.     I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. On May 7, 1941, Japan opened a three-front assault on Zhongtiao Mountains; paratroopers disrupted command night. With the 9th Army withdrawing, Yuanqu fell on May 8, severing supply and trapping the garrison. Fighting raged through May 13, costing generals, until Japanese sweeps cleared pockets; survivors escaped south of Yellow River.

Surprise! We're back a bit early, and beginning our 2026 division-by-division NFL preview with the West & South divisions. We've got a lot of teams to cover and little time so let's get started... Be sure to like/subscribe/follow the accounts mentioned below... Our next show will be LIVE at 6:30pm ET on Sunday, July 5th, 2026! ------------------------------------------------------------ JMNJR Radio: www.jmnjrradio.com/ The Joe Mays & J-Raff Show: www.joemaysandjraff.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/JoeMaysAndJRaff Twitter: @MaysMediaLLC | @JoeMaysAndJRaff Email: contact@joemaysandjraff.com Phone: (530) 563-6297 More @ www.joemaysandjraff.com/

What does it actually look like to go all-in on AI? Mike Schwarz, founder and CEO of MyZone AI, negotiated a hall pass from his wife, adjusted his medication, and spent 3 to 4 months working until 2, 3, and 4 in the morning to find out. The result: 200 plus autonomous AI agents running across 7 divisions of his business. Mike has 25 years in tech, from building nightlife social networks in 1999 before Friendster existed, to running a full AI solutions company out of Vancouver today. He coaches CEOs and speaks at Entrepreneurs' Organization and YPO events. And he says the window for getting ahead in AI is measured in months, not years. In this episode, we go from first principles. What is AI. What is an agent. What is the difference between an agent and ChatGPT. Why legacy SaaS companies are down 50 to 60 percent. And what a non-developer can actually do right now to start automating their business. Real examples from this conversation: Mike's agent replied to 183 unread LinkedIn messages in 30 minutes, starred the 19 personal ones, and left them for him. He built a custom math game for his son in an hour using an AI coding agent. And after a sales call, he can send a fully personalized 5-page proposal website to a prospect in 10 minutes. Mike's one thing: master the art of learning. It's not about being technical. It's about being a sponge. Because the window is short and it's moving fast. Mike teaches regular free monthly workshops at myzone.ai. Upcoming: June 18 — How to Secure Your Agents. July 9 — How to Become an Agentic Developer (no coding required). 

A number of World Cup squads are showcasing faith and unity amid deep divisions at home. Correspondent Gethin Coolbaugh reports.

This episode is a replay from The Existential Stoic library. Enjoy! What would Nietzsche think of the world today? Would he find any of the social changes positive or negative? In this episode, Danny and Randy discuss what Nietzsche would think of the world today.Subscribe to ESP's YouTube Channel! Thanks for listening!  Do you have a question you want answered in a future episode? If so, send your question to: existentialstoic@protonmail.com 

I'll be honest I thought I'd put this up! More pods coming very soon

(Psalm 12:6-7) God's Word is pure, preserved forever, and can be trusted. In this broadcast continuing the series of answering current questions from listeners, Scott Pauley covers the difference between Bible translations and paraphrases, chapter and verse divisions, and guidance for new and returning believers for studying Scripture. (10144260617 ) Join Scott Pauley's study through Scripture this year. Find resources for every book of the Bible by Dr. Pauley and Enjoying the Journey at enjoyingthejourney.org/journey-through-scripture/. Whether you're a new believer or have walked with the Lord for years, you'll find thousands of free devotionals, Bible studies, audio series, and Scripture tools designed to strengthen your faith, deepen your understanding of the Bible, and help you stay rooted in the Word of God. Explore now at EnjoyingTheJourney.org. Extend the Work Enjoying the Journey provides every resource for free worldwide. If you would like to help extend this Bible teaching, you may give at enjoyingthejourney.org/donations/

Send us Fan MailDownload study notes for this chapter.Download study notes for this entire book.**********Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®, NIV ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved worldwide.The “NIV”, “New International Version”, “Biblica”, “International Bible Society” and the Biblica Logo are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.  Used with permission.BIBLICA, THE INTERNATIONAL BIBLE SOCIETY, provides God's Word to people through Bible translation & Bible publishing, and Bible engagement in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America. Through its worldwide reach, Biblica engages people with God's Word so that their lives are transformed through a relationship with Jesus Christ.Support the show

Which division offers the biggest challenge this season?

Last time we spoke about the Hubei-Henan Campaign of 1940-1941. In November 1940, a Central Hubei operation using multiple task forces aimed to exploit Chinese dispersal, achieving only local successes and no lasting territorial gains. The Japanese then tried again in late January 1941 with a major offensive into southern Henan. Despite concentrating a large force, the campaign failed strategically. After the Henan failure, Japan attempted to regain momentum in spring 1941 by attacking western Hubei around Yichang on the Yangtze. Despite an initial barrage and rapid early gains, Japanese forces became exposed in a narrow salient. The Chinese reorganized their river defenses and launched a converging counteroffensive, driving the invaders back and ending the engagement where it began, with the Japanese suffering heavy casualties and their westward push thwarted.   #206 The Battle of Shanggao Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. The year 1940 had brought a particular humiliation. In August of that year, Communist General Peng Dehuai had launched the Hundred Regiments Offensive — a massive, coordinated assault across North China that shattered Japanese rail and supply lines, embarrassed Imperial General Headquarters, and demonstrated that the Chinese were far from finished. Japan's response had been brutal, the infamous "Three Alls" campaign of reprisals across the countryside. But the damage had been done, and the attention of Imperial General Headquarters shifted northward. The autumn of 1940 had also seen the First Battle of Changsha, where the Japanese 11th Army under General Sonobe Yahachirō pushed south into Hunan Province expecting to overwhelm the Chinese defenders and finally deal a decisive blow to Chiang Kai-shek's armies. Instead, General Xue Yue — the "Tiger of Changsha" — had allowed the Japanese to advance deep into his prepared killing ground before counterattacking from multiple directions. The Japanese had been forced to retreat in disorder, and the front in Hunan and Jiangxi settled once again into sullen stalemate. It was in this atmosphere of frustrated ambition and strategic inertia that the seeds of Shanggao were sown. By February 1941, Imperial General Headquarters had decided to redeploy the 33rd Division — then garrisoned in the town of Anyi, in northwestern Jiangxi — to North China. The transfer was scheduled to begin in early April, and it made strategic sense: the north required reinforcement, and the front in Jiangxi had been quiet enough that one division could be spared. The problem was that the 33rd Division's departure would leave a gap in Japanese dispositions, and no significant offensive operation had yet been conducted to weaken the Chinese forces that would be left facing a thinned-out Japanese line. Lieutenant General Ōga Shigeru, the energetic commander of the Japanese 34th Division, saw opportunity in the window that existed before the 33rd departed. His division was concentrated around Xishan and Wanshou Palace, astride the Xiang–Gan Highway — the main road running westward through Jiangxi — and across that highway lay the town of Shanggao and the Chinese forces defending it. Ōga proposed exploiting the presence of both divisions for a coordinated strike: a sharp, limited offensive to crush Chinese field forces around Nanchang and the Jiangxi interior before the 33rd Division's train north. The 11th Army headquarters, now commanded by General Marube, endorsed a cautious concept — a "quick strike" with limited objectives. But the 34th Division's staff, energized by Ōga's ambition, had already run well ahead of this guidance. Large-scale requisitioning of coolies for logistics was underway; training exercises aimed at the specific terrain around Shanggao had been conducted; planning had progressed in far more detail than a "limited" operation warranted. This eagerness would prove to be the Japanese undoing before the first shot was fired. Chinese intelligence networks, always attentive to the movement of porters and the telltale preparations that preceded a Japanese offensive, quickly detected the scale of these preparations and reported them to General Luo Zhuoying, commander of the Chinese 19th Army Group. By the time the Japanese columns were forming up to march, Luo had already hardened his defenses and laid the groundwork for a trap. General Luo Zhuoying was not a passive commander. He served simultaneously as commander of the 19th Army Group and as Deputy Commander of the 9th War Zone — the latter post placing him directly under General Xue Yue, the victor of Changsha. Luo had spent the lull after Changsha doing what Chinese commanders across the theater had learned was essential: reorganizing, retraining, and above all improving the defensive architecture of his sector. The plan Luo devised for meeting the anticipated Japanese offensive was elegant in its simplicity and demanding in its execution. Rather than contesting the Japanese advance at the frontier, he would allow the enemy to push westward, yielding ground through three successive defensive lines while bleeding the attackers at every step. The first and second lines would slow the Japanese, exact casualties, and stretch their logistics. The third line — anchored at Shanggao itself — would be the killing ground. There, the Chinese forces would hold fast while other formations swung around the Japanese flanks and rear to close the encirclement. The Japanese, having marched deep into Chinese-held territory with their supply lines thinning and their flanks exposed, would find themselves surrounded rather than victorious. For this plan to work, each Chinese formation had to perform its role with discipline. The 70th Corps, deployed in the north along the arc from Shitou Street through Fengxin to Jing'an, would have to conduct a controlled fighting retreat — yielding ground but making the Japanese pay for it, never breaking and running. The 49th Corps would hold the southern flank and create conditions for flanking action. And the 74th Corps — General Wang Yaowu's elite formation, comprising the 51st, 57th, and 58th Divisions — would hold the final line at Shanggao and serve as the anvil upon which the Japanese advance would shatter. The 74th Corps was by 1941 one of the most battle-hardened formations in the Nationalist Army. It had fought at Shanghai in 1937, at Wuhan in 1938, and in the hills and valleys of Jiangxi through the years since. Its men knew the terrain around Shanggao. They had prepared positions in depth, studied the approaches, and rehearsed the defensive plan Luo had designed. When the Japanese came, they would be ready. Against the Chinese 70,000 — distributed across eleven divisions in four corps, with additional provincial security forces for local coverage — the Japanese would throw roughly 20,000 men: three major formations advancing in coordinated columns. The disparity in numbers was stark, but the Japanese had the advantages of offensive initiative, air superiority, and the formidable fighting quality that the Imperial Army had demonstrated throughout the war in China. The question was whether those advantages would be enough to overcome a prepared defense wielded by a commander who had invited the attack. The operational plan devised by the Japanese 11th Army called for three columns to converge simultaneously on Shanggao from north, center, and south — a classic encirclement concept that, if executed with precision, would catch the Chinese defenders in a tightening vice. In the north, the main force of the 33rd Division under Lieutenant General Sakurai Shōzō would drive westward from its bases around Anyi and Ganzhoujie, descending the Liao River valley to threaten the Chinese right flank and prevent the 70th Corps from interfering with operations in the center.In the center, Ōga's 34th Division would advance along the Xiang–Gan Highway — the direct route from Nanchang toward Shanggao — capturing the town of Gao'an along the way and pressing relentlessly westward until it reached the main defensive positions. This was the principal striking force, the column designed to crack open the Chinese defenses and seize the objective.In the south, the Independent Mixed 20th Brigade under Major General Ikeda would cross the Jin River and advance along its south bank, eventually swinging north to link up with the 34th Division and complete the encirclement of whatever Chinese forces remained in the Shanggao area. The plan was coherent on paper. But it contained a structural flaw so serious that, in retrospect, it is difficult to understand how the 11th Army's staff allowed it to proceed uncorrected. The success of any converging operation depends on synchronization — on each column hitting its objectives on schedule and maintaining communication with the others so that each can react to developments on the other prongs. Yet the 11th Army headquarters made no recorded effort to coordinate the 33rd and 34th Divisions before the battle began. There was no forward command post established to oversee the operation. General Marube remained at Hankou, hundreds of miles to the north, throughout the battle — as remote from the fighting as a Tokyo bureaucrat. Operational decisions were left entirely to the individual divisions, with no mechanism to coordinate their actions if something went wrong. Something was going to go wrong. Luo Zhuoying had seen to that. On the morning of March 15, 1941, all three Japanese columns stepped off simultaneously, advancing into the misty hills and rice paddies of northwestern Jiangxi. In the north, Sakurai's 33rd Division moved briskly from Anyi toward Fengxin. The town fell by noon, and the division pressed westward in good order. The Japanese infantry moved confidently along the Liao River valley, experienced soldiers who had fought across China and had no particular reason to expect what was coming. The Chinese 70th Corps gave ground — as it had been ordered to — but did so on its own terms, occupying and then abandoning successive pieces of high ground along both banks of the river, making the Japanese advance uncomfortable and costly. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the 33rd Division was being drawn forward into terrain that favored the defender. By March 18 and 19, the 33rd Division had pushed all the way to Guzhu'ao and Huamenlo — a considerable advance, but one that had taken the division far from its base at Anyi. And it was here, far from support and with flanks increasingly exposed, that the Chinese blocking forces closed in. Chinese infantry, who had been waiting in prepared positions in the high ground overlooking the river valley, launched coordinated counter-attacks that struck the 33rd Division from multiple directions. The fighting was fierce and costly. In two days of close combat, the division suffered more than 2,500 casualties — a grievous toll that represented a significant fraction of its effective strength. The northern column had been stopped dead. On March 19, Sakurai ordered the 33rd Division to reverse course. By March 23, after four days of painful withdrawal under pressure, it had pulled back to Anyi — the same place it had started. The northern prong of the Japanese offensive had accomplished nothing except the loss of thousands of men. In the south, the Independent Mixed 20th Brigade had a rougher start. Its initial attempt to cross the Gan-Jin river junction at noon on March 15 was repulsed by Chinese defenders, and it was only under cover of darkness that the brigade managed to force a crossing. Once across, it moved westward along the south bank of the Jin River, but progress was slow and contested. A detachment — the Gan River Detachment — ran into fierce resistance from the 26th Division of the Chinese 49th Corps on March 19. The brigade's main body meanwhile fought its way through the 51st Division of the 74th Corps, but the 107th Division and elements of the 51st managed to contain the advance at the Laichunling–Zhutoushan line. On the night of March 20, the main body of the 20th Brigade crossed the Jin River at Huifu to link up with the 34th Division — but a portion of its troops, cut off on the south bank, was destroyed by Chinese forces. The southern column was across the Jin River, but it had taken losses and was already engaged in ways its planners had not anticipated. In the center, the 34th Division fared best in the early going. Ōga's division moved westward from Xishan along the Xiang–Gan Highway on March 16, and by the 17th had captured Gao'an — a meaningful early success. The Chinese 74th Corps, executing Luo's plan faithfully, dispatched only screening forces east of the Tangpu River to slow the Japanese advance rather than contesting it decisively. The main body of the 74th Corps fell back to the third-line positions at Sixi, Guanqiao, and Tangpu, preparing the killing ground that Luo had designated. Simultaneously, the 26th Division and most of the 105th Division from the 49th Corps were shifted across the Gan River to operate south of the Jin River on the Japanese left flank, and the 72nd Corps was ordered to maneuver on a wide envelopment around Daxia and south of Ganfang. By March 20–21, the 34th Division had pressed forward to attack the Chinese positions at Sixi and Guanqiao. Ōga's men were confident — they had taken Gao'an, they were moving, and the objective of Shanggao lay within reach. But as the division pushed toward Shangjijia, it ran squarely into the 57th and 58th Divisions of the 74th Corps, fighting with a tenacity that told the Japanese plainly enough: this was where the Chinese intended to stand. The week of March 21–24 brought the battle to its crisis. The 34th Division hammered at the Chinese positions defending Shanggao itself, while on the flanks, the fighting took on a character that neither side had entirely anticipated. On March 21, General Wang Yaowu — commanding the 74th Corps from his headquarters in Shanggao — decided it was time to do more than absorb Japanese blows. He ordered General Li Tianxia to clear Japanese forces from the south bank of the Jin River and advance on Gao'an, with the aim of cutting the 34th Division's supply line and threatening its rear. It was an aggressive move, and if it had worked, it might have produced a decisive result earlier than history would record. It did not work — at least not immediately. That very evening, the Independent Mixed 20th Brigade, which had been reorganizing after the chaos of the river crossing, launched a powerful offensive at dawn on the 22nd. Li Tianxia's lead elements had barely set out from Shitou Street when they collided head-on with the main force of the 20th Brigade, which had crossed back from the north bank of the Jin River. The Japanese thrust was coordinated and aggressive: one column circled wide to attack Lazhu Mountain; another swung south of Hu Family west of Shitou Street to strike Li's division in the flank and rear; and nine aircraft with four artillery pieces bombarded the Chinese positions from north to south. Li's division could not hold against this convergent assault and fell back to the high ground southwest of Shitou Street. Wang Yaowu reacted quickly. He ordered Li's main body to wheel left to face the new threat and simultaneously dispatched the Army's Field Supplementary Regiment — held in reserve near Yintang — on a forced march to Huayang to block the Japanese westward drive. This regiment, racing down roads strafed by nine enemy aircraft, covered 15 li per hour and seized Huayang and the high ground to its northeast by around seven in the morning. By nine, the 20th Brigade arrived in strength and — supported by more than ten aircraft — launched a fierce assault on the regiment's positions. The regiment's officers and men held firm, taking heavy casualties but refusing to break. Frustrated at Huayang, the 20th Brigade shifted its effort to the Kuang Family area, linking up with over a thousand men who had crossed from Baichetou to the south bank and pushing along the river toward Xiongfang in an attempt to outflank the Chinese left wing. The Supplementary Regiment sent its 1st Battalion with a mortar company to meet this threat, and the two forces met in a fierce engagement. When the Japanese reinforced their assault and deployed incendiary bombs and poison gas, Xiongfang fell by early afternoon — but Li Tianxia immediately sent two regiments from his right flank to take it back, and by midnight the position was in Chinese hands again. Shitou Street and Jigong Ridge were simultaneously recaptured. The Independent Mixed 20th Brigade now found itself in an increasingly uncomfortable position, fighting with the Jin River at its back and the initiative slipping away. Meanwhile, the main event was being fought in the rubble and ridgelines around Shanggao itself. From March 22 to 25, the 34th Division and whatever remnants of the 20th Brigade could contribute threw themselves repeatedly at the defensive line anchored on Stone Arch Bridge, Xia Po Bridge, Xu Lou, Pan Family Bridge, Cloud Head Mountain, and Lei Family Mountain. This was not the fluid, mobile warfare that the Japanese had envisioned but brutal, grinding attritional combat for individual strongpoints and ridgelines, with positions changing hands multiple times in a single day. The Japanese air arm was deeply involved. Ōga's division had close air support that could operate even in poor weather, and Group 3 of the Japanese Air Force hammered the Chinese positions with sustained effort. On the morning of March 24, after the 34th Division fed in more than 3,000 additional troops transferred across the Jin River, the Air Force dispatched over seventy aircraft that dropped more than 1,700 bombs, largely destroying the defensive positions of Liao Lingqi's division. The Japanese exploited the resulting chaos and twice broke through gaps in the line — but were driven out each time by Chinese counterattacks. At noon, enemy aircraft bombarded in relays and Japanese infantry broke through at Xia Po Bridge. It was at this moment that Li Hanqing, commanding the Chinese infantry defense in that sector, did what officers throughout history have done when systems fail and only personal example can stem the tide: he personally led his officer cadre in repeated counter-attacks, hand-to-hand fighting in the rubble until the Japanese were finally expelled. By this point, the 34th Division's offensive capacity was nearly spent. At the same time — and this was the critical shift that would determine the battle's outcome — General Luo Zhuoying recognized that the moment to spring the trap had arrived. The northern column had already been broken and sent reeling back toward Anyi. The southern column was pinned against the Jin River with its back to the water. The central column was bled white against the defenses of Shanggao. Luo now ordered all his armies to close in from multiple directions. On the morning of March 22, he had already begun revising his orders; by noon on the 23rd, the forces of Liu Duoquan and Li Jue had occupied Shitou Street, Guanqiao Street, and Yanggong Market, pressing on Huifu and Gaoyao. The encirclement of the 34th Division was not yet complete, but its shape was unmistakably forming. By March 25, the 34th Division knew it was in mortal danger. Surrounded on three sides, its ammunition running low and its casualty lists growing by the hour, the division urgently appealed to the 11th Army for rescue. The message that arrived in Hankou was a shock. General Marube and his staff, who had remained at their distant headquarters throughout the battle without establishing a forward command post, had not properly grasped the scale of the disaster unfolding in Jiangxi. The lack of coordination between the 33rd and 34th Divisions — the structural flaw that had been built into the operation from its conception — had allowed Luo Zhuoying to defeat each column separately, and now the central column faced annihilation. The 11th Army responded in a scramble. Chief of Staff Kinoshita was dispatched by aircraft to Nanchang with Operations Staff Officer Lieutenant Colonel Yamaguchi and Captain Ōne to organize a relief operation. The 33rd Division — barely recovered from its own battering in the north — was ordered to sortie immediately and fight its way to the 34th Division's relief. Sakurai organized his battered 33rd Division into three rescue columns. Infantry Brigade Commander Araki Shōji took the right column, leading Infantry Regiment 215 with one mountain artillery battalion. Infantry Regiment 214 formed the left column. The divisional commander himself led the central column with the main divisional force. On March 24 and 25, all three columns sortied from strongpoints at Niuxing, Fengxin, and other positions, attacking across the Wuqiao River and through Cunqian Street toward Tangpu and Guanqiao. The relief operation brought the battle to its most complicated moment. On the morning of March 25, the 33rd Division launched a fierce assault on the forces that Luo Zhuoying had positioned to tighten the encirclement from the north — striking Zhang Yanchuan's division at Kengkou Leng, Jiezipo, and Nancha Luo. Zhang's division, struck simultaneously from the front and rear, withdrew at dusk to near Tu Di Wang Temple, where it linked up with Tang Boyin's division. What happened next became one of the most controversial decisions of the entire battle. Zhang Yanchuan was serving as deputy army commander in the absence of Li Jue from the front. Surveying the situation — his own division under heavy pressure, the 33rd Division's relief columns pushing aggressively — Zhang concluded that the position was untenable. On his own authority, without authorization from Luo Zhuoying or any superior commander, he withdrew both his own and Tang Boyin's divisions to Fenghuang Market and Zhuangfang. The consequence was immediate and severe. The withdrawal opened a corridor through which the 33rd Division entered Guanqiao and linked up with the encircled 34th Division. An encirclement that had taken days of blood and sacrifice to construct was torn open by a single unauthorized decision. Luo Zhuoying, when he received word of Zhang's withdrawal the following morning, was furious — but he could not change what had already happened. He could only adapt. The breakout itself was an ordeal. A portion of the 34th Division that attempted to escape to the east was intercepted near Huifu by a division of the 49th Corps and lost roughly half its strength before being compelled to turn back. The main body ultimately broke out on March 27, withdrawing in march order that told its own story of disaster: headquarters, baggage, artillery, casualties, field hospital, rear guard — all moving in what the records describe as "a wretched state." On the night of March 27, Japanese troops escorting the 34th Division's field hospital — a field artillery company of the 8th Battery — were completely annihilated in a Chinese night attack. When the division reached Longtuan Xu on March 28, the stretcher-bearer column carrying the wounded stretched some seven to eight kilometers along the road. That same day, the 33rd Division's Infantry Regiment 214 finally made contact with the 34th Division's headquarters, completing what amounted to a rescue of men who had already endured their defeat. The 33rd Division's mountain artillery batteries exhausted their entire ammunition supply covering the retreat and required emergency aerial resupply drops to continue. The 34th Division limped back to its original garrison on April 2. Despite the setback caused by Zhang Yanchuan's unauthorized withdrawal, Luo Zhuoying did not abandon his design. Assessing his situation on the morning of March 26, he found reason for cautious optimism: Wang Yaowu's army was still making progress at Shanggao; the Japanese south of the Jin River had largely been cleared; and Sichuan Army and Northeastern Army units that had been moving to reinforce the battle had now reached the field, meaning Chinese forces retained significant numerical superiority. He resolved to execute a second encirclement. At nine in the morning of March 26, Luo issued strict orders: Zhang Yanchuan's and Tang Boyin's divisions were to immediately comply with their original orders and block the enemy near Guanqiao; Yu Chengwan's division was to attack northward via Pan Family Bridge; Liao Lingqi's and Song Yingzhong's divisions were to press toward Guanqiao with full force; Wang Kejun's division was to strike the enemy's flank and rear east of Guanqiao; Fu Yi's division was to advance south of Jiang Family Isle; and Chen Liangji's division was to swing southeast via Changpu to complete the enemy's destruction. The second ring was being drawn. On March 28, as the 34th Division's battered column trudged eastward toward survival, Wang Kejun's division advancing from Yanggong Market moved to intercept it. The Chinese occupied high ground north and south of Yanggong Market and along Mozi Ridge, and what followed was a grinding all-day battle that fixed the Japanese column at the Xiama Bei–Huxing Ridge line. Part of the 20th Brigade, moving up from Gao'an to assist the withdrawing 34th Division, was blocked near Long Tu Market. Liao Lingqi's division pursued the enemy rear guard to the Changling–Manmei high ground, where the fighting erupted with renewed intensity. At noon, part of Li Tianxia's division arrived and deployed along the Shangluoxiang–Shanyuan–Fangtounao line to harass the Japanese right flank; part of Yu Chengwan's division reached Longxing Mountain and outflanked Guanqiao Street from the south. The surviving Japanese defenders in Guanqiao withdrew into the town for a last stand, and after Liao's division pressed the assault, street fighting raged until five in the afternoon, when over 600 defenders were annihilated. Over 2,000 troops of the Independent Mixed 20th Brigade conducted a fighting withdrawal from Long Tu Market and Yanggong Market, covered by Japanese aircraft bombing to shield the 34th Division's retreat. By noon on March 30, the Japanese had abandoned both strongpoints and scattered northeastward. One group of over 600 men fled directly into the main positions of Zhang Yanchuan's division — an ironic fate, given Zhang's earlier withdrawal — and were largely annihilated. The encircling forces had been essentially dispersed, and the two pursuit columns now pressed forward under the overall direction of General Xue Yue, who had assumed personal coordination of the chase. On March 27, Luo Zhuoying — confident that victory was secured — issued a general order for a final offensive and announced substantial cash rewards to his troops: prizes offered for the capture of Japanese officers, artillery pieces, regimental colors, and other materiel. The rewards were both a practical incentive and a mark of how far the battle had tipped. By midnight on March 31, Chen Hongshi's advance column had recovered Gao'an; Wang Tiehan's division had recovered Xiangfu Guan. On April 2, the divisions of Zhang Yanchuan and Song Yingzhong recovered Fengxin; that afternoon Wang Tiehan's division took back Xishan and Wanshou Palace — the very base from which the 34th Division had launched its offensive. By April 3, the pursuing armies had reached the vicinity of Dacheng and Ganzhoujie. On April 8 and 9, the 70th Corps recovered the outpost strongpoints around Anyi before halting operations. The Japanese had retreated into their original positions and were defending from prepared terrain. The pursuit was over. The Battle of Shanggao had lasted nineteen days and nights. No battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War was ever free of the fog of competing claims, and Shanggao was no exception. On March 29, before the pursuit had even concluded, Luo Zhuoying telegraphed Chiang Kai-shek with his accounting of the victory. His numbers were dramatic: Major General Iwanaga, the Japanese infantry commander, killed; regimental commander Colonel Hamada, killed; over 15,000 Japanese killed or wounded in total. Chinese losses, Luo reported, exceeded 20,000. Ten guns, over a thousand rifles, and numerous machine guns had been captured. His superior, General Xue Yue, was skeptical. In a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek on April 5, Xue reduced Luo's numbers by twenty percent, reporting 12,520 Japanese killed or wounded and 14 prisoners captured. The discrepancy between two Chinese commanders reporting on the same battle speaks to the difficulty of battlefield accounting in any era, and suggests something of the competitive pressures that shaped how Chinese commanders reported their victories to Chongqing. The official Chinese histories, compiled after the war in the History of the War of Resistance, reported approximately 15,000 Japanese killed or wounded, 17 prisoners taken, and significant quantities of captured materiel: 6 mountain guns, 1 mortar, 24 light machine guns, 408 rifles, 24 grenade launchers, and over 111,717 rounds of various ammunition. Chinese casualties, by the same records, were 17,119 killed or wounded and 2,814 missing. Japanese records for the battle do not survive — a consequence of the wholesale destruction of Imperial Army documentation at the war's end. Contemporary scholars, working from other sources, estimate actual Japanese combat losses at approximately 5,500 killed and wounded. This is substantially lower than the Chinese claims, as was nearly always the case in the war, but represents a significant defeat by any measure: roughly a quarter of the force committed, many of them veterans impossible to replace. Chiang Kai-shek subsequently awarded the victorious Chinese units a commendation prize of 150,000 yuan — a substantial sum that marked the battle's significance in Nationalist eyes. The outcome at Shanggao was not accidental. Several interlocking factors combined to produce a Chinese victory, and each deserves consideration. The most fundamental was Luo Zhuoying's defensive plan. The decision to trade space for time — to absorb the Japanese advance through three successive defensive lines rather than contest the frontier — required both tactical confidence and a willingness to accept initial setbacks that could easily be misread as defeat. Chinese forces had to give ground, and they did. They had to suffer through the early days of Japanese advance without breaking and running, drawing the enemy forward and allowing the encirclement to take shape. That they largely succeeded in executing this plan reflects the improving quality of the Nationalist Army by 1941: better trained, better led at the operational level, and — critically — equipped with a strategic design that matched the actual balance of forces. The defeat in detail of the Japanese columns was equally important. By neutralizing the 33rd Division in the north before it could contribute to the central effort, and by pinning the 20th Brigade against the Jin River with its back to the water, Luo's forces ensured that the 34th Division faced the third-line defenses essentially alone — outnumbered, overextended, and unsupported. The Japanese operational concept had been a three-pronged convergence; what actually materialized was a single exhausted division hammering at a prepared defense while two other columns were rendered ineffective. The absence of coordination within the Japanese 11th Army was a gift that kept giving throughout the battle. No forward command post. No mechanism for the divisions to adjust their operations in response to each other's situations. No ability to recognize, in real time, that the northern column was being destroyed and redirect resources accordingly. General Marube's decision to remain at Hankou while his men died in Jiangxi was not merely an administrative failure; it was an operational catastrophe. Japanese commanders acknowledged this failing explicitly after the battle, but the acknowledgment changed nothing for the dead. Zhang Yanchuan's unauthorized withdrawal — the single most consequential individual decision of the battle — ultimately prevented a complete annihilation of the 34th Division rather than affecting the battle's outcome. The 34th Division escaped; but it did so in a "wretched state," having lost enormous numbers of men and equipment. It broke out, not triumphed. The encirclement Luo had constructed was torn open, but the Japanese paid dearly for the breach. The consequences of Shanggao rippled outward in ways that shaped the subsequent course of the war in central China. The transfer of the 33rd Division to North China — the original logistical rationale for the entire operation — was delayed by the division's involvement and subsequent losses at Shanggao. When it finally arrived at the Battle of Central Plains  the following month, it did so on the eve of battle with no time for preparation or orientation, entering combat under severely disadvantaged conditions. The operation that was supposed to facilitate a smooth redeployment had instead damaged one of the two units involved and delayed the other. For the Chinese 74th Corps, Shanggao had an ironic consequence. The Japanese 11th Army, following the battle, formally designated the 74th Corps as a priority target — a "standing enemy" and directed its forces to seek out and destroy it in future operations. At the First Battle of Changsha that September, the 11th Army specifically oriented its forces against the 74th Corps, a testament to the lasting impression that corps's fierce resistance at Shanggao had made on its adversaries. The compliment of being specifically targeted by the enemy was one the 74th Corps had earned in blood at Shanggao's ridgelines and shattered bridges. More broadly, the battle was widely regarded at the time, and has been regarded since, as one of the most significant Chinese tactical victories of the first four years of the War of Resistance. Its significance lay not only in the casualties inflicted — those were contested and probably inflated in the Chinese records — but in what it demonstrated. The improving tactical and operational competence of the Nationalist Army was on display. The deliberate defense, the layered withdrawal, the coordinated encirclement — these were not the operations of an army that had been fighting desperately for survival since 1937 and had learned nothing. They were the operations of an army that had studied its defeats and adapted. Shanggao did not change the strategic situation in China. The front in Jiangxi remained where it had been; the Japanese still occupied Nanchang and the major cities; Chiang Kai-shek was still in Chongqing and the war was still far from over. But it demonstrated something important: that the Chinese Army, given capable commanders, a sound plan, and the discipline to execute it, could do more than survive Japanese offensives. It could reverse them, encircle them, and pursue them back to where they came from. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. In March–April 1940, Japanese forces attacked Shanggao with a limited, multi-pronged plan. Chinese troops used elastic defense and coordinated counter-moves, turning initial advantages into a trap. After intense fighting and air strikes, a coordinated encirclement and timely breakout routed the Japanese, forcing retreat despite their numbers in a costly battle.

Ranking divisions by QB talent full 567 Mon, 15 Jun 2026 16:46:28 +0000 Dl4iQxkarlfYVxTvtb3aGIiueXk7Y2tQ nfl,society & culture Cody & Gold nfl,society & culture Ranking divisions by QB talent Hosts Cody Tapp & Alex Gold team up for 96.5 The Fan Radio's newest mid-day show "Cody & Gold."  Two born & raised Kansas Citians, Cody & Gold have been through all the highs and lows as a KC sports fan and they know the passion Kansas City has for their sports teams."Cody & Gold" will be a show focused on smart, sports conversation with the best voices from KC and around the country. It will also feature our listeners with your calls, texts & tweets as we want you to be a part of the show, not just a listener.  Cody & Gold, weekdays 10a-2p on 610 Sports Radio.  2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Society & Culture https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed-link=https%3A%2F%2Fr

Evan Ellis highlights a razor-thin election in Peru between Keiko Fujimori and Roberto Sanchez, exposing deep national divisions over corruption and wealth distribution. The outcome is geopolitically significant, as China already maintains a massive foothold in Peru through control of critical infrastructure, including major ports, mines, and electricity. (14)1910

durée : 00:03:10 - Le 6/9 de l'été - par : Patrick Cohen - Les pro-Russes sont de sortie : à la une du JDNews, l'hebdomadaire du groupe Bolloré, ceux que de mauvais esprits appellent les quatre moscoutaires : Philippe de Villiers, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, Luc Ferry, Henri Guaino. Vous aimez ce podcast ? Pour écouter tous les épisodes sans limite, rendez-vous sur Radio France

Last time we spoke about the One Hundred Regiment Offensive. During Phase Three of the One Hundred Regiment Offensive, CCP forces in the Taihang/Jizhong area emphasized strongpoint attacks and transportation warfare. Rather than trying to defeat Japanese units head-on, they used tactics such as night raids and ambushes to disrupt Japanese supply routes and communications. The underlying goal was to make Japanese logistics unstable, weakening their ability to maintain control and conduct effective operations. After CCP successes, the Japanese responded with large-scale "mopping-up" operations beginning October 6. As the Eighth Route Army continued resisting, it adopted flexible methods to counter the Japanese sweeps, especially rapid repositioning and targeted ambushes. One notable action described involves an ambush of a Japanese convoy that caused substantial enemy losses, demonstrating how disrupting enemy mobility could blunt the effectiveness of larger Japanese operations. Overall, the situation remained fluid, with both sides continually adapting their tactics in an ongoing contest for control across occupied North China.   #205 The Hubei-Henan Campaign of 1940-1941 Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. By 1940, the war had settled into a grueling stalemate, with Japanese troops occupying vast swathes of central China, including parts of Hubei, but facing persistent Chinese guerrilla and conventional resistance that prevented total consolidation. In the aftermath of the Battle of Zaoyang in the summer of 1940, Japanese forces had secured the key cities of Yichang and Shashi along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Yet Chinese Nationalist troops of the Fifth War Area retained firm control over the vital territories east and west of the Xiang River. Their defensive lines formed a broad arc stretching from the southwest of Yuan'an through Jingmen, north of Zhongxiang, and the rugged foothills of the Dahong Mountains, extending northwest to Suixian. These positions straddled both banks of the Xiang River, anchored on the right by the Wudang Mountains and on the left by the Tongbai range. Working in close coordination with guerrilla detachments operating in the southeast, Chinese units repeatedly harassed the Japanese garrisons that had pushed into Yichang. The constant pressure on the enemy's flanks left the Japanese forces in Yichang and Shashi dangerously exposed and hemmed in, unable to expand or consolidate their gains. To the Japanese high command, this situation had become an intolerable thorn that demanded immediate removal.   Under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese Nationalist government faced severe strains as the war with Japan escalated. Its problems were not only military, but also political and economic. Deep ideological and territorial rivalries with the CCP meant that efforts to present a single front were constantly undermined. Although the two sides officially formed a United Front in 1937, earlier violence and competition, such as the 1927 Shanghai Massacre and the CCP's Long March of 1934 – 1935 had left distrust and strategic differences in place. As a result, Nationalist resistance was harder to coordinate than it would have been under full unity. Meanwhile, the CCP strengthened its position in northern China by expanding rural strongholds. Through land reforms and the use of guerrilla warfare, the communists were able to win local support and apply pressure to Japanese forces in ways that often did not require large, conventional armies. This strategy also drew influence and manpower away from the Nationalists' more traditional, state-centered military structure.   Economically, the Nationalists were squeezed from multiple directions. The loss of China's coastal industrial regions to Japanese occupation forced the government to rely heavily on the interior, with Chongqing becoming a key base. That geographic shift left the administration more vulnerable to shortages of critical supplies, especially raw materials, fuel, and modern weapons. On top of wartime disruption, the global Great Depression intensified fiscal and logistical difficulties, limiting how quickly and effectively the Nationalists could mobilize resources for large-scale operations. By late November 1940, these weaknesses intersected with renewed Japanese pressure. Japanese commanders were also concerned about the possibility of a major Nationalist push, particularly fears of a counteroffensive by the Thirty-first Army Group under General Tang Enbo.    Determined to break the stalemate, the Japanese launched a major offensive in late November 1940. Preparations had begun in earnest early that month. Engineers repaired and expanded highways and bridges, constructed new defensive works and airfields, and stockpiled vast quantities of rations, ammunition, steel-hulled boats, and rubber rafts in the Zhongxiang area. Five regiments were concentrated near Zhongxiang, while additional troops east and west of the Xiang River brought the total strength to more than three divisions. Along the Suixian–Xiangyang Highway, Japanese forces were reinforced to divisional strength, supported by increased artillery and tank detachments. These meticulous measures left no doubt that the enemy was ready for a large-scale operation.   By 23 November the Japanese had completed their deployments and moved into assault positions. The Japanese forces assigned to the Central Hubei Operation were placed under the overall command of Lieutenant General Waichirō Sonobe, who directed the campaign from his headquarters in Wuhan. Sonobe's 11th Army drew on a broad mix of formations, combining units from the 3rd, 4th, 15th, 17th, 39th, and 40th Divisions. The offensive backbone for the thrust into central Hubei province was reinforced by the 18th Independent Mixed Brigade, which helped supply the infantry strength needed for sustained fighting across difficult ground. In practice, this multi-division structure reflected the 11th Army's key mission in the region, acting as the main Japanese formation after the earlier Battle of Zaoyang and it emphasized coordinated divisional advances supported by attached brigades and specialized elements, including limited armored capabilities.   In terms of manpower, the Japanese force is commonly estimated at roughly 40,000 to 50,000 troops. This strength included several infantry regiments and artillery batteries, along with only limited armored elements rather than a fully armored formation. Because the operation depended on finding and exploiting opportunities quickly, it was supported by aerial reconnaissance and bombing carried out by the 3rd Air Brigade operating in central China. Infantry units formed the majority of the fighting power, while artillery was used to provide suppressive fire during advances. Air support, meanwhile, was intended to help identify and target Chinese positions—particularly along important riverine and rail corridors, where disruptions could slow resistance and complicate Chinese reinforcement or retreat.   To manage the operation across varied terrain and combat tasks, Sonobe's command used smaller combined formation often described as task forces, that could operate with some flexibility. Among them were the Kayashima Force, commanded by Major General Koichi Kayashima of the 18th Independent Mixed Brigade, consisting of the entire brigade reinforced by elements of the 40th Division. The Muragami Force, under Lieutenant General Keisaku Muragami, commander of the 39th Division, which included the full division plus supporting non-infantry units. The Hirabayashi Force, led by Lieutenant General Morito Hirabayashi of the 17th Division, formed from detachments of the 17th and 15th Divisions.The Kitana Force, commanded by Lieutenant General Kenzo Kitana of the 4th Division, incorporating portions of the 4th Division and the Kususe Armored Force. These four groups were deployed in parallel around Tangyang, Jingmen, Zhongxiang, and north of Jingshan. The Hanjima Force, commanded by Lieutenant General Fusataro Hanjima of the 3rd Division, positioned near Suixian along the Xiangyang–Hua Highway. This task-force approach helped tailor combat power to specific mission profiles—such as flanking movements, raids, or pressure on Chinese defensive lines—while keeping the overall campaign plan under a unified command.   Equipment choices also reflected the tactical environment of Hubei. The Japanese units made use of Type 95 Ha-Go light tanks for reconnaissance and for anti-infantry roles, typically best suited to the reconnaissance, pursuit, and screening functions that were available even with constrained armor numbers. For fire support, the force relied on conventional artillery, including 75mm Type 90 guns for field engagements and 105mm howitzers for heavier bombardment where stronger explosive impact was needed. Together, these assets were intended to allow Japanese formations to maneuver around Chinese positions and apply pressure in rugged landscapes where rivers, roads, and rail lines often determined the rhythm of battle.   Logistics were a decisive factor in whether the operation could sustain momentum. Sonobe's army depended heavily on existing transportation infrastructure, particularly rail lines radiating from the Wuhan hub toward forward areas such as Suizhou and Zaoyang. These routes were critical for moving ammunition, replacements, and other supplies closer to the front as the Japanese advanced. The campaign also used river transport along the Yangtze River, including motorized barges and steamers, to deliver supplies to units operating near waterways. However, reliance on these corridors came with risks: Chinese interdiction raids could disrupt shipments, forcing convoys to be escorted and increasing the time and resources required to keep the forward units supplied. Overall, this dependence on both rail and fluvial networks highlighted a central operational challenge, maintaining secure access to transportation arteries in contested territory so that the Japanese could keep fighting effectively rather than stalling as supplies dwindled.   The Central Hubei Operation was driven by an intelligence assessment that Chinese troop movements were signaling preparations for a Nationalist counteroffensive. Acting on that interpretation, the Japanese began tightening plans and positioning forces early in the final days of November 1940. On 23 November 1940, the Japanese 11th Army under Lieutenant General Waichirō Sonobe began organizing for the offensive in central Hubei. In order to conduct a coordinated advance across the Han River, the army arranged its forces into five groups, each tasked with moving in a way that supported the broader pincer-style pressure on Chinese positions. The approach also reflected lessons drawn from the earlier Zaoyang–Yichang campaign earlier in 1940, when Japanese divisions had been able to cross the Han River at multiple points, such as Dangyang, Jiukouzhen, and Shayangzhen—to help secure access toward Yichang and the Yangtze route. Logistics were built around infrastructure the Japanese had already established during prior operations. The Hankou hub supported the 11th Army through arrangements that included munitions storage, medical facilities, and transport coordination. Supplies and reinforcements were moved using truck convoys and river crossings, while forward depots—such as those at Shayangzhen northwest of Hankou—provided additional capacity, including freight handling and field hospitals. Because the area was not secure, these supply points were also guarded against threats from guerrilla activity, which could disrupt communications and threaten personnel and equipment.   Operationally, the offensive used limited artillery and air support, reflecting Japanese constraints and directives aimed at keeping the campaign short and avoiding commitments that could stretch units beyond their logistical reach. Instead of trying to grind down Chinese defenses through prolonged bombardment, the plan prioritized speed, reconnaissance, and focused disruption. Japanese intelligence preparation relied heavily on aerial reconnaissance over the Han River valley to locate Chinese positions and infer where resistance would likely concentrate. That information enabled Japanese units to coordinate select maneuvers, including converging pressure from different directions. Where river transport mattered, coordination with naval or riverine elements supported movement and resupply, with overall oversight connected to the China Expeditionary Army.   Anticipating the coming assault, the Chinese Fifth War Area headquarters acted swiftly on instructions from the National Military Council. Orders were issued to the River West Army Group (30th and 77th Corps), the Right Army Group (44th and 67th Corps), and the Central Army Group (41st and 45th Corps) to employ a flexible defensive strategy: hold key positions firmly while committing the main strength to strike the enemy's outer flanks at the decisive moment. The 59th Corps was directed to advance toward the Xiangfan area, ready to reinforce operations on either bank of the river as the situation developed.   As commander of the Fifth War Area, Li Zongren arranged the defense to meet a likely Japanese thrust along the Han River, particularly in the approaches to Wuhan and Yichang, following the wider stalemate that settled in after the 1938 fall of Wuhan. The Fifth War Area could draw on roughly 300,000 troops, though many units were understrength, and the overall readiness varied by locality. Among the formations Li Zongren placed in the most sensitive sectors was the 31st Army Group under General Tang Enbo, which Japanese planners had identified as a potential threat to Japanese intentions in the region. In keeping with the terrain and the limits on manpower, Li's defensive design relied heavily on natural barriers—most importantly the Han River itself—and on the defensibility of rugged ground. Forces were arrayed to hold or contest riverbank positions, supported by fortifications, trenches, and smaller auxiliary elements. Divisions such as the 44th were positioned with an eye toward slowing an enemy crossing and forcing the Japanese to fight for difficult approaches rather than moving rapidly. At the same time, irregular forces and prepared defensive works were used to complicate Japanese reconnaissance and to make it harder for the attacker to coordinate a clean operational flow. Strategically, Li Zongren leaned on elastic defense rather than attempting to win decisive battles at fixed lines. Regular units were supported by guerrilla-style harassment intended to strike Japanese vulnerabilities, especially supply and transportation, between forward bases and the front. Local operations, including actions coming from areas such as Xinyang, were designed to disrupt Japanese logistics in periods when the Nationalists were still managing shortages of ammunition and medical supplies. Militias in the inter-mountainous regions further reinforced this approach: instead of seeking costly frontal engagements, they concentrated on disruption, delaying movements, and making Japanese operations slower and more expensive.   At dawn on 25 November the Japanese offensive began, with columns advancing along multiple axes. On the western Xiangyang front, more than 1,000 troops from Tangyang and over 3,000 from Jingmen struck Hengdian and Yanzhimiao, shattering the positions of the Chinese 30th Corps. Simultaneously, a column moving from Zhujiafu toward Tunglinling split into several detachments and drove deep northward into Liangshuijing, Xiajiazi, and Kuaihuopu. By nightfall the River West Army Group had regrouped along the line from Hengdian through Yanzhimiao to Kuaihuopu. On 26 November the Japanese reached Xianzhu. The following day they assaulted Liuhouji and Lijiatang in a day-long battle that ended in stalemate. At dusk the 30th Corps launched a powerful counterattack; the 27th and 31st Divisions dispatched raiding parties into the enemy's rear. Unable to withstand the pressure, the Japanese fell back toward Jingmen and Zhongxiang, pursued by Chinese forces that inflicted heavy losses.   Along the Jingmen–Zhongxiang Highway the Japanese massed more than 3,000 troops to attack Changshoutian and Wangjiatian, encircling Changjiachi and Shahetian. The Chinese 149th Division withdrew in good order to the stronger Wangjiahe–Wulongguan line. On 26 November enemy strength grew to 4,000–5,000. One column advanced on Sanligang while the main body assaulted Peizhai, Wangjiahe, and Yunanmen. Fighting continued until dark without decisive result. On 27 November the main force of the 44th Corps counterattacked from Wangjiahe, converging with the 67th Corps advancing from the northwest. The coordinated assault inflicted severe casualties, yet the Japanese continued to fight stubbornly. On the Suixian front, more than 2,000 Japanese troops reached Liangshuikou on the morning of 25 November and launched a violent attack against the 123rd Division at Lishan. Two additional columns, each exceeding 1,000 men, pushed westward toward Hoyuantian and Qingmingpu; their numbers swelled steadily as darkness fell. On 26 November fierce combat raged against the 124th and 127th Divisions at Jinjishan and Qingmingpu. A separate force of 700–800 men advanced from Xihe via Langhetian to Tangjiafan. After clashing with the 41st Corps, the Japanese near Qingmingpu linked up with those at Jinjishan and moved toward Hoyuantian on 27 November. That night the detachment at Tangjiafan reached the vicinity of Huantan Zhen, confronting the 125th Division. Recognizing that the enemy had become dangerously dispersed, the War Area Command ordered its units to hold critical localities while the main forces exploited the mountainous terrain for ambushes. The tactic proved effective. Heavy fighting continued until 28 November, when the Japanese, unable to achieve their objectives, began a general withdrawal. Chinese forces west of Xiangyang immediately took up the pursuit. The enemy opposing the Right Army Group was routed and retreated along several routes. In the Suixian sector, Japanese units at Hoyuantian and Huantan Zhen were caught in converging attacks by the Central Army Group, driven back to high ground, and encircled. In a desperate attempt to relieve the trapped forces, the Japanese rushed 1,500–1,600 infantry and cavalry troops from Suixian and Yingshan through Shangshitian and Shatian in a flanking maneuver—only to be ambushed once more. Covered by aircraft and armor, the enemy withdrew toward Suixian and Xihe as Chinese troops pressed forward along the line from Chunchuan to Anchu, Lishan, and Gaocheng. By 30 November all Chinese Army Groups had restored their original positions.   The Central Hubei Operation produced uneven battlefield outcomes, particularly in reported casualties. Japanese accounts describe relatively limited losses, just 132 killed and 445 wounded attributed to advantages in air superiority, artillery, and armored support, even though the advance was complicated by difficult terrain. At the same time, Japanese forces faced persistent Chinese counterattacks along the Han River, which contributed to localized pressure and eventual withdrawal. The Japanese reported 6,439 Chinese killed  and 474 captured, but the evidence base is uncertain and the language of reporting suggests possible exaggeration or propaganda. Conversely, Chinese-era estimates reportedly placed Japanese losses at roughly 5,000 killed and 7,000–8,000 wounded, illustrating a substantial gap between competing narratives. Some alternate reconstructions suggest total Chinese casualties in the range of 20,000–30,000, depending on whether wounded and missing personnel are included. However, because wartime reporting was fragmented and inconsistent, there is no fully verifiable casualty ledger for all units involved.   Despite these tolls, the operation did not appear to achieve a decisive Chinese destruction of Japan's intended target force. The Chinese Fifth War Area, including elements associated with the 31st Army Group under Tang Enbo, suffered attrition but generally avoided annihilation. No major command-level losses are indicated in the surviving accounts, and unit formations were not described as collapsing permanently. On the material side, Japan reportedly seized rifles and supplies from positions that Chinese forces had encircled or abandoned in the short term, but overall equipment losses for either side were described as limited, consistent with the operation's restricted intensity.    Strategically, the operation offered Japan short-term tactical advantages—notably through localized envelopments and the temporary pressure of combined-arms support—but it failed to translate these gains into a sustained strategic result. The fighting also strained Japanese logistics in central China, especially given that the offensive was not followed by major reinforcements. At the same time, it exposed continuing vulnerabilities in rugged terrain where Chinese guerrilla activity and organized counteraction could offset superior firepower.   Ultimately, the Central Hubei Operation produced no net territorial gains. By the end of the week, Japanese troops had returned to positions that did not fundamentally alter control in central Hubei. Local clashes may have disturbed formations and disrupted movement temporarily, but the campaign did not create durable forward bases, did not change administrative control meaningfully, and did not permanently disrupt key supply corridors. The territorial status quo largely persisted: Chinese Fifth War Area forces maintained positions north of the Yangtze River, and there was no widespread abandonment of strongholds sufficient to indicate a strategic collapse.   In the months following the Japanese repulse in central Hubei in November 1940, enemy forces remained largely immobilized across the Jing-Xiang plains, their earlier ambitions checked by determined Chinese resistance. Seeking to regain momentum and draw Chinese strength away from other theaters, the Japanese high command prepared a massive offensive into southern Henan in late January 1941. By the end of the month they had concentrated an imposing array of seven infantry divisions, one independent cavalry brigade, three independent armored regiments, and one independent artillery regiment. In all, more than 150,000 infantrymen, over 8,000 cavalry, 550 artillery pieces, 300 tanks, and 200 armored cars stood ready. Over a hundred aircraft were massed at forward bases in Anyang, Xinxiang, Huaiyang, and Xinyang. From early January onward, ammunition and equipment had been laboriously shipped up the Yangtze and moved inland to Xinyang, while Japanese reconnaissance planes repeatedly overflew Chinese rear areas. Additional troops were concentrated in southern Henan itself.   On 20 January, as a preliminary move to pin down Chinese forces and facilitate the main effort in central Henan, the Japanese 18th Independent Mixed Brigade, together with elements of the 39th and 4th Divisions, launched a limited attack against the Chinese 29th and 33rd Army Groups. The principal assault, however, began on 24 January under the overall command of Lieutenant General Katsuichiro Enbu. The Japanese organized their southern Henan forces into three powerful columns: The Left Flank Force, built around the entire 3rd Division reinforced by the 8th Regiment of the 4th Division and the Mizuno Armored Unit, commanded by Lieutenant General Fusataro Hanjima of the 3rd Division. The Central Force, centered on the 17th Division (less one regiment) and strengthened by the 67th Regiment of the 15th Division and the Yoshimatsu Armored Unit, commanded by Lieutenant General Amaya of the 40th Division. The Right Flank Force, formed around the main body of the 40th Division, also under Lieutenant General Amaya.   In support of this main thrust, Japanese forces in northern Anhui and eastern Henan—principally the 4th Cavalry Brigade with the Hirabayashi Tank Regiment—advanced westward from Haozhou toward Woyang. The Ouda Regiment of the 21st Division pushed west from Suzhou, while the Uguchi and Kobayashi Regiments of the 35th Division, accompanied by engineer, cavalry, artillery, and tank units, moved from Kaifeng, Tongxu, and Zhuxian Zhen along the north bank of the Yellow River and through the flooded areas toward Zhengzhou. These supporting columns were intended to tie down Chinese reserves and prevent reinforcement of the southern front.   The National Military Council in Chongqing correctly assessed the enemy's intention: to drive north along the Beiping-Hankou Railway with their main strength, force a decisive battle against the Chinese field armies, and rely on the northern Anhui–eastern Henan forces to strike westward in coordination. Accordingly, the Council instructed the Fifth War Area to avoid a costly frontal engagement. Instead, a small portion of its troops would offer delaying resistance along the railway, while the main force would maneuver to the enemy's flanks and rear, severing communications and launching devastating counterattacks. In compliance, the Fifth War Area left only a single division near Xiping on the Beiping-Hankou line. The bulk of its strength—carefully concealed in depth on both sides of the enemy's expected axis of advance—remained highly mobile, ready to strike the Japanese flanks or rear the moment the enemy divided his forces or pushed toward Runan, Yancheng, or Wuyang. This elastic strategy proved decisive.   At dawn on 25 January the Japanese southern Henan forces advanced in three columns. The Left Flank Force moved along the line from Xiaolindian to Gucheng and Chashan. The Central Force struck northward from the Minggang area. The Right Flank Force crossed the Huai River between Huaijiao Zhen and Chengyang under heavy air support. Japanese planes bombed Chinese positions relentlessly. True to plan, Chinese units employed only light screening forces to harass the enemy with ambushes and flank attacks, preserving their main strength for the decisive moment.   By 26 January the Japanese had reached the line from Piyang to Gaoyi, Xingtian, and Queshan. On the 27th they pressed on to Chunshui, Shahetian, and Zhumadian. At this point Chinese mobile forces sprang into action. The 13th Corps of the 31st Army Group swung northward toward Xiangheguan, while the main body of the 85th Corps moved toward Shangcai to begin an enveloping maneuver. The 68th Corps of the 11th Army Group struck the enemy rear south of Xiangheguan; the 55th Corps advanced from Tanghe to Piyang; and the 59th Corps of the 33rd Army Group pushed toward Nanyang. On 29 January the 13th Corps attacked the Japanese Left Flank Force near Jieguanting and Xiaoshidian south of Wuyang, while the 85th Corps struck the Right Flank Force around Runan, southeast of Shangcai. The enemy's Central Force, advancing along and west of the railway, found the Chinese positions already evacuated and failed to trap any major units. The Japanese columns on the extreme flanks suffered over 3,000 casualties and lost six tanks in the fighting around Jieguanting.   By 31 January the enemy, desperate to rescue his exposed flank columns, reordered his forces. The Central Force executed turning movements on both sides: elements of the 15th Division swung right from Suiping through Shangcai to converge with troops moving north from Runan against the 85th Corps, while the main body of the 17th Division split into two columns and advanced from Suiping through Xiping toward Wuyang. Simultaneously, the main force of the 3rd Division and part of the 4th Division also converged on Wuyang, hoping to link with the 17th Division and crush the 13th Corps near Jieguanting and Xiaoshidian. Before the trap could close, however, the Chinese 13th and 85th Corps withdrew in good order to the area north of Ye Xian, between Yancheng and Shangshui, and north of the Sha River. When the Japanese broke through at Wuyang and Shangcai they found no major Chinese forces to destroy.   Meanwhile, Chinese troops from western Henan, the 59th, 55th, and 68th Corps, advanced from Tanghe, Piyang, and points north to strike the enemy rear at Wuyang. On 29 January the 84th Corps and local guerrillas in western Anhui recaptured Chengyang and continued the pursuit. The Japanese, having failed to concentrate superior strength or control the battlefield, now found themselves isolated. Their rear communications were severed, and they were under constant pressure from the 68th, 55th, and 59th Corps. After days of exhausting combat the enemy began to withdraw southward on the night of 2 February. Leaving only rear guards at Wuyang and Baoanzhai to tie down the 13th Corps, the main body of the 3rd Division moved from Fangcheng toward Nanyang and Zhenping. The 13th Corps immediately counterattacked, recaptured Baoanzhai and Wuyang, and pursued the enemy toward Fangcheng.   On the night of 2 February, as the Japanese main force approached Nanyang, the 17th Division together with elements of the 15th and 4th Divisions had already pushed south from Wuyang via Xiangheguan toward Piyang, hoping to link with forces moving east from Nanyang and trap the Chinese 68th, 55th, and 29th Corps. Fierce resistance by the 68th Corps near Xiangheguan inflicted heavy losses and forced the enemy to abandon large quantities of supplies. Further south, the 29th Corps exacted still greater casualties around Piyang. On the night of 7 February the trapped Japanese column split: part retreated along the Tanghe–Piyang highway, while the main body withdrew along the Tongbo–Xinyang highway toward Xinyang, leaving many dead behind. The Chinese 85th Corps pursued southeastward, while elements of the 13th, 29th, 55th, and 59th Corps harried the enemy toward Xinyang. By the time the fighting ended, all Chinese units had regained their original positions.   In coordination with the southern Henan offensive, the Japanese forces in northern Anhui and eastern Henan advanced westward in four columns on the morning of 25 January. The Ouda Regiment of the 21st Division struck west from Suzhou. The 4th Cavalry Brigade, reinforced by the Hirabayashi Tank Regiment, split into three routes from Bozhou to attack Woyang, Shanheji, and Shuangqiao, clashing bitterly with a Chinese cavalry division near Shizihe and Niqiuji. The Uguchi Regiment of the 35th Division advanced through the flooded areas from Tongxu and Zhuxian Zhen, while the Kobayashi Regiment moved westward along the north bank of the Yellow River near Zhengzhou. Japanese aircraft intensified their bombing of Chinese cities and front-line positions, including Zhoujiakou, Zhengzhou, Yancheng, Ye Xian, Xiangcheng, Wuyang, and Luoyang. On 29 January one enemy column reached Santaiji and suffered heavy losses under Chinese attack. Threatened on the left by forces near Huaiyang, two Chinese corps withdrew temporarily to the line from Fuyang to Taihe and Jieshou. On 5 February the Japanese captured Taihe and Jieshou, but a Chinese counterattack on the morning of 6 February regained both towns, forcing the enemy to retreat northeastward.   The Battle of Southern Henan, which opened on 25 January and concluded on 10 February after seventeen days of continuous fighting, ended in a clear Chinese victory. Japanese casualties exceeded 9,000; when the enemy withdrew from Nanyang more than 300 military vehicles were left burning on the battlefield. Large quantities of arms, ammunition, and supplies fell into Chinese hands. Chinese losses were significantly lighter. The enemy had hoped to force a decisive battle along the railway and shatter the Chinese armies of the Fifth War Area. Instead, skillful Chinese maneuver, timely flank attacks, and relentless pressure on the enemy's rear and communications had turned the Japanese offensive into a costly failure. The victory not only preserved the integrity of the central Chinese front but also demonstrated once again the effectiveness of elastic defense and mobile counteroffensive tactics against a numerically superior but overextended foe.   In the wake of their costly repulse in central Hubei the previous November and the even more humiliating defeat in Southern Henan between late January and early February 1941, the Japanese sought once more to regain the initiative in the spring of 1941. Their target was western Hubei, where Chinese forces continued to deny them freedom of movement along the middle Yangtze. The entire Japanese 13th Division garrisoned the Yichang salient. Its regiments were deployed in a defensive arc: the 65th Regiment and the 19th Artillery Regiment held positions east of the city at Longchuanpu, Tumenya, and Yaqueling; the 104th Regiment guarded the northwest approaches; and the 17th Cavalry Regiment patrolled the Yangchalu–Baishanao sector. On the west bank of the Yangtze, the 58th Regiment had constructed strong bridgehead fortifications between Chaojialing and Shangwulongkou, ready to support any renewed thrust westward.   Facing this entrenched enemy was the Chinese 26th Corps, entrusted with the critical mission of river defense on the west bank of the Yangtze opposite Yichang. The corps commander had organized his forces into three sectors. The 41st Division held the right zone, anchoring its line from Mujiatian and Tanjiataizi northward to the vicinity of Fanjiah u. The 32nd Division defended the left zone, stretching from Mujiatian through Ceyang to Xiangzikou. The 44th Division remained in corps reserve near Caojiafan, poised to reinforce either flank or exploit opportunities for counterattack.   On 6 March 1941 the Japanese struck. Having quietly reinforced their forces west of Yichang to more than three regiments, supported by cavalry and artillery, they opened the assault at 5:30 a.m. with a violent artillery barrage, followed immediately by infantry advances under cover of air strikes. Chinese security positions at Tanjiataizi and Chaojiadian were overrun. The enemy then hurled itself against the main line at Changgangling. Simultaneously, 600 to 700 Japanese troops, backed by planes and guns, assaulted Fanjiah u. After hours of bitter fighting both localities fell. On the morning of 7 March, Japanese aircraft again spearheaded the attack, enabling the capture of positions at Qianjiatai and Wujiaba. The enemy pressed on toward Qianjiachong and Yutaishan but was thrown back. Meanwhile, the force that had taken Fanjiah u clashed fiercely with the Chinese 44th Division around Taipingqiao; although the division was eventually compelled to withdraw to the eastern end of the bridge under relentless air attack, it continued to resist stubbornly. When the enemy seized Hut zeye from the direction of Fanjiah u, the 32nd Division fell back in good order to the line from Tunziqiao to Tuyanzhong, where it beat off further assaults. By this stage the Japanese had driven themselves into a dangerously narrow salient, exposed on both flanks.   Seizing the moment, the River Defense Force reorganized its lines. The 103rd Division of the 8th Corps relieved the sector from Mujiatang through Yingzishan to Chaotianguan, while the 26th Corps consolidated new positions at Yutaishan, Pijiashan, Qingshuiba, Guangongling, and Xiaopingshanba. The plan was clear: hold the enemy east of this line, then launch a converging counterstroke to destroy the invaders and restore the original front. On 8 March two guerrilla columns from the 41st Division struck at Changgangling and Fanjiayuan, while another detachment hit the enemy east of Pifengjian. More than 2,000 Japanese troops assaulted the 44th Division's positions from Gaolingpo and Dajiaobian toward Wanghuzizhong; determined resistance by the 44th Division, supported by elements of the 41st, brought the attack to a standstill. Later that day the enemy managed to penetrate the 32nd Division's line at Tianwangshi, forcing Chinese troops to fight a delaying action along the outskirts of the Shibai Fortress from Mingjiachong to Heitangou.   Dawn on 9 March brought renewed Chinese initiative. The 103rd Division occupied the line from Tutiling to Shizinao and advanced in several columns against the enemy. A portion of the 44th Division waged a grim holding action on the high ground flanking Guojiaba, suffering heavy losses but buying time for the main body to launch a powerful flank attack against the Japanese at Taipingqiao and Xianglingkou. By dusk Chinese forces had captured the enemy strongpoints at Dujiaoba and Dajiaobian along the highway, annihilating numerous enemy troops. The 32nd Division threw its main strength against the area northwest of Dajiaobian; heavy fighting raged around Wanghuzizhong into the afternoon until enemy reinforcements were driven off. The 41st Division, meanwhile, executed effective flank attacks that yielded significant gains. On 10 March the 103rd Division recaptured the high ground at Xiawulongkou and north of Tianzipo, while guerrillas of the 41st Division continued to harass the enemy through every gap in his lines. When positions at Hongshipo and Lungtanping held by the 44th Division were breached, the division withdrew to the western heights of Bomuping and faced the enemy anew.   At dawn on 11 March, after suffering severe casualties, the Japanese resorted to smoke screens and began withdrawing eastward along several routes. Chinese pursuit forces swiftly retook Xianglingkou, Guojiaba, Guangongling, Tianwangshi, and Dajiaobian. By 12 March the enemy had fallen back to a defensive line running from east of Taipingqiao to Hu z'ai and Huangnikeng. On 13 March Chinese units launched general counterattacks. Unable to withstand the pressure, the Japanese retreated to their original positions. The eight-day engagement thus ended exactly where it had begun.   The battle had been fought with only a portion of the available Chinese forces, yet it proved decisive. The Japanese, who had hoped to crack the river defenses and resume their westward drive, instead suffered 4,000 to 5,000 casualties. The swift and skillful Chinese counteroffensive not only restored the front but left the enemy shaken and apprehensive. Their design to push deeper into western Hubei was decisively thwarted, buying precious time for the broader Chinese war effort in the Yangtze theater and demonstrating once again that determined defense, timely reinforcement, and aggressive counteraction could blunt even the most carefully prepared Japanese offensive. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. In November 1940, a Central Hubei Operation using five task forces attempted to exploit Chinese dispersal but achieved no territorial gains despite local successes. A larger January 1941 offensive into southern Henan deployed 150,000+ troops but again failed strategically. Despite Japanese tactical advantages and superior firepower, logistical constraints and rugged terrain favored mobile Chinese resistance. Both campaigns ended with Japanese withdrawals and restored Chinese positions, demonstrating that determined defense and timely counteraction could blunt large-scale Japanese operations.

Pastor Jose teaches how divisions in Christian churches/families occur when we rely on human interpretations rather than just seeing Christ crucified. Audio>

Was this the week that exposed growing cracks in Trump's political agenda?In this video, we examine a series of setbacks and controversies that have fueled debate across Washington and beyond. From questions surrounding the SAVE Act and disputes over funding priorities, to backlash involving the Kennedy Center and broader concerns about economic hardship, immigration enforcement, and U.S. foreign policy, critics argue that several key Trump-aligned priorities are facing increasing resistance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Leader's Notebook (Ep. 315), I begin a journey through the New Testament epistles with Paul's remarkable letter to the believers in Rome. Written to Christians living in one of the most powerful, corrupt, and morally confused cities in history, Romans answers timeless questions: Who is God? How are we saved? And how can we faithfully follow Christ in a culture that is moving away from Him? From Romans 1, Romans 8, Romans 10, and Romans 12, we discover the unshakable foundations of the Christian faith—God's love, salvation through Jesus Christ, the transforming power of grace, and the call to present our lives as living sacrifices. Paul reminds us that while the world may pressure us to conform, God transforms us by renewing our minds. Most importantly, Romans declares the great hope of every believer: nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. If you need fresh confidence in God's grace and strength to stand firm in challenging times, this message is for you.– Dr. Mark Rutland Chapters (00:00:03) - The Leaders Notebook(00:00:26) - Congratulations! Travis Rutland Launches a Podcast(00:01:58) - The Early Epistles(00:03:52) - Book of Romans(00:10:51) - The Book of Romans(00:18:32) - All the Divisions of the World(00:19:38) - Paul wrote the Book of Romans(00:28:28) - The Leader's Notebook

Last time we spoke about the second phase of the One Hundred Regiment Offensive.  During the second phase of the Hundred Regiments offensive, CCP forces emphasized strongpoint and transportation warfare across the Taihang/Jizhong area. Units were organized with wings containing Japanese positions while a central force struck deeper, as in the Renhe Dasu fighting in early October 1940. Night raids seized strongholds, while engineers and sabotage teams disrupted roads, bridges, and mobility, and ambushes targeted Japanese foraging and supply routes. Across these theaters, the strategy was consistent: make Japanese control porous by destroying or capturing local nodes and forcing constant repairs, re-routing, escorts, and slowed reinforcement, so occupation logistics and strongpoint networks could not function reliably. This approach supported wider offensives by isolating strongpoints, draining enemy strength, and giving Communist base areas room to endure and expand.   #204 The One Hundred Regiment Offensive Phase Three Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. After the two large-scale offensives carried out over wide areas of North China, the Japanese army did what it always did when control started to slip: it tried to turn mobile pressure back into something it could "manage" again. The Eighth Route Army's continued fighting had shown that Japanese-occupied space was not secure, and that base areas could still resist, strike, and persist even while under counterpressure. That was dangerous for occupation. If the enemy could keep operations going, Japanese lines of movement stayed uncertain and "stabilization" became a temporary illusion. To prevent the situation from worsening and to re-stabilize the occupied areas as quickly as possible, the Japanese mobilized heavy forces and launched retaliatory counter–"mopping-up" operations against anti-Japanese base areas in North China beginning October 6. The Japanese attempt wasn't only to punish; it was designed to take advantage of an asymmetry: the Eighth Route Army was striking and fighting continuously, and it did not have the luxury of resting, replenishing, and re-cohering as neatly as a garrison army might. Japanese commanders hoped that if they struck hard enough in enough places, the Communist main forces could be isolated, destroyed, or at least forced into a defensive posture that would break their operational tempo. At Liaodong and Yulin, Japanese reinforcements also created a second political-military stake. After the Yuliao Campaign ended, the Eighth Route Army headquarters issued instructions on October 1 to major regions, warning that enemy reinforcements in Liaodong and Yulin might use the opening to "sweep" the Taibei region. In the Communist operational mind, this wasn't just one threat; it was a pattern. A "sweep" could come as a wave that pushed inward, burned villages, destroyed supplies, and tried to force Communist forces out of their protected networks. Even if the offensive couldn't win a conventional decisive battle, it could aim to strip the base areas of people, food, and mobility—things that make guerrilla and strongpoint warfare possible. By October 19, 1940, the Eighth Route Army headquarters issued a counter–"mopping-up" operation plan, and civilian and military authorities in various regions launched counter-"mopping-up" operations accordingly. This is important background: in these campaigns, "mopping-up" was not only an army activity. The Japanese were attempting to break the base system itself—its logistics, its local administration, and the relationship between armed units and civilians who hid, moved, fed, and replaced them. So the counter-operations had to be just as systemic. The Communists needed to keep people alive, keep movement possible, and keep the enemy from consolidating inside a cleared space. In southeastern Shanxi's Taihang and Taiyue regions, the Japanese 1st Army aimed to strike the main force of the 129th Division and destroy anti-Japanese base areas by running a series of mopping operations from October 6 to December 5. The plan had a typical occupation logic: push through strongholds gradually, clear pockets methodically, and rely on local superiority—especially in manpower, logistics, and the ability to reinforce by road. And because the Communist main force had been operating without meaningful rest after the earlier offensives, the Japanese believed they could catch formations while they were still "in between battles." On October 6, in the Taihang region, more than 800 enemy troops from Wu'an in western Hebei began a "mopping-up" operation in the Yangyi area. By October 11, the Japanese posture escalated. Part of the Japanese Independent Mixed 4th Brigade departed from Liaoxian and Wuxiang, while part of the 36th Division departed from Lucheng and Xiangyuan; together they totaled over 3,000 troops. Coordinating from north and south, they carried out operations to "mop up" both banks of the Zhuozhang River between Yulin, Liaoxian, and Wuxiang, encircling and clearing the south side of the Yulin–Liaoxian highway. This emphasis on riverbanks and highway corridors reveals the Japanese method: move along terrain that controls movement, then compress enemy options until the defenders have to fight inside a narrowing space. The counter to that method required more than bravery. The Eighth Route Army's 385th and 386th Brigades, along with the 1st Column of the Decisive Battle, fought on inner lines—where they could move more rapidly between known local positions and threaten the enemy's flanks or supply behavior. Meanwhile the New 10th Brigade fought on outer lines, where it could intercept, delay, and force the enemy to spend time reacting instead of clearing. By the morning of October 15, the New 10th Brigade delivered a concrete example of that interception strategy. Two regiments ambushed an enemy motor-transport convoy at Gongjiagou on the Heliao Highway, destroying more than 40 vehicles and annihilating more than 100 Japanese soldiers escorting the convoy. The meaning of a convoy ambush is strategic even when the numbers are modest: vehicles represent speed, logistics, and reinforcement. If the enemy loses vehicles repeatedly, "mopping" becomes slower, and slower clearing creates openings for the defenders to reorganize, disperse, or shift main effort. After that, on October 17, the enemy forces that had been mopping up the convoy withdrew in different directions. Withdrawal in multiple directions is a sign that the Japanese clearing operation, meant to compress a space, had instead been forced into a reactive mode. It also hints at a recurring pattern in these years: Japanese units could clear what was already weak, but when defenders hit their movement corridors, the occupiers had to spend time and combat power simply to recover mobility. The next major sweep began October 20, 1940, and it was much larger. Nearly 10,000 troops—from the 36th Division and Independent Mixed Brigade No. 4—set off from multiple locations, including Wu'an, Liaoxian, Wuxiang, and Lucheng, to sweep the area east and west of the Qingzhang River, focusing on land between Matian and Zuohui. Crucially, that was not random ground. The Japanese sought to strike the CCP Central Committee Northern Bureau, the Eighth Route Army headquarters, and the 129th Division headquarters, along with party and government organs of the Jin-Ji-Yu Border Region, located together with Shexian and Piancheng. In other words, the Japanese targeted not just armed units but the political-administrative heart that makes base areas function. Once in the attack area, the Japanese carried out "mopping-up" operations paired with burning and killing for several days. That brutality wasn't only cruelty; it served a purpose. Burning villages, destroying crops, and killing civilians could deny the base area food and shelter while making local cooperation more difficult. Then, on October 26, the Japanese began to withdraw and carried out mopping-up in different areas on the way back. The base area was "severely damaged and destroyed," indicating that even when the Japanese didn't annihilate the main Communist force, they could still achieve degradation—hurting the system they needed to keep operating. But the Communists were not simply absorbing damage. On October 29, a force of over 500 men from the 36th Division, plus over 400 supply and laborers, was mopping up Huangyandong and advanced through Zuohui to Guanjia'nao east of Panlong, preparing to return to Wuxiang. This is where counter-mopping becomes operationally dangerous for the occupier. Supply and labor detachments move differently from combat formations, and they represent an enemy's assumption that the base area is being "cleared." The Eighth Route Army headquarters ordered, at 1:00 p.m., for the 129th Division to concentrate its main force to annihilate the enemy. That night, the 129th Division—uniting the main forces of the 385th and 386th Brigades, parts of the New 10th Brigade, and the First Column of the Death Squad—surrounded the enemy at Guanjia'nao with a plan to launch a general offensive at 4:00 a.m. The besieged enemy, besides quickly building fortifications, seized Fengkengding high ground southwest of Guanjia'nao under cover of darkness. The two high points helped defenders support one another and resist stubbornly. The battle lasted until dawn on October 31, when most of the enemy had been annihilated, leaving only more than 60 men to hold positions. Then reinforcements arrived—over 1,500 from Huangyandong—supported by more than 10 aircraft. The 129th Division withdrew, and the remaining enemy fled toward the flood, leaving behind more than 280 corpses. By then, most Japanese troops had withdrawn from the central base area. The background stake is clear: "mopping-up" could damage and burn, but if defenders could convert the Japanese attempt into a trap—especially when enemy units had become separated from their core and committed to clearing—they could turn a destructive operation into a costly one for the occupier. In early November, the Japanese continued. In Licheng south of Taihang, Japanese forces invaded Nanweiquan and Beiweiquan and then Xijing. Elsewhere, Japanese forces in Xiangyuan invaded Panlong via Xiying, attempting to attack Dongtian and the area around Zhuanbi, where the Eighth Route Army headquarters was located. In that moment, the 386th Brigade was ordered to rush to the north–south line of Damocun, east of Panlong, block the invading enemy, and cover the transfer of the Eighth Route Army headquarters. At 9:00 a.m. on November 3, 1940, fierce fighting broke out as the troops finished deploying near Damocun. The Japanese launched continuous attacks and captured some positions. The 386th Brigade held until 4:00 a.m. on November 4, then withdrew after the headquarters successfully moved. The Japanese attempt to launch a pincer attack failed, and they retreated to the Baijin Line on November 5. Even when Japanese action couldn't be fully blocked, the counter's aim was not only tactical survival but prevention of strategic encirclement—protecting the central institutions and preserving the ability to fight again. In the northern Taihang region, more than 2,500 enemy troops from Heshun arrived in Yushe on November 3 via Hanwang Town and Changcheng Town, reinforcing Japanese forces in the Yu, Liao, and Wu areas. Then they carried out repeated mopping operations south of the Yuliao Highway, including Jiangtang, Lingshang, Songjiazhuang, Guojiao, and Dayouyi. Harassment and attacks by military and civilians forced Japanese troops back into their strongholds by the 13th. A "40-day" counter-mopping operation in Taihang came to an end. The term "40-day" isn't only calendar time; it suggests that these were not one-off battles but sustained campaigns of movement, dispersal, and repeated harassment meant to drain the enemy's capacity. Starting November 17, the Japanese launched a multi-pronged attack on Qinyuan and the area north of Guodao Town. The attack involved part of the 37th Division from Qin County and Nanguan Town, part of the Independent Mixed Brigade from Pingyao, Jiexiu, and Huo County, and a battalion of the 41st Division from Hongdong—more than 7,000 troops deployed to attack Qinyuan and the north area. But the Taiyue Military Region response shows how the Communist counter-mopping wasn't always to meet force with force. To avoid the enemy's "sharp edge," the Taiyue Military Region formed two detachments—Qin East and Qin West—with leadership and main force moving to both sides of the Qin River outside the Japanese attack zone, targeting scattered Japanese troops instead of being fixed into a single killing field. By November 23, due to harassment by local armed forces, the Japanese reached the attack zone and then carried out dispersed mopping operations. Qinyuan County was the most severely damaged, with more than 5,000 people killed (about one-tenth of its population), nearly 10,000 livestock killed and over 7,000 stolen, and 30,000 to 40,000 houses destroyed. Those details are brutal, but they explain why background stakes mattered: "mopping-up" was meant to break the social base. If civilians died or fled, the guerrilla system became harder to sustain. The response from the Dayue Military Region seized the opportunity created by Japanese dispersal. On November 23, the 42nd Regiment of the Qinxi Detachment annihilated more than 100 Japanese soldiers in Guantan. On November 27, parts of the 42nd and 59th Regiments killed or wounded more than 160 in Huhanping and Mabei. The Qindong Detachment's 17th and 57th Regiments inflicted serious damage in a series of places—Guang'ao, Chenjiagou, Longfosi, Wuyuanzhen, Nanweicun, Nanli, and more. The 17th Regiment's battle at Longfosi annihilated more than 100 Japanese. Additional heavy losses were inflicted by the 212th Brigade in Jiaokou. By December 5, the Japanese were forced to withdraw from the Taiyue area in separate routes. Strategically, dispersal punished the occupier because scattered units are harder to protect and easier to ambush. Across the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region, anti-"mopping-up" operations unfolded gradually, beginning with the Pingxi area, the first target of the Japanese on the path toward the Japanese-held headquarters and rail lines. Pingxi mattered because it directly threatened the headquarters of the Japanese North China Area Army and Beiping—the puppet regime's center—and also threatened the Pinghan and Pingsui railways, North China's main transportation lines. So Pingxi became an operational priority: if the occupier couldn't keep the rail network secure, their ability to reinforce and supply their own strongpoints suffered. On October 13, 1940, more than 10,000 Japanese and puppet troops attacked Sanpo, the central area of the Pingxi base area, in 10 routes. This attack used a methodical, steady approach: advance gradually, rely on strongholds, and cover 5 to 10 kilometers each day. In response, the Pingxi Military Sub-district countered using timely maneuvers of its main forces and extensive guerrilla warfare. Over more than a week of fighting, the enemy was constantly harassed and attacked, wearing them down. Although Japanese troops penetrated deep, they failed to identify the main force's movements. By November 21, when the encirclement tightened further, the Pingxi main force jumped out from the Sanpo area and moved southwest. Encountering the enemy at Pengtou, it then moved to the Yegu and Datai line east of Bancheng. After the Japanese entered the Sanpo area, they conducted widespread burning and killing and looted grain. Starting from the 23rd, the Japanese retreated in different routes. By the end of October, the main force had withdrawn from Pingxi, but more than 2,000 troops remained in the Pingxi anti-Japanese base area to build strongholds and roads. Strongholds were added in places like Changping and Wanping—14 strongholds alone—and villages such as Dongzhaitang and Dujiazhuang came under their control. The base area began to shrink and shrink. That shrinkage is the other background stake: even when guerrilla forces avoid annihilation, the occupier may still carve away space through fortification. On October 19, 1940, the Eighth Route Army headquarters instructed that enemy attacks in Pingxi and Taihang might turn around and attack the Beiyue area. The Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region needed to prepare quickly to crush these "mopping-up" operations, coordinating Party, government, military, and civilians and conducting in-depth combat mobilization. The main force should assemble in appropriate positions and prepare to annihilate one or two enemy forces decisively. The headquarters also instructed the 129th and 120th Divisions to cooperate actively. By November 9, 1940, the Japanese struck again in a massive sweep. The 110th Division, along with other units and more than 14,000 puppet troops, launched a "mopping-up" operation in the jurisdiction of the 1st Military Sub-district. The Japanese and puppet troops moved in coordinated lines: along the line of Yi County, Dalonghua, Wang'an Town, Laiyuan, and Chajianling from north to south, while those in Baoding and Mancheng moved east to west. The intent was to squeeze Communist sub-district forces into a narrow area for a decisive battle. On November 10, the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region issued operational guidelines and deployments for countering "mopping-up" operations. By the 12th, in response to Japanese widespread burning and killing, it further instructed that without hindering mobility, the main force could disperse a portion of troops—no more than one-third—to strike resolutely at attempts to burn and kill. That instruction captures the balance commanders tried to strike: disperse too much and you lose power; disperse too little and you become trapped by the occupier's brutality. The Japanese then attempted to pressure multiple places. On November 9, more than 6,000 enemy troops from Laiyuan, Yixian, and Baoding attacked Guantou, Yinfang, Huangtuling, and Shenbei. On the 12th, their attack failed; they burned and killed people before retreating in different routes. At that time, the 1st Military Sub-district assembled the 1st and 25th Regiments to intercept them. One enemy force of more than 800 was intercepted on the 14th as it retreated from Wujiazhuang to Yuangang; some were killed or wounded. Even so, the enemy broke through under aircraft cover and retreated to Guantou. On the way, it was intercepted again by the 20th Regiment, suffering heavy casualties, and it fled back to Mancheng. Then on November 13, more than 2,700 Japanese and puppet troops attacked the 3rd Military Sub-district; on November 14, about 2,600 advanced from Dingxiang, Dongye, and Wutai toward Fuping and its southwest area in two routes. The Japanese attacked with east-west coordination, launching joint attacks on Taiyu north of Fuping. The Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region headquarters and the command organs of the 3rd and 5th military sub-districts, along with the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th regiments and other troops, transferred to the outer line before the enemy encirclement formed. On the 16th, the Japanese launched a joint attack again on Taiyu and Zhangjiayu, and the guerrillas who failed to transfer fought hard. Commander Wang Pu and Deputy Director of the Political Department Hao Yuming were killed, and troops suffered more than 100 casualties. On November 18, the enemy from Taiyu quickly occupied Hanping City. By the 21st, enemy forces from Daying via Shentangbao and Wuwangkou, and from Wutai via Taihuai, Shizui, Longquanguan, and Xiaguan, also gathered in Fuping City. After occupying Fuping, the Japanese launched repeated attacks "sweeping" areas under the jurisdiction of the 3rd Military Sub-district from both inward and outward strongholds, conducting brutal burning and killing and destruction. On the night of November 21, the 2nd Regiment dispatched more than 30 men to raid Dangcheng and attack Japanese barracks with grenades. The Japanese panicked and fired guns and cannons all night. On the 26th, four plainclothes officers infiltrated Baoding and attacked a theater where the Japanese army was holding a meeting, causing panic among the Japanese. The enemy that had invaded the base area withdrew in different routes on the 25th. By December 3, 1940, most Japanese troops had withdrawn from the Beiyue area, but more than 1,000 remained along lines including Fuping, Wangkuai, Dangcheng, and Quyang to continue building points and roads in an attempt to occupy the area long-term. To force the enemy back, eliminate occupied points, and completely crush Japanese and puppet "mopping-up," the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region organized the Fuping–Wangkuai Campaign starting December 9, with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th regiments participating. At 21:00 on December 14, the 6th Regiment attacked enemy forces in Dongzhuang. The 1st Battalion captured three fortified positions on the north mountain of Dongzhuang and rushed into the village, only for Japanese counterattacks to recapture fortified positions and kill or wound more than 170 Japanese during the counterfight. The 4th Regiment attacked the enemy in Fuping; the 2nd Regiment and guerrilla forces entered Dangcheng and Lingshan. On the 21st, more than 130 enemy soldiers escorting more than 100 pack animals carrying military supplies reached Wangkuai and were completely annihilated when they reached Wanglinkou. By December 26, an ambush in the Xuancun area of the Pinghan Railway destroyed 14 Japanese trains and their vehicles as well as three heavy artillery pieces. On the 27th, more than 1,200 enemy troops advancing from Dongzhuang in Fuping were attacked in Luoyu and Tumen, suffering more than 140 casualties. The remaining Japanese withdrew from Fuping, Dongzhuang, and Wangkuai starting New Year's Day 1941. By January 4, the 55-day anti-"mopping-up" campaign had basically ended, with the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region killing and wounding more than 2,000 Japanese and puppet troops while suffering 1,382 casualties itself. These numbers and dates show why background and stakes matter: the counter-mopping effort wasn't short. It was sustained, operationally demanding, and required continued offensive action even while facing superior Japanese resources. The pressure didn't end there. From October 25 to early November, about 4,000 Japanese troops, including the 16th Independent Mixed Brigade, launched a mopping operation in the Miyu and Loufan areas of the 8th and 3rd military sub-districts in northwestern Shanxi, but they were attacked by local soldiers and civilians. In mid-December, Japanese forces transferred additional strength: parts of the 37th Division from southern Shanxi and the 41st Division from southeastern Shanxi, along with parts of the 3rd, 9th, and 16th Independent Mixed Brigades and the 26th Division from northwestern Shanxi—totaling more than 20,000 troops—to prepare for a full-scale mopping operation in northwestern Shanxi. After the second phase of the Hundred Regiments Offensive ended, the 120th Division anticipated retaliation and actively prepared for counter-mopping. On October 30, the division was ordered to establish the Jin-Northwest Military Region, and on November 7, the military region was established in Lijiawan, Xing County. The Jin-Northwest Military Region had direct military sub-districts and six military sub-districts: the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 8th, and Yanbei. Then the occupier escalated. Starting December 14, 1940, the Japanese launched a full-scale mopping operation against the Jin-Northwest region. More than 5,000 enemy troops invaded the Mi-Yu Town area of the 8th Military Sub-district, more than 4,000 invaded Lin-Xian, and more than 6,000 attacked Xing-Xian and the area south of Bao-De from strongholds such as Lan-Xian and Qi-Lan. By December 23, Japanese forces had occupied all county towns, most market towns, and Yellow River crossings in the Jin-Northwest region except for Bao-De and He-Qu counties, and began to implement a systematic policy commonly described as the "Three Alls" policy. The "Three Alls" emphasis is the clearest expression of stakes turning lethal. Japanese troops and traitors disguised themselves as the Eighth Route Army to lure and kill masses. They sent out core detachments to attack and repeatedly sweep the area, seeking to annihilate party, government, and military leadership organs—focusing on destroying the rear organs and facilities that made Communist endurance possible. According to incomplete statistics, more than 5,000 people were brutally killed during these sweeps. In Xingxian County alone, 150,000 catties of grain were looted and burned; in the 4th Military Sub-district, more than 5,000 head of livestock were looted and killed; and more than 19,000 houses and cave dwellings were burned down. In the early stage of this anti-mopping campaign, the Jin-Sui Military Region mainly used a portion of its forces to cooperate with local troops and guerrillas in widespread guerrilla warfare. They harassed and contained the attacking enemy, disrupted enemy transportation, and covered the transfer of the masses. The main force avoided the enemy's sharp edge and moved to the outer line to seek opportunities to attack the Japanese army. This describes the classic guerrilla operational pattern: avoid being fixed into a single decisive trap, but create enough friction that enemy operations degrade into a struggle they can't sustain. repeated attacks and ambushes during the mopping period across Miyu Town and other areas—units striking repeatedly, destroying roads, cutting off enemy transportation, and attacking enemy strongholds north of Dawu. To thwart the Japanese army's plans to build roads and fortifications—plans that would make future sweeps easier—the Jin-Sui Military Region instructed, on December 27, all sub-districts to mobilize forces to disrupt Japanese road construction and fortification. The 358th Brigade attacked enemy road construction from Lanxian to Dashetou and from Puming to Chijianling; the Independent 1st Brigade sabotaged the Dawu–Linxian highway; and the 4th Column of the Death Squad sabotaged the Dawu–Fangshan highway. Part of the Independent 1st Brigade's 2nd Regiment organized over 2,000 civilians to sabotage the Dawu–Sanjiao highway twice, forcing the enemy in Linxian to detour through Fangshan to contact Lishi. The Lishi guerrillas led civilians in two sabotage attacks on the Lishi–Jundu highway, destroying over 30 "li" of road. Other units attacked strongholds along key highways and destroyed or disrupted the "maintenance committees" that surrounded newly built enemy strongholds. There were also direct raids—storming into Linxian County and capturing representatives of enemy maintenance organizations. Meanwhile, the Workers' and Patriots' Brigade carried out continuous sabotage on the Taifen Highway. As the enemy plans ran into persistent disruption, Japanese and puppet forces began to retreat in different routes starting January 2, 1941, and by January 24 they returned to their original strongholds. The Jin-Sui winter counter-mopping operation lasted 40 days, annihilated more than 2,500 enemy troops, destroyed 125 kilometers of roads and 23 bridges, and recovered all towns occupied by the enemy during the campaign. Here the stakes show through most clearly: the campaign was not merely about killing enemy troops. It was about preventing the occupier from building a durable, road-connected grid that would allow future sweeps to be faster, larger, and more decisive. At the wider campaign level, the Eighth Route Army also recorded its total effects from August 20 to December 5, covering roughly three and a half months. During that period, the Eighth Route Army fought 1,824 battles of varying sizes, killing or wounding 20,645 Japanese soldiers (including senior officers), killing or wounding 5,155 puppet troops, and capturing 281 Japanese soldiers and 18,407 puppet troops. 47 Japanese soldiers surrendered voluntarily, and 1,845 puppet troops defected, totaling 46,380 people. The Communists captured 5,942 guns and 53 artillery pieces, and destroyed extensive transportation infrastructure: 474 kilometers of railway, 1,502 kilometers of highway, 213 bridges, 37 railway stations, 11 tunnels, more than 217,000 rails, more than 1,549,000 sleepers, more than 109,000 telephone poles, and more than 424,000 kilograms of telephone wire. Five coal mines and 11 warehouses were destroyed. The narrative further adds that when including casualties of Japanese and puppet forces across related engagements—such as Fuwang and the anti–mopping operations in northwest Shanxi—the total number of casualties reached more than 50,880. Japanese statistics were also cited for damage assessment, noting destruction of track and bridges across key railways (Zhengtai, Tongpu, Pinghan), telegraph pole damage, power line cuts, and effects on coal production—such as the Jingxing New Mine being unable to produce coal for at least six months. These details underline a broader background stake: infrastructure damage was meant to weaken the occupier's ability to keep its occupation apparatus working, even after the direct battles ended. The price of that multi-month struggle was high for the Eighth Route Army as well. Over the three and a half months leading up to the Hundred Regiments Offensive, the Eighth Route Army suffered 17,000 casualties, and more than 20,000 were poisoned. During the Hundred Regiments Offensive itself, post-war statistics state that the 129th Division suffered 7,362 casualties and 450 missing persons, and the entire division suffered 7,812 casualties. When you connect these lines—offensive sabotage, counter-offensives, Japanese mopping-ups, and anti-mopping resistance—you see why this second wave of fighting mattered. It wasn't only about whether the Japanese could respond to the offensive. It was about whether both sides could sustain their operational logic: the Japanese trying to stabilize occupation through "mopping," and the Communists trying to preserve base systems through dispersal, harassment, and counter-moves that convert the occupier's clearing effort into something too costly to maintain. The background of the Hundred Regiments offensive, who authorized it, who planned it, and why, remains unclear. The Japanese response was so severe that, in retrospect, it appeared to some as if the offensive had been a mistake. Some leaders, especially Mao, may have wanted to disavow it. Indirect hints in Mao's writings in subsequent months and years suggest he may have viewed it critically or harbored misgivings from the start. It was not the kind of strategy Mao preferred. More than twenty years later, during the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards charged that Mao had not even known of the plan in advance because of Peng Dehuai's alleged duplicity, at the time, Peng was being denounced. While this seems unlikely, it may contain some substance. In his own defense against these charges, Peng stated that after the 8RA headquarters—located not in Yan'an but in Jin-Cha-Ji—planned the operation, it sent mobilization orders downward to each regional command and also notified the Central Military Affairs Commission headed by Mao. In the original plan, the action would begin in early September. But, Peng wrote, to prevent enemy discovery and to ensure simultaneous surprise assaults—thereby inflicting an even greater blow to the enemy and the puppets—they began about ten days earlier than scheduled, during the last week of August. "So we did not wait for approval from the Military Affairs Commission (this was wrong), but went right into combat earlier than planned." There is also the issue of the "spontaneous" participation of more than eighty regiments without authorization from the Eighth Route Army headquarters, and not from Yan'an as well. If Peng Dehuai's account is accepted (written in 1970, shortly before his death), then Mao and Party Central had no role in conceiving or planning the Hundred Regiments campaign. In that case, the "grand strategy" motivations for undertaking it largely vanish—except perhaps insofar as they were considered by Peng and his colleagues. One alleged motive was to counter any tendency toward capitulation by Chiang Kai-shek and the Chongqing regime: if the war heated up and the CCP threw itself into fighting, any accommodation between Chiang and Japan would look like cowardly surrender. A related consideration was the Communist leadership's sensitivity to the charge that they were simply exploiting the war to expand their influence—avoiding Japanese combat while letting KMT armies bear the real burden of fighting. The Nationalists gave major publicity to the accusation that CCP policy devoted 70 percent of effort to expansion, 20 percent to coping with the KMT, and only 10 percent to opposing Japan. A third suggested motive was to divert attention from the New Fourth Army's offensives against Nationalist forces in Central China, which were peaking around the same time. Peng Dehuai acknowledged the campaign was "too protracted," yet he defended its importance in maintaining the CCP's anti-Japanese image in the wake of anti-friction conflicts, in demonstrating the failure of the cage-and-silkworm policy, in returning at least twenty-six county seats to base control, and in keeping "wavering" elements in line. Even if these reasons mattered less than regional and tactical calculations in launching the campaign, they could always be used for propaganda afterward. Whatever misgivings Mao and Party Central may have had, the Party kept them to itself. Mao radioed congratulations to Peng after his victory, and in public statements the Hundred Regiments were turned into legend. Even if the Hundred Regiments campaign aimed to defeat Japanese pacification efforts, it did not succeed in a decisive way. Shocked and stung by the 8RA's action, the North China Area Army intensified its efforts to bring North China under tighter control. Under General Tada and then his successor, General Okamura Yasuji (July 1941–November 1944), the Japanese inflicted brutal, sustained violence against all North China bases. Between 1941 and 1944, about 150,000 Japanese troops were assigned full-time to pacification duty, supported by roughly 100,000 Chinese auxiliaries of widely varying description and effectiveness. The remainder of the NCAA (about 150,000–200,000 men) was assigned to other tasks such as garrisoning major cities and containing Nationalist forces. Communist regulars were estimated at around 250,000 within base areas and 40,000 in SKN. The Japanese and their Chinese auxiliaries invested even more heavily than before in constructing moats, ditches, palisades, and blockhouses. Japanese sources claimed that by 1942 their forces had built 11,860 kilometers of blockade line and 7,700 fortified posts, mostly in the Hebei plains and the foothills of the Taihang mountains. A massive trench ran for 500 kilometers along the western side of the Pinghan railway line, with a depopulated and constantly patrolled zone on either side. The 250 Japanese outposts established in southern Hebei by December 1940 were more than quadrupled by mid-1942. These became the key means of controlling plains areas; by the end of 1941, all Communist bases in such terrain had been reduced to guerrilla status. Many main force units—such as those under Liu Cheng'ao and Yang Xiufeng—were compelled to move westward into mountains to survive. What distinguished the new Tada–Okamura approach from earlier tactics was the much larger and more protracted search-and-destroy thrust into the core mountain-base areas. They also replaced selective repression with indiscriminate, generalized violence. These infamous "Three-All" mop-up campaigns meant: kill all, burn all, loot all. Unable to distinguish ordinary peasants from Communists, the Japanese waged war on everyone. After attempting to seal off major consolidated regions in the base areas, they sent in very large detachments to search for Communist forces, civilian cadres, and activists. They also tried to destroy base facilities and war material stockpiles; to disrupt agriculture by burning crops or interfering with planting and harvesting; and to seize grain stores. Entire villages were razed, and everything alive found there was killed. Unlike earlier mop-ups that swept through an area and then departed, these campaigns left troops in the targeted zones for extended periods, "combing" the area back and forth and building at least temporary strongpoints in more accessible parts of mountain bases. These mop-up operations took a heavy and painful toll on rural populations. No doubt the harsh tactics and atrocities frequently committed during these actions did cause many peasants, rich and poor alike, to harbor deep hatred of the Japanese and to commit more fully to the Communist side. But intra-party sources also portray cases in which repression worked even more effectively than earlier attempts to drive a wedge between party and peasantry. As one internal assessment put it: If we only stress concealment… we are bound to be divorced from the masses. The morale of the masses cannot be sustained for long either. On the other hand, if we only seek fleeting gratification in careless fighting, we may also invite still more cruel enemy suppression. That will also alienate the masses. Communist spokesmen acknowledged that, in North China base areas, the population under Party control fell from 44 million to 25 million, while the Eighth Route Army declined from 400,000 to 300,000. Local records present an even grimmer picture. By 1942, 90 percent of the plains bases had been reduced to guerrilla zones or outright enemy control. In the mountainous Taiyue district within the Jin-Cha-Lu-Yi base, one cadre admitted that "not a single county was kept intact and the government offices of all its twelve counties were exiled in Jin-yuan." All twenty-six county seats occupied following the Hundred Regiments fighting were lost. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Japan tried to regain control through retaliatory "mopping-up" operations starting in October 1940. In response, the Eighth Route Army and its commanders issued counter-measures: coordinate party, government, military, and civilians; keep mobility while dispersing forces when possible; and focus on annihilating incoming enemy units decisively. Counter-sweeps and anti-pacification actions continued through December, involving repeated ambushes and sabotage of roads, highways, and fortification efforts. 

May 30, 2026, 8 AM; Trump pulled off a clean sweep in Republican primary battles, driving out or sidelining candidates he deems insufficiently loyal. However, as Republicans look ahead to the general, Trump says the midterms are the least of his concerns amid negotiations with Iran. Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico's campaign says it raised $3M in just 24 hours after Ken Paxton's runoff victory. President and CEO of Voto Latino Maria Teresa Kumar and Dave Weigel join The Weekend to discuss the upcoming Texas Senate election in November. Rep. Jim Clyburn also joins The Weekend to discuss Republicans' redistricting campaign and offers some advice to the Democratic party. For more, follow us on social media: Bluesky: @theweekendmsnow.bsky.social Instagram: @theweekendmsnow TikTok: @theweekendmsnow To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION A proposed new ceasefire and nuclear agreement involving Iran is igniting fierce debate across conservative media and political circles. Tara and Lee break down reports of a possible 60-day extension deal between the United States and Iran, including concerns about sanctions relief, oil sales, military escalation, and the future of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. The episode explores: Claims that the proposed agreement goes beyond prior Obama-era terms Concerns over sanctions and blockade relief Iranian missile threats and regional tensions Debate over military strategy and deterrence Questions surrounding nuclear negotiations The political fallout inside the America First movement A heated discussion about war, diplomacy, and whether the U.S. is rewarding aggression or preventing a larger conflict. SHORT CLICKABLE TITLE OPTIONS Conservatives Turn on Trump Over Iran? Iran Deal Panic Explodes “This Deal Is Worse Than Obama's” Trump's Iran Ceasefire Under Fire Did Iran Just Win? America First Civil War? THUMBNAIL TEXT OPTIONS WORSE THAN OBAMA? IRAN WINS?! TRUMP UNDER FIRE SANCTIONS LIFTED? HUGE MIDDLE EAST GAMBLE THIS COULD BACKFIRE KEY TALKING POINTS Reports of a possible 60-day Iran ceasefire extension Debate over sanctions relief and oil exports Concerns about Iranian military activity U.S. foreign policy and deterrence strategy Comparisons to Obama-era nuclear agreements Discussion about military escalation risks Questions about nuclear enrichment and negotiations Concerns from conservative commentators America First movement divisions over Iran policy Potential geopolitical consequences in the Middle East SEO KEYWORDS Trump Iran deal, Iran ceasefire, Middle East tensions, nuclear negotiations, sanctions relief, Iran oil exports, foreign policy debate, America First, conservative commentary, Obama Iran deal, geopolitical tensions, military strategy, political podcast, Iran nuclear program, breaking political news YOUTUBE CHAPTERS 00:00 Iran Ceasefire Reports Surface 03:18 Why Conservatives Are Alarmed 07:46 Debate Over Sanctions Relief 12:04 Oil Sales & Military Concerns 16:35 Is This Worse Than Obama's Deal? 21:42 Iran's Recent Military Threats 26:19 America First Movement Divides 31:07 Questions About Nuclear Enforcement 36:54 The Risk of Escalation 41:20 What Happens Next? PODCAST TAGS politics, Trump, Iran, foreign policy, Middle East, nuclear deal, sanctions, America First, conservative podcast, breaking news, geopolitics, military strategy, international relations, political commentary, ceasefire FACEBOOK POST

Divisions inside the White House over AI regulation explain why Trump pulled a major executive order at the last minute. Playbook's Jack Blanchard and Dasha Burns talk about the competing factions and what comes next. Plus, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent takes his turn at the briefing room podium as new inflation data arrives. And Jill Biden's memoir is already stirring up Democratic frustration ahead of its release next week.

Last time we spoke about the New Fourth Army Incident. Across the Second Sino-Japanese War, the CCP entered after the setbacks of the 1930s, seeking to become a national leader in resistance while remaining cautious toward the Nationalist government. The 1936 Xi'an Incident reshaped politics, and by August 1937 KMT–CCP agreements defined a working arrangement: the CCP acknowledged KMT leadership and integrated its forces, while still pursuing political space and autonomy. As the war progressed, the CCP focused on defining its relationship with the KMT and keeping operational independence during cooperation. Mao Zedong managed this alliance by promoting a united front against Japan, yet protecting CCP revolutionary goals and internal control. The establishment of the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army marked this military reorganization. Throughout, the CCP feared that KMT collaboration with Japan could enable a peace settlement that would undermine communist legitimacy and restrict the party's future authority thereafter.   #202 The One Hundred Regiment Offensive Phase One Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Simultaneously with the friction between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Japanese were also working to take control of—and extract value from—most of the territory they had nominally conquered. Treating these two processes separately—"friction" on the one hand and "consolidation" on the other—does violence to the real difficulty of the CCP's dilemma: the Party often had to confront both problems at the same time. At certain moments, the CCP was effectively forced to wage a two-front struggle. Even so, if the worst of the KMT–CCP friction had already eased by 1941, the most serious and painful challenges posed by Japanese consolidation were still ahead. To recover anything close to reality, the two timelines have to be read together and placed on top of one another. The Japanese understood that consolidation could not be postponed, because much of the land behind the furthest reaches of their army was still only weakly under their actual control. In some places, order could be restored by relatively direct methods: rebuilding local administration and policy authority; repairing transportation and communications; enrolling Chinese personnel—usually, as it turned out, people of dubious reliability—as police or militia under puppet regimes; registering the local population; and requiring identity cards. In true old-style Chinese fashion, collective security practices were used widely. One form was the familiar bao-jia system, in one variant or another. Another was the so-called "railway-cherishing village": a village would be assigned a nearby stretch of track, and if residents failed to "cherish" it, they were held collectively responsible. Yet early Japanese weakness in northern China is vividly illustrated by an incident in the summer of 1938. Three young foreigners—vacationing from teaching in Peiping (Beijing)—were curious about events and about what people were doing. They loaded their bicycles on a southbound train, got off at Baoding, and rode west until they ran into Eighth Route Army detachments. In the early period of the war, commanders generally wanted to rely on more mobile forms of warfare. Mao, however, insisted on a strategy of de-escalation and dispersion: breaking the 8RA and New Fourth Army into small units as nuclei for combat, recruitment, political work, and base-area construction. Under this approach, few engagements could be truly dramatic in scale, and most were constrained by the need to survive. Each skirmish had to be carefully planned. The CCP would use local intelligence and the element of surprise so that a detachment could strike and withdraw before its limited ammunition ran out or before enemy reinforcements arrived. Small Japanese patrols and puppet units could be ambushed not only to seize weapons and other material, but also to inflict casualties. Active collaborators, or Japanese-sponsored administrative personnel, could be assassinated. Above all, Communist action aimed to disrupt transportation: mining roads; cutting down telegraph poles, stealing wire, and cutting rail lines; sabotaging rolling stock; and, at times, carrying off steel rails so that primitive arsenals could be supplied. Attempting derailments was also part of the effort. Destroying a bridge or a locomotive counted as a major achievement. Both the Communists and the Japanese understood that these tactics did not decisively shift the overall strategic balance. Still, they worked at other levels. For the Japanese, the result was a constant series of small wounds—painful, bleeding, and potentially infectious. Few areas in the countryside felt truly safe. Japanese field commanders documented growing frustration as they tried to eliminate resistance, restore administration, collect taxes, and prepare for more systematic and effective economic exploitation of conquered territory. Guerrilla warfare against the Japanese cannot be judged only in conventional battle terms—numbers of engagements, casualties, or territory occupied. It had to be evaluated politically and psychologically as well, exactly as Mao repeatedly emphasized. Since the CCP's wartime legitimacy depended on its patriotic claims, enough fighting had to be carried out to maintain credibility. Moreover, military success mattered for mobilizing the "basic masses," persuading wavering people to keep an open mind, and neutralizing opposition. As the logic put it, it was not that people always chose the side that was winning, but that few would ever join a side they believed was losing. One experienced cadre described the effect this way: Among the guerrilla units… there is a saying that "victory decides everything." No matter how hard it has been to recruit troops, supply the army, raise the masses' anti-Japanese fervor or win over the masses' sympathy, after a victory in battle the masses fall all over themselves to send us flour, steamed bread, meat, and vegetables. The masses' pessimistic and defeatist psychology is broken down, and many new guerrilla soldiers swarm in. But once the Japanese began to demand a heavy price for every engagement—whether the Communists won or not—this attitude began to change. In North and Central China, the Japanese earliest pacification sweeps created comparatively little trouble for the CCP. At first, the Japanese made few distinctions among Chinese forces. They simply tried to mop up or disperse them without regard to character. Over time, however, they realized that these sweeps actually made it easier for the CCP to expand. By the second half of 1939, Japanese methods became more discriminating. Chinese non-Communist forces would step aside while the Japanese hunted specifically for the 8RA, the N4A, and their local affiliates. The Japanese also made more direct appeals to non-Communist forces. According to Japanese army statistics, during the eighteen months from mid-1939 to late 1940, around 70,000 men from more or less regular Nationalist units in North China alone went over to the Japanese. The Japanese also reached informal "understandings" with several regional commanders whose forces together might have totaled as many as 300,000 men. This, of course, corresponded to what the CCP denounced as "crooked-line patriotism"—the "crooked-line" collaboration that preserved certain units so they could be used in future anti-Communist operations. When pacification efforts were intensified from late 1939 and throughout 1940, differences also appeared in the strategies Japanese armies used in North versus Central China. In North China, the approach relied heavily on military means, with political tactics limited largely to recruiting collaborators. In Central China, Japanese authorities did not hesitate to use military force, but they also attempted to supplement it with more comprehensive political and economic solutions by setting up tightly controlled "model peace zones." Although both approaches ultimately failed, they created enormous difficulties for Chinese Communists—until, in 1943, the Japanese were forced to ease off because the Pacific War against the United States became too burdensome. Careful reading of detailed intra-party documents suggests that repression also demobilized peasant support and terrorized populations into apathy, grudging acquiescence, or even active collaboration with the Japanese. In a locality already reduced from consolidated base status to guerrilla status, capacity and will were often too weak to administer complex reforms in systematic fashion. In other words, passive survival—defensive survival—was at least as important as what lay behind the heroic public images the Party projected. Systematic pacification in North China in late 1939 and 1940 radiated outward. It moved from areas held more or less firmly by the Japanese and their puppets into guerrilla and contested zones. The ultimate objective was to crush resistance or render it ineffective. The method was first to sweep the area clear of anti-Japanese elements, and then to establish a chain of interconnected strongpoints that could quickly reinforce one another. After that, puppet government would be expanded so it could take increasing responsibility for civil administration and "pacification maintenance," while Japanese forces repeated the initial steps further outward into contested territory. Violence was used selectively against individuals, groups, or villages accused of acts of resistance. This selective violence aimed to deter active participation in CCP-led programs, deprive Communist forces of a population willing to shelter them, and persuade informers to come forward. That was, at least, the theory of the strategy. In practice, the basic framework of the strategy depended on the main transport lines. Railways and roads—if properly fortified and protected—could separate resistance forces from one another and deny them one of their most effective weapons: mobility. These "cage" tactics (chiyu-lung, "jiu-lung") made it possible to enlarge pacified areas by "nibbling" outward, "as a silkworm feeds on mulberry leaves" (ts'an-shih). At the same time, the approach aimed to exploit North China's economy more effectively. To this end, the Japanese worked to improve and extend both railway and road networks. When the war began, in Shanxi the Cheng-Tai (Shijiazhuang–Taiyuan) and Tong-Pu (Datong–Tongguan) lines were metre-gauge, incompatible with the standard-gauge lines elsewhere in China—part of Yan Xishan's design to prevent deeper penetration into his province. By the end of 1939, the Japanese used forced labor to convert both lines to standard gauge. One benefit was the easier transportation of high-quality anthracite coal from the Qingxing mines (on the Cheng-Tai line) to industrial users in North China and Manchukuo. Of the newly constructed roads and railway lines, the most important was the Te-Shih line—from Dezhou in northeastern Shandong to Shijiazhuang. Construction began in June 1940 and finished in November, connecting the Tianjin–Pukou, Beiping–Hankou, and Cheng-Tai lines. This made it easier to move troops and transport raw cotton. Once the Te–Shih link was completed, the Japanese had direct connections between the point of their furthest advance at the elbow of the Yellow River and all major cities of North China, and beyond to Manchukuo. Communist sources began to speak of a "transportation war," noting with concern the moats and ditches, the blockhouses, and the frequent patrols protecting the lines. Both militarily and economically, these measures weighed heavily on forces led by the Communists in North China and on the populations under their control—especially the plains of central and eastern Hebei. One indicator of effectiveness was the rapid decline in "acts of sabotage" against North China railways in 1939 and the first half of 1940. A cadre in Jin-Cha-Ji reported in mid-1940: "The enemy has adopted a blockhouse policy, like that of the Jiangxi Soviet. They are spread like a constellation. In central Hebei alone, there are about 500, separated by one to three miles." Normal trading patterns were disrupted as Japanese or puppet occupiers took over administrative and commercial centers, and peasants found themselves caught between regulations imposed by the Communists on one side and those enforced by the other side. Finally, landlords, moneylenders, loafers, bandits—everyone who felt damaged by the new order inside base areas—could use pacification programs to try to recover influence or simply take revenge. Some became informers. After 8RA and local units were driven away, they could kill remaining cadres or activists and settle scores with the peasants who had supported them. Until the "first anti-Communist upsurge" was defeated, local elites and other disaffected elements might also seek support from Nationalists. It was even possible for an armed band to operate for several months inside consolidated regions of the CCP base, killing cadres as it went. Peng Dehuai later recalled this period in a way that underscored how pressure translated into wavering and collapse. Under the enemy's brutal pressure, in some districts the masses even hesitated or capitulated. From March to July 1940, large areas of the North China base were reduced to guerrilla regions. Before the "Cage-bursting battle",, they controlled only two county seats: Pingxun in the Taihang mountains and Pien-kuan in northwest Shanxi. Masses who previously had one set of obligations now had two—one toward the anti-Japanese regime and one toward the puppet regime. The situation in North China had not yet become a full crisis, but it was certainly serious. Action was needed to regain initiative. On 22 July 1940, Zhu De, Commander-in-Chief of the Eighth Route Army, Peng Dehuai Deputy Commander-in-Chief, and Zuo Quan Deputy Chief of Staff jointly issued the Preliminary Battle Order, laying out the strategic goals for the coming operation. The order stated: "To respond to the enemy's 'prison cage policy,' obstruct its advance toward Xi'an, create favorable conditions in the North China theater, and strike at the national resistance initiative, we have decided to take advantage of the concealment provided by tall summer millet and the rainy season to carry out a large-scale sabotage operation on the Shijiazhuang–Taiyuan railway (Zheng–Tai Line)." It required the participation of at least 22 regiments from the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region, the 129th Division, and the 120th Division. The main objective was to "completely destroy key points along the Zheng–Tai Line" and to "cut the railway for a prolonged period." On 8 August, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army issued the Operational Battle Order, further clarifying how forces would be deployed. The Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region was assigned to attack the eastern section of the Zheng–Tai Railway (from Niangzi Pass to Shijiazhuang). The 129th Division was assigned the western section (from Niangzi Pass to Yuci). The 120th Division was tasked with targeting the northern segment of the Tongpu Railway and the Fen–Li Highway. The order also required all troops to begin combat operations on 20 August, and emphasized that "the success of the campaign should be assessed primarily by the extent of damage inflicted on the Zheng–Tai Line." The operation was prepared under strict secrecy. Various elements of the Eighth Route Army conducted thorough preparations before the campaign. Reconnaissance teams, hidden and protected with the help of local villagers, penetrated deep into areas near the Shijiazhuang–Taiyuan railway to carefully map Japanese strongholds, enemy troop dispositions, and local terrain. At the same time, both military and civilian communities mobilized to stockpile grain, ammunition, and tools needed for railway sabotage; blacksmiths were organized to manufacture crowbars, pickaxes, and other essential equipment. Specialized military training covered demolition methods and techniques for dismantling railways, including tactics such as heating and bending steel rails. Civilian mobilization played a crucial role: militia and support teams took on tasks such as transport, medical aid, and coordination with military units. In Central Shanxi alone, more than 10,000 militia members were mobilized. The Eighth Route Army headquarters repeatedly stressed the need for operational confidentiality, stating: "Before the battle begins, the plan must remain strictly classified; until preparations are completed, the campaign objective may be disclosed only to brigade-level commanders." With the cover of dense summer millet, troops secretly assembled within their designated operational areas. Before the battle, the Japanese North China Area Army estimated the strength of the communist regular forces at about 88,000 men in December 1939. Two years later, they revised the estimate to 140,000. On the eve of the battle, communist forces had grown to between 200,000 and 400,000 men, organized in 105 regiments. By 1940, the growth had become so significant that Zhu De ordered a coordinated offensive by most of the communist regular units—46 regiments from the 115th Division, 47 from the 129th, and 22 from the 120th—against Japanese-held cities and the railway lines that connected them. According to the Communist Party's official statement, the battle began on 20 August.  On August 20, 1940, the rain didn't stop the campaign—it changed the battlefield. It slowed movement, blurred distance, and turned rivers and muddy roads into obstacles that could just as easily trap your own men as your enemy's. Along the districts bordering the Zhengtai Railway, the Eighth Route Army still moved, slipping through valleys and river crossings, bypassing Japanese posts, and positioning forces on both sides of the line as night settled in. By dark, the plan became a coordinated strike meant to hit the enemy before they could properly react. Across the entire Zhengtai Railway, attacks went out with timing designed to disorient Japanese defenders—so that their "first realization" arrived only after the railway itself was already being attacked and the window to respond effectively had slipped away.   A key portion of that strike fell to the right column of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region, centered on the 5th and 19th Regiments, with the mission of sabotaging the Niangziguan to Luanliu section. At 20:00 on August 20, part of the 5th Regiment infiltrated Niangziguan Village for the first time, overwhelmed the puppet troops stationed there, and seized the village by dawn. After that opening cut, the main force moved in to cover the engineers, destroy enemy fortifications, and blow up the Guandong Railway Bridge. When the sabotage was done, they withdrew from Niangziguan on their own initiative, leaving the enemy to deal with the destruction rather than being pulled into a long, grinding engagement.   That same night, at Mohe Beach along the Zhengtai line, another action unfolded. The 1st Company of the 1st Battalion of the 5th Regiment attacked the station and was immediately met with a counterattack by Japanese forces. By dawn on August 21, the company withdrew—an adjustment, not defeat—and then attacked again the same night after crossing the Mian River. This time the enemy retreated into barracks to resist more stubbornly, with nearly 1,000 Japanese troops holding Mohe Beach. Heavy rain had swollen the river and made foot crossing nearly impossible, but the attackers seized the village west of the station and held it. On August 22 afternoon, more than 400 Japanese troops counterattacked; the main force of the 5th Regiment hit from the north bank of the Mian River in a fire assault, killing more than 50 before withdrawing the 1st Company out of the fighting. The 19th Regiment, meanwhile, took Jucheng and Irrang stations, tightening the pressure on the railway corridor.   On August 23, 1940, the 5th Regiment recaptured Niangziguan and blew up the stone bridge east of the village, destroying the railway segment between Chengjialongdi and Mohetan. That night the 19th Regiment stormed Yirang Station and blew up the water tower and the railway, ensuring the disruption would not be temporary. From August 24 to 27, bridges near Yanhui—stone and wooden—were destroyed again and again. Under that continuous pressure, beginning on August 25, Japanese transportation along the Niangziguan to Luanliu section of the Zhengtai Road was cut off completely. Strongholds were left to fight more or less alone, unable to coordinate or move supplies the way they normally would.   While the right column worked the railway, other forces hit the system from different angles. The Central Column of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region—comprised of the 2nd, 3rd, and 16th Regiments—took responsibility for sabotaging the Zhengtai Road segment from Niangziguan to Weishui and for striking the Jingxing Coal Mine area. On the night of August 20, the 3rd Regiment launched coordinated attacks on the Gangtou old mine and the Dongwangshe new mine of Jingxing, and with miners assisting, the 1st Battalion quickly stormed the new mine and annihilated part of the enemy garrison. The rest withdrew into bunkers, resisting as best they could. By the afternoon of the next day, the entire enemy force had been wiped out. Afterward, major buildings in the mining area were destroyed and most materials were removed so that the mine could not resume production for more than six months. The 3rd Regiment also captured Jiazhuang, reinforcing the idea that sabotage here meant disabling not just lines of movement, but also the flow of resources.   Elsewhere, Japanese positions were disrupted in smaller, targeted strikes that still added up. After the Japanese stronghold at Nanzheng destroyed the railway between Nanzheng and Weishui, the 2nd Regiment took the eastern end fortress of the Faluling Railway Bridge, covered the engineers as they blew up a section of the bridge, and briefly occupied Caizhuang. The 2nd Battalion of the 16th Regiment attacked Beiyu on the night of August 20, annihilating most defenders, and on August 21 it covered the engineers to destroy the Beiyu Stone Bridge. Other units struck Didu and annihilated most defenders in Nanyu. By August 24, the Central Column had learned that more than 1,000 Japanese troops were stationed in Jingxing County, with additional reinforcements moving toward Nanyu and Didu. Their response was practical: detachments were assigned to watch and harass along the railway while the main force gathered in mobile positions—waiting for the next opening rather than charging blindly into concentrated strength.   Meanwhile, the left column of the Jin-Cha-Ji effort—from the 2nd Regiment of the Jizhong Garrison Brigade, the Military Region Special Service Regiment, and the Pingjinghuo Detachment—focused on sabotage from Weishui to Shijiazhuang. On the night of August 20, the Pingjinghuo Detachment attacked Yanfeng and blew up the railway. The Special Service Regiment moved with massed efforts as they destroyed power lines and highways from Yanfeng to Weizhou. On the night of August 22, the Special Service Regiment attacked Shang'an Station. On August 23, the 2nd Regiment stormed Touquan Station, captured two fortresses, then withdrew from the railway line; from August 25 to 27, they destroyed the highway connecting Pingshan, Huolu, Weishui, and Yanfeng.   While the main blow was falling along the Zhengtai Railway, the 129th Division was assigned raids on the western section. That area included the Japanese Independent Mixed Brigade No. 4 headquarters, a coal mine base at Yangquan, and support from Independent Mixed Brigade No. 9 from Yuci. These raids weren't only about destruction—they were meant to disorient, to create confusion over where the main pressure truly was. After the general offensive began at 20:00 on August 20, five companies of the 16th Regiment attacked Lujiazhuang Station and captured bunkers. Two guerrilla-operating companies in Yuci worked with engineers to destroy bridges between Lujiazhuang and Duanting. The 38th Regiment surprised Shanghu and Heshangzu stations, while the 25th Regiment captured Mashou Station and pushed Japanese troops toward Shouyang. The division's right-wing sabotage unit—28th and 30th Regiments of the newly formed 10th Brigade—took on sabotage on the Yangquan–Shouyang section, splitting routes on the night of August 20 to attack stations like Langyu, Zhangjing, Qinquan, and then striking additional positions with the 30th Regiment. Across that window, stations and strongholds such as Sangzhang, Yanzigou, Langyu, and Qinquan were taken, iron bridges were destroyed, and additional stations including Potou, Xinzhuang, Saiyu, Tielugou, Xiaozhuang, and Zhangzhuang were seized or disrupted.   As the western sabotage deepened, Japanese response hardened—but the ability to coordinate weakened. With the Zhengtai line sabotaged, the western section came under the 129th Division's control except for a few places such as Shouyang. Fierce assaults forced Japanese forces to lose contact with each other within days. Strongholds were attacked, besieged, and then annihilated as communication and coordination broke down. The 129th Division mobilized local people to destroy railway facilities, stations, and installations using demolition, burning, and flooding, moving materials so the railway and related infrastructure were effectively erased rather than merely damaged.   To cover these operations, the division occupied Shinaoshan with the 14th Regiment of the general reserve. Starting the morning of August 21, Japanese forces concentrated in Yangquan and attacked Shinaoshan daily. Enemy strength reportedly rose from more than 200 to more than 600, supported by bombing and strafing and the release of poison. The 14th Regiment held out until August 25, repelling repeated attacks, and by August 26 additional pressure came again as reinforcements increased. After six days and nights—and the annihilation of more than 400 enemy soldiers—the 14th Regiment withdrew from the main peak of Shinaoshan, continuing to contain the Japanese with smaller detachments while the main force shifted to another mission.   The first phase of sabotage had succeeded, but the campaign did not allow complacency. The Japanese strengthened their presence along the railway and launched frequent counterattacks, and Japanese divisions in southern Shanxi—including the 36th, 37th, and 41st—prepared to reinforce from the north. On August 26, the Eighth Route Army Headquarters issued instructions for a second phase: continue breaking through the road, concentrate superior forces, and annihilate Japanese units smaller than a battalion that were attacking or reinforcing. In line with that guidance, the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region ordered the Jin-You Column to keep breaking through the road on August 27 for one or two days, while the 129th Division alternated daily in breaking through. Under sustained pressure, the western section of the Zhengtai Road was basically destroyed; transportation was effectively cut off except for a few towns such as Shouyang and Yangquan.   On September 2, orders were issued to conclude the Zhengtai Campaign starting from the 3rd and shift forces according to the second-step plan. As the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region launched the Mengbei Campaign, the 129th Division shifted toward attacking invading Japanese forces, while other tasks—such as attacking the He-Liao Highway and recovering cities of He and Liao—were left for later. Beginning September 2, the Military Region deployed the 2nd, 5th, 16th, and 19th Regiments toward areas north of Meng County and Shouyang to recapture enemy strongholds. With the railway sabotaged, the Japanese main force north of Meng County shifted south to reinforce, weakening garrisons and spreading panic among the strongholds. As fierce offensives intensified, garrison troops began to waver. By the afternoon of September 5, Japanese troops at Xiashe, supported by troops from Shangshe, retreated to Shangshe and fled toward Meng County overnight. That night, the 19th Regiment arrived near Shangshe and, together with the Special Service Battalion of the 2nd Military Sub-district, pursued. The 1st Battalion of the 19th Regiment advanced into Shenquan and Putian to cut off the retreat route. By 9:00 AM on September 6 the enemy was surrounded in Xingdao Village, and after five hours of intense fighting most forces were annihilated. Survivors fled east to Luolizhang Mountain, only to be surrounded again by the 19th, 5th, and 16th Regiments. By the night of September 9, most Japanese forces had been wiped out, though more than 40 men broke through in dense fog and escaped into Meng County.   The siege continued through bitter episodes involving attacks and withdrawals under poison, with both sides paying heavily for every moment of progress. Eventually, on September 11, Japanese troops in Xiyan escaped back to Meng County, helped by more than 200 Japanese already present there. Meanwhile, the Japanese attempted to counter the pressure: on September 4 they sent more than 2,000 troops to reinforce Meng County and began a counterattack. On September 10, the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region ordered the 19th and 5th Regiments to remain east and north of Meng County to coordinate with the 129th and 120th Divisions, while the rest prepared for new missions.   As fighting intensified around Zhengtai and Meng County, a parallel pressure campaign unfolded. To contain Eighth Route Army sabotage along Zhengtai, the Japanese assembled battalions from Independent Mixed 4th and 9th Brigades to strike the 129th Division. In response, the 120th Division began large-scale sabotage against the Tongpu Railway and major highways in northwestern Shanxi starting 20:00 on August 20. They captured enemy strongholds along rail and road lines, striking major bases such as Kangjiahui on the Xinjing Highway, where more than 50 Japanese and puppet troops were stationed, and also attacking other areas like Shishen, Lizhen, and Jingle. Ambushes were set to annihilate reinforcements arriving from different directions, and at 00:30 on August 21 the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Regiment attacked Kangjiahui and annihilated the defenders by dawn. Reinforcements arriving in cars were destroyed, and subsequent actions continued to expand the disruption.   Over more than 180 battles in northwestern Shanxi, the 120th Division annihilated more than 800 Japanese and puppet troops and captured or destroyed stations and strongholds including Kangjiahui, Yangfangkou, Pingshe, and Longquan. By disrupting the Tongpu Railway and transportation along the Xinjing, Taifen, and Fenli highways, they tied down Japanese forces and made it harder to reinforce Zhengtai. In practical terms, this meant the first phase of the Hundred Regiments Offensive—lasting about three weeks—ended on September 10 with major railway lines and motor roads attacked repeatedly. Roadbeds, bridges, switching yards, and installations were hit heavily; at the Qingxing coal mines, facilities were destroyed and production was halted for nearly a year.   By the end of that first phase, the campaign's logic had become clearer: once the Japanese leaned more heavily on a "cage-and-strongpoint" defense system, the same transport network that had supported their defense became less secure. When rail and road were repeatedly disrupted, strongpoints became more vulnerable—especially if Japanese units pulled out nearby detachments to respond to sabotage. So the campaign shifted from breaking transportation to attacking blockhouses and other strongpoints in contested areas, aiming to force Japanese forces back into well-defended garrisons and leave the countryside again contested by Communist forces. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. From 20 August 1940, under secrecy and rain, units of the 8th Route Army infiltrated stations, captured villages, destroyed bridges, power lines, roads, mines, and stations across multiple columns. By early September the Zhengtai and related Tongpu transport routes were repeatedly severed, forcing Japanese troops to fight isolated strongpoints and hindering reinforcement. 

Gordon Chang and Piero Tozzi analyze the upcoming U.S.-China summit in Beijing, noting Trump's "built-in disadvantages" and Chinese arrogance. They discuss internal Taiwanese political divisions regarding China policy and highlight recent multilateral military exercises as a significant "planting of the flag" before negotiations. (7/16)January 1942