Chapter 935: Doing Something

While the Germans grappled bitterly in the Soviet fortress of Stalingrad, thousands of kilometers away, the Japanese engaged in a life-or-death struggle with their Soviet rivals. Although chosen by Tojo Hideki to be the scapegoat, the supreme commander at the front, Ishihara Kanji lived up to his reputation as “Ishihara’s Wisdom,” commanding the Japanese forces to achieve a series of significant victories along the border.

The 17th Division, which had come from afar, was used by Ishihara as a supporting offensive force on the flank, coordinating with the so-called main force of the Japanese armored units to cover the flank of the Japanese offensive group. This arrangement had a certain effect. At the very least, while the Soviet Red Army was busy trying to devour these Japanese units, they had forgotten their ultimate objective of intercepting the Japanese army.

General Chuikov had paid the price for his youth. Although his command of the troops was grand and methodical, he had neglected to restrain and inquire about the details of his army. This had led to his troops singing a triumphant song all the way, but they had only wasted their time on Ishihara’s “sacrificial pawn” on the flank.

And on the main front of the battlefield, Ishihara Kanji had shrewdly committed two elite main forces in the first wave of the attack, the 1st and 8th Divisions. These two units had indeed proven themselves to be the elite of the Kwantung Army, achieving the astonishing combat record of continuously capturing four cities in the Soviet Far East.

Although the Japanese high command had long been in a state of brain death when it came to formulating strategy, it had to be said that no matter how weakened the Japanese Army was, it still held the title of “the strongest infantry of World War I in World War II.” In terms of combat effectiveness, this army that believed in the spirit of Bushido still had a certain combat capability. So, after successively breaking through several Soviet defense lines, the shadow that had been cast on the Japanese army at Nomonhan was gradually being dispelled.

The fighter planes of the Japanese Army had also been frequently taking off from the frontline field airfields, using their numerical superiority to suppress the inferior Soviet air force. To cover this massive offensive, the Japanese army had deployed a full 400 aircraft of various models. Although this was a great deal humbler than the scale of the German army, which could sortie over a thousand planes at a time, in a place like the Far East, it could definitely be considered a grand gesture.

However, Ishihara Kanji had discovered a despairing problem. That was, after having gained the relevant experience of being abused by the superior German air force, the Soviet army had become completely inured to the situation of losing air superiority. So even though the Japanese Army Air Arm had used all its strength, it had had almost no significant impact on the ground forces of the Soviet Red Army.

In fact, the pressure on Ishihara Kanji was still very great. In order to tie down the Soviet armored forces, the armored units under his command, as well as the 17th Division, were sending him several telegrams a day, complaining. These units had been so ravaged by the superior Soviet armored forces that they had lost all their spirit. Like a long-suffering young wife, they were crying and shouting to go back to their mother’s house to hide from the storm.

In the end, the supreme commander of the Japanese army, Ishihara Kanji, had finally pushed his second-echelon reserves onto the battlefield as he approached his objective. He had replaced the 1st and 8th Divisions, which had been fighting a hard battle in front, with the 9th and 10th Divisions. Then he had replaced the already-collapsing 17th Division and the Japanese armored division with the 11th and 12th Divisions.

Who could have thought that the armored force that the Japanese army was so proud of would still be so vulnerable in front of the obsolete junk of the Soviet Union? Looking at the small, rivet-covered tanks that had escaped back, not even one in ten, Ishihara Kanji had also finally realized the gap between Japan and the mainstream military powers of the world.

There was clearly a good side to things. Which country’s army in the world could still fight to the death on the front lines without retreating after losing two-thirds of its strength? Probably only the Imperial Army of the Great Japanese Empire, right? At least in terms of spirit, Ishihara Kanji felt that the Japanese Army was still invincible.

“Your Excellency, Commander!” Lieutenant General Iseki Takamasa, the commander of the 14th Division, the general reserve, stood behind Ishihara Kanji, bowed his head in a salute with his hand on his officer’s sword. “Since the beginning of the war, our army has been advancing like a hot knife through butter. Your subordinate is very impressed with Your Excellency’s god-like use of troops. When can we also go into battle to kill the enemy and to fight bravely for His Majesty the Emperor?”

“Ah, Iseki-kun… there is no need to be anxious. The day will naturally come when you and your division will have a chance to show your prowess,” Ishihara Kanji said with a smile, while looking at the black smoke rising from the battlefield in the temporary command tent.

There was no reason not to smile, because under his command, although the Japanese army was engaged in a bitter fight, it had also achieved a rare speed of advance. The entire northern advance group was advancing into the heart of the Soviet Far East at a high speed of dozens of kilometers per day. Even Tojo Hideki, who had been preparing to find fault, had closed his mouth. Now, the few insiders in the high command of the Imperial General Headquarters mostly already felt that perhaps only this “Ishihara’s Wisdom” could save the army of the Great Japanese Empire, and the entire Great Japanese Empire.

But history is cruel. In a telegram from the headquarters of the Soviet Far East defenders to the Kremlin in Moscow, the Japanese offensive was described as follows: “The speed of the Japanese advance is twice as slow as the German army’s. They lack the means to transport their baggage and heavy weapons. Our army has already compressed their speed of advance to within a controllable range. Please do not worry that the situation in the Far East will further deteriorate.”

In Chuikov’s view, the Japanese army’s all-out, seemingly smooth, desperate advance was, at this speed, the basic speed of advance that the German army would have had after being severely obstructed. To put it bluntly, in Chuikov’s eyes, the Japanese army’s full-speed marching speed was barely equal to the German army’s siege warfare advance speed.

Of course, Ishihara Kanji did not know at present that his troops had such a huge gap with the German army, which had the highest degree of mechanization in the world. At this very moment, he was still fantasizing that his troops could charge into Vladivostok, take a bite out of the heart of the Soviet Far East, and then complete a unilateral peace treaty with the Soviet Union.

Ishihara saw very clearly that on the German-Soviet front, there was a high probability that the German army would ultimately achieve victory, and that the defeated Soviet Union would lose its richest territory. To take advantage of this situation was very much in the Japanese army’s interest. As long as the Soviet Union compromised with Germany, then the territory that the Japanese side had acquired would all be the Japanese’s own land. The situation he had sketched out for the Japanese Army was very clever: as long as Germany attacked Moscow, then a Japanese special envoy would simultaneously negotiate with Germany and the Soviet Union, to pull the relationship between the three countries back to a state of peace—and then the territory that Japan had seized would fulfill Japan’s dream of dominating East Asia.

It could be said that Ishihara Kanji’s plan seemed much more “feasible” than the navy’s plan to beat the U.S. Navy into submission. Because he had decisively seen that Japan itself could not wear down the Soviet Union, he had decisively pulled in his former ally and current enemy—Germany. To rely on the powerful Germany to crush the Soviet Union, and for Japan to take advantage of the situation, was a much better operational plan than the navy’s plan of rolling up their sleeves and personally engaging the United States in a life-or-death battle. At the very least, Ishihara had outsourced the work that the Japanese Army could not do to Akado’s German Army.

Kimura huddled in a hastily dug trench with his rifle, desperately enduring the Soviet defenders’ machine gun fire flying over his steel helmet. Only now did he know that the marksmanship he had practiced so hard was actually just a money-saving measure for the army to conserve ammunition.

Just like the Chinese soldiers, China was a poor country, so guns were more precious than human lives. This had led to the Chinese army’s combat habit of “better to be two seconds slow in lying down than to not protect your gun.” Japan was not much richer than China, so submachine guns were a “luxury” for them that wasted ammunition. So much so that the Japanese army rarely equipped submachine guns.

This was a case of national conditions determining tactics. This was why Japan rarely had submachine guns in its units, and why Japanese soldiers did not have semi-automatic weapons like the German G43 or the American M1. A small island nation that had risen through thrift and gambling, to have achieved what it had today was already a great honor to its ancestors. Could you ask them to do even better?

The Maxim heavy machine gun of the Soviet soldiers opposite even had a steel gun shield on its body. The Japanese Type 92 heavy machine gun, with its very high gun body, was simply no match for the Maxim in terms of rate of fire. As for the Type 92, even the Japanese themselves couldn’t be bothered to complain about it anymore. This weapon, compared to the Maxim from 20 years ago, even had a gap…

Kimura had personally seen the gunner of a Type 92 heavy machine gun, which was covering the infantry’s attack on his flank not far away, being hit by the Soviets and falling in the trench. By the time he had stumbled over to try and help, this gunner was already beyond saving.

It was worth secretly celebrating that Kimura, because of his good performance in the last battle, had been assigned to provide flank cover for a machine gun team and did not have to charge forward with those unlucky fellows. So he could now happily continue to breathe, while most of those new recruits had already died on the path of their charge.

The Soviet heavy artillery would from time to time fly over Kimura’s position and land on the Japanese artillery position not far behind him. The Japanese artillerymen, with only a few 70mm Type 92 infantry guns, were no match for the Soviet artillery, which had a large number of 122mm howitzers. From the beginning of the engagement, this artillery duel had just been a “game” of a group of RMB players unilaterally “abusing noobs.”

Watching the Japanese soldiers bravely launch one attack after another on the battlefield, only to be beaten back by the fierce Soviet firepower, Ishihara Kanji couldn’t help but feel a pang of heartache. The artillery position a hundred meters in front of him had been smashed to pieces by the Soviet cannons, which also gave him a more direct sense of the gap in firepower between the two sides.

“Baka!” Ishihara finally couldn’t sit still any longer. He decided he should do something to be worthy of his name and the soldiers who were struggling at the front. And so he turned his head and asked his adjutant in a rage, “Where is Ishii’s unit?”

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