Less than half a month after Linger arrived in Wuchang, on October 11, the Japanese army began to launch attacks in northern Jiangsu and Hangzhou Bay respectively. On the front line of Shanghai in Songhu, China concentrated the CSKA Fourth, Tenth, Twelfth Divisions and three divisions from Jiangsu and Zhejiang. In addition, the reinforcements from Guangdong, Guangxi and Central China also rushed to the battlefield one after another.⊥

On the southern front, the Japanese army sent 4 divisions with a total force of 140,000, while the Chinese army had 12 divisions with a total force of about 210,000. Both sides fought fiercely around control of Shanghai. However, in northern Jiangsu, there were only two local miscellaneous divisions in China. Qi Xieyuan concentrated all the troops near Nanjing, causing the troops in northern Jiangsu to be empty. After the Japanese landed in northern Jiangsu, they quickly conquered Taizhou.

The entire battle situation seemed very unfavorable, and Beijing also began to be anxious and sent Deputy Chief of Staff Jiang Fangzhen to the southern line to coordinate the battle. The battle situation in Shanghai also began to be passive. The Japanese army quickly built more than ten field airports in northern Jiangsu and sent about 1,100 combat aircraft from four aviation wings, including the Shanghai Army and the aircraft at Zhoushan and Taiwan Airports. The total number of Japanese fighter jets reached more than 1,800. China only has two aviation divisions here, less than 600 aircraft, and the entire air force comparison began to tilt towards Japan.

In fact, in Hubei, Hunan and Anhui are also equipped with the 3rd and 9th Aviation Divisions. In addition, Guangdong and Guangxi have also received the ranks, but due to the limited number of front-line airports, it is impossible to reinforce Shanghai. They can only do it in a hurry, but there is no way.

The battle situation in Shanghai gradually became passive. Gong Bangduo's 10th Division and Chen Leshan's 4th Division retreated to the west bank of Suzhou River. Sun Xinyuan, the Second Army Division of the Army and Chen Gongqia's 1st Division of the Zhejiang Army held the Luodian front line. The third division of the 7th Army of the Guizhou Ye Quan unit fought fiercely with the Japanese army in Dachang and Baoshan. After seizing air supremacy, the Japanese fleet rushed into the Huangpu River again. The Japanese army conquered Wusong under the cover of naval guns and began to launch a full-line attack on Dachang, Baoshan and Luodian.

The battle situation in Northeast China also took a sharp turn for the worse.

The Japanese army conquered Qiqihar, the capital of Heilongjiang Province. They began to attack Manzhouli along the railway. On the southern line, the Jinzhou-Chaoyang line was lost. Six CSKA Divisions and six Northeast Frontier Defense Forces divisions could only retreat to Luerhushan and Shanhaiguan line, and rely on the terrain to defend the Great Wall and Luerhushan line.

The most urgent situation was the Far East and Mongolia. Because they were attacked by the Japanese army behind them, the Great Yenisei line was broken by the Soviet army, and the Far East had to protect civilians and began to retreat to China. Out of fear of the Soviet regime, most of the Russians in the Far East chose to flee to China, and the General Staff Headquarters ordered Wu Guangxin to protect nearly 5 million Chinese expatriates to withdraw from the country.

After the Japanese army began a full-scale attack in August, the Far East found that it could not save its home. Between continued resistance and surrender, they chose to continue to resist, that is, they began to organize the relocation of important factories to the inland China, and at the same time began to blow up and destroy the unrelocated factories and mine facilities.

Most of the Russians who fled to the Far East were full of fear of the Red regime and would rather escape to China than live under Moscow's rule. With the evacuation of personnel and heavy destruction, the Far East has become a ruin. As the Far East and the Chinese Army destroyed all railways and bridges during the retreat, this greatly hindered the speed of the Soviet army's advance.

China's defense focus is in the North China region, and the troops in the south are relatively weak. The current main attack direction of the Japanese army is on the Daxinganling line, and there are four divisions in the Far East.

In order to cope with the Soviet invasion, the troops in North China also seemed insufficient, but the Japanese army obviously encountered the same problem. They invested nearly 700,000 troops in the northeast, most of which were concentrated in the Greater Xing'an Mountains and the Far East. In the northeast, after conquering Jinzhou, they temporarily stopped the attack, which gave the Beiyang side time to adjust.

What’s strange is that neither China nor Japan declared war on the other side in a comprehensive manner, and both sides retained a way out for negotiation to resolve the problem. Japan’s purpose was Manchuria and Mongolia and the Far East. And in East China it was just a restrained attack. But the Beiyang government has no way out now. The national sentiment in the country is high, and no one wants to risk the world’s discord to negotiate with the Japanese.

The Japanese army was unable to open up the situation on the battlefield of Shanghai for a long time, which made the country extremely angry. It decided to draw five divisions from the country to reinforce Shanghai again. The Japanese army on the front line of Shanghai reached 350,000, and the situation on the East China front became tense.

Linger did not stay in Wuchang for long. He followed General Wu to Nanjing with a military advisory group of about 150 people. Qi Xieyuan, who was commanding the Jiangsu battle, was removed from his post by Duan Qirui for poor performance. General Wu Ziyu, as the commander-in-chief of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, unified the troops of several provinces on the front line of the Yangtze River. General Jiang Fangzhen also followed General Wu to Nanjing.

As the Japanese army was advancing westward from Jiangbei, Nanjing became the center of the new defense line, and General Wu set up his new command in Nanjing.

Teams of ragged and malnourished Chinese civilians fled from northern Jiangsu occupied by the Japanese to Nanjing and fled into the city. The battle situation in northern Jiangsu continued to deteriorate. After discussing with German and Austrian military advisers and General Chiang, General Wu decided to retreat the defense line and adjust it to a position conducive to defense. At first they decided to set the defense line on the Jiangyin line, but because the Japanese occupied Taizhou, they finally decided to withdraw the defense line to the Zhenjiang line to ensure the smooth flow of the Jingpu Railway.

In early October, China took advantage of its temporary air advantage to launch a large-scale counterattack from the Songhu Dachang to Yunzaobang. The Chinese army of four divisions who rushed from Guangxi and Guangdong to Shanghai to reinforce was bravely charged and once recovered Wusong. However, the Japanese army immediately sent two divisions of reinforcements, and China was eventually defeated back to its original position, and the Songhu battlefield was once in a stalemate.

General Wu Ziyu also had an important and huge task, which was to move the arsenal and important factories in Nanjing to the west. His German and Austro-Hungarian military advisers warned him that it was very likely that he could not defend it and that he needed to rebuild a new line of defense in a more backward place.

Linger made this judgment because China obviously has not adjusted it, and the training work is very slow. Beijing only hurriedly began to recruit and train militias in various places after the outbreak of the war. However, due to lack of experience, the recruitment and training work is not ideal. He judged that it will take a year before China can slowly establish a complete recruit training system in various places.

Of course, Ringer has always believed that China would win this war. General Chiang's theory was that as long as the war was delayed for a long time, Japan might collapse in three or four years. China has a population of about 500 million, about seven times that of Japan. However, they have not yet established a complete organization and cannot give full play to the huge advantage of the population.
Chapter completed!