The Battle of Songhu was the first large-scale battle in China during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and it was also the largest and most tragic battle in the entire Sino-Japanese War. In the Battle of Songhu, China and Japan invested more than 1 million troops in the small land of Shanghai to participate in the battle, and the tragic battle lasted for three months. Although Shanghai eventually fell, it dealt a great blow to the arrogance of the Japanese invaders, smashed the plan of "destroying China in three months" clamored by Japanese militarism, and forced the Japanese army to shift the direction of its main attack, which was of great strategic significance for the next all-people war of resistance. Let's review this history, it's not easy to create, and everyone is welcome to pay attention to the comments.
1. Background of the war.
Beginning in the 19th century, the small country of Japan rose to prominence in Asia through the Meiji Restoration, and began to carry out aggressive expansion against its neighbors. In 1895, Japan won the Sino-Japanese War and ceded Taiwan from the Manchus. In 1910, Japan signed the Japan-Korea Merger Treaty with South Korea with the threat of force, and annexed the Korean Peninsula. At the end of World War I in 1919, Germany, as a defeated country, lost its rights in Shandong, China, but Japan took the opportunity to take over all German interests in China and sent troops to occupy Qingdao. In 1931, the September 18 Incident broke out, and Japan easily took the entire northeast region of China in less than half a year. Relying on the invasion of Japan, the territory continued to expand, and the country's strength also increased. However, with the outbreak of the global economic crisis, the Japanese economy suffered a heavy blow and led to a political crisis in the country. In the face of internal and external difficulties, Japanese militarism decided to continue to wage a war of aggression against China, extricate itself from the predicament through plunder, and attempted to dominate the world. At midnight on January 28, 1932, the Japanese Marine Corps raided Zhabei in Shanghai in three ways, and the 19th Route Army resisted under the command of commander-in-chief Jiang Guangnai and army commander Cai Tingkai. In 1933, the Japanese army began to invade Shanhaiguan again, pointing the spearhead of aggression at North China, and two years later created a "five provinces autonomy in North China". On July 7, 1937, the Japanese Kwantung Army, which had long been unable to bear it, created the Lugou Bridge Incident, and the all-out war of resistance finally broke out. On 9 August, Japanese Navy Lieutenant Yuo Oyama and others drove into Shanghai's Hongqiao Airport to provoke and were shot dead by the garrison's security team. The Japanese army used this as an excuse to threaten China with war, and under the impetus of the anti-Japanese wave of the whole people, the people issued the "Declaration of Self-Defense and War of Resistance" the next day, declaring that "China will never give up any part of its territory, and in the event of aggression, it can only respond with the exercise of its natural right of self-defense." Since then, the Battle of Songhu has officially begun.
Second, the course of the war.
In August 1937, the Ninth Army of the Kuomintang, under the command of Commander-in-Chief Zhang Zhizhong, was ready to launch an attack, and the Chinese Air Force also flew to Shanghai to coordinate the operation. Its front-line troops are the first division, all of which are equipped with German ** equipment, all of which are elite divisions. On 11 August, the Japanese delegates demanded that the Chinese side retreat first, but was sternly refused. The commander of the Japanese 3rd Fleet, Hasegawa Kiyoshi, ordered the Japanese ships to sail into the ports of the Huangpu River and the Yangtze River, and at the same time ordered other troops to quickly reinforce Shanghai. On August 13, the squadron launched a full-scale attack on the enemy in downtown Shanghai, and at the same time dispatched its air force to bomb the headquarters of the Japanese Marine Corps, Huishan Wharf, and ships on the sea. After several days of hard fighting, the 87th Division occupied Hujiang University, and the 88th Division occupied Baoshan Bridge and other key points. However, both China and Japan were extremely heavy, the battle situation was at a stalemate, and the Japanese marines also cowered in a strong stronghold, stubbornly resisting and waiting for reinforcements. On August 15, Emperor Hirohito of Japan ordered Matsui Ishine to be the commander of the Shanghai Army, commanding the 3rd Division, the 11th Division and other troops to attack Shanghai, and the war began to expand. On August 21, a huge fleet headed by the Japanese battleships Nagato and Mutsu, transporting about 10,000 Japanese vanguard troops, set off from the Japanese mainland and sailed into the area of Chuansha Town and Wusongkou respectively. At this time, the Japanese army in Shanghai had retreated to the Japanese Marine Corps headquarters in Jiangwan, and the Chinese and Japanese sides continued to engage in fierce military battles with this as the center. On August 23, Matsui Ishine led the leading troops to begin the landing under the cover of naval and air fire, and Chiang Kai-shek urgently ordered Chen Cheng, deputy minister of military affairs, to be the commander-in-chief of the 15th Army, commanding the army to resist the Japanese army. Under the cover of intensive naval artillery fire, the enemy's 3rd and 11th divisions attacked Baoshan, Yuepu, Luodian and other positions. The battle in this strategic place of Luodian was still fierce, and China and Japan launched a bloody tug-of-war around Luodian, and the positions changed hands several times. On August 31, the Japanese army attacked the Wusonghe City Ferry Terminal with more than 30 planes and naval artillery, and forcibly landed. More than half of the Chinese defenders did not retreat, but the Wusong Fort was still held by the Shanghai Security Corps. From September 2 to 5, the Japanese army stormed Yuepu, Baoshan and other positions, and fierce fighting broke out between the two sides. Yao Ziqing, the battalion commander who was ordered to stick to Baoshan, held the determination to live and die with the position, and repelled the enemy's crazy attacks again and again with his 500 brave soldiers, and fought until the 10th. After the loss of Baoshan and other places, the Japanese army continued to land, and the squadron began to suffer from the enemy. By mid-September, Japanese reinforcements arrived one after another, and the squadron had no air and sea supremacy, and suffered heavy losses in the bombardment of Japanese naval artillery and aircraft, and was forced to move to the defensive. The Japanese army gradually seized the initiative on the battlefield, and the situation on the battlefield began to reverse. In order to expand the results of the war, Japan decided to increase its troops again and transferred three divisions of the North China Front Army and Taiwan troops to Shanghai, and the total strength of the Japanese army in Shanghai had exceeded 200,000 at this time.
In the face of the continuous increase in the Japanese army, the national army also quickly sent troops from various provinces and the army to Songhu to participate in the war, and Xue Yue's 19th Group Army, Liu Jianxu's 10th Group Army, and Liao Lei's 21st Group Army were added. Together with the 21st Group Army and the five divisions of the Liu Xiang Division of the Sichuan Army, which rushed to Shanghai to participate in the battle soon after, the total strength of the squadron has reached more than 700,000 people. After the squadron moved to the defensive, the Japanese began a large-scale offensive. On September 22, the Japanese army concentrated the main force to storm the position of the left flank army that held Luodian, and on the night of the 24th, the Japanese army continued to charge with two divisions, and the 159th and 160th divisions were all killed. Beginning in October, the Japanese army continued to launch new attacks, and on the 15th, the Japanese army broke through Fumohama, and the battle situation was once again urgent. On October 19, the squadron launched a full-front counterattack and was repulsed by the Japanese army. The Japanese army took the opportunity to counterattack, and the front of the troops pointed directly at the big field. On October 23, the Japanese army approached the Zhentai Highway with heavy troops and threatened the left flank of Dachang. After hard resistance, our army held back the Japanese offensive. The Japanese army mobilized all kinds of artillery, aircraft, and chariots to concentrate and bombard, and the radius was several miles, almost scorched earth, and the defenders were forced to move to the southern flank, and the field was lost. The loss of the big field led to the shaking of the whole line, and the defense line of the squadron had actually been broken through, so it had to abandon the North Station and Jiangwan positions and retreat into the second phase of the existing defensive positions. At the beginning of November, although the squadron was in a passive position, it still controlled Shanghai, and the battle situation was still in a stalemate. But on November 5, the Japanese army continued to increase troops on the Songhu battlefield, and the newly formed 10th Army landed 80,000 people at Jinshanwei, preparing to encircle the squadron. Chiang Kai-shek was superstitious about the intervention of the League of Nations and did not allow the troops at the front to retreat, but at this time the appeasement of Western countries prevailed and ignored China's demands. On the night of November 8, the Japanese army broke into Songjiang Castle from the east, south and west with strong firepower, and the 67th Army was completely annihilated, and the Japanese army occupied Songjiang. Immediately, the troops were divided into two routes, one along the east bank of Taihu Lake, through Zhejiang and Anhui to Nanjing, and the main force pointed to Fengjing Town, Jiaxing, and Pingwang. On the 9th, the Shanghai-Hangzhou railway and highway were cut off. At the same time, the 16th Division, under the command of Nakajima Imago Ima, successfully landed at Baimaokou in Taicang, Jiangsu, and the advance was directed at the Beijing-Shanghai railway and highway, gradually forming a trend of convergence. At this time, the first squadron on the front line was in chaos, and a small number of troops disobeyed the order to organize a retreat, but most of the troops delayed precious time. When the final retreat was made, because the order of retreat of the various units was not explained, and the time was pressing, they were too panicked, and 300,000 or 400,000 Chinese officers and men crowded on several roads and were bombed by the Japanese air force, and the great retreat turned into a great rout, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers were scattered when they retreated to Nanjing, laying the groundwork for the defeat of the defense of Nanjing in the future. Since the 9th, the Japanese army repelled the scattered resistance of the squadron and occupied Hongqiao Airport, Longhua and other places. On the 11th, the Japanese army advanced to the bank of the Suzhou Creek, and the squadron ** in Nanshi and Pudong was ordered to withdraw from its position. On the same day, Yu Hongjun, mayor of Shanghai, issued a letter to the citizens, sadly announcing the fall of the largest metropolis in the Far East.
III. The Impact of the War.
The Battle of Songhu was the first large-scale battle after the outbreak of the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Japanese army invested 9 divisions with a total of 220,000 troops and paid more than 90,000 people, and the squadron invested 73 divisions with a total of more than 700,000 troops and paid 250,000 people. Although the squadron was defeated in the end, it bought time for China's few industrial relocations. At the same time, it also allows the world to clearly see the tough position of China, which will not allow Japan to slowly encroach on China's territory, and will never bow its knees to Japanese imperialism. The Japanese army fought with the Chinese defenders in Shanghai for three months, and with the strong firepower support of the navy and air force, it barely captured the first position after making a major effort, which has made all countries in the world have an impressive attitude towards China's anti-Japanese strength and determination. However, the Japanese army has not won the war for a long time, and the morale of the Japanese people has become suspicious and confused. At that time, the Japanese top brass had already determined that it would no longer be possible to end the war with China in a short period of time and at a very small cost, as it did during the September 18 Incident, and to obtain the greatest benefits. Japan will face its biggest strategic Achilles' heel, that is, as an island country lacking resources, Japan simply does not have the national strength and resources to fight a protracted war, and once it falls into the quagmire of war in China, long-term attrition will completely drag down Japan's industry and economy, and the final rout will become Japan's inevitable fate. During the thrilling three months of the Battle of Songhu, the whole of China condensed a consensus, that is, if the war began, the Chinese nation would unite as one, build the Great Wall of flesh and blood with its body, and resist the Japanese invasion. This was the most tragic decision of China, which was poor and weak at that time, and in the end, we sacrificed 35 million people in exchange for the rebirth of the Chinese nation. If you want to know more about the Battle of Songhu, I recommend "The History of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression: The Battle of Songhu 1937".