Lieutenant General Kyosuke Ishimura, the garrison commander, nodded and said in an approving tone: "What Harada said is absolutely right. The Chinese army has great potential, and we have no chance of solving it in a short time. As everyone knows, after the Changsha offensive, our Central China army suffered heavy losses. All of our mobile forces combined are only tens of thousands. It can be said that we have now lost the ability to launch large-scale campaigns."
Moreover, the Guangxi Campaign launched by the General Headquarters in South China at the end of last year also resulted in enormous losses for our army. Currently, reaching a peace agreement with the Chongqing government is indeed the best and fastest way to resolve the Chinese war.
Kyosuke Ishimura's words also subtly revealed a growing sense of fear of war among the invading Japanese army. After all, the war had been going on for three years, and the long and arduous fighting had not only put the Chinese army in a difficult situation, but the Japanese army was also overwhelmed, with both sides feeling exhausted.
Hiroki Kagesa, the executor responsible for supporting the Nanjing puppet government, naturally disagreed with this view. He argued, "I believe that there is no possibility of success in negotiating with the Chongqing government, and the General Headquarters will not agree to us giving up our interests in China. In short, supporting the Nanjing government is the most advantageous course of action."
Moreover, although the Battle of Guangxi suffered heavy losses, our strategic objectives were achieved. Nanning is now in our hands, which cuts off the main artery of China's material supply. Without this transportation line, they will not have external material support, and the Chongqing government will inevitably be unable to continue.
"As long as we persist and gradually weaken the Chongqing government's power, the balance of power will shift, and in less than two years, we can free up our resources to achieve our strategic goal of using Chinese against Chinese. This is also the safest approach."
The Guangxi Campaign mentioned by Kagesa Hiroki is also known as the Guinan Campaign.
Since the start of the full-scale war, the Japanese navy blockaded all Chinese ports, cutting off any communication between Chinese customs and the outside world. As a result, all Chinese coastal ports became unusable.
The Chinese government could only transfer strategic materials from Vietnam and Myanmar, which border Guangxi and Yunnan. There were three main transportation routes from Vietnam and Myanmar into Yunnan and Guangxi: the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, the Yunnan-Burma Road, and the Guangxi-Vietnam Road.
Of these three routes, the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway is a narrow-gauge railway, passing through many tunnels, with steep gradients, and has limited transport capacity.
The Yunnan-Burma Highway was opened hastily, the road surface was in poor condition, the route was too long, and the transportation costs were high.
The Guiyue Highway, which runs from Haiphong in Vietnam to Kunming and finally to Chongqing, is only about 800 kilometers long. Its transportation costs are relatively low. As a result, the Guiyue Highway became the most important channel for China to obtain supplies from abroad at that time. Military and civilian supplies from abroad were continuously transported to the front lines in various places through this highway. The Guiyue Highway became the main artery for the import and export of supplies during the War of Resistance Against Japan.
The Chinese government used this transport line to bring in various military supplies, including airplanes, tanks, machine guns, rifles, and various munitions such as machine gun bullets, artillery shells, and aircraft bombs, as well as large quantities of gasoline, which alleviated the enormous pressure on the Nationalist government from the shortage of strategic materials.
At the same time, the Guiyue Highway was also a trade route. Chinese mineral products, agricultural and sideline products, and handicrafts, such as tin, tungsten, tung oil, antimony, raw silk, pig bristles, and silk fabrics, were transported to Haiphong, Vietnam, and sold to Britain, the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asian countries through this route, earning a considerable amount of foreign exchange and playing a significant role in supporting the finances of the Kuomintang government.
Nanning, Guangxi, was a crucial hub on this Sino-Vietnamese transport and supply line. Its geographical location was extremely important, and more importantly, it was the closest to the coastline. As a result, it became a key target for the Japanese.
After a long period of planning, in November of last year, the Japanese army and navy launched a joint operation, secretly assembling at Yulin Port at the southern tip of Hainan Island. They appeared in Qinzhou Bay in a flash, quickly landed, captured Fangcheng, and advanced rapidly to occupy Nanning, cutting off the entire Sino-Vietnamese transport and supply line. They even advanced further and occupied the strategically important Kunlun Pass.
The Military Commission of the Nationalist Government in Chongqing urgently dispatched a large army to reinforce Guangxi and launched a counterattack on Kunlun Pass. Under heavy siege, the Japanese garrison at Kunlun Pass was defeated and severely damaged, and the Japanese brigade commander Nakamura was even killed. This victory was famous. Afterwards, the Japanese army dispatched troops again to launch a counterattack and reoccupied Kunlun Pass. Finally, after many days of fierce fighting and heavy casualties, both sides withdrew their troops and ended the battle.
This battle inflicted heavy casualties on the Japanese army, with entire units being annihilated. It also greatly shocked the Japanese military, who once again felt the tenacious fighting spirit of the Chinese army. However, they paid a huge price, but their strategic objective was still achieved. The fall of Nanning caused the Chinese government to lose an important supply line, and the supply of materials became extremely difficult.
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