After all, the USSR was a great power, with a vast territory, a large population, and a huge potential for war.Therefore, although the German army achieved a brilliant victory at the beginning of the war, it was impossible to defeat the Soviet Union quickly.Hitler's arrogant claim that the Soviet Union could be destroyed in three months turned out to be just a joke.Li Guotao was worried that after the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, the Soviet Union was too busy to take care of itself, and naturally it would not be able to support the Eighth Route Army.After the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, Soviet Russia paid more attention to the Eighth Route Army, and still continued to provide certain support to the Eighth Route Army as much as it could.This is not because of the Soviet Union's selflessness and noble character of sacrificing oneself to save others, but the real reason is that Japan, Soviet Russia can be described as a complete defeat on the Western Front, and if at this time, Japan suddenly launches an attack on Soviet Russia, then Soviet Russia will face the dilemma of fighting on two fronts, and it is likely to be defeated and destroyed under the attack of Germany and Japan.Therefore, Soviet Russia needed the Eighth Route Army to contain the Japanese army in the northeast, so that it could not confidently and boldly attack the Soviet Union.At the same time, because of the heavy losses on the Western Front, if China can contain Japan in the Far East, then Soviet Russia can transfer a million-strong army from the Far East to the west, thus reversing the unfavorable situation on the Western Front.At that time, China's industrial base was weak, and some of the more advanced weapons and equipment could not be produced at all, and in the absence of foreign aid, it was difficult to maintain a large-scale campaign by relying only on war to feed the war, so China and the Soviet Union could be regarded as taking what they needed.The Eighth Route Army could continue to grow stronger with the help of Soviet Russia, and the Soviet Russian side also needed China to contain the mad dog of Japan in the Far East, so as not to bite the mad dog in the back of the ass.As for Japan, as mentioned above, Europe and the United States and other countries have imposed a military embargo on Japan, which is undoubtedly a rope on the head of Japan's mad dog, which has seriously restricted Japan's development, so Japan is even more eager to go south as soon as possible and seize Southeast Asia in order to obtain oil, rubber and other strategic resources necessary for the war.On the other hand, since the outbreak of the all-out war of resistance against Japan, the Japanese army has been fighting hard in China for several years, but has never been able to completely conquer China.The main reason for this is that the Chinese people have a stubborn will to resist and would rather die than die as slaves, which has plunged Japan into the quagmire of war and cannot extricate itself.In addition, there are some secondary reasons, but in the eyes of the Japanese, the main reason, that is, because of the continuous assistance of European countries such as Britain and the United States, which makes the Chinese government always refuse to surrender.Therefore, in Japan's view, as long as it defeats Europe and the United States and other countries behind China, then it will be easy to go back and deal with China.However, in the past two years, the development of the situation on the battlefield in China has been extremely unfavorable to Japan.Large areas of territory that had already been occupied were regained by the Chinese army one after another.In particular, the Eighth Route Army, which has developed rapidly, has become a major problem for Japan.Therefore, if the Japanese want to go south with confidence and boldness, they must first destroy the Eighth Route Army, and at least stabilize the war situation in China, so that they can draw enough troops to go south to seize Southeast Asia.After several months of preparation, in September 1941, the Japanese Kwantung Army gathered more than 400,000 troops and launched a large-scale attack on the anti-Japanese base areas in China's northeast under the command of the new commander of the Kwantung Army, Yamada Otozo.Umezu Mijiro has been removed from his post because of consecutive defeats and returned to Japan for investigation.In the eyes of the Japanese, as long as Soviet Russia is not a fool, it will never take the initiative to attack Japan at this time, and without the containment of Soviet Russia, the Kwantung Army can draw out so many troops and concentrate on dealing with the Eighth Route Army.At this time, although the Northeast Military Region has developed to a certain extent, and the total strength has exceeded 200,000 people, even so, the strength of the Japanese army is still twice that of our army, and the Japanese army is well-equipped, and the number of heavy weapons such as aircraft, artillery, and tanks is in an absolute advantage.There is a huge disparity between the enemy and the enemy in terms of overall strength.Under the leadership of Li Guotao, commander of the Northeast Military Region and commander of the Seventh Column, our anti-Japanese soldiers and civilians in Northeast China bravely resisted the Japanese attack, and the two sides fought fiercely for nearly a month, repelling several offensives of the Japanese army and winning a brilliant victory of annihilating 60,000 enemies, but our Eighth Route Army also paid a heavy price, with nearly 50,000 casualties.After the failure of the first phase of the offensive, Yamada Otozo learned his lesson and shifted the focus of the attack from the northern front to the southern front, which pinned down the main force of the seventh column with 200,000 troops.250,000 troops were concentrated on the southern front and stormed the Chifeng, Lingyuan line.Our Eighth Route Army's Rehe Military Region, Jireliao Military Region and other troops concentrated their forces and fought fiercely with the Japanese for seven days, and were finally defeated.Lingyuan, Ningcheng, Chifeng and other places were lost one after another, and the Eighth Route Army, which suffered heavy losses, was forced to retreat to Chengde.Subsequently, the Japanese army did not take advantage of the victory to pursue, and the more than 200,000 Japanese troops on the southern front went directly north and attacked Tongliao from the south.With the 200,000 Japanese troops on the northern front, a two-sided attack was formed.The loss of Chifeng was tantamount to cutting off the Northeast Military Region's ties with other friendly forces, and the friendly forces in Rehe and other places suffered heavy losses, and they were unable to support the Northeast Military Region for the time being, and the Northeast Military Region fell into an unfavorable situation of fighting alone.Li Guotao commanded the troops to bravely resist the Japanese attack, and although in the vicinity of the Naiman Banner, they completely annihilated the Japanese troops of a division that was greedy for merit, but after all, it could not reverse the overall situation.After half a month of fierce fighting, the Eighth Route Army was never able to defeat the Japanese attack, and the troops were exhausted from continuous fighting, and the Northeast Military Region could be defeated at any time if it continued to fight, and in order to preserve its strength, Li Guotao could only abandon Tongliao in accordance with the instructions of the Eighth Route Army Headquarters, and all the main forces withdrew to the area of Linxi County west of Tongliao.At this time, the Japanese army was also at the end of its strong crossbows, and successively lost more than 100,000 troops, and was forced to temporarily stop the offensive.At the same time, in North China, Japan's North China Dispatch Army, under the command of Commander Okamura Ninji, also mobilized 200,000 troops to launch a large-scale attack on the anti-Japanese base areas of our Eighth Route Army in Hebei and Shandong.It has successively captured more than 20 county towns in our anti-Japanese base areas, but the Japanese army in North China has been fighting fiercely for nearly two months, and has never been able to realize its intention of completely annihilating the main force of our Eighth Route Army.By this time, it was already November, and it was already winter, but after winter, it was spring.The arrogant Japanese imperialism has already gone to the grave step by step, and this phased victory is only a return to the light before death.aa2705221: