Chapter 629: Chief Xue's Counteroffensive on Wuhan

September 1943, the autumn chill deepened, and the Jianghan lands of Huaxia entered autumn, yet there was not a hint of coolness.

Wuhan in September remained shrouded by a heavy, humid air mass—stifling, oppressive, windless—the whole city felt as if locked inside a gigantic steamer.

The once bustling Jianghan docks, the Hankou concession, and the streets of Wuchang, after years of war ravage and Japanese Army occupation, have long lost their former clamor.

The streets are desolate and quiet, with wartime blockade lines and guard works visible everywhere.

The air perpetually carries the smell of gunpowder smoke, dust and humid heat, creating a suffocating atmosphere of an impending great war, as if a storm were about to break.

Inside the headquarters of the Japanese Army 11th Army in Wuhan, the mood was even more stifling than the outdoor autumn heat. The Japanese commander stationed in Wuhan, A Naganuma, sat at the main seat, his posture taut and his face anxious.

Years of tug‑of‑war in Central China, with successive crushing defeats, drained his vigor and confidence; his once thick hair grew increasingly sparse, the crown grew bald, the few remaining strands limp on his scalp, revealing a withered, aged demeanor.

Having commanded the 11th Army, touted as the Japanese Army's strongest field group army, for many years, he once roamed Central China and swept across Jianghan, his arrogance soaring.

But by today, the usable cards in his hand were few, leaving only a shattered Defensive Line and feeble troops.

In last year's China counter‑offensive, within a few short months, the successive Yichang and Jianghan battles completely hollowed out the 11th Army's combat foundation.

In the two decisive battles, the elite forces under the 11th Army were successively annihilated, two veteran Class A Divisions.

The 13th Division and the 39th Division suffered total casualties, their division commanders were captured, personnel were wiped out, heavy equipment was completely destroyed, and ultimately the units were disbanded.

These two divisions were veteran main forces that had fought many hard battles in the invasion of China, their assault, defense and field capabilities unrivaled in the army, serving as the core pillars supporting the Japanese Army's Central China campaign; their destruction

was a devastating blow to Japan's 11th Army, directly severing the Japanese Army's arm in the Central China battlefield.

After the harrowing attrition of two crushing defeats, the once‑mighty Japanese 11th Army's spirit was utterly shattered.

The vast occupied zone of Central China, with its extensive Defensive Line and thousand‑mile territory, now relies only on the 3rd Division and the 6th Division to struggle in support.

They have become the last mobile forces remaining in A Naganuma's hands, the sole reliance for the Japanese Army to hold Wuhan and stabilize the Central China front.

These remaining two units are far from ordinary reserves; they are both recognized by the Japanese Headquarters as veteran elite Class A Divisions, with illustrious lineages, countless battle honors, and ferocious combat power

. The 3rd Division, also called the "Nagoya Division," is Japan's earliest‑formed, most regularized standing Class A Division; since the outbreak of the invasion of China it has taken part in almost every decisive Central China battle.

From the Song–Hu assault to the Nanjing battle, from the Changsha stalemate to the Yichang standoff, its combat experience is extremely rich, its tactical proficiency superb, excelling in mountain offense and defense, urban street fighting and positional attrition, and is recognized by the Japanese Army as the "ever‑green tree of the Central China battlefield."

The 6th Division is even more ferocious, dubbed the "Kumamoto Iron Army," blood‑thirsty and ruthless, with extremely strong individual combat ability; its assault, city‑breaking and close‑quarters fighting are unrivaled across the Japanese Army, making it the elite division most adept at hard, brutal, and deadly engagements within the Japanese field forces.

The two divisions have been stationed in Central China for years, familiar with Jianghan terrain, adapted to the humid southern climate, and well‑versed in Nationalist Army tactics; they are A Naganuma's absolute core force to hold the Wuhan Defensive Line and deter the Nonary and Quinary War Zones.

According to the original battle deployment, even with the loss of the two major divisions, the Japanese still possessed the capital to turn the tide.

Japanese Headquarters could fully draw fresh troops, reinforce regiments, and send heavy equipment units from the Huabei Front Army, Kwantung Army home‑defense forces, the South China occupation army, and Japan's home headquarters, sending them southward to fill the 11th Army's strength gap and solidify the Central China Defensive Line.

In past campaigns, whenever Central China's forces were strained, Headquarters would immediately transfer troops across war zones to maintain front‑line balance.

But now it is different; the 1943 Pacific and Southeast Asian campaigns have completely collapsed, fully disrupting the Japanese Army's overall deployment.

In South China, a rogue force rose, sweeping the Nanyang seas, crushing Japan's Nanyang fleet, gnawing away all Nanyang occupied territories; the Japanese Southern Army suffered continual defeats, sinking into a quagmire, constantly facing the risk of total annihilation.

Compared with the stalemate in Central China, the Southeast Asia and Southwest Pacific battlefields directly affect Japan's war lifeline, controlling oil, rubber, tin and all core strategic resources, the foundation for Japan to keep its war machine running.

Therefore, Japanese Headquarters completely altered its strategic priorities, beginning to drain blood from every Huaxia occupied zone without regard to cost, frantically pulling elite divisions, independent regiments, heavy artillery units, and air force units southward to reinforce the Pacific and Nanyang battlefields.

Huabei defensive forces, Kwantung Army elites, South China garrison troops continuously boarded ships heading south; the home reserve rushed entirely to the Southern Theater; the Huaxia Battlefield became wholly a Minor battlefield, with all manpower resources yielding priority to the Nanyang campaign.

What makes A Naganuma most desperate is that even the only remaining 3rd Division and 6th Division in his hands could not escape the fate of being drained.

Headquarters issued a strict order to pull a full elite regiment from each of the two elite divisions, together with supporting Artillery, Engineers, Signal troops, and transport logistics units, to detach the whole formation from the Central China battlefield, board ships at speed, and head south to reinforce the perilous Southwest Pacific Defensive Line.

The two flagship divisions, originally at full strength and complete combat power, after this forced extraction showed a massive manpower gap, with the Defensive Line's combat strength sharply reduced.

Those withdrawn were the main regiments within the divisions that had the highest proportion of veteran combatants and the strongest combat ability; the remaining forces consisted mainly of fresh recruits, wounded, and second‑line guard troops, causing an abrupt cliff‑like drop in overall combat quality, assault capability, and sustained operation ability, far from the former peak strength of a Class A Division.

Inside the headquarters, a Lieutenant Colonel staff officer holding the latest front‑line reconnaissance Telegram hurried into the room, his expression solemn, his tone urgent as he reported to A Naganuma, "Commander, urgent intelligence!"

"China th War Zone and Quinary War Zone have shown unusually frequent recent troop movements; front‑line reconnaissance found that the two war‑zone main forces are massing around Wuhan's outskirts, with transport convoys, Artillery units, and field hospitals continuously advancing, Trench works being reinforced overnight, front‑line alertness sharply increased, clearly brewing a large‑scale operation!"

A Naganuma's body shivered at the words, he snapped his head up, his eyes filled with incredulous shock, his hoarse voice deepening as he retorted, "What? Are the Chinese preparing a massive assault on Wuhan?"

He is far from a mediocre, incompetent officer; having been stationed in Central China for years, deeply studying the campaign and discerning enemy and friendly dispositions, he instantly saw the deeper meaning behind the Nationalist Army's movements.

The simultaneous large‑scale troop shifts in the two war zones are not ordinary rotations, drills, or alerts; they must be a long‑planned massive strategic offensive, targeting the key stronghold of Wuhan, intending to recapture the core of Central China in one stroke.

Drills, fine then.

As for China, those weapons and ammunition resupplies still depend on external aid.

A Naganuma would never imagine the Chinese forces conducting such absurd drills!