3.195 Fall and Rise of China: Xiang-Gan Operation

Last time we spoke about the Wang Jingwei Regime. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, tensions between Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei escalated amid Japan's aggressive invasion. Disillusioned by Chiang's scorched-earth tactics, such as the Yellow River flood and Changsha fire, Wang defected from Chongqing in December 1938, fleeing to Hanoi to negotiate peace with Japan. An assassination attempt, likely ordered by Chiang, killed Wang's secretary Zeng Zhongming, deepening the rift and sparking retaliatory violence. Wang's group, aided by Japanese agents like Kagesa Sadaaki, navigated scandals and leaks, including a forged agreement exposed in the press. After grueling negotiations in Shanghai and Tokyo, Wang conceded to harsh Japanese terms, including limited sovereignty and economic controls. On March 30, 1940, he established the Reorganized National Government (RNG) in Nanjing, adopting the nationalist flag with a controversial yellow pennant symbolizing "peace, anticommunism, nation-building." Despite Wang's vision of constitutional democracy, the RNG functioned as a wartime puppet, isolated from Chongqing and resented as traitorous. Wang died in 1944, and the regime collapsed in 1945.

#195 The Xiang-Gan Operation

Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.

In the sweltering grip of August 1939, Chongqing languished under an unbearably hot summer, the air thick with humidity and the weight of impending doom. Perched on a sun-baked hillside along the southern bank of the Jialing River, roughly 10 kilometers from the chaotic heart of the city, loomed a two-story Western-style building. This fortress of stone and resolve, known as the "Huangshan Villa," stood as Chiang Kai-shek's official residence in Chongqing, a sanctuary amid the storm of war. Unless urgent meetings or crises at the Military Affairs Commission demanded his presence, it was here that Chiang orchestrated the fate of a nation on the brink.

One fateful evening, as shadows lengthened across the villa, the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics delivered a chilling report from Wang Pengsheng, the director of the Military Affairs Commission's Institute for International Affairs. Wang was no ordinary operative; he was a knowledgeable, experienced, and sharp-minded intellectual, a master of Japanese affairs, and one of Chiang's most trusted aides, his insights cutting like a blade through the fog of deception. In this urgent dispatch, Wang distilled the latest machinations from Japan. After the traitor Wang Jingwei defected to the enemy, Japan glimpsed a sinister new path to conquer China: ramping up political inducements for surrender, with brutal military offensives reduced to mere supporting roles. On June 20, the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters unleashed "strategy" tasks upon its troops in China—to incite local armies, those ragtag "miscellaneous troops," to betray their own, isolating and pulverizing the central army units. Wang Pengsheng saw through the ruse; this "attacking the heart" and "subduing strategies," drawn from the ancient wisdom of China's military sage Sun Tzu, betrayed the Japanese army's desperate straits, manpower stretched thin, supplies dwindling to the point of desperation.

Chiang Kai-shek's eyes narrowed as he gripped his red pencil, underlining a passage in the report with deliberate strokes, marking it as a thunderclap of importance or urgency: To cooperate with the establishment of the Wang puppet regime and exert military pressure on the Chongqing government, under the direction of the Imperial General Headquarters, the commander of the Japanese 11th Army, Okamura Yasuji, had formulated the "Xiang-Gan Operation Plan" targeting the main forces of the central army in the Ninth War Zone and was intensifying preparations for its implementation. The words hung heavy in the air like a gathering storm. Chiang Kai-shek rose abruptly, his body protesting with a stiff ache from hours of unyielding vigilance. He stretched his weary waist and legs, then pushed open the wooden door beside the vast sun-facing window, stepping out onto the balcony as if seeking solace from the encroaching night.

The balcony commanded a sweeping vista, a momentary escape from the suffocating confines of strategy and betrayal. Gazing downward, the "Fog Capital" Chongqing emerged in rare clarity, serene and layered beneath the fiery embrace of the evening glow. The distant murmur of the Jialing River, flowing ceaselessly like the pulse of a defiant heart, whispered a fleeting sense of ease amid the turmoil. Yet even this pause carried the echoes of war's relentless march. After the Japanese horde seized Wuhan and surged onward to claim Yueyang—only to halt their southward thrust—both Mao Zedong in his Yan'an stronghold and Chiang Kai-shek in Chongqing etched this moment as a pivotal divide in China's War of Resistance Against Japan. Mao proclaimed the war had plunged into the "stalemate phase," a grinding impasse. Chiang, ever the resolute leader, declared the "second phase of the war of resistance" ignited from this very point.

But across the vast national battlefield, the first half of 1939 roared with unquenched fury, the air thick with the acrid smoke of gunpowder. From the year's dawn, the Japanese army, bolstered by five divisions and eight mixed brigades, launched ruthless "security consolidation" operations in North China to fortify their blood-soaked conquests, only to be harried and bloodied by the Communist Eighth Route Army slipping behind enemy lines and the valiant troops of the First and Second War Zones. In late March, the Japanese 11th Army stormed Nanchang, clashing in a maelstrom of fire with the four group armies of the Ninth War Zone under the iron command of front-line commander Luo Zhuoying. For a grueling month and a half, the battle raged, the Japanese claiming the city at a staggering cost in lives. Chiang Kai-shek, his fury mounting, demanded a counterattack from the Ninth War Zone, but it crumbled into tragedy, over 20,000 souls lost, including Lieutenant General Chen Anbao, the indomitable commander of the 29th Army. Nanchang remained in enemy hands, fueling Chiang's rage like an inferno unchecked.

Then, in May, the Japanese Kwantung Army clashed with Soviet and Mongolian forces in the epic conflagration at Nomonhan. What ignited a spark of grim satisfaction in Chiang was not merely the Japanese rout, with nearly 20,000 of their ranks obliterated, but the broader ripple: this Japan-Soviet inferno would heap pressure upon the invaders in China, weakening their grasp. As the war sank into its stalemate phase, Chiang turned his gaze inward, fiercely guarding his military strength while awaiting the winds of change. He clung to a core conviction: the essence of the War of Resistance boiled down to that single, unbreakable word—"resist." Troops could be sacrificed, territories forsaken, retreats endured when battles turned dire, but surrender was unthinkable. As long as resistance endured, the nation would hold its place among the world's powers, and its leaders their rightful thrones. In time, the tides of international intrigue would shift; the imperialist giants, driven by their own insatiable interests, would not stand idly by as China fell to Japan's maw.

With resolve hardening like steel, Chiang Kai-shek strode back to his imposing desk and seized the telephone, dialing Xu Yongchang, the Minister of Military Orders. His voice cut through the line with unyielding command: instruct Deputy Chief of Staff Bai Chongxi, currently in the Ninth War Zone dissecting the bitter lessons of the Nanchang debacle, to hasten and aid Chen Cheng in crafting ironclad military deployments against the looming Japanese "Xiang-Gan Operation" and submit them without delay.

As the last defiant ray of sunlight plunged below the horizon, the sprawl of Chongqing's urban expanse succumbed to an enveloping darkness, a shroud of uncertainty. Since the government had fled southward, Chongqing had become a relentless target for Japanese bombers, their payloads raining death and devastation in waves of tragedy. By night, the city enforced ironclad blackout controls, its citizens huddling in fear behind heavy curtains, their lives reduced to whispers in the shadows. Chiang Kai-shek's mind drifted to the pre-war nights of the mountain city, when thousands of lights danced like stars upon the river's rippling waves. A deep, weary sigh escaped him, carrying the burden of a leader who refused to yield.

Far from the shadowed balconies of Chongqing, as China's War of Resistance Against Japan plunged into its harrowing third year, the misty haven of Guilin clung to its gentle, rain-soaked serenity, a fragile oasis amid the chaos of a nation torn asunder. Farmers, oblivious to the headlines screaming from distant newspapers, trudged barefoot through the lush fields, guiding massive water buffaloes with their backward-curving horns and deceptively gentle temperaments. Verdant tea groves blanketed the undulating hills, their leaves whispering secrets to the wind, while breezes carried the haunting, sweet-and-sour melodies of mountain songs that seemed to defy the encroaching shadows of war. Those weary souls fleeing the bloodied front lines stumbled into this paradise, their eyes widening in awe, as if they had crossed into a dream untouched by the nightmare raging beyond.

Nestled in the northwestern suburbs of the city, the Guilin Office pulsed with the raw energy of command, its operations post concealed within a colossal karst cave, a labyrinth of nature's own fortifications. Amid the jagged stalagmites and dripping stalactites, wires snaked like veins, cables coiled in tense anticipation, and radio antennas reached out like desperate fingers grasping for signals. These were the nerves of war, linking this hidden nerve center to the smoke-choked, blood-drenched front lines where heroes and horrors collided in the unyielding struggle for resistance.

Deputy Chief of Staff of the Military Affairs Commission and Director of the Guilin Office—Bai Chongxi—unfolded the telegram folder thrust into his hands by his confidential staff, his heart pounding with the weight of destiny:

"To Director Bai in Guilin: Telegram received. Deploy operations according to Plan A.

Zhongzheng"

Before departing Changsha, the Second Department had already whispered warnings of the Japanese horde's intent to strike southward, and fatefully, an urgent call from Xu Yongchang had demanded the swift forging of a battle plan to confront the enemy. As Bai Chongxi devoured the enemy intelligence, a bold strategy ignited in his mind like a flare in the darkness. Chen Cheng, the steadfast Commander of the Ninth War Zone, championed the tried-and-true tactic of successive resistance, but with a grim twist: retreat would be capped north of Changsha. Front-line troops would grind down the Japanese invaders, bleeding them dry before slipping to the east and west flanks. There, they would pounce on the enemy's exposed sides as the foes pressed southward, culminating in a devastating annihilation beneath the walls of Changsha with the aid of the garrison. This blueprint minimized troop movements and promised a swift, brutal clash. Yet Chen Cheng, burdened by his dual role as Minister of the Political Department of the Military Affairs Commission, had delegated command to Xue Yue as acting Ninth War Zone Commander. In heated deliberations, Xue Yue tilted toward Chen's vision, his resolve echoing the caution of survival.

But Bai Chongxi, his strategic mind a whirlwind of innovation, saw a bolder path through the storm. The Japanese forces lurking in the Wuhan area were fractured, split between the Yangtze's north and south, facing off against China's formidable heavy troops. Though intelligence on the scale of their assault remained shrouded in mystery, Bai knew their drawable forces couldn't exceed half their might, and their endurance in sustained combat would falter like a dying flame. "To swallow the attackers whole, the battlefield must be vast and unforgiving, our forces luring them deeper while retreating to the Hengyang area, stretching the enemy thin across a sprawling 200-kilometer wasteland." There, the invaders would wither in passivity, their food and ammunition lines stretched to breaking. Then, in a masterful stroke, troops from the Jiuling and Mufu Mountains would surge westward, while those west of the Xiang River drove eastward, severing every land and water escape route in a vise of total annihilation. Both plans stood as ironclad fortresses of logic, each unassailable in its reasoning, and were dispatched simultaneously to Chiang Kai-shek, the arbiter of China's fate.

By rank and protocol, Bai's vision claimed the mantle of Plan A, while Chen's bore the label of Plan B. Bai Chongxi had voiced his conviction and released it to the winds, content to let Chiang's judgment prevail. Bai Chongxi was a master of strategy, whispered among allies as the "Little Zhuge," his intellect a weapon as sharp as any blade. Yet Chen Cheng shared Chiang's Zhejiang roots and the unbreakable bonds of Huangpu camaraderie, drawing him even closer in the inner circle of trust. On such pivotal matters, Bai Chongxi often chose the path of restraint, yielding rather than clashing in futile strife. Five agonizing days after the plans vanished into the ether, Chiang's telegram pierced the tension, affirming the adoption of Plan A. A surge of quiet triumph coursed through Bai Chongxi as he signed the missive and strode toward the operations map, his steps echoing with purpose.

While strategic minds clashed in hidden caves and distant villas, the front lines pulsed with the raw grit of soldiers readying for battle. Guan Linzheng had been assigned a mount since 1930, when he became commander of the 1st Regiment of the 2nd Training Division, during the Central Plains War between Chiang, Feng, and Yan. He led the regiment to cover the retreat of the division's main force under Zhang Zhizhong. Pursued by several times their number of Feng-Yan troops, they fought while retreating in dire straits. From night to dawn, heavy fog descended, obscuring visibility beyond dozens of paces. Guan Linzheng's chestnut horse suddenly neighed loudly and charged back toward the pursuers. After trying to rein it in unsuccessfully, Guan simply ordered the troops to countercharge into the fog. Shouts of killing filled the air, gunfire intense. The Feng-Yan troops, unclear of the situation in the fog, thought Chiang reinforcements had arrived and ordered a retreat. By the time the fog cleared, they were gone. Guan's bold cunning successfully completed the cover mission, and he was promoted to brigade commander of the division's 2nd Brigade after the war.

In July 1932, during Chiang Kai-shek's fourth encirclement of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet, Guan Linzheng was brigade commander of the 4th Army's Independent Brigade. In battle, he was surrounded by Red Army troops led by Chen Geng and Cai Shenyi of the Red 25th Army Corps in the Anhui town of Zhuanfo Temple. His unit suffered heavy casualties, and a beloved horse was killed, leaving him distressed for a long time. With the outbreak of the War of Resistance, Guan Linzheng's military career entered its golden age. He believed this was truly raising an army of justice, fighting for the people and the nation. After promotions, though equipped with cars, he always kept a warhorse, often riding to survey terrain, inspect work, and command battles. In spare moments, he personally exercised and groomed the horse. That day, he led several staff on horseback to the Xin Qiang River front line, dismounting on the southern bank. 52nd Army Commander Zhang Yaoming and 195th Division Commander Qin Yizhi were waiting.

According to the Ninth War Zone deployment, the 15th Army Group had positioned Zhang Yaoming's 52nd Army and Xia Chuzhong's 79th Army, a formidable force of six divisions along the southern bank of the Xin Qiang River, stretching from Xin Qiang to Maishi beyond the provincial border. This ironclad first line of defense spanned over 100 kilometers, a vast bulwark against the gathering storm of invasion. Fifty kilometers to the south, Chen Pei's 37th Army, with its Divisions 60 and 95, held the Miluo River from Miluo to Pingjiang as the unyielding second line, ready to absorb any breach. Meanwhile, Li Jue's 70th Army, commanding Divisions 19 and 107 along the eastern bank of the Xiang River, was deployed north and south of Xiangyin, fiercely guarding the critical landing points like Yingtian, points that could spell victory or catastrophe.

195th Division Commander Qin Yizhi reported to Guan Linzheng with a voice charged with resolve: troop morale soared like a battle cry, fortifications stood complete and impenetrable, and the army's slogan for this fateful clash thundered: "Fight with the prestige of Taierzhuang!" The division's mobilization slogan echoed even fiercer: "Win fame in one battle!" Guan Linzheng nodded with grim satisfaction toward Zhang Yaoming, his eyes gleaming with the fire of shared history. Guan had once commanded the 52nd Army himself, leading it through a gauntlet of brilliant, blood-soaked battles on the anti-Japanese front. As the Japanese hordes prepared to surge across the Xin Qiang River southward, this was the first, most perilous barrier, a crucible where legends would be forged or shattered. He had entrusted his most loyal unit to the point of greatest impact, knowing full well the stakes. Zhang Yaoming and the division commanders, who had marched at his side for years through hellfire, understood the gravity: Commander Guan was setting an unassailable example, issuing orders that rippled through the ranks, no one could afford the slightest lapse, or face the merciless blade of military law!

"Who's on the north bank?" Guan Linzheng and the others sat on the hard earth, the weight of impending war pressing down; he pointed to the map's symbols for forward positions across the river, his finger tracing lines of fate. "Guarding the Bijia Mountain position is the reinforced 3rd Battalion of the 195th Division's 131st Regiment under Qin Yizhi," Zhang Yaoming replied without hesitation, his tone steady as stone. "Who's on the north bank?" Guan Linzheng repeated as if he hadn't heard, his voice a low rumble, demanding precision in the face of chaos.

Zhang Yaoming hesitated slightly, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his face, and Qin Yizhi stepped in: "3rd Battalion Commander Shi Enhua, Huangpu 8th Class."

The Central Military Academy had held its first five classes in Guangzhou's Huangpu, commonly called Huangpu Military Academy. Afterward, the school moved several times, but students continued using the Huangpu name, partly to inherit the revolutionary spirit against imperialism and feudalism from Huangpu's founding, and partly to indicate their central orthodoxy. Army generals, especially the "old Huangpu" big brothers, approved this practice, calling it Huangpu no matter where the school was.

Guan Linzheng glared at Zhang Yaoming, his gaze like sharpened steel, then pressed his knee and rose to his feet. Guan's left knee had been shattered by a bullet in 1925 during the Eastern Expedition against Chen Jiongming, a wound that had nearly claimed his leg and his future. Doctors had decreed amputation to save his life, but Liao Zhongkai, the party representative, had visited the wounded and intervened strenuously, preventing it. Otherwise, there would be no later glory for Guan Linzheng. After careful treatment and diligent exercise, the leg's function mostly recovered, though rising from a squat was slightly difficult. Zhang Yaoming reached out to help, but Guan pushed him away with a fierce independence born of countless battles. The group descended to the riverbank and stood in heavy silence, the air thick with unspoken tension. The horses either stood patiently with heads held high, vigilant sentinels, or lowered them to sniff the grass, casually plucking some to hold in their lips, oblivious to the human storm brewing.

The Xin Qiang River, an unnamed small river that had flowed quietly for countless years, had no great turbid waves in flood seasons and still shallow clear ripples in dry periods. It flowed peacefully from its source to Dongting Lake over dozens of kilometers. At this moment, it reflected the figures and thoughts of several soldiers, utterly unaware that in a dozen days, its name would leap to the front pages of newspapers nationwide, baptized in blood and etched into history.

Amid these preparations on the front lines, deeper internal conflicts simmered among the high command. Xue Yue regretted taking the position of provincial chairman, a decision that now haunted him like a specter from the battlefield's edge.

After the nationwide shock of the "Great Fire of Changsha," Zhang Zhizhong was punished with "suspension with retention," continuing to handle daily affairs amid the ashes. He sent several telegrams requesting resignation from the provincial chairmanship, expressing to the Executive Yuan his "shameless guilt and deep pain." On January 17, 1939, the Chongqing Executive Yuan passed a resolution to reorganize the Hunan Provincial Government. That night, Zhang Zhizhong received Chiang Kai-shek's telegram instructing him to hand over work and report to Chongqing.

In December 1938, when the Military Affairs Commission issued the order for Xue Yue to act as Ninth War Zone Commander, Chiang Kai-shek personally spoke with Xue, asking: "Brother Boling, do you think this arrangement is acceptable?" Boling was Xue Yue's courtesy name. Chiang, nine years older, addressed him as brother in private. Xue Yue said: "With Changsha in such a state, I truly lack the ability to handle such a major war zone task." Chiang Kai-shek understood Xue's implication about the disunity of military and political affairs making military work difficult. He said: "You go first; we can consider unifying military and political affairs later." According to He Yaozu, then director of the Military Affairs Commission Office who witnessed this: "My impression was that Xue Yue didn't want to avoid the acting commander role, but wanted to combine military and political powers. Chiang knew this, telling me 'If he's willing, let him do it,' words Chiang said to many seeking positions."

On February 1, 1939, the Nationalist Government officially appointed Xue Yue as Chairman of the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Kuomintang and Chairman of Hunan Province. With party, government, and military powers combined, troubles followed incessantly, piling upon him like relentless enemy fire. As war zone commander, he first thought of the troops. Upon taking office, Xue implemented a policy to restrict market rice prices for military grain procurement, proposing "flat prices" to acquire grain cheaply, forcing merchants underground. Upon hearing this, Xue angrily summoned major rice merchants, reprimanded them, and ordered them to deliver quotas. The result: insufficient low-price rice, with black market prices rising daily. After half a year, sharp-tongued Hunanese nicknamed him "Xue Pinggui," a name that became household, a mocking whisper that cut deeper than any blade.

Coincidentally, his father passed away. Whether Xue instructed it or subordinates "handled it," obituaries flew everywhere, sent to county-level units across the province. Each county had at least 20 units sending condolences, and higher-level cities and provincial units all sent, leading some to secretly calculate. After Xue Yue took charge in Hunan, his family members were transferred from other provinces, and arranging work according to their abilities was reasonable in that old society. His uncle-in-law Fang Xuefen became head of the Provincial Grain Bureau, brother-in-law Qiu Weiyi head of the Provincial Bank. His brother continued business, transporting Hunan rice to Guangdong for barter.

Xue Yue's talents shone not in officialdom. Only before military maps, on battlefields of gunfire and flying shells, could one find the general-like Xue Yue; "heaven-born talent" was for warfare. This descendant of an ordinary farming family in Lechang County, Guangdong, who entered Huangpu Army Primary School at 10, became commander of Sun Yat-sen's bodyguard regiment's 1st Battalion at 24, and once carried a machine gun through hails of bullets to protect Madame Sun Soong Ching-ling from rebel encirclement, earned the nickname "Tiger Cub" in blood and fire. What propelled him to life's peak was the Battle of Changsha.

On August 21, 1939, with war clouds over Changsha thickening like a noose, Xue Yue received telegrams and calls from Chiang Kai-shek, Bai Chongxi, and Chen Cheng. Chiang's telegram required immediate deployment according to "Plan A." Bai and Chen urged resolute implementation of the Chairman's instructions. Xue Yue stood motionless before the map, his mind a whirlwind of strategy and defiance.

Many articles recalling Xue Yue mentioned his daily habit, or hobby, of studying maps; he could do so all day. With battles, he looked; without, he still studied avidly. Perhaps map-reading had evolved from a commander's work need to a professional soldier's spiritual requirement, a way to express emotions, dispel worries, a soldier's way of existence. After Chiang's order to execute "Plan A," rather than comparing plans on the map for stronger bases for his preferred view, he was organizing thoughts, adjusting emotions, and gathering courage in this soul's sanctuary. Hours later, he turned and called Chief of Staff Zhao Zili, dictating three reasons to persist with "Plan B," instructing him to draft a telegram directly to Chiang Kai-shek.

He reminded Zhao that the wording should be forceful yet resilient, making the Chairman clearly feel his firm determination. The Ninth War Zone has sufficient forces and confidence to annihilate the Japanese north of Changsha. If our forces retreat to Hengyang, the Japanese 21st Army under Ando Toshikichi in Guangzhou (with 18th and 104th Divisions, Taiwan Brigade, and attached air units) might advance north along the Yue-Han Railway in support, forming a pincer on us, making the battle hard to control. Following Plan A and allowing the Japanese south would lead to Changsha's fall, exploited by enemy propaganda, causing adverse effects domestically and internationally. These three points presented the potential military and political disadvantages of Plan A as tangible, imminent dangers, more argumentative and unyieldingly firm than his original inclination toward "Plan B."

Zhao Zili quickly noted the points, his pen flying across the page with the precision of a seasoned warrior, before retreating to the staff office to draft the telegram that could alter the course of battle. A top student of Huangpu's 6th Class, quick-witted and resourceful, Zhao had risen like a comet through the ranks after a few blistering campaigns, pinning the insignia of major general to his shoulders at the tender age of 31, a feat that stirred envy among his classmates like a storm in their hearts. Zhao Zili, of course, understood Xue Yue's true intent, piercing through the layers of strategy to the raw undercurrent of determination and unresolved fury.

In May 1938, to avenge the stinging triumph at Taierzhuang, the Japanese had massed their forces in a vengeful storm, aiming to encircle and annihilate the Chinese main forces east of the Longhai Railway, striking from both east and north with ruthless precision. The northern route's 14th Division, under the cunning Dobashi Kenji, found itself surrounded in Lanfeng by a pantheon of fierce Chinese generals, Song Xilian, Yu Jishi, Hu Zongnan, Qiu Qingquan, Wang Yaowu, Li Hanlun, Gui Yongqing, Sun Tongxuan, and Shang Zhen, warriors whose names echoed like thunder across the battlefields. Chiang Kai-shek himself descended upon Zhengzhou to supervise the carnage, appointing Xue Yue as 1st Corps Commander to orchestrate the generals in a full-throttle offensive on the morning of May 25, with the ironclad goal of obliterating that longtime scourge of China and his 14th Division before the dawn of the 26th shattered the night.

The odds were a gambler's dream: 150,000 elite Chinese troops against a mere 20,000 second-rate Japanese soldiers. Victory seemed not just possible, but inevitable; Chiang invited journalists to the front lines for live dispatches, while the Wuhan Political Department feverishly prepared celebrations for the "second great Taierzhuang victory." Chiang Kai-shek was exceptionally angry, his rage boiling over in orders that scorched the ranks, reprimanding army commanders for "inept command, cowardly actions, leading to low morale and hesitation," and that "most army, division, and brigade commanders lacked courage and self-motivation, prolonging the battle." After the Lanfeng Battle, Chiang ordered the dismissal and investigation of future Nationalist Navy Commander Gui Yongqing and 1950s Taiwan Army Commander and Provincial Chairman Huang Jie, and executed 88th Division Commander Long Muhan. But he did not hold Xue Yue accountable for leadership responsibility. For a highly self-respecting person, self-blame is more painful than others' blame. Thereafter, Xue Yue spent more time buried in maps, his eyes tracing lines of terrain like a man possessed, seeking a monumental battle to avenge his wounded pride and redeem his tarnished honor.

On March 8, 1939, shortly after Xue Yue assumed the mantle of acting Ninth War Zone Commander, Chiang telegraphed him with urgent resolve: "To secure Nanchang and its rear lines, decide to strike first, take the offensive to thwart the enemy's intentions." Chiang valued Nanchang's strategic position, as did Okamura Yasuji, but Chiang was a step slow, his hesitation a fatal crack. The Japanese, wielding two divisions bolstered by the bulk of their army's tanks and artillery, seized the initiative like predators in the night, storming Nanchang before the Chinese heavy forces could muster. Chen Cheng remained the nominal Ninth War Zone Commander, relegating Xue Yue to a watchful perch in Changsha while entrusting the Nanchang front to his confidant Luo Zhuoying. Xue Yue haunted the command room day and night, monitoring the inferno through frantic phone calls and telegrams, his discomfort gnawing at him like an unhealed wound. He bore witness to Nanchang's fall and the counterattack's agonizing collapse.

The Nanchang Battle loss was not Xue's fault, but it scarred the Ninth War Zone under his watch, with generals' whispers spreading like venom, knotting his heart in a tangle of regret and resolve. Months of intense map study and on-site inspections had etched Hunan's terrain into Xue Yue's very soul, birthing a strategy that was bold, unique, and brimming with promise—a phoenix rising from the ashes of defeat. But as Zhao Zili understood with crystal clarity, Commander Xue's telegram to Chiang, a forceful plea to reverse the decision, sprang less from cold military "strategy" than from the seething "resentment" accumulated through repeated failures and humiliations, a fire that demanded reckoning. With Chen Cheng's help, Chiang finally agreed to change the plan, bending to the tide of persuasion. Xue Yue was delighted, his spirit soaring like a liberated eagle; Bai Chongxi was angry, his frustration simmering like a storm held at bay. After the battle erupted, Bai, dispatched by Chiang to assist Xue Yue, arrived at the war zone headquarters on Yuelu Mountain atop the Xiang River's west bank in Changsha but remained silent like a mute bodhisattva, his words locked away in disapproval. Even decades later, in his Memoirs of Bai Chongxi, discussing the First Battle of Changsha, he still did not consider it a victory, saying the Japanese "conducted a planned retreat without much loss, which is a fact."

I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.

In 1939, amid the Second Sino-Japanese War's stalemate phase, Chiang Kai-shek received intelligence on Japan's Xiang-Gan Operation, aimed at pressuring Chongqing through military advances in Hunan. Deputy Chief Bai Chongxi proposed Plan A for a deep-lure annihilation south of Changsha, while Chen Cheng and Xue Yue favored Plan B for resistance north of the city. After tense debates, Chiang approved Plan B, influenced by Xue's insistence to avoid Changsha's fall and counter Japanese propaganda.