By around 15:00 on January 11th, the battlefield situation had become completely clear.

Under the cover of naval gunfire from the main Japanese fleet, the landing craft of the Japanese amphibious forces charged directly onto the beaches. Once the flat-bottomed boats ran aground, unable to advance further, the vanguard troops leaped into the seawater. Ignoring their soaked uniforms and the adverse effects of the freezing dampness that would follow, they continued their fierce charge toward the coast.

These flat-bottomed landing craft, which had struggled to cross the sea to the landing point, had a shallow draft. Even after beaching, they could float again with the rising tide, assuming the task of transporting heavy weapons.

Defending the Japanese landing zone at the Longchuan Plain coast was the 1st Division of the 7th Army. Ten minutes into the Japanese landing, the 1st Division Commander called the Army Headquarters requesting adjustments. The Chief of Staff answered, and after hearing the division commander out, immediately replied, "The Commander is on his way to you. Speak to him directly."

Just as the 1st Division Commander hung up, 7th Army Commander Li Manlin arrived. Before Li Manlin could speak, a Japanese naval main gun shell exploded less than a kilometer from the division headquarters. It was a 356mm shell; the massive shockwave from the explosion made a report from the division commander unnecessary.

Commander Li Manlin turned to the accompanying staff officer. "How many Japanese warships has the Air Force spotted?"

"Report. More than three Japanese battleships have been sighted. The number of other capital ships exceeds thirty."

The caliber, number, and rate of fire of Japanese battleship guns, and their ammunition load... How many naval guns over 200mm did the Japanese Navy possess, and how much ammunition did they carry? These data points flowed rapidly through Li Manlin's mind. He had made his decision. "From now on, command of the 1st Division is transferred to Army Headquarters."

This was not merely skipping the chain of command; it was taking personal command. The 1st Division Commander's spirits rose, realizing that Commander Li Manlin was preparing for a desperate fight. Together with the other officers of the division headquarters, the 1st Division Commander saluted Li Manlin and replied loudly, "Yes! Command of the 1st Division is now transferred to Army Headquarters."

Li Manlin immediately assigned the upcoming tasks. "The artillery positions must maintain maximum distance from the landing Japanese forces. The three regiments of the 1st Division must delay the enemy, withdrawing in phases. You must ensure the enemy does not advance more than five kilometers within three hours. Before coming here, I received notification from headquarters that reinforcements are on the way."

The 7th Army Headquarters immediately relayed the action of taking over frontline command to the General Headquarters. Commander-in-Chief He Rui received the telegram only a dozen minutes later. Inside the General Headquarters, officers, including Acting Chief of Staff Zhong Yifu, saw that the Northeast Army's supreme commander, He Rui, remained composed and completely unaffected. The uneasiness in everyone's hearts was slightly alleviated.

He Rui was, in fact, affected, but he tried his best not to show it. After signing a few documents, he got up and went to the smoking room to light a cigarette. For security reasons, the smoking room facing the General Headquarters courtyard had no open windows; only a few exhaust fans drew the smoke out and brought fresh air in.

At this moment, He Rui could finally calculate the current situation with a relaxed mind. In his view, the Japanese army had reached the limit of its capabilities, and the Northeast Army had also reached its current limit. The strength of both sides was waxing and waning.

Over the past three months, and especially in the last month, all provinces bordering the Northeast had relaxed border controls. The Northeast Government successfully recruited laborers for farms and ranches from nearby provinces, greatly alleviating the labor shortage in the Northeast.

Sales of Northeast products to the pass (China proper) surged, increasing by 30% compared to the same period last year. On one hand, due to the publicity of newspapers like the *Northeast Daily*, patriotic citizens in the pass were assured that the Northeast Government would never solicit funds or donations, nor use patriotism as a gimmick to obtain funds. Therefore, based on simple patriotic sentiments, the public purchased large quantities of goods produced in the Northeast. On the other hand, the provinces bordering the Northeast Government had all lowered or even abolished the likin tax on Northeast goods, making the local sales price of Northeast products much lower.

According to statistics from the Northeast Government led by Wu Youping, the profit from these sales amounted to several million silver dollars. Compared to donations of money and goods, this trade revenue was not only substantial but also a very stable source of financial resources. especially in metal products; the steel industry in the Northeast had developed very rapidly in recent years, and its profit growth was extremely fast. If the current sales volume could be maintained in the coming year, the Northeast Government's projected production capacity of two million tons of steel could be fully absorbed.

He Rui dared not let his emotions immerse in the good news and pulled his thoughts back to the war. The current performance of the Northeast Army also satisfied him.

From squad and platoon to battalion and regiment-level operations, the Northeast Army's new tactics had not only been fully verified for effectiveness but also proved that the battalion and regiment-level combat units had mastered the new infantry tactics and could utilize them effectively.

Division and army-level commanders lacked war experience, but the current battlefield situation meant that army and division-level combat units mostly assumed the work of completing the operational arrangements of the headquarters, effectively avoiding the challenge of free choice on the battlefield for these units.

From the perspective of executing operational orders, the performance of the Northeast Army's army and division-level combat units was passable. The Japanese division and brigade-level combat units did not gain the upper hand in the war.

In terms of command capability at the headquarters level, Xu Chengfeng, Cheng Ruofan, and others had already understood through two campaigns how a campaign involving one million troops on both sides should be conducted and completed.

Nearly eight years had passed since they became He Rui's comrades. The Baoding Military Academy was considered a junior college, but now these young soldiers possessed the academic ability of a doctorate in military science. They relied on their own understanding and cognition of military affairs and possessed the ability for independent learning and development.

It is easy to get a thousand soldiers, but hard to find one general. The growth of excellent generals was undoubtedly the guarantee for the continued healthy development of the Northeast Army in the future.

He Rui had intended to smoke only one cigarette, but ended up smoking two before returning to his office to continue working. If Xu Chengfeng and the others could hear He Rui's inner thoughts, they would probably be very confused.

Because Xu Chengfeng and the others did not feel that they had grasped the full picture of the war. Even Cheng Ruofan, who made precise predictions about the war based on intuition, felt that his intuition could no longer provide clear guidance. As for Hu Xiushan, who relied on careful research and meticulous work to complete operations, the so-called future was not within the scope of his thinking at all.

Xu Chengfeng asked Cheng Ruofan, "Ruofan, can you coordinate the retreat of the entire army well?"

Cheng Ruofan did not answer immediately. A vast amount of information flowed through his mind at high speed. At this point, it was impossible to cover everything. Cheng Ruofan could only answer based on experience and judgment, "I can do it."

At this moment, Cheng Ruofan guessed that Xu Chengfeng was going to personally command the fight against the Japanese landing forces. Although Cheng Ruofan did not agree, he would not stop him, so he urged, "Based on the movement direction of the second line of defense, as long as the seven divisions can hold off the Japanese army from now on, within twelve hours, this line of defense will be impregnable."

Xu Chengfeng turned to ask Hu Xiushan, "Xiushan, can the 2nd Army Group successfully complete the tactical arrangement?"

Hu Xiushan answered directly without thinking, "I will command from the front. The 2nd Army Group can withdraw."

With both the new classmate and the comrade expressing their stance, Xu Chengfeng put on his military cap. "Then, the headquarters is temporarily handed over to Chief of Staff Cheng Ruofan. I will go to the anti-landing frontline to coordinate and command the various units. Communication Department, ensure the flow of liaison information."

The comrades in the headquarters saluted Xu Chengfeng, then continued to work hard within their respective responsibilities.

At this time, Ishiwara Kanji had transferred to a small boat of less than 50 tons, leading the temporary staff personnel towards one of the landing targets, a small fishing village on the seaside of the Longchuan Plain. Where there is a fishing village, there is a harbor. The Japanese army dispatched six divisions this time; naturally, it was impossible to make all six divisions jump into the sea for an armed swim. Armed swimming was adopted for the frontal attack on the Northeast Army's coastal defense positions in the Longchuan area, but most Japanese troops still had to land through ports of various sizes.

Traveling on the sea in the small boat, the bumps were palpable. At this time, the sky and the coast were ablaze with brilliance. Reconnaissance planes and fighter jets from the Japanese aircraft carrier *Hōshō* flew constantly, engaging the Northeast Air Force with the determination to die, and were shot down one by one.

Incorporated into the sequence of the Japanese 2nd Manchuria-Mongolia Army Headquarters, four battleships formed the outermost circle, bombarding the Northeast Army's coastal defense line with 356mm naval guns. Every shell hit turned everything within a twenty-meter diameter on land into dust.

The cruiser formation was in the inner circle of the battleship formation, bombarding fiercely with 252mm naval guns. When the Northeast Army breached the Kwantung Leased Territory, they used 255mm siege mortars. Now, dozens of siege guns equivalent to 255mm mortars were bombarding fiercely.

Some destroyers provided maritime security patrols for the battleships and cruisers according to navy regulations, while others used 150mm and 120mm naval guns to provide fire cover for the landing Japanese troops.

Even small gunboats carried out artillery attacks in the near-shore area, which already counted as direct-fire shelling. The armor of the small gunboats could not withstand the Northeast Army's 120mm heavy artillery bombardment at all, but they used their ability to move constantly to provide fire cover for the landing Japanese troops as much as possible.

Ishiwara Kanji's landing was very smooth. As soon as the temporary staff disembarked, they set up a temporary communication station to coordinate and unify the command and liaison of the landed troops, and to act as an advance party for the Deputy Commander, Lieutenant General Ugaki Kazushige, who led the landing headquarters to command on shore.

Ishiwara quickly received the first batch of intelligence, information he had no opportunity to receive while at sea. The Northeast Army's counterattack fire on the Japanese frontal assault was weakening rapidly. It could only cause trouble for the landing Japanese troops and could no longer pose a comprehensive threat.

Sensing the smugness in the landing commanders' reports, Ishiwara Kanji coldly ordered the communications officer: "Inform all landing units that the weakening of enemy fire is only because they are preparing a new line of defense. Commanders are requested to quickly establish naval gunfire spotting communications to better coordinate with naval shelling. Commanders, please understand that naval shells are not infinite. Soon, the density of naval shelling will decrease."

Recording the order, the Japanese communications officer's face turned serious. Ishiwara Kanji's warning was not a rebuke, but a precise description of the future. The success of the landing was already a reality, but a successful landing did not equal a successful operation. The combat mission of the 2nd Manchuria-Mongolia Expeditionary Army was to breach the Northeast Army's rear defense line, thereby cutting off the Northeast Army's communication lines, allowing the Japanese forces from two directions to coordinate and annihilate the Northeast Army's heavy troop concentrations.

At this time, Nagata Tetsuzan, commanding the frontal battle, had already received news that the vanguard landing troops of the 2nd Manchuria-Mongolia Expeditionary Army had completed their landing. Less than half a minute after receiving the news that Major General Ishiwara Kanji, Chief of Staff of the 2nd Headquarters, had landed with the temporary staff, Okamura Yasuji, Chief of the Operations Section of the Manchuria-Mongolia Expeditionary Army Headquarters, had already placed a summary of frontline news before Nagata Tetsuzan.

A total of eighteen divisions were employed in this operation. At this moment, apart from one division in reserve in Nagata Tetsuzan's hands, three divisions had been unable to withstand the attrition and had to be withdrawn. The fourteen Japanese divisions continuing on the front line were distributed across a 250-kilometer wide front. These fourteen divisions had fought for almost a whole day. Around 16:00, without exception, they all reported to the headquarters that they had encountered a strong counterattack from the Northeast Army and the front line was truly unable to hold. Fourteen division commanders requested reinforcements from the headquarters or asked the headquarters to allow the division to 'reduce attack intensity'.

Okamura Yasuji was already very clear about the current battle situation. The telegrams sent to Nagata Tetsuzan were already the second round; some were even the third round of requests for help from the frontline Japanese divisions.

The division commanders did not fail to understand the stage the battle had reached. As long as the Japanese army could withstand the Northeast Army's counterattack, they could firmly bite the Northeast Army, making it impossible for them to retreat.

However, every Japanese division had launched attacks against the Northeast Army's well-constructed defense system for almost a whole day. Casualties and fatigue were constantly accumulating, and they were indeed exhausted. The Northeast Army, relying on their defense system, still had the strength to launch a counterattack.

Before the landing of the Japanese 2nd Manchuria-Mongolia Expeditionary Army, these counterattacks by the Northeast Army would have been to drive the Japanese out of their positions and prepare for tomorrow's battle. Now, the Northeast Army must have known that the 2nd Manchuria-Mongolia Expeditionary Army had begun landing. Such a decisive counterattack must be to repel the Japanese army with all their might in order to retreat smoothly.

The reason Okamura Yasuji remained silent was that he knew very well that Nagata Tetsuzan, Chief of Staff of the Manchuria-Mongolia Expeditionary Army, was also very aware of this.

Nagata looked grim but did not speak immediately, so Okamura could only wait. After thinking for a moment, Nagata submitted the report to Lieutenant General Terauchi Hisaichi, Commander of the Manchuria-Mongolia Expeditionary Army. Lieutenant General Terauchi also fell silent, as he was equally aware of the current situation.

This was no longer the era of the Russo-Japanese War. At that time, the scale of war was not comparable to the present, and the war was dominated by mobile warfare rather than the current trench warfare. In mobile warfare, commanders could make choices based on the battle situation when seeing an unfavorable turn. In trench warfare, eighteen Japanese divisions were gathered on a 250-kilometer-long front, leaving absolutely no room for the division commanders to exercise free will.

Attacking forward would meet the enemy's infantry support artillery, as well as the obstruction and killing of barbed wire and machine gun positions. Staying put meant suffering fierce bombardment from the enemy's heavy artillery. Those field positions were useless in the face of heavy artillery bombardment; the officers and soldiers frantically digging field positions were only subjected to unilateral slaughter.

Lieutenant General Terauchi Hisaichi spoke. "Telegraph all division commanders: Our army has completed the flank landing, and the enemy's retreat is about to be cut off by our army. At this moment, every division commander must display the courage of General Nogi Maresuke's 'human bullet' attacks and mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Smash the enemy's counterattack with a fierce offensive and annihilate them in one stroke."

Okamura Yasuji's expression changed. He understood that Lieutenant General Terauchi Hisaichi had no intention of forcing the division commanders to fight to the death. Sending such a morale-boosting telegram alone was useless to the frontline commanders. The only way to truly inspire morale was to temporarily relieve those division commanders who had lost the will to attack and let senior commanders in the army who dared to fight become acting division commanders.

Otherwise, Lieutenant General Terauchi Hisaichi, who had been promoted from Major General to Lieutenant General less than half a year ago, could not command this group of division commanders.

Seeing that Chief of Staff Nagata remained silent, Okamura couldn't help but suggest, "Should we add a clause at the end of the telegram stating that if they fight bravely, the headquarters will request credit for them directly from the Emperor?"

Lieutenant General Terauchi Hisaichi remained silent. Nagata Tetsuzan spoke up. "Every division commander is fighting bravely. If we request credit, naturally we request credit for all division commanders."

Seeing that Nagata had no intention of applying pressure either, Okamura could say no more. After a while, a new battle report arrived. The 27th Division, which had replaced the withdrawn 6th Division and continued to attack at the breakthrough point, had requested reinforcements for the fourth time. Nagata took Okamura to the Operations Section to adjust the situation of the 27th Division.

On the way, Okamura asked, "Nagata-kun, if the enemy opens up a distance, they will definitely retreat."

Nagata Tetsuzan looked composed. "The war is just beginning. We have held Seoul. As long as we can retake Pyongyang, we will have achieved a result sufficient to explain to the nationals. Destroying the unity within the army for this little result would be detrimental to the war that follows."

Okamura knew this, and seeing that Nagata had made a decision, he mentioned it no more.

Looking up from the sky, it was always clear and cloudless. But in the eyes of the Northeast Army and the Japanese Army on the ground, it was completely different.

The air was filled with the smell of gunpowder smoke and blood. The smoke of explosions under the clouds and the black smoke of burning flammable materials ignited by artillery fire made the battlefield a gray haze.

The Northeast Army had deployed eight armies, twenty-four divisions, on the Pyongyang defense line. behind the line were 100,000 replacement troops. Now, another six divisions, equivalent to two armies, had been drawn from the 3rd Army Group. Ten armies, 400,000 men, plus 100,000 replacement troops meant the Northeast Army should have had 500,000 troops on the front line.

However, the actual number remaining on the front line was only a little over 300,000. After three days of fierce fighting, Northeast Army casualties reached nearly 200,000. The only advantage was that the defender's troop efficiency was high. Except for battlefields where fighting was particularly intense, the Northeast Army still managed to send the wounded and most of the martyrs' remains to the rear, loading them onto trucks and trains.

For months, trains had been arriving at a frequency of every 30 minutes, two military trains at a time, each with four carriages.

Due to the sheer number of wounded, the four-carriage trains no longer carried just 200 wounded and martyrs' remains. Each train had four carriages, and three of them were packed with 500 or more wounded. The remains of martyrs were stuffed into the carriages until they could hold no more before waiting for the next train.

Fighting from 7:00 in the morning to 17:00 in the evening, only 30,000 wounded and 20,000 martyrs' remains had been transported away. There were still as many as 100,000 remaining wounded and martyrs' bodies that had not been moved. In the headquarters of the 2nd Army Group, the Chief of Staff asked Hu Xiushan, "Commander, just the wounded and martyrs' remains will take 20 hours to transport at the current speed. This has already affected our army's retreat speed. Can we temporarily bury the martyrs' remains and come back for them later? This would save some time."

Hu Xiushan replied immediately, "No! Let four military trains arrive at once, and we can compress the time to 10 hours."

The Chief of Staff felt Hu Xiushan's request was excessive but didn't know how to persuade him. Hu Xiushan's tone remained calm. "Our army can fight until now because the officers and soldiers know that while it's unavoidable that those blown to pieces or missing cannot be brought back, as long as we are fighting as an organized and disciplined unit, no one will be left behind. It's not that we don't have a way now, and the Japanese combat effectiveness is just so-so. Within ten hours, the troops can retreat by forced march at night. If we let the officers and soldiers see that we are leaving behind so many when retreating, everyone's psychology will be affected."

The Chief of Staff could find no other reason, so he could only say, "Commander, there must be artificial lighting every hundred meters along the railway."

Hu Xiushan immediately expressed his agreement. "Part of the retreating troops will move now, retreating along the railway. I emphasize again, the Japanese army is not as strong as they boast!"

Just as Hu Xiushan judged, when the Northeast Army launched counterattacks with squad tactics, the Japanese troops interlocked with the Northeast Army could not hold. Especially in such dense formations, it was difficult for the Northeast Army to infiltrate, but the impact caused by each infiltration far exceeded that on a battle line where there was space.

Even if some frontline Japanese troops were not affected, there were always Japanese units that would be. Especially after a whole day of bloody fighting, even if the Japanese troops had received training against Northeast Army squad infiltration before the war, in the current state of extreme physical exhaustion and mental torture, the number of Japanese soldiers reacting chaotically increased greatly.

In the end, those exhausted Japanese division commanders had to order their troops to stop attacking and withdraw gradually to prevent Northeast Army squad infiltration with a stable and continuous defense line.

The Northeast Army also quit while they were ahead. After restoring their positions as much as possible, the Northeast Army continued to strike at Japanese positions and organized their night defenses.

At this time, the Japanese 2nd Manchuria-Mongolia Expeditionary Army had also paid the price of several thousand casualties to force the Northeast Army back four kilometers. However, advancing further was like hitting an iron plate; they could not conquer it.

Because the depth of the Longchuan Plain along the coast was limited, Japanese battleships had to sail in a safe water depth of 11 meters and had to retreat to further waters at night. Coupled with the retreat of the Northeast Army's defensive troops, the battleships could no longer exert their combat effectiveness at night.

In night operations, with rising tides and undercurrents, the accuracy of Japanese naval gunfire dropped significantly, and those cruisers also had to withdraw. Japanese small warships, due to tonnage issues, were more affected by the sea waves and could only withdraw temporarily.

Ultimately, the Japanese maintained only a slow landing for the landing troops, while the attacking troops could only quickly shift to defense.

On this night, if anyone could look down from mid-air, they would see lights like a pearl necklace on both sides of the railway line in northern Korea. On the front line and the flank landing battle line, artillery fire blossomed like fireworks.

Cities in northern Korea were pitch black, with only patrolling troops moving through the streets with lights.

At 3:00 AM on January 12th, the Northeast Army began a full retreat from the Pyongyang defense line. It wasn't that no Japanese troops noticed, but those units were deep in minefields, and the boundary lines between the two sides were subjected to fierce bombardment by the Northeast Army's 120mm artillery groups. This led Terauchi Hisaichi, Nagata Tetsuzan, and Okamura Yasuji to suspect for a time that the Northeast Army wanted to take advantage of the Japanese thinking the Northeast Army's flank was threatened to suddenly launch a large-scale counterattack and rout the exhausted Japanese frontline troops, who had suffered nearly 150,000 killed and nearly 250,000 wounded, in one stroke.

Amidst such tense defense, the Northeast Army's shelling occurred suddenly for ten minutes every half hour.

By 7:00 AM, the Northeast Army artillerymen ended the shelling and began to move according to the retreat schedule. The retreat was not a rout; it wasn't the entire army turning and running toward the Yalu River at a single command.

Various units retreated in an orderly, echeloned manner. Trains and trucks carried out long-distance transport, moving the most exhausted troops and equipment as organized units directly to the Changjin Lake (Chosin Reservoir) defense line, 100 kilometers from the Northeast border, before returning to transport more.

Therefore, the retreat was not chaotic. Instead, because the number of people retreating on foot decreased, the retreat speed became faster.

While the number of troops was still sufficient, large units served as rearguards, destroying the railways and roads left behind as they retreated and laying a large number of landmines.

When Ishiwara Kanji began attempting to break through the Northeast Army's railway defense line on January 12th, he found that this defense line was already impregnable. Because Japanese naval gunfire was insufficient to exert its power, the Japanese troops who had scrambled ashore were not enough to break through alone.

By January 14th, the six Japanese divisions that had expended tremendous effort to barely complete their landing found that the number of enemies facing them was no less than the Japanese army, and the number of 120mm artillery pieces even exceeded that of the Japanese.

!

Ishiwara Kanji had known since a large-scale probing attack on the morning of January 13th that the flank landing had played a role but failed to achieve the ultimate goal of cutting off the Northeast Army's communication lines.

This actually made Ishiwara Kanji much more relaxed. Although the first phase of the campaign did not fully achieve its objective, the second phase was just beginning. The Japanese army still had a chance of victory, and this chance was not small.

On January 15th, the Northeast Army abandoned Pyongyang, which they had occupied for three months. That same day, a small unit of the Japanese 2nd Manchuria-Mongolia Expeditionary Army sailed up the river in small gunboats, arrived in Pyongyang, and planted the Japanese military flag on the city walls of Pyongyang once again.