Changsha 1941: Xue Yue Faces the Japanese Offensive

In September 1941, the Imperial Japanese Army launches its second major offensive against Changsha, capital of Hunan, in the heart of southern China. Several divisions, supported by aircraft and artillery, cross the Xinqiang River and push southward, seeking to break the resistance of the 9th War Area and to destroy the Chinese armies massed around the city. The stakes are considerable: Changsha bars the routes to the southwest, and holding it weighs on the morale of a China already exhausted by four years of war.

General Xue Yue, who commands the area, knows intimately this terrain cut through with rivers, rice paddies, and low hills. His own forces, numerous but unevenly equipped, lack heavy weapons and air support against an adversary better endowed in firepower and mobility. Each decision commits tens of thousands of men and the fate of an entire province, while the weight and exact direction of the enemy's effort remain difficult to assess.

Communications are fragile, intelligence on the main axis of advance still uncertain, and the enemy draws nearer day by day to the outskirts of the city. The command must decide within a few hours.