(I'm sorry, I don't know where I saw the 85mm caliber howitzer, maybe I saw an 8X, so I made it up to myself.)

Thank you for the correction of the book friend 110kongjiang, the previous chapters are inconvenient to modify, from this chapter, it will be uniformly changed to 82 caliber heavy mortars.

I would like to take this opportunity to express the author's gratitude to all the friends who have supported this book, and bow deeply to all the friends who have given tips, thank you for your care, support and help, and sincerely thank you! ）

The morning bugle woke Ye Hanqing from his sleep, he opened his eyes in confusion, and looked at the roof made of banana leaves, and it took a while to understand where he was.

It is a shack made of wooden sticks, sealed with banana leaves on all sides and on the ceiling to protect it from the wind and rain, and a bamboo door with wire hinges on the front. The windows are also made of bamboo strips, which are also fastened to the window frames with iron wires, which is very simple.

He slept in a bed that was also supported by two earthen ramparts, and on top of it a wide plank.

"It's only half past five!" Teacher Xie struggled to sit up, and he was by the window, looking at his watch through the light through the cracks in the window, and whispered a complaint.

"Sleep on you, this is the army's morning exercise, it has nothing to do with us." On the other bed, Mr. Han said a word with sleepy eyes, turned over, and continued to sleep. He is a person who knows the bed better, he always can't sleep last night, and he falls asleep in a daze in the middle of the night, and he doesn't want to pay attention to anything that has nothing to do with him, he just wants to sleep a little longer.

Ye Hanqing learned that Suo Suo got up, put on his clothes, and got out of bed to fold the quilt.

"Xiao Ye, didn't sleep so early?" Teacher Xie said strangely when he saw him take out the basin from under the bed, holding towels, soap, toothpaste, and toothbrushes, and planning to go out.

"Anyway, I'm awake, so I might as well go out and wash my face." Ye Hanqing replied gently, opened the wire buckle that was tied together, and prepared to go out.

"Wait, I'm not going to sleep anymore, let's go together!" Teacher Xie got along well with him, and as soon as he rolled over and got out of bed, he quickly cleaned up his bed, took the basin and followed.

When I got out of the door, I found Ye Hanqing standing in front of the door, looking ahead, and muttering something to myself: "Go around and around, but I finally entered the mountain!" ”

When I came here last night, there were black lights everywhere, and I couldn't see anything clearly, and Mr. Xie hadn't seriously looked at the surrounding environment. At this time, Ye Hanqing reminded him, and he began to seriously observe the situation around him.

At a cursory glance, he confirmed that it was a small mountain basin.

Judging from the white of the fish belly on the horizon, there is a towering mountain to the west. In the dim light that was about to leap over the horizon, the mountain was steep and steep, in many places more than 60 degrees, and the whole mountain looked like a wide and tall wall. As far as the eye can see, there is no end in sight in the north and south directions.

Intuitively, the absolute height of this mountain is about five or six hundred meters.

In addition to the high mountains in front of the front, there are also large mountains on the north and south sides, but they do not rise abruptly in front of you like the mountain in the west, but are gradually pushed up by small hills of tens or hundreds of meters, so you can see several kilometers away, and the field of vision is very wide.

The east side of the small basin is also a large mountain, which is different here.

The basin extends to the east, and the terrain is naturally uplifted, forming ridges two kilometers away. Looking beyond the ridge, there is another ridge that can be seen at another ridge, and behind this ridge there is another higher peak. It can be seen that the eastern mountain range is in the form of a step, and it rises one step at a time.

There are three intermountain passages in the basin.

Near the western peak, there is a floodplain that runs roughly north-south and slightly northeast-southwest, and there is a road built near the river, which becomes the north and south passages of the basin.

On the east side of the basin, another valley road skirts the hill directly in front of the line of sight and extends deeper.

Judging by their memories of last night, they came from the South Beach Highway last night.

The basin is indeed not large, and under the division of large and small hills, this small basin is irregularly shaped, with a diagonal from northeast to southwest, less than three kilometers long. However, given that the surrounding hills are not very high, and the highest hills are less than 100 meters, the available area is very wide. In a broad sense, the basin covers between five and seven kilometers, which is huge enough.

With such a large basin, it is enough to build a small county town.

However, he saw that there were only a few hundred houses on the west side of the river, and at best it could only be regarded as a large town, and one or two thousand people could reach the sky.

The quality of the houses is also very poor, most of them are earthen walls, banana leaf roofs, and only one or two tiled houses are visible. Next to the town are the fields opened up by the common people, and there are very few paddy fields that can be seen, no more than ten acres, and most of them are dry fields. At this time, it is spring, and you can see that the crops growing in the fields are mainly corn and sorghum.

Do the people here only eat corn and sorghum?

If there is another answer, it is: it is very poor, very poor! They can only survive on corn and sorghum!

It's not cold in the basin.

It is at the same latitude as Guangdong, belongs to the subtropics, but is a high-altitude mountainous area, so it is warm in winter and cool in summer, and there are about 17 degrees Celsius in the basin at this time, and a single coat is enough.

In the spring, the hills are full of flowers and green grass, and even the crooked-necked trees growing on the opposite mountain wall have also stretched out their fluffy canopies. As far as the eye can see, the mountains in the distance are boundless primeval forests, with leaves moving in harmony with the wind and the sound of rushing water between rivers, creating a natural beauty full of vitality.

But Teacher Xie felt a little chill in his heart.

The conditions here are much worse than those in the countryside!

The place where he went to the countryside, although it is said to be a rural area, is at least a mature human settlement, with fields and flourishing. There are loudspeakers and tractors in the village, and traces of human civilization are reflected everywhere.

And here, it's a place of complete wilderness!

……

Guan Fei didn't know that Teacher Xie, Ye Hanqing and the others were cold and annoyed at the moment, and at this moment he was doing morning exercises with the soldiers.

To control the troops, it is not only necessary to grasp the commanders who lead the troops, but also to go down to the grassroots level and mingle with the soldiers. Although there are many things waiting for him to do now, he will never forget to keep going out for morning exercises and running with weights with the soldiers every day. In addition to him, Zhang Shengguo, Sun Yaohua, as well as civilian cadres of the brigade headquarters and staff of the subordinate civil affairs office, all participated in the daily morning training under his leadership.

Guan Fei believes that for these people who will sit in the office for a long time in the future, it is also good to exercise more.

At half past seven, he came back from a ten-kilometer cross-country run, and he had breakfast with the soldiers, which was at the same level as everyone else: porridge, steamed buns, and pickles.

He had no complaints.

Compared with the earlier days, when you could only eat two meals a day, half corn and half rice, boiled in salt water as a vegetable, deceived the stomach but could not deceive the viscera, and was in a state of semi-starvation for half a day, which is now quite good.

Many of the fighters were probably impressed by their previous hunger and ate steamed buns one after another. A sturdy big steamed bun that they could swallow in three or two bites, and then immediately ran to grab the second one. Some fighters with a big appetite can eat seven or eight steamed buns in one meal!

Fortunately, there is enough food, as well as a large number of vegetables bought from China, and the soldiers can eat them openly, otherwise they really can't afford to support these big-bellied men.

Many fighters joked that they had entered the ** in advance.

The soldiers' requirements are very low, but Guan Fei can't be like them, as long as he can eat enough, he has to do his best for the future development of the 291st Brigade.

After eating, he rested for a while, did a morning drill at eight o'clock, and the troops began formal training in the morning, and he also took Zhang Shengguo to inspect the two defense lines in the north and south.

The defense area of the 291st Brigade is a narrow area running north-south.

It is fifty kilometers long from north to south, but it is very weak from east to west, wide at the ends and thin in the middle, like an hourglass. The northern route is connected to the transit, from the ancient town of Meng, which is occupied by the Weiding army at the western end, to the Salween River at the eastern end, with a total length of 17 kilometers.

Then it is squeezed inward by the mountains and the Salween River, and the middle section gradually shrinks inward.

The thinnest lot in the middle, only seven kilometers. Then it spread like a trumpet east-west to another towering mountain range.

The entire defense area, bordered by the border in the north, the Salween River in the east, the alpine barrier in the west, and the mountains in the south, the center of gravity that needs to be defended is the north-south passage.

The north-south passage is actually one, that is, two mountain outlets in the north and south of the same nameless river. The river originates from Menggu and branches off from the Jiehe River, and flows south into the mountains because of the terrain that is high in the north and low in the south.

After nearly ten kilometers of zigzag in the mountains, it turns southeast and flows into a high mountain valley with steep rocks. Another five kilometers, rush out of the valley and enter a three-way river beach. Here, the terrain quickly becomes flat and wide, and under the accumulation of sediment brought by the flowing water, a small alluvial flat land with a width of one or two hundred meters and a width of more than five hundred meters is formed.

As a result, the Sancha Flat was inhabited and became a small town - Kangca.

The river is blocked by the mountains, and then turns to the southwest, which is the middle section of the river, the terrain becomes more open, the flow slows down, and after five kilometers it flows into a wider small basin, which is the town of Longkang, where the headquarters of the 291st Brigade is located.

The center of gravity of the 291st Brigade's defense in the north and south is the two towns of Kangka and Longkang.

Conca is relatively easy to defend, and the road follows the hill on the right side of the river. Due to the steep cliffs, it was impossible for the enemy to climb the mountain, so they had to take the road. So Guan Fei set up a defensive line four kilometers along the river in Kangca, before he reached the bend of the river.

The defensive line consisted of trenches built on the slopes at the foot of the mountain, and tunnels built by digging walls and blasting. The tunnel was dug on the mountain wall more than 20 meters high, winding and staggered, until it was connected to the rear position one or two hundred meters away.

The slope and the tunnel are both condescendingly controlled on the road, and the fire is intertwined, so they can support each other. At most, the road can only accommodate platoon-level troops, and the enemy cannot use numerical superiority to flood the position, and the defensive pressure is greatly reduced.

Due to the turn of the river a kilometer ahead, the enemy's heavy artillery could not attack the position. If the opponent wants to turn around heavy artillery and other heavy weapons, it will be tantamount to exposing the soldiers to the noses of the soldiers, and under the cross-attack of 82 heavy and 60 heavy presses, as well as light and heavy machine guns and automatic rifles, no one can withstand the pressure to set up positions.

Without heavy artillery, the forces could not be deployed, and although only two companies were placed on the Kangka Line, as long as the commander was not careless, two or three thousand men could not penetrate it.

Compared with the northern route, the southern route is more difficult to hold.

The main body of the southern route is the river beach and hills, and although the terrain is gradually rising, the river is the main choice for human settlement. Ten kilometers downstream of Longkang, there is another town, Maika, where the remnants of the battalion that were repulsed last time are stationed.

finally made the country accept his idea of peaceful development, and it was impossible for Guan Fei to run to knock down Maika in order to establish a solid line of defense and lose his credit.

To do this, he had to rely on three higher hills to establish a defensive line in the river beach.

However, he also hollowed out his mind and made careful arrangements for the defensive line when he could. The first hill is a front-line position, located on the left side of the river beach, opposite the road. In order for the enemy to attack this position, he must first cross the river, and he will inevitably reduce his speed, and this is the time to destroy the enemy in large numbers.

At the same time, the second hill, which was dragged back seventy or eighty meters, was frontal in choking the road, forcing the enemy to make no detours and providing fire support to the front-line positions. If the enemy attacks this line of defense, the fire of the first hill can attack the enemy's flank and rear, so that the enemy cannot look at each other.

Best of all, there is a small depression behind the first hill, which can be circled behind the second hill, and people and materials can be transported unhindered.

Considering that this area is relatively wide, with a foot of one or two kilometers, in order to prevent the enemy from coming all over the mountains and fields to carry out the tactics of crowds, Guan Fei set up two heavy firepower points on two hills more than 100 meters high in the rear to protect the flanks of the front defense line.

At the same time, most of the heavy weapons were also placed on the southern front, relying on the tunnels on several hills, behind the hills, 122 heavy artillery and 82 mm heavy mortars were placed. And boldly forced more than 10 gates 60 out of the rear of the first and second line positions, a small mountain depression, and took advantage of the cover of the mountain to provide fire support.

In terms of troops, two companies were enough on the southern front, but five companies were stationed on the northern front at any one time.

The remaining five companies were also stationed in a small valley not far from Longkang Town in the rear. When the battle is fierce, it only takes ten minutes to run. At critical moments, guard companies, communications companies, and even engineering battalions can be pulled up to support. With so many troops, counting the more than 2,000 former KPA soldiers who decided to accept them yesterday, there are four or five thousand troops in total, and they can completely hold their positions.

Guan Fei tried his best, and he could only do it here.

On the northern front, it is good to say that if the enemy mobilizes a division to launch a large-scale offensive on the southern front, it will not be difficult to hold it under his command, but it will pay a certain price. If the attacking force exceeds one division, then even if he holds on, he will suffer heavy casualties and lose his vitality.

But this is not a crime of war, but his overall strength is too weak.

This time, he first brought back a large amount of reinforced concrete, that is, he was preparing to build a large number of tunnels, pillboxes, and permanent fortifications on the southern front, and build the front into a steel defense line. So as to kill and wound as many enemies as possible with a limited force.

He's going to turn every hill, every ridge into an enemy's nightmare! Let the other side not be able to bear this huge cost of casualties, and give up the attempt to conquer the 291st Brigade by force!

He believes that as long as he gets through this weakest period, he will be given a few years to lay a solid foundation and accumulate strength. At that time, he would create an impenetrable steel defense. In a few years, I am afraid it will not be a question of whether the enemy will come to fight the 291st Brigade, but whether the 291st Brigade will take the initiative to attack!

Time, the most precious thing is time!