Hearing Zhang Yuhu's expert-level analysis, Li Ziyuan and He Sanliang glanced at each other, and felt that the door in front of them was suddenly pushed open, and the front suddenly became clear. It's like a cerebral thrombosis patient, the blood vessel that was blocked in the head was suddenly opened.

After giving Zhang Yuhu a verbal compliment, he hurriedly raised his binoculars and looked around Qiaokou again, and the situation was exactly as Zhang Yuhu said. Those who seem to be doing farm work are not real farmers at all. These guys look like they're busy with something, but they're not doing anything.

And in the eyes of Li Ziyuan and He Sanliang, as long as the blocked wall is opened, they see far more things than Zhang Yuhu. Both of them were carrying binoculars, and they could see much clearer than Zhang Yuhu. In their telescopes, they can see more clearly.

The people who appeared inside and outside their telescopes were definitely strong young men, not a single older man, not a single woman or a half-grown child, which did not correspond to the actual situation at all. Li Ziyuan did not stay in the countryside in his later years, and the most important thing is that most of the rural areas at that time had already implemented mechanized harvesting.

No way, under the situation of agricultural subsidies vigorously implemented by the state, the number of agricultural machinery in rural areas is quite large. A harvester on more than a dozen acres of land will be finished in one day at most. Not only is the harvesting extremely fast, but it can even help with threshing and delivery to your home.

Hiring machinery to do the work is not only fast, but the most fundamental thing is that the cost is much lower than hiring people. Moreover, in the next few decades, most of the young and middle-aged people in the countryside will work outside the home, and they will not have much time to go home to cut the land. Mechanical harvesting is generally appropriate, not to mention, the key is to save trouble and speed. Therefore, even when the farm is busy, not many people can see the fields.

Especially in upland fields, mechanical planting and harvesting have become common. Some small seeders and harvesters have even become a must-have for some affluent rural families. And after returning to this era, Li Ziyuan has been in the army again, what kind of farm work he has seen, but he has not done it. It is normal for him not to know the basic common sense of farm work.

However, although I have never eaten pork, after all, back at this time, under the strategic guidelines of the countryside encircling the city, the troops are basically operating in the countryside, at least I have seen how pigs run. It turned out that I didn't figure it out, but I just felt that there were too many things that were abnormal.

When Zhang Yuhu said this today, after opening the stone that had been blocking his thoughts, he thought of the farm he had seen, and sure enough, he found that there were too many doubts. And not only the fake farmers who were doing farm work outside the base, but also the suspicious places inside the base, they also saw that something was wrong.

The people on the streets of the town are almost all young adults. There was not even a single woman or child on the streets of the whole town. This is almost impossible for a town, or even a village. Nowadays, the children are all free-range, and no one cares about them when their parents go to the ground.

Even some older children have to cook and send to the field or follow their parents to the field. And those who are younger, when their parents are busy in the field, are all over the streets. But now in the town, there is not even a single child, which is quite abnormal.

At this time, the rural economy was still quite underdeveloped, and it was still in the stage of self-sufficient small farmers, and the families were basically self-produced and sold. Except for those large market towns or county seats, the exchange of small quantities of goods in ordinary villages is still in the stage of going to the countryside to visit households.

A stronghold of Qiaokou, both in terms of population size and otherwise, is far inferior to the Hirakawa behind them. Although it is important because of its geographical location, it is just an ordinary village in the southeast of Shanxi. The sudden appearance of so many vendors at once is a bit unconventional.

And now it is the busy season of farming, so many young and middle-aged people do not go to the field to shop here. In this mountainous village in the southeast of Jindong, which is dominated by agriculture, just as Zhang Yuhu said, they are not afraid that their elders will break their legs? In this era of watching the sky and eating, the solar terms dare not have any delay.

Once delayed, what is an old snack in a year? In this era, there is no going out to work, and if you lose it in the east, you can make up for it in the west. If the solar terms are delayed and the land cannot be planted, the family will starve to death. Therefore, so many young adults appear in Qiaokou, which is definitely not a normal performance.

Seeing this, Li Ziyuan and He Sanliang finally figured out where the wrong thing they felt before came from. Although the performance of the periphery and the town looks normal on the surface, the details reveal abnormalities everywhere. These abnormalities are connected together to reveal a piece of news, and the calm in front of him is an illusion.

In fact, there is another point, although Zhang Yuhu did not say it, but Li Ziyuan and He Sanliang can see it now. That is, the number of young and middle-aged people inside and outside Qiaokou is also a little higher, which obviously exceeds the proportion of young adults in the population that Qiaokou should have.

Even some wealthy people employ more McKes than they need. Shanxi people are well-known for their meticulous work, and even if the landlord's family hires some short-term workers in the spring and autumn, they will not hire so many people at once. You must know that hiring a microphone customer not only costs money, but also eats well every day during the period.

Although it cannot be said that there is a small meal or meat, at least three meals a day must be dry. Even if you don't have meat, you have to have tofu or something. In this calculation, the expenses during the period are not a lot. All the people who hire McKee can hire one, and they never hire two. There are people who hire so many people at once.

And according to Qiaokou's information, there are only two people who can hire people here. Ordinary people, their own families at this time think that their farm work is over, and they go to other people's homes to earn a little more. There will be no such thing as what I see today, grinding my own foreign workers here. Seeing this, both of them figured it out.

If these young and middle-aged people are all disguised by the Japanese puppet army, then there are at least more than 600 Japanese puppet troops inside and outside Qiaokou at the moment. In this case, almost all of his original battle plan will have to be pushed back to the rest. If you fight according to the original plan, you will suffer a big loss if you don't make it.

Thinking of this, Li Ziyuan said to He Sanliang: "Old He, you immediately plot the map." Mark me what I found or suspect might be a firepower point. Wait a minute, let's go back and have a combat meeting. The original plan could no longer be implemented and had to be adjusted. ”

Regarding Li Ziyuan's order, He Sanliang nodded. While constantly observing the entire fortification structure of the mountain at the foot of the road, I made a map of the Japanese army's defense situation at the mouth of the mountain. It's not that Li Ziyuan sent He Sanliang to do something innocuous at this juncture.

In fact, in the group led by Li Ziyuan, the only one who can make this kind of picture is himself, that is, He Sanliang himself. Not to mention that Li Ziyuan is still in the regimental headquarters of the Caotai team, that is, in the whole army of the Eighth Route Army, except for those few old troops, there are not many capable people at the regimental level.

Most of the qualified staff officers are in the higher-level organs. At the regimental level, basically can't take care of it. In the case of lack of talents, Li Ziyuan could only give up the idea of continuing to discuss with He Sanliang, and let He Sanliang concentrate on this defensive situation map first. Li Ziyuan, on the other hand, held up the binoculars, constantly thinking about what kind of changes to make to the original attack plan.

Just when both of them fell silent at this time, a machine-gun fire point of the Japanese puppet army at the mouth of the mountain suddenly seemed to have discovered something. A 92 heavy machine gun suddenly fired a burst of fire at Li Ziyuan's location. The bullet discounted the bushes in front of Li Ziyuan. More than 20 puppet soldiers also suddenly rushed out and rushed in this direction.

And around the observation post that Li Ziyuan chose, those farmers who pretended to be busy. They also threw down the hoe in their hands in unison, grabbed the rifle from the haystack in the field, and rushed in this direction. Seeing the change in the situation under the mountain, Li Ziyuan stopped Zhang Yuhu and Da Li, who wanted to fight back, and chose to retreat without saying a word.

After withdrawing to the stationing of the troops in one go, Li Ziyuan looked at the sketch made by He Sanliang, and his brows were tightly twisted. And Ma Yongcheng and Zhang Zijian over there, after getting the abnormality in the direction of Qiaokou from He Sanliang's mouth, their brows also wrinkled. These changes in the Qiaokou stronghold were obviously unexpected by the two of them.

Li Ziyuan was hospitalized during this time, and the main work of the army was the two of them. Qiaokou, Luoma and the Pingchuan triangle behind them are the areas closely controlled by the Japanese puppet army in Hubei, and they are also the closest Japanese puppet army to the eastern mountains of Hubei. Even during Li Ziyuan's absence, the two of them never relaxed their collection of intelligence here.

After the Japanese army suddenly launched this sweep, intelligence departments at all levels, including military subdivisions, intensified their observation of the Japanese army in this direction. However, the number of Japanese puppet troops has not changed significantly. The movements of the Japanese puppet army in the Ludong area were mainly carried out along the Baijin Railway.

However, none of the previous intelligence shows that the Japanese army has increased the deployment of troops in the direction of Qiaokou. Unless there is a new movement in Qiaokou right now, these Japanese puppet troops were transferred last night. Otherwise, it can only mean that there is a big problem in intelligence gathering this time.

Zhang Zijian and Ma Yongcheng's faces were not good-looking, and Li Ziyuan over there didn't say anything. Now, after all, the troops have not suffered any losses, so there is no need to pursue anything. The problem now is that the situation has become so complicated that how this battle should be fought is the most crucial thing.

In the face of the change in the situation, Zhang Zijian's attitude was very clear, giving up the original plan of directly hitting the mountain from Qiaokou, and turning from the territory of Ludong, where the terrain was more powerful, to Changzhi. Zhang Zijian's idea was very simple, the number of Japanese puppet troops in the Qiaokou stronghold at the moment greatly exceeded expectations, and at the same time, the terrain of Qiaokou's attack was quite unfavorable.

If the attack is launched according to the original plan, at least the investment of troops will be doubled, so that the strength of the Japanese puppet army will not be enough to block the stronghold in the north and move south to reinforce the Japanese puppet army. In addition, there is a highway connection from Qiaokou to Pingchuan, and the reinforcement speed of the Japanese puppet army in Pingchuan will be quite fast. And according to intelligence, the Japanese army newly deployed two armored vehicles and a cavalry squadron in Pingchuan.

Once the attack is frustrated and the battle is deadlocked, the situation will be quite unfavorable to you. Moreover, at present, the cadres of the army have just completed the deployment, and the run-in period has not yet ended. Fighting such a battle is not conducive to the next move of the troops. Choosing to go out of the mountains in Ludong can effectively avoid being entangled here by the Japanese puppet army.