When the rushing Japanese army receded like a tide, Li Ziyuan couldn't bear the exhaustion and sat on the ground. And the twenty or so equally exhausted warriors who were still alive around him also barely approached. After breathing for a long time, He Sanliang smiled bitterly: "The main force, finally arrived." ”

Regarding He Sanliang's wry smile, Li Ziyuan shook his head and was about to say something, but he heard a familiar cry behind him. The cry from behind him made Li Ziyuan stunned for a moment, and suddenly remembered that after the two explosions behind him, he never heard Guo Laosan's unique gunfire again.

Thinking of this, Li Ziyuan, who was shocked, struggled with his rifle and reluctantly stood up. With the support of Liu Lianming beside him, he came to the place where the cry came from. When he saw the scene in front of him, Li Ziyuan could no longer control himself and knelt directly on the ground.

I don't know when, Guo Xiaoshan, who returned with Guo Laosan, was holding his father's chest and was almost stabbed by the Japanese bayonet, and his legs were also blown off by a grenade, but his eyes were wide open, and he could barely cry. Looking at Guo Xiaoshan, who was crying in the dark in front of him, Li Ziyuan's tears also flowed down again.

Struggling to climb to Guo Laosan's side, Li Ziyuan reached out and hugged Guo Xiaoshan. And Liu Lianming also took over Guo Laosan, which can be said to be a dead corpse. But when Liu Lianming tried to close Guo Laosan's eyes that were dead and wide-open, he couldn't close them despite Liu Lianming's best efforts.

Gently patted Guo Xiaoshan in his arms, Li Ziyuan almost crawled to Guo Laosan's side, looking at this man who had always wanted to be alone in this troubled era, but was deceived and coaxed into the army by himself, and used his experience many times to lead the troops out of the predicament, Li Ziyuan wiped the tears on his face.

While closing the pair of turbid eyes that kept them bright at all times, he gently said to Guo Laosan: "Brother Guo, I know that you can't close your eyes because you're worried about Xiaoshanzi." You can go with confidence, as long as I Li Ziyuan lives for a day, I will take good care of her. From today onwards, she is my relative, and if I break this oath, I will not tolerate it. ”

It's strange to say, just after Li Ziyuan said this, Guo Laosan's eyes that let Liu Lianming try his best and didn't close finally closed slowly. Looking at Guo Laosan, whose eyes were closed at the moment and seemed very peaceful, Li Ziyuan turned around and hugged Guo Xiaoshan, and kowtowed to Guo Laosan three times with her.

At this time, Guo Laosan's arm that was pointing to the sky, and he couldn't put it down. Guo Laosan, who was still a little hideous before, was extremely peaceful at the moment. If you don't look at his chest and broken legs, it's easy to think that he walked peacefully and didn't mature for any pain.

Li Ziyuan gave the junior ceremony, and Liu Lianming, who was beside him, wanted to say something. But looking at Guo Laosan's corpse, his throat moved, but he didn't say anything in the end. After Li Ziyuan kowtowed, Liu Lianming walked to Guo Laosan's side, took off his military uniform and covered Guo Laosan's body.

Just after Liu Lianming had done all this, the reinforcements that had cleaned up the battlefield after the Japanese repulsion also arrived here. To Li Ziyuan's surprise, the one who led the team to reinforce him this time was actually his old brigade commander when he was in the 358th Brigade. Seeing the arrival of the old chief, Li Ziyuan struggled to stand up and salute.

Seeing Li Ziyuan, who was covered with injuries, the old chief held him down. But the old chief, whose face was tense, was very dissatisfied and didn't go to the political commissar of the military subdivision next to him, and said to Li Ziyuan: "You kid can't follow the routine, you have to make this wild way for your superiors." We're here just in time this time, who's going to save you next time? ”

"I don't have a deputy commander there now, when your injuries are healed, let me go back to the old army. The provincial army is fighting alone here, and in such a large anti-sweeping operation, there is not even a single subordinate unit. Let a local armed force act as the main force, and it is really a shame that they came up with it. ”

"At that time, your regiment commander and political commissar didn't let people go, and Wang Cheng came to me to fight the autumn wind, and I didn't want to nod my head and agree to release people. If I were still in our brigade, even if I was ridiculous, I would not use the strength of a battalion to contain so many Japanese troops. A cadre like you, others don't cherish me. ”

The brigade commander was very dissatisfied, but for Li Ziyuan's criticism on the surface, but in his bones he was very protective of these words, which made the sub-district political commissar around him frown. It's just that everyone is an old comrade-in-arms of the Fourth Front Army, and they also know that the old comrades-in-arms are very dissatisfied with the current battle situation in Hubei. The political commissar couldn't say anything about the brigade commander's remarks with a gun and a stick.

The main force cleaned up the battlefield quickly, and the corpses of the sacrificed soldiers were quickly carried out of the village. There were no coffins, not even a straw mat or white cloth to wrap themselves in. I can only tidy up the military uniforms on my body a little, so that their comrades who are still alive can feel better and be hastily buried.

The war is tense, and there is not much time left for those who are still alive to griev. Li Ziyuan hugged Guo Xiaoshan, who was about to pounce on his father's corpse, and after watching the corpses of the martyrs who died were neatly placed in a big pit, the soldier in charge of the burial shoveled soil into the pit with a spade. The body that was once familiar was eventually buried in a pile of loess.

There is no mourning, and there is no ceremony. The people who died during the war years were simply buried in an unknown small mountain village to the west of the north of this pot. Their poor comrades-in-arms could not afford to build them a decent cemetery. Even the comrades-in-arms who are short of bullets can't even give them the gun salute that a soldier's funeral should have.

These martyrs, like their comrades-in-arms who left before, just lay quietly under the loess. Their battalion commanders, as well as their living comrades-in-arms, can only give them the wilderness of non-violent corpses. Let their carcasses be buried in the ground and not eaten by wild dogs.

After all the sacrificed soldiers were buried, Li Ziyuan, who was barely standing under Liu Lianming's support, didn't know that the strength from there pushed Liu Lianming away from his side, and took the only remaining more than 20 soldiers around him, lined up in two rows to the martyrs in the tomb, and saluted the last military salute.

Li Ziyuan, who knew that the Japanese reinforcements would arrive soon, took the only remaining soldiers around him after putting down his hand, followed the reinforcements, and resolutely left here despite turning back in three steps. Li Ziyuan, who was afraid that something would happen to Guo Xiaoshan, refused to take the stretcher despite being covered with injuries, and marched with the team with the support of Liu Lianming and Guo Xiaoshan.

At this time, the battle in the eastern mountainous area of Hubei also entered a white-hot stage. The Japanese army on Li Ziyuan's side was defeated, so that the 36th Division was significantly slowed down in the eastern mountainous area of Hubei under the condition that the defense line was already full of holes. In this battle, Li Ziyuan paid the price of almost the annihilation of the entire army, but this battle also became a node that leveraged the entire southeast Jin Dynasty.

The victory in this battle made Li Ziyuan's division commander, the famous commander of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, no longer have any scruples. All the mobile troops that could be mobilized were put into operation, and a large-scale encirclement operation was launched against the mountainous area in the eastern part of Hubei. Attacking, attacking, attacking, a series of beautiful combination punches down, hitting the Japanese army dizzy.

The ammunition that Li Ziyuan buried there in Fuhu Temple solved the problem of a considerable part of the main force. Under the siege of the main force on all sides, the Japanese puppet army, which could not bear the blow, finally gave up the two strongholds of Qiaokou and Luoma, and all the way under the full support of the Changzhi Japanese army, hastily withdrew from the eastern mountainous area of Hubei, and made every effort to shrink and hold along the Pingchuan and Baijin railways.

The Japanese puppet army that participated in this sweep, except for the garrison team, which relied on Wang Tieshi to see that the situation was not good, and relied on the advantage of being familiar with the terrain, paid the price of casualties and capture, and fled back to Pingchuan and became the enemy army with the smallest losses. The puppet Jinnan Jianguo Army troops and the Japanese army that participated in the sweep suffered heavy casualties under the all-out attack of the main force.

All the troops of the puppet Jin Southern Founding Army participating in the sweep were defeated, and more than seventy percent of the casualties were captured, which can almost be said to be the annihilation of the entire army. A large number of weapons and ammunition were captured by the main forces participating in the battle. Together with the losses of troops in other directions, the puppet Jin Southern Founding Army, as a formed puppet army, can basically be said to have been defeated.

The Japanese troops who participated in the battle were also under the care of the main force, losing three-quarters of their troops. After relying on the use of poison gas at all costs, the rest of the army barely managed to run out of the mountain. A squadron of Japanese troops reinforced from southeast Lunan was also defeated by the main force blocking reinforcements.

The squadron leader who led the team was quite smart, and when he saw that the situation was not good, he quickly broke away from the contact with the blocking troops with the remnants, and did not dare to take the main road, so he got rid of the danger of being completely annihilated by the Eight Pine Ridges. The reinforcements drawn from Changzhi and the Taiyue Mountains by the 36th Division also suffered heavy losses under the all-out interception of the army sub-division troops.

Li Ziyuan's bitter battle in the village in the west of Hubei also dragged down a considerable part of the Japanese army's strength. Even most of the troops of the 36th Division that can be mobilized at the moment have been dragged by Li Ziyuan. The bitter battle on Li Ziyuan's side can be said to be a favorable guarantee for the success of the main force in the mountainous area east of Hubei.

A game point leveraged the entire battle situation, and the ambush battle that Li Ziyuan fought on the outskirts of Pingchuan completely angered the 36th Division. As a result, the 36th Division mobilized a large number of troops, chasing Li Ziyuan everywhere like mad dogs and biting them. After finally blocking Li Ziyuan, his encroachment plan in the eastern mountains was almost completely disrupted.

A large number of troops were transferred back to the western part of Hubei and Changzhi, resulting in the original superior forces quickly turning from an advantage to a disadvantage. For the main force of the covert attack, the fighters of each breakthrough were created. Although the Japanese puppet army participated in the sweep from other directions, they also quickly reinforced the territory of Hubei.

However, under the full resistance of the troops from all sides, by the time the reinforcements approached, the fighting in Hubei had already ended. After the 36th Division participated in the sweep suffered heavy losses and all withdrew from the mountainous areas southeast of Jinjin. The Japanese troops in other directions, feeling that it was difficult to hold on to the lonely wood, also withdrew from the Taihang base area one after another.

This time, the Japanese army invested heavy troops, and the encroachment and sweeping plan implemented on the entire Taihang base area can almost be said to be fruitless. Li Ziyuan only wanted to mobilize the enemy in the eastern mountains of Hubei to return and create fighters for the main force in order to drag the main force in, but he didn't expect to make such a big move in the end.

Although his own hand suffered heavy losses, it can be said that it affected the entire battle situation in the southeast of Jin. At least the Japanese army's encroachment on the Taihang base area from the west was completely broken. When the anti-sweeping campaign was over, Li Ziyuan himself broke out in a cold sweat in the face of the results of the campaign he had single-handedly made.