The Japanese army is really a strategically brainless and tactically sophisticated army.

After the capture of Taiyuan, the Japanese Fifth Division, the Twentieth Division, the 109th Division, and the Chahar sent Corps to gather in Taiyuan, the 108th Division occupied the Shijiazhuang line on the Pinghan Road, and the 14th Division pursued south along the Pinghan Road, occupying Xingtai, Handan, Daming, and Anyang, and fought until the Qi River.

At that time, the Chinese army on the battlefield in Shanxi was already crushed. If the Japanese army takes advantage of the situation to pursue it in a big way, the Central Army and the Jinsui Army will be in great danger, and at least they will be driven out of Shanxi by the Japanese army. However, the Japanese commander-in-chief was strategically short-sighted, and reveled in the joy of capturing Taiyuan, so it did not take advantage of the victory to pursue, but began to replenish and recuperate.

In just one month, the Eighth Route Army was deployed behind enemy lines, and the Central Army and the Jinsui Army contained and sorted out the troops, and gained a foothold in the Luliang Mountains of western Shanxi, southern Jinnan, southwestern Shanxi, and southeastern Shanxi. After the Japanese army completed the rectification, it was discovered that the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei region, the central Jinxi region, and the northwestern Shanxi region, which had been occupied by them, had launched a vigorous anti-Japanese salvation movement, and the Eighth Route Army even regained a number of county towns in succession, directly threatening the safety of railway and highway traffic in the rear of the Japanese army.

As a result, the Japanese army launched an eight-way siege of Jin-Cha-Ji and a six-way attack on the mountainous area of Jinzhong.

The eight-way siege of Jinchaji was frustrated, and the six-way attack on the mountainous area of Jinzhong was also frustrated, but instead of learning a lesson, on the contrary, on February 1, that is, the second day of the Lunar New Year, when Xiao Siming led the independent battalion to rest in Mafang, the Japanese army in Shanxi began a new round of offensive operations.

At this time, the 16th Division, the culprit of the Nanjing Massacre, was transferred to North China, and was temporarily subordinated to the First Army of the North China Front of the Japanese invasion of China, and was responsible for the defense of Gaoyi, Anyang, Puxian, and Linqing.

The Fifth Division was transferred, but the Sixteenth Division was transferred, and the First Army of the Japanese Army had a strong capital to place bets!

The Japanese offensive was first directed to the western area of Taiyuan.

On the second day of the Lunar New Year, the Japanese army in Taiyuan dispatched 1,400 men to attack the Gujiao and Hekou areas west of Taiyuan, and then dispatched 3,000 men to attack the mountainous areas west of Xin County and Lao County, intending to find and annihilate the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army operating in this area.

Next, the Japanese attack turned to Jinnan.

The commander of the Japanese First Army mobilized the 14th Division, the 20th Division, the 108th Division, and the 109th Division to participate in the battle, intending to encircle and annihilate the Chinese army in southern and southwestern Jinxi or drive the Chinese army out of Shanxi.

The Japanese army's tactics were still old-fashioned, attacking mainly from the front and outflanking from the flanks. Among them, the 14th Division of the Japanese Army attacked westward from Anyang, the 20th Division went south out of Taiyuan, the 109th Division set off from Yuci and advanced southward, and the 1st 08th Division entered the Yangquan area of Zhengtai Road to take over the defense of the 109th Division, and the main force started from Handan and marched west along the Handchang Highway.

In the sky were Japanese planes, and on the ground were Japanese tanks, armored vehicles, automobiles, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, and the offensive was fierce.

The Japanese army will fight big, and the second theater of operations will also fight big!

At a meeting of senior military generals of the First and Second Theaters held in Luoyang on 15 January, Chairman Chiang proposed that in order to delay the Japanese army's offensive speed, defend Wuhan, and prepare for a battle with the Japanese army in Xuzhou, the First and Second Theaters should immediately counterattack and recover Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan, and North China.

After the Luoyang Conference, in order to implement Chairman Chiang's order, on February 17, Yan Xishan, Wei Lihuang, and Zhu Laozong held a meeting in Tumen Town, Linfen, and decided to counterattack Taiyuan and Shijiazhuang. The specific combat plan was that the Central Army assembled in southern Jinnan under the command of Wei Lihuang would block the southward Japanese army in the southern section of the Tongpu Railway, and rely on the dangerous defense of Han Xinling in Lingshi County to confront the Japanese army head-on; Fu Zuoyi commanded the Jin Sui army assembled in the west of Jin to attack the northern section of Tongpu Road; General Zhu Lao commanded the 129th and 115th Divisions of the Eighth Route Army, and the 49th Division of the Kuomintang Party, and later added the 1st and 3rd Columns of the Shanxi Youth Anti-Enemy Death Squad, as well as the 169th Division and the 529th Brigade of the 17th Division of the Kuomintang to attack the Pinghan Line, cut off the Zhengtai Line, and cut off the enemy's rear.

This plan is destined to be a castle in the air, and the mouth is too long to meet!

So, following the Battle of Taiyuan, the Chinese and Japanese armies in the Shanxi battlefield fought together.

In order to respond to the operation in southern Jin, pinn down the Japanese army, and cooperate with the 115th Division to defend the Yellow River, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army urgently ordered the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region to attack the Pinghan Road north of Shijiazhuang, the 129th Division to attack Zhengtai Road, and the 120th Division to attack Tongpu Road between Xinkou and Taiyuan.

At this time, the 120th Division had grown from two brigades and three regiments at the time of the expedition to two brigades and six regiments, and commanded the first independent detachment, the Yanbei detachment, and the sixth garrison regiment, with a total strength of 25,000 people.

After being ordered to attack, the 120th Division fought on the railway line from Mahui in Xin County in the north to Gaocun in Yangqu County in the south, blowing up 8 bridges, 3 military trains, and more than a dozen automobiles, capturing Shiling Pass and other Japanese strongholds, and successively destroying 800 Japanese soldiers.

The troops of the 120th Division even attacked the Taiyuan railway station and airport, although they did not succeed, but they shocked the enemy greatly!

Unexpectedly, as soon as the 120th Division attacked Tongpu Road, on the second day of the main force of the Japanese army advancing south along the Tongpu Road and fighting with the Central Army's blocking troops at Hanxinling, that is, on January 21, the Japanese army stationed in Mongolia, which had just been announced on January 4, attacked the base area in northwest Shanxi Province just established by the 120th Division, and shelled the position of the Yellow River River Defense Force in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo Border Region across the Yellow River, forcing the 120th Division to terminate the attack and fight against Pulu and return to the division in the starry night to carry out counter-siege operations.

For a time, the Shanxi battlefield once again became a pot of porridge!

The main force of the 20th Division of the Japanese Army left Taiyuan to fight in the south, the main force of the 10th and 9th Divisions of the Japanese Army went south to fight in Yuci, and the Japanese troops who stayed in Taiyuan and the Tongpu Railway south of Xinkou were shocked by the 120th Division, and it was Xiao Siming's turn to make a move!

Where is Xiao Siming?

After the independent battalion left the horse workshop, it traveled day and night, strictly concealed its whereabouts, and even the manure of the pack horses along the way was strictly ordered to be disposed of, so it unconsciously crossed the Zhengtai Road and the highway from Shouyang to Yuci, and the highway from Shouyang to Taiyuan, and from the northwest corner of Shouyang to the junction of Yangqu, and entered the Sangshuping Village in the northeastern suburbs of Taiyuan, where it was concealed and waited.

Sangshuping is only 15 kilometers away from Taiyuan City.

From Mafang in Heshun County to Mulberry Ping in the northern suburbs of Taiyuan, under normal circumstances, the rapid march took two days. But when Xiao Siming and the others set off, the Japanese army in Taiyuan had already begun to attack Gujiao and Hekou to the west, and the prelude to the war had begun. In addition, after the independent battalion fought the Nianzigou Blockade Battle and the surprise attack on the stone measuring station, the Japanese troops along the Zhengtai Road and the highway strengthened their garrison, especially now that the Japanese army launched a major war, along the way often encountered Japanese troops transferred to the front line, and the traitors were jumping around, and they could be discovered by the Japanese army or traitors if they were not careful. Therefore, Xiao Siming's purpose is to rather go slower and wait a while than be discovered by the Japanese army and traitors. Since then, the troops have been marching surprisingly slowly, often just avoiding a small patrol of devils, and before they have moved, another patrol team has come, Xiao Siming They can't clean up these small patrols of devils, so they can only hide and walk around.

If it weren't for the Taiyuan Airport to fight the Japanese army, these devil patrols encountered on the road would not be enough for the independent battalion to plug the teeth!

In the two-day trip, the independent battalion walked for 10 days!

That's it, after arriving in Yulinping, the independent battalion can't act immediately, and has to wait for fighters!

This area is a suburb of Taiyuan, where there are many Japanese strongholds, many traitors, and very strict control, and the tentacles of the guerrilla activities of the Eighth Route Army cannot reach here, and it is a purely enemy-occupied area.

As soon as the troops arrived at Sangshuping, they blocked the village and were only allowed to enter and exit.

Seeing that a large group of imperial troops had arrived, the maintenance chairman of Mulberry Ping did not dare to slack off, and nodded behind Xiao Siming's ass and waited carefully.

This guy is the landlord here, and the reason why he is the maintenance chairman is actually to keep his property.

Zheng Xiuchuan, the deputy battalion commander, and Shi Poshan, the deputy instructor, both proposed that the whole family of our chairman should be executed and the village baoding should be tied up so as not to divulge secrets.

Xiao Siming did not agree, but ordered to tie up the maintenance president's family and the pseudo-bodyguards in the village, stuff rags in their mouths, and lock them in the village office, and then deal with them separately after understanding whether these people have blood debts.

After arresting the maintenance chairman and Baoding, he was no longer afraid of leaking secrets, so Xiao Siming told the deputy battalion commander Zheng Xiuchuan and the deputy instructor Shi Poshan to lead the troops to hide and wait in Yulinping, and he led the Japanese instructor Zhao Changshou and the guard platoon commander Chen Desheng to Taiyuan City to investigate!

Before the soul crossing, Xiao Siming had been to Taiyuan, but it was a tourist at that time, mainly to see the Jin Temple and Yan Xishan's official residence! Moreover, the gap between Taiyuan City in later generations and the current Taiyuan City is too big, and Xiao Siming's understanding of Taiyuan City can only be used as a reference!

After spending so much effort, he finally moved to the northern suburbs of Taiyuan, and Xiao Siming had more ideas. In addition to seeing the right time to destroy the Japanese army's Beiguan airfield, he also wanted to go to the Taiyuan Arsenal to get some equipment and find a group of military talents.

After the Japanese army captured Taiyuan, they were busy burning, killing, looting and causing tragedy, and they did not have time to transport the machinery and equipment of the Taiyuan Arsenal to the Northeast and Japan. At this time, these equipment are still in the workshop of Taiyuan Arsenal! It's just that the transportation capacity of the independent battalion is limited, and Xiao Siming just wants to build some equipment necessary for building a small arsenal, mainly because he wants to reconnoiter in Taiyuan City and directly see the deployment of the Japanese army after occupying the big city.

This year, the fifth day of the first month of the first month is spring. By the end of the fifteenth day, the wind had become a little gentle, and the ice in the Fen River had begun to melt slowly.

Xiao Siming was wearing a Japanese military uniform, carrying a command knife, a Wang Ba box, a leather bag, and a binocular, and his rank was marked by lieutenant.

Chen Desheng wore a Japanese military uniform with the rank of a senior soldier, carrying a 38 cover on his shoulders, two bullet boxes hanging from his waist, and a backpack on his back.

Zhao Changshou wore a Japanese cotton military cap on his head, a black leather jacket, Japanese military trousers, Japanese riding boots on his feet, and a Wang Ba box on his shoulder, dressed as a Japanese translator.

The three of them swaggered along the road leading to Taiyuan City from Yulinping!