Mo Shan is the secretary of the general branch of the independent battalion, mainly responsible for the party affairs in the battalion.

At the beginning of the reorganization of the Eighth Route Army, in accordance with the Kuomintang military system, the political commissars of divisions and regiments were reappointed as deputy division commanders and deputy regiment commanders, and instructors were retained at the battalion level. The secretary of the battalion general branch is specifically responsible for the party building of the whole battalion, but at this time, the party members in the army are kept secret except for the battalion commander, instructor, company commander, and instructor.

The independent battalion was a newly built battalion, and although there were a number of Red Army backbones, the number was too small and there was still a shortage of cadres. Otherwise, the independent battalion would have been successful in success, with sufficient weapons and ammunition, and now there would be no problem in expanding two infantry companies and one artillery battalion. The key is the lack of cadres!

Xiao Siming asked Mo Shan to command the engineer team, cavalry platoon, and recruit team to besiege the Baijiazhuang stronghold, just to give Mo Shan a chance to exercise. This kind of opportunity is very precious to Mo Shan, a political work cadre!

The reason why Li Qi, the chief of the operations section and the combat staff officer, was sent to Mo Shan was because Mo Shan had never commanded the battle alone, and let Li Qi assist him!

After explaining the tasks of Mo Shan and others, Xiao Siming ordered Zheng Xiuchuan, deputy deputy battalion commander, to lead the baggage team and the battalion department to stay in Zongai Town, with four tasks: mobilizing the masses, expanding the army, making military uniforms and military shoes, and guarding to the north.

To guard to the north is to strictly prevent the enemy of Yuxian County from sneaking south to attack!

It is now the 26th day of the first lunar month and the 25th of February in the Gregorian calendar, and the weather is gradually getting warmer, and the troops need to change their clothes, and the soldiers can no longer wear the military coats of the Japanese army or the winter clothes of the Eighth Route Army made in Yuxian City.

Zongai Town is the base camp of Zongai merchants, once the commercial center of Shouyang, and the material distribution center of Jinzhong and Jinbei. Although the past few years are not as good as before, but the emaciated camel is bigger than the horse, the town is still full of shops, much more prosperous than the county seat of Yuxian, cloth, cotton, tailors are not lacking, must be completed here to complete the army dressing!

The task of Shi Poshan, deputy instructor, is to command the front line of Sangshuping Village and the local cadres and local armed forces who have entered Zongai Town with the troops from Huangling, and to do a good job in supporting the front work.

Originally, it was planned that the front team from Sangshuping Village would return to Huangling Village, because the troops acted urgently and attacked and occupied Zongai Town, and the baggage transportation had to borrow the front team from Sangshuping Village. As soon as the villagers heard that the troops were going to fight such a prosperous Zongai Town, they were also willing to follow the troops, so they followed the army to Zongai Town. It just so happened that if Shouyang City was attacked overnight, the front team of Sangshuping Village came in handy again!

Xiao Siming himself led three combat companies, artillery teams, and heavy machine gun teams to quickly move south, set up an ambush between the county seat and Baijiazhuang, and captured Shouyang County!

This is going to hit Shouyang County, and the cadres are very excited!

If it was the previous stage, the artillery of the independent battalion had been handed over, and the Shouyang county town would have to take the method of surprise attack. Not now, the independent battalion has eight Gaoping dual-purpose guns, and if you attack the city at night, you can blast the city gate open with one shot! In addition, if the encirclement and reinforcement are successful, the main force of the Japanese army in Shouyang City will be wiped out in the field, and the certainty of capturing Shouyang City will be even greater!

That's it, it's still a few months late, and the little devil has strengthened the rear garrison. If it was left at the time of the Pingxingguan ambush, the cavalry battalion of the 115th Division could easily recover several county towns by several routes, and the devils in each county town were dozens of people, and there were even more than 20 people.

Of course, the reason why the independent battalion dared to make the determination to attack Shouyang County was based on the fact that the independent battalion had won a series of victories, captured a great deal of money, had advanced equipment, and had fierce firepower. If it weren't for the eight Gaoping dual-purpose guns captured by the Japanese air defense team at Taiyuan Airport, I am afraid that Xiao Siming would not have been so bold, and he would have to walk around the Japanese stronghold, just like marching before rushing to Taiyuan Airport, strictly secret and covertly advancing.

The troops of the 120th Division attacked the Taiyuan airport and station at night, because there were no artillery and no poison gas bombs, so they could only attack and disturb them. The 685th Regiment of the 115th Division, the main force of our army, attacked Pingyao and Zhangdian at night, but it only eliminated more than 100 devils, and there was no intention of capturing Pingyao at all. The reason is that there is no heavy firepower to attack the city!

In a word, strength is everything!

In this way, the main force of the independent battalion of the Eighth Route Army, which attacked and occupied Zongai Town, did not even drink hot water in Zongai Town, and quietly went out of the city under the cover of night, rushed south, and pounced on the Baijiazhuang stronghold, which was only fifteen or six miles away from Zongai Town.

Zongai Town is a stronghold of the Japanese army in Shouyang for a long time, and there is a squadron stationed in peacetime, which has hoarded a large amount of ammunition supplies. Xiao Siming didn't even bother to count the seized materials, and went directly to the vicinity of Baijiazhuang.

Baijiazhuang is 12 kilometers away from Shouyang County, which is the bifurcation point of the two highways from Shouyang to Taiyuan and Shouyang to Jinzhong Yuci, and has an important strategic position.

After the 109th Infantry Wing of the 136th Division captured Shouyang, it set up a stronghold in Baijiazhuang and stationed a small team, whose main task was to control two roads and check suspicious people.

When the 136th Wing participated in the eight-way siege of the Japanese army in the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei border area, it sent the 1st Brigade to lead the three infantry squadrons reinforced to them to capture the county seat of Yuxian and attack the Shangshe area in an attempt to capture Wutai. As a result, one of their search teams encountered Xiao Siming in the mountain behind the Tibetan Mountain Ancestral Hall, and was wiped out by Xiao Siming with one person and one shot. From then on, Xiao Siming began to form a team, and won successive battles, not only recovering the county seat of Yuxian, but also severely inflicting heavy losses on the Japanese army, and the remnants of the first brigade of the 136th Wing fled in a deserted manner, and returned to Shouyang to rest and replenish.

Now, the main force of the Japanese army is moving south to implement the North China Pingding operation, the main force of the 109th Division wants to attack in the west, and the main force of the devil squadron in the stronghold of Zongai Town has been withdrawn, leaving only a small team to hold on, but the devil strength of the Baijiazhuang stronghold has not decreased, it is still a squad, and it is also equipped with a platoon of the puppet Shouyang County Garrison Brigade.

Mo Shan and Li Qi led the engineer platoon, cavalry platoon, and recruit team to march for an hour and a half, and arrived at Baijiazhuang Village before nine o'clock.

The northeast of Baijiazhuang Village is a mountainous plateau, and the south is gentle. A road winds from east to west in the valley, and is divided into two in Baijiazhuang Village, one to the west to Taiyuan and the other to the southwest to Yuci County.

The stronghold of the Japanese puppet army was not built on the high ground northeast of Baijiazhuang Village as generally believed, but at the fork of two roads southwest of Baijiazhuang Village. Whether they came from Taiyuan or Jinzhong, they had to pass through the Japanese stronghold.

Mo Shan, Li Qi, Sun Zhicheng, Deng Wenli, and Liu Zhaoming climbed on the platform northeast of the village and observed for a while, and Mo Shan said: "This little devil doesn't know the art of war, they should build their stronghold to the high ground where we are, and the light and heavy machine guns and grenadiers can cover the entire Baijiazhuang and the road." Now they have built their stronghold at the southwest end of the village, looking for artillery! ”

When the recruit captain Deng Wenli heard that Mo Shan, the secretary of the general branch, really didn't understand military command, he hurriedly said: "Old Mo, you are wrong, it's not that the devil doesn't understand the art of war, it's that you don't understand." You only see that this platform is high enough to be blocked by fire, but you don't see that this land is dry and waterless. If the little devil really wants to build the stronghold on this high ground, hehe, I can say that there is no need for artillery, no need for heavy machine guns, and no need for large troops, my recruit team will surround the stronghold of the little devils, do not attack or fight, and only use rifles to block the water source. In less than five days, the little devil will have to raise the white flag and surrender! Because they can't stand the thirst! ”

Li Qi, the chief of the operations section, added: "This is the reason why Ma Tan lost the street pavilion in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"! ”

Mo Shan's face turned red when he said it!

Mo Shan is also a veteran Red Army cadre who has walked the Long March, and before he was wounded, he was a company deputy instructor of the first battalion of the 685th Regiment. In other words, before the reorganization of the Eighth Route Army, Mo Shan was already a battalion-level cadre of the Red Army, with a higher rank and deeper qualifications than Xiao Siming. It's a pity that he has always been engaged in political work, has never commanded battles alone, and lacks actual combat command experience, so he said it in layman's terms!

Not only Moshan, but also many political work cadres have no experience in military command, and they are experts in organizing propaganda and mobilizing the masses, so they dare not compliment their ability to command wars!

Fortunately, Mo Shan understood in his heart that Xiao Siming was asking him to learn to command the war, and he sent him a combat section chief Li Qi, and the recruit captain Deng Wenli needless to say that he was also a good fighter in the war, otherwise, the battalion commander Xiao would not let him train the recruits!

Mo Shan immediately said: "In this way, Lao Deng, you and Li Qi, Sun Zhicheng, and Liu Zhaoming study how to fight, and I will learn from you!" ”

It doesn't matter if you don't understand, as long as you know how to delegate power and learn with an open mind!

Deng Wenli, Sun Zhicheng, Liu Zhaoming, and Li Qi were also not humble, crawling on the ground to observe and discuss, and finalized the battle plan in about ten minutes.

Xiao Siming made it clear that there must be no casualties in this battle, that is to say, you have to use your brains and fight skillfully!

The combat plan studied by a few people embodies the word "skillful"!

Under the cover of night, the soldiers of the cavalry, engineer and recruit corps quietly touched down from the high ground and took cover for the village.

More than a dozen fighters were left on the high ground, carrying a dozen iron buckets, all of which were filled with firecrackers.

As soon as the troops approached the edge of the village, the dogs in the village barked wildly, and the devils standing guard in the stronghold were immediately alerted, and searchlights shone on.

At this time, the word "Qiao" reflects that Liu Zhaoming, the cavalry captain with good marksmanship, took more than a dozen soldiers with good marksmanship selected from the cavalry team and the engineer team to a courtyard 100 meters away from the stronghold, found a ladder leaning against the wall, went to the house, climbed on the roof and set up a rifle, a group of five or six people, a group of sentries on the Japanese artillery tower, a group of sentries on the puppet army artillery tower, with Liu Zhaoming's "hit" word exit, the platoon gun rang out, and the Japanese puppet army sentries on the two turrets fell in response!

Immediately afterwards, Sun Zhicheng, captain of the engineering team, commanded the soldiers to carry up the three flying thunder cannons that were not used in the sneak attack on the Taiyuan airport, and worked on the ground with sapper shovels and engineering pickaxes, and soon set up the flying thunder cannons. "Boom boom" There were a few loud bangs, and the explosive package fired by the flying thunder cannon fell into the courtyard of the stronghold, stirring up a few clouds of smoke and dust!

The Japanese puppet army in the Baijiazhuang stronghold was all alarmed! (To be continued.) )