On April 27, 1939, Han Yunhua led 63 soldiers of the guard squad to Yujialou Village on the outskirts of Yanggu County, Liaocheng City, Shandong Province. As early as half a month ago, the other troops of the Yi [***] regiment had already arrived in Liaocheng, but in order not to attract the attention of the Yue army, the troops were temporarily dispersed by Han Yunhua, and as for Yanggu County, there were only Han Yunhua and the guard team.

Han Yunhua knew that his activities in Shandong were no better than in Chahar and Suiyuan, which were the core areas of the rule of the puppet army, and the puppet forces were extremely huge. In Shandong, the army not only stationed heavy troops, but also formed many Han annihilation forces and bandit armies. Because the troops of the Eighth Route Army and the Nationalist Axe were almost wiped out by the Yue Army some time ago, the entire rural and ordinary township areas in Shandong Province, which originally belonged to the activities of China's national defense forces, quickly fell into the hands of bandits and bandits and Han annihilated landlords.

Before going south to Shandong, Han Yunhua dispersed Qian Zhuangfei's intelligence department, although he knew that Qian Zhuangfei's intelligence department had a shallow foundation in Shandong, and most of the secrets could not be collected, but at least the number of the garrison in Shandong could still be inquired about, anyway, this was not a military secret. As long as you inquire attentively, you can inquire all about it, although this information is not very important, but it can save Han Yunhua a lot of time.

However, according to the information reported by Qian Zhuangfei, it is not optimistic, although the vast majority of the mysterious forces in Shandong have returned to the Beijing-Tianjin area. After inquiring during this period of time, Qian Zhuangfei also found out that the mysterious armed forces that suddenly appeared in Shandong were actually the 10th Division, the 26th Division and the 14th Division besieging the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army in the southern Hebei region, in addition to the 5th Division and the Reading Power that suddenly moved south to form the 8th and 9th Infantry Brigades. However, by this time, the vast majority of these troops had withdrawn from their original units, but the situation in Shandong was still very bad. Because the power of the puppet army in Shandong is still very strong, the intelligence department of Qian Zhuangfei of the bureau has learned from investigation that the largest number of troops in the entire Shandong region is now an army. At present, there are three divisions and regiments of the 12th Army of the Chinese Army, three mixed brigades and a cavalry group, and more than 10 brigades of the 12th Army. At the same time, there were about 50,000 puppet troops in Shandong, which were organized into six divisions, 11 brigades, and 22 regiments. In addition, the bandits and Daomen forces controlled by the Yue Army are also unknown, and these are all hostile forces that Han Yunhua's troops need to eliminate.

Qian Zhuangfei also sorted out part of the ruling characteristics of the puppet army in Shandong and reported it to Han Yunhua, and after the investigation of Qian Zhuangfei's intelligence department, it was learned that the supreme commander of the army in Shandong was Lieutenant General Ogaka Kamizo, commander of the 12th Army. In Shandong, the army mainly relied on a few railway lines and inland waterways that crisscrossed Shandong to turn the Shandong region into several ruling areas, and like the army in other regions, the army in Shandong was relatively strong in the big cities and the surrounding areas, and neither the regular troops of the national government nor the guerrilla troops of the Eighth Route Army could compete with the army. However, in the vast majority of rural and mountainous areas, the power of the puppet army is very weak, except that the strength of the army is limited and it is impossible to eliminate or eliminate all the Chinese forces in Shandong, and the most important thing is that Shandong originally belonged to the territory of the warlord Han Fuqu, and Han Fuqu was shot by the chairman of the committee after abandoning Shandong without firing a single shot. However, the power in Han Fuqu's hands has not been fully absorbed by the national political axe, and there are still many troops scattered all over Shandong, or occupying the mountains as kings or wandering to commit crimes, these people neither take refuge in [***] nor accept the adaptation of the national political axe, and at the same time fight devils. Since most of these people are native of Shandong, they are familiar with the terrain and can easily get help from their natives, so there are such rout activities in most remote areas of Shandong.

In addition, the Shandong region has been a thriving area of Taoist forces since ancient times, and there are countless miscellaneous forces of this Taoist and that sect, with 180 core members in the small Daomen, and tens of thousands of core members in the large ones, and more than 100,000 villagers who are dependent on the faith. Such forces, whether they are the Han Dynasty and the landlords behind them, are unwilling to provoke, as long as these Daomen forces agree not to oppose the Great Yue Empire, and at the same time do not help either [***] and the Kuomintang, the Yue army will not send troops to exterminate them. Therefore, at this time, Shandong seemed to be an area ruled by the puppet army and the local Taoist gangs in China, and in short, there was no regular national defense force in China.

At the same time, in the telegram sorted out by Qian Zhuangfei, it was also specifically mentioned that in Shandong, the army was most concerned about those railway lines, especially those from Jinan to Xuzhou. Due to the powerful blows of the guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army, the army had to send heavy troops to escort every military column. Therefore, as long as taxes are collected and paid on time in the vast rural areas, the vast majority of these places are managed by the local maintenance associations and puppet armies, and as long as there are no major incidents, the army will not manage them.

The complicated situation in Shandong was far beyond Han Yunhua's expectations, and in accordance with the [***] policy, we should unite all the forces that can be united, and do everything to serve the anti-Japanese national united front. Therefore, at this time, Han Yunhua could not make a move against those rogues and bandits and Daomen forces, otherwise he would have violated party discipline and military regulations, unless there was definite evidence that these forces had colluded with him. However, some of these evidences can be found in a day or two, so it is even more difficult for Han Yunhua's department to open up the situation in Shandong.

At the same time, Han Yunhua also had a certain understanding of the 12th Army, which was commanded by Lieutenant General Ogaka Kamizo, and the army headquarters was stationed in Jinan, under the jurisdiction of the 5th, 21st, and 114th Divisions, and the 5th Brigade and the Cavalry Group (owed to the 4th Cavalry Brigade). In 1939, the base camp ordered the newly formed Reading Force to be incorporated into the 7th and 8th brigades and regiments directly under the jurisdiction of the North China Front; The 9th Brigade was mixed into the 1st Army; The 6th and 10th brigades were mixed into the 12th Army.

Han Yunhua felt very troubled by the large number of garrisons in Shandong, and conservatively estimated that the number of troops in the entire Shandong region had reached a terrifying 120,000 people, plus the puppet army, the second-line garrison and the bandit Han Annihilation, there would be at least 300,000 hostile armed forces in the entire Shandong region.

At present, China's national defense forces in the entire Shandong region have almost been lost, and except for the railway guerrilla force in Weishan Lake, which is still relatively complete, there is no longer a complete Chinese [***] team in the entire Shandong region. The most infuriating thing is that Sun Liangcheng, the chief director of the Luxi Administrative Office of the National Political Axe, had already led his troops to flee before the army hit Luxi, but on the way he was intercepted by an infantry brigade of only 800 dissatisfied members of the army, and the huge regular army of more than 15,000 people was actually blocked by an infantry brigade of less than 800 people for six hours, leaving behind more than 3,000 corpses and more than 1,000 wounded before rushing out Yes, less than a third of the more than 15,000 people arrived in Henan, the rest were either killed in battle or captured, and some even got lost inexplicably while walking.

Sun Liangcheng's escape directly led to the resistance of the poor infantry brigade of less than 20,000 troops of the Eighth Route Army, but the Eighth Route Army in Shandong was not as rich as the Eighth Route Army in the Inner Mongolia Military Region. The combat effectiveness was even worse than that of Han Yunhua's subordinates, and it only took a week before they were driven out of Shandong by the puppet army, and the troops were almost completely wiped out, and only 2,000 people fled to southern Hebei.

Originally, according to the fighting method of the Eighth Route Army, the Eighth Route Army in Shandong received an order to quickly move to a safe place, and even to Hebei and Henan provinces. But this was a siege that the army had been planning for a long time, how could the Eighth Route Army escape so easily. The intelligence of the military is extremely accurate this time, and almost all of the large and small headquarters of various units in Shandong are stationed in the army, and the military is doing everything possible with aircraft, artillery, and special forces. It only took more than a week to wipe out Sun Liangcheng's troops and the troops under the command of the Shandong Provincial Committee of the Eighth Route Army, who had no time to escape.

After reconnaissance, Liaocheng was garrisoned by the 10th Brigade of the Reading Power Mixed Army, and the 41st Brigade of the Reading Infantry was stationed in Yanggu County. The 10th Brigade was formed in 1939 in Kurume, the brigade commander, Major General Nobu Mizuno. It has the 41st, 42nd, 43rd, 44th, and 45th Infantry Brigades, Artillery Corps, Engineer Corps, and Signal Corps.

After listening to the information collected by the special combat team, Han Yunhua couldn't help but be surprised, this Reading Power Mixed Tenth Brigade should have been stationed in Zhangdian in Zibo at this time in history, while Liaocheng should have been stationed by the Reading Power Mixed Sixth Brigade. But think about how much history has changed beyond recognition by him, and the garrison of a brigade is even more trivial. So Han Yunhua didn't go into further research, anyway, it was just a mixed brigade of reading power, but there were only six or seven thousand people.

In order not to attract the attention of the army, Han Yunhua ordered Jiang Yunshan to lead the troops to Dong'e for development, while Dong Mengguo led the second battalion to develop in Shen County, as for the Reading Brigade, it was divided into three Reading Squadrons by Han Yunhua and sent to Pingyin and Guanxian County, and the remaining squadron was transferred to Yanggu County to join Han Yunhua.

Now the situation in Shandong is still stable, if the Yi [***] regiment has a big move, such as attacking a county town or something, it will definitely cause a crazy counterattack by the Yue army. Therefore, Han Yunhua could only divide the troops into parts, let them develop privately, and wait for all the troops to gain a firm foothold in the local area or the situation in Shandong stabilized a little before plotting against it. For the sake of insurance, their entire unit now has nothing to do with the Inner Mongolia Military Region. At the same time, the head of the Yi [***] regiment is not called Han Yunhua, but Guo Jianglong.

Yanggu County is the hometown of Wu Song Wu Erlang in the Water Margin, and Wu Erlang became famous for fighting tigers. Today, he Han Yunhua also went to Yanggu County, but he didn't go to Jingyanggang. But he Han Yunhua still wants to be famous, no, it should be him Guo Jianglong who wants to become famous. It's not that Han Yunhua also wants to go to Jingyanggang to beat the tigress, he wants to take out the few tigers who eat people in Yanggu County first.

The reason why Han Yunhua wants to take root in Liaocheng is completely because of Liaocheng's geographical location and Liaocheng's strategic resources. Liaocheng is rich in resources, convenient transportation, developed communications, and tourism has become an emerging industry. Liaocheng was an important production base for commercial grain, high-quality cotton, vegetables, fruits, livestock and poultry and a deep processing and export base for agricultural and sideline products in China in later generations. Among them, high-protein wheat, Ya pear, round bell jujube, muskmelon, small-tailed Han sheep, Luxi cattle and other famous and rare products are well-known at home and abroad, which allows Han Yunhua to see the source of food and other daily necessities needed for the future development of the army. At the same time, the water resources in Liaocheng are sufficient, there are Tuxiao River, Maji River, and Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal running through the north and south, and there are also many high and low hills in Liaocheng, although the terrain is not very steep, but it is still complex, which is very suitable for Han Yunhua's needs. In addition, Liaocheng is rich in underground minerals such as coal, oil, natural gas, limestone, gypsum, and iron, but a large part of it has not been discovered, and Han Yunhua can use it.

What Han Yunhua likes the most is the geographical location of Liaocheng, which is located in Luxi, Henan and Hebei, and is located at the junction of the three administrative regions of East China, North China and Central China, and the geographical location is very important. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, which represents China's commercial civilization, and the Yellow River, which represents agricultural civilization, converge here, and both economy and agriculture are very developed. In the words of later generations, it is: "Liaocheng not only plays a central role in radiating and driving the economic development of Luxi, but also an important channel for economic, technological and cultural exchanges with Shanxi, Hebei and other inland provinces." Liaocheng can not only make use of the advanced technology of the eastern coast, but also make use of the rich resources of the eastern provinces, and is an important transportation hub, energy base, inland port and the central city of the border area of Hebei, Shandong, and Henan. ”

But Han Yunhua also has his own considerations, Liaocheng is close to southern Hebei, and Han Yunhua can get assistance from the Eighth Route Army in southern Hebei if necessary. At the same time, the supplies of the Inner Mongolia Military Region can also be transported to Luxi through southern Hebei, so that the troops led by Han Yunhua will not be isolated after arriving in Shandong. Of course, Han Yunhua knows some things that others can't know. In the middle and late period of the Republic of China, due to the warlord melee and the invasion of the Yue army, although it caused great damage to the agricultural and industrial industries of Liaocheng, it also cultivated the revolutionary positive surname of the people of Liaocheng. After the "77 Incident" in 1937, Liaocheng became the forefront of the resistance. There were more than 60,000 anti-Japanese armed forces operating in Liaocheng and its surrounding areas alone, and they fought more than 80 battles against the Japanese army, defending and recovering large areas of the country. According to incomplete statistics, the number of Liaocheng people participating in the anti-Japanese troops of both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party exceeded 150,000 during the entire War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Moreover, Han Yunhua also knew that during the Liberation War, Liaocheng was the rear base of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and when Liu Deng's army advanced into the Dabie Mountains and forcibly crossed the Yellow River, 37,000 people joined the army in the city; during the Huaihai Campaign and the operation of crossing the river to the south, the people in the territory organized transport teams and stretcher teams to fully support the PLA in the operation, making great contributions to the victory of the war. In Han Yunhua's words, Liaocheng is a hot land full of revolution, as long as the organization is reasonable and the leadership is appropriate, Han Yunhua believes that Liaocheng alone can pull up a strong anti-Japanese army that is enough to shock the puppet army.

Yanggu County is also a good place, in addition to the mountainous areas that Han Yunhua's department needs most now, there are also some resources that Han Yunhua values - coal. The Yanggu-Chiping coalfield extends southwest and northeast along the north of the Yellow River, and is distributed in the southern end of Shen County, most of Yanggu, the eastern part of Liaocheng, the western part of Dong'e and the southern part of Chiping, with an area of 2297.6 square kilometers and predicted reserves of 21.7 billion tons. The ore field - 1000 meters of shallow coal seam distribution range, coal seam number, thickness, rich reserves, excellent coal quality, hydrogeological conditions are relatively simple, in the later generations was rated as one of the major breakthrough projects of the country's general minerals. Danzhen Coal Mining Area is located in the area of Danzhen, Gaoji Township, in the north of Dong'e County. It is southwest and northeast, 8 kilometers long from east to west, 4 kilometers wide from north to south, and covers an area of 32 square kilometers. The coal-bearing strata of the mine are the Carboniferous-Permian solar formation, with a surface thickness of 300 meters and a total coal thickness of about 1,500 meters. A total of 14 layers of coal are contained, with an average thickness of 6.85 meters. The coal quality is gas coal, fertile coal, natural coke, anthracite, etc. The proven reserves of this ore are 139 million tons. Guanxian - Tangyi Coal Prediction Area This area is distributed along the Maji River in a southwest-northeast strip, located in the junction area of Guanxian and Shen County, Liaocheng and Guanxian, Linqing and Gaotang, with a length of 92 kilometers, a width of 5~16 kilometers, and an area of 700 square kilometers. The ore body is a carboniferous Permian sediment, containing 7 layers of coal, with a total thickness of 8.7 meters, a coal depth of -1600~-2600 meters, and a predicted reserve of 1.4 billion tons.

This is also the fact that Han Yunhua distributed several battalions under his command to those counties for development, because whether it is Dong'e or Shen County, or Yanggu County, there are minerals of one kind or another, and with minerals, the puppet army will definitely not let these precious things be permanently preserved underground, and those greedy surnames that dogs say are insatiable will definitely force the people of China to mine for them and plunder China's resources. In this way, these counties do not need to think about it, and there are many mining areas and many miners. As long as the strength of Han Yunhua's department has increased now, then he can pull a force from the mining area at any time as the Inner Mongolia Military Region has developed.

Now Han Yunhua's most important thing is not to fight, but to find a place where he can be a base in the shortest possible time, you must know that there is not even a place to stay, then no one is willing to come to him at all. Of course, this time Han Yunhua didn't plan to take the usual path, he asked the troops to change the temporary new military uniforms of the Inner Mongolia Military Region into the current bandit uniforms of sackcloth and rags, that is, to let the troops appear in Luxi as bandits, and he himself brought a pitch-black one-eyed mask, and specially grew a beard, coupled with his name that sounded like "crossing the river dragon", whether it was seen from a distance or up close, this was clearly a big bandit in Shandong. So as a bandit, it is imperative to find a suitable place to do a cottage.

(To be continued)