Chapter 222: Absolute Shock (3)

It is not difficult to take the Datong mining area, the Japanese army does not have many garrisons in the mining area, and there are only less than two squadrons when the battle is full, and Han Yunhua can solve it by casually sending a battalion over. But there is still such a problem, it is not difficult to take the mining area, but the distribution of Datong mining area is not concentrated, once those black-hearted enterprises in the mining area know that the purpose of Han Yunhua's visit is to deal with them, those people will not hurry away, and in the end, these people will lose nothing more than some equipment, and it will not effectively deter those black-hearted enterprises. Therefore, Han Yunhua ordered the Saber Special Operations Team to silently eliminate those Japanese coal mine owners, Han Yunhua gave the Saber Special Operations Team a total of two days, and he would cover for the Special Operations Team outside Datong City for two days, and withdraw to Jining after two days.

There are dozens of large and small coal mining enterprises in the mining area, although these belong to the branches of the Datong Coal Mine Co., Ltd. established by the Japanese army, but in fact they all have independent rights, and they only need to pay a huge amount of protection money to the military department every year, and the vast majority of these coal mining enterprises in the Datong mining area belong to the industries of the major Japanese families, and the largest mine is the industry belonging to the Mitsui family.

Long before the "77 Incident," Japan's economic forces began to infiltrate North China. After the Japanese Kwantung Army occupied northeast China, Ishihara of the Kwantung Army proposed that it was necessary to formulate a "general policy for developing China's headquarters and first developing North China." In particular, "coal from Shanxi, iron from Hebei, and cotton from Henan and south of Shandong" were urgently needed by Japan and should be "developed" quickly, and Shanxi's coal mainly refers to the vast coal resources in the Datong area. In order to further plunder China's resources, Japan had created an economic department dedicated to serving the military department.

The Manchurian Railway Survey Department was the first national policy agency in Japan to enter North China and the main force in conducting social and economic surveys in North China. In November 1933, the Manchurian Railway formulated the "North China Economic Work Investigation Guidelines" and the "Case of Setting up North China Economic Work Investigation Organs", and its economic investigation committee set up branches in Tianjin and Qingdao, and set up offices in Beiping, Zhangjiakou, Shanhaiguan, Taiyuan, Jinan, Yantai and other places, and began to conduct economic surveys in North China, including the investigation of mineral resources and production conditions. Half a year later, they came up with 37 survey reports. From February 1934, the Manchurian Railway began a large-scale socio-economic survey to provide intelligence for the Japanese army to plunder the economy of North China.

In 1935, the Jicha Political Affairs Committee, which was established under the compromise policy of the Kuomintang, vigorously advocated "economic cooperation" with Japan, and in the two or three years before the July 7 Incident, Japanese economic delegations to North China became more and more frequent. With the help of the Xingzhong Company, a branch of the Manchurian Railway, Japan also controlled the transportation and ports in North China in advance, and Japan obtained the right of priority to exploit the minerals in North China. Therefore, after the "77 Incident," Japan's all-round plundering and control of North China's economy was a long-standing conspiracy.

As far as coal is concerned, during the Anti-Japanese War, the larger coal mines controlled by Japan in North China included the Jingcheng Coal Mine near Shijiazhuang, the Zaozhuang Coal Mine in Shandong, the Kailuan Coal Mine in the north, and the Yangquan Coal Mine in Shanxi to the west. Similar to the Mentougou Coal Mine in Beijing, the Kailuan Coal Mine was originally a Sino-British joint venture (controlled by the British), but because the Japanese controlled the port and the coal railway line, the British had to organize production according to the Japanese plan. Although the Yangquan Coal Mine was relatively large, its proximity to the two Eighth Route Army base areas and frequent guerrilla activities did not go smoothly, and the organization of production was not smooth. In addition, there was the Datong Coal Mine, which had 17 billion tons of proven reserves by the Japanese at that time, which was the largest coal mine in China at that time. The Japanese plan that the mine could be mined for 52 years at full capacity, with an annual output of 3 million tons of coal. To this end, the Japanese planned to build the Tanggu-Datong railway line (Tongtang Railway) in sections, which was roughly equivalent to the Fengsha Railway built after the liberation of China in the Beijing area.

As early as 1909, the Japanese Xinyi Foreign Company, together with the local kiln owners, attempted to forcibly occupy the Gaoshan coal kiln, and was expelled by the local government and the Chinese diplomatic department. Since then, the Japanese have repeatedly set up personnel in the Datong area to privately mine or jointly build coal mines with compradors, but most of them have been stopped or rejected. In 1917, the Japanese Kuangye Co., Ltd. sent people to secretly enter the Datong mining area to investigate the coal, and it had already coveted the coal resources in the Datong area. On the eve of the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Japanese imperialism stepped up its exploration of coal in western Beijing in the name of Manchurian Railway and other spy organizations. "The survey targets include many villages and towns in the mining area, as well as coal mines and coal kilns, as well as the coal markets in Beiping and Tianjin." By the end of 1935, the Japanese investigation team compiled and printed the "extremely secret" document "Investigation Materials of the Xishan Coalfield in Beiping" and released it. ,

Before the "77 Incident", most of the plundering of China's coal resources by the Japanese was carried out in the name of 'investment' and after certain 'approval' procedures. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, it was a brazen forcible occupation by force. For example, the South Sichuan Coal Mine and the Lifeng Coal Mine are both, and they also developed the Datai Coal Mine and the Wansheng Coal Mine by force.

The Japanese army exercised military management of coal mines in Datong and other coal mining companies, and stationed two squadrons of gendarmes in the mining area. At the same time, after the Japanese occupied the Datong Coal Mine, a large number of military facilities were built, including pillboxes, mine police stations, mining walls, and housing for Japanese and Chinese senior staff, among which 127 artillery towers were built. In the coal mines such as Gaoshan and the southern suburbs, the Japanese army stationed a variety of mine troops and built artillery towers of different sizes. The mine was heavily guarded with bunkers, and the Japanese kept an eye on the workers' movements underground.

In addition, the owners of the major coal mines are not far behind, and in order to squeeze the Chinese miners to the maximum, the Japanese companies have shown their own security teams, and these security teams are recruited from Tokyo, Sendai, Yokohama and other places such as ronin and other unemployed vagrants.

The major coal mines in Datong are surrounded by power grids, and the miners are also monitored underground, and there are special Japanese devils in the coal mine area. The underground workers are monitored by two devils in each shift, and they hold small hammers in their hands to see which worker is not working, and they will beat him with a hammer. Japanese soldiers and pseudo-mine police often beat and scolded the workers, and even killed them casually.

Although the Japanese army seized the Datong coal mine, but the coal resources in Datong were widely distributed, the Japanese army could only occupy those mining areas with rich coal resources and good carbon quality, and the remaining bad dry wells and poor wells were left to the local business owners in Datong, China or the weak Japanese companies to mine. However, after the Japanese imperialists occupied the mining areas, they imposed a compulsory monopoly on the production and sale of coal in Datong. The Japanese military department set up a Datong coal collection station in the Datong coal mining area to "purchase" coal from various small coal kilns. The Japanese army strictly forbade each small coal kiln to sell the coal produced by it without transporting it for sale, and guaranteed to sell it to the Mentougou Coal Mining Company managed by the Japanese army, otherwise it would be punished according to regulations.

In order to prohibit the free trading of small kiln coal owners, the Japanese set up clips at all bridge intersections in the Mentougou area and sent troops to guard them, and did not allow small coal kiln owners to transport coal out without permission. Violators are punished by torture. The greedy plundering of the Japanese army caused a large number of small kilns to close down.

Due to the proximity of the Datong Coal Mine to the two guerrilla areas of the Eighth Route Army, coupled with the huge threat posed by Han Yunhua's subordinates, the management of the Japanese coal mining area was extremely strict, and once an abnormality was discovered, it would immediately retreat into the bunker group in the mining area. Moreover, those Japanese were very sensitive, when the two small Japanese coal kilns were destroyed by the Eighth Route Army and the mine owner was executed, the heads of the other mines immediately purchased a large number of weapons and ammunition from the garrison in Datong, and armed those ronin and jobless vagrants into a special armed force. Han Yunhua's order to the special operations brigade was to completely destroy the private armed forces of the Japanese business owners, and the surrender of all armed personnel was not accepted.

The battle in Datong City continued, and the offensive of the assault brigade was extremely fierce, if it were not for Han Yunhua's order to not allow troops to enter the city, Jiang Yunshan was confident that he would take Datong City in three hours, of course, this confidence was based on a certain number of casualties. Han Yunhua ordered the 1st Assault Brigade to use the powerful firepower offensive to kill and wound a large number of the enemy's living forces, and to maintain this tremendous pressure all the time, forcing the Japanese army to constantly ask the North China Front Headquarters for help and help.

At the same time, the reinforcements of the Japanese army to reinforce Tianzhen received the news that Datong had been attacked and the city fortifications were crumbling when they were about to arrive in Tianzhen. The commander of the 39th Infantry Brigade of the 78th Infantry Wing, Kobayashi Hengichi, did not dare to slack off, and immediately sent a telegram to ask Nakamura Osa whether the reinforcements would continue to advance to Tianzhen or return to Datong immediately.

Chief of Staff Nakamura is also very entangled, although Datong is dangerous, it is obviously impossible for the squadron to attack at once, but Tianzhen is different, under the command of Master Chen, the Japanese army's east gate defense line almost collapsed. If there are not enough reinforcements, the loss of Tianzhen is a foregone conclusion. However, the importance of Datong is obviously not comparable to that of a small Tianzhen, so at this time, Nakamura Daisa is entangled, and what should not be done.

At this time, Major General Yoshito Takagi sent a telegram saying that he had arrived at Zhulu and would lead more than 4,000 elite infantry to Tianzhen in a few hours, ordering Nakamura and Takahashi to resist it. Nakamura Daisa, who didn't know how to be good, was suddenly overjoyed, and ordered Kobayashi Hengichi to rush to Tianzhen immediately, be sure to wait for reinforcements from His Excellency the brigade commander, and then quickly come to the rescue of Datong. In his mind, although the ** team is powerful, the defense of Datong City is by no means something that can be broken in three hours.