Chapter Twenty-Six: A Hundred Beacon Flames
A battle that looked like it was a vigorous battle ended in such a hurry, so fast that Hu Fei didn't even have time to gather his troops. Liu Dong and Li San rushed with the large army of the 88th Column and didn't catch up, and when these two came, the devil returned to his original station.
"We're late." The two members of the team came to Hu Fei with a sad face to ask for guilt. It is better to say that it is a petition for a crime, but it is better to say that it is a grievance.
Ji Jinbiao and Yang Jinsheng were beaming one by one, and at first glance, they got a lot of good things from the battlefield! Liu Dong said that he was the chief of staff of the entire Eighth Eighth Column, and he did not lack this bit of spoils, but Li San was the commander of the First Infantry Regiment, and it was strange that he could be happy when he saw that the Second Regiment and the Cavalry Regiment looked like they had made a windfall.
Hu Fei was quite satisfied with the strength of his generals secretly. With this energy, they can exert greater enthusiasm.
Put down Hu Fei and talk about the Japanese army. Although the Suzuki Brigade thought that they had won the battle, they knew best what was going on in this battle. In order to boost morale and external image, both General Suzuki and the captains below all claimed that this battle was a great victory for the Japanese army! They fought to the death, fled from the wind, jumped into the mountains, became bandits, and never dared to come out again!
For a time, newspapers from various countries carried special reports on the brilliant achievements of the Suzuki Brigade, and the 88th Column and Hu Fei became typical examples of the opposite. Naturally, the Nationalist Government launched a strong attack, and the literary circles of China and Japan once again seized on an issue and engaged in a vigorous press war.
In fact, the influence of outside news and propaganda on the military is very limited. Although it was advertised to the outside world that the Japanese army had won a great victory, the commander of the Suzuki Brigade himself knew how big the losses of the Japanese army were in this battle, and the commander of the First Army, Yoshio Suzuka, also knew it. Shiro Goto is dead, can he not know?
The death of a Shaozuo captain, the rebellion of a pseudo-legion, plus the hundreds of Japanese soldiers who were killed and wounded in the pursuit battle, the losses of the Japanese army in this battle were not small! Especially the pseudo-legion anyway, its political significance is even stricter than that of Goto Shiro Shaoza's death, and Commander Suzuka is especially dissatisfied with this!
The commander was not satisfied, and the Japanese army was of course going to react to this. Kuichiro Suzuki has now regretted his death, and he knew that he shouldn't have taken people out in person in the first place, and if he only sent the Ogawa Brigade to participate in the war, where would there be so much trouble! In order to redeem the points he lost in front of Commander Suzuka, the commander of the Suzuki Brigade decided to do something that made a blockbuster, so that His Excellency the Commander could see that he Kuichiro Suzuki was also a somewhat capable person!
Just do it. General Suzuki summoned his thinkers together for a two-day military meeting, and finally came up with a vicious plan. From this day on, from Yuci to Dongyang dozens of kilometers away, large and small intersections, villages and towns, all began to build bunkers! Anyway, there is a lot of labor, and the devils drove all the men, women, and children out with guns, and the entire area south of Taiyuan immediately became a big construction site.
How good people are to work, can so many people work together slowly? Seeing the devil's turret popping up like a bamboo pole after the rain, one day at a time, jumping up every day. It didn't take long for pillboxes, turrets, and strongholds to appear on the land of Jinnan like mushrooms after the rain. A cordon was set up by the Japanese puppet army along the turret, and the roads and railways all fell under the control of the Japanese army.
Road and rail traffic is at stake for all parties. The devil blocked the road, and the Central Army, the Jin Sui Army, the Eighth Route Army, and even the bandits from all walks of life all felt inconvenient, and the big guys' supplies were unlucky. The devil is trying to trap us?
The Jin Sui Army and the Central Army are better. Jin Suijun was a local household, and Chief Yan had extensive savings. Although the devil has temporarily cut off his channels of contact with the outside world, if he wants food, he has the vast land of Shanxi, and if he wants guns, he has Shanxi's arsenal, even if he closes the door and lives by himself, it will not be a problem to persist for a year or two, or even three or five years.
Although the Central Army is not as good as the Jin Sui Army, people go out with a lot of people. There is a saying in China that the poor are rich. General Wei Lihuang led a large army to support Shanxi on behalf of the central government, and the chairman of the committee should not prepare more grain and grass for him? Therefore, although the Central Army is worse than the Jin Sui Army, it is far from the point of exhaustion.
The most bitter is the Eighth Route Army. Originally, the Eighth Route Army was very popular among the poor people. But now the devils occupy the railways and highways, and they keep sweeping and clearing the countryside along the line, and all the grain in the hands of the people has been scavenged. However, the Eighth Route Army could not receive any supplies from the Second War Zone, nor could it rob the rations of the common people, so life was a bit tight.
Seeing the devil's expansion step by step, the sweep is wave after wave and there is no sign of stopping. In order to win space for the troops to survive, and also to enable the vast number of soldiers and civilians in Shanxi to get rid of the Japanese army's cage policy and live a life of food and clothing, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army issued a "Campaign Action Order" on 8 August 1940, ordering all units of the Eighth Route Army to carry out sabotage warfare against the Zhengtai Railway Line, the Tongpu Railway and the corresponding highways under the control of the Japanese army from now on!
As soon as the battle order was given, all the units moved when they heard the wind and rushed to the railway, highway and the artillery stronghold of the Japanese puppet army. The regular army, guerrillas, county brigades, district squads, and armed forces of all kinds went forward and threw themselves into this great battle. Demolishing railways, digging roads, and destroying the transportation lines of devils became the most popular slogan at that time.
The Eighth Route Army mobilized all its forces to carry out this sabotage battle, and the total number of troops invested before and after exceeded 100 regiments. The commander-in-chief of the campaign simply called this battle the "Battle of the Hundred Regiments"! The flames of resistance against Japan burned all over the three provinces of Shanxi, Chahar and Hebei, and even spread to Shandong and Henan.
The flames of the Battle of the Hundred Regiments spread to five provinces and regions, and battles of all sizes occurred frequently. Sometimes the place of battle was close to the defense area of the national army or the Jin Sui army, and the local national army or the Jin Sui army would send troops to meet or even cooperate with the Eighth Route Army. In the face of national righteousness, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party are once again standing on the same front! For the survival of the country, the commanders and fighters of the two parties and the two armies resolutely gave up their old grudges and walked hand in hand on the front line of resisting Japan and saving the country!
There was such a big thing happening in the land of Sanjin, and Hu Fei and Lu Liangshan also heard about it. In any case, the 88th Column of the Decisive Army also belonged to the battle sequence of the Second War Zone, and the Eighth Route Army notified the Theater Commander's Department when it launched the 100-regiment battle. Therefore, it was inevitable that Hu Fei received a report on the war situation and was asked to provide convenience and cooperation.