On January 11, 1938, after four days of arduous marching, Major General Seiichiro Shinohara, commander of the 15th Mixed Brigade, personally led the 16th Infantry Wing of Goto Juro Osaku and the 2nd Cavalry Wing of Honda Takeo Nakasa, and finally arrived at the county seat of Kowa Prefecture.

Along the way, Major General Seiichiro Shinogen and more than 4,800 troops can be said to have been tortured, from Jining to Xinghe in a short distance of more than 190 miles, they walked for four days, and the bitterness of this road is really not enough to carry to outsiders. Along the way, there must be ambushes in the mountains, mines in the forests, and from time to time a few mortar shells will fall from the sky, or they will be violently attacked by the machine-gun positions set up on the high ground. But whenever Major General Seiichiro Gen sent people to shoot bullets and shells to attack the area, he always found nothing but a few shells, and he couldn't even see the shadow of the enemy.

Occasionally, the men sent by Major General Seiichiro Shinogen acted quickly and fearlessly to death, and were able to bite the Eighth Route Army in gray uniforms, but they were quickly thrown off by the Eighth Route Army, which was familiar with the terrain. Fortunately, with the presence of the Second Cavalry Wing of Honda Takeo Nakasa, the Eighth Route Army did not dare to get too close, so the losses were relatively small. In this way, the fighting stopped, chased and ran, and not a single Eighth Route Army was eliminated, and his own troops suffered more than 400 casualties.

This is not the main thing, what worries Major General Seiichiro Shinogen is that the impact of the sneak attack of the Eighth Route Army on morale is fatal. The soldiers who were originally murderous, but now their first reaction when they hear the gunshots is to quickly climb down. Moreover, the troops did not even sleep well along the way, and always as soon as they fell asleep, gunshots rang out nearby. When I got up, I saw that either the sentry had been attacked or the patrol had been killed. In the end, everyone on duty wants a squadron of soldiers.

As soon as he entered the county seat, Major General Seiichiro Shinogen, who was extremely angry, beat the squadron leader of the Xinghe County Garrison Squadron of the Yue Army violently, until the squadron leader was bleeding from his nose and mouth, and then ordered: "Yours, go out to investigate, Han Yunhua and his troops did not escape, hurry." ”

"Hail"

…………

On January 14, Major General Shozo Kawabe, who had also gone through hardships, rushed to the county seat of Xinghe County with two wings of the army, and unlike Major General Seiichiro Shinogen, Major General Shozo Kawabe suffered much more losses than Major General Seiichiro Minamoto.

Datong to Xinghe had to pass through several mountainous areas, and there was a section of winding mountain road, and the firepower of the Eighth Route Army, which occupied the favorable terrain, was fierce and accurate. What annoyed Major General Kawabe the most was that he had no cavalry and could not effectively pursue the Eighth Route Army that attacked them. It was precisely because of this that Wang Jian focused his sneak attack on Major General Hebian Zhengsan and the 41st Wing of the Fifth Division and the 69th Wing of the 109th Division led by him.

In just 7 days, the troops led by Major General Kawabe Shozo suffered more than 1,300 casualties, and what angered Major General Kawabe the most was that the Eighth Route Army could kill his soldiers, but they had to beat these people to serious injuries, so that each wounded soldier had to be taken care of by two healthy soldiers. More than 1,300 wounded soldiers, plus the soldiers who cared for them, accounted for more than half of all his troops.

After entering the county seat, Major General Kawabe Shozo finally breathed a sigh of relief, and after the troops were settled, Major General Kawabe Shozo came to the temporary headquarters to prepare to discuss with Major General Seiichiro Shinogen the battle plan for attacking Han Yunhua's department.

"Shinogen-kun, which unit do you think attacked us along the way? Is it possible that it is Han Yunhua's Reading Power 77 Brigade? Major General Kawabe Shozo asked Major General Seiichiro Shinogen.

Major General Seiichiro Shinogen thought for a while and said: "It doesn't seem like it, Han Yunhua's department barely leaves a living mouth every time he makes a move, whether it is Yamamoto Shiro or the troops of the Fifth Division, they are all wiped out by him, this style of play is very similar to several other troops of the Eighth Route Army." ”

Major General Kawabe Shozo asked again, "Shinogen-kun, what do you think about the next battle?" ”

"Hebian-kun, there are still more than 6,000 troops in your hands that have combat capability, and there are more than 4,000 troops in my hands that have combat effectiveness, and more than 10,000 troops can definitely annihilate Han Yunhua's troops. Moreover, according to the investigation of the intelligence department, there is only one way to enter and exit the mountain in Daqingshan, where the 77th Brigade of Reading is entrenched, and as long as we block the mountain pass, this branch of the Chinese army will be unable to fly at that time, and in their Chinese words, it will be a turtle in an urn. Major General Seiichiro Shinogen said.

Major General Kawabe Shozo said with a hideous face: "Eighth Route Army, Reading 77th Brigade, Han Yunhua, I will make you pay a heavy price." ”

After pausing for a while, Major General Hebe seemed to remember something, and said urgently: "Xiao Yuanjun, then Han Yunhua won't escape now, right?" If he escapes, we'll be in trouble! ”

Major General Seiichiro Shinogen said slowly: "So far, he and his troops have not escaped, and it will be difficult to say in a few days." So I decided to send troops to Daqingshan tomorrow, what do you think? ”

"Yo Xi, Yo Xi, this is very good." Major General Kawabe Shozo said with satisfaction.

In fact, what Major General Seiichiro Shinogamoto didn't know was that since Han Yunhua's troops broke through Xinghe County twice, and the defending army was completely annihilated twice before, now the defending troops of the city army do not go to the places outside the county seat, because as long as there is an army outside the county, especially to the countryside below, whether it is a military army or a small team of soldiers, their bodies will appear at the gate of the county town the next day.

The reason why Major General Shinogen Seiichiro knew that Han Yunhua's department did not flee was reported by the squadron leader who was guarding the city in Xinghe County now, and the news of this squadron leader was provided by Ma Wu, the largest Han in the county, and Ma Wu had been secretly controlled by Han Yunhua's intelligence department.

On January 15, Major General Shinogen Joichiro and Major General Kawabe Shozo each led their headquarters to the Daqingshan base area, and all the baggage and light and serious wounded were left in the county seat, and the cautious Major General Shinogen Seiichiro added a squadron of defenders to the county seat.

Soon after leaving the county seat, Major General Shinogen Joichiro and Major General Genda divided their troops to the east, and Major General Kawabe Shozo led two infantry wings of more than 6,000 people to directly kill Daqingshan, while Major General Shinogen Joichiro led an infantry wing and a cavalry wing of more than 4,000 people to kill dozens of villages on the periphery of Daqingshan.

The first village that Major General Shinogen Joichiro encountered was Dawangzhuang, which was closest to the county seat, and under the signal of Major General Shinogen Joichiro, the cavalry wing quickly surrounded Dawangzhuang to death, and the infantry quickly entered the village to search for the common people in squads, but to the surprise of Major General Shinogen Joichiro, the entire Dawangzhuang was empty. Not to mention people, there is not a single chicken or dog, the doors of every house are locked, and the whole village is dead silent.

The squadron commander sent out to search for the common people came back and reported: "Your Excellency, Brigade Commander, the common people of the whole village have fled, and there is not a single living creature in the whole village. ”

Major General Shinogen Joichiro said angrily: "Baga, burn this village to me, I want to let these Diao people come back and have no house to live in." ”

Suddenly, the entire Dawangzhuang was shrouded in firelight, and all the houses were burned down by the army, which were seen by a few ordinary people hiding in the distance.

Along the way, thick smoke billowed from the places where Major General Shinogen Joichiro passed, destroying 22 villages in one morning, but not a single civilian was found. At this time, in addition to anger, Major General Genjo Ichiro also bred a fear in his heart, if the common people of Shina did this, they would not be able to raise a little food and taxes. Although there was no one but his troops, Major General Shinogen Joichiro seemed to sense that countless enemies were watching him.

In order to catch up with the speed, Major General Kawabe Shozo led his troops to take the main road, but unfortunately just after walking a few steps, he heard a "boom", and a soldier stepped on the mine planted by the 77th Brigade of Reading Force, and four or five soldiers were killed and injured immediately.

Major General Kawabe Shozo immediately sent sappers to clear the mines, but unfortunately the sappers just lined up a few mines, and they were killed and wounded by the snipers of the Eighth Route Army hiding in the shadows, and Major General Kawabe Shozo was also wounded by the snipers of the Eighth Route Army, if it wasn't for the adjutant who heard the gunshots and pushed him off his horse, he should have become a pile of broken corpses like those sappers now.

The 77th Brigade now has a total of 38 Type 97 sniper rifles, which were captured in the last attack on the logistics base of the Yangyuan Army, Han Yunhua used these treasures to train more than 200 snipers, and these sniper rifles were finally equipped by Han Yunhua to the special operations brigade 30, 10 per brigade, and the remaining eight were kept by Han Yunhua as training guns to continue to train new snipers.

To be honest, Han Yunhua is very disdainful of the Type 97 sniper rifle, which is a sniper rifle variant of the Type 38 standard rifle, with a sniper scope mount and a sniper scope. But the magnification of the sniper scope of this sniper rifle is very low, so the accurate range is not very far, and the maximum range is only 3700m, and the accurate range is only 600m, which is simply different from the Type 97 sniper rifle used by Han Yunhua, but due to the limited conditions, it has to be used by the special operations team.

After Han Yunhua left, Shen Yuquan let out all the snipers on the mountain, and those who had sniper rifles used sniper rifles, and those who did not have sniper rifles used 38 big covers, with only one purpose, that is, to severely demoralize the enemy.

Along the way, the snipers of the Eighth Route Army were everywhere, and the bullets were even more bizarre, each containing blood, and basically a soldier was killed as soon as the guns rang out, coupled with the ubiquitous mines and mortars, the morale of the troops led by Major General Shozo Riverside was seriously frustrated.

Fortunately, Daqingshan is only a short 40-mile distance from Xinghe County, no matter how difficult it is, at 7 o'clock in the evening, Major General Zhengsan Hebian still arrived at the foot of Daqingshan, and set up a barracks one kilometer into the mountain pass, and at this time more than 6,000 soldiers of the two wings have suffered more than 500 casualties.

Due to the hard march of the day, the soldiers of the troops were tired and demoralized, so Major General Shozo Kawabe did not immediately attack the mountain, but ordered the whole army to eat, rest, recuperate, and prepare to attack the mountain tomorrow and take Daqingshan in one fell swoop.