There are nine stops in the world, headed by Yanmen. Yanmen Pass is in Dai County in the north of Shanxi, standing on the Gouzhu Mountain, the two wings of the mountain are majestic, endless.

When the Yue army captured Taiyuan for the first time, Yan Xishan once set up a large army here, intending to take advantage of the natural danger of the Great Wall to block the Yue army and prevent it from invading the hinterland of Shanxi. As a result, Yan Xishan's old classmate, Lieutenant General Seishiro Itagaki, the commander of the Fifth Division, who had committed suicide by caesarean section, led the Fifth Division to attack from Pingxingguan, completely disrupting Yan Xishan's deployment at once. When Yan Xishan led the army back to Pingxingguan, Chahar sent a corps to swagger through Yanmen Pass and kill Pingxingguan.

Although Itagaki Seishiro died, the ambition of the army to plot Shanxi, the roof of North China, did not die. Just when General Matsui Ishine waved his army to Nanjing, the 1st, 8th, and 25th divisions of the Kwantung Army, under the cover of aircraft, attacked Yanmen Pass, attempting to pass through Yanmen Pass and kill Taiyuan.

This time, the army said that it had learned well, and no longer divided the troops into three divisions and regiments, but formed a group, formed a heavy army group, and rolled forward.

For a time, the land of Shanxi once again beat the drums of war.

After receiving Liu Yimin's report on the analysis of the enemy's situation, Yan Xishan had no choice but to consult with the Eighth Route Army and the Wei Lihuang Department of the Central Army, and decided to adopt the tactics proposed by Zhu De, commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army, to abandon Taiyuan and let the army occupy Shanxi's backbone cities and communication arteries. After the enemy divided his troops, all units looked for fighters to destroy the isolated and prominent enemy, gradually consumed the enemy, and forced the enemy to finally withdraw from Shanxi.

Originally, Yan Xishan also wanted to concentrate the main forces of the Eighth Route Army and Wei Lihuang's 14th Group Army, relying on the terrain of northern Shanxi to block the northern group of the army outside Yanmen Pass. He led the main force of the Jin Sui Army to hold Niangzi Pass, and blocked the 20th Division and the 10th Division under the command of Xiangyue Qingsi, who came along the Zhengtai Line, outside Niangzi Pass. As soon as this plan was proposed, without waiting for Zhu De and Wei Lihuang to oppose it, the senior generals of the Jin Sui Army, who had already been frightened by the Battle of Pingxingguan, the Battle of Xinkou, and the Battle of Taiyuan, first disagreed. The reason is very clear, everyone knows that one regiment was sacrificed every day during the battle of Xinkou, and it was basically consumed under the enemy's bombs and shells. The cost of such casualties cannot be afforded, not to mention the fact that the army acted quickly and did not have time to adjust its deployment.

Yan Xishan still has a cautious eye in private, he saw that after the Eighth Route Army entered Shanxi, it developed rapidly in just a few months, occupying the northern part of Shanxi, the northwest of Shanxi, the southeast of Shanxi and even the central part of Shanxi. Yan Xishan really wanted to let the main force of the Eighth Route Army concentrate in northern Jin, and resist the three divisions of the Kwantung Army of the Yue Army, it is best to let the Eighth Route Army and the Yue Army fight to the death, and both will be defeated, but unfortunately his subordinates are all afraid of Yue himself, first of all, he has no confidence in defending Niangzi Pass, how can he say that the Eighth Route Army will be used to defend northern Jinbei?

Yan Xishan had no choice but to withdraw from Taiyuan. This time, he did it more thoroughly than Liu Yimin, and even took away the small merchants who sold tea and rice in Taiyuan City, and really left an empty Taiyuan for himself.

Xiangyue Qingsi, who was in charge of commanding the battle in Shanxi, knew that the strategy of the Shanxi defenders had changed so much, but he kept urging the troops to speed up and encircle Taiyuan on both sides.

During this period, the 115th and 120th Divisions of the Eighth Route Army developed rapidly, and not only did the construction of the base areas flourish, but the troops also greatly expanded. The second attack on Taiyuan by this army must first pass through the base areas of the 120th and 115th Divisions. [***], what kind of person is He Long, how can they let them attack Taiyuan so smoothly!

It is said that the heavy army group is rolling in, and there is no [***] main force to contain and block it head-on, so it is obviously impossible to deal with it. We can only strictly carry out the orders of the Central Committee and the General Headquarters, get out of the way, let the enemy go south, and send small troops to attack and harass the enemy without stopping, and think of cutting off the army's logistical supply lines, so that the enemy cannot attack and advance with all his strength.

But in this case, the enemy will go all the way south as if no man's land, which is too cheap for them.

A map has been drawn a little messy, and the commander of the 115th Division [***] finally raised his head from the map, and the two broomsticks looked particularly sharp. Political Commissar Nie Rongzhen and Chief of Staff Zhou Kun, who had been waiting on the side for a long time, also breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that the division commander had made up his mind.

Sure enough, [***] opened his mouth and said: "Political commissar and chief of staff, you see, the army must pass through Yanmen Pass when it goes south, and the terrain here is already familiar to us during this time, and it is definitely a good place to fight blockades and ambushes." I was determined to fight an ambush on the Yanmen Ancient Road in front of the pass, and the target of the battle was the vanguard of the Yue army. Withdraw after the battle, and do not give the enemy a chance to pursue. Then, the troops took cover, let the enemy's main force go south, and we seized the opportunity to fight his rear troops. This method of warfare is called pinching the head and removing the tail, one is to beat his vanguard and frustrate his spirit; The second is to hit him at the back of the tail, so that he has a feeling of being possessed by evil spirits, and he does not dare to disperse his troops to sweep our base areas. What do you think? ”

Nie Rongzhen has been partnering with [***] for a long time, and he has never seen any vicious battles, and he is even more trustworthy in [***]'s command ability, so he said: "If you can be seventy percent sure, I support it." ”

[***] thought for a while and said, "There are eighty percent!" ”

When Nie Rongzhen heard this, he immediately said: "Fight, I support!" ”

Zhou Kun looked at the map and said: "There is no problem in fighting its vanguard, the key is to retreat, how to make the Yue army not bite us." Now that the planes of the Chinese army have begun to run rampant again, if they want to fight, they must set their targets a little lower and ensure a quick victory. Otherwise, it will be a risk, and it is very likely to provide an opportunity for the army to encircle and annihilate our main force. ”

[***] nodded and said, "What the chief of staff said makes sense, the key to this battle is to retreat." I plan that after the battle, the main force will immediately retreat, and hold the Yanmen Pass with a small force, so as to create an illusion to the enemy, thinking that our main force is going to hold the Yanmen Tianxian and make it concentrate its forces to forcibly attack the storm. When the enemy attacked the fortifications on a large scale, the holding troops also retreated randomly. We should learn from Liu Yimin, first, to use all the mines, explosives packs, and artillery to increase the intensity of firepower and reduce casualties. Second, it is also necessary to adopt the method of luring the enemy with small units, knocking out the enemy's small search troops, and disguising the army's search troops to lure the enemy into taking the bait. We will do a good job of concealing the enemy, so that the enemy's planes will not be able to detect us, thinking that Yanmen Pass is an empty pass, unguarded, and swaggering to send us to death. ”

After thinking about it, [***] said again: "The current goal of the army is Taiyuan, and they are eager to meet the north and south to encircle Taiyuan, although we have suffered a little loss in our hands, but in order to achieve the goal of capturing Taiyuan, they will concentrate the main force and move south quickly, and they will not be too entangled with us." ”

When Zhou Kun heard this, he said yes in a loud voice, and then added: "After the battle begins, the covering troops on both flanks must make a big fuss, creating a situation where our army wants to fight a decisive battle with the enemy, so that the enemy will not dare to advance in a hurry before understanding the situation." The troops who were responsible for sealing the bags had to bury more electric explosive packs to prevent the enemy's main force from reinforcing them. In this way, the enemy's vanguard was in a dilemma on the narrow Yanmen ancient dangerous road, and could not escape the fate of annihilation no matter what. ”

Seeing that the opinions of the political commissar and the chief of staff had been unified, he ordered the main force to concentrate in concealment at Yanmen Pass, and personally drafted a telegram to the chairman and the headquarters.

In the telegram, he wrote: "The army is coming fiercely, and we resolutely carry out the telegram orders of the Central Committee and the General Headquarters, get out of the way, occupy both sides, and actively launch guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. However, now that the enemy is moving southward in a group, if we do not deal a head-on blow to it, the army will be extremely arrogant, and after it occupies the empty city of Taiyuan, it will inevitably sweep and destroy our base area. For this reason, we are determined to strike first and annihilate the vanguard of the enemy, and then strike at the rear guard and baggage troops, so that the Chinese army will not dare to despise our army and will not be able to attack and invade our anti-Japanese base areas at will. Therefore, we plan to concentrate the two main brigades and the division's artillery, cavalry, engineers, and reading regiments to set up an ambush at Yanmen Pass, to seek out and annihilate the vanguard of the enemy's heavy army group, and to give the enemy a blow to the head. "Then, [***] reported in detail in the telegram on the specific combat deployment.

The old devil of Shouyi in the temple thought that the heavy army group could scare off all the [***] teams that intended to block or ambush, but he didn't expect that in this vast mountain, there was a heroic army that could be called a tiger and a lion, and a hundred battles of lions that came down from Jinggang Mountain, and they were led by the god of war in later generations.

After receiving the telegram from [***], [***] kept thinking about it in front of the map, and finally made up his mind and agreed to [***] to fight this battle, the reason is very simple, now the strength of the 115th Division is there, and the weapons and equipment are there. Besides, the situation in the rear of Shaanxi is stable, and the factory equipment that Liu Yimin moved back from Taiyuan has been successively transported to all parts of Shaanxi, and even the textile factories and vinegar factories in Qingxu have been transported to Xi'an. The training of the garrison units in various parts of Shaanxi is also very tight, and the main force can be replenished at any time. The production of the arsenal was also stable, and ammunition could be mass-produced. For the first time since its founding, our army did not worry about the supply of troops, ammunition, or logistical supplies such as rations and clothing. Under such circumstances, as the supreme commander of the people's armed forces, [***] is naturally prone to ambition.

[***] and a call back from headquarters arrived quickly.

[***] stressed on the telegram that after the 115th Division finished this battle, it must be prepared to deal with the revenge of the devils, and must not be careless against the enemy. In the coming period, we should still focus our work on mobilizing the masses and on organizing military regions at all levels and strengthening the armed forces.

The headquarters called back to agree to the battle plan, and ordered [***] and Nie Rongzhen to command the 115th Division, the 120th Division, and all the armed forces of our army in northern Shanxi. However, it is necessary to avoid a decisive battle between the main force and the enemy, to fight a quick battle, and to leave with one blow, so as not to leave the enemy with a chance to encircle our army.

After receiving the telegram, [***] immediately rushed to Yanmen Pass with the division headquarters to survey the terrain in detail, ordered all units to speed up the concentration, and ordered the 120th Division to concentrate the main force on both sides of the highway of the same generation, and at the same time sent more small units to expand the scope of reconnaissance, closely monitor the movements of the army, and carry out raids, harassment, and annihilation of small units of the army, and strive to turn the army into blind donkeys and blind horses.

In December in Yanbei, the weather is cold and the rivers are frozen. At this [***] order, the main force of the 115th Division rushed towards Yanmen Pass like arrows shot out.

After the victory of the 115th Division at Pingxingguan, it divided its troops to mobilize the masses in Hengshan, Wutaishan, and Luliangshan to create a base area behind enemy lines. After the instructor recovered Taiyuan, the 115th Division was replenished to a certain extent, and in addition, it was backed by the Shaanxi Anti-Japanese Base Area, the ammunition supply was sufficient, the troops expanded rapidly, and several military subdivisions were established. However, Liu Yimin's victory aroused his ambition, and while expanding the army on a large scale, he always held the main force into a group, held it in his hands, and was ready to give the army a heavy blow at any time and play the prestige of the Red Army.

Due to the arrival of Liu Yimin, the Red Army gained a foothold in Shaanxi, and the strength of the main force was greatly strengthened compared with history. Therefore, when the reorganization was made, the leaders of the three main divisions of the original Red First Army naturally became the leaders of the three brigades, the 343 Brigade adapted from the main force of the Red First Division and the 344 Brigade adapted from the main force of the Red 2nd Division went to the front line of resistance in Shanxi with [***] and Nie Rongzhen, and the main force of the Red Third Division (formerly the Red 15th Division) was organized into the Reading Brigade of the 115th Division and stayed in Shaanxi. Due to the large number of troops, after the Red 25th Army was incorporated, it could only be organized into a reading regiment. Wu Huanxian and Xu Haidong served as the political commissar and head of the regiment respectively, while Cheng Zihua was transferred to work in the Xi'an garrison area. This change is very different from history, fortunately, at this time, Xu Haidong could not know that he was a famous general in history, and Wu Huanxian did not know that he had died in history.

After the arrival of the troops, they held an operational meeting at Yanmen Pass, explained their intentions and arrangements to the cadres, and resolved to deploy Yang Dezhi and Li Lin's regiment on the mountain ridge between Yanmen Pass and Yanmen Ancient Dangerous Road to take up the task of blocking the enemy head-on, and Huang Kaixiang and Yang Chengwu regiments were deployed at the entrance of the Yanmen Ancient Dangerous Road to take up the task of cutting off the enemy's retreat and blocking the enemy's reinforcements. The 343rd Brigade was ambushed on the east side of the road, and the 344th Brigade was ambushed on the west side of the road. The artillery battalion set up positions in the mountains on the east side, and the engineer battalion laid anti-tank mines and electric explosive packs on the road, and mines on both sides of the roadbed. All the bazookas of the division were deployed in the first line, and they resolutely knocked out the enemy's tanks. Cavalry regiments and several reading regiments were deployed on both flanks of the position, and after the battle began, they were tasked with preventing the enemy from attacking in a roundabout way.

After the deployment, [***] said simply and clearly: "This time we are pulling teeth out of the tiger's mouth, and after the fire is fired, we will concentrate all the firepower of the division to attack the enemy, and then all the troops will quickly assault." The entire duration of the battle must not exceed 40 minutes. After the battle, quickly clean up the battlefield and immediately retreat, not allowing the enemy to catch up. After the main force retreated, Yang Dezhi's regiment held on to Yanmen Pass, attracting the enemy's main force to attack. Immediately retreat when the enemy attacks the fortified positions, and the timing of the retreat is to be grasped by the regiment commander himself. This time, we need to learn from our instructors, make full use of our firepower, use bullets to talk to the enemy, and try to avoid and minimize casualties. ”

Nie Rongzhen immediately mobilized for battle. Immediately after the meeting, the units began to move to inspect the terrain and build concealed fortifications.

At this time, the army had moved south from the Zhangjiakou line and crossed Datong. Pounced in the direction of Yanmen Pass.

In order to cooperate with the actions of the large army, the reconnaissance planes of the Chinese army repeatedly circled over the highways of the same generation to reconnoitre, and confirmed that there was no defense by the [***] team along the way.

The Kwantung Army sent to coordinate the actions of the three divisions was Major General Otozaburo Yano, the deputy chief of staff in charge of operations.

Major General Otozaburo Yano was happy at this time, the reason was very simple, he was only a major general's deputy chief of staff, but he was authorized to coordinate the commanders of the three lieutenant general divisions, and it was obvious that Commander Ueda Kenkichi admired him very much. After this battle, it is likely that he will go back to be a lieutenant general.

After receiving the report from the aviation forces, the smile on the face of Major General Otozaburo Yano increased a few points. Jokes, the elite Kwantung Army with three divisions, don't say that there is no opponent on the ground in Shanxi, looking at the whole of Asia, where can you find an opponent? As for Itagaki Seishiro's fiasco in Shanxi, Major General Yano Otozaburo attributed it to Itagaki that this guy was unlucky, so why did he march at night? Don't you march at night, and the Chinese army dares to ambush the elite 21 brigade?

Otozaburo Yano, who was sitting in the car, glanced back at the long snake-like marching procession, grinned, and ordered the combat staff officer to send a report to the three divisions and regiments, urging him to speed up the action, and leaned his head back on the car seat and closed his eyes to recuperate.

Sun Ji was first the commander of the first battalion of the Lao Red Regiment, and his current task was to cooperate with the reconnaissance department of the 115th Division to eliminate the reconnaissance unit of the Yue army, and then disguise the reconnaissance unit of the Yue army to lure the Yue army into taking the bait.

Sun Jixian and his battalion have been hiding on the side of the road north of Yanmen Pass for a day and a night, this time is the coldest time in the Yanbei area, the soldiers are so cold that their lips are blue, everyone can only take out the kettle from time to time, drink a sip of chili water to ward off the cold.

The cavalry reconnaissance squad sent out finally returned, and Sun Jixian hurriedly greeted him to inquire about the situation.

The reconnaissance squad leader first snatched Sun Jixian's kettle, drank a few large mouthfuls of chili water, wiped his mouth, and then said: "Battalion Commander Sun, hurry up and report, the devils are coming, they don't have infantry and cavalry search troops, the pioneers are armored vehicles and cars, and the devils on the cars are all leather hats and leather boots, it seems that there are thousands of people!" ”

When Sun Jixian heard this, it was consistent with the information provided by the 120th Division, saying that the main force of the army was really advancing along the highway of the same generation. Just asked: "How far is the devil's vanguard and the big army?" ”

The reconnaissance squad leader said that the vanguard of the devils were all in cars, and the main force was by car, warhorse, and on foot, and the distance between the two was at least 30 miles.

As soon as Sun Jixian heard this, he immediately ordered the cavalry reconnaissance squad to report to the division headquarters, especially to make it clear that the vanguard of the army was opened by armored vehicles. Considering that the Yue army relied on the superiority of mechanization and did not send infantry and cavalry to search for troops, and it was no longer meaningful for him to stay here, Sun Jixian led the troops and quickly returned to serve as the troops blocking the enemy's retreat.

After receiving the report of the cavalry reconnaissance squad, [***] thought about it for a while, and ordered the field artillery battalion to carefully calculate the artillery strike points to ensure that the fire was suppressed, and to move the position after each 10 shells to prevent being targeted by the Japanese planes. Yang Dezhi, who ordered the frontal blockade, commanded the engineers to use anti-tank mines and electric explosive packs to blow up the armored vehicles that were opening the way first. All units were ordered to be well concealed and camouflaged, and not to be exposed before firing.

After the deployment was completed, [***] returned to calm, like a statue, without saying a word, quietly sitting in the bunker of the division headquarters, waiting for the arrival of the army.

(To be continued)