Hu Laohu was already a little tired from climbing on a hill south of Beishan Village near Xikou, and couldn't help but take out his pocket watch and look at it, it was 5 o'clock, the sun was about to set, and there was still no one on the road under the mountain. Could it be that the regimental commander made a mistake in judgment and the enemy did not go from here? No way. I came to the 18th regiment late, but I heard from the veterans of the 18th regiment that the regiment commander's judgment had never been wrong. The battle of Xiaoshui also proved that the regiment commander anticipated the enemy's first opportunity, like a divine calculation! Are you too anxious? Wait, wait, the main force of the regiment hasn't come up yet.

Just when Hu Laohu was anxious, the enemy's sharp soldiers appeared, nine people, holding guns, looking around as they walked on the road. Probably because they knew that the avant-garde had passed through here safely, the spearheads didn't seem to be very vigilant and didn't seriously search.

After the spearhead passed, the enemy's vanguard company also appeared on the road, and the 100 people, lined up in a loose three-way formation, lifted and trampled, and walked unhurriedly on the road.

Hu Laohu knew that this kind of loose formation seemed to be scattered, but in fact it was the most difficult to fight, and when the gun rang out, the front row was unlucky, but the back row could quickly lie down or seize the terrain and organize a counterattack. If we fight now, with the cavalry company's 50 or so men, not only will we not be able to quickly destroy the enemy's vanguard company, but we will immediately let the enemy's main force form into a battle formation and turn it into a difficult bone to gnaw. However, as long as time permits, Hu Laohu is still sure to eliminate this vanguard company, after all, 40 of the 50 people in the cavalry company are old Red Army, and there is plenty of ammunition. But it was not the time when each person was only issued 5 bullets, and at that time, Hu Laohu was confident that he could use these 50 people to defeat or destroy a company of the enemy, let alone now?

Hearing the regiment commander's explanation, Hu Laohu sighed and watched the enemy vanguard pass under his nose with swagger and unhurriedness.

When Luo Yan found the main force of the regiment, Liu Yimin was rushing towards Xikou with the main force. After listening to Luo Yan's report, Liu Yimin was overjoyed, the headquarters of the enemy's 62nd Division and Zhong Guangren's brigade had not yet reached Xikou, and the opportunity was in front of them, so they could catch up, as long as they could carry out an interception on the road, it would be possible to eat this enemy. At worst, it can also defeat the enemy and force it to retreat to Suining, making Wang Yuying's brigade, which is far away from Jingwu Prefecture, a lone army. When asked again how far Luo Yanju Highway was, Luo Yan replied that it was 3 kilometers. Liu Yimin immediately ordered Luo Yan to lead the way, and Li Qing commanded the 4th Battalion, 5th Battalion, and 1st Heavy Machine Gun Company to run lightly and resolutely block the enemy's main force; Liu Jianjian led the 3rd Battalion, 6th Battalion, and 2nd Company of the Heavy Machine Gun Company, guided by the guide to turn north, and outflanked the rear of the 62nd Division in a roundabout way; He led the 1st Battalion, the 2nd Battalion, the Engineer Battalion, the 3rd Heavy Machine Gun Company, and the 2nd Mortar Company at full speed to seize the mountain peak on the east side of the road; The communications platoon immediately sent someone to notify the political commissar and quickly follow up.

At this time, in the woods next to the road north of Jingwu Prefecture, the soldiers of the seventh company and one platoon of the third battalion of the Red 18th Regiment had already loaded their bullets.

After receiving the telegram from the regiment commander, the three battalions, seven companies and one platoon of the three battalions that stayed in the county seat of the passage immediately took action, tied up all the prisoners of the security regiment and the police station that the 18th regiment had captured when they occupied the passage, tied them up with ropes, and escorted them to the center of the county town, telling them that those who had not done evil and there were people willing to claim it could go home with the claimants on their own; Whoever has done many evils, and no one has claimed them, stands here and repents. The Red Army soldiers were supervising in the shadows, and whoever dared to escape without permission was directly killed. Soon, when these people saw someone passing by, they began to call out uncles, uncles, aunts, and aunts, and immediately formed a crowd. The more people gathered, the more chaotic the scene became. The people in the county town all ran there, and no one noticed that the third battalion, the seventh company, and the first platoon had quietly opened with supplies.

Out of the county seat, along the highway to Jingwuzhou all the way. Seeing that it was almost time to Jingwuzhou, the soldiers found a broken temple to conceal the supplies, sent the hired cart away, crossed Jingwuzhou and hid in this wood, waiting to attack the enemy Wang Yuying's brigade.

At about 5 o'clock, the enemy's spearhead appeared, also 9 people, with guns in hand, carefully searching and advancing.

Qi Fengnian, the commander of the first platoon of the seventh company of the third battalion, is a veteran of the 18th regiment, and he is a veteran of guerrilla fighting. When he received the telegram from the regiment commander, the first thing he thought of was that the regiment commander asked him to do his old job of guerrilla warfare in the Soviet area. The difference is that when the Soviet zone had only 5 rounds in the gun, now it is different. This battle, we will fight.

Seeing the appearance of the enemy's top soldiers, Qi Fengnian immediately confessed to the two deputy platoon commanders, each with a squad, according to the tactics of a group of three, each group is responsible for one enemy, he takes a squad to be responsible for the first three, the second squad is responsible for the middle three, and the third squad is responsible for the last three, striving for one shot.

The enemy soldiers were getting closer and closer, and seeing that they were only 30 meters away from the ambush point, Qi Fengnian aimed at the first soldier and shouted "hit", and the bullet was discharged.

At such a close distance, it is unreasonable for three or four guns to hit one person at the same time. The fighters quickly collected bullets and grenades from the enemy's spearheads, and then quickly disappeared into the woods and moved to the other side.

When the enemy's vanguard company arrived, there were only nine corpses of Hunan troops on the ground, and there were already few people in the woods, and only a few dozen yellow bullet casings were found.

The enemy company commander did not know whether to move forward or to start a search, so he had to order to stand guard and wait for the order to go up.

It didn't take long for the enemy company commander to see the figure of the large force. Just as he was considering whether to run up and report or wait on the spot, he heard a volley of guns on the left side of the main marching procession, and he knew that another brother had gone to Hades with his nine spearheads.

The commander of the enemy company no longer hesitated, and ordered the whole company to outflank to the left, and it was necessary to capture this hateful group of Red Army.

When the enemy company commander arrived at the place where the gun rang out, the enemy regiment commander was already waiting for him with a picked up bullet case. As soon as he shouted a report, the regiment commander's big-eared melon seeds were instigated, and the scolding of the old man with a Hunan accent made the enemy company commander faint on the spot.

When the regiment commander had beaten and scolded enough, the enemy company commander had a swollen face and asked the troops how to act. This time it was good, the enemy regiment commander did not attack again, but directly told him that this was a small force of the enemy, and the purpose was to disturb our army, delay the speed of our army's march, and continue to advance.

In this way, a platoon of the third battalion and the seventh company stuck to the enemy's Yuying brigade like a plaster, flickering left and right, flickering forward and backward, firing a shot to change places, making the enemy overwhelmed, and the marching speed naturally slowed down.

At this time, Hu Laohu, who was ambushed on the side of the road near Xikou, had reached the juncture of a difficult choice.

Soon after the enemy's vanguard company passed, a large force of the enemy appeared, apparently four or five thousand men, with a company of cavalry in front, a three-way infantry column in the back, mules and horses carrying heavy loads in the back, and finally the rearguard troops, and the platoon marched along the road in an orderly manner.

To fight or not to fight?

The advantage is that you can block and delay the enemy and buy some time for the main force, but the disadvantage is that I don't know if it will affect the regiment commander's plan, and the disadvantage is that I will revolutionize to the end with dozens of people; If you don't fight, when the enemy arrives at the mouth of the stream, it will be difficult to find the fighters. Because if the enemy quickly passed through the mouth of the stream and continued to the south, his main force would have been exhausted from continuous combat, and it would be impossible for him to catch up with the enemy. If the enemy stops at Xikou and looks at the posture of this line of troops, he knows that the enemy is bound to strengthen his vigilance, and once it starts, it will evolve into an offensive and defensive battle, so that the enemy's reinforcements may arrive, and the 18th Regiment may be in vain, or even fall into a heavy encirclement.

Seeing that the enemy cavalry company was under their noses, the soldiers also began to aim, and the machine guns also pulled out the bolts. Hu Laohu shook his head helplessly, although the regiment commander repeatedly stressed that commanders must be flexible and mobile on the battlefield, but orders are not child's play, and the consequences of disobeying orders are self-evident. Hu Laohu decided to take another look behind him, and if the main force arrived, he would fight resolutely, and if the main force did not arrive, he had to temporarily let go of the Hunan 62nd Division. On the mountain road leading to Xiaoshui at the foot of the hillside, the main force of the Red 18th Regiment is rushing here in a straight line. Hu Laohu didn't hesitate any longer, grabbed his submachine gun, shouted and hit, and bullets gushed out.

The enemy cavalry company could not have imagined that Hu Laohu would let go of the vanguard company and attack them directly, there was no defense at all, and the cavalry target was large, and the reaction on the horse could not catch up with the infantry so fast in any case, and Hu Laohu was beaten like this, so it was naturally chaotic, and at that time, twenty or thirty cavalrymen were killed, and the war horse dragged the corpse of the master and galloped forward. The rest of the cavalry some of them bent down and rushed forward at the risk of death, some jumped off their horses and raised their guns to shoot, and some turned their horses and retreated backwards, and they became a pot of porridge.

Take advantage of your chaos and kill you. Hu Laohu commanded the soldiers to start firing accurately, the only machine gun chasing the enemy's figure, and the infantry took aim and hit unhurriedly. In a few moments, the enemy cavalry company suffered heavy casualties, and only the part of the cavalry that had turned their horses back at the beginning was lucky to be rescued.

Seeing that there was no longer any enemy in front of the position who could shoot, Hu Laohu decisively ordered to stop shooting, and the troops withdrew to the back of the hillside to hide.

Later, when military experts analyzed the battle, they praised Hu Laohu's order. Because of this order, the enemy commander thought that a small unit of the Red Army was blocking the attack, and it was probably the old-fashioned hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, so he became paralyzed and lost the opportunity for the whole army to turn around and break through the encirclement, which directly led to the destruction of the 62nd Division.

Hearing the sound of gunfire, the enemy infantry quickly lay down, light and heavy machine guns began to look for and occupy positions, the mortar company directly under the brigade in the middle of the team also began to unload and assemble the guns from the mules and horses, and the enemy regiment commander in charge of the advance guard even ordered the troops to quickly seize the hill on the side of the road. But the gunfire suddenly stopped. The commander of the enemy regiment raised his telescope suspiciously, there was no blocking position on the hillside in front, and there was no one to be seen in the quiet woods, and then looking at the hillside above the road, there was no appearance of a position, and there was no one. Could it really be that the small bandit troop ran away after a fight? Could it be that the small army of red bandits is stalling for time and waiting for the main force? Thinking about it again, no, Wang Yuying's brigade just passed by here at noon, and he didn't find any hostile situation. Leave it alone and prepare to attack.

At this time, the enemy brigade commander Zhong Guangren came to the avant-garde regiment with the chief of staff, and the enemy regiment commander immediately reported the ambush. Zhong Guangren had a lot of dealings with the Red Army, and was defeated by Xiao Ke's Red 17th Division in Huangsha Village, Yifeng County, Jiangxi Province, and almost lost his life there. After listening to the report of the enemy regiment commander, he did not hesitate to order the mortar company to be transferred up, to cover the slopes of the Red Army with mortars and heavy machine guns, and to organize troops to open the passage and cover the passage of brigade and division units; Another regiment was ordered to immediately occupy the hill on the side of the road, and to attack and advance along the mountain range, covering the attack of the avant-garde regiment.

The commander of the enemy's avant-garde regiment immediately made offensive arrangements, gathered the whole regiment, and divided it into three attack waves, each with a battalion of troops, and the interval between each wave was no more than 100 meters, striving to take the hill in one fell swoop.

When the enemy's vanguard company heard the gunfire, it quickly turned around and prepared to cooperate with the main force to flank the Red Army. At the foot of the mountain, he collided with the fourth and fifth battalions led by Li Qing. The enemy's vanguard company was like a wave, only a few ripples in the sea of people of the Red 18th Regiment, and it was quickly swallowed up.

Hearing the sound of gunfire coming from behind the mountain, the commander of the enemy avant-garde regiment quickly realized that it was the vanguard company that was cooperating with the main force to attack, and ordered the mortar company and heavy machine gun to move quickly.

The enemy mortar battery quickly found a position, and after a test shot, the shelling began. Heavy machine-gun batteries of two enemy regiments also began to shoot cover. The soldiers of the avant-garde regiment, led by the officers, began to attack the hill where Hu Laohu was located. The Battle of Xikou officially began.