Seeing that Zhang Zhouhong and Xiang Luoquan had different opinions, Jiang Jinyong looked at Liu Tianshu and said, "Tianshu, what is your opinion?" ”

"What the chief of staff and deputy detachment commander Zhang said is reasonable, I thought about it for a while, the instructions of the superiors must be carried out to the letter, however, I don't know much about Commander Gu of the Third War Zone, but it can be seen from his eagerness to let the military headquarters cross the river to the north that he does not have a good impression of the New Fourth Army, and there must be contradictions in the cooperation between the two armies. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoLast time, the central government let the first and second detachments go north, and there should be this consideration. It's just that after the main forces of the first and second detachments go north, the Maoshan base area has to face the siege of the Japanese army alone, and the pressure is very great; if we gain a firm foothold in western Zhejiang, we can support each other with the troops in the southern Jiangsu base area, and then the anti-Japanese situation in the south of the Yangtze River will have new development. Judging from the performance of the Kuomintang during this period, we should not be willing to see us vigorously develop anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines, so in order to avoid accidents, I think we should not pin our hopes on friendly troops, because our seventh detachment has not seen a precedent for the devils to hide without firing a shot. Chief of Staff, you draw up a plan of action first, and then the troops will be deployed in five days. Liu Tianshu thought about it, and finally decided to go to the area where the north of Tianmu Mountain meets the Maoshan base area, and then go south from the eastern edge of Tianmu Mountain to Linchuan.

Since the detachment commander had decided to go to Gucheng, Nanfeng, and Houfo, Xiang Luo Quan, as the chief of staff, naturally no longer refuted, and immediately said that this would allow the staff officers of the detachment to formulate a detachment marching plan based on the information they had.

In the next few days, Liu Tianshu asked Zhou Aiguo's reconnaissance brigade to be divided into countless small detachments to infiltrate and reconnaisance on the front line of Gucheng, Nanfeng, and Houfo, and at the same time learn about the situation of the Japanese army in Wuhu, Gaochun, and Liyang through the military headquarters.

As for the logistics department of the detachment, it tried to raise the necessary materials for the troops.

The seventh detachment crossed the river, and although the military headquarters supported some food and materials, it could not meet the needs of the troops at all. After arriving at Luochang, the logistics department of the detachment took out the oceans and the like accumulated by the detachment in the past two years, purchased materials around Luochang, and even asked the third detachment to cooperate with them to help buy them.

In the past two days, Liu Tianshu went to the three infantry regiments stationed around Luochang to inspect the situation of the troops, and when he saw that the officers and soldiers of each regiment learned that they were going to western Zhejiang to fight devils, everyone's eyes were full of excitement, and they were not disappointed after leaving eastern Anhui, and their hearts were relieved.

In fact, thanks to the political work cadres in the detachment, under their patient and meticulous ideological mobilization, these simple soldiers have understood the importance of leaving home to fight devils, and naturally there is no such difficulty as leaving home.

Walking to the third regiment and one battalion, seeing Yan Qiang, who was rescued from the exchange of prisoners of war with the Japanese army, Liu Tianshu couldn't help but ask with concern: "Company Commander Yan, how is your health now?" ”

"Report to the detachment leader, I have fully recovered, and I look forward to your order to go to the battlefield to fight devils." After Yan Qiang was replaced, Dr. Youkang in Ningyuan performed surgery in time to remove the shrapnel on his body, and then after a period of careful treatment. When the 7th detachment left Wangjiadian and went south, he recovered from his injuries and was discharged from the hospital, and at his strong request, he joined the 7th detachment together with more than 200 rescued New Fourth Army.

Because he was originally the company commander of the New Fourth Army, after the unfortunate death of the commander of the third regiment and the first battalion and the third company, he was appointed by Ou Biaofei as the commander of the first battalion and three companies.

"Don't worry, you're going to fight." When Liu Tianshu heard this, he patted him on the shoulder.

Five days later, the regiment, as the pioneer of the path, quickly left Luochang and advanced in the direction of Gucheng. At the same time, the second regiment and the regiment immediately followed, and the third regiment was still responsible for the rear cover.

However, in order to prevent the devils in the south of Wuhu from causing trouble to themselves when the army advanced, Liu Tianshu asked the first battalion of the second regiment and a mortar company to suddenly go north at night, and at ten o'clock in the evening, launch an attack on the Japanese brigade guarding Tuanxi. Yoshikawa, the captain of the Japanese army guarding Tuanxi, received instructions from Yasuzawa Ohara to build strong fortifications in Tuanxi as early as possible, and at the same time arranged the entire brigade in echelons.

It's just that he didn't expect that the New Fourth Army would suddenly concentrate artillery fire and bombard its forward positions, and in the blink of an eye, the Japanese troops guarding the forward positions would be bombarded with heavy casualties. The shelling stopped, and the battalion and company that had approached immediately launched an attack on the Japanese position, and after half an hour of fierce fighting, the Japanese were driven out of the forward position.

When Yoshikawa bombarded its forward positions with mortars, he urgently ordered the artillery to determine the shelling positions of the New Fourth Army, but when Yoshikawa's artillery determined the approximate position and counterattacked with infantry artillery, they found that the shells of the New Fourth Army no longer flew out.

Yoshikawa's artillery bombarded the calculated position fiercely, and the flat ground was blown up in smoke.

The artillery of the Yoshikawa Brigade had never fought with the Seventh Detachment before, and they did not know how tricky the tactics of the mortar company of the Seventh Detachment of the New Fourth Army were, and they did not know that the artillery bombardment of the Seventh Detachment paid attention to rapid assaults.

His fierce retaliation not only failed to knock out the mortars that cooperated with the operation of the first battalion, but revealed his own position.

At this time, the two infantry artillery groups that followed the action, according to the trajectory of the devil, calculated the location of the devil's artillery position, after some preparation, under the commander's loud order, the two infantry guns immediately began to fire rapidly, the shells pulled a long line in the night sky, and in a blink of an eye fell on the artillery position of Yoshikawa.

The devil artilleryman, who was firing vigorously, heard a strange sound in the sky, and immediately judged that a shell was flying towards his position, and his face changed greatly in horror, and he hurriedly threw down the infantry gun and turned to flee.

Unfortunately, the shells followed and landed, and immediately exploded in clouds of smoke on the position, and the two infantry guns belonging to the Yoshikawa brigade were immediately destroyed, and more than half of the gunners of the artillery squad were killed or wounded.

After firing a base number of shells, the two infantry artillery groups immediately moved according to the pre-existing regulations and ran east with the main forces.

Yoshikawa's infantry artillery was knocked out, and the forward position was captured by the New Fourth Army, and a squadron sent out to counterattack in an attempt to regain the position was crushed by the New Fourth Army's light and heavy machine gun grenadier 60 mortars in a blink of an eye, and had to retreat.

Yoshikawa saw that in less than an hour of fighting, he had lost more than 200 people, and more importantly, the infantry artillery had been destroyed, and his brigade had lost artillery support.

Seeing the New Fourth Army rushing towards the main position with a shout, he had no choice but to retreat with his troops after asking Commander Yasusawa Ohara for instructions.

Gao Weiheng, commander of the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment, saw the Japanese retreat and commanded the troops to quickly retreat to the east after chasing for a while.

The task of the first battalion was to repel the Japanese troops in Tuanxi, so that they did not dare to chase after them from behind, and they had no intention of eating this group of Japanese soldiers, so they accepted it when they saw it.

After cleaning up the battlefield, the 1st Battalion left Tuanxi to catch up with the 3rd Regiment after the break, and then ran forward at a rapid pace.

After Yasusawa Ohara ordered Yoshikawa to retreat, he couldn't help but feel a little strange to learn that the New Fourth Army did not take advantage of the situation to chase after him.

Could it be that the Seventh Detachment of the New Fourth Army really went east? Thinking of this, he asked Yoshikawa to send troops to return to Tuanxi tentatively, but he didn't expect to collide with the troops of the third detachment.

After a fierce battle between the two sides, Yoshikawa hurriedly commanded his troops to retreat.

He didn't know that it was not the seventh detachment that was guarding Tuanxi now, but the troops of the third detachment.

At dawn, Ohara Yasuzawa received a report that a large number of the New Fourth Army had been moved eastward and had reached a place less than forty miles from Gucheng.

Gucheng is a small town, but it is the main road to southern Jiangsu, and it is also the main road to Tianmu Mountain in the south, so it can be said that the location is very important.

However, the Japanese army in charge of southern Anhui, southern Jiangsu, and northwestern Zhejiang was only more than 30,000 troops, and it was naturally very difficult to besiege the Maoshan base area of the New Fourth Army and deal with more than 100,000 troops in the Third Theater of the Nationalist Government.

Although there were more than 50,000 Wang puppet troops in the operation, the combat effectiveness of these troops was indeed not very good in the eyes of the Japanese commanders.

These troops of the Nanjing Nationalist Government are not good at dealing with the troops of the New Fourth Army and the Third War Zone, but they are all experts at how to loot the common people.

The Japanese army left behind in Gucheng only had a brigade, plus the puppet army was only 2,000 people, after learning that Liu Tianshu's seventh detachment was approaching Gucheng, Ohara Yasusawa was as anxious as an ant on a hot pot, and wanted to send reinforcements, and the mobile force in his hand was less than 4,000 people at most.

But if you don't send reinforcements, you will either abandon the fortified city, or let the Japanese puppet army defending the fortified city fend for itself.

But this choice was really difficult to decide, and Ohara Yasusawa had to report the situation to Commander Sawada.

Sawada learned that the 7th Detachment suddenly moved eastward, and after looking at the map, he asked Ohara Yasusawa to abandon Gucheng and concentrate his forces north of Gucheng, and at the same time let the Japanese army in Wuxi rush to Liyang and Gaochun to strictly prevent the 7th Detachment from carrying out the Maoshan area.

The Maoshan area is close to Nanjing, if the New Fourth Army operating there is strengthened by the seventh detachment, it will definitely be a problem for the henchmen, as for the seventh detachment to Zhejiang, the impact on the empire will be much smaller, even if Liu Tianshu turns Zhejiang upside down, it will not affect the overall situation of the empire.

And in that case, the better the development of the seventh detachment in Zhejiang, the deeper the contradiction with Chongqing will be, and then maybe there will be no need to do it yourself, and the person surnamed Gu in the third theater will find an opportunity to recover him.

I have to say that Sawada's vision is very vicious, and after he asked Ohara Yasuzawa to take the initiative to abandon Gucheng, he immediately established a defensive line north of Gucheng, and at the same time, the Japanese army in Wuxi and eastern Zhejiang also pressed westward.

Liu Tianshu received a report from Deputy Detachment Commander Zhang that the first regiment had occupied Gucheng, but the Japanese puppet army had already fled.

After the troops were drawn out, the deputy detachment commander of the chapter followed the action of the regiment.

Immediately afterwards, the reconnaissance brigade sent back a telegram that the Japanese army had assembled heavy troops on the line of Gaochun and Liyang, and that the Japanese troops in Wuxi and eastern Zhejiang were also rushing to this side.

The 79th Division of the Third Theater in eastern Zhejiang actually opened the road, allowing thousands of Japanese troops to swagger towards Liyang, and Liu Tianshu frowned. (To be continued.) )