In fact, the captain of the Japanese army who attacked the Lugou Bridge could not be blamed for complaining that the Japanese intelligence officers were not serious, because a few days ago, the 29th Army was indeed poorly equipped and demoralized.

However, when tens of thousands of guns and countless bullets were sent to various units, the equipment of the troops could no longer be said to be inferior. When Li Tie distributed a large amount of military salaries to the soldiers of the 29th Army, the morale of the 29th Army naturally improved.

In order to achieve the pre-war secrecy role, Li Tie made great efforts to transport these materials, not only did all the transport vehicles be camouflaged in advance, but even the unloading location of each unit was strictly secret.

Li Tie discussed with Commander Song Zheyuan when he was running the munitions, and in order to prevent the Japanese agents from discovering the specific specifications and quantities of these special assets, after the things arrived at each unit, they were strictly guarded by the local troops.

Even the distribution of weapons to the soldiers took place at night. And immediately after the delivery of these arms to the barracks, strict access restrictions were imposed throughout the barracks.

Although some Japanese agents found a large number of vehicles driving into many of the troops' stations, they did not fully detect that these vehicles were carrying munitions.

In addition, there are always some canned food, food and other daily necessities in every truckload of munitions. Therefore, whether it is a Japanese spy or an agent, they only think that these troops receive ordinary provisions.

Therefore, because the Northwest Army did a good job of secrecy in the past few days before the war, when the war really broke out, the 29th Army, which had already been reequipped, could take the Japanese army attacking the Pingjin area by surprise.

Most of the soldiers of the 29th Army came from the northwest of the bitter cold land, and the northwest has been known for its fierce customs and hard-working people since ancient times. How much worse will the combat effectiveness of the strong army cultivated by such a folk style be?

The main reason why the Chinese soldiers of the Republic of China could not defeat the Japanese army was that the heavy weapons were too different from the Japanese army. Just like at Lugou Bridge, the Northwest Army, which has strong combat effectiveness, takes advantage of its geographical advantages and has the advantage of resisting foreign aggression.

However, they did fight with the same number of Japanese troops, and the reason was that there were no heavy weapons.

Although Li Tie arrived, he sent a lot of mortars and shells to the Northwest Army. But don't forget, the Northwest Army is used to living a poor life.

When they finally had mortars, where were they willing to use them easily, and even if they did, where were they willing to risk their treasures being discovered and destroyed by Japanese artillery.

Therefore, when the Japanese tanks began to participate in the offensive, the Chinese defenders, who did not have effective anti-tank weapons, naturally suffered a great increase in casualties.

This is not counting, because the Japanese army did not quickly capture the Lugou Bridge because of the dispatch of tanks and artillery, they were already anxious, and more than a dozen planes actually flew over the Lugou Bridge to Wanping County, and began to bomb Wanping County in a wanton manner.

In the end, the position of the 29th Army near the Lugou Bridge was bombed. It almost blew the historic Lugou Bridge in two.

Fortunately, after the Japanese army thought of occupying Beiping, they would use the Lugou Bridge, which was the only way to the south, so they did not blow it up.

It's just that the soldiers of a battalion of the 29th Army stationed near the Lugou Bridge have fallen into bad luck. Because the 29th Army did not have good anti-aircraft weapons, they could only be beaten passively, and many soldiers died directly under the bombing of Japanese aircraft.

However, although the Chinese defenders suffered heavy losses, the Japanese troops attacking on the opposite side also lost the ability to continue the attack. The Chinese and Japanese armies, which had only been fighting for a day, were in a situation of confrontation.

The captain of the Japanese army immediately reported to the brigade commander the situation of the defenders of the Lugou Bridge and asked for reinforcements. At this time, the brigade commander in the combat command room was so angry that he shouted.

Because it was not only the Japanese troops who attacked the Lugou Bridge who came to ask for reinforcements, almost all the offensive points were thwarted. The sudden appearance of sufficient weapons and ammunition in the 29th Army naturally became the key to the problem.

When the intelligence department finally gave the answer that in the past few days, when he saw Huaxing's car frequently running between Pingjin and Tianjin, Lieutenant General Tu Feiyuan, who was responsible for commanding the Kwantung Army in the east to threaten Pingjin, deeply blamed himself:

"Alas, this damn Li Tie has really been mixed in again. As I said, such a big move of the empire must not be able to hide from his ears and eyes. It seems that the intelligence agent he hid in the empire must have broken into the imperial military department. Otherwise, he would not have been able to listen every time to prevent major actions of the Empire.

It seems that sooner or later he will become a big problem for the empire, with the military assistance of their Huaxing company. The combat strength of the 29th Army has been greatly enhanced, and future offences will not be smooth.

Although we have nearly 100,000 troops in the east, west, and north to suppress the other defense areas of the 29th Army, these troops are not only responsible for defending their own occupied areas, but also preparing for the future attack on Shanxi, and cannot be easily used.

It seems that we can only adopt the strategy of fighting and talking. In this case, we will immediately cease fighting with the 29th Army, and at the same time propose to negotiate with the Chinese government, and then secretly request the Japanese to send troops to support. "Tsuchihara's proposal was unanimously approved by all the generals present.

On the afternoon of 8 July, the Sino-Japanese conflict near the Lugou Bridge once again spread across the land of China. The government of the Republic of China was in a panic, and the people of all parts of China were once again enraged by the aggression of the Japanese army.

Since Commander Chiang had promised the whole country a united front against Japan during the Xi'an Incident a few months earlier, the patriotic people gathered directly in front of the Presidential Palace in Nanjing to ask Commander Chiang for orders, asking for troops to fight Japan, and to drive Japan out of China and recover Northeast China.

At this time, the Japanese once again showed their sinister and cunning national character, and when the armies of the two sides faced off near the Lugou Bridge, the Japanese side not only demanded that the final occupation of the two sides be negotiated through negotiations.

The Japanese side even more shamelessly proposed that the Chinese side withdraw its troops from the Pingjin area. It was proposed that Beiping and Tianjin be designated as demilitarized zones in order to achieve de facto occupation of the Pingjin region.

This time, Commander Chiang could not agree, Beiping was the capital of all Chinese dynasties, and it was an indispensable strategic point for China, if Commander Chiang ceded the Pingjin area to Japan, then Japan would be equivalent to completely occupying the area north of the Yellow River.

China will completely lose peace, Tianjin, North China, Shanxi, Mongolia and other provinces and cities, which is equivalent to losing a third of its territory. Therefore, although Commander Chiang believed that the war with the Japanese was not yet Japan's opponent, he also had to fight the war.

Moreover, now that the armistice agreement between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party has been signed, and the consciousness of the whole country to unify the War of Resistance has also reached unification, if he does not fight a few battles with the Japanese army at this time, he will not have the face to return to his hometown to see his father in Jiangdong.

Moreover, Commander Chiang now believed that he had finally swept away China's banditry trouble, and had incorporated the Northeast Army and the Northwest Army, and even brought many provinces and cities in the south under his control, thus formally completing the reunification of China.

In addition, at this time, Commander Chiang really reached a million troops, and there were millions of troops from various warlords who supported him. With such a large force, it was more than enough to deal with the thirty Japanese troops scattered throughout China.

Therefore, Commander Chiang sent people to negotiate with the Japanese army while speeding up the formation of the German armament division, and Commander Chiang had a strong confidence to use the negotiations to slow down the Japanese attack. Even if he was given another year, he was confident that he would prepare thirty German mechanics again.

It's a pity that the Japanese are very clear about Commander Chiang's thoughts, so they won't negotiate for a year or two to give his German division the opportunity to surpass the Japanese elite division.

In fact, how did Commander Chiang know that Japan saw China's war potential, and at the same time, he also saw that China had formed a consensus on a unified war of resistance, and the peaceful China war potential was too great, so Japan did not want to give China more time to accumulate strength, so it launched a war of full-scale occupation of China in advance.

Because they are afraid that if they wait a few more years, China's strength will be greatly strengthened, and not only will they not be able to fully occupy China, but they will even spit out the territory they have already occupied.

Unfortunately, the Chinese government does not have a sufficient understanding of the Japanese determination to fully occupy China, and they still think that the Japanese just want to take advantage of the Chinese again, and as long as they find that they cannot occupy the Pingjin area, they will naturally maintain the status quo.

Therefore, when the Chinese government responded to the call of the Japanese to suspend the war and conduct peace talks, the Chinese Nationalist Government did not mobilize a large number of troops to reinforce the Pingjin area.

And even if the commander of the 29th Army, Song Zheyuan, was reminded by Li Tie, but the 29th Army had just repelled the Japanese attack, and they also thought that the Japanese army did not have the ability to fully occupy the Pingjin area. Because Japan's troops in attacking the Pingjin area were seriously insufficient, the 29th Army had no problem at all in resisting the Japanese attack in the Pingjin area.

In fact, on the one hand, the Japanese quietly transferred troops in the country by negotiating with China, and because the number of troops mobilized this time was relatively large, the Japanese side conducted tug-of-war negotiations with the Chinese side.

In order to paralyze the Chinese government and the 29th Army, during the negotiations, the Japanese army also organized several small-scale exploratory offensives. However, they were all repulsed by the well-equipped 29th Army.

This not only greatly boosted the morale of the 29th Army and greatly boosted the confidence of the Chinese people in defeating the Japanese, but also paralyzed the Chinese government's negotiators.

Commander Chiang also thought that he could use this to delay for a while longer, so as to gain time for him to make strategic preparations. However, after half a month of emergency dispatch, tens of thousands of Japanese reinforcements finally arrived in China again, landed in Tianjin, and went straight to the garrison of the 29th Army.

This is not counting, when the news of the Japanese emperor's decision to prepare another 200,000 troops to attack China in the country reached the ears of Commander Chiang, Commander Chiang was dumbfounded: "Niang Xipi, the Japanese are too shameless, taking the opportunity of negotiation to transfer troops from Japan, I was fooled." ”

And also dumbfounded was the commander of the 29th Army, Song Zheyuan, and the officers and men of the whole army, when they saw that the enemy in front of them suddenly increased several times, and the tanks and artillery also increased a lot, the officers and men of the 29th Army felt a chill in their hearts.

On 24 July, 60,000 Japanese reinforcements finally arrived in the Pingjin area and began to encircle the Chinese troops in the Pingjin area.

On 26 July, the Japanese army presented an ultimatum to the Chinese army to withdraw from the Pingjin area, but the Chinese army sternly refused.

On July 27, Song Zheyuan, commander of the 29th Army, issued a telegram to the whole country, defending the territory and resisting the war, the duty of the army, and vowing to fight the Japanese army to the end.

In the early morning of 28 July, the Japanese troops, who had already surrounded the 29th Army's defense in the Pingjin area, lifted their artillery jackets, and the native troops entered the attack position.

As the first Japanese shell fell in front of the position of the 29th Army, the nationwide war between China and Japan finally began.