Tada Jun came to the war room, which was already in full swing, and the air was filled with an anxious atmosphere, and dense blue lines and crossed red dots appeared on the huge map of Shanxi hanging on the wall, which was the proven offensive route of the Eighth Route Army and the stronghold that had been uprooted.

Tada Jun swallowed his saliva and waved his hand and shouted, "Everyone calm down, don't panic, immediately let the heads of each division and regiment come to me for a meeting, besides, what about Yoshiko Kawashima?" Where is she? With such a big operation of the Eighth Route Army, why didn't our imperial army hear any rumors? ”

Takeda Yixiong bowed his head and said, "Mr. Jin went to Yan Xishan and hasn't come back yet, and now there are Eighth Route Army everywhere outside, I'm afraid it will be blocked somewhere." ”

"Baga, it's useless, Takeda-kun, you've been learning intelligence from her recently, and you will immediately take over her work, find out how many Eighth Route Army troops are in action, and calculate the losses of our army." Tada Jun waved his hand and said, "The Eighth Route Army has been in action for several hours? ”

Takeda looked at the clock on the wall and said, "It's been three hours, and it started at twelve o'clock at midnight. ”

Tada Jun frowned and said, "The imperial army is now scattered in various county towns and strongholds, and can only find out the situation after dawn, and order the troops in each county town and stronghold to defend first and not fight casually." Wait for the order of the military department. ”

Takeda Takeo saluted, "Yes!! ”

-- Wuxiang County

Xiang Shouzhi looked at the gathered troops and asked, "It seems that everyone has completed the task, what are the results of each unit?" ”

One of the battalion commanders was the first to say: "Our battalion lost four, seven were seriously wounded, and twelve were lightly wounded. ”

Another battalion commander said, "Our battalion lost eight people, six were seriously wounded, and eleven were lightly wounded. ”

Xiang Shouzhi nodded and said, "Fortunately, the sacrifice is not big, but don't be proud, we are now fighting the majority of puppet troops in the stronghold." Most of the real devils are still nesting in the city. Captain Lee, how's the devil's action? ”

Captain Li was the first to say, "The devils in the county haven't come out yet, but the devils in several towns have moved, but they all retracted halfway through, and the little devils are very alert." ”

A battalion commander said, "Yes, regiment commander, the devil seems to know that we will be ambushed halfway, and it seems that he is preparing to wait for dawn." ”

Xiang Shouzhi hummed, "No one will save them at dawn, according to the plan, the mountain will not be me." I went to the mountain, and immediately ordered the troops to disperse, and act as a company, and the large artillery towers on the road have been knocked out, so go to attack the small artillery towers and strongholds, and in addition, the first battalion will go with me and go to fight the town of Jianzhang! The county brigade organized the villagers to clean up the battlefield, and finally the county brigade took people to the houses of those traitors to hoe and rape. Get moving!! ”

Captain Li smiled, "Don't worry." The enthusiasm of the villagers is very high, and they know that they have to settle accounts with those traitors and devils this time, and they are all holding back their strength, so you can look at it from the head of the regiment. ”

-- Pingyao County

A winding railway stretches across the land of Pingyao County into the distance. A train carrying coal clattered on the railway, and several Japanese soldiers stood on the carriage blowing the cold wind and talking.

Suddenly, those Japanese soldiers only felt a shock. A huge force threw them into the air, and the last image in their eyes was of the train rushing off the tracks, and the locomotive spitting smoke fell into the dirt. Tilted to one side, then the land that grows bigger, and then nothing is remembered.

There were also sober Japanese soldiers who were horrified to find that countless figures appeared on both sides of the railway, some of these people were wearing the clothes of ordinary people, and some were wearing the military uniforms of the Eighth Route Army.

"Comrades, folks, kill all the devils, burn the coal, take the railroad away, move quickly!!" A female officer waved her hand and shouted, hundreds of people and the Eighth Route Army immediately began to act, all holding catalpa, sticks, ropes and other tools, on the torch and night, the rails were dug up section by section, pried up, the dug rails were quickly tied up by the militia with ropes, and then put on the rubber-tyred cart that had been prepared long ago, and then was pushed by the militia and ran into the distance.

And for the sake of future restoration, the militia did not even give up the sleepers, and when the sun hit the earth, only a road paved with stones remained, and there was not a trace of a railway.

Not only Shanxi, but also in Hebei, Shandong, Suiyuan, Chahar, as long as there is a railway, you can see such a scene everywhere, but Shanxi will put away the sleepers, and in other places they will pile these sleepers together, and burn them with a fire, and those rails will be transported away conveniently, and the inconvenient ones will be burned on the fire and smashed, and thrown into the ravines and rivers, anyway, they will not be repaired quickly by the Japanese army.

The entire land of North China is in shambles.

-- Taiyuan

Tada Jun looked at one telegram after another, impatiently clumped the telegram into a ball, rubbed it vigorously and threw it aside, panting, looked at the people who were already seated and said, "Takeda-kun, tell me about the situation." ”

Takeda Yixiong nodded and said, "Last night and night, the Eighth Route Army dispatched a large number of troops, and as of half an hour ago, it had captured 527 artillery strongholds of our army, captured 37 towns and towns, destroyed 136 railways, 46 bridges, and 14 mining areas. As for the other power lines, the villages of Baojia, and countless others have been destroyed. Our army has suffered more than 10,000 casualties, of course, more than half of them are North China, no, it should be called the Imperial Allied Army now. ”

Tada Jun rubbed his brows and said, "The situation is not only that, I just got the news from the direction of Beiping, Hebei, Shandong, Suiyuan, and Chahar have a large number of guerrillas launching attacks, and their targets are the same as here in Shanxi, all of which are railways, highways and infrastructure, and the whole of North China is in chaos." ”

The newly appointed commander of the 20th Division, Ushijima, slapped the table and said, "Your Excellency Commander, please immediately order the troops from all over the country to go into battle and clear these guerrillas, as long as the main force of the imperial army goes into battle, these Eighth Route Army, which only dares to take advantage of the night to sneak attack, will definitely be easily crushed to death by our army." ”

The liaison officer of the 108th Division next to him also said excitedly, "Yes, these Eighth Route Army just relied on sneak attacks on our small strongholds, and won with the tactics of crowds. ”

Yoshimoto Sada, chief of staff of the Third Army, nodded and said, "The general staff also plans in this way, first along the railway and highway, dispatch the main force to clear the enemy on the communication line, and then encircle and suppress it by division. ”

Seeing the generals below, they were all excited to fight. Takeda Yixiong rolled his eyes and said sharply, "Your Excellency Commander, I don't agree!" ”

Ushijima often squinted his eyes and pointed at Takeda Yio and drank, "Here are the heads and spokespersons of various divisions and regiments, you are a little staff officer of Nakasa, what qualifications do you have to make a big fuss here!" ”

Tada Jun waved his hand and said, "He was called by me, everyone, this Takeda-kun is a high-ranking disciple of Ishihara-kun, and is praised by Ishihara-kun as a genius in the world, let's listen to his opinion." Takeda-kun, you can say it. ”

Ushijima snorted coldly. Although Ishihara was ostracized, his title of Ishihara no Chi still made Ushijima Minoru restrain himself a little.

Takeda Yixiong glanced at Tada Jun gratefully and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the Eighth Route Army's operation this time is extremely resolute and effective, and the purpose seems to be very simple, that is, it is easy to take refuge and attack the scattered strongholds of our army, but is it really that simple?" Now the small strongholds of our army will either withdraw their forces back, or they will be broken by the Eighth Route Army. Such a result is not at all like what such a big battle wants, so I judge that their next step must be to prepare to attack various county seats, at least to recover some county seats. Have you noticed the battle report? This time, a large amount of explosives appeared in the hands of the Eighth Route Army. Some units also have a special artillery that can easily blow up our pillboxes, which shows that the Eighth Route Army must have received a lot of Soviet aid to dare to be so fearless. ”

I saw Tada Jun who kept nodding his head. Takeda Yoshio continued, "Once the troops of our army in various counties begin to attack, the Eighth Route Army will definitely take advantage of their intelligence advantage and turn around and attack our army's county strongholds. At that time, I am afraid that our army will lose more than it gains. ”

Ushijima snorted, "Children who have never experienced the battlefield know that it is taken for granted, do you think that the county town guarded by the imperial army is so easy to fight?" We have hundreds of imperial troops and more imperial armies in each county, and the Eighth Route Army will definitely not be able to defeat them without paying the price of thousands of people, so how many of them are there? According to you, are we trapped in the cities and blocked by a group of guerrillas? ”

Takeda Yixiong shook his head and said, "Gentlemen, all battles should have a purpose, and the purpose of this large-scale attack of the Eighth Route Army is to break the raid war, so why can't we use their ideas to oppose the guest?" ”

Tada Jun asked with interest, "What does Takeda-kun mean?" ”

Takeda Takeo said: "Even if our army attacks now, those guerrillas will only scatter like birds and beasts, and they will not be able to encircle and annihilate them at all, and it is impossible for our troops to stay in the field for a long time, as long as they return to the city, these guerrillas will emerge again." And now most of the small strongholds outside our army have been lost, in this case, why not simply use these strongholds as bait, so that the main force of the Eighth Route Army is completely exposed, and then our army relies on the big cities as points, and the various units are ropes, besiege from the periphery to the inside, drive the Eighth Route Army in the direction we want, and finally encircle and annihilate it, so that although we will have some losses in the early stage, as long as the main force of the Eighth Route Army is completely annihilated, these losses are completely acceptable, and these are also one of our army's strategies can also be publicized externally. What do you think of the generals? ”

Ushijima slowly lowered his head when he listened, and the others also thought about it, if they could really completely annihilate these nasty Eighth Route Army, it wouldn't matter if they lost some now.

Tada pointed to the map and asked, "How do you make a point?" How to make a line? ”

Takeda Yixiong stepped forward and said, "According to the intelligence, we found that Yan Xishan's Jin Sui army did not move, and several counties close to them were not attacked, it can be seen that the Eighth Route Army and the Jin Sui Army did not cooperate closely this time, we can first use the interests to stabilize the Jin Sui Army, of course, we can not completely relax, and then from Linfen, Jincheng, Changzhi to the north, Datong, Shuozhou to the south, Yangyuan to the west, using our army's air force advantage, only chasing large troops, abandoning small troops, sweeping the main force of the Eighth Route Army to Fenyang, Xiaoyi, Jiexiu, On the plain of Pingyao, here is backed by the rear of the Eighth Route Army, Luliang Mountain, even if the Eighth Route Army retreats here, it will not think that it has reached the place of death, and then our army uses cavalry and mechanized troops to intersperse with Luliang Mountain, cut off the retreat of the Eighth Route Army, concentrate the main force of the three divisions at least 50,000 people and the Imperial Association Army of no less than this number, and encircle and annihilate it at the foot of Luliang Mountain. Then the troops returned to sweep away the small troops that had fled, and finally appeased the whole territory of Shanxi. ”

Ushijima often stood up and drew a map and said, "Do you know that these places are all mountainous areas, the terrain is dangerous, and we can't find the guerrillas when they get in, how can we force these guerrillas out and sweep them to the place you painted?" ”

Takeda Yixiong said with a smile, "The biggest weakness of the Eighth Route Army is that there is no air force, that is, there are no eyes, Your Excellency Commander, now there is no big war in the south, please apply to the military department, mobilize the main force of the air force to our Shanxi, and use the eyes of the aircraft to command our army to attack, it is now the first month, the leaves in most places have withered, as long as there are planes staring at it, the Eighth Route Army will not be able to escape." ”

Tada Jun took a breath and said, "Are you going to use all the planes as reconnaissance planes?" But this can be done during the day, and what about at night? ”

Takeda Yixiong said with a smile, "Use our cavalry, bite them, just like the Mongols back then, don't want cavalry to fight with them, just know their location, in addition, in order to pursue quickly, our army must give up all heavy artillery and equipment that is inconvenient to move, otherwise, it will only be left far away by those Eighth Route Army who are only wearing clothes and holding a rifle." Finally, it is necessary to prepare more food supplies in each county and county, and build field airfields in various places so that our army can fight quickly. ”

"It's a big gamble!!" Tada Jun said with admiration, "Do you have any opinions on such a method of warfare by giving up so many strongholds and troops to seek greater results?" ”

Ushijima shook his head and said, "I'm afraid Takeda-kun's teacher is not Ishihara Wanji, but Itagaki Seishiro, this kind of tactics is indeed much more clever than a simple counterattack, I have no opinion." ”

Yoshimoto Sadachi smacked his mouth and said, "This tactic is indeed feasible, it is aimed at the weaknesses of the Eighth Route Army, and when it is finally encircled and annihilated, this preset battlefield is very close to Taiyuan, we can mobilize heavy artillery to participate in the battle, and the victory rate is very high, and the first step of this strategy is still as we said at the beginning, fighting along the line of communication and dredging, it is not contradictory, I think it can." ”

Tada Jun glanced at Takeda Takeo appreciatively and said, "Then immediately simulate the battle plan, order the troops in each county to prepare food supplies, and when the Eighth Route Army is tired, we will clean them up after we are ready!" (To be continued.) )