Zhao Zhi's plan to be implemented in Hebei involved a lot of scope and the content of the plan was also very bold, and all the Kuomintang and Communist anti-Japanese armed forces active in Hebei were included in this action plan. If Zhao Zhi's plan can be successfully implemented, it will be no less powerful than the 100-regiment battle that the Eighth Route Army fought in the North China Theater in 1940.

Since the winter of 1939, the Japanese army occupying North China has carried out frequent sweeps against the Japanese armed forces with railways and highways as the pillars, and has carried out the so-called cage policy of using railways as pillars, highways as chains, and pillboxes as locks, in a vain attempt to separate the ties between the various anti-Japanese forces subordinate to the Eighth Route Army. In the second half of 1940, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army decided to launch a traffic sabotage war, focusing on the Zhengtai Railway and the northern section of Tongpu Road, to deal a powerful blow to the Japanese North China Front.

More than two years have passed since the Battle of the Hundred Regiments led by the Eighth Route Army, and with the implementation of Zhao Zhi's spark in Hebei, all kinds of anti-Japanese armed forces have sprung up in Hebei. However, the Japanese puppet army in Hebei still occupies a dominant position, and almost all the towns in Hebei are still under the control of the Japanese puppet army. If you want to attract the attention of the Japanese puppet army in Hebei, you must show enough strength to attract them, Zhao Zhi divided the whole Hebei into dozens of combat areas according to the Japanese puppet army's defense intelligence, and he arranged one or two tinder troops or other anti-Japanese forces in each combat area, Zhao Zhi needed them to use mobile and flexible guerrilla tactics to constantly harass the Japanese puppet army, dragging them down, dragging them down.

"Sir, shall we do this?" Ye Kong, who was with Zhao Zhi, did not understand Zhao Zhi's arrangement, in three days, Zhao Zhi had already met with the commanders of no less than a dozen tinder troops, if you count the guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army, the total number of troops controlled by these people has exceeded 4,000 people, Ye Kong is also afraid that Zhao Zhi's cooperation with the Eighth Route Army on such a scale will cause suspicion on the side of the Nationalist Government.

"It's okay, this is the chairman's agreement, this is the period of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, this operation is too involved, the Tinder troops alone will not work at all, I need more anti-Japanese armed forces who are familiar with the terrain here, the guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army are not equipped to do it, but they are familiar with the terrain." Zhao Zhi didn't care about smoking, the national army had troops operating in North China, but they were all second-rate troops, just fighting the autumn wind here to survive, and Zhao Zhi could only use the Tinder troops and the guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army.

The Tinder troops, which have more than 10,000 people, are the leading force in Zhao Zhi's action plan, and those guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army will take on the task of intelligence collection and material transportation, in any case, the guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army are indeed much stronger than the national army in dealing with the common people, and Zhao Zhi does not want to see the captured materials have to give up because they cannot be transported away in time. "Are all our troops here?" Zhao Zhi twisted his face to look at Luo Ying, who had returned to serve as his orderly, Zhao Zhi not only brought a reserve sniper unit with him this time, but also four mercenary teams with a number of 200 people.

"The first and second teams have arrived in Neiqiu, and the third and fourth teams are moving towards Lincheng, and it is estimated that they will be able to reach Lincheng in another 2 hours." Luo Ying's Lincheng and Neiqiu are both county towns between Xingtai and Shijiazhuang, and Zhao Zhi's first plan is to besiege Xingtai and use the tactics of encirclement to attract the Japanese puppet army in Shijiazhuang to come to help. The total number of the four teams of mercenaries is 800 people, plus several tinder troops active in the surrounding area, even if they can't block the reinforcements of the Japanese puppet army in Shijiazhuang in Lincheng and Neiqiu, they can at least inflict heavy losses on them.

The siege of Xingtai is the first step in Zhao Zhi's plan, once the reinforcements of the Japanese puppet army in Shijiazhuang start fighting on the Lincheng side, Baoding and Hengshui will also start one after another, and there are still a large number of thunderous fighter troops in Yangquan Airport waiting for them, Zhao Zhi believes that the Japanese puppet army in Shijiazhuang will definitely live a very "comfortable" life in the next few days. Zhao Zhiben was reluctant to go to a big city like Shijiazhuang, but this was Chiang Kai-shek's repeated request, and the significance of taking Shijiazhuang was not trivial, and it was a great encouragement to the entire anti-Japanese situation, which was also a proof of Chiang Kai-shek's strength to the CCP.

Attacking Shijiazhuang means that there will be heavy casualties, Zhao Zhi's troops only have less than 20,000 troops to mobilize, but he is not worried, Chiang Kai-shek has secretly assembled four divisions of troops in Shanxi to wait for follow-up support, as long as Zhao Zhi commands the Tinder troops to open the situation, these four divisions of the national army troops will be directly inserted into Cangzhou, Dezhou, Binzhou through Yangquan to completely cut off the connection between the Shandong Japanese puppet army and the Hebei Japanese puppet army. There are many areas suitable for landing in Bohai Bay, and as long as the 74th Army traveling around the sea can successfully land in Shandong, Zhao Zhi's entire plan will have succeeded for the most part.

"Contact the troops around Xingtai who have completed the assembly to move to the predetermined position, and they must arrive at the position before 4 p.m., otherwise military law will be involved." Zhao Zhi held in his hand the briefing that had just been sent by the intelligence staff officer, which showed the specific locations of the various units participating in the siege of Xingtai. In the siege of Xingtai, Zhao Zhi mobilized a total of more than 2,000 people in six Tinder troops and more than 600 people in the Eighth Route Army guerrillas to participate, the Japanese army in Xingtai only had one brigade and one squadron of troops, the total number of nearly 1,100 people, plus the three regiments assigned to them, the total strength of the Xingtai Japanese puppet army exceeded 2,500 people, and the number of troops on both sides was about the same.

The Xingtai Japanese puppet army is equipped with three Type 97 medium tanks, as well as four ironclad vehicles converted from military trucks, in addition to four 75 mountain guns and two Type 92 infantry guns in Xingtai. The 600 guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army who participated in the war on Zhao Zhi's side were only two-thirds of the weapons allocation, and there were many old-fashioned Hanyang-made old sleeves, and 400 of the 2,000-man Tinder troops were equipped with Garand rifles, and they also brought 6 Browning light machine guns and captured 4 Japanese-style 92-type heavy machine guns, 12 Japanese-style 96 light machine guns, and a lot of mortars and grenadiers.

The offensive war is not good without heavy weapons, the Xingtai Japanese puppet army has tanks and mountain artillery infantry artillery, and the machine guns of the tinder troops alone are obviously not cheap, Zhao Zhi brought more than 100 Bazooka as offensive weapons. Fortunately, Xingtai was just a bait for Zhao Zhi to attract reinforcements from the Japanese puppet army in Shijiazhuang this time, and the attacking troops did not need to really attack the city on a large scale, they only followed Zhao Zhi's battle plan to uproot the Japanese puppet army strongholds around Xingtai in turn.

The Japanese army's cage policy was not shelved because of the losses in the Hundred Regiments War, the Japanese puppet army that had experienced the Hundred Regiments War on the contrary was even more crazy to build turrets and dig blockade ditches, and even some villages were obviously only a few hundred people, but the Japanese puppet army built several artillery towers around the village, and Zhao Zhi's first target was the artillery towers of these Japanese puppet troops. The Japanese army wanted to use these artillery towers and blockade ditches to divide and control the Chinese in the occupied areas, but Zhao Zhi did not want them to succeed.

"Sir, there's news from Thailand." Luo Ying trotted over and handed the telegram he had just received to Zhao Zhi, the war in Thailand has nothing to do with the matter here, all the news about the war in Thailand must not be talked about at will, this is an order given by Zhao Zhi before leading the team into Shanxi, so this telegram from Thailand is only known to Luo Ying, who is responsible for receiving and receiving telegrams. The Thai royal family had surrendered to the besieging Joey on behalf of the whole of Thailand three days earlier, but Joey did not stop moving south, and Zhao Zhi gave him a new order to take over all the ships of the Thai Navy and wait for reinforcements to take over the harbor.

Zhao Zhi didn't care at all how many people those small gunboats of the Thai Navy could hold, the situation in Hebei was better than he imagined, and if the four divisions of the national army assembled in Shanxi could cooperate well with Xiao Ziyun's Burmese mercenary troops, it was not impossible to cut off Shandong directly by land. Once the U.S. fleet defeats the Japanese navy in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, then the Bohai Bay controlled by Zhao Zhi can become the landing ground for the entire major counteroffensive plan, and the 74th Army, which Chiang Kai-shek regards as a tiger, can land from the Bohai Bay and go south to Nanjing.

Chiang Kai-shek was very supportive of Zhao Zhi's bold plan, and even if the plan failed, the Nationalist government would lose nothing more than the guerrillas active in Hebei, but the four divisions of the Nationalist army from Shanxi would be able to take back all of Henan with the cooperation of Burmese mercenary troops, and if things went well, perhaps some of Shandong. But Chiang Kai-shek didn't know the ultimate purpose of Zhao Zhi's volcano plan, if he knew what Zhao Zhi's purpose was, maybe he wouldn't support Zhao Zhi so much, because Zhao Zhi was taking advantage of the situation, borrowing the momentum of the national army.

Cutting off the northward movement of the Japanese puppet army in Shandong and the southward movement of the Japanese puppet army in North China was the desired result of Zhao Zhi's plan, but this was only the purpose that Zhao Zhi said to Chiang Kai-shek, and his real intention was to control the Bohai Bay. That's right, controlling Bohai Bay is convenient for the 74th Army or other national army troops by sea to land in Shandong, but Bohai Bay is also adjacent to North Korea, and Zhao Zhi didn't have ships in his hands before, but now he has. As long as the ships stolen from the Thais reach Bohai Bay, Zhao Zhi can send the mercenaries to North Korea or Jeju Island by sea at any time.

Zhao Zhi alone could not defend Bohai Bay, but if he turned it into a landing ground and a military port, with the assistance of the US military and the national army, Zhao Zhi would not be a utopian dream if he wanted to control Bohai Bay. The plan to go south by sea has been perfected when Zhao Zhi sent troops to Thailand, but at that time Zhao Zhi was to seek a seaport in Vietnam, after Chiang Kai-shek summoned Zhao Zhi to Chongqing, Zhao Zhi had the idea of going south to control the Bohai Bay, even if the operation of crossing the sea to Korea failed, Zhao Zhi could pose a threat to the Japanese puppet army in the northeast from the Bohai Bay, so that they could not go south without scruples to increase troops.