Needless to say, the importance of Shimen, the transportation hub logistics base, if Shimen is lost, then the entire first army stationed in Shanxi will really become the king of the urn, Chen Feng's move to close the door and beat the dog can be said to really hit the weakness of the Japanese army. In order to keep Shimen and leave a way back for the First Army stationed in Shanxi, Bin Shanyuan had to transfer the 32nd Division to Shimen, and defend Shimen together with the mixed 3rd Brigade in the Shimen area, the 7th Infantry Division of the puppet army, the 4th Cavalry Division, and the 8th Mixed Brigade.

Given that China. The army's strong armor strength was overwhelming, and the commander in charge of the defense of the Shimen area, Lieutenant General Kimura Hyotaro, did not block Chen Feng's troops along the way, but concentrated all his forces on the periphery of Shimen. With Shimen as the center, it focused on defending Zhengding, Luquan and other counties, and built a solid defense line on the periphery of Shimen with an army of 50,000.

As a precaution, Kimura Hyotaro also drove the Chinese people in Shimen Castle to build fortifications, focusing on the construction of commanding heights and semi-basement bunkers in the castle for street fighting. At the same time, in order to contain Chen Feng's department, the Japanese army arrested all the people around Shimen in Shimen City, in order to let Chen Feng's department have scruples and not bomb Shimen.

After learning that the Shimen guard turned out to be Kimura Hyotaro, Chen Feng knew that Shimen must be a difficult bone to gnaw. Kimura Hyotaro is familiar with Chen Feng, who is a person in the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan in later generations, and one of the 28 Class A war criminals who were hanged by the Far East Military Tribunal.

If you want to say that Kimura Hyotaro is a famous person, his brutal reputation is resounding all over the world. It's different from Numata Shigetoku's brutality. Hyotaro Kimura is more like a butcher at the front and back of a car. Hyotaro Kimura was born into a family of soldiers, and his father was former Army Major Isuke Sakimura who died in the Russo-Japanese War. Hyotaro Kimura was born in the artillery department, and has been engaged in the development and development of field weapons and equipment in the Japanese Army for a long time, and is a well-known "artillery expert" in the Japanese Army.

On August 1, 1936, Hyotaro Kimura was promoted to major general. After the outbreak of the full-scale war of aggression against China, Kimura Hyotaro served as the commander of the field weapons of the base camp. Until this time, Kimura Hyotaro had always been an artillery expert in the Japanese Army, responsible for the development and development of field weapons and equipment. It was not until March 39 that he was appointed commander of the 32nd Division as a lieutenant general, and soon after taking office, Kimura Hyotaro led his troops to Yanzhou, Shandong. And immediately set about preparing for a frantic sweep of our Shandong base area. Only then did Kimura Hyotaro show his butcher's fangs.

On April 14, 1939, Kimura Hyotaro led more than 8,000 Japanese troops from Zou County, Teng County, Zaozhuang, Linyi and other places to carry out a "sweep" to the Baoqinggu Mountains. Attempted to find and annihilate the main force of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army. Destroy our anti-Japanese base in southern Lunan. Before leading the team to "go on the march". The battle order issued by Kimura Hyotaro to the troops was: The Eighth Route Army and the base area should be completely annihilated at all costs, and the people in the base area, regardless of men, women, and children. All houses must be burned down, and all grain and grass that cannot be carried must be burned. His arrogance is really arrogant. However, the vigorous Kimura Division was dragged away by the guerrilla warfare of the 115th Division of our Eighth Route Army, and was exhausted. In a fit of rage, Kimura ordered the Japanese soldiers to carry out a bloody massacre of the unarmed people.

Kimura Hyotaro ordered his soldiers to imprison more than 2,000 ordinary people in the Xinhuain concentration camp in Jinan. Every laborer who was sent here would have 200cc of blood drawn every day, and the Japanese army deceived the laborers into saying that it was for laboratory testing, but in fact it was for blood transfusions for the wounded of the Japanese army, and many people died due to excessive blood drawing. Some of those who resisted were severely tortured and even bitten by the wolfdogs that were released. The walls of the concentration camp were surrounded by high-voltage power grids, and many of the escaped laborers were electrocuted to death, and those who were captured were killed by the Japanese army using extremely cruel methods. During the day, he ordered the Japanese to take the "prisoners" to do hard labor, and at night they were locked in cold, damp, and stinking black rooms, and often only three days before one meal. If someone expresses the slightest displeasure or resistance, they will severely beat them or release vicious wolfdogs to bite them. For those who escaped, they pierced their palms with wires and hanged them from trees, or forced them to dig their own pits with bayonets, and then stabbed them to death and buried them. This person's madness can be seen.

After learning that Kimura Hyotaro and his 32nd Division had been transferred to Shimen, Chen Feng hurriedly sent people to closely monitor the movements of the Japanese army, and sure enough, he found that Kimura was arresting civilians on a large scale. Chen Feng hurriedly sent a telegram to the Yan'an side, hoping that they would immediately order the local guerrillas and underground organizations in central Hebei to assist in the evacuation of the common people, and at the same time order the troops to speed up the march.

Under Chen Feng's order, the two armies connected to 6 county towns in one day, and the Ma Cao Department finally captured Lingshou County on the morning of December 10, and Yang Yi's department arrived at Xin'an Town in the northwest of Zhengding County.

China. The army is coming to the city, and Kimura Hyotaro can't care about arresting the common people, of course, there is another reason that this butcher thinks that 50,000 Chinese people are enough, with his understanding of those Chinese generals, no one dares to ignore the life and death of those people, even the hateful Chen Feng does not dare. As long as there are some people in hand, it is equivalent to having a gold medal for avoiding death.

The battle in Zhengding County has begun, and two infantry wings of the Japanese army and an infantry division of the puppet army are stationed in Zhengding County, relying on favorable city fortifications to maneuver with Yang Yi's department.

The tentative offensive was over, and the Japanese fought very tenaciously, but the anti-tank trenches and anti-tank cones they had dug in advance were of little use at all, and they were crushed by the T34 tank like mud and paper. The battle lasted less than 2 hours, and the three lines of defense on the periphery of Zhengding County were all defeated, and the remnants of the puppet army of more than 10,000 days withdrew into Zhengding County to continue to resist.

Zhengding County has a city wall, and it is very strong, this armored force is considered to have lost its role, but this is difficult to the eighth theater of operations, the armored force has lost its role, isn't there still a heavy artillery unit. Under Yang Yi's order, the heavy artillery regiment appeared on the stage, and 36 heavy howitzers lined up to fire at Zhengding County.

"Boom"

"Boom"

The artillery bombardment for half an hour made the east gate of Zhengding County crumbling, and the powerful M101 heavy howitzer cracked the city wall of Zhengding County, and the Japanese puppet army in the city was terrified.

In order to protect the city wall, Major General Yuichi Ozawa, the commander of the Japanese army who was in charge of the battle of Zhengding County, drove all the thousands of Chinese civilians to the city in a frenzy.

Whether it was contempt or scolding, but at least Yang Yi didn't dare to continue the attack before consulting Chen Feng, and the battle was immediately suspended.

After receiving Yang Yi's telegram, Chen Feng was furious, this kind of thing is the most difficult to solve, the Japanese are free, leaving all the courtesy, righteousness and shame behind, and the only idea is to prevent the Chinese army from continuing to attack. However, the Eighth War Zone could not help but attack, and it was advisable to chase the poor with the remaining bravery, and not to sell the name of the overlord. How can you give up such a good opportunity, besides, the Japanese are wolves, and what they like most is to kick their noses and face inch by inch, if the eighth theater compromises this time, then the next battle will not be easy to fight, and the Japanese army will drive away the common people as soon as they see that the battle is not going well, and this matter has to be guarded against.

After thinking about it again and again, Chen Feng believed that he must not compromise with the Japanese army, so he ordered Yang Yi's troops to suspend the attack, and the whole army buried in the pot to recuperate and prepare for night battles at night. At the same time, Chen Feng ordered Qin Wuyang, who was in Guisui, to send a telegram, ordering his paratrooper troops to immediately combine and raid Zhengding County at three o'clock tomorrow morning.

In addition, Yang Yi and Qin Wuyang received a secret order at the same time, and all Japanese prisoners were executed on the spot.

Such an order is no secret in the Eighth War Zone, and they also know the temper of Commander Chen, once the Japanese army plays any shameless tricks, Commander Chen will immediately retaliate, and will never drag the mud and water.

However, to Chen Feng and others' surprise, something big happened in Zhengding County that night, and there was internal strife within the Japanese puppet army, and a deputy division commander of the 7th Infantry Division of the puppet army actually led his troops to detain the division commander, staff officer and two brigade commanders, and at the same time summoned several regiment commanders under him to revolt at twelve o'clock in the evening.

The Seventh Infantry Division of the puppet army was formed by the expansion of the former Zhengding Security Regiment of Hebei Province, with more than 6,300 people in the division, of which more than half of the officers and soldiers are Zhengding locals.

Wang Yaohu, commander of the 7th Pseudo Infantry Division, was originally a bandit, and the bandit was called "Wang Laohu". Before the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, this guy was entrenched in the area of Taihang Mountain, and there were more than 2,000 bandits under him.

After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Wang Laohu saw that the Japanese were powerful, and under the coercion and temptation of the Japanese army, he defected to the Japanese army and became a traitor. The Japanese army did not treat Wang Laohu badly, and steadily became the commander of the 13th Group of the North China Public Security Army, according to the establishment of the puppet army, this group was equivalent to a brigade, and Wang Laohu became a major general and brigade commander of the puppet army.

And this guy's luck is really good, the eighth theater has not encountered this 13th group in several sorties, half a year ago the puppet army was expanded, Wang Laohu's department was expanded into the 7th Infantry Division of the North China Public Security Army, with a total strength of more than 6,000 people, which is a relatively large number of infantry divisions in all the puppet army. (To be continued......)