The commander of the Hagiwara Brigade instructed Masao Kojima to call Hiraiji Ichichusa, ordering him to immediately leave the Songjiagou comfort women's camp and go to the temporary barracks in the southern suburbs of Wencheng, and lead his subordinates to sneak out overnight along the Tongpu Railway, waiting for an opportunity to take advantage of the chaos to arrest the women of China.

"Tell Hirai Nakasa that his advance team must avoid the area of engagement, not only to fish in troubled waters, but also to ensure the safety of their own movements!"

Since the last time he successfully captured several Shina women and was escorted into Songjiagou in the Little Elm Mountain, Major General Hagiwara not only personally went to the comfort women's camp to comfort Hirai Jiichi, but also announced on the spot: From now on, the arrest team will be officially renamed the Hirai Advance Team, the captain is Hirai Nakasa, and the deputy captain is Captain Mizukawa (who has just been promoted from the rank of lieutenant); In addition to the original members of the gendarmerie, a group of grassroots officers and men with front-line combat experience were specially supplemented and their weapons and equipment were strengthened. One of the two squads stayed in the Songjiagou secret camp to guard the camp and the comfort women; The other was stationed in a temporary barracks on the southern outskirts of Wencheng, ready to be dispatched to arrest the Chinese woman. The two squads rotate on a regular basis.

The head of the secret service happily accepted the instructions of the brigade commander, Major General, and immediately picked up the phone and began to dial directly to the station of Hirai Teriichi: The army is fighting at night on the front line, and there is no reason for this fake Nakasa to hide in the gentle village of comfort women and sleep well!

Of course, Hagiwara Akira did not have the leisure to take care of the mustard between the two subordinates, he turned his attention to the direction of Jinnan, Lieutenant General Sena ordered the reinforcements of the two infantry squadrons sent by the Kato Brigade, which had already been urgently dispatched from Linfen in a military train, and if nothing else, it would take more than an hour to enter Lingshi County and be put into the battlefield. Hagiwara believed that as long as the new forces of these two squadrons joined the battle, the Shina Army, which was facing the Imperial Army next to the railway line, would collapse, and at that time, Kosuke Otsuka's men and horses would cover up from behind the Shina Army, which would be enough to complete the encirclement and completely annihilate it.

"What is the status of the garrison in Lingshi County? Order them to defend the county seat and ensure that they do not lose, otherwise all military law will be engaged! ”

Although the commander of the first batch of reinforcements, Captain Mori, had previously reported that the nature of the attack on Lingshi County by the Shina Army was a feint, the commander of the Hagiwara Brigade was still not at ease, lest the Shina Army really desperately seize the county seat and defend it in desperation, in which case the reinforcements arriving from all directions would have to face a battle for the city, which was a complicated and tricky situation that he absolutely did not want to see.

The garrison of Lingshi County is only an infantry squad, and if the Zhina army divides its troops to attack the city with all its might, it is destined to be unable to hold it. Thinking of this, Hagiwara Akira once again ordered Captain Maori to resist and contain the attack of the Shina army on the railway line, and at the same time send a force to move closer to Lingshi County at all costs, if he can coordinate with the defenders to enter the city, it is best to be able to move flexibly under the city to assist in defense.

At this moment, the head of Lingshi County was almost calm, and the Japanese troops who were desperately guarding the east gate of the attacked city, after paying a lot of casualties, confronted each other desperately from the half-collapsed city gate tower and behind the battlements of the city walls on both sides, not knowing when the Chinese army would launch the next wave of offensive. But compared to the battlefield of the railway line, where fierce fighting was still going on five miles away, the fighting here almost ceased. Outside the East City Gate, the 6th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 391st Regiment of the Central Army, which was responsible for the feint attack, under the leadership of the company commander Captain Zhu Xingyun, silently monitored the swarthy city walls and city gates. The purpose of the feint was to attract Japanese reinforcements from the direction of Wencheng, and this goal was achieved.

Zhang Hong, the chief of staff of the regiment, who had been sitting and commanding outside the East City Gate, was also hurriedly called away by the regiment commander. Before leaving, Chief of Staff Zhang Hong also mobilized a platoon of the 6th Company of the 2nd Battalion to cruise to the area of the railway line outside the northeast corner of the county city wall, and then the main force of the 1st Battalion, which was supposed to ambush and fight on the west side of the railway line, withdrew -- the regimental headquarters was already making plans for a general retreat, and Zhu Xingyun had just been ordered to send a liaison officer to the preset position of the 5th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Xu Brigade of the Eighth Route Army on the left flank, and inform the friendly troops to evacuate from there, and later transfer to the current main position of the Central Army to change defenses.

At this moment, the captain of the Central Army in the night kept looking at the north and south directions: the gunfire of the reinforcement battlefield in the north was endless, and the south was a quiet scene - Wu Zijian and Li Tianlin were probably lonely for a long time! ——Zhu Xingyun has been the liaison officer of the 391st Regiment many times to and from the Second Battalion of the Xu Brigade of the Eighth Route Army, and has a good friendship with these two commanders of the Eighth Route Army.

On the eve of this joint operation, Zhu Xingyun once heard someone at the regiment headquarters talking that the role shared by the Eighth Route Army was too easy and that it had completely avoided the combat mission. Zhu Xingyun didn't see it that way, he had witnessed the scene after the bloody battle between the second battalion of the Xu Brigade and the Japanese puppet army at the foot of Guanmen Mountain, and the tragic scene of the corpses of the two warring parties was shocking. From this point of view, this small force from the famous Eighth Route Army's ace Lin Division is by no means in vain.

Just as he was thinking about it, the platoon that had been transferred by the chief of staff just now returned, and the platoon commander reported to Zhu Xingyun that the main force of the first battalion had safely crossed the railway line and moved closer to the main position of the regiment headquarters. The captain of the Central Army breathed a sigh of relief, but at the same time felt a little melancholy: the order to retreat should be issued soon, and this battle of siege and reinforcement had to end in advance in such a halfway of giving up!

Zhu Xingyun expected it to be good.

Qin Zhongxiao, who was anxiously directing the battle on the main position of the regiment headquarters, saw the commander of the first battalion who had finally withdrawn from the opposite side of the railway line, and immediately ordered him to lead his subordinates to rush to the direction of the road where the battalion's company had just attacked, and after the whole battalion converged, it would strike at the newly arrived Japanese reinforcements, and replace it with the special service company that served as a lookout and blocker, and then break the rear; At the same time, the 4th and 5th companies of the 2nd Battalion, which were facing the Japanese army column head-on, immediately retreated in the direction of Guanmen Mountain together with the 6th Company outside the east gate of Lingshi County; Five minutes later, the artillery battery launched a heavy artillery attack on the Japanese column, and then joined the retreat. The existing main position of the 391st Regiment was handed over to the 5th Company and the Cavalry Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Xu Brigade of the Eighth Route Army, which were about to rush from the left flank to take over.

The 2nd and 3rd Companies of the 1st Battalion of the 391st Regiment were very well beaten in the ambush positions tonight, and they were lying in the wilderness and were so suppressed by the powerful firepower of the Japanese army almost from the beginning of the battle that they could not raise their heads, and they were unable to organize a decent offensive at all. After receiving the retreat order from the regiment just now, they broke away from the front of the Japanese army, and swept outside the northern city of Lingshi County, and the battalion commander looked at the city wall and city gate in the night, and hated to lead his troops to attack and overcome it in one fell swoop, so as to let out a bad breath; However, the military order was like a mountain, and he could only lead his subordinates to cross the railway line and return to the construction. When he re-received Qin Zhongxiao's order to attack the Japanese reinforcements on the road, the fierce commander of the first battalion was in high spirits, and the main force of the battalion shot out like an arrow.

In the direction of the highway, Deng Shoushan, the deputy commander of the spy company, who suddenly received the order to retreat, was taken aback in his heart. Deng Shoushan was aware of the long attack of the main force of the regiment against the Japanese army, and the incessant sound of gunfire in the direction of the railway line was enough to confirm that the attack was not going well. After all, the second Japanese reinforcements who came from the highway had been held back by the special service company and the first battalion and one company, and the regiment could completely let go of the Japanese army to attack the Japanese army column with all its strength until it was surrounded and annihilated.

The deputy commander of the spy company who held this idea actually did not know that the whole battle situation was undergoing a subtle reversal, and the Japanese army's third support army had already been dispatched from Fengdian County, and its purpose was obviously to outflank the 391st Regiment from the flank and rear directions. In this way, the total number of troops invested by the two warring sides is gradually approaching the counterbalance, and the original numerical superiority of the Nationalist Army and the Eighth Route Army in the joint attack has disappeared, and the sky will only change to a light that is not beneficial to one's own side. It is imperative to retreat strategically.

Feeling hesitant, but there was no room for delay in tactical movements, Deng Shoushan ordered the entire spy company to leave the preset position and move to the southern side where the regiment headquarters was located while fighting. Fortunately, the Japanese car convoy that was hit by them was also struggling to move in parallel in the same direction - the Japanese undoubtedly wanted the two support armies to join forces as soon as possible.

But it was the Central Army that was the first to rendezvous: the spy company and the first battalion and one company were connected on the side of the road. Afterwards, an earth-shattering sound of artillery bombardment suddenly came from the direction of the main position of the regimental headquarters, which was the three 75 mountain guns of the artillery company roaring together, and the Japanese army column stranded on the railroad tracks was violently bombarded in the thick of the night. Deng Shoushan, who didn't know what to do, hurriedly bid farewell to the commander of the first company, and rushed to the direction of the artillery with the spy company. On the way, he met the commander of the battalion who led the main force of the battalion to rush over, and only then did he learn from the other party that the general retreat had begun, and the regiment commander asked the special agent company to move towards Guanmen Mountain together with the regimental headquarters and the artillery company after the end of the shelling.

"Battalion Commander Liu, take care," Deng Shoushan said, holding the hand of a battalion commander, the two of them couldn't see each other's faces clearly in the dark: "Your company is flanking the Japanese truck team on the side of the road ahead, and the willingness to fight is not very strong, it seems that they want to join the Japanese army on the railway first, and then make the next plan." You act at the opportunity, and withdraw early to catch up with the regimental headquarters! ”

"Don't worry, the regimental seat just said to me that the matter after the break was handed over to the Eighth Route Army, and your special service company will protect the regimental headquarters and artillery company to withdraw first, and our battalion will come later. This time, we failed to take advantage of the little Japanese son, and we stayed in the green mountains, without worrying about the lack of firewood, and then found an opportunity to clean up this group of Oriental turtle grandchildren in the future! ”

The two trump cards of the 391st Regiment of the Central Army passed by in this way on the wasteland next to the Tongpu Road. The well-planned and long-prepared siege and reinforcement campaign fell short, and although the first battalion commander and the deputy company commander of the special service company were equally disappointed at this moment, they also felt relaxed and normal about the general retreat process that followed: the Japanese army only wanted to protect itself, and as long as Lingshi County and the railway line were no longer threatened, they would obviously not launch any decent pursuit.

However, they were all wrong, and the Japanese, who had switched from defense to attack, were taking advantage of the advantage of rapid mobility and projection of troops, and spread a large net in this plain area, preparing to trap the bold Chinese army in the net and collect the slaughter.