Despite the unprecedented tension in the atmosphere, Wu Zijian smiled at the cavalry company commander who drew his saber:

"Lianshan, put away the knife. I will never let the cavalry connect with this kind of charge, you didn't hear the observation post report and the devil carrying a heavy machine gun! If the Ninety-Two Heavy Machine were to fire at the cavalry, it would be as enjoyable as cutting wheat with a scythe - do you want your men to turn into wheat? ”

Hearing this, Li Tianlin also laughed. Xia Lianshan's face was swollen red, and the saber in his hand was neither waved nor received.

"Deputy battalion commander, don't say so much, you just look down on the combat effectiveness of our cavalry company!"

In the end, the cavalry company commander, who still put away his saber, complained stupidly. This is a move that Xia Lianshan, who has always respected Wu Zijian, has never done.

It wasn't until he watched Li Tianlin run out of the house to arrange his troops that Wu Zijian patted the embarrassed Xia Lianshan on the shoulder and comforted: "I don't look down on the combat effectiveness of the cavalry company, on the contrary, I will still point to your cavalry company in the future to do great things." But for now, you must save your strength! ”

Xia Lianshan raised his lowered head, looked at his deputy battalion commander, and did not speak.

Wu Zijian put 38 guns in his pocket from the table, and asked Xia Lianshan to load some as well, and the two of them are now using 38-type cavalry spears from captured Japanese puppet army cavalry.

"Tianlin's analysis is reasonable, the enemy army attacking Xiping is very likely to be not in the same group as the enemy army attacking us, it is really the elite of the Japanese army mobilized from the Tongpu Railway;" Wu Zijian continued: "If your cavalry company returns to Xiping at this time, it may be in danger. But entering the mountain from our mountain pass is indeed a great trouble for the horses! ”

"Deputy battalion commander, when I came, the battalion commander also instructed me that if the situation was urgent, the cavalry company could abandon its horse and go into the mountains on foot. However, I will never give the order to abandon the horse! Xia Lianshan's emotions began to get excited again.

Unexpectedly, Wu Zijian's face suddenly became very serious, and he even used a rough wooden table: "Lianshan, you must seriously understand what the battalion commander meant, this is actually what I meant!" Of course, it is best if the war horse can go into the mountain with it, but once the situation is critical, the first thing that I, the battalion commander, including you, the cavalry company commander, must protect must be the lives of the soldiers! No matter how precious a horse is, it is also an animal, but the soldiers of the cavalry company are our brothers in life and death! ”

Xia Lianshan's speechless lips, including the muscles of his face, twitched in pain, and tears couldn't help but flow - these days, he and the soldiers of the cavalry company were grinding with their respective war horses, the latter seemed to have become a part of their lives, and now they were asked to give up, and they should be sincere like knives.

Gunshots rang out in the direction of the village, and Wu Zijian knew that it was the Makqin who was shooting angrily when he heard it, and he had no intention of entangling with Xia Lianshan again, so he threw down the sentence "Gather the cavalry company to stand by in the village", and ran out in a hurry.

Wu Zijian expected it to be right, and the enemy force that the observation post saw suddenly moving in the direction of the Guanmen Mountain Pass was the Japanese army wing commander Kosuke Otsuka trying to sever the connection between the mountain pass and the village of Kawaguchi.

Previously, Kosuke Otsuka was angry and helpless to witness several clumsy attacks by the cavalry regiments of the Mongolian Army, but there was still no improvement, and he was still about to collapse at the touch of a button. Time kept moving forward, and the brigade headquarters called again to ask about the progress, and at this moment, Wing Commander Dazuo was surprised to find that a team of the Eighth Route Army had rushed down from the pass of Guanmen Mountain, and they had broken up the formation of the Mongolian army attacking the head of the village on foot, and entered Hekou Village like a whirlwind.

This made Kosuke Otsuka gasp.

Ever since the machine gun team that Nara Shaosa had quietly sent to the bottom of the mountain pass was suddenly attacked, Otsuka had a very bad premonition; He had always been worried that the Eighth Route Army had a strong force stationed above the mountain pass, which could form a horn situation with the village of Hekou below the mountain pass - the Japanese army Dazuo, who had read the "Three Kingdoms" and some ancient Chinese art of war, was no stranger to the horn situation, and also understood that this was a defense system that the modern Chinese army was also very good at deploying - but at that time, after all, the moon was dark and the wind was high, and the machine gun squad that withdrew in embarrassment and the infantry squad guarding it could not tell where the attackers came from; The people of the machine gun squad only judged that the attacker might be the Eighth Road from Hekou Village by relying on the fact that there were Czech-style light machine guns of the Chinese Army on the opposite side of the 92 Heavy Machine Position.

But Kosuke Otsuka relied on an intuition and thought that the possibility that there was a Shina army coming down above the mountain pass to make trouble. According to the memories of the surviving machine gun squad leader, the attacker took advantage of the night and almost touched the front of the 92 Heavy Machine position, and threw out the * dense and ruthless; This kind of sabotage method is by no means done by ordinary soldiers of the Chinese Army.

Now, his ominous premonition has finally been confirmed, this Eighth Route Army, which has been killed from the mountain pass in a bright way, is fierce in battle and well-armed, and their entry into Hekou Village will undoubtedly bring greater variables to the next attack.

The Japanese wing commander became agitated. His captain, Nara Shaosa, apparently also noticed this and expressed concern, and Shaosa suggested that the communication between the mountain pass and the head of Kawaguchi Village should be blocked immediately, and that the Shina Army should no longer be allowed to carry out reinforcements from the direction of the mountain pass until the village was captured.

Otsuka reluctantly agreed. The reason for the helplessness is that the wing commander originally planned to put the two infantry squadrons of the Nara Brigade into battle at the last moment; But in the current situation, the Mongolian Xinjiang army is incompetent and lacks skills, and the Eighth Route Army has a helping hand, so if it drags on like this, I am afraid that this battle will be fought until dawn, and it will be difficult to distinguish the winner from defeat!

He ordered a squadron of the Nara Infantry Brigade, led by the squadron leader, to draw two squads and strengthen the machine-gun squad, and advance to the center of the distance between the Kanmon Mountain Pass and the mouth of Kawaguchi Village, to block the enemy's movement in these two directions.

"Dazuo, in my opinion, although the Eighth Route Army in the village is still resisting, their firepower is obviously not as strong as in the first half of the night, and our artillery attack should have caused them a lot of casualties; In addition, the repeated attacks of the Mongolian army have also depleted their ammunition stocks to a considerable extent. ”

It was a lieutenant staff officer at the Otsuka Wing Headquarters who spoke. Kosuke Otsuka's eyes were fixed on the two infantry squads and heavy machine guns that had just been dispatched, and it was not until the lieutenant staff officer who was close at hand finished saying these words that he turned his head and glared at him with some disgust:

"Lieutenant Mizuno, I don't think it's your duty to summarize the battle now; Moreover, this battle has not yet been carried out to the point where it can be summed up! What the hell are you trying to say to me? ”

The lieutenant's staff officer turned red, and hurriedly stood up and said, "Dazuo, I want to suggest to you that you can invest the main force of the imperial army now and launch a general attack on Hekou Village!" ”

The wing commander pondered for a moment, did not say anything, but asked the lieutenant staff officer about the call from the brigade and regiment headquarters, and asked him to repeat the contents of the telegram from the brigade headquarters about the battle situation in Xiping Village. Immediately, Dazuo waved his hand and sent the lieutenant's staff officer away.

The battle for Xiping Village has ended, the Tyumen brigade has captured the entire village, blocked the pass where Guanmen Mountain is located, and the Imperial Army is searching for the remnants of the Eighth Route Army and anti-Japanese elements in the village; The chief of staff of the riverside can give an account to Major General Hagiwara, and moreover, he has a head beat! - Kosuke Otsuka couldn't help but think sourly.

However, the chief of staff on the riverside commanded a fully equipped Imperial infantry brigade, and on his own side there were only two imperial infantry squadrons; As for the Mongolian army, this battle can only once again verify its rabble nature.

The idea of a general offensive suggested by Staff Officer Mizuno was not unreasonable. But now that he has two squadrons of the Imperial Army at hand, he must not easily throw himself into it until he has the time to be fully sure. After all, the enemy's situation above the mountain pass is now unknown, and if the Eighth Route Army still has a steady stream of elite troops from there, what he has to consider is not a general attack, but a defense on the spot.

"Dazuo, since the battle with the chief of staff on the river has ended, can you consider asking the Tyumen brigade to support some of the troops?" Nara Shaosa said to the map: "Even if they only send a squadron to march here from Xiping Village and the banks of the Jiaqinglong River, they can directly attack the southern part of the village of Hekou Village, and at that time, our army will take advantage of the situation to launch a general attack, which can be conquered in one fell swoop!" ”

Kosuke Otsuka smiled wryly and shook his head. He hadn't thought about this plan, but the brigade commander had already said that in this joint night attack, the battle of the Tyumen brigade must end before dawn, and then the whole brigade will be transferred to Wencheng by car, and on the same day, it will go south to Tongpu Road to be rebuilt. In other words, even if the Tyumen brigade could not resolve the battle as scheduled, it had to withdraw from the battlefield on time.

After all, it is a guest army, and arranging for them to fight Xiping is already an additional request made by the brigade commander to the division.

What's more, the chief of staff of the brigade is personally presiding over the battle there, and this chief of staff, who has always looked down on him, will not agree to send troops to support him.

"Shaozuo, how many shells do you have?"

Kosuke Otsuka stopped thinking about those troublesome clues and asked his captain instead.

"The two infantry guns of the artillery squad, I have just seen, there are only less than three boxes of shells. Mortars of infantry squadrons have not yet been counted, but estimates are not optimistic - after the moon comes out, the artillery fire continues, so the consumption of ammunition is relatively large. ”

"Well, our shells are consumed quickly, and the blow to the Chinese army will not be small. Order the mortars of the squadrons, aim at the villages, and shoot all the shells! Two infantry guns, the muzzle of the cannon is aimed at the mountain pass of Guanmen Mountain, as long as the enemy is found and reinforcements are sent from there, the cannon will be fired immediately! ”

Before dawn, Kosuke Otsuka finally made up his mind.

He ordered a battalion of the Mongolian Xinjiang Army, which had been powerlessly attacking the head of the village, to move to the west of the village, and join forces with their regiment commander Du Dongqiang, and only after the final round of mortar artillery fire was completed, the entire cavalry regiment of the Mongolian Xinjiang Army began to attack the west line of Hekou Village. To this end, he will send a detachment of Imperial Army soldiers, carrying Type 96 machine guns, to supervise the formation in the rear, and those who dare to retreat without an order will be punished on the spot!

Since these band of wastes on horses don't play a role, it doesn't make a difference who dies at gunpoint!

As for the head of the village, it was left to the two infantry squads of Nara Shaosa plus the machine gun squad, and their task was not to attack, but to cut the connection between the mountain pass and the village. As long as the Eighth Road in Hekou Village is destroyed, his mission will be completed - the chief of staff of the riverside, isn't it just to take Xiping Village and no longer pursue it in Guanmen Mountain?!

Thinking of this, Otsuka's mood improved. He instructed a staff officer at the wing headquarters to cook something hot to eat: after half the night, his stomach was already rumbling.

Before dawn, eight Japanese mortars launched a final shelling. The decisive battle in Kawaguchi Village began.