Qin Zhongxiao, the colonel of the 391st Regiment of the Kuomintang Central Army, did not expect that the Japanese army would suddenly appear under the Fengdian City where he was stationed.

This Fengdian county, which is approached by iron hooves, is not only one of the important gateways to southern Jinnan, but also the forefront of the confrontation between Chinese and Japanese troops in Shanxi.

After the Lugou Bridge Incident last year, Shanxi was planned as the second war zone by the Military Commission of the Nationalist Government. However, just a few months after the Japanese army attacked Shanxi, Yan Xishan, the commander of the theater of operations, fled to Linfen in the southwest of Shanxi, and the Central Army fled south along the Tongpu Road.

Qin Zhongxiao, then 38 years old, a student of the third phase of Whampoa, became the head of the 391st Regiment two years ago. At the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Shanxi last year, Chairman Chiang, at the invitation of Yan Xishan, sent the Central Army and a number of local armies to Jinjin one after another to assist the Jin Sui Army, which was insufficient in strength, to fight against the Japanese invaders. Qin Zhongxiao's 391st Regiment went north with the Central Army and participated in the Battle of Xinkou; During the Battle of Taiyuan, he led the whole regiment to fight in the field outside the city, pinning down the Japanese army besieging the city, losing troops and losing generals, and finally retreated to Fengdian, the gateway to southern Jinnan.

Fengdian, a county town with a population of more than 30,000 people, is located in the hinterland of the mountains, with lofty mountains on the east and west sides, and there are several dirt road entrances at the foot of the mountains, stretching into the mountains and mountains. A highway running through the north and west of the mountain passes through the center of Fengdian County, connecting the ancient city of Junling in the north, and Wencheng on the Tongpu Railway Line in the south. There is no doubt about the importance of its location.

In early November last year, the Japanese army occupied the provincial capital Taiyuan, and after that, its vanguard only captured the line of Junling and Xiyang to the south, and never continued to attack south. Fengdian, which is less than 100 miles south of Junling, became one of the outposts of the World War II Zone.

The 570th Regiment of the 12th Brigade of the Jin Army stationed in Fengdian was originally stationed in Fengdian, and the 391st Regiment of the Central Army of Qin Zhongxiao was retained by the county government and the garrison to assist in defending the city when it was defeated and retreated to Fengdian from the northern Jin front.

At that time, the defenders here were quite nervous, because after the Japanese occupied Junling, it seemed inevitable that they would take advantage of the situation to attack Fengdian by moving south along the road. However, more than two months have passed, and intelligence shows that although a wing of the Japanese army stopped at Junling, it has never moved to attack.

Qin Zhongxiao finally understood the reason why the Japanese army no longer invaded south: it was not that they did not want to invade south, but that they lacked troops and could not afford to invade south.

Qin Zhongxiao, who has the demeanor of a Confucian general, attaches great importance to the collection of enemy information. Through the radio broadcasts and newspapers of the Nationalist Government, as well as a limited number of internal intelligence sources, he learned that while the Japanese army had conquered Taiyuan in the north, it had also conquered Shanghai in the south, and that the Japanese North China Front had immediately transferred the main forces in Shanxi to attack Shandong and Hebei in order to meet the southern army's attack on Jiangsu.

Qin Zhongxiao's later intelligence showed that since mid-November last year, the Japanese army stayed in Shanxi in the battle sequence, not counting a division of the Kwantung Army in northern Shanxi (the division headquarters is in Datong, mainly to control the Pingsui Road and Suiyuan), and most of the Jinzhong army only has two divisions of the North China Front, that is, four brigades, and one of the brigades has been transferred to Shandong. With the remaining one and a half divisions, it is not easy to control most of Jinzhong, so there is no talk of continuing the offensive against Jinnan.

"It's a pity, I'm not Yan Laoxi!"

After finally clarifying the reason why the Japanese army only defended but did not attack in the north-central part of Shanxi, Qin Zhongxiao once sighed at the wine table to his officers: "I only have these thousand people in my hands, if I have half of the troops of Chief Yan, I will definitely take advantage of the emptiness of the Japanese rear to launch a counterattack to recover Taiyuan, and even the entire territory of Shanxi!" ”

The Central Army has always looked down on the miscellaneous army, and Qin Zhongxiao, with the title of head of the regiment, still disdains the commander of the theater who respected the emperor of Shanxi: it is rumored that this Yan commander did not dare to ride a horse, and had to ride a donkey on the march instead, which made the colonel of the Central Army from Huangpu particularly despise.

But contempt is contempt, after all, Chief Yan who rides a donkey still has thousands of troops and horses, which is beyond Qin Zhong's filial piety, so the rhetoric of recovering Taiyuan is just a quick tongue. What's more, with the defeat of Zixinkou and Taiyuan all the way, his 391 regiment gradually lost contact with the brigade headquarters and division headquarters: legend has it that the brigade commander has been killed, and the entire division should have been disabled and scattered. Without Shangfeng's order and the replenishment of food and ammunition, Qin Zhongxiao didn't even know where he should go. Invited to stay in this Jinnan county was also his helpless move.

In Fengdian, Qin Zhongxiao also used to contact the commander's department of the second theater through the 12th Independent Brigade of the Jin Army - Taiyuan fell, and the second war zone moved the commander's department to Linfen - trying to contact his division and brigade through the commander's department, but at that time, the command system of the commander's department in the second war zone was already chaotic, and the central army to which Qin Zhongxiao belonged retreated to all parts of central and southern Jin, and the communication was not smooth.

Therefore, the colonel of the Central Army, who had finished sending his impressions, had the most active way in Fengdian to send a special agent company directly under the regiment headquarters to enter Junling City in disguise to reconnoiter and monitor the movements of the Japanese troops stationed there. After all, Junling is less than a hundred miles away from here, and according to the strong mobility of the Japanese army, half a day is enough to attack Fengdian City.

However, when the cavalry vanguard of the Otsuka Wing stationed in Junling really appeared outside Fengdian City yesterday afternoon, Qin Zhongxiao was still taken aback, and he immediately ordered the four doors to be closed, and scolded Zhao Mutou, the commander of the spy company:

"What the fuck are your people doing in the Monarch's Tomb? The devils have all touched the door of the house, why can't they hear the wind at all in advance! ”

The shrewd Zhao Mutou was also dumbfounded, but soon the news of his subordinates arrived: the spies of the 391st Regiment Special Service Company lurking in Junling suddenly found that the Otsuka Wing was urgently assembling, and before they could find out the inside story, the Japanese army was dispatched, looking at the direction, it was definitely going to Fengdian. The cavalry horses were fast, and the spies of the spy company hurried slowly, but they still failed to return to Fengdian before the Japanese cavalry to report the news. Fortunately, this small group of Japanese cavalry was just scouts, and they stopped about a mile outside the north gate of Fengdian, frightening the nearby pedestrians and people into running in all directions, but did not launch any attack.

Qin Zhongxiao before, he was accustomed to the Japanese army's immobility, and the tense nerves when he had just retreated to Fengdian had gradually loosened down - since both sides did not have the strength to attack each other, it might be the best choice to confront each other peacefully. The reports sent by the spy company from Junling for several months were all about the looting of property and women by the Japanese army in the local area and nearby counties and townships. Later, the bad news of the loss of Nanjing distracted Qin Zhongxiao's attention: he didn't expect that the capital would fall so quickly, and the time and intensity of holding on were even inferior to Shanghai!

Although it is located in the mountains of Shanxi, Qin Zhongxiao still tried his best to grasp the war situation in the country; Qin Zhongxiao, who was analyzing the military map, was extremely frustrated. In his view, the Japanese army's heavy forces in the north and south to flank China have become unstoppable. What made him indignant was that for more than two months after the loss of Taiyuan, the second war zone in which he was located, whether Yan Xishan or Wei Lihuang, sat back and watched the raging war in Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and did not take the initiative to send troops to attack the rear of Shanxi, where the Japanese army was extremely empty.

At this time, the Japanese army wing, which had been hiding in Junling City, suddenly came to the door. Qin Zhongxiao was shocked and couldn't help but wonder: The little devil really wants to continue to level Shanxi with this one and a half divisions?! After all, Yan Laoxi and Chief Wei still have hundreds of thousands of men and horses in their hands!

However, Qin Zhongxiao couldn't think so much about it at the moment, according to the report of the soldiers of the spy company who ran back, the devil wing in Junling City was mobilizing the army this time, and a few hours before the departure, a group of cavalry, artillery and engineers were also driven from Taiyuan to assemble in Junling City. Sure enough, after the cavalry, in the evening of yesterday evening, the Japanese army brigade drove up in a steady stream and camped outside Fengdian City overnight. Qin Zhongxiao couldn't help but be secretly frightened: the more than 1,000 people under his command, plus the less than 2,000 people in a regiment of the Jin army, can they withstand it?

Since yesterday afternoon, the people in Fengdian County, where the four gates are closed, have begun to riot to varying degrees, and when the Japanese army attacked northern Shanxi in September last year, it carried out a brutal massacre of the city after conquering Yanggao, Tianzhen, and other places, burning, killing, adultery, and committing all kinds of evil, and the people here have long heard of this. Now, the Japanese army has regrouped and is approaching the city, and the lives of 30,000 people in Fengdian are maintained under the guns of these thousands of national troops!