The Northwest Military Command received a piece of information routinely reported by the Shanxi Station: The Otsuka Wing of the Sena Division of the Japanese Army had carried out a brutal and inhumane massacre after capturing the county seat of Fengdian a few days ago. According to local people, the massacre lasted two days and two nights, and thousands of innocent people were killed, and their bodies were burned and buried. A large number of women were raped by the Japanese army. Fang Moshu, an agent of Shanxi Station, went to the burial site outside Fengdian City to take pictures and collect evidence.

The headquarters of the Northwest Region of the Military Command is in Xi'an. Due to the fact that the Japanese army was not able to launch an offensive against Shaanxi, most of Shaanxi, including Xi'an, was not only the rear of the Anti-Japanese War, but also the front line of the Anti-Japanese War at this time; All forces are active in Xi'an. After receiving this information from the Shanxi station, the Northwest Military Region of the Military Command felt that it was necessary to make public the atrocities that the Japanese army had tried to cover up, so it revealed the contents in detail to the reporters of the Central News Agency in Xi'an. The indignant media set off a wave of denunciation against the invaders.

Among them, a very influential newspaper in Xi'an further excavated and disclosed the inside story of the 570th Regiment of the 12th Brigade of the Jin Army stationed in Fengdian, which had escaped from the battle, resulting in the rapid loss of the county seat, and called on the Commander's Department of the Second War Zone to deal with the military justice of the officers who fled in fear of the war, so as to apologize for the tragic misery of the three Jin fathers.

The 12th Brigade of the Jin Army, whether it was the brigade commander Zheng Yuan or the commander of the 570 Regiment Tian Mingda, did not know at this moment that the number of their team was sitting on the cusp overnight and became the object of condemnation by the rear newspapers.

Tian Mingda's 570th Regiment, since it was defeated by the Otsuka Wing in the eastern suburbs of Wencheng, the troops scattered and fled, Tian Mingda managed to gather about two battalions with all his might, and then fled south along the road parallel to the Tongpu Railway Line. This so-called southward retreat route was planned by the brigade headquarters in advance - the 12th Independent Brigade has never planned to hold Wencheng from top to bottom.

The 570th Regiment rushed all the way to Pingquan County, and the brigade commander Zheng Yuan fled to Lingshi County along the Tongpu Railway with the brigade headquarters and the 569th Regiment. Pingquan County and Lingshi County, one on the highway that runs through the north and west of the mountain, and the other on the railway that runs through the north and west of the mountain, the straight-line distance between the two is about sixty or seventy miles. Since the 570th Regiment did not have a radio station, the 12th Brigade had actually lost effective communication with them.

Although Shanxi is the nest that Yan Xishan has painstakingly operated for many years, in the second half of last year, the Japanese army pressed the border from the northern part of Jinbei, and Yan Xishan was forced to concentrate the main forces of the Jin army on the front line, resulting in the emptiness of the defense of central and southern Jin. Subsequently, the defeat of the battles of Xinkou and Taiyuan, coupled with the loss of Niangzi Pass, which was adjacent to Hebei on the flank, caused an avalanche of the defensive line of the Jin Sui army (including the Central Army and the provincial army sent by Chairman Chiang to help in the war). They were defeated all the way, Yan Xishan retreated with the Shanxi men and turtles to the west and southwest of Jin, and the rest of the Central Army withdrew to the towns along the Nantongpu Road and further along the border between Shanxi and Henan (including the area around Zhongtiao Mountain).

In this way, the originally empty Jinzhongnan became the front line, and the second-line garrison troops such as the 12th Brigade were simply unable to resist the edge of the Japanese army. Yan Xishan, who had already evacuated the headquarters of the Second World War Zone and the Shanxi Provincial Government to Linfen, was well aware of this. This chief Yan, who traveled on a donkey, was even ready to completely abandon his hometown and cross the Yellow River west to Shaanxi to take refuge. Therefore, when the news that Fengdian was massacrated by the Japanese army and that the 12th Brigade of the Independent Brigade fled without a fight spread overwhelmingly, Yan Xishan was neither angry nor too frustrated: most of Shanxi was lost, and the fall and devastation of a county town in a big mountain could not arouse any emotions in him.

In fact, at the beginning of the Japanese army entering Shanxi from Nankou last year, Yan Xishan's will to resist the war was still quite strong, and he not only transferred Fu Zuoyi's elite 35th Army from Suiyuan, but also Chairman Chiang also sent the Central Army and even the Eighth Route Army. In the days of the Battle of Xinkou, Yan Xishan, who had hundreds of thousands of heavy troops in his hands, with the help of Wei Lihuang and Zhu De, the two deputy commanders, even had the ambition to encircle and annihilate the Itagaki Division on the Xinkou line.

Of course, all of this ended up being a picture. At present, the most urgent thing for the commander of the Second Theater is how to keep the remnants of the Jin Sui Army at hand and not lose all his blood: Not to mention that the Japanese have not yet been beaten away, even if there is a day when the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression is won in the future, he must have his own soldiers in his hands, and with soldiers, he will have territory, and with territory, he will not be swallowed up by the central government of Chairman Chiang.

"Try to contact the 12th Brigade of the Independent Army," sitting in the official residence of the Governor's Department in Linfen, listening to the news of the Fengdian massacre broadcast by Wuhan Radio, Yan Xishan immediately gave an order to his subordinates: "Tell Zheng Yuan to collect the rest of the troops and move closer to Linfen!" ”

Now, Chief Yan, who lacks a major general, is even reluctant to give up second-line troops such as the 12th Independent Brigade.

"Director," the subordinates still used the old title of the director of the Taiyuan Pacification Office of Yan Xishan, and cautiously asked: "There is a lot of pressure from the press and public opinion, do you want to impose military law on the commander of the 570th Regiment who escaped?" ”

"Let's put it aside for the time being," Yan Xishan sighed heavily: "Datong and Taiyuan have been lost, and a district head has lost a county seat, do you want to make such a big move?" ”

At this moment, this Yan commander couldn't help but recall that at the beginning of the war last year, the commander of the 61st Army, Li Fuzhen, was executed by him because he lost Yanggao and Tianzhen, which were important towns in northern Shanxi, which eventually led to the fall of Datong. At that time, the commander still had the courage to kill a major general, but now, in the face of the same crime committed by a lieutenant colonel, Yan Xishan was disheartened and had no chance of killing.

His subordinates then arranged personnel to contact the 12th Brigade and asked it to collect troops from the Linfen Governor's Department.

The men and horses of the 12th Brigade of the Independent Brigade fled in a hurry, so it was impossible to know the verbal and written criticism of them by domestic public opinion, but Xiao Junping, an intelligence staff officer who had lost his life with the brigade headquarters, unexpectedly learned the news of the massacre of Fengdian and the escape of the 570th Regiment through the radio radio.

Xiao Junping's radio came from the battalion headquarters of the second battalion of the Eighth Route Army Forest Division.

After the 2nd Battalion detected that the Japanese army had occupied Fengdian, the whole battalion began to move to the Guanmen Mountain, and they came to Hekou Village at the foot of the Guanmen Mountain, where the main force followed the mountain pass and hid deep in the mountains. However, after consultation at the battalion headquarters meeting, it was agreed that the two platoons of the 5th Company led by Wu Zijian and Xia Lianshan would be stationed in Hekou Village as the outpost position of the whole battalion.

Xiao Junping, who had not recovered from his injuries, strongly requested to stay in Hekou Village. Wu Zijian was happy to get along with this Jin army intelligence officer day and night, and he could ask for advice from time to time, so he tried his best to agree.

Along with Xiao Junping, there was also the radio radio of the second battalion.

Before the 2nd Battalion secretly marched from northern Jin to southern Jin, instructor Liu Shu asked the regimental headquarters if it was possible to assign them a radio station to facilitate contact with their superiors. However, at that time, the radio station of the entire forest division was only assigned to the regiment level, and the only radio station in the regiment headquarters had to be kept to communicate with the brigade headquarters and the division headquarters, so it could not meet Liu Shu's extravagant expectations at all.

However, the regimental headquarters gave an ore radio to the 2nd Battalion, asking them to listen to the radio of the Nationalist Government to grasp the current situation and the war situation from the side. Of course, the political commissar of the regiment repeatedly told Liu Shu not to believe the content of the Kuomintang's broadcasts, especially the propaganda aimed at *, and to strictly control the listening and strictly prohibit dissemination.

At that time, Nanjing had already fallen, and the "Central Radio" of the Nationalist Government located there was on its way to Chongqing; Yan'an, on the other hand, has not yet established its own broadcast. The Hankou Radio Station, located in the three towns of Wuhan, has become the main radio position of the Nationalist Government.

After the second battalion set off from northern Shanxi, the radio has been traveling with the luggage team of the battalion headquarters, and it has been handed over to Zhang Xiu, the secretary of the battalion headquarters, to be in charge. Unexpectedly, during an unexpected battle with a small Japanese army on the way, the wooden box containing the radio fell to the ground, and even the radio broke down, and it was unable to turn on and listen.

On the day that the 2nd Battalion arrived at the foot of Guanmen Mountain, Zhang Xiu and Xiao Junping chatted at the camp, and learned that he was proficient in radio technology, so he asked him if he could fix the radio - of course he could! Zhang Xiu handed over the ore radio to him as if he had found a treasure.

When the second battalion was out to the mountain, Xiao Junping had not yet repaired it, so Wu Zijian asked Zhang Xiu to leave the radio in Xiao Junping's hands, and promised to send someone to the second battalion's camp in the mountain after repairing it. A few days later, the Jin army staff finally restored the ore radio to full function, and he and Wu Zijian happily stayed by the radio, listening to the broadcast of the Hankou radio station, and Wu Zijian also decided not to send the radio back to the battalion headquarters for the time being. As a result, Xiao Junping heard the news of the Japanese army's brutal massacre in Fengdian that shocked him the next afternoon.

He hurriedly asked people to call Wu Zijian and Xia Lianshan.

The deployment of the 5th Company in Hekou Village is: Wu Zijian led a platoon into Hekou Village at the foot of the mountain, and set up a whistle at the head of the village; Xia Lianshan led another platoon to camp on the gentle slope of the Guanmen Mountain Pass, and built improvised fortifications with camouflage. The two places, one high and one low, echo each other from afar, and once they fight, they can be horns of each other.

Wu Zijian and Xia Lianshan were originally carefully estimating and designing the configuration of the firepower points of these two stations, but they were stunned by the sudden bad news of the clear sky from the staff of the Jin army!