The ability to repel the two-way attack of the Tyumen Brigade in one fell swoop was first of all due to the 6th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Forest Division. At the most critical moment, the company commander Wang Shuanglong personally held a Czech light machine gun and fired at a rapid rate like *, knocking over more than a dozen Japanese soldiers who almost rushed to the edge of the village courtyard wall - that was the middle attack formation personally commanded by the captain Tyumen Shaozo, they ran the fastest and the closest to the Japanese army in Hekou Village - and the officers and soldiers of the 6th Company, who rushed to the west defense line of the village, were still able to shoot calmly and quickly seize the best terrain in a hurry. This laid the cornerstone for withstanding the straggler charge of the Japanese army at the first time.

Next, something unexpected happened to the Japanese, when the battle for the front line in the west of the village was becoming fierce, in the village of Xiping Village, there was a sudden flight of whistling *, and even Japanese-style grenadiers*, these shells*, not only most of them smashed into the follow-up team of the Japanese army that was charging, but one of the shots * directly hit the squadron leader of the squadron on the right, and blew the squadron leader lieutenant to the head on the spot!

The first wave of the Japanese attack retreated in such a messy and panic.

The main companies of the 2nd Battalion of the Lin Division are 5th and 6th companies, which are well equipped and have many veterans, because the current deputy battalion commander Wu Zijian is from the 5th Company Commander, so he prefers Li Tianlin's 5th Company more, which inevitably makes the 6th Company Commander Wang Shuanglong unconvinced. In all fairness, the combat power of the 6th Company is almost on par with the 5th Company, and it is also the closest to the 5th Company in terms of individual equipment: the 5th Company is now a 38-big cover or medium formal with a single manpower, completely eliminating the old guns; There are only more than 20 Hanyang-made or Gongxian-made rifles left in the 6th Company, and the rest are all Zhongzheng and 38 style, but among the 38 type, there are more than 10 horse guns, which are the small horse pistols that the soldiers like to call, which are short-sized rifles specially tailored by the Japanese army for their cavalry.

In addition to the light machine gun that the commander of the 6th Company, Wang Shuanglong, was holding in his arms, the 6th Company also had a second Czech, which was roaring incessantly at the other end just now. The four companies of the 2nd Battalion of the Forest Division had a total of six Czech light machine guns, and the 6th Company had two. Under the personal command of the battalion commander Feng Changzhi, the 6th Company finally seized the defensive point in the west of the village at the last moment, one step ahead of the Japanese army, and almost under its own nose, forced the opponent to retreat.

And, of course, cannons.

Zhao Yejiao's artillery squad, since the last time it was forcibly left under the direct jurisdiction of the battalion headquarters by Liu Shu and Feng Changzhi, has always been training in Xiping honestly and step by step. The two mortars from the 2nd Battalion who had been assigned to the 2nd Battalion earlier by the Lin Division Headquarters were also included in the artillery squad. Originally, instructor Liu Shu tried to let an artilleryman from the division headquarters replace Zhao Yejiao as the squad leader, but Zhao Yejiao was born in a regular artillery unit of the Central Army, and his theoretical mastery and practical level of various artillery pieces were beyond the reach of the entire second battalion; Therefore, the battalion commander Feng Changzhi made a lot of mediation, and Liu Shu had to dispel the idea of changing the squad leader.

The two artillerymen from the division headquarters of the Lin Division originally had a good foundation for artillery operation, and under the words and deeds of the squad leader Zhao Yejiao, they were promoted even faster. By the time the war began tonight, seven people had become proficient in the use of two mortars – one made in the Republic of China and one in Japan. The other two captured Japanese grenadiers also had more competent operators. Therefore, the sudden and fierce night battle faced by the 2nd Battalion was quickly supported by artillery fire.

This was the case. Feng Changzhi, who had a premonition that the situation was not good, hurriedly rushed to the west of the village with the 6th company in the direction of the gun, and the instructor Liu Shu also immediately became nervous, and according to the few words of combat deployment that the battalion commander hurriedly dropped when he ran out of the battalion headquarters, Liu Shu immediately ordered the people at the battalion headquarters to go separately to notify the 7th company, the recruit company, as well as the artillery and cavalry, and all of them to make emergency preparations.

The artillery squad in the suburbs of Zhao Ye, even with men and equipment, was stationed in a large compound closest to the foot of Guanmen Mountain, which was originally the house of a landlord in the village; After the second battalion was stationed in Xiping, it forcibly requisitioned the house, leaving only two side rooms for the landlord, and opening a corner door for him to enter and exit with his family, but closed the rest of the courtyard as a barracks for the troops. At first, it was used by the health team, but later the health team found a more suitable location, and Feng Changzhi assigned this place to the new artillery squad. The courtyard is very spacious, so that the artillery squad can arrange and exercise all four firearms in the courtyard without leaving home, and after completion, the firearms can be put into the nearest room for maintenance, which Zhao Yejiao is very satisfied with.

Just now, from hearing the sound of gunfire outside the village to receiving an urgent order from the battalion headquarters to prepare for battle, the action of the artillery squad can be described as rapid, and two guns and two grenadiers were immediately placed in the courtyard. Because the east side of this house is close to the mountains, and there are neighboring farmhouses in the front and south and back to the north, so the muzzle of the artillery is precisely aimed at the wilderness outside the west of the village during weekday training. The foundation of this landlord's house is very high, and looking to the west from here, it has a somewhat condescending taste, and it is indeed very suitable as an artillery position.

After the fierce battle in the west of the village was in full swing, Zhao Yejiao and the artillerymen had been standing in the courtyard, anxiously looking at the swarthy west two or three miles away, where in addition to the dense gunfire, only the flames sprayed from the muzzles of the machine guns could be vaguely distinguished. Soon, the battalion commander sent someone to run to tell Zhao Yejiao: It was too dark to see the scale of the Japanese army attacking outside the village, but the number must be huge, and the artillery squad immediately opened fire on its rear team!

This is the standard tactic of striking at the depth of the enemy's offensive formation!

Zhao Yejiao, who was familiar with the topography, roughly determined the location of his rear team by judging the position of the most advanced attack of the Japanese army: he could not be too far forward, and under the condition of no line of sight, it was easy to hit his position in the west of the village if he was too far ahead; And not too far back, so as not to miss the shell. Zhao Yejiao let the two grenadiers play the longest range, and the two mortars set the landing point in the middle and rear. With an order, the first "large-scale" operation of the artillery of the 2nd Battalion of the Lin Division officially began!

In the first round of all-round strikes, most of the 10 shells fired by the two mortars exploded in the attack formation of the Japanese Tyumen Brigade, and although there were mistakes in the operation of the two grenadiers, the same 10* also hit a small half of them, and one of them directly blew up a squadron leader of the Tyumen Brigade on the spot -- of course, this was unknown to the artillery and even all the officers and men of the 2nd Battalion.

Of course, the Japanese soldiers who were bombed knew about it.

The sudden and fierce artillery fire greatly surprised the Tyumen Shaozo at the front and the riverside Dazuo who supervised the formation. Before the start of the war, although the Wencheng secret service mentioned that mortars had been found in the lair of the Eighth Route Army in Xiping, the arrogant chief of staff of the Japanese brigade and the captain did not take it seriously - the imperial army was superior in numbers, and it was a night attack by elite soldiers, and the mortars of the communist army, I was afraid that the battle would end before they could set up the base and cannon body.

How could the arrogant Japanese commander have thought that the mortars of the Eighth Route Army would not be disassembled at all in peacetime, and the complete artillery would squat in the house and be moved from the house to the "artillery position" in the courtyard in just a dozen seconds. The artillery squad consisted of twenty people, and in addition to the ten artillerymen, another ten were in charge of carrying shells and *. This is definitely a regular and well-developed artillery unit!

At present, the Japanese army has paid a heavy price for ignoring this regular and sophisticated artillery unit. The cannonballs that whistled out of the night sky,* made the charging Japanese dazed, and they did not know how many more shells would come to their heads; The squadron that killed the squadron leader was even more chaotic in an instant.

On the other hand, the Eighth Route Army has more and more people rushing to the forward position in the west of the village, and the firepower is becoming more and more intensive; Even a cavalry platoon led by Xia Lianshan galloped out of the north end of the village and began to attack the Japanese from the flank. Under these multi-sided blows, the three squadrons of the Tyumen brigade that threw themselves into the charge finally staggered back.

The sound of the gunfire faded until it died down completely. Both the offensive and defensive sides were checking the casualties in shock, nervously judging and assessing the strength of the other party's participation in the battle. Inside and outside Xiping Village, there was a brief silence.

Kosuke Otsuka soon received the news of the battle from the village of Saipei, as it was here in Kawaguchi: the surprise attack of the Imperial Army was a setback at the beginning. This surprised Otsuka.

The wing commander originally judged that the night attack on Xiping, which was personally supervised by the chief of staff of the brigade, should be taken without too much difficulty. On Otsuka's own side, there are only two squadrons of the Imperial Army, and as for the cavalry regiment of the Mongolian Army that fought in the vanguard, it has proven to be a rabble; What's more, this group of rabble didn't even have time to take the initiative to launch a sneak attack, and they were caught off guard by the Chinese army!

Otsuka still couldn't understand how the cavalry of the Mongolian army was exposed. At this time, his subordinate Nara Shaosa had already led the generals who tried to stop them from defeating a group of Chinese soldiers, and the battlefield examined more than 20 of their corpses, confirming that they were the Eighth Route Army uniforms of the Chinese Army. Then, it is undoubtedly the Eighth Route Army from Hekou Village in front.

Du Dongqiang reported to the commander of the Japanese wing in a frustrated manner, only saying that he had just been unexpectedly surrounded and attacked by "many" Eighth Route Army in advance, and that the cavalry regiment was defenseless and fought on its own, but in the end struggled to kill the enemy army.

Hearing the report of the cavalry commander of the Mongolian Army, Otsuka's nostrils snorted, he didn't believe that this Eighth Route Army was "killed" by the Mongolian cavalry, but he couldn't refute it. As for the "numerous" Eighth Route Army mentioned by Du Dongqiang, the Japanese co-captain pondered for a moment.

What kind of "many" will it be?

Judging from the scale of the battlefield firefight that rang out just now, Otsuka didn't seem to sense that the attackers had too many troops. The Mongolian army said that the other party had a machine gun, which was probably nothing more than a few light machine guns. And the troops of the Eighth Route Army, which Nara Shaozo had just defeated and were blocking head-on, were not large in number and not strong in firepower. However, most of the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army who were killed were using the 38th Type rifles of the Imperial Army, which made the Wing Commander extremely angry - each 38th Type Rifle should mean the life of an Imperial soldier. Damn eight ways!

Kosuke Otsuka's eyes radiated a fierce light in the night: It's time for the Eighth Route Army to pay the price of blood!