In the evening of the same day, Major General Hagiwara was at his brigade headquarters and was informed of the results of the actions that had taken place in the afternoon. The two results can be described as one happy and one worried, the good news is that the arrest team of Hirai Teraichi captured four Shina women at once; The worry is that the infantry squadron sent to sweep on the banks of the Qinglong River has been continuously harassed and even ambushed, and has suffered serious damage.

The captain of the infantry squadron's brigade, Nara Shaosa, personally went to the temporary barracks on the southern outskirts of Bunjo to investigate the situation of the afternoon battle. It is said that small groups of Chinese troops of varying numbers have been found in each of the five villages along the Qinglong River, and it is suspected that they are entrenched in the villages as the eyeliner of the main force of the nearby Chinese army. During this period, a group of cavalry of the Chinese army always followed and harassed the convoy of the imperial army, and in the evening there was a fierce battle in which a large group of the Chinese army set up an ambush to attack the convoy.

At Akira Hagiwara's brigade headquarters, Nara Shozo and Lieutenant Ushijima, the leader of the infantry squadron, explained the whole process in detail to the brigade commander Major General on the map; Based on this, the two subordinates judged that a large force of the Chinese army should be stationed in the villages along the Qinglong River, and after receiving the news that the imperial army had swept the above-mentioned villages, they ambushed the convoy in advance and launched an attack.

The night attack dealt a fatal blow to Lieutenant Ushijima's team, and upon returning to the barracks, the statistics showed that twenty-seven officers and men were killed or missing, including the squad leader of the second squad; Nineteen others were wounded; The vast majority of these casualties occurred during the night battle of the ambush convoy, with only four bodies returned by truck, and the rest are missing. Three of the five trucks were damaged to varying degrees.

The brigade commander and major general, who had a blue face, did not scold the two subordinates who were standing in front of him too harshly. He instructed Lieutenant Ushijima to go back and rest, leaving Nara Shosa, and when the head of the secret service, Masao Kojima, arrived, the three of them held a brief meeting.

The development of events was completely unexpected: it was supposed to clear the hidden danger for Hirai Terai's arrest team, but it unexpectedly caused even more trouble. What particularly annoyed Hagiwara was that Ushijima's squadron was entangled with the Shina Army for almost an afternoon, and in the end, they failed to figure out the identity of the enemy army!

Combined with the previous investigation report of the plainclothes team of the secret agency, as well as the incident of the cavalry of the Eighth Route Army encountered by Captain Hirai with the capture detachment in Ewhapo last time, he deduced that the cavalry of the Ushijima squadron that continued to attack and harass the Ushijima squadron this afternoon was still the Eighth Route Army; From this, it is further inferred that the Chinese Army, which set up an ambush to attack the convoy of the Ushishima squadron, belonged to the same Eighth Route Army as the cavalry.

Nara Shaosa showed his courage at the right time, and said on the spot that he could personally lead the main force of the brigade to kill the horse pistol along the line that the Ushijima squadron swept today, and deal a severe blow to the arrogance of the Eighth Route Army.

As the 3rd Infantry Brigade of the Otsuka Wing, Nara Shaozo once participated in the night attack on the camp of the Eighth Route Army in Hekou Village at the foot of Guanmen Mountain, and that thrilling bloody battle still makes Shaozo remember deeply; On the one hand, he admired the fierce combat power of the Eighth Route Army, but on the other hand, he still believed that the Imperial Army was sure of victory in the battle - if it were not for the sudden attack of Fengdian County by another group of Zhina Army that day and forced his own side to urgently return to the division, he and Otsuka Osa would finally ruthlessly break through the last line of defense of the Eighth Route Army and drive it into the mountains:

"I accidentally raised a tiger at the beginning, but now it's time to completely eliminate this stubborn enemy!"

Looking at the confident and sworn Nara Shaosa, Hagiwara Akira's face showed a satisfied look, and then verbally praised and encouraged a few words. However, the scheming brigade commander Major General did not intend to send the Nara brigade out like this, he knew very well in his heart that in addition to the troops led by Kosuke Otsuka and Nara, the last night attack also strengthened an infantry brigade quickly sent back by the division commander from the Jinnan front, and the two forces simultaneously launched a strike on the camp of the Eighth Route Army at the foot of Guanmen Mountain; Rao is so, and he has not been able to take too much advantage; This is enough to confirm the strength of this Eighth Route Army. At present, there is no strong foreign aid, relying on an infantry brigade of Nara Shaoza to launch an attack on the comeback Guanmen Mountain Eighth Route Army, the odds of victory are really not good.

The head of the secret service, who had not spoken on the side, seemed to see the worry in Hagiwara's heart, so he tentatively proposed: Can we transfer some troops from the garrisons of Little Elm Mountain or Toyodian County to cooperate with the Nara Infantry Brigade?

After hesitating for a moment, Major General Hagiwara slowly shook his head and said with determination:

"For the time being, bear with it for a while, and after the main force of the division completely clears the remnants of the enemy in southern Jinnan, then return to the army to sweep away this stubborn enemy - if you can't bear it, you will have a big plan."

Nara Shaoza, who was eager to try, suddenly looked confused, and he couldn't understand what the "big plan" that the shogun was talking about, so he looked at the head of the island office with his eyes, but he didn't find a clear answer.

"Shaozuo, put away your ambitions for the time being, and immediately return to the brigade headquarters in the eastern suburbs; At present, the first task of your brigade is to defend the area between Wencheng and the West Pass of Little Elm Mountain, and to respond to emergencies in both places at any time. Especially to make sure that Little Elm Mountain is safe and sound! ”

Major General Commander of the Brigade gave an order, and at the same time asked Nara Shosa to immediately replenish the corresponding troops to the temporary barracks on the southern outskirts of Bunjo, so that the Ushijima squadron, which had just lost troops, could be fully filled.

Watching the infantry captain leave in a daze, Hagiwara let out a heavy sigh and motioned for Masao Kojima to sit down by the window, where there was a set of low Japanese-style tables and chairs, on which were a pair of sumptuous Go chessboard pieces. However, at this moment, the commander of the Japanese brigade obviously will not have a game of Yaxing. After the two sat down opposite each other, the head of the secret service first expressed his concern: he had been concerned about the infiltration and expansion of the Eighth Route Army in the local area, and now it seemed that this private communist army, which was inseparable from Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government, had increasingly shown its ambitions and actions of refusing to submit to others.

"Just now, Nara Shaoza mentioned the last battle of the night attack on the camp of the Eighth Route Army; You must know that at that time, this group of Eighth Route Army only occupied two villages at the foot of Guanmen Mountain; But after being attacked by us, in a short period of time, they not only made a comeback, but infiltrated the entrenched territory even wider than the original! Masao Kojima said as he subconsciously grabbed a black chess piece and placed it on the empty chessboard.

Hagiwara noticed that the black chess pieces in the head of the secret service were disorderly but basically placed on a corner of the chessboard close to him, so he smiled dumbly, grabbed a white chess piece, and gently landed on the Tian Yuan position in the center of the chessboard.

The shrewd Kojima Masao immediately pointed to the Tianyuan solitary son laid out by the brigade commander and said: "Tianyuan is grandiose in the middle, with momentum and aura, but there is no foundation and support. Our division and the Shangang division currently occupy the two railway lines of Zhengtai and Tongpu in the center of Shanxi. The Chinese Army, especially the Eighth Route Army, is expanding its territory in the four corners of Shanxi at the moment, and once they succeed in possessing the four corners and then attack and encroach on the center, the Tianyuan position will be lost sooner or later. ”

"Oh, is it that serious?" Major General Brigade, commander of the brigade, said with surprise: "Kojima-kun, don't express the Eighth Route Army in the entire Shanxi as so strong just because the Eighth Route Army in front of us is very rampant. ”

The head of the secret service shook his head like a rattle, and he told Hagiwara Akira that at least the information obtained so far from the northwest and northeast of Jin Province had shown that the main force of the He Division (120th Division) of the Eighth Route Army and the 1st Lin Division occupied a very large area in the two corners of Shanxi, and many important county towns and the Kwantung Army stationed in Shanxi had to fight with them repeatedly.

"The team of the lieutenant generals of the harem is so unbearable?" Hearing this, Major General Hagiwara's face couldn't help but become grim.

The Kwantung Army and the lieutenant general of the harem that the two of them talked about actually referred to after the full-scale war in Shanxi last year.

The 26th Division was reorganized on the basis of the 11th Brigade of the Kwantung Army, and the commander of the division was Lieutenant General Harem Jun. The most important feature of this division is that for the first time the General Staff Headquarters tried to abolish the brigades and regiments within the division and regimental structure of the army, and the division and regiment headquarters directly commanded the three infantry wings, while the cavalry, artillery, engineering, and baggage wings directly under the division and regiment headquarters remained unchanged. It has been learned that if the three-wing system is successfully piloted, it will be widely popularized in the newly built army divisions and regiments in the future.

After the formation of the harem division, it immediately went to Shanxi, and the division headquarters was set up in Datong, an important town in northern Shanxi; Lieutenant General Harem Chun was also ordered to command the first and second independent mixed brigades of the Kwantung Army and the first part of the Mongolian Xinjiang Army at the same time, and captured Suiyuan on a large scale. Today, the operational focus of the harem division is to control and garrison the Pingsui Railway that crosses the northwestern part of Shanxi. Since the division was subordinate to the Kwantung Army and was not under the control of the North China Front, Hagiwara himself did not know much about the division's recent situation, despite being stationed in Shanxi Province. He only knew that at the same time as the Shangang Division attacked the western part of Jin, the Harem Division also began to sweep in the northern part of Jin.

"Although it can't be evaluated as unbearable, at least the means of the harem lieutenant general to deal with the Eighth Route Army can hardly be called effective!" Masao Kojima replied. The head of the secret service originally held the same position in the Kwantung Army in Manchukuo, and he knew the Kwantung Army quite well; At present, although the army secret services in the Datong area are also subordinate to the Kwantung Army, Masao Kojima has always maintained a good relationship with the other party from a personal point of view, so he can often get the latest information about the ongoing war situation in northern Jinbei.

Hagiwara Akira, who knows Masao Kojima's military background very well, has to believe all this he says.

Seeing that the brigade commander, Major General, began to pay attention to his comments, Kojima Masao continued to talk eloquently, and at the same time he picked up some black chess pieces and placed them in an adjacent corner of the chessboard: "This means that in the two corners of the northwest and northeast of Shanxi, the Eighth Route Army already has a certain field; Next, we have to look at the two corners of southwest and southeast of Jin. ”

The "chess game" was placed to this point, and Hagiwara Akira's thinking also entered the alley, and at the same time, he tended to agree with Kojima Masao's judgment just now - the intelligence a few days ago just confirmed that the Xiayuan Division, which had broken through from Hebei to the southeast of Jin, sent a detachment, was hit by the main force of the Xu Division (129th Division) of the Eighth Route Army, and the damage was about 1,000 people. Other intelligence indicates that the Xu Brigade of the Eighth Route Army's Forest Division also made great strides to penetrate the vicinity of southeast Jin, posing a threat to the detachment of the Xia Yuan Division. This corner seems to be showing a bad appearance.

Then in the big game of chess in Shanxi, there is only one corner left in the southwest of Shanxi!

Strictly speaking, southwest Jin is now the last base of Yan Xishan, the "King of Shanxi", and it is not easy for the imperial army to intervene, nor is it allowed for the Eighth Route Army to get involved. However, the most elite Lin Division among the three divisions of the Eighth Route Army, its main force was precisely cruising in the southwest of Shanxi; If left unchecked, it's hard to say that the climate isn't there.

The expression on Hagiwara's face froze completely, and he looked at the head of the secret service opposite in a daze, unable to say a word.