In the squad where Lu Dajiang stayed at the place of the incident, several people carried the body of the sacrificed soldier back to the station, and the other two ran back to Hongxingxia first, and conveyed the company commander's order to the deputy company commander, who immediately transferred the strength of two platoons and set off to catch up with the company commander's team to rescue his comrades. At the same time, the entire Red Star Gorge was ordered to enter a state of combat readiness.

After the two platoons arrived at the scene of the incident, they were led by a few fighters who remained there and pursued them with all their might.

However, because the men led by Lu Dajiang had already chased far away, the two platoons that set off later could only grope for the general direction and grit their teeth, but they took the wrong road halfway, and after going around in a circle, they never found the company commander's team.

It wasn't until gunshots rang out in the distance, and the gunfire became more and more intense, that the two platoons woke up like a dream and ran wildly in the direction of the guns.

The gunshots came from the scene of the firefight between Lu Dajiang, Liu Wumei and the black donkey.

A platoon brought out by Lu Dajiang was left by him at the place of the incident, and now there are less than 30 fighters with him, and at the first time when the bandit team of Black Donkey launched a sneak attack, one was killed and two were injured. Before Lu Dajiang could organize a counterattack in the direction of the mountains and forests, Liu Wumei's gang in front of him also began to shoot. Suddenly, the Eighth Route Army fell into the danger of being attacked; Moreover, whether it was the mountains and forests on the flanks or the slopes on the front, for these dozens of Eighth Route Army, they were all located at a low place to return fire from a high place, and the situation was very unfavorable.

Liu Wumei saw that the situation was out of control, so she was determined to wipe out all the Eighth Route Army. She ordered the minions in front to open fire fiercely, and at the same time asked the master to divide a dozen more people and move to the other flank of the Eighth Route Army below, preparing to form a three-sided attack with the black donkey. In the end, it was surrounded and annihilated.

The 8th Company is a relatively weak company in the 2nd Battalion of the Eighth Route Army Forestry Division, and its equipment is not the same as that of the 5th Company of all new guns, and these more than 20 soldiers only have a few formal rifles, and the rest are 98-type rifles made in Hanyang and Gongxian Arsenal (modified and imitated from the German 1898 Mauser rifle); Company commander Lu Dajiang was a cadre who was promoted only after the Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi, and he lacked experience in commanding operations.

What's even more fatal is that the entire 8th Company, except for rifles and a few shell guns, did not have a single machine gun (including the flower machine gun) assigned to them, although in Hongxing Gorge, the 2nd Battalion left a captured Japanese 92 heavy machine gun and a mortar, but that was only the main force temporarily stored there, and no one in the 8th Company could operate these two heavy weapons.

On the bandits' side, there are about 100 rifles of all kinds, including advanced rifles such as the 38 big cover brought from the underground arms black market, and the rest are shell guns, shotguns and * fire sand guns; And the two most critical light machine guns gave them the upper hand in firepower. The two light machine guns, one of which was an old British Lewis type, had a thick heat sink wrapped around the barrel, giving the machine gun a more resemblance to a small cannon, and the bullets were contained in a disc-shaped drum; The other is a Czech light machine gun.

At this moment, these two light machine guns were pouring bullets from two directions, suppressing the Eighth Route Army downward, and the more than 20 soldiers of the 8th Company exchanged fire for less than five minutes, and nearly half of them had already suffered casualties!

Lu Dajiang felt that something was wrong, he could still vaguely see the bandits in front of him, and the firepower from the flank mountain forest made him unable to figure out how many people there were. The commander of the 8th company picked up the shell gun in his hand, fired a few more shots at the bandits in both directions, and then decisively ordered a retreat.

Liu Wumei was condescending, and quickly saw the intention of the Eighth Route Army, and she asked the part of the men and horses that the master had divided to speed up to the other side of the Eighth Route Army*, and strive to cut off their retreat.

At this critical moment, the two platoons reinforced by the 8th Company finally arrived according to the sound of gunfire, they first found the company commander and the remnants of the soldiers who were fighting and retreating, and then saw a large number of bandits who were shouting and pursuing in the distance. The two platoons did not have time to complete the unfolding of the battlefield and immediately raised their guns and opened fire.

After a burst of rapid shooting, many of the bandits who rushed to the forefront were knocked down, and the latter were shocked by the reinforcements of the Eighth Route Army that suddenly fell from the sky, and began to retreat one after another.

Lu Dajiang finally stabilized his position.

The two soldiers of the 8th Company who ran to Hekou Village to call the police, one of them was the soldier who followed the company commander to exchange fire with the bandits, and he was urgently sent back to Hongxingxia from the battlefield by Lu Dajiang to ask for help; After receiving the soldier's report, the deputy company commander of the 8th company realized the seriousness of the situation: the company commander sent people back to transfer troops for the first time, and he only thought that he wanted to increase the intensity of the search and rescue of the health worker Juanzi, but this time the soldiers were already an out-and-out operation - even the sound of gunfire and * explosions from the battlefield could be faintly heard here.

The deputy company commander immediately made a decision, and sent another soldier, together with the soldier who ran back to carry the rescue troops, and hurried out of the mountain to Hekou Village to report to the main force. Then, he ordered the last platoon to stay in the Red Star Gorge, and he himself took two platoons of troops and rushed to reinforce in the direction of the gunfire.

In Hekou Village, Wu Zijian found it hard to believe that there were "hundreds of armed bandits" in this big mountain, and after being shocked, he carefully inquired about the soldiers of the 8th Company who participated in the battle, including the strength and firepower of the bandits, and when he learned that the leader of the bandits who commanded the hijacking of the sanitary workers and the 8th Company was actually a woman, the deputy commander of the 2nd Battalion was shocked:

"Woman?!" Wu Zijian's eyes, which had always been slit, widened at this time: "What kind of woman?" What kind of clothes to wear? ”

At this moment, he suddenly thought of the female mountaineer who Xiao Junping insisted on searching his body in the morning; And when the soldier of the 8th Company roughly described the dress of the female bandit leader, Wu Zijian couldn't help but feel a pounding in his heart: he was too careless, and he actually let go of the female leader of the bandits from under his nose!

Xiao Junping!

At this moment, Wu Zijian's admiration for the staff officer of the Jin Army surged again: The eyesight of this intelligence staff officer is too damn poisonous, how can he see that the woman is not a good person?!

"How can I tell? Does it still matter!? Xiao Junping replied angrily and coldly to the deputy battalion commander of the Eighth Route Army in his room: "Chief Wu, you are called reaping the consequences of yourself, and you are to blame!" ”

Wu Zijian was not angry, he had just urgently ordered Li Tianlin to gather the strength of three platoons and immediately follow him into the mountains to assist the 8th Company. At this moment, he hurried to apologize to Xiao Junping.

Xiao Junping paused thoughtfully, and said word by word: "Moreover, I can almost conclude now that the female bandit leader you let go may be Liu Wumei, who has a loud bandit horn in this area!" ”

Wu Zijian opened his mouth in surprise, he had heard Liu Wumei's name from Xiao Junping before, so he became more and more annoyed, and on the other hand, he really scolded himself for not despising Staff Officer Xiao's opinion.

The staff officer of the Jin Army, who was originally full of grievances and grievances, saw that the other party repeatedly apologized and repeatedly praised his fiery eyes, and his mood gradually improved, he asked Wu Zijian to hurry up and set off to help, although Xiao Junping himself had not dealt with bandits, but he had heard that Liu Wumei's bandit gang was powerful and strong.

Wu Zijian was no longer polite, he left Xia Lianshan, the deputy commander of the 5th Company, and half of the troops, and asked Staff Officer Xiao to help the deputy company commander Xia to defend the defense area steadily, so as not to worry about his future.

Wencheng. The commander of the Hagiwara Akira Brigade has just given an order to Kosuke Otsuka to send troops to clear it.

Prior to this, Hagiwara Akira had already contacted the Motokawa Brigade of the Yamaoka Division that planned to attack western Jinxi through the headquarters of the Sena Division, and the brigade commander of the Fenyang outpost, Major General Motochuan Province, personally confirmed that a wing under his command was assembling in Fenyang and planned to attack Zhongyang and Lishi County; And the Zhina Army trapped in Zhongyang and Lishi was definitely Fu Zuoyi's 35th Army, and it never left its defense area.

This also means that the Zhina army that attacked the north gate of Fengdian a few days ago was definitely not the Fu Zuoyi men they claimed to be. To this end, Hagiwara recalled the head of the secret service of Bunjo; After dispelling this suspicion, the brigade commander decided not to bother with the true identity of the sneak attacker.

"No matter who the despicable sneak attackers are, I want you to dig them all out and destroy them all!" At the brigade headquarters, Hagiwara roars at his wing commander, and Kosuke Otsuka responds with unwavering determination.

Soon, Otsuka took two squadrons of the Nara Brigade from Bunjo and set off for Toyoden.

When crossing Little Elm Mountain and passing through Songjiagou Station, Otsuka specially told the Iwata Cavalry Squadron that remained here to strengthen their vigilance.

Kosuke Otsuka, who arrived at Toyden, planned to divide his troops into three routes to carry out the clearance of the outskirts of the county.

On the first road, he himself led two squadrons of the Nara Brigade and a company of the Mongolian Cavalry Regiment to leave the north gate and enter the area where the cavalry of the Mongolian Army was attacked in the Great Elm Mountain, and search for the Chinese army that claimed to be Fu Zuo's righteous army;

On the second road, Deputy Wing Commander Aso Nakasa led a squadron of the Futian Brigade out of the east gate and into the Great Elm Mountain, searching for the remnants of the 391st Regiment of the Central Army of China, which had occupied Fengdian;

On the third road, Du Dongqiang, the head of the cavalry regiment of the Mongolian Xinjiang Army, led a cavalry battalion out of the south gate of Fengdian to search the northern foot of Guanmen Mountain further south and reconnoiter the local situation.

Captain Fukudaoka led the rest of the troops to garrison Fengdian County.

In Otsuka's opinion, although the terrain of the foothills of Guanmen Mountain south of Fengdian is unknown, there has been no attack by the Zhina Army so far, so that direction should be the safest, so he did not send the soldiers of his wing to that direction, but only let Du Dongqiang lead the cavalry of the Mongolian Xinjiang Army; And it was immediately the first team to go out as the first batch of attackers.

The wing commander of the Japanese army did not know that at this moment in that direction, he already had the strength of a main battalion of the Eighth Route Army's Forest Division, and was building a "base area" that was still quite unfamiliar to the Japanese army. Moreover, even if Kosuke Otsuka did not send Du Dongqiang's cavalry battalion to search, the deputy commander of the Eighth Route Military Battalion was already thinking of the pseudo-Mongolian cavalry in Fengdian City.

They are destined to start a thrilling battle to the death in this first month of the 27th year of the Republic of China (1938).