Because these top soldiers of the puppet Mongolian army were already quite close to the head of Hekou Village, they were attacked by the Eighth Route Army, and the vast majority of the twenty or thirty people were either killed or wounded, and shrank back in embarrassment.

The position of the Eighth Route Army at the head of the village had been exposed, and the commander of the puppet Mongolian army battalion who was supervising the formation in the rear was worried that if he withdrew like this, he would be reprimanded by the Japanese, so he shouted on the spot, "Do not retreat," so he ordered the company in front to charge in the direction where the Eighth Route Army had opened fire just now.

As a result, more than 100 soldiers of the puppet Mongolian army first fired their guns at the opposite side in a chaotic manner, and then gritted their teeth and began to advance.

Previously, when the two Japanese 92 infantry guns bombarded the village, due to the indiscriminate firing, only two shells hit the front-line house fortifications, one of which hit the foundation of the Makqin fortifications where Wu Zijian was located, causing no damage; The other hit the roof of a house at the head of the village, knocking down half of the entire house; Two soldiers who were lying in ambush behind a pile of firewood outside the gable of the house were killed and wounded. In addition, the rest of the shells either swept over the village or destroyed several houses in the village, but did not cause much damage to the village fortifications.

Now facing the charging puppet Mongolian army, the strength of a platoon of the 5th Company relied on these fortifications and began to shoot fiercely; In the darkness, they fired in the direction of everything that was coming from, relying entirely on the movement transmitted by the northwest wind. Outside the head of the village was the frozen Qinglong River and the low, withered yellow wilderness of weeds, and the puppet Mongolian army that rushed to a distance of more than ten zhang from the head of the village could not avoid such dense firepower, and people were constantly knocked down.

In the end, despite the hoarse supervision of the commander in the back, the vanguard company of the puppet Mongolian army was forced back by the rain of bullets.

The sound of artillery bombardment and the exchange of fire at the head of the village all spread into the fortifications of Guanmen Mountain Pass, which was half a mile away, and Li Tianlin was as anxious as a hungry tiger in a cage, circling in circles in the cramped heavy machine-gun fortifications.

"Captain Xiao, are you sure that the deputy battalion commander also told you so?!"

He asked Xiao Junping, the captain of the enemy engineer who was sitting calmly on an ammunition box, because as soon as Xiao Junping came in, he once again emphasized Wu Zijian's order to the commander of the 5th company: Stick to the mountain pass fortifications, wait for dawn, and strictly prohibit going down the mountain to attack.

Because of the firing holes of heavy machine guns, the inside of the fortifications did not dare to be illuminated, in case the people below the pass would see the lights; Only one corner turned on a pony lamp, and covered most of it with a quilt, so that the people in the fortification could barely see each other, so as not to bump into each other.

What Li Tianlin saw was Xiao Junping's faint figure, but the latter did not answer the question of the 5th Company Commander, perhaps this question was meaningless.

At this moment, Li Tianlin had three platoons of the 5th Company in his hands, and he asked two of them to be stationed in the houses along the gentle slope of the mountain pass to stand by (they were actually the barracks of the 5th Company built later, but the appearance was completely built in accordance with the style of the local people's houses, which was hidden from people's eyes); Another platoon, two squads, guarded in the direction of the deep mountains to prevent people in the mountains, such as soldiers of the 8th Company, mountain people, bandits, etc., from coming down or passing by; Two squads went to the bottom of the mountain pass to assist the heavy machine gun squads in the two fortifications in the defense.

Later, listening to the sudden sound of guns and cannons under the mountain, Li Tianlin knew that the enemy army had begun to attack Hekou Village, and he clearly heard the roar of Makqin returning fire. How many enemy troops will there be? The deputy battalion commander only had two platoons of the 5th Company left, and the other two platoons were temporarily transferred from the 8th Company, and the combat strength was not very strong. There is no artillery in Hekou Village, so the shells are obviously fired by the enemy's artillery, and Xiao Junping judged that it may be a Type 92 infantry gun.

Ninety-two rifle?! It was a Japanese cannon, and the cavalry regiment of the puppet Mongolian army would not be able to configure it. In this way, behind the Mongolian cavalry, there are really Japanese troops following!

Li Tianlin was so anxious that a hot sweat broke out on his back: "Captain Xiao, I'll take a platoon and go down from the traffic ditch to see how it goes?" ”

The traffic ditch he refers to is the hidden waterless ditch on the side of the mountain pass near the village of Hekou.

Xiao Junping smiled bitterly and asked rhetorically, "Company Commander Li, are you asking for me?" I don't dare to be the master of this - the death order given by Deputy Battalion Commander Wu, you don't know it. ”

Li Tianlin almost yelled in the fortifications. He had always known that this enemy engineer captain who was born as a staff officer of the Jin army was outside the circle and inside the inside, and the deputy battalion commander sent him from the village to the mountain pass before the battle, and he also had the intention of supervising himself to some extent. It is said that the enemy engineering team is directly under the battalion headquarters, and the captain's rank should be the same as that of his own company commander, but if he really wants to take a platoon to touch it, I am afraid that this Captain Xiao will not follow.

"Listen, how rapid is the frequency of Makqin's shooting?" Li Tianlin pulled Xiao Junping to the shooting hole of the fortification, and pointed to the bottom of the mountain pass where he couldn't see anything: "What does this mean?" The enemy's attack on the head of the village was crazy, otherwise the heavy machine guns would not have hit so hard. ”

Xiao Junping sighed and said to the commander of the 5th company who was close at hand: "What the deputy battalion commander means, maybe you haven't fully understood - he is ready to defend Hekou Village." He sent me, a lame man, and the whole enemy team out of the village in advance, and came to you, because he was afraid that we would be lost in the village. ”

Li Tianlin was stunned.

After a long time, he grabbed the arm of the enemy engineer captain urgently: "Could it be that we just watched the deputy battalion commander and them being besieged to death by the Japanese puppet army?" ”

"This is exactly what he intended for you to defend the mountain pass," Xiao Junping's voice was still as calm as water: "If the village can't hold it, he will either lead people to retreat to Xiping, or break out and move closer to us." If it is the latter, then we must be solid here to be qualified to accept the deputy battalion commander and them. ”

Xiao Junping's words echoed in the claustrophobic mountain pass fortifications, and not only the commander of the 5th company, but also the rest of the 5th company soldiers in the fortifications also listened silently. Until now, they still did not know that Xiping Village had also been attacked by the Japanese army tonight.

"You always say that you have to know yourself and your enemy, but now we are nestled in the fortifications of the mountain pass, and we don't know anything except listening to the porridge under the mountain. Can this be called knowing oneself and knowing one's opponent?! Li Tianlin couldn't find a reason to touch it, so he sprinkled his anger on Xiao Junping's head.

Unexpectedly, Xiao Junping responded unexpectedly: "You're right, I can take a few team members down to find out." ”

Knowing that Xiao Junping was a treasure in the eyes of the deputy battalion commander, Li Tianlin was willing to let the captain of the enemy engineer who had not recovered from his leg injury be in danger, and he immediately proposed that he should take a squad and a few enemy engineer members down. Xiao Junping had just had time to object, and under the mountain pass, the sound of heavy machine gun fire suddenly sounded again, very short, and it sounded several times one after another, and then stopped.

The people in the fortifications suddenly became nervous: this is not in the direction of the village, and the sound of gunfire is not Makqin, but it should be the same as the two heavy machine guns in the fortifications - the Japanese-made ninety-two heavy machine! Could it be that the devil has touched the bottom and is going to attack up the mountain pass?

Li Tianlin made a denial: the heavy machine gun was not fired at the mountain pass, and it did not look like it was supporting the enemy troops attacking Hekou Village. After arguing with Xiao Junping for a while, they decided that the deputy commander of the 5th Company would take six soldiers and three enemy workers down from the traffic ditch to find out the situation immediately. But at this moment, the rope in the traffic ditch shook and rang the bell in the fortification.

It's your own people, who climbed up from the traffic ditch!

It's just that none of them expected that it was the two soldiers of the 5th Company and the 5th Platoon who climbed up, the 5th Platoon who was responsible for guarding the direction of Fengdian when they attacked the cavalry of the puppet Mongolian army just now! Li Tianlin, who was overjoyed, couldn't wait to ask the two soldiers about the situation, but the answer he got was heart-wrenching-

When the fifth platoon was guarding the direction of Fengdian, it was attacked from both sides by the Japanese army and the puppet army, and only a few people broke out at the risk of death. These two warriors, together with several other warriors, burst into the direction of Guanmen Mountain, and in the dark, they encountered the puppet Mongolian cavalry running around on the wasteland from time to time, and were forced to lie on the ground for a long time, until the cavalry went to assemble away from them, and then cautiously began to grope in the direction of Guanmen Mountain. Unexpectedly, they strayed into the ambush position that the Japanese Nara Brigade had just set up under the Kanmon Mountain Pass, and after a period of fighting, only the two of them ran out alive, and finally succeeded in touching the traffic ditch under the mountain pass, and climbed up after issuing a code. And the sound of the Type 92 heavy machine gun that Li Tianlin and the others had just heard was exactly the fire fired by the machine guns on the Japanese ambush position after the two soldiers.

The two fighters were in varying degrees of color, and because they were panicked when they strayed into the Japanese ambush position, and when they escaped, they were chased by a rain of heavy machine guns, and neither of them could tell what kind of position it was.

"It's specially here to intercept us," Li Tianlin suddenly realized with hatred: "Set up a crane at that position and turn off the gun, and the shooting boundary is the only way for the mountain pass to go down the mountain." The little devil must have known about our deployment in the Yamaguchi area from the puppet Mongolian army, so in order to prevent us from rushing down to support Hekou Village, he set up a position there in advance! ”

The soldiers in the fortifications whispered and cursed the devil's viciousness and cunning.

After the scolding, Xiao Junping said: "That position must be destroyed, at least, and the devil's heavy machine gun must be destroyed - we now know the danger there, but the deputy battalion commander of the mountain does not know that once they break through and run to the mountain pass, they will be severely killed by the Japanese firepower!" ”

This time, the scolding of the soldiers, including Li Tianlin, became more intense.

"Captain Xiao, you are here to command, I will take two platoons down, and say that I will destroy the insidious position of the little devil!"

Li Tianlin shouted in a low voice as he walked outside the fortifications, and Xiao Junping hurriedly stopped him. The captain of the enemy engineer felt that there was one of the biggest difficulties in destroying this Japanese position: the Japanese were aiming at the path down the mountain pass, and Li Tianlin and his men could not go around to the back or side of the Japanese position from here anyway, and if they chose to attack head-on, the opponent's Type 92 heavy machine guns would have already been in full position.

What to do?!

Xiao Junping's mind was nervous and his mind was spinning quickly, and everyone's eyes were focused on this resourceful enemy captain.