In the headquarters of the Hagiwara Brigade, after talking on the long-distance phone for more than ten minutes, the brigade commander, Major General Hagiwara Akira, realized that fine sweat had faintly appeared on his forehead.

The call was made by Lieutenant General Masaki Sena, the commander of the division in Linfen, southern Jinnan. Lieutenant General Sena had also just received a telegram from the North China Front Headquarters in Peiping, expressing regret that the division had failed to search for and rescue the captured officers and men of the cavalry wing during the last military offensive, and reiterating the importance of rescuing these prisoners of war.

Lieutenant General Sena of course knew that the so-called "several" prisoners of war were just superficial rhetoric, and that it was only one of them who really worried the top echelons of the military circles: Warrant Officer Takamatsu. Lieutenant General Sena had also learned from other sources of the Front Army that Warrant Officer Takamatsu's background was far from being the son of a staff officer of the First Army Headquarters of the North China Front as originally revealed.

Therefore, the commander of the North China Front, General Terauchi Shouichi, received a relevant telegram from Lu Xiang's staff at the Tokyo base camp; This undoubtedly raised the search and rescue of Warrant Officer Takamatsu to an unparalleled height. At present, as the imperial minister of the wartime emperor, the five-phase cabinet, composed of the prime minister, foreign minister, land minister, sea minister, and Tibetan minister, is the highest decision-making body in Japan. Lu Xiang, one of the five prime ministers, personally intervened in the search and rescue of Warrant Officer Takamatsu, and the pressure on the North China Front Army can be imagined.

The cavalry wing in which Warrant Officer Takamatsu served belonged to the Sena Division, and it disappeared while temporarily assigned to the Otsuka Wing of the Hagiwara Brigade to fight, so it was natural that the Sena Division was responsible. At present, the division commander, Lieutenant General Sena, was directing an important offensive on the Nantong-Poro front, so he once again entrusted the commander of the Hagiwara Akira Brigade, who was sitting in Bunjo, to handle the matter with full authority.

Receiving the call from the division commander, Akira Hagiwara felt like he was on pins and needles. Of course, he understood the difficulty of searching and rescuing, since the Tyumen infantry brigade defeated the Eighth Route Army in Xiping Village at the foot of Guanmen Mountain, the officers and men of the captured cavalry wing disappeared at the same time. Considering that the bodies of prisoners of war, including Warrant Officer Takamatsu, were not found, it is judged that it is very likely that they were transferred and taken away by the Eighth Route Army. But the most terrible thing is that so far, there is no news about the remnants of the Eighth Route Army, and the Tyumen Infantry Brigade can only confirm that they have fled into Guanmen Mountain, which is said to be hundreds of miles in radius, with deep mountains and dense forests, and it is already very difficult to search for the remnants of the hundreds of Eighth Route Army who have escaped into it, let alone find a few prisoners of war from the Imperial Cavalry Wing!

It's really a wave of unevenness! Hagiwara Akira was thinking about it with a headache: it was imminent for the "Wind Plan" to continue to be implemented by secretly forcibly recruiting comfort women, and the Blue Coat Society that suddenly came out of the scene had disrupted the order of Wencheng, and now there was another search mission for the missing cavalry. As for the commander of his brigade, he only has the strength of an infantry wing and an independent infantry brigade at hand, and most of these troops are still in the garrison area, and the only one that can be used for mobility is the size of a brigade.

I still have to pin my hopes on the head of the island!

Hagiwara Akira has always relied heavily on the more than 50 capable plainclothes under the head of the secret service, Masao Kojima. Previously, the intelligence reconnaissance of the two Eighth Route Army camps at the foot of Guanmen Mountain benefited from them. Soon, he summoned Masao Kojima and asked him to continue to investigate and deal with the aftermath of the attack on the city hall, and at the same time to divide his men to find the whereabouts of the prisoners of the divisional cavalry wing.

This time, it was the turn of the head of the secret service to have a headache.

Masao Kojima was originally concentrating on searching for clues about the Blue Coat Society in Bunjo. In accordance with the previous instructions of the commander of the Hagiwara Akira Brigade, he had secretly selected three "scapegoats", and after the execution, he planned to hang them in the small square in front of the railway station to show the public, claiming to be the arrested murderer of the attack on the city hall. Of course, the head of the secret service knew that these scapegoats were just to put on a show in front of the people and citizens of Wencheng, so as to show everyone that the imperial army and the secret service were not eating dry food, and the murderer who caused the accident was quickly captured and corrected.

As for the real murderer - it should be the Blue Coat Society - when he sees this scene, he will definitely hide in a corner and cover his mouth and snicker. Masao Kojima thought angrily, let them laugh, it won't be long before I dig them out of the rat hole!

However, this new task suddenly given to him by the commander of the Hagiwara Brigade suddenly disrupted the deployment. The fifty-three members of the plainclothes team of the secret service were originally scattered into the streets and alleys of Wencheng to dig up the rats of the Blue Coat Society; More than 30 members of Meng Longsheng's special team were also given the same action. But now, the commander of Kojima not only has to divide part of his forces to come out, but what is even more nerve-wracking is that he has no clue about the search for prisoners of war in the cavalry wing. It's even more clueless than searching for the Blue Coat Society!

In view of the solemnity of the commander of the Hagiwara Brigade, Masao Kojima decided to personally participate in the search for prisoners of war. The graphic and textual materials about Warrant Officer Takamatsu had already reached his hands, and Kojima Masao selected 10 backbone members of the plainclothes team of the secret service agency, and asked for a few relatively clever people from Meng Longsheng's special service team. They prepared horses, donkey carts, and bicycles, divided into several roads, and infiltrated Xiping Village and Hekou Village at the foot of Guanmen Mountain.

Since he has no clue, he simply returns to the original point: Masao Kojima personally led people to Xiping Village, where Warrant Officer Takamatsu and other prisoners of war were first discovered. The deputy commander of the cavalry battalion of the Mongolian frontier army, who was captured first and then escaped, was recently imprisoned in the headquarters of the Hagiwara Brigade, and the chief of staff of the riverside personally interrogated him over and over again, tirelessly looking for valuable clues from his memory. This time, he was also sent over and walked with Masao Kojima and his party.

Previously, from the mouth of Wing Commander Kosuke Otsuka, it had been learned that the Eighth Route Army in Kawaguchi Village had not fled, and on the day of the night attack, they resisted until the last moment and held the pass of Guanmen Mountain next to the village. This means that that area is still in the sphere of influence of the Eighth Route Army - this group of Eighth Route Army is indeed fierce enough, they are even immovable under the great attack of the Imperial Army!

Masao Kojima decided not to cause that trouble, and he only sent three people to the area around Kawaguchi Village to find out the situation; After all, several cavalry prisoners of war such as Warrant Officer Takamatsu were found in Xiping Village, which was an important location for clues.

However, the shrewd spy commander miscalculated, and when the outpost spies he sent patrolled to the vicinity of Xiping Village, he found that the figure of the Eighth Route Army was still flashing inside and outside Xiping.

Masao Kojima, who was hiding a few miles away and receiving the report, couldn't help but be taken aback, so much so that he instantly doubted the combat effectiveness of the Sena Division - didn't it mean that the Tyumen Infantry Brigade had annihilated hundreds of the Eighth Route Army and expelled its remnants into Guanmen Mountain! So what is going on with the Eighth Route Army, which is now operating in Xiping? Was the Tyumen Brigade lying about the military situation, or was the Eighth Route Army haunted and made a comeback?

The head of the secret service had a growing pain in his head: standing in the wilderness of Buba Village in front of him and no shop in the back, he had no idea for a while. It was one of his plainclothes subordinates who reminded him:

"Chief Kojima, if the Eighth Route Army is still in Xiping, does it mean that warrant officer Takamatsu and other prisoners of war are also there?"

This inference made Masao Kojima excited, and he immediately arranged people to enter Xiping Village from several directions disguised as different identities, and tried to search as quietly as possible. He himself ventured to the outside of the west of the village, hiding under an old elm tree, and secretly peeking into the large village with a telescope.

The Eighth Route Army was not large in number, and obvious sentry posts were set up at the head and end of the village, and the common people were busy repairing the damaged houses and courtyards, and there were no prisoners of war wearing imperial uniforms.

In fact, the Eighth Route Army that the head of the secret service saw at this moment was no longer the main force of the 2nd Battalion of the Forest Division that was originally stationed here, but the two squads of the 5th Company sent by Wu Zijian from Hekou Village, under the leadership of the instructor and deputy company commander of the 5th Company, were on guard. As for the troops of the Hongxing Gorge in Guanmen Mountain mobilized by Wu Zijian, they are still on the way and have not yet arrived. Masao Kojima, who is unknown, tried to find the prisoners of war of the cavalry wing from here, of course, in vain.

In the midst of anxiety, another subordinate suddenly came down to report: a patrol of the Eighth Route Army appeared nearby and was marching here. Masao Kojima knew that something was wrong, and quickly put away the binoculars and ordered to retreat. In the past, his plainclothes team had reconnoitred Xiping Village and Hekou Village, and the situation showed that the Eighth Route Army was very strict in vigilance, not only with light and dark double posts, but also with many people who scattered around the perimeter, and even cavalry cruised; Although these Japanese have been immersed in Manchuria for many years and have become China experts, it is still difficult for them to get through the test once they encounter the suspicious Eighth Route Army head-on.

Kojima Masao and his entourage hurriedly withdrew in the direction of Nantongpu Road, leaving behind a few plainclothes who had already blended into the village to continue their investigation. It wasn't until they were out of sight of the Eighth Route Army patrol that they found a place where the grass was very tall and lush.

Unexpectedly, they were shocked, and soon discovered a new situation.

Several female corpses, which had been frozen stiff, were strangely scattered around!

After observing that there was no abnormal movement in the front and back, Masao Kojima and a few of his subordinates cautiously approached the female corpses to see what was going on. The female corpses were obviously women, all of whom were very young, without exception, unclothed or even naked, and all of them had gunshot wounds or knife wounds on their bodies. The experienced head of the secret service and his subordinates quickly recognized that the gunshot wounds were all caused by the Type 38 rifles and bayonets used by the Imperial Army.

Several people looked at each other without words, but they were already clear in their hearts. Judging from the route, this is the wilderness from Xiping Village to Nantongpu Road, and the wheel prints of Japanese-style 94 trucks are still faintly visible on the residual snow. A few days ago, the Tyumen Infantry Brigade took a truck from Wencheng to complete a night attack on Xiping Village. It can be speculated that after the night attack, the Tyumen brigade ransacked the village of Xiping, perhaps because they were in a hurry to return because of military affairs, and they did not have time to enjoy themselves slowly in the village, so they plundered these women in a hurry to vent their desires on the return truck, and then killed people and killed their corpses in the wilderness.

One of Kojima's subordinates stepped on the buttocks of one of the female corpses with his feet in cotton shoes, and a lewd smile appeared on the corner of his mouth: "These soldiers, after fighting all night, actually have the strength to play with women." ”

The rest of the people laughed heartily and began to talk lightly.

But the head of the secret service did not speak. His mind was stimulated by this unexpected situation, and a new idea suddenly came to him: he had always been worried about the secret recruitment of comfort women in the city of Bunjo, believing that once it was carried out on a large scale in densely populated residential areas, it would be easy to expose the horse's feet and create panic among the citizens, and then turn secrecy into empty talk.

However, if it were carried out in a village outside the town, the adverse effects would be much reduced. He remembered the sparsely scattered houses on both sides of the Nantongpu Road railway line; In addition, walking from Nantongpu Road to the area of Guanmen Mountain, there are also many scattered households in the wasteland along the way.

If the situation of these scattered households is clearly investigated, and the women of China are the targets of the conscription of comfort women, wouldn't the risk of revealing the news be minimized?

While thinking about it, Kojima Masao's eyes began to look at the naked bodies of the women in front of him again, it seemed that their bodies were very full and graceful, and one or two faces could even be called beautiful. It can be said that it is not inferior to the fashionable women in Wencheng City.

It's definitely a great idea! It should be reported to Major General Hagiwara Brigade Commander immediately, and let the impostor Nakazuo in the Songjiagou comfort women's secret camp start to revise the "Wind Plan"!