At the garrison of the 391st Regiment of the Central Army in the Great Elm Mountain, Xia Lianshan, the commander of the cavalry company of the Second Battalion of the Eighth Route Army's Forest Division, was rapidly improving his injuries.

After several bloody battles against the night attack, at this moment, the cavalry company of the Eighth Route Army in the Xiaozhai regiment headquarters of the 391st Regiment had only 27 people left, including the company commander, and half of them were wounded. However, all the cavalry retained all their equipment, including war horses, cavalry spears, and sabers.

This amazed Qin Zhongxiao, the commander of the 391st Regiment of the Central Army, and Zhang Hong, the chief of staff, who temporarily accepted them. Previously, Qin Zhongxiao had vaguely heard Wu Zijian, the deputy commander of the second battalion of the Lin Division, say that there was a cavalry company in the second battalion that was being reorganized. Now seeing is believing, the colonel of the Central Army can't help but be in awe - under the fierce defeat, the surviving cavalry are all fully equipped and have not been discarded, and this alone is enough to confirm the high military quality of this cavalry company.

How did Qin Zhongxiao know that in order to form this cavalry company, the second battalion of the Lin Division except for absorbing a small number of officers and soldiers who could originally ride horses, the rest were mostly elites drawn from the infantry of each company to train cavalry and archery; And those who survived the brutal baptism of the anti-night attack battle are undoubtedly veterans who have experienced a hundred battles.

"Tuanzao must have known that their cavalry instructor turned out to be a prisoner of war from the puppet Mongolian cavalry regiment!" Chief of Staff Zhang Hong said to Qin Zhongxiao in disbelief: "It's a shame that they can think of these eight ways!" ”

Qin Zhongxiao didn't answer this question, but stared at his chief of staff, and said meaningfully: "The puppet Mongolian army, not only has it been cleaned up by the Eighth Route Army, the puppet Mongolian army and equipment captured by our 391st Regiment last time in the north of Fengdian City should be no less than that of the Eighth Route Army, right?" ”

Zhang Hong was stunned and didn't understand the meaning of the group. Qin Zhongxiao shook his head and continued:

"But we let the prisoners go, and most of the captured horses were sold to the people in the mountains, and they were exchanged for food and clothing—why didn't the 391st Regiment consider forming a cavalry company from the captured horses? We can also use the cavalry captives of the puppet Mongolian army as instructors! ”

The chief of staff moved in his heart, pondering the connotation of the words of the colonel of the Central Army, which clearly meant self-blame and blame him as the chief of staff.

"Uh...... "Our regiment is stationed in the deep mountains of the Great Elm Mountain, and the road in and out is rugged, which is not suitable for the cavalry; But the Eighth Route Army was different, they were camped at the foot of Guanmen Mountain, with their backs to the mountains, but in front of them were a flat river, suitable for cavalry combat. ”

The colonel of the Central Army still shook his head gently, but did not speak again.

"Also, Tuanza, you have seen it with your own eyes, it is precisely because we used the horses of the puppet Mongolian army to exchange supplies from the common people that we solved the survival dilemma of the troops; Otherwise, it is unknown whether the 391st Regiment will survive this winter. ”

It's not such an explanation - Qin Zhongxiao secretly sighed in his heart: It's right to exchange horses for supplies, but even if the 391st Regiment does not form a cavalry company like the Eighth Route Army, but only a cavalry platoon, it is good! It seems that it is not for nothing that the principal and the chairman of the committee have been fighting with the Communist army for so many years and have not been able to completely exterminate it, and there are indeed masters in the other party's ranks!

Qin Zhongxiao personally visited the cavalry company commander of the second battalion of the Lin Division several times and instructed the military doctor of the regimental headquarters medical team to give the best treatment. From Xia Lianshan's mouth, he learned the general situation of the battle of the second battalion of the forest division against the night attack. However, to the surprise of the colonel of the Central Army, the latest time, the commander of the Xia Company, who had completely recovered his sanity, actually asked him about the affairs in Fengdian City, and asked him and his subordinates if they knew a woman named Xia Lily who married there when they were stationed in Fengdian, and that was his sister!

It was precisely because of the other party's question that Qin Zhongxiao suddenly realized that the face of the commander of the cavalry company of the Eighth Route Army was very similar to the wife of the landlord Wang who borrowed the residential courtyard in Fengdian as the regimental headquarters! Immediately afterwards, he remembered that the wife of the landlord Wang had talked to him about her that she had a younger brother who was in the Red Army in Yan'an, Shaanxi!

Qin Zhongxiao's heartbeat quickened a little, the commander of the cavalry company of the Eighth Route Army was surnamed Xia, as if the wife of the king's shopkeeper was also surnamed Xia. Don't? ——

Suddenly, the colonel of the Central Army recalled a tragedy: On the day when the Otsuka Wing broke through Fengdian County, Shopkeeper Wang was thrown into the courtyard by a Japanese soldier almost in front of the officers and soldiers of the 391st Regiment, and half of his head was blown off! And his wife, his wife!

Zhao Mutou, the commander of the spy company under his command, had a deep relationship with the maid of Mrs. Wang, which was known to the entire regiment headquarters when the 391st Regiment was still stationed in Fengdian. It was Zhao Mutou himself, after sneaking back to Fengdian, which was looted by the Japanese army, that he learned of the tragic fate of Mrs. Wang's shopkeeper. Is the beautiful hostess who was ruined to death by the Japanese soldiers really the commander of the cavalry company of the Eighth Route Army in front of her and her brother and sister? O iniquity!

The colonel of the Central Army always believed that the loss of Fengdian and the destruction of the people by the Japanese army were his own grave sins and the sins of the 391st Regiment's failure to defend the territory. Now, there is another sin that condemns one's conscience!

Qin Zhongxiao didn't dare to tell the truth, he could almost conclude that the wife of the shopkeeper of Fengdian Wang was the sister of the company commander Xia Lianshan in front of him. He pretended to shirk that he didn't know the woman mentioned by Xia Lianshan, but fortunately, the company commander of the Eighth Route Army who arrived in northern Shaanxi very early didn't know what the surname of the family his sister married was, and according to folk customs, after Xia Baihe married into the shopkeeper's house, her name in her mother's house was basically gone, and she was called Mrs. Wang to the outside world. This made the other officers and soldiers of the regiment who borrowed the king's shopkeeper's mansion not know the name Xia Lily.

But Zhao Mutou, this kid knows it all! He even ignored the military order and ordered a soldier of the special service company to escort his sweetheart, who was the maid of the king's shopkeeper's wife, back to his hometown in Pingquan County, southern Jin.

Qin Zhongxiao thought bitterly, and finally cowardly decided that in the future, it would be better for his spy company commander to find an opportunity to explain everything to Xia Lianshan clearly. This kid is still in Wencheng at the moment - he just received a telegram from Major Wang of the Shanxi Station of the Military Commander, saying that Zhao Mutou, the commander of the spy company seconded to her, and his party made meritorious contributions in the first battle, and made a big fuss about the establishment of the Wencheng Pseudo Security Maintenance Association, and got rid of a group of traitors, including the puppet maintenance chairman.

However, fate seems to have driven this colonel of the Central Army into a dead end. Just after Qin Zhongxiao fled from Xia Lianshan's sickbed, the chief of staff came to see him with a person, and that person was none other than Zhao Mutou's subordinates: the soldiers of the spy company who escorted the wife and maid of the shopkeeper Wang back to his hometown in Jinnan!

Qin Zhongxiao simply had a feeling of being alive and dead.

Regarding the behavior of the special agent company commander who arranged for one of his subordinates to leave the team and escort his sweetheart out of danger during the secret reconnaissance mission in Fengdian, Qin Zhongxiao had already announced his dismissal after quietly scolding. The colonel of the Central Army did this, really out of the uneasiness of his conscience, and it was clear that if he hadn't been able to defend Fengdian County, he would not have suffered such a tragic end if he had contributed the house to the Wang shopkeeper of the 391st Regiment Headquarters. And the maid of the Wang family's wife can be regarded as the blood and bones of the Xia Lily family, and should be protected.

However, the soldiers who were sent away by Zhao Mutou did not come back sooner or later, but they ran back at this juncture, saying that they had sent the maid of the Wang family named Sun Nier safely to the Xia family's hometown in Pingquan County in accordance with the order. For a while, Qin Zhongxiao felt that there was a force in the dark that was controlling all this.

He first briefly revealed these internal information to Zhang Hong, chief of staff who was present, and told the chief of staff and the soldiers of this special service company not to make a public announcement, and to wait for the cavalry company commander of the second battalion of the Lin Division to recover from his injuries and wait for Zhao Mutou to return from the special mission of the military command, and then the two company commanders of the Central Army and the Eighth Route Army, who have a close relationship, will communicate on their own.

However, the next report of the soldiers of the special service company surprised the two military commanders of the 391st Regiment: The main force of the 12th Independent Brigade of the Jin Army is currently stationed in Pingquan County, including the 570th Regiment of the 12th Independent Brigade that has been mixed with the 391st Regiment in Fengdian for more than two months!

"I saw their Tian Tuan Leader in the county seat!" Zhao Mutou's subordinates snorted angrily and reported: "That dog is still riding a high-headed horse, swaying on the streets of Pingquan County!" ”

The 570th Regiment of the 12th Independent Brigade of the Jin Army, at the critical juncture when the Japanese Otsuka Wing attacked Fengdian City, was personally led by the regiment commander Tian Mingda and abandoned the city to escape, which indirectly caused the loss of Fengdian, which was gritted by the officers and soldiers of the 391st Regiment of the Central Army to this day. And later, the domestic news media also reported the atrocities of the Japanese army's Fengdian massacre, and criticized the soldiers of Yan Xishan, who had escaped from the battle, and Qin Zhongxiao learned about it by listening to the radio waves of the Hankou radio station.

"So, the 12th Brigade of the dog day didn't escape to the edge of the sky!" Zhang Hong scolded while spreading out a military map on the table: "Pingquan County, an important town in southern Jinnan, is only a hundred miles away from Fengdian in a straight line. If you count from the second battalion of the Eighth Route Army Forest Division in Guanmen Mountain, it is only more than 70 miles. Chief Yan and Chief Wei should know their whereabouts. ”

Qin Zhongxiao also seconded the proposal indignantly: "The escape of the 570th Regiment is actually no different from treason, is the second war zone really so ignorant?" ”

The soldier of the special service company recounted in detail what he had seen and heard in Pingquan County, saying that the current 12th Brigade of the Jin Army still has more than half of the troops, and the numbers of the two regiments: the 569th Regiment and the 570th Regiment are both there, and they are guarding the north and south halves of Pingquan County respectively. According to the local people, the military discipline of the 12th Independent Brigade was very bad, and when it had just fled from Tongpu Road, the brigade commander and regiment commander once robbed the people of things to supplement military salaries, grain and grass. Later, they decided to stay for a long time, and they gradually relented.

Grandma's!

Qin Zhongxiao slapped the table and scolded angrily.