It was one of their machine guns that saved the fate of this Japanese infantry squad.

Just as the officers and men of the 391st Regiment of the Central Army were like wolves and tigers, holding their rifles with bayonets and rushing closer and closer, a machine gun fired directly in front of them. It was one of the three machine guns of this Japanese infantry squad, a Type 96. As he was leaving, the Heavy ran desperately to the nearest truck, which was reversing along the road, and the Heavy climbed into the compartment, and the co-shooter and the ammunition driver put the machine gun on the roof of the truck's cab and opened heavy fire. This angle is condescending, the shooting range is wide, and it can also effectively prevent accidental injury to one's own people when strafing on flat ground. The officers and men of the 1st Battalion of the 391st Regiment, which was charging vigorously, were frantically suppressed by this Type 96 machine gun, and more than a dozen people in the front row were knocked to the ground one after another, and the forward momentum was suddenly frustrated.

Nomura Shaosa, who had been struggling to command and support the defensive line, finally won a precious respite. They continued to fight and retreat, taking advantage of the cover of machine-gun fire above their heads, and gradually opened up the distance between them and the forward of the first battalion of the 391st Regiment. It was at this time that Nomura Shaosa's rear team arrived.

Those were the other two squads of the infantry squadron, and instead of getting on the four trucks with limited space, they followed out of Fengdian County on foot. Their arrival happened to be under the re-formation of support in front of Nomura Shaosa, so the two squads quickly completed the tactical deployment, and several grenadiers began to calmly fire towards the enemy's charging formation, and the small * of the grenadiers exploded one after another among the officers and men of the first battalion of the 391st regiment, further damaging the morale of the first battalion of the strikers; The commander of the first battalion waved the short gun in his hand in anger and shouted, but he could only accept this situation of failure.

Considering the ferocity of the other party just now, and it was not clear whether there would be follow-ups behind this Chinese army, Nomura Shaoza decided to continue the retreat. It just so happened that the captain of the Otsuka United in the city replied to him with a walkie-talkie, asking him to save his strength, not to make too much contact and entanglement with the opponent before he found out the enemy's situation, and to fight and retreat along the highway to the north gate of the county. The Wing Commander will consider whether to send a second infantry squadron out of the city to meet them, as appropriate. With this explanation from Shangfeng, Nomura Shaosa became more and more determined to command the team to retreat steadily. He noticed that the pursuit of the opposing army had also slowed down significantly, but it was still advancing forward for the camp step by step.

Qin Zhongxiao learned from the report of the first battalion commander that there were Japanese troops and artillery in the front, and the battle turned white-hot. His heart was tight, and he immediately decided to go to the front line to observe the battle situation. On the way forward, Qin Zhongxiao had already heard an earth-shattering explosion directly ahead; His lieutenant resolutely stopped him from moving forward, saying that it would be very dangerous to be bombarded by the enemy in this unsheltered wilderness. But Qin Zhongxiao couldn't care about this much, he ordered the adjutant to get out of the way, and insisted on running to the position commanded by the commander of the first battalion. And by that time, the fiercest part of the battle had passed, and the two armies had reopened the distance of nearly a mile in front of the formation.

On the way forward, the colonel of the Central Army also found the Krupp mountain gun that had been blown up a little crooked, and the commander of the machine gun company who was shaken by the shock. The company commander told him that he was fine, but he was thrown on the side of the road by the air wave of the enemy's shells, and he was in a trance, and he would get better in a while. The artillerymen who operated the Krupp Mountain Gun told their regimental commander that the gun body and the chamber were not damaged, mainly because the bearing of one of the wheels on the left side of the gun carriage had been blown and twisted, and it was very difficult to push it forward.

Of course, Qin Zhongxiao knew the importance of this mountain cannon to the fate of the 391st Regiment at this moment, so when he left, he specially told the people of the machine gun company to say a few words. Now, witnessing the grenadiers constantly flying out from the camp of the Japanese army fighting and retreating, Qin Zhongxiao couldn't help frowning, and he scanned the enemy's position with a telescope, especially focusing on several Japanese trucks driving backwards along the road.

"Look, the devil's cannon is no longer fighting!" The commander of the first battalion also glanced at the opposite side with a telescope and said to Qin Zhongxiao, who was standing side by side.

"What kind of cannon is the little devil?" Qin Zhongxiao asked.

"I saw the 92 infantry guns and two mortars, and I guess they are all hiding in the direction of the truck now."

"We can't let the little devils set up artillery anymore, and before our Krupp pushes it up, we must continue to shorten the distance between the two armies and not give the Japanese a chance to bombard. Tell your light machine gunners to beware of the grenadiers of the little devils, who specialize in machine guns! ”

The colonel of the Central Army pointed to the western foot of the Great Elm Mountain, which is relatively adjacent to the road, and ordered the commander of the first battalion to transfer two platoons to launch a surprise attack from the flank along the roots of the Great Elm Mountain to the Japanese camp on both sides of the road, distracting the opponent's attention and firepower. In particular, the grenadier was now a serious frontal threat to the 1st battalion, while the grenadier was more difficult to hit on the side targets, and it was even more difficult to hit targets covered by the mountain roots.

Qin Zhongxiao visually measured the location of the road and the foothills in front of him, and asked the adjutant to take out the map to confirm it, and found that he only needed to advance another three or four miles, and he would arrive at the mountain pass near the road in the Great Elm Mountain! Once you occupy the pass, you will be invincible.

When the battle on this road in the mountains was raging, the leaders of the Japanese army were also nervously communicating and negotiating between several cities outside the mountains. Since Junling County, which was first shelled, belonged to the defense area of the Shangang Division, the first to receive the report was the headquarters of the Shangang Division in Taiyuan. It was only when the garrison Japanese troops in Junling County discovered that this group of civilian armed forces had rushed onto the road leading to Fengdian County, that they reported the situation to the defense area of Lai Ming's division.

At first, the Japanese soldiers in Fengdian did not think that this group of civilian armed forces dressed in ordinary people's clothes would really attack Fengdian, which was nearly a hundred miles away. Now that the battle has started outside the city, Kosuke Otsuka, who is sitting in the county seat of Fengdian, has only reported to the brigade commander of Wencheng.

Bunjo, Major General Hagiwara in the brigade headquarters looked at the wide map, and was a little stunned for a moment: what kind of army is this, and where did it come from? (He had already learned from Fengdian's report that the attackers should be regular troops) They unexpectedly appeared in the hinterland of the imperial army's defense area in the Jinzhong area, which had been controlled by the imperial army, and no formed Chinese army was found; It is precisely because of this that when the fighting at the north and south ends of the mountain was tight, the hinterland with Taiyuan as the core did not retain more troops, but only symbolically stationed small garrisons in the county towns at several important nodes, and the rest went to the front line.

Hagiwara Akira's gaze shifted to the northeast and west of Jin on the map—at the moment, if the ranks of the Shina Army could appear near Taiyuan, only the Eighth Route Army's Lin Division Xu Brigade in the northeast of Jin, and Fu Zuoyi's 35th Army in the west of Jin. However, if the people of the Lin Division Xu Brigade wanted to go out to Taiyuan, they would have to pass through the Zhengtai Line, where the troops of the Shangang Division were guarding, and it was impossible to know nothing about it. As for Fu Zuoyi's 35th Army, it is now being encircled and suppressed by another wing of the Shangang Division, and it is impossible for it to flow to the area of Junling County.

What made the brigade commander of the Japanese army feel most puzzling was that this group of regular troops dressed in the costumes of the people of China had just launched an artillery bombardment of Junling County, and then they went to great lengths along the road from Junling to Fengdian and appeared near Fengdian. What exactly are they trying to do? The garrison of Junling claimed that this army numbered about a few hundred people: a few hundred troops, and it would be tantamount to a fool's dream to attack a county town. Thinking of this, Hagiwara Akira dialed Toyoten's phone again.

Kosuke Otsuka, in the city of Toyodian County, felt inexplicably nervous. After Nomura Shaoza led the team out of the city, a battle report came, and after only one round of head-to-head confrontation with this Chinese army, the Mongolian army began to rout (bastard, it should be killed!). ), along with the infantry squads of the Imperial Army, were forced to retreat. After that, although reinforcements arrived, the offensive momentum of the Shina Army was still fierce, and Nomura was directing the troops to retreat in the direction of the county seat. Kosuke Otsuka felt a burst of heat, this mysterious weapon that came to scold the criminals actually had strong combat effectiveness, which greatly surprised him; He was willing to send another squadron of infantry to support Nomura, but after much deliberation, he decided to give up: after all, the number of invading enemies was unknown. If too many troops are invested in dealing with them, I am afraid that the 391st Regiment of the Central Army in the Great Elm Mountain will take advantage of the situation.

It's just that the wing commander of the Japanese army never dreamed that it was the 391st Regiment of the Central Army in the Great Elm Mountain that was beating his captain back and forth.

"Please don't worry about it, general," Kosuke Otsuka had already made up his mind when he picked up Akira Hagiwara's call from Fumijo: "Our department will temporarily release the enemy army outside the northern part of the county town in order to further observe the true intentions of this Chinese army." I guess they won't dare to attack the city. As long as I survey and find out their number, I will first use the condescending fortifications at the head of the city to launch an artillery strike. Outside the northern city is an open wilderness, as long as the army dares to invade the city, it will be ruthlessly annihilated by our artillery fire! ”

On the other end of the phone, the brigade commander, Major General Major, listened to Otsuka's operational arrangements, and at the same time made a decision in his heart: If this invading enemy force clearly launched an attack on Fengdian County, it was not ruled out that he was ready to send a squadron or so from Wencheng's side to ride out of the northern foot of Little Elm Mountain and outflank it from behind—in short, on the premise of ensuring that the comfort women camp in Little Elm Mountain was not threatened, try to annihilate this mysterious wandering enemy!