Songjiagou Station in Little Elm Mountain.

The commander of the comfort women's secret camp and the commander of the gendarmerie of the Sena Division, Hirai Terai Daichi, was at his team headquarters to receive two important members who had suddenly arrived -- Major General Akira Hagiwara, brigade commander of the Sena Division, and Masao Kojima, head of the Bunjo secret service.

Previously, Hirai Teriichi had already led Akira Hagiwara and Masao Kojima to visit the comfort women barracks in the camp.

More than ten zhang away behind the platform of Songjiagou Station, on an open field, a three-acre square camp was enclosed with barbed wire and wooden piles, and the gate towards the station platform was also made of barbed wire and wooden piles; At the gate, eight Japanese soldiers dressed in gendarmerie uniforms stood guard with loaded guns; Outside the barbed wire fence, several groups of gendarmes patrolled the camp, two of them carrying German shepherds.

In the barbed wire fence camp, there were three rows of barracks made mainly of wood, each with thirteen small rooms; The three rows of barracks had a total of thirty-nine small rooms. In the aisle between the three rows of barracks, there are also military police patrols.

The style of the barracks is characteristic of Japanese wooden houses, with a floor edge at the door of the room, a pull-type door, and a small wooden lantern hanging under the eaves above each door.

This solemn and murderous atmosphere reveals a hint of ambiguity, and the seemingly nondescript camp is the comfort women secret camp. Thirty-eight innocent Chinese women secretly forcibly recruited from Taiyuan are now being forcibly placed in small rooms in this barracks.

Hagiwara and Kojima noticed that some of the rooms were covered with drawings of various items, including movie posters drawn by Mantetsu in Japan, ladies from the Edo period, and even geisha posters apparently from Tokyo. These were collected from Beiping by Major General Suzuki, a senior staff member of the North China Front Headquarters, and brought to Taiyuan not long ago, which shows the degree of concern of the front army for the establishment of a secret camp for comfort women, and even such details have been taken into account.

And at this noon, the reason why Hagiwara Akira and Kojima Masao suddenly rode from Wencheng to Songjiagou was precisely because of a secret telegram just sent by the North China Front Headquarters, which was sent directly to the commander of the Sena Division and the commander of the Hagiwara Brigade, and the message was as follows:

"The main forces of the front army decided to attack Xuzhou from the point of view of self-defense; At present, the Second Army has given the order to attack and advance to the Grand Canal, and the First Army, after capturing Qingdao and Zou County, is engaged in battle with the Chinese Army near Zhucheng and Liangxiadian.

In order to ensure military discipline and the morale of the officers and men fighting on the front line, your department will step up the implementation of the content of the "Wind Plan", and from now on, clean up the public order along the Zhengtai Road and Shanxi, listen to orders at any time, and send the Fengzi army to Hebei, and the front army will send troops to respond. ”

This encrypted telegram is not long, but it is rich in content.

In late February 1938, General Terauchi Shouichi, commander of the North China Front of the Japanese invasion of China, disregarded the ban of the local base camp and the general staff headquarters, arbitrarily decided to continue to expand the war situation, and ordered the Second Army under his jurisdiction (Itagaki Division and Isogu Division) to form an advance detachment and march to Xuzhou near the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in Shandong.

At this time, the North China Front Command thought of sending the newly formed comfort women team to the Shandong front line and coming in handy, so the Miden Se Division was ready to transport the comfort women. The transshipment route was set as the Zhengtai Railway from Taiyuan to Hebei, and the Sena Division ensured the safety of Zhengtai Road in Shanxi, and the North China Front Army sent troops to meet in Hebei, and then transported from Hebei to Shandong.

For the sake of secrecy, the text of the secret telegram does not mention the word comfort women, and the so-called "Fengzi Military Train", that is, the special train that specifically refers to the transport of comfort women, is currently quietly parked next to the platform of Songjiagou Station, and the windows of three of the carriages have been changed from wooden seals to all iron plates.

Since the commander of the division, Masaki Sena, was now personally directing the Kato Brigade to attack the Tongpu Road in Jinnan, Lieutenant General Sena forwarded the secret telegram from the front headquarters to Major General Hagiwara Akira, who was sitting in Wencheng.

In the entire Songjiagou, only the military police captain Hirai Teraichi knew the full contents of the "Wind Plan", and as for the 150 people under his command, before today, they had only participated in the secret trapping and escorting of these 38 women, but they did not know the true purpose of detaining these women.

Of course, after arriving at Songjiagou, the men of the gendarmerie saw the three rows of barracks in the barbed wire, which had been urgently erected by an engineer squadron of the division, and they were strange, secretive, and indescribable, and even reminded many of them of their home in the homeland. And when the women who were escorted all the way were put into the small rooms in the barracks one by one, and then examined the decoration inside and outside the barracks, some clever gendarmes realized the implications, and the gendarmerie began to quietly circulate rumors about military prostitutes.

When Hirai heard the rumors at first, they tried to ban it, because both His Excellency the Brigade Commander and the annoying Secret Service Commander had repeatedly ordered that the absolute secrecy of the comfort women must be kept. However, the captain of the gendarmerie, standing in front of the rows of barracks where the comfort women were being held, did realize that the truth could not be concealed. Let's just let these subordinates whisper, anyway, they can't do without the "one acre and three points of land" of Songjiagou Station and the secret camp.

At this moment, His Excellency, the brigade commander who suddenly arrived, after inspecting the secret barracks, issued a new order in his gendarmerie headquarters:

"Shaozuo, starting today, order your subordinates to hold actual combat drills with these comfort women!"

Hirai Temple was stunned one by one, and Lizheng asked:

"General, is it a real combat drill for transferring escorts?"

Unexpectedly, Hagiwara didn't answer, but a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth; Masao Kojima, who was on the side, spoke for the brigade commander:

"It's a blitzkrieg drill!"

The head of the secret service also showed a rare smile when he said "a surprise attack." Suddenly, Hirai Temple understood.

"You must know that these women in China are about to face heavy work on the front line, and I am afraid that they will not be able to face and adapt to it without rehearsals in advance." Hagiwara added.

"General, actually, these women were already soldiers of the Imperial Army when they were in Taiyuan—" Hirai Teraichi explained, but his words were interrupted by Masao Kojima:

"That's different, Mr. Captain! The intensity of the work they are about to face is far from being comparable to the weathering incident they suffered in Taiyuan! ”

"I don't understand, please be specific." Hirai Teruichi once again showed dissatisfaction with the strength of the head of the secret service.

Hagiwara put away his smile, pondered for a moment, and said to the quartermaster-turned-gendarmerie captain:

"Shaozuo, do you know how many troops the Second Army of the Front Army has gathered on the Shandong front at the moment? Although this is still a military secret, I can still tell you that there are no less than two brigades! So do you know how many officers and soldiers were included in the two brigades? ”

Even if he came from a civilian background, Hirai Temple was able to answer this question: "I think it should be around 18,000 people, general!" ”

"That's peacetime, it's wartime! The two brigades of the horse-pulling system should reach about 25,000 people! It was still Masao Kojima who interjected, and his tone was still cold.

Hirai Terarichi bit his lower lip and said nothing.

"Twenty-five thousand, I'm not sure every one of them will have to receive comfort," Hagiwara's voice sounded much more gentle, "but if we assume that one out of every ten people will receive comfort, the total number will still be two thousand five hundred." However, Shao Zuo, your comfort women team is only 38 people, do you want to calculate how many imperial warriors each comfort woman has to face? ”

"I see, Your Excellency, Brigade Commander! I'm going to arrange for the members of the gendarmerie to conduct exercises with the comfort women! ”

"It's not just a drill," the annoying secret service chief began to speak again, "Let these comfort women of your country understand that they are facing the warriors of the Imperial Army - the front army command has preliminarily stipulated that only officers and soldiers who are brave and meritorious in front-line combat can receive this special reward - they must show cooperation, forbearance and warmth, and any resistance and perfunctory comfort behavior will be severely punished!" ”

There was a moment of silence in the gendarmerie headquarters, and all three men stopped talking. After a long time, Hirai Tezuna plucked up his courage again, avoided Kojima Masao's face, and said to the brigade commander:

"General, my subordinates should have figured out the contents of this wind plan after a surprise attack, so what you said earlier about keeping secrets, I'm afraid-"

"There's nothing to be afraid of!" The head of the secret service seemed to be determined to offend the gendarmerie captain in front of him: "Shaozuo, your people, it is a task to make a raid, and it is still a task to keep secrets!" No member of the gendarmerie shall reveal the core of the Wind Plan in places and units other than the gendarmerie! ”

"So, my gendarmerie is going to follow the comfort women to the front line of the Shandong combat troops?"

Hagiwara shook his head: "No, we are only responsible for the transportation and escort in Shanxi, and after entering Hebei along Zhengtai Road, we will hand it over to the front troops who came to meet us." You and your men return the way you are. ”

The brigade commander's answer relieved Hirai Terei, but the next words of Masao Kojima almost made the gendarmerie captain turn his back again.

"Mr. Captain, after handing over the current batch of comfort women to the front army, you and your subordinates will face a new task, that is, to continue to recruit new comfort women for the Imperial Army in Shanxi!"