Almost at the same time as sending off the senior staff of the General Staff Headquarters from Tokyo, the headquarters of the North China Front in Beiping was also preparing a plan for a second full-scale offensive in Shanxi.

At present, Rehe, Chahar, and Suiyuan are all in the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army, which makes these areas perfectly bordering the Manchurian Empire and becoming a solid rear for the conquest of China.

However, there are still shortcomings in perfection, and that is Shanxi.

After the Battle of Taiyuan, the remnants of the Chinese army carried out a general retreat all the way to the west and south, but did not withdraw from the Shanxi boundary. Yan Xishan's Jin Sui army retreated to the southwest and west of Jin, relying on the Yellow River to entrench along the Yellow River, Wei Lihuang's central army, retreated to the south of Jin, and was stationed along the Nantongpu Road.

According to the intelligence summary of the head of the Taiyuan secret service, the Chinese army is still in Shanxi, with no less than 200,000 troops, and a new intelligence shows that the Eighth Route Army (18th Group Army) led by Yan'an is quietly dividing its troops to seize land in Shanxi, and its army is far from being a few divisions when it crossed the Yellow River.

The North China Front Command felt the need to launch a new offensive in Shanxi, with the goal of expelling Yan Xishan from Shanxi Province and nipping the expansion of the Eighth Route Army in the bud. At the same time, the camera attacked the base camp of the Eighth Route Army in Yan'an, on the other side of the Yellow River.

The North China Front Army Command decided to use the strength of the two divisions currently stationed in Shanxi to focus on attacking the western part of Shanxi, and at the same time send a part of its troops to advance to southern Shanxi along the Tongpu railway line. In addition, considering that the strength of the two divisions may not be enough, the Kwantung Army was asked to garrison the harem division north of Datong to assist in sweeping the Zhina Army in the north of Jin.

This offensive also had the effect of covering the Otsuka Wing of the Sena Division, which had already attacked the central and southern Jin Dynasty alone, so that its action of establishing a secret camp for comfort women would not be so prominent, so as to hide people's eyes and ears.

At present, the two divisions of the North China Front Army stationed in Shanxi are deployed as follows:

The Sena Division, under the jurisdiction of the Hagiwara Brigade and the Kato Brigade, a total of four wings. The two wings of the Hagiwara Brigade were stationed along the Tongpu Railway, the Saijo Wing was in Taigu, and the other was the Otsuka Wing in Junling; The two wings of the Kato Brigade were stationed in Jiaocheng, Qingxu and other places southwest of Taiyuan, and the headquarters of the Kato Brigade was located in Jiaocheng. The headquarters of the Sena Division and the Hagiwara Brigade Headquarters were temporarily located in Taiyuan, and once a new attack was launched on Jinnan, the division headquarters and brigade headquarters would move forward with the main force.

The Shangang Division, under the jurisdiction of the Guteng Brigade and the Benchuan Brigade, is stationed in Taiyuan, Yuci, and Xiyang, the division headquarters is located in Taiyuan, the Guteng Brigade Headquarters is in Yuci, and the Honchuan Brigade Headquarters is in Xiyang. Among them, the Benchuan Brigade was seconded to the Shandong battlefield last year, and it was only transferred back to Shanxi at the beginning of this year.

These two divisions were both Shanxi that attacked from the direction of Niangzi Pass in October last year; At that time, the Itagaki Division of the North China Front Army and the Kwantung Army were fighting hard with the Chinese army in the direction of Xinkou, and the Sena Division and the Shanoka Division suddenly penetrated the Niangzi Pass, which was equivalent to inserting Yan Xishan from the ribs with two knives, which directly led to the collapse of the Chinese front in the Battle of Xinkou, and quickly lost the provincial capital Taiyuan.

After the Battle of Taiyuan, in order to cooperate with the offensive in the southern battlefield, the North China Front transferred the main force to attack the southern part of Hebei and the entire territory of Shandong, while the Sena Division and the Taniteng Brigade of the Shangang Division remained in Shanxi and garrisoned Tun.

In addition to the two divisions and regiments subordinate to the North China Front, during October last year, the Kwantung Army also reorganized the 11th Brigade and Regiment, which had originally cooperated with the North China Front in combat, into a division, with the division commander being Lieutenant General Harem Chun, and the division headquarters located in Datong in Shanxi, responsible for garrisoning northern Shanxi and along the Pingsui Railway, and seizing and occupying Suiyuan.

In this way, at the beginning of February 1938, the Japanese army had a total of 3 divisions stationed in Shanxi. Accordingly, the second offensive plan drawn up by the North China Front Command was preliminarily drawn up as follows:

The Shangang Division, with all of the Guteng Brigade and one of the Benchuan Brigade, marched from Taiyuan to the northwest of Shanxi, purging the base areas recently established by the Eighth Route Army of China along the way, with the ultimate goal of attacking Yan Xishan's cavalry corps along the Yellow River in the northwest of Shanxi. The other part of the Benchuan Brigade stayed on the front line of Xiyang, Yuci, and Taiyuan.

Sena's division was divided into two routes: after the Kato Brigade was all assembled in Jiaocheng, it marched westward along the road from Jiaocheng to Fenyang to attack the main force of Yan Xishan's Jin Sui Army in the areas of Lishi, Zhongyang, Shilou, and Xixian; The Saijo Wing of the Hagiwara Brigade marched south along the Tongpu Railway Line from Taigu and attacked Lingshi, Hongdong, and Linfen, the headquarters of the Second Theater Commander of Yan Xishan, in turn. The Otsuka Wing of the Hagiwara Brigade has another appointment.

The harem division stationed in Datong sent a force to respond to and cooperate with the Shangang division to attack the Yan Xishan cavalry army on the bank of the Yellow River in northern Shanxi.

From now on, all divisions and regiments will begin to deploy the offensive and strive to launch it in Shanxi in an all-round way by mid-February.

At the same time, the headquarters of the Sena Division reported to the North China Front Headquarters in Beiping a plan to establish a secret camp for comfort women in Songjiagou, in the mountainous area of southern Jinnan (between Fengdian and Wencheng). The troops dispatched were the Otsuka Infantry Wing of the Hagiwara Brigade, and the division reinforced its artillery, cavalry, engineer and other special forces units to fully implement the plan. In this regard, the headquarters quickly approved it and reported it to the local Tokyo General Staff Headquarters, and encouraged the Otsuka Wing to complete the deadline.

……

For reasons of secrecy, when Sena Division's order to the Otsuka Wing through the commander of the Hagiwara Brigade only mentioned the immediate attack and occupation of Toyden and Bunjo, it did not disclose the contents of the comfort women's secret camp. Fortunately, the second full-scale attack on Shanxi will also be carried out soon, and Major General Hagiwara Akira declared to Otsuka: Your unit, as the vanguard of this all-out attack on Shanxi, will launch an offensive in advance.

Kosuke Otsuka is certainly convinced.

During the two months of silence in Shanxi, Otsuka watched other divisions of the front army fighting and conquering cities in Shandong and Hebei (some were seconded to Central China), and his eyes were extremely hot. Now, the war is finally going to be restarted in Shanxi, and the person who started it is him Kosuke Otsuka. For this, Dazuo was deeply proud and excited.

But right now, Otsuka's pride and excitement have almost disappeared due to setbacks outside Fengdian City.

At this moment, in the field tent, Yasuke Otsuka looked at his three subordinates with a gloomy face: two infantry captains and one field artillery captain, their expressions were all confused. Obviously, throughout the day, the desperate resistance of the army from the head of Fengdian City also made these young people, who had always been arrogant, feel tricky.

Ozawa Shosa, the captain of the 1st Field Artillery Brigade of the Sena Division's Field Artillery Wing, was emotionally more relaxed than the two infantry captains, after all, his brigade had no casualties, and the shooters behaved professionally during the two fire strikes on the castle, and Otsuka Daisa, who was very satisfied, even promised that after the city was breached, the field artillery brigade could choose women and possessions before the infantry and cavalry.

"Dazuo," Ozawa Shaosa said, "our brigade has sufficient artillery bases, and in view of the stubborn resistance of the Chinese army, I propose to increase the intensity of artillery bombardment, first, to effectively kill its soldiers, and second, to continue to expand the gap in the city wall and increase the difficulty of the defenders to block the gap." ”

Kosuke Otsuka watched Ozawa speak, but remained silent. This made Ozawa Shaozo feel a little worried: After all, the field artillery brigade is temporarily assigned to the Otsuka Wing by the division and regiment, and in today's attack, the infantry brigade of the wing lost its troops, and as a "guest army", should it not appear too sharp?

Unexpectedly, Kosuke Otsuka suddenly spoke: "Ozawa-kun, if you concentrate field artillery firepower and bombard the opposite city gate tower and city gate hole, can you be safe in terms of infantry and artillery coordination?" ”

Ozawa Shaozo was stunned for a moment, and asked hesitantly: "What does Ozawa mean is that I want me to knock out the defenders' firepower points around the city gate at the moment before the infantry charges?" ”

Kosuke Otsuka waved his hand vigorously: "No! Tomorrow, I want you to quickly destroy the defenders on the city gate tower and knock out the heavy machine guns in the city gate hole while the infantry charge close to the city! So that before the Chinese soldiers had time to fill and replenish the fire again, the infantry brigade was able to storm the city gate and occupy it! ”

Ozawa and the two infantry captains were all shocked: they understood that the wing captain was preparing to make a dangerous move, "coordinate" the infantry charge and the artillery fire to the extreme, either the timing was accurate and the attack was successful, or the shells hit the heads of the charging soldiers and killed each other!