Wu Zijian, deputy commander of the Second Battalion of the Eighth Route Army's Forest Division, is a resolute and resolute character, but whenever something is decided, he must immediately take action. At present, the southward advance team led by Xia Lianshan, commander of the cavalry company of the second battalion, has been mixed and formed, and Wu Zijian personally sent this team out of the end of Xiping Village. The ultimate goal of this task force is to go to Pingquan County in southern Jinnan, passing through more than a dozen large and small villages along the way, at which time the task force will explain to the villagers the situation of the War of Resistance Against Japan, publicize the anti-Japanese stand of the Eighth Route Army, encourage young and strong people to join the army, and try to establish a preliminary anti-Japanese joint defense information line between the villages.

The main force of this task force was 25 veterans of the cavalry company, and in addition, Zhang Xiu, the secretary of the battalion headquarters, two villagers from Hekou Village (both of whom were key members of the former Hekou Village Field Mobilization Committee), a squad of infantrymen, and three members of the enemy engineering team, formed the entire team. The cavalrymen had horses, and the rest traveled in three carriages.

Prior to this, Wei Xin, the commander of the 7th Company, felt a certain amount of worry about the team going deep into an unfamiliar area alone, especially when there were female soldiers accompanying her, and one of the two villagers was also a woman. He suggested that the forces of the accompanying infantry be strengthened to at least one platoon. However, Wu Zijian vetoed this, and the reason why the deputy battalion commander was full of confidence was that the members of the enemy engineering team had already felt the situation from that area and came back to report to him.

At present, the team brought out from Hongxing Gorge should not be too scattered, especially Xiping Village is facing a situation of being in ruins. Therefore, Wu Zijian decided to focus on restoring and rebuilding the defense system of Xiping Village, and this time he sent a team to infiltrate the south of Xiping Village, not to seek immediate success, but to cause some influence on the local people. Of course, the work team shoulders the important task of liaising with the 12th Brigade of the Jin Army.

When recuperating from his wounds in the small village of Da Yushu Mountain, Xia Lianshan, the commander of the cavalry company, learned the news that the 12th Brigade of the Jin Army had run to Pingquan County, and he had asked the people of the 391st Regiment a lot about the 12th Brigade of the Independent Army, but because they escaped from the battle in the defense of Fengdian, the officers and soldiers of the 391st Regiment did not have a good impression of this lonely brigade of the Jin Army, and what Xia Lianshan heard from their mouths was almost one-sided abuse.

However, Xia Lianshan, who is a child of the Three Jin Dynasty, still has a lot of closeness to the army in his heart. Last year, during the Battle of Northern Jin and the Battle of Xinkou, he participated in the battle with the Lin Division, and at that time he did not see or hear about the heroic performance of the Jin army, including the 196th Brigade of the 34th Army in the bloody attack of Yuanping Town, Lao County, and Major General Jiang Yuzhen, the brigade commander, was martyred; Chen Changjie's 61st Army's tragic attack and defense in Xinkou can also be called a shocking enemy crying ghosts and gods. Although the 12th Brigade did not participate in the war against Japan at that time, as a local soldier in Shanxi, it would not be forever ineffective when the Japanese invaders pressed the border! This time, the deputy battalion commander completed his family visit trip, and at the same time entrusted him with the task of contacting the 12th Brigade stationed in Pingquan, which made him particularly confident in the latter.

Until now, Xia Lianshan has not been able to find the whereabouts of his sister's family in Fengdian County. The Japanese troops garrisoned in Fengdian were becoming more and more cautious due to several attacks by the 391st Regiment of the Central Army and the 2nd Battalion of the Lin Division, not only strengthening the inventory at the city gate, but also becoming more rigorous in patrolling the county. At this time, Xia Lianshan suddenly gave birth to a new hope, that is, my sister's family may have moved back to Pingquan County long before the Japanese army attacked Fengdian, maybe they can see them when they return to their hometown this time!

The deputy battalion commander demanded that the team led by him stop at least half a day at every relatively large village along the way, so that Zhang Xiu and his team could carry out propaganda and agitation work. At this rate, they would arrive in two or three days at Pingquan County, seventy miles away. During this period, there is no need to rush to the road, and the work must be done solidly.

The commander of the cavalry company was full of confidence and full of ambition, and the task force set off along the east bank of the Qinglong River to the south.

What Xia Lianshan didn't know was that at this time, almost parallel to his team, there was also a small group of men and horses, almost two or three miles apart, marching south on the west bank of the Qinglong River.

They are the core team of the Japanese army to implement the "Wind Plan", the arrest team led by the leader of the Songjiagou Military Police Squadron, Hirai Temple Ichi Nakasa.

This trip to Hirai Temple is the second time he has explored the situation in the direction south of Wencheng. Ever since he took the two arrest detachments of the Songjiagou Military Police Squadron and stationed them in the temporary barracks in the southern suburbs of Wencheng, his mind has been spinning all day long about how to capture the woman in China. The last time he made a short stay at the secret transfer station, he was satisfied with the camouflage level of the farmhouse, and for this reason, he still expressed his admiration for the head of the island agency that he didn't like. And today, he took a whole capture detachment of thirteen men, drove two carriages, and quietly left the temporary barracks before dawn. They passed outside the secret transit station and headed south.

Before leaving, he confessed to his subordinates that this time it was still mainly about finding out the situation, not really arresting him. He gave his men a detailed division of labor: two members of the team, riding horses and donkeys, explored the way at the front, looking for the residents or villages in the wasteland; At the same time, observe whether there is any hostile situation. Two horse-drawn carts drove forward and backward at a distance of one mile, with the person in the first car in charge of writing and drawing records, and the person in the second car in charge of cover.

They are wearing the clothes of ordinary Chinese people. The occupants of the first car were disguised as foot traders, and the occupants of the second car were disguised as passengers who were on the road to catch a ride. Hiraiji Temple gave a clear instruction that unless there was an emergency accident along the way, no force or shooting should be used, and as far as possible not to attract the attention of passers-by and villagers.

The captain of the gendarmerie once asked the brigade commander major-general sitting in Wencheng to send several pro-Japanese Shina people to accompany the arrest team, but the brigade commander himself and the head of the Kojima organ opposed it on the spot, and they all thought that the use of Shina people was unreliable and very easy to leak; Hirai Temple has to give up. Now, all the members of his arrest team can speak a few words of Chinese, and three of them can speak Chinese fluently. The captain of the gendarmerie secretly flanked in the middle wing, and it was best not to meet the people of China who liked to talk on the way.

After passing the mansion of the secret transfer station, they began to move closer to the west bank of the Qinglong River. Because according to the plainclothes report of the head of the Wencheng secret service, the wasteland south of Wencheng, whether it is scattered houses or clusters of villages, is often closer to the river called Qinglong River.

However, the head of the island office also specially warned the captain of the gendarmerie: Do not approach the villages of Hekou and Xiping on both sides of the Qinglong River. The Eighth Route Army of the Chinese Army has been stationed there, and although the Imperial Army has carried out attacks on it, after the end of the battle, there are signs that the Eighth Route Army has revived and made a comeback. Therefore, it is better for the capture team not to touch the moldy head. The Hagiwara Brigade Headquarters equipped Hirai Temple and his men with walkie-talkies, so that in case of emergency, they could directly contact the secret transfer station, which would then transmit messages to the temporary barracks on the southern outskirts of Bunjo to seek armed support and response.

According to the instructions on the map in hand, the location of the newly built secret transfer station should be close to Hekou Village, which is parallel to the Qinglong River, and if you walk more than ten miles south from the secret transfer station, you will reach a position parallel to Xiping Village. With this calculation, Hirai Teraichi ordered his men to walk thirty miles south, and according to the map, they had already left behind two villages where the Eighth Route Army was stationed. During this time, they passed through a small village, the size of more than a dozen households, and found that among them were young women, but there were very few. The captain of the gendarmerie gave the order to proceed, and he arrived at a village of about 100 households, and after inquiry, he learned that the village was called Ewhapo.

This village is located on the west bank of the Cheonhwa River, where the straight Cheongryong River rushes out of a large bay to the west, and then flows back to the straight to the south, and the houses of Ewhapo are located on the side of this manwan, named after the pear trees that grow on the bank. At the end of March, the Qinglong River had thawed, and even in the flood season, the Qinglong River, which was only three or four feet deep, was now only a trickle barely above the feet and necks.

Hirai Teraichi decided to stop here and let three of his Chinese-speaking men infiltrate the village to find out what was going on. He and the rest of the group had lunch outside the village. The three members of the arrest detachment, two of whom led a donkey as a group, pretended to be vendors who bought Chinese medicinal materials, and went door to door to secretly observe the situation of the young women in the village; The other followed from afar, as a response.

They arrived more than ten minutes earlier than the team sent by the 2nd Battalion of the Eighth Route Army Forestry Division!

The task force led by Xia Lianshan marched in five parts - Zhang Xiu and others and the infantry squad of the 7th Company and the members of the enemy engineering team took three carriages and lived in the middle; Twenty-five cavalrymen, five of each marching to the left, right, and rear of the convoy, were two or three feet away from the convoy; Xia Lianshan personally led ten horsemen and horses to open the road about half a mile in front of the convoy.

Their party always marched on the east bank of the Qinglong River, because the Tongpu Railway was on the west side of the Qinglong River, which was the only direction where there was a possibility of enemy situation.

However, the appearance of Ewhapo changed the thinking of the cavalry company commander - from a distance, the village was densely populated, and the geographical location was also very unique, Xia Lianshan decided that all the men and horses waded through the shallow river to the opposite bank and entered the village to rest.

"Look, what a beautiful pear blossom!"

Zhang Xiu, a beautiful female soldier, stood up tremblingly from the carriage of the cart and excitedly pointed to the opposite bank and shouted. In the distance, the large white and pink pear blossoms are also trembling in the slight spring breeze, as if welcoming a female guest in military uniform.

The carriage stepped into the cobblestone river, the car left the hard dirt road, and skewed in the soft river, Zhang Xiu, who was not standing very steadily, finally lost his balance and fell into the carriage at once, and hit several people at the same time, in Zhang Xiu's scream, everyone in the carriage laughed. Laughter and laughter filled the wide, quiet river in an instant, causing the cavalry who had already landed on the opposite bank to look back.

Xia Lianshan thought: There are a lot of people in this village, and it's the turn of this lively female soldier to show her skills. However, the cavalry company commander did not know that in addition to the common people in this village at the moment, there were also insidious Japanese soldiers.