The brigade commander of the Japanese army would never have dreamed that the Second Battalion of the Eighth Route Army's Forest Division, which he and the head of the secret service were worried about, would walk along a rugged path in this small elm mountain a few days ago and go straight to Guanmen Mountain further south. And that path almost brushed the edge of the Songjiagou station.

Before setting off, the 2nd Battalion decided not to take Fengdian or Tongpu Railway Line, but to pass through Guanmen Mountain from the sparsely populated Little Elm Mountain. In this way, although the march was hard, and there was even a danger of getting lost or cutting off the road, it was possible to avoid encountering the Japanese and national troops on the east and west flanks as much as possible, so as to ensure the concealment of the rotation.

Xia Lianshan, the deputy commander of the 5th Company, whose hometown is in Pingquan County, southern Jinnan, took a squad and hired local guides to explore the road in front as a sharp soldier. Although Xia Lianshan had the map he had drawn by himself, he had never been to Guanmen Mountain in person after all, and he relied on a vague impression of the terrain of central and southern Jin Dynasty when he drew it. Now, after listening to the guide on the spot, he corrected some of the markings on the map.

In fact, Fengdian County, which is located in the middle of the mountains, is the Big Elm Mountain in the east and the Little Elm Mountain in the west, and more than 30 miles south of Fengdian, between the end of the Big and Small Elm Mountains, there is another mountain rising from the ground, winding and continuing to stretch southward, it almost connects the two Elm Mountains on the left and right wings, that is, Guanmen Mountain. These three mountains, all of which are in the north-south direction, if viewed from the air from a bird's eye view, they present a "product" word, and Guanmen Mountain is the prefix of "product".

Walking out of the southernmost part of Little Elm Mountain, Guanmen Mountain appeared in front of you. Here, Fengdian and Wencheng have been left behind. And Xia Lianshan's mood is mixed: he finally led the team to the destination correctly! This also proves that the error of his hand-drawn map is not large; However, the closer you get to Guanmen Mountain, the farther away you are from Fengdian County, and the extent of the fighting there really worries the deputy commander of the 5th Company.

In the evening, following the sharp soldiers, the whole of the second battalion also walked out of Little Elm Mountain exhausted and exhausted, and learned that the towering mountain in front of them was Guanmen Mountain, and everyone almost cheered.

There was only one person who sneered disdainfully, and that was Xiao Junping, a staff officer of the Jin army who was coerced here.

Although Xiao Junping was an officer of the Jin Army, he was not from Shanxi; The 12th Brigade of the Independent Army, in which he served, was stationed in Wencheng, and in addition to his familiarity with Wencheng and Tongpulu, he was also unfamiliar with the mountains in this area.

However, Xiao Junping also roughly knew that the place where the Eighth Route Army God mysteriously turned into and arrived should not be far away from the Tongpu Railway Line, and Wencheng should also be in the northwest direction behind the side.

"Company Commander Li," Xiao Junping said to Li Tianlin, the commander of the 5th Company beside him, "Your army has also arrived at Guanmen Mountain now, I think, you just put me down here, I don't want to accompany you to be the king of the mountain." ”

Li Tianlin knew that the staff officer of the Jin army was angry, and along the way, he complained to himself a lot, probably because he had saved his life, so he couldn't bear it and didn't turn his face: "Staff Officer Xiao, go tell our deputy battalion commander what you say, you are a distinguished guest invited by him, I don't dare to put you down on my own initiative." ”

Looking at the other party's hippie smiling face, Xiao Junping asked coldly: "So, you Chief Wu, are you determined to get me into the mountains?" Do you know that this is a clear tie-up! ”

As soon as the words fell, a voice familiar to the staff of the Jin Army and a little heartbeat sounded:

"Kidnapping? What kind of ticket are you kidnapping? ”

It was the pretty battalion female clerk Zhang Xiu, who was running from behind, and vaguely heard the last half of Xiao Junping's words sitting on the stretcher, so she asked lively.

Xiao Junping's face couldn't help but turn red again, and he didn't know how to answer. Along the way, the female clerk had come to his stretcher several times—she and two other female soldiers, who were responsible for assisting the hygienist in caring for the sick and wounded—and each time, she had to strike up a few words with the Jin army staff officer.

Xiao Junping could see that this slightly weak female soldier was actually quite tired, but she still tried to cheer herself up and was busy on the treacherous mountain road. Xiao Junping secretly admired, and I don't know when he started, he was looking forward to the arrival of this female soldier, clerk Zhang Xiu. And every time I faintly heard her voice floating up from the mountain road, the heart of the Jin army staff officer beat extremely fast.

"Staff Officer Xiao said that there are bandits in this Guanmen Mountain, beware of kidnapping you!"

Seeing Xiao Junping's embarrassment to Zhang Xiu's question, Li Tianlin was overjoyed, and said nonsense in passing.

Zhang Xiu's appearance was really a little discolored: "There are bandits? Is there really a bandit kidnapping ticket, Xiao Staff Officer? ”

This time, Xiao Junping couldn't answer yes or no, so he had to glare at Li Tianlin on the side fiercely.

"What are bandits afraid of?" It was Wu Zijian, the deputy battalion commander who spoke, who was holding the map hand-drawn by Xia Lianshan in his hand, and walked over while reading: "The Eighth Route Army is not even afraid of devils, but also afraid of bandits?!" ”

Seeing Wu Zijian, the staff officer of the Jin army immediately opened his mouth to say something, but he glanced at Zhang Xiu again, and swallowed back the words when he came to his mouth.

"That's right, Zhang Xiu," Wu Zijian suddenly patted his broad forehead and said to the female clerk: "Staff Officer Xiao told me on the road that the leader of the bandits in this Guanmen Mountain is also a woman!" What's it called-Liu Wumei! ”

"Deputy battalion commander, the bandit leader is a woman, why are you looking at me?" Zhang Xiu was a little annoyed and said, "It's as if I have something to do with that female bandit!" ”

Everyone around them burst out laughing, including Xiao Junping. The staff officer of the Jin Army secretly looked at the female soldiers of the Eighth Route Army who seemed to be smiling, and her heartbeat began to speed up involuntarily.

Resting at the foot of Guanmen Mountain, the 2nd Battalion released a guard post to all sides, and held a meeting of battalion and company commanders next to a boulder lying on the ground.

Since it has been confirmed, Guanmen Mountain is indeed not too far from Fengdian County, which is about thirty or forty miles of vertical distance. If you don't go through the Little Elm Mountain or the Big Elm Mountain, you can go straight from the south gate of Fengdian to the north foot of Guanmen Mountain.

This means that the battle that is currently being fought in Fengdian will indeed affect the second battalion's stay in Guanmen Mountain: if the Japanese army occupies Fengdian, then Guanmen Mountain will actually be exposed to the noses of the Japanese army, and the work of establishing a base area will become unexpectedly arduous.

This time, including Liu Shu, the three chief officers unanimously agreed to send an investigation team to Fengdian to investigate the battle situation.

Liu Shu sighed secretly: I didn't expect that the pace of the Japanese army's southward advance would suddenly start, and it would advance to the vicinity of Guanmen Mountain so coincidentally. Now, only the national army that pinned its hopes on Fengdian could hold it.

The leader of the investigation team naturally fell on Xia Lianshan's head, which made him excited. After research, at dawn the next day, Xia Lianshan led three soldiers to change into civilian clothes and go to Fengdian; The reconnaissance team has few people and small targets, so it no longer has to sneak through the big and small elm mountains, but through the gap between the small elm mountain and the gate mountain, and quickly go from the wilderness and flat land.

A platoon of the 5th Company, which was ordered to search forward along the foot of the western foothills, returned after dinner. At the foot of the hill, about four or five miles ahead, they found a village called Hekou. According to the villagers, the foot of the entire Guanmen Mountain is about 20 miles long, and there are five or six villages of different sizes along the road at the foot of the mountain. And from the west foot of Guanmen Mountain to the west, you can go all the way to the railway line of Tongpu Road.

Battalion commander Feng Changzhi decided: Camp in place tonight, march into Hekou Village after dawn tomorrow, observe the terrain, and at the same time send a search team south along the western foot of Guanmen Mountain. After Deputy Company Commander Xia returned from Fengdian, he decided how the second battalion would deploy in Guanmen Mountain.

After the meeting was dismissed, Wu Zijian came to Xiao Junping's stretcher and revealed some of the contents of the meeting to him. At this moment, seeing that there were only himself and Wu Zijian nearby, Xiao Junping hurriedly whispered:

"Chief Wu, could you please do me a favor? The record of our interrogation of the Japanese cavalry that day is still on me, but I am now unable to move, can you please send someone to the headquarters of the 12th Brigade of the Independent Brigade in Wencheng and present this record to the brigade commander? ”

Wu Zijian was stunned and did not answer immediately. The Jin staff officer's request was reasonable—he personally carried out the interrogation of the Japanese prisoners—but would the battalion commander and instructor agree to do so?

Seeing this, Xiao Junping was a little anxious: "Chief Wu, please remember that your 18th Group Army is also a national army, and you should fight side by side with the 12th Independent Brigade." At this moment, the battle in Fengdian is not clear, and the brigade headquarters must quickly grasp the information provided by these Japanese prisoners! ”

Wu Zijian nodded: "You're right, I'll go and meet the battalion commander and try to do what you want; In addition, we have decided to send a reconnaissance team to Fengdian to find out the news of the war. ”

Xiao Junping's eyes lit up: "Oh?!" So is your army going to decide to return to Fengdian? But I don't understand, two days ago, you were so close there, why didn't you rush to the aid after defeating the Japanese cavalry? Now that I have run to the foot of Guanmen Mountain, I want to make a move in that direction, which is really incomprehensible. ”

"As I said, we have a lot of baggage, and we have to find a place to settle down and put down our baggage before we can travel lightly. You don't see, the twenty-eight military horses taken from the devil cavalry can come in handy this time, if it weren't for their baggage, I'm afraid we wouldn't be able to climb that damn little elm mountain now. Wu Zijian said with a big grin.

"With all due respect—if you hear this, Chief Liu, you should say that I am a Kuomintang reactionary—you have behaved very bravely in ambushing the Japanese cavalry at Dawangyu, but for the past two days you have been hiding in the mountains and crawling on the paths, lest people know your whereabouts. What the hell are you hiding? Is it to hide from the devil, or to hide from the national army? ”

"Well, it's not convenient for me to answer. You haven't finally agreed to join the Eighth Route Army yet, so there are some things that I can't reveal to you from my mouth; Wu Zijian said unabashedly: "When I go back, I will arrange Zhang Xiu to let her talk to you, and she can explain to you about the problems of our Eighth Route Army." ”

Xiao Junping was taken aback: the deputy battalion commander of the Eighth Route Army actually mentioned Zhang Xiu intentionally or unintentionally! The face of the staff officer of the Jin army was red, but fortunately it was already dark and he could not be seen.

It was only at this moment that Xiao Junping suddenly realized that deep down in his heart, he had begun to hesitate and waver about whether to join the Eighth Route Army - why is this happening?!

Is it just because of that pretty-looking female soldier?!