In the past, when he was an instructor of the Second Battalion, he used the strength of the "Xiping Village Field Mobilization Committee" to carry out the construction of the base area in full swing. But after that, the Japanese puppet army came to sweep in a big way, and all the hard work was burned. Therefore, he has always recorded this account on Wu Zijian's head, and in his opinion, it was Wu Zijian who took the initiative to attack the Japanese puppet army near Fengdian County three times and five times, which attracted the enemy's retaliatory sweep; The battalion commander unfortunately died, and he himself ran away in anger to seek help from his superiors.

What made Liu Shu deeply disappointed and depressed was that in the Xu Brigade Brigade, no one criticized or even punished Wu Zijian's behavior, but gave him the title of the leader of the reorganized Guanmen Mountain Dispatch Detachment. If it is said that Wu Zijian, the former second battalion of the Xu Brigade, was the deputy battalion commander and his position was still under the instructor, then now that he is the detachment leader, his own detachment political commissar is ranked behind; Undoubtedly, this will make Wu Zijian more and more unpopular, and he will not take himself as a political commissar in his eyes. Of course, Liu Shu could not tolerate this. So he decided to establish authority from the beginning, at least not to let Wu Zijian act arbitrarily as the detachment leader from now on!

"Well, I admit that the detachment commander is the military commander, but the tradition of our army has always been that the party commands the gun, even if it is a military operation, I must participate in it as a political commissar, and I have the right to speak and know without decision-making power;" Forcing himself to stabilize his emotions, Liu Shu said in a calm tone as much as possible: "Now, as the political commissar of the detachment, I ask you to truthfully report the situation that has just happened and the joint operation with the Kuomintang Central Army. ”

Wu Zijian knew that this hurdle would not be bypassed sooner or later, and he also knew that Liu Shu not only did not advocate taking the initiative to attack the Japanese army, but also hated the so-called Kuomintang reactionary army. This time, the headquarters dispatched the main force to fight jointly with the 391st Regiment of the Central Army, although it was quite successful, but it also paid a lot of casualties.

So, the detachment commander picked up the slender branch again, and began to explain to Liu Shu this joint combat operation codenamed "Mountain Eagle" on the professional military map that he had just arrived.

While listening carefully, Liu Shu carefully recorded in his notebook, especially his own battle damage. In this battle, the Eighth Route Army suffered more than 60 casualties, and the number of wounded was close to this number. However, only 26 Type 38 rifles or cavalry rifles, more than 400 rounds of ammunition,* 30 pieces, one grenadier and one bag*, and nine horses were seized. The casualty figures were clearly disproportionate compared to the booty gained. And the mortar shells of the artillery platoon are almost empty, and the consumption of rifle machine gun bullets and * is staggering. Needless to say, this is a battle to make ends meet.

"Who first came up with the original intention of joint operations?"

"Of course, it's the Central Army - the preset scale of this battle is simply not something that a battalion of our Eighth Route Army can control; The 391st Regiment of the Central Army was almost exhausted, and it used a few large-caliber heavy guns that had just arrived, so it barely fought a draw with the Japanese! ”

Speaking of large-caliber heavy artillery, the artillery company of the 391st Regiment played extremely badly in the "Mountain Eagle" joint operation, and when he took a break in Xiping Village after the war, the colonel of the Central Army once mercilessly criticized his own family. Therefore, when Wu Zijian introduced this paragraph, he used a vague tone to pass by.

But Liu Shu's focus is not on this, he has found the key to convince the other party:

"Old Wu, you should now realize the true meaning of this so-called Mountain Eagle Battle! As you said, the Central Army dispatched a main regiment, heavy weaponry, and a battalion led by you, and it was a surprise night attack; It should be said that at the campaign level, we have taken a considerable initiative, but why did we only end up in a draw after this battle? ”

The new detachment leader moved in his heart, and felt that the political commissar in front of him also had his own unique angle of looking at the problem. To be sure, the result of the final draw in this battle was a fluke for the Kuomintang and Communist armies that fought together, and so far they have not yet figured out the real reason for the sudden withdrawal of the Japanese heavy forces from the encirclement and the strange retreat. If there had not been this change, it would have been a big question whether the 391st Regiment and the 2nd Battalion of the Xu Brigade, which had been trapped in a critical situation, would have been able to escape in the end, relying on the tactical actions that the Japanese army had already completed at that time.

Seeing that Wu Zijian on the opposite side was suddenly silent, Liu Shu felt that his preaching had worked, so he began to strike while the iron was hot: "It's not that we don't resist Japan, and it's not that we can't take the initiative to attack, but we must look at the strength of the enemy and the actual situation of our army." The great victory at Shentouling in Changzhi County, which I reported to you at the meeting just now, our Eighth Route Army dispatched the main force of almost one Xu Division, with a total strength of about 10,000 people; The target of the ambush, the Japanese Army's Xia Yuan Division, only dispatched an infantry brigade with some special forces squadrons, and the ratio of enemy and enemy forces was close to seven to one! This ensured that the siege and reinforcement operations could be cleanly surrounded and annihilated. ”

Wu Zijian was more and more surprised to hear many military terms from the mouth of the political commissar and use them properly. He didn't know that what Liu Shu had just said was, to a large extent, actually copying the summary of the Shentouling Battle conveyed by the staff officers of the Xu Brigade Headquarters.

"What about your Operation Eagle this time? Fighting back and forth, he actually let the Japanese make dumplings, obviously taking the initiative to attack the enemy's railway line, but in the end he was driven to his own doorstep, what kind of battle is this fighting? In my opinion, this is precisely the result of your and the Kuomintang commander's ignorance of the enemy's situation, blind self-confidence, and unauthorized actions! ”

When Liu Shu said this, Wu Zijian couldn't help but say again: It seems that this is the real military talent of Political Commissar Liu. He immediately interrupted the other side with his words, and then listed the effective preparations made by the two armies in joint operations in terms of intelligence gathering, operational planning, and dealing with accidents before the start of Operation "Mountain Eagle."

In actual combat, it was indeed carried out in accordance with the plan of the Chinese army, but the turning point of this battle appeared in the number of Japanese reinforcements dispatched and the speed of troop transportation. After the feint attack on Lingshi County began, the Japanese army was able to send multiple batches of reinforcements from the road and railway, and the speed of force projection was staggering. This was something that neither he nor Qin Zhongxiao had expected before the war. But it is definitely not what Liu Shu criticized as "not understanding the enemy's situation and blindly confident".

"Commissar, thank you for bringing back these two military maps, they are so practical!" The new detachment leader simply turned to the side of Liu Shu's seat, continued to point to the map spread out on the table, and began to teach the other party.

He talked about the three divisions of the Japanese army in Shanxi in the north, center and south, all of which were stationed on the railway line without exception: the harem division of the Kwantung Army in northern Jin Province relied on the Pingsui Railway; The Shangang Division of the North China Front Army in Jinzhong relied on the Zhengtai Railway and the northern line of the Tongpu Railway; The North China Front Army Sena Division in southern Jinnan relied on the southern line of the Tongpu Railway.

However, with a total strength of 60,000 or 70,000 troops in just three divisions and regiments, it is absolutely impossible to control the entire territory of Shanxi, which is surrounded by mountains and rivers. This is precisely the key to the fact that the Japanese troops of the three divisions focused on controlling the towns along the Pingsui, Zhengtai, and Tongpu railways: they could give full play to the advantages of rapid transportation along the railway line, and once a war broke out in a certain place, they could immediately send adjacent troops there, and then form a local battlefield advantage.

"This time, we and the 391st Regiment of the Central Army attacked the Nantongpu Railway, and we suffered a loss in this regard;" Wu Zijian continued with deep feelings: "The siege and reinforcement we envisioned was nothing more than to attack the Japanese reinforcements coming from dozens of miles away, but we didn't expect that in addition to the neighboring Japanese troops, they could also mobilize heavy troops from hundreds of miles away and quickly put them into the battlefield, which suddenly broke our original superiority in strength. ”

Liu Shu, who had to listen to Wu Zijian's eloquent conversation, sensitively grasped the last sentence of the other party's summary, slapped the map on the table, and shouted bitterly: "Look, look!" The crux of the matter has been found! You also know that the Japanese can rely on the rapid transportation advantage of the railway line to project their troops, so why do you and the Kuomintang army still run to the railway line to find their own suffering? Isn't this a clear effort to use your own shortcomings to meet your opponent's strengths? ”

The new detachment leader was stunned for a moment, and then there was a crying and laughing expression on his face: "Political commissar, what kind of logic do you call this?" I have said in advance, the Japanese army is mainly stationed along these three railway lines in Shanxi Province, if we don't run to the railway line, how can we beat them!? ”

Unexpectedly, hearing this, Liu Shu's emotions became even more excited, and he simply stood up from the stool, and Wu Zijian, who looked down condescendingly, said:

"After arguing for so long, you just can't get out of the horns - why do you have to run to the railway line to attack the Japanese army? Since they are holding on to the three railways, as long as we don't provoke them, they will surely have no extra strength to attack us. Isn't this just the right time and space to bury our heads in the growth and development of our base area?! ”

Wu Zijian did not stand up with the political commissar, he just sat at the table, stared at the high-scale military map, and replied word by word:

"I never think that there is any contradiction between developing base areas and attacking the Japanese army; At the moment of national crisis and the great enemy, as a Chinese soldier, we must take it as our responsibility to protect our home and defend the country. The Japanese are on the railway line dozens of miles away from us, but they don't fight, so what's the use of developing so many base areas? ”

With that, Wu Zijian threw the branch in his hand on the map again, and walked out of the door with a sad face.

Looking at the back of his old comrades-in-arms, political commissar Liu Shu looked up to the sky and sighed, he felt that the gap in understanding between himself and the detachment leader seemed to be difficult to fill or overcome.

The collision between the new head of the Guanmenshan Dispatch Detachment of the Xu Brigade of the Eighth Route Army Forest Division and the political commissar ended unhappily. However, neither Wu Zijian of the main battle faction nor Liu Shu of the main construction (construction base area) faction would have imagined that the Japanese army in Shanxi, which they had been talking about endlessly just now, was already intensively planning a huge offensive at this moment, and the sharp edge was pointed at the Chinese army on both sides of the Tongpu Railway and in the Taihang Mountains.