Chapter 7: Rivers and Mountains (35)

"It is not difficult to seal the south of Jinpu Road, the difficult thing is that the Yellow River replaces soldiers with water, and it has not had much impact on the railway from Xuzhou to Bengbu. Jin Tongxuan said worriedly.

After receiving the order from the Military Command Bureau, Xu Ping had already held a meeting for a whole day, and several brigade leaders participated in the meeting, and everyone expressed their opinions and ideas on how to accomplish the tasks of the Military Command Bureau. Although it was very lively, it did not form any decision-making opinions, and compared to such a wide area, a small Wandong Loyal National Salvation Army was of little use.

After analysis, everyone unanimously agreed that there were not two, but three routes for transporting supplies from the Japanese-occupied area to the Japanese Second Army, which marched to the northern foot of the Dabie Mountain in Lu'an, and the first was south of Jinpu Road, which was sent by train from Pukou to Bengbu, and then to Lu'an. The second road was to go south from Xuzhou, which had been occupied by the Japanese army, and this railway was a key project of the Japanese army in the past month. The national army dug the mouth of the garden, forced the Yellow River to be diverted, and formed a 10,000-mu Zeguo in the vortex river and the Huai River basin in the upper reaches of Bengbu, but it did not pose much threat to the Xubang railway, let alone drown it under water as desired, because from Suzhou to Guzhen, the terrain is slightly higher, forming a natural dam mouth. After the flood water rushes out of Zhengyang Pass, it flows into Hongze Lake, and forms a piece of Ze country downstream. The shortest distance between the north and south of the entire Yellow Flood Area is the Bengbu area, except for a few places where the Xubang Railway is flooded, most of them have no impact, and only need to be slightly diverted from the flooded places to be unimpeded. In this artificial diversion of the Yellow River, the Japanese army was most fortunate that the railway was not greatly affected, and the main artery from Shandong into Anhui was still there. As for the third road, from the Misu River to Chaohu Lake, the Japanese did not attach great importance to this road, because the supply line of the Yangtze River was already very busy, and Okamura Ningji's 11th Army marched along the Yangtze River, relying entirely on the Yangtze River for supplies, and if you also had to take into account the supply of 170,000 people from the four divisions and one independent brigade of the Second Army of King Minoru of the Higashikure Palace, this battle did not need to be fought, and it had already been lost.

Jin Tongxuan deserves to be called a three-dimensional living map of Anhui, he discovered at a glance the important role of this railway in the north for this campaign, and also saw the powerlessness of the Chinese army against this railway. What can make people a little relieved is that from the present point of view, there are two factors that determine that the supply of the Japanese army's northern route cannot be used normally, one is the restoration of the flooded areas, and the other is the imminent flood of the Yellow River; since 10 June, the water of the Yellow River has infiltrated all the depressions in the Huaihe River basin of Anhui Province, and the Xubang Railway has not been greatly affected, but once the flood of the Yellow River arrives, no one knows how high the water level can rise. Therefore, even if the Japanese army repaired the main railway, they would have to wait until after the Yellow River flood before they could officially open this supply line, and until then, the southern section of the Jinpu Road would still be their most important lifeline.

Liu Qinglong agreed with Jin Tongxuan's point of view, saying: "Shangfeng only asked us to delay the Japanese army's attack until late August, and as long as we let the Japanese army not prepare for the attack properly before this time, we can count it as completing the task." As for the southern section of Jinpu Road, that is our territory, we have blown up all the railway bridges and culverts in the Zhanggongling area in one night, and the Japanese army thought of opening this railway, at least after a month, our task will be half completed. Hu Sande was very familiar with this line, and the engineer brigade and the special brigade formed 30 to 40 task groups, and the simultaneous bombing of the railway in one night could completely paralyze the railway. ”

"You can't play like that!" Xu Ping denied Liu Qinglong's proposal, knowing that he did have the ability that Liu Qinglong said, but he did not advocate adopting this method, and said with a smile: "If we collapse the entire railway in one night, it will also show the Japanese army that there is still a large army in this area, which is worth fighting by the Japanese." At that time, the Japanese will no longer attack Lu'an, and they will turn their troops against us, and destroy us first, and then we will not be able to resist the enemy. ”

"That's right! I agree with the commander. Gong Qingyuan replied loudly, and then, he talked about his thoughts, Gong Qingyuan found his own shortcomings from the previous harassment war, and also recognized his advantages, he is a very good at summing up: "We can only do this railway piecemeal, get a place a day, and completely interpret our actions into a group of unorganized and undisciplined bandits." The bandits' purpose was not to disrupt the road, but to grab supplies. As for the railway, there is not much difference between breaking one place a day and breaking ten places at the same time. Therefore, I believe that the captain of the special brigade Tian Zhen is responsible for this route, and he must grasp the degree of goodness, and must not attract the Japanese to the troops. ”

"Yes!" The vole stood up and said yes loudly.

"The Engineer Brigade cooperates with the operations of the Einsatzgruppen Brigade and is responsible for blasting and engineering." Gong Qingyuan said.

"Yes!" Huang Guilin stood up and replied loudly.

"Liu Qinglong's department can consider joining forces with Yuan Doushu's brigade in Xiangxi to strike at the Japanese army's Chaohu supply line." Gong Qingyuan said: "As soon as the southern section of Jinpu Road is broken, the Japanese army can only be transported by ship through Chaohu, so we have to guard against it. ”

Xu Ping nodded and said: "It is not easy for the Japanese army to take the Chaohu line, in the section of the Misu River, Zhang Yunyi, Chen Yi and Su Yu of the New Fourth Army are in strict formation, and they are willing to do it if they can get supplies from the logistics and transportation line of the Japanese army." The last time Huang Degui came to Wolf's Den Mountain, he sent a convoy of gold to the ocean, which was the cost of the New Fourth Army to buy arms. According to Huang Degui's statement, with the batch of arms we sold them, the strength of the Jiangbei unit of the New Fourth Army has greatly increased. If you have strength, you will cause trouble, the fat in the wet river, if they don't do it, it won't be Su Duozhen. After the war, the Seventh Regiment of the Fourth Detachment of the New Fourth Army returned to the area of Shucheng in Lujiang with the capture, and lived next to the west of our Yuan Doushu Brigade, so that everyone could rely on each other and fight together. Huang Shenzuo made it very clear that Yang Kezhi, the commander of the Seventh Regiment, is a person who can be trusted, brave and strategic, fierce to the enemy, and has a strong national integrity. In the area west of Hefei, there were Liu Qinglong's assault brigade and Yuan Doushu's brigade, which could reach 3,000 in number, and Yang Kezhi's 7th regiment, with a total number of more than 4,000. With such a unit, even if we encounter the military headquarters and brigades of the Second Army of King Minoru of Higashikuremiya, we will have the strength to fight, not to mention that we are not going to fight against King Minoru of Higashikurenomiya head-on, but just to add a little trouble to him, so that he will not be able to make the trip before the end of August. I think that along the way, I will also ask Chief of Staff Gong to personally take command, coordinate operations, and master the strength and skills of the attack. ”

Gong Qingyuan and Liu Qinglong stood up at the same time and replied in unison: "Yes!" ”

"As for the Xubang Railway, we can't do anything, and we can't do it." Xu Ping said: "Inform Song Erhu not to have a head-on conflict with the Japanese army, if the Japanese army requisitions their ships, fully cooperate and serve for a fee." ”

Jin Tongxuan replied: "I will inform Captain Song immediately." ”

Everything was ready, the two troops left the Wolf's Nest Mountain respectively, one east and one south, Gong Qingyuan and Liu Qinglong in the direction of Xiangxi, and the direction of Vole and Huang Guilin was the old stronghold of Centipede Mountain.

The 3rd and 10th Divisions of the Japanese Army, transported by more than 50,000 men and a large number of fireboats, set foot on the land south of the Huai River at Zhengyang Pass. On the same day, the train from Pukou was changed to two locomotives, and the usual 30 carriages were increased to 50, and the five special trains that ran out in one day used the transportation capacity of the entire railway to the maximum, even in the dark night, which had not been used for a long time. In the small stations along the way, the Japanese army's line guards patrolled day and night, and whoever dared to approach the railway would immediately sound the crisp sound of the 38 big cover.

"The Japanese army's protection of the railway has reached an unprecedented level." The vole said to Huang Guilin: "I'm afraid the task is not easy!" ”

"Easy to do, not easy to do." Huang Guilin said: "In the second half of the night today, we will first blow up the culvert where Zhang Gongling took shelter from the rain last time," the culvert is under the railway line, and the patrolling Japanese troops cannot see it, even if there are Japanese troops walking on it, the construction below is as usual, and the most important thing is that as long as the culvert is blown up, the railway will still not be able to use normally.

This time, Huang Guilin used electricity*, which was a new weapon sent by the Military Command Bureau. As for the * produced by the Hanyang * factory, Huang Guilin pulled it down, and he still had a large number of captured Japanese soldiers in his hand, and the same amount could be ten times that of the Hanyang * factory.

In the dark night, taking advantage of the protection of the night, Huang Guilin made a scaffold out of wood in the culvert, and then placed nearly 100 kilograms of * on the top of the bracket, a wire of more than 200 meters, and put * on the hillside in the distance, and the next thing was to wait, wait for the arrival of the Japanese army's transport vehicle. Blowing up the culvert also has to blow up the train at the same time, and you have to pretend to loot it, and you have to do a full set of acts.

The wait was a painstaking affair, and after the Japanese patrol had walked back and forth twice on the railroad, a train finally appeared on the other side of the railroad in the morning light, panting.

"Holy shit, it's finally here!" The vole immediately came to his senses, came to Huang Guilin's position, looked at Huang Guilin's hand holding *, and trembled slightly, knowing that this one was even more nervous than himself.