This piece of mountain beam, located in the west of Fengdian less than five miles, the place name Dawangyu; But in the eyes of Wu Zijian, deputy commander of the second battalion, this Dawangyu is amazingly similar to the Shiliguan ditch in Pingxingguan. Perhaps, on the ground in Shanxi, there are too many similar landforms: a wide avenue lying at the bottom of a ditch, twisting and turning, and on both sides of the avenue are towering mountain beams.

As soon as he thought of the Guan Gou of Pingxingguan, Wu Zijian's thoughts flew again. At that time, he was still the commander of the 5th Company of the 2nd Battalion---- from a regiment commander of the First Army of the Red Army in northern Shaanxi to a company commander of the 8th Route Army of the reorganized National Revolutionary Army---- and it didn't take long for the Eighth Route Army to be renamed the 18th Group Army, and it still had 3 divisions under its jurisdiction, and Wu Zijian's division was the famous 115 Lin Division.

The ambush battle in Pingxingguangou, which shocked the whole country, Wu Zijian still has a lot of episodes that he can't recall until now, because he was so nervous at that time, except for fighting desperately with instinct, his brain was almost blank. After that battle, he had seen several local newspapers with reports about the victory of Pingxingguan, but the impassioned but inevitably empty words did not help him remember the scenes of the battle.

It was the two details before the firing that Wu Zijian was deeply impressed. One of them was the mighty Japanese army that appeared on the high mountain beam looking down on the avenue at the bottom of the ditch, and the feeling of being condescending and ready to strike at any time was something he had never experienced before, and it was very shocking; Also, the two signal flares fired by the division headquarters to order the attack, whistled and rose in the morning sky, not dazzling, but very clear, and even somewhat wonderful.

Wu Zijian is not tall, but he has a strong physique, a face that is not too round, and the bridge of his nose is particularly prominent; On weekdays, he is used to squinting, but once he opens his eyes, he looks like a tiger. At this moment, he was lying on this high mountain beam called Dawangyu, and at the bottom of the ditch below was a winding dirt road with no end in sight, except that the road surface was not as wide as the flat Guanguan ditch, everything else seemed familiar: including the long and slipping commanders and fighters lying on his left and right. Of course, he is now the deputy commander of the 2nd Battalion, and next to him is his successor, Li Tianlin, who is now the commander of the 5th Company.

Li Tianlin was complaining to him, the deputy battalion commander, this was the second time he had complained this morning, he grabbed Wu Zijian's wrist, trying to see the watch hands on the deputy battalion commander's wrist, but Wu Zijian impatiently threw it off.

"My deputy battalion commander, what time is it?" Li Tianlin reluctantly: "How can there be any movement of war in Fengdian?" Let's touch here and lie down before dawn, can we really pick it up? Don't freeze the soldiers, stealing chickens can't make a handful of rice! ”

Wu Zijian gestured with his right hand in the posture of a pistol, pressed it against his company commander's chest, and shouted: "Stop, if you shake the morale of the army again, I will shoot you." ”

The soldiers who saw this scene on the side began to steal their fun. Wu Zijian and Li Tianlin have been old superiors for many years, and they have been together since the Red Army's Long March, and they are not used to each other.

Li Tianlin sighed and stopped talking, he knew that he was not an opponent when he was working against Wu Zijian, whether he was serious or improper. He looked again at the dirt road at the bottom of the ditch, and it was still empty, and not even a bird could be seen.

……

The reason why the second battalion set up an ambush on the mountain beam that came to Dawangyu at dawn was entirely due to chance.

Li Tianlin's deputy, Xia Lianshan, deputy commander of the 5th Company, is a native of Shanxi, and his hometown is in Pingquan County in southern Jinnan, and his sister Xia Baihe married in Fengdian County. A few days earlier, the 2nd Battalion had quietly moved to a village west of Dawangyu, and since it was the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger (author's note: January 31, 1938, the first day of the first month of the Wuyin year of the Chinese lunar calendar), the troops stayed for the time being. It is quite close to Fengdian, Xia Lianshan, who has been away from home for five years, is very excited, and asks for leave from the company commander Li Tianlin and deputy battalion commander Wu Zijian, to visit his sister in Fengdian, he is the last in the family, and his sister Xia Lihe loves and takes care of his little brother the most before he gets married, which can be described as a deep love between sister and brother.

Since the troops had to stay for a few days before they could leave, Wu Zijian greeted the battalion commander and granted Xia Lianshan a two-day leave. However, when Xia Lianshan came to the west of Fengdian outside the city yesterday afternoon, he found that the city gate had been closed, and several sparse residential areas outside the city were also in turmoil.

Xia Lianshan was taken aback. Because the current situation is the cooperation of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party in the War of Resistance, and the fact that the Japanese army has not attacked Jinnan in recent months, Xia Lianshan wore the uniform of the Eighth Route Army on this trip, and he wanted to show his sister who had been away for a few years to show his heroic appearance. Unexpectedly, there was a temporary change, and the devil actually appeared outside Fengdian City, and he was obviously very dangerous. But the instinct of a soldier forced him to take risks to find out the situation.

Xia Lianshan gave a fellow villager who lived outside the city a piece of the ocean, took off his military uniform and hid it in the pyre of his house, borrowed a suit of clothes to put on, and in the evening, he touched the vicinity of the north gate, at this time, the main force of the Japanese Otsuka Wing had arrived in a steady stream, camped on the valley road north of Fengdian, and sent a guard post in the direction of Fengdian. Xia Lianshan climbed a side of the mountain beam, and saw the lights of the Japanese army camping as far as the eye could see, and there were thousands of people. It seems that their next step is to prepare to attack Fengdian, the gateway to southern Jin.

Thinking of his sister Xia Baihe who married here, Xia Lianshan was worried. He knew that the devil had come suddenly, and since the defenders of the city had already closed the four doors in the afternoon, it was obvious that they would not open it easily at night. In that case, my sister and brother-in-law's family will inevitably be trapped in the city, and if the defenders are not supported and the Japanese army breaks through the city, the consequences will be unimaginable. However, Xia Lianshan was no longer able to rescue his sister at the moment, so he had no choice but to sneak back to the villager's house outside the West Gate, take out his military uniform, and rush back to the second battalion to report the news.

The commander in chief of the second battalion attached great importance to this unexpected military situation and immediately convened an emergency meeting of the company and platoon cadres.

After the fall of Taiyuan, the Jin Sui Army and the Central Army retreated to the west and south of Shanxi, and the Eighth Route Army began to gradually reduce the three main divisions into zero, stationed in the northwest and northeast of Shanxi respectively, and began to infiltrate the southeast and southwest of Shanxi, establish base areas, and expand the armament.

The second battalion to which Wu Zijian belonged left the main division more than a month ago and was ordered to advance to the area of central and southern Jin, and the destination was the Guanmen Mountain area east of the Tongpu railway line. Since the Japanese army had stagnated the pace of its attack after occupying northern and central Jin, the central and southern Jinxi were basically in a vacuum between the national army and the Japanese army, and it was just the right time to open up a base area. The second battalion set out from the direction of Wutai, avoided the deployment of the Japanese army along the way, and came to this village west of Dawangyu, and after preparing for the Spring Festival, it continued to move towards the area of Guanmen Mountain.

But the Japanese army came one after another!

Although the equipment of the Eighth Route Army was supplemented to a certain extent by the Second War Zone and captured in the operation against the Japanese army, it was still extremely backward, and the Second Battalion, which left the main force and marched alone, did not have a radio station that could contact the division headquarters, brigade headquarters, and regiment headquarters, nor did it have its own intelligence sources, so it did not know anything about the details of the large Japanese army that was suddenly approaching Fengdian. At the emergency meeting, instructor Liu Shu insisted that the camp should be pulled out immediately, avoiding the Japanese army's edge, and quickly hiding in the mountainous area of Guanmen Mountain; Battalion commander Feng Changzhi agreed at first, but hesitated again under the strong opposition of his old comrade-in-arms and deputy battalion commander Wu Zijian.

Wu Zijian believed that since the Japanese army was preparing to attack Fengdian on a large scale, there would inevitably be a small force and even a baggage force around Fengdian, and this was an excellent opportunity to set up an ambush and attack; The second battalion fought in the northeast of Shanxi Province for several months, and it was a great consumption to come here, and it was urgent to replenish military supplies.

Wu Zijian's suggestion was supported by most of the company and platoon cadres, especially the chief and deputy company commanders of the main 5th company: Li Tianlin was a belligerent tiger general, and Xia Lianshan was concerned about the safety of Fengdian's sister, and they were willing to stay and set up an ambush outside Fengdian.

Instructor Liu Shu's heart was very angry, he had always been dissatisfied with the battalion commander Feng Changzhi's accommodating Wu Zijian. He also knew that as the military commander of the whole battalion, Feng Changzhi's ability to march and fight was indeed inferior to that of the deputy battalion commander, but Wu Zijian's behavior of kicking his nose in the face and often deciding on the plan on behalf of the battalion commander also made Liu Shu very unaccustomed to it. In private, he criticized Feng Changzhi and publicly warned Wu Zijian, but the former often laughed honestly, and the latter repeatedly ridiculed ---- reciprocate.

As Liu Shu expected, all four companies of the 2nd Battalion left the 8th Company on standby, and the 5th Company, 6th Company, and 7th Company set off lightly at dawn and set out to set up an ambush at Dawangyu, which was closest to the west of Fengdian County, in an effort to attack the Japanese troops attacking the county seat from the flank. Wu Zijian, who succeeded, rubbed his hands and threatened to fight Pingxingguan again.