Wu Zijian asked the commander of the 5th company to immediately prepare a list of the members of the enemy engineering team, and then report to the team according to the people on the list, including the platoon commander who was about to become the deputy captain of the enemy engineering team.

Li Tianlin went in a hurry - since he met Xiao Junping in the bloody battle of Dawangyu, Li Tianlin has always liked this Jin army staff officer, these days, he gets along very happily, and now he finally joined the Eighth Route Army under the inspiration of the old company commander, which of course makes the commander of the 5th company happy.

"Deputy battalion commander, do Battalion Commander Feng and your Commander Liu know about the establishment of the enemy labor team and I as the leader of the enemy labor team?" Watching Li Tianlin disappear at the door, Xiao Junping asked cautiously.

"Look at it, you see, it's still Chief Liu, Chief Liu! From now on, it is a family, and it must be called an instructor. Wu Zijian corrected with a smile. He also noticed the difference between Xiao Junping calling Feng Changzhi and calling Liu Shu, obviously, he was still wary of the instructor.

"Don't worry, it turns out that I am in charge of our battalion's intelligence reconnaissance, and I have a division of labor with the battalion commander on this point," Wu Zijian poured a bowl of water for himself, and drank it in a gulp: "Whether it is the establishment of the enemy labor team or the selection of the captain of the enemy labor team, I can make the decision alone, and report to the battalion commander and instructor afterwards, and it will be fine." ”

Xiao Junping nodded reassuringly and said no more.

In fact, when Wu Zijian said this, he was very unsure in his heart. As the deputy battalion commander, although he and the battalion commander have their own division of labor, it is obvious that he is not in charge of the new company-level contingent and appoints company-level cadres: it requires a meeting of the three commanders of the battalion headquarters to make a decision. It's just that at the moment, Wu Zijian needs to solve the problem of retaining the staff of the Jin army first, so he patted his chest in front of Xiao Junping.

Xiao Junping, who was in a good mood, struggled to get off the ground and go out for a walk - recently, the injury in his left leg recovered quickly, before the battle of Hekou Village, the health officer of the 5th Company had re-examined him, thinking that the originally diagnosed fracture might be a misdiagnosis, otherwise, the staff officer of the Jin army would not have limped around with the help of crutches so quickly.

"Our Eighth Route Army lacks professional military doctors," at that time, Wu Zijian was embarrassed to apologize to Xiao Junping: "The second battalion is a health team directly under the battalion headquarters, and a total of seven people are hygienists, and there is no doctor; It may be that you were blinded when you were diagnosed. Xiao Junping is very happy, this misdiagnosis is obviously better than a diagnosis.

At this moment, Wu Zijian hurriedly called a soldier, supported the new captain of the enemy workers, and walked out of the house together.

The village of Hekou is in full swing to build bunker fortifications.

The battle against the cavalry battalion of the puppet Mongolian army made Wu Zijian feel bitterly that Hekou Village was easy to attack and difficult to defend, so he drew drawings with his own hands and began to build more than ten bunkers at the head of the village and in the center of the village. The bunkers follow the style of bunker fortifications along the gentle slopes of the mountain pass, with the help of civilian buildings and facilities, all camouflaged, and finally from the outside of the village, there are no obvious traces of military fortifications.

While Xiao Junping was hobbling along, he discussed with Wu Zijian the possibility of the enemy sending troops back to retaliate. In his opinion, the puppet Mongolian cavalry stationed in Fengdian did not expect that the cavalry of the puppet Mongolian army stationed in Fengdian would accidentally exchange fire with the Eighth Route Army here. He analyzed that this cavalry suffered heavy losses in Hekou Village, and it was difficult for them to fool the Japanese commanders through the test, and once they truthfully reported the battle losses, it would inevitably arouse a high degree of vigilance among the Japanese troops: It was obvious that those who could defeat hundreds of cavalry in a battle would not be ordinary troops.

"I have strengthened the vigilance of the mobile posts in all directions, and the posts in each direction are equipped with cavalry, and once the enemy situation is discovered, Pegasus will come back and report, and try to buy as much time as possible for the camp to meet the enemy." Wu Zijian introduced to Xiao Junping.

"Good! However, you can't passively wait for the enemy here, you should stretch out your tentacles and immediately send enemy engineers to Fengdian to find out the movements of the Japanese army after the defeat of the puppet Mongolian cavalry. Xiao Junping responded.

Seeing that the captain of the enemy engineer had entered the role, the deputy commander of the second battalion was very pleased, and he asked Xiao Junping to rest assured that the twelve enemy engineer members would be handed over to him as the captain today, and he would first carry out identification and simple training, and then he could send out a few reconnaissance missions. Previously, Xiao Junping's training of Xia Lianshan and other officers and soldiers who went to Fengdian to reconnoiter made Wu Zijian extremely admired.

When they reached the head of the village, they saw two heavy weapons that had just belonged to the 5th Company: a mortar and a heavy machine gun.

Xiao Junping's eyes lit up, and he walked over with interest.

As soon as the battle in Hekou Village ended, Wu Zijian ordered the establishment of an artillery squad, which was temporarily directly under the 5th Company Headquarters, and appointed Zhao Yejiao as the squad leader; The class was composed of 12 people, and Zhao Yejiao was asked to teach the artillery squad soldiers to operate the artillery as soon as possible, including many essentials such as disassembly, transportation and assembly, aiming, and ammunition reloading and firing. Wu Zijian promised that within two months, two new guns would be added to the artillery squad.

In view of the fact that the Type 92 heavy machine gun that was transported from the Hongxing Gorge in Guanmen Mountain had only two bullets left, and no one was operating it for the time being, it was also temporarily handed over to the artillery squad for safekeeping. At this moment, squad leader Zhao Yejiao led the whole squad of soldiers, fiddling with these two heavy weapons.

"Deputy battalion commander, you always say that the Eighth Route Army is poorly equipped, but I looked at the equipment of the 5th Company, one mortar, two heavy machine guns, and three light machine guns! As far as a company is concerned, this configuration is not low. Xiao Junping pointed to mortars and heavy machine guns and said to Wu Zijian.

Wu Zijian couldn't help laughing, and he told the new enemy engineer captain that he had seen not only the equipment of the 5th Company, but also the entire family of the 2nd Battalion. And the other three companies, not to mention heavy weapons, even the rifles of the infantry still have a large number of old Hanyang-made sleeves, which explode when they hit bullets.

"Moreover, this mortar and the 92 heavy machine have different origins, the artillery was allocated to the Eighth Route Army in the Second World War Zone for the first time, and the machine gun was handed over by us from Japan." Wu Zijian introduced with great interest.

Xiao Junping was stunned: "What's unprecedented?" This is the Republic of China Type 20 82 mortar from the Jinling Arsenal in Nanjing, and the 12th Brigade is also equipped with an artillery platoon, which is directly under the brigade headquarters, which I have seen. ”

"Hehe," Wu Zijian smiled happily: "You don't know, our Eighth Route Army is not worthy of such high-end goods; It is said that before the Battle of Taiyuan, Commander Wei Lihuang personally gave Lin Shi a special permission, and there were not a few mortars, but hundreds of boxes of shells were given; At that time, the national army was retreating from Xinkou, and I estimated that the commander of Wei also understood it - so many shells could not be transported, rather than throwing them away and letting the little devils pick them up, it was better to distribute them to the Eighth Route Army. ”

"No, no, report to the deputy battalion commander, even if the devil picks up the shell, he can't actually use it!" Seeing Wu Zijian walking over, he stood on the side of the artillery squad, and at this moment, the squad leader Zhao Yejiao interjected.

"Why?" Wu Zijian almost asked with Xiao Junping with interest.

"There is a saying in this," Zhao Yejiao, who was born as an artillery soldier of the Central Army, said a little shyly: "Around the 20th year of the Republic of China (author's note: that is, 1931), the Japanese military introduced the French Bronde-style 81-millimeter mortar at about the same time as China, but when the Japanese military imitated it, it honestly followed the diameter of the French muzzle, but our Jinling Arsenal increased the muzzle by one millimeter. ”

"Huh? A millimeter larger? What's the saying? Although Wu Zijian was a member of the firearms department of the Wuhan branch of the Whampoa Military Academy, he joined the Red Army early and lost the opportunity to deal with many advanced weapons.

"It is said that our military considered that there would be a full-scale war with the Japanese army in the future - at that time, the little Japanese had already occupied our three eastern provinces - if we copied the French mortars and the Japanese army were of the same caliber, when we arrived on the battlefield, in case we captured our shells, they could directly pick them up and fight us; But we increased the diameter of the muzzle by one millimeter, and the shells became thicker, and the little Japanese picked up our shells and couldn't fit into their muzzles. ”

Wu Zijian, who reacted very quickly, couldn't help but be happy: "Then on the other hand, if we pick up the Japanese shells, wouldn't it still be usable?" ”

"That's right, our cannon barrel is eighty-two millimeters, and it can hold their eighty-one millimeter shells!"

Xiao Junping, who heard about this principle for the first time, could not help but be aggressive, and he sighed with emotion: "There are many talented people among the people, and General Jiang Baili once said when he expounded the theory of warfare against Japan that China has a way. That's true! ”

Wu Zijian introduced Xiao Junping's new identity to the entire artillery squad, and also introduced Xiao Junping to the new artillery squad leader who killed the machine gun position of the puppet Mongolian army:

"The two of you are both elites in the national army, and now you have joined the Eighth Route Army. We Chinese unite to fight devils, and I don't believe how many years can little Japan be rampant! ”

Zhao Yejiao never forgot the promise given to him by the deputy battalion commander to this artillery squad, and at this moment he dared to ask: "Deputy battalion commander, when can we buy new artillery?" At the moment, there are only five shells left. ”

Xiao Junping was a little puzzled when he heard that there were only five shells left, and he asked Wu Zijian: Didn't Chief Wei Lihuang allocate hundreds of boxes of shells? Wu Zijian shook his head and said that when Lin Shi was fighting the Japanese army in the northeast of Jin, he had already knocked out a lot of shells; This time, the 2nd Battalion was ordered to advance to the central and southern part of Jinjin alone, and the brigade headquarters and regimental headquarters decided to strengthen the 2nd Battalion with this mortar, and as for the artillery shells, there were not many shells left in the whole brigade, so only seven rounds were allocated.

"However, today I finally know that we can also use the mortar shells of Little Japan. Okay," Wu Zijian looked at Zhao Yejiao: "I'm not sure which day I can give you the new cannonball, but adding some new cannonballs should be very soon." ”

The captain of the enemy engineer looked at the deputy battalion commander and understood that he was already fighting the Japanese again.