Kosuke Otsuka could not determine whether it was the Eighth Route Army that engaged in a fierce exchange of fire with the Mongolian Frontier Army Cavalry Regiment at the front, and then the spearhead soldiers led by Nara Shaoza were also blocked and repelled by unknown forces. The night was so dark! Wing Captain Dazuo looked at his pocket watch again, there were still nearly ten minutes before the scheduled attack time, and the only thing that was certain at the moment was that the plan for the sneak attack had been aborted!

Yaga.

Judging from the information provided by the Wencheng secret service before, the two villages where the Eighth Route Army stationed troops at the western foot of Guanmen Mountain were only a dozen miles apart, and now the battle in Hekou Village is earth-shattering, and Xiping Village further south may have heard it.

"Shaozuo, the two squadrons immediately spread out in echelons and attacked in the direction of Hekou Village!"

At the same time as the order was issued, Otsuka asked the signal corps to immediately contact the chief of staff of the brigade and regiment who was starting from the Nantongpu Road, Kawaguchi Daisa, and informed the other side that the battle had begun in advance, and asked the chief of staff and the Tyumen brigade to act cheaply. He couldn't imagine the anger of the chief of staff when he received the news—he had always been unpopular with the chief of staff on the riverside as the commander of the wing who had risen through the ranks of fire.

In the night when he couldn't see his fingers, Nara Shaozo did not dare to use mortars, grenadiers or even the 92nd infantry gun, because there was almost no shooting range to speak of, and if it was not good, the shells would hit the heads of the Mongolian army directly. He recalled the firepower of the block just now: rifles were the majority, and there should be no machine guns. Nara Shaosa ordered that all nine light machine guns of the squadron in the first echelon be moved to the forefront, and once they encountered the blocking line just now, they would immediately open fire to clear the obstacles for the squadron.

This blocking platoon of the 5th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Eighth Route Army Forest Division was subjected to these nine Taisho 11-style fierce strafing!

The platoon of more than 40 soldiers lying on the wasteland did not have machine guns, and each of them had a rifle, except for the 38 big cover, which was the middle formal, and was shooting desperately towards the night opposite, and they could not see how many Japanese soldiers were swarming again, but only the dense rain of machine gun bullets that came from the split head and cover the face could also weigh the menacing enemy approach. However, perhaps it was still the dark of the night, and the Japanese machine gun shooters did not see that all the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army dozens of feet away on the opposite side were lying on the ground, so the machine gun bullets almost flew over the scalp of the Eighth Route Army.

As a result of this accident, the 5th Company's blocking platoon still withstood the advance of a squadron of Japanese troops more than 10 minutes after the battle began, and if it had been in the day or on a moonlit night, with the platoon's bare and unobstructed so-called "position", I am afraid that most of the casualties would have been suffered under such a powerful fire network.

Although the platoon commander of the blocking platoon received the order to retreat to Hekou Village, the Japanese troops on the opposite side were extremely fierce, and at this moment, not to mention getting up and running, even if the head and shoulders were slightly raised, it was possible to be hit by a rain of bullets. At this moment, gunshots rang out behind him that were getting closer and closer!

It was the cavalry regiment of the Mongolian Xinjiang Army that breathed a sigh of relief, and turned around and killed it.

Du Dongqiang finally got in touch with Kosuke Otsuka - the Eighth Route Army that was fighting with it suddenly retreated to the distant village while fighting, giving the Mongolian army a chance to breathe - the commander of the cavalry regiment reported to the Japanese wing commander on the walkie-talkie, claiming that he had just been suddenly besieged by the enemy on many sides, and that the enemy had now taken the initiative to leave the battlefield and flee to Hekou Village.

At this moment, Otsuka Kosuke was already sure that it was the Eighth Route Army that attacked the Mongolian cavalry, and he didn't have time to think about how the Eighth Route counterattacked a sneak attack on his own, so he immediately ordered the frightened Du Dongqiang to organize a company to flank the blocking position of the Eighth Route Army located in front of Nara Shaosa.

It was not until Wu Zijian commanded the 5th Company to retreat into Hekou Village and Shankou Fortifications respectively that he realized that the platoon responsible for guarding the direction of Fengdian had not withdrawn, and at this time, the fierce and dense gunfire was coming from that direction more and more clearly.

Wu Zijian, who was dazed from the melee with the Mongolian Xinjiang army just now, failed to distinguish in time that the temporary position in the direction of Fengdian, which was guarding the direction of Fengdian, was also engaged in fire with the enemy, and that enemy force was still an elite Japanese Otsuka Wing. Now, Li Tianlin, the commander of the 5th Company, led three platoons to the gentle slope fortifications at the mountain pass, where there were two 92 heavy machine guns, which were easy to defend and difficult to attack; Wu Zijian himself and the deputy commander of the 5th Company withdrew with two platoons to Hekou Village, where they joined up with Xiao Junping, the captain of the enemy workers. Unexpectedly, just as he wanted to take a breath, the deputy battalion commander suddenly realized from the direction that the gun was still firing violently in the distance, and the platoon he sent someone to order the retreat: the fifth platoon, may have fallen.

Xiao Junping saw Wu Zijian's panic, and the latter was anxious to ask the deputy commander of the 5th Company to immediately reorganize the team and prepare to kill and rescue. The calm captain of the enemy engineer grabbed the sleeve of the deputy battalion commander's shirt:

"Don't act rashly, I'm worried that it's not just the traitor cavalry who will come to sneak attack this time, if the Japanese army follows behind them, then the current disparity between the enemy and our forces will be even greater."

Wu Zijian shook off Xiao Junping's hand vigorously, and roared with burning eyes: "What should I do?" Watching the five platoon commanders annihilate their entire army?! ”

Xiao Junping had never experienced the deputy battalion commander treating himself with such a rough attitude, but he still gritted his teeth and persuaded: "Deputy battalion commander, you are the supreme commander here, you should not think of just a platoon, you have to be responsible for the entire Hekou Village Defense Area." ”

Wu Zijian was about to get angry again, but he was almost stopped by Xiao Junping's low but decisive tone: That's right, the current military situation is urgent, the enemy is obviously rushing to sneak attack the entire Hekou Village, and it is very likely that there are still a large number of devils behind the Mongolian cavalry!

The deputy company commander of the 5th Company was eager to assemble the team, but when he saw Wu Zijian hesitating, he immediately became anxious: "Deputy battalion commander, Lao Liu, they are in a critical situation!" The Lao Liu he was talking about was the platoon commander of the fifth platoon.

Seeing that the tears of the deputy company commander were about to fall, Wu Zijian, who was indifferent, opened his mouth and did not speak for a long time.

Before the lights went out, instructor Liu Shu invited the female soldier Zhang Xiu to drink tea with great interest.

In the past, the nights in Xiping Village, like those in most villages in Shanxi, were quickly extinguished one by one shortly after the lights were lit, even in winter when the sun set early. This is done out of cherishing and saving candles and lamp oil, and secondly, the villagers do have nothing to do after sunset.

After the 2nd Battalion of the Eighth Route Army Forestry Division was stationed here, the village's habit of turning off the lights early was more or less broken. In addition to the 5th Company, which remained in Hekou Village, the remaining three infantry companies of the 2nd Battalion, one cavalry company, plus the battalion headquarters, the health team, and the artillery squad, totaled more than 800 people who poured into the village. Therefore, Xiping at night has the atmosphere of hundreds of lights.

Liu Shu has always had a preference for tea, and the displacement during the Red Army's Long March did not affect his preference, and after arriving in northern Shaanxi and Shanxi, he became more and more drunk: he wanted to drink it in the morning, he wanted to drink it in the afternoon, and when the interest came up, he also drank a little after dinner. The instructor was in a mood tonight, and even pulled his work deputy Zhang Xiu to drink it together.

The most important work of rent reduction and interest reduction in Xiping Village was personally led by Liu Shu, director of the village battlefield mobilization committee, and assisted by Zhang Xiu, deputy director. When the 2nd Battalion first entered Xiping Village, according to Liu Shu's previous experience in the Jiangxi Soviet District, he advocated a direct attack on the landlords in the village: confiscate their land and property and distribute them to the peasants. However, what the instructor did not expect was that those landless peasants did not support the Eighth Route Army in doing this, in their minds, the land and property of the landlords (i.e., landlords) were earned by the landlords for generations, and they only rented the landlord's land to grow crops, and there was no reason to forcibly occupy them.

In desperation, Liu Shu had no choice but to retreat and implement rent and interest reduction in Xiping Village, and this specific operation method was also learned by Liu Shu and other political cadres of the battalion and company when they participated in the relevant study class held by the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army before the Second Battalion left the Lin Division.

In the war-torn years, the peasants' lives became more and more impoverished, and they were able to give less rent to the proprietors with the intervention of external forces. As a result, after the rent and interest reduction, the number of villagers who supported the Eighth Route Army and the Communist Party increased day by day.

Of course, this has to make Liu Shu's heart bloom. At the village office, when drinking tea with Zhang Xiu after dinner, the instructor talked about a lot of grand ambitions and revolutionary ideals in combination with the good start of rent reduction and interest reduction, and the young Zhang Xiu was also excited. While talking and laughing, Liu Shu suddenly found that his female deputy seemed to be more beautiful and charming than before. After all, a regular and peaceful life in the base area is easier for women to rejuvenate their original charm than running around and war. Liu Shu felt inexplicable impulse and joy, and looked at Zhang Xiu's eyes under the oil lamp, and began to feel a little confused.

The two men talked about it for almost nine o'clock, later than the usual lights out. When Zhang Xiu proposed to leave, the instructor was even quite unsatisfied.

Sending Zhang Xiu away, the oil lamp in the village office has been lit, and Liu Shu, who is fluctuating in his heart, carefully recalls the many details of the female soldier Zhang Xiu in the dim light shadow.

Suddenly, a hasty conversation between the sentry and the person sounded outside the village office, Liu Shu was stunned, and before he could ask a question, a correspondent from the battalion headquarters hurriedly broke in:

"Instructor, the battalion commander, please go to the battalion headquarters immediately!"

Liu Shu, who woke up from the gentle township, suddenly became nervous, but fortunately, he had not yet undressed and went to bed, so he immediately put on a coat and went straight to the Guandi Temple - the battalion commander Feng Changzhi set up the battalion headquarters in the Guandi Temple - before he arrived at the temple gate, Liu Shu saw the cavalry company commander Xia Lianshan and the sixth company commander Wang Shuanglong hurriedly running out of the temple.

"Lao Liu, there may be a situation in Hekou Village," Feng Changzhi was already fully armed, and when he saw the instructor, he said: "We set up several mobile posts in the north outside the village, and just now I am sure that we have heard the sound of gunfire coming from that direction, intermittently, but it has not stopped. ”

Liu Shu's face turned pale: Hekou Village! Wu Zijian! What's going on there?!

"There is no news from Lao Wu yet, just in case, I have asked Wang Shuanglong to gather the sixth company to stand by, and at the same time, the commander of the Xia company will take a cavalry platoon and rush to Hekou Village immediately!"

Before Liu Shu could speak again, suddenly, a few gunshots rang out not far from the outside of the village, and the sound was so clear that it was particularly shocking in this silent winter night.

Gunshots, coming from the west side of the village.

Liu Shu shouted anxiously: It's the swimming whistle in the west!

This time, it was Feng Changzhi's turn to turn pale, and the experienced commander of the second battalion of the Lin Division instantly realized: The sound of guns outside the village here, and the sound of guns from the distant Hekou Village, were by no means isolated situations - the enemy army was jointly attacking the base of the Eighth Route Army in Guanmen Mountain!