"Report to Your Excellency General, we have deciphered the telegram of the Third Army of China, and the situation is urgent, please make a decision as soon as possible!" Not long after Han Fuyu's message was sent, the devil intelligence officer deciphered the message and urgently sent it to the commander of the 10th Division, Ryosuke Isoya! "Yaga! Han Fuyu even dared to come to the rescue to relieve the siege, he really ate the bear's heart and leopard's gall! After reading the message, Ryosuke Isoya was so angry that his eyes were slanted and his nose was crooked, if it had been placed half a month ago, he would definitely have raised his hands and feet to welcome!

Even if Han Fuyu dispatched an army of 100,000, Ryosuke Isoya would not be afraid of a decisive battle with the Third Army in the plains at all, but would be so happy that he couldn't keep his mouth shut! Because according to the current comparison of the combat strength of China and Japan, the regular elite troops of the Japanese army of 40,000 are enough to sweep and crush the 100,000 army in this open plain area! If the main force of the Third Army can be eliminated in northern Lubei, it will undoubtedly be much easier to fully occupy the Shandong region in the future.

But not in front of him, the Jiaodong Independent Brigade was like a dagger with a bloodletting groove inserted into the heart of the 10th Division, constantly cutting flesh and bleeding on the 10th Division! This dagger can't be pulled out and thrown away directly, because his intuition tells Ryosuke Isoya that once the Jiaodong Independent Brigade is released, I'm afraid it will only let the tiger return to the mountain, and it won't be long before this unit will become a real henchman of the Japanese Army!

However, what makes Ryosuke Isoya even more crazy is that at present, the elite troops of Japan's main mobile force are fighting fiercely in the Guangdong area, and there is no more troops to encircle and annihilate the Jiaodong Independent Brigade! Originally, I wanted to slowly consume the food, weapons and ammunition of the Independent Brigade, but according to the current situation, the Jiaodong Independent Brigade seems to be not short of supplies at all, and it is tossing hard every night, and the shells are as if they don't need money!

Ryosuke Isoya really can't imagine what kind of monster the Jiaodong Independent Brigade is, where did so many shells and supplies come from, and even their entire division is running out of shells! Ryosuke Isoya couldn't make up his mind to launch a continuous onboard charge against the Jiaodong Independent Brigade regardless of casualties, because the bloody facts told him that no matter how many people charged in the face of powerful automatic fire, it would be in vain!

"Order the intelligence department to closely monitor the movements of Han Fuyu's troops, and order the 1st Brigade to be ready for battle at any time! If Han Fuyu's troops dare to come to the rescue, they will definitely have no return! After thinking about it for a long time, Ryosuke Isoya couldn't think of how to eat the Jiaodong Independent Brigade in the short term, so he could only retreat and prepare to come to a fence to pick up a soft persimmon pinch!

Now for the 10th Division, a hearty victory is urgently needed to boost morale and confidence, and Ryosuke Isoya needs a record to prove his worth! It's just obvious that Jiang Qiang will not sit back and wait for Boss Han to send troops to rescue, so he began to order the troops to act separately to clean up the minefields and Japanese fortifications between Dezhou and Lingxian, as well as increase the intensity of night raids and harassment in the camp of the devil's position!

The total number of troops participating in the operation tonight directly reached an unprecedented more than 3,000 people, and nearly one-third of the troops were dispatched! "Haha, Chief of Staff, we're finally victorious!" "Brothers, are you all okay these days?" "Good! All good! Except that the activity place is a little smaller, and from time to time it is bombarded by the cannons of the little devils, there is nothing bad! ”

"Haha, these little devils have a lot of appetite and want to eat our Jiaodong Independent Brigade in one bite, but it's a pity that they don't have a good pair of teeth!" "That's not it, our Jiaodong Independent Brigade will always be a copper pea that can't be hammered or cooked!" Because the night combat ability of the Jiaodong Independent Brigade was too fierce, the devils did not dare to set up a camp between Dexian and Lingxian, but only established more than 20 fortified bunkers before and after!

Under the strong offensive firepower of the Jiaodong Independent Brigade, these twenty or so fortifications did not play a big role, and they were all wiped out in the night attack a few days ago! So much so that later the Japanese devils no longer dared to send troops to garrison between Dexian and Lingxian at night, but several minefields were arranged in a row in an attempt to prevent the Jiaodong Independent Brigade from rendezvous! After more than four hours of hard work, the Jiaodong Independent Brigade finally cleared a safe passage with a width of 500 meters at about 5 o'clock in the morning, and hundreds of officers and soldiers of the Independent Brigade successfully rendezvoused in the middle ground!

At the same time, after a night of bloody fighting, the officers and men of the night attack in several other directions successively destroyed more than a dozen fortified pillboxes of the devils at the cost of 10 dead and 65 wounded, and fired nearly 100 shells at close range! The devil was extremely difficult to endure all night, and the sound of guns and artillery in the entire Dexian and Ling counties was not interrupted, and after the fight, the devil was forced to use heavy artillery and mortars to bombard indiscriminately, which effectively reduced the intensity of the night attack of the independent brigade!

However, the final result was that the number of devils killed exceeded 100, and the number of light and serious wounded was as high as more than 300, and the consumption of shells was not light, and it was almost at the bottom! On the evening of October 19, the Jiaodong Independent Brigade once again launched a large-scale night raid, cleaning all the surrounding fortifications in the four directions of the devils! When the devils approached and built a defensive line with barbed wire, mines, trenches, sandbag bunkers, searchlights, fires, etc., the Jiaodong Independent Brigade was forced to stop advancing and directly adopt a mobile artillery bombardment to change places!

Under a series of shelling, the forward position of the devils was razed to the ground, and the camp in the distance was also beaten, only to see the fireballs under the black night were extremely dazzling, and the number of devils killed and wounded will definitely not be less! In the face of this kind of rogue tactics of attacking fortifications and running away after taking advantage, the devil troops were crazy and found that they could not make effective defense and counterattacks at all, and the devils were about to cry from top to bottom!

In the high-intensity night attack for two consecutive nights, the number of devil casualties exceeded 1,500, while the Jiaodong Independent Brigade paid the price of more than 20 killed, more than 30 seriously wounded, dozens of minor wounded, and more than 600 shells consumed! "Bagaya Road! This group of disgraceful Chinese rats, one day I will cut off your heads with my own hands! ”

Ryosuke Isoya was almost about to be tortured by Jiang Qiang and went crazy, as soon as it got dark, he began to have a headache and fear, and he felt that death had come to the world, and I don't know how many of his subordinates would die in the night battle sneak attack! In desperation, Ryosuke Isoya could only frantically strengthen the defensive position, set up a front formed by several barbed wire sandbag bunkers, and stretched the troop camp and the outer defense line in depth to prevent the shameless night shelling of the Jiaodong Independent Brigade!

This response did have a certain effect, which could greatly slow down the advance of the independent brigade and consume a lot of mortar shells and rocket launcher shells of the independent brigade! It's just that Ryosuke Isoya met Jiang Qiang in Hongkou District, Shanghai, even if Jiang Qiang emptied all the shells he brought, it would be a matter of minutes and seconds to replenish them! It's a big deal, Jiang Qiang uses a forced airdrop method to replenish!

In the early morning of October 20, Han Fuyu issued an order, and nearly 20,000 soldiers of the 81st Division of the 12th Army and the 74th Division of the 56th Army of the Third Army were officially mobilized! Tens of thousands of troops will cross the river from the Yellow River railway bridge along the Jinpu line, and go to the front line of the Anti-Japanese War in Texas through Qihe County, Yucheng County, and Pingyuan County! After crossing the Yellow River and leaving Qihe County, the 74th Division was stationed in Linyi to face the Japanese occupation area south of Lingxian County and north of the Tuxiao River! And the 81st Division was stationed in Yucheng County to face the Japanese garrison troops occupying Pingyuan County!

"Send a report to Governor Han that our department has arrived in Linyi County and formed a counter-encirclement against the Japanese invaders! Our unit will launch an attack on the Japanese positions on the opposite side tomorrow morning! In addition, the telegram was copied to the Jiaodong Independent Brigade so that they could be ready to respond! "After the 74th Division of the 56th Army was stationed in Linyi, the division commander Li Hanzhang ordered the troops to be stationed on the spot, take over the defensive positions of the local security regiment, and called Jiang Qiang to ask for cooperation! Looking at the Japanese army position on the other side of the river and the outline of the city wall of Lingxian County, Li Hanzhang had a very complicated mood!

A year and a half ago, Zhaoyuan County was only a defense area of the 74th Division, a barren local county where grain and grass soldiers were recruited. However, just a year and a half later, Zhuang Tao built Zhaoyuan County into an independent kingdom from scratch, a super economically strong county with a lot of money, and a military center with tens of thousands of elite soldiers!

After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the 74th Division was ordered to go north to garrison the Yellow River defense line, and most of the original defense area was taken over by the Jiaodong Independent Brigade and local militia groups! Now the independent brigade on the other side of the river has resisted the siege of the devil's elite armor division and the independent mixed brigade with its own strength, and has destroyed more than 17,000 enemies in 10 days and 10 nights. This record is difficult for even a group army of 100,000 troops to achieve, and Li Hanzhang asked himself if the 74th Division was to change places, I am afraid it would be difficult to hold on for three days!

Just when Li Hanzhang was looking across the river, the Zhanshutang Department of the 81st Division had also arrived in Yucheng County, and was preparing to launch an attack on the Japanese troops in Pingyuan County the next morning! "Report to the Chief of Staff that the 74th Division has arrived in Linyi County, and the troops are preparing to force the Shahe River tomorrow morning to launch an attack on the Japanese positions south of Ling County!"

"Report to the Chief of Staff that the 81st Division will launch an attack on the Japanese army in Pingyuan County tomorrow morning!" Jiang Qiang received telegrams from Li Hanzhang and Zhanshutang one after another, and immediately nodded in a good mood: "It's really time for them to come, since that's the case, let's casually harass the Japanese devils tonight, and let's officially launch a general attack tomorrow morning to break through!" Yun Qichang nodded and laughed: "I'm finally looking forward to reinforcements, now we can start to fight back against the little devils, and let them know that our Shandong soldiers are not easy to bully!" ”

The movements of the 74th Division and the 81st Division stationed in Linyi and Yucheng County were naturally concealed from the Japanese intelligence department, and the relevant intelligence information was transmitted to Ryosuke Isoya at the first time. "Baga, I want to see how the hateful Huaxia rat breaks through! Order the troops to hold their positions, and the independent brigade must not be released back to the mountains! ”

In the face of more than 10,000 menacing Chinese troops, this old devil did not panic at all, and just lightly reinforced a large group of devils to Pingyuan County! Ryosuke Isoya was still quite confident in the defensive ability of the Japanese army's positional warfare, and while maintaining the heavy encirclement of Lingxian County, he felt that he could make the Chinese army who came to the rescue pay a heavy price for casualties! And Ryosuke Isoya is still deeply eager in his heart, and the independent brigade can't bear to force a breakthrough, and then in front of his own carefully constructed defensive front, he will suffer heavy casualties!

At 6 o'clock in the morning on October 21, Li Hanzhang's division of the 74th Division took the lead in launching an artillery bombardment of the devil's position on the other side of the Shahe River, and the Li Yizhi division of the 220th Brigade took the earthen bridge at the mouth of Caijia Village as the main direction of attack, and the 1st Brigade of Maguan took the ferry of Zaojia Village in Sunpo as the main direction of attack! There is a small river between Ling County and Linyi County, the widest part of the river is more than 40 meters, the narrowest part is only more than 20 meters, and there is only one earthen bridge on the river surface as the traffic artery of the two counties! But it was because of such a small river that the pace of Japanese aggression was blocked on the other side of the river, otherwise the Japanese army would have occupied Linyi County long ago!

It is also because of this small river that the difficulty coefficient of the 74th Division to attack the Japanese positions on the opposite bank has increased several times, and the 74th Division has no experience in beach-grabbing landing warfare, and it lacks the tools of ships to rush to land! Before the loss, Han Fuyu purchased a large number of artillery and guns from Shanghai, and the 74th Division did not suffer too much in terms of weapons and equipment, especially the dozens of field guns equipped with extremely sharp! Against the 74th Division was an infantry wing, an artillery brigade and 2 tank brigades of the 1st Brigade of the Japanese Army, with a total strength of about 5,000 men!

As soon as the battle began, the artillery of the 74th Division on the south bank of the river roared in unison, and the powerful firepower network directly blew up the forward positions of the Japanese army into dust, and they couldn't raise their heads at all for a while! After nearly half an hour of artillery bombardment and firepower, the 439th Regiment began to attack the Japanese troops on the opposite bank through the earthen bridge! There were no armored tanks to open the way, and the soldiers could only push a few trolleys full of sandbags and wet cotton wool to rush over, and as soon as they got on the bridge, they ushered in a dense metal storm, and the devil's long and short guns and tank anti-aircraft guns fired wildly!

The devil has not blown up this earthen bridge because the devil still wants to attack Linyi County through this bridge, and the same militia defenders have the same intention if they do not blow up the bridge! The Japanese army relied on its positional advantage to blockade the officers and men of the 74th Division who crossed the bridge and crossed the river, and the battle entered a fierce battle from the beginning, and the enemy and us fought a life-and-death battle! The narrow river surface was blown up into turbulent waves, the blood of the soldiers stained the river red, and the short river channel of thirty or forty meters became a moat of life and death!

The 1st Regiment and 2nd Regiment of the Independent Brigade stationed in Lingxian County naturally did not sit idle, and organized two battalions of troops to launch an attack on the Japanese positions from the front, in order to cooperate with the 74th Division's strong attack on the river crossing battle! At seven o'clock in the morning of the same day, the 481st Regiment of the 241st Brigade of the 84th Division launched an attack on the south gate of Pingyuan County. Since the 243rd Brigade of the 84th Division is besieged in Dezhou City, the main purpose of the 241st Brigade as reinforcements this time is to contain and attract the Japanese defensive forces, not to capture Pingyuan County to open a gap!

So the battle situation looked very intense, but in fact, the casualties on both sides were not large, and to a large extent, local firefights and firepower were carried out, and no strong charges were launched! "Since the devil is so big, then we can't get used to them! Order all the troops to attack and go to Lingxian to rendezvous, and eat the independent mixed brigade! "Pingyuan County and Ling County are fighting in full swing, but Dezhou City seems to be extremely quiet, and the devil troops in the north, east and west are as immobile as mountains and as steady as old dogs, waiting for Jiang Qiang's independent brigade to forcibly break through.

The information on the battlefields was passed on, and Jiang Qiang quickly understood after careful analysis of the situation, what kind of calculation the little devil was making: the Japanese army in Pingyuan County and Lingxian County held their defensive positions, relying on the advantages of geographical advantages, the advantages of soldiers' combat power, and the advantages of weapons and equipment to block and deal heavy losses to the Chinese troops who were eager to rescue! If the Independent Brigade wants to take the opportunity to break through from the north, east, and west, it will inevitably encounter extremely tragic positional battles and storms, and it is obvious that this is the result that the Japanese army wants to see the most!

If the Independent Brigade directly chooses to abandon Dezhou City and go to Lingxian, then the Japanese army will definitely follow behind and pursue, and the devil is not afraid to fight a head-on battle with the Independent Brigade in the plains during the day! When the Jiaodong Independent Brigade and the 243rd Brigade all arrive in Lingxian, the devils will inevitably carry out a heavy siege again, greatly limiting the activity space of the independent brigade, which will be more conducive to the Japanese heavy artillery and bombers to exert their power!

In a narrow area, it is extremely difficult for a troop of tens of thousands of people to evade heavy artillery and bombers, let alone food supply after a long siege! Ryosuke Isoya's wishful thinking is a good one, but being smart is mistaken by being smart! Jiang Qiang is not so calculating, just relying on the independent mixed brigade on the periphery of Lingxian County to block the independent brigade's full attack, it is simply wishful thinking!

Instead of worrying and troublesome Jiang Qiang, Ryosuke Isoya's wishful thinking gave rise to an extremely exciting bold idea! "Director Chen, there is an emergency that needs to be reported to you now! Our department is ready to start breaking through in the direction of Lingxian in half an hour, please prepare for evacuation as soon as possible! After receiving Jiang Qiang's order, Huzi found Chen Bui as soon as possible, relayed Jiang Qiang's instructions, and asked Chen Bui and his entourage to go directly to Lingxian with the convoy as soon as possible!

Dezhou City and Lingxian County are nearly 30 kilometers apart, and if you march completely on your legs, it will take at least 4 and a half hours to cross the plain in the middle! Considering that the Japanese army not only deployed a large number of heavy artillery around, but also called in bomber groups for air support, Jiang Qiang decided to use transport vehicles from Dezhou City and Ling County to transfer personnel and materials to minimize the time that the troops were exposed to the field plains!

According to the plan, the medical staff, the seriously wounded and the remaining supplies in Dezhou City were escorted by 300 special combat team members, and the first batch went directly to Lingxian by car! At the same time, Lingxian will drive all the transport vehicles to the direction of Dexian County to meet all the officers and soldiers marching on foot! On this expedition to the Texas front, there were originally more than 120 vehicles in the Independent Brigade troop carriers and baggage trucks, but more than 30 were blown up in the previous devil bombing, so now there are more than 80 left!

Even if each vehicle is overloaded to transport troops, a round trip can transport up to about 4,500 people, which requires the convoy to go back and forth from Lingxian twice, and if it goes well, it is expected to complete all the transfers within 2 hours! "Your Excellency, the commander of the division, the Chinese defenders of Dexian County have begun to abandon the city and go to Lingxian to assemble! And the Lingxian Huaxia army sent a large number of transport vehicles to pick it up! ”

The devil reconnaissance unit, which has been closely observing the movements of Dexian and Ling counties, reported the information to Ryosuke Isoya as soon as possible! "Yoxi, that's true! Immediately ordered the troops to capture Dezhou City and comprehensively compress the encirclement, and ordered the artillery to bombard the fleeing Huaxia troops with all their might, and they could not be allowed to turn easily! "The telegram ordered the 1st Brigade of the Independent Mixed Brigade to hold its position and firmly besiege the Jiaodong Independent Brigade in Lingxian County and annihilate it!" "Immediately request air force support from the North China Command, and be sure to launch the highest level of carpet bombing against the Huaxia army in Lingxian County within 3 hours!"

After receiving the information, Isoya Ryosuke looked happy and issued a series of combat orders one after another, although the situation did not progress in the direction he wanted to see the most, but this was much better than Dexian and Ling County being difficult to gnaw at each other's horns. Ryosuke Isoya is very confident in the Japanese army's aircraft and artillery, as long as the Independent Brigade and the 243rd Brigade are completely within the range of Lingxian, then they can launch the strongest attack with the help of strong firepower and force superiority, and annihilate the Independent Brigade in one go! After the Jiaodong Independent Brigade and the 243rd Brigade abandoned Dezhou City, they assembled to Lingxian as quickly as possible, and before retreating, Jiang Qiang also ordered the troops to lay a large number of mines inside and outside Dezhou City and on the retreat road to slow down the Japanese follow-up pursuit! "There are all artillery positions, and the target is the Huaxia fleeing army! Ready, put! ”

The devil's artillery unit quickly adjusted its firing and soon began to launch artillery attacks on the Independent Brigade and the 243 Brigade that were withdrawing at full speed! Boom, shells of various calibers sprayed out of the barrels, whistling in the air, because the Jiang Qiang Independent Brigade would launch a night attack every night before, the forward positions of the devils were repelled to 8 kilometers away, and the artillery positions of the devils naturally retreated further!

The 75mm field gun with the longest range of the devil artillery field gun is 11 km, the 105mm field gun is 10 km, and the 120mm field howitzer is only 5.6 km! So at this time, the devil artillery was temporarily crammed and could not quickly move the artillery positions to approach the shelling, so they could only rely on 75mm and 105mm field guns for shelling! Even so, its firing range has reached the limit, and although the artillery continues to make a lot of noise, in fact, the lethality of the fast-moving independent brigade and the 243rd brigade is quite limited!

"Assault the whole army and kill these Chinese rats!" "Assault, all of them, assault, Tao Ci change!" "Rush, Imperial Japan, His Majesty the Emperor...... Onboard! ”

The devil chariot and infantry brigade that received the order began to frantically rush towards Texas and the retreating Chinese officers and soldiers, and for a while it seemed that they were "it is advisable to chase the poor and brave the leftovers"! Boom, boom, but soon they tasted the power of mine warfare, powerful anti-tank mines and anti-infantry mines exploded one after another, six devil combat vehicles were directly scrapped, and the infantry was killed even more than 100!

These days, Jiang Qiang has already sorted out the minefields laid by the devils, quietly changed the layout, and planted more mines, and the devils can only suffer heavy casualties when they are eager to pursue! "Bagaya Road! Order the troops to immediately stop the pursuit, and the engineering units immediately enter the field to clear the mines! "The old devil Ryosuke Isoya was stunned again, the minefield that was originally used to limit the encirclement of the Jiaodong Independent Brigade has now become a talisman for the devil's troops!

The devil troops could only suspend their rhythm, watching the Huaxia troops who were rapidly evacuating in the distance march away, and there was no way to effectively block them! In less than 1 hour to retreat at full speed, Jiang Qiang led a large army to Lingxian! "Come and not be rude, order the troops to immediately launch a general attack on the 1st Brigade of the Japanese Army's independent mix!

This time, we can't be too stingy, use the convoy to open the way for the follow-up troops to keep up, mortars and bazookas can be bombarded, we must break through the devil's position with thunder, and annihilate the devil's living force as much as possible! Although the shelling and bombardment of the little devil only caused less than 100 casualties, Jiang Qiang was still full of anger, and as soon as he gained a foothold, he ordered the troops to send 40 cars to line up and rush directly to the devil's position!

There is no way, now the transportation is not abundant enough, Jiang Qiang can only use the car as an armored car! Even if these leather transport trucks can't charge into battle, they can at least provide cover for the infantry, and they don't have to fight hard against the devil's firepower with flesh and blood! "Please rest assured that the chief of staff will complete the mission!" "Kill the little devils! Avenge your brothers! "The wind is sluggish and the water is cold, and the strong man will never return! More than 800 officers and soldiers knew that this task was extremely arduous and that it was very likely that they would die heroically because of it, but all of them had no fear! There is only one belief in everyone's hearts: that is, to break through the encirclement of devils, kill more little devils, avenge the dead brothers, and kill a bloody path for the living brothers!

He saluted Yang Fan resolutely, and 40 car drivers and 800 officers and soldiers immediately quickly entered the cab and boarded the carriage! Immediately after that, the car started to start, and at the fastest speed, they lined up and launched a desperate charge towards the Japanese position 10 kilometers away! The driver gritted his teeth and held the steering wheel, slammed the accelerator to death, and went crazy on the bumpy dirt floor! The fighters on the side half-squatted at the bottom of the carriage and grabbed the iron railing of the car compartment with their hands to prevent the devil's stray bullets from penetrating the canvas and causing casualties! "Brothers, take care!" Jiang Qiang saluted solemnly with red eyes, and silently prayed for them in his heart, only hoping that they would all come back alive!