According to the logic of the agents, if they didn't know that Sawada Shigeru was going to Linpu by boat, the enemy would not have made such a move, but if he knew Sawada Shigeru's itinerary, it would be an extremely ridiculous thing, someone in the headquarters betrayed the empire, and this nature was much more serious than Sawada Shigeru being killed.

What's even more troublesome is that Sawada Shigeru's itinerary was decided last night, even if someone leaked secrets, and wanted to pass the blockade in one night and transport mines and mines to Yiqiao, this is obviously impossible, a mine weighs hundreds of pounds, the volume is not small, and there are more mines in the Puyang River, which is very difficult to transport.

Sato Keichi also found it difficult to justify himself, although his professional intuition told him that this matter was done by the Yamashiro government agents, but the other party was not an immortal, and it was impossible to guess Sawada Shigeru's whereabouts in advance.

"Commander Shigeru Sawada was traveling to Linpu by boat, and the ship accidentally touched a mine, resulting in a heroic martyrdom, and this matter must be of a unified voice." Hirabayashi said.

"Please rest assured, Your Excellency the division commander, we know how to do it." Watanabe Ichiro said hurriedly.

Hirabayashi Morito characterized the incident as a mistaken mine, an accident, not an action taken by the enemy, and everyone knows what he meant, this is to save the face of the Imperial Army. The death of the dignified army commander by the enemy with a mine is also too ugly, too humiliating, and a disgrace to the Imperial Army.

But no one could have imagined that the mine incident would continue, and a military transport ship of the Japanese Navy was also struck by a mine and sank two months later, along with hundreds of Japanese marines on board, and died underwater. And the lieutenant general who died was not only Sawada Shigeru, but also Naoji Sakai, who would soon be blown up.

The guerrilla command is stationed at the forward command of Kaihua.

"Boss, Director Chen sent a congratulatory telegram to congratulate our Secret Service and the Guerrilla Command on carrying out a special operation at the Yiqiao Bridge in Hangzhou, killing Lieutenant General Shigeru Sawada, commander of the 13th Army of the Japanese Army, and the personnel of the Japanese forward command post have been wiped out, which will play an important role in our resistance to the large-scale attack of the Japanese army.

"In order not to make the Japanese army angry and carry out a massacre of inhumanity against the common people of Zhejiang Province, don't hype about this matter for the time being, kill a military commander, or a lieutenant general, and the Japanese army itself will give a cover-up statement."

"I have just received news from Hangzhou that Shunroku Hatata, commander-in-chief of Japan's Chinese dispatch army, has secretly arrived in Hangzhou by plane, and it is estimated that he personally commanded this operation." Li Peiyue said.

Sawada Shigeru was killed as a military commander, but didn't Shunroku Hata, the commander-in-chief, have to sit in person?

"Sawada Shigeru is a one-eyed dragon with a serious eye disease, even if he doesn't die this time, he will soon be transferred to the reserve, and it is not surprising that Shunroku Hata will play in person. reported the news to the Military Commission, Shunroku Hata and Shigeru Sawada, but they were a pair of rivals, and the relationship was very bad. Han Lin said.

"Is there a conflict between these two?" Smith asked curiously.

"This is an inside incident of the fall of the Mitsumasa Yonechi cabinet, and as you know, Mitsumasa Yonechi was an important figure in the Japanese Navy, he opposed Japan's alliance with Germany and Italy, and was also hated by the Japanese Army, and Shunroku Hata was the Minister of War during the Mitsumasa Yonechi cabinet."

"Sawada Shigeru was the deputy chief of the General Staff Headquarters at the time, and he took the seal of Prince Zaihito of the Kanin Palace, forced Shunroku Hata to resign, but the Ministry of War did not nominate a new Minister of War, thus bringing down the cabinet of Mitsumasa Yonechi, therefore, Shunroku Hata was quite disgusted with Shigeru Sawada, and he may be very happy about Shigeru Sawada's death, and he breathed a bad breath." Han Lin said with a smile.

On 28 May, just 11 days after the mine incident, Lieutenant General Naoji Sakai, commander of the 15th Division, stepped on a mine on his horse during the attack on Lanxi, and he was seriously injured and lost too much blood.

In a large-scale operation, in the first half a month, two lieutenant generals were killed one after another, one was a corps commander and the other was a division commander, which led to an exceptionally low morale of the attacking Japanese troops.

However, compared with the army of the ninth theater, the performance of the army of the third theater is really out of the chain, its combat effectiveness is low, and there are hardly any outstanding performances.

After knowing the information of the Japanese army's imminent attack in advance, a battle was terrible, first Jinhua and Lanxi were lost, and then the Japanese army approached Quzhou.

Guerrilla Command Yujiadang Southern Suburbs Stronghold.

There are all large and small lakes here, connected into a dense network of vertical and horizontal water, such as what Yingyu Lake, Caodang, Yangjiadang, Lujiadang, etc., the geographical environment is very suitable for guerrilla activities, for this reason, an elite commando team is also stationed, relying on the field equipment assisted by the US Naval Intelligence Agency, in the woods and reeds on the shore, to set up a secret station.

"The Jinling Intelligence Station sent a message that the Anqing General Association had transported more than 60 ships of grain and some military supplies in Suzhou, one grain ship was about 400 tons of grain, and 50 ships were more than 20,000 tons of rice, and they would set off for Hangzhou tomorrow morning, with two Japanese patrol ships and four search and escort ships."

"Our task is to snatch these food supplies, take advantage of the main force of the Japanese army to move south, transport them to Huzhou through Qitang, wait for the cooperation of the transport battalion, and transport them to Ningguo as military rations for our guerrilla headquarters. Haoming, does your squadron have the ability to transfer so much rice? Gu Qingjie said with a cigarette.

According to Han Lin's request, the grain and materials that the Japanese army was transporting to Hangzhou through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and by land should be intercepted and destroyed, and the Sheshan base of the Shanghai Intelligence Station and the Taihu Squadron of the Guerrilla Headquarters should be responsible for completing the work.

"The boatmen we have recruited in the past two years can cope with the driving of a hundred boats, and they also have dozens of small boats, usually in the Grand Canal, Taihu Lake, and Qitang, and there are hundreds of fishermen who have joined the group.

"But Anqing will always come from the Qing Gang's century-old precipitation, and the strength is not comparable to us, we don't have so many medium-sized ships to engage in transportation, so it's best to capture these ships completely, so as to save trouble." Squadron Leader Gao Haoming said.

"We were armed with four Browning heavy machine guns and ten light machine guns, including three mortars, and we were able to turn patrol boats and escort boats into a hornet's nest in an instant. It's still the old way, using boats to block the entire canal, hitting the front and not the middle, forcing them to surrender, don't forget, we also have two sniper teams to cooperate. Gu Qingjie said.

Why did the Japanese army transport food supplies through gangs?

This is to talk about the Japanese army's control and plundering of grain, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui have always been important grain producing areas, especially rice, according to the agreement between the Japanese army and the Wang puppet government, the high-quality rice-producing area is listed as the first area, specifically to supply the Japanese army's military rations, Suzhou, Xichang and Huzhou and other places are the first area.

The consumption of more than 100,000 troops was not a small amount, and the Japanese army's own transportation capacity was low, so it had to rely on the ships of the Anqing General Association to transport them through the Grand Canal.

(End of chapter)