At the headquarters of the Japanese First Army in Taiyuan, Yoshio Iwamatsu was looking forward to the battle plan in his hand.
The Chief of Staff and Chief of Operations Division Fujino Daizao stood respectfully in front of him, waiting for him to make the final decision.
"Tell me briefly about your second combat plan!" Iwamatsu Yoshio suddenly said.
Fujino Daizuo quickly spread out the combat map in his hand, pointed to the marked offensive line and said: "The second combat plan is the most direct and simple..."
"Using our advantage in strength and firepower, we divided our troops into three groups, sweeping across from the southeast and all the way to the northwest!"
"Take one base and destroy the other!"
"All the houses were burned down, all the livestock were killed, and all the food was taken away, forcing the independent group to come out and fight us!"
Iwamatsu Yoshio nodded repeatedly after hearing this, and before Fujino Daizuo finished speaking, he interrupted: "I like this style of play..."
"Go straight, go straight, kill your opponent on the battlefield..."
"We will sweep northwestern Shanxi according to the second set of combat plans..."
"I will contact the front army headquarters immediately and ask about the reinforcements!"
"Commander Okamura promised me that the two divisions and the heavy artillery regiment will be our main force in sweeping northwestern Shanxi, and there must be no accidents!"
"Chief of Staff, you are responsible for deploying troops from the First Army and transporting ammunition supplies to the planned attack point..."
"Prepare twenty days of ammunition supplies for each main division!"
"Coupled with the ammunition supplies carried by each division, exactly one month's ammunition supplies are enough to sweep across the entire northwestern Shanxi!"
"Raise another 500 carts for each division, and the two regiments of the Imperial Army will be dedicated to transporting ammunition supplies and wounded soldiers!"
"Ensure that every soldier in the main division can go to the battlefield without being troubled by wounded soldiers or ammunition supplies!"
Duanjiabao is a village that the Japanese and puppet troops must pass through after entering the base area.
It is built on the mountain, and the official road passes through the middle of the village. As long as it occupies the village and the high ground behind the village, no matter how many days, the puppet troops will not be able to pass through here and continue to penetrate deep into the hinterland of the base area.
The first blocking position that Kong Jie and Li Yunlong discussed happened to be chosen here.
Starting three days ago, the people in the village were relocated.
Three main camps, with more than 10,000 young and carefully selected victims, all hid here, working day and night to transform Duanjiabao and the mountains behind.
Three main camps, with nearly 100,000 young and strong victims, were pulling and transporting rails along the railway line...
He also stayed up day and night, delivering a steady stream of rails to Duanjiabao...
"Captain..." Shen Quan, deputy chief of staff and commander of the first battalion, pointed to the half-repaired bunker in front of him and introduced him!
"Using steel rails to build a bunker is great, and it looks very strong, but it takes too much time!"
"A platoon of soldiers, a hundred young men, worked hard all night to build such a half-baked bunker!"
"According to this progress, it will take at least three days to repair..."
"Three identical defensive positions will be built later, and the trenches will be connected with hidden communication trenches... The workload is too large, and I'm afraid I won't be able to complete it!"
Kong Jie looked surprised and asked: "Why so slow?"
"I remember that it took Huang Yu one night and one day to build a rail bunker. Why did it take you so long? Did you use the wrong method?"
Shen Quan shook his head and explained: "Consultant Huang built the rail bunker on the ground, and we built it underground. The difficulty increased by at least three times."
Seeing that Kong Jie didn't believe it, Shen Quan immediately dragged him to another bunker that had just been built: "Our bunker is only three or four meters wide, but the rails are dozens of meters long, and even after cutting them off, they are about ten meters long..."
"If we want to fix the rails and bury them underneath, we have to dig at least a deep trench more than ten meters long, then layer the rails on top of each other, and finally fill it with soil!"
"This is what Staff Officer Huang asked us to do. Even if a heavy artillery shell hits the rail, it will only hit part of the rail. The other part will still be buried deep in the soil to ensure the stability of the bunker!"
"I roughly did the math... A trench requires forty bunkers, fifty anti-gun holes, plus hidden communication trenches, trenches, and mortar positions... It will take at least twenty days..."
"We have less than two months to prepare, and we will definitely not be able to complete the four defensive positions!"
Kong Jie was originally very worried, fearing that Shen Quan would spend twice as much time repairing the position because of other reasons, which would delay important events.
After learning that the troops could spend twice as much time to make the bunker stronger, the worry on their faces was immediately replaced by happiness.
The Japanese and puppet troops the independent regiment faced this time were too strong. If the bunker could last longer on the battlefield, it wouldn't matter if it took twice as long.
As soon as his mind turned around, he made a decision: "There is no time to build one trench at the same time, so we will build two blocking positions at the same time!"
"There are only so many troops, but I can mobilize another 12,000 local troops, guerrillas, and young people from the rear to support you!"
At the brigade headquarters, the chief of staff suddenly ran to the brigade commander with a solemn expression: "The headquarters has an urgent call... Yoshio Iwamatsu has taken action..."
"Three main divisions, a heavy artillery regiment, a cavalry regiment, a tank regiment, and six regiments of the Imperial Army, a total of more than 58,000 Japanese puppet troops, divided into three lines, starting from the southeast
Sweep northwest Shanxi!"
"The only good news is that the three main divisions are all second-class divisions!"
"Each division is under the jurisdiction of three infantry regiments, which is one infantry regiment less than the first-class divisions we encountered before, and there is no brigade-level command structure!"
"But their heavy firepower isn't much less."
"In addition to the three infantry regiments, each division has an artillery regiment, a cavalry brigade, a baggage brigade, and an engineering brigade..."
"The total strength adds up to fifteen thousand people!"
"Including Yoshio Iwamatsu's reinforcement of their heavy artillery brigade, cavalry brigade, tank brigade, and two regiments of the Imperial Alliance Army, the total strength of each Japanese and puppet army will exceed 20,000!"
"The heavy firepower is even scarier!"
"Each line of Japanese and puppet troops is equipped with nine to twelve large-caliber howitzers or mountain cannons, thirty-six field guns or mountain cannons, eighteen infantry cannons, eighteen rapid-fire cannons, about one hundred mortars, and one hundred
Heavy machine gun!"
"Just sweeping the troops along the way can completely crush Kong Jie and Li Yunlong in terms of firepower!"
"Yoshio Iwamatsu sent three lines of mopping up troops at once... I'm worried that I won't be able to survive!"
"The base area that we worked so hard to build will also be lost..."
The brigade commander didn't answer. He looked over the information three times before putting it down. He sighed and said, "We will hold on even if we can't hold on!"
"Yoshio Iwamatsu, this old devil is very smart!"
"The troops sweeping up northwestern Shanxi were basically seconded, and the First Army only dispatched three regiments!"
"As a result, the Japanese and puppet troops blocking us have basically not moved. We want to attack in the east and west, but it is difficult to provide some support to Kong Jie and others... We have made it clear that we want to take over northwest Shanxi in one battle and kill Kong Jie and others!" This chapter has been completed!
