Okamura Neji walked out of the room and returned to the war room. It was already eleven o'clock that night.
No one in the room was resting, everyone was waiting for Okamura Neji to return.
The deputy chief of staff was keenly unaware that the commander looked much more relaxed than when he entered the room. His eyes lit up and he chased him and asked, "Your Excellency, Commander, have you thought of a way to break the situation?"
Okamura Neiji nodded calmly: "Since the Eighth Route Army in the front is no match for the Eighth Route Army in the Wing, then we will do the opposite and defeat the Eighth Route Army in the Wing from other aspects."
"Does any of you remember a special force once formed by the Shanxi garrison?"
"Remember your humble position!" a center-left staff officer quickly stood up from his chair and said with a serious face.
"It was a small force formed by Daizu Yamamoto, which specialized in special operations and targeted enemy headquarters and important military facilities."
"But unfortunately they were wiped out by the Eighth Route Army on the battlefield."
"Yamamoto Daizuo himself was also shattered on the battlefield."
"According to my humble knowledge, Mr. Yamamoto is the only senior officer in the empire who has systematically studied special operations."
Okamura Neiji asked with great interest: "Since you know the Yamamoto Agent Team, do you think the special tactics carried out by the Yamamoto Agent Team are useful to us?"
"Ha Yi..." the Zhongzuo staff officer gave an affirmative answer without hesitation.
"Yamamoto-kun is too anxious."
"When the special forces were formed, they wanted to destroy the Eighth Route Army headquarters."
"There is an old saying in China: You can't eat hot tofu if you are in a hurry."
"If he takes his time and first targets the brigade-level headquarters for training, and then attacks the Eighth Route Army headquarters, he will definitely achieve unexpected results."
"As a result, the newly formed special agent team had not yet conducted actual combat training. In its first military operation, it went to sneak attack the Eighth Route Army headquarters. How could it not fail?"
"Later, they cooperated with the Shanxi garrison to attack the Shanxi-Sui Army headquarters at all levels, which also proves this."
"In two or three nights, we successfully destroyed six battalion-level headquarters, four regiment-level headquarters, two brigade-level headquarters, and one division-level headquarters. We eliminated more than 30 officers above the battalion commander level and severely dealt a blow to the Jin Dynasty.
The fighting will and morale of the Sui army."
"The Shanxi garrison also won a complete victory on the battlefield."
"It shows that as long as Mr. Yamamoto doesn't rush and practices with small targets first and then attacks big targets, Yamamoto's special agent team will not be wiped out by the Eighth Route Army. Instead, it will become an elite force that will scare the Eighth Route Army."
"What you said is very good..." Okamura Neiji was very satisfied and praised the combat staff.
"Since you know so much about Yamamoto-kun's special agent team, I will leave this task to you."
"From now on, your military rank will be promoted to Dazuo, and you will serve as deputy chief of staff of the headquarters. I will personally go to the military headquarters to report to you."
"All the imperial troops in Baoding who are proficient in Chinese will be handed over to you."
"With the Imperial Army as the main force and the Imperial Association Army as the supplement, a new special agent team will be established."
"Their combat effectiveness does not need to be as strong as the Yamamoto special forces. As long as they can quickly eliminate the Eighth Route Army of the same size and carry twice the number of Eighth Route Army head-on, it is enough."
"Wearing the uniform of the Eighth Route Army, equipped with the weapons and ammunition used by the Eighth Route Army, and acting as the Eighth Route Army, he went deep into the Yizhong base area to carry out sabotage and launch a surprise attack."
"One special agent team kills one hundred Eighth Route Army soldiers in the Yizhong base area, and one hundred special agent teams can kill tens of thousands of Eighth Route Army soldiers."
"Coupled with all the damage they have caused, everyone in the Yizhong base will definitely be in danger and fall into chaos."
"The main force took the opportunity to launch an attack, encroaching on their base area bit by bit, compressing the Eighth Route Army's living space. It won't take long to completely eliminate the Eighth Route Army in the wing."
The center-left staff officer who was promoted to deputy chief of staff immediately became excited and looked at Okamura Neiji and vowed: "Your Excellency, Commander, the method you mentioned is definitely feasible."
"Although the Eighth Route Army in Yizhong achieved victory in the just-concluded sweep."
"But according to intelligence, they also paid a huge price of more than 10,000 people."
"Next, they will definitely recruit new soldiers, replenish battle losses, and train troops. Their vigilance will be greatly reduced, and the base area will be in chaos."
"We took the opportunity to send a special agent team to go deep into their base area to carry out sabotage. We can fish in troubled waters and we will definitely achieve unexpected results."
The deputy chief of staff suddenly stood up and interrupted: "Your Excellency, Commander..."
"According to your idea, a special agent team is equivalent to an infantry platoon of the Eighth Route Army, with more than thirty people."
"With the imperial army who are proficient in Chinese as the backbone."
"Each special agent team needs at least four to five imperial troops, which adds up to four to five hundred elite imperial troops who are proficient in Chinese."
"The current garrison in Baoding is basically from the Kwantung Army. Very few of them are proficient in Chinese. Maybe not even fifty people can be found."
Okamura Neji shook his head and said: "It doesn't matter..."
"If the troops stationed in Baoding cannot be gathered together, I will transfer them from other troops."
"The North China Front has hundreds of thousands of troops under its jurisdiction, many of which deal with the Chinese all year round. There can be a thousand of them, not to mention 500 soldiers who are proficient in Chinese."
"We also need to equip these special agents with a large number of radios and signal guns."
"In case an important military target is discovered, aviation support can be called."
"You can also unite several special agent teams to launch an attack together."
"Isn't this the guerrilla warfare of the Eighth Route Army?" a combat staff muttered in a low voice.
But because the war room was too quiet, the beeping sound still reached the ears of everyone in the room.
Everyone's attention was as if it was a discussion, and they all looked at Okamura Neji, for fear that he would be provoked and angry.
The result was very surprising. The commander showed no sign of anger on his face. Instead, he admitted calmly: "You are right..."
"Going deep into the Eighth Route Army's base area to carry out sneak attacks does have the same effect as the Eighth Route Army's guerrilla warfare."
"But my actions against the Yi Zhong base area are far more than that."
"In addition to the special forces, the main force also needs to rely on important strongholds and county towns to dig deep trenches along the highway and cut off all channels between the Eighth Route Army's base areas and the outside world."
"Although the Yizhong Plain is not short of food, it is short of salt, medicine, and steel..."
"Salt is as important to people as food."
"When the base area in Yizhong runs out of salt and medicine, the special forces will attack the base area until people are in panic."
"The main force took the opportunity to launch an attack."
"To occupy a village, dig deep trenches around it, cut off the tunnel fortifications that the Eighth Route Army is proud of, cut off all connections between the occupied area and the Yizhong base area, and take it down completely."
"One army can eat away at one village in five days. If it advances steadily, it can eat away six villages and towns in one month, and more than thirty villages and towns in half a year. It is equivalent to us taking half the county."
"With several units operating together, within a year at most, the Eighth Route Army in Yizhong will be compressed by us to one or two counties, and it will be easy to eliminate them."
