"Quick, hurry up and cross the highway immediately!" Rong Jun stood at the intersection and kept urging his men to speed up.
The troops brought so much food, there must not be any accidents.
Once you are alerted by the Japanese and then come after you and beat you, these life-saving grains will definitely be snatched away by the Japanese.
Therefore, Rongjun must take preventive measures and reduce the probability of accidents as much as possible.
After the last mules and horses loaded with food left the road, the tense nerves of the retired army finally relaxed. After taking a long breath, they prepared to leave the road with the rear troops.
"Japanese car!" a soldier next to him suddenly reminded.
"There are at least two Japanese cars. How could they come here? Have we been exposed?" Rong Jun frowned when he saw the light coming from the end of the road and cried out.
"Retreat quickly, get off the road, the further away the better!"
It was a Japanese patrol, two three-wheeled motorcycles, and an armored car.
Since there were no cars transporting infantry following them, they had to move very fast, and within half a minute they reached the position where the soldiers were crossing the road.
The Japs selected to join the patrol were all veterans with sharp eyes and a keen sense of smell. They could tell there was something wrong here at a glance.
When they shined their motorcycle headlights in the direction of the retreat of the Invalids, dozens of scattered figures appeared in their field of vision.
"Baga, there is the Eighth Route Army, shoot immediately and kill them!" a Japanese sergeant on a motorcycle shouted loudly.
The machine gun mounted on the motorcycle's bucket fired rapidly. Under the guidance of the car's lights, the bullets were so tricky that they almost bit the flesh.
At this time, the Japanese armored vehicles following behind also joined in, firing machine guns and artillery fire.
The sound of gunshots and explosions was very dense, as if a small-scale encounter was taking place here.
The Japanese machine guns and artillery didn't stop until the Rong army abandoned more than a dozen corpses and completely disappeared into the night.
Returning to the Tianjiacun Maintenance Association station, the guard squad leader lowered his head and walked up to Rong Jun to demand punishment. After receiving the news, Wang Jianxin also rushed over.
Seeing that Rong Jun was silent, the instructor quickly stood up and came to the rescue: "Company Commander, I also checked. The Japanese patrol on the highway at night started last night. Squad Leader Wang is not to blame for such an accident."
Rong Jun frowned and replied: "I didn't blame him, I was thinking about other things!"
"At the beginning, I was self-righteous and thought that the Japanese were stupid and built artillery towers on the highway to give us every opportunity to defeat them. Now it seems that it is not the Japanese who are wrong, but ourselves."
"Think about it: there is a turret every five kilometers on the road, coupled with the constant Japanese patrols, it must be very difficult for us to cross the road as safely as before. Last night, there were only a few dozen of us, and all of them were captured by Japanese soldiers.
Grab the tail and beat them up. When the main force comes out of the mountain, if hundreds of people cross the road, aren't they going to be massacred by Japanese armored vehicles?"
"In addition, with gun towers and armored vehicle patrols, the Japanese will completely control the highway!"
"This means that no matter what we do in the future, we cannot take the road, and there is a possibility that the Japanese will use the road to separate us at any time!"
The instructor frowned and suggested: "Doesn't the main force of the regiment have infantry artillery? We can use infantry artillery to bombard the Japanese artillery towers. Without artillery towers, and the road is so long, a few armored vehicles cannot control the road even if they conduct uninterrupted patrols!"
Rong Jun shook his head and replied: "Instructor, you underestimate the Japanese!"
"Do you still remember the battle the night before yesterday? If we hadn't used a trick to quickly capture the Sanchakou stronghold and waited for the Japanese reinforcements to arrive in a car, we would have been attacked from both sides and suffered even greater losses!"
"The Japanese have vehicles to transport an infantry squad, and they have vehicles to transport an infantry squadron or even more troops. Plus armored vehicles, they can drive through the roads we reinforced for them at any time in dozens or even minutes.
Go anywhere and attack us!"
"After the main force of the regiment comes out of the mountain, it is indeed possible to use infantry artillery to attack the gun towers. But it will take time, and this time is enough for the Japanese reinforcements to arrive in cars. By then, the main force of the regiment will be attacked from both sides, or at least they will be beaten by the Japanese!"
At this point, Rong Jun made a decisive decision: "This matter is too important. We must report it to the regiment commander immediately so that the regiment headquarters can make an early decision!"
At the Japanese Brigade Headquarters in Linfen City, Matsumoto saw the good news delivered by Matsumoto just after breakfast.
The patrol troops killed more than a dozen Eighth Route Army soldiers and snatched hundreds of kilograms of grain from the Eighth Route Army. More importantly, after the encounter, the Eighth Route Army retreated in disgrace, not even taking away the bodies of those killed.
For a general, this result is so small that it can be ignored.
However, Matsumoto was very happy to see this result now, because it represented him in building artillery towers on the highway and sending armored vehicles to patrol the highway. The plan to block and divide the Eighth Route Army had worked.
Yang raised the telegram in his hand and ordered to the chief of staff: "The number of patrols at night will be increased!"
"I just calculated it. With our current number of patrols and the fact that the distance between the gun towers is five kilometers, the Eighth Route Army with one to two hundred people will still have a chance to cross the highway as long as they seize the opportunity!"
"If the number of patrols is doubled, they will have no chance."
"Even if there is a chance, only a few dozen or even a few people can cross the road at a time, which will not have much effect on the entire battle situation!"
The chief of staff frowned and thought about it before replying: "Yes, yes, we have troops, but we don't have enough armored vehicles!"
"It's impossible to ask for confirmation from above!" Matsumoto also frowned.
"The last time I asked about the need for so many cars and armored vehicles, I had to use my connections to get them. For an ordinary garrison brigade, it would be great if I could get half of them."
The chief of staff said with a worried look: "Without armored vehicles to provide fire support, the patrol will definitely be ambushed by the Eighth Route Army!"
"The Eighth Route Army's equipment is very good. Even if the patrol's strength exceeds one squad, they can quickly eat it up!"
Matsumoto frowned and spoke. After thinking for two minutes, he suddenly had an idea and asked the chief of staff: "Cars! Do we have any extra transport cars?"
"Weld protective steel plates around the transport vehicles, as long as they can block bullets. Then add a heavy machine gun on the roof of each vehicle, with two shooting holes on each side!"
"Compared with a real armored car, although there are fewer guns, there is definitely no problem in blocking bullets!"
The chief of staff's eyes lit up and he affirmed: "It's really possible. Unless the Eighth Route Army uses direct-aimed artillery to shoot directly, there is really nothing we can do about cars equipped with steel plates!"
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