At six o'clock in the afternoon, the fighting in Datong City continued.
The war situation has further deteriorated, and the Japanese and puppet troops have been reduced sharply to less than 800 people, compressed within a radius of less than 500 meters in the middle of the city.
But it is not that easy for the attacking troops to eliminate them in a short time.
Actual combat is the fastest way for a person to develop combat effectiveness. Whether it is the Eighth Route Army or the Japanese Army, this method will work.
Survival of the fittest, after a day of street fighting, the few remaining Japanese troops were almost all veteran elites, not to mention strong in combat effectiveness, and more and more adapted to street fighting.
The expatriates with poor fighting ability also become more and more powerful as they fight. As long as they are alive, they must have mastered the skills of protecting their lives.
In this case, the attacking troops would have to pay a heavy price for each Japanese soldier they destroyed.
Fortunately, Chief of Staff Zhou had enough time and troops to slowly grind against the Japanese.
He was not in a hurry at all, and kept ordering the troops to fight steadily and not to advance rashly. They attacked yard by yard, gradually advancing forward, and compressing the enemy's positions to force them to come out and fight the attacking troops...
A small mountain village about 40 kilometers east of Datong City was the gathering place for the troops that Li Hao had determined before dividing his troops.
Before dark, troops came one after another to report.
By seven o'clock in the evening, the small village was already crowded with various troops.
In order to avoid exposing their targets, the soldiers who returned later had to stay in the woods outside the village to rest.
A staff officer hurriedly walked into the temporary regiment headquarters: "Commander, except for the two companies that have not yet returned to form, all other troops have been assembled and are having dinner. They are ready to leave at any time."
Li Hao nodded, looked at the reconnaissance company commander Chen Wei and asked, "Have you contacted the transport team lurking nearby?"
"We've all been contacted!" Chen Wei quickly replied.
"The vehicle transport company from the base area can arrive in half an hour, and the transport company we temporarily formed in Datong will arrive in an hour."
"Excluding the car that broke down last night, the two companies still have 98 cars that can participate in transportation."
"We will definitely be able to send all the troops to the front line before dawn."
"Very good!" Li Hao was very satisfied with the order: "Then we will act according to the previously planned transportation plan: the guard company, the special agent company, the independent company, the reconnaissance company, and the Hunyuan Independent Battalion will go first, and the other troops will be transported in the second round!"
On the Laiyuan battlefield, because the Japanese army deliberately slowed down their attack pace, they were finally stopped in front of the seventh line of defense.
After dark, both the enemy and our armies chose to stop and recharge their batteries until they could fight again tomorrow.
Of course, this is all on the surface.
The secret struggle between the two sides not only did not stop, but intensified.
The Japanese army mobilized almost all their agents lurking within the garrison to determine whether the local troops and guerrillas formed by the garrison had actually arrived at the Laiyuan battlefield.
The Security Department did not miss this opportunity, mobilized all personnel, and achieved great results.
"Report..." Security Director He Wenlin ran into the headquarters with a smile on his face.
"Political Commissar, Chief of Staff, tonight the Security Office has achieved its greatest victory since its establishment. The Japanese have arrested six agents who have been lurking for more than two years, and dozens of ordinary agents, all of whom were investigating the whereabouts of local troops and guerrillas.
"
Wang Hong's focus did not seem to be on these agents. His face was calm, and he stared at He Wenlin and asked: "Has the information they collected been sent out?"
He Wenlin replied confidently: "Don't worry, political commissar. Before the action, I specifically told everyone: we must wait for the enemy to take action before we can close the net."
"So most of the information has been sent out!"
Wang Hong continued to ask: "Are the spies lurking in the army still there?"
He Wenlin nodded and replied: "They are all here!
"Through them, we have discovered two routes for the Japanese to send intelligence out."
"Although these agents pretending to be new recruits are not high-level, because they are inside our garrison, the Japanese attach great importance to them and have deployed a large number of peripheral agents to cooperate with them."
"I plan to use them to catch all these peripheral agents and then attack them."
"Just don't move!" Wang Hong suddenly flashed a sneer at the corner of his mouth, stared at He Wenlin and Hong Linfeng and began to give orders.
"The Japanese army is investigating the movements of our local troops and guerrillas at all costs, with one purpose: to kill us all here."
"Since the regiment leader asked us to act with the little devils and make them believe in his battle plan, then we will make this scene more realistic!"
"Chief of Staff, how many local troops and guerrillas we deployed during the day are already in place?"
Hong Linfeng blurted out: "There are more than 1,300 people, and there are nearly a thousand people on the road."
"That's enough!" Wang Hong began to give orders directly.
"Follow-up local troops will continue to head here."
"The troops already in place immediately took action to dig out four more lines of defense behind our eighth line of defense, giving the Japanese army a posture that we were going to fight them to the death here."
"Let the nearby guerrillas find ways to organize two thousand people to join us and help us dig trenches and build positions."
"The new recruits who transport the wounded during the day will also join. Those spies are hidden among the new recruits. I want to send this information out through them to continue to confuse the Japanese."
In the Japanese military headquarters in Taiyuan, the lights in the war room were brightly lit, and everyone did not take a break. Headed by the military commander, he stood next to the huge combat sand table.
The chief of staff held the baton in his hand and pointed at the sand table to introduce today's results to everyone.
"Your Excellency, Army Commander, Datong Garrison reported: Throughout the day today, the Eighth Route Army's offensive was as fierce as ever. The attack did not stop for a minute. One unit was exhausted, and new units were immediately replaced to continue the attack."
"After dark, the offensive was more intense than during the day, and the mountain artillery that had not been used during the day was used."
"So they judged that the main force of the garrison did not return to support because the base area was attacked. They planned to capture Datong first and then return to support the base area."
"I agree with their judgment."
"On the Laiyuan battlefield, under special request from the military headquarters, the offensive troops only took down six lines of defense of the garrison and then stopped."
"The military department just received a new piece of information. It came from within the garrison. There are several pieces of information. The content is the same and it is extremely accurate."
"It was said above that the more than a thousand local troops transferred to the battlefield by the garrison during the day began to dig trenches and build blocking positions."
"Local troops, guerrillas, recruits, and nearby people, a total of more than 4,000 people, built four blocking positions at the same time, directly behind the blocking positions we attacked during the day."
"It must have been the daytime battle that gave the garrison the hope of blocking our attacking troops."
"Then I plan to repeat the old trick, build more blocking positions on the battlefield, block layer by layer, trade space for time to hold us back, buy time for the main force to capture Datong, and then return to the base to support us."
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