Hong Linfeng didn’t know what Li Hao was thinking!
But he has his own analysis.
The two battalions had less than 500 combatable soldiers. After the Japanese had heavy mortars, the army's artillery advantage was gone!
In addition, the Japanese army reoccupied all the city fortifications and stood ready!
The garrison has completely lost the possibility of capturing the garrison!
Continuing to attack has no meaning except causing casualties to the troops!
Seeing Li Hao's face becoming more and more gloomy but just staring at the map without speaking, Hong Linfeng couldn't help it anymore!
"Captain, I think we can't fight anymore!"
"Every advantage now lies with the Japs. If we continue to fight, the troops will not gain any advantage and will only increase casualties!"
"Also, I just went to the army and talked with the two battalion commanders: their opinion was also to suspend the attack!"
"Change the attack into a trap, directly trap the Japanese to death in Lingqiu City, cut off their supplies, and force them to leave Lingqiu City!"
"I think this is a great idea!"
"Lingqiu is now an isolated city, surrounded by our base areas!"
"Including the reinforcements that just arrived yesterday, there are still more than 2,000 puppet troops inside. The food they consume every day is astronomical!"
"Even if the Japanese have stockpiled a large amount of supplies in Lingqiu City in advance and consume such a large amount every day, they will eventually run out!"
"The Japanese army will definitely deliver supplies to Lingqiu City by then, and these supplies must pass through our base area!"
"As long as we stop him, the lack of food alone will force the little Japs out of Lingqiu City!"
Li Hao did not deny it: "Conquer the enemy without fighting and capture Lingqiu City at the minimum cost!"
Hong Linfeng's eyes lit up and he asked: "Captain, you agreed!"
"No!"
Li Hao was surprised to deny it!
"In normal times, I would definitely support this, and I wouldn't fight this battle from the beginning! But not now?"
"Your idea has a fatal flaw!"
"It takes time, and a long time!"
"According to intelligence, since the Japanese army reoccupied Lingqiu, they have been operating it as an isolated city!"
"For several months, we have been stocking up on supplies, weapons and ammunition!"
"Not to mention too much, the current food reserves in Lingqiu City will definitely be enough for the Japs to feed them for three months, maybe even half a year!"
"Do you think the Japanese army will give us such a long time to attack us after we capture Lingqiu?"
"There are also Hunyuan, Guangling and Laiyuan counties!"
"The Japanese army voluntarily abandoned all strongholds outside the city and defended the county seat!"
"Is this a decision they were forced to make, or was it intentional?"
"Judging from what happened in Lingqiu City tonight, I think the latter is more likely!"
"If the Japanese are really brewing some big conspiracy in the three counties, I have no confidence at all whether the three main battalions can handle it!"
"What if I can't handle it!"
"The Secret Service Battalion and the Independent Battalion cannot move here because they besieged the Lingqiu garrison. Even if we know that the three main battalions are in danger, we cannot send them reinforcements. We can only watch them fend for themselves!"
Hong Linfeng's eyes immediately widened, and he exclaimed with a look of realization: "This is really the case!"
"The Japanese can mobilize heavy artillery to reinforce Lingqiu, and they can certainly reinforce Guangling and Hunyuan!"
"If the little devils from the three places are reinforced with heavy artillery, they will definitely not continue to defend the county seat!"
"We only have one main battalion in each county, and it is easy for the Japanese to defeat them one by one!"
"In order to prepare for possible accidents, we must have a certain amount of mobile troops in hand to reinforce the battlefield at any time!"
"The Special Agent Battalion and the Independent Battalion are the only mobile forces we can use, so the two battalions must be liberated from here as soon as possible to restore their strength and respond to possible emergencies in the base area!"
Li Hao nodded and affirmed: "Not bad!"
"For the sake of the overall situation of the entire base area, we have to fight the Lingqiu City in front of us even if there are no conditions. We must fight quickly and end the battle as soon as possible!"
Hong Linfeng was in a dilemma and replied helplessly: "Captain, now we don't have any conditions!"
"There is simply no chance of winning!"
"With this small amount of troops and firepower, it will be difficult to even get close to Lingqiu City, not to mention taking over Lingqiu City!"
"Also, last night and tonight, the troops have lost two battles in a row, with heavy casualties, and many troops are in dire straits!"
"Because this battle was decided at short notice by us, it was very sudden!"
"The training of many troops before the war was only half completed!"
"The prisoners and absentees who had just replenished their troops were frightened. Not only were their morale low, they also became resistant to going to the battlefield!"
"Under such circumstances, the troops cannot fight at all!"
Li Hao also frowned and fell into deep thought. These are all issues he has to consider!
The Chief of Staff is right. If these problems are not resolved, there will be no discussion on continuing the offensive!
But the gap in strength is there. Even though Li Hao has decades of historical experience in his mind, it is still very difficult to face this problem. He scratches his head and can't come up with any clues!
“Boom… da da da…”
Suddenly, an explosion faintly came into the headquarters, and there were also a lot of gunshots in it!
Li Hao's brows that were frowning just now relaxed instantly, his eyes shone and he shouted!
"There is a way!"
"How could I forget them!"
"Chief of Staff, although our two main battalions attacking the city have retreated, the first guard company and two battalions of guard platoons and reconnaissance platoons that entered the county during the battle have not retreated yet!"
"A company plus four platoons has a total strength of nearly 300 people. As long as they are used well, they can definitely deal a fatal blow to the Lingqiu garrison!"
"Then attack from both inside and outside, and cooperate with the main force to capture Lingqiu again!"
"I really didn't expect that an unexpected decision made a few hours ago turned out to be the key to whether we could win Lingqiu City!"
"When this battle is won and the troops take Lingqiu, I want to meet Li Zhiyong in person!"
"He was the first to send a small group of troops into the county town and use street fighting to actively attack the Japs. He is the biggest contributor to our ability to capture Lingqiu!"
"Chief of Staff, did Sun Jiawu bring a radio when he led the guards into Lingqiu City?"
Hong Linfeng's eyes also started to shine!
He has absolute trust in the leader!
The leader said that it could be done, so there must be no problem. Hope rekindled on his desperate and solemn face, and he immediately replied: "There is a radio station!"
"In the battle to kill three Japanese brigades, we seized six radios at once, and each main battalion was given one!"
"We captured two strongholds last night and captured two more!"
"Although the power is very small, there is no problem at all in making contact within ten kilometers!"
"What Camp Commander Sun brings is a low-power radio!"
The confident expression on Li Hao's face became stronger: "If we can contact Sun Jiawu, then our chances of winning this battle will be higher!"
"Let's go in three groups!"
"The first step is to reactivate our sealed flying thunder cannon!"
"After the Japanese are equipped with heavy artillery, the thunder cannons will no longer be a deterrent to them. It doesn't matter even if they are exposed now!"
"In that case, let them go back to the battlefield!"
"The special agent battalion and the independent battalion each strengthened six torpedo cannons and immediately launched a feint attack on the Japanese and puppet troops on the city wall. They used the torpedo cannons and our remaining artillery to consume a large number of Japanese troops and attract all their attention.
East and west of the city, give our troops lurking in the city a chance to take action!"
"The remaining thunder cannons will be sent to the three main battalions. Each battalion will be divided into six to form a thunder cannon platoon!"
"In addition, I would like to remind the special agent battalion and the independent battalion to pay attention to the heavy mortars equipped by the little devils during the attack!"
"Detach part of the artillery, especially the mortars, specifically to deal with this heavy artillery unit, hold them back, and deny them a chance to attack our offensive troops and mine artillery units!"
"The second step is to order Sun Jiawu to unified command all the troops in the city!"
"As soon as the fighting outside the city started, we immediately launched an attack on the small group of Japanese troops, important headquarters, material warehouses, and ammunition depots in the city. They spread everywhere and consumed a large number of Japanese troops!"
"Remind Sun Jiawu that you must not fight forcefully!"
"Be sure to kill the most Japs with the least casualties!"
"They killed some of the Japs, and we'll kill some more, plus the ones we've killed before! We're going to eat at least a thousand little Japs tonight!"
"After daybreak, if conditions permit, we will continue to fight!"
"Conditions don't allow it, let's wait until dark to continue fighting!"
"The third step is to immediately send a telegram to the political commissar to extract all the absentees and prisoners in the base area who are willing to join our Eighth Route Army and send them to Lingqiu! After the battle, these people will immediately replenish the independent battalion and the special agent battalion and let them
Restore combat effectiveness as soon as possible!"
In the east of Lingqiu City, more than two hundred Japanese and puppet troops are busy repairing the city defenses that were destroyed by the garrison in the middle of the night!
The squadron leader stood on the ruins of the city tower, holding a telescope and looking down at the garrison's offensive position!
As he watched, the squadron leader couldn't help but smile!
In less than half an hour, the garrison regiment had carried out more than a hundred people from the offensive position, including corpses and seriously injured people!
The offensive position stretching for hundreds of meters was sparse and there were no more Eighth Route Army troops to be seen!
Most of the people carried their rifles on their backs, bent over and threw shovelfuls of soil outside the position, deepening and widening it and consuming it!
At this time, anyone with a little military knowledge can see that in the face of heavy casualties, the garrison has lost its ability to attack!
The reason why we are still deepening and widening the trenches now is probably because we want to continue to besiege Lingqiu and wait until we have the strength to attack again in the future!
With this idea in mind, the squadron leader completely relaxed, threw the binoculars to his subordinates, and returned to his headquarters to close his eyes and rest!
He was physically and mentally exhausted from fighting for half a night and needed to rest!
There is a word called what goes up and leads to results!
The squadron leader has relaxed, and the troops under his command will definitely no longer be nervous!
The speed of emergency repair work began to slow down, and the security forces began not to be so focused!
At this moment, a troop entered the position like a ghost under the cover of night!
Then we began to build a flying thunder artillery position based on the position!