Bright Sword: From Northwest Shanxi to Shangganling

Chapter 83: Each Department Returns

As the Japanese planes left, the Shahukou position fell into silence.

The Japanese did not launch another attack. Hirosuke Takada knew very well that it would be difficult to break through the current line of defense relying solely on his own strength.

After all, the plane had already seen the number of the Eighth Route Army on the opposite side, at least more than 5 people, and artillery pieces.

Even if the troops tried their best to break through the defense line, they were unable to continue supporting Fu'an.

Takada Hirosuke had already sent a telegram to Pinggang, asking him to stay where he was to contain this group of Eighth Route Army troops to prevent them from joining the battle against Fu'an.

However, when Fu'an's Naosuke Chida saw that the reinforcements from the north and south were blocked and there were more and more Eighth Route Army troops outside the city, especially since he had seen the Eighth Route Army troops digging tunnels, he knew what the Eighth Route Army troops were planning without having to think about it.

How could he dare to continue staying in Fu'an?

After careful consideration, Naosuke Chida sent a telegram to his superiors requesting a transfer and then divided the troops into two.

Among them, the Second Independent Brigade of the Puppet Mongolian Army set off first at night, and Chida Naosuke set off with the Japanese army in the middle of the night.

As long as they can successfully pass through the mouth of Yanghe River and leave the mountainous area, the troops will be safe, and they can then change their marching direction at will.

However, it was a bit too much for Naosuke Chida to hide this little trick from both the division commander and the brigade commander.

Before the Japanese reached Yanghekou, they were ambushed by the 771st and 772nd Regiments in Shizui Village, and the division's teaching regiment also surrounded them from behind.

With no other options left, Naosuke Chida had to blow up his heavy weapons and head west into the mountains to break out.

However, even though Naosuke Chida decisively chose to cut off his own arm, in the end more than 500 people from the Chida Corps were killed.

After learning that the Fu'an troops had broken through, Hirosuke Takada quietly evacuated his position at night.

When Chen Chengxing and his men discovered them the next day, the Japanese had already disappeared.

Immediately afterwards, the brigade commander issued an order, requiring the New Second Regiment to return to the base on its own, and the New First Regiment and the Independent Regiment to march south back to their previous bases, and along the way they happened to bring some rails to the headquarters arsenal.

As the new Second Regiment began to bring back, the battle was officially over.

[The battle is over, battle evaluation: victory!]

[Obtained 402 honor points/Currently 9663 honor points.]

Looking at the honor points, Chen Chengxing felt that the time for upgrading was not far away.

Taiyuan Command Conference Room.

Katsuki Seiji looked at everyone in the conference room without saying a word.

The Japanese officers of all ranks present were made extremely nervous by Katsuki Seiji's silence.

Sometimes silence is more oppressive than roaring.

After a moment of silence, Kazuki Seiji finally spoke:

"Since July 37, my army has launched a full-scale attack on China. Wherever we go, we are unstoppable. Even the most elite Central Army of the Kuomintang Army cannot stop our army's sharp edge."

"But since our army occupied Taiyuan, we have been harassed by the Eighth Route Army. Even after several raids, we have not been able to completely eliminate the Eighth Route Army. Is the Eighth Route Army so powerful? But they are clearly a unit that can't even get uniforms together. As for weapons, they are a world apart from the Locust Army."

"What do you think about this?"

Kiyoshi Kozuki was almost driven crazy by the Eighth Route Army.

When a large force was dispatched to sweep the area, each unit felt that they were attacked by sneak attacks as soon as they left the city. They were attacked all the way, with sneak attacks and landmines appearing one after another.

But to this day, the Locust Army has not had a direct battle with any large force of the Eighth Route Army.

If the Eighth Route Army was dispersed into small units, then where did the 2-strong army that suddenly appeared on the outskirts of Fu'an come from?

After hearing Katsuki Seiji's question, everyone was silent. They didn't know how to answer.

However, Chief of Staff Naosaburo Okabe expressed his own opinion.

"Sir, I have carefully studied all the battles between our army and the Eighth Route Army, and found that the Eighth Route Army's guerrilla warfare is mainly concentrated in mountainous areas with steep roads and easy to defend but difficult to attack. This is very different from the previous attacks on North China, Shanghai, and Nanjing."

"When fighting in North China, Shanghai, and Nanjing, the locust army had no worries about its front or back. It only needed to deploy a few divisions in the front and then move tanks, artillery, and aircraft forward to defeat the enemy.

But when we arrived in Shanxi, we found the terrain was rugged and the vast mountainous areas were full of local troops.

There were all kinds of people, including the Shanxi Suiyuan Army, the Central Army, the Eighth Route Army, and bandits.

This forced the locust army to ensure that there were sufficient troops in all the counties, otherwise they might be attacked at any time."

"I have already done some statistics. In the counties of northern Shanxi alone, more than two divisions of troops have been tied up and unable to move."

There are now as many as 4 Japanese troops in Shanxi. In addition to most of the troops fighting against the Central Army, Kozuki Seiji still has more than 4 troops, but these troops are basically involved in various counties.

The Eighth Route Army's surprise attack on several counties in northwestern Shanxi was due to the fact that the Japanese forces were dispersed, resulting in them being defeated one by one.

"Damn it. This is so disgusting." Katsuki Seiji said with a headache.

It is absolutely not feasible not to place troops in the major county towns. Even in Taiyuan City, if he dares to leave only one battalion here, someone will definitely dare to attack Taiyuan.

Shanxi is now simply a puddle of mud, but even if I want to leave, I can't. After all, Shanxi was obtained at the cost of the lives of many locust soldiers, and no one dares to say that they give up.

But if they didn't give up, they would have no choice but to go into the mountains to raid the place, but the Eighth Route Army was too cunning and they could not be caught at all.

There are ravines everywhere in the mountainous area. Even if the troops are divided into squadron-level forces, how long will it take to complete the cleanup of a mountain?
But if no troops were sent, the Eighth Route Army would come down the mountain again a few days later to rob cars and baggage trains.

This is a real headache. After all, the Locust Army cannot provide escort teams for every transport team. If that were the case, would the county still exist?

"Besides that, there is another very difficult issue in Shanxi." Okabe Naosaburo said:

"In Shanxi, if you want to get from one point to another, there is often only one road, which makes it very easy for the Eighth Route Army to ambush successfully."

After hearing what Naosaburo Okabe said, Seiji Katsuki got an even bigger headache.

He had seen this incident in a battle report. A certain stronghold was attacked and requested support. The county sent soldiers in trucks to provide support, but the Eighth Route Army had buried mines on the road.

And there are a few of them every few hundred meters. It’s up to you whether to line up or not.

If you line up, by the time you arrive, the Eighth Route Army will have finished fighting and retreated; if you don’t line up, there will still be some hundreds of meters away.

Moreover, taking a detour is not realistic. The other shortest route may require going around two or three mountains. There have even been cases where troops took a detour and went to Hebei!

Kazuki Seiji frowned and said, "Okabe-kun, do you have any good ideas?"

"Sir, there are currently two ways to change this situation." Naosaburo Okabe said as he handed a document to Seiji Kazuki.

"One is to repair the roads and try to give the troops more options, but this is not easy and it is not something that can be solved in a short time."

"The second is to form a large encirclement of the Eighth Route Army in a certain area, and then advance in parallel with multiple routes. After squeezing the Eighth Route Army in this area together as much as possible, use the firepower advantage to eliminate them all!"

Okabe Naosaburo's document indicated the approximate number and organization of the Eighth Route Army in various regions of Shanxi. Of course, this number was only inferred by him based on intelligence, so it cannot be said to be inaccurate, but it can only be said to be off by a huge margin.

After all, even the headquarters can only grasp the troop strength of each main regiment, and knows very little about the local forces.

"Yoshi." Kazuki Seiji nodded.

"I have decided to proceed with these two methods simultaneously. Mr. Okabe, you will lead the staff to complete the encirclement plan of the Eighth Route Army in the northwest of Shanxi. The road construction will be handed over to the maintenance associations in various places in advance, and let them take the lead."

The headquarters of the Eighth Route Army is currently in the northwest of Shanxi. If it can be eliminated, it will be of great help in future operations.

The road construction is the responsibility of local maintenance associations, which not only prevents locust attacks but also saves a lot of food.

At that time, we only need to transfer a few people from the command center’s logistics department to take charge of this matter.

After each person has his or her own tasks assigned, they will be rewarded if they complete them and punished if they fail to complete them. It doesn't matter even if they are a little slow.

"Haha!" Okabe Naosaburo stood up and stood at attention.

"Does anyone have any other opinions?" Katsuki Seiji looked at the others.

"No." Everyone shook their heads.

"In that case, I hope you can cooperate with Okabe's work." Kazuki Seiji stood up and said.

"The meeting is dismissed!"

"Extra number, extra number!"

"The 18th Division of the 129th Army of the National Revolutionary Army has recaptured eight county towns in succession! More than 8 enemy troops have been killed!"

"Extra number, extra number!"

"Give me one!"

"And I!"

At this moment, whether it is a city like Shanghai that has already fallen, or a city like Wuhan that is still fighting, the citizens are extremely excited.

They really need news like this to boost morale.

Since the July 7 Incident, most of the time, newspapers have been reporting on what was lost here today and what was lost there yesterday.

The whole country was plunged into pessimism. Now suddenly there was such an army that recaptured eight counties in succession. This was truly a shot in the arm.

"Good! Good! The 129th Division is really great!"

"The 18th Army? Is it a Red Army unit?"

"No matter what party it is, the one who wins the battle is the real hero!"

"Keep your voice down, keep your voice down, or you'll get a red-hot reputation."

"Red? Humph! If the Nationalist government continues like this, everyone in the world will be red!"

Chiang Kai-shek's official residence.

Looking at the newspaper in his hand, Chiang Kai-shek couldn't even eat.

"Red Party, Red Party, Red Party again!"

"Didn't our Central Army win any battles? Not to mention the distant past, wasn't Taierzhuang last month a great victory?" Chiang Kai-shek said angrily.

"Send a message to the Fifth War Zone! Tell them to gather their forces in Xuzhou and prepare to annihilate the Japanese army once again!"

"Yes!" The adjutant next to him hurriedly wrote down Chiang Kai-shek's order.

Just as the Japanese were constantly allocating supplies and preparing to launch a retaliatory sweep.

Chen Chengxing, who was reviewing documents in the regiment headquarters, suddenly heard a series of system sounds.

"It's mission accomplished!"

Chen Chengxing immediately put down the work in his hands and excitedly opened the system panel.

[Main quest: Before the troops move, the food and fodder must go first! Completed!]

[Rewards are being distributed]

[Main quest released: If you want to do your job well, you must first sharpen your tools! ]

[Task requirements: Establish an independent arsenal and independently produce a military item. ]

[Mission Reward: Research Institute Opened.]

[Main quest: To do your job well, you must first sharpen your tools! Completed!]

【The research institute has been opened! 】

[Research Institute: You can independently calibrate any country and study the country's past and future equipment! (Note: Equipment research and development requires a project leader. The ability of this person in charge will determine the speed of the research progress and will ultimately determine the completion of the equipment research.)]

[Research Institute available persons in charge: Zhang Xu, Xu Tao, Wen Ying. ]

[Research Volume: Each research volume can speed up the research speed by 1 times. 】

[Side quest has been triggered: Bullet! ]

[Mission objective: The arsenal independently produces a standard bullet.]

[Task reward: a copy of intelligence.]

[The main mission has been triggered: Great victory (regiment/wing level).]

[Mission objective: To fight against a reorganized regiment/wing-level enemy and achieve a great victory.]

[Mission Reward: 1 Rifle Research Instant Kill Scroll.]

Chen Chengxing was a little overwhelmed by the series of information popping up.

After flipping through the pages and seeing that the research institute was open, Chen Chengxing immediately opened it. He wanted to see if there was any way to bring nuclear peace to the Japanese.

There was no way. Chen Chengxing was so considerate of others. When he thought that the Japanese didn't have their own atomic bomb until 45, Chen Chengxing felt a little sad.

As for the next main task, Chen Chengxing just glanced at it and passed it over. Winning a big victory against the Japanese regiment would be just a show in the short term. A regiment of Japanese soldiers was not something that the new Second Regiment could challenge.

PS: 10,000 words, please give me a monthly ticket

(End of this chapter)