Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry

#229 - The little devils stuck in the quagmire

On the grasslands, the troops of the North China Military Region and the Seven and a Half Route Allied Army ambushed and wiped out the three divisions left behind by the Japanese Qingcheng and Ulanqab forces, leaving almost none alive. Not content with just the Seven and a Half Route Army, they dispatched cavalry to sweep through the Xilin Gol League of Chahar.

Although this slightly exceeded the initial agreement between the two sides, now that manpower was needed, the Jinchaji Military Region firmly occupied the southern part of Chahar and didn't interfere with the Seven and a Half Route Army's ambition to expand. On one hand, Xilin Gol League was vast and sparsely populated, making it difficult to manage even now. Even the Japanese only sent a small number of troops to occupy a few important county towns, and the remaining areas still relied on the local Mongol princes and remnants of the old regime.

The Seven and a Half Route Army was now using a similar method, sending cavalry brigades to sweep through Japanese strongholds and then subdue the local Mongol princes and tribes.

Although the gains weren't much, occupying this territory would always bring some benefits.

With the loss of the area beyond the Great Wall, along with the loss of Yunzhong and Zhangbei, two important locations in Chahar, the Japanese High Command reacted quickly this time. The Kwantung Army transferred two divisions and four independent brigades, plus three puppet Manchukuo divisions, gathering nearly 70,000 troops, along with a tank brigade and a heavy artillery regiment, and transferred more than 100 Type 97 and Zero fighters to the Beiping Airport.

They were preparing to launch a strategic counterattack on the area beyond the Great Wall, on one hand to retake the lost territories of Suiyuan and Chahar, and on the other hand to take this opportunity to complete a purge of the local warlords in Suiyuan. After completing the combat mission beyond the Great Wall, they planned to attack into Jin Province from the Yunzhong direction in the north, cooperating with Okamura's two large armies to complete a full-scale offensive against the Eighth Route Army in Jin Province!

(Old map, the four provinces beyond the Great Wall: Ningxia, Suiyuan, Chahar, Rehe)

This time, concentrating nearly 300,000 troops to use against North China was already an unprecedented event for the Japanese High Command.

In their original plan, after clearing the Eighth Route Army in the central Hebei Plain, a large army would head south to defeat all the main forces of the GMD in Henan, Hunan and Guangxi, and seize most of the key transportation routes of the Pinghan Railway, the Yuehan Railway, and the Longhai Railway.

They didn't expect that after only sweeping through central Hebei, they would be strongly counterattacked by the Eighth Route Army, which launched a large-scale offensive and territorial expansion in Jin Province, even surrounding the Japanese army in Jin Province.

How could the Japanese High Command tolerate this?

Jiang County, the brigade commander set up the southern front headquarters in Chen Village.

Although the county seat of Jiang County had now been captured, and the Japanese strongholds in the entire small basin had been wiped out, the traitors and spies left behind were not easy to eliminate. In addition to placing the Independent Regiment in the county town as the main force for defense, the remaining main regiments were hidden in the surrounding mountains, waiting for orders.

The newly formed military region tank battalion was even more strictly hidden by the brigade commander in the mountains behind Chen Village.

Although Li Yunlong was very envious of the tank battalion, saying that it was his Independent Regiment that went to the border area to learn and then came back to form it, before it could even warm up, the brigade commander issued an order to upgrade the Independent Regiment's tank battalion to the military region tank battalion.

Even if Li Yunlong made a big fuss, it was useless.

This time, the brigade commander was prepared to give the Japanese a surprise in Jiang County, so he couldn't put such a trump card in Li Yunlong's hands to waste and consume in reckless battles.

According to the brigade commander's strategic plan, this time the guerrilla warfare was to spread out most of the C-class regiments, ambushing and harassing the Japanese all the way along the 160-kilometer mountain road from Jiyuan to Jiang County. A main force of a C-class regiment was placed every ten kilometers, and several guerrillas were also used as logistical support for weapons and ammunition. After separating the main regiments into companies, they would carry out unlimited harassment.

This meant that on both sides of every kilometer of mountain road that the Japanese passed, there might be a company squatting and watching the Japanese at any time. As for how this company was divided into several parts and where they squatted, that was up to them to decide. Anyway, now that communication was convenient, the regimental commander could always use the walkie-talkie to clarify with the subordinate battalion headquarters, and then report to the forward headquarters via radio.

After Ren Zhong completed the design and mass production of walkie-talkies, transceivers, and radios in the Bright Sword world, there was no problem with grassroots communication. The company commander now had a walkie-talkie to connect with the battalion headquarters, and the platoon leaders below had walkie-talkies to communicate with the company commander, so the entire communication system was very smooth.

Through the large-scale guerrilla warfare arrangements, the brigade commander placed countless companies and platoons inside the net like a spider web, covering the Japanese advance route.

By summarizing the battle reports reported by each regiment every day, the forward headquarters could not only clearly understand the Japanese progress and troop distribution, but even the Japanese daily losses could now be clearly seen in the underground summary.

Even if the statistical loss data was somewhat inaccurate, after all, the scouts lurking on the front line to observe the attack results could not fully observe the final results of the attack.

However, judging by the point of impact, if the mortar shells landed in the Japanese marching column, that wave would take away at least a dozen Japanese soldiers, no problem.

If it was a night attack, and the shells could land near the Japanese tents, basically the squad in one tent would be almost wiped out.

Relying on this kind of approximate statistics, the daily losses of the Japanese were roughly estimated.

"Order all guerrilla units to pay attention to the Japanese counterattack. Our sneak attacks must not turn into hard battles. If the sneak attack fails and the Japanese ambush us instead, the reconnaissance work must be done in place beforehand. Don't be arrogant or impetuous. Only attack when you have a chance. Don't waste battles if you don't have a chance."

The brigade commander read through the battle situation briefing of the guerrilla warfare in the past few days and felt that it was about the same as his estimate.

He turned to the operations staff and instructed.

He did this to prevent problems before they happened, to avoid the front-line commanders from feeling that the Japanese were easy to bully after taking a few advantages, and then preparing to get closer to compete for credit. Once pride was born, it was likely to be calculated by the Japanese.

You must know that these are tens of thousands of Japanese field divisions, who have extremely strong experience in close combat and mobile warfare after many years of mountain sweeps.

You must not underestimate them.

You must know that in the historical timeline, as long as a battalion-level Japanese unit entered the base area as a group, they could basically run rampant all the way.

It was only after Ren Zhong changed the weapon configuration of the Eighth Route Army that the Japanese became honest and dared not advance lightly.

The brigade commander's orders were quickly transmitted to the main regiments via radio waves.

Among them, even those who were walking in the front and were good at sneak attacks now had vigilance.

Every time they entered the 2-kilometer range of the Japanese main force for a sneak attack, they now had to send scouts to confirm in advance before, after, left, and right.

Several times, they really found that the Japanese had secretly sent teams to spread out to the mountains 3 kilometers outside to ambush.

If the scouts hadn't risked their lives to discover it early, the teams that entered for sneak attacks might not have been able to retreat smoothly.

With the Japanese battalion-level cluster combat capability now, even if the C-class regiments were concentrated, they couldn't eat them. At most, they could fight evenly matched, but in front of the Japanese main force, if they couldn't quickly get rid of the entanglement, it would be a surrounded and isolated place.

Therefore, the brigade commander's reminder was very timely.

Now that the Japanese have been beaten many times, they have also become more careful. On both sides of the main force, the Japanese sent multiple battalion-level search teams, searching and advancing over the mountains two or three kilometers away from the Japanese main force.

In this way, the guerrillas' opportunity to sneak attack the Japanese main force was greatly compressed.

After mastering the new Japanese tactics, the guerrilla teams also changed their tactics and began to target the Japanese searching on the outer net!

According to the Japanese troop distribution, two or three adjacent regiments began to gather together and, taking advantage of the Japanese rest at night, suddenly launched a full-scale siege and launched a quick battle and quick decision against the Japanese search troops on both sides.

With the rapid aiming function of the RPG bazooka, in night battles, the firepower advantage of the Eighth Route Army guerrillas was much stronger than that of the Japanese.

The bazooka can fire as soon as it is aimed. As long as the Japanese machine gun is firing, it will become a bright target for the bazooka. Therefore, the concentrated main regiment troops advanced with all their strength, and a battalion of Japanese soldiers often couldn't hold out until reinforcements arrived and would be largely annihilated on the spot!

Adapting to changes, constantly looking for the weak ribs of the Japanese to insert knives and bleed them. Let the Japanese taste the intensity test of guerrilla warfare where they have to shed a lot of blood every step they take.

The brigade commander began to deploy a new net of heaven and earth for them in Jiang County.

Second update, brothers, help me out, give me some monthly tickets, they will expire and be invalid.