Hirata Hiroshi knew that his whereabouts had been exposed, and he would definitely be surrounded by enemy troops next. Until now, it was completely impossible to attack the enemy's airport. His only wish was to rush into the village with his team and capture some people as hostages, so as to save the advancing team and his own life.
The Eighth Route Army unit that was chasing them was a company of the Yangcheng County Security Regiment. The company commander saw the Japanese running toward the village in front and guessed their intentions. Instead of being nervous, he laughed.
He immediately sent a messenger to report the news and mobilized more troops to surround the village. Then he led his troops and drove the group of Japanese soldiers into the village in front of him like a duck.
There are more than 100 households in this village. The name of the village is Xiaozhaozhuang. The village's militia team has 16 militiamen. They had already received notification from their superiors that Japanese troops disguised as the Eighth Route Army were active in this area. They had taken precautions in advance and posted additional sentries at the entrance of the village.
When he saw an Eighth Route Army unit running towards here, and there were people chasing behind it, Zhao Sanwa, the captain of the militia team, immediately judged that the group of Eighth Route Army soldiers in front were the Japanese soldiers pretending to be soldiers.
He immediately blew the trumpet to notify the people in the village to seek emergency refuge.
Hirata Hao and the Japanese saw the Eighth Route Army chasing behind them. They were very nervous, worried that there was also an Eighth Route Army in the village. If they are blocked and unable to enter the village, their situation will be too dangerous. Fortunately, they did not encounter any resistance and entered the village smoothly.
Hirata Hirota and Nagawa Yuichi finally breathed a sigh of relief and immediately ordered the Japanese to go from house to house to arrest people.
He knew that the Eighth Route Army cherished the common people. As long as they could control the common people in the village, they would have a chance to negotiate with the enemy and leave the base safely.
The Japs rushed into the courtyards of people's homes ferociously. There were sounds of banging on doors everywhere, and there was a chaos.
Soon after, the Japanese soldiers came out very frustrated. There was no one in the village except some poultry that they had no time to take away.
Hirata Hao was very puzzled and didn't understand where the people in this village had gone. Suddenly his eyes widened suddenly, and he remembered a terrible legend, that is, a large number of tunnels were dug in the Eighth Route Army base area, and the people in the village must have penetrated into the tunnels.
He heard that the tunnels in the Mawu Mountain base area could not only hide people, but also have defensive functions. Many Japanese troops had suffered losses because of this.
Hirata Hiroshi now regrets that he hastily decided to enter this village, not knowing what kind of blow he will encounter next.
He became anxious and lost his previous calmness. He howled loudly and ordered the Japanese to disperse and quickly find the tunnel entrance.
Soon after, there were explosions and gunshots in the village. Soon someone came over and reported to Hirata Hiroshi, saying that the officers and soldiers of the advancing team were attacked by the enemy. They didn't know where the grenades and bullets came from, and a lot of damage had been caused. of casualties.
Hirata was very frightened. He stood in the yard and looked around, fearing that a gun would suddenly stick out from somewhere and kill him.
Really afraid of something coming, he was looking around when he saw a black thing flying in the sky, with white smoke coming from behind.
He yelled: "Grenade, hide quickly." After saying that, he rushed into a room.
With a "boom", the grenade exploded in the yard.
Yuichi Nagawa's reaction was a little slow. He saw Hirata Hiroshi running into the house and followed him. At this time, his body had not fully entered, and the shrapnel produced by the explosion of the grenade directly punched two snow holes in his back. Fortunately, the shrapnel didn't penetrate deeply, but even so, it hurt so much that he screamed.
Other Japanese who reacted slowly were in bad luck and were killed by grenades. To make matters worse, the communications soldier carrying the radio was also killed and the radio was disabled.
The person who threw grenades at Hirata Hao and others was the village militia Li Erniu. He saw the embarrassed appearance of the Japanese in the yard from the observation port on the wall, and showed a proud smile.
He saw that the door of the room where Hirata Hiroshi and the others were hiding was open, so he threw another grenade into it.
Hirata Hirata was helping Nagawa Yuichi bandage his wounds at this time. When he saw the white-smoking grenade thrown in, he hugged Nagawa Yuichi and blocked him in front of him.
With a "boom", the grenade suddenly exploded. Yuichi Nagawa was killed, and Hirata Hirata was hit against the wall by the shock wave generated by the explosion.
He fell to the ground, and Nagawa Yuichi's heavy body that was blown to pieces also fell down, pressing on top of him.
He felt something sweet in his throat, spit out a mouthful of fresh snow, and passed out.
The situation of other Japanese soldiers in the village was equally bad. Those damn hidden enemies kept firing black guns and throwing grenades at them.
Although the officers and soldiers of the advancing team were very brave, they were all frightened when facing the invisible enemy.
A Japanese squad leader ran in looking for Hirata Hirata and Nagawa Yuichi. Seeing the tragic situation of the two, he thought they had both died in the battle, so he decided to take over the command.
He believed that staying in this village would lead to death, so he decided to rush out of the village before the large enemy troops came to surround the village. Even if he died fighting the enemy in the wild, it would be better than living in a deserted place here. It would be better to lose your life.
He shouted loudly, calling on the remaining Japanese soldiers to break out to the west.
When the Japs heard the shouts of the squad leader, it was as if they had grasped a life-saving straw. They immediately ran to the street and followed the Japs squad leader to the west.
When the militiamen in the village saw that the Japanese were about to run away, they would not let go. They emerged from the roofs, fired at the Japanese's backs, and kept throwing grenades.
The Japanese soldiers did not resist. They only had one thought: "Escape quickly. Only by escaping from the village can we avoid these terrible enemies."
The Japanese advance team consisted of 200 people. They ran very fast. The militiamen did not have machine guns. Although they kept shooting and dropping bombs, a large number of Japanese soldiers escaped from the village.
The militiamen were unwilling to let the Japanese go, so they even chased them out.
The militiamen saw the Japanese in such a mess and were chasing after them happily, but found that the Japanese running behind had stopped. They turned around, set up their machine guns, and fired at the militiamen.
Only then did the militiamen realize how powerful the Japs were. The reason why they were able to drive away the Japs was entirely due to their tunnels, and they were no match for them in a field battle.
So they didn't dare to chase anymore, so they stopped where they were and fired at the Japanese.
The Japanese were not interested in fighting, so they fired a burst of machine guns at them, turned around and ran away.
The company commander of the Eighth Route Army led his team to the edge of the village. When he saw the Japanese running away from the village, he led his team to chase them.
The Japanese team leader was eager to get rid of the pursuers behind him. He knew very well that if he could not get rid of the pursuers behind him and the two sides kept fighting, the sound of gunfire would soon attract enemy reinforcements.
He made a prompt decision and left a squad of Japanese soldiers behind to block the pursuers. He and the other Japanese soldiers continued to run forward.
The Japanese soldiers had a very tenacious will to fight. The Japanese soldiers who were left to shoulder the task of blocking knew that their only outcome was to die here, but they didn't care and just lay there to block the pursuers behind them.
The pursuing Eighth Route Army encountered enemy obstruction and had to stop to deal with the group of Japanese soldiers in front.
The Japanese team leader led the rest of the Japanese soldiers to escape desperately. Seeing that the pursuers behind him were getting farther and farther away, just when he wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, another militia team appeared in front.
This team was a squadron of the county brigade. They discovered the escaped Japanese and immediately ran in this direction.
The squad leader had no choice but to leave one more squad of Japanese soldiers to stop the pursuers, and he led the rest of the Japanese soldiers to continue running wildly.
Along the way, the Japanese were running away desperately. They were all so tired that their legs seemed to no longer belong to them. They felt their legs were extremely heavy and their chests were so tight that they could hardly breathe.
But they knew that they had a chance to survive only if they left here quickly, so they still ran forward desperately.
While running, the Jaap squad leader was the first to stop, with a look of despair on his face. Because he had already seen that there were many Eighth Route Army and militiamen in the front and left front.
He looked around and saw the Eighth Route Army, plainclothes militiamen and even enemy cavalry everywhere. There was no way they could escape.
The Japanese team leader looked around and saw that there was no terrain to use here. He had no choice but to order the Japanese to lie down in the fields and use the field ridges as bunkers to prevent the enemy from approaching.
Soon they were surrounded.
The officers and soldiers of the encircled Eighth Route Army and the county brigade were not in a hurry to attack. They just kept firing guns to prevent the Japanese from breaking through.
Soon after, more Eighth Route Army troops, county brigades, and nearby militiamen arrived, and the number of people surrounding them continued to increase, eventually exceeding 5,000 people.
The Eighth Route Army and the militiamen did not launch an attack because they had already received a notice from their superiors, saying that they only needed to surround the Japanese and there was no need to attack them to avoid unnecessary casualties and wait until the main force arrived to deal with it. them.
The Japanese squad leader and the soldiers in the advance team saw that the enemy was not attacking. At the beginning, they still had a sense of luck. Maybe the enemy wanted to persuade them to surrender, and they also wanted to take advantage of this to stay up until dark. The night highlights the encirclement.
Soon they were disappointed, not just disappointed, but utterly hopeless. Because they saw many more Eighth Route Army troops coming outside the enemy forces surrounding them, some driving trucks, some riding tall horses, with cannons pulled behind the trucks and behind the horses. It was obvious that the enemy was going to use artillery against them.
The Japanese team leader and the soldiers of the advancing team all knew that the terrain they were in had no way to defend themselves against enemy artillery fire. When the enemy set up their artillery and started shelling, there was only a dead end waiting for them.
None of the Japanese soldiers wanted to die like this. They had already determined to die and decided to charge the enemy, and they would die on the way to the charge.
The Japanese team leader stood up first, waved his command knife, and shouted loudly: "Assault is here." After that, he took the lead and rushed towards the enemy.
