After receiving Xu Dalong's telegram, Li Qiulin reported his current location to Xu Dalong and agreed to launch an attack on the Japanese army at one o'clock at night.
The battle between the troops of the Mawushan Military Division led by Li Yunlong went relatively smoothly. In just one and a half hours, they defeated the Sato Brigade of the Japanese independent 11th Brigade, and then launched an attack on the 32nd garrison division. Attack and prevent them from coming to rescue the independent mixed 11th Brigade.
The last thing Chiba Xunyi wanted to do was fight with the troops of the Mawushan Military Division. This time he led the main force of the division to participate in the attack on the Mashan base area. It was a helpless move. He received an order from the First Army Headquarters and led his troops to rescue the 11th Independent Mixed Brigade. He happened to encounter the troops led by Li Yunlong.
When he received a report that there were tank troops among the enemy troops ahead, he knew that these must be the troops of the Mawushan Military Division.
He immediately ordered the troops to stop advancing, organize defense on the spot, and be ready to return to Yucheng at any time.
At this time, the fighting around the Mawushan base area was very fierce. No one noticed that the Japanese 8th Division had quietly arrived in Tiantai County, only 90 kilometers away from Guancheng County in a straight line.
After Wang Sanqiang became the deputy section chief of the Enemy Engineering Section of the Mawushan Military Division, he was mainly responsible for the work of the armed engineering team behind enemy lines. Armed workers' teams operate behind enemy lines in enemy-occupied areas, and one of their main tasks is to provide intelligence to their superiors. They are all equipped with radio stations. Any information must be gathered to Wang Sanqiang first, and then Wang Sanqiang will report it to the superiors.
On this day, Zhao Sihai, captain of the martial arts team operating in Tiantai County, was leading his martial arts team members to arrest a Hanjian who was extremely angry with the people in Xiaohuangzhuang.
Xiaohuangzhuang was not far from the highway, and the sound of vehicles driving on the highway attracted their attention. They looked towards the road and were stunned by the scene in front of them.
They saw a large number of Japanese military vehicles on the road as far as the eye could see.
Zhao Sihai was born in a special forces unit. Based on his experience, he could see no less than one infantry regiment of Japanese troops in front of him. It is impossible for an infantry regiment to have so many vehicles. It can be concluded that it is at least no less than an infantry brigade.
Looking at the direction of the Japanese army's advance, it was exactly towards Guancheng County.
Zhao Sihai quickly copied a telegram and asked the operator to send it out. Unexpectedly, at this critical moment, the radio station malfunctioned.
Zhao Sihai became anxious and quickly mounted his horse and galloped towards Guancheng County. He wanted to get in front of the Japanese army and report the news of the Japanese army's sneak attack to his superiors.
Since the Japanese army was marching on the road, he could not take the road directly, so he ran forward along a field road. When he saw that he had passed the Japanese marching group, in order to speed up, he got on the road and continued to move forward.
Zhao Sihai was galloping on his horse when he suddenly found the Japanese cavalry in front of him, which was the vanguard of the Japanese army. He hurriedly got off the road, preparing to continue on the path to bypass the enemy's vanguard.
At this moment, a bullet flew over and Zhao Sihai was hit in the left rib. The bullet penetrated his internal organs. His vision went dark and he fell from his horse.
The Japanese soldiers in the distance saw the man on horseback being shot and fell off his horse, so they ran towards this side.
Zhao Sihai was seriously injured, fell off his horse again, and hit the ground hard. The intense pain made him almost faint. He saw the Japanese soldiers running towards him and knew that he was definitely doomed, which made him feel a little sad.
He is not afraid of death. From the day he joined the Eighth Route Army, he had already made up his mind to sacrifice on the battlefield. The only thing he regretted was that he could not pass on the news that the Japanese troops were coming for a sneak attack. He took out the shell gun from his waist with difficulty and prepared to kill a few Japanese who came running over. He also used a backrest before he died.
He endured the pain and aimed at the Japanese. He did not pull the trigger, but stopped, because at this time he suddenly thought of a problem. If the people in the armed workers team knew that something had happened to them, they would send another person back to the base area to report the news. If he shoots at the Japanese army at this time, the Japanese army will definitely shoot at him from a long distance. He will fall to the ground unable to move and will soon be killed by the enemy.
Now that he is relatively far away from the armed workers team, the people in the armed workers team may not be able to hear the gunshots. He decided to make more noise to attract the attention of the military workers.
He put down the shell gun, took out two grenades, unscrewed the cover on the back, put the ring on his finger, put it under his body, and then lay there pretending to be dead.
Soon after, several Japanese soldiers ran over. They held guns and carefully observed Zhao Sihai's movements. Zhao Sihai held his breath and acted as if he had sacrificed himself.
Seeing that he was motionless, the Japanese soldiers boldly surrounded him. A Japanese soldier walked up to him and stretched his feet under his body, trying to turn him over.
At this time, the grenade in Zhao Sihai's hand was emitting white smoke. He let go of the grenade in his hand and suddenly hugged one of the Japanese soldier's legs.
The Japanese soldiers were terrified and fled in all directions. The Japanese soldier whose legs were hugged struggled desperately. When he saw that he could not break free, he picked up the bayonet on his rifle and stabbed Zhao Sihai fiercely.
However, despite this, Zhao Sihai still hugged him tightly. The Jaap soldiers looked desperate, but Zhao Sihai had a smile on his face.
Hearing only two "boom" sounds, Zhao Sihai died heroically, and the Japanese soldier was also blown into a snow gourd and died.
The explosion spread far away, and the military workers in Xiaohuangzhuang vaguely heard the explosion. Based on their experience, the Japanese army was marching covertly and would definitely not make such a big noise. The most likely possibility is that something happened to Zhao Sihai and he detonated a grenade to alert them.
Deputy captain Zheng Guorong decided to return to the base area to report the news on behalf of Zhao Sihai. He bought a horse from a commoner's home in the village. In order to avoid being intercepted like Zhao Sihai, he chose a place far away from the road and specifically chose a country road to gallop towards the base area.
The country road Zheng Guorong chose was about two kilometers away from the highway. He thought it should be safer, but he did not expect to encounter Japanese cavalry here.
It turned out that the Japanese army had determined that the rider on horseback must be the Eighth Route Army after the grenade exploded. They knew that the operation had been discovered by the Eighth Route Army, and they were sending people back to the base area to report the news.
The commander of the Japanese vanguard was worried that other people would come to report the incident, so he sent his cavalry to set up a cordon within 5 kilometers of the highway.
There were three Japanese cavalry here. They also saw Zheng Guorong and rushed towards Zheng Guorong.
Zheng Guorong is also a member of the special operations team and has good marksmanship. Unfortunately, he is holding a shell gun now, and he is no match for the Japanese army at such a long distance.
He could only turn the horse's head and speed up, hoping to get rid of the Japanese army and then return to the base from a farther place.
When the Japanese cavalry saw Zheng Guorong escaping, they immediately chased him and fired at Zheng Guorong while chasing him.
Zheng Guorong leaned on his horse, reducing the target of Japanese shooting. Both sides were in high-speed movement. Japanese soldiers fired many shots, but none of them were able to hit Zheng Guorong.
To shoot a man first, shoot a horse, and to capture a thief first, capture the king. The Japanese also understand this principle. They all fired at the horse under Zheng Guorong's crotch.
A bullet struck the horse in the hip, causing it to rise and then fall. Zheng Guorong was worried that he would be crushed under the horse, so he quickly jumped off the horse before the horse fell.
He didn't dare to stay. When he saw a ditch in front of him, he crossed the ditch and hid behind, preparing to kill these Japanese soldiers with a shell gun.
The Japanese soldiers were very smart. They could not clearly see Zheng Guorong's position and did not dare to approach rashly. The three Japs gestured for a while, one Japs stayed at the front, and the other two Japs galloped to both sides. They planned to surround Zheng Guorong.
Where Zheng Guorong is now, there are no tall crops like corn, only a potato field. The stems and leaves of potatoes grow very lushly, and if you lie down on the ground, you can still hide your figure.
In order to avoid being attacked from both sides, he climbed into the potato field so that the Japanese army could not determine his specific location. He kept crawling forward in the potato field, crawling more than 30 meters, and hid under a relatively tall potato seedling.
The Japanese cavalry surrounded the potato field from three sides. They also knew that their target on horseback was too big, so they dismounted and approached the center.
It was evening now, the sky was gradually darkening, and the visibility was gradually getting lower. Although the three Japanese soldiers knew that Zheng Guorong was in the potato field in front of them, they did not know his specific location. Although Zheng Guorong did not fire back when he was escaping just now, the Japanese were not sure whether he had a weapon in his hand.
The Japs hesitated and did not dare to move forward. The leading Japs guessed that Zheng Guorong was returning to the base to report a message. He decided not to take risks, as long as he could be trapped here and not allowed to report the news. So he made a gesture to the other two Japanese, and the three of them lay on the ground and watched Zheng Guorong.
Zheng Guorong was very anxious, but had no choice. He could only hope that it would get darker again, then kill the Japanese, snatch their horses, and return to the base to report the news.
More than an hour passed, the sky became darker and darker, and Zheng Guorong became more and more anxious. He knew that the longer he delayed here, the closer the Japanese army would get to the base.
He couldn't wait any longer and decided to take a risk.
He knew the location of the three Japs just now, so he crawled forward and crawled in the direction of one of the Japs.
At the beginning, he climbed faster. When he felt that he was getting close to the Japanese, his speed slowed down, and then became slower and slower. He only moved a few centimeters at a time without making any sound.
He estimated that he was no more than 20 meters away from the Japanese, so he stopped.
At this time, he couldn't see where the Japs were, so he reached out and grabbed a handful of wet soil from the ground, squeezed it into a knot, and threw it towards the left front.
The sound of lumps of earth falling on the ground alerted the Japs who were ambushing in front. He hurriedly turned his gun and aimed at the place where the noise was made. Although the Japs were relatively calm and did not shoot when they could not see the target clearly. , but when he moved with the rifle, he glanced at the potato seedlings, and still made a slight sound, and the potato seedlings were also shaken by the movement.
At this time, Zheng Guorong was less than 15 meters away from him. He still noticed these small movements. Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger towards the black shadow there.
"Da da da da da!" Since Zheng Guorong couldn't see the target clearly, for the sake of safety, he fired all 20 rounds of bullets in the shell gun in one breath, then quickly changed the magazine and crawled towards the Japs position. passed.
The Japanese didn't move, so the bullet probably hit him. Sure enough, when Zheng Guorong climbed up to the Japanese soldier, he found that he had been hit by at least three or four bullets and was already dead.
He quickly grabbed the carbine in the hand of the Japanese soldier. Although the range of the carbine was relatively short, it was still much stronger than the shell gun.
What happened here had already alerted the other two Japs. They couldn't figure out the situation, so they fired their guns in this direction.
This played into Zheng Guorong's plan. He fired at the muzzle flash of a Japanese soldier. Apparently, the Japanese was also hit, and there was no movement immediately.
Another Japanese soldier sensed the danger. He felt that this Eighth Route Army soldier was a difficult person to deal with and was a little scared. However, he persisted and believed that he should stay here and continue to monitor the enemy to prevent him from returning to the base area. Report the news.
He climbed a few meters to the side and continued to monitor the movement ahead with his gun in hand. He learned his lesson and never fired unless he was sure.
Zheng Guorong could not see the specific location of the Japs, and he had no way to stand up and snatch the war horses left by the Japs. He had to kill the remaining Japs. He grabbed some more dirt and threw it aside, but after throwing it several times, the Japanese ignored him.
Zheng Guorong scratched his head a little. He thought about it for a while and finally came up with an idea. He fixed the shell gun on the ground, took off the shoelaces of the Japs soldiers, tied one end to his own feet, and tied the other to the trigger of the shell guns. He picked up the carbine and aimed at the exposed area when the Japs soldiers fired. position, pulled the shoelaces with his feet, and fired the shell gun.
The Japanese saw the flash of the muzzle and fired towards the location of the shell gun.
Zheng Guorong seized this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and shot him. There was no movement from the Japanese.
Zheng Guorong didn't know whether he had hit him. He saw a war horse far away from the Japs, so he climbed over there and finally came to the vicinity of the war horse.
He didn't know if the Japs had been killed just now. He didn't have time to check now, and he couldn't care about that much, so he got on his horse and galloped towards the base area.
(End of chapter)
