The scale of the battle was not large, and Zhang Wei was only a dozen Japanese plainclothes soldiers, the battle was small, but it should not be underestimated, the large forces of the Japanese army really could not catch up, but as far as this battle was concerned, the Japanese army had sent a small force of capable forces to penetrate.

Its purpose is not difficult to guess, that is, to cause chaos to the squadron, attack, harass the retreating troops or civilians, do everything possible to cause trouble to the squadron, delay the march, and prevent the squadron from completing its tactical purpose.

"Battalion commander, the inventory has been made, there are a total of eighteen corpses of those devils, five shell guns have been seized, five medium formals, as well as a Czech light machine gun and five flower machines, and the corpses are all there." Qiu Wei said.

After the battle, the soldiers of the first company cleaned up the corpses and equipment of the Japanese soldiers in civilian clothes and placed them together, and the captured equipment was the same, Zhang Wei walked to the pile of Japanese corpses.

These Japanese soldiers in civilian clothes are all wearing civilian clothes, some are coarse cloth clothes, and some are relatively good robes, and the clothes are different, indicating that these Japanese soldiers are dressed as Chinese with different identities, Zhang Wei squatted in front of a corpse dressed as a peasant, this person died from bullets, so the image of the corpse is not bad.

"Strip the dog's clothes off!" Zhang Wei said, and two soldiers of the first company immediately went up and stripped the corpse of clothes.

The corpse was not tall, but the physique was very strong, Zhang Wei looked at his teeth and hands and shoulders, the teeth were too clean for most Chinese peasants, and the palms and shoulders were all calloused, which was completely in line with the characteristics of a veteran soldier who had been in battle for a long time, Zhang Wei was once again sure that this was the Japanese army's capable plainclothes.

"All of them are veterans, and you can see it when you fight us." Qiu Wei sighed beside him.

"Yes, the tactics of this guy's Japanese army are indeed high, higher than the average Japanese army, after being raided by me, he can quickly switch offensive and defensive positions, and the machine gun is accurate, and not long after the fight, two brothers were killed on my side.

But if you think about it carefully, it's normal, if you go to the rear of the enemy army to engage in raids and disturbances, you must select elites. Zhang Wei said.

"Report, there's a whistle in the devil's clothes." A soldier who stripped off the clothes of the Japanese army presented Zhang Wei with a silver whistle.

"It's definitely for contact."

"It's really thoughtful!" Zhang Wei said. Zhang Wei went to inspect the captured Japanese equipment again.

The Japanese army used 79 caliber Zhongzheng guns, barge guns, Czech light machine guns, and flower machine guns, Zhang Wei carefully checked, the Zhongzheng guns are domestically produced, needless to say, barge guns are both domestic and German, and the Czech light machine guns are also made in China.

In addition to these commonly used equipment, there are two flower machine guns, which have a lot of them, but most of them exist in the troops of various local factions, and there are very few troops in the Central Army, and this gun does not belong to the standard equipment of the descendant troops.

The Japanese even prepared a flower machine, this thing has a short range and poor accuracy, but it has a large amount of firepower in a short period of time, which is suitable for close combat, and it is a bullet from a shell gun.

It is also a weapon in the squadron's equipment list, which is very suitable for attacking and harassing troops, which shows that the Japanese army has considered it thoroughly.

All of their firearms were captured from ** weapons, and the captured equipment was accompanied by the discovery of straw mats left by the Japanese army's civilian clothes, and those who used shell guns should be carried with them, and long guns, submachine guns and machine guns were all wrapped in straw mats, and they were pulled out and used when they were needed.

With the best weapons, you can not only confuse the public, but also make the situation unclear, and it is convenient to replenish ammunition.

In this small battle, five soldiers were killed in the preparatory battalion, and six were slightly wounded, Zhang Wei ordered Qiu Wei to properly dispose of the wounded and bury the remains of his fallen brothers.

In the battle, the casualties were still the civilians, the Japanese plainclothes guns and grenades fired intensively, the civilians were killed nearly 100 people, in the face of well-trained soldiers and automatic firearms such as flower machines and Czech machine guns, these fleeing civilians were like lambs, lambs waiting to be slaughtered with nowhere to hide.

The road was full of people lying in pools of blood, and the fleeing crowd was attacked and then scattered in all directions, including the rout.

On the main road, the people were basically gone, but it made a lot of room for the assault column to march.

"Qiu Wei, take away the captured equipment and let the brothers bury the corpses of the people."

"Okay."

The soldiers are more or less responsible for the death of these people, and they failed to protect them during their lifetime, and after their deaths, they must at least be given a slightly more dignified burial.

After clearing the road and preparing the battalion to continue, this small-scale battle reminded Zhang Wei that the Japanese army had indeed launched a small-scale attack and harassment battle, and Zhang Wei happened to encounter one today, but would the Japanese army only send one?

The more Zhang Wei thought about it, the more he felt afraid, and the other retreating troops might also be harassed by the Japanese army, so when he sent someone to report the battle situation to Qiu Maniac, he also reported the details of the Japanese army's plainclothes and his own judgment to Qiu Maniac, so that Qiu Maniac had a number in his heart.

If possible, it can also be reported to other troops through the radio station of the column headquarters, so that other troops can be aware of it, and perhaps some losses can be mitigated.

The fleeing crowd fled because of the surprise attack, but instead accelerated the marching speed of the assault column, cleaned up all kinds of remnants, and the whole column stepped up its march, and the remaining distance was only more than 20 miles, without the obstruction of the crowd, the advance was quite smooth.

The distance of more than 20 miles was not far, and the entire assault column accelerated its march until noon, and finally reached the destination of this one-and-a-half-day march.

Xinyang, located in the southernmost part of Henan, is a strategic place, its administrative organization is located in Huangchuan, under the jurisdiction of Xinyang, Huangchuan, Guangshan, Gushi, Shangcheng, Xixian, Luoshan, Jingfu County and other counties.

It is the destination of the assault column's march, the Japanese army launched a surprise attack on the front line of Shangqiu, the army is not far from Xinyang and other places, the overall direction of the Japanese army's attack, sooner or later to attack Xinyang, but the march and attack along the way will take a long time, and you can't ignore the retreat everywhere.

Therefore, there is still a lot of preparation time in Xinyang.

** Defensive deployments were also made when the general retreat order was issued.

Hu Zongnan's 17th Army Corps retreated to deploy defenses here, and Qiu Luozi received an order to lead his troops to retreat to the line from Xinyang to Luoshan, rest and recuperate, and cooperate with the troops of the 17th Army Corps with chariots and other heavy equipment for defensive operations.

The troops stationed in Xinyang are mainly the troops of the First Army, which is the main elite of the Central Army, which fought desperately in the Battle of Lanfeng, and suffered a lot of losses.

This time, the defense in the Xinyang area was handed over to the First Army.