The journey was a nightmare, not very long, but tormented. The road was destroyed, the large army could not march, and this place was dominated by mountain roads, and it was impossible to go around it if you wanted to, so the riverside brigade could only rush while building the road.

Moreover, there will be ambushes in the mountains along the way, mines in the forests, and a few mortar shells will fall from the sky from time to time. In some dangerous valley passes, Tubalu will even set up machine guns, and then when they arrive, they will be beaten violently.

Whenever there was an attack, Kawabe Nakasa would order people to counterattack, and at the same time send a small force to outflank the past, hoping to catch this group of hateful Shina Tuhachi. But as soon as his man-machine gun goes off, the dirt road will disappear without a trace, and by the time his men rush to the enemy's position

, except for a bunch of empty shells, not even a shadow of a person can be seen.

Occasionally, the men sent by Nakasa Riverside were able to bite the enemy's tail, but they were quickly thrown off by the Eighth Route Army, which was familiar with the terrain. Fortunately, there was an artillery squadron, and the Eighth Route Army did not dare to get too close, so the losses were relatively small. In this way, they stopped and stopped, chased and ran, until Sakai Hoji's large army caught up and the riverside brigade did not go out of twenty kilometers.

Hongyagou, a large river valley twenty-five kilometers southeast of Hongshaba Town, where the Japanese troops who temporarily converged made a short stop.

In the car, Sakai Hoji looked at Nakasa Kawabe standing in front of the car with an annoyed expression, he was very dissatisfied with the fact that the riverside headquarters had only walked less than 30 kilometers in the morning, and he was killed and wounded more than 200 people along the way by Shina Tu Hachi, which was equivalent to losing an infantry squadron without even seeing the shadow of the enemy, which was simply stupid.

Those soldiers who died in the battle could say that they could just send a car back to the Red Sand Dam, or bury them on the spot, which was also in line with the practice of the Imperial Japanese Army. But the wounded soldiers were not easy to deal with, and each wounded soldier needed to be cared for by at least one healthy soldier, and even if they were transported back to the Red Sand Dam, they could not be piled up like the corpses of the war dead, perhaps fifty or sixty corpses could be pulled directly in one cart.

It is not the same for the wounded soldiers, a 1.5-ton car can transport five or six wounded soldiers at most, and now the total number of wounded troops is more than 80, which means that at least 15 cars need to be used.

This is not the main thing, what worries Major General Sakai is that the impact of the sneak attack of the Eighth Route Army on morale is fatal. Just look at the appearance of the riverside brigade, the soldiers who were originally murderous, and now their first reaction when they hear the gunshots is to quickly climb down.

Knowing that the more it dragged on, the more serious the consequences would be, Sakai ordered the cavalry squadron to open the way in front, and first five or six cavalrymen dragged the poplar trunk to the front to run in order to achieve the purpose of mine clearance. The speed of the war horse is fast, and even if the ordinary mine is stepped on, it will not cause much damage to the cavalry, at most it will hurt the war horse.

This method was really good, the mines planted by Ma Zheng's troops on the road were detonated by the Japanese cavalry, although the Japanese army also paid the price of more than ten soldiers killed and more than 20 horses killed, but in comparison, such losses were very small.

Yama Mountain is only a short distance of less than 50 kilometers from Hongshaba, although it is more difficult to walk, but at about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the Japanese army still successfully arrived at the foot of Yama Mountain, and set up camp five kilometers away from the mountain pass, and at this time Sakai has suffered more than 300 casualties, almost one-tenth of the total strength.

Due to the exhaustion of the soldiers after a hard day's march, coupled with the low morale caused by frequent attacks, Sakai did not attack the mountain immediately, but ordered the whole army to eat, rest, recuperate, and prepare to attack the mountain tomorrow and take Hades Mountain in one fell swoop.

After dinner, Sakai called a meeting of the officers to discuss tomorrow's battle.

In the temporary headquarters, Sakai Hoji was kneeling on the table to check the map, and the adjutant next to him reminded: "Your Excellency, Brigade Commander, everyone is here!" ”

Sakai Hoji looked up, and then said in a deep voice, "Since it's all here, let's let them in!" ”

Soon, more than a dozen Japanese adjutants rushed in and entered the headquarters.

Sakai Hoji said in a deep voice, "Sit! ”

After everyone sat down, Sakai Hoji said again, "Gentlemen, how do you feel about today's events?" ”

Kawabe Nakasa got up and said: "Your Excellency Brigade Commander, obviously we underestimated this branch of the Chinese Imperial Army, which relied on the favorable terrain to block our Imperial Japanese Army, delaying the original four-hour march to nine hours, which proves that the enemy's commander has a high tactical quality, and at the same time, their soldiers can also carry out his orders well, the casualties of 300 imperial soldiers are enough to wake us up, and the Chinese army on the opposite mountain is definitely not a rabble." ”

As soon as Hebian Nakasa's voice fell, an officer sitting opposite him got up and said loudly: "Hebian-kun, yours is the same as your troops, and you are too timid. The Shina Tu Eight Road is just an advantage of the terrain, and any change of troops can do this, and the real elite is the troops that can fight bayonets face to face with the Imperial Japanese Army, but this definitely does not include the Shina Tu Eight Road! ”

"Kojima-kun, if you still have such an attitude to fight against this branch of the Eight Roads, I advise you not to go to the battlefield, otherwise we will have to go to the Yasukuni Shrine if we want to see you again!" For this young commander of the same level, Nakasa Kawabe did not show any mercy to the other party.

"Baga, old man by the river, you are a serious insult to me"

"Shut up!" Sakai said angrily.

Seeing that Sakai Hoji was angry, everyone fell silent, and then Sakai Hoji said in a deep voice: "Kawabe-kun is an old man in the army, and his tactical command ability is appreciated even by His Excellency the Commander. This can be seen from the fact that my 1st Brigade has marched all the way west to the present, and the combat achievements of the Hebian Division are not less than those of other troops, but the casualties are much less than those of other troops, so I think it is still necessary for you to listen to the opinions of Hebianjun! ”

"Hay!" Everyone shouted loudly.

Kawabe Nakasa said in a deep voice: "Thank you for the affirmation of Your Excellency the Brigade Commander, I feel that our battle plan must be revised!" ”

"Why?" Sakai Hoji asked with a frown.

"In the afternoon, when the troops were encamped, I took people to check the turtle shell on the Tuba Road, and to be honest, I was stunned by the fortifications of the people." Nakasa said with a sigh by the river.

"Nani? Shocked? Sakai Hoji was also surprised, not knowing what fortifications could shock the captain of the dignified field brigade.

"Your Excellency, Brigade Commander, Mount Hades is an independent mountain, the altitude is not very high, but the road up the mountain is very dangerous. The cliff on the west side and the one being measured is Qiqi, smooth as a knife and axe, and it is impossible for ordinary people to go up at all. The south and east sides are relatively gentle, and there are gaps to climb up. But now the dirt road has blocked all these gentle openings, and they are all blocked with concrete pillboxes. ”

"What's so surprising about this, how many big cities in China have we conquered along the way, and even the so-called impregnable county seat of Tianzhen has been captured by the Imperial Japanese Army in less than a week?" Kojima Nakasa said disdainfully.

"This is different from Tianzhen, although the fortifications of Tianzhen are strong, the terrain is relatively open, and our large army can be fully deployed. But here is different, the people of China have obviously taken this into account when building the fortifications, they built the fortifications a little further in, so that the combat space left for the imperial army is only a few tens of meters wide, we can invest at most one squadron at a time, and Tubalu has built at least five large pillboxes here, as long as they have enough ammunition, even if they fill all the soldiers in, I am afraid they may not be able to take Hades. ”

Then Kawabe Nakasa continued: "In addition, you don't know if you have seen the Earth Star, the cunning Shina people have cleared all the obstacles around the mountain pass, so that the attacking imperial army has not the slightest cover, and all of them will be directly exposed to the fire of the Dirt Eight Road, so this battle is by no means as simple as you imagined. ”