Watching the Pingding Garrison Regiment slowly complete the formation of the troops under the leadership of the regiment commander Wang Bing, after drawing a company of troops from each regiment, the shelves of the three battalions of the garrison regiment were quickly erected. The first to come to Zhangjiazhuang were the soldiers of the Reading Battalion of several villages liberated for the first time, and after the replenishment of the soldiers of several Reading Battalions, each company of the current garrison regiment has about one platoon of the main force. Liu Hua believed that after these companies were sent to various villages, each company would soon be fully staffed, but the rest of the matter would not be under his own control.

Looking at the pacification garrison regiment that was gradually completed, Liu Hua's heart slowly relaxed. Begin planning the long-prepared Arsenal project.

Through the reconnaissance of a company of the reconnaissance battalion for several days in a row, Liu Hua is very familiar with the current Jingcheng coal mine, which is far from the scale of later generations, and now the Jingcheng coal mine mainly produces coking coal, and according to the reconnaissance, there are 500 coal miners in it, most of whom are prisoners of the Kuomintang, and they have very high fighting qualities, as long as they are willing to join the Eighth Route Army, then these people will immediately form a battalion's combat effectiveness.

What made Liu Hua even happier was that according to the reconnaissance battalion's reconnaissance situation, after the army occupied the Jingcheng coal mine, dozens of miners were brought over from Beiping, but these miners were obviously different from ordinary miners, many of them had eyes and white faces, and at a glance they knew that they were some scholars, so these situations were very hidden from the comrades of the reconnaissance battalion.

When Liu Hua knew about this situation, he immediately became happy, Liu Hua knew that these people must be some professors and scholars captured by the devil from the university in Beiping, and the workers of his arsenal finally had workers.

However, what annoyed Liu Hua the most was that in order to protect resources and protect this coal mine, the army actually sent a squadron of devils to guard, and at the same time, in the town of Measuring Fish, which is less than 3 miles away from Jingcheng, the devils stationed two squadrons of troops, and there is also a mountain artillery squadron, a total of 6 mountain guns, which can provide artillery support to the devils of the Jingcheng Coal Mine at any time, so if you want to capture the Jingcheng Coal Mine, you must also capture the next Fish Town, and now the enemies in both places are all cowering in the strong fortifications. In particular, the Jingcheng Coal Mine had semi-permanent fortifications, and the heavy fire in the hands of the Reading Brigade could only destroy these fortifications by direct targeting with mountain artillery.

, but in the face of such a big piece of cake, Liu Hua was still reluctant to put it down. At this moment, the political commissar and the chief of staff hurriedly ran into the headquarters. "Brigadier Commander, call from headquarters"

Before Liu Hua could speak, the political commissar continued: "The headquarters congratulates us on the final victory in the battle at the bottom of the Yellow Cliff, and at the same time, in order to support the construction of our base area, the headquarters specially transferred 200 local cadres from Yan'an to our base area, and they will arrive in half a month, hoping that we can send effective troops to protect it, and at the same time, the headquarters requires us to rapidly develop the base area within nearly two months, according to the central estimate, after two months, the devils will launch a new round of offensive. When the time comes, our Eighth Route Army will not be idle. ”

"Hehe, political commissar, are you still suspicious of few people at this time, a reinforced company of visitors at once, the headquarters is really generous." Liu Hua looked at the smiling political commissar and said with a smile.

"Brigade commander, don't talk about me, now let's take advantage of the three of us to discuss what the troops will do in the next two months!" The political commissar did not forget to work because of Liu Hua's joke.

"Political commissar, I have a lot of tasks in the past two months, mainly the arsenal plan we talked about some time ago, as for the two of you, we still have to discuss."

"I think I'm mainly focused on the training of new recruits and the establishment of garrison regiments." The chief of staff replied.

"You have all talked about your own problems, then I will mainly focus on the construction of the base area," In this way, the three of them carried out a clear division of labor, and after it was over, Liu Huaba, the political commissar and the chief of staff, stayed behind and took out the problems in their hands, hoping that the two partners could come up with a good idea with themselves.

"Brigade commander, the strength of this brigade is there, and it is almost impossible to transport all the equipment on the coal mine," the chief of staff said negatively after listening to Liu Hua's analysis.

"Unless"

"Unless what?" Liu Hua asked eagerly.

"Brigade commander, it's very simple, it's to make it impossible for the devils in Fish Town to support the devils in the mining area, even if there are cannons in the cabinet in Fish Town, if we interrupt the devils' communications, then how can the devils call for artillery support, and all the Liumen cannons there will become decorations."

However, it is impossible for us not to attack Jingcheng without moving, as long as the gun goes off, the devils in Fish Town will know, how can they not go to support. Liu Hua asked suspiciously.

"Brigade commander, we are attacking Jingcheng at the same time, and at the same time attacking Measuring Fish Town, so that the devils of Measuring Fish Town will not be able to take care of Jingcheng, but in this case, we will divide our troops, you know, now we don't have a lot of troops, only less than six battalions of troops. The force is a little thin. ”

"It's a lot, chief of staff, you forgot, we still have the equipment of two mountain artillery companies, and when the time comes, bring all these easy-to-disassemble devil mountain guns, 12 mountain guns, enough for devils and a pot." After listening to the words of Chief of Staff Li Qing, Liu Hua immediately found a way and said excitedly.

In this way, with the help of the two partners, Liu Hua perfected his battle plan, and soon, the three regiment commanders were called by Liu Hua to the headquarters for a meeting. After a brief introduction, the three regiment commanders all knew their purpose as a brigade commander, "Okay, the three of you know the purpose and significance of this battle, so we must fight this battle." Your heart is on you, talk about the forces in your hands now! ”

"Report to the brigade commander, the strength of the first regiment is still 5 companies and a heavy fire company, and the attack soldiers are more than 900 people, report to the brigade commander, the strength of the 2nd regiment to attack 6 companies plus a heavy fire company, the strength of 6 companies of the third regiment, plus a mortar platoon."

Soon, Liu Hua knew the strength in his hands, a total of two regiments, and the army had the strength of a large brigade, and in terms of numbers, the Reading Brigade had just had a certain advantage

First of all, the commander of the first regiment, Gao Yuan, with his own troops, plus two companies of the second regiment and a mountain artillery company attached to the headquarters, directly rushed to the town of Measuring Fish at the headquarters of the devil's brigade, and traveled day and night along the way, and on the morning of the 6th, he unknowingly surrounded the town of Measuring Fish. The current Shiyu Town is a larger village, because all the coal dug out of the Jingcheng Coal Mine has to be loaded here, so the army began to pay attention to this place, and sent a large number of troops to protect their own resource lines.

And the army stationed here also attaches great importance to this place, in the only two exits of Fish Town, the devils have several lines of defense layer upon layer, and heavy machine guns and light machine guns are set up behind the bunkers.

A few devils patrolled back and forth at the entrance of the town, and a few searchlights illuminated the outside of the village.

"Regiment commander, the position can't be moved forward, the devils are about to find us." Chen Dahe, the political commissar next to him, reminded the regiment commander who was moving forward next to him.

"Okay, the deployment of the devils is very tight, they can only attack, order the mountain artillery company to establish a position immediately, and the heavy fire company is also looking for suitable terrain." Although the order he received was to contain the devils in Measuring Fish Town, Sun Xingbang, who has always prided himself as the strongest group of the Reading Power Brigade, meant to wipe out this group of devils within the specified time.

Soon, the mountain artillery company was ready, and the remaining three battalions led by Liu Hua at this time were lying in the grass outside the Jingcheng coal mine, waiting for the opportunity, and the Liumen mountain artillery attached to it quietly pointed the muzzle of the cannon against the hidden forts of several devils under the cover of night, hoping to blow up all the hidden forts of the devils in the first time, and then the troops rushed into the dormitory of the devils in one go, and engaged in melee combat with the devils, so as to eliminate the devils outside the mining area as much as possible, and not to destroy the equipment in the mining area.

"Open the cannon" Sun Xingbang ordered loudly, and six sparks lit up in the fish town where the cabinet was stationed, and as soon as he heard that the devil's heavy machine gun was thrown high, the "woo woo woo" fish town immediately sounded the devil's alarm.

When the captain of the "enemy attack" devil brigade heard the sound of artillery, he suddenly got up from the bed and ran towards the headquarters with a shout. When I arrived at the headquarters, I suddenly collided with a lieutenant who came to report back.

"Yaga, what's going on outside," the captain asked eagerly.

"The soldiers of China are attacking the town of Shiyu, and there is a large amount of artillery support, and a small team on the periphery has suffered heavy losses." Hearing the lieutenant's report, the cannon sound that the guide had just heard himself was clearly the explosion of shells from the Imperial Mountain Artillery. "How can a soldier of China have an imperial mountain cannon. Order the mountain artillery squadron to immediately return fire and knock out the man's cannon. The captain quickly ordered.

The artillery of the Yue Army reacted quickly, and soon discovered the location of the artillery according to the trajectory of the artillery of the Eighth Route Army. "Boom" a test-fired shell fell next to the artillery battery.

"Quick, move your ground." Just when the soldiers were hurriedly shifting their positions, a group of six shells fell on the head of the artillery company, and soon, a mountain cannon was hit by a shell and fell crookedly on the gun position.

"Quick, quick, transfer." The commander of the artillery company ordered loudly, and finally after paying the sacrifice of two mountain guns and more than a dozen soldiers, the mountain artillery company was finally transferred out, and at this time, Sun Xingbang saw that the soldiers of the artillery company with a face full of gunpowder smoke no longer had the ambition just now, and now his request was only to tightly drag the strength of the army, not let him support the devils in Jingcheng, and buy more time for his brigade commander.

(To be continued)