The next day, the battle at Shanhaiguan has completely stopped, and the soldiers of the advance corps are cleaning up the battlefield.

It is impossible to repair it in a short period of time, after all, the entire Pingjin and Hebei regions are in ruins, and there is really no extra manpower and material resources to repair this ancient wall.

However, the defensive value here is still there, so after Liu Jianhua, Zhou Ming and others discussed, they planned to build a field defense position outside the pass with the railway station of Shanhaiguan as the center.

Needless to say, the Shanhai Pass is steep, but the narrow terrain also affects the deployment of troops, especially the deployment of tank armored units and heavy artillery units of the Longya Column.

Therefore, it is better to move the defense center out of the pass and build a field defensive position relying on the railway station, so that if the Japanese army attacks again, the dragon's tooth column can let go of its hands and feet to compete with the Japanese army.

After Liu Jianhua and others reported the idea to Qiao Youhua, they naturally got approval. Subsequently, he reported the rich results of this battle to Qiao Youhua.

At this time, Qiao Youhua, Ma Biao, and Jiang Haidong had successfully returned to Wanjiazhuang Airport, were eating, and continuously piloted fighter planes to support the Shanhaiguan operation.

Zheng Yunshan, the head of the guard regiment, personally reappeared with the telegram and saluted the three of them: "Commander, the advance corps has called again. ”

"Oh? This time it should be a statistical report, right? Qiao Youhua picked up a bowl of hot soup and took two sips, saying.

Zheng Yunshan hurriedly nodded and said, "Yes, it's the statistical report of the battle results." ”

Ma Biao and Jiang Haidong both knew that they had won a big victory this time, and they were not surprised, and continued to bow their heads to eat, Qiao Youhua waved his hand and said: "Pick the key points to listen to and see what important gains are made this time." ”

"Yes." Zheng Yunshan immediately opened the telegram and read: "Our advance corps killed nearly 10,000 enemies in this battle, and in addition to capturing a large number of conventional infantry weapons and ammunition, it also captured one hundred and eight 150mm heavy howitzers and a large number of supporting parts and shells. and hundreds of trucks used to transport them. ”

"Oh good, one hundred and eight 150mm heavy guns? It's all our spoils? This is really good, our heavy artillery unit can be greatly strengthened this time! When Ma Biao heard this, he raised his head in surprise and joy.

Jiang Haidong is also full of smiles, this is indeed a big gain, more meaningful than the annihilation of one or two field wings of the Japanese army, in fact, for the Japanese army, there are not many heavy artillery brigades in this way, and they can almost be used as a strategic force of the army.

Qiao Youhua also smiled rarely: "Give Liu Jianhua, Zhou Ming call back, and ask them to hold a reward meeting to reward the meritorious soldiers in this battle, and the silver dollars required will be allocated by the logistics department of the headquarters." ”

Zheng Yunshan saluted and ordered to leave, Jiang Haidong suddenly said: "Commander, are the tank armored brigade and the two regiments of our department going to be stationed in Shanhaiguan on the spot to prevent the invasion of the Kwantung Army?" ”

Qiao Youhua thought for a while and said: "Haidong, I plan to hand over the defense from Pingjin to Shanhaiguan to your first division, so as long as Shanhaiguan will be in charge of your division, the tank armored brigade will have to follow me back to the base area, because they will definitely be indispensable in the battle to recover the Shandong Peninsula."

Of course, it is not appropriate for one of you to rely on one of you to garrison such a large area, and I will ask the chief of staff to ask the headquarters of our Eighth Route Army for approval, leaving at least 100,000 reinforcements of the Eighth Route Army to be responsible for the defense of Pingjin and northern Hebei with you.

You will be the main defensive force of this, and the command will be yours. ”

Jiang Haidong nodded, although he had some regrets about not being able to participate in the Southern Expedition, but he also knew that it was of great significance to stay in Pingjin and Shanhaiguan, and he was a person with an overall strategic vision, so he naturally would not be dissatisfied with such an arrangement.

In fact, Qiao Youhua himself still hopes to bring the elite soldiers of the First Division to the Shandong battlefield, but considering the strength of the Kwantung Army, if there is no elite army left in the army, I am afraid that with the regular army of the Eighth Route Army, which has been rapidly expanded from various guerrillas, it will be difficult to stop the Kwantung Army of the Tiger and Wolf Division once the war resumes.

After all, although the overall strength of the Eighth Route Army is very objective, it is not all the elite of the 100,000 battles adapted from the previous 30,000 Red Army, and the first three divisions of the Eighth Route Army are all snow-capped mountains and meadows, and corpses crawling out of the sea of blood.

After countless unimaginable baptisms of marching operations that challenge the limits of human beings, the absolute elite who survived the survival of the fittest, whether it is the quality of individual soldiers, combat experience, and teamwork, they are all well-deserved kings of land warfare, and the only thing they lack is sophisticated weapons and equipment and a perfect logistics system.

Even then, the country that sits on most of China? The army also failed to exterminate them, but suffered heavy losses in several encirclement and suppression in the northwest, and failed repeatedly.

Now, after the past three years, especially after entering 1940, with the victory of the Dragon's Tooth Column on all fronts, Shanxi, Hebei, Suiyuan, Chahar and other provinces in North China have been restored in a large area, and large and small anti-Japanese base areas have been connected, and the strength of the Eighth Route Army has begun to double geometrically.

There are more troops, but under the same combat units, the combat effectiveness is far worse than the original 30,000 elite Red Army, and because many veterans have been dispersed to various newly formed units as officers and backbones, the overall combat level of the Eighth Route Army is also on a downward trend.

However, as long as there are more victories in battles like the Pingjin Campaign, as well as those in Suiyuan and Chahar, the combat effectiveness of the newly formed units of the Eighth Route Army will soon be enhanced through the tempering of actual combat.

The First Division will not only be able to deter the Japanese Kwantung Army outside the Guanxi and make it dare not easily invade North China, but it will also be able to act as an instructor to provide all kinds of guidance and strict training for the other newly formed units of the 100,000 Eighth Route Army that have remained behind, and to help them improve their technical and tactical level.

After Qiao Youhua decided to stay in the troops, the next thing was that everything went smoothly, and on the Shanhaiguan side, the two regiments of the advance corps belonging to the first division stayed behind and continued to build field fortifications.

Where tank armored brigades, anti-aircraft brigades, heavy artillery brigades began to evacuate one after another.

However, in order to strengthen the strength of the defenders of Shanhaiguan, Qiao Youhua temporarily decided to let the heavy artillery brigade and the air defense brigade each leave a regiment in case of emergency.

The 108 heavy artillery pieces captured from the 12th Division were severely damaged by the war and could not be repaired in a short period of time because of the difficulty of towing the railways and highways in North China, especially the section of Pingjin-Hebei and northern Hebei.

Therefore, they also stayed in Shanhaiguan together and handed over to a regiment left behind by the heavy artillery brigade, and at the same time were responsible for transferring experienced artillery from other infantry regiments to deal with the dilemma of this artillery regiment with fewer men and more artillery.

The request to leave more than 100,000 Eighth Route Army to assist the First Division in garrisoning Pingjin was also approved by the head of the Eighth Route Army Headquarters and Yan'an, so the 2nd Division, the 4th Division, and the Guard Regiment began to withdraw from the Pingjin area one after another, and began to return south along the Pinghan Railway and the Tianjin-Pudong Railway.