Late May.

In the northwest of Shanxi, more than 100 kilometers east of Heyuan County.

The line of sight extends from the bottom of the hill to the winding but apparently freshly leveled horse road of the panel, and a village can be situated in the middle of the mountainside, and the terrain is treacherous, easy to defend and difficult to attack.

There is a militia with guns at the entrance of the village, and if you look closely, you can see a circle of fortifications around the village.

This is where the headquarters of the 772nd regiment is stationed.

From this village inward, there is the core base group of Taihang Mountain.

"Commander."

A member of the regiment headquarters walked into the regiment headquarters and said to the regiment commander Cheng Shifa:

"The first battalion, the second battalion, the artillery company, and the cavalry company have been assembled."

"Okay."

Cheng Shifa, who was looking at the map, nodded in response.

Although the devils seldom organized large-scale sweeps after last winter's sweeps, they increased the frequency of the township clean-up operations in order to strengthen their rule over the occupied areas, compete for the villages in the guerrilla areas, and intrude on the villages in the base areas, and their methods have become more and more cruel.

Not only did they kill the people in the base areas, loot their property, burn down their houses, and even destroy farmland, in an attempt to sabotage agricultural production in the base areas.

In response to this movement of the devils, the troops have also made adjustments, and the basic regiments and other units have been broken into pieces and scattered on the edge of the base areas to assist the grassroots in fighting the devils and at the same time develop and expand the ranks.

However, because of the abundance of troops, the main regiments were not divided into pieces, but were stationed in a centralized manner and supported the base areas as reserves at any time.

This time, Cheng Shifa was ordered to go to a marginal base area to support the Qingxiang troops where the basic regiment drove out the devils.

"Regiment commander, this time the devils dispatched two brigades, with a total of more than 900 devils, although this group of devils is a newly formed division and regiment, and the combat effectiveness is not as good as the previous devils, let's dispatch two battalions is enough?"

In the regimental headquarters, the commander of the first battalion spoke in a worried tone.

The two battalions of his own regiment, plus the artillery company and the cavalry company, totaled 1,400 people, and even if the basic regiment over there was included, it was only 2,500 people, and the two battalion brigades of the devils had nearly 1,000 devils, which made the first battalion commander a little uneasy.

"That's enough."

Cheng Shifa replied without raising his head, his eyes continued to look at the map, thinking about his tactics for the next few days.

The commander of the first battalion did not speak again, and not long after, another soldier walked in:

"Regiment commander, the ammunition transport team of the logistics department has arrived at the bottom of the mountain."

"Haha."

Cheng Shifa finally raised his head and laughed:

"First battalion commander, let's go, let's go and pick it up."

Not long after leaving the village, they saw a convoy coming from the direction of Taihang Mountain, and about 20 carts pulled by mules and horses drove along the road to the regiment headquarters.

"Captain Cheng, here's the list."

After the transport team arrived at the station, the company commander in charge of escorting gave Cheng Shifa a list:

"The second-generation border region made 3,000 grenades, 500 grenade grenades, 80 60 mortar shells, 15,000 7.92 bullets, and 100 82 horse rifles."

"It's been a great job, it's been a hard job..."

Regiment Commander Cheng thanked him with a smile on his face, while directing the soldiers to carry weapons and ammunition.

The commander of the first battalion also understood why his regiment commander was only ready to send two battalions of troops to deal with nearly a thousand devils, with this batch of ammunition, plus two to one troops, it was indeed completely worthy of that group of devils.

After the convoy left, Regiment Commander Cheng and the battalion commander began to inspect the newly transported weapons and ammunition at the same time.

It is said that the recent production of weapons in the headquarters arsenal has not only increased significantly, but the quality is also much better than before.

"This Bayi-style horse rifle is all new."

The commander of the first battalion touched the newly arrived rifle and said in a delightful tone.

As the main regiment, weapons and supplies are directly issued by the superiors, and the priority is very high, so the 772nd regiment is the first unit in the whole army to realize that all personnel have one gun.

Having solved the problem of the quantity of weapons, it is natural to start focusing on the issue of quality.

The production of the Bayi horse rifle began three and a half years ago, when Li Yunlong was still the commander of the new regiment, and Sakata was not dead, and the 772nd regiment was equipped with this gun the following year.

The commander of the first battalion had a lot to say about how this gun was.

He's used this gun, and it's not been for a short time.

To tell the truth, this kind of gun made by its own arsenal with the rail steel of the devil, except for the bayonet is not weaker than the 38 big cover, the others are really not bad.

Because it is built by hand, different workers produce different quality guns, but even if the quality is relatively good, the accuracy is okay at the beginning, but after firing more than 100 bullets, there will be a more serious decrease in accuracy, the firing pin will also become soft and failing, and the effective range is only 200 meters.

These two problems were really not a problem three years ago.

At that time when the discipline of shooting stipulated that each main regiment could only fire a maximum of 3,000 rounds per battle, riflemen could fire more than 100 rounds a year, and only elite veteran shooters could do it, and these very few veterans could not be equipped with home-made carbines, which were all captured.

In the same way, a fighter armed with such a self-made horse rifle can only shoot at a distance of 100 meters, and a range of 200 meters is not a problem.

However, in recent years, the arsenal's ammunition production has increased significantly, and up to now, the daily output of reloading bullets has exceeded 10,000 rounds, and the self-produced ammunition has also exceeded 1,000 rounds per day, and it is still increasing rapidly.

The bullets were rich, the discipline of shooting was relaxed or even abolished, and the problems with these guns became apparent.

For a time, this gun became the object of dislike of the fighters.

Fortunately, a month ago, the arsenal produced the Bayi type horse rifle, and it is said that the new gun design was jointly designed by the original designer and a mechanical master on the side of the independent regiment, and the production capacity has reached 1,000 units per month.

The commander of the first battalion of the new gun tried it half a month ago.

The quality has been greatly improved, there will be no loss of accuracy within a thousand bullets, the effective range has also been increased to more than 300 meters, the firing pin will not suddenly become soft, and there will be no various glitches, and it will be more convenient to use than before.

It's not as good as the devil's 38 big cover, but it's much better than the old sleeve Hanyang.

In general, a very good gun, well suited to equipping troops.

"What kind of second-generation border area grenade is this, it looks a lot better than before, there are prefabricated fragmentation grooves, and each one is about the same."

Cheng Shifa was amazed with a new grenade.

In the past, the border area was made by hand, all of which were hand-cast bullet bodies with clay molds, and the appearance was strange, some were like a ball, and some were like a pine cone.

"This look is made by that grenade assembly line."

The commander of the first battalion also held a grenade and exclaimed in a tone:

"I heard that it is filled with potassium tung explosives, which are no less powerful than yellow explosives, and mortar shells are also loaded with this kind of explosives."

"Hey, hey, hey..."

Cheng Shifa laughed proudly:

"With these guys, I can't get rid of those two new devil brigades?"

······

Taiyuan.

Inside the headquarters of the 1st Army.

Although they didn't sleep all night, Yamamoto and Yoshimoto were in good spirits, or because of the huge pressure, they didn't feel sleepy at all.

The two were discussing a very urgent issue at this time.

"Yamamoto-kun."

Gibbon put his hat back on and covered his gray hair:

"How do you think the First Army should deal with Li Yunlong at the moment?"

Having been in the upper echelons of the empire for so long, Yoshimoto knew very well that although he called General Gangmura, and even Commander Shunroku Hatata, to inform the two of his superiors of the actual situation, even if it could be effective, it would take a while.

Ranging from one month to three months.

During this time, he can only find a way to carry it by himself.

"General."

Yamamoto immediately said:

"With Li Yunlong's current strength and his attitude of hiding in the mountains and not coming out, it is impossible to completely eliminate him by relying on the strength of the First Army, so we can only wait for the decision of General Gangcun or General Shunroku Hatata."

"What we need to do now is first to ensure the smooth flow of the Zhengtai Railway, and secondly, to limit the development of Li Yunlong as much as possible."

"In less than half a year, this person has developed to such an extent, and in a few more months, I am afraid it will be even more difficult to deal with."

At this point, Yamamoto and Yoshimoto both twitched their teeth at the same time, as well as envious eyes. The human resources of the Republic of China are too abundant, and excellent soldiers can be recruited casually, if the empire can have such abundant human resources, how can it fall into such a situation.

"What to do?"

Gibbon's question was succinct.

"Although Li Yunlong's independent regiment, as well as the new first regiment and the new second regiment around him, are very strong in combat effectiveness, the troops of the same size are not weaker than the second-line elite divisions of the empire, and even permanent divisions, with high mobility and strong firepower."

"But they are a light infantry after all."

Yamamoto's tone is confident:

"The light infantry has a fixed shortcoming, that is, the ability to attack the fortification is very poor, although the 120 heavy force equipped by Li Yunlong is very powerful and can destroy ordinary civil fortifications, but it is powerless against the reinforced semi-buried civil engineering bunker."

"Li Yunlong is not equipped with real heavy artillery, which I have confirmed through the intelligence department, and it can be seen from Li Yunlong's failure to attack the county seat, he does not have large-caliber heavy artillery, otherwise he would have attacked Panxian a long time ago."

"We can use that against him."

As he spoke, Yamamoto spread out a map of northwest Shanxi, pointed to Ping'an County and Pan County on the map, and continued:

"The new wing, which will arrive next week, will be transferred to Ping'an County and Panxian County, and then with these two counties as the center, it will build semi-buried civil bunkers at the commanding heights near the main transportation arteries in the surrounding areas, and arrange artillery fire inside to block Li Yunlong's passage to the Zhengtai Railway."

"The mountains and forests are complicated, there are many small roads, and we can't block them with small troops, but large troops, especially large troops carrying horse-drawn carriages, can only pass through a few roads, and they can be absolutely blocked."

"Well, that's good."

Yoshimoto couldn't help but nod.

This idea is very good, he is not afraid of a small force, he is afraid that Li Yunlong will lead a large number of men and horses to steal the railroad tracks.

"Also."

Yamamoto's tone became more and more confident:

"We used these fortification groups as a base for advancement, and constantly sent squadron-sized troops to attack Li Yunlong's base area."

"It can not only temper the newly formed brigade in China and quickly form combat effectiveness, but also affect the development of Li Yunlong's base area and force it to draw forces to deal with the attack of small forces of the empire."

"There are solid semi-buried bunker groups, Li Yunlong lacks heavy offensive weapons, and we are completely invincible, attacking and retreating."

"Yo Si."

Yoshimoto was pleased with Yamamoto's idea:

"Just do as you say."

"Hey."

Yamamoto made a timely request:

"Small groups of troops in the mountains attack and disturb the battle, this is exactly a project of special operations, the members of my special forces team are very proficient, I want to transfer some of the team members to the newly formed wing to command the operation, please ask the general's permission."

Naturally, Yamamoto did not forget his lifelong goal of promoting special operations.

"Yes."

Yoshimoto naturally understood what Yamamoto meant, and he didn't stop it.

Subsequently, the two immediately convened the staff of the First Army, began to draw up a detailed battle plan, and mobilized materials to Ping'an County and Pan County.

In order to prevent accidents, Yoshimoto also planned to strengthen the requirements for semi-buried civil bunkers, and by the way, strengthen the fortifications of the two county towns of Ping'an and Panxian.

"What if Li Yunlong has a heavy artillery that can destroy a half-buried civil bunker?"

Finally, Yoshimoto asked the question out of the blue.

What happened last night taught Gibbon a lesson, never underestimate Li Yunlong, if you didn't find out, it doesn't mean that he didn't.

"General, I've thought about this too."

Yamamoto's tone is still confident:

"Heavy artillery that can destroy semi-buried civil bunkers requires a caliber of about 150, and this level of artillery is also light and weighs about three tons, and its mobility is extremely poor."

"Even if Chen Fan provided it to Li Yunlong, the mountain horse road would not be able to support his maneuver to the vicinity of the county seat. Unless, Li Yunlong can build a road near the imperial army's position. ”

"The effective range is also relatively short, only four to five kilometers, which can be easily suppressed by mountain artillery."

Gibbon didn't speak again.

After the arrival of the new wing of 4,000 people, plus the three mobile brigades near the Zhengtai Iron Depot, the total strength of Panxian and Ping'an counties will be as high as more than 7,000 people.

If the Eighth Route Army builds a road to the county seat, or within a few kilometers of the fortress group where the heavy troops are stationed, then there is no need to fight, and the collective seppuku will commit suicide.

········

Ping'an County.

What happened last night has reached the ears of the three captains here.

"A force of 12,000 troops, more than 100 mortars of various calibers, including more than 20 large-caliber mortars."

Seeing this data, even the number one leader of Heian County, who was short-tempered and full of bushido spirit, and Tato Nakasa, who held a full brigade, were shaking his teeth.

He Ping'an County is now only 2,000 imperial troops, and the Eighth Route Army, which has 12,000 people on the opposite side, and has strong firepower and strong combat effectiveness, is definitely not an opponent.

Tato is reckless, but not stupid.

"We've got to strengthen our defenses."

The second-in-command, holding a brigade of more than 600 people, Yamada Nakasa, said with a little panic:

"Don't go out of the city in the near future, and the patrol team outside the city will not go out, and strengthen the fortifications around the county, and the city wall should also be reinforced, in case Li Yunlong attacks the county seat, we can hold on for a longer time and support until the reinforcements arrive."

Yamada has a wealth of experience in fighting against Li Yunlong, and he knows very well that there is nothing that Li Yunlong does not dare to do. What if Li Yunlong suddenly wants to fight the county seat? With 12,000 troops, there is already the strength to siege the city.

"What Yamada-kun said makes sense."

Tato nodded yes.

Although there were three captains, all of whom were Nakasa, only Tato and Yamada spoke in the headquarters, and as for Mazaki, the whole process was quiet, and only mechanically agreed after the other two captains made a decision.

At this time, Masaki was thinking about something.

Not long ago, Li Yunlong sent artillery to bombard the patrol squadron of Ping'an County, but it was the squadron under his command that was unlucky, and the losses were not small.

After two heavy losses, his entire brigade, including him, was now exactly two hundred and fifty men.

Simpleton.

As far as Masaki knows, in China, this number is very unlucky, so Masaki has been feeling flustered and uneasy lately, and he always feels that something very dangerous will happen.