Chapter 411 Shooting

However, He Rongtang could understand that although the bandits in Xiaohuangshan had only more than 800 people, they had obvious geographical advantages and were easy to defend but difficult to attack.

The reason why the Japanese sent out so many people was that they were prepared for a tough battle. They wanted to send the puppet troops to die and use the lives of the Chinese to consume the ammunition of Xiaohuangshan.

He Rongtang knew the situation in Xiaohuangshan and they were not short of supplies.

With the help of the Red Party and the robbery of the Japanese transport team, plus the last victory, Xiaohuangshan has the strength to fight another big battle.

The Japanese probably knew this, but they suffered too great a loss last time, and the existence of Xiaohuangshan posed a huge threat to their supply lines. The Japanese could not bear it after a few more attacks and had to take the initiative to attack.

Otherwise, if Xiaohuangshan continues to fight to support war, it will be unimaginably difficult to wipe it out in the future. The best way to deal with it now is to dispatch a large number of troops to extinguish the flame of Xiaohuangshan in one go.

It is not clear whether the Japanese will send out planes this time. With a regiment of puppet troops and half a wing of the Japanese army, and if there are fighter jets for air support, there are only 800 people in Xiaohuangshan. Even if they occupy the best terrain, it will be difficult to make any splash.

He Rongtang left the window. Such a large-scale war was not something he could control. He was just a station chief of the Military Control Commission and could not provide any help at all.

In his heart, He Rongtang still did not want the bandits in Xiaohuangshan to be wiped out. After the fall of Wuhan, every force left in the city to resist the Japanese army was invaluable.

Every true Chinese person must hope to retake Wuhan. Unfortunately, this is not realistic at the moment. Every city close to the front line is now in danger. The best outcome is to be able to hold on like this.

As for the plane, he guessed that there shouldn’t be any, otherwise there wouldn’t be a need to send out so many people.

“Ugh.”

He Rongtang sighed lightly. It didn’t matter whether there were planes or not. Planes were only auxiliary. Xiaohuangshan still needed to withstand the pressure from the Japanese on its own.

He didn’t have the energy to worry about Xiao Huangshan. It was more important to deal with things around him.

Now is not the time before the fall, and the Military Control Commission has many inconveniences in doing things. If they do too much, they will easily be exposed.

After Wuhan Station went into hiding, everything had to be done in secret, and the efficiency was far lower than before.

He could not appear in the city, and a lot of intelligence progress could only be obtained through messages from his subordinates. This was not conducive to his grasp of the situation and making decisions. Some things were difficult to proceed to the next step just by understanding them through messages.

He is now cleaning out the traitors, and several of them have already been dealt with by He Rongtang.

These traitors who know the Military Intelligence Bureau will be protected. The information in their minds is very important to the Japanese. It is not an easy task for He Rongtang to deal with them all.

Especially the interior, you need to pay more attention.

Previously, a squad leader at Wuhan Station was turned by the Japanese. They did not notice it at first. After the city fell, he provided the Japanese with a large amount of valuable intelligence, causing severe damage to Wuhan Station.

It was not until later that the team leader’s subordinates were exposed and found out. After interrogation, it was learned that there was a traitor in the station. When the team leader saw that he was discovered, he hid in the city. He Rongtang has not been able to find any information about his location until now.

It’s not that He Rongtang is incapable. Wuhan is now occupied. It is not only dangerous but also airtight. It is impossible to clear a large area, so finding useful intelligence is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“Dong dong dong.”

“Enter.”

There was a hurried knock on the door, and He Rongtang saw smiles on his men’s faces, which must be progress on something he had ordered.

He Rongtang smiled and said first: “Is there any good news?”

The subordinate quickly reported: “Stationmaster, the action team succeeded. We cleared out a few more of the traitors you had seen last time. There are not many left now.”

Several assassination attempts on traitors at Wuhan Station had aroused the Japanese’s vigilance, and they would sometimes even deliberately let traitors show up to lure and kill the members of the operation team.

Although traitors who showed up like this could be killed, He Rongtang would definitely not let his men serve as death squads to exchange with the traitors.

His subordinates are all elites, so this is far from worth it, and He Rongtang is reluctant to do so.

He Rongtang thought that this would take some effort, but he didn’t expect to succeed in such a short time.

He Rongtang asked in confusion: “Weren’t we still investigating how to break through the protection yesterday? How come we took action before reporting any progress?”

“It’s not that the action team didn’t report it, but the incident happened suddenly.”

Seeing that He Rongtang was unhappy, the subordinates hurriedly defended the action team and reported in detail: “Today the action team tried to pay money to arrange hidden agents, but they didn’t expect that idiot Bie Xiao would dare to go out alone to find a woman without telling the Japanese. The action team tried several times to confirm that it was not a trap before daring to act.”

This is the disadvantage of He Rongtang being unable to be on the front line in the city. If an accident occurs suddenly, there is no time to pass the information to He Rongtang for him to make a decision, and the action team can only rely on their own judgment.

“Send a message to them and ask them to double-check whether they have been spotted by the Japanese. If anything is wrong, evacuate the city immediately.”

“Yes.”

The subordinate turned around and was about to leave to inform them, but then he turned back and asked excitedly: “Stationmaster, can we move to the city?”

They now live in a farm in the countryside outside the city, where the conditions are much worse than those in Wuhan.

If it were just this, the subordinate could still tolerate it, but the main reason was that he really didn’t want to do the job of delivering messages anymore.

Although he enjoyed running errands every day, he wanted to do his part in fighting the Japanese invaders.

The mother of this subordinate died when the Japanese attacked Wuhan, and he dreamed of tearing the damn Japanese into pieces.

However, He Rongtang said that he was the smartest and most experienced person around him, and he was worried about entrusting such important tasks as notifying and delivering messages to others.

He had no choice but to stay with He Rongtang.

He Rongtang shook his head and said, “It’s not the right time yet, let’s talk about it later.”

“And He Yuhang, he was hidden by the Japanese and we have never been able to find him.”

He Yuhang was the rebellious team leader. When his subordinates heard this name, they remembered the tragedy caused by his betrayal of information.

At that time, Wuhan Station lost more than a dozen people.

The subordinate’s eyes suddenly turned red and he cursed angrily: “Damn traitor.”

He Rongtang patted his subordinate’s shoulder, calmed him down and let him leave to do his work.

After his men left, He Rongtang leaned back in his chair and thought.

Now that the obvious threat has been dealt with, He Rongtang still has no idea what to do next.

Yoshioka has already stationed his men near Xiaohuang Mountain.

The camp he set up was not far from Tengchuan’s previous camp. He brought more people and the camp was larger.

With thousands of people acting at the same time, it is impossible to conceal it.

Especially since Xiaohuang Mountain is located at a high place and has a watchtower, Yoshioka never thought he could hide it. This time he had planned to attack by force.

“Military Advisor, the Japanese are coming again. This time there are a lot of people, at least several thousand. They have cleared the area around them. We are currently unable to determine their exact number.”

Niu Yuanxiang soon received a report that the Japanese revenge had indeed come again.

“A few thousand people, okay.”

Niu Yuanxiang was stunned for a moment, then laughed happily. He was not afraid of the Japanese coming. These devils would never let them go. They were bound to come.

If only about a thousand people come like last time, he will have to pay attention.

The last time the Japanese failed, they knew very well that with equal forces, even if they were all Japanese soldiers, it would be difficult to capture Xiaohuangshan.

Xiaohuangshan has great geographical advantages.

If the Japanese come again, they will definitely target the geographical advantages of Xiaohuangshan. Now that so many Japanese soldiers have come, and no Japanese planes have been seen for reconnaissance in the past two days, Niu Yuanxiang can be sure with a high probability that the Japanese did not use planes.

Without planes, he is not afraid no matter how many people come.

Yoshioka was a graduate of the Japanese Army Officer University and had extensive combat experience. He carefully inquired about the reasons for Tengchuan’s failure and knew that the point halfway up the mountain was particularly important.

That place can only be filled with human lives to create opportunities for the artillery. “Captain, this battle is not easy to fight. Xiaohuangshan has strong soldiers and horses. Last time, Wang Laowu suffered a big loss. This time the Japanese brought us here, they must use us as cannon fodder again.”

As soon as the puppet army had set up camp, several battalion commanders came to the regiment commander Ma Shuheng.

Ma Shuhuan was in his forties and had studied at the Baoding Military Academy.

He was a genuine officer of the Fruit Army.

However, his subordinates were not elites, they were all second-line troops. He was not very noticeable in the Baoding Military Academy, otherwise he would not be in his forties and only a regiment commander.

Many of his classmates became high-ranking officials.

Ma Shuhuan always complained about everything. He didn’t think it was a problem with his own ability, but rather that he was unlucky. He always met strong opponents and was always defeated.

Otherwise he would have become a high-ranking official long ago.

After the Japanese came, he was instigated by other traitors and became a traitor together with them.

“I know. Have you arranged the brothers?”

Ma Shuhuan asked with a gloomy face, if he had a choice, he would definitely not come to fight this battle.

Unfortunately, the Japanese forced him to give the order, and now he has to make a living with the Japanese and has no way to resist.

“I have confessed everything, but I am worried that the Japanese supervision team will attack us.”

A battalion commander said, and the other two battalion commanders looked at Ma Shuhuan together.

The Japanese supervision team would not care about them. As long as they were not active on the battlefield, ran away, or advanced slowly, the Japanese would really dare to shoot.

At that time, they will be attacked from both sides, which will be even worse.

“It depends on the situation and we will adapt to it.”

Ma Shuhuan sighed, his lack of ability was immediately revealed.

Knowing the danger, they did not make any arrangements.

The three battalion commanders had no choice but to leave.

The next morning, Yoshioka led his team out. At the place where Tengchuan was ambushed first, he was particularly careful and sent out scouts to investigate the situation first.

This time, Niu Yuanxiang directly gave up the first line of defense.

It is not easy to defend there. If the Japanese find out, they can bombard them.

The Japanese had already suffered a loss once, and Niu Yuanxiang would not expect them to make the same mistake twice.

Instead of taking risks, it is better to concentrate our efforts and use the second line of defense to deal a heavy blow to the Japanese.

Yoshioka made smooth progress along the way, but he was not happy at all, because the hardest part was still to come.

Ma Shuhuan, on the other hand, was very happy to see that there were no bandits guarding the place. At least he had no losses here. If the bandits had not discovered them and had stayed in the stronghold all the time, and they had been attacked by them, they would definitely have won a great victory.

If he hadn’t had so much experience, he probably wouldn’t have been able to take on the position of head of the group.

I still dare to have fantasies at this time.

Xiaohuangshan was able to defeat the Japanese transport team, and defeated enemies that outnumbered them last time, including 600 Japanese soldiers. Are they that stupid?

“Captain, we’re just around the corner.”

The Japanese scouts came to report, Yoshioka looked serious, it was here that Tengchuan was defeated, beaten by the bandits and fled in embarrassment, leaving his weapons and armor behind.

“You guys, go check it out.”

Yoshioka gave the order and the scout was stunned for a moment, but still accepted the order.

This is the most dangerous place. If they go to explore, they may lose their lives.

But this is what scouts do, and the loss rate of scouts on the battlefield has always been high because they need to go deep into enemy territory to find out the truth.

“Bang bang bang.”

Suddenly, gunshots were heard from the front, which scared Ma Shuhuan. The result he wanted most did not appear. The bandits in Xiaohuangshan were already prepared and were waiting for them.

“Let Captain Ma and his men attack.”

Yoshioka gave orders again, and the bandits were indeed ready, and these Chinese cannon fodders were put to good use.

At the same time, he ordered his men to bring the fortifications that had been prepared in advance.

After the puppet army and the bandits started fighting, the engineers quickly went to set up defensive positions.

The main purpose is to build fortifications for artillery.

If we don’t keep the artillery and inflict heavy damage on the bandits, their men will be like targets, being hit by Xiao Huangshan all the time.

Yoshioka would never make this mistake.

“storm?”

After receiving the order, Ma Shuhuan was dumbfounded. The Japanese were so cruel that they were using them as cannon fodder.

If he attacked by force, he didn’t know how many people he would lose.

“Execute the order immediately.”

The Japanese soldiers who came to give orders would not give him a good look. They would leave after they said that if they did not move within five minutes, the supervision team would open fire to teach them a lesson.

“First Battalion, you take the lead.”

Ma Shuhuan had no choice but to order the first battalion to go first. The battalion commander had a bitter face and walked forward slowly with his men, bending over.

Knowing that there are people ahead, who would want to go over and die?

“Give them a warning.”

Yoshioka saw it clearly from behind. Five minutes had passed and the Chinese had not yet reached the corner.

They are trying to be sneaky again.

He came here with an important mission this time. If he fails to wipe out the bandits in Xiaohuangshan, he will most likely end up like Tengchuan when he returns.

It might even be worse than Tengchuan.

Ma Shuhuan was indeed stupid. He did not consider that this battle concerned Yoshioka’s life and death. It was impossible for him to slack off.

The Japanese supervision team gave Ma Shuhuan a warning on the spot.

As a result, the soldiers in front walked even slower.

“shot.”

Yoshioka gave the order coldly. These puppet soldiers were despicable for daring to ignore his warning. He had already given them a chance, but they did not seize it.

Yoshioka brought more Japanese soldiers and was fully capable of dealing with the puppet troops in front of him.

However, we must also avoid their mutiny. If we come to suppress the bandits, but start fighting among our own people before we even see the bandits, we will become a big joke among the imperial officers.

I will never be able to hold my head up again.

(End of this chapter)