The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Begins in Songhu

Chapter 497 This is it (Seeking monthly votes)

Time: October 29, 10, which was the fourth day after Hu Biao and his group traveled through time, at 7:29 AM.

Location: Laiyuan County, Hebei Province.

After reading a telegram sent from the capital city and signed by Tada Shun, 56-year-old Okamura Tsuyoshi fell into deep thought.

It should be noted that in the original history...

At this time, Okamura Tsuji, this old Japanese soldier, was transferred back to the Japanese headquarters as a military advisor seven months ago.

He was promoted to the rank of general in April of the following year, and only took over the post of commander of the Japanese North China Area Army in July.

It was during this period that he further developed and popularized the Japanese "Three Alls Tactics," which had already taken shape, thus incurring a heavy blood debt to the Chinese people.

However, due to the arrival of Hu Biao and his group, Gangcun Ningci's life trajectory also underwent some minor changes.

First, in the Battle of Guinan more than half a year ago, the Japanese Fifth Division, which was considered an elite unit, and the Eighteenth Division, which was comparable to an elite unit, were essentially annihilated.

Combined with other victories, this greatly strengthened the Chinese military and civilians' determination to resist Japan.

Secondly, in addition to acquiring a lot of equipment manufacturing technology from the military factory of the Independent Regiment in northern Jiangsu, the Eighth Route Army also obtained other equipment manufacturing technologies.

Of the two divisions' equipment that were allocated to the Russians, one was left in the Pagoda region to form a new unit, while the other was distributed to the 129th and 120th Divisions.

This made their equipment significantly better than before.

In short, it was because of Hu Biao and his men that the Eighth Route Army had higher morale, better equipment, and stronger combat capabilities.

Therefore, even more brilliant results were achieved in the first and second phases of the Hundred Regiments Offensive.

Faced with the continued deterioration of security in the occupied areas of North China, not only was it impossible to achieve the goal of using war to sustain war, but it also tied up a large number of troops and consumed a lot of war resources.

The Japanese General Headquarters grew increasingly dissatisfied with Tada Shun, the former commander of the North China Area Army.

They believed he was useless and that a stronger person needed to solve the problem.

So, half a month ago, Okamura Tsuji received orders to come to the North China region. After he became familiar with the situation in the region, he would take over the position of Tada Shun.

By all accounts, he became the commander of the North China Area Army more than half a year earlier than originally thought.

After arriving in North China, Okamura Ninji encountered the Japanese North China Area Army, which was acting in retaliation for the Eighth Route Army's Hundred Regiments Offensive.

In order to understand the situation more quickly and to formulate plans to improve the security situation in North China as soon as possible, this old Japanese soldier was really willing to endure hardship.

He led an observation team dispatched from headquarters to the front lines of the sweep to conduct on-site inspections.

Over the past few days, he has indeed achieved some considerable results, at least in anticipating his future vicious tactics such as the "cage strategy," the "iron wall encirclement strategy," and the "nibbling away strategy."

Okamura Shinji even decided to use these methods ahead of time once he officially took office.

Just now, he received a telegram from Tada Shun.

The telegram briefly described the sudden and inexplicable chaos that had broken out in the entire North China region, and based on their judgment, the center and source of the unrest should be Yi County and the surrounding areas.

Therefore, it is hoped that he will abandon his original plan to visit the battlefield in Yi County and return to the capital immediately.

After some thought, Okamura Ninji muttered to himself in a voice only he could hear:

There is an old Chinese saying: "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." Since such a great upheaval has occurred, something must have happened that has drawn immense attention from all sides of China.

Perhaps the key to truly improving public security in North China lies in Yi County, so I must go and see for myself.”

Thus, Okamura Tsutomu made the decision to leave the original inspection plan unchanged; under his orders, a Japanese force quickly set off for Yi County.

Zijing Pass was a place he couldn't avoid on his journey.

Of course, such a decision to continue to Yi County does not mean that Gangcun Ningci, that old Japanese devil, was particularly brave.

The key reason was that he knew from intelligence that there were no large-scale Eighth Route Army units remaining in the surrounding area; even if some small units did exist, it wouldn't be a problem if they happened to encounter them. This was because he and the observation team from headquarters were each escorted by a full elite company.

In addition, a supply corps was also traveling with them to Yi County at this time.

Perhaps because the supply trucks contained not only rice and regular ammunition, but also a batch of special ammunition that was particularly useful in combat, an additional infantry company was assigned to escort them.

This means that Okamura Tsuji and his party were escorted by more than 700 soldiers.

Such a force could easily withstand the siege of a main regiment of the Eighth Route Army; if air support were called in, victory would not be a problem.

Once they arrive in Yi County, they will merge with Major General Goro Mano's Independent Mixed 2nd Brigade.

After the two sides joined forces, they were able to rampage through the Pingxi base area.

In short, as long as he could evacuate before the main force of the Northern Jiangsu Independent Regiment arrived, Okamura Tsutomu really couldn't imagine what kind of danger he might encounter.

His conviction that he wouldn't be killed was the key reason he dared to continue his journey to Yi County...

At 7:51 a.m., after boarding a truck full of Japanese officers, we continued our journey towards Yi County.

Liang Yuan remained outwardly calm, but inwardly he breathed a long sigh of relief.

He was an underground worker for our Party. After the fall of Beijing in 1938, he was ordered to infiltrate the puppet North China Provisional Government established by the Japanese.

Over the course of more than a year, we did gather a lot of intelligence for our party, but none of it was anything particularly important.

Everything took a turn for the better in about ten days. An observation group arrived at the Japanese headquarters, led by the old Japanese soldier Okamura Tsuji, and prepared to go and check out the front line of the mopping-up operation.

Due to a lack of translators, he temporarily served as one of the observers' translators.

He naturally wouldn't know the specific itinerary of Gangcun Ningci and the others, but he roughly deduced that they should enter Yi County through Zijing Pass in the next few days.

So he sent out this message immediately.

Even though he himself knew that the base area would find it difficult to do anything under the pressure of the Japanese army's large-scale mopping-up operations, Liang Yuan still hoped that some miracle would happen.

For example, even if we can't take down Okamura Tsuji, that big Japanese fish, we still have the observation group at headquarters to teach them a lesson.

Let the Japanese devils know that China is not a place they can come and go as they please.

*******
Four hours later, in a sparse forest a few miles east of Zijing Pass.

After putting down his binoculars, Hu Biao shouted:
"There's no doubt about it, the designated location for that mission must be here; as for the specific mission, it's probably to ambush a Japanese transport unit, or perhaps some high-ranking Japanese figure?"

Faced with Hu Biao's deduction, the other time travelers remained mostly silent, but nodded their heads in agreement.

The reasons that led them to reach the above conclusion are roughly as follows:
The section of the Great Wall that they initially started with extended westward to this point, marking its end; it did not continue westward but instead formed an ancient defensive line running north and south.

Zijing Pass is a crucial transportation hub connecting the Hebei Plain to the Taihang Mountains, and its terrain is extremely treacherous.

If we want to ambush the Japanese, this is undoubtedly a very suitable place with a very high success rate; it also aligns with our Party's order to send only the Seventh Company on this mission.

As for the Japanese soldiers in the mission, when will they appear?
According to Hu Biao and others' analysis, it shouldn't take too long.

Compared to Kunlun Pass, which Hu Biao and his group had seen before, which was merely a dilapidated pass abandoned for many years, Zijing Pass was actually a small town.

Not only are there many civilians living here, but there are also more than a hundred Japanese soldiers stationed here.

These Japanese soldiers are now driving away the people in the town, cleaning up the streets, and planting Japanese flags in some conspicuous places.

There were even figures like the chairman of the maintenance association who painted slogans like "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" on some walls.

Everything indicated that a high-ranking Japanese official would appear here in the not-too-distant future...

(End of this chapter)