Chapter 1 The Overall Situation

Lin Fan was clear about the general trend of the national anti-Japanese war. He knew that the Battle of Wuhan was about to end.

He was already preparing to deal with the upcoming mopping-up operations. For the three base areas of the Special Operations Brigade, the important thing was how to maintain their strength during the Japanese's subsequent sweeps.

Of course, the most important thing now was to wipe out the Japanese troops in front of them. To achieve this goal,

Lin Fan ordered the Second Regiment to move most of its companies to the front to set up a new line of defense.

Only the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Companies were left behind.

They would encircle this remnant of the Japanese army and wait for the Japanese reinforcements to arrive before wiping them out in one fell swoop.

The Japanese 104th Infantry Division spent the whole day in a flurry of activity, constantly transferring troops from various locations to concentrate them in Conghua.

The troops concentrating in Conghua were not only the 104th Infantry Division, but also the tank regiment, heavy artillery regiment, cavalry regiment, and machine gun squadron that Commander Kozo Kitaro had transferred from the 21st Army.

Among these troops were those directly under the 21st Army, as well as those reinforced from other divisions. All of them were transferred here for one purpose:

To annihilate the Chinese army force between Xiangshan and Dongnaoling. Judging from the fighting that had taken place today,

Commander Kozo Kitaro felt that he had understood the characteristics of this force: they were a force with some combat effectiveness and would not retreat easily.

Such a force was suitable for the 21st Army to gather superior forces and annihilate them completely, because such a force would not retreat easily.

They would not run away at the slightest disturbance like the other troops in the Fourth War Zone. They would run after a few shots, making it impossible to annihilate them.

Japanese troops continued to pour into Conghua County. Although they could hear the sound of artillery explosions in the distance, none of them were willing to leave Conghua County to provide reinforcements.

They waited patiently for orders, waiting for the next battle. For these Japanese soldiers, they had already heard about the fate of the aviation squadron.

They also knew about the destruction of the Kouchi Takuya infantry battalion. With such lessons in mind, even the most arrogant cavalry regiment remained silent. They all stayed in Conghua County, waiting quietly.

No Japanese outside the area knew the true situation of the Japanese Fifth Naval Fleet's Marine Corps. This was not because the Japanese 104th Division was unwilling to make the matter public.

It was because they were not clear about the situation faced by the Fifth Naval Fleet's Marine Corps. After all, the Special Operations Brigade controlled the area around the battlefield too tightly.

The Japanese scouting teams sent out could not approach the battlefield at all and disappeared silently outside the battlefield.

This was the work of the various reconnaissance platoons of the Special Operations Brigade stationed outside the battlefield to monitor the surrounding situation.

Commander Fukiishi Juro did not report the fact that the Marine Corps now had less than 500 Japanese soldiers left.

The reason for doing so was, on the one hand, that he felt ashamed and embarrassed to report it. On the other hand, he was also afraid that if he reported the real situation,

the Japanese would be frightened, and the 104th Division would not dare to come to the rescue, or even the 21st Army would directly abandon these five hundred or so Japanese soldiers.

Therefore, the true combat effectiveness of the Special Operations Brigade and the current situation of his Marine Corps could not be reported to the higher authorities.

This led to a misjudgment by Commander Sawara Kouichi of the Fifth Naval Fleet. At this time, he still believed that the Marine Corps led by Fukiishi Juro was only surrounded and not in serious trouble.

Commander Kozo Kitaro also did not know what exactly happened on the front line. All the information he received was reported from the front line. The Japanese were still waiting for tomorrow's battle.

Yu Hanmou's Fourth War Zone had already sent troops to the Conghua direction to assist the Special Operations Brigade in annihilating the Japanese troops and then counterattacking Conghua.

The Fourth War Zone specially dispatched two divisions to assist. These troops were rapidly concentrating along the highway in this direction.

Li Zhen, the commander of the 186th Division, looked ahead worriedly and asked his chief of staff, Du Jianhua, "Is the situation that Commander Yu said true?"

Chief of Staff Du Jianhua was not sure either. He considered his words and said, "Some time ago, someone falsely reported their battle achievements, and the higher authorities are investigating it strictly.

This Special Operations Brigade team was just transferred from the Wuhan direction. They should not have the courage to falsely report their battle achievements, right?

Moreover, Commander Yu sent an observation team to the front some time ago, and then sent Chief of Staff Wang to verify it. The information should be accurate."

Li Zhen frowned and said, "I also think the information doesn't seem to be fake, but the battle achievements are too fake.

Think about it, shooting down more than 100 Japanese planes at once. Even if there were more than 100 chickens in the sky, it would take them some effort to shoot them down, right?

The Japanese planes are still alive, flying in the sky. They will fly away as soon as they detect danger."

Chief of Staff Du Jianhua nodded in agreement, "They also blew up twelve Japanese tanks. These battle achievements all seem fake. But Chief of Staff Wang shouldn't help them fake it."

The two of them discussed the truth of the news on the road. Regardless of whether the news was true or false, the news had already been announced to the entire division. This was Commander Yu Hanmou's decision.

The 21st Army had been losing cities and territories in the past half month, and the morale of the entire army was low. They needed a big victory to boost morale.

The Special Operations Brigade had just arrived, and in the first battle, they shot down more than 100 Japanese planes, destroyed twelve tanks, and annihilated a Japanese infantry battalion.

Such news, when conveyed to the entire army, would certainly greatly boost the soldiers' fighting will.

When Commander Li set out, he had already announced this great news to all levels of the division, and he also demanded that the good news be spread to the ears of every soldier.

Then he revealed that the team they were going to cooperate with in the battle was the team that had just won a great victory.

Commander Li certainly knew the truth, but he couldn't believe it. Commander Yu was letting his entire division cooperate with the Special Operations Brigade's actions, and he was going to draw a brigade from his division to be under the command of Lin Fan in the next few days of ambushing the Japanese army, to learn the Special Operations Brigade's combat methods.

In any case, Commander Li couldn't believe such battle achievements.

For the soldiers under his command, things were quite simple: they believed whatever the higher-ups said.

In the marching team, Bu Liangji was chatting with Zhou Xinde beside him, "How do you think this team from Wuhan fought?

They could actually shoot down Japanese planes. The Japanese planes fly so high. It's definitely impossible to shoot them down with machine guns, right?"

"I heard they have special anti-aircraft guns for shooting down planes. They came from Wuhan, so their weapons are of course advanced. What's so strange about that?" Zhou Xinde said nonchalantly.

"If we had such guns, so many weapons passed through our area some time ago and were sent to Wuhan. Why didn't Commander Yu equip us with them too?" Bu Liangji said with some dissatisfaction.

"Maybe they bought some secret weapon through another channel?"

These ordinary soldiers were all discussing what kind of secret weapons the Special Operations Brigade had in their hands.

The commanders thought too much and always felt that this could be a very questionable battle. No matter what they thought, the pace of marching to the front line couldn't slow down.

This was because the Fourth War Zone had lost Guangzhou too quickly this time. The investigation team sent by the Military Affairs Department had already set out. If they ran away as soon as they encountered the Japanese, just like they did some days ago,

even if they could survive the battlefield, they wouldn't survive a month. The inspectors from the Military Affairs Department wouldn't let them go.

With such thoughts in mind, even Commander Li Zhen had to be careful and follow Commander Yu's orders, leading the team quickly towards Fogang.

He also learned from several friends in the Fourth War Zone's staff department that Commander Yu was preparing to counterattack Conghua in the next few days.

For these commanders in the Fourth War Zone,

nothing was more important than being able to retake a county town from the Japanese. Because they had lost too much territory before.

If they could organize a counterattack and retake a county town before the inspectors from the Military Affairs Department arrived, it would definitely be a way to redeem themselves.

Therefore, the 21st Army was also concentrating all its combat vehicles, tanks, automobiles, and artillery at this time, preparing to rely on the Special Operations Brigade's strength in Conghua to cripple the Japanese 104th Division first, and then launch a counterattack in the Conghua area.

Chief of Staff Wang had already asked Lin Fan and received Lin Fan's personal reply: first, they had to eliminate more of the Japanese's effective strength at Xiangshan, and then they would attack the city.

Relying on the Special Operations Brigade's strength to give the Japanese a heavy blow, and then cooperate to retake Conghua.

Such redemption and atonement would definitely be able to get a lenient treatment from the Military Affairs Department, right?

For Lin Fan, he had to seize Conghua and use it as the base for the Special Operations Brigade.

Only before attacking, he still needed to eliminate more of the Japanese's effective strength and establish the Special Operations Brigade's prestige and reputation here.

To achieve the goal of eliminating as many Japanese soldiers as possible,

Lin Fan had already arranged the five companies of the Second Regiment—the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth—to rest behind Pingtou Mountain as the reserve regiment of the entire brigade.

The ten infantry companies and one anti-aircraft machine gun company of the 15th Regiment were now all in position, waiting for the Japanese to come.

Two infantry companies and one anti-aircraft machine gun company from the Second Regiment had also been reinforced to the 15th Regiment's positions. Everything was ready.

The Marine Corps, surrounded in the middle, had given up struggling and resigned themselves to fate, staying obediently in the encirclement like sheep in a pen, ever since Commander Fukiishi Juro issued the order not to counterattack.

These surrounded Japanese soldiers also discovered that as long as they stayed put and didn't fire or try to break through, the troops outside wouldn't open fire.

Some Japanese soldiers could even stand up and take a few steps in the encirclement without attracting sniper bullets.

It seemed that the troops surrounding them really didn't want to take their lives now. They didn't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

Anyway, they were right not to shoot!

Nothing happened all night!

Dawn broke.

The Japanese troops in Conghua County began to move out, and today's operation was still commanded by Lieutenant General Miyake Toshio, commander of the Japanese 104th Division.

He ordered: the forty-eight tanks of the two tank regiments to rush to the front of the team and head towards Donglingnao.

Following behind the tank regiment was the 137th Infantry Regiment. Regiment Commander Kawazaki Shiro ordered his remaining three infantry battalions to avenge the Takeuchi Takuma battalion.

To strengthen the 137th Infantry Regiment, Lieutenant General Miyake Toshio also reinforced all two machine gun squadrons transferred by Kozo Kitaro to the 137th Regiment.

As for the artillery brigade, he let them move with another infantry regiment of the division. This time, the Japanese concentrated two tank regiments, an artillery brigade, a cavalry battalion, and two machine gun squadrons to reinforce the 104th Division. Now, all these troops were led out of Conghua City by Lieutenant General Miyake Toshio.

He only left one infantry battalion to guard Conghua City, and the rest of the troops all marched along the highway towards Fogang.

Feeling that he had strong forces in hand, and most importantly, with the two tank regiments, Lieutenant General Miyake Toshio no longer cared about how many Chinese troops were on the front.

He only ordered his troops to advance, first to rescue the Marine Corps. This was the order given by Commander Kozo Kitaro.

The Japanese army left the city. Behind the long string of tanks were motor vehicle convoys, and behind the motor vehicle convoys were infantry marching in orderly steps. On the sides, Japanese cavalry were walking slowly.

Last night, the two divisions sent by the Fourth War Zone to assist in the battle had already taken their positions. According to Lin Fan's arrangement, they were lurking in the mountains and forests 10 kilometers away from Conghua County.

They were waiting for Lin Fan's command. A brigade was drawn from these two divisions to directly participate in today's battle of the Special Operations Brigade.

The only thing that didn't meet the requirements was that this brigade didn't have walkie-talkies, but each regiment had a telephone exchange, which could set up field wired telephone command to the company level.

Looking at the entire Chinese army, this was already a very advanced team, and each company of these two divisions had nine light machine guns, and each battalion had a mortar platoon with five mortars.

Each regiment also had its own automobiles and artillery company. These equipments were already very good.

But it depended on who they were compared to: compared to the Special Operations Brigade, the firepower of their battalion was only equivalent to the firepower of a company of the Special Operations Brigade.

Because they didn't have walkie-talkie support, Lin Fan could only use the method of the main regiment leading the militia regiment like he did in the Lunan base area at that time.

He directly disassembled the brigade that came to learn: let their twenty companies follow the twenty infantry companies of the Special Operations Brigade and accept the command of each company.

In this way, a company under the Special Operations Brigade suddenly had more than four hundred people, which was completely equal to a regular Chinese army battalion.

Company Commander Hu Xiong had just happily fought the Japanese yesterday, and early this morning, he was looking at the Japanese in the encirclement.

He discovered that they were staying obediently in the encirclement without moving. He said proudly to Company Commander Zhang Jiang, who was following his actions, "Company Commander Zhang! When you came last night, it was too dark to see the Japanese.

Now that it's dawn, we can see the Japanese.

Let the brothers come and see, the Japanese are not that scary. It's not that we can't defeat these Japanese.

But we deliberately left some of them alive yesterday as bait. If we didn't leave some Japanese alive, we were afraid the Japanese wouldn't send troops over.

This is called encircling a point to strike at the reinforcements!"

When Zhang Jiang led a company here last night, he heard that there were hundreds of Japanese soldiers surrounded inside. His company didn't have a good rest all night.

They were always afraid that the Japanese would launch a surprise attack in the middle of the night and break out from the inside. Fortunately, nothing happened all night. Now that it was dawn, Company Commander Zhang and his team of more than one hundred and thirty soldiers.

They were looking at the Japanese surrounded in the narrow area, and the soldiers began to whisper among themselves.

Platoon Leader Qin Yuanqing said, "Company Commander Hu! These Japanese soldiers are turtles in a jar. When are we going to attack?"

These ordinary soldiers had also been living a depressing life during this period of time, being chased by the Japanese all the way from the coast to the mountains.

Only they themselves knew the hardships they had gone through along the way. According to Platoon Leader Qin's idea, they should annihilate the Japanese immediately.

Brigade Commander Wu Xing, who was standing on the hilltop looking at the entire battlefield, was also trying to persuade Lin Fan, "Brigade Commander Lin! Ten birds in the forest are not as good as one bird in hand.

Since you have already reduced the Japanese troops to so few, why not concentrate our forces and annihilate them first?"

Lin Fan said with a smile, "Don't worry! They haven't fully completed the task I assigned them yet. Although the Japanese troops in Conghua City have already left the city.

But they haven't entered our ambush circle. These Japanese troops still have to be kept. We must wait until more Japanese troops enter our ambush circle before these Japanese troops are fully utilized.

That way, we can annihilate them."

Brigade Commander Wu Xing looked at Lin Fan's confident expression and hesitated for a moment before finally saying, "Brigade Commander Lin! I'm worried that when the Japanese main force arrives.

Those Japanese soldiers who have rested all night may suddenly launch an attack. What if they cooperate from the inside out and we can't resist?"

This was what Brigade Commander Wu Xing was most worried about. Chief of Staff Wang interjected at this time, "Brigade Commander Wu! Don't talk nonsense! Trust Brigade Commander Lin."

These words were too ominous! Chief of Staff Wang now had great faith in the combat effectiveness of the Special Operations Brigade.

Whether it was his rank or position, he was higher than Brigade Commander Wu, so he could tell him not to say any more.

Lin Fan said with a smile, "It doesn't matter. Ominous things don't exist for the Special Operations Brigade.

With strength, all words are powerless. Brigade Commander Wu's worries are also reasonable. The main reason is that he doesn't understand our strength yet.

Brigade Commander Wu, don't worry! There are less than five hundred Japanese soldiers surrounded in the middle, and I have sent three companies to surround them.

Plus, you have come, and three more companies have joined in. To deal with less than five hundred Japanese soldiers, we have sent more than a thousand soldiers.

We have already taken them very, very seriously. Those Japanese soldiers can't make any waves at all. We are now only concerned about when the Japanese soldiers coming out of the city will enter our ambush circle."

Brigade Commander Wu shook his head and didn't say anything else. What he could see now was that the infantry companies of the Special Operations Brigade were indeed strongly equipped. A company had five mortars, two infantry guns, six heavy machine guns, twelve light machine guns, and three rocket launchers.

Such an infantry was indeed strong, but he had just heard the report from the front: the Japanese vanguard was forty-eight tanks. So many tanks were charging at a fast speed.

If they were allowed to pass, they might rescue the surrounded Japanese soldiers. If that were the case, the meat in their mouths would be snatched away.

It was just that Lin Fan was unwilling to listen to his advice, and he was helpless.