Li Xian in Jurong, although he was no longer in charge of military affairs, still firmly controlled all military production.

Upon receiving Lin Fan's request, he immediately issued the order to organize transportation. These supplies were to be sent to Jurong Airport, waiting to be transported to Jiangbei that night.

This time, the delivery route went first to Hefei Airport to pick up Lin Fan and the selected rocket launcher gunners, and then to the Lunan base area.

Li Xian was already very experienced in organizing and delivering goods. He was now only worried that Jurong's increasingly rapid development would make it a key target for the Japanese devils.

Jurong's current situation was vastly different from before. In the past, Li Xian needed to send people to Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi, and other places to invite bosses and merchants to set up factories and trading houses.

Back then, no one wanted to come.

Now, the opposite was true. Trading houses and factory owners from Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi, and elsewhere were scrambling to come to Jurong.

New funds were flowing into Jurong every day, and people were applying to invest and build factories. Li Xian could never have imagined such a situation.

Even though he had been a reporter in Shanghai for many years, he had never seen anything like it!

However, the arrival of these people had indeed made Jurong's finances richer. In the past few months, Li Xian had discovered when doing the statistics that the Special Operations Brigade's money was actually increasing.

It was no longer like before, when money flowed out like water every day, with only a small portion coming in.

Now, money flowed into the Special Operations Brigade like water every day, and it flowed out like water as well.

The money coming in was mainly taxes collected by the Special Operations Brigade from various factories and businesses. The brigade's edible fungus production plant, formerly the main source of income, was now ten times larger.

The output had also increased tenfold, and although the selling price had not changed, the profits had increased significantly.

As a result, the edible fungus plant was no longer the Special Operations Brigade's biggest profit-maker. Now, the brigade's most profitable enterprise was the Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Company.

This large company, which integrated mining and steelmaking, had over 200,000 workers. The steel it produced circulated within Jurong, was processed into various parts and products, and then shipped to all parts of the country.

The biggest difficulty for the Special Operations Brigade now was the unpredictable situation in the surrounding areas, especially in the area bordering Nanjing.

The Japanese devils were constantly building permanent fortifications, and Jurong was doing the same. Tangshan, the Jurong front line, and Moling Pass were all key construction areas.

Now that the Special Operations Brigade had its own cement plant and steel mill, the front-line fortifications and pillboxes were all reinforced with reinforced concrete.

These things were inanimate objects; the most important factor was still people. Since Lin Fan had led ten regular regiments across the river, Jurong had added twenty infantry regiments.

These infantry regiments took over the defense duties of the previous ten regiments. After two months of intensive training, the soldiers had made a qualitative leap in both ideology and combat quality; all that was lacking was a real battle to test them.

Just now, Lin Fan had sent a telegram analyzing the actions the Japanese devils might take after the Battle of Wuhan.

Lin Fan believed that after the Battle of Wuhan, the first thing the Japanese devils would do was to encircle and suppress the Jurong base area.

Therefore, he requested that Jurong expand by another twenty regular regiments, which must be formed before the Battle of Wuhan.

Lin Fan specifically requested that all new troops use weapons produced by the Special Operations Brigade for training.

By October, all troops stationed in Jurong were to be re-equipped with new weapons developed by the Special Operations Brigade.

Thinking of forty-two regiments, nearly 100,000 men, all being re-equipped, Li Xian felt a headache coming on.

The production of new weapons had long been on the right track, and he had personally inspected them.

The new weapons had many advantages, but only one disadvantage: they were too expensive to use.

The submachine guns designed and produced according to Lin Fan's specifications used 5.8mm rounds, with thirty rounds per magazine, and each soldier carried ten magazines.

During the test, Li Xian saw the soldiers charging with submachine guns. When they fired together, there was a curtain of bullets in front, and no one could stop them.

There were also matching 5.8mm machine guns and sniper rifles. These weapons were better than the previous ones, and 60% of their parts were interchangeable.

Whether it was a submachine gun, a machine gun, or a sniper rifle, all could use airburst rounds to launch rifle grenades.

These rifle grenades had an effective range of 300 meters and were highly accurate, making them much more convenient and accurate than the Japanese devil's grenade launchers.

These were all advantages of the weapons to be issued, but they used bullets too quickly.

A submachine gun could fire thirty rounds in a magazine in less than a minute.

Although it would not be used so much in actual combat, the ammunition consumption would definitely be very fast.

Li Xian thought about it from another perspective: with such a dense barrage of bullets, the Japanese devils, still using Type 38 rifles, would not be able to resist at all.

He also felt that it was right to arm the Jurong troops first.

Thinking of this, he acted immediately: the 7th Regiment stationed in Tangshan and the 5th Regiment stationed in Jurong received orders to replace all their weapons.

Yang Daren and Zhen Danxiao, the two regimental commanders, had long known that the new guns had been finalized for production and had personally participated in the trial use of the new guns.

They had fallen in love with the new weapons at that time, and after receiving the order, they immediately began to mobilize the troops.

According to Lin Fan's order, the soldiers of the 5th and 7th Regiments were allowed to continue using their old equipment for one month after receiving the new equipment, without rushing to hand it over.

The idea was that if a war broke out during this period, the soldiers would still use their familiar old weapons.

In the Jurong base area, a second round of recruiting new soldiers from the local security regiments began, to expand by twenty infantry regiments.

This caused a huge response among the young people in Jurong. For a long time, Jurong had taken care of its soldiers in many ways.

They enjoyed the highest political treatment in Jurong, and their military pay had always been quite high. Most importantly, in Jurong, every family with a member in the regular army would have a small metal sign on their door: Family of Resistance Against Japan!

This was glory, the glory of honoring one's ancestors.

Now that there was another opportunity to participate in the selection of the regular army, how could so many people not be excited?

There were also the disaster victims who had fled from the Yellow River flood area, who had settled down here.

People need to know how to be grateful. These people were grateful to the Special Operations Brigade for saving their lives. How could they repay them? Of course, they would rush to help when the brigade needed them.

Now that the Special Operations Brigade was recruiting soldiers, these people, who had been settled in various resettlement points in Jiangnan, also signed up one after another.

Many of these resettlement points were not in areas controlled by the Special Operations Brigade, but this did not prevent people from signing up.

Even those civilians in the Japanese-occupied areas were secretly spreading the word to each other: Is your family sending a child to sign up?

The children of these families could have gone to work in factories in Jurong long ago.

The signing up they were talking about now was asking if any children were going to join the regular army of the Special Operations Brigade.

The news that Jurong was expanding its army again could not be concealed, of course. Hata Shunroku, the commander of the Central China Expeditionary Army, could only sigh when he received the news.

What else could he do? At this time, most of the troops in his hands were trapped in the Battle of Wuhan.

To deal with the Special Operations Brigade, fewer troops would not be enough to win, and if more troops were needed, he did not have them on hand now.

It was not just him who felt this way. Commanders at Hata Shunroku's level were all aware of the losses suffered by the North China Area Army in Hefei and Xuzhou.

Terenouchi Hisaichi, the commander of the North China Area Army, had even had to transfer troops from Beiping to rescue the infantry battalion in Xuzhou, which showed that the North China Area Army's forces were also stretched thin.

"Everything can only wait until after the Battle of Wuhan!" Hata Shunroku thought.

He had already had his staff divide a portion to study what to do after the Battle of Wuhan to eliminate all the guerrillas, the Central Army left behind by the Kuomintang, and the troops left behind by various local warlords in the occupied areas.

Regardless of the final outcome of the Battle of Wuhan, Hata Shunroku already felt that the Empire's capabilities had reached their limit.

He sighed in his heart! In the end, the Empire's territory was too small, the population was not large enough, and there were not enough soldiers.

The working groups of the Special Operations Brigade in the Jiangbei base area had been very busy these days. After the main regiments defeated the Japanese devils, the next work was all the responsibility of these groups.

They had to publicize the policies of the Special Operations Brigade to the citizens and ordinary people in the cities and villages, and do a good job of working with these people.

First, they had to ensure that the citizens and people could settle down, and then go among them to win their support.

The Special Operations Brigade had always done a very good job in this regard. After all, they had always adhered to the discipline of not violating the people, so what more could ordinary people want?

Thank goodness that bandits were like combs, and soldiers were like rakes! The fact that the Special Operations Brigade could avoid violating the people was already a great blessing for ordinary people.

Not to mention that after the Special Operations Brigade came, not only did they not impose exorbitant taxes, but they also traded fairly with them.

This satisfied the merchants in the city and the people in the countryside. The merchants had people to buy their goods, and the people in the countryside had people to buy their grain, vegetables, pigs, and chickens in large quantities.

Except for those particularly unlucky families whose houses were damaged in the fighting, the rest of these people felt that they were living a good life.

Even in Liuan and Huoshan, which had just been recaptured, the Special Operations Brigade had established base area governments in various villages and towns.

All of this was done by specialists, managed by Li Xian. Most of Lin Fan's thoughts were still on military affairs.

On the afternoon of the second day after the Special Operations Brigade's plan to increase weapons in the Lunan base area was proposed, the first two infantry battalions of the Japanese devil's Xuzhou Task Force arrived in Xuzhou.

That night, Lin Fan also led forty planes to Feixian Airport.

As soon as he arrived in Lunan, Lin Fan did not rest, and immediately rushed to Huangtuling.

The first thing Lin Fan did when he saw Gu Xiuming was to point to the map of Xuzhou and order: "The 1st, 2nd, 7th, and 8th Regiments of the Lunan Detachment will immediately attack in the direction of Xuzhou.

Drive all the Japanese devils and puppet troops along the way back to Xuzhou.

The four regiments will continue to fight until they are about twenty kilometers away from Xuzhou before stopping."

At the same time, Lin Fan ordered the 6th Regiment of the Lunan Detachment to be transferred to Huangtuling to bomb the Japanese devils on the ridge.

The strength of the three Japanese brigades could not be allowed to hug each other and come out of Xuzhou.

Since their mission was to rescue the Japanese infantry on Huangtuling, the fact that his side was immediately posing an attack, the Japanese devils who had arrived in Xuzhou would definitely not be able to sit still.

The tasks assigned by Lin Fan were immediately carried out by the Lunan Detachment, and four infantry regiments immediately set off towards Xuzhou.

In fact, the Independent Mixed 17th Brigade and the puppet troops stationed in Xuzhou had also been retreating these days.

After learning that the 10th Brigade of Soratani Toshishige had basically been crippled, they did not dare to operate too far from Xuzhou.

They were afraid of being eaten by the guerrillas. Gu Xiuming led four regiments, which was actually equivalent to a march, and arrived smoothly at the boundary designated by Lin Fan.

Along the way, the people in these villages had long heard of the Lunan Detachment. Those peddlers who sold goods everywhere not only sold goods in each village, but also talked about the fresh things around them.

Otherwise, how could so many people surround them? Those rural people were selecting goods while listening to the peddlers talk about the things that happened in the surrounding area.

In the past few months, the things that happened in the Lunan base area were undoubtedly the most attractive.

Gu Xiuming did not know that the reason why the folks were so enthusiastic about him all the way was that the peddlers had promoted the Lunan Detachment in advance.

In the peddler's mouth, the Lunan base area was simply a paradise: there was not a single bandit in the base area, and the landlords collected rent according to the standards set by the Lunan Detachment, which could not be changed at will.

If the farmers in the base area wanted to borrow money to buy seeds to plant fields, the Lunan Detachment's bank could lend interest-free loans.

When the peddler said this, he sighed and said it three times: Interest-free! If you borrow one yuan, you still pay back one yuan after receiving the grain. Such a thing has never been heard of since ancient times.

And there was also medical treatment. In the past, if someone in the family was sick, they would either endure it or go bankrupt. Now, in the Lunan base area, everyone only needs to pay three yuan a year in advance, and they don't need to pay for seeing a doctor and getting medicine in their hospital after they get sick.

There are not only herbal medicines in their hospital, but also foreign medicines in glass bottles. One bottle is worth a small gold bar!

They are willing to give such medicine to the poor. Do you think it's good?

It was precisely because of the peddlers' vigorous publicity that the people near Xuzhou had a great affection for the Lunan Detachment.

Now that they saw them coming, the village elders would send grain and meat to the army.

The Lunan Detachment took all these things, settled the price according to the market price, and also asked them to continue to organize them, as each regiment needed them.

Seeing is believing! Gu Xiuming's actions made the people in these villages feel even more that this army deserved the world.

On September 8, 1938, the 6th Regiment of the Lunan Detachment began to bombard the Japanese devils on Huangtuling for half an hour.

The three newly arrived security regiments at the foot of the mountain also waved flags and shouted, making a gesture of attacking.

This frightened Captain Fukakawa Taiji of Huangtuling. He didn't understand why the Lunan Detachment, which had stopped for two days, had started attacking again.

And this time was different from before. This time, it was actually heavy artillery that was firing. This was a taste that he had never experienced in the previous few times.

Captain Fukakawa was already frightened out of his wits. He dared not break through downwards, nor dared to fight back. He could only immediately ask Major General Yamawaki Tsuguo, commander of the Xuzhou Task Force, for help.

Yamawaki Tsuguo, commander of the Xuzhou Task Force, was still in Beiping at this time. After receiving the distress telegram from the Fukakawa Battalion, he was also in a dilemma.

The entire task force had already arrived in Xuzhou with one regiment. According to this transportation speed, he could send the second regiment over tomorrow at this time no matter what.

He thought of Soratani Toshishige's 10th Brigade. Although the actual team sent to rescue consisted of two infantry battalions and one cavalry battalion, they were all acting separately, giving the Lunan Detachment a chance to defeat them one by one.

If he let the regiment of the Independent Mixed 3rd Brigade act together, there should be no problem.

And tomorrow, another regiment will be able to arrive in Xuzhou, and will also be able to go to reinforce immediately.

Thinking of this, he immediately summoned the three brigade commanders to a meeting in the command headquarters in Beiping.

At the meeting, the three brigade commanders learned that the Fukakawa Battalion had been bombarded by the Lunan Detachment and was under attack.

Brigade Commander Inoue Munetake immediately jumped up: "Commander! My 3rd Brigade already has a regiment arriving in Xuzhou, and can completely go to Huangtuling to rescue the Fukakawa Battalion.

A mere local warlord's security team cannot resist our army's offensive at all."

The other two brigade commanders did not speak at this time. Brigade Commander Saito Takeo was in favor of Inoue Munetake.

He was now just regretting: Why didn't the Independent Mixed 4th Brigade get on the train first?

If his team had arrived in Xuzhou now, the credit for rescuing the 10th Brigade would be his.

Brigade Commander Hyakutai Sūbun of the 4th Cavalry Brigade was a little uneasy: This was different from the battle plan they had discussed yesterday.

But he saw the expression on Commander Yamawaki Tsuguo's face, and knew that he also agreed with Brigade Commander Inoue Munetake's opinion.

Commander Yamawaki Tsuguo cleared his throat and said, "The situation on the battlefield is changing rapidly, and our plan must also change accordingly.

The Fukakawa Battalion is in danger, and we must also respond immediately. Now I order the first team to arrive in the 3rd Brigade to immediately advance to Huangtuling.

Be sure to ensure that the entire regiment marches together, and must not act separately.

We must learn from the lessons of the 10th Brigade's various battalions acting alone."

"Hai!" Brigade Commander Inoue Munetake had an excited expression on his face. In any case, this time, the credit for his brigade independently completing the rescue of the Fukakawa Battalion in the assembled task force was secured.

As for the Lunan Detachment that might be encountered during the rescue process, he didn't care at all. An fully armed infantry regiment was simply not something that tens of thousands of Kuomintang soldiers could resist.

Not to mention those guerrillas. He dismissed the matter of being attacked by heavy artillery written on the telegram sent by the Fukakawa Battalion, and thought that Captain Fukakawa was afraid and deliberately wrote the Lunan Detachment more powerfully.

If the other side really had heavy artillery, wouldn't they have bombarded the Fukakawa Battalion on Huangtuling long ago? They wouldn't have attacked for so many days without taking it down.

In any case, he was going to depart for Xuzhou with the Nakajima Ayume Regiment tomorrow. Just one day apart would not have much impact on the overall command of the battlefield.

And the entire brigade's supplies would depart the day after tomorrow, which would not affect the logistics on the battlefield either.

Now it was time for Regiment Commander Asō Isoroku to take action.

Regiment Commander Asō Isoroku, who had just arrived in Xuzhou less than two hours ago, received a telegram from Commander Yamawaki Tsuguo of the Xuzhou Task Force, ordering his team to immediately advance to Huangtuling.

Be sure to arrive at Huangtuling by 6:00 p.m. tomorrow.

Then came Brigade Commander Inoue Munetake's order: The orders were the same, but the requirements were more detailed, requiring the entire regiment to complete the task.

And Brigade Commander Inoue Munetake also revealed that he would arrive in Xuzhou with the Nakajima Ayume Regiment tomorrow, and the Nakajima Ayume Regiment would act as the reserve army for the Asō Regiment.

In this way, the Asō Isoroku Regiment would not have any worries about marching and fighting in the front.

When he received the order, it was already past 4:00 p.m. Regiment Commander Asō Isoroku was a little hesitant at this time: Should the entire regiment rest in Xuzhou overnight? Or should they set off immediately?

According to the brigade commander's order, his regiment must set off immediately to be able to arrive at Huangtuling tomorrow afternoon. After all, it was more than a hundred miles away.

But the entire regiment had just gotten off the train, and various weapons and equipment were still being unloaded from the freight yard.

When Regiment Commander Asō summoned the four infantry battalion commanders to a meeting, after listening to Brigade Commander Inoue's orders, the four battalion commanders all said that they would definitely execute the brigade commander's orders. The Asō Akito Battalion and the Sakai Yuto Battalion were the first to arrive.

Their weapons and equipment were all in place, and the soldiers had rested for a few hours.

Battalion Commander Asō Akito stood up and said: "Regiment Commander Asō, my battalion has rested and reorganized, and we can leave the city first.

Although the brigade commander ordered our entire regiment to act together, there is always a first and a last in marching.

Our army can go to a position 20 kilometers outside Xuzhou City first to build a camp for the entire regiment, wait for the subsequent troops to arrive, and then advance."

Although the two Japanese devils both had the surname Asō, they actually had no relationship. It was just a coincidence when they were named.

Regiment Commander Asō Isoroku was a little hesitant. Battalion Commander Sakai Yuto stood up and said: "Regiment commander! The Sakai Battalion has also reorganized, and we can act with the Asō Battalion.

First establish a camp 20 kilometers outside Xuzhou City, and wait for the Uehara and Inukai Battalions to arrive tonight.

In the morning, the entire regiment will march to Huangtuling together."

Regiment Commander Asō Isoroku looked at the map, compared the distance, and was silent for a while before saying: "There are seventy kilometers from Xuzhou to Huangtuling, and guerrillas have been found to be active 20 kilometers outside Xuzhou.

Tonight, our army will advance to Tasan, 30 kilometers away from Xuzhou, to rest, and depart from here for Huangtuling tomorrow.

What do you all think?"

What could these battalion commanders say about the plan proposed by the regimental commander?

Moreover, his plan was also the most feasible. After all, there was a wide road all the way from here to Tasan, so they could maintain their speed even when marching at night.

It was easier to march at night in this autumn season.

With these considerations, the four battalion commanders unanimously approved the plan. Regiment Commander Asō Isoroku especially told Battalion Commander Asō to be sure to put a company of reconnaissance troops in front of the two battalions, and not to fall into an ambush by the guerrillas.