Chapter 261: Murakuchi Saburo is willing to give Xiaocaozhuang stronghold to the Eighth Route Army Qin Yangming was surprised to see that he had only said it casually, but Village Sanlang was actually willing to hand over the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold to him. Xiaocaozhuang stronghold is not a small stronghold. The shortest way from Ping'an County to Taigu area is through Xiaocaozhuang. The most important thing is that the location of Xiaocaozhuang stronghold is a pass! It is a pass in the west of Ping'an County. On one side of Xiaocaozhuang is the Taihang Mountains, and on the other side is the tributary of the Fen River, the Xiao River! To occupy the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold, as long as a battalion of troops is left behind at the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold and an artillery position is set up on the mountain on one side, the terrain of the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold can easily block at least one regiment of reinforcements from the Taigu area. It's about blocking it completely, not delaying it. If the Japanese wanted to take over the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold by force, they had to either send out air force to carry out a covering bombing on the entire Xiaocaozhuang stronghold and the nearby mountains. Either use heavy artillery to suppress the fire, otherwise, the Japanese will have no chance of breaking through the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold from the Taigu direction and then providing support to Ping'an County. The Xiaocaozhuang stronghold is a bit like the one to the north of Tongshi Town. It is easy to break through in one direction, but it is not easy to break through in another direction. This is also the reason why the Japanese only arranged one squadron to garrison such an important Xiaocaozhuang stronghold.
Because the Taigu area and the areas behind it such as Zhangzhuang and Ping'an County are all controlled by the Japanese. The reason for setting up a stronghold at Xiaocaozhuang stronghold was purely to control this road. In case the railway line was destroyed, the Japanese could also use trucks to use the highway from Xiaocaozhuang stronghold to transport supplies to Zhangzhuang or Ping'an County. Moreover, even if the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold was captured by the Eighth Route Army, it would be easy for the Japanese to retake it. We only need to send troops from Zhangzhuang or Ping'an County. Not many are needed. One battalion can easily take down the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold. Unless the Eighth Route Army gathers a large force to launch simultaneous attacks on several places. However, even if they launched a simultaneous attack, Shuiquan's troops would be able to reach the Ping'an area at the fastest speed. Therefore, the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold is a bit useless to the Japanese. If we occupy it, we will have to keep transporting supplies to Xiaocaozhuang stronghold, which is troublesome. If they don't occupy it, if the Eighth Route Army sets up an ambush near Xiaocaozhuang one day, their transport team will be in trouble again. And if they don't occupy the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold, the Eighth Route Army can communicate directly from here to Mount Wutai. By then, the troops in Mount Wutai will cooperate with the troops in Taihang area to connect with Xiaocaozhuang, and then they can directly surround Ping'an and Shuiquan. It can be said that the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold was a piece of chicken ribs for the Japanese devils, which was tasteless to eat and a pity to throw away. But it was different for the Eighth Route Army. For them, the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold was a real piece of fat meat. Especially now that Qin Yangming and others are preparing to take action against the Japanese devils' Ping'an County. If they can capture the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold, the New 1st Regiment will only need to send out one battalion, and it may not even need the most powerful main battalions such as the 1st and 2nd Battalions to defend the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold. By then, the reinforcements sent by the Japanese from Taigu will either risk their lives to storm the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold. Or he could just take the troops and take a detour from Luyang to Ping'an County. In this way, the pressure on everyone to fight for reinforcements will be greatly reduced. The Japanese troops in Taigu, Taiyuan and other directions must go from Luyang to Ping'an County area for support.
It is impossible to deploy so many troops in one place; they can only be deployed in batches. Every time we faced just a batch of Japanese devils. There is no need for multi-faceted defense. By then, the New 1st Regiment could take advantage of the favorable terrain and send out troops in turns to block the Japanese. Although the Japanese didn't know that Qin Yangming and his men were going to attack Ping'an County. But it is impossible that Murakuchi Saburo was unaware of how important the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold was to the Eighth Route Army. But even so, when it came to Cunkou Sanlang, it was obvious that as long as Qin Yangming wanted, Cunkou Sanlang would hand over the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold. The intention of Cunkou Sanlang to hand over the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold to Qin Yangming was not to send troops to attack as soon as Qin Yangming took over the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold. It is obvious that Qin Yangming needs to be given some time to prepare. If the higher-ups find out, everyone will just act out together. If they don't find out, the Eighth Route Army will continue to be in charge. It is obvious that there must be something here that Murakuchi Saburo needs the help of the Eighth Route Army to deal with, and it must be a big deal! Otherwise, Murakuchi Saburo would not have taken out the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold as a bargaining chip at the beginning. Looking at Murakuchi Sanlang whose expression remained unchanged, Qin Yangming spoke with an idea in mind. "Oh? Mr. Village Mouth is willing to hand over the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold to our Eighth Route Army?" At this moment, Murakuchi Saburo also realized that he was a little anxious, and as soon as he opened his mouth, he mentioned the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold as a bargaining chip. Although he was a little annoyed, Murakuchi Saburo still spoke without changing his expression. "Mr. Qin, we are friends. It is normal for friends to give each other gifts. As long as you ask, I can... at the latest tomorrow, I can start arranging people to give you the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold. After Qingquan Muyi successfully takes control of the troops in the Ping'an County area tomorrow, I can ask Qingquan Jun to withdraw the Imperial Army from the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold in the name of redeployment. At that time, your army only needs to send out a troop wearing the uniforms of the Imperial Army to directly enter the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold. We will find a reason to transfer our troops out of Xiaocaozhuang stronghold later. Nominally, Xiaocaozhuang stronghold is under the charge of the Imperial Army, but all those Imperial Army are your troops. By then, the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold will still be under the control of our locust army in name, but in reality it will be under the control of your army. At most, we will send another troop into the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold during the subsequent inspection. At that time, I will send our people into the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold, and they will definitely not interfere with anything happening in the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold. There are many soldiers in our army who hate fighting. Well, there are also a few soldiers who are like you. I believe you will have something in common by then." Murakuchi Saburo pretended to be indifferent and gave the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold to Qin Yangming as a gift between friends. He wanted Qin Yangming to think that he just wanted to make friends with Qin Yangming. After all, the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold is just that to them. The Xiaocaozhuang stronghold was handed over to the Eighth Route Army for actual control, and they did not need to send any soldiers to the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold. At that time, all the military pay, weapons and equipment of the Imperial Army battalion nominally sent to the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold, as well as the subsidies for a squadron, will belong to them. Even these weapons, equipment and supplies can be resold to the Eighth Route Army in Xiaocaozhuang stronghold.
If the Eighth Route Army had more troops stationed in Xiaocaozhuang, they could also apply for more supplies on the grounds of strengthening the defense of Xiaocaozhuang. When these supplies were in hand, they would sell them to the Eighth Route Army. In other words, they didn't have to pay anything and just earned a lot of money for supplies for free. It was like pie in the sky. As for the loss of supplies by the First Army, what does that have to do with them? Moreover, if the Eighth Route Army actually controlled the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold, they would not have to worry every day about whether the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold would be attacked by the Eighth Route Army. There was no need to worry about whether it was necessary to send reinforcements to the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold, or whether the Eighth Route Army would surround the stronghold and attack the reinforcements. As for those material transport convoys, if the Eighth Route Army wants them, we can give them a heads-up in advance, sell the intelligence to them, and let them find a way to intercept the convoys themselves. If we intercept them before they reach Xiaocaozhuang, and as long as we do it cleanly, no one will think that there is a problem in the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold. In this way, in addition to making money from selling supplies, they can also collect intelligence fees. Therefore, giving the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold to the Eighth Route Army did not cause any loss to Cunkou Saburo. Instead, he could make a fortune from the Eighth Route Army. If there weren't too many troops at the Zhangzhuang stronghold and it wasn't too complicated to operate, the entire Zhangzhuang stronghold couldn't be handed over to the Imperial Army to garrison. Samurai Murakami wanted to sell the Zhangzhuang stronghold to the Eighth Route Army. I heard Sanlang at the entrance of the village saying calmly that the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold was just a normal gift between friends. Qin Yangming also had some doubts as to whether Cunkou Sanlang had let the cat out of the bag or whether he really intended to give the Xiaocaozhuang stronghold to the Eighth Route Army. “Muraguchi-kun, I would like to thank you for your gift first, but this matter is a bit serious and I need to go back and discuss it. This time I came out just to see if I can get in touch with you again. By the way, Murakuchi-kun, why did your radio station suddenly lose contact with us? " Qin Yangming pretended that he was not in a hurry. He came here just to see if he could get in touch with Murakuchi Saburo and others again, pretending that it was a task assigned by his superiors. We need to go back and discuss Murakuchi Saburo's proposal. As we all know, sometimes things can be settled in just a matter of seconds. Sometimes, it depends on how long you want to discuss. If something big really happened to Saburo Murakuchi, then he would definitely have some reaction. Once Murakuchi Saburo has any reaction, it means that the matter that Murakuchi Saburo wants to ask the Eighth Route Army for help is not only very big, but also very urgent! At that time, it will be much easier to get Murakuchi Saburo to cooperate. Of course, the premise is that they must not let Murakuchi Saburo know that they are also in a hurry to take over Ping'an County. Otherwise the situation is likely to be the opposite. However, when Qin Yangming spoke later, he thought of the loss of contact with Cunkou Saburo and others. It is obvious that Saburo Murakuchi also wants to continue contact with the Eighth Route Army. But somehow we lost contact in the middle. This made Qin Yangming a little curious about what had happened among Murakuchi Sanlang and others. Listening to Qin Yangming's answers and questions, Murakuchi Saburo did not have time to respond to Qin Yangming's answers, so he answered Qin Yangming's questions first.
"Mr. Qin, the reason why we lost contact is actually related to your Eighth Route Army." When Qin Yangming saw that Murakuchi Saburo said that the loss of contact was related to the Eighth Route Army, he immediately became alert. "Could it be that someone from our Eighth Route Army leaked the news of our transaction to your superiors, and then they found out?" “No, no, no, Mr. Qin, it’s not that there’s a problem within your Eighth Route Army, but the disturbance caused by your last annihilation of the Fourth Brigade in Shangdang. The 4th Brigade was completely wiped out, and the 9th Brigade was half-crippled and was almost blocked by your First Death Column. Then the entire Shangdang area was lost. For such a big thing, naturally someone needs to be held responsible for it. Originally, the old man Yoshio Shinozuka was planning to push the responsibility onto the old guy Yoshio Iwamatsu. After all, Yoshio Iwamatsu sent a group of idiot officers to the war zone to disrupt Yoshio Shinozuka's combat plan, resulting in a complete loss. But this responsibility is a bit too great, and it is difficult to put it all on Yoshio Iwamatsu. The real reason why the 4th Brigade was completely wiped out this time was that there was a big deviation in the intelligence about the Eighth Route Army and the intelligence department did not report it in time. This resulted in the complete annihilation of the 4th Brigade. It can be said that the main responsibility for the annihilation of the 4th Brigade and the loss of the Shangdang area was not due to Yoshio Shinozuka's improper command, or that Hiraru Isamu was an idiot. It was because the intelligence department failed to update the intelligence on the Eighth Route Army in a timely manner. The fact that Yoshio Iwamatsu sent a group of officers to observe and interfere with Yoshio Shinozuka's combat plan only accounted for 30% of the responsibility. Then, in order to avoid taking any responsibility, Yoshio Iwamatsu and Yoshio Shinozuka teamed up to push all the blame onto the intelligence department. It was said that the intelligence department was not doing its job and was not gathering intelligence, but instead was trying to incite rebellion, and in the end the rebellion failed. The intelligence gap about the strength of the Eighth Route Army was too large, which led to the two commanders Yoshio Shinozuka and Yoshio Iwamatsu making wrong judgments and wrong commands, resulting in the annihilation of the 4th Brigade and the loss of the Shangdang area. All the blame was put on the intelligence agencies. The intelligence department simply cannot bear such a heavy responsibility. In order to avoid being held accountable, the intelligence department chose to use a major general and two colonels as scapegoats to save the entire intelligence department. As it turned out, one of the colonels was one of ours... He was usually responsible for using the large radio station to contact the Eighth Route Army, and then distributing the relevant information to us, the subordinates. In order to prevent the news from leaking, our colonel destroyed himself and the radio station. Without the large radio station and with a major reshuffle in our intelligence department and constant surveillance, we had no way of getting back in touch with the Eighth Route Army. Then Qingquanjun originally wanted to contact them in person and reestablish contact, but he was suddenly transferred to Ping'an County. Without Qingquanjun there, no one else dared to contact the Eighth Route Army again. That's the way it is. It's not that we don't want to contact the Eighth Route Army again, it's just that we can't do it." (End of this chapter)
