Devil's Army

The third battalion commander also felt strange. Why did the soldiers who were about to rush into the town suddenly retreat like mice seeing a cat?

Soon the third battalion commander discovered the reason. It turned out that the Japanese and puppet troops pushed more than 30 civilians to block bullets and ordered the soldiers of the First Anti-Japanese Army to retreat.

If the soldiers of the Anti-Japanese Army did not retreat, they would continue to shoot and kill the civilians in front of them.

The soldiers of the third battalion had to withdraw from the city gate that was about to be occupied, and retreat step by step to their original position to confront the Japanese.

Just over half an hour after the war started, the Japanese captured more than 30 civilians to use as human shields. This was obviously not a spur-of-the-moment idea, but a long-planned one.

The third battalion commander sent several scouts to the nearby villages to find out the situation.

Soon, two scouts brought back intelligence. The captured villagers were all from nearby villages. They were captured by the Japanese because they did not pay enough military rations and were taken to the town, and they were asked to collect enough military rations and then come back to redeem them.

The third battalion commander was speechless. He had not obtained any intelligence in advance, and the devils had civilians in their hands. Now they were just the right time to take them as hostages.

Recovering Yanjia Town turned into rescuing hostages. The third battalion commander quickly called the company and platoon leaders to discuss countermeasures.

The company commander saw that there were not many Japanese soldiers, only about 30 to 50. He asked the third battalion commander to send someone to attract the Japanese soldiers' attention from the front, and he climbed up the wall from the side, launched a surprise attack, and wiped out the Japanese soldiers.

The third battalion commander disagreed with the first company commander's approach. The civilians were in the hands of the devils, and such a strong attack could easily kill civilians by mistake.

But everyone believes that only by understanding the demands of the Japanese can we prescribe the right medicine.

Finally, the third battalion commander decided to send someone to negotiate with the Japanese, and the first battalion commander sent a platoon of soldiers to approach the Japanese from the side if possible and be ready to attack at any time.

But everyone had different opinions about the commander who negotiated with the Japanese.

The commander of the third battalion insisted that he go there himself, but the platoon leaders of other companies in the third battalion believed that the Japanese had at most a squad of troops, and according to the principle of equality, they could just send a platoon leader there.

Finally, the three battalion commanders agreed that the company commander would represent the First Army in the negotiations.

The third battalion commander expressed their willingness to negotiate through the puppet army, and the cunning devils set the negotiation location in Yanjia Town and required the negotiators to go in alone with empty hands.

In this way, the platoon that the company commander was preparing to attack had no way to approach the negotiation site. The next thing was entirely up to the company commander to deal with.

The Japanese asked the company commander for three days' rations for 100 men. All the troops were far away from Yanjia Town, and they retreated immediately. After retreating to a safe place, they immediately released the civilians.

In order to confuse the Japanese, the company commander told them that they were only here to carry out a clearing operation and would not stay for long, so the troops did not carry much food, and could only provide them with one day's rations at most.

After repeated bargaining, the army finally agreed to provide the devil with rations for one hundred people for one and a half days. The devil evacuated Yanjia Town two days later.

The first company commander conveyed the Japs' demands to the third battalion commander. The third battalion commander believed that the Japs could not have been cut off from food supplies and that it must be a plan for reinforcements, so they had to make some preparations.

The commander of the third battalion ordered the commander of the first company to arrange three platoons of soldiers to ambush in safe places on the three roads leading out of Yanjia Town, preparing to ambush and annihilate this group of Japanese devils and puppet troops.

The focus was on guarding the northwest road from Yanjia Town to Jinzhou, and the battalion's direct platoon was also deployed there.

This small group of Japanese devils actually dared to threaten the common people. We cannot let them succeed.

Two days later, the third battalion commander sent someone to deliver military rations to the gate of Yanjia Town, and the troops immediately withdrew.

Soon, the Japanese took away the military rations. A small team of Japanese and a squad of puppet soldiers led the way in front, the civilians were taken in the middle of the team, and the rest of the Japanese and puppet soldiers followed behind, carefully evacuating Yanjia Town.

The Devil's Army really kept their promise. The Japanese and puppet troops searching ahead did not find any trace of the Devil's Army along the way.

The devils were indeed retreating towards Jinzhou. When they passed a small mountain pass, they searched the area around the pass but still did not find any trace of the devil troops.

At this time, a platoon of the company and the battalion's direct platoon, which were a little further away from the small mountain pass, saw that the Japanese search had ended and slowly approached the small mountain pass.

The third battalion commander thought that this place was easy to defend but difficult to attack, and that the Japanese would definitely leave people here to ambush when they retreated, so he set the ambush site here.

When the Japanese lieutenant heard the search team's report, he nodded with satisfaction and said, "Yoshi, Yoshi." Then he made a gesture of wiping his neck to the Japanese lieutenant.

The Japanese second lieutenant received the order and went down to make arrangements. A puppet platoon leader asked the Japanese lieutenant: "Captain, didn't you say that we would release these civilians once we were safe?"

"No, these unruly people have very bad consciences. We can't keep them."

The puppet army platoon leader was from the same village as some of the civilians. He couldn't bring himself to do it, but he was powerless to prevent this tragedy from happening. He could only shake his head and stand aside.

The Japanese second lieutenant ordered the soldiers to escort the civilians to the front of the small mountain pass and then prepare the machine guns.

The common people knew that their time had come, and they all cried.