Bright Sword: Construction starts from southeastern Shanxi

This undoubtedly gave the 389th and 386th Brigades a good opportunity to recapture the entire southeastern Shanxi region.

June 6, morning, 389th Brigade Headquarters.

At this time, half a month had passed since Zeng Jiwen issued the order to recapture southeastern Shanxi. As of this morning, the entire southeastern Shanxi region had been recaptured, and the Japanese troops in various counties had been completely wiped out under the attacks of various local forces and main regiments.

At this time, only Wu'an, located on the edge of Handan in western Hebei, had not been recovered. However, with the end of the war, Zeng Jiwen and others considered that Wu'an was too close to Handan and was located on a plain and difficult to defend. After consulting the headquarters, they decided to abandon Wu'an with their consent.

At the same time, they turned their attention to Linzhou in northern Henan, located between Taihang Mountains and Anyang. Since the entrance from Anyang to Linzhou is located in the intersection area between mountain ridges, the terrain is dangerous and there are many narrow passes. As long as the throat of Linzhou is guarded, it will be difficult for the Japanese army to invade.

Moreover, Linzhou can be used as a key area to extend eastward to northern Henan and radiate to western Shandong. As long as a foothold is established in the vast plains of northern Henan, it can advance towards western Shandong.

At this time in Linzhou, the Japanese army had withdrawn a large number of troops for this mop-up, so Linzhou's defense was empty. According to the news sent back by the Linzhou underground organization, Linzhou currently only had one garrison squadron of Japanese troops and a former local security group, less than 1,500 people.

We can take advantage of the fact that the Japanese army is short of troops at this time to capture Linzhou and block the only way to the eastern pass. If the Japanese army wants to attack in the future, they will have no chance of invading Linzhou without a brigade.

Therefore, after discussion among several people in the brigade headquarters, it was decided that the commander of the 783rd Regiment, Cao Deqing, would lead the 783rd Regiment to recapture Linzhou, while the 132nd Regiment, a local Pingshun regiment, would accompany them to carry out local work.

With the 783rd Regiment's recapture of Linzhou, the nine-way encirclement of the Japanese army in southeastern Shanxi finally ended with the 386th and 389th Brigades recaptured southeastern Shanxi.

At the same time, a large amount of post-disaster relief and summary of the various troops followed, and the general command and family were also waiting for the specific results of this counter-mopping-up operation.

Therefore, in order to deal with various matters that needed to be handled after the war and to summarize and analyze the anti-mopping-up operation, Zeng Jiwen quickly called back other people who were still busy in the local area.

As the other people came back, they began to count the casualties and spoils of the anti-mopping-up forces, and discuss the next action plan.

On the morning of the 10th, at the headquarters of the 389th Brigade.

At this point, after two days of statistics and summarization, everyone finally sorted out the general situation of this counter-sweep.

Everyone at this time looked a little tired, especially Zeng Jiwen, Wang Zhuo, Zhu Guosheng, and Cai Xu. It could be said that since the start of the anti-mopping-up campaign, they had hardly had any rest. They would just take a nap when they felt sleepy. After commanding the battle for more than half a month, they were basically forcing themselves to hold on.

After Political Commissar Zhou Shi had sorted out everything, he began to talk to everyone about the specific casualties and spoils of this anti-mopping-up operation.

"Our 389th Brigade suffered heavy casualties this time. Aside from the 20th Division on the western front and the Yangquan area, the troops fighting against the 14th and 16th Divisions also suffered heavy casualties."

After hearing the political commissar's words, Wang Zhuo nodded and said, "The casualties in this counter-mopping-up operation have somewhat exceeded our expectations."

"After all, this time we are facing one and a half Type A divisions of the Japanese Army. The gap between them and the usual local garrison forces is quite large," Huang Hanjia explained.

"But after this battle, our 389th Brigade has truly been tempered."

"Next time, if the Japanese army wants to raid us again, I'm afraid they won't be able to come and go as they please." Zeng Jiwen nodded and said.

"That's right. No one knew about this battle. These guys under us usually hid everything when we reported to the organization. This time, all their assets were revealed." Zhu Guosheng seemed to have thought of something and felt a little amused.