Bright Sword: Construction starts from southeastern Shanxi

As the shells fell near where the Eighth Route Army was digging trenches, the huge explosion temporarily halted the digging work of the Eighth Route Army soldiers.

At the same time, some shells fell into the trenches, and the huge explosion instantly turned some soldiers who were digging trenches into bloody pieces.

After seeing this scene, the battalion commander who was organizing the excavation work immediately ordered the soldiers digging trenches to temporarily evacuate.

Then immediately ordered the artillery to start firing at the city walls to suppress the Japanese firepower.

As six 75mm mountain cannons rapidly fired a round of shells at the north gate wall, most of the buildings on the north gate wall were instantly blown to pieces.

When the shells landed on the city wall and exploded, the commander of the 132nd Regiment, Saito Yoshio, and the chief of staff, Kobayashi Nobuya, were immediately buried in the collapsed wooden buildings.

The shocked Japanese soldiers around immediately rushed to rescue the two men from the rubble.

Fortunately for the surrounding Japanese soldiers, their regiment commander and chief of staff were only slightly injured, with only minor abrasions. The adjutant who saw this scene did not dare to let the two stay on the city wall for too long. He immediately turned around and ordered people to take the regiment commander and chief of staff to a safe area under the city wall.

A battalion commander not far outside the city felt a little sorry when he saw the chaos among the Japanese troops on the city wall.

Just now, through the telescope, he clearly saw a group of Japanese soldiers panicking because of two dusty little devils. If his guess was correct, those two little devils were probably the commanders of the Japanese in the city.

The battalion commander, feeling deeply regretful, immediately slapped his thigh in regret. If he had not ordered the artillery to bombard those bastards on the city wall to save ammunition, the Japanese commander in the city might have been killed by him today.

The battalion commander immediately shook his head and began to order the soldiers to continue digging towards the city wall, but this time, he started in a different way.

In order to prevent the Japanese artillery shells from falling into the tunnel and causing heavy casualties, a battalion commander immediately organized a company of soldiers to start shooting at the Japanese troops on Chenglou Mountain to attract the attention of the Japanese troops.

At the same time, the soldiers digging trenches used a circular excavation method and began to continuously encroach on the open area in front of the Japanese city gate.

As the encircling Eighth Route Army and the Japanese troops in Shouyang City engaged in fighting, the whole of Shouyang suddenly became lively.

In Yangquan, after receiving the report from the 132nd Regiment, the commander of the 108th Division, Motojiro Taniguchi, immediately began to organize his staff to discuss the current solution.

Taniguchi Motojiro had no intention of reinforcing the 132nd Regiment at all. When he was reinforcing Jingxing before, one of his battalions was completely wiped out in Nanyu.

Now in Yangquan, at most, only four infantry battalions of locust troops are still usable.

According to the intelligence reconnaissance of the 389th Division, the emptiness of Yangquan has probably been exposed to Zeng Jiwen's eyes long ago.

Since the North China Conference made the decision to fully support Shijiazhuang yesterday, Taniguchi Motojiro immediately strengthened the vigilance in Yangquan.

According to Taniguchi Motojiro's idea, after the 39th Brigade and his own 132nd Regiment arrived in Yangquan along the railway, and the 4th Independent Mixed Brigade of Yu County also returned to Yangquan, he would lead the entire locust army to attack Shijiazhuang.

Kenji Doihara had previously proposed that the locust army rely on Shijiazhuang to create a larger encirclement on the periphery, encircle Zeng Jiwen's main force in one fell swoop, and then completely kill Zeng Jiwen's lair in southeastern Shanxi.

In this case, even if Zeng Jiwen's main force evacuated, the various military industries he had built on the ground would be destroyed by the locust army. After the locust army recovered its strength, it would wipe out Zeng Jiwen's troops in one fell swoop.