Bright Sword: Construction starts from southeastern Shanxi

"If we can lure out one brigade of Japanese troops and retreat while fighting, there will only be one brigade of field troops left in Taiyuan. Once Commander He in the north takes action, what do you think the Japanese will do?"

"Besides, this is not an offensive, and the Japanese planes can't do anything to us in a night battle. We just have to slowly delay them for fifteen hours. Once we drag the Japanese to Qi County, we can let them go back if they want." Wu Zhong said.

"But the question is, can your regiment hold out for fifteen hours? This is a field brigade." Old Chen was quite worried.

Hearing this, Wu Lin laughed. "Old Chen, if you're talking about blocking a brigade head-on, the 781st Regiment can definitely hold out for 15 hours, but the casualties will definitely be heavy. But if we can hold off the 5th Brigade and keep it at bay for 15 hours, we should still be able to do it."

Old Chen was quite surprised to hear this. It seemed that the 781st Regiment was quite powerful. So he turned to Hong Chao and said, "Hong Chao, your deputy brigade commander said that your regiment can hold off a brigade of Japanese troops for 15 hours. Tell me about your regiment's situation."

"Old leader, hey, I'm not bragging, but our regiment is a legitimate Japanese-equipped regiment. Our three battalions are comparable to a Japanese battalion, and we also have a six-gun 60mm mortar company. We recently formed a new fourth battalion. Although it's not as good as the other three battalions, we have a rifle for every soldier, and we have a full range of light and heavy machine guns."

"At the same time, in order to capture Taigu, the brigade commander also brought a 90mm mortar company with us."

Hong Chao said with a smile. When Hong Chao finished speaking, the entire brigade was shocked. Everyone knew that the 389th Brigade had made a fortune last year. If they hadn't made money, they wouldn't have been able to use the equipment replaced by others. But after this comparison, they found that the Zhongzheng in their hands was not so attractive.

Old Chen was a bit surprised. After all, he knew about the Japanese-equipped regiments before, but he didn't know the specific firepower configuration. He thought that if he had been there, he would have taken a lot of weapons and deployed a dozen regiments first, but he didn't expect Zeng Jiwen to go so far as to configure the regiment-level firepower.

But after saying this, Lao Chen started to joke, "Lao Wu, when you get back, you have to ask Zeng Jiwen to organize a group like this for me. I'm really jealous."

As soon as these words were spoken, the entire brigade burst into laughter.

After that, everyone began to formulate detailed arrangements for the initial combat of the second phase of this operation. According to the previous combat plan, this time Lao Chen planned to use flying thunder cannons to quickly eliminate the Japanese strongholds around Qixian and Pingyao in the early stage, and then let the 771st Regiment feint an attack on Qixian, the 772nd Regiment feint an attack on Pingyao, and the 16th, 17th, and 18th Regiments act as reserves.

At the same time, considering that there was only one battalion of Japanese troops stationed in Taigu, the 781st Regiment decided to let the reconnaissance battalion team sneak into the county town in the middle of the night, and then quickly install explosives to blow up important nodes such as Taigu's barracks, warehouses and command posts, and then blow open the city gate and forcibly capture Taigu.

At this rate, once the Japanese army got the news, they would certainly send all their reinforcements in Jinzhong, and then rely on the terrain to fight step by step, and finally lead the Japanese army to Qi County, and the mission would be completed.

On the evening of the 4th, the 771st and 772nd Regiments each began to move to the vicinity of their respective target counties. The artillery began to set up gasoline barrels to prepare for shelling positions. The militia guerrillas in various places began to dig fortifications with the main force, preparing to start the attack. Everyone waited quietly.

According to the previously planned combat plan, as soon as 12 o'clock arrived, they began to cut the telephone lines of the surrounding strongholds. At the same time, the soldiers of the reconnaissance battalion who had lurked in Taigu also installed various explosive devices. Everyone was waiting for the arrival of 12 o'clock.

As the minute hand points to a quarter past twelve.

Between the vast strongholds of Taigu, Pingyao and Qixian, a large number of Eighth Route Army personnel began to cut telephone lines and destroy iron fences. The artillery lit the fuses, and one explosive pack after another was thrown high into the air. At the same time, the reconnaissance battalion soldiers in Taigu County began to press the detonation buttons.