Bright Sword: Construction starts from southeastern Shanxi

Over the past six months, the relationship between Li Chishui and his independent regiment and the newly arrived 4th Division of the Japanese Army has developed.

To say it is "weird" is an understatement, it can only be described as "outrageous".

Ever since last year, their independent regiment used an artillery shell to send the commander of the 4th Division, Yamashita Tomoyuki, to his death.

The status of the entire regiment also rose accordingly, and it jumped from a local force to the main force regiment in the three-district.

With each promotion comes greater responsibilities.

Li Chishui was also not idle. He led the entire regiment to attack everywhere in the Handan area, constantly creating trouble for the Japanese.

The independent regiment was stationed in Guangping, east of Handan.

It just so happened that this area was also the base of the 61st Regiment under the command of Terauchi Isamu, who had caused the "shocking misunderstanding" in Zhaodian.

After that blunder, the North China side had planned to severely punish Terauchi Isamu.

But the development of the matter was beyond everyone's expectations - the independent regiment's artillery fire not only killed Yamashita Tomoyuki, but also took away the chief of staff of the 4th Division and several regiment commanders. In the end, all of these people were seriously injured and died.

All of a sudden, the 4th Division was leaderless, with no new division commander to fill the vacancy, and the command could only be temporarily taken over by several regiment commanders.

The North China side could not find a suitable candidate for the time being, so they had to let Kenji Doihara temporarily manage the 4th Division, and he immediately transferred the 61st Regiment to Guangping for garrison.

What's funny is that during a night ambush, Li Chishui just wanted to find a place to smoke a cigarette.

As a result, he happened to run into Terauchi Isamu and his group who were secretly out "doing business".

As soon as the two sides met, Li Chishui subconsciously wanted to draw his gun and fire, but Terauchi Isamu was staring at his "rough" outfit.

His eyes lit up and he immediately asked the translator to come forward and pass on the message, saying, "If you have something to say, let's talk about it."

This conversation made both sides become familiar with each other in a confused way.

Later, the two even co-starred in a play.

This successfully made Kenji Doihara, who was far away in Handan, mistakenly believe that Terauchi Isamu had "come to his senses" and finally got it.

At the beginning of this year, Kenji Doihara was busy preparing to establish the Wang Puppet Regime and set up the "Doihara Agency" in Shanghai.

He couldn't take care of the affairs of the Fourth Division.

Therefore, the newly appointed commander of the 14th Division, Jingguan Longchang, transferred the 61st Regiment back to Handan to garrison and be responsible for defending the Eighth Route Army in the direction of Wu'an.

At the same time, the 14th Division withdrew as a whole to the Northeast for rest and recuperation, and the 4th Division took over the defense of Handan and Xingtai areas.

Considering that Handan is geographically too close to Wuan, the defensive pressure is relatively high.

The current commander of the 4th Division, Matsui Nori, decided to set up the division headquarters in Xingtai.

Thanks to the "security and stability" in Guangping area, Terauchi Isamu was successfully promoted to the commander of Handan City Defense, responsible for the security of this important city.

At this point, the "strange friendship" between Li Chishui and Terauchi Isamu began to become a little "weird".

As the Fourth Division gradually gained a foothold in Xingtai, Handan and the vast plains area adjacent to Shandong in the east.

The "old problems" of the various regiments of the division also recurred - they began to think about how to make a fortune in the countryside.

At first, local people avoided the new Japanese troops.

Whenever the Japanese invaders came to the countryside, they would either evacuate far away or go directly into the tunnels in serious circumstances, and would never have direct contact.

Upon seeing this, the Japanese troops of the 4th Division began to curse the previous garrison for "ruining this beautiful place."

As a result, the common people were terrified of the Japanese army and could not do business.

I don’t know whether it is the idea of ​​one person or the crystallization of collective wisdom.

Finally, the devils came up with a plan: they sent the puppet army to tell the people: "We don't burn, kill, or plunder, we only do business."

At first, the people naturally didn't believe it and kept staying away from it.

But as time went on, everyone discovered that this group of devils was indeed unusual.

They neither arrested people on a large scale nor killed innocent people indiscriminately. Instead, they were seriously engaged in transactions.

After a few rounds of this, the Fourth Division gradually gained ground in this area.

After receiving reports from his subordinates, Wu Lin of Wuan immediately realized that something was wrong with this Japanese army.

He then reported the matter to his superiors, including Zeng Jiwen.

However, the reply from the military district made him feel confused - Zeng Jiwen not only did not order an attack on this group of devils, but instead suggested a tentative contact and observe their subsequent actions.

At the same time, the military district also sent Wu Lin detailed information about the Fourth Division for his reference.

When Wu Lin saw this information, his eyes almost popped out - he never expected that there was such a "weird" unit within the Japanese army!

Just at this time, Li Chishui reported to him his previous experience of dealing with the 61st Regiment of the 4th Division.

Combining the information provided by the military district, Wu Lin immediately realized that there was a huge opportunity hidden in this.

Therefore, under the intentional guidance of the Third Division, the "trade exchanges" between the Eighth Route Army and the Fourth Division, especially the 61st Regiment, gradually became more frequent.

Both parties were doing business, but they pretended to be ignorant of each other in order to conceal their true intentions.

They even "cooperated in acting" from time to time around Handan - pretending to exchange fire to create a tense atmosphere in order to confuse the top leaders of the North China Front Army.

By the middle of the year, due to the good security situation around Handan, the North China authorities praised the 61st Regiment many times.

They even designated Handan and its surrounding areas as the "Model Security Zone in North China" - if the Japanese troops in other war zones saw this scene, they would probably be shocked.

This time, Li Chishui's meeting with the 61st Regiment Chief of Staff Hase Arata was entirely at the initiative of Terauchi Isamu.

On the one hand, Terauchi Isamu recently heard rumors from North China - the commander-in-chief seemed to be about to launch another large-scale battle.

As the commander of Handan’s city defense, he had to respond in advance to avoid being involved.

The reason for inviting Li Chishui here this time was to discuss countermeasures and see how to leave a way out for ourselves before the storm comes.

On the other hand, Terauchi Isamu was also a little anxious - he found that the Eighth Route Army in his defense zone had begun to trade frequently with other regiments of the Fourth Division.

This gave him a sense of crisis: if he didn't take the initiative, the Eighth Route Army's "business" might be snatched away by others!

Therefore, he felt that it was time to further deepen relations with the Eighth Route Army, and the most direct way was to expand the scale of trade between the two sides.

Before this, the 61st Regiment had also been secretly doing business with the Eighth Route Army.

However, there were still some concerns, and military supplies were never moved. The main transactions were daily necessities.

But this time, after discussing with Hase Arata, Terauchi Isamu decided to let go completely - even military supplies were traded in exchange for more Eighth Route Army specialties.

Especially the cigarettes produced by the Eighth Route Army, since the 61st Regiment bought them.

It became hard currency within the Japanese army and was very popular in other troops, even being sold at high prices.

This not only made them a lot of money, but also allowed them to establish a more secretive network of relationships with other troops.

At this moment, Terauchi Isamu looked at the box of gold bars hidden under the partition of the room, and he had already made up his mind - if he lost his life, everything would be empty, but these gold bars were real!

The Japanese locust was far away in Tokyo and could not control him, but the gold could make his life more comfortable.