The War of Resistance Against Japan: Starting with a Calm View of Life and Death

Ignoring the pain, Chida got up and the first thing he did was to cover his mouth tightly with both hands, afraid that his beard would be exposed.

Yoshino Yuto, standing to the side, was dumbfounded: "Commander, what are you doing...?"

"Baka! Don't speak!" Chida shouted incoherently, his hands covering his mouth like iron clamps, blood still seeping from between his fingers. His front teeth seemed to have come loose from the fall.

"That's the one covering his mouth! Shoot!" Zhou Jindong raised his Mauser pistol and fired a shot in Chida's direction.

The bullet grazed Chida's ear and knocked off his military cap.

Chida was terrified. Although the shot missed, it scared him half to death.

He removed his hand from his mouth, wanting to shout "surrender," but then felt too ashamed to admit it.

In that brief moment of hesitation, Wang Quan and several soldiers had already rushed to the front.

"Go to hell!" Wang Quan swung the butt of his gun and smacked Qian Tian on the back of the head.

Chida didn't even utter a sound, rolled his eyes, and fell straight down.

That carefully trimmed mustache was now covered in mud and blood, sticking messily to his lips.

"Gotcha! Dongzi! Gotcha!" Wang Quan shouted excitedly, stepping on Qian Tian's back, twisting the old Japanese soldier's arm behind his back, and tying it tightly with a rope.

When Yoshino Yuto and the other guards saw that their regimental commander had been captured, they lost all will to resist. They threw their guns on the ground, covered their heads, and squatted down.

Some even knelt on the ground, kowtowing repeatedly, and shouting, "Eighth Route Army, spare my life!"

Zhou Jindong ran over, looked at Chida lying on the ground like a dead dog, and breathed a sigh of relief.

He bent down, reached out and grabbed Chida's tuft of beard, and tugged hard.

"Ouch..." Chida was awakened by the pain. She opened her eyes groggily and saw Zhou Jindong's face covered in gunpowder and soot.

"Commander Chida, long time no see." Zhou Jindong sneered, releasing his grip. "Didn't you want a hot meal? Didn't you want to sleep? Come back to our base with us this time, there'll be plenty to go around!"

Chida looked at the dark mass of Eighth Route Army soldiers around him, then at himself bound like a dumpling, his eyes shifting from fierce to despair, and finally to ashen.

He knew that this time it was truly over.

This battle, in which he had hoped to make a name for himself in northwestern Shanxi, was now completely over.

You have become someone else's capital for success!

Indeed, other people's happiness is built on their own!

With Chida captured, the remaining Japanese troops completely collapsed.

The main force of the 358th Brigade in the Shenchi direction launched a general offensive, and the troops from Yijing, Wuzhai, and Sancha also pressed forward at the same time.

That morning, Zhou Jindong, with Qian Tian under his command, cooperated with the main force to recapture Shenchi County.

The city gates of Shenchi were opened wide, and the people lined the streets to welcome them.

Zhou Jindong did not enter the city; instead, he led his guerrillas on a relentless northward pursuit.

In the following days, a series of pursuit battles unfolded across northwestern Shanxi.

The news of the complete annihilation of the Chida Regiment spread like wildfire throughout the entire Shanxi-Northwest region.

Upon hearing the news, the Japanese troops stationed in Pianguan, Hequ, and Baode were terrified and dared not resist. They burned down the warehouses and fled back.

Zhou Jindong led the Dongzhai guerrilla team as the vanguard, charging forward relentlessly.

They didn't need to attack the city; they only needed to appear outside the city walls, or even just fire a few shots outside, and the puppet troops and Japanese soldiers inside would raise white flags and surrender.

Three days later, Pianguan was recovered.

Standing on the city wall of Pianguan, Zhou Jindong looked at the ice floes on the Yellow River in the distance, his heart filled with emotion.

Just a month ago, this place was a Japanese stronghold. Now, the flag of the Republic of China has finally been raised again.

"Dongzi, the next stop is Hequ!" Wang Quan ran over, holding a newly captured map, his face beaming. "The brigade commander said that as long as we take Hequ and Baode, the entire Jin-Sui base area will be recovered!"

"Let's go! To Hequ!" Zhou Jindong waved his hand. "Tell the soldiers to quicken their pace and not let the Japanese get back to Datong!"

The team continued westward.

The Japanese troops in Hequ had long since fled, leaving only some puppet troops to guard the city.

As soon as Zhou Jindong and his men arrived at the city walls, the puppet troops on the walls were thrown into chaos.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! We surrender!" A puppet army captain stood on the wall, waving a white handkerchief, his voice trembling.

Zhou Jindong, mounted on his horse, raised his head and shouted, "Surrender is fine, but throw down your guns and line up! Anyone who dares to possess weapons will be killed without exception!"

"Yes! Yes! We'll throw it away right now! We'll throw it away right now!"

With a series of cracking sounds, dozens of rifles were thrown down from the city wall and landed on the ground.

Immediately afterwards, the city gate creaked open, and hundreds of puppet soldiers walked out dejectedly, their hands raised above their heads.

Zhou Jindong, leading the Dongzhai guerrilla force and cooperating with the main force of the 120th Division, captured Hequ without firing a single shot.

Next up is Baode.

The Japanese company commander in Baode was a die-hard who wanted to resist using the city walls.

Zhou Jindong didn't waste any words with him at all. He directly poked Chida's command sword with a bamboo pole and had someone shout from below the city.

"Your regimental commander has been captured! What are you waiting for? Surrender! Do you want to be buried with Chida?"

The Japanese soldiers on the city wall looked down and saw that it was indeed Chida's command sword. Their morale collapsed instantly.

In less than half a day, Baode County was liberated.

With this, all six county towns in northwestern Shanxi—Kelan, Pianguan, Hequ, Baode, Wuzhai, and Shenchi—have been recovered.

The Japanese army's siege of northwestern Shanxi completely failed. Not only did they fail to eliminate the Eighth Route Army, they also lost a regiment and a large number of strongholds.

When Zhou Jindong returned to Dongzhai Town with his guerrilla team, it was already half a month later.

The force was several times larger than when it set out, and the captured weapons and ammunition filled more than a dozen large trucks.

Wang Yuan, the guerrilla leader, stood at the entrance of the town, watching the triumphant team, and couldn't stop smiling.

He went up to Zhou Jindong and patted him hard on the shoulder.

"Good lad! You've really done a great job! I heard that not only did you capture that old bastard Qian Tian, ​​but you also cooperated with the main force to recover the lost territory in northwestern Shanxi! You've done the greatest service for Ningwu County this time!"

Zhou Jindong chuckled and rubbed his bloodshot eyes: "Brother Yuan, let's not talk about who deserves the most credit. Right now, I just want to do one thing."

"What is it? Anything I can do, I'll do!"

"I want to sleep! I want to sleep!" Zhou Jindong yawned and swayed. "In the past two weeks, I've slept for less than ten hours in total. If I'm not allowed to sleep soon, I'm going to die from overwork."

After saying that, the guerrilla deputy captain, who struck fear into the hearts of the Japanese army, tilted his head and leaned against Wang Quan, and immediately began to snore.

Wang Quan was also exhausted, but he still forced himself to stay awake and gestured for silence to the cheering villagers and soldiers around him: "Shh...don't make a sound, let Dongzi get some sleep. He's been saving up for half a month."

The sun shines warmly on the land of Dongzhai Town.

On the distant hills, the snow began to melt, revealing patches of green.

Spring is coming to northwestern Shanxi.