(…I expected the Japanese counterattack, but their counterattack preparations were beyond my expectations; when Mr. Zhou Enlai visited late at night with that emergency information, I almost collapsed; of course, sitting and waiting for death was not my style... Excerpted from "My Memories of the War of Resistance - Cao Min")

Cao Min went in to change his clothes and came out, but unexpectedly found that Chiang Kai-shek, who was originally ready to go, was sitting in the living room. Another guest arrived, and Chiang Kai-shek accompanied him!

One sitting opposite Chiang Kai-shek was Yu Youren who was about to go to Henan to work, and the other one was Zhou Enlai!

As soon as he saw Cao Min coming out, Yu Zhou and others quickly got up to greet him.

"Brother, this time my brother is really a long way to go to Henan. The emergency information that Director Zhou just received was all about Henan, Shanxi and other places. Because of the urgent situation, we rushed over directly..." Yu Youren signaled Zhou Enlai after speaking, but the latter was not in a hurry. He waited until Cao Min sat down before he started to tell the story...

"A while ago, General Cao should have heard of the bandits starting with Henan as the center. The bandits burned, killed, looted everywhere, and many of the slogans they were either the slogans that our party often used, or the slogans that the Prime Minister first promoted equal rights. I think General Cao has many suspicions that we are behind the scenes, right? But I can tell General Cao clearly that this has nothing to do with our party. Although the mass policies that our party has always implemented in land reform have measures to crack down on local tyrants and divide the land, it will also protect enlightened gentry. Now the indiscriminate killing of innocent people in Henan is contrary to our style of work; secondly, when we are carrying out land reform, the fields are divided and we will never have any auctions. We secretly investigated but found that there was a major disaster inside..." Zhou Enlai's solemn visit at night would never be a matter. Chiang Kai-shek and Cao Min did not interrupt and looked at each other and waited for Zhou Enlai to go down.

According to Zhou Enlai, this time, the bandits in many provinces centered on Henan, most of the major bandits pretended to be magical and created many bizarre backgrounds: there was a person named Zhao who claimed to be Zhao Kuangyin and unknown generation grandson, a Taoist priest who claimed to be Taishang Laojun came down to earth, and five surnames of Bai suddenly appeared. Some of them were descendants of Bai Lang, the leader of the "White Wolf Bandits" in Henan in the first year of the Republic of China, and some even directly said that they were Bai Lang who pretended to be dead and buried in the name!

"For this outbreak of bandits.【w.w.cm

｜I&|】We thought it was very strange: the consistency of the time of the bandit outbreak, why all the slogans of these bandits were full of strong political sense, etc...." Zhou Enlai said: "Later, we urgently investigated and found that it was related to the Japanese's combat plan! The Japanese withdrew their troops this time, all the authentic Japanese soldiers, but the Manchu and Mongolian troops did not retreat with his main force. At first, we thought this was the reason why the Japanese were acting hastily and could not take care of them; but later we found that something was wrong: why did the puppet troops disappear!... Our army has always used the puppet troops as the main target of annihilation and monitored their whereabouts very strictly; as a result, we found that these puppet troops were all bandits!"

The puppet troops were all bandits!? Cao Min felt a little shocked: It's impossible! It's not surprising that some puppet troops didn't want to hang out with the Japanese, so it was not surprising that they just took advantage of the chaos to escape, but all the puppet troops were broken into pieces and became bandits, which was really impossible!

Zhou Enlai observed the expressions of Jiang and Cao and then said, "Yes, this place is very suspicious, right? The Manchu and Mongolian puppet troops are different from the puppet troops in the south. They either have their families threatened in the Japanese-occupied area or they are really working for the Japanese. They also have officials and pay when they go back. How could they be willing to be bandits?... Later, the Eighth Route Army in Northwest Shanxi concentrated its efforts to encircle and suppress two bandit nests and captured many prisoners. Finally, they asked: It turned out that they were deliberately staying in the Guangfu area to cooperate with the Japanese counterattack!"

What!? The Japanese actually had this trick! Cao Min was shocked: Imagine these Manchu and Mongolian puppet troops occupying the key points of the mountains in the name of bandits, occupying a large number of mountain passes, blocking all the ** troops entering the town outside the mountain, and the heavy troops of the Japanese counterattack troops suddenly attacked head-on... Oh my God! Isn't all the ** regular troops entering the Liberation Zone annihilated!?

Cao Min had long predicted that the Japanese would counterattack, but he did not expect the Japanese to use this trick!

"In the gap between the Japanese army's retreat, these bandits were in a magical uniform. Sometimes they would dress up as the Central Army, the Jinsui Army and our 18th Army to burn, kill and loot, spread some slogans that we used on both sides. In this way, the people in the Guangfu District did not recognize their authenticity at all, which caused the local people to hate our various anti-Japanese troops. All of this was the poisonous tricks they set up to cooperate with the large-scale counterattack..." Zhou Enlai said in a deep voice: "Based on the situation we have obtained, the bandit activity area scattered by the Japanese army this time should be the area where they counterattacked: Judging from the current entry of our army, this time they actually wanted to eat the main force of our army in Henan, Jin, Shaanxi, Hebei and other places in one bite!"

What a big appetite, such a poisonous trick! Cao Min couldn't help but take a breath: According to the information provided by Zhou Enlai, it can be clearly seen that the Japanese really wanted to bite off half of the local armed forces in four provinces, two parties, and Shanxi. What's even more serious is that this bureau has been laid out, and the main forces of the two parties, and the Shanxi Sui Army have all entered the above territory in the past few days in order to seize the territory!!

Zhou Enlai's night visit is definitely with the greatest sincerity: if the forces are entangled with each other this time, it will be the most vivid battle between the snipe and the clam. Everyone tied their hands and feet to each other and was wiped out by the Japanese!

Underestimating the enemy! The more Cao Min thought about it, his face turned pale. He had already predicted that the Japanese would have a big counterattack and he had made plans to bleed the Japanese; but he always thought that the Japanese were just attacking the Soviets, but he didn't expect that the Japanese would have planned such a vicious attack so carefully!

After confirming that the Japanese army had really withdrawn, they entered the new territory with light marches. Now they are not only extremely tired, but also waiting for the supplies to follow. It is extremely difficult to escape! The best situation is Wei Lihuang's Central Army, because after they entered, they were ready to fight against the Japanese counterattack, and the combat supplies were relatively abundant. They had better physical strength when they entered the field; but their original combat plan was wrong: according to the original plan, they would rely on the mountainous areas in various places to fight step by step and retreat, scattering into the mountains to wait for an opportunity to attack the Japanese army sideways again! Now their road to the mountains has been cut off, and they have to bear it head-on and fight with the Japanese army, and they will not be able to do it, and the defeat of other friendly troops will be enough to destroy them... Will the blood on the Aoa Road reappear in the Henan-Shenzhen area? This time the blood will be covered with Chinese corpses! Cao Min felt weak all over...

"Director Zhou, the situation is urgent now. The troops in the three places of Shaanxi, Henan and Shanxi are of varying quality. I am afraid that they cannot be consistent in their actions... Your army has always been known for strict discipline. How should the task of severing the rear of the death battle be borne by your army?" Chiang Kai-shek also knew the crisis and immediately spoke directly to Zhou Enlai to ask the Eighth Route Army to cut off the rear of the rear!

Maybe there is still a motivation to eliminate dissidents, but Chiang Kai-shek made it seem a little gentleman when he made it so explicitly. Seeing Zhou Enlai hesitating, Cao Min was not polite: "Your army will take it first, otherwise it will be difficult for our army to deploy other combat plans; this should be the most effective method at present. First, your army is good at field combat and has little requirements for heavy assembly and cooperation combat. Second, your army's combat style is more tenacious and good at fighting to death. Third, your army's officers and soldiers have strong survivability between the mountains and fields, and even if they are defeated in the end, they will easily preserve their strength. I, Cao Min, use military forces, is selfless, but only allocates tasks according to the characteristics of each army. What do Director Zhou think?" After a sentence, Cao Min suddenly stood up and turned around and walked into the inner room...

Facing the head-on attack of the Japanese main force with simple equipment, fighting a tough battle can basically be considered a death; Wei Lihuang's Central Army, the best-equipped of these three forces, did not carry many heavy weapons because it originally planned to retreat into the mountains to fight mountain wars. As for other troops, they even had few bullets for light equipment to grab territory! Let the Eighth Route Army break the rear? Zhou Enlai really didn't dare to make this decision. This was the decision to let the Eighth Route Army in the Three Provinces be exhausted!

Suddenly someone turned it out behind the screen, but it was not Cao Min! A secretary rushed over and handed over a telegram: "The Japanese army had a feint attack on our army, with unknown intentions; our vanguard army had already fought fiercely with the enemy..."

There is no time! The battle has started! Jiang Zhou and the others looked at each other: If you don’t make a decision at this time, the main forces of the three major forces are likely to be completely wiped out!

"When our army received this news, we had already made the worst plan. One of them was ready to be the entire army to cut off the rear. But I think it would take the three armies to work together to overcome the difficulties..." Zhou Enlai naturally would not come without preparation. They had prepared a long time ago to use the Eighth Route Army as the war zone to cut off the rear, but how to make arrangements later is the real place to bargain.

Seeing that Zhou Enlai agreed that the Eighth Route Army would resist the first wave of the Japanese offensive, Chiang Kai-shek nodded: "Our army has little firepower. Only two mountain artillery companies, six mortar companies, and four combat defense artillery companies entering each war zone. These artillery units will be arranged to retreat in the final, and they will do their best to provide artillery support to your army... Okay, the more detailed combat plan can be studied..." Chiang Kai-shek then ordered his subordinates to notify Yan Xishan and everyone moved to the combat command.

At this time, Cao Min finally turned out from the inside: "Sorry, I'm not used to being beaten by others; I just went in and issued an order. Tonight, our air force dispatched to attack the Japanese mainland!... As for the battlefield in North China, Director Zhou, I have another requirement; that is, from this moment on, all the participating troops of your army will be fully commanded!"
Chapter completed!