The air raid siren wailed, its shrill cry echoing through the valley.
　　
Konggu Junjie, the brigade commander, found himself unable to contact Yamada Yusuke's battalion, which had been sent to reinforce Fukawa Taishi's.

He could only try to think positively. Perhaps Yamada Yusuke's battalion was held up at the Yi River, busy building a pontoon bridge to cross.

He had no choice but to try contacting the tank squadron that had also been dispatched to rescue Fukawa Taishi's battalion.

To Konggu Junjie's further dismay, his direct tank squadron, Mizuki Sora's tank squadron, also failed to respond.

This was highly unusual. Even while moving, those tanks should be able to receive radio signals and reply immediately.

The ominous premonition in Konggu Junjie's heart grew stronger. He feared that it was the truth:

The entire reinforcement force had been annihilated by the Lunan Detachment.

He reluctantly tried one last time, contacting Yamada Kinonosuke's battalion, sent by the Independent Mixed Infantry Brigade No. 17 to reinforce Huangtuling.

This time, a response came swiftly: My battalion is urgently en route to Huangtuling. All is currently normal.

This reassuring report, instead of relieving Konggu Junjie, almost caused him to faint from shock.

Yamada Kinonosuke's report strongly suggested that something had gone wrong with the units ahead of them.

What to do now?

A battered remnant of a battalion awaited rescue at Huangtuling, and there was this mess to clean up at Tianjia'an.

Konggu Junjie felt that he had too few troops and was severely lacking in heavy firepower.

He immediately sent a telegram to Terauchi Hisaichi, commander of the North China Area Army, detailing the current difficulties.

Especially in the Tianjia'an area, they had encountered Chinese troops with heavy artillery, and he urgently requested heavy artillery and air support.

Terauchi Hisaichi rejected both requests immediately and firmly.

The Empire was currently engaged in a decisive battle with the Chinese forces around Wuhan, a battle crucial to the Empire's future. All heavy artillery brigades were participating in the main war effort.

No heavy artillery brigades could be spared. Even the heavy artillery brigades of the North China Area Army were stationed on the border.

They were ready to respond to a possible surprise attack from another country at any time. In short, no heavy artillery was available.

Nor was air support available, for the same reason.

Konggu Junjie felt abandoned. He faced at least 20,000 Chinese soldiers, plus the added advantage of a heavy artillery regiment.

He was expected to fight them with only three thousand infantrymen. This was too much to ask. Did they really think that his Independent Mixed Infantry Brigade No. 10 was the 6th Infantry Division?

Although he had always wanted to be like the 6th Infantry Division, reality forced him to admit that he couldn't compare.

Of course, Konggu Junjie did not consider the garrison troops, the Ai Kuang (Love the Mines) teams, and the puppet troops in Tianjia'an as real combat strength, so he didn't even count them.

Faced with the harsh reality, Konggu Junjie had to bow his head. These were all the troops he had.

Tianjia'an must be defended at all costs. This was the bottom line, set by Commander Terauchi Hisaichi.

Moreover, Tianjia'an had to ensure the supply of 50,000 tons of coal every month. This was non-negotiable.

The Empire's warships and factories needed this coal. The supply and production of coal could not be interrupted, even during combat.

Konggu Junjie spoke directly to Commander Terauchi Hisaichi on the phone. After hanging up,

His face was ashen. He asked Commander Kaminoe Yūsuke, "How much coal has the Tianjia'an coal mine shipped out this month?"

"Reporting, Brigade Commander! Everything proceeded normally on September 1st. We arranged for the transport of two thousand tons of coal.

On the 2nd and 3rd, due to the war, we only sent one thousand tons of coal per day.

Today, we can only send seven hundred tons of coal."

Konggu Junjie asked Commander Kaminoe Yūsuke with a grim expression, "Can we complete the production and transportation task of 50,000 tons this month?"

Commander Kaminoe Yūsuke quickly replied, "If the fighting ends within five days, and we devote all our efforts to production, we can complete the production and transportation task.

At that time, we can increase the subsidies for the miners slightly and extend their working hours underground.

We can also ask the supervisors to be stricter with the workers. The daily production volume can be increased from about two thousand tons to three thousand tons.

Hmm, we won't let those underground miners come up if they don't complete the production task.

The output can be completed. However, in the past few days, many supervisors have been temporarily transferred to the Ai Kuang teams and puppet troops.

This has resulted in ineffective supervision and an increase in lazy workers, with a daily output of only about one thousand tons.

The output will decrease today because we have assigned all the supervisors to the Ai Kuang teams, letting them protect the coal mine with guns.

As for transportation, as long as there are fewer military shipments on the railway line, our transportation limit can reach eight thousand tons per day."

Commander Kaminoe Yūsuke's introduction included quantities, reasons, and solutions.

Konggu Junjie's dissatisfaction with him lessened slightly: This devil has some ability after all.

He was also slightly relieved now. As long as he could defeat the enemy within five days, everything could return to normal.

How to make the enemy leave? That was the difficult question!

Konggu Junjie looked at the sand table, at a loss.

His troops had no heavy artillery, so he could only find a way to engage the enemy in close combat.

Only when the two sides were engaged in close combat would their heavy artillery be useless.

Now, he had to figure out how to get his troops into close combat with the enemy.

Konggu Junjie pointed at the sand table and said, "The enemy's heavy artillery is very powerful. We must face this problem squarely.

In that case, we must make up for this difference.

Commander Terauchi said: It is impossible to send us a field heavy artillery regiment in the short term."

When he said this, the devils in the command post did not change their expressions much. Of course, they knew this.

Konggu Junjie continued, "But we cannot abandon the Tianjia'an coal mine under any circumstances.

Therefore, to defend this place, we must annihilate or drive away the enemy.

I have a plan!"

When he said these three words, all the devils stood up solemnly, ready to listen to his plan.

This action made Konggu Junjie feel very satisfied. The respect of these devils finally gave him some sense of being a commander.

"My plan is: All troops will advance to the former second line of defense at dawn tomorrow.

They must approach the enemy's defense line before dawn, and engage the enemy in close combat at daybreak!

This is the only tactic we can use to avoid the enemy's heavy artillery.

Gentlemen! Success lies in tomorrow!"

His plan was indeed good. All the devil commanders present pondered it silently.

They were considering the feasibility of the plan. Judging from the map and the sand table, although they didn't know the exact location of the Special Brigade troops,

They would certainly be not far from the second line of defense. Taking advantage of the night, they would secretly send troops to approach the enemy's position.

Then, they would launch an attack at dawn. This would completely avoid the enemy's heavy artillery.

Making their heavy artillery unable to fire at all: the two sides were entangled in close quarters, and the heavy artillery would be hesitant to fire, fearing friendly fire.

Commander Kaminoe Yūsuke was the first to applaud, "Good! The brigade commander's plan is excellent."

"Good!"

…

More devils echoed him. They had no choice but to applaud.

With the general strategy decided, the operations command began assigning specific action plans.

Each unit was assigned a direction and route of advance. All of this needed careful planning.

Although Konggu Junjie considered the Ai Kuang teams, puppet troops, and garrison troops as mere numbers and cannon fodder,

Even cannon fodder had to participate in the battle to become cannon fodder.

After a heated debate, the commanders agreed: The enemy's main force should be in the main road position.

This could be inferred from the fact that two infantry battalions of the Mizukoshi Ichiro regiment were annihilated on both sides of the main road.

Therefore, the task of attacking along the highway was assigned to the Shiba Hideki battalion and the Gocho Naoki battalion, brought by Konggu Junjie.

The four infantry companies and one machine gun company of Kaminoe Yūsuke's garrison command received the assignment of attacking close to the Gocho Naoki battalion.

On the flanks were three infantry battalions of the Ai Kuang teams and two regiments of puppet troops.

In this offensive plan, Tianjia'an only left the artillery company of the garrison headquarters to maintain order in the rear.

All the Kenota Egen Souda's military police were sent out to supervise the attack of all the devil troops.

This time, Konggu Junjie gave Captain Igen Souda the greatest authority. He and his military police could execute any deserters below the rank of battalion commander on the battlefield.

According to this standard, there were not many officers in this command post who could avoid being controlled by Captain Igen Souda's military police.

In the garrison headquarters, only Commander Kaminoe Yūsuke was spared. In the Ai Kuang teams, only Commander Shikodo Atsushi was exempt from being executed by Captain Igen Souda on the battlefield. Among the puppet troops, only Division Commander Byun Biao had immunity.

However, there were a few more officers above the rank of battalion commander under Konggu Junjie, but these were details that didn't need attention.

All the devils received their assignments and began to prepare. This time, the various devil units sent out small reconnaissance teams to scout the routes and find the Special Brigade's defense line ahead,

To plan the route for the night march and make preparations.

At this time, Lin Fan was looking at the artillery pieces that had been dragged back.

Twelve field guns and twelve mountain guns were enough to form a new artillery regiment.

In the current situation, the artillery regiment could only be formed within Tang Youwei's logistics regiment. Only his regiment had enough people.

This made Tang Youwei very happy. Although his command had a large number of troops, their weapons were far inferior to those of the First and Second Regiments. Now, with these twenty-four guns, although they were still not as good in terms of heavy firepower, his force of five thousand men was almost comparable to a regiment.

This was because a regular regiment's rocket launcher company, although it only had four twelve-barreled rocket launchers, fired forty-eight rockets in one volley.

His twenty-four guns could only fire twenty-four rockets in one volley. The difference was half.

Although the accuracy of the rocket launcher was much worse, Regiment Commander Tang Youwei deliberately ignored this point.

He wanted more, he wanted more!

Regiment Commander Tang Youwei hoped that his five thousand men could be equipped with three rocket launcher companies and three anti-aircraft machine gun companies. Only then would he be satisfied.

Actually, even without him saying it, Lin Fan had already put the plan to arm these five thousand men on the agenda.

As the situation in Jiangbei developed, more and more troops were needed in this direction.

The armed forces also had to be strengthened, but production in Jurong could not keep up with the needs of the developing forces.

There was also an important factor: the troops stationed in Tangshan had begun to re-equip their weapons.

They were now mainly re-equipping with the Longteng-1 submachine gun, designed and produced by the Special Brigade.

Subsequently, all regular troops of the Special Brigade would be re-equipped with this submachine gun, using it to replace all the Type 38 rifles.

This required the production of at least fifty thousand Longteng-1 submachine guns. It was the production of this weapon that put a lot of pressure on the Special Brigade's arsenal.

The production speed of rocket launchers and anti-aircraft machine guns had to be slowed down.

Now was not the time to think about production. Lin Fan looked at the more than two thousand puppet troops prisoners received in the past two days.

Lin Fan could say that he understood these puppet troops. They simply treated being a soldier as a profession. They would follow whoever fed them.

Of course, it was impossible to get them to fight to the death. In the eyes of these puppet troops, being killed on the battlefield was just bad luck.

It was like dying in an accident while working.

If they were asked to charge on the battlefield or take the initiative to do some very dangerous attacks, these puppet troops would immediately scatter.

Now that these puppet troops were in his hands, they were all very quiet and completely obedient.

Lin Fan wanted to disperse these two thousand puppet troops into the ranks.

In the past two days of fighting, the First Regiment had not suffered many casualties. However, Lin Fan decided to replenish the First Regiment with some fresh troops.

"According to the standard of replenishing one hundred men per company!" Lin Fan said to Chen Sichuan.

The current standard for each company in the First Regiment was one hundred and seventy men. It would be great to replenish one hundred men.

Chen Sichuan looked at these puppet troops gathered together quietly. He said to Lin Fan, "Brigade Commander! These soldiers are all from the Northeast.

Most of them were former Northeast Army soldiers.

It's just that the officers followed the devils, so these soldiers followed them. Their combat skills and physical fitness are good.

I think you might as well add them all to my regiment."

Lin Fan smiled and said, "In this way, there will be two hundred and thirty new soldiers joining each company, making four hundred men in a company.

On average, one veteran will have to lead one or two new recruits. Are you sure there will be no problems in the company?"

Chen Sichuan quickly said when he heard that Lin Fan's tone had softened, "Brigade Commander, don't worry. The soldiers of the First Regiment have a high level of ordinary ideological qualities.

After accepting the new recruits, everyone will help each other and quickly integrate these newly joined soldiers into our big family."

Lin Fan said with a smile, "Okay! But in that case, a company of four hundred men should be equipped with two more anti-aircraft machine guns for air defense.

And anti-aircraft machine guns can also effectively strike the devils' tanks and armored vehicles.

In this way, a company will have everything from rifles to machine guns, heavy guns, anti-aircraft machine guns, rocket launchers, mortars, and infantry guns.

This will give them comprehensive three-dimensional combat capabilities.

In such a company, the number of soldiers in each squad does not need to be increased, and the number of soldiers in each platoon does not need to be increased.

A dedicated anti-aircraft machine gun platoon should be formed.

In addition, more platoons and dozens of squads should be formed for management."

Chen Sichuan was of course happy and immediately agreed, "Yes!"

He immediately notified his twelve companies via radio, "Each company immediately send its political instructor to the regimental headquarters for a meeting.

And prepare to receive new recruits."

His radio was open, speaking to all twelve companies at the same time, like a conference call.

Hearing the regimental commander ask them to receive new recruits, each company commander reported in turn, "First Company received!"

"Second Company received!"

"Third Company received!"

…

All twelve companies reported that they had received the order.

Gui Wen, the commander of the First Company, had been holding back his desire to ask questions, and waited until the Twelfth Company responded before asking, "Regimental Commander! Can you reveal how many men the First Company will be replenished with? I can prepare dinner to welcome them!"

From the regimental commander's tone, every company commander could hear that Chen Sichuan was in a very good mood.

Chen Sichuan said with a smile, "The Brigade Commander has decided to add all the puppet troops captured this time to our regiment.

To be fair, each company will be replenished with two hundred and thirty new recruits.

I fought for this with the Brigade Commander. After you receive these new recruits, you must care for them and do a good job in their ideological work.

Let them grow into anti-Japanese warriors as soon as possible.

If any company fails to manage these soldiers well, I will only ask the company commander for an explanation."

Originally, it was the political instructor's job to do ideological work, but Chen Sichuan was asking the company commander, which was of course not a reversal of right and wrong.

But in wartime, the company commander, as the chief officer, had a great say in the entire company. It could be said that everything in the company was decided by the company commander.

The various company commanders expressed their views, "Regimental Commander! Don't worry, once they come, they will be brothers. Our company has never abandoned, given up, or discarded our brothers."

Gui Wen sighed, "Regimental Commander! I regret it so much! If I had known that the Brigade Commander would add the puppet troops captured this time to our regiment,

I should have captured more prisoners when attacking the previous two lines of defense. That way, could we have reached five hundred men in a company?

By the way, Regimental Commander, with the sudden increase of two hundred and thirty men, will the company's establishment also change?"

"You! You're just thinking about having more men under your command, never thinking it's too much! The Brigade Commander said that the number of men in each squad will not change, and the number of three squads per platoon will not change. The newly added number will increase the squads and platoons according to the number of men. In addition, an anti-aircraft machine gun platoon will be added.

When your political instructors come to the meeting, report the names and numbers of the newly added squad and platoon leaders first."

"Yes!" The various company commanders were all very excited.

They had reached the level of company commander in the Special Brigade's system, which was already a very high level.

As long as there was an expansion, they could all become regimental commanders. Now they had four hundred men under their command, which was almost the strength of a battalion.

Although their positions had not been promoted, their strength had increased a lot. The various company commanders were all very happy.

What made them even happier was that with this increase of two hundred and thirty men, based on fifty-two men per platoon, this would require adding five platoon leaders, five deputy platoon leaders, fifteen squad leaders, and fifteen deputy squad leaders.

The squad leaders and soldiers who were brave in combat in the company could all be promoted in large numbers this time.

This would definitely be a great encouragement to the morale of the entire company: as long as you were brave in combat, you could be promoted.

A soldier who doesn't want to be a general is not a good soldier!

All the soldiers of the Special Brigade had the idea of becoming a general. Since the establishment of the Special Brigade, many soldiers had grown from ordinary soldiers to commanders.

This time, the First Regiment replenished more than two thousand new soldiers, which was undoubtedly another boost to all the soldiers, which was of course a good thing.

The twelve company commanders of the First Regiment began to summon their squad leaders and platoon leaders to discuss the new establishments.

They arranged who would serve as platoon leader and who would serve as squad leader. According to the rules of the Special Brigade, there was a lot of attention paid to the positions of First Platoon Leader and First Squad Leader.

The First Platoon was often the strongest in the entire company, so of course the strongest person should be arranged to take the position.

All three squad leaders in the First Platoon were promoted to platoon leader in this adjustment.

The various deputy squad leaders were also promoted to squad leader in turn. All these newly appointed officers would bring two or three subordinates to assist them in their work.

Lin Fan's replenishment of more than two thousand three hundred men to the First Regiment was definitely not for the purpose of increasing numbers. There were also requirements for the combat effectiveness of the First Regiment: the combat effectiveness of each company could not be reduced, it had to be increased by more than double.

Otherwise, the Special Brigade would rather form a new regiment than use these puppet troops.

Regiment Commander Chen Sichuan was very clear about Lin Fan's thoughts. He thought the same way. If the combat effectiveness of each company could not be increased by two times, he would rather reorganize the two thousand three hundred newly replenished men into thirteen more companies.

In order to achieve the purpose of enhancing combat effectiveness, the leadership of each newly formed infantry platoon could not be weak. This was why each company had to promote the squad leader of the First Platoon to platoon leader.

And this was also what these squad leaders deserved. They were able to be the squad leaders of the First Platoon, of course, because they were brave in combat, took the lead, and commanded properly to be able to sit firmly in the position of the First Platoon Leader.

If such people were not promoted, who else should be promoted?

Lin Fan announced in front of more than two thousand puppet troops that they would all be assigned to the various companies of the First Regiment as soldiers.

These puppet troops did not feel much surprise. They had such awareness in their hearts.

The soldiers gathered around Fan Jinglue also heard Fan Jinglue explain in a low voice, "Brothers! This team is unusual. Work hard, and maybe you can make a bright future."