Hu Laohu, commander of the cavalry company of the 18th Red Regiment, now feels a bit like a cavalry company commander.
After the battle in Xiaoshui, Hu Laohu finally gathered 50 war horses. Although he did not have a professional carbine, he picked submachine guns, light machine guns, and rifles at will. He also found dozens of sabers and nearly 90 soldiers.
people.
Originally, Hu Laohu could have added more horses, but the artillery battalion commander Li Chang and Wu Zheng from the supply camp were both difficult to talk to. Li Chang said that his mountain artillery needed mules and horses, so he couldn't just dismantle the cannon and let the soldiers carry it, right? Wu Zheng
He was silent, but he was the regiment leader after all, and Hu Laohu was an old Red Army veteran. He knew what the superior-subordinate leadership relationship was. Seeing that Wu Zheng had no intention of giving up his horse, Hu Laohu did not dare to pester him. Fortunately, his cavalry company had a large number of people.
There were only about 20 soldiers during the reorganization in Tongdao County. After the Xiaoshui battle, 40 more soldiers were added. Including cadres, there were only about 80 soldiers at full count. Hu Laohu selected 10 of the new soldiers who joined the army from Xiaoshui.
Together with the cadres and veteran soldiers, a small company of 50 people was assembled, and the remaining new soldiers had to let them march with the infantry first.
After Liu Yimin was given an educational lesson in the passage about cavalry being sharpshooters, sharpshooters, and bombardiers on horseback, this old Red Army veteran who had gone to the Soviet Union to learn cavalry tactics was eye-opening. It turned out that he envied Bu Qiong very much.
The cavalry division's swords covered the sky and sun when it charged, eager to one day lead the entire regiment. The cavalry of the entire division roared towards the enemy's position, making the enemy succumb under his tidal mountain of swords. Now it seems that under the powerful
In the face of firepower, a cavalry charge is simply to risk death. Not to mention more powerful firepower, just the machine gun firepower when the 18th Regiment wiped out the 16th Hunan Division, there is no difference between a cavalry group charging and a death penalty. It seems that it is still the regiment leader.
Thinking clearly, the Soviet cavalry tactics were a bit backward from a strategic perspective.
Now, Hu Laohu is leading his cavalry company, wearing the uniform of the 16th Hunan Division, walking on the mountain road from Xiaoshui to Xikou.
The mission given to him by the regiment commander was very clear: Disguise the 16th Hunan Division and fight in the direction of Xikou. If you encounter a small search force of the enemy's 62nd Division, you can eat it, but try not to shoot; if you encounter a large enemy force of the 62nd Division,
Keep a covert surveillance and do not attack before the main force arrives, so as not to alert the enemy.
Hu Laohu was worried. Before leaving, he went to ask the regiment commander: What if the main force of the enemy's 62nd Division attacks our army in Xiaoshui? The regiment commander clearly told him that the cavalry company should return quickly along the original route and not engage with the enemy.
fight.
Hu Laohu knew that the regiment commander was firstly afraid of exposing the regiment's main force's intentions, and secondly, he was afraid that if the cavalry company launched an attack on the enemy's large force, it would be completely lost.
The mountain road was difficult to walk, and most of the time he had to lead the horse. This made Hu Laohu very unhappy. He had just got a war horse, but he couldn't gallop. It seemed a bit too hard to understand the cavalry soldiers' attitude towards the wind-like horse.
Hungry for speed, Hu Laohu kept praying in his heart: Hurry up, hurry up, get out of this damn mountain road and get on the highway.
After turning a corner, there was a mountain village ahead, standing quietly among the mountains. Hu Laohu originally wanted to pass by, but when he thought about it, his mission was to be a combat alert, so he could not let go of anyone who could hide the danger.
At the corner, he whistled and led the cavalry company towards the village.
The mountain village was already bustling with people.
Outside the courtyard wall of a house near the village, Pan Mingliang, a young Red Army soldier, was crouching against the wall, surrounded by twenty or thirty villagers who were watching.
Pan Mingliang was from Ruijin. He joined the army when the Soviet area was expanding before the Long March. He was a soldier in the International Division of the Young Communist Party of the First Army. His parents were both Red Army cadres and stayed in the Soviet area to continue the struggle.
After the Long March began, Pan Mingliang followed the team all the way from Yudu River and passed through four enemy blockades. When the First Army Corps moved from Chang'an Camp to Linkou the day before yesterday, he was included in the reconnaissance team to investigate the enemy's situation in the direction of Xiaoshui.
.After all, he is a 14-year-old child, lost and left behind.
When he arrived at this small mountain village, Pan Mingliang, a young Red Army soldier, had not slept for two days and two nights, had not had a bite of food for two days and two nights, and was feeling weak. He just wanted to find a place to take a breath and find something to eat.
The villagers gathered around, looking at the little Red Army lying against the wall, and started talking in all directions: Some said throwing him under the cliff to feed the wolves. Some said it would be safer to kill him and bury him.
Neither the National Army nor the National Army will know about it, so they won’t cause trouble. Some people say that they should leave it to the National Army to receive the reward. After all, a Red Army soldier’s head is worth two oceans. Some people say forget it. After all, he is a child and doesn’t understand anything. It’s weird.
Poor, let him run for his own life. But no one went to get the little Red Army something to eat, not even a bowl of water. Several naughty children surrounded Pan Mingliang and laughed as if they were rare animals in the mountains.
They were having fun and competing to see who could hit the dirty red bandit with a pebble.
An old man murmured that he had no children. Seeing how pitiful the child was, it was better to let him take it home so that he could be taken care of in the future. This immediately attracted a lot of opposition. Everyone said that anyone could adopt him, but he couldn't.
Adopt a red bandit baby, be careful if the self-defense group finds out and the whole village suffers.
Pan Mingliang didn't know that at this time in Hunan, under He Jian's policy of preventing and banning communism, everyone was talking about communism. Because He Jian was practicing the law of joint sitting, if one person shares the common, the whole family will suffer; if the whole family shares, the whole village will suffer.
.So, unless a large force of the Red Army occupied this place, under normal circumstances, no one would dare to get him something to eat or drink.
I miss the red Ruijin so much! The folks there regard the Red Army as their relatives. They have water when they are thirsty and red rice and pumpkin porridge when they are hungry. When the Red Army soldiers are free, they help the villagers plant the fields and harvest crops. During the war, the villagers help the Red Army transport ammunition.
, carrying the wounded, and escorting prisoners. The Red Army and the folks are one family. Why are the folks here like this? Don’t they know that the Red Army is a team of workers and peasants?
I wonder what is happening to the parents who stayed in the Soviet area to fight guerrillas. Do they know that their Liangzi can no longer walk? Liangzi wants to drink water, Liangzi wants to eat, and Liangzi wants to have a good sleep beside them.
Slowly, Pan Mingliang seemed to see his parents in Red Army uniforms walking towards him, calling Liangzi as they walked. Pan Mingliang's sleepy eyes slowly closed.
When Hu Laohu led the cavalry company into the village, little Red Army Pan Mingliang's body was already covered with stones and clods. Only the vaguely visible red collar badge could distinguish him as a Red Army soldier.
Seeing the arrival of the national army, several villagers who were greedy for the reward rushed forward and rushed to report the discovery of the red bandit baby. A few clever ones had already begun to say that they had captured it in the mountains.
Hu Laohu stepped forward and pulled Pan Mingliang up. He couldn't help but want to cry when he saw it: the military uniform was in tatters, there was only one straw sandal left, the base was gone, and only a few straw ropes were still tied around his ankles.
There were bloodstains all over his body, and his left leg was swollen as thick as the mouth of a bowl. Hu Laohu knew that this little red soldier must be a red kid from the first legion.
Without saying a word, Hu Laohu picked up Pan Mingliang and put him on the horse.
Several villagers saw that the National Army was about to take away the red bandit child, so they stopped Hu Laohu and asked for a reward. Hu Laohu raised his whip and cracked it several times: "You bastard, if you dare to ask for a reward from the National Army, I will give you a beating."
don't want?"
The villagers then realized that the reward for the national army was whips, and they dispersed without bothering to correct Hu Laohu's inaccurate pronunciation of "bastard cover drop".
After leaving the village entrance, Hu Laohu took out a kettle and gave Pan Mingliang some water. Seeing that he woke up, he let him eat some dry food, and then took out a pair of cloth shoes that had just been removed from the bodies of the Hunan Army in the Battle of Xiaoshui.
Let him put on the shoes. The shoes were too big, so Hu Laohu took off the straw rope from Pan Mingliang's rotten straw shoe, twisted it into thin pieces and made it into shoelaces, which were barely wearable. Only then did Pan Mingliang believe that it was true.
He met a comrade who was pretending to be an enemy and reported his situation to Hu Laohu.
In this way, the little Red Army Pan Mingliang followed Hu Laohu's cavalry company to search and advance, and began his legendary military career in the 18th Red Regiment. When later generations of writers excavated the legendary experiences of the two generals, they interpreted this story
The old Red Army wisely saves the red kid. It has appeared in novels, operas, movies, and TV shows, and it has become very popular.
At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the cavalry company of the 18th Red Regiment, led by company commander Hu Laohu, crossed the mountain road between Xiaoshui and Xikou and arrived at the road from Shanmu Bridge to Xikou.
The guide told Hu Laohu that this road is the shortest straight-line road from Suining to the passage. Turning south along the road is Xikou. The village on the north side of the road is called Beishan Village. Their location is from this road.
The entrance to Xiaoshui from the main road is generally unknown to non-locals.
Hu Laohu arranged for the soldiers to hide their horses and occupy favorable terrain, and then began to take turns to rest and monitor the movements on the road.
At 4:30, Luo Yan and the soldiers in front of the reconnaissance platoon came back from Xikou for reconnaissance. After contacting Hu Laohu, they said that the situation was basically clear. A brigade of the enemy's 62nd Division entered Xikou at about 1 o'clock and headed towards Zhaitou Fort at 2 o'clock.
, the front line of Jingwu Prefecture was advancing. The security chief of Xikou was leading the people to kill pigs and cook food. He said that when the enemy's leading brigade arrived at Xikou, it severely ruined the people. After a while, the enemy's 62nd Division headquarters and large troops
They are still arriving, so prepare quickly to welcome them, lest the commander of the 62nd Division becomes dissatisfied and launches an army to plunder.
Hu Laohu arranged for Luo Yan to lead the guide and report to the regiment commander, while he and the cavalry company continued to monitor the enemy.
At this time, Liu Yimin was leading the 18th Red Regiment to advance along the mountain road that Hu Laohu had walked.
Marching on mountain roads is already slow, and with Li Chang's artillery battalion, which is equipped with mountain artillery, mules and horses, and artillery shells, the speed is even slower. Although the two mountain artillery companies are eager to fight, they have broken down the mountain artillery and try to use mules and horses.
Pack transport, but the speed is still not up. Liu Yimin really wanted Li Chang to leave 3 mountain cannons and bury the remaining 9 mountain cannons, but when he saw the blood marks on Li Chang's shoulders, he thought of the military exhibitions in later generations.
Liu Yimin didn't want to say anything about the meritorious artillery that the Red Second Front Army brought to northern Shaanxi during the Long March.
Liu Yimin was extremely anxious. This was the critical time to compete with the enemy. If he could not catch up with the 62nd Division, let the Zhong Guangren brigade led by Tao Guang and the vanguard Wang Yuying's brigade converge and occupy the central point of Tongdong County. Once the enemy knew about the 16th Hunan Division
was wiped out, while the 18th Regiment is still in the passage area, the two armies of the Gui Army in the south, the remaining 6 divisions of the Hunan Army in the north, and the 7 divisions of the Central Army will swarm forward to shrink the encirclement, and the 18th Regiment's living space will be
It was greatly compressed. Sacrifice is a trivial matter, and the task of covering the main force of the Red Army's transfer to Guizhou may not be completed. In that case, the main force of the Red Army in Guizhou will soon be squeezed by the enemy's heavy group again, exhausted, and the Long March will inevitably be like the original one.
Like history, tens of thousands of unyielding heroes have been left behind on the snowy mountains and grasslands.
This kind of ending is something Liu Yimin absolutely does not want to see.
Only by catching up, annihilating all or one brigade of the 62nd Hunan Division, and forcing the Hunan Army to shrink across the board, can we take the initiative, concentrate on fighting the Central Army or the Gui Army, gain time, and complete the mission. Even the Gui Army and the Central Army will temporarily shrink, and we
This can free up time for the troops to catch up with the main force after resting.
After a brief discussion with Cai Zhong and Liu Jianshe, Liu Yimin decided that he and Liu Jianshe would lead the sniper platoon, six combat battalions, the heavy machine gun battalion, the engineer battalion and the two mortar companies of the artillery battalion to advance at a rapid march speed. Cai Zhong led the artillery.
The battalion's two mountain artillery batteries and the recruit battalion followed closely.
After the order was issued, the artillery battalion commander Li Chang handed over the mountain artillery battery to the instructor and led two mortar companies to start a rapid march with the main force of the regiment.
Chapter completed!