At around 0:00 midnight, the dark Japanese and puppet troops headed straight towards the entrance of the valley and advanced towards the mountain.
At three o'clock in the morning, the enemy rushed to an unexpected dirt bunker.
According to reports from plainclothes puppet soldiers, this place is about one thousand meters away from Yukou Mountain.
Shiro Ishikawa was the first to dismount, instructing the orderlies to set up tents in the dark and set up a field headquarters.
At the same time, four Type 92 infantry guns were arranged horizontally, with the muzzles reaching to Yukou Mountain.
Then, under the leadership of plainclothes puppet troops, hundreds of troops divided into two groups, moving to the left and right wings respectively, and surrounded Yukou Mountain from all sides.
According to Shiro Ishikawa's request, thirty-six grenadiers, ten heavy machine guns, and forty-two light machine guns were evenly distributed along the encirclement, creating a fire blockade that flies could not escape.
The reason why Shiro Ishikawa set the encirclement a thousand meters away was to avoid our fire attack from the position and deal with it calmly.
When everything was ready, Shiro Ishikawa mounted his tall horse and walked around the oval-shaped encirclement with his entourage. On the way, he asked the commanders of each department to strengthen vigilance and guard against death to ensure that there was no escape from the Tubal Road.
At this moment, Zhu Zihui's heart was on fire and he was extremely anxious——
According to Ishikawa Shiro's three-serial battle plan, the artillery attack was launched first after dawn, so that the target could be accurately locked and the whereabouts could be clearly captured.
If the Independent Battalion retreats due to shelling, Ishikawa Shiro immediately implements the second plan, which is to quickly encircle the enemy and attack from all directions to wipe out the Independent Battalion.
The most worrying thing is that due to the hardships of positional warfare, Ishikawa Shiro changed his strategy——
If the independent battalion still retains its strength after the bombardment, it will besiege Yukou Mountain without attacking, which will deprive the independent battalion of food, consume its physical strength, and ultimately achieve the effect of self-destruction without attacking.
Even though Zhu Zihui was extremely anxious, he had no idea how to resolve the crisis for the independent camp. All he could do was silently pray and give silent blessings.
11
The sky was getting brighter, and the Yukou Mountain was still silent. Only when we approached the trenches on the east and west mountain tops could we hear the snoring of the soldiers.
The trenches on Yukou Mountain are different from those on Oak Slope. Due to the hard rock, only loosely structured plots were excavated during construction, and the trenches were scattered here and there.
In addition to the soldiers of the independent battalion, there were dozens of villagers sleeping soundly in the trenches. They were the stretcher team Xiaohu recruited from the Baogu Village and rushed to Yukou Mountain last night carrying homemade stretchers.
Through the hazy bright color, the outer sentries could vaguely detect the enemy's encirclement, and even saw four artillery pieces looking up and waiting, staring eagerly.
For a time, the sentries reported the enemy situation to Shanzi and Xiaolong one after another.
Shanzi's position is located on the east side of the hill, and is jointly guarded by the 1st and 3rd companies. The 2nd company exclusively occupies the west side of the hill, with Xiaolong in charge independently.
Through the sparse tree gaps, Shanzi's gaze froze from the enemy's artillery position.
According to Shanzi's judgment, the enemy must launch an artillery bombardment before the siege to weaken our defense capabilities, so he made a decisive decision——
Each company carried light and heavy weapons and moved down the mountain from all sides, choosing a place to hide at the foot of the mountain. This way it could avoid artillery fire and prevent enemies from being surrounded by enemies on all sides.
Shanzi finally emphasized that the grenade positions should be lifted immediately, and the grenade teams should be broken into pieces and distributed to each squad's position.
Prior to this, Shanzi used the Oak Slope strategy to divide the grenade launchers into two groups, which were deployed on the east and west mountain tops to deal with the enemy's grenade launcher positions.
After receiving Shanzi's order, all positions were broken into pieces and moved to the four directions of east, west, north and south.