After nearly ten hours of rapid march, hundreds of days of puppet troops were like a giant python, approaching Heya Village vaguely. It was already dawn.
Shiro Ishikawa sent an order. After the troops arrived at the ancestral hall, they made a bluff and deliberately let the missionary team go. During the pursuit, they were only allowed to shoot, but not to kill, until they reached the independent battalion station and wiped out the Tubal Road in one fell swoop.
Under the leadership of Huang San, the Japanese and puppet troops ran forward and rushed straight to Wang's ancestral hall.
In just a few minutes, the enemy was less than fifty meters away from the ancestral hall.
Hearing the noisy footsteps, the sentry hiding by the pine forest raised his rifle, fired a shot into the air, and then ran towards the ancestral hall.
The sound of gunfire was an alarm. Upon hearing the sound of gunfire, the missionary team, which had already been prepared for the mission, rushed out of the ancestral hall in an orderly manner and ran straight south according to the route identified in advance.
At this time, looking at the missionary team members, they no longer had backpacks or luggage, and they were all traveling lightly.
I rushed to the ancestral hall in one breath, only to see the door of the ancestral hall wide open. Looking in from the door, there was still flickering candlelight in the room.
Just as Shiro Ishikawa jumped off his horse, he heard Xiaoru shout loudly: "Don't panic, everyone, the Japanese are just passing by Heya Village and will not chase us."
Listening to Xiaoru's words, Shiro Ishikawa couldn't help but sneer secretly. Little did he know that Xiaoru was deliberately acting to lure the enemy into chasing the missionary team.
According to Ishikawa Shiro's tracking plan, Tomita Ryohei dispatched a small team to act as a vanguard and bite the missionary team hard, followed by a large force, waiting for opportunities to pursue and intercept them.
After receiving the order from Shiro Ishikawa, a small team under Ryohei Tomita took the lead.
Just as the Japanese launched their pursuit, Ishikawa Shiro and Zhu Zihui walked into the north wing of the ancestral hall under the escort of orderly soldiers.
Facing the messy bedding on the ground, Shiro Ishikawa confirmed that the missionary team fled in a hurry in their sleep without any precautions. This made him even more convinced that there was no conspiracy or trap.
After some searching, the orderly picked up a notebook from under the pillow. Shiro Ishikawa opened the title page and saw a line of large characters written in a vertical shape on it: Detailed Rules for the Anti-Japanese and National Salvation Mission of the Independent Regiment.
When he saw the words "Independence Group", Ishikawa Shiro was shocked and couldn't recover for a long time.
6
The missionary team and the chasing enemy acted out each other, sometimes running fast, sometimes breathing slowly, even though the gunshots behind them continued, they all passed through the air above their heads.
Wearing shoes and wading through the river that flooded their legs, the missionary team quickly disappeared into the gloomy woods.
In order to prevent the missionary team from escaping to the left or right from the woods, Shiro Ishikawa ordered the troops to form a horizontal formation and adopt a dragnet-style containment.
After passing through the forest for more than 300 meters, the missionary team gradually ran southwest. After half an hour, they finally passed the slope on the west side of Mashan and set foot on the empty and lonely wilderness.
It was already broad daylight, the enemy was less than 200 meters away from the missionary team, and each team member was clearly visible.
It can be seen from the running posture that two of them have box guns slung across their waists, and the one running at the front is clearly the female Eighth Route Army.
Shiro Ishikawa knew that these two women were the perpetrators of the Meishizhai shooting. One of them was named Ru and the other was Yan. They served as captain and deputy captain of the missionary team respectively.
Suddenly, Shiro Ishikawa had an evil thought and asked a small team to capture two female Eighth Route Army soldiers alive and give a generous gift to the leader of the Miyamoto Division who was far away in Zhouzhuang.
Ishikawa Shiro also requested that if there is resistance during the arrest, at least one male team member should be left to continue leading the way, and all the others should be shot. Be careful when shooting and never accidentally kill a female member of the team.
The squad leader received the order from the orderly and commanded his men to pursue them with all their might.
Seeing the Japs speeding up their pursuit, Xiaoru also called on everyone to run hard.
But before she could run far, Xiaoyan accidentally stepped on a stone covered by weeds. The stone suddenly flipped over, causing Xiaoyan to fall heavily to the ground.
With a scream, Xiaoyan's right ankle was severely sprained.
With the support of two male team members, Xiaoyan limped and pulsated with difficulty.
Being dragged down by Xiaoyan, everyone had to slow down. As a result, the enemy quickly closed the pursuit distance, and the gunfire became closer and closer.
In the anxiety, the eight male team members simply took turns to carry Xiaoyan on their backs and ran. However, due to the uneven terrain, the traveling speed was still slow and slow.
Time flashed by minute by second, and the enemy was approaching step by step, one hundred meters...eighty meters...
In desperation, a soldier named Ding suggested that the male team members stay temporarily to block the enemy's pursuit, cover Xiaoru, and help Xiaoyan retreat.
Xiaoru took the overall situation into consideration and accepted Xiaoding's suggestion.
In the blink of an eye, Xiao Ding turned around and lay on the ground, took aim and quickly pulled the trigger, knocking down a Japanese soldier with one shot.
The other seven soldiers also quickly selected hiding positions, lay down and fired together. After each fired several shots, three or five more Japanese were killed.
Encountered by the missionary team, the enemy did not stop chasing. They fired back and moved forward quickly.
Under the suppression of intensive firepower, Xiao Ding ordered his comrades to prepare for bombing.
When the Japanese approached a distance of thirty meters, the missionary team members stood up under Xiao Ding's roar and quickly threw the smoking grenades at the enemy group.
The grenade exploded, and a dozen Japanese soldiers flew wildly in the air.
The blocking site was less than two kilometers away from the ambush formation. Hearing the sound of gunfire and the explosion of grenades, Shanzi knew that the missionary team had exchanged fire with the enemy at close range. It was not difficult to imagine the situation.
However, for the sake of the hard-won enemy and the final victory of this battle, Shanzi reluctantly refused Yumei's request to send troops for reinforcements.
While the smoke was still lingering, the missionary team members ran as fast as they could and climbed to the top of a slope. Two light machine guns fired intensively from behind. Two soldiers were shot several times and unfortunately died.
Braving the bullets that flew through them, Xiao Ding and his comrades cried out the names of the martyrs and turned back in unison to carry the bodies of the martyrs away.
But on the way back, another team member lost his young life.
Standing on a bare stone hill, Xiaoru screamed, calling for Xiaoding to evacuate quickly.
Xiao Ru's shouting awakened Xiao Ding's reason, and Xiao Ding became heartbroken and discouraged everyone from giving up the bodies of their comrades and taking only the guns and ammunition back.