Episode 4: Breaking Out of the Encirclement, Iron Wall Suddenly Appears

  Daiyuan is still reminiscing: "The first recruitment of the Anti-Japanese Class was my participation, and the second recruitment was in Sanjiazi Village. New recruits were equipped with excellent weapons, making many who joined the New Fourth Army regretful."

  Sakura asked Zhang Dongdong somewhat timidly: "The decisive factor in winning a battle is the quality of weapons, such as America's atomic bomb."

  Zhang Dongdong shook his head and said to Sakura: "In those years, the Japanese army's weapons were many times stronger than the National Army, let alone the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army. But the deciding factor in winning or losing a war lies in the spirit, in who has justice on their side. Of course, excellent weapons are also an important factor, otherwise the Japanese army would not have been able to bully China like that for a time. Good equipment and the spirit of a just war can make one invincible. The anti-Japanese class with heavy machine guns back then was a microcosm."

  "But the first battle for these new recruits was to dig an underground garage. At that time, we were surrounded by the enemy and everyone was like crazy, rushing to dig out two underground garages, in addition to the original five, and at that time, we hid seven large trucks."

  "Does the great Yu Ye still remember the size of the garage? During World War II, the Japanese military commonly used Toyota KB/KC Truck and Toyota GB Type, both made by Toyota."

  Dai Yu looked at the ground, as if there was an underground garage below. He spoke grandly: "At that time, we dug according to the measurements, Biao Ge asked us to dig a bit wider, I remember it was about 4 meters wide, 3 meters deep, and 10 meters long, with a slope of about 10 meters too. Then we used the excavated soil to build a mound on top of the garage. Song Shan saw that the new mound couldn't be found by the truck."

  County Annals Office Director Liu suddenly said, "According to the county annals, each anti-Japanese unit had underground motorcycle garages, heavy machine gun warehouses, and even horse-drawn carriage warehouses... It turns out it started from the Anti-Japanese Class."

  After sweeping the battlefield, Songshan was about to return home, but he still had a score to settle with Yuan Bo, because yesterday when they were rushing to drive the cattle cart, Yuan Bo seemed to want to plead for them.

  At this time, two motorcycles returned to Songshan and reported: "The six trucks were found heading north on the mountain road on the north side of Kaishan Town." It turned out that although Songshan was in a bad mood, he remained calm and composed, sending out motorcycles to search for Zhan Biao's whereabouts.

  Songshan glared with his green eyes and ordered: "Follow them, see where they can hide." He knew that not far north of this valley was the town of Kao Shui, which had another infantry battalion from Gu Turtle Village. He immediately had the special forces radio send a telegram to the commander of the Gu Turtle Battalion, asking for cooperation with the Japanese army in Kao Shui Town to block the escape route of the six trucks of the anti-Japanese guerrilla squad. He led the remaining six "Lying Pillow" tanks and cavalry squad to pursue them.

  Seeing the dust of the truck team, Songshan thought to himself that this time he must follow up on Zhang Biao's whereabouts, mobilize all troops to surround them and severely strike back at them for revenge for so many Imperial Army soldiers and tank warriors who have encountered difficulties. As they approached the foot of the mountain, Songshan ordered the tank to speed up, wanting to see the truck enter the mountain pass. But the tank in front suddenly stopped. It turned out that there was a mound and a row of trees on the side of the road ahead, as if Zhang Biao had set an ambush. If it were before, the tank would have charged forward with one shot, but today they were intimidated by Zhang Biao's crazy heavy machine gun fire and stopped far away to observe.

  Songshan looked ahead with binoculars and saw several steel helmets hanging from the trees in the reflection of the sunset. It seemed to be a decoy formation, so Songshan waved his hand and let a few cavalrymen probe forward, and indeed there was no one. And during this time, the truck in front had disappeared without a trace.

  It turned out that the vanguard had also discovered Songshan following behind, and when they were about to arrive at the foot of Tianfu Mountain, they quickly set up an ambush and turned into the mountain. San De led the new soldiers to enter the cave quickly, drove the four trucks into the underground garage, moved the two barrels of gasoline on the truck into the cave, and temporarily covered the other two trucks with branches.

  Matsuyama learned from his previous experience and did not rashly pursue, especially since the front was the ominous valley. He anchored his troops and immediately contacted the Japanese army in the north of the valley, learning that there were no convoys leaving the mountain, and asked them to surround the nearby area as well. He thought that six trucks would be a big target for Zhang Zuobin's men to escape. Seeing that night had fallen, Matsuyama decided to surround but not attack tonight in order to avoid the counterattack of heavy machine guns, and wait until tomorrow when Kameyama would send more troops and mountain artillery to carry out the iron wall annihilation.

  Zhan Biao also understood on the mountain top, Songshan old ghost is really cunning, it seems that we must hold onto the truck and not let go. He immediately ordered an emergency to dig two more garages, the whole team of 80 people took turns to work, the new recruits' first action in the anti-Japanese class was to dig a garage. Everyone in the devil's encirclement went crazy, frantically wielding shovels and pickaxes, covering up, before midnight, those two trucks had also disappeared.

  In the second half of the night, in the Tianfu Cave, Xiaofeng conducted a division of labor for the new recruits. The eight classes of fellow disciples were all filled with 10 people, and then each person was given a Type 38 rifle with a bayonet, 120 rounds of ammunition, a pistol, and each class was equipped with one heavy machine gun and one light machine gun. Two heavy machine guns were still missing, so Liu Yang quietly moved two Type 92 machine guns from the armory to make up for it. That night, the cave was filled with the sound of gunfire and empty shots, as the new recruits rushed to familiarize themselves with their weapons. Xiaofeng assigned two of the youngest recruits to be communication officers, including the clever Pan Shitou, who was immediately assigned by Zhan Biao to serve as a duty officer for Xiao Bao and Xiao Yu.

  That big northerner who shouted to join the New Fourth Army was called Cao Yu, Xiao Feng asked him to replace Da Yuan as the deputy class leader of San De. Xiao Feng curiously asked Cao Yu why he didn't stay and join the New Fourth Army, Cao Yu replied straightforwardly: "I'm from a martial arts background, I know you guys are good at fighting with guns, so I came. If it's not good, I can leave later."

  The next afternoon, two infantry battalions of the Kameyama Allied Forces, under the command of Songshan, launched an attack on the place where Zhang Biao disappeared, one in the south and one in the north. First, the infantry guns and grenade launchers blasted possible hidden machine gun positions, then six "Turtle" tanks that had been repaired overnight, along with the other six from Kao Shan Zhen, charged into suspicious areas with the infantry.

  The result was naturally nothing, only to see the shadow of a wolf flashing back and forth. What made Songshan puzzled was that the six trucks had also disappeared without a trace. He stood at the foot of the mountain in front of a cemetery, thinking hard, and the dozens of new and old graves in front of him gave him a chill. He didn't know that more than 20 meters away from his feet was the underground garage of the six trucks plus the original one, and the dozen or so new graves in front of him were the accumulated soil from the newly dug garage last night.

  Sly Songshan insisted on not withdrawing the encirclement, his intuition told him that Zhang Biao was not far away. He dispatched his special forces to start a carpet search, looking for Zhang Biao's escape route, and also required them to focus on finding caves during the search. Before nightfall, they had searched the entire mountain foot area, but only found many signs of human activity. The entrance to the Tianfu land road was safe and sound. After withdrawing his troops, Songshan still did not withdraw, he was preparing for a third day to personally go up the mountain again for another carpet search.

  The Tianfu Cave was tense for a day, Zhan Biao and Xiao Feng guarded the cave entrance, Qiangzi and Dajue trained new recruits to operate light and heavy machine guns. Xiaobao and Xiaoyu cooked meals and tidied up military uniforms for everyone.

  Zhang Biao saw clearly that Songshan was not going to give up easily and was preparing to continue the search tomorrow. He was a bit worried about the entrance of the Heavenly Road on the mountain, because the entrance of the Heavenly Road cave did not have a hidden tunnel at the foot of the mountain like the other caves. Generally, devils could hide there, but if Songshan personally went up the mountain, it would be hard to say what the outcome would be.

  Zhan Biao decided not to stick it out, and arranged for Xiao Feng and Qiangzi to stay at home. He led six younger brothers to sneak out of the mountain at night to find Peng Lianchang to come and meet them. If Songshan discovered the cave entrance, Xiao Feng and Qiangzi must hold on until they came to rescue them. If Songshan did not discover the cave entrance, Zhan Biao also wanted to fire a heavy machine gun in the distance, making Songshan think that the prey had run outside.

  Zhang Biao and seven other comrades, dressed in plain clothes, hid pistols and daggers in their chests, listening to the movements outside at the entrance of the cave on the mountain top. Xiao Feng, Qiangzi, Ermin, Kuozi, Pan Shitou, Cao Yu and several deputy squad leaders saw them off behind, the kerosene lamp on the wall of the cave flickering with flames.

  Xiao Yu and Da Yue reluctantly gazed at each other, although Da Yue had returned to the Heavenly Palace twice in this more than half a month, they hadn't even held hands. Xiao Bao watched with her eyes, thinking in her heart that next time she would create some opportunities for this pair of star-crossed lovers. Thinking of this, she couldn't help but glance at Zhan Biao, coincidentally Zhan Biao was looking at her, making her flustered and embarrassed, her face flushing red, also causing Zhan Biao's heart to skip a beat, hastily giving the order to depart, seven black shadows flashed out of the cave one after another.

  Si De knew that San De was going to take it away to add a wolfish flavor to the new Fourth Army, and he was very excited, but he couldn't bear to part with the cave and Xiao Yu, this was his home, and Xiao Yu was the person who loved him the most. After Zhang Biao's seven people left the cave, it still lingered around Xiao Yu, San De pointed at it once but didn't urge it on, because he knew that Si De would catch up with him.

  Suddenly, Si De's ears perked up and a low growl came from his throat. Before San De could shout or Xiao Yu could chase him, he darted out like an arrow, followed by the sound of his low growling. Xiao Yu looked around and seemed to sense something was amiss, asking Xiao Bao, "Is there something going on outside?" The soldier guarding the entrance quickly aimed his submachine gun at the entrance, while Xiao Bao hastily shouted to Xiaofeng and Qiangzi who were walking towards the cave.

  Xiao Feng and Qiangzi heard Xiao Bao's urgent call, and in a few swift steps, they rushed back. They didn't expect Cao Yu to follow closely behind them at the same speed. Xiao Feng arrived at the entrance of the cave, pressed his ear against the wall, listened for a while, then turned around and said to Qiangzi: "Something's off, let's go out and meet him." Cao Yu chimed in: "Count me in." Xiao Feng thought about the skills he had just shown, nodded, and the three of them flashed into the moonlit night outside the cave.