Chapter 50: The Devils Divide Their Troops Again

  As soon as the sky brightened, the staff members living in the second room came to report to the battalion commander and chief of staff. Only then did they discover that the battalion commander, chief of staff, and guards were all dead. The vicious attackers had even placed booby traps under the bodies of the battalion commander and others, blowing up several staff members who arrived at the scene in a hurry.

  And other rooms' booby traps also blew up several of the devils doing the cleanup work, injuring over a dozen.

  The entire Akishima unit was immediately thrown into chaos. With so many puppet troops defending the perimeter and so many Japanese troops inside, they actually allowed the enemy to sneak in undetected and kill Akishima Kazuo, the commander of the unit, and Kawada Fuhiko, the chief of staff. They even cut off Akishima's head and placed it on a table.

  This is a great shame for the Japanese army. The remaining two infantry companies, one transport company and one machine gun company commander sat together to elect the machine gun company commander Kao Ichi Oyama to command the entire battalion. Now the entire battalion still has more than 600 people, with four relatively intact companies and an artillery battery. The battalion headquarters originally had many people, but they were attacked by Liu Feng and Yu Daqing, plus the guerrilla, basically only a few staff members were left in the battalion headquarters.

  Koyama Keiichi reported the situation to Sakai Takajiro, the commander of the 1st Mixed Brigade. When Sakai received the telegram, he was so angry that he almost vomited blood. When he saw that the telegram mentioned that on Akiyama's desk were written in fresh blood two large characters "Liu Feng", he became dizzy and his vision went dark.

  This is the second battalion commander under Sakai that Liu Feng has taken down in a few months. Sakai immediately wired back, scolding Koyama Yoshiichi severely and demanding that he catch the murderer at once, or else not to come back.

  The last time Liu Feng and his men took down Guangping County for the second time, they annihilated the Chi Shangzhong team. Since Liu Feng and his men withdrew from the county seat the next day and did not brag about it to their superiors, Sakai was able to cover it up. However, this time with the deaths of Akio Akiyama and Kawada Takahide, it could no longer be concealed.

  Sakai Kōji was forced to send a telegram to the North China Area Army Commander, Lieutenant General Itagaki Seishirō, stating that ōyama Ichirō, the commander of the 129th Division and Kawada Tsunehide, the chief of staff were killed in action during the mopping-up operation against the Eighth Route Army.

  Tada Hikaru received the telegram and immediately called Sakai Shōji, scolding him severely. He then said that he would dispatch Colonel Inoue Yasushi, head of the special agency in Beiping, to investigate the deaths of Lieutenant Colonels Ozawa Kitaro and Akiyama Kazuo, as well as the truth behind the recovery of Guangping County by the Eighth Route Army. Sakai Shōji was ordered to cooperate.

  Sakai no Suketsune was so frightened that he broke out in a cold sweat and had no choice but to agree.

  ……

  Chongqing, Chiang Kai-shek's official residence.

  Dai Li is reporting to Chiang Kai-shek: "Principal, the students have received intelligence that the liberation of Guangping County by the Eighth Route Army was actually done by a man named Liu Feng."

  "What?" Chiang Kai-shek suddenly raised his head, "How is this possible? Who is Liu Feng? How can he possibly take down Guangping County?"

  Dai Li said: "The intelligence we have is that Liu Feng is from Liujiayu, a village near Qiu County. He once apprenticed with a master of extraordinary skill and learned martial arts and marksmanship. However, the Sakata detachment of the Qiu County Suzuki regiment swept through Liujiayu and killed every man, woman, and child in the village..."

  Chiang Kai-shek cursed: "Bastard, Japanese soldiers are really beasts!"

  Dai Li continued: "It's really a beast. Liu Feng was not in the village at that time, and when he returned to the village, all the villagers were dead. Liu Feng then..."

  Dai Li's investigation was very thorough, and basically nothing Liu Feng did escaped his attention. This included the bloody words Liu Feng left behind, his assassination of Koizumi Kitaro, his capture of Guangping County, and his attribution of the credit to the Eighth Route Army. Of course, he had not yet discovered that Liu Feng led a special operations unit of the Eighth Route Army, one that was even named after him.

  Chiang Kai-shek felt as if he had swallowed a fly when he heard that Liu Feng gave the credit for the recovery of Guangping County to the Eighth Route Army. He specially asked why Liu Feng gave the credit for the recovery of Guangping to the Eighth Route Army.

  Dai Li said: "It is possible that only the Eighth Route Army's anti-Japanese armed forces are around Guangping County, and Liu Feng also has no channel to contact the Nationalist army, so..."

  Chiang Kai-shek nodded and asked: "Yunong, I hear you saying that this Liu Feng is not a member of the Eighth Route Army?"

  Dai Li said: "So far, we have no evidence of Liu Feng joining the Eighth Route Army."

  Although Dai Li's investigation was not entirely factual, and some of it was his own speculation, he had been very thorough, and Chiang Kai-shek was relatively satisfied. He said: "Yu Nong, you've done a good job. But what I want to know is where Liu Feng is now, has he defected to the Eighth Route Army? If you can find him, no matter what the cost, we must bring him over to our side."

  "The student understands, but Liu Feng is elusive and even the little devils can't find him. It may take some time to find him." Dai Li said immediately. Have to leave a way out for yourself.

  Chiang Kai-shek raised his eyes and looked at Dai Li before saying: "I understand, do a good job. Don't let me down."

  His back was all sweaty, and he immediately stood at attention, saying: "Student understands."

  ……

  Koyama Keiichi received Sakai's order to catch the assassin and immediately started an internal investigation. Those fake soldiers of course had already begun to suspect the four Japanese people from last night. But first, they didn't even ask for their names, secondly, if those few were really assassins, then all the fake soldiers who let the assassins enter Dongniu Village would be in trouble. So all the fake soldiers unanimously chose to shut their mouths, no one dared to say that someone had passed through their garrison.

  Koyama Kaichi was left with nothing, and the assassin seemed to have come from nowhere. This made the oni even more terrified.

  He could only dispatch troops to search around. Kōichi Oyama was not Akio Akiyama, and he did not know how the Ogura unit was annihilated, so he made the mistake of dividing his forces again.

  The little devil was divided into four parts, two infantry companies each with two companies of fake army, and searched in two directions. A transport company, assigned to two companies of fake army, while he himself led his machine gun company and a battery assigned to two companies of fake army to search in the other two directions.

  Koyama Keiichi was originally the platoon leader of the machine gun platoon and, after being selected as the commander, was eager to avenge Captain Akio Akimoto, so he ordered the troops to speed up their advance and also issued the "Three Alls" command to all units. As soon as they entered the village, they implemented the Three Alls policy, which meant "kill all, burn all, loot all". It seemed that only by doing so could they vent their anger and comfort the spirits of Captain Akimoto and Major General Kawada in heaven.

  Liu Feng and his men slept until dawn, then crawled up to observe the enemy's movements from a distance. They found that the devils had divided their troops and were advancing in four directions. Liu Feng immediately knew that an opportunity had arrived. If the 600-700 devils plus over a thousand puppet soldiers remained together, it would be difficult for Liu Feng to launch an attack on such a large army. But once the devils split up, Liu Feng had a way to slowly exhaust these little devils.