The Travelers of the Heavens

After Wang Duo made up his mind, he let some rumors out. Soon rumors spread in the capital that the delegation was engaged in espionage and had attempted to assassinate the regent.

"Can we meet Mr. Qingling?" Yang Liqing and Mu Zhenfang asked Wang Duo before leaving.

"She is now an important witness in this case and cannot meet outsiders casually," Wang Duo said

"Then I ask you to treat the captured members of the delegation well," Yang Liqing said

"We will not kill defenseless people," Wang Duo said.

Mu Zhenfang and Yang Liqing then took a flight back to Chengdu.

The rescue operation of Song Geng Ling failed completely. Except for Yang Liqing and Mu Zhenfang, other members of the delegation were either arrested or placed under house arrest. Travel was restricted.

Song Qingling, Yang Lihua, and Liao Mengxing were placed under house arrest.

Kong Lingkan, Kong Lingjun, Chu Cai, and Yang Liren were restricted from traveling.

Yang Liqing and Mu Zhenfang, representatives of the Communist Party of China, were returned to Chengdu. Five days after Yang Liqing and Mu Zhenfang left, Liao Mengxing was also released

"Ms. Liao, your problem has been clarified." Holding a folder, the Major of the Kyushu Army came to the bedroom where Liao Mengxing and Yang Lihua were under house arrest.

"Are you going to execute me?" Liao Mengxing asked.

"Ms. Liao, you misunderstood. You have no necessary connection with this case. Now you are free and can choose to stay in the capital or leave," the major said

"I choose to leave," said Liao Mengxing

"Okay, we will coordinate with Chengdu and ask them to send a plane to pick you up." After that, the major left.

Liao Mengxing took the plane back to Chengdu, and then returned to Guangzhou from Chengdu.

Chengdu, temporary official residence of the Chairman

"Niang Xipi! This is a conspiracy against the party-state! Obviously they detained Mrs. Sun for no reason, but now they are saying that we are engaged in espionage activities and plotting to assassinate the regent. It is really confusing the truth!"When Jiang heard the news, he was furious.

"Chairman, why were two Communist Party representatives and non-partisan Liao Mengxing released, but our people were all detained in the capital? Is there any unknown secret in this?" said Dai Li, director of the Military Command Bureau

"Um? Tell me your opinion," Jiang said.

"I thought this might be a conspiracy between the Zhou Jains and the Gong Communist Party," Dai Li said

"conspiracy? What conspiracy?"Jiang asked

"Since the beginning of the war, the Zhou devils have been chasing the national army and fighting fiercely, and they are very likely to never give up until the national army is completely wiped out. On the other hand, on the Gong Communist Party's side, they only lost an insignificant Lunan subdivision and a main battalion. , other troops were not severely damaged, so I think there must be some kind of tacit understanding between Zhou Guizi and the Gong Communist Party," Dai Li said

"Niang Xipi! The Communist Party of China scolds me for being passive in the war of resistance every day. Now that all my main troops have been destroyed, they have taken the opportunity to expand. I think that the Communist Party of China is just wandering around without attacking, and it is a fake war of resistance," said Jiang. He had already I have doubts. Dai Li made it clear today. He firmly believes that there is a tacit understanding between the Gong Communist Party and the Jiuzhou Army.

But this is purely random speculation. How can there be a tacit understanding between the Gong Communist Party and the Jiuzhou Army? The Kuomintang has always regarded itself as orthodox, and the Jiuzhou Army has We can only attack the Kuomintang first. This is the established strategy.

Although Jiang was thinking about such useless things, he quickly calmed down. Jiang's current strength is the weaker one among all parties. In Chengdu , there are only four divisions of Chiang Kai-shek's direct troops with less than 30,000 people, and the rest are all Sichuan troops that he cannot command. In

Guangzhou, there are more than 100,000 national troops that Chen Cheng and Chiang Ching-kuo have worked hard to pull up. , but there is an extreme lack of weapons and equipment, and the combat effectiveness is too poor.

This is all the strength of Jiang at present.

Therefore, Jiang did not dare to make small moves at this time. He asked Dai Li to ignore the matter, and at the same time, he promoted the Kyushu Army to the outside world. There is no faith, and the mother of the country is detained to arouse greater enthusiasm for the Anti-Japanese War.

The camera turns to the south and takes a look at the situation of the Southern Front Corps. On

April 29, 1939, the 332nd Division of the 103rd Army of the Southern Front Corps arrived in Guilin.

Guilin did not In any regular national army guard, the only garrison force is a security regiment with a total of one thousand people. This non-army unit only has rifles and two heavy machine guns.

But the leader of the security regiment, Li Hui, was once a patriotic student. In 1916 He participated in the student movement against imperialism and feudalism. Now that a powerful enemy was coming, Li Hui did not want to abandon his father and fellow villagers and flee. He ordered one battalion to cover the people's transfer to the mountains, and he left with the other two battalions to deal with the 332nd Division outside the city in hopes of Make time to allow the folks in Guilin to successfully transfer.

Guilin is surrounded by mountains and rivers, and is known as"Guilin's landscape is the best in the world."

But at the end of April 1939, Guilin's landscape was destined not to be beautiful.

The 103rd Southern Front Corps After arriving in Guilin, the 332nd Division took a night's rest and began to set up artillery positions at dawn on the 30th to prepare for the bombardment of Guilin.

Due to terrain restrictions, the division's 96 105mm heavy artillery could not deploy all, and could only deploy one artillery position with 17 105mm heavy artillery pieces. , and because the unit did not carry many artillery shells, the fire preparation time was short.

Starting at 8 a.m. on April 20, 17 heavy artillery pieces from the 332 Division Artillery Regiment opened fire one after another. The artillery shells fell in Guilin City, blowing the houses into piles. Rubble.

At 9:15, the bombardment ended. The 993rd Regiment of the 332nd Division began to attack Guilin.

"Go ahead"

"Kill"

More than 6,000 soldiers of the 993rd Regiment rushed towards Guilin with their respective semi-automatic or fully automatic rifles shouting.

Due to the narrow road, the soldiers could not launch a wide enough front for the attack, so for a while the defenders actually had a slight advantage.

Just watch Li Hui personally control a civilian 24-type heavy machine gun to shoot at the Kyushu soldiers who are coming up.

"Da da da.. Da da da"Machine gun spitting flames

"Poof!"

"Well, many Kyushu soldiers were hit and fell to the ground.

"Snapped.. Snapped"

"Da da da da da da"

The Kyushu soldiers crawled slowly on the ground, their semi-automatic rifles and fully automatic rifles also firing hard

"Bazooka! quick!"A captain of the Kyushu Army shouted when he saw a few people coming from behind.

It turned out that soldiers carrying rocket launchers came with loaders.

"hurry up! Reload quickly!"The soldier holding the rocket launcher asked his companion to reload quickly, because he saw a machine gun from the defenders moving in the shooting direction.

At the critical moment, the reloading was completed

"Whoosh.."Bang" a rocket burst out of the barrel with white smoke. The rocket hit the defender's machine gun.

Covered in blood, Li Hui lay dying on the sack of the position. He soon died of his injuries.

After the machine gun was killed, Kyushu soldiers flooded into Guilin.

The security regiment members in the city dispersed when they learned that the regiment leader Li Hui had died in the battle.

At 12 o'clock at noon that day, Guilin fell.

Chi Lian, dozens of kilometers away, learned the news through a walkie-talkie. After that, she divided the troops into two groups.

The entire 21st Corps and the 103rd and 104th Corps under the 22nd Corps followed her and continued to advance into the hinterland of Guangxi.

Shen Chong led the 108th and 109th Corps under the 22nd Corps and the Japanese The 21st Tank Regiment and an anti-aircraft artillery division moved into Hunan, penetrated into Hengyang and surrounded it, and then built defensive positions on the spot to wait for Chi Lian's main force to drive the Guangxi-Guangxi troops into Hunan, and then attack from both sides. This is the so-called"Battle of Hengbao".

In Hunan, there are the 71st and 72nd armies of the Kuomintang's first theater commander Cheng Qian and the 31st and 84th armies of the Guangxi faction, a total of 10 divisions with less than 100,000 troops.

Mainly 71 The reconstruction progress of the two armies of the 72nd and 72nd armies is slow. The six divisions under the two armies only have an average of 6,000 men each. The two armies combined have only 37,800 men.

Shen Chong's two armies Together with the Japanese chariot regiment, which totaled more than 200,000 troops, they could launch the Battle of Hengbao alone.