Chapter 1 The Four Regiments of the Lunan Detachment
The four regiments of the Lunan Detachment were not stationed in the villages, so neither their attack nor their return disturbed anyone.

Although the Lunan Detachment had sent working groups to live in the nearby villages, and the villagers had accepted them,

Gu Xiuming's four main regiments were stationed in the mountain valleys six or seven *li* away from the villages, occupying all the surrounding hilltops.

This was equivalent to establishing a small base in the suburbs of Xuzhou. One of the benefits of doing so was that the team's actions were not easily discovered by the villagers.

The soldiers who returned to their station now regretted that they hadn't cut off enough horse legs the night before; they should have cut off all the legs of all the warhorses.

This was because the freshly butchered horse legs were already cooking in the pot, and this morning there would be *roujiamo* (meat sandwiches) made with horse meat, and meat soup simmered with horse leg bones.

The aroma of meat wafted out of the pot, and laughter echoed throughout the camp!

Dawn broke! Commander Yamahō Jirō, who had not slept all night, watched as the sky brightened.

He immediately urged Suzuki Gorō, the newly appointed commander of the Independent Mixed Infantry Third Brigade, to set off with his troops.

Last night, after receiving the report from Lien Captain Nikko Takuno and Lien Captain Kitakaze Fubuki about the death of Brigade Commander Inoue Munetake,

he immediately ordered Suzuki Gorō, the chief of staff of the Third Brigade, to temporarily act as the brigade commander.

At the same time, he ordered him to return today to find the body of Brigade Commander Inoue Munetake.

The entire Xuzhou Task Force now had the weakest combat effectiveness in the Independent Mixed Infantry Third Brigade, so of course, they would be assigned to do such chores.

As for the elite forces of the Infantry Fourth Brigade and the Cavalry Fourth Brigade, they would remain in Tashan Town to rest.

The local gentry in Tashan Town had been receiving the Japanese troops every now and then these past few days.

Each time they received thousands of Japanese soldiers. These people were just local tycoons, not the kind who could rival a country's wealth. They simply couldn't afford such receptions and apportionments.

Last night, the Xuzhou Task Force suddenly arrived, and tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers arrived together.

The supplies of these Japanese soldiers were all left thirty *li* away, and they asked these people in Tashan Town for food and drink.

The rice jars of ordinary families were emptied, and not a single grain of rice could be spared. The granaries of the gentry were all opened, and the doors of the town's two grain stores were smashed open.

Still, not much grain was collected. No grain? Yamahō Jirō was faced with this problem.

He walked out of the command post and stood on a high place, looking at where the troops were located: this place was called a town, but in reality, there was only one road running from south to north, with some shops on both sides.

The rest of the place was full of small alleys. There were only two or three thousand people in the entire town. Rather than calling it a town, it was more like a large village.

Such a small place certainly had problems feeding 30,000 Japanese soldiers!

Yamahō Jirō did not sympathize with these people. He simply understood that if he did not feed his soldiers, how could they fight?

Expecting the horse to run without giving it grass! Yamahō Jirō understood that he couldn't do such a thing.

He had just ordered the more than 5,000 quartermasters gathered in Tashan to set off immediately to the camp from last night and drag back the supplies brought from Xuzhou City.

Last night, the retreating soldiers revealed a lot of information, but not a single Japanese soldier said there was a fire.

If the attacking team had burned the supplies, so much material would have created a fire that would have lit up half the sky.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but feel a little sympathetic towards the team: they attacked the camp but didn't know to burn the supplies. Didn't they know that before an army moves, food and fodder come first?

Dawn broke, and the entire Xuzhou Task Force had been gathering troops for a whole night, and now they had finally gathered 30,000 Japanese soldiers.

Thinking about how more than 10,000 Japanese soldiers had been lost in one night, Commander Yamahō Jirō didn't know how to report to Terauchi Hisaichi.

But now that Brigade Commander Inoue Munetake was dead, he couldn't hide it even if he wanted to.

The death of a brigade commander was a big deal for the Japanese army, and it had to be reported.

However, Yamahō Jirō was still waiting. He wanted to wait until Inoue Munetake's body was found before reporting it to his superiors.

The content of the report needed to be carefully polished.

When Zeng Guofan fought in those years, he was repeatedly defeated. When his staff reported to the superiors, they wrote: "Our army has been defeated repeatedly!"

Zeng Guofan only changed the position of two characters. It was still the same thing, but the content was completely different.

He changed it to: "Our army has been defeated repeatedly, but we continue to fight!" This change did not alter the facts, as they had been losing battles all along, but it expressed his spirit of not yielding, not being discouraged, and being able to persevere.

This also made the people above very happy and increased their support for him, which led to his later success.

Now, Yamahō Jirō was brewing how to write a good article that would both tell the truth and express that he was still capable, still alright, and still able to continue as commander.

This was a difficult process! But Yamahō Jirō had to do it well, as it was a major matter related to whether or not he could continue to hold the position of commander, so he had to pay attention to it.

When the Lunan Detachment bombed the Japanese troops last night, the artillery fire was deafening. The people of Lizhuang, only six *li* away from the battlefield, heard it.

They trembled in the sound of the artillery. Xuzhou had fought several battles this year, and it was not the first time they had heard such artillery fire.

It was just that the artillery fire this time was a bit too scary.

Before dawn, the Lunan Detachment's working group in Lizhuang went door-to-door to notify the villagers: "Last night, many Japanese soldiers died six *li* away from Lizhuang.

There are still a lot of supplies left on the battlefield. Those who need them can go and pick some up."

Who wouldn't want something that was free for the taking?

The entire village of Lizhuang, more than 400 people, set off with torches.

When they arrived at the battlefield, it was not yet dawn. The old village chief was a prudent man. After discussing with the working group, he sent people to guard both the north and south sides of the road. If they saw any troops coming, they would run back to report.

Only then did the hundreds of villagers begin to clean up the battlefield with torches. Although Gu Xiuming and his four regiments had also cleaned it up once, they had not done it thoroughly last night due to the time constraints.

The villagers of Lizhuang were much more thorough in their cleaning, and they also had the guidance of the working group.

The clothes and boots on the bodies of thousands of Japanese soldiers could all be taken off and used. Even if they couldn't be worn at home, they could be taken to the pawnshop to exchange for some money.

The villagers had their own way of cleaning up the battlefield. They knew that the Japanese devils were rich.

Rich people like to have gold teeth, and the mouths of the thousands of Japanese soldiers who fell on the battlefield were all checked by the villagers. They actually found more than fifty gold teeth.

This made those who found gold teeth very happy, and even those who didn't find gold teeth were not discouraged.

They found pens, watches, notebooks, and satchels on the Japanese soldiers, all of which were valuable items.

Not to mention so many shoes, each person could get an average of twenty pairs of shoes.

Dawn broke. Although they had not yet received a warning from the guards on the north and south sides, the old village chief looked at the white bodies of the Japanese soldiers all over the ground.

Many of the bloody warhorses had their legs chopped off, but there were still many horse legs left.

This was all meat! All edible meat!

The villagers of Lizhuang did not eat as well as the Lunan Detachment, and their eyes turned green when they saw this meat.

Many villagers even argued over who would chop the horse legs. The old village chief, seeing so many horse legs on the ground, angrily picked up his crutch and hit them, "You idiots! There are so many horse legs on the ground, can you even finish chopping them all?"

"I chopped a few times, and they came to snatch them," Li Laosan said aggrievedly after being hit twice.

The old village chief spoke, "The whole village will divide them according to the number of people. Each person gets five legs first. Chop them yourselves!

If anyone dares to snatch someone else's, I'll chop off their legs first."

This area was full of horses and mules that had been bombed to death, thousands of them, and there were tens of thousands of horse legs.

They simply couldn't chop them all in a short time. Moreover, they needed to chop off the horse legs and transport them back to the village at the same time.

The busy people forgot the time. They felt that there were still many horse legs that had not been chopped off, but many flies had already come to grab food.

Just as everyone was chopping happily, the guard on the north side ran back quickly: "There are many Japanese soldiers coming from afar."

Hearing this news, the villagers ran away quickly! These people had always been prepared to slip away at any time.

The supplies they had just collected from cleaning up the battlefield were moved to the village as soon as they were collected.

Now they had to move the horse legs they had just chopped off. Some carried one leg, and some carried two legs as they ran back in a puff of smoke.

This noon, the entire village was even more lively than the New Year. The children were playing in the scorching sun, and the women were busy processing the horse legs they had chopped back.

In this kind of weather, they would easily spoil without enough salt to pickle them. It was impossible for the village to have so much salt at once.

They could only cut the horse meat as thinly as possible, stir-fry it in the pot until it was dry, and then put it in the hot sun to dry.

As long as it was dry enough, it could be stored for a long time!

Every household was busy sorting out today's harvest, storing what could be stored, and preparing to exchange what could be exchanged for money.

It had been a long time since people had been so happy.

Acting Brigade Commander Suzuki Gorō led his troops back to the battlefield again at eleven o'clock.

He was stunned when he saw the battlefield: the entire battlefield was covered with white bodies.

Many flies were crawling all over the bodies, which was very disgusting to look at. He had led two infantry regiments over, and he had a mission.

The first task was to find the body of the former brigade commander and bring it back.

Originally, he had imagined that finding Inoue Munetake's body would only require scanning the battlefield and looking for the rank and saber that he was wearing.

Every Japanese soldier could recognize the rank and saber of a brigade commander. Now the bodies on the ground all looked the same, and none of them were wearing clothes. How could his soldiers find him?

He could only let the Japanese soldiers who knew Inoue Munetake identify them one by one, which was a difficult process.

There were still many Japanese soldiers in the entire brigade who knew Inoue Munetake, but that did not include the Japanese soldiers in these two infantry regiments.

The Japanese soldiers in the infantry regiments had all been reorganized from the quartermasters, and they had only seen Inoue Munetake a few times. It would be strange if they could recognize their former brigade commander now.

The matter of finding Brigade Commander Inoue Munetake could only be done by Brigade Commander Suzuki Gorō himself.

When the Japanese soldiers were bombed last night, it was dark and they couldn't see clearly, so they didn't have a clear view of the entire battlefield.

At that time, they only felt afraid, afraid of being killed by the bombs.

Now, seeing bodies everywhere on the battlefield, these bodies were lying on the ground, and the dense flies were like strips of cloth covering the bodies. No one knew where so many flies had come from.

The faces of the dead on the ground were all filled with horrified and painful expressions, making the Japanese soldiers who came to clean up the battlefield afraid.

The Japanese soldiers of the two infantry regiments felt very afraid now. Compared to the fear during the bombing last night, this was many times stronger!

The battlefield was full of corpses, and in the distance, at the location of the stables, the warhorses lying on the ground had many of their legs chopped off.

The severed parts were still bloody, which was very scary.

Brigade Commander Suzuki Gorō looked at the situation on the battlefield. He was here to clean up the battlefield. In this situation, he could only collect the bodies of the Japanese soldiers first.

First, he looked around for wood and prepared to burn the bodies. Every time a body was lifted onto the woodpile, it was examined by Brigade Commander Suzuki Gorō.

He had to find Brigade Commander Inoue Munetake, which was not an easy task. He had seen many of the Japanese soldiers' corpses with their faces twisted in pain, and he suddenly felt that they all looked the same.

These faces seemed to come alive and wanted to pounce on him and bite him, and Brigade Commander Suzuki Gorō was so frightened that he took two steps back.

He had to rest for a while before continuing. According to tradition, he, as the brigade commander, needed to avenge Inoue Munetake, but until now they didn't know which team had attacked them last night.

There was no way to talk about revenge. Since they couldn't take revenge, at least they had to find the body and bring it back!

This was already the bottom line, so Brigade Commander Suzuki Gorō had to work so hard.

The Japanese soldiers who had been sent to collect the supplies behind the two infantry regiments had also arrived at the battlefield at this time.

Quartermaster Captain Fukuju Taro led the Japanese soldiers into the camp where he had been stationed last night.

Seeing that the entire camp was empty and nothing was left, his face changed suddenly. When they set off from Xuzhou yesterday, this supply team was carrying a lot of supplies.

Not only did they bring enough food supplies for 40,000 Japanese soldiers for twenty days, but they also had fodder for nearly 10,000 horses. More importantly, they also had ten units of ammunition, ready to replenish the combat troops at any time.

These supplies were all gone overnight! They were not burned, not destroyed by bombs, but all taken away.

From the wheel tracks on the ground, it could be seen that these things had all been moved away.

Captain Fukuju Taro's cold sweat suddenly flowed down. This was too big of a deal, and he had to report it to Commander Yamahō Jirō immediately.

Commander Yamahō, stationed in Tashan Town, anxiously waited until the afternoon and finally received two pieces of news: one good news and one bad news.

The good news was that the body of Brigade Commander Inoue Munetake had finally been found.

The bad news was that all the supplies carried by the Xuzhou Task Force had disappeared.

This was really a very, very bad piece of news. This news stunned Commander Yamahō.

The draft that he had thought out this morning to report to Terauchi Hisaichi was of no use at all.

This morning, the people of Tashan Town began to flee. They simply could not support 30,000 Japanese soldiers.

At noon, the Japanese soldiers of the Xuzhou Task Force could only fill their stomachs with the dry food they carried with them.

The entire team had not yet entered the Lunan base area, and now they were starting to consume the dry food that the Japanese soldiers carried with them. What would they do when they actually fought?

Therefore, Commander Yamahō placed his hopes on Quartermaster Captain Fukuju Taro, who had gone back to find the supplies.

As a result, it was true that the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment.

Now, Commander Yamahō Jirō had to face the difficulty that the entire team had no food.

In fact, this difficulty was not that difficult: he only had to send a telegram to Brigade Commander Manda Yuto in Xuzhou City, explaining the situation.

It seemed that the food supplies could arrive immediately. However, in this way, the news that the Xuzhou Task Force had suffered heavy losses on the day it left would not be able to be blocked.

Commander Yamahō Jirō had no other choice now. He could only send a telegram to Commander Terauchi Hisaichi of the North China Area Army first:

"The Xuzhou Task Force encountered more than a hundred heavy artillery pieces from the National Army fifteen *li* north of Xuzhou.

Brigade Commander Inoue Munetake was killed on the spot, and the entire task force suffered nearly ten thousand casualties, with heavy losses of supplies.

The entire task force is stationed in Tashan Town for rest and reorganization, and morale is high! Waiting only for a battle with the National Army."

After sending the telegram to Terauchi Hisaichi, it was much easier to send a telegram to Manda Yuto: "Last night, our army was attacked fifteen *li* outside the city, and the supplies were completely lost. Tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers are short of food and ammunition, trapped in Tashan Town, please replenish them quickly!"

Terauchi Hisaichi, who received the telegram, once again had the urge to vomit blood: he deeply regretted forming the Xuzhou Task Force.

The original intention of forming this team was to save the last bit of bloodline of the Soratani Brigade. Until now, the situation of the Fukagawa Taiji Battalion was still unclear.

He no longer cared about the life or death of this battalion. The second purpose of forming the Xuzhou Task Force was to sweep the Lunan base area.

He hoped to have a stable environment in the newly occupied area, so that the important towns and transportation routes of the North China Area Army would have a guarantee of safety.

The reality was: not a single goal had been accomplished, and the number of Japanese soldiers lost had exceeded 20,000, along with the loss of airplanes, tanks, and artillery. Calculated in this way, at least the strength of a division had been lost.

What made Terauchi Hisaichi most powerless was that he could now see the future fate of the Xuzhou Task Force, but he could not change it and had no power to support it.

In this situation, if the Xuzhou Task Force was withdrawn, the situation in the entire Xuzhou area and the Lunan area would deteriorate sharply. Thinking that Hefei had been taken back by the Special Operations Brigade,

if the Xuzhou Task Force was withdrawn at this time, would Xuzhou be the next Hefei?

As soon as he thought of this, Commander Terauchi Hisaichi's head began to ache again: the Battle of Wuhan had not yet ended, and he was finding it very difficult to maintain the situation.

In the end, he could only order Yamahō Jirō: "Stabilize the situation and advance gradually!"

Brigade Commander Manda Yuto received the telegram from Commander Yamahō Jirō and realized that such a big battle had actually taken place in the suburbs of Xuzhou last night.

He was so frightened that he quickly asked the Japanese soldiers in each battalion under his command if they were still there, and ordered the checkpoints outside Xuzhou City to strengthen their inspections.

Only then did he begin to look at Yamahō Jirō's requests, and seeing that the Xuzhou Task Force had lost all of its food and supplies overnight,

he could only immediately send people to continue organizing a batch of food. Now it was already afternoon, and since a large unit of the National Army had appeared outside the city,

this group of puppet troops transporting food could not set off in the afternoon, of course. The plan was to set off tomorrow morning.

Brigade Commander Suzuki Gorō, who was still cleaning up the battlefield, commanded the Japanese soldiers under his command to hurriedly burn the bodies.

Too many Japanese soldiers had died last night, and they could not find enough firewood. For those corpses that could not be completely burned to ashes, they could only dig a pit and bury them hastily.

He collected the mixture of mixed bone ash and ashes from the grass and trees and packed it up haphazardly. He sent a team of Japanese soldiers to send it back to Xuzhou City.

The remaining Japanese soldiers quickened their pace and hurried towards Tashan Town.

The Japanese soldiers of the entire brigade had experienced the artillery bombardment last night and were afraid of suffering another one. This time, their marching speed was very fast.

Jiang Liming, the platoon leader of the First Platoon of the First Company of the First Regiment of Gu Xiuming, led the reconnaissance platoon to watch the Japanese soldiers in Tashan Town from a distance.

They saw the Japanese soldiers going back and forth in teams, and some stragglers were also walking towards Tashan Town.

These situations were reported to the regimental commander, and Gu Xiuming only told them to continue to observe.

At noon, the people in Tashan Town began to flee. The Japanese soldiers did not stop them from leaving, but they did not allow these people to leave with their belongings.

They could leave empty-handed, but they were not allowed to push carts or carry packages out of the town. Some of the people had to turn back, and many others insisted on walking out.

Today's Xuzhou Task Force was very different from yesterday's: yesterday, these Japanese soldiers had sent their sentries three thousand meters away. At that time, the Japanese soldiers sent out a lot of scouts, forcing Jiang's platoon and the others to retreat again and again.

The Japanese sentries were only sent five hundred meters away today, and all the Japanese soldiers on guard duty today were infantrymen, not a single one riding a warhorse.

These were all good signs! Platoon Leader Jiang carefully approached and lurked three hundred meters away from the Japanese soldiers.

This was a peaceful day. Brigade Commander Suzuki Gorō smoothly completed the task of cleaning up the battlefield, and the ashes of the fallen Japanese soldiers had been sent to Xuzhou City.

These Japanese soldiers finally rushed back to Tashan Town before dark without being attacked.

At this time, whether it was Commander Yamahō or the three brigade commanders under him, they all understood that the tanks that had not returned would never return, and the same was true for the cavalry.