Chapter 132 Bitter Tactic

Tian Zhuyou, the captain of the military police of the Second Group Army of the Japanese army, rushed into the venue, his indifferent gaze sweeping over the two hundred-plus traitors inside, not yet uttering a word.

Ran Junxiong was already approaching with his most amiable smile, attempting to close the distance and build rapport.

Captain Tian Zhuyou of the military police was known to all of these traitors. Anyone who wanted to become a traitor had to pass his scrutiny first. Without his approval, these traitors could never gain trust.

Ran Junxiong had barely taken a step when a Japanese military policeman in front of him smashed him with a rifle butt.

Sergeant Zhongshan Kangsuke showed no leniency towards this merchant association president wearing a melon-cap and silk clothes.

If it had been yesterday, he might have been a little more courteous to this traitor, but now his anger towards this traitor was no less than that of the Nationalist army.

Military police always knew more secrets than ordinary Japanese soldiers. Their loyalty to the Empire was unquestionable. These military police were always arrogant and disdainful, fearing no one.

Only the Japanese feared them; they never feared other Japanese.

Ran Junxiong, struck by the rifle butt, fell heavily to the ground. The traitors around him dared not move.

These traitors, masters of reading faces, all sensed that something was amiss. The Japanese were cold and detached, very different from usual, indicating that something major had happened.

Judging from the current situation, this matter was related to President Ran Junxiong. As long as it didn't concern them, that was all that mattered. That's what each of these traitors thought.

President Ran Junxiong, lying on the ground, haphazardly wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve, not daring to get up. Instead, he knelt down, banging his head on the ground and crying loudly, "Lord! My loyalty to you can be proven by heaven and earth! Why is this happening?"

Sergeant Zhongshan Kangsuke paid him no attention. This was not the time for him to speak. Captain Tian Zhuyou slowly walked forward, extending a foot clad in a leather shoe, stepping on President Ran Junxiong's hand, and sneering, "President Ran Junxiong! You had quite the scheme, actually sending the entire Second Group Army of the Empire into the Nationalist army's encirclement.

Since you were prepared to play a bitter trick, today I will let you taste the bitterness of flesh and blood."

Watching his hand being trampled on the ground by Captain Tian Zhuyou of the military police, President Ran Junxiong's face twisted in pain.

He dared not use his other hand to move Captain Tian Zhuyou's foot, only enduring the pain, crying and wailing, "Misunderstanding! Misunderstanding! It's definitely a misunderstanding!

We are wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord, and we are sparing no expense to fully support the Lord's actions.

We would never have any evil intentions towards the Lord. This must be a counter-espionage plot by the Nationalist army. Please, Lord, do not be fooled."

"Yes, Lord, do not be fooled! The Nationalist army hates us to the bone; they are using a counter-espionage plot!" The other traitors chimed in.

Captain Tian Zhuyou of the military police was too lazy to talk to these traitors. Under torture, these traitors would reveal even their most hidden, despicable deeds.

"Take them away!" Captain Tian Zhuyou said only two words.

The two hundred-plus traitors in the entire venue were stunned. The Japanese were not only taking away President Ran Junxiong, but all of them.

Suddenly, the entire venue was filled with wailing. These traitors were inconsolable, with grievances they couldn't express.

Immediately, they turned their anger towards the first unfortunate, President Ran Junxiong: "Ran Junxiong! Did you collude with the Nationalist army, making everyone suffer and causing trouble for the Lord?"

"Ran Junxiong! Did you sell the Lord's information to the Nationalist army? I always thought he was ruthless for money; it must be him.

Lord! This is just Ran Junxiong's doing; it has nothing to do with us!"

Captain Tian Zhuyou had already turned and left, sitting on his motorcycle, waiting for the military police to escort all the traitors out.

More than two hundred traitors, arrested all at once, was a considerable number. These traitors, dejected, were escorted through the streets of the county town.

From the shops on both sides of the street, people cautiously poked their heads out, seeing so many Japanese military police escorting the traitors who had been strutting around the county town recently.

Those heads immediately retreated. The shopkeepers who dared to open for business these days were already quite bold.

But they dared not look too much, only glancing before pondering in their shops: What happened to President Ran Junxiong and the others today?

President Ran Junxiong was a traitor! Everyone in the county knew this. These traitors made no secret of their identity.

And they had been vigorously promoting it, always saying: "Your brother, I am doing this and that in front of the Lord." "Your brother, I received this and that from the Lord today."

These traitors were never ashamed of being traitors, only proud of it.

It was precisely these traitors who were now being arrested. What was happening?

Soon, the Japanese military police were dispatched again, not only in the county town but also outside, bringing back more than a hundred people.

Through the people brought back by the Japanese, the ordinary people in the county town could see that the Japanese were arresting all the gentry and businessmen who had recently befriended President Ran Junxiong.

These gentry and businessmen, through President Ran Junxiong, had begun to supply the Japanese with various materials, such as grain, meat, vegetables, and fodder.

They never expected that they would all be arrested today.

Soon, the Japanese posted a notice: A group of traitors, led by Ran Junxiong, colluded with each other to adulterate the grain supplied to the Lord, using inferior goods. As a warning to others, they would be executed by firing squad.

After Ran Junxiong and the other traitors were arrested and brought back to the military police station, the interrogation rooms were not enough.

This did not stump Captain Tian Zhuyou. He ordered the military police to erect wooden stakes in the courtyard and hang all the traitors up.

He began the military police's three-step process: chili water, whip, and branding iron.

This group of traitors was stripped naked in the courtyard, exposing their delicate skin to the sun. These traitors had always been superior, living comfortably with very fair skin.

Now, they were all hanging in the courtyard, basking in the sun. Just this alone made them unable to stop babbling.

Unfortunately, they did not experience all three steps of the military police's process. Captain Tian Zhuyou did not ask any questions.

Red-hot branding irons left triangular marks on the bodies of these traitors.

The entire courtyard was filled with the "sizzle" of burning flesh and the traitors' heart-wrenching cries.

After each traitor had at least twenty triangular branding iron marks, the whip began to be used. These whips left wide, bloody welts on their bodies. If a welt overlapped a triangular branding iron mark, the already cooked flesh would immediately burst open.

The traitors in the courtyard were already hoarse from screaming. Only now did the third step, chili water, begin.

After these three steps, less than an hour had passed. Captain Tian Zhuyou began to ask, "Were you sent by the Nationalist army to play a bitter trick?"

How could they admit that? As soon as they admitted it, they would die!

President Ran Junxiong, who had already screamed until his voice was hoarse, became louder this time: "Lord! I am innocent. I was really not sent by the Nationalist army. I am the Lord's most loyal dog!"

Captain Tian Zhuyou sneered, "It seems the beating wasn't enough! Start over."

With President Ran Junxiong as an example, the next traitor immediately admitted that he was a special agent sent by the Nationalist army, and to gain merit, he immediately pointed out that all the traitors present were the same as him.

They were united, colluding to add sand, old grain, and moldy grain to the grain they sent to the Lords. Five out of ten of the pigs they sent as pork were diseased and pestilent.

President Ran Junxiong, who had been beaten half to death by the whip, no longer stubbornly resisted this time. He cried loudly, "Captain Tian! I confess! I confess! I confess!"

Although he shouted earnestly and desperately, Captain Tian Zhuyou couldn't attend to him. There were more than two hundred traitors in the courtyard. After one traitor opened his mouth, the other traitors began to expose each other.

Whether these deeds were true or not, as long as they were said first, they could avoid more beatings. At least they could temporarily hang on by exposing each other, which was much luckier than President Ran Junxiong, who was still being whipped.

Based on this idea, the things the traitors revealed about each other became more and more outrageous, such as some of them going to kill people in the Japanese army at night after being in the county town during the day. Some of them cursed the Lords every day.

Various exposures continued incessantly. However, Captain Tian Zhuyou still heard many of their unique tricks from these traitors:

Such as soaking the sweet potato slices collected from the farmers in warm water, then mixing them with a large amount of mud, then drying them again, removing the mud. This way, the dust stuck to the sweet potato slices would never fall off, and it would be impossible to detect, increasing the weight by 20%.

The same method could be used to process wheat and rice, increasing the profit by at least 15%.

Bribing Japanese quartermasters, giving them money, gold, silver, and women, falsely reporting and fraudulently receiving supplies, and so on.

The Japanese in the military police station were too busy just recording everything. To cater to Captain Tian Zhuyou's needs, these traitors had to confess their contacts with the Nationalist army.

To gain Captain Tian Zhuyou's trust, these contacts were the merchants and gentry who had recently connected with the Japanese through the traitors, supplying them with various materials.

So the Japanese in Captain Tian Zhuyou's military police team kept going out to arrest people, and more and more people were arrested and brought in, joining the ranks of those exposing others.

Commander Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni never expected that his guess would be verified.

The Nationalist army had really set a big trap for him: they used more than three hundred people to play a bitter trick, leading his entire army into the Nationalist army's encirclement.

Compared to the loss of tens of thousands of soldiers from his two divisions, the loss of these three hundred-plus Nationalist army special agents was insignificant.

Thinking of this, what other choice did he have? The furious Commander Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni ordered, "Execute them! Execute them all!" He specifically ordered that these traitors be executed at the busiest crossroads in the county town, including his quartermasters.

Colonel Nakamizu Kengo never expected that he would die here.

He was the quartermaster of the Second Group Army of the Japanese army and did not need to personally go to the battlefield. At the same time, this position was a lucrative one. The materials needed by the various divisions of the entire army had to pass through his hands.

Just skimming a little off the top would make him rich. In fact, that's what he had been doing.

Of course, the profits here were so great that Colonel Nakamizu Kengo could not swallow them alone, so most of the Japanese in the entire quartermaster department rallied under his command.

They shared the money and made a fortune together! He had been doing well all along. Commander Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni had repeatedly praised him for his good logistical support.

This time, however, he had capsized in a sewer: he had been implicated by a group of traitors. The most important thing was the timing. The entire army was surrounded by the Nationalist army, the soldiers' morale was low, and logistical supplies were stretched thin. The soldiers were about to run out of food, and they had recently complained that there was too much sand in the dry rations they were given.

Even the cooked white rice had sand in it. The soldiers complained, but in the past, these voices would have been suppressed by the officers. After all, the officers ate small灶 (small kitchen for officers), and their rice would not have a single grain of sand in it.

Today, to boost morale, Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni decided to learn from Cao Cao in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, using the head of the quartermaster during the most difficult time of the Battle of Guandu.

In any case, Colonel Nakamizu Kengo was not innocent. Not only Colonel Nakamizu Kengo, but more than sixty Japanese in the entire quartermaster department were implicated.

They were all executed at the busiest crossroads in the county town along with the three hundred-plus traitors.

This time, Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni did something that was praised by both the enemy and his own side. The people of the county town who were watching cheered and applauded when they saw that all those being executed were traitors, profiteers, and Japanese.

The Japanese soldiers, seeing that even such a high-ranking officer as Colonel Nakamizu Kengo had been executed, and hearing the words that the commander had intentionally promoted, understood that the reason why they had been unable to take the mountain peaks in front of them for so many days was that these traitors had been informing the Nationalist army and passing on intelligence.

The reason why they were eating moldy, sandy rice was all because Colonel Nakamizu Kengo had been embezzling so much.

Soon, this matter spread throughout the Second Group Army. Every Japanese knew about it. Immediately afterward, Commander Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni issued an attack order: The entire army had been misled by those traitors and parasites in the previous days.

Now that the entire army was caught in the Nationalist army's trap, they had to work hard to correct it. The only chance of survival was to break out from the front, all the way to Wuhan, striving for the greatest glory for every warrior. The Emperor was watching them.

The encouraged Japanese soldiers all had their morale greatly boosted. They placed all their hopes on the frontal battlefield.

Song Xilian, defending Fojin Mountain, immediately felt the pressure. The Japanese artillery that his army had captured from the battlefield was still there, but the shells had run out.

They could not get a supply of shells at all. Through these days of defense, the 36th Division had suffered heavy losses. Facing the Japanese's desperate attacks, the soldiers had repelled the Japanese several times in hand-to-hand combat.

However, every time they fought such hand-to-hand combat, the Japanese suffered more losses, but the 36th Division suffered just as many.

Faced with this situation, Bai Chongxi had no choice but to order the 36th Division to rotate out and retreat to the rear for rest and replenishment.

Although they no longer had shells, Song Xilian had long since dragged the captured artillery to the rear.

Now it was the infantry on the mountaintop who were retreating. When the 36th Division, with more than 13,000 men, retreated from Fojin Mountain, fewer than eight hundred could walk down on their own.

This scene shocked the entire Fifth War Area and even Chiang Kai-shek. The 36th Division was his elite force. Although this time the elite force suffered heavy losses, it had been able to hold its ground without losing an inch, even with more than 90% of its soldiers lost. Such morale, such soldiers, could not fail to be admired.

Chiang Kai-shek specifically sent reporters to interview these soldiers who had retreated from Fojin Mountain. They all said in unison that they had been influenced by the Special Operations Brigade's ground attack aircraft coming to assist in the battle.

In that battle, these soldiers saw for the first time that the Japanese were so weak, and that as long as we were tough, we could continuously break through all the Japanese defenses and directly capture the Japanese artillery.

Of course, such reports could not be sent out directly. The reporters used subtle language to write about the 36th Division's heroic fighting and the soldiers' tenacious struggles, specifically mentioning their sudden counterattack, breaking through four Japanese defense lines in one morning, attacking ten kilometers, annihilating the Japanese heavy artillery brigade, and completely capturing all the artillery and supplies of the entire brigade.

The words "Special Operations Brigade" were not mentioned at all. However, in the internal report written to Chiang Kai-shek, the role played by the Special Operations Brigade in this was faithfully written.

The battle was still continuing. As the Nationalist army's 36th Division retreated from the front line, the troops that replaced them were obviously unable to withstand the Japanese's desperate attacks.

The Fifth War Area's originally solid defense line was crumbling under the Japanese's all-out attack.

Commander Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni of the Second Group Army of the Japanese army could not care about anything now. He also pushed the 10th Division, which had been defeated and retreated from Liuan and Huoshan, into the attacking ranks.

Most of the remaining five hundred or so Japanese soldiers in the 16th Division were commanders. These Japanese soldiers were also assigned to various units to serve as squad leaders and platoon leaders, allowing them to atone for their crimes.

The current Second Group Army of the Japanese army was completely gambling everything. This was because Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni knew that if his Second Group Army did not make a major breakthrough within a week, he could wash up and go to Wuhan to attend the banquet held by Chiang Kai-shek.

Even if he was defeated, he believed that with his royal status, Chiang Kai-shek would treat him with courtesy no matter what, but this kind of courtesy was something that Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni would rather die than enjoy.

All his hopes were on the breakthrough in the frontal attack. The heads of his quartermasters had been touring the various units on the front lines these days, which had indeed greatly boosted morale. The defense line, which had not made any progress for half a month, finally had a breakthrough.

Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni in Jiangbei was not fighting alone. The Japanese headquarters also saw his crisis. They were clear that the focus now was on Wuhan. As long as Wuhan was captured,

The Nationalist army would naturally retreat. Otherwise, the 200,000 Nationalist troops surrounding the Second Group Army would be in danger of being surrounded in reverse.

Therefore, Commander-in-Chief of the Central China Expeditionary Army, Shunroku Hata, received the most severe order from the headquarters: "No matter what, Wuhan must be captured as soon as possible."

The main commander attacking Wuhan, Neiji Okamura, also received the most severe reprimand: "Ignore the big encirclements and small encirclements. The top priority is to capture Wuhan first."

So Neiji Okamura had no choice but to adjust his plan. He believed that Xue Yue's defense on the Nanxun Line had a loophole.

To seize the opportunity, Neiji Okamura immediately sent the 27th Division in the west to attack Wuning along the Ruiwu Line, preparing to detour to the left side of Xue Yue's army, luring the Nationalist army on the Nanxun Line to move west, creating conditions for the 106th Division's frontal attack to advance south.

If such a plan was completed, the battlefield situation south of Wuhan would be completely opened up by the Japanese, and the occupation of Wuhan would be just around the corner. Relatively speaking, this plan of relieving the siege by attacking the besiegers could be completed, and the siege of the Second Group Army could be resolved.

If the Fifth War Area did not let go at that time, the Japanese could cross the river from Wuhan and directly cut off the rear of the Fifth War Area, creating a reverse encirclement. The Nationalist army's Fifth War Area would not dare to persist in such a thing.

The division commander of the Inaba Shirō Division, which had already replenished its troops three times, commanded the 6th Division, which had just been replenished, to launch a strong attack on Dongjieling, attempting to directly advance west along the highway, completing the strategic goal of the Second Group Army of the Japanese army, and then turn around to rescue the Second Group Army.

From this time on, the Japanese around Wuhan all went crazy. They were all desperately attacking and attacking. The goal of all the Japanese units was only one: to rescue the Second Group Army.

Lin Fan, still in Tianjia'an, received a battle report from Gu Xiuming: "Today, we have completely annihilated the reinforcement troops that set out from Xuzhou to rescue the Japanese troops at Huangtuling."

"A Japanese infantry battalion, a tank company, and twelve tanks were all destroyed. Eleven vehicles were captured, of which nine were in good condition and two were awaiting repair. A Japanese cavalry battalion of 767 riders was completely annihilated."

"In addition, the reinforcement troops that set out from Xuzhou also included an infantry battalion and a puppet army brigade, which are thirty kilometers away from the planned battlefield."

"The Japanese troops on Huangtuling are in stable and quiet mood, and have not launched a breakout operation. They are still reinforcing their fortifications and bunkers."

Receiving such a battle report, Lin Fan smiled: "This is too reassuring."

The Lunan Detachment was pulling at the Japanese's hind legs behind enemy lines, greatly reducing the strength sent out by the Japanese in Xuzhou.

On his side, he could speed up the pace of attacking Tianjia'an. The Tianjia'an Garrison Commander, Yūsuke Kamino, had issued a general mobilization order: All the Japanese troops in Tianjia'an, regardless of whether they were previously members of the love mining team or what their identity was, were now urgently drafted into the army to prepare for the final Tianjia'an defense battle.