Noda listened to Miyamoto's idea, pondered it carefully for a while, and felt that there was a play, so Miyamoto said: "Your Excellency the brigade commander, I think this plan is feasible, and we will immediately contact the Nanjing Dispatch Army Command and ask them to send naval ships to the port of Yancheng to stand by. ” Miyamoto shook his head with a smile, and said to Noda: "Noda-kun, don't worry, isn't there a Marine stationed there in the direction of Yancheng, we just need to catch those Americans here and hand them over to the Marines in Yancheng, as for whether they can send these Americans to Japan, we can't control it, why go to Yancheng to drip this muddy water and ask for trouble."
Miyamoto is more cunning than Noda, he doesn't want to be responsible for the whole process to the end, anyway, it is a safe matter to catch those Americans, and he can't control the devils in Yancheng, and he doesn't want to cause trouble later and burn himself, so he can't just hand over these Americans to the East China Dispatch Army Command Noda immediately nodded and called Miyamoto Takata a master, so Miyamoto immediately ordered his Devil Wing to quickly march outside Huai'an City, and wait for the arrival of those Americans on the way of the US field investigation group to the New Fourth Army south of Hongze Lake.
The head of this US military officer's field investigation group was a US colonel named Robles, who came to Jiangbei on the orders of General Stilwell, commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in the China theater, to inspect the situation of the Kuomintang and Communist anti-Japanese forces.
Robles is a very adventurous person, thinking that the American officers under him are capable bosses, and looks down on those short Japanese devils, and often shows contempt for Japanese devils in his words, often calling those little devils "vicious little monkeys".
As for the route of the New Fourth Army stationed in Jiangbei this time, those staff officers of the Sixth Theater Command worked out a safe route along the west bank of Hongze Lake overnight, and most of the surrounding areas of this route are the defense areas of the National Army and the New Fourth Army; although there are several isolated strongholds of little devils in a few places in the middle, and there are bandits and bandits, most of the areas are relatively safe, and in addition, there is an elite reinforced company of the National Army, so it should be said that this route is still relatively safe and reliable.
But I didn't expect this plan to be vetoed by this US Army Colonel Robles, who thought that it was too safe to go to the New Fourth Army garrison from this route, it was too prosaic, and there was no meaning, and the purpose of their visit this time was not only to understand the actual situation of the anti-Japanese armed forces such as the National Army and the New Fourth Army, and then report to the Allied Theater Command in China according to these conditions, and then give assistance according to these actual conditions as appropriate, but also to understand the actual combat effectiveness of the opponent's Japanese devils on the spot.
Is it just like the Japanese themselves propagated that the force of their imperial army is invincible and powerful, so as to find the Achilles heel of the Japanese and study countermeasures to break the enemy?
To say that the goal of the US military officers' field investigation group is very reliable and practical, but the problem is that you have to understand the characteristics of the Japanese, and you don't necessarily have to personally encounter the Japanese However, this US Army Colonel Robles's thinking was different from others, he was very adventurous and exploratory, and as soon as he saw that the staff officer of the Sixth Theater had come up with such a prosaic route plan, he immediately vetoed it, and found Chief Gu, insisting that the route be changed, and that it would be best to cross the Japanese defense zone and enter the base area of the New Fourth Army.
Originally, as the commander of the Sixth Theater of Operations, Chief Gu could have resolved Robles's proposal on the spot for security reasons, but he had long adhered to the chairman's will of "dissolving the Communist Party and preventing the Communist Party" in the Jiangbei area, and he was accustomed to friction with the New Fourth Army and other communist anti-Japanese armed forces.
If they can get the military assistance of the Americans, then it will be a good peace, and the Japanese now seem to be grasshoppers after the autumn will not be long before they are driven back to Japan, and once the devils are finished, then the Kuomintang and the Communist Party will definitely start a civil war, so in the long run, we must not allow the New Fourth Army to get military assistance from the Americans and add to the blockage of the Kuomintang itself.
Based on such considerations, Commander Gu, who was supposed to stop the adventurous impulse of Colonel Robles, did not stop it in time, but deliberately connived at Robles, telling him to go to the Japanese-occupied areas more often to see the actual situation of the Japanese, which would be of great benefit to the Allies in dealing with the Japanese in the future.
With the connivance and support of Commander Gu, Robles decided to take a route along the east of Hongze Lake through Huai'an City, where heavy Japanese devils were stationed, to reach the Jiangbei base area of the New Fourth Army, this route not only had a lot more distance than the western front, but also had to pass through the three lines of defense of the Japanese army on the way, which was full of dangers, but this Robles decided that this route could just reflect the spirit of adventure and better understand the real situation of the opponent Japanese, which was quite beneficial to the field investigation group of US officers.
But what Robles never expected was that they had just marched to a place 20 kilometers west of Huai'an City, and before they saw the Japanese devils, they were sent by Miyamoto, the commander of the Devil Brigade, to ambush a devil wing on the side of the road to make dumplings for the regiment, and after a fierce battle, more than 200 brothers of the National Army Reinforcement Company who guarded them were all killed, and 14 American officers, including Robles and two translators, were all captured by what he called "vicious little monkeys" and became prisoners of the Japanese small cabinet.
What made Robles feel even more remorseful was that because of his impulsiveness and recklessness, the entire reinforced company of more than 200 Nationalist brothers was killed, and under the guns of the Japanese devils, several Nationalist soldiers who were wounded by bullets and lost their ability to resist were stabbed to death one by one by the vicious little monkeys with long bayonets in front of Robles.
The painful howls of the brothers of the Nationalist army who were used by the Japanese as a live target to practice bayonet stabbing before death almost made Robles and his American officers nervous split, Robles was terrified in his heart, thinking that this is miserable, falling into the hands of these Japanese devils who kill people without blinking, I am afraid that the lives of our American officers will be left here.
Subsequently, Robles and the others were blindfolded by the vicious little monkeys, escorted into the car, and escorted all the way to Yancheng in the east, where they were taken over by the devil marines stationed in Yancheng, and were imprisoned on death row in Yancheng, and were killed by a group of little devil marines and agents of the special high school.
After receiving the news that Miyamoto had captured the US military field investigation group, the Japanese Army Dispatch Force Headquarters in East China immediately ordered the Japanese Third Fleet in Shanghai to send ships north to the Yellow Sea to escort the captured US officers to Japan at the port of Yancheng.
The commander of the Third Fleet has been worried about the frequent appearance of US submarines in the East China Sea to harass Japanese warships in the East China Sea, and the news of the Imperial Navy's defeat in the Pacific Ocean against the US fleet has come from the base camp, and he has ordered him to prepare to go south to support the Combined Fleet.
At this time, after receiving the order from the East China Dispatch Army Headquarters in Nanjing asking him to send ships north to escort the US prisoners, he felt that it was an inconsequential task, so he didn't escort a group of US officers and prisoners to the mainland As a result, the commander of the devil's Third Fleet just sent an old destroyer of small tonnage with two large gunboats to the north in the direction of Yancheng, and when the devil's Nanjing Dispatch Army Command found that the warships sent by the Third Fleet were too small and too small, they would urgently contact the Third Fleet.
This fleet had already pulled anchor and set sail, heading south to the Pacific Ocean to round out with the combined fleet of the devil's base camp.
If they want to send ships again, the Devil's East China Dispatch Army Headquarters has to order them through the local base camp, so it will take a lot of time, and it will not be able to give an order for half a month, at this time, the devil leader in Nanjing regretted it a little, and knew that in this way, he should send air bombers to Yancheng to send these American prisoners to the mainland by plane.
Shanghai Port is a lot away from Yancheng Port, more than 400 kilometers in a straight line, and there are more than 400 nautical miles away by taking the East China Sea Road, and it takes three days for a small destroyer of the devil with two large gunboats to arrive at Haidong Port near Yancheng, just like that, Robles, who was locked up in Yancheng death row by the devil, has at least three or four days to stay in Yancheng, that is to say, the time left for Zhou Wu and them to rescue these Americans is only three days at most, if they act slowly, It may be that they can't catch up with the speed of those devil warships, so they can only watch as the devil warships escort these Americans to the Japanese mainland.
The supreme commander of the Japanese army in Yancheng was Matsushima Osa, the commander of a Marine Corps stationed in Yancheng, and since he took over this group of American officers from Miyamoto, he immediately strengthened the vigilance around Yancheng, imposed a curfew, and strengthened the security of the city gates, ports and wharves and other places.
Songdao also launched a hunt for those Kuomintang military commanders and central unification elements lurking in Yancheng.
For a time, Yancheng City was full of devils wearing net-like steel helmets on a rampage, arresting people at will, most of the timid people closed the doors, hid in the house and shivered, and the devil's trucks and motorcycles on the street outside kept running back and forth, searching for all the people that the devils thought were suspicious.
In order to preserve the revolutionary forces and avoid unnecessary losses and sacrifices, the underground party comrades of the New Fourth Army lurking in Yancheng immediately went underground, and the city of Yancheng was shrouded in a white terror, there was not a single pedestrian on the empty streets, the shops on both sides were closed, and most of the common people hid, and a few even hid in the relatively safe Yancheng Township for refuge. t1706231537: