Chapter 46 7. "Magino" on the Shanxi Plain

In smashing the enemy's "mopping up", the broad masses of the people actively cooperated with our army in combat, scouting the enemy's situation, transporting the wounded, fortifying the walls and clearing the fields, standing sentry, and interrogating enemy agents.Some old ladies kneaded little Japanese devils out of white flour and boiled them in a pot or burned them in the fire. They believed that the Japanese devils would die like this, which reflected the great hatred of the masses towards the Japanese army. During this "sweep", the enemy mostly dispatched by car, which is conducive to rapid maneuvering and the assembly of troops.Enemy cars and cavalry rampage across the vast field, as if no one is in the land.But our army can only use villages, grave mounds, and mounds to attack the enemy.The unfavorable terrain of the plain caused hundreds of casualties to the troops in southern Hebei and northwestern Shandong.

Cruel wars make us wiser.In this anti-"mopping up", some troops and the masses avoided losses by using natural trenches and pits.So everyone thought, if we dig all the avenues into ditches to conceal ourselves, delay and block the enemy's fast troops, it will preserve our vitality and provide our army with a powerful battlefield to attack the enemy.Obviously, this is a good idea, but at the same time it is a huge project. The party, government, military and civilian leaders of the anti-Japanese base area in southern Hebei specifically studied this matter. In order to turn the plain area into a favorable battlefield for destroying the enemy, they decided to mobilize the masses extensively and carry out a large-scale road-breaking campaign.The instructions issued by the Southern Hebei Administrative Office stipulated that all roads should be dug into trenches, 3 feet deep and 5 feet wide, using carts as the standard.Pile the excavated soil on both sides of the ditch and build a side wall one foot five inches high and two feet wide as a pedestrian path; dig a compound road about four or five feet every few tens of feet, so that you can walk to the head. The carts can be staggered.An unprecedented mass movement of digging roads and ditches to change the landscape began.

It was the depths of winter and the ground was as hard as a rock.I saw crowds of people everywhere, some people took off their cotton coats, swung their picks and shovels to dig the ground, sweating profusely.In order to speed up, some villages hung up lanterns and held torches in the dark night, and worked in shifts around the clock. The masses of the people who threw themselves into this movement formed a powerful army of road-breakers.For the victory of the war, they don't care about the reward.It is really the money that has the money, the strength to contribute, and the action to paint a magnificent picture.

According to statistics at that time, a total of 50,000 miles of road ditches were dug in the southern Hebei region.If these ditches are connected, they can walk back and forth from the center of the earth.These criss-crossing and cobweb-like trenches played an active role in maintaining guerrilla warfare on the plains.When attacking, it can covertly contact the enemy; when transferring, it can covertly disperse, and quickly escape from the enemy's firepower to shoot.The enemy's armored vehicles, heavy weapons and cars can only look at the ditch and sigh.If the enemy wants to fill the ditch and advance, its speed is far inferior to our army's two legs.Therefore, some people called this project "Magino" on the plain at that time.